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Vulnerable   /vˈəlnərəbəl/   Listen
Vulnerable

adjective
1.
Susceptible to attack.
2.
Susceptible to criticism or persuasion or temptation.  "An argument vulnerable to refutation"
3.
Capable of being wounded or hurt.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Vulnerable" Quotes from Famous Books



... Corinth. They were prepared to lend moral support to the Syracusans, by sending an embassy to encourage them in their resistance, but of more substantial aid they said little or nothing. Now was the time for Alcibiades to play his part. He knew, far better than any of his hearers, all the vulnerable points of Athens, and had no scruple in using his knowledge for her ruin. Having obtained permission from the magistrates, he rose to address the Spartan assembly; and his speech is given at full length by the historian, who was himself an exile at the time, and may ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... the spirit-watch which he carried in his spectral fob-pocket, he vanished, leaving me immersed in the deepest misery of my life. Not content with ruining me socially, and as a lecturer; not satisfied with destroying me mentally on the seas, he had now attacked me on my most vulnerable point, my literary aspirations. I could not rest until I had read his "three-page quatrain" on "Immortality." Vulgar as I knew him to be, I felt confident that over my name something had gone out which even in my least self-respecting moods I could not ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... profound and exclusive thought and labour? What Office would, under such circumstances, have insured the life of young Mr Follett, who, with such a fatal flaw in his constitution, was nevertheless following a profession which would hourly attack his most vulnerable part? Poor Follett! who can tell the apprehensions and agonies concerning his safety, to which he was doomed, from the moment of his first solemn summons to the grave, on the occasion alluded to? What had happened, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... was a sort of family. Members of families may love each other, but it doesn't have to happen. For a second it was as if Ramos had Tiflin spitted on some barb of his taunting smile—aimed at Tiflin's most vulnerable point. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... simple and unvitiated as hers, to offer the bribe of riches, and to lavish the incense of flattery and adulation. Attack her in her love. Appear to her in the form of him to whom she is most ardently attached. If Imogen is vulnerable, this is the quarter from which she must be approached. Thus far Roderic thou mayest try thy power; but if by this avenue thou canst not surprise her heart and overpower her virtue, be then wise. Recollect thy courage, strengthen thy resolution, ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... 'Tis true, he had fallen back, but it was to give his enemy the heavier blows. He brought all the powers of his army into play; ever on the defensive, 'tis true, yet ever striking his enemy in his most vulnerable part. His face was always to the foe. They could make no movement in which they were not anticipated. Such a man was Joseph E. Johnston, and such his record. Farewell, old fellow! We privates loved ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... vulnerable heel, and there are times in the lives of each of us when the arrow of accident, harmless at all other periods, can enter and ruin. Colonel Bancker had kept his secret, or believed that he had kept it, inviolate; but his fatal moment had come. Whether really frightened out of all recollection ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... 1643, the shires lying in the neighbourhood of London, which were devoted to the cause of the Parliament, were incessantly annoyed by Rupert and his cavalry. Essex had extended his lines so far that almost every point was vulnerable. The young prince, who, though not a great general, was an active and enterprising partisan, frequently surprised posts, burned villages, swept away cattle, and was again at Oxford before a force sufficient to encounter him could ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... shining equipages. Young or old, they were to him newly exciting. His attitude was the rather scornful one of a conqueror whose victories have cost him too little. They had been mysteries to him, but now, all in a day, he understood women. They were vulnerable things, and men ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... South acknowledged as antagonistic to their welfare and interest. This roused the ire of all his old army associates, and many of his former friends now began to hurl poisoned and fiery shafts at the old "War Horse" of the South, and no place so vulnerable as his army record. This, of course, was resented by him, and a deadly feud of long standing sprang up between Generals Longstreet, Mahone, and a few others, who joined him on the one side, and the whole army of "Codfederate Brigadiers" on the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... possible to love the mother without loving the son—had played, indeed, a father's part to him since Henry Marsham's death. He knew the brilliant, flawed, unstable, attractive fellow through and through. But his knowledge left him still vulnerable. He thought little of Oliver's political capacity; and, for all his affection, had no great admiration for his character. Yet Oliver had power to cause him pain of a kind that no other of his Parliamentary ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... as it was, was fatal to the calculations of the monarch of the jungle. From his rear came two shots in rapid succession, each hitting him in a vulnerable portion of his body. He leaped up into the air, rolled over on the edge of the hollow, and then came down, head first, just grazing Dick's arm, and landing at the boy's feet, ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... showing except his face, and that in the gray light of the dawn was a sickly white, like the belly of a fish. After he had walked to his mark he never took his eyes from me. They seemed to be probing around under my uniform for the vulnerable spot. I had never before had anyone look at me, who seemed to so ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... creeping, or even shrunk into his shell, the attack never presents any difficulty. The shell possesses no lid and leaves the hermit's fore-part to a great extent exposed. Here, on the edges of the mantle, contracted by the fear of danger, the Mollusc is vulnerable and incapable of defence. But it also frequently happens that the Snail occupies a raised position, clinging to the tip of a grass-stalk or perhaps to the smooth surface of a stone. This support serves him as a temporary ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... impenetrable armor of bony scales. On any occasion of alarm, it is his custom to thrust his long nose between his hind-legs and roll his body and tail compactly together, so as to appear like the half of a ball, presenting no vulnerable part to an enemy. In this condition he affords an excellent example of a self-involved philosopher, defending himself from the annoyance of the world by a stoical crustiness, and seeking all his enjoyment within his own centre. His muscular strength being great, and especially that of his fore-legs, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... and had thus incurred the displeasure of the court. Locke's prudence had, however, been such that it would have been to little purpose to bring him even before the corrupt and partial tribunals of that age. In one point, however, he was vulnerable. He was a student of Christ Church in the University of Oxford. It was determined to drive from that celebrated college the greatest man of whom it could ever boast. But this was not easy. Locke had, at Oxford, abstained from expressing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the Ideal involves so much emotion as to render the Idealist vulnerable by human passion, however long and well guarded, still vulnerable,—liable, at last, to a union with Instinct. Passion obscures both Insight and Forecast. All effort to elevate Instinct to Idealism is abortive, the laws of their being not coinciding ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... tumbling him howling over the silent prairie; but while this diversion was going on in front, the remainder of the pack started for his hind legs, to hamstring him. Upon this the poor brute turned to the point of attack only to receive a repetition of it in the same vulnerable place by the wolves, who had as quickly turned also and fastened themselves on his heels again. His hind quarters now streamed with blood and he began to show signs of great physical weakness. He did ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... he didn't that time, because the brute came along to bag me while I was swimming in a river. Suey, hearing me call, ran out from the tent with my rifle, and shot him from the bank. He got him through the eye—the eye and the throat are the only two vulnerable spots in a crocodile. A bullet will rebound off the head as ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... so ingeniously made invulnerable, was, however, like Achilles, vulnerable at one point: not in its heel, but in its head, or rather, in the two heads into which it ran out-the Legislative Assembly, on the one hand, and the President on the other. Run through the Constitution and it ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... to wound me where I was most vulnerable, began by soothing my ruling passion; and then proceeded to detail the physical chances of a ruined constitution, of death, and of failure; and afterward to represent, with unassuming but with stedfast ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... the defence, it is always possible to conquer by delay, and it was perfectly understood between Spinola and his ablest advisers at the Spanish court that the blows must be struck thick and fast, and at the most vulnerable places, or that the victory would ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which, because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out of sight within the more resisting and hard qualities—like the vulnerable body within a steel armour. His appeal is less loud, more profound, less distinct, more stirring—and sooner forgotten. Yet its effect endures for ever. The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... possession of the place, recommended itself greatly to Lona—and to me also. The children were now so rapidly developing faculty, that I could see no serious obstacle to the success of the enterprise. For the terrible Lilith—woman or leopardess, I knew her one vulnerable point, her doom through her daughter, and the influence the ancient prophecy had upon the citizens: surely whatever in the enterprise could be called risk, was worth taking! Successful,—and who could doubt their success?—must not the Little Ones, from a crowd of children, speedily ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... mother!" cried Mildred gayly; "if people only knew it, you have one very vulnerable side. That was a master-stroke on the part ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... lately," he said in ruminative tone, as he picked at the green baize of his desk-top. He spoke with a slight querulousness, as if these wily and hardy adventurers had wilfully hit upon him as the weak spot in the defences, as the vulnerable point of the Grindstone. In particular he saw a pair of burning black eyes, a pair of eager, sinewy hands strewing drawings over the pink and gold brocades of his front parlour suite, and a shock of dark hair that swished about over a high square forehead as the work of hurried exposition ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... world. Medland thought that in all likelihood, if he gained his request, he would keep his word. That thought made the temptation stronger, but it forced itself on him when he remembered the number of years during which he had been even more vulnerable in one respect than he was now, and yet the man had left him alone. He could say neither ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... secretly encouraged them.. Although Madame Necker had plenty of wits, she, bred in the mountains of Switzerland, had no conception of such an idiosyncrasy as that of M. de Maurepas, a man who saw in an outspoken expression of feeling only an opportunity of discovering the vulnerable point. As soon as he knew M. Necker's susceptibility he flattered himself that, by irritating it, he would drive him to give in his resignation." [onsiderations sur la ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... superior. Even above the roar of the motors his voice seemed quiet, assured. "We must not land now," he said. "We can't land at North Island. It would focus their attention upon our defenses. That thing—whatever it is—is looking for a vulnerable spot. We must.... ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... scolded, like some infirm old man tormented by boys. His game after we led him forth was to keep himself as much as possible in the shape of a ball, but with two sticks and a cord we finally threw him over on his back and exposed his quill-less and vulnerable under side, when he fairly surrendered and seemed to say, "Now you may do with me as you like." Then we laughed in his face and ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... precipice. Three sides of the city are water,—St. Charles River nearest Wolfe, then the St. Lawrence across the steep face of the rock, then the St. Lawrence again along a still steeper precipice to the far side. Only the rear of the city is vulnerable; but it ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... showman, who had a place assigned him as underwarden. Then came a batch of young damsels, all in white, being chimney-sweepers' daughters; and after them a flourish of trumpets—that is, cow-horns—a squadron of costermongers' donkey-lads mounted, with their pocket-handkerchiefs floating from the vulnerable point ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... boys quickly discovered Pelle's vulnerable point, and used it for their own advantage; and Pelle had to give way and put up with things in order to keep his father out of their conversation. He did not always succeed, however. When they were in the mood, they said quite absurd things about one another's homes. They were not intended to be ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... concocted; for my namesake had much about him, in character, of that unassuming and quiet austerity which, while enjoying the poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising, perhaps, from constitutional disease, would have been spared by any antagonist less at his wit's end than myself;—my rival had a weakness in the faucal or guttural organs, which precluded ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... thoroughly, gave him what license he chose: knowing that the more he took, the better for their purpose. And thus while the blundering cheat—gull that he was, for all his cunning—thought himself rolled up hedgehog fashion, with his sharpest points towards them, he was, in fact, betraying all his vulnerable ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... then thirty-three years old, under the form of "Letters to a Provincial by one of his Friends," put forth a series of [63] pamphlets in which all that was vulnerable in the Jesuit Fathers was laid bare to the profit of their opponents. At the moment the quarrel turned on the proposed censure of Antoine Arnauld by the Sorbonne, by the University of Paris as a religious ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... America swarm with crocodiles, and these wage perpetual war with the jaguars. It is said, that when the jaguar surprises the alligator asleep on the hot sandbank, he attacks him in a vulnerable part under the tail, and often kills him, but let the crocodile only get his antagonist into the water, and the tables are turned, for the jaguar is held under water ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... yet in the oil-field conspiracy that the newspapers or the public would accept as evidence of fraud and corruption. But on the other hand, Bucks was only a man, after all; a man with a bucaneer's record, and by consequence vulnerable beneath the brazen armor of assurance. If ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... particularly in the Senate some of the most reactionary men had been returned at the preceding election. It is also a presidential election year and neither of the great parties is willing to take one unnecessary step which in its judgment may tend to add to the number of its adversaries or to its vulnerable points in some particular section of the country. All of the 435 members of the House and one-third of the Senators come up for re-election in November of this year—they, too, are shy and sensitive. Some legislation, notably child labor after it had been endorsed by the National Democratic platform, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... implant their poisonous fangs into the flesh of the dancers. It even appears as though the greater the number of bites, the more delighted are the participants, who hold the reptiles in the most careless manner and allow them to strike where they will, and to plant their horrible fangs into the most vulnerable parts with impunity. When the dance is over, the snakes are taken back to the woods and given their liberty, the superstition prevailing that for the space of one year the reptiles will protect the tribe ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... asked. "If you, the woman, acknowledge yourself vulnerable, how can I, the man, be so discourteous as to assure you that I am proof? And yet, I feel that there is no danger for ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... seeks to entangle me in his meshes!" murmured Wagner to himself, as he paced the strand. "The demon has failed to tempt me as yet—thrice has he failed;—and now he musters all his force to assail me,—to assail me, too, in the most vulnerable points! But, O Heaven, give me strength to resist the dread influence thus brought to bear upon me! What course can I adopt? what plan pursue? If to-morrow must witness a renewal of that scene which occurred this evening, I shall ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... death—but the Tocsin, automatically with her pseudo uncle's death, could publicly appear again. Her death could no longer benefit the Crime Club, since it, the Crime Club, with the supposed uncle dead, could not profit through the false Henry LaSalle inheriting as next of kin! It was the weak link, the vulnerable point in the stupendous scheme of murder and crime with which these hell fiends had played for and won, so far, the stake of eleven millions. Not that they had overlooked or been blind to this, they ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... do was either to kill the pilot or else to strike some vulnerable part of the engine, thus disabling it and wrecking the plane. Those were chances which had to be taken continually; but as a rule the rapidity of flight ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... In the pamphlets of the day it was much discussed. One of the points in Mason's "Letter of Objections" was that "the general legislature is restrained from prohibiting the further importation of slaves for twenty odd years, though such importations render the United States weaker, more vulnerable, and less capable of defence."[24] To this Iredell replied, through the columns of the State Gazette of North Carolina: "If all the States had been willing to adopt this regulation [i.e., to prohibit the slave-trade], I should as an individual most heartily have approved of ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... few seconds whiter than before. Harold saw and understood. He could not speak; he lowered his head silently. Her eyes glittered more coldly. The madness that every human being may have once was upon her. Such a madness is destructive, and here was something more vulnerable than herself. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... unversed in the great Anglo-American pastime. He strove to seize his aggressor, to strangle him, but his fingers failed to grip what they sought. At the same time Mr. Heatherbloom's arms shot up, down and around, with marvelous precision, seeking and finding the vulnerable spots. The prince soon realized he was being badly punished and the knowledge did not serve to improve his temper. Had he only been able to get hold of his opponent he could have crushed him with his superior weight. A stationary ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... little Nan, and Nan, as most children did, had taken a fancy to her. Annie stood still, and clasped her hands as the dark idea came to her to steal the heart of little Nan from Hester, and so revenge herself on her. By doing this she would touch Hester in her most vulnerable point—she would take from her what she valued most. The temptation came swiftly, and Annie listened to it, and thought how easy it would be to carry it into effect. She knew well that no little child could resist her when she ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... hill was crowned with a fortification. These fortifications were connected by rifle-pits, which were kept constantly filled with men. On the river we had a fleet of gun-boats, improvised from ordinary steamers by surrounding their vulnerable parts with bales of hay. The river was low, so that it was necessary to watch several places where fording was possible. A pontoon bridge was thrown across the Ohio, and continued there until the siege ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... after due deliberation, to cut out Mr Escot in the young lady's favour. The practicability of this design he did not trouble himself to investigate; for the havoc he had made in the hearts of some silly girls, who were extremely vulnerable to flattery, and who, not understanding a word he said, considered him a prodigious clever man, had impressed him with an unhesitating idea of his own irresistibility. He had not only the requisites already specified for fascinating female vanity, he could likewise ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... previously to his abdication of the supreme power; and this was a preliminary which doubtless they would have admitted and ratified with unanimous approbation. It therefore appears that he could be exposed to no inevitable danger on this account: but there was another quarter where his person was vulnerable, and where even the laws might not be sufficient to protect him against the efforts of private resentment. The bloody proscription of the Triumvirate no act of amnesty could ever erase from the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... the tendon of the leg above the heel, so called as being the tendon by which Thetis held Achilles when she dipped him in the Styx, and where alone he was in consequence vulnerable. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... arrangements were bad ones, and this was where the Bill was most vulnerable on its merits; for self-government without the control of taxation and expenditure is ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... shock which knocked him breathless did not make the wise brain waver in its plan of campaign. Before he sought to rise, up drove his bared teeth, at the sow that was plunging across him. And those teeth clove deep into her pinkish nostrils;—well-nigh the only vulnerable spot, (as Lad knew) in her bristling ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... negotiations are drawn up as may be desired; and the governor has to give in payment what they demand, even if he be unable. If he do not act thus, woe to him; for they reach him in conversations and pulpit in his most vulnerable spot, his honor. Consequently, as I know that to be usual here, I am resolved not to credit what they have written of Lucas de Vergara Gaviria; on the other hand, I am meanwhile not sure of the contrary. I consider him a good soldier, although ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... Republican party must rise into its place. The Democratic party derived its strength, originally, from its adoption of the principles of equal and exact justice to all men. So long as it practised this principle faithfully, it was invulnerable. It became vulnerable when it renounced the principle, and since that time it has maintained itself, not by virtue of its own strength, or even of its traditional merits, but because there as yet had appeared in the political ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... endanger Tarzan, so constantly were the two duelists changing their positions. Tarzan felt the tail slowly but surely insinuating itself about his neck though he had drawn his head down between the muscles of his shoulders in an effort to protect this vulnerable part. The battle seemed to be going against him for the giant beast against which he strove would have been a fair match in weight and strength for Bolgani, the gorilla. And knowing this he suddenly exerted a single super-human effort, thrust far apart the giant ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... strength, and unless it be practically solid, his hand contains at least one reentry. The leader by his opening can attack only one-quarter of the No-trump fortification, and it is his duty to pick out the spot which promises to be most vulnerable. A No-trump call is very likely to spell game unless a suit can be established against it. In order to accomplish this it is generally necessary to start with the first card led. Therefore, making the right original opening is probably the only opportunity to ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... are no grand entertainments where there is no money; no lords and ladies where there are no entertainments—and there lay the poor lodger in the desolate house, groaning on a bed no longer his, smitten by the hand of God in the part where he was most vulnerable. Of what use telling such a man to take comfort, for he had written the "Minstrel" and "Rob Roy,"—telling him to think of his literary fame? Literary fame, indeed! he wanted ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... department has ever proved the vulnerable portion of false religions,—the portion which, if I may use the metaphor, their originators could not dip in the infernal river. The ability of drawing the line, in the early and ignorant ages of the world, between what man can of himself discover and what he cannot, is ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... case, it is evident that the author of "Vanity Fair," whose own pencil makes him grey-haired, has had the best of it, though his children may have had the worst, having, at all events, succeeded in hitting the vulnerable point in the Becky bosom, which it is our firm belief no man born of woman, from her Soho to her Ostend days, had ever so much as grazed. To this ingenious rumour the coincidence of the second edition of Jane Eyre being dedicated to Mr. Thackeray has ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... these matters Brigham Young has supreme control. His power is the most despotic known to mankind. Here, by the way, is the constitutionally vulnerable point of Mormonism. If fear of establishing a bad precedent hinder the United States at any time from breaking up that nest of all disloyalty, because of its licentious marriage-institutions, Utah is still open to grave punishment, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... remembered the words of the spirit, how none of woman born should hurt him; and smiling confidently he said to Macduff, "Thou losest thy labour, Macduff. As easily thou mayest impress the air with thy sword, as make me vulnerable. I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... which they got over ground and the amount of fatigue they could undergo. To afford perfect protection to his line supplying the army from its base at Louisville, as against these raiding bands, if infantry was to be employed, Rosecrans's entire force was needed, posted by brigades at the vulnerable points. To make an advance and thus lengthen his lines, simply increased the present difficulties. Without making the necessary preparation to protect his line of supplies, Rosecrans would hamper ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... between the Kurus and Pandus there was a great struggle between Bhagadatta and Arjuna. In this fight, Bhagadatta being invincible, and Arjuna vulnerable, the latter called Krishna to his aid, who, receiving the charge of Bhagadatta on his breast, blunted the force of the weapons.[7] In like manner, Satish Chandra having received these attacks on his face, peace was restored. ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

... thenceforth a stain upon them, and the guilty one go unrebuked for it? So I spoke to the unhappy man as I never thought myself warranted in speaking to any other mortal, hitting him hard, doing my utmost to find out his vulnerable part, and prick him into the depths of it. And not without more effect than I had ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... war, or else be degraded before mankind. But, gentlemen, you must not shrink back from the mere word war; you must consider what is the probability of its occurrence. I have already stated publicly my certain knowledge how vulnerable Russia is; how weak she is internally. But the best clue to you as to what will be her future conduct, if you act decisively, will be gained by examining the extreme caution and timidity with which, in the late events, she felt her way, before she ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... one great disadvantage in attacking France. The blow could not be delivered against the front from St. Mihiel to the Swiss frontiers. This front is vulnerable only where the Vosges Mountains are broken by the great gaps at Belfort, Epinal, and Nancy; and these gaps are easy to defend and well backed up in rear by great bases of supply excellently served by many radiating railroad ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... adroitness. If he failed now, it would be final. He thought he knew where she might be really vulnerable. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... could,' said Conyngham with the quickness of his race to spy out his neighbour's vulnerable point. 'For the sake of Edith and the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... locomotion that have been going on, almost as wild—or would be if we were not so fatally accustomed to them—and quite as dangerous, as the idea of setting up a free and sovereign state in the Isle of Dogs. All the European empires are becoming vulnerable at every point. Surely the moral is obvious. The only wise course before the allied European powers now is to put their national conceit in their pockets and to combine to lock up their foreign policy, their trade interests, and all their imperial and international interests ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... fool, yesterday," he cheerfully ruminated. "If I only handle this woman rightly, then I may get the hold I want on this old recluse Johnstone, congested with the fat pickings of forty-five years. A close-mouthed old rat is he, and yet it seems that he is vulnerable after all. If he is playing fast and loose with the government he will never get his honors before he gives up the sleeping trust of the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... Europe; that to destroy that enemy, by some means or other, the force opposed to it should be made to bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that system exerts; that war ought to be made against it, in its vulnerable parts. These are my inferences. In one word, with this republic nothing independent can co-exist The errors of Louis XVI. were more pardonable to prudence, than any of those of the same kind into which the allied courts may fall. They have the benefit ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... in this part of the province will be decided."[413] "The Montreal frontier," said the officer selected by the Duke of Wellington to report on the defences of Canada, "is the most important, and at present [1826] confessedly most vulnerable and accessible part of Canada."[414] There, then, was the direction for offensive operations by the United States; preferably against Montreal, for, if successful, a much larger region would be isolated and reduced. ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... prided myself not a little on that account. So that the blow is full upon my sore place. 'Tis on the side I could be the most easily penetrated. But Achilles could be touched only in his heel; and if he was to die by an enemy's hands, must not the arrow find out that only vulnerable place? My jealousy is that place with me, as your ladyship observes; but it is seated deeper than the heel: it is in my heart. The barbed dart has found that out, and there it sticks up to ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... far removed in time. We lose sight of evidence. We dispense with the leadership of reason, and let inclination and imagination guide. This is a bias which antiquity must meet and, if it may, master. If the Iliad and the Bible were vulnerable in this regard, Shakespeare was not. He was a modern. His thought is neither ancient nor mediaeval. He has the characteristics of modern life, begotten of the hot-blooded era in which he lived. The modern ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... are vulnerable, as well as we," Carolyn remarked in a sorry imitation of her original cocksureness, as she opened the play by ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... six hundred miles to the Red Sea. Nature had interposed a vacant solitude between the ambition of two rival empires; the Arabians, till Mahomet arose, were formidable only as robbers; and in the proud security of peace the fortifications of Syria were neglected on the most vulnerable side. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... show up an iceberg's bulk. And so in a few moments the Titanic had run obliquely on the berg, and with a shock that was astonishingly slight—so slight that many passengers never noticed it—the submerged portion of the berg had cut her open on the starboard side in the most vulnerable portion of her anatomy—the bilge. [Footnote: See Figure 4, page 50.] The most authentic accounts say that the wound began at about the location of the foremast and extended far back to the stern, the brunt of the blow being taken by the forward plates, which were ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... landlord placed me at the table. There is nothing so helpful to a disconsolate man as a good dinner. It dissipates melancholy and stimulates persistency. Never preach high moral rectitude or the possibilities of industry to a hungry man. First give him something to eat, then should there be a vulnerable spot to such admonition you will succeed. If not, he is ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... smothering his victim. Boone disentangled his left arm, and with his knife dealt a furious blow upon the snout of the animal, which, smarting with pain, released his hold. The snout is the only vulnerable part in an old black bear. Even at forty yards, the ball of a rifle will flatten against his skull, and if in any other part of the body, it will scarcely produce any ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... philosophical reformers, the authors of Martinus Scriblerus ought not to be overlooked. Their happy ridicule of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is universally known; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's Essay. In this part of the work it is commonly understood that Arbuthnot had the principal share."—See Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopaedia Britannica, note to p. 242, and also note ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... interested in the subject and notwithstanding his conviction that the hypothesis was sound, Darwin was quite aware that it was probably the most vulnerable part of the "Origin". Thus he wrote to H.W. Bates, April 4, 1861: "If I had to cut up myself in a review I would have (worried?) and quizzed sexual selection; therefore, though I am fully convinced that it is largely true, you may imagine how pleased ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... different and more difficult matter than sowing one's wild oats at home. Owing to having baked the back of one of my boots in drying it at a fire, after my fourth immersion in a bog, I have had rather a bad heel, but am easier in that vulnerable part now, having cut out the ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... point for cocaine and marijuana bound for US and Europe; banking industry vulnerable to ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... the big man's vulnerable point; and a subtle sweetness flooded Garth's breast as he felt him begin to fail. Foul living was telling in the end. Grylls struggled for his breath in loud, strangling sobs; and Garth could hear his bursting heart knock at his ribs. The smith's arms of him little by little ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... leading fore leg, which is consequently more liable to suffer from the injurious effects of work than the non-leading leg; and, as we all know, to canter or gallop comfortably, a lady's horse has to lead with his off fore when the leaping-head is on the near side; and vice versa. Also, the vulnerable side of the back and withers of an animal which carries a side-saddle, is the one which is opposite to that on which the leaping-head is fixed. I am afraid that these practical considerations would not outweigh the dictates of fashion and ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... fellows, none were sunk or fairly riddled with shot; but scarcely one went out of that sharp, brief battle efficiently offensive. The starting of bolts might easily be remedied, but it is clear that the revolving machinery of the turrets is far too delicate and vulnerable; and that these are liable to become "jammed" by a chance shot at any moment. This objection is the more serious, when you consider how miserably these vessels seem to steer. Almost all were more or less "sulky" as soon as they felt the strong tideway, and the huge Ironsides ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... the Defense Department's qualitative distribution program was forcing it to take large numbers of the less gifted. Certainly the number of Negroes capable of moving up the career and promotion ladder was reduced and the Navy left vulnerable to further ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... monster, and started back, so that he was forced to leap to the ground; but the two dogs were more staunch, and sprang at the animal, whilst their master struck at it with his sword, but still without reaching a vulnerable part, and a blow from the tail had thrown him down, and the dragon was turning upon him, when the movement left the undefended belly exposed. Both mastiffs fastened on it at once, and the knight, regaining his feet, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rapid population growth of 3.3%. Inflation jumped to 35% in 1994 (compared to 3% in 1993) following the 50% currency devaluation in January. Commercial and transport activities, which make up almost 36% of GDP, are extremely vulnerable to developments in Nigeria as evidenced by decreased reexport trade in 1994 due to a severe contraction in Nigerian demand. The industrial sector accounts for less than 10% of GDP and mainly produces foods, beverages, cement, and textiles. Support by the Paris Club and official bilateral ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... novel arrangement, and Mona, who seemed as utterly at a loss to account for it as the rest, became rather piqued at Minnie's serene imperturbability under her most potent thrusts, and was fain to exercise her wit on some more vulnerable object. Minnie kept closely to her work during lesson time, and even during the pauses between classes was observed to sit quite still, attentively contemplating the toe of her boot, and never once running over to whisper to Mabel as ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden

... with the pilots drilled not only in the manipulation of their individual machines, but to work with others in military formations and groups, while increased attention was paid to weapons and the protection of vulnerable parts. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... the crawling of my skin as I looked upon the methodical obliteration of men's work. I can see the tendrils splaying out over the sidewalks, choking the roadways, climbing walls, finding vulnerable chinks in masonry, bunching themselves inside apertures and bursting out, carrying with them fragments of their momentary prison as they ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... might help him to solve this doubt. Something told him that his obligation to his mother involved the understanding that he would not even attempt to discover her secret; but he could not prevent his thoughts from wandering around it, and making blind guesses as to the vulnerable point. ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... conventions, when double guards stood at all doors and at the infrequent windows; when all communication was cut off and the twin lenses of the telestereos and the microphones were dead. Prince Joro had told her, with weary cynicism. But Joro had also told her that the oligarchs guarded this vital and vulnerable ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... all the men seclude themselves and maintain their concealment. To do otherwise is to court a raking artillery outburst. The German aeroplane, detecting the tendency of the trenches describes in the air the location of the vulnerable spot and the precise disposition by flying immediately above the line. Twice the manoeuvre is repeated, the second movement evidently being in the character of a check upon the first observation, and in accordance with instructions, whereupon the Tommies, to ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... town. The good lady prepared the speech she was going to make to Monsieur Godeau; Julie tried to teach her how she was to touch the heart of her father, and did not hesitate to confess that love of rank was his vulnerable point. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... also vacillating and indeterminate. At one time she would appear ready to join the fortunes of the allies, and immediately after direct her endeavours to secure the Russian frontier from the assault of the allied armies. It was generally believed that Russia was more vulnerable from the confines of Podolia, and by a campaign carried into Poland, than elsewhere. Austria dreaded the appearance of French and English uniforms in too close proximity to Russian Poland; nor was Prussia less timid of that phenomenon; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... lines of defence, but by a series of mutually supporting posts arranged chequerwise and in depth. This arrangement was intended to break up the enemy's attack formation, to stop parts of it and to allow other parts to advance, but to advance only in such places as would make them most vulnerable to counter-attack. This principle applied also down to the company and even the platoon. It is easily seen that a good deal of organisation was demanded from the battalion commander, while the smallest ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... physical. My idea is that, taking one hundred ordinarily healthful young soldiers from a regiment in active service, and putting them into Andersonville, by the end of the third month at least thirty-three of those weakest and most vulnerable to disease would have succumbed to the exposure, the pollution of ground and air, and the insufficiency of the ration of coarse corn meal. After this the mortality would be somewhat less, say at the end of six months ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... in hand. They are in such awe of him; they regard him as something almost more than mortal. If they learn that he is vulnerable—who knows what ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... indifferent to ordinary tittle-tattle as a rhinoceros. But, by George,—when it comes to stealing ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds, and the delicate attentions of all the metropolitan police, one begins to feel that one is vulnerable. When I get up in the morning, I half feel that I shall be locked up before night, and I can see in the eyes of every man I meet that he takes me for the ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... chiefly mean intellectual and not practical difficulties. Religion is identified with the tenets of a Church system, or of a theological system; and it is felt that modern criticism has assailed these tenets in many vulnerable points, and made it no longer easy for the open and well-informed mind to believe things that were formerly held, or professed to be held, without hesitation. Discussions and doubts which were once confined to a limited circle when they were heard of at all, ...
— Religion and Theology: A Sermon for the Times • John Tulloch

... lady, happening to turn suddenly, caught and fully recognized his lowering expression. It accorded only too well with her cousin's words in regard to Van Berg's estimate of herself, and greatly increased her resentment towards the one who had already wounded her vanity—the most vulnerable and sensitive trait in her character. The flush that deepened so suddenly upon her face was unmistakably that of anger. She promptly turned her back upon her critic, nor did she look towards him again until the close of the evening. That his ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... husband, proves to have been unworthy of her trust. The elder Christensen has also had a compromising intrigue of the same kind; and it becomes obvious that each male creature is so indulgent in this chapter toward every other male creature, because each knows himself to be equally vulnerable. There is a sort of tacit freemasonry among them, which takes its revenge upon him who tells tales out of school. It is a consciousness of this which makes Christensen, after having declared war to the knife against the Riises, withdraw his challenge and become doubly ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... the bull leader of the herd fell on his haunches. The bullet had found the vulnerable spot under the fore shoulder, where one should always shoot a musk-ox. To aim at the head is a ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... pressed valiantly, and several with bows discharged their missiles with fatal effect, sweeping away the Arabs one by one and apparently striking terror into the hearts of the others. Arabs are not so vulnerable by arrows as other people on account of their voluminous robes, which savage weapons seldom penetrate, it being only head, legs and hands that arrows can reach. Nevertheless so full were the quivers of our sable escort, that the flights were of sufficient ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... this ridge, which was the keystone of his armies in Flanders, he was immune from any vulnerable attack on our part, and was free to launch any offensive operation from it by using it as a stepping-off place. Added to this, the northern end of the heights afforded him an uninterrupted view of the southern portion of the Ypres salient, which was a source of great annoyance to our forces on that ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... with the bridges guarded, it would be difficult for the forces with which we had been contending during the day to get in on our night encampment. At least they could not well take us by surprise. But this made the position all the more vulnerable from the north. It was idle to suppose that Stuart's cavalry was doing nothing. It was as certain as anything could be that his enterprising horsemen were gathering on our track, urging their steeds to the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... and day, every young leaf and every flower-bud had a few on them. They did not sting, but attacked and bit my finger when I touched the plant. I have no doubt that the primary object of these honey-glands is to attract the ants, and keep them about the most tender and vulnerable parts of the plant, to prevent them being injured; and I further believe that one of the principal enemies that they serve to guard against in tropical America is the leaf-cutting ant, as I have observed that the latter are very much afraid of the ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... It was another matter with the dogs. With them seal-hunting was far too favourite a sport for the opportunity to be neglected. Against a full-grown seal, however, they could do nothing; its body offered no particularly vulnerable spots, and the thick, tight-fitting skin was too much even for dogs' teeth. The utmost the rascals could accomplish was to annoy and torment the object of their attack. It was quite another matter when the young ones began to arrive. Among this small game the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... trade winds; rainy season (June to October); vulnerable to devastating cyclones (hurricanes) every eight years on average; average temperature ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... fire was wholly extinguished. Tamasjo went over to sleep in one of the canoes, for if there should be any attack on the camp it was believed that it would begin in this quarter, as the frail craft might be reckoned their weakest and most vulnerable point. ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson

... have been actuated by hatred or revenge in accusing his companion. But the mind of the procureur was made up; he felt assured that Benedetto was guilty, and he hoped by his skill in conducting this aggravated case to flatter his self-love, which was about the only vulnerable point left ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... a female ear is the first declaration of an attachment, especially when urged by youth and merit!—it assails her heart in the most vulnerable part, and if it be not fortified unusually well, seldom fails of success. Happily for Julia, the image of Antonio presented itself to save her from infidelity to her old attachment, ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... with. This is the mother Tiamat, who burns to avenge the deaths of her kindred. To wage war against her the hero makes elaborate preparations, and equips himself with special weapons. The queen of monsters cannot be overcome by ordinary means, for she has great cunning, and is less vulnerable than were her husband and son. Although Ea may work spells against her, she is able to thwart him by working counter spells. Only a hand-to-hand combat can decide the fray. Being strongly protected by her scaly hide, she must be ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... cynicism that pierced with unerring skill the one joint in his armour he knew to be vulnerable, the judge took a minute in which to control his rage and then addressing the half- averted figure in the ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... he comes again," Helen answered agreeably, and her stepmother realized that the only weapons to which this girl was vulnerable were ones not willingly used: such foolish things as tears or sickness; she seemed impervious to finer tools. Helen's looks at the moment were unabashed: she was trying to remember what Zebedee had said, both for its own sake and to gauge its effect on Notya ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... with him ever another heavy retribution. It is of proof against conciliation, love, and confidence; against all gentle sympathy from without, all trust, all tenderness, all soft emotion; but to deep stabs in the self-love, it is as vulnerable as the bare breast to steel; and such tormenting festers rankle there, as follow on no other wounds, no, though dealt with the mailed hand of Pride itself, on weaker pride, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... pathos of some look or pose grips the heart harder than any spoken word and so it was that this unstudied trick of expression found the vulnerable spot in Burt's armor—the spot which might have remained impervious indefinitely to any plea. It went straight to his one weakness, his single point of susceptibility, and that was his unsuspected but excessive fondness ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... many years he had accustomed himself to lead a life of great luxuriousness, catering for body and mind in every taste that could be elegantly enjoyed; and again proud of the elegance of every enjoyment. The change of circumstances which touched his pride, wounded him at every point where he was vulnerable at all. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... but our porcupine does not. I have tried all sorts of tricks with him, and made all sorts of assaults upon him, at different times, and I have never yet seen him assume the globular form. It would not be the best form for him to assume, because it would partly expose his vulnerable under side. The one thing the porcupine seems bent upon doing at all times is to keep right side up with care. His attitude of defense is crouching close to the ground, head drawn in and pressed down, the ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... relieving the men who stood guard, he became homesick and exceedingly anxious to return to Pittsburgh. He had determined to take the night train and I was at a loss to know how to keep him with me until I thought of his one vulnerable point. I told him, during the day, how anxious I was to obtain a pair of horses for my sister. I wished to make her a present of a span, and I had heard that St. Louis was a noted place for them. Had he ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... world. My Lords, these are considerations to be borne in mind with respect to this question of Denmark. It may be said that other combinations might be made—that although we could not ourselves attack the German Powers with any great amount of success, yet there are vulnerable points upon which they, and especially Austria, may be open to attack; that those doctrines and theories which Austria and Prussia have put forward, with regard to foreign nationalities, may be retorted upon them, and especially upon Austria with effect—they ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... more vulnerable at another point. The fundamental assumption on which it is based is utterly groundless. It amounts to this, that all knowledge of causes, whether efficient or final, is interdicted to man, and incapable of being reached ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... such matters. She liked money. She liked encouraging the adventurous disposition of her subjects, who were fighting the State's battles at their own risk and cost. She saw in Philip's anger a confession that the West Indies was his vulnerable point; and that if she wished to frighten him into letting her alone, and to keep the Inquisition from burning her sailors, there was the place where Philip would be more sensitive. Probably, too, she ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... thought the squire. "If the stone-clad fellow should not possess a vulnerable spot somewhere on his body I shall ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... few moments they would be vulnerable if Carrots Kelso happened to walk to the bank and look across. It had to be chanced. Scotty started out and Rick drew abreast of him. They swam cautiously, making no noise or splash, reached the opposite bank safely and crawled up the beach until they ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... materials and a market for manufactures and investment capital have not produced a United Latin American front against a common Yankee menace, but a sturdy refusal even of the tiniest Latin American Republic to surrender or limit its sovereignty has pushed a thorn into the vulnerable side of Washington's Monroe Doctrine ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... who differ from us, of the real force of many of their objections and criticisms on our proceedings, our friends, and our ideas, it is far better to hold our peace, than from impatience at what we feel to be the vulnerable point of our own side, to rush into explanations before we are sure of ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... was watching a great team. They reminded him of Dale's varsity, though they did not play that fiendish right-field-hitting game. Ken had a numbness come over him at the idea of facing this Place team. It soon passed, for they had their vulnerable places. It was not so much that they hit hard on speed and curves, for they got them where they wanted them. Keene flied out on high fast balls over the inside corner; Starke bit on low drops; Martin was weak on a slow ball; MacNeff, the captain, could not ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... General Sir Peter Scratchley, R.E., who had been, at the request of the Australian Colonies, sent out by the War Office to advise them as to suitable positions and type of fortifications to be erected for the protection of the chief harbours and other vulnerable localities along the Australian coast. I called on him. He was affable and kind. He gave me considerable encouragement by telling me that as some of the forts were being completed it was becoming necessary to increase the Permanent Artillery Force to man ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... paying back, with double interest, anyone who uses that name to her, as I know to my sorrow," said Gussie, with a shake of her head. "Yet, after all, I don't blame her much, either; but it is the one spot in her make-up that seems vulnerable." ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... skittles." Your true tramp learns to take things as he finds them and never to expect or ask or the impossible. He will drink the wine of the country, even when sour, without a grimace; pass without grumbling a sleepless night; plod through dust ankle deep, without a murmur; there is but one vulnerable feature in his armor, and with Achilles, it is his heel! And it is literally the heel that, is the sensitive spot. I will venture the assertion that the long-distance tramper—not even excepting Brother Weston—who has not at some time or another suffered from sore heels, ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... the company of Villena, already sadly reduced; and while the infantry, with desperate and savage fierceness, thrust themselves under the very bellies of the chargers, encountering both the hoofs of the steed and the deadly lance of the rider, in the hope of finding a vulnerable place for the sharp Moorish knife,—the horsemen, avoiding the stern grapple of the Spaniard warriors, harrassed them by the shaft and lance,—now advancing, now retreating, and performing, with incredible rapidity, the evolutions of Oriental cavalry. But ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... out of six. Three tons of iron were hurled at Fort Sumter, and probably six tons at the fleet. Fighting inside of iron towers, the Union men had no one killed, and but one mortally wounded. The Keokuk, the most vulnerable of all the ships engaged, sank under the northwest wind in the heavy sea ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... in so many fields, eminent as a soldier, as a navigator, as a poet, as a courtier, there was a limit even to Raleigh's versatility, and he was not a statesman. It was political ambition which was the vulnerable spot in this Achilles, and until he meddled with statecraft, his position was practically unassailed. It must not be overlooked, in this connection, that in spite of Raleigh's influence with the Queen, he never was admitted as a Privy Councillor, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... that he treated soldiers with a civility which he never showed to ladies or to Bishops. But no man had in larger measure that evil courage which braves and even courts disgust and hatred. No decencies restrained him: his spite was implacable: his skill in finding out the vulnerable parts of strong minds was consummate. All his great contemporaries felt his sting in their turns. Once it inflicted a wound which deranged even the stern composure of William, and constrained him to utter a wish that he were ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and, as he learned from the applause, by an expert's shot, through the spine at the base of the skull. John had aimed at this merely at a guess, knowing nothing of bears or their vulnerable points, and in this ignorance neglecting a far easier mark behind the pin of ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... invoking the aid of the Fates, uttered a magic incantation, which had the effect of throwing Talus into a deep sleep. He stretched himself at full length upon the ground, and in doing so grazed his vulnerable ankle against the point of a sharp rock, whereupon a mighty stream of blood gushed forth from the wound. Awakened by the pain, he tried to rise, but in vain, and with a mighty groan of anguish the giant fell dead, and his enormous body rolled heavily over into ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... As easie may'st thou the intrenchant Ayre With thy keene Sword impresse, as make me bleed: Let fall thy blade on vulnerable Crests, I beare a charmed Life, which must not yeeld ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... But they don't know nothing about old Mrs. Prichard." Uncle Mo had spoken at a guess of Mrs. Marrowbone's age, of which he knew nothing. It was a sort of emulation that had made him assess his old lady as the senior. He felt vulnerable, and changed the conversation. "That young Squire's taking his time, M'riar. Supposin' now I was just to sing out ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... Napoleon is upon the column, there is an end of it, let them leave him there in peace. Let them not resuscitate him through his bad qualities. Let them not compel France to remember too much. This glory of Napoleon is vulnerable. It has a wound; closed, I admit. Do not let them reopen it. Whatever apologists may say and do, it is none the less true that by the Eighteenth of Brumaire Napoleon struck himself a ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... and the fine skin is exposed uncovered. It is there, always there, in that tiny defect in the bee's armour, that the sting is inserted. Why is this point attacked rather than another? Is it the only point that is vulnerable? Stretch open the articulation of the corselet to the rear of the first pair of legs. There you will see an area of defenceless skin, fully as delicate as that of the throat, but much more extensive. The horny armour of the bee has no larger breach. If the Philanthus were guided solely by considerations ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... and sound, mentally, morally, and physically. His integrity is a proverb; his fidelity to his convictions is recognized by political enemies; his record is of unassailable soundness; and there is absolutely nothing vulnerable in his character. He has a Lincoln-like soundness of judgment, and is as inexorably just as old John Marshall. He is a man absolutely free from eccentricities and affectations; he neither walks nor talks on stilts. His manners have the warmth and grace that sincerity and simplicity give. In bearing, ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... to think,' retorted the doctor, 'that everybody is disposed to be hard-hearted to-day, except yourself, Miss Rose. I only hope, for the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow who appeals to your compassion; and I wish I were a young fellow, that I might avail myself, on the spot, of such a favourable opportunity for doing so, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... and I had always an impression that her energy was too much a force of blood, and therefore never felt the security for her peace which belongs to more purely intellectual natures. She seemed more vulnerable. For the same reason, she remained inscrutable to me; her strength was not my strength,—her powers were a surprise. She passed into new states of great advance, but I understood these no better. It were long to tell her peculiarities. Her childhood was full of presentiments. She was then a ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... was impossible, too. He'd said there was a Mekinese cruiser on the sea-floor of Kandar, where it could blast all the local fleet—which was ready to fight but vulnerable to a single fusion-bomb. If such a thing happened, the impending disaster would be worse than intolerable. To Bors it would mean dying without a chance to strike even the most futile of blows at ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... Lord Macaulay, has declared to be not less decidedly the first of biographers, than Homer is the first of heroic poets, Shakspeare the first of dramatists, or Demosthenes the first of orators. The result was favourable to Boswell, although the vulnerable points of his character were still more glaringly displayed. The appeal about to be hazarded on behalf of Mrs. Piozzi, will involve little or no risk of this kind. Her ill-wishers made the most of the event which so injuriously ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... atesti. Voucher garantio, garantianto, atesto. Vow dedicxi, promesi. Vow (religious) religia promeso. Vowel vokala. Voyage vojagxo, vojiro. Vulgar vulgara. Vulgarise vulgarigi. Vulgarity vulgareco. Vulgate Latina Biblio. Vulnerable vundebla. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes



Words linked to "Vulnerable" :   under attack, undefended, unsafe, unguarded, weak, compromising, conquerable, open, endangered, assailable, undefendable, susceptible, unprotected, defenseless, penetrable, invulnerable, insecure, vulnerability, dangerous, threatened, defenceless, under fire, indefensible



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