Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Curse   /kərs/   Listen
Curse

noun
1.
Profane or obscene expression usually of surprise or anger.  Synonyms: curse word, cuss, expletive, oath, swearing, swearword.
2.
An appeal to some supernatural power to inflict evil on someone or some group.  Synonyms: condemnation, execration.
3.
An evil spell.  Synonyms: hex, jinx, whammy.  "He put the whammy on me"
4.
Something causing misery or death.  Synonyms: bane, nemesis, scourge.
5.
A severe affliction.  Synonym: torment.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books



... principle that he believes will make for better things, a man of integrity and worth whom the best of men may be glad to hold as a friend. Yet we find in the condition to which we have drifted such a one may be pilloried by wasters, gamblers, rioters, a crew that are the curse of every community. We lash the atheist and the age but give little heed to the insincerity and cant of those we do not refuse to call our own. What an example for the man anathematised. He sees the vice and meanness of those we allow to pass for orthodox, and when he sees ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... balanced again for a devil of a while. Even the most surly is full of smiles nowadays. Most of us when we fall on the pavement (did you ever try it on Chestnut between Sixth and Seventh on a slippery day?) curse the granolithic trust and wamble there groaning. But not nowadays. Make the best of things. Fine ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... with curse They hounded on to death's untimely doom. [Footnote: T. L. Harris, Lyrics of the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... meant to act. If any contrary impression produces in your mind any feelings different from those which have made so great a part of my happiness throughout life, I shall deeply regret what seems to be annexed as a curse inseparable from the pursuit of a public life; but I will once more beg you to be assured that neither those feelings on your part, nor anything which they can produce, will vary my sincere and heartfelt affection towards you, and that whether my judgment ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... tricked beyond the moment of nervous exaltation into the belief that it had fused into its mate. Life itself was futile enough, but that dream of the perfect love between two beings immemorially paired was the most futile and ravaging of all the dreams civilization had imposed upon mankind. The curse of imagination. Only the savages and the ignorant masses understood "love" for the transitory functional thing it was and were undisturbed by spiritual unrest . . . by dreams . . . mad longings. . ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... Southampton, we 'ave. Got a parss up to Lunnon, 'cause a pal told us there'd be work at the factories. But there weren't no work. Gawd's truf! What're sailormen wantin' wi' clorth-makin' and 'ammering' tin-pots? Them's the only jobs we wuz offered in Lunnon. I don't give a curse for the plyce.... No, Sammy an' me we says to each other"—he took another drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—"we says this ain't no plyce for us. We'd just come ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... all, injure none," wrote Fowler, "whilst infidelity, selfishness and disorder curse some, delude others and degrade all. I therefore want all of my people encouraged to cultivate religious feeling and morality, and punished for inhumanity to their children or stock, for profanity, lying and stealing." And again: "I would that every ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... a knight that was sore wounded upon the head. Sir, said Sir Launcelot, who wounded you so sore? Sir, he said, a knight that beareth a black shield, and I may curse the time that ever I met with him, for he is a devil and no man. So Sir Launcelot departed from him and thought to meet with Sir Tristram, and so he rode with his sword drawn in his hand to seek Sir Tristram; and then he espied ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... passage might, in ignorance of what they were doing, be induced to tear up the stone, and unconsciously commit a sacrilege from which every Chaldaean in his senses would have shrunk back. The formula provides for such cases, and it secures that the curse shall fall not only on the irresponsible instruments, but reach the instigator of the crime, even when he had taken no actual ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... kind of thing keeps up. 'It is not well to speak thus freely of young men, Margarita!' Ha, ha! Little I thought that day which way the wind set in my mistress's temper! I'll wager she reproves me no more, under this roof or any other! Curse her! What did she want of Alessandro, except to turn his head, and then bid him go ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... the fellow's hand, and we all trooped behind him down the lane. At the further end the road cut it across at right angles. Down this my uncle hastened, but his search was not a long one, for the glaring light fell suddenly upon something which brought a groan to my lips and a bitter curse to those of Jem Belcher. Along the white surface of the dusty highway there was drawn a long smear of crimson, while beside this ominous stain there lay a murderous little pocket-bludgeon, such as Warr ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... weak And my body miserable, an ugly thing. Love left me like a coal upon the floor, Like a half-burned sod that is never put out. Worse than the cough, worse than the fever itself, Worse than any curse at all under the sun, Worse than the great poverty Is the devil that is called "Love" by the people. And if I were in my young youth again I would not take, or give, or ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory

... Wait till I call on you. What of that pair by the pond? Curse it, but I believe they're our quarries. She has two arms round his neck. The wanton baggage! And she once protested she loved me! On to 'em, Rofflash. Engage the fellow while I handle the wench. Eh?—Why—look ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... or not, as you darned well please," said Hayle doggedly, biting at the butt of his cigar as he spoke. "It don't matter a curse to me; you don't mean to tell me you think I'm fool enough to stand by ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby

... color and feel. You fit 'em this way and that and turn 'em and—all at once, they shine and sing. God! I never knowed what was the matter with me till I began to work with words—and that is work. Sheila! Lord! How you hate them, and love them, and curse them, and worship them. I used to think I wanted whiskey." He laughed scorn at that old desire; then came to self-consciousness again and was shamefaced—"I guess you think I am plumb out of my head," ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... in those who give, and blessed in those who receive. Patronage is twice cursed,—cursed in the incompetency which it places where merit ought to be, and in the incompetency which it creates among the class who make it their trust. But the curse which you have mainly to avoid is that which so often falls on those who waste their time and suffer their energies to evaporate in weakly and obsequiously waiting upon it. We therefore say, Rely upon yourselves. But there is One other on whom you must ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... for you to decide for yourselves. No man has any right to interfere. It seems to me to be eminently proper for women to sit upon grand juries, which will give them the best possible opportunities to aid in suppressing the dens of infamy which curse the country. I shall be glad of your assistance in the accomplishment of this object. I do not make these remarks from distrust of any of the gentlemen. On the contrary, I am exceedingly pleased and gratified with the indication of intelligence, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... muttered curse, he lunged across the room to Cis, snarled into her face as he reached her, and wrenched the roses out of her hand. "I'll hurt 'em all right!" ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... evil. It is late, no doubt, and very late; but his mood is not to die as he has lived. He asks, not for those who would come at a word, but for his wife. And I am glad to be the bearer of that message even if I carry back a curse ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... a Pausee, but the family call themselves Rawats, and are considered to be Rajpoots, since they have acquired landed possessions by the murder and ruin of the old proprietors. They all delight in murder and rapine—the curse of God is upon them, sir, for the murder of their ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... would you like to be saddled with a young wolf- hound cub like that—Sorley Boy's son he is, no other, on my life—that I was fool enough to take wardship of when he was a puling puppy and his father an honest man? What do you think of that? Curse the whole tribe of them, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... been that way with us, too," said I, "but it is the rebel 'Grants' we curse, and the Ethan Allens and John Starks, and treacherous Green Mountain Boy's, who would shoot us in the backs or make a dicker with Sir Henry sooner than lift a finger to obey the laws of the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... Canterbury hastened unto Sir Mordred, and rebuked him for wishing to marry his uncle's wife. 'Leave such desires,' said the Bishop, 'or else I shall curse you with bell, book, and candle. Also, you noise abroad that my lord Arthur is slain, and that is not so, and therefore you will make ill work in the land.' At this Sir Mordred waxed very wroth, and would have killed the Bishop had he not fled ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... damned Doc Alton, his methods, the faro players in the next room, himself, and wound up with a blistering curse directed against mankind in general ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... With a wild curse the chief of sheriffs dashed down the stairway and as she heard him go the terror of Winnsome's heart seemed to turn her blood cold. She knew what that command meant. She knew that her father would obey it. ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... 'Twas not the dumb wave, but a living man that turned to Winter my Spring, And Aimee had married another and sought the Australian shore. She must have thought I was dead, Heaven help me, betwixt us ocean's roar. I have sometimes wondered if gold is ever aught but a curse, No, that's wrong—if honestly gained, no harm in a well filled purse, But I often think of the little home standing there by the sea, For far off merry England, the home planned for Aimee and me. Oh to have toiled for her from dawn till the dews of restful night, Her smile ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... for a sword, and cast in his lot with the children of the Covenant, even to the fulfilling of the promise; and woe, woe unto him who, for carnal ends and self-seeking, shall withhold himself from the great work, for the curse shall abide with him, even the bitter curse of Meroz, because he came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Up, then, and be doing; the blood of martyrs, reeking upon scaffolds, is crying for vengeance; the bones of saints, which lie whitening in the highways, are pleading ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... bores you; you are tired of our silly theatres; no longer do you care for Wagner's music. You are deracinated; you are unpatriotic. For that there is no excuse. The arts are for you deadly. I am sure you are a lover of literature. Yet what a curse it has been for you! When you see one of your friends drinking wine, you call him a fool because he is poisoning himself. But you—you—poison your spirit with the honey of France, of Scandinavia, of Russia. As for the society ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... Nidrei, the congregation kept growing larger and larger; unknown people, pushing one another, wrapped in prayer shawls, came in, one hundred after another, until the terrified Rabbi lifted his hand as if to curse and exclaimed: 'He who has flesh in his cheeks, let him throw off the prayer shawl!' Hundreds remained covered, and when the prayer shawls were torn away from them, all saw the skulls of the dead who had come out of the graves to celebrate the Day of Atonement with ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein

... son-in-law's house under a curse? The yellow-haired woman in the open carriage drove up to the door at half-past ten this morning, in a state of distraction. Felicia and I saw her from the drawing-room balcony—a tall woman in gorgeous garments. She knocked with her own hand at the door—she cried out distractedly, "Where ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... that, curse you!" ejaculated he, whipping a big, ugly knife out of his bosom, and striking savagely at my heart with it. Fortunately the sudden glitter in his eyes warned me, and I succeeded in catching his upraised ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... the table wi' his hand, He garr'd the red wine spring on hie— "Now Christ's curse on my head," he said, "But avenged ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... a magnet to draw to their standard "whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie." But "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to ease a throbbing conscience—a mocking lullaby to unquiet tossings. Those who justify negro slavery by the curse on Canaan, assume as usual all the points in debate. 1. That slavery was prophesied, rather than mere service to others, and individual bondage rather than national subjection and tribute. 2. That the prediction of crime justifies it; or at least ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... fulfilment, deceive those who confide in them. Yet it may be easily shown that the poet has, in his work, displayed more enlightened views. He wishes to show that the conflict of good and evil in this world can only take place by the permission of Providence, which converts the curse that individual mortals draw down on their heads into a blessing to others. An accurate scale is followed in the retaliation. Lady Macbeth, who of all the human participators in the king's murder is the most guilty, is thrown ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... Nay, truly, it hath that praise, that it wanteth not grammar; for grammar it might have, but it needs it not; being so easy of itself, and so void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses, which I think was a piece of the Tower of Babylon's curse, that a man should be put to school to learn his mother-tongue. But for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceits of the mind, which is the end of speech, that hath it equally with any other ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... heard his doom without flinching, and only turned to the gaoler to say, "Now that everything is over, the sooner I get to my cell the betther. I have despised the world too long to care a single curse what it says or thinks ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... breathed, I had almost said no heart beat for listening. Not long; in an instant there rose the sharp simultaneous cry of many people in rage and despair. Inarticulate at that distance, it was yet an intelligible curse, and the roll, and the roar, and the irregular tramp ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... to grumble at in that? Of the money the copyists will receive a tchetvertak apiece, and the rest will go to the Government." Upon that the disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks and their uppish, insolent behaviour. "Once upon a time," would the suitor lament, "one DID know what to do. Once one had tipped the Director a bank-note, one's affair was, so to speak, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... affairs, but the Bishop's censure is mild compared to that of an anonymous historian, who writes: "Abbe Loutre, missionary of the Indians in Acadia, soon put all in fire and flame, and may be justly deemed the scourge and curse of this country. This wicked monster, this cruel and blood thirsty Priest, more inhumane and savage than the natural savages, with a murdering and slaughtering mind, instead of an Evangelick spirit, excited ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... curse shall I call down On hearts so dull? May they the race still run For wealth and high renown! And when with much ado The false good they have grasped—ah, then too late!— May ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... leave out a curse or two when he next reads the Commination Service, and balance matters in that way," said Madame Valtesi, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... her direction. Silhouetted against the red of the sunset they made dark and sinister figures. Joan glanced apprehensively at Roberts. He was staring with a look of recognition in his eyes. Under his breath he muttered a curse. And although Joan was not certain, she believed that ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... was not a new experience for her latterly to lie awake cogitating her marriage in unhappy sleeplessness. It had seemed to her on such occasions that all the old banker's predictions about the results of her marrying Archie had come true like a curse, and sooner than might have been thought. But never before had she seen so clearly how impossible Archie was, never before felt herself without one atom of regard for him—not even desire. And yet her mind was too little fertile in expedients to suggest to her any way out ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... uttered a curse, and was so dreadfully alarmed that she knew not what to do. At first she declared she would not go to this wedding at all, but she felt it impossible to rest until she had seen the bride, so she determined ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... state of the soul. "This is life eternal, to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Up to the moment in which the spirit turns with filial confidence and obedience to God, there cannot be a cessation either in the curse that must rest upon enmity and disobedience, or in the pain which must be produced by so terrible a malady. Some time or other, be it near or remote, in one year or in a million, there must be repentance ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... being loyal to Enchanted Wiggeries; of living cheek-by-jowl with lies of a peaceable quality, and stuffing your nostrils, and searing your soul, against the accursed odor they all have!—For I can assure you the curse of Heaven does dwell in one and all of them; and the son of Adam cannot too soon get quit of their bad partnership, cost ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... seen many of the money masters shrieking and roaring, anon rushing about with whitened faces, indescribably contorted, and again bellowing forth this order or that curse with savage energy and wildest gesture. The puny speculators had long since uttered their doleful squeak and plunged down into the limbo of ruin, completely engulfed; only the big speculators, or their commission ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... lived beside her mother, she had a most perfect innocence of thought and behavior and a really remarkable piety. This young girl, like her mother, was fanatically attached to the Bourbons; she was therefore a bitter enemy to the Revolution, and regarded the dominion of Napoleon as a curse inflicted by Providence upon France in punishment of the crimes ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... its points." For Rickie suffered from the Primal Curse, which is not—as the Authorized Version suggests—the knowledge of good and evil, but the ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... mass of evil which flows from this fatal source, a person must be in France; he must see the finest soil, the finest climate, the most compact state, the most benevolent character of people, and every earthly advantage combined, insufficient to prevent this scourge from rendering existence a curse to twenty-four out of twenty-five parts of the inhabitants of this country. With us, the branches of this institution cover all the states. The southern ones, at this time, are aristocratical in their dispositions: and that that spirit should grow and extend itself, is within the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... but I will call attention generally to the fact that the Jews employed such phrases not only rhetorically, but also, and indeed chiefly, from devotional motives. (113) Such is the reason for the substitution of "bless God" for "curse God" in 1 Kings xxi:10, and Job ii:9, and for all things being referred to God, whence it appears that the Bible seems to relate nothing but miracles, even when speaking of the most ordinary occurrences, as ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza

... the pigeons who were returning after the passing of death?" he began to mutter in fury, replying to his thoughts. "Now it's too late! A curse upon them!" ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... 'She took her own life, and died calling down a heavy curse on thee and thine. The poor, exiled, scorned and plundered oculist Nebenchari in Babylon sends thee this intelligence to Egypt. It is as true as his own hatred of thee.' Listen to these words, Psamtik, and remember how on his dying bed thy father told thee that, for every drachm ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... fish that came to his net, and all were treated alike and robbed from start to finish. When Albert had turned his back upon him, and, worse than that, taken away his best client, as he afterwards learned, the old scoundrel suffered the worst blow to his vanity he ever received. "Curse the fellow!" he would say to himself. "I'll pay him and have revenge if I live long enough, and I'll never rest till I do. No man ever got the best of me, and in the long run no man ever shall!" Like an Indian he bided his time, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... will appear," said he, "either to think that the office is not worth much, or else that there are not many worthy to fill it." Alluding to one of his enemies who led a dissolute and discreditable life, he said: "That man's mother takes it as a curse rather than a blessing if any one hopes that her son will survive her." When a certain man sold his ancestral estate, which was situated by the seashore, Cato pretended to admire him, as being more powerful than the sea ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... me, neighbors!" at last he cried,— "What to me is this noisy ride? What is the shame that clothes the skin, To the nameless horror that lives within? Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck And hear a cry from a reeling deck! Hate me and curse me,—I only dread The hand of God and the face of the dead!" Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... wandering by the river, had encountered a pond of giant frogs, and the fricassee was the result. I had not then overcome my national antipathy to the victims of Saint Patrick's curse; and, to the voyageur's astonishment, I refused to share ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... He seemed my natural resource, but my cousin would be there. A final hope there was. I was foolish enough to say, "If she is not in town, then Miss Darthea Peniston, near by. If you fail me, I shall curse you while ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... here that I have realized how things will look; what people will think—and say, curse them. Our being out so long together; my buying clothing ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... he believes that "the whole country lies under a curse to this day, and will do, till some effectual course be taken by our honored Governor and General Court to make amends and reparation" to the families of such as were condemned "for supposed witchcraft," or ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... them. She must soar towards the place of the angels, whither good women soar in the great moments of their love, borne up by the winds of God. On the minaret of the mosque of Sidi-Zerzour, while Androvsky remained in the dark shadow with a curse, she had mounted, with prayer, surely a little way towards God. And now God said to her, "Mount higher, come nearer to me, bring another with you. That was my purpose in leading you to Beni-Mora, in leading you far out into the desert, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... fool then, that believing him capable of doing this, believing myself still the husband of that woman, your wife, and to spare that innocent girl the shame of thinking me a villain, I purchased his silence by consenting. May God curse ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... coz, [PULLS OUT A RED HERRING.] fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as Golias: oh, that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt water enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand of my kin: but I may curse none but these filthy Almanacks, for an 'twere not for them, these days of persecution would ne'er be known. I'll be hang'd an some fishmonger's son do not make on them, and puts in more fasting days than he should do, because he would utter his ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... (I will not name him even with an initial) who was malignant to the core. Learned, industrious, accomplished, he kept all his talents at the service of a perfect genius for hatred. If you crossed his path but once, he would never cease to curse you. The grave might close over you, but he would revile your epitaph and mock at your memory. It was not even necessary that you should do anything to incur his enmity. It was enough to be upright and sincere and successful, to waken the wrath of this Shimei. Integrity was an offence ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... Old World as again under the curse of monarchy, and the new-comers as refugees from oppression, the Republican party found itself ready to arrange for the easiest possible disposal of the public lands. "Let them come," said one writer. "Good and wholesome laws with the avenues to ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... Hervey uttered a curse, and, plunging past the trio, careless of the leveled weapons, ran down to the end of the jetty, and, throwing his arms round Date, leaped with him into the sea. They fell just beside the boat, as Random saw when he reached the spot. A confused volley of curses arose, as the boat pushed out from ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... you don't curse us for barging in like this," Miss Kent apologised, "but my brother is fed to the teeth with me and is going to try and cadge a dance or two off you, Miss Rowe, if ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... crash on to the timber flooring of the pavilion. Desmond heard his head strike the boards with a thud, heard a muttered curse. He found himself standing in a narrow lane, less than three feet wide, which ran between the garden wall and the summer-house; for the pavilion, erected on a slight knoll surrounded by turf, was not ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... his face dead-white save for the running red about his jaw. "Curse ye for a cowardly Englishman!" and, struggling to his feet, he ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... Laird's court-day, An' mony a time my heart's been wae, Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, How they maun thole a factor's snash He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an' swear, He'll apprehend them, poind their gear; While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, An' hear it a', an' fear and tremble! I see how folk live that hae riches; But surely poor folk maun be wretches." Lu. "They're no sae wretched's are wad think; Tho' constantly on poortith's brink, ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat

... you think so, Captain? —glancing at the ivory leg. He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He's all a magnet! How long since thou saw'st him last? Which way heading? Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's, cried Bunger, stoopingly walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; this man's blood —bring the thermometer; —it's at the boiling point! —his pulse makes these planks beat! —sir! —taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing near to Ahab's arm. Avast! roared ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... sergeant wagged his disreputable head. "German handwriting, that is, my young lady," he croaked. "That's how our German lords and masters curse them! write their Gott mit uns! The noble Captain Hahn I knew as soon as I ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... victims. To tens of thousands that are killed, and hundreds of thousands that survive with feeble constitutions, add millions that grow up with constitutions not so strong as they should be, and you will have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring by parents ignorant of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... many points it looks not unlike a strangely prolonged rubbish-heap in which busy giants have been digging with huge spades, making mounds and pits, caverns and trenches, piling up here a monstrous heap of stones, casting down there a mighty statue. But how it fascinates! Of curse one knows what it means. One knows that on this strip of land Naville dug out at Deir-el-Bahari the temple of Mentu-hotep, and discovered later, in her shrine, Hathor, the cow-goddess, with the lotus-plants streaming from her sacred forehead to her ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... on his way to the front door, kicking at the obstacles he tripped over and swearing and sobbing as he went. It was ridiculous enough, of course, but Jed did not feel like smiling. The bitterness of the little man's final curse was not humorous. Neither was the heartbreak in his tone when he spoke of his boy. Jed felt no self-reproach; he had advised Leander just as he might have advised his own son had his life been like other men's lives, normal men who had married and possessed sons. He ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... such contrition as I see in thee.' 'Alack, father mine, what say you?' replied Ciappelletto. 'My kind mother, who bore me nine months in her body, day and night, and carried me on her neck an hundred times and more, I did passing ill to curse her and it was an exceeding great sin; and except you pray God for me, it will not be ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... against the worst that he could do, being well prepared for him to lose first his color and then the temper which he had never lost since she had known him; to fly into a fury, to curse her up hill and down dale—in a word, to behave as her first husband had done more than once, but this one never. What Rachel did not anticipate was a smile that cloaked not a single particle of surprise, and the little cocksure bow that accompanied ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... far as concerned all the sons—deformed births excepted—and at least the first daughter. Injurious, however, to the public weal as exposure might appear, the prohibition of it soon changed its form from that of legal punishment into that of religious curse; for the father was, above all, thoroughly and absolutely master in his household. The father of the household not only maintained the strictest discipline over its members, but he had the right and duty of exercising judicial authority over them and of punishing them as he deemed fit in life ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... "Yes, curse it. It looks as if it would never let up again." He raged up and down the room with the spirit of blasphemy burning in his eyes. "I wish I'd never seen ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... "Heaven forbid! I'm quite sure Mr. Breakspeare wouldn't take my words in that sense. I am all for zeal and hopefulness. The curse of our age is pessimism, a result and a cause of the materialistic spirit. Science, which really involves an infinite hope, has been misinterpreted by Socialists in the most foolish way, until we get a miserable languid fatalism, leading ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... round his body, and placed the hand of the other firmly over his mouth. The ghost now began to ascend the coach, and they heard him clambering up the hind wheel; he slipped down, however (a bad omen), and muttered a half-curse; then, to help himself up better, he seized hold of the sash of the window, and with it took a grip of Ulrich's beard, as he was leaning close to the side of the coach to watch his proceedings. Not a stir did the brave old ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... is condemned by the Divine judgment save for a mortal sin. Yet a man is condemned for theft, according to Zech. 5:3, "This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the earth; for every thief shall be judged as is there written." Therefore theft is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... interest. He hoped the House would make a point to adopt the principle of compensation, and to stimulate the slave to genuine and spontaneous industry. If this were not done, and moral instruction were not imparted to the slaves, liberty would prove a curse instead of a blessing to them. Touching upon the property question, and the proposed plans for emancipation, Mr. Gladstone said that the House might consume its time and exert its wisdom in devising ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... imprecation or oath. The genius of the language does not seem to favor the formation of terms to be used in oaths or for purposes of profanity. It is the result of the observation of others, as well as my own, to say, that an Indian cannot curse. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... when I stood in the sorest need of a little talk with her—she went away, and left me to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a poor deformed wretch, with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatiable curiosity as well. Insatiable curiosity (have you ever felt it?) is a curse. I bore it until my brains began to boil in my head; and then I sent for my gardener, and made him drive me here. I like being here. The air of your library soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my wounded heart. She has ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... so sure of. Who could have written this bolt-upright, old-fashioned superscription, not a letter of which seems on speaking terms with its neighbor? The very O absolutely turns its back upon the M in O'Malley, and the final Y wags his tail with a kind of independent shake, as if he did not care a curse for his predecessors! And the seal, too,—surely I know that griffin's head, and that stern motto, Non rogo sed capio. To be sure, it is Billy Considine's, the count himself. The very paper, yellow and time-stained, looks coeval with his youth; ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... marching through the province of Meath, arrived at the borders of Cualnge. Fortunately for the invaders, the expedition took place while the Ulstermen lay prostrate in their cess, or "Pains," a mysterious state of debility or torpor which was inflicted on them periodically in consequence of an ancient curse laid upon Conchobar and the warriors of Ulster as a punishment for a wrong done to the goddess Macha. This strange malady, resembling the couvade among certain savage nations, ordinarily lasted five days and ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... tells us that the Rev. Dr. William Lancaster, archdeacon of Middlesex, objected strongly to the dispersal of anti-stage tracts at the door of his church, on the grounds that they tended "to teach the ignorant People to swear and curse." ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous

... great wisedome and vertue in the opinion of the world: he will preferre his voluntary banishment at Salona, before all the Romaine Empire. Finally, the Emperour Charles the fifth, esteemed by our age the most happy that hath liued these many ages: he will curse his conquestes, his victories, his triumphes: and not be ashamed to confesse that farre more good in comparison he hath felt in one day of his Monkish solitarines, then in all his triumphant life. Now shall we thinke those happie in this imaginate greatnes, who themselues thinke themselues vnhappie? ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay

... cried. "Curse on your beauty, curse on my own folly, for I have been undone by both! I hate you! Take the truth; I'll not be poisoned with it! I am sick of you; you have disgusted me! I will ease my heart by telling you the whole. If I seek the society of other women, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... pastor, who was often Abonyi's partner at his evening card parties, delivered an edifying address beside the open grave. He took for his text the verse (Matthew v. 44): "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you," and said a great deal about forgiveness and reconciliation. The listeners were much moved, and ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... whether in sentiment or practise would be received and cherished with unanimous, and fervent, and lasting attachment; and, furthermore, by a long and rigorous bondage, they had been rendered, for the time being at least, humble and dependant. Thus they were disciplined by a curse of providence, adopted to fit them to receive instruction from their Benefactor with a teachable ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... one of the most assiduous of the guests at the philosophic meals of Baron Holbach and Helvetius; he was very good-humoured, easy to live with, and free from that irritable self-consciousness and self-love which is too commonly the curse of the successful writer, as of other successful persons. He did not go into company merely to make the hours fly. With him, as with Helvetius, society was a workshop. He pressed every one with ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... shower of tears, which the father could not behold with unmoistened eyes, although he reviled her with marks of uncommon displeasure; and turning to the Count, "I appeal to you, sir," said he, "whether I have not reason to curse the undutiful obstinacy of that pert baggage, and renounce her for ever as an alien to my blood. She has, for some months, been solicited in marriage by an honest citizen, a thirty thousand pound man; and ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee; and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... the guiding star of the future with every power composed of several distinct bodies, and though I am a republican more perhaps than thousands who are citizens of a republic, inasmuch as I have known all the curse of having had a king—still such a development of Great Britain's future, were it even connected with monarchy, I, a true republican, would hail with fervent joy. To contribute to such a future, I indeed should consider more practical support ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... the lads who sat on the thwart beside us, and the maidens who took our hands in the hall to lead us to the chamber. Other days have come in their stead, and other friends shall cherish us. What then? Shall we wound the living to pleasure the dead, who cannot heed it? Shall we curse the Yuletide, and cast foul water on the Holy Hearth of the winter feast, because the summer once was fair and the days flit and the times change? Now let us be ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... bark and made a little amulet of it. She punched a hole through one end and put a leather string through it. Neither she nor Dion could write, so when she had explained what must be done Melas himself took a sharp stone and scratched a curse upon crows in the soft bark. When it was done Daphne hung it about the neck of the scarecrow. "There," said Melas grimly, "I don't believe he'll go to sleep on the job. He's a Spartan scarecrow! Now let's ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins

... with horror. Now Cain realizes that his work is less than half done: he is himself still alive and so is his son Enoch. He rushes forward to kill his child, but the mother throws herself between, and Cain discovers that he is not strong-willed enough to carry out his design. God's curse condemns him to eternal unrest, and while the elements rage around him Cain goes ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... 'trek,' even for great distances; and till the discovery of gunpowder they were the most formidable of foes. The Arabs and Northern Europeans have founded great civilisations; the Mongol hordes have been an unmitigated curse to humanity. The invaders never kept their blood pure. The famous Jewish nose is probably Hittite, and certainly not Bedouin. There are no pure Turks in Europe, and the Hungarians have lost all resemblance ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... out, and my brother forced to fly the country, and is now working in some coachmaker's yard, in London; banished he is!—and here am I, forced to be what I am—and now that I'm reduced to drive a hack, the agent's a curse to me still, with these bad roads, killing my horses and wheels—and a shame to the country, which I think more of—Bad luck ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... my life should be ruined by this thing," he said wearily. "Any prospect of news is delightful, however small. I am under a sort of curse,—as much as though I had really had something to do with poor Alexander's death. It comes up in all sorts of ways. Unless we can solve the mystery, I shall never be ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... I," answered Ketill. "I want no braver leader. But the gods curse me if we roast not a few score ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston

... the baby back to its mother; but not without a solemn blessing, so solemn that, to Sylvia's superstitious and excited mind, it undid the terrors of what she had esteemed to be a curse. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... country. You will not believe it. Some day you will see the truth, and you will remember my words. It may be that you will realize it a little sooner, or I would not have dared to speak as I am speaking. This, then, is the curse which is eating the heart out of your very existence. The love of his Motherland is no longer a religion with your young man. Let me repeat that,—I will alter one word only. The love of his Motherland is no ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... new Empress was handed to her traveling-carriage by the Archduke Charles, and amid salvos of artillery, mingled with the cheers of the populace, she set forth. There were a few signs of discontent among little knots who collected to curse their national humiliation, and the aristocracy were not reconciled to see Prince Esterhazy in the role of guide to the Prince of Wagram, as Berthier had now been styled by imperial decree in Paris. But, on the whole, Europe was impressed with a sense of Francis's sincerity. The father went ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... the bread and meat of his hungry children squandered and sacrificed with a fiendish recklessness. Within the dingy walls of the Ace of Spades was bartered the domestic happiness of many a home that had been cheerless enough, God knows, without this extra curse. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... to that little household; and when he saw Jenny, it ached for that young man downstairs. It was more than a professional contempt for the "general practitioner" that made him silently curse what he called the "death-doctor," as he looked at Jenny, "Jack of all diseases, ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne

... so few of the ideas that flit through our minds do, in point of fact, produce their motor consequences. Life would be a curse and a care for us if every fleeting fancy were to do so. Abstractly, the law of ideo-motor action is true; but in the concrete our fields of consciousness are always so complex that the inhibiting margin keeps the centre inoperative most of the time. In all this, you see, I speak ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... girl of Mara's would not tell who set her on you. It is not like a maid to be sparing with her mistress' secrets, and Morfed is at the back of it. It is his work, and he laid a curse on the girl if she told who sent her. About the only thing that would keep ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... just seen your keeper, that shuffling Vatel, half kill a poor old woman for a stick of wood? It is such fellows as that who make you an enemy to the poor; and the talk is very bitter against you. They curse you every bit as hard as they used to bless the late Madame. The curse of the poor, monseigneur, is a seed that grows,—grows taller than your tall oaks, and oak-wood builds the scaffold. Nobody here tells you the truth; and here ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... little—"Sir," said he, addressing Dartmore, "it is a sad thing to be dependant on these low persons; the wise among the ancients were never so wrong as when they panegyrized poverty: it is the wicked man's tempter, the good man's perdition, the proud man's curse, the melancholy man's halter." ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... wild Highlander." She would be satisfied with nothing less than the unabridged stories of Edward I's siege of this "gray bulwark of the North," the murder of the powerful Douglas by his treacherous host King James II; the building of and the mysterious curse upon Mar's Work, and twenty other human documents not half so moving, had she but known it, as the story of Basil Norman's first and only love. Once or twice I thought she guessed that I wished to speak of myself and her, and that she deliberately held me at arm's length, like a young person ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... pay for it. In practical life space is a matter of available transportation, not of geometrical planes, as the old railroad magnate knew when he threatened to make grass grow in the streets of a city that had offended him. If I am motoring and ask how far it is to my destination, I curse as an unmitigated booby the man who tells me it is three miles, and does not mention a six mile detour. It does me no good to be told that it is three miles if you walk. I might as well be told it is one mile as the crow flies. ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... companion, who, I was not till then aware, stood by my side. "No hopes this time, confound it!" Then he continued for some time to curse and swear awfully, as I afterwards discovered, for I did not then know ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... woman, nature's fairest ill, The woe of man, that first created curse, Base female sex, sprung from black Ate's loins, Proud, disdainful, cruel and unjust, Whose words are shaded with enchanting wiles, Worse than Medusa mateth all our minds; And in their hearts sit shameless treachery, Turning a truthless vile circumference! O, could my fury paint ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... they sed wuz kin ter the devil. He told me that he could go out hind the house and make some noise and the devil would come and dance with him. He sed the devil learned him to play a banjo and if you wanted to do anything the devil could do, go to a cross road walk backwards and curse God. But don't nebber let the devil touch any of your works or anything that belonged to you or you would lose ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... with, and doth make haste, To get him note, or name, by any offer Where blood or gain be objects; steeps his words, When he would kill, in artificial tears: The crocodile of Tyber! him I love, That man is mine; he hath my heart and voice When I would curse! he, he. ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... thy deserted fields Are sadder warnings spoken, From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons Their household gods have broken. The curse is on thee—wolves for men, And briers for corn-sheaves giving! O! more than all thy dead renown ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... some Saturday. (Write me word how you think of him as a bookseller.) The duty you pay for your place, by putting together a Chresthomathy, is very fair; whether you are obliged to print your Lectures I cannot decide. I shall curse them both if they prevent you from tearing yourself away from the Donnish atmosphere and bachelor life of Oxford, and from throwing yourself into the fresh mental atmosphere of Germany and of German mind and life. You must take other journeys besides lake excursions ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... it well remembered, is the curse which Stepmother Nature placed upon The Dog, when he elected to turn his back on his own kind, and to become the only one of the world's four-footed folk to serve Man of his own accord. To punish the Dog for this abnormality, Nature decreed that his life should begin ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... adultery, man-stealing, bearing false witness, rebellion against parents, were all equally made capital crimes. The law against the latter was in these words:—'If any child or children, above sixteen years of age, and of sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or they shall be put to death. Exodus xxi, ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... stay here! for thee England is only a worthy gallery, To walk in expectation; till from thence Our greatest King call thee to his presence. When I am gone, dream me some happiness, Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess, Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh, Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I, Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die, Augur me better chance, except dread Jove Think it enough for ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... veteran with finality. "They never do. They chafe. They strain. They curse out the job and themselves. They say it isn't fit for any white man. So it isn't, the worst of it. But they stick. If they're marked for it, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... then, whether I think that a statute of absolute prohibition would stop this flowing curse, I reply that at least it would put the influence of authority on the right side. It would lend it the force of consistent endeavor. As it is, it would be far better if the public sanction had no expression; ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... why he should trouble further about them. The American threatened a fresh obstacle. He was winning his way with Helen altogether too rapidly. In the light of those ominous words at the luncheon table his close association with Stampa indicated a definite knowledge of the past. Curse him! Why did ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... was counting out the money, I was taken with a sort of insanity, and I struck him with a large hammer which happened to be at hand. Then I carried off the money and buried it, since which time I have never touched it. It has been a curse to me. This is all I ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton

... this Juice the growth of God, who dare Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare? A Blessing, we should use it, should we not? And if a Curse—why, then, ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam

... wi his hand, He garrd the red wine spring on hie; "Now Christ's curse on my head," he said, "But avenged of Lord Scroope ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... season of the year, but their blind malice was too eager to remember this. Another person by continually dunning a poor debtor to pay him half a sovereign had driven him to commit suicide! So ran their bitter tongues. Backbiting is the curse of village life, and seems to keep people by its effects upon the mind far more effectually in the grip of poverty than the lowness of wages. They become so saturated with littleness that they cannot attempt ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies



Words linked to "Curse" :   shout, spell, denunciation, call down, imprecation, bless, conjure up, stir, call forth, keep out, charm, imprecate, abuse, clapperclaw, raise, conjure, bring up, evoke, exclude, affliction, give tongue to, magic spell, bedamn, anathema, magical spell, invoke, arouse, malediction, nemesis, shut out, blackguard, denouncement, communicate, shut, verbalise, profanity, verbalize, utter, put forward, express



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com