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Tearing   /tˈɛrɪŋ/  /tˈɪrɪŋ/   Listen
Tearing

adjective
1.
Marked by extreme intensity of emotions or convictions; inclined to react violently; fervid.  Synonyms: fierce, trigger-happy, vehement, violent.  "In a tearing rage" , "Vehement dislike" , "Violent passions"



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"Tearing" Quotes from Famous Books



... thinner; from within could be heard a roaring, and the crackling of breaking boughs, until finally the bear darted from the dense forest like a thunderbolt from the clouds. From all sides the dogs were chasing him, terrifying him, tearing him, until at last he rose on his hind legs and looked around, frightening his enemies with a roar; with his fore paws he tore up now the roots of a tree, now charred stumps, now stones that had grown into the earth, hurling them ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... and tearing of wood the bedroom door fell open, and in the same moment Muller and the physician passed through the dining-room. Johann hurried into the bedroom to open the window-shutters, and the others gathered in the doorway. A single look ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner

... did—back to Dixie with his prisoners, tearing up railroads, burning bridges and trestles, and pursued by enough Yankees to have eaten him and his entire command if they ever could have caught him. As they passed into Dixie, "Lightning" captured a telegraph ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... the house and policemen tearing thirty rooms apart upstairs and camping on the roof ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... and sat on the bench. The river was settling decorously into its bed, and in the sunlight the drenched shores shone under a tracery of pools and rillets as though a silvery gauze had been rudely torn back from them, catching and tearing here and there. The men were starting the spring work. The rocker was up, and the spades and picks stood propped against the rock upon which she and Low had sat on that first evening. He sat there now, watching the preparations ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... breed. He only admitted defeat when the last of the water in the canvas tanks was consumed, and the passing ration train had given up leaving anything for him to eat, and steamed past the forgotten post with a derisive whistle. At 139 we enjoyed heavy rain storms, bleak cold days, and a tearing wind; which raised a sand-storm as soon as the rain had sunk in. We were, however, free of outpost duty on the 31st and able to take off our boots at night for the first time for a fortnight, and a surprising number of us were able to celebrate the new year ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... wondering how one stopped. Away from him she felt restless and nervous and will-less and incomplete, like a frustrated animal lost and impotent, with smouldering rage in her heart and sulky fires in her eyes. Why didn't he come to release her, to calm the tearing fever of her blood? ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco

... an egg, and make it into a paste. Use a little of it in the form of a wafer, close the letters with it, and hold the sealed part to the spout of a tea-pot of boiling water. The steam will harden the cement so that the letter cannot be opened without tearing, and will render it more secure than either ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... not,' said Mr. Gibson, tearing the letter in two, and throwing it into the hearth, where he soon saw it burnt to ashes. 'I wish I'd a five-pound house and not a woman within ten miles of me. I might have some peace then.' Apparently, he forgot Mr. Coxe's powers of making mischief; but indeed he might have ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... figs, I say. Send a servant to my house,—any one that you can spare,— Let him fetch a beestings pudding, two gherkins, and the pies of hare: There should be four of them in all, if the cat has left them right; We heard her racketing and tearing round the larder all last night, Boy, bring three of them to us,—take the other to my father: Cut some myrtle for our garlands, sprigs in flower or blossoms rather. Give a shout upon the way to Charinades our neighbor, To join our drinking bout to-day, since heaven is pleased ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... a kind of death; the tearing up of all the roots by which he held to life. Celibates substitute habits for feelings; and when to that moral system, which makes them pass through life instead of really living it, is added a feeble character, external things assume an extraordinary power over them. Birotteau ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac

... quarter of a mile of the shore, the helm was again put down and, as the vessel came partly round, the the anchors were let go. The hawsers ran out rapidly, and the topsail, which was the only sail on her, was let go, the wind catching it and tearing it into ribbons as it was loosed. There was a jerk and a surge as the anchors brought her up, but at the same moment a great wave struck her head. The cables parted, and she again swung ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... the pupil, as a rule, and this is only natural, in regard to the pace at which the aeroplane travels through the air, and at the way in which the ground seems to be tearing away below. Occasionally, in a first flight, this impression of speed, and of height, produce in the pupil a sensation of physical discomfort; but it is one again which, in the majority of cases, ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... therefore he cannot sit down by the loss, cannot be at quiet under the sense of his loss. For sharply and wonderful piercingly, considering the loss of himself, and the cause thereof, which is sin, he falls to a tearing of himself in pieces with thoughts as hot as the coals of juniper, and to a gnashing upon himself for this; also the Divine wisdom and justice of God helpeth on this self-tormentor in his self-tormenting work, by holding the justice of the law against which he has ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... all who cared to engage his services. Suddenly there came running up one who told him that his house had been broken into by thieves, and that they had made off with everything they could lay hands on. He was up in a moment, and rushed off, tearing his hair and calling down curses on the miscreants. The bystanders were much amused, and one of them said, "Our friend professes to know what is going to happen to others, but it seems he's not clever enough to perceive what's ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... the foole yfaith, but the tother Horseleach I wish his blowes trebled. I converst with him, but a Rogue so stuft with the lybrary of new minted[261] words, so tearing the sence, I ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... nightmare in which he was constantly pursuing an extraordinary Fantomas, whom he would seize and bind and who would then suddenly vanish into thin air. At eight o'clock in the morning he appeared at his office. There a surprise awaited him. Upon his desk lay a telegram. Rapidly tearing it open, he ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... 1537, was the father of the illustrious founder of the Royal Exchange. He was of a Norfolk family, and with his three brothers carried on trade as mercers. He became a Gentleman Usher Extraordinary to Henry VIII., and at the tearing to pieces of the monasteries by that monarch, he obtained, by judicious courtliness, no less than five successive grants of Church lands. He advocated the construction of an Exchange, encouraged freedom of trade, and is said to have invented bills of exchange. In 1525 he was nearly ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... instant the two animals stood motionless. The tearing of the cruel barb into her side brought a sudden scream of pain and fright from the mare, and then they both wheeled and broke for safety; but Tarzan of the Apes, for a distance of a few yards, could equal the speed of even these, and the first stride of the mare found her overhauled, with a ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... it was. You hadn't the pluck to hold to your own when Runciman told you not" There was a spice of truth in this which made it all the more bitter. "Runciman knows on which side his bread is buttered. He can make his money out of these swearing-tearing fellows. He can send in his bills, and get them paid too. And it's all very well for Larry Twentyman to be hobbing and nobbing with the likes of them Botseys. But for a father of a family like you to be put off his business by what Mr. Runciman says ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... the express was tearing on at increased speed, Mr. Blumenfeld retired to his compartment, with his wife sleeping in the adjoining one, and within half an hour Rayne beckoned me into his compartment at the farther end, where we ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... the fat cob, who by this time had butted into the lines and was tearing at a hay net as if he hadn't had ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various

... great part of the community thinks it's beyond the pale of criticism—this peculiarity of tearing things to pieces, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... am forgetful. I admit that I am absent-minded, and I furthermore beg to state that with the Jimmies and the Beguelins and Bee tearing subjects for conversation into mental rags and tatters for the admiration and astonishment of the Lombards, I think I might be excused for not noticing that Mary forgot the salad. She forgot it as completely ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... something cruelly strong was tearing at her, to make her go into the next room and beg Madame Bernard to help her find Giovanni, if only that she might see his face and hear his voice and say good-bye just once more. She laid her hands on the window-sill as ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... Mirsky came half an hour after they were—Oh, yes, I see. What a fool I was! I was forgetting. Of course, when I first missed the tracings, they were in this walking-stick, safe enough, and I was tearing my hair out within ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... be behind in what seemed safe, made offer of his own carcase, which was accepted before he had finished; the Tiger instantly tearing his flank open, and all the ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... my time [he writes on November 16] for the last fortnight has been spent in arranging books and tearing up papers till my back aches ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... of mine is driving me mad with all his carrying on. I say to him, I say: 'Anything wrong in this house, jail-bird? Well, then, why go tearing around with that gang of good-for-nothings, who will die at the end of a rope, every one of them!' now oste sinor Martines, you know how to talk in good grammar. You just tell him what is what. You tell him they'll ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... however, Alex too sprang into the car, as he did so tearing off his handkerchief and stuffing it into one of the water-cans. "I couldn't have held on another minute," he choked. "I believe the handkerchief ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... was assigned to the right, C.F. Smith's to the left. The day was spent feeling through the thick woods and along deep ravines, and high, narrow winding ridges. At times a distant glimpse was caught, through some opening, of the gleam of tents crowning a height; at times, a regiment tearing its way through blinding undergrowth was startled and cut by the sudden discharge from a battery almost overhead, which it had come upon unawares. The advancing skirmish-line was in constant desultory conflict with the posted picket-line. Batteries, occasionally, where an opening through ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force

... to avoid being torn in pieces by the Dogs, takes a Cord that she had and hangs her self upon a Beam, tying her Child (which she unforunately had with her) to her foot; and no sooner had she done, yet the Dogs were at her, tearing the Child, but a Priest coming that way ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... worst of the gale was blown over. But the sea ran high. Yet the rack and scud of the tempest, its mad, tearing foam, was subdued into immense, long-extended, and long-rolling billows; the white cream on their crests like snow on the Andes. Ever and anon we hung poised on their brows; when the furrowed ocean all round looked like a ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... Sir George Grey, a fine fellow. Sure, no one might be more thankful to the Giver of all than myself. The Lord grant me grace to serve Him with heart and soul—the only return I can make!... It was a bitter parting with my wife, like tearing the heart out of one. It was so unexpected; and now we are screwing away up the coast.... We are all agreeable yet, and all looking forward with ardor to our enterprise. It is likely that I shall come down with the 'Pearl' through the Delta to doctor them if they become ill, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... completely inverted position. To these observations I may add, on the high authority of Azara, that the Carrancha feeds on worms, shells, slugs, grasshoppers, and frogs; that it destroys young lambs by tearing the umbilical cord; and that it pursues the Gallinazo, till that bird is compelled to vomit up the carrion it may have recently gorged. Lastly, Azara states that several Carranchas, five or six together, will unite in chase of large birds, even such as herons. All these ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... you don't understand, my bairn; and I don't rightly understand it myself. It's their house—something about a mortgage—now the poor Laird's gone, and they only waited until he was under the ground to come tearing up from London in their motor to look at their property, and it was more than David could do to put them off, and so, sooner than have you troubled by ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... tried again, tearing splinters from the fence. "Say, now, I'll tell yeh what I came back here fer -t' git married; and if you're willin', I'll do it tonight. Come, now, whaddy ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... end than the whole ground became a scene of busy, active life. Every man, save the one who was holding my string, rushed in a regular scramble upon the property, and, like a legion of devils, began tearing and pulling at everything in promiscuous confusion, to see who could carry most away. Some darted at the camels and began pulling them along, others seized the ponies and began decamping; others, again, caught up the cloths, or dates, or rice, or anything they could lay hands on, and ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... grand piece, which he names the "Breaking up of the ice in the North River," and tells us that the "ice running against Polopay's Island with a terrible crash," is represented by a fierce fellow travelling with his Fiddle-stick over a huge Bass-Viol at the rate of 150 bars a minute, and tearing the music to rags—this being what is ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... immediately indulges its natural desire to lick the smooth blade, and instantly the end of its tongue clings fast to the cold steel. Try as it may, it cannot pull loose without tearing its tongue out, which usually it will not do, but sits quietly by, until released by the trapper, released only to die. Luckless weasel, ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... of their smiling faces, and to make sure of their smiles she entered a shop and bought a small packet of sweetstuff, and with the paper in her hand continued her walk home. The cheap prints in a newspaper shop delayed her, and the workmen who were tearing up the road forced her to consider how a suspension of traffic would interfere with her business. She was now in Broad Street, and when she raised her eyes she saw her own house. A new building high and narrow, it stood in the main street at the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... a long time weeping; and then strong hands were upon her, lifting her up and dragging her away, without warning and without word. She did not understand, and she fancied herself in the arms of some supernatural being of monstrous strength that was tearing her from what was left of life and love. She struggled senselessly, but she could find no foothold as she was swept through the open door. She gasped for breath, as one does in bad dreams, and bodily fear almost reached her heart through its sevenfold armour ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... grief, or rend her bosom with unavailing sobs; the same end awaited us all, the same last resting place: and other platitudes by which anguished minds are recalled to sanity. But oblivious to sympathy, she beat and lacerated her bosom more vehemently than before and, tearing out her hair, she strewed it upon the breast of the corpse. Notwithstanding this, the soldier would not leave off, but persisted in exhorting the unfortunate lady to eat, until the maid, seduced by the smell of ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... calumny, and while beholding everything with the eyes of his spies, he should take care to conceal his own emotions before the spies of his enemies. Like a fisherman who becometh prosperous by catching and killing fish, a king can never grow prosperous without tearing the vitals of his enemy and without doing some violent deeds. The might of thy foe, as represented by his armed force, should ever be completely destroyed, by ploughing it up (like weeds) and mowing it down and otherwise afflicting it by disease, starvation, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... admiring throngs to Gloriana's feet. But, strange to relate, this able queen does not keep the monster securely chained, for it soon breaks bonds, and the poet closes with the statement that it is again ranging through the country, this time tearing poems to pieces! ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... between change of function and change of structure. This instance, allied in nature to the other, is presented by those varieties, or rather sub-varieties, of dogs, which, having been household pets, and habitually fed on soft food, have not been called on to use their jaws in tearing and crunching, and have been but rarely allowed to use them in catching prey and in fighting. No inference can be drawn from the sizes of the jaws themselves, which, in these dogs, have probably been shortened mainly by selection. To get direct proof of the decrease of the muscles ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... women, I believe, among all nations of antiquity were accustomed to express violent grief by tearing their hair. This must have been a great and affecting sacrifice to the object bemoaned, as they considered it a part of themselves and absolutely essential to their beauty. Fine hair has been a subject of commendation among all people, and particularly the ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks

... weary sigh on reading above, tearing it in two, tossed it into the fire; now opening one from his cousin ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... roaring explosion from the wide mouthed weapon and a cloud of smoke filled the air. But simultaneously there came a sound of ripping, tearing and splintering and the lock of the door, shot clean out by the heavy charge, clattered down to the floor on ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... he would have mounted a horse and pursued Haig to his ranch, with such consequences as anybody except himself could easily have foreseen. But he was not so far gone in frenzy as to hurt Claire, as he must have done in tearing himself loose from her. He stood a moment in tragic helplessness, grinding his teeth, and hurling muttered imprecations out into the night that covered Philip Haig. Then he looked down at the golden head pressed against ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... said that Louis XIV. and the priests were destroying France and tearing its flesh, and that Frenchmen did not know it. The proclamations, edicts and laws published against the Huguenots were known to all Frenchmen. Benoit[17] gives a list of three hundred and thirty-three issued by Louis XIV. during the ten years subsequent ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... gathered round the fallen hart, and were allowed to wreak their fury on him by tearing his throat, happily after sensibility was gone; while Nicholas, again baring his knife, cut off the right fore-foot, and presented it to the King. While this ceremony was performed, the varlets ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... order, one company had sped for the water wagon and were now slowly trundling that unwieldy vehicle, pushing, pulling, straining at the wheels, from its night berth close to the corrals. Rushing like mad, in no order at all, the men of the other company came tearing across the open parade, and were faced and halted far out in front of officers' row by Blakely himself, barefooted and clad only in his pyjamas, but all alive with ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... happened the second time I guessed my letter to the President of France might prove a menace, and, tearing it into little pieces, dropped it over a bridge, and with regret watched that historical document from the ex-President of one republic to the President of another float down the Sambre toward the sea. By noon I decided I would not be able to make the distance. For twenty-four ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis

... my answer, for Lady Angela looked back, and he hastened to her side. He seemed in no hurry, however, to leave the place. The evening was cloudy and unusually dark. A north wind was tearing through the grove of stunted firs, and the roar of the incoming sea filled the air with muffled thunder. The Prince looked about him with ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Castle only the evening before, and that there were nine chances to one that his lordship's worst fears were realized, and twenty-two chances to one that if the poor little fellow had disappointed him, the Earl was even now in a tearing rage, and ready to vent all his rancor on the first person who called—which it appeared probable would be his ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... more violently and riotously in some places since the beginning of the war, had been accelerated by recent Parliamentary enactments. Thus, in May 1643, just when Milton was preparing to leave London on his marriage holiday, there had been a tearing down, by authority, with the sound of trumpets and amid the huzzas of the citizens, of Cheapside Cross, Charing Cross, and other such street-monuments of too Popish make. At the same time the anti- Sabbatarian "Book of Sports" had been publicly burnt. Then followed (Aug. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... started up to interfere, for I had grown fond of the little wild things whose growth I had watched from the beginning, when a great splashing began on my left, and I saw the old mother bird coming like a fury. She was half swimming, half flying, tearing over the water at a great pace, a foamy white wake behind her.—"Now, you little villain, take your medicine. It's coming; it's coming," I cried excitedly, and dodged back to watch. But Musquash, intent on his evil ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... they boarded the Kanzlar the pains of nostalgia were sweeping over the respectable members of Chinde society like waves of nausea, and tearing them. With a grim appreciation of their own condition, they smiled mockingly at the ladies on the quarter-deck, as you have seen prisoners grin through the bars; they were even boisterous and gay, but their gayety was that of children at recess, who know ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... where a combat raged, there the Ragged Men swarmed howling. Their hatred impelled them to suicidal courage and to unspeakable atrocities. From his tower, Tommy saw a man of Yugna, evidently a prisoner. Four Ragged Men surrounded him, literally tearing him to pieces like the maniacs they were. Then he saw dust spurting up in a swift-advancing line, and all four Ragged Men twitched and collapsed on top of their victim. A steam gun had done that. A fighting patrol of the men of Yugna swept fiercely ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... followed, in a succession of single sharp explosions without any roll between. The mountain shook with the windy shocks, but the first of the thunder-storm was the worst, and it soon passed. The wind and the rain continued, and the darkness was filled with the rush of the water everywhere wildly tearing down the sides of the mountain. Thus heaven and earth held communication in torrents all the night. Down the steeps of the limpid air they ran to the hard sides of the hills, where at once, as if they were no longer at home, and did not like the change, they began to work mischief. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... behind the village, in the borders of the bush, and sheltered from the trade. The three men’s beds were on the floor, and a litter of pans and dishes. There was no standing furniture; Randall, when he was violent, tearing it to laths. There I sat and had a meal which was served us by Case’s wife; and there I was entertained all day by that remains of man, his tongue stumbling among low old jokes and long old stories, and his own wheezy laughter always ready, so that he had no sense of my depression. He ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hill on the other side of the river, but the defile was so narrow that falling rocks often rebounded quite across it. The slip occurred just opposite the spot on which Hilda and the old man stood, and as the terrible shower came on, tearing down trees and rocks, the heavier masses being dashed and spurned from the hillside in innumerable fragments, it became evident that to escape beyond the range of the chaotic deluge ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... was robbed the other night, dad has been suspicious of them," Grace answered. "He has tried to watch his horses with especial care, too. That's one thing that makes him so tearing mad to-day. Oh, you should have heard him!" and Grace ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... recover breath to shout a primitive insult, Hugh walked into the station. Here, whilst his wrath was still hot, a man tearing at full speed to catch a train on another platform bumped violently against him. He clenched his fist, and, but for the gasped apology, might have lost himself in blind rage. As it was, he inwardly cursed railway stations, cursed England, cursed civilisation. His muscles were quivering; sweat ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... a mind which loved intricacy, but of one which could not relish simplicity, which had not strength enough to enjoy the broad masses of the earlier leaves, and cut them to pieces idly, like a child tearing the book which, in its weariness, it cannot read. And on the other hand, we shall continually find, in other examples of work of the same period, an unwholesome breadth or heaviness, which results from the mind having no longer any ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... cover," he muttered. "I don't fancy I'll follow. The dogs there might have a weakness for tearing my throat out and Henson will keep, I'll just hang about here till daylight and wait for my gentleman. And I'll follow him to the end ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... lighted by the torch of ambition in the hands of fallen Webster. It was the culmination of slave-holding Virginia's wrath. It was invading the virgin territory of liberty-loving Massachusetts. It was hunting the fugitive on free soil, and tearing him from the very embrace of ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... were Nydia's emotions! she had connived, she had assisted, in tearing Glaucus from Ione; but only to transfer, by all the power of magic, his affections yet more hopelessly to another. Her heart swelled almost to suffocation—she gasped for breath—in the darkness of the vehicle, Julia did not ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... opinions here, the Germans seem neither to wish nor to care about the restoration of the Bourbons; but they talk loudly of the necessity of tearing Alsace and Lorraine from France. In fact, they wish to put it out of the power of the French ever to invade Germany again; a thing however little to be hoped for. For the minor and weaker Germanic states have always hitherto (and will probably again at some future day) invoked the assistance ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... unconsciously acquired over her feelings. For a length of time I was myself equally blind, and the moment I ventured to fear the dangers of the attachment she was beginning to form. I took the resolution of tearing myself altogether from her society, and without the delay of an hour, ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore

... fear that when the war is done there will rise up in Germany a louder and stronger cry against the Christianity of Christ than ever was attempted after the Franco-Prussian War. The "man of blood and iron," the man with the mailed fist and the iron heel, I much apprehend, will not be satisfied with tearing down the emblem of the physical Body of Christ, but to slake his bloodthirsty spirit he will want to go on to belabour His Mystical Body no less. God ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... struck by lightning. The “bolt” fell on the north-east corner tower, hurling to the ground, inside and outside, massive fragments of the battlemented parapet. The electric fluid then passed downward, through the building, emerging by a window of the third storey, in the western side, tearing away several feet of masonry, and causing a great rent in the solid wall beneath. The writer inspected the damage within a few days of the occurrence, and was astonished at the violence ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... an idiot's head; and its Young-France passengers staring out of window, with beards down to their waists, and blue spectacles awfully shading their warlike eyes, and very big sticks clenched in their National grasp. Also the Malle Poste, with only a couple of passengers, tearing along at a real good dare-devil pace, and out of sight in no time. Steady old Cures come jolting past, now and then, in such ramshackle, rusty, musty, clattering coaches as no Englishman would believe in; and bony women dawdle about in solitary places, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... every Christian should know the ground and reason of his faith, and be able to maintain and defend it where it is necessary. But up to this time, the idea that the laity should read the Scriptures has been treated with derision. For in this matter the devil has hit on a fine measure, in tearing the Bible out of the hands of the laity,—and this is what he has thought: "If I can keep the laity from reading the Scripture, I will then bring the priests over from the Bible to Aristotle, so that gossip they what they will, the laity must hear just what they set forth; while ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... her boat, with the cloudiness of the sky darkening the misty sea, united to conceal the bold manoeuvre of the cutter. She had almost gained full headway ere an oblique shot, directed by mere chance, struck her stern, tearing the upcurved head of the tiller in the hands of the cabin-boy, and killing him with the splinters. Running to the stump, the captain huzzaed, and steered the reeling ship on. Forced now to hoist back the boat ere giving chase, the stranger ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... one can understand without having experienced it, unless he is endowed with the imagination of a great poet. And as few husbands have a great poetic imagination, it is only after they have felt the claws of the monster tearing at their own hearts that they can understand their wives' feelings, and are willing to act so as to save them—and themselves, of course—the cruel tortures. Many wives and many husbands have talked to me and written to me on the subject, and, as ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... doorway into the spiritual world. We needed relief, moreover, from our too long and exclusive contemplation of that figure in the chair. This wild wind, too, has tossed our thoughts into strange confusion, but without tearing them away from their one determined centre. Yonder leaden Judge sits immovably upon our soul. Will he never stir again? We shall go mad unless he stirs! You may the better estimate his quietude by the fearlessness ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Simonie bounded like a tigress through the room, tearing at the bell till it sounded like a tocsin and the servants came rushing in terror ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach

... feet in a tearing rage. "We've got lives to lose," he cried, "and, by G—, we're not afraid to ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... at the curtains and grasped him in his powerful arms, Baron Dangloss and others tearing the weapon from his hand. The utmost confusion reigned—women screaming, men shouting—and above all could be heard the howls ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... rapped at the door and brought in a telegram which she tore open nervously. "He will be here in four days," she said, tearing the telegram petulantly, and not at all as if she were glad to receive it. "Is there anything else that ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... ripped themselves out like the tearing of cloth, "send your damned jackals outside, unless you want them to see their master treated as ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... been tied clean over his nose, for that when he looked down he could see her feet, wherever she moved; and Charley had often been heard to say that she had the prettiest foot and ankle he had ever seen. But there he goes, head over heels across a chair, tearing off Caroline's gown skirt in his fall, as he clutches it in the hope of saving himself. Now, that is what I call retributive justice; for she threw down the chair for him to stumble over, and, if he has grazed his knees, she suffers under ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... flying through the air at the lariat ends narrowly missed several of our party, but became entangled with the only two sound pack saddles remaining of the entire number with which we started, and dashed them against the adjacent trees, tearing off the side pieces of the saddletrees, and rendering them useless. Our first thought was that the damage done was beyond repair. We had, however, a few thin boards, the remnants of our canned goods boxes, and from my seamless ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford

... overboard, hand over hand, from a secure station in the rigging; or stealing the boatswain's silver call, and letting it drop from the end of the cat-head; or his getting into one of the cabin ports and tearing up the captain's letters, a trick at which even the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... . . . they give me half-sheet roles of old men and old nincompoops, to me! . . . do you hear? . . . to me, who for forty years have upheld the entire classical repertory to me! Oh! oh!" he hissed quietly tearing his finger nails convulsively. ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... expelled the intruding and unwelcome canine attendants from the meeting-house with fierce blows and fiercer yelps. The swarming dogs, though they were trained to hunt the Indians and wolves and tear them in pieces, were much fonder of hunting and tearing the peaceful sheep, and thus became such unmitigated nuisances, out of meeting as well as in, that they had to be muzzled and hobbled, and killed, and land was granted (as in Newbury in 1703) on condition that no ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... story he had read of an attack a lynx had made upon a hunter, and the more he thought of it the surer he was that at any moment he would feel the lynx upon his back clawing and tearing at his throat. Afraid, wild eyed, and peering into every shadowy recess as they advanced, he still had no thought of deserting Toby. Come what might, he was determined to see the adventure through. In this he was heroic. One who faces danger without fear or appreciation of ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace

... moaned Jack, "I'm sinking;" and we could see Gyp, who was howling furiously, tearing at the soft moss as if to ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... writing to Charles that the judgment would not be of much profit, except for the Emperor's honour and the Queen's justification, and was congratulating his master that he was not bound to execute the sentence.[913] Flemings were tearing down the papal censures from the doors of their churches,[914] and Charles was as convinced as ever of the necessity of Henry's friendship. He proposed to the Pope that some one should be sent from Rome to join Chapuys in "trying to move the King from his ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... the streets. Of course we were all most horribly alarmed, and wanted to know whether anybody had been bitten; but the boy was off like a shot, and two minutes afterwards the wretched dog itself came tearing past, as mad as a dog could be, its jaws a mass of foam, and snapping right and left. As soon as ever it was safe our friends took the opportunity of escaping—of course in the opposite direction; and then a crowd of villagers came along in ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... his boots and put a rose in his coat, he will do. What a tearing swell he will be when he is dressed," thought Mr. Barker, as he ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... slow but sure death of formalism: large classes, material results, and a lack of psychology made formalism the path of least resistance. Painting became "blobbing," constructive work was interpreted as "courses" of paper folding, cutting, tearing; books of these courses were published with minute directions for a graduated sequence. The aim was obedient imitation on the part of the child, and the imagined virtues accruing to him in consequence were good habits, patience, accuracy and technical skill. Self-expression ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... round, she first and foremost gave P'ing Erh a couple of whacks, and, with one kick, she banged the door open, and walked in. Then, without allowing her any time to give any explanation in her own defence, she clutched Pao Erh's wife, and, tearing her about, she belaboured her with blows. But the dread lest Chia Lien should slip out of the room, induced her to post herself in such a way as to obstruct the doorway. "What a fine wench!" she shouted out abusingly. "You make a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... to exist. In France the Parlement of Paris was against them, and even after the king had granted them permission to settle in the country in 1553, the Parlement accused them of jeoparding the faith, destroying the peace of the church, supplanting the old orders and tearing down more than they built up. Nevertheless they won their way to a place of great power, until, sitting at the counsels of the monarch, they were able to crush their Catholic opponents, the Jansenists, as completely ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... chief made a resolute attempt to follow his companions, tearing off the few garments which he was wearing and endeavouring to jump into the water. Early on April 1st the Essington was brought abreast of Louron. Not a canoe hove in sight until nine o'clock, when two belonging to ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... grave? Thou wilt not, canst not, my Antonio, make such unheard-of misery thy stepping-stone to fame and fortune." This impassioned appeal to all his better feelings at length reached the heart of Antonio. For a short time he continued to withhold the drawing; but his kindly nature triumphed. Tearing his sketch into fragments, he threw himself into the extended arms of his beloved teacher, who with deep emotion placed his trembling hand on the curling locks of his pupil, and implored the blessing of Heaven on his better feelings ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... willing to lay hold on her; and she groaned out, 'O! dogs of hunting, these fellows are upon our traces; but follow me! follow! with the mystic wands for weapons in your hands.' And we, by flight, hardly escaped tearing to pieces at their hands, who thereupon advanced with knifeless fingers upon the young of the kine, as they nipped the green; and then hadst thou seen one holding a bleating calf in her hands, with udder distent, straining it asunder; ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... until I die. And shall I tell thee what that world is like? I was Arsenius, tutor of the emperor. There at Byzantium I saw the world which thou wouldst see, and what I saw thou wilt see. Bishops kissing the feet of parricides. Saints tearing saints in pieces for a word. Falsehood and selfishness, spite and lust, confusion seven times confounded. And thou wouldst go into the world ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... plain before us—the hail and sleet driven so fiercely before the hurricane, that a man was half-blinded if he turned his face towards it for a moment—the forked lightning shooting from pitch-dark clouds, leaping and running fearfully over the level ground, blackening, splitting, tearing from their places the stoutest rocks on the moor. Three masses of granite lay heaped together near the spot where we had halted—the furze-cutter pointed to them with his bill-hook, and told us that ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... pictures, and his immense and dreary canvas, in which the prostrate shepherds and the angel in Joseph's coat of many colors look as if they must have been thrown in for nothing; and West's brawny Lear tearing his clothes to pieces. But why go on with the catalogue, when most of these pictures can be seen either at the Athenaeum building in Beacon Street or at the Art Gallery, and admired or criticised perhaps more justly, certainly not more generously, than in those earlier years when we ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... my court, I really thought a thunderbolt would fall, and plough the pavement up. Every brick and stone in the place seemed to have an echo of its own for the thunder. The waterspouts were overcharged, and the rain came tearing down from the house-tops as if they had ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... Maddened to witness this deed of barbarism, Gerbino, as if courting death, recked no more of the arrows and the stones, but drew alongside the ship, and, despite the resistance of her crew, boarded her; and as a famished lion ravens amongst a herd of oxen, and tearing and rending, now one, now another, gluts his wrath before he appeases his hunger, so Gerbino, sword in hand, hacking and hewing on all sides among the Saracens, did ruthlessly slaughter not a few of them; till, as the ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Internationale and its secret Central Committee—to which I have the honor to belong"—and here his sneer was frightful—"I tell you that before a conquering German army had recrossed the Rhine this land of chattering apes would be tearing one another for very want of ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... Revolutionary fame: Camille Desmoulins, though he stutters in speech, Manuel Tallein and Company; Journalists Gorsas, Carra, Mersier, Louvet of Faubias; Clootz, Speaker of Mankind, Collet d'Herbois, tearing a passion to rags; Fahre d'Egalantine Speculative Pamphleteer; Legendre, the solid Butcher; nay Marat though rural France can hardly believe it, or even believe there is a Marat, except ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Susan to use the word about her, or Mr. Battle either. And she rattled on in her violent and excited way and was on the verge of the hystericals now and again. And for my life I couldn't tell if she was pleased as Punch about it, or in a proper tearing rage. I don't think she knew herself how ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... large rabbits' hole. Into this hole Pan had worked his way so far that there was nothing of him visible but his hind legs and tail. Bevis could hear him panting in the hole, he was working so hard to get at the rabbit, and tearing with his teeth at the roots to make the hole bigger. Bevis clapped his hands, dropping his cowslips, and called "Loo! Loo!" urging the dog on. The sand came flying out behind Pan, and he worked harder and harder, as if he would ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... submissiveness to Germany. But there is another way of looking at her attitude. She has courageously effaced her individuality more completely even than Turkey for the sake of the common cause. And she has lost nothing by the painful effort. Her various peoples who were expected to be tearing each other to pieces have given us a splendid example of discipline and self-abnegation. In the Skoda works at Pilsen, where machine guns are made, fifteen thousand workmen are cheerfully toiling and moiling every ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... I, tearing off my remaining mustache, in shame and passion together. "Among my other misfortunes I have that of being young; and what's worse, I was ashamed of it; but I begin to see my error, and know that a man may be old without gaining either in dignity ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... offered them water several times, they would never taste it; and yet they continued in perfect health and vigour. Two or three of them will live very peaceably together in the same vessel; though I had one instance of a mouse tearing another almost in pieces, and when there was plenty of provisions ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... A young man came tearing across the street at a great rate. "Mitchell!" he shouted. "Mitchell! Look here!" He thrust a telegram into Mitchell's hand. "Just reached me by A.D.T. from the Carlton. Let me have some money, will you? About three thousand. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... I admit, and the election day itself is positively exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at times. I remember once, when I was very little, and walking out with my governess, tearing down a Liberal bill, in spite of all she said to the contrary. True, it was on what she considered her own side, though I don't think she knew enough to distinguish between the two; still her real annoyance was occasioned more by the look of ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren

... witnesses with your own wisdom, if you think your time may not be better employed in tracing the fugitives. I believe he gained entrance as one of some dancing or masking party. Rowley, you know, is accessible to all who will come forth to make him sport. So in stole this termagant tearing gallant, like Samson among the Philistines, to pull down our ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... who provokes them, whether it's Prometheus, or Agamemnon, or Agamemnon's great great grandfather. It's the tragedy of human responsibility, the most brutal tragedy of all. All these people are crumpled up with it, they go about tearing their hair over it, and howling out [Greek: drasanti pathein]. There isn't any Fate in that, you ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... child in the way!—and, as there was no one else to do it, I ran into the road to remove that child. I had to pull it aside quickly, and there was no time to say 'Allow me'—in fact, there was no time for anything—and in my hurry I lost my balance and fell in the mud, and the wagon came tearing over me. It was an unpleasant sensation, but I wasn't hurt, you know; neither the wheels nor the horses touched me. I got very dirty, though, and I have no doubt I looked as ridiculous as I felt, and for that I expected to be tenderly dealt ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... sisters, the Nornas, watering them daily from the Life-Spring, kept the tree flourishing. Seated under its shade, the elder sisters (Past and Present) spun away briskly at the wonderful web of Time, which the youngest (the Future) amused herself by tearing to pieces. Far down in Giant-land, where the roots began to shoot, was an ancient well, guarded by the good giant Mimir (Memory). There the gods always went for a morning draught that should make them wise in their daily tasks, since this was ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... numerous to mention, but not too numerous to eat. Ants, also, for the ant-eaters of America, the aard-vark of Africa, and the pangolin of Asia. The great ant-eater of South America is an animal sometimes measuring eight feet in length. It lives exclusively on ants, which it procures by tearing open their hills with its hooked claws, and then drawing its long tongue, which is covered with glutinous saliva, over the swarms which rush out to defend their dwelling. Many bushels of ants would be needed for the pair of ant-eaters before the ark landed on ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton

... my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that I could think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm himself a little. He was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his head, trying to force me from him, and to force himself from me, not answering a word, not looking at or seeing anyone; blindly striving for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted—a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... forth like a cannon-ball by some fierce discharge of heavenly artillery, it would certainly prove a very formidable weapon indeed; and one could easily imagine it scoring the bark of some aged oak, or tearing off the tiles from a projecting turret, exactly as the lightning is so well known to do in this prosaic workaday world of ours. In short, there is really nothing on earth against the theory of the stone axe being a true thunderbolt, except the ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... signed a codicil to his will last night! He's in a tearing hurry about it. He called in Miss Bremerton and wanted her to witness it. And she refused. So father threw it into a drawer, and nobody ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... train had stopped on account of a hot driving-box on the engine; the hind brakeman had been sent back to put out a flag, but, imagining there was nothing coming, he had neglected to do his full duty, and before he knew it, a fast freight came tearing around the bend, and a tail-end collision was the result. Seeing the awful effects of his gross neglect, the brakeman took out across the country and was never heard of again. I fancy if he could have been found that night by the passengers and train-crew his lot would have been ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... strongly tempted to suspect that the cleavage planes will be proved by you to have slided a little over each other, and to have been planes of incipient tearing, to use Forbes' expression in ice; it will in that case be beautifully analogical with my laminated lavas, and these in composition are intimately ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... leaving, however, an available space for throwing a fly upon between them. This is the great resting-place of the fish on their way to the lake and the upper river. The water is high, and almost flowing over the bog. The wind catches it fairly, tearing along the surface and sweeping up the crisp waves in white clouds of spray. The party of strangers who had cards to fish were before us, but they are on the wrong side, trying vainly to send their flies in the face of the southwester, which whirls their ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... track into the forest. There was not much undergrowth, and the trees were not planted very close, so our way was not impeded. We jogged on over a carpet of wet leaves, stumbling over the roots of the trees, tearing our clothes on the brambles, bringing down showers of raindrops from the branches of pine or fir we brushed on our headlong course. Now a squirrel bolted up his tree, now a rabbit frisked back into his hole, now a soft-eyed deer crashed away into the bushes ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... of steel, was equal to the task of tearing a strip from his brown prison jacket, and with this he securely gagged the poor sentry. Another strip from another jacket bound his hands behind him, and still another secured him to a mooring cleat, face upward. This done, they ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... troops after taking them found the main resistance still before them, when their energies were almost exhausted by their painful journey through the mire. The artillery had done its work only too well in tearing the soil to pieces; but had none the less left intact many a pill-box which would only succumb to the direct hit of a 9.2-inch shell. The dice of success were thus loaded heavily against the attackers, ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... Tearing off and throwing away from the vulgar doctrine of hell all the incrustation of material errors and poetic symbolism, the pure truth remains that God will forever see that justice is done, virtue rewarded, vice ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger



Words linked to "Tearing" :   bodily function, bodily process, activity, body process, tear, intense



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