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Withering   Listen
adjective
Withering  adj.  Tending to wither; causing to shrink or fade.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Withering" Quotes from Famous Books



... loved him pray for his death, and greet his last breath with an echoing sigh of thankfulness and relief: he might have been cheered in his last hour by the graceful sympathy of troops of friends; but the State-protected vice has such a withering effect that it scorches up friendship as a fiery breath from a furnace might scorch a grass blade. If one of my joyous, delightful lads could just watch the shambling, dirty figure of such a failure as I have described; if he could see the sneers of amused ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... quite sure but it's origin was measles, since the little girl had a decided case. The strictest watch would be kept. The clothes and some rubbish had been burned. The clairvoyant's knowledge of the future was held up to withering ridicule. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... by the other selectmen, passed through the midst of the people, until he reached the stone step before the tavern door. He stepped up on this, and ere he opened his lips, swept the shame-faced assemblage before him with a withering glance. What with those who had pulled their hats over their eyes, and those who had turned their backs to him in anxiety to avoid identification, there was not an eye that met his. Abner himself, brave as a lion with his own class, was no braver than any one of them when it came to encountering ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... answered with withering scorn. "What sort of a time would you have had if some one had shot you all over the back and you must creep away to die of pain and starvation? How would you have enjoyed it if, from day to day, you had been forced ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... angry over their losses, but their wise leader saw that he must give them a breathing-spell. No troops in the world could stand a fire so withering as that which came from the repeating-rifles of the desperadoes. Quite as many ponies as men had gone down, and their morning's plunder had already cost them more than it was worth. Therefore it must not be permitted to cost them any more, if they ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard

... years made venerable by generous and useful actions, and covered by the gratitude and applause of admiring friends; let the man-stealer come upon him, and behold the wreck of desolation! Shame, disgrace, infamy, the blighting of all hopes, the withering of all joys; long unnoticed wo, untended poverty, a dishonored name, an unwept death, a forgotten grave; all, and more than all, are in these words, he is a slave! He who can preserve the even current of his thoughts in the midst of such reflections, may have some faint ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown

... actual feelings of the men engaged that the inexperienced may be pardoned the thought, that, having donned the insignia of a soldier, a man instantly becomes filled with martial ardor, and eager to face the most withering fire of musketry or artillery. But the reality is far different; very few men are so constituted, or are so reckless of their lives, that they can listen to the unearthly screech of the shell or the crash of solid shot, mingled with the sickening thud of grape and ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... our ports blockaded, all our cities in a state of siege; the gaunt spectre of famine brooding like a hungry vulture over our starving land; our commissary stores all exhausted, and our famishing armies withering away in the field, a helpless prey to the insatiate demon of hunger; our navy rotting in the docks for want of provisions for our gallant seamen, and we without any railroad communication whatever with the prolific pine thickets of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... and Oswald, when they had given H. O. a withering glance. And the lady did go on. She told us all about Becket, and then about St Alphege, who had bones thrown at him till he died, because he wouldn't tax his poor people to please ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... planted in the spring, And had the sun before him of respect; We, set in th' autumn, in the withering And sullen season of a cold defect, Must taste those sour distastes the times do bring Upon the fulness of a cloy'd neglect. Although the stronger constitutions shall Wear out th' infection ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... in accents wild, Cried,'Sal! turn back and nurse our child!' She bent on him a withering look, Her bony fist at him she shook. And screeched, 'Ye brute! ye think I'm flat To mend your clo'es and nurse your brat? Nurse it yourself; I'll change the plan, When I am made a congressman— Woman's Rights ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... day, does the fever-fire trace Its incessant course down her fast-withering cheek, Till the smile that made light in the glow of her face, But the faint, fading glimpses of vigour bespeak, And her reason will fitfully pass into night— Into night even deeper than that of the blind, As the shade of ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... seeking shelter or food. Close to the ground it is warm and less windy. When the cup first opens, only the stigmas are mature and sticky to receive any pollen the visitors may bring in on their bodies from other asylums where they have been hiding. These stigmas presently withering, up rise the twelve stamens beside them to dust with pollen the flies coming in search of it. Only one flower from a root compels cross-fertilizing between flowers of distinct plants - a means to insure the most vigorous seed, as Darwin proved. Evidently the ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... track which contracts into the murk is the road to China, though that is, perhaps, the last place you would guess to be at the end of it. The train runs over a wilderness of tiles, a grey plateau of bare slate and rock, its expanse cracked and scored as though by a withering heat. Nothing grows there; nothing could live there. Smoke still pours from it, as though it were volcanic, from numberless vents. The region is without sap. Above its expanse project superior fumaroles, their drifting vapours dissolving ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... the same door almost as hastily, but she was a stately and rather handsome woman of forty, who gave the intruder such a withering look from her serene blue eyes that the unrefined member of the Seven Arts slunk out and could be heard stumbling down ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... perched upon her shoulder, and almost before she knew he was there he put the berry between her lips, and the taste was so delicious that Rosaleen ate it at once, and that very moment the witch's withering spell passed away from her, and she became as lovely as the flower of beauty. Just then the warriors on the snow-white steeds came up, and the chief with the mantle of yellow silk and the golden helmet leaped from his horse, and bending his knee ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... the crumbling shells of things dead and gone, of persons and manners and customs that have left no very distinct record of themselves, excepting here and there in some sallow manuscript which has luckily escaped the withering breath of fire, for the old town, as I have remarked, has managed, from the earliest moment of its existence, to burn itself up periodically. It is only through the scattered memoranda of ancient town clerks, ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... cause of the withering glance you directed at me about ten minutes ago?' asks Dalrymple, when they are left ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton

... was over, the public may well be astonished at a military system which allowed one of its ablest soldiers to live in obscurity, and not even be consulted in the affairs of the nation. Sir William Butler with withering scorn says:— ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... chilling haughtiness that I, for one, felt very like shivering. There fell another awful silence, aunt Julia sitting very upright, hands clenched on the arms of her chair, dark brows bent against my uncle Jervas, who met her withering glance with all his wonted impassivity, while my uncle George, square face slightly flushed, glanced half-furtively from one to the other and clicked nervous heels together so ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... animadversion, would elicit truth, and tend to good. If the South felt that the North were truly her friend, they would both be found cooperating for the improvement and elevation of the colored race. Every form of oppression and selfishness would feel the withering rebuke of a just and enlightened universal public sentiment. But now that the quarrel runs high as to the sinfulness and wrongfulness of the relation itself, there is nothing for the South to do but to ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... of mirth redoubled; Cigarette's style of withering eloquence was suited to all her auditors' tastes, and under the chorus of laughs at his cost, her infuriated adversary plucked up courage and roared ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... the day following the wiping out of Oracle, the first black globes approached Tucson. They floated down from the north, skirting the granite ridges and foothills of the Catalinas, and were met with a withering hail of lead from anti-aircraft guns, and burst, scattering wide their contents. When some three hours later the first squadron of the air fleet came to earth on the landing field a few miles south of the city, the northern ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg

... become a term of derision and of scorn. Only then shall we be rid of these pestilential English spies, only then will the entire League of the Scarlet Pimpernel become a thing of the past when its whilom leader, now thought akin to a god, will have found refuge in a suicide's grave, from the withering contempt ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... vigour. But Benches empty; level of oratory third-rate; STANSFELD a hoary Triton among the Minnows; ELLIS ASHMEAD BARTLETT (Knight) gloomily views the scene. "Thought you were going to speak to-night?" I said, "Read the announcement in the papers." Never forget the haughty, withering glance of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various

... unchanging kindness balance patched elbows? are not cracked boots receipts in full for hours of anxious love and care? does not the kindness of a life fade "like the baseless fabric of a vision" before the withering touch of poverty's stern stamp? Have you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... they have deep convictions and a firm belief that slavery is an existing evil, incompatible with the principles of political liberty, at war with our system of government, and extending a baleful and blasting influence over our country, withering and blighting its fairest prospects and brightest hopes. Who has said that these petitions are unjust in principle, and on that ground ought not to be granted? Who has said that slavery is not an evil? Who has said it does not ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... about them,' returned the old man, shaking his head, 'but I say otherwise. "It's a pretty custom you have in this part of the country," they say to me sometimes, "to plant the graves, but it's melancholy to see these things all withering or dead." I crave their pardon and tell them that, as I take it, 'tis a good sign for the happiness of the living. And ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... Indeed, wherever vegetation can be sustained, there they are, affording protection to the roots and seeds of more delicate vegetables, and, by their spongy texture, retaining a moisture which preserves other plants from the withering drought of summer. But even in winter we find them enlivening, by their verdure, the cold bosom of Nature. We see them abounding in our pastures and our woods, attaching themselves to the living, and still more abundantly to ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... drew forth a peal of laughter from the girls, Eleanor included. But Polly failed to join in the laugh. She cast a withering glance at Eleanor, and walked aside to open the envelope. The four interested girls watched her eagerly as she read the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... mother says again. "I did think, Floyd, you had more sense! A child like that,—a silly little thing who plays with dolls! If you wanted a wife," with withering contempt, "there was one of whom we should all have been proud! And you have behaved shamefully, after ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... fancied a few of the younger ones were beginning to feel tired, she suggested to Bell that she might start a dance if she had a mind to, either in the kitchen or parlor, it did not matter where, and "Ephraim would not care an atom," a remark which brought from Mrs. Deacon Bannister a most withering look of reproach, and slightly endangered Aunt Betsy's standing in the church. Perhaps Bell Cameron suspected as much, for she replied that they were having a splendid time as it was, and as Dr. Grant did not dance, they might as well dispense with it altogether. And so it happened that there was ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... on this campaign by a captain of the regiment, he relates how the officers of the regiment tried to stop the flying troops, and taunted their officers with the bad example they were setting their men; how the regiment opened a rapid, withering fire from a little parapet of cartridges which the officers, breaking open boxes of ammunition, had built in front of the men, and how their fire proved so destructive at that close range that it stopped Cheatham's men who then fell back and commenced building breastworks. In calling them Cheatham's ...
— The Battle of Spring Hill, Tennessee - read after the stated meeting held February 2d, 1907 • John K. Shellenberger

... them to incline to the right and mingle their masses at the head of the obstacle and thus their movements would be obstructed. It seemed to have the anticipated effect and the assaulting columns apparently jumbled together at this point were met by the withering volleys of McKethan's direct and Gaillard's cross-fire and by the direct discharge of the shell guns, supplemented by the frightful enfilading discharges of the lighter guns upon the right and left. It was terrible, but with ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... mountains, jump jagged chasms. Sleep is a horse that laughs at precipices and abysses. We bid women, moreover, be all heart. They are to cultivate their hearts, pay much heed to their hearts. The vast realm of feeling is open to these appointed keepers of the sanctuary household, who may be withering virgins, may be childless matrons, may be unhusbanded wives. Wandering in the vast realm which they are exhorted to call their own, for the additional attractiveness it gives them, an unsatisfied heart of woman will somewhat audaciously cross the borderland ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... grown in the open in the same manner as Hyacinths. Five or six bulbs in a 5-in. pot make a very pretty bouquet. They are excellent early flowers, and very odoriferous. Plant in autumn, placing sand round the bulbs. Best not disturbed too often. The leaves should not be cut off when withering, but allowed to die down. They bloom in April. Height, ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... divided, her from us, considerably passed the line of demarcation. Lady de Brantefield, with all the pride of all the De Brantefields since the Norman Conquest concentrated in her countenance, threw an excommunicating, withering look upon the arm—but the elbow felt it not—it never stirred. The lady seemed not to be made of penetrable stuff. In happy ignorance she sat fanning herself for a few seconds; then suddenly starting and stretching forward to the front row, where five ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... with black and white, and when the schapskas and schabraques were edged with yellow, he would keep out of the way altogether. It shamed him terribly to think of his momentary panic; he cursed himself for a coward, and dug his clenched fists into both pockets. But even as he stood there, withering himself with self-scorn, he could not help hoping that his aunt and uncle would find it convenient to go to Paris soon. That would leave him free to take his own chances by remaining, to be near Lorraine. For it did not occur to him that he ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... still raging when Jane came to say that tea was ready; but the losses on both sides had been terribly severe. The invading army still pressed forward, though the "57th" were once more decimated by the withering fire; and nothing actually remained of the "Coldstream Guards" but a kettle-drummer of uncertain nationality, and a man carrying a red and green flag, which he might very possibly have captured from some Sunday-school treat. The opposite side were in no better plight: men were lying crushed under ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... and held to parched lips the sparkling draught a glimpse of which electrified her. Would starvation entitle her to drink? Over the head of pleading love stretched the arm of stony-eyed duty, striking into the dust the crystal drops, withering the palms; and following her stern beckon, the thirsty pilgrim re-trod the sands of surrender, more intolerable than before, because the oasis was still in sight. Duty! Rugged incorruptible Spartan dame, whose inflexible mandate is ever: "With ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... there are moral swamps, sending up their foul steam to pollute the common light; there are kennels of uncleanness, running with the waste of human lives, sweeping along with the death-gurgle of human souls; there is a dry-rot of impurity infecting the town-air, withering the dearest sanctities of society and of home—and over this kind of evil we cannot be facetious. Think how much is risked here, and how much is lost! Domestic happiness, reputation, honor, health, order, the prospects of the young, the peace of ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... the refinements and perversities of civilization, on many more complex and civilized men she exerts an attraction of an almost reverse kind. She appeals by her fresh and natural coarseness, her frank familiarity with the crudest facts of life; and so lifts them for a moment out of the withering atmosphere of artificial thought and unreal sentiment in which so many civilized persons are compelled to spend the greater part of their lives. They feel in the words which the royal friend of a woman of this temperament is said to have used in explaining her incomprehensible ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... and towered to a height of nearly twelve feet. Captain Dall applied a match to the tarry pieces of the long-boat, which had been placed at the foundation, and the flames at once leaped up and began to lick greedily round the timber, winding through the interstices and withering up the leaves. Soon a thick smoke began to ascend, for much of the timber in the pile was green, and before the sun had set a dense black cloud was rising straight up like a pillar and spreading out into the sky. As the fire gathered strength, a great tongue of flame flashed up ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... a withering reply, And vanity I always do my best to mortify; A charitable action I can skilfully dissect; And interested motives I'm delighted to detect. I know everybody's income and what everybody earns, And I ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... my charming Emily. To die when heaven had put you in my power! Fate could not choose a more malicious hour. What greater curse could envious fortune give, Than just to die when I began to live? Vain men, how vanishing a bliss we crave, Now warm in love, now withering in the grave! Never, O never more to see the sun! Still dark, in a damp vault, and still alone! This fate is common; but I lose my breath Near bliss, and yet not bless'd, before my death. Farewell! but take me ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... that is, ef you call three, four, five millions well off. I don't know how it strikes you" (with a withering sarcasm), "but I call Arthur Farnham pretty ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... Lieutenant Colonel Thackera from the Transvaal, of the Third Battalion, with Scots of other formations, made a desperate and heroic defense. Without food or water the remnant clung to the position, undismayed even when the withering fire of the enemy had thinned their ranks and at last killed or wounded all the officers of one battalion. But even under these depressing conditions the spirit of those who remained had not weakened, and an attack subsequently made by ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... she made many observations, which, alas! strengthened her fears. She saw that the banks were too dry, and that the grass on the shore and the trailing plants on the rocks were withering away. She caused marks to be made along the borders, and examined them day after day, in all directions of the wind, at last the horrible idea became a certain fact,—that the surface of ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... shrieked the colonel, writhing in the grasp of the men who held him, "are you going to allow a senseless, wounded man to be murdered before your eyes? Oh, how could anybody ever mistake you for a gentleman for an instant?" he added, with withering contempt; and then turning his head toward the fierce soldiery, "Stop, stop, you ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... flowerlike that it is always a little fresh surprise to see them blooming in winter. Their tenderness, their down, their colour, their fulness—which is like that of a thick rose or of a tight grape—look out of season. Children in the withering wind are like the soft golden-pink roses that fill the barrows in Oxford Street, breathing a southern calm on the north wind. The child has something better than warmth in the cold, something more subtly out of place and more delicately contrary; and that is coolness. To be ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell

... with a brittle dryness that testified how perfectly parched-up was everything. A single spark would instantly have wrapped the whole face of the country in one sheet of fire. Slight blasts of heated withering air, as if from an oven, would occasionally strike the face as we walked along; sometimes they were loaded with those peculiar and most agreeable odours that arise from different kinds of gums. Still the white eucalyptus ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... snare we fall together, Three hapless victims of unpitying fate, And share the mournful privilege of tears. But when I think that for the lover more Than for the brother bursts thy sorrow's tide, Then rage and envy mingle with my pain, And hope's last balm forsakes my withering soul? Nor joyful, as beseems, can I requite This inured shade:—yet after him content To mercy's throne my contrite spirit shall fly, Sped by this hand—if dying I may know That in one urn our ashes shall repose, With pious office ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Mrs. Harper cast a withering look of contempt at her husband, folded her arms and leaned back in her chair, more puzzled than ever at ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... everywhere in woods and swamps, we are reminded of the fall, both by the richly spotted Sarsaparilla-leaves and Brakes, and the withering and blackened Skunk-Cabbage and Hellebore, and, by the river-side, the already ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... The withering sunlight of a day late in August fell upon the dusty street, now almost deserted. Faces at the doors and windows of the little houses were looking out at them. Two ragged boys and a ginger colored dog came running toward ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... as the warm weather closed in, in the summer of 1604, the malaria in the Tower began to affect Raleigh's health. As he tells Cecil, now Lord Cranborne, in a most dolorous letter, he was withering in body and mind. The plague had come close to him, his son having lain a fortnight with only a paper wall between him and a woman whose child was dying of that terrible complaint. Lady Raleigh, at last, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... and honored prime favorite, Jane Austen. He once said to me, I suppose after he had been reading some of my unsparing praises of her—I am always praising her, "You seem to think that woman could write," and he forbore withering me with his scorn, apparently because we had been friends so long, and he more pitied than hated me for my bad taste. He seemed not to have any preferences among novelists; or at least I never heard him ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... wore away, and September came to produce a new aspect of beauty in the landscape, by tinging the fading flowers and withering leaves with various shades of brown and crimson, purple and orange. One day, early in the month, when Tom came with the carriage, she told him to drive to Magnolia Lawn. She had long been wishing to revisit the scene where she had been so happy ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... which he offered up the continual sacrifice of devout adoration, his works and life bear noble testimony; yet, here and there, his fairest visions seem as if suddenly sicklied over with a pale cast of doubt; a withering shadow seems to flit across his soul, and chill it in his loftiest moods. The dark condition of the man who longs to believe and longs in vain, he can represent with a verisimilitude and touching beauty, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... "Never did that before," gurgled out of his net, just as we were dropping off once more; but a withering request from the Dandy to "gather experience somewhere else," silenced him till dawn, when he had the wisdom to rise without ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... evidence to-night of their apparent vitality. But underneath them is growing up the sturdy plant of science. Already it has dislodged their roots; and though they still seem to bear flower, the flower is withering before our eyes. In its place, before long, will appear the new and splendid blossom whose appearance ends and begins an epoch of evolution. That is a consummation nothing can delay. We need not fret or hurry. We have only to work on silently at the foundations. The city, it is true, ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... Circumstances soon after induced him to remove the settlement he had commenced there, across the bay to Port-Royal; the island was neglected by succeeding adventurers, and his labors were suffered to fall into ruin. Time had already laid his withering finger upon the walls, and left his mouldering image amid the fair creations of the youthful world. Fragments, overgrown with moss and lichen, strewed the ground; the creeping ivy wreathed its garlands around the broken walls, and lofty trees had struck their roots deep into the foundations, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... our bluff old colonel said— To extra duty for a month he went Unmurmuring, storm or shine. When the cold rain Poured down most pitiless Paul, drenched and wan, Guarded the baggage and the braying mules. When the hot sun at mid-day blazed and burned, Like the red flame on Mauna Loa's top, Withering the grass and parching earth and air, I often saw him knapsacked and full-dressed, Drilling the raw recruits at double-quick; And yet he wore a patient countenance, And went about his duty earnestly As if it ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... The indignation with which the brutal remark of his father filled him, gave him strength to recover from his dejection. He resolutely set about eating his soup, which he had not touched before, and feeling that Gilbert's eyes were fixed upon him, he raised his head quickly and darted upon him a withering glance. Gilbert thought he divined that he called him to account for his carnation, and could not help blushing,—so true is it that innocence does not suffice to ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... peaching to his big brother. Never mind, we'll pay you out, see if we don't! Go and kiss your mammy, and tell your big brother what they did to little duckie Steevie, did they then? they shouldn't! Give him a suck of his bottle! oh, my!" and he finished up with a most withering laugh. Then, suddenly remembering his errand, he walked up to the table, and said, ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... became so oppressive that he concluded to rest awhile. He was in a section of country where, at certain seasons, the heat is like that of the Desert of Sahara. There are portions of Arizona and Lower California where the fervor of the sun's rays at noonday smite the earth with the withering power of the sirocco. ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... helpless nestlings. Even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot across the way, what heart at such a time but must have been interested in its welfare, and wished it preserved from the rudely-browsing cattle, or the withering eastern blast? Such was the scene, and such the hour, when, in a corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape, or met a poet's eye, those visionary bards excepted, who hold ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... the recalcitrant Scotchman a withering glare. "Very well, Mr. MacLean," he said presently, "I never could sail in the same ship with a quitter; so you might as well go now, when we can part good friends." He turned to Mr. Murphy. "How about you, Mike? Are you going to run ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... even colder than it was, stronger and more withering now that the sun's faint warmth is withdrawn, and that the small and chilly stars possess the sky. Nevertheless, both the school-room windows are open. We are all huddled shivering round the hearth, yet no one talks of closing them. The fact is, that amateur cooking, though a graceful accomplishment, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... black array Veiling her Rizpah-misery, to the gate Comes, and with gold and moving speech sedate Buys down the thing aloft, and bears away Snatch'd from the withering wind and ravens' prey: And as a mother's eyes, joy-soften'd, shed Tears o'er her young child's head, Golden and sweet, from evil saved; so she O'er this, sad-smilingly, Mangled and gray, unwarm'd by human breath, Clasping death's relic with ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... are of little value; but Reisseck, Caspary, and I myself, tried in vain to cross C. laburnum and purpureus; when I fertilised the former with pollen of the latter, I had the nearest approach to success, for pods were formed, but in sixteen days after the withering of the flowers they fell off. Nevertheless, the belief that C. adami is a spontaneously produced hybrid between these two species is strongly supported by the fact that hybrids between these species and two others have spontaneously {390} arisen. In a bed of seedlings from C. elongatus, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... strong hold upon his intelligence. He does not conceal his respect for it as an instrument of freedom, but he puts no high value on its utility. "It may pluck a few leaves," he remarks, "from the Bohon Upas, but can neither extract its roots nor destroy its withering properties. Viewed as an auxiliary, it deserves encouragement; but as a remedy it is altogether inadequate." But this was not all. As a remedy, colonization was not only altogether inadequate, its influence was indirectly pernicious, in that it lulled ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... said the widow, her eyes flashing fire. "Go, heartless man! who dares to trifle thus with the feelings of a respectable and unprotected woman. Go, sir, you're only fit for the love of a—Dolly—Coddlins!" She pronounced the Coddlins with a withering sarcasm that struck the captain aghast; and, sailing out of the room, she left her tea untasted, and did not wish either of the military ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... base motive that had led to its perpetration, he turned abruptly upon Black Thunder, where sullen and lowering, his giantship stood with folded arms apart from the rest, and flung at him a rebuke so withering in its scorn, so burning in its generous indignation, that the big barbarian quailed from before it, daunted and abashed. Then, without further ado, the chief went, and cutting the thongs of buffalo-hide which bound the captive to the tree, set him at liberty, and with ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... kept a furtive watch upon her notwithstanding, and she knew it, and sickened under it as under an evil influence. He was very angry with her—she was fully conscious of that—unjustifiably, unreasonably angry. More than once, when Mr. Granger was especially attentive, she had encountered a withering glance from those dark gray eyes, and she had been weak enough, wicked enough perhaps, to try and make him perceive that Mr. Granger's attentions were in no way pleasant to her. She could bear anything better than that he should think her capable of courting this man's admiration. She told ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... mute agony, as if in the hour of strife it had hardened into marble. But her eyes were dark-purple fire—windows of an extraordinarily intense and vital life. In one night the girl had become a woman. But the blight Shefford had dreaded to see—the withering of the exquisite soul and spirit and purity he had considered inevitable, just as inevitable as the death of something similar in the flower she resembled, when it was broken and defiled—nothing of this was manifest in her. Straight and swiftly she came to him back in ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... dew or grass on Cluan Leathan. The cuckoo is not to be seen on the furze; the leaves are withering and the trees complaining of the cold. There is no sun or moon in the air or in the sky, or no light in the stars coming down, with the stretching of ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory

... Elliott now placed the remaining sections on right and left of the road, each supported by infantry. Martin boldly attacked till he found himself confronted by Mott's infantry, which opened upon him with a withering fire. The artillery also fired canister upon the advancing enemy, and our horsemen, dismounting, extended the line and did good execution with their carbines. The first assault being repulsed, Martin was unwilling to give it up so, and bringing his artillery into ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... a law dictated to him by his public, kept his characters in communication with earth and heaven, with the dawn he described, the moon he painted, the evening he caused to be seen, the plants he portrayed as withering or reviving, the birds which he showed everywhere in the country or returning ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet

... suppose I was rather spoiled by every one else being too good to me. But I looked down at my old book, which was open at 'Trefolium: Clover.' And there I read—oh, Hilda, it is really too bad to tell!—I read: 'The teeth bristle-form'—and hers did stick out nearly straight!—'corolla mostly withering or persistent; the claws'—and then I began to laugh, for it was exactly like Aunt Caroline herself; she was so withering, and so persistent! And I sat there and giggled, a great girl of thirteen, till I got perfectly hysterical. The more I laughed, the angrier she grew, ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... possibly have happened to any one whom it would distress more than Alf. He stood in speechless dismay watching the dripping procession pass. And when the pretty guest of the Baldwin girls splashed past him with a look which would have been withering had she not been so drenched, his despair was complete. He looked for a few moments as if he were about to throw himself into the lake, then he flung down his pole, and crept away aft to hide his diminished head behind a pile of life-preservers. ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... that go to the making of a great artist. Even among the men of the day, corrupted and distracted as they are by foreign innovations, could real strength be found? Alas! Art was surely doomed, and his own life,—the life of the last great Kano, futile and perishable as the withering flowers on their stems. ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... of thought; And round, in colours of the rainbow, threw Forms ever fair, creations ever new! But, as he fondly snatch'd the wreath of Fame, The spectre Poverty unnerv'd his frame. Cold was her grasp, a withering scowl she wore; And Hope's soft energies were felt no more. Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art! [y] From the rude wall what bright ideas start! Ev'n now he claims the amaranthine wreath, With scenes ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers

... residence rent-free in a tall thin red square house near the churchyard, where a very gay parrot was always to be seen in the windows. They no doubt regarded Miss Delavie and the little Waylands as interlopers at Bowstead, and their withering glances made Church-going a trying affair—indeed the first time that Aurelia took little Amoret, they actually drove the sensitive child into a sobbing fit, so that she had to be carried out, begging to know why those ladies ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Royalist, but that he had taken no active part in affairs for about ten years, he concludes, in a clever vein of compliment, thus: "If you graciously please to extend indulgence to your suppliant in taking me out of this withering durance, you will find mercy will establish you more than power, though all the days of your life were as pregnant with victories as your twice-auspicious Third of September." The appeal to Cromwell's magnanimity ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... inexhaustible fund of sweet, graceful, and pathetic fancies, with delicate, lofty, and noble sentiments, and therefore that he resolved to shut it up in his heart, so as to preserve its freshness amid the withering atmosphere of the world; and in order to draw thence those exquisite images that so often shed ineffable grace and tenderness over his poems. It may, then, be said that, by maintaining alive in his mind ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... silence, Barber fell to examining the scout uniform, article by article—the hat, the coat, the trousers, the leggings, the shoes, his look full of disgust, and fairly withering. When he was done, he sank leisurely into the morris chair, a big hand on each knee, and the flat back of his head rested against the old soiled cushion. And now he concentrated on Johnnie's countenance. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... killed and twenty-six wounded. McDonnell resigned in disgust. Whitmore, who replaced him, demanded better men, and got them, but to meet no better success. At Moturoa his assault on another forest stockade failed under a withering fire; the native contingent held back sulkily; and again our men retreated, with a loss this time of forty-seven, of which twenty-one were killed. This was on November 5th. Before Whitmore could try ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... miraculously in her eyes, her lips shut tightly together, and she flashed a withering glance at Marion. Then she rose and scattering her sympathizers right and left walked directly across the room to Perry, who also rose and stood looking at her in terror. Again silence crept down upon ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... advised me to something better, chiefly wishing that all men were as himself was. But I being weak, chose the more indulgent place; and because of this alone, was tossed up and down in all beside, faint and wasted with withering cares, because in other matters I was constrained against my will to conform myself to a married life, to which I was given up and enthralled. I had heard from the mouth of the Truth, that there were some eunuchs which had made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake: but, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... sharply. "Ain't 'knowin'' my business? Psha!" His contempt was withering. Then his manner changed back to the triumph which the notice had inspired. "Say, it's a great piece of money. It surely is some bunch. Ten thousand dollars! Gee! His game's up. Lightfoot's as good as kickin' his heels agin the breezes. He's played ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... youthful Colossus, described with such sickening force and power by the great Apostle in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, cannot have occurred to Dr. Temple's remembrance, for he says nothing about it. Certain withering denunciations of "a wicked and adulterous generation[24];"—of "adulterers and adulteresses[25];"—"serpents," a "generation of vipers," which should hardly "escape the damnation of Hell[26];"—ought to ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... message that the venerable Kanwa has sent me by these hermits?— Perchance their sacred rites have been disturbed By demons, or some evil has befallen The innocent herds, their favorites, that graze Within the precincts of the hermitage; Or haply, through my sins, some withering blight Has nipped the creeping plants that spread their arms Around the hallowed grove. Such troubled thoughts Crowd through my mind, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... Mr. Brief, with a scornful wave of his hand, as if he were ridding himself of a troublesome gnat. "Don't bother me with such mind-withering questions." ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs

... realize such solemn things, and should endeavour to catch all the dew of life that glistens within your reach; for the withering heat of the noon will come soon enough to even the most favoured. An erroneous impression has too long prevailed, that religious fervour, and a cheerful, hopeful, happy spirit are incompatible; that devoutness manifests itself in a lugubrious or at least solemn visage, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the New English Art Club, couples linger. "How charming, how beautifully dressed, how refined she looks!" and the wife who has not married a man a la hauteur de ses sentiments casts on him a withering glance, which says, "Why can't you afford to let me be painted ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... sad! for ever dear! Still breathed in sighs, still usher'd with a tear. I tremble too, where'er my own I find, Some dire misfortune follows close behind. Line after line my gushing eyes o'erflow, Led through a sad variety of woe; Now warm in love, now withering in my bloom, Lost in a convent's solitary gloom! There stern religion quench'd the unwilling flame, There died the best of passions, Love ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... matter; we boys would climb the trees and shake the apples down until the girls shrieked for mercy. The days were crisp and mellow, with warm sunshine and a tang of frost in the air, mingled with the woodsy odours of the withering grasses. The hens and turkeys prowled about, pecking at windfalls, and Pat made mad rushes at them amid the fallen leaves. The world beyond the orchard was in a royal magnificence of colouring, under the vivid blue autumn sky. The big willow by the gate was a splendid ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... with, play the very devil with, play havoc among, play sad havoc among, play the mischief among, play the deuce among, play the very devil among; decimate. Adj. unimproved &c (improve) &c 658; deteriorated &c v.; altered, altered for the worse; injured &c v.; sprung; withering, spoiling &c v.; on the wane, on the decline; tabid^; degenerate; marescent^; worse; the worse for, all the worse for; out of repair, out of tune; imperfect &c 651; the worse for wear; battered; weathered, weather-beaten; stale, passe, shaken, dilapidated, frayed, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... the garden, he stood in the bower. There more than anywhere else the desolation was pitiful—the hips glowing crimson on their stems, the eglantine in withering strands, the rustic woodwork green with damp and the base growths of old and mouldering situations, the seat decayed and broken, but propped at its feet as if for recent use. All seemed to express some poignant anguish for lost summers, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... had not passed the actress' lips when a howl of execration rose from the devotees of Racine, outraged by the author's heresy in permitting an adjective to stray into the second line of verse. The Romanticists, led by Theophile Gautier, answered in withering blasphemies; ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... had not spoken a word; now he flashed at Coquenil a look of withering contempt that the detective long remembered, and, leaning close, ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... funeral: he, the injured husband, lies in his coffin with a gentle smile on his lips, and she, pale, tortured by remorse, follows the coffin like a Niobe, not knowing where to hide herself to escape from the withering, contemptuous looks cast upon her ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... a name!" M. Danton blew out his cheeks and delivered himself with withering scorn. "It comes to this, ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... on the field. Many eyes were in tears, and many hearts were bleeding for lost comrades and dear friends. General Rousseau rides up in the darkness, and, as we gather around him, says, in a voice tremulous with emotion: "Boys of the Third, you stood in that withering fire like men of ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... Riding along the front, before they left the wood, the general had enjoined his men to charge without a halt, in double time, and without firing. "Had these orders," says General Law, "not been strictly obeyed the assault would have been a failure. No troops could have stood long under the withering storm of lead and iron that beat in their faces as they became fully exposed to view from the Federal line."* (* Battles and Leaders volume 2 page 363.) The assault was met with a courage that was equally admirable.* (* "The Confederates were within ten paces when the Federals broke cover, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... thrown back, and bearing a huge silver tray. On it were a decanter, two little queer-shaped glasses, and a plate of very thin seed cakes. He deposited this on a spindle-legged table, which he drew up in front of his mistress, and, with another glance, which he intended to be very withering, cast upon Rachel, but which she didn't see at all, ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... very sickening exhibition, Verisschenzko thought. He remained as a statue of ice. Then when she had exhausted herself a little, he spoke with withering calm. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... be rich and fertile must be reinforced with friendship. It is the sap that preserves from blight and withering; it is the sunshine that beckons on the blossoming and fruitage; it is the starlight dew that perfumes life with sweetness and besprinkles it with splendor; it is the music-tide that sweeps the soul, ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward

... boots on the Haymarket stage, saw you come into a box upstairs and look down on the humbled Bobadil, since then I have had the kindest of notes from you, since then the finest of venison, and yet I have not seen the Rockingham flowers, and they are withering I daresay. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... can't tell whether it mayn't be so. Anne, dear, you've got such a nice, pretty body, why have you such a withering contempt for it? It behaves so well to you, too. That's more than I can say of mine; and yet, I believe I shall quite miss it when it's gone. At any rate, I shall be glad that I was decent to the poor thing while it was with ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... read "Emile" and "Walden." He had never heard of either of these works, and had no desire whatever for the restoration of society on a primitive basis of animalism, modified by light literature, clothing, and the moral law. For all modern theories he had a withering contempt, his own simple creed being that in the beginning God made man a Tory squire. His quarrel with the social order was a purely private and particular one. In our modern mythology, Custom, Circumstance, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... Mrs. Pryor was withering in her disapproval, and this time Mrs. Corbin touched Miss Matoaca's foot. "I suppose you allude to the streets of Yorkburg, the schools, and library—and some other things. All these Western and ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... villager wishes to level a withering sarcasm at the head of a plausible, talkative fellow, all promise and no performance, ready with tongue but not with purse or service, he calls him a vakeel, that is, a lawyer. If he has to cool his heels in your office, or round the factory to get some little business ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... to the enemy even where he lurketh, saying, 'Lo! my master knoweth of your secret abode—up now, and fly, lest he come on thee like a lion on his prey.'—But shall this go without punishment?" looking at Wildrake with a withering glance. "Now, as my soul liveth, and as He liveth who hath made me a ruler in Israel, such false messengers shall be knitted to gibbets on the wayside, and their right hands shall be nailed above their heads, in an extended position, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... emotions expressed by the other words: Aha! aha! I am undone. Hey! io! I am tired. Ho! be still. Avaunt! this way. Ah! what nonsense. Heigh-ho! I am delighted. Hist! it is contemptible. Oh! for that sympathetic glow! Ah! what withering ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... eight of his umbrellas duly restored. As he entered a street car, with the unwrapped umbrellas tucked under his arm, he was horrified to behold glaring at him the lady of his morning adventure. Her voice came to him charged with a withering scorn: ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... David dolefully. "I haven't any green eyes, 'cause I'm trusting Andy, not Phoebe; but neglect is just withering my leaves. I haven't seen her alone for two weeks. She is always over there with Mrs. Matilda and the rest 'soothing the fevered brow.' Say, Major, give Mrs. Matilda the hint. The chump isn't really sick any more. Hint that a ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... mournful story, Thus in the ear of pensive eve to tell, Of morning's firm resolves, the vanish'd glory, Hope's honey left within the withering bell And plants of mercy dead, that might ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various

... had given him no authority to take so much power into his own hands. He then drove back the Austrians and defeated them in the battle of Lodi, where he carried a standard with his own hands and rallied his troops in the face of a withering fire. ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... Reisseck, Caspary, and myself, tried in vain to cross C. laburnum and purpureus; when I fertilised the former with pollen of the latter, I had the nearest approach to success, for pods were formed, but in sixteen days after the withering of the flowers, they fell off. Nevertheless, the belief that C. adami is a spontaneously produced hybrid between these two species is supported by the fact that such hybrids have arisen in this genus. In a bed of seedlings from C. elongatus, which grew near to C. purpureus, and was probably ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... join us; so, when the enemy had joined hands and came on again, we of the wagon-train had two troops for our protection, who, coming on at a walk behind, readily faced round, dismounted, and poured forth a withering fire, which again sent the enemy scuttling away on ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... pride allow me, I could tell the world many a deep tragedy enacted in the heart of a poor, forgotten, uncared-for boy . . . But I thank God, that though I felt and suffered, the scathing blast neither blunted my perceptions of natural and moral beauty, nor, by withering the affections of my heart, made me a selfish man. Often when I look back I wonder how I bore the burden—how I did not end the evil day at once and ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... where the shore was steeper, and the water consequently of greater depth, and Moore decided to ram his opponent. He gradually edged closer and closer to the Covadonga—continually firing his heavy guns, to which the Chilian replied with a withering small-arm fire—until he was separated by only about ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... resolve never again to treat her unkindly, but alas! his resolutions were too easily broken. Had he married Nellie, a more faithful, affectionate husband there could not have been. But now it was different. A withering blight had fallen upon his earthly prospects, and forgetting that he alone was to blame, he unjustly laid the fault upon his innocent wife, who, as far as she was able, loved him as deeply as Nellie herself could ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... to their perfection? then, why be not twigs that become trees, children that become men, and mornings that grow to evenings, termed wavering, for that they continue not at one stay? Ay, but Cynthia being in her fulness decayeth, as not delighting in her greatest beauty, or withering when she should be most honoured. When malice cannot object anything, folly will; making that a vice which is the greatest virtue. What thing (my mistress excepted) being in the pride of her beauty, and latter minute of her age, that waxeth young again? ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... of accident, than of design. Willoughby started, as he caught the first glance of his beloved parent's face; and he felt a chill pass over his whole frame. There she sat upright, motionless, tearless, without any of the alleviating weaknesses of a less withering grief, her mild countenance exposed to the light of the lamp, and her eyes riveted on the face of the dead. In this posture had she remained for hours; no tender cares on the part of her daughters; no attentions from her ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... met Miss Fleming on the day succeeding, and if withering glances ever really withered anything, he would have been as a dry leaf. But he did not wither. He went East, and is now connected with the Pennsylvania Broad Gauge. Miss Fleming married Mr. Muggles, and I understand the store is doing only moderately ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... you? Man alive!" cried the old lady, in a tone full of withering contempt, "could ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn

... Fort Garry, or perhaps he's crossed to Akimiski Island. The fleet have been mostly round that way this week past. Shall I show you round a bit, sir? I'm the acting manager, formerly sole manager." Oily Dave contrived to throw a withering emphasis on the latter adjective, and roiled up his eyes in a manner meant to imply injured innocence, which, however, only expressed low-down meanness ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... about dynamite. Dynamic was the word I used," replied Professor Zepplin, casting a withering glance at the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin

... discourse, he squatted himself down on the stool of a large hemlock, which, being recently cut down, cumbered the woodside with its giant stem, and secured him, with its evergreen top now lowly laid and withering, from the most narrow scrutiny; while I, giving the gallant horse his head, went at a brisk hand-gallop across the firm short turf of the fair sloping hill-side, taking a moderate fence in my stroke, which Peacock cleared in a style that satisfied me Harry had ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... leaned back in his chair and twisted his blunt features into an expression of withering contempt. Then he took up a glass and drank, and discovered too late that in the excitement of the moment he had made free ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... November until February, the desert journey is not disagreeable; but the vast area of glowing sand exposed to the scorching sun of summer, in addition to the withering breath of the simoom, renders the forced march of 230 miles in seven days, at two and a half miles per hour, the most fatiguing journey ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... opening year, fresh with the dew of heaven and the blush of innocence, coming up in this wild garden of a world, what would the gardener do without you? Where would all beauty and sweetness be found among the thorny bushes and the withering old shrubs and the rotting weeds, were it not for you? Maidens with clean hands and pure hearts, in whose touch there is something that heals the ills and soothes the pains of mortality, roses whose petals ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... of that month, that my old and unfortunate friend presented himself in my office—but alas how changed! He looked exceedingly dejected and poverty-stricken—as though what little of energy he ever might have possessed, had been utterly extinguished by the withering touch of penury. A single glance of course served to show that matters had gone hard with him—and that if "the world owed him a living," as he was formerly wont to boast, it was turning him off with a very scanty one. A storm, which had been fiercely raging for several ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... the Psammead with withering irony, 'not at all! Of course not! Quite the contrary! Exactly so! Only she happened to wish that she might soon find herself in your country. And soon ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit

... contempt at his comrade was withering in the extreme. So great was his faith in Ned's ability that he would not have hesitated at anything, no ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... his treatise upon it. The same spirit led him, in 1792, to analyse the other mineral waters at the same place of fashionable and general resort, the detail of which he published in the same year. These publications became generally read, and gained him a very extensive reputation. The late Dr. Withering, whose knowledge on these subjects could not be disputed, before he had seen his general analysis of the Harrowgate Waters, said, that "excepting only the few examples given us by Bergman, the analysis of the Crescent Waters was one of the neatest and most satisfactory ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... rival the theory of Locke; and Timour, also established an efficient police in his dominions, and was a patron of literature. Their sun went down full and cloudless, with the merit of having shed some rays of blessing upon the earth, scorching and withering as had been its day. It is remarkable also that all three had something of a misgiving, or softening of mind, miserably unsatisfactory as it was, shortly before their deaths. Attila's quailing before ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... welded into the past, My love of you with the purple Indian dusk, With its clinging scent of sandal incense and musk, And withering jasmin flowers. My eyes grow dim and my senses fail at last, While the lonely hours Follow each other, silently, one by one, Till the night is ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.

... to the strength of the ridicule. His glass case was simply a review uttered by shapes and wires instead of words and handwriting. And the work of the true critic must sometimes be to condemn, and, as far as his strength can reach, utterly to destroy the false,—scorching and withering its seeming beauty, till it is reduced to its essence and original groundwork of dust and ashes. It is only, however, when it wears the form of beauty which is the garment of truth, and so, like the Erl-maidens, has power to bewitch, that it is worth the notice ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... everything but the urgency of the cause. They are intolerant because they have no knowledge of human nature and no self-criticism wherewith to check the wild ideas that sprout beneath their immense self-confidence. They turn withering scorn on committees and officials who refuse to give effect to their suggestions to burn the House of Commons, or stop the traffic of London, or commit combined suicide in Hyde Park as a protest against ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... the middle height. He is a fairly developed man, but looks thin and worn, and his shoulders have the stoop of age, which scholars mostly anticipate. His face is much corrugated, but it bears the traces of vivacious thought and emotion, not the withering print of passion. Of his eyes I have already spoken; they are wise, kind, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... frank but temporary adieu; thus unconsciously suffering the man to escape him whose capture would have purchased the long postponed and still distant advantages for whose possession he secretly pined, with all the withering longings his hope ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... tempted to put the sea between his home and himself, how seductive soever be the experiences of book-makers and poetic pedestrians. One hour's contemplation of poverty in foreign lands will line the boy's face with the wrinkles of years, and burn into his soul that withering dependency which will rankle long after his ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... ridiculously out of harmony with him in every way. That, and the absurdity of Josh Craig, of all men, helping a woman in the delicate task of adjusting a hat and veil, struck her as so ludicrous that she laughed hysterically; her effort to make the laughter appear an outburst of derisive, withering scorn was not ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... sweetness, verdant flower Blooming, withering in an hour, Ere thy gentle breast sustain Latest, fiercest, mortal pain, Hear a suppliant! Let me be Partner in thy destiny: That whene'er the fatal cloud Must thy radiant temples shroud; When deadly damps, impending now, Shall hover round thy destin'd brow, Diffusive may ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... articulating a single syllable. Slowly she moved her face, so that their eyes encountered in one long mournful look. Ten years of continued suffering could not have exacted a heavier tribute from Grace Huntley's beauty. No language can express the withering effects of the few hours' ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various

... present century no writer of the first class will be still alive. They think that the Muse of Literature may transfer herself to other countries less dried up or worn out than our own. They seem to see the withering effect of criticism on original genius. No one can doubt that such a decay or decline of literature and of art seriously affects the manners and character of a nation. It takes away half the joys and refinements of life; it ...
— Phaedrus • Plato

... down heavily in the elbow-chair and looked at them with what Bobbie afterwards described as withering ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit

... lowered and opened suddenly. The withering force of the blast struck him, the snow buffeted him, and for a moment he stood held in his tracks, then the wind momentarily slackened, and dimly through the driving snow he caught sight of something that loomed shadowlike before him. It was ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... to the white spored Agarics, has the power of reviving under moisture after withering, so it may represent a genus that endures longest. None of the fleshy fungi have ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin

... out if I were you," he said, peering close into the glass at the corner of his eye, where he fancied he had detected the faint criss-cross of coming crows' feet "I'd never stay mugging up in the house, withering. Look at me! I go out in all weathers, and I'll undertake to say I'm a pretty good specimen both of ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... old custom, he might have required that they should pass through his chapel yard on the Raise before leaving the parish, but he had waived his right to this tribute to episcopacy. After offering a suitable blessing, he turned away, not without a withering glance at the weaver, who was muttering rather too audibly an ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine



Words linked to "Withering" :   devastating, atrophy, annihilating, annihilative, destructive, weakening, wither



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