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Smother   /smˈəðər/   Listen
Smother

noun
1.
A confused multitude of things.  Synonyms: clutter, fuddle, jumble, mare's nest, muddle, welter.
2.
A stifling cloud of smoke.



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"Smother" Quotes from Famous Books



... was most amenable to strong impressions, that the policy of the mighty outlaw was in many respects pure and lofty. It was this same influence, though, which won for Father Claude his only enemy in Torn; the little, grim, gray, old man whose sole aim in life seemed to have been to smother every finer instinct of chivalry and manhood in the boy, to whose training he had devoted the past nineteen years ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... included; the most important or most commonly used word has therefore been chosen; for instance, "mercury", "tranquil", "diaphanous", "suffocate", "salve", "renown", "fiddle", are not to be found, but "quicksilver", "calm", "translucent", "smother", "ointment", ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... and followed her. They came up against a fence, found a gate, and passed through. While they hurried toward it, the light winked welcome; as they drew near, some one stirred the fire and sent sparks and rose-hued smoke rushing up into the smother of snow. Rowdy watched them wistfully, and wondered if there would be supper, and strong, hot coffee. He lifted Miss Conroy out of the saddle, carried her two long strides, and deposited her upon the door-step; rapped imperatively, and when a voice replied, ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... comrade to grow big enough to crush the other one who had no papa at all. And these boys, whose fathers were for the most part bad men, drunkards, thieves, and who beat their wives, jostled each other to press closer and closer, as though they, the legitimate ones, would smother by their pressure ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... buried it, and kept it from going to where it ought to go, we had to be buried alive. And he picked me up like I was that nut and tossed me over his shoulder, and said, 'Brother, go find your brother.' And I began sinking down in the sand deeper and deeper until I began to smother." ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... did not fuss much over you," he answered. "At least I did not smother you with attention the way your mother would have done. You got no spoiling from me. I expect, though, that when your mother gets hold of you she won't be able to do enough for you. I can see her to-day flying round the house ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett

... was born in a wild smother of flying snow, which died at dawn to let a pale, heatless sun peer tentatively over the southern mountains, his slanting beams setting everything aglitter. Frost particles vibrated in the air, coruscating diamond dust. Underfoot, on the path beaten betwixt house and ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... time of Reform, say from 1795 to 1830, you could do much as you pleased, and dress according to your fancy. You could smother your neck in a stock, wear a high-waisted swallow-tail coat, kerseymere continuations and silk stockings. So sat Southey for his portrait, and so did Rogers continually. Or you could wear a curly toupe with Tom Moore and the Prince Regent, be as ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... Jocrisse had closed the boudoir door behind M. Cambray, the suffering countess sprang lightly from her couch, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips to smother her laughter; the little Amelie, overwhelmed by merriment, buried her face in her mother's skirts; the maid giggled discreetly; while Jocrisse, clasping his rotund stomach with both hands, bent his head toward his knees, and betrayed his suppressed hilarity ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... people toward a government of equality, was hurrying on from the directorate to the consulate to the empire, and finally returning to the old monarchy somewhat worn and dilapidated, indeed, but sufficient in power to smother the hopes of the people for the time being. Numerous French writers, advocating anarchy, communism, and socialism, set up ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity which were not to be realized as the immediate ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... arrest or imprisonment for any decent expression of opinion, the platform is not without its hindrances; and some of these will never be cured, while babies cry, architects sacrifice acoustics to style, young people do their courting in public, janitors smother thoughts in foul air, and milliners persist in building up artistic barriers between ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... called out, "You just stop, this minute, Kathie!" and then, when she kept right on, he threw the old sofa pillow at her, and told her to go smother herself; Nora said, "Horrid child!" in her most disgusted tone, and Nannie and Betty coaxed and coaxed, trying to ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... I swear I haven't," he blurted out. But he was choking with suffering, and this sickroom, into which he had suddenly entered unawares, so worked on his feelings that he burst out sobbing and buried his face in the bedclothes to smother the violence of his grief. Nana understood. Rose Mignon had most assuredly decided to send the letter. She let him weep for some moments, and he was shaken by convulsions so fierce that the bed trembled under her. At length in accents ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... run in any direction. Springer leaned forward to get the signal, then swung into an elaborate delivery which he had practiced. Another drop was tried, but this time Dingley hit it. Up into the air popped the ball, and Cooper, yelling "I'll take it!" raced over behind second, to smother it surely ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... "The standard smother-out technique," Verkan Vall grinned. "I only heard a little talk about the 'Flying Saucers', and all of that was in joke. In that order of culture, you can always discredit one true story by setting up ten others, palpably ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... Take two medium-sized potatoes or one large one cut in half (about one-half pound.) Lay in a bed of light coals, cover with same and smother with ashes. Do not disturb for thirty or forty minutes, when ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... high in the heaven, a glowing smother hung in the dark over a snaky brood, darting ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... had come that night in the very nick of time. Thirsey was almost dying. Her mother was fully convinced that Ann had saved her life, and she never forgot it. She was a woman of strong feelings, who never did things by halves, and she not only treated Ann with kindness, but she seemed to smother her grudge against Grandma for robbing ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Yuruk?" I turned to Drake bruskly to smother the sob of sheer happiness I felt rising in my throat; and at his wink and warning grimace abruptly forebore to press ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... drop of fresh water to cool our parched tongues. Anxiety was depicted in every visage, and our spirits were clouding like the heavens over them. Capt. Hilton, whose sickness and debility had been increased by fatigue and hunger, could no longer smother the feelings that were struggling within.—The quivering lip, the dim eye, the pallid cheek, all told us, as plainly as human expression could tell, that the last ray of that hope which had supported him during the day, was now fading away before the coming ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins

... have as much respect for our mother's memory as you have, but if she had not died now, I don't know how far my sacrifices might have gone. Have you noticed in the springtime, brother, how the fallen leaves of yesteryear cover the ground as if to smother all the young; things that are coming out? What do these do? They push aside the withered leaves, or pass right through them, ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... slave. She doesn't understand; she believes he has taken a sudden dislike to her. Free, there is nothing left to her but the canal. Until two hours ago she was as contented and as happy as a linnet. If she returns to the house from which we took her, her companions will laugh at her and smother her with ridicule. On this side of the canal she has no place to go. Her people live in Heng-Chow, in the Hu-nan province. It is all very complex. It is the old story of a Westerner meddling with an ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... than Dr. West. He gave them each a cool kiss, walked to the fire and sat down, bidding them not smother him. For some little while they could not get over their surprise or believe their senses. They knew nothing of his intention to return, and had deemed him hundreds of miles away. Question after question they showered down upon him, the result of their amazement. He answered ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... rammed Shaitan aft, cutting off several feet of her stern and leaving her rudder jammed hard over. As complete a mess as the Personal Devil himself could have devised, and all due to the merest accident of a few panicky salvoes. Presently the two ships worked clear in a smother of steam and oil, and went their several ways. Quite a while after she had parted from Shaitan, Goblin discovered several of Shaitan's people, some of them wounded, on her own foc'sle, where they had been pitched by the collision. Goblin, working her way homeward on such ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... cheese and butter. Spread each pancake thickly with the mixture and roll or make into little pockets or envelopes with the end tucked in to hold the filling. Cook in foil till golden-brown and serve at once with sufficient sour cream to smother them. ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... British airmen during the battle was one of the brightest pages. Bitter battles in the air were fought by scores of aviators and the service proved fully its ability to smother the German airmen ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... smother some of them yet," said Eddie Parsons, looking back at the Ruth. He felt pretty good, because he had the wheel when we finally ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... was the reply, "I abhor peppermint; but I have got some lozenges, if that will satisfy you. And when I smell ghosts, I can smother myself in ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... eagerness for revenge is only one phase of his passion. Though it leads him, in a frenzy of despair, to smother his wife, it is yet, even in his violent soul, subordinate to those feelings of wounded honor and outraged affection which constitute the essence of true jealousy. When he supposes himself betrayed by his wife and his friend ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... and they knew it was Elbridge coming to make the fire in the kitchen stove, as he always did against the time his wife should come to get breakfast. Suzette started up from her pillow, and pulled Adeline's face down on her neck, so as to smother the sound of her sobs. "Hush! Don't let him hear! And I wouldn't let any one know for the world that we didn't agree! You can think it over all day, if you want; and I'll stop Mr. Putney from writing till you think as I do. But be ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... to smother one's self in satin and velvet for balls and dinners,' said Lady Kirkbank, when she discussed the great question of gowns; 'but I know I always look my best in my cotton ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... am not to preach, but to relate; and whatever loose reflections were, and how often soever those dark intervals came on, I did my utmost to conceal them from him; ay, and to suppress and smother them too in myself; and, to outward appearance, we lived as cheerfully and agreeably as it was possible for any couple ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... of humanity began to writhe and swell, as a frightened crowd does in the dark, so that every one feels as if all the other people were growing hugely big, as big as elephants, to smother and crush him; and each man makes himself as broad as he can, and tries to swell out his chest, and squares his elbows to keep the weight off his sides; and with the steady strain and effort every one breathes hard, and few speak, and the hard-drawn breath of thousands ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... sober, unornamental, business government,—the contrast is vivid with the glitter and "go" of Louis Napoleon's regime. And the nation feels it, and involuntarily grieves over it. The twenty years have far from sufficed to smother that certain inborn Gallic joy in monarchy,—autocratic rule, a brilliant court, leadership in fashion, and all the pomp and pageantry which ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... a formal entry blank to-morrow," said Mr. Stone, as his companion started the motor, and a moment later they were rushing off in a smother of foam thrown up by the ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... some vessel which was not so encumbered with troops, so that they might remain on the main-deck; but they replied, that the invoices were made out and could not be altered. But now to act. My idea is to keep the hatches on, so as to smother ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... wind raged on and the snow piled its drifts. Joshua Ward sat silent by the fire, his head in his hands, or stood in the "dingle," gazing mournfully out into the smother of snowflakes. It would be a mad undertaking to venture abroad. He realized it ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day

... Lass slowed, and the pursuing vessel overhauled them rapidly. With a great smother of foam at her bows she ducked into the choppy sea and came like a race horse. In half an hour she was almost abreast on the port quarter. A man with a megaphone appeared on her poop deck and leveled the instrument at the ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... commenced. The success of the church party would simply throw Mexico back half a century in her march of improvement towards a higher state of civilization. It would check all educational progress, all commercial advance, and smother both ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... I had to smother down in my heart was one of the good things that come in a person's life and leave a mark on their natures for always. I think it is a fine plan to save little happinesses and put them up on a spirit shelf to take down ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... excellent custom to smother monsters in the cradle. Then why not later also? Girard's ladies charitably advised the instant using against her of fire and sword. "Let her perish!" cried the devotees. Many of the great ladies also wished to have her punished, deeming it rather too bad that such a creature ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... news, that should smother all the rest, seemed now to take a terrible time in coming. All the gaffers were waiting who had waited to see the result of Mr. Cheeseman's suicide, and their patience was less on this occasion. At length the great Captain unfolded his broad sheet, but even then held it upside down ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... Mary answered, giving me a warning look. "I am delegated to be lady of the manor this evening." She looked so adorable as she curtsied to us that I felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to grab her in my arms and smother her with kisses, but remembering what she had done to me once when I yielded to impulse, ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny

... groaned Mr. Cameron. "Your sister and the girls will never find their way through this smother." ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... was, the enemy fleet remained at its base, and in the end came forth peacefully, as has been described. Had the war gone on, had the German craft not appeared for battle, a plan to smother their base through the medium of clouds of bombing airplanes would unquestionably have been put into effect at a good and proper time. And at the same juncture, no doubt, our Sixth Squadron would have joined with the Grand ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... town, yet nothing town-like. No sooty smother hung above the house-tops and smirched the garden leafage; no tramp of crowds, no clatter of hot-wheel traffic, sounded from the streets hard by. But at hours familiar, bidding to task or pleasure or repose, the music of the grey belfries floated overhead; a voice ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... I found Cassio's handkerchief in your room. Have you a kiss for me? [She looks up; he raises her chin with a finger and kisses her.] That's the way I shall smother you. ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... possession of burned-over areas. Let a moist place be burned over and the aspen will quickly take possession, and soon establish conditions which will allow conifers to return. This the conifers do, and in a very short time smother the aspens that made it possible for them to start in life. The good nursery work of aspens is restricted ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... caught up bodily by the wind in great masses—here in snaky coils, there in whirling eddies, elsewhere in rolling clouds; but these had barely time to assume indefinite forms when they were furiously scattered and swept away as by the besom of destruction, while earth and sky commingled in a smother of whitey-grey. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... by faith," he grew hopeful, happy, and strong. Here is a living seed, but it is very small an awakened, exercised, conscientious, believing monk, is an imperceptible atom which superstitious multitudes, and despotic princes, and a persecuting priesthood will overlay and smother, as the heavy furrow covers the microscopic mustard-seed. But the living seed burst, and sprang, and pierced through all these coverings. How great it grew and how far it spread history tells to-day. We have cause to thank God for the greatness of the Reformation, and to rebuke ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... dress of a woman more than forty years of age. Jabots, ruches, yokes, cascades, vests, and gowns of lace, black or white, are all for the old. Rich lace has an exquisitely softening effect on the complexion. Thin women with necks that look like the strings of a violin should swathe, smother, decorate, and adorn their throats with lace or gossamer fabrics that have the same quality as lace. These airy textures, in which light and shadow can so beautifully shift, subdue roughnesses of the skin and harshness in lines. Old Dame Nature is ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... one spoke and then the young man raised his voice and cried aloud to those without. Immediately Otobu sprang for the fellow and attempted to smother his words by clapping a ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... movements that the Otter could not refrain from laughing, for he is the only one who is spoken of as a jester. The Manito looked at him with a terrible look, and then made a spring at him, and got on him to smother him, for that was his mode of killing animals. But the Otter, when he felt him on his neck, slipped his head back and made for the door, which he passed in safety; but went out with the curse of the Manito. The others ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... of Celia's heart, it was inevitable that Sir James should consent to a reconciliation with Dorothea and her husband. Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike. Sir James never liked Ladislaw, and Will always preferred to have Sir James's company mixed with another kind: they were on a footing of reciprocal tolerance which was made quite easy only when Dorothea ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... to smother her with kisses, and looking lovingly upon him she exclaimed—"God grant that I may live to see my own dear boy ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick

... hardly call this canvas-flap a front-door," I said, "but I think it would be better to leave it open; otherwise we should smother. You need not be afraid. I shall keep my gun here by my bedside, and if any one offers to come in, I'll bring him to a full stop ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton

... perhaps, in history has a monopoly been so rigidly and relentlessly enforced—a monopoly which not only rested upon the nation at home, but which made bold incursions into the sovereignty of foreign states in order to smother their independent trade, or, as in Norway, utterly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... friend!' said Madame Clairval. 'You may rely upon it I will contradict the report wherever I go;' as she said which, she turned her attention upon another part of the company; and Cavigni, who had hitherto appeared a grave spectator of the scene, now fearing he should be unable to smother the laugh, that convulsed him, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... of this arduous journey was defeated by the loss of the provisions I had brought. I despaired of winning the attention of the fugitive to supplications, or arguments tending to smother remorse or revive his fortitude. The scope of my efforts was to consist in vanquishing his aversion to food; but these efforts would now be useless, since I had no ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... Chris as a schoolgirl, tall and stag-like, always running, her rebellious knees tossing up scant petticoats, her long hair rarely leaving more than one eye visible through its smother of tangled silk. She was very brown then and very bony, and so ridiculously soft of heart that her tenderness was regarded by her schoolmates as an unfortunate infirmity. She was tall still, taller than himself, with large limbs and a sort of manly squareness of the shoulders and erectness ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... cold comfort. He didn't want to go out at all. He didn't want to die, not for fifty or sixty years yet, and of all the ways of dying, he wanted least to smother and choke and stifle like a rat walled in ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... of his flight. In the midst of this, while the lady's mind was racked by love, pity, and disappointment, the young physician pressed for a further contemplation of his suit, and met with a repulse; which, though kind, and expressive of gratitude, was such as to smother any hope that he might have entertained of the possession of her devotion. To her father, this decision was the annihilation of a long cherished expectancy; but respecting his child's feelings, and being convinced she must have been actuated by some strong motives in her refusal, he refrained ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... Marcus T. didn't hear the gasp I lets out—I tried to smother it. And the first thing I does when we gets back into the limousine is ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... In my reference to sun baths in the preceding chapter on Blood Purification I placed special emphasis upon the value of light as a vitalizing and stimulating factor in life and health. Ordinarily we not only smother our skins so far as the air is concerned, but we also shut out the light, hiding our bodies in a cellar, so to speak. Our bodies need light as well as air and for this reason dark colored clothing cannot be recommended. For warmth when in the sunshine during the ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... of the Tarhit watercourse, three marches from Timissao. Everybody can detect that there are things missing in my story. Doubtless they guess at some mysterious drama. But proofs are another matter. Because of the impossibility of collecting them, they prefer to smother what could only become a silly scandal. But now you know all the details as well ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... king, "being given more to religious exercises than reigning," says the historian. He would often exhibit his piety in order to draw attention away from His Royal Incompetency. He was not the first or last to smother the call to duty under the cry of Hallelujah. Like the little steamer engine with the big whistle, when he whistled the boat stopped. He did not have a boiler big enough to push the great ship of state and shout Amen ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... undiminished interest to every man born into the world. Most of us, shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker after original answers to these riddles, are contented to ignore them altogether, or to smother the investigating spirit under the featherbed of respected and respectable tradition. But, in every age, one or two restless spirits, blessed with that constructive genius, which can only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with the spirit of mere scepticism, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... not engaged in his employment, Or maturing his felonious little plans, His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest man's. Our feelings we with difficulty smother When constabulary duty's to be done: Ah, take one consideration with another, A policeman's lot is not a ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... our book before the fire. Outside in the night ghostly shapes pass by, ghostly faces press against the window, and at the corners of the house ghostly voices pause for parley, muttering thickly through the swirl and smother of the snow. Inside burns the fire, kindling into glorious pink and white peonies on the nearest wall and glowing warm and sweet on her face as she reads. The children are in bed. She is reading ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... conceive, but my brother denied me art to contemplate: I have strength to perform any honorable exploit, but no liberty to accomplish my virtuous endeavors: those good parts that God hath bestowed upon me, the envy of my brother doth smother in obscurity; the harder is my fortune, and the more ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... seven-mile walk. A great round of cold beef stood at one end of the table, a chicken-pie at the other, and there were early peas and potatoes, a huge cherry-tart, a "junket" equally large, strawberries, and various cakes and pastries, meant to be eaten with a smother of that delicacy peculiar to Devonshire, clotted cream. Every body was very hungry, and not much was said till the first ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... himself. It is necessary, however, after the year 1824, to make due allowance for the terrible strain upon his mind which disposed him to give violent and hyperbolical expression to the mood of the moment. The unhappy passion which he could at times smother, but never subdue, went boring away into his heart like a subterranean fire, consuming his vitals, and occasionally breaking forth into a wild blaze. The following reference to it, in his letter to Franzen (November ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... a few minutes, so she gave him the slate to see if he could read her copy, and by this ruse she found what the lines were. She was so overjoyed she opened her lips and then clapped both hands over them, to smother the ejaculation at her tongue's end. To distract Peter she stuck out her foot and moved it ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... acolytes, its spies. It has assumed the post of guardian to the throne it is seeking to usurp; it protects the house of Valois which it means to destroy. We have decided to take up arms because the liberties of the people and the interests of the nobles are equally threatened. Let us smother at its birth a faction as odious as that of the Burgundians who formerly put Paris and all France to fire and sword. It required a Louis XI. to put a stop to the quarrel between the Burgundians and the Crown; and to-day a prince de Conde is needed to prevent the house of Lorraine ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms, flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we seldom encounter in ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... thicker press, an animal wheeled close to the tires and, stemming the current, sounded a protest. But the young horses, less playful now, divided the great herd and came at last safely out of the smother. The road began to lift, as they rounded the first rampart of the range, and Tisdale's glance fell to her hands. "Those gloves are done for, as I expected," he exclaimed. "I'll wager your palms are blistered. Come, ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... without a word, and at another time we should all have had to turn away to smother the desire to burst out laughing, as we recalled the irritable remarks about the idiot to whom the glass belonged, and the wretchedness of his eyesight, coupled with an opinion that he ought to ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... he found it difficult to smother a hot riot in his breast. When the other boys had gone to their rooms Ken took Kel to task ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... rarest of spiritual flames, and it can not be quenched. Make your appeal to history. Again and again militarism has sought to crush it, but it has seemed to share the very life of God. Brutal inspirations have tried to smother it, but it has breathed an indestructible life. Study its energy in the historical records of the Book or in annals of a wider field. Study the passion of freedom amid the oppressions of Egypt, or ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... it sought to draw them in and merge them in itself. Its great, deep-breathing soul resented the mockery, the insolence, the irritation of the prim garden at its very gates. It would absorb and smother them if it could. And every wind that blew its thundering message over the huge sounding-board of the million, shaking trees conveyed the purpose that it had. They had angered its great soul. At its heart was this ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood

... shade Fumes from a core of smother'd fire, His livery is whose worshipp'd maid Denies herself to his desire. Ah, grief that almost crushes life, To lie upon his lonely bed, And fancy her another's wife! His brain is flame, his heart is lead. Sinking at last, by nature's course, Cloak'd round with sleep from his despair, ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... good? But, sighing, he replies, 'Alas! 310 Trojans we were, and mighty Ilium was; But the last period and the fatal hour Of Troy is come: our glory and our power Incensed Jove transfers to Grecian hands; The foe within the burning town commands; And (like a smother'd fire) an unseen force Breaks from the bowels of the fatal horse: Insulting Sinon flings about the flame, And thousands more than e'er from Argos came Possess the gates, the passes, and the streets, 320 And these the sword o'ertakes, and those it meets. ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... seemed as if the children would smother for lack of air! It was very peculiar. Even the janitor noticed it. He spoke about it to Kara at the head of the back stairs, and she held her hand so as to let him see the new silver ring on her fourth finger, and he let go of the rope on the elevator on ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... insulted by his affected construction that my communications are dictated by the insinuations of others, at the same time that his conscious apprehensions for his misconduct have produced the most abject applications to me to smother my feelings, and entreaties to write in his Lordship's favor to England, and to submit all my affairs to his direction. When his submissions have failed to mould me to his will, he has endeavored to effect his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... could live in it, we'd make the attempt without ye, sir," declared Long Jerry, warmly. "But neither dogs nor men could find their way in this smother It looks like it had set in for a big blizzard. You don't know jest what that means up here in the backwoods. Logging camps will be snowed under and mules, horses and oxen will have to be shot to save them from starvation. The hunting will be mighty poor next fall, for the deer and other varmints ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... you might do 'er off Cape Stiff in the 'igh latitudes yonder, With her main-deck a smother of white an' her lee-rail dipping under, And the big greybeards drivin' by an' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various

... the wet turf, and in one place a chasm cleft the hill. He could not see the bottom, for it was filled with mist, but the height of the rock wall hinted at its depth. A transverse ravine ran into the chasm, and he could hear the roar of a waterfall. Then the mist rolled up in a white smother ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... voice of his accomplice stating to his face, with every circumstance of time and place and incident; and openly proclaiming, with no reserve, suppression, passion, or concealment; all the truth. The truth, which nothing would keep down; which blood would not smother, and earth would not hide; the truth, whose terrible inspiration seemed to change dotards into strong men; and on whose avenging wings, one whom he had supposed to be at the extremest corner of the earth ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... replied the squire, "then you can come with us promptly, for Major Dale will not rest until we get back. Here, you two Dalton girls, don't smother that child. Save a kiss or two for those at home. They will want to know Nellie, too," and Dorothy looked from the little stranger's face to ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... she tried to raise herself on an elbow out of the choking smother of clay-dust. The effort sent a stab of pain through her, exquisite, excruciating. She dropped forward upon her face, and there in ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... was extremely terrible. It seems some cartridges had been blown up by accident between decks, whereby a quantity of oakum in the after hatchway near the after powder-room was set on fire, and the great smother and smoke of the oakum occasioned the apprehension of a more extended and mischievous fire. At the same instant, too, the galleon fell on board the Centurion on the starboard quarter, but she was cleared without doing ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... green, Dalgas and his associates planted dwarf pine with the spruce. Strangely, it not only grew itself, but proved to be a real nurse for the other. The spruce took a fresh start, and they grew vigorously together—for a while. Then the pine outstripped its nursling, and threatened to smother it. The spruce was the more valuable; the other was at best little more than a shrub. The croaker raised his voice: the black heath had turned green, but it was still heath, of no value to any one, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, And Pity from thee more dear ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... shall do the deed—in gloves, however, for I know those books of old, and shall smother myself in sheets before I begin. I don't object to a few days' charing for a change," said Nan briskly. "I love rushing about in an apron, using my muscles instead of my brain, gathering all the ornaments together, and washing them in a ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... had to smother with handkerchiefs, a keen desire to laugh, but the owner of the horse seemed to ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... the innocents, a natural fate. Smother the creature with kindness again, show we are a point in the scale above that old coiler snake—which broke no bones, bit not so very deep;—she will be, she ought to be, the woman she was. That is, if she was then sincere, a dose of kindness should ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... fetch her home in the evening, Jasper being out. I came the field way; for the dust by the road was enough to smother one, and by the last stile but one, what do you ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... uproar. We are about to enter the sacred precincts of Assembly Hall. I feel that on account of my years of experience I must make myself responsible for the behavior of you children. Smother that giggle, Nora O'Malley," he commanded, looking at Nora with an expression of severity that set oddly on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... I had; and often did I strive To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood Stopp'd in my soul, and would not let it forth To find the empty, vast, and wandering air; But smother'd it within my panting bulk, Who almost burst to belch it in ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... In the first place, the smoke will smother us. Then suppose we reached the spot? We might be nearer the rebels than our friends. They know where we are. If they are not taken, they will come back for us. If they are taken, we must do our best to get to our lines and send out a scouting party. Be guided by ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... now nor Mrs. Beale nor Mrs. Wix nor herself at his side, he must be fearfully alone in England. Hour after hour she felt as if she were waiting; yet she couldn't have said exactly for what. There were moments when Mrs. Beale's flow of talk was a mere rattle to smother a knock. At no part of the crisis had the rattle so public a purpose as when, instead of letting Maisie go with Mrs. Wix to prepare for dinner, she pushed her—with a push at last incontestably maternal—straight into the room inherited from Sir Claude. She titivated her little charge ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... could scarcely smother, Yet a glance, in its daring, half-awed and shy, She added,—"While they were about it, mother, I wish they'd ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... an instant another bed was thrown upon her. One of the priests, named Bonin, sprung like a fury first upon it, and stamped upon it, with all his force. He was speedily followed by the nuns, until there were as many upon the bed as could find room, and all did what they could, not only to smother, but to bruise her. Some stood up and jumped upon the poor girl with their feet, some with their knees, and others in different ways seemed to seek how they might best beat the breath out of her body, and mangle ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... that the walls will be cool enough; but there was a lot of woodwork about it. When the roof fell in it would smother the fire for a time, but it might go on ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... child in which the crowd was interested, but now it was the man. He must be saved; but could he be? The heat was evidently becoming unbearable and from time to time a smother of smoke hid him from view. Once when it cleared away he was no longer there, it had suffocated him and he had fallen, a mangled heap, into the ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... up to the great door, with Tylo panting by his side. The poor Dog was half-dead with fright, but his pride and his devotion to Tyltyl obliged him to smother his fears: ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc

... chucked up to us by the watermen, who then shoved off. There was a nice little off-shore breeze a-blowing, and soon after nine we were clear of the harbor and sailing quietly along, the sea smooth and the moon rising red out of a smother of mist. Mr. Robinson came on deck and looked aloft to see what sail was made; I was at the tiller, and stepping up ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant



Words linked to "Smother" :   kill, snuff out, rummage, suppress, disorderliness, cover, surround, inhibit, spread over, extinguish, subdue, disorder, smoke, curb, conquer, stamp down, fume



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