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




Devour   /dɪvˈaʊər/   Listen
Devour

verb
(past & past part. devoured; pres. part. devouring)
1.
Destroy completely.
2.
Enjoy avidly.
3.
Eat immoderately.  Synonyms: consume, down, go through.
4.
Eat greedily.  Synonyms: guttle, pig, raven.



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 |





"Devour" Quotes from Famous Books



... and the cunningest artificial fly is of no avail, and the shrewdest angler will do nothing—except with a gross fleshly gilt-tailed worm, or the cannibal bait of roe, whereby parent fishes, like competitive barbarisms, devour each other's flesh and blood—perhaps their own. It is when the stream is clearing after a flood, that the fish will rise. . . . When will the flood clear, and the fish come on ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... begging your pardon, but the villain stings so that you have to scratch yourself for an hour after. You smoke, and go for them, and cover yourself from head to foot, but it is no good! At last you have to sacrifice yourself and let the cursed things devour you. You've no sooner got used to the gnats when another plague begins: downstairs your wife begins practising sentimental songs with her two friends. They sleep by day and rehearse for amateur concerts by night. Oh, my God! Those tenors are a torture with ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov

... poor fellows something to eat." Some brought meat, some biscuit and bread, and I made them some coffee, after inviting them to come into my yard. The children, boys and girls, assembled to see the four chiefs sitting around the table in the yard devour the food we had prepared ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle

... extensive northward view, comprising the towns of Bilston and Wolverhampton. It was now a black gulf, without form and void, sputtering fire. Flames that leapt out of nothing, and as suddenly disappeared; tongues of yellow or of crimson, quivering, lambent, seeming to snatch and devour and then fall back in satiety. When a cluster of these fires shot forth together, the sky above became illumined with a broad glare, which throbbed and pulsed in the manner of sheet-lightning, though more lurid, and in a few seconds ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... as a pair of birds nesting in each tree, from the simple fact that the former can only catch the insects that drop to the ground. After we have shaken the curculio beetles off, to be sure the chickens will devour them readily, but then the pest has generally done its work. It is not unusual to have every plum, apricot, nectarine or apple on a tree stung in a single day; and in South Jersey the curculio has proved victorious in the struggle with man. Every year we see these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... wife as he parted from her,—or the city where he left it. The Assyrians have returned with a greater army, and this time they will make an end of us. There is no Naaman now, and the Bull will devour Damascus like a bunch of leeks, flowers and all,—flowers and all, my double-budded fair ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... blind to the fact that the stranger had slain Antinoos purposely. They poured out threats. "Fool," they said, "what art thou doing? How couldst thou be so careless! Thou hast slain the noblest man in Ithaca. Dogs and vultures shall devour thee. Never again shalt thou be allowed a ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... devour the Pope will die of indigestion. These words, though not very polite, proved to ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... she had said to Mrs. Forrester, "with you I am never pursued and never bored." Where Mrs. Forrester evaded and relegated bores, Madame von Marwitz sombrely and helplessly hated them. "What can I do?" she said. "If no one will protect me I am delivered to them. It is a plague of locusts. They devour me. Oh their letters! Oh their flowers! Oh their love and their stupidity! No, the earth is ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... and succeeded in reaching the cupboard where, usually, I keep brandy and biscuits. I poured myself out a little of the stimulant, and drank it off. Then, taking a handful of biscuits, I returned to my chair, and began to devour them, ravenously. I was vaguely surprised at my hunger. I felt as though I had eaten nothing for ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... them; which, however, did not spoil the appetite of Jack or the captain: as for Gascoigne, he could not eat a mouthful, but he drank to excess, looking over the rim of his tumbler as if he could devour our hero, who only laughed the more. Mr Hicks had applied to the men to lend him some clothes, but Jack had foreseen that, and he was omnipotent. There was not a jacket or a pair of trousers to be had for love or money. Mr Hicks then considered it advisable ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... upon the wounds of gothic architecture, their miserable gewgaws of a day, their ribbons of marble, their pompons of metal, a veritable leprosy of egg-shaped ornaments, volutes, whorls, draperies, garlands, fringes, stone flames, bronze clouds, pudgy cupids, chubby-cheeked cherubim, which begin to devour the face of art in the oratory of Catherine de Medicis, and cause it to expire, two centuries later, tortured and grimacing, in the boudoir of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... "And afterwards devour the object of our idolatry, to show how short-lived is the fame for which we work so ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... Nas-nas-shup there was a lake in which there lived great demon frogs, which croaked loud warnings when any dared approach. Inside the outer door a codfish lay, of size enormous, ready to devour the bold intruder who might gain entrance there, and if the stranger safely passed the cod, his body would be entered by two snakes which waiting, sought to kill the fearless one. All these were safely passed by Eut-le-ten, who changed himself, when danger pressed ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael

... also power of concentration and thoroughness. As I have just said, he was a happy combination of the amateurish and intense. His habit of absorption became a by-word; for if he visited a, classmate's room and saw a book which interested him, instead of joining in the talk, he would devour the book, oblivious of, everything else, until the college bell rang for the next lecture, when he would jump up with a start, and dash off. The quiet but firm teaching of his parents bore fruit in him: he came to college with a body of rational ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... to be a term employed always with lips that curled. There were, then, actually men creatures outside the English "Fireside Novels" she was allowed to devour without interruption by parents to whom books were largely objects with which a room was cluttered up, who wore spats, did play tennis in white flannels, turned down the page at a favorite passage of poetry, ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... muddy at the time; the first to plunge in was a boy of twelve years of age, and he was immediately seized by a large alligator, and carried along under water. My informant and others followed in a canoe, and ultimately recovered the body, but life was extinct. The alligator cannot devour its prey beneath the water, but crawls on land with it after he has drowned it. They are said to catch wild pigs in the forest near the river by half burying themselves in the ground. The pigs come rooting ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... the opportunity, sought out lurking holes in the Mountains, to avoid as dangerous Rocks so Brutish and Barbarous a People, Strangers to all Goodness, and the Extirpaters and Adversaries of Men, they bred up such fierce hunting Dogs as would devour an Indian like a Hog, at first sight in less than a moment: Now such kind of Slaughters and Cruelties as these were committed by the Curs, and if at any time it hapned, (which was rarely) that the Indians irritated ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... same thing on deck. Examining the food of these last-mentioned animals, he found there were a great number of minute mucilaginous particles on the deck, which no doubt had descended with the late rain, and which all the birds, as well as the hogs, seemed eager to devour. Here, then, was a supply, though a short-lived one, of a manna suited to those creatures, which might render them happy for a few hours, at least. Bob caught the ducks, and tossed them overboard, when they floundered about ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... insectivorous birds very frequently sit on dead branches of a lofty tree, or on those which overhang forest paths, gazing intently around, and darting off at intervals to seize an insect at a considerable distance, with which they generally return to their station to devour. If a bird began by capturing the slow-flying conspicuous Heliconidae, and found them always so disagreeable that it could not eat them, it would after a very few trials leave off catching them at all; and their whole appearance, form, colouring, and mode of flight is so peculiar, that ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... Though thou devour me down to the root, yet still will I bear so much fruit as will serve to pour libation on thee, O goat, when ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... waded in streams, and did everything that he could to throw them off his trail. Every sound startled him; he thought the Indians were behind him. With no food but roots and berries, and scarcely time to devour these, he pushed through swamps and thickets for his old home. Now or never was his chance for liberty, and as such he used it. At length, after wandering nearly two hundred miles, on the fourth day he ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip

... dead a long time. In another there was the carcass of a fox, torn into bits by the owls. Most of the traps were sprung. Others were covered with snow. Kazan, with his three-quarters strain of dog, ran over the trail from trap to trap, intent only on something alive—meat to devour. Gray Wolf, in her blindness, scented death. It shivered in the tree-tops above her. She found it in every trap-house they came to—death—man death. It grew stronger and stronger, and she whined, and nipped Kazan's flank. And Kazan went on. Gray Wolf ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... strength and show you Where you have been untruthful, where a hater, Where narrow, bitter, growing in on self, Where you neglected us, Where you heaped fast destruction on our father— For now I know that you devoured his soul, And that no soul that you could not devour Could have its peace with you. You've dwindled to a quiet word like this: "You are unfilial." Which means at last That I have conquered you, at least it means That you ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... body of a man who had been executed by being cast into the sea, floating on the stream, moving to and fro with the tumbling of the water, which gave to his arms the effect of scaring away several sea-fowl that were hovering to devour. This incident he has strikingly depicted ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... which they sometimes undertake across the desert, they are enabled to bear both hunger and thirst with surprising fortitude; but whenever opportunities occur of satisfying their appetite they generally devour more at one meal than would serve a European for three. They pay but little attention to agriculture, purchasing their corn, cotton, cloth, and other necessaries from the negroes, in exchange for salt, which they dig from the pits in the ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... people, what the Levellers would do for you. Oh why are you so mad as to cry up a king? It is he and his Court and Patentee-men, as Majors Aldermen, and such creatures, that like cormorants devour what you should enjoy, and set up Whipping-posts and Correcting-houses to enslave you. 'Tis rich men that oppress you, ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... encampment in the shadow of the tents lurks a dark figure with a nimble sword, having the name of Time. This is he that hath called the hours from beyond and he it is that is their master, and it is his work that the hours do as they devour all green things upon the earth and tatter the tents and weary all the travellers. As each of the hours does the work of Time, Time smites him with his nimble sword as soon as his work is done, and the hour falls severed to the dust with his bright wings scattered, as a locust cut asunder by ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... because it was dark and there would be none to see and interfere. He waited long in the shadow by the roadside. Presently from the darkness there came the distant drone of powerful engines. Lights appeared, like the blazing eyes of a dragon swooping down to devour its prey. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... him so near to the gates of death, and he saw the grave so ready to devour him, that he would often say his recovery was supernatural: but that God that then restored his health continued it to him till the fifty-ninth year of his life: and then, in August 1630, being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... exceptionable allusions, perhaps delicately covered over with a thin gauze of fashionable refinement; yet, on that very account, the more objectionable. If this work contained one improper allusion to their ten, many of those fastidious ladies who now eagerly devour the vulgarities of Dumas, and the double-entendres of Bulwer, and even converse with gentlemen about their contents, would discountenance or condemn it as improper. Shame on novel-reading women; for ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... to my raft, and fell to work to bring my cargo on shore, which took me up the rest of that day; and what to do with myself at night I knew not, nor indeed where to rest; for I was afraid to lie down on the ground, not knowing but some wild beast might devour me; though, as I afterwards found, there was really no ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... than is necessary for its own consumpt; but has plenty of ginger, cardamoms, tamarinds, mirabolans, cassia-fistula[33], and other drugs. In several pools of water near this city there are many very large alligators[34], similar to the crocodiles of the Nile, which devour men when they come in their way. They have very large heads with two rows of teeth, and their breath smells like musk, their bodies being covered all over with hard scales like shells. In the bushes near ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... at which he resided till his decease, in 1600. His great work is the treatise on "Ecclesiastical Polity;" of which Pope Clement VIII. said, "There are in it such seeds of eternity as will continue till the last fire shall devour all learning." ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... travelers' stories would so enchain the attention of Desdemona that if she were called off at any time by household affairs she would despatch with all haste that business, and return, and with a greedy ear devour Othello's discourse. And once he took advantage of a pliant hour and drew from her a prayer that he would tell her the whole story of his life at large, of which she had heard so much, but only by parts. To which he consented, and beguiled her of many a tear when he spoke of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... wolf but keeping his human feelings. The more I think of it the more I'm sure that it was a werwolf that brought the can here, because, having human feelings, he would know about cans and what they had in them, and being a wolf he would carry it to his lair or den or whatever they call it, to devour it." ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... Antiochus Cyrene, Ionia, and the Cyclades to Philip. Thoroughly after the manner of Philip, who ridiculed such considerations, the kings began the war not merely without cause but even without pretext, "just as the large fishes devour the small." The allies, moreover, had made their calculations correctly, especially Philip. Egypt had enough to do in defending herself against the nearer enemy in Syria, and was obliged to leave her possessions ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... little at himself. He teased in anticipation the joys that were in reserve for him; he revelled in thought of the day and the hour when this superb creature would be his, when he could view her as his own undisputed possession, and devour page after page, chapter after chapter, of this elegantly ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... those twenty millions tortured the Colonel's mind almost beyond endurance, and he groaned aloud as his imagination pictured them rolling in a bright, glittering stream of gold and silver coins into the gutter for the swine that waited to devour them. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... appointed from above a direction. Sounds were heard that could not be accounted for; they were made by the evil spirits not yet banished from the desert places of which they had so long held possession. Sights, inexplicable and mysterious, were dimly seen—Satan, in some shape, seeking whom he might devour. And at the beginning of the long winter season, such whispered tales, such old temptations and hauntings, and devilish terrors, were supposed to be peculiarly rife. Salem was, as it were, snowed up, and left to prey upon itself. The long, dark evenings, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... was the fashion of the Parisian diabolists to gloat over cruelty, by way of showing their superiority to Christian morality. The enjoyment of others' suffering was a splendid pagan virtue. So George Moore kept a pet python, and cultivated paganness by watching it devour rabbits alive. ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... hollow cave, they say, Under a rock that lies a little space From the swift Barry, tumbling down apace Amongst the woody hills of Dynevoure; But dare thou not, I charge, in any case, To enter into that same baleful bower, For fear the cruel fiendes should thee unwares devour! ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... as well as surprised to find that she had not forgotten Florimel's horse. They had always been a little friendly, and now they greeted each other with an affectionate neigh; after which, with the help of all she could devour, the demoness was quieter. ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... slowly. Dr. Canby, [page 311] who observed in the United States a large number of plants which, although not in their native site, were probably more vigorous than my plants, informs me that he has "several times known vigorous leaves to devour their prey several times; but ordinarily twice, or, quite often, once was enough to render them unserviceable." Mrs. Treat, who cultivated many plants in New Jersey, also informs me that "several leaves caught successively ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... of only five or six birds. They feed in the morning, chiefly on plants, but they also devour small animals and reptiles. By midday their stomachs are full, and they rest or play, leaping in circles over the sand, regardless of the blazing sun or the heated ground. Then they drink and wander about eating in the afternoon. In the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... witness," Martha said, laughing. "Though it has been weeks since the strange thing came to pass, yet doth he devour food as doth the grasshopper that eateth clean the face ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... lady, who called herself the daughter of an Indian king, was one of those savage demons, called Gholes, who live in desolated places, and employ a thousand wiles to surprise passengers, whom they afterwards devour. The prince instantly remounted ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... lonesome hours, but not so many as she had expected. When time hung heavy on her hands she would take out one of the old magazines that Bill had brought up to read on the winter nights, and devour it from cover to cover. She had abundant health. The experience seemed to build her up, rather than injure her. Her muscles developed, she breathed deep of the cold, mountain air, and she had more energy than ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... ninety-one beeves; yet, for a supplement (lest, perhaps, any species be omitted), lot them be valued as a hundred and twenty beeves. Of the lesser sort feeding on vegetables were in the ark six-and-twenty kinds, estimable, with good allowance for supply, as fourscore sheep. Of those which devour flesh were two-and-thirty kinds, answerable to threescore and four wolves. All these two hundred and eighty beasts might be kept in one story or room of the ark, in their several cabins; their meat in a second; the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... like other kinds of trees, are attacked by insect pests. Some kinds are seriously injured by them; others scarcely at all. Some of these insects are borers in the trunk and branches; some devour the leaves; some feed inside the nuts and ruin them; some suck the sap from the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... engulf the microbes with avidity. In the absence of the relish (the Greek word for it used by Sir Almroth Wright, its discoverer, is "opsonin"), the eater-cells are sluggish—too sluggish—in their work. They resemble a child who will not eat dry toast, or, at best, only slowly, but will devour rapidly many pieces when the toast is buttered. It is of the utmost importance to us that our white corpuscles, or eater-cells, should not ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... that no self-respecting man should smirch his hands with. I know very well there are heaps of reforms needed, heaps of abuses to be stopped, but you don't cure evil with evil. You're only feeding the monster that will devour you in the end, and you're feeding him with human sacrifice moreover. Have you ever thought of that? And another thing! Do you ever look ahead—right ahead—beyond your own personal wants and grievances? Do you ever ask yourselves if strikes and ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... walking up the aisle leading from the Socialist seats to the President's chair as unobtrusively as possible. He was walking furtively and he cut the figure of a hunted animal which is conscious that it is surrounded by other animals anxious to pounce upon it and devour it if it dares to ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... find boys playing ball or marbles, and flying kites. When I ask why they haven't been to Sunday-school, or at home reading, they tell me they have no clothes, and that they have nothing to read at home; as I distribute the papers, they lay down bat and ball and eagerly devour the stories and ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various

... preachers at the last Conference, and which has existed in some degree has happily subsided, notwithstanding the most vigorous efforts have been made, and all the arts of calumny and misrepresentation, employed to harrass, to worry, and devour. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... Timotheus struck the vocal string, Ambition's fury fir'd the Grecian king: Unbounded projects lab'ring in his mind, He pants for room, in one poor world confin'd. Thus wak'd to rage, by musick's dreadful pow'r, He bids the sword destroy, the flame devour. Had Stella's gentle touches mov'd the lyre, Soon had the monarch felt a nobler fire; No more delighted with destructive war, Ambitious only now to please the fair, Resign'd his thirst of empire to her charms, And found a thousand worlds in ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... Are you and Dyce holding a camp meeting all by yourselves? I hallooed at the gate till your dog threatened to devour me, and I had to scare him off ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... which the directors gave, and to which he, and George, and I, as friends of the court, were invited. What orations were uttered, what flowing bumpers emptied in the praise of this great Company; what quantities of turtle and punch did Fred devour at its expense! Colonel Newcome was the kindly old chairman at these banquets; the prince, his son, taking but a modest part in the ceremonies, and sitting with ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... executioner, and the son stabbed himself before his face. Another begged to have the rites of burial after his death: to which Augus'tus replied, "that he would soon find a grave in the vultures that would devour him." 4. But chiefly the people lamented to see the head of Brutus sent to Rome to be thrown at the foot of Caesar's statue. His ashes, however, were sent to his wife Portia, Cato's daughter, who, following the examples of both her husband and father, killed herself, by swallowing coals. 5. ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... poisoned, but will take such a small portion from each that he will think it will not be detected. If he is innocent, and is really ignorant which dish is poisoned, he will not touch any of them, until driven to desperation by hunger. Then he will seize on one or more, and devour them to the end, running the chance of death by poison, rather than endure the pangs ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... on Raleigh's root, plain, with salt, I begged them to procure me something more placable to an English appetite. I gave money to my hosts, and they procured me eggs and bacon. I might also have had a fowl, but I did not wish to devour guests to whom on my boat's keel I had given such recent hospitality. They returned me my full change, and, though there was more than enough of what they cooked for me to satisfy myself and boys, they would not partake of the remains, until I assured them, that if they did not I would throw ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... pleasure of that fine old fellow; he was in and out of the windows of his room twenty times, enjoying the sight of these poor wretches, all attired in their best, cramming themselves and their brats with as much as they could devour, and snatching a day of relaxation and happiness. After a certain time the women departed, but the park gates were thrown open: all who chose came in, and walked about the shrubbery and up to the windows of the house. At night there was a great display of fireworks, and I should think, at ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... are!" frequently remarked old Michaud. "They hardly say a word, but that does not prevent them thinking. I bet they devour one another with ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... watching him. 'Men feast at a wedding, and gorge themselves after a funeral. A fit of anger whets the appetite, for I have seen a man fly into a towering passion with the cook and then immediately devour the very dish he has found fault with, to the last scraping. As for the passion of love, a French proverb says well that happiness makes an empty stomach. I can only hope, my lord, that in a week's time you may enjoy your supper as much, with satisfaction ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... Klan expanded, in the exaggerated stories common among the negroes, into the most amazing achievements. The members were thought to be able to take themselves to pieces, drink entire pailfuls of water, and devour "fried nigger meat." Usually the person about to be "visited" received a notice that the dreaded Klan was upon him. He was warned to cease his political activities or perhaps to leave the neighborhood. If the threat proved ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... sun rose up out of the east. The red painted avenger stood ready within the camp ground for the flying of the red eagle. He appeared, that terrible bird! He hovered over the round village as if he could pounce down upon it and devour the whole tribe. ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa

... devour old tapestries. The reason given is that the ancient wool is so desiccated as to be no longer nutritious. A pretty argument, but not to be trusted, for I have seen moths comfortably browsing on a Burgundian hanging, keeping house ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... paralysis last night I fancied myself stalked by a panther, which in the act of springing turned into Lola Brandt. What she would have done I know not, for I awoke; but I have a haunting sensation that she was about to devour me. Now, a woman who would devour a sleeping Member of Parliament is not a fit consort for a youth about to enter ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... fire for her too, should she be averse. To conceive her aversion was to burn her and devour her. She would then be his!—what say you? Burned and devoured! Rivals would vanish then. Her reluctance to espouse the man she was plighted to would cease to be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... blossoms attract insects. A flower which in form, scent or hue varies gainfully is likely to survive while others perish. All the parts of a flower are leaves in disguise. Floral modes of repulsion and defence. Plants which devour insects, a habit gradually acquired. The mesquit tree tells of water. Plants believed to indicate mineral veins. Seeds as emigrants equipped with wings or hooks. Parasitic plants and their degradation. Tenants that pay a liberal rent. The gardener as a creator of new flowers. The modern sugar ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... oath of loyalty, or suffer the direful consequence. Some were haled to the judges to be sentenced, others were shot like game where they were found. Like a fire that breaks out in a city and mercilessly devours while the flames find fuel, so this fire seemed destined to spread and devour till the last drop of Covenanted blood would sizzle on ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... directly on to the southward," replied Swinton; "the migration of these animals is one of the most remarkable proofs of the fecundity of animal life. Like the ants, they devour every thing before them; and if we journey in the direction they have come from, we shall find no food for the cattle until after the rains. After the rains fall, these animals will return to their former pastures. It is the want of food which ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... be apprehended here," thought Mr Enderby. "How perfectly unlike what I had fancied! This dragon, which was to devour the Hopes, seems a pretty harmless creature. Why he looks a mere boy, and with hair so light, one can't see it without spectacles. What will he do with himself in my mother's good house? Fanny Grey's bird-cage would suit ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... realise how much that is in every way superior to the gifts of any single one of themselves is yearly sacrificed and tortured for their preservation as a class. On what agonies of creative and original minds is the safety of their homes based? These respectable Molochs who devour both the poor and the exceptionally gifted, and are so little better for their meal, were during the Renascence for a time gainsaid and abashed; yet even then their engines, the traditional secular and ecclesiastic policies, were a ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... does. The ear of wheat returns a hundredfold the grain from which it grew. The surface of the earth offers to us far more than we can consume—the grains, the seeds, the fruits, the animals, the abounding products are beyond the power of all the human race to devour. They can, too, be multiplied a thousandfold. There is no natural lack. Whenever there is lack among us it is from artificial ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... other of which was continually seizing me by the foot, and dragging me down; while over my head foul birds of prey, each and all with the terrified face of the poor wretch whom I had frightened in the marsh, and clutching firearms in their semi-human claws, were firing at my head, and swooping to devour me. To avoid their beaks, I dived madly into the depths below, where I had to do battle in the dark with the grim and shapeless monsters of the deep. Then, bursting with the retention of my breath, I rose ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various

... which wealth and beauty draw after them, is lured only by the scent of prey; and that, perhaps, among all those who crowd about them with professions and flatteries, there is not one who does not hope for some opportunity to devour or betray them, to glut himself by their destruction, or to share their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... dreamer, into dust: God gave thee power above them, far above; Power to raise up those whom they overthrew, Power to show mortals that the kings they serve Swallow each other, like the shapeless forms, And unsubstantial, which pursue pursued In every drop of water, and devour Devoured, perpetual ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... against his own soul, yet neither the floods of water, nor the fear of the snare, nor the drawn sword of the adversary brandished in the path, will overcome his purpose. Wherefore the Solway may swallow him up, or the sword of the enemy may devour him—nevertheless, my hope is better in Him who directeth all things, and ruleth over the waves of the sea, and overruleth the devices of the wicked, and who can redeem us even as a ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... And his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... Animals, from Wood, nay, from everything putrified, these imprisoned seminal principles are muster'd forth, and oftentimes having obtained their freedom, by a kinde of revenge feed on their prison; and devour that which preserv'd them from being scatter'd.[15] Accounting thus for sexual and spontaneous generation, Highmore defines two types of seminal atoms in the seed—"Material Atomes, animated and directed by a spiritual form, ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer

... of his intoxication; the whole procession being drawn by the wild lords of the forest and the wilderness, who, harnessed as they may be for the moment, will no sooner find their food stinted, than they will resume the natural instincts of the lion and the tiger, turn on their drivers and devour them. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... I could see the stars twinkling through the roof. I little knew then what adventures awaited me in this neighbourhood; and if I had realised that at that very time two savage brutes were prowling round, seeking whom they might devour, I hardly think I should have slept so peacefully in my ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... though just outside the skerm was a drop or two of blood. About three hundred yards from the camp, and a little to the right, was a patch of sugar bush mixed up with the usual mimosa, and for this I made, thinking that the lioness would have been sure to take her prey there to devour it. On we pushed through the long grass that was bent down beneath the weight of the soaking dew. In two minutes we were wet through up to the thighs, as wet as though we had waded through water. In due course, however, we reached the patch of bush, and by the grey light of ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard

... tables is generally an indication of voracity. Traces of it may be found in Homer, and other writers who have described ancient manners. The same practice has also been observed among the people of Otaheite; who occasionally devour vast quantities of food. ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... thither, angered at the intrusion of my canoe in their domain, courting and rubbing fins, repelling invaders. The little ones avoiding dexterously the appetites of their big friends, and these moving pompously, but warily, seeking what they might devour. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... virtues and Pepeeta's beauty while the judge provoked him to the fullest exhibition of his colossal vanity. He took a sinister delight in drawing him out. It was the pleasure of a cat playing with the mouse, which it is about to devour, or of savages mocking the man who is about to run the gauntlet. He exulted in the contrast of this proud man's present confidence, and the humiliation which awaited him within the next ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... pulled out of his trouble. When his wife's called out of town, as she often is by the old people back home, he keeps me company. He's particularly fond of roasted oysters, is Jennings, since a certain night when I introduced them to his unaccustomed palate. It's great fun to see him devour them." ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... childbed to nurse fairy children, a lingering voracious image of them being left in their place (like their reflection in a mirror), which (as if it were some insatiable spirit in an assumed body) made first semblance to devour the meats that it cunningly carried by, and then left the carcass as if it expired and departed thence by a natural and common death. The child and fire, with food and all other necessaries, are set before the nurse ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... the less vividly portrayed in their imagination by horror-loving nurses—were actually close at hand! Supposing the brutes caught them, who would be eaten first? Anno, Stanislaus, or the driver? Would they devour them with their clothes on? If not, how would they get them off? Then, filled with morbid curiosity, they strained their ears and listened. Again—this time nearer, much nearer—came that cry, dismal, protracted, nerve-racking. Nor was that all, for they could now discern ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... taste in this respect was abominable, for she had no use for the victims when caught. She could not eat them matrimonially, as young lady flies do whose webs are most frequently of their mothers' weaving. Nor could she devour them by any escapade of a less legitimate description. Her unfortunate affliction precluded her from all hope of levanting with a lover. It would be impossible to run away with a lady who required three servants to move ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... brain and muscle, are gathered into one stupendous stream and poured into their laps! The whole of society is in their grip, the whole labor of the world lies at their mercy—and like fierce wolves they rend and destroy, like ravening vultures they devour and tear! The whole power of mankind belongs to them, forever and beyond recall—do what it can, strive as it will, humanity lives for them and dies for them! They own not merely the labor of society, they have bought the governments; ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... of a savage wolf, in pursuit of a beautiful girl, trying to pounce upon her as he wished to devour her. This was the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... nature givers of good; out of our lives are forever flowing healing, restoring, saving, vitalizing influences; and when all the members of the society in which we move have received this spirit and manifest it, there are none to bite and devour, to hurt and destroy; the predatory creatures have ceased their ravages, and the world rejoices in the plenitude of life which He ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... me, O God," he read, "for man goeth about to devour me: he is daily fighting and troubling me. . . . They daily mistake my words: all that they imagine is to do me evil. They hold all together and keep themselves close. . . . Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths; smite the jaw-bones of the ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... repast fit for a king when John and his mother came from town. Every nerve in Elizabeth's body had been stretched to the limit in the production of that meal. Too tired to eat herself, the young wife sat with her baby in her arms and watched the hungry family devour the faultless repast. She might be tired, but the dinner was a success. The next morning, when the usual rising hour of half-past four o'clock came, it seemed to the weary girl that she could not drag herself up to superintend the getting of ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... the ancients say it was better to fall into the hands of a raven than a flatterer? A. Because ravens do not eat us till we be dead, but flatterers devour us alive. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... newly-killed house-fly near her she looked at it intently, felt it with her antennae, and then suddenly wheeled round and pinched it with her forceps, and being apparently satisfied that it could do no harm to her eggs, she began to devour it, and after an hour or two but little remained ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen

... earth till they came to a mighty river, haunted for long by Otter, by reason of its great wealth of fish. There he lay on the bank, and as he watched the fish in the water his shape was changed to that of a true otter, and he began to devour a golden trout. Two of the gods would have passed without stay, but in the otter Loki saw an enemy, and straightway killed him, rejoicing over ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... the best prize!" said the First Poet, triumphantly, and endeavouring to devour his award broke all his teeth. The Apple was a work ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... nimble feet, and presently stood down on the shore, near the edge of the stream, while the colonel, on the bank above the eddy, played the fish that had taken his bait and sought to depart with it to some watery fastness to devour it at his leisure. But the ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... Holy Spirit's entrance, and then God is intimately known and the Devil is discovered. And as he assailed Jesus after His baptism with the Spirit, so he does to-day all who receive the Holy Ghost. He comes as an angel of light to deceive, and as a roaring lion to devour and overcome with fear; but the soul filled with the Spirit outwits the Devil, and, clad in the whole armour of God, ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... animal are imbedded, and Steenstrup ingeniously argues that these belonged to a domestic dog; for a very large proportion of the bones of birds preserved in the refuse, consists of long bones, which it was found on trial dogs cannot devour.[12] This ancient dog was succeeded in Denmark during the Bronze period by a larger kind, presenting certain differences, and this again during the Iron period, by a still larger kind. In Switzerland, we ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... sisters, and the child snapped out, "I told ye wunst; can't ye hear?" When asked if she would like anything, she gayly answered, "Candy, cake and candy." A messenger was sent out to procure these commodities, which she instantly seized on their arrival and began to devour. She showed no signs of fear, until one of the officers untied the huge bonnet and took it off, when she tearfully insisted upon being put into it again. I was greatly impressed by the ingenious efforts of the excellent men in the room to learn from ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... nations of the Quichuas of Cuzco whereof the old Upanqui is king and god, and the Chancas whereof I am king and you, if you live, in a day to come will be the queen. No longer can these two lions dwell in the same forest; one of them must devour the other; nor shall I fight alone, since on our side are all the Yuncas of the coast who, as you report to me, are ripe for rebellion. But, as you also report, and as I have learned from others, they are not yet ready. Moons must go by before their armies are joined to mine and I throw off ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... Stockdale's supplemental volumes—for there are two—are vols. xii. and xiii. of what is known as 'Hawkins's edition.' In this paper (Works, iv. 450) he represents in a fable two vultures speculating on that mischievous being, man, 'who is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour,' who at times is seen to move in herds, while 'there is in every herd one that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... twin brother and sister, Phoebus Apollo and Diana or Artemis. They were born in the isle of Delos, which was caused to rise out of the sea to save their mother, Latona, from the horrid serpent, Python, who wanted to devour her. Gods were born strong and mighty; and the first thing Apollo did was to slay the serpent at Delphi with his arrows. Here was a dim remembrance of the promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and also a thought of the way Light slays the dragon of darkness with ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... time to speak and be immortal had not yet arrived. The fire had all the talking to itself, and it cackled, and hummed, and skipped about so cheerfully that one would have imagined it expected to be the very first to receive a presentation copy of the work on the table. "How I would devour its contents!" ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... Hamsad Bey, and summoned him to surrender, they said, 'Lay down your arms; all opposition is vain; the armies which we send against you are like as the sands on the sea-shore innumerable!' But I answered them in his name and said, 'Our hosts are like the waves of the sea which wash away the sands and devour them!' ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... on I searched with all the fever of adolescence through Byron for every passage which bore on sex, the mystery of which was beginning to devour my days. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... being burnt down, and her father with them. After a very vivid one, in which she saw the mill-owner standing, a tall, burly figure, on the top of one of the chimneys, with flames all round him which in a minute must devour him, she woke with a muffled cry, to find Naomi standing beside her with ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... close of the nineteenth century could sit at his breakfast-table, decide between tea from Ceylon or coffee from Brazil, devour an egg from France with some Danish ham, or eat a New Zealand chop, wind up his breakfast with a West Indian banana, glance at the latest telegrams from all the world, scrutinise the prices current of his geographically distributed ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... is another cause of it, more peculiar to England.' 'What is that?' said the Cardinal: 'The increase of pasture,' said I, 'by which your sheep, which are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may be said now to devour men and unpeople, not only villages, but towns; for wherever it is found that the sheep of any soil yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men, the dobots! not contented with the old rents which their farms yielded, nor ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... in the saddle, bound for Dent's hotel and store near the San Miguel Canyon. When they arrived at their destination and Johnny found there was some hours to wait for Red, his restlessness sent him roaming about the country, not so much "seeking what he might devour" as hoping something might seek to devour him. He was so sore over his recent kidnapping that he longed to find a salve. He faithfully promised Hopalong that he would return ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... writs and subpoenas is proved by the case of one Johns, who was very rightly committed to the Fleet in 1772, it appearing by affidavit that he had compelled the poor wretch who sought to serve him with a subpoena to devour both the parchment and the wax seal of the court, and had then, after kicking him so savagely as to make him insensible, ordered his body to be cast into the river. No amount of irritation could justify such conduct. It is no contempt to tear ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... follow, I shall watch your plump sides hollow, See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse— See old age at last o'erpower you, And the Station Pack devour you, I shall chuckle then, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... sailed slowly past the Falkland Islands, whose rugged cliffs and sterile aspect seemed in accordance with their character of penal settlement. Sea-lions, penguins, and seals were more numerous than ever here, as if they were the guardians of the place, ready to devour all hapless criminals who should recklessly attempt to swim ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... the prophet calls—with that tremendous irony in which the Hebrew prophets surpass all writers—looking on men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things which have no ruler over them, born to devour each other, and be caught and devoured in their turn, by a race more cunning than themselves? There are those among us in thousands, thank God, who nobly resist that temptation; and they are the very salt of the land, who keep it from decay. But for the many- -for the public—do ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... be the man who thirsts for blood! But seven times cursed be the woman who thirsts for war. War will devour the fruit of ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... shamelessly greedy as they were faithless in diplomacy, chased off Peace with ignominy to let loose War. Though this was profitable to them, 'twas the ruin of the husbandmen, who were innocent of all blame; for, in revenge, your galleys went out to devour their figs. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... any idea of the excitements, the glories of life on great ranches in the West? Any bright boy will "devour" the books of this series, once he has made a ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane

... away every bad thought the instant it comes into the mind, and to suppress at once the rising of bad temper, envy, hatred, and all other evil feelings, while we teach them that Satan, like a roaring lion, is always going about seeking whom he may devour, although the aid of the Holy Spirit will never be sought in vain ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston

... that, when some one repeated to Nero the line "When I am dead, let fire devour the world," he replied, "Let it be whilst I am living." That author asserts that Nero's purpose sprung in part from his dislike of old buildings and narrow streets. During the progress of the fire several men of consular rank met Nero's domestic servants with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... now," Peter put in. "Let us go and see what they've got to eat. I could devour one of ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... opinion, meals were things to be treated casually, to be consumed haphazard at any hour that chanced to suit. He did not enter the dining-room at the exact moment each day as did the Ogams. He would rush in, throw his hat on a peg, devour some food with unseemly haste, and depart in less time than it took the others ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... man to be well advised what he doth swear or vow religiously, that he do not put himself into the inextricable strait of committing great sin, or undergoing great inconvenience; that he do not rush into that snare of which the wise man speaketh, "It is a snare to a man to devour that which is holy (or, to swallow a sacred obligation), and after vows to make inquiry," seeking how he may disengage himself the doing which is a folly offensive to God, as the Preacher telleth us. "When," saith he, "thou vowest a vow unto ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... hurried tableaux—Francey holding the stick and looking at him in white anger, Christine huddled on the floor, his father black and monstrous towering over her. Finally, they all disappeared together, and Robert knew that it was because the Dragon had woken up and was coming to devour them. He was climbing up from the dining-room. Robert heard his tread on the stairs—heavy, stumbling footsteps such as one would expect from a dragon on a narrow, twisting staircase. They came nearer and nearer, and with every thud Robert seemed to be lifted with a jerk ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... because of that curious spirit of opposition which characterises little children, and because of their susceptibility to suggestion. Some children will constantly pluck out hairs and eat them, or will devour particles of fluff drawn from the blankets. Others will seize every opportunity to eat unpleasant things, such as earth, sand, mud, or dirt of any sort. All tricks of this sort are best neglected and treated ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... had been, for the powerful hound had, in his leap, dashed out the entire frame, and shattered it to pieces. When this was finished, Susan dug a grave, and in it laid the little Indian boy. She made it close to the hut, for she could not bear that wolves should devour those delicate limbs, and she knew that there it would be safe. The next day Tom returned. He had been very unsuccessful, and intended setting out again, in a few days, in a ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... insidious, destructive little brutes of that region. They were ugly in appearance, with their fat white bodies of a dirty greenish-white colour. Nevertheless one could not help having great admiration for those little rascals, which in one night were able to devour the bottom of stout wooden boxes, and in a few hours damaged saddles, clothes, shoes, or any article which happened to be left resting for a little while on the ground. They were even able to make an entire house tumble down in a comparatively short time if the material ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... from the power of sacred lays The spheres began to move, And sung the great Creator's praise To all the blest above; So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various



Words linked to "Devour" :   savour, bask, ruin, destroy, savor, eat, enjoy, relish



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com