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Wrench   /rɛntʃ/   Listen
Wrench

noun
1.
A sharp strain on muscles or ligaments.  Synonyms: pull, twist.  "He was sidelined with a hamstring pull"
2.
A jerky pulling movement.  Synonym: twist.
3.
A hand tool that is used to hold or twist a nut or bolt.  Synonym: spanner.



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"Wrench" Quotes from Famous Books



... and makes a blow at him with a great axe. Gunnar turned short round upon him and parries the blow with the bill, and caught the axe under one of its horns with such a wrench that it flew out of Skamkell's hand away ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... he may not plye, but gaderyth yt by manere of a wyndlas; & he awght wrench a-side, or a litill[e] wrye, 472 hys gere stondyt[h] them in full[e] parlovs caas, hys sho / his hose / doblet, poynt & laas; & yff owght breke, sum tonges that be bade will[e] moke & say, "A knave hath broke a ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall

... of the outlaw had Aylward nearly down, and twice with his greater youth and skill the archer restored his grip and his balance. Then at last his turn came. He slipped his leg behind the other's knee, and, giving a mighty wrench, tore him across it. With a hoarse shout the outlaw toppled backward and had hardly reached the ground before Aylward had his knee upon his chest and his short sword deep in his beard and pointed to ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... back out into the river and fished around in the locker under the seat. You had a few old wrenches there, and some rags. Well, I owe you a wrench. It was the biggest one, which means it isn't used very ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... home and will pass his fingers, perhaps, over the strings of his harp and, with the music, some memory may arise of the wind in the glens of the mountains that stand in the Isles of Song. Then the musician will wrench great cries out of the soul of his harp for the sake of the old memory, and his fellows will awake and all make a song of home, woven of sayings told in the harbour when the ships came in, and of tales in the cottages about the people ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... Lillian tried to wrench her hands from his grasp. They were pinioned so tightly behind her that she could not move. Eleanor slipped off her divan. She and Lillian had no weapons with which to defend themselves. Eleanor thought if she could get out of the ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... it's worth finding out," growled Captain Wass. "I'm not seeing very far into this thing as yet, son, and I'll admit it. But if dirty work was done to you, Burkett would have been a handier tool for Fogg than a Stillson wrench in a plumbing job. No, don't ask me questions now. I haven't got any consolation for you or confidence in myself. I'm ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... towards his barrack, and returned with it. To wrench by their united efforts, one bar from its place, and to fasten the rope to another, was the work of an instant. Space was just left them to creep through the aperture. Sir Henry was the first to breathe the confined air of the sepulchre. A voice warned him in what direction ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... it!" he declared enthusiastically. "The Britishers make all manner of fun of 'em. Call 'em 'mechanical fleas' and all that. But with a hammer, a monkey-wrench, and some bale-wire, a fellow can perform major and minor operations on a fliver in the middle of a garageless wilderness and come through all right when better cars are left for the junk department to gather up ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... pain was to prove the final wrench to a heart that had been on the verge of breaking for many a year, and it was not long before Olive ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of excited voices, I tossed my bag in at the window, leapt upon the footboard and turned the handle. Although the entrance to the tunnel was perilously near now, I managed to wrench the door open and to swing myself into the carriage. Then, by means of the strap, I reclosed the door in the nick of time, and sank, panting, upon the seat. I had a vague impression that the black ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... that the cloth of his pea-jacket was not of the best quality. It had never been, even when new; and now, after long-continued and ill-usage, it was almost rotten. For this reason, by a desperate wrench, he was enabled to release his arm from the dental grip which his antagonist had taken upon it,—leaving only a rag between the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... and shook it threateningly, whereat Bub smiled and walked to the rear of the garage where an iron plug appeared just above the surface of the ground. This he unscrewed with a wrench, thrust in a rod ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)

... yet thyself deceeve not, Luv' may sink by slow decay; But by suddint wrench beleeve not 'Earts can thus ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... you will break it," said Kenneth, quietly, as she gave it a twist and a wrench. And he put out his hand, and took it from hers, and drew gently upward in the line in which she had thrust ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... and there Carroll stood, fifteen feet from the plate, agile as a huge monkey. He whipped the ball to Mahew at third. Mahew wheeled quick as thought and lined the ball to second. Sheldon came tearing for the bag, caught the ball on the run, and with a violent stop and wrench threw it like a bullet to first base. Fast as Kane was, the ball beat him ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... would not break his word. Complex problems resolve themselves at the point of action into such simple axioms. Dick should have a blessing and his sweetheart; he would do his best for Fairfax Preston; with his might he would keep his word. A great sigh and a wrench at his heart as if a physical growth of years were tearing away, and the decision was made. Then, in a mist of pain and effort, and a surprised new freedom from the accustomed pang of hatred, he heard the rustle and movement of a kneeling congregation, and, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... cutting down the tree sat erect upon their haunches, supported by their huge tails, chiseling indefatigably. Cutting two deep grooves, one about six or eight inches, perhaps, above the other, they would then wrench off the chips by main force with their teeth and forepaws, jerking their powerful necks with a kind of furious impatience. As he noted how they made the cut deeper and lower on one side than the other, that the tree might fall as they wished, he was so delighted that ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... to put the question which women most love to hear; whether it be put by the man of their choice or by some one for whom they care not a cent. He had always longed for this day to come, but, until now, had never seen how such could ever dawn for him. It had been a great wrench to sever himself from the past, but his decision once taken his heart was filled with thankfulness, and never had he felt so free from care as now. He realized all that a lover may realize of his own unworthiness, but he allowed himself no extravagances of thought in this direction. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... reached Sturk's door, wagging his head and strutting grimly—and, palpably, still in debate with Dirty Davy—his thoughts received a sudden wrench in a different direction by the arrival of Mr. Justice Lowe, who pulled up his famous gray hunter at the steps of the house ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... overpowered for a fleeting moment. He experienced the flash of unconsciousness; becoming aware of it, in midair, as his relaxed body was sinking to the ground and as he caught himself together, he stiffened his muscles with a spasmodic wrench, and escaped the fall. The sudden jerk back to consciousness left him sick and trembling. He beat his head with the heel of his hand, knocking wakefulness ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... the world had builded foolishly; for with early manhood, they fell in love with the same round-cheeked school-teacher. Jonathan married her, after what wrench of feeling I know not; and the other fled to the town, whence he never returned save for the briefest visit at Thanksgiving or Christmas time. The stay-at-home lad is a warm farmer, and the little school-teacher a mother whose unlined face shows the record of a placid life; but David cannot know ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... he didn't act right by Anne. It's his fault that she—Let go my arm, Simmy!" He gave it a mighty wrench. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... on a large wrench lying on a worktable, and he snatched it up and threw it with all his strength. In his youth he had been a ball player with some local fame as a pitcher, and in his later life, he was addicted to ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss

... "Don't throw a monkey-wrench in the machinery," begged Hippy. "Let's live while the living is good, and die when we haven't ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower

... them. They had been driven by the contempt of the world to argue for its sanctity, to live up to their declarations, and to raise it in their esteem to what it professed to be, the celestial order that prevailed in the Heavens! I knew, as well as President Woodruff did, the wrench it would give their hearts to have to abandon, at last, what they had ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... betrays the presence in our souls of a deep-seated sin, is a divine messenger. We terribly misinterpret the true source of all that disturbs us when we attribute it only to the occasions which bring it about; for the one purpose of all our restlessness is to drive us nearer to God, and to wrench us away from our Assyria. The true issue of Ephraim's sickness would have been the penitent cry, 'Come, let us return to the Lord our God, for He hath smitten, and He will bind us up.' It is in the consciousness of loving nearness to Him that all our unrest is soothed, and the heaving ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... he pulled steadily at his long oar, "that we did wrench the gun-frame when that heavy ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... a heavy one; bit of iron place for a ladle; gun-cleaning apparatus; turnscrews; nipple- wrench; bottle of fine oil; spare nipples; spare screw for cock (see chapter on Gun-Fittings).......................2 1/2 Two macintosh water-bags, shaped for the pack saddle, of one gallon each, with funnel-shaped necks, and having wide mouth (empty) (see chapter on Water for Drinking).......2 ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... Rose was sure of it, and in after days she was to ask herself many times if she had been to blame in not interpreting that sigh to Francis. But she had to give Christabel, and Christabel especially, the loyalty of one woman to another. She would not wrench from her in a few words the pride Francis took in her, to which she sacrificed her fears. Rose had the astuteness of a jealousy she would not own, of a sense of possession she could not discard, and she had known, from the first moment, that Christabel was afraid of ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... rhetoric. The criminal is allowed his due portion of veracity and his fragment of truth—"What shall a man give for his life?" He has enough truth to enable him to fold a cloud across the light, to wrench away the sign-posts and reverse their pointing hands, to remove the land-marks, to set up false signal fires upon the rocks. And then are heard three successive voices, each of which, and each in a different way, brings to our mind ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... desire her death! His surprise and remorse made him jump to his feet, wave his arms in angry protest, writhe, as if a pair of invisible hands had just laid him bare with a rude wrench. ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... record of beneficence. Evolution in government is in accord with the processes of life, even to the extent that it is always after a time followed by degeneration; revolution in government is the throwing of a monkey-wrench into the machinery by a disaffected workman, with the wrecking of the machine, the violent stoppage of the works, and frequently the sudden death of the worker as a consequence. The English monarchy from Duke William to Henry VIII, is a case of normal growth by minor changes and modifications, ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break an ankle,— finds himself asking with unanswered wonder how any deer can live half a season in the wilderness without breaking all his legs. And when you run upon a deer at night and hear him go smashing off in the darkness at the same reckless speed, over a tangled ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... of the chestnut flowers. He stretched his hands to her with speechless delight, forgetting his crutches, and would have fallen if he had not caught by the shutter of a window so quickly that he gave the poor back a sad wrench; and when he could look up again, the fairy had vanished, and nothing was to be seen but the ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... Mr. Lanyard," the Englishman resumed, looking up from the motor, to which he was paying attentions with monkey-wrench and oil-can, "that you were quite off your bat when you ridiculed the idea of the 'International Underworld Unlimited.' Of course, if you hadn't laughed, I shouldn't feel quite as much respect for you as I do; in fact, the chances are you'd ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... There was a terrible wrench on the arms and bodies of the two boys, but neither broke his hold; and, with a tremendous pull, Marshall was jerked up on the ledge of rock on which they were standing, and, in another moment the three had ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... surrounding gloom of underbrush a hatless, dishevelled individual on foot suddenly dashed into the centre of that hesitating ring of horsemen. With skilful twist of his foot he sent a dismounted road-agent spinning over backward, and managed to wrench a revolver from his hand. There was a blaze of red flame, a cloud of smoke, six sharp reports, and a ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... gentlemen to saunter forth in numbers after route or supper, when, being merry with wine and eager for adventure, they were brave enough to waylay the honest citizen and abduct his wife, beat the watch and smash his lantern, bedaub signboards and wrench knockers, overturn a sedan-chair and vanquish the carriers, sing roystering songs under the casements of peaceful sleepers, and play strange pranks to which they were prompted by young blood and ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... the hamlet you must leave the friendly Green and the pleasant water of the Channel, climb the red rocks, tread the grassy road between the hemlocks and the pines, and find the farms. For, be it understood, by one's ability to wrench a living from the soil instead of the water is he known and estimated. To fish is to gamble; to plant ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... the crowbar! (At work.) That's it. Put down the glim, Badger, and help at the wrench. Your whole weight, men! Put your backs to it! (While they work at the bar, BRODIE stands by, dusting his hands with a pocket-handkerchief. As the door opens.) Voila! In ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... clear as the streams in autumn, a face, with transparent skin, and a slim waist, was elegant and beautiful and almost the very image of Lin Tai-y. Pao-y could not, from the very first, make up his mind to wrench himself away. But as he stood gazing at her in a doltish mood, he realised that, although she was tracing on the ground with the gold hair-pin, she was not digging a hole to bury flowers in, but was merely delineating characters on the surface of the soil. Pao-y's eyes followed the hair-pin from ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... eighteen hundred and one," showing his fangs in a sarcastic grin; "a week is long enough, friend. Then this is what I mean to say: that the breaking away of a quarter of a mile of ice in a week is fine work, full of grand promise: the next wrench—which might come now as I speak, or to-morrow, or in a week—the next wrench may bring away the rock on which we are lodged, and the rest is a matter of patience—which we can afford, hey? for we are but two—there is plenty of meat and liquor and the reward afterwards is a princely independence, ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... himself with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away. ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... call will cause me great trouble; for you know well a girl must trust somewhat to others' judgment in her disposal. It gives me more pain than I can say to write in this mood, but necessity permits me no kinder words. I want you to be sure that the wrench, the "No" here is absolute. My dear friend, pity rather than blame me; and I will be so unselfish as to hope you may not think so kindly of me as to be cruel to yourself. Please to consider your letter as never written, it is the greatest ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... to Haddon Hall with Dr. Wrench, physician to the Duke of Devonshire. We drove from Bakewell. In this part of ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... the trough of the sea by the force of the gale, her timbers groaning, the spars creaking, blocks rattling, and the wind shrieking and whistling as it tore through the rigging and flapped the sails heavily against the masts with the noise of thunder, as if it would wrench them out ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... me—who is she? You have insulted me. . . . I? . . . Not a single one can wrench herself from me, never! And you say to me such offensive words." . . . And, indeed, he looked really offended. Evidently there was nothing for which he might respect himself, except for his ability to lead women astray; it may be that aside from this ability there was ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky

... secured by the fluke-chain, so that we could not commence operations before morning. That night it blew hard, and we got an idea of the strain these vessels are sometimes subjected to. Sometimes the ship rolled one way and the whale another, being divided by a big sea, the wrench at the fluke-chain, as the two masses fell apart down different hollows, making the vessel quiver from truck to keelson as if she was being torn asunder. Then we would come together again with a crash and a shock that almost threw everybody ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... off and wrench himself free, but his hands had never been unfettered, and he was easily mastered. In a trice he found himself securely lashed to the heavy chair, and then felt another broad band of silk drawn over his mouth. Coolly and methodically the Strangler gagged him in so skilful a fashion ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... son had both meant what they said; and even the mother, for whom it would be the cruellest wrench of all, knew that Henry was going to leave home. Not literally on the morrow, for the following evening he had appeared before his father to apologise for the manner—carefully for the manner, not the matter,—in which he had spoken to him the evening ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... Wednesday we had things pretty well settled, and had also succeeded in raising from official sources about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. I took a fair amount of satisfaction in gloating over those who had croaked. Then some helpful soul came along and threw a monkey wrench into the machinery, so that a good part of the work has to be done over again. At any rate, we hope to get, some time to-day, permission to export enough food to serve as a stop gap until the ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... think, "Of course I fail. Of course she's always in my mind. But while I make the effort to prevent it, while I do sometimes manage to wrench my mind away, I'm keeping fit; I'm able to go on putting up some sort of a fight. I'm able ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... had just mastered the poor girl's hand, but she took advantage of his surprise to wrench it away and gather herself up as for a spring, but the Abbe in dismay, the attendant in anger, cried ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... timber wolf gave no quarter, rose supreme; and the dog sprang forward, the wide open jaws revealing his sharp, white teeth and cruelly broken tusks. Suddenly the weight of Allan's body was hurled against him; strong supple fingers closed upon his neck, and with an unexpected wrench Jack McMillan's head was buried in a drift of soft, deep snow. He struggled violently to wrest himself from the iron grasp; madly he fought for freedom; but always there was that slow, deadly tightening at the throat. Panting and choking, he had ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... good thing, being often read, Grown sear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity, Wherein—let no man hear me—I take pride, Could I with boot change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form! How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood: Let's write good angel on the devil's horn, 'Tis ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... red 'N' raisin' Cain because he had, Back in the caverns iv his 'ead, A 'oller tooth run ravin' mad. Pore Trigger up 'n' down the trench Was jiggin' like a blithered loan, 'N' every time she give a wrench You orter seen the beggar blench, You orter 'eard him play ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... "It is a wrench, lad," Harry said kindly; "I can quite understand your feelings, and don't like the thought myself. But I see that it has got to be done, and after all it will be better to kill the poor brutes than to let them fall into the hands of the ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... mere strip of coast-line the boundaries of the kingdom of death, have proclaimed love as the victor in her contest with that shrouded horror. The basis of them all is Christ's Resurrection; its power in this respect is the power to illuminate, to console, to certify, to wrench the sceptre from the hands of death, and to put it in the pierced hands of the Living One that was dead, and is Lord both of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... prosperity at home, and peace with those abroad, people of the land of the Maple Leaf and the Beaver will look upon the twentieth century {481} as peculiarly their own. But in doing so it will not be without a wrench to see old institutions alter and in some cases pass away. One of these is the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, which in November, 1919, became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, provision being made for the absorption of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... inasmuch as it shows the width across the flats, which is the dimension that is worked to, because it is where the wrench fits, and therefore of most importance; whereas the latter gives the length of a flat, which is not worked to, except incidentally, as it were. There is the objection to the view of the head, given in Figure 156, however, that unless it is accompanied by an end view it somewhat resembles a similar ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... managed to wrench his head to the left so he could see his captor. Travis loosened his grip, got to his feet. Manulito sat up, his face darkly sullen, but he did not ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... saw long snakes slithering across his path and fear-struck beasts fleeing before his coming. He paused for neither path nor way but went straight for the school, running in mighty strides, yet gently, listening to the moans that struck death upon his heart. Once he fell headlong, but with a great wrench held her from harm, and minded not the pain that shot through his ribs. The yellow sunshine beat fiercely around and upon him, as he stumbled into the highway, lurched across the mud-strewn road, and panted up ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... candy hearts when he was in the third grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals when she was not handy ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... besought of him to say what he wanted, but he made no reply, and continued to drag himself from one piece of furniture to another, till at last, grasping the back of a chair, he breathed by jerks, each inspiration being accompanied by a violent spasmodic wrench, violent enough to break open his chest. She watched, expecting every moment to see him roll over, a corpse, but knowing from past experiences that he would recover somehow. His recoveries always seemed to her like miracles, and she watched the long ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... of Lincoln's speech at Columbus, a tremendous crowd surged forward to shake his hand. Says Dr. Holland: "Every man in the crowd was anxious to wrench the hand of Abraham Lincoln. He finally gave both hands to the work, with great good nature. To quote one of the reports of the occasion: 'People plunged at his arms with frantic enthusiasm, and ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... aided by the stimulant, had cleared Theydon's faculties. Though he would gladly have foregone the dinner, he realized that it was not a bad thing that he should be forced, as it were, to wrench his thoughts from the nightmare of a crime with which such a man as "Evelyn's" father might ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... the accelerator. He had a glimpse of the guard unslinging his rifle from his shoulder and of another man running toward the parked car as his vehicle smashed into the flimsy gate and sent it, cracked and splintered, to the side of the road. He fought the slight wrench of the wheel and sped on. He thought ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson

... Dick and Albert a severe wrench to leave their beautiful valley. They had lived in it now nearly two years, and it had brought strength and abounding life to Albert, infinite variety, content, and gratitude to Dick, and what seemed a fortune—their furs—to both. It was a beautiful ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... mind! I had been buried—buried alive; this wooden prison that inclosed me was a coffin! A frenzy surpassing that of an infuriated tiger took swift possession of me—with hands and nails I tore and scratched at the accursed boards—with all the force of my shoulders and arms I toiled to wrench open the closed lid! My efforts were fruitless! I grew more ferociously mad with rage and terror. How easy were all deaths compared to one like this! I was suffocating—I felt my eyes start from their sockets—blood sprung from my ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... gained, until they slipped the wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a little smart levering, and the nails loosened, and one good wrench lifted it from the inside timber and they slid it out ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... the bat suggested an idea. In going up to Chambers Street in the forenoon, I had seen a hackman oiling his wheels at the stand by the Park. When he finished, he put the iron wrench he had used under one of the seats in the carriage. I felt for one in this vehicle, and realized a savage gratification when I placed my hand upon the article. The implement was about a foot and a half in length, but not very heavy. Having decided upon the plan of the intended assault, I buttoned ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... few moments to wrench his head round and gaze up the slope toward the savages' camp, then turning to Jack he laid the blade flat upon the back of his hand, and forced it under the thin cane which bound his wrists, having ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... she endeavoured to wrench his hand away. He tore it from her, and hit out at her backwards—a blow that sent ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... mending water casks. 2 sticks solder for mending water casks. 1 bottle spirits of salts for mending water casks. 1 case of tools. Screwdriver, small saw, hammer, chisel, file, gimlet, leather-punch, wire nipper, screw wrench, large scissors, &c. 1 case of tools for canvas work (sewing needles, &c.). 2 lbs. of copper rivets. Screws. Bolts. 1 box copper wire. Strong thread. 1 1/2 lbs. 3-inch nails. 1 lb. 2-inch nails. 50 feet of rope. 1 duck ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... confidence, and on the hair-cloth sofa in the upper hall, that it would be a big wrench if he ever ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... Fleurette would smile and tell him the wondrous news, and would put into his hands an unstamped letter to post, which he, with a wrench of the heart, would add to the collection ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... overcoat pocket a parcel containing a cold chisel, small screw-wrench, file, and one or two other things that he'd bought that evening to tinker up the old printing press. I knew that, because I'd lent him a hand a few nights before, and he told me he'd have to get the ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... chiefly has invested the sailing-vessel with its poetry. This the steamer, with its vulgar appeal to physical comfort, cannot give. Does any one know any verse of real poetry, any strong, thrilling idea, suitably voiced, concerning a steamer? I do—one—by Clough, depicting the wrench from home, the stern inspiration following the wail of him who goeth away to ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... Jim," replied Terry, working away like a madman with spanner and screw-wrench; "if I can but loosen this nut I can disconnect this bent rod and replace ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... heard a stamping of feet in the hall outside and the sound of voices, of heavy bodies crashing against the door. Maruffi heard it, too, for with a bellow of fury he redoubled his exertions. A sweep of his arm flung the girl aside; with a mighty wrench of his body he carried Blake half across the room, loosening his hold. Then he seized him by the throat and forced his ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... one of the sharpest trials her life had ever known, the destruction of her house by fire taking place in July. Each change of location to one of her tenacious affections and deep love of home, had been a sharp wrench, and she required long familiarity to reconcile her to new conditions. Though the first and greatest change from England to America would seem to have rendered all others trivial and not to be regarded, she had shrank from each as it came, submitting by force of will, but unreconciled till ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... is very busy about the victim of gloom and despair. Luther has diagnosed the case of Weller with the skill of a nervous specialist. He counsels Weller not to judge himself according to the devil's prompting, and, in order to break Satan's thrall over him, to wrench himself free from his false notions of what is sinful. In offering this advice, Luther uses such expressions as: "Sin, commit sin," but the whole context shows that he advises Weller to do that which is in itself not sinful, but looks ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... darkened. Turning rapidly, he was conscious of a gaunt figure, grotesque, silent, and erect, looming on the threshold between him and the sky. Hidden in the shadow, he made a stealthy step towards it, with an iron wrench in his uplifted hand. But the next moment his eyes dilated with superstitious horror; the iron fell from his hand, and with a scream, like a frightened animal, he turned and fled into the passage. In the first access of his blind terror ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... him positively, "It wasn't left unscrewed, Tony. We always use a wrench on those valves because high pressure is so dangerous. And it wasn't like that yesterday. I checked the tanks when we stowed them ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... just manage it," he was saying in a voice of grave tenderness. "It has not been easy; but the truth is that—when it came to the wrench—I hadn't the courage to let her go ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... But they would not hear of that, and said it would be much better if they had it then, because otherwise the interest would accumulate so. I got quite cross with them after a bit, and told them what I thought of them, and then they gave the gimlet such an excruciating wrench ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... man—for he was now growing old—put his hands behind his back and said nothing, but went on with his usual routine of work. Whether he had become dulled and deadened and cared nothing, whether hope was extinct, or he could not wrench himself from the old place, he said nothing. Even then some further time elapsed—so slow is the farmer's fall that he might almost be excused for thinking that it would never come. But now came the news that the old uncle who had 'backed' him at the bank had been found ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... lift Donna Maria, for a moment something hitched, and Ruth heard the sound of rending cloth. The poor wretch in her death-agony had bitten through Sir Oliver's arm to the bone. The corpse yet clenched its jaws on the bite. They had to wrench the teeth open—delicate pretty teeth made ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... both struggled to lift her. Mrs. Wilson gave a slight groan as she got fairly on her feet. Her right hand clutched Bab for added support. In falling over the stools Mrs. Wilson had given her knee a severe wrench. ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... eyes have a tongue of their own. You cannot have lived very long in Valmy, my ingenuous friend. Why to Amboise? You won't tell? But, by God, you shall! Do you think I'll be baulked for a scruple?" His hand crept to his hilt as he spoke; now, with a swift wrench the blade was out and its point at ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... the tablecloth and napkins, he stealthily fingered them with a searching look at the waiting negro. Fortunately his interest was speedily diverted. He caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face of his wife bending over them. With a wrench of his ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple

... not seem very cheerful at the thought of his promotion. "It is a wrench, it is a wrench, madame la comtesse. I have been here for eighteen years. Oh, the place does not bring in much, and is not wealthy. The men have no more religion than they need, and the women, look you, the women have no morals. But nevertheless, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... himself, "and talk about your wish to travel. Though contented that you did not marry Jessie, though you can now, without anguish, greet her as the wife of another, still there are some lingering thoughts of her that make you restless; and you feel that you could more easily wrench yourself from these thoughts in a marked change of scene and adventure, that you might bury them altogether in the soil of a strange land. Is ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... did. I can't say. For it was somewhere in the middle of the second or third hill after this that the little roadster began to splutter and cough like it had swallowed a monkey wrench. ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... But Dolly's eye saw that his step was unsteady, his face dull and flushed, and his eye had a look which even a very little experience understands. His air was haggard, spiritless, hopeless; so unlike the alert, self-sufficient, confident manner of old, that Dolly's heart got a great wrench. And something in the whole image was so inexpressibly pitiful to her, that she did the very last thing it had been in her purpose to do; she fled to him with one bound, threw herself on his breast, and burst into ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... said to have taken place. The man that was despatched to cut the telegraph wires failed to do so, with the result that the Boers were provided with the news of the invasion eight hours before the Reform leaders were aware of it; while another man, whose business it was to wrench away the rails between Johannesburg and Krugersdorp, and thus interrupt communication from Pretoria, was reposing in a clubhouse hopelessly drunk, while the train he should have intercepted carried ammunition for use ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... passion: he rails at the murderers: he proclaims his horror at their deed. All the way home he refuses to be comforted. He upbraids the assassins, he utters the most frightful threats against them; he rushes at them to snatch their weapons from them and dash them in pieces. But they easily wrench the weapons from his unresisting hands. For the whole thing is only a piece of acting. His sole intention is that the ghost may see and hear it all, and being convinced of the innocence of his dear kinsman may not punish him with bad crops, wounds, sickness, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... delicate wrist roughly, twisting it with the old wrench with which he had tormented her in their childhood days. None of them saw the stranger who was quietly walking down ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill

... Everything is done to make them at ease and comfortable in their new surroundings; the headmaster is kindness itself, the matron beams on them with smiles and fortifies them with encouragement; but just at first the wrench for the little fellows is great. In a day or two, however, they will begin to acclimatise themselves; the strangeness will begin to wear off; and having borne up bravely against their first sense ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various

... drunkard to break off his habits gradually. There must be one moment in which he definitely turns himself round and sets his face in the other direction. Some things are best done with slow, continuous pressure; other things need to be done with a wrench if they are to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... themselves on the champion in a frenzy of rage, but he felt a sudden warlike impulse surging up in him, which he had never felt before. With one wrench he pulled out the heavy wooden pole, which supported the awning which the old paraschites had put up for his sick grandchild; he swung it round his head, as if it were a reed, driving back the crowd, while he called to Uarda to keep ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of it, a distance away, there broke on the stillness a challenge that he remembered, and its tone was contempt. He understood it, and woke with a start because of a sudden fluff of flame and a whiff of smoke from the grass fire of ten years ago, and the ache in his throat gave him a strangling wrench. His head rolled; the moon swung through an arc of alarming length. That call beyond the fence struck the dominant note of his life, and it was Fear. Yet it came from a mere animal,—his grandmother's old buckskin horse, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... of both her arms in a sudden spasm, attempting to climb out upon her as a drowning man might try to climb out on an oar and sinking her down under him. In the struggle under water, before he permitted her to wrench clear, her rubber cap was torn off, and her hairpins pulled out, so that she came up gasping for air and half-blinded by her wet-clinging hair. Also, he was certain he had surprised her into taking ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... alarm, Constance having apparently recovered from the first shock of it. They had discussed it in the kitchen while preparing the teas; Constance's extraordinarily severe and dictatorial tone in condemning it had led to a certain heat. But the success of the impudent wrench justified it despite any irrefutable argument to the contrary. Mr. Povey was better already, and he evidently remained in ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... some minutes, his reasoning powers began to act, and overcoming the disinclination to move, consequent upon his being so horribly stiff, he gave himself a wrench and turned right over ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... It was a wrench to all three of us when the parting came, and the dear boy left us to begin his training for the Foreign Missions—his elected field of labor; but we could not grudge our sacrifice when we compared it with the ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... on all this as he himself, the same but changed, stood there in the moonlight striving to recollect it all, and mysteriously failing. But at least, he did fail, and that was something. But oh, what a wrench it gave to life, thought, reason, to all her heart and being, to have that unconscious chit cut in with "only mamma for the girl!" What and whence was this little malaprop? Her overwrought mind shut away this question—almost in the asking it—with "Dearer to me, at least, than anything ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... mine was wrench'd With a woful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale, And then ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... peace and forgiveness for him in Heaven. All his errors—to speak plainly, all his vices—seemed nothing to me in that moment: every wrong he had done, every pain he had caused, vanished; his sufferings only were remembered; the wrench to the natural affections only was left. If man can thus experience total oblivion of his fellow's imperfections, how much more can the Eternal Being, who made ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... water in their dinner pails and found that the plug had rusted and would not turn. While they worked the fire grew. It was impossible to send a man back through it, so Grant sent a man speeding around the air course, to get a wrench from the pump room, or from some one in the main bottom to turn on the water. In the meantime he and the other two men worked furiously to extinguish the fire by whipping it with their coats and aprons, but always the flames beat them ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... unending period he occupied himself with endeavoring to obtain the sense of balance. Then, with a great effort, he managed to loosen the cords that bound his right arm to his side. A mighty wrench, and he had slipped them up above his elbow. His right lower arm ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... These subtleties naturally were beyond the experience of Skippy, in fact he was quite unable to reason on anything. His heart was swollen to twice its natural size, his pulse was racing, and the next moment with the wrench of the farewell, he felt in a numb despair, the light go out of the day, and a vast sinking weight rushing him down into chill regions ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... these two persons were to her, she would have seen that fair girl and the manly form beside her shrouded in their coffins, if that could have brought back one short twelve-months of the passionate insanity which had won Lord Hope to cast aside all restraint and fiercely wrench apart the most sacred ties in order to make her his wife. She asked for impossibilities. Love born in tumult and founded in selfishness must have its reactions, and between those two the shadow of a wronged woman was forever falling; and, struggle ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... with the children. Virginie made a spring at the throat of her adversary and actually tried to strangle her. Gervaise shook her off and snatched at the long braid hanging from the girl's head and pulled it as if she hoped to wrench it off, and the head ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... Paul, who now grasped the severed bar in his iron hands; "with such a purchase I could wrench the bar asunder. Something shall give way," he said, as with the force of Samson he exerted every muscle, and wrenched the bar from its loosened base. The stone in which it was fixed first crumbled at the joint, and then suddenly cracked, and Paul ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... 'Tis wondrous heavy. Wrench it open straight. If the sea's stomach be o'ercharged with gold, It is a good constraint of fortune, that ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Duke's service," Fletcher reminded him. "For my own, sir; for my own I would have you know." And brushing the Scot aside, he caught the bridle, and sought to wrench it ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... a way," observed Jack. "We may dig out the lead with our knives, and if we can get one bar loose we shall soon wrench off the ends of the others, or bend them back enough to let us creep through. Brown wouldn't make much of bending one of these iron ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... door, he found a wrench in the tool-box and began fumbling about the engine. Soon the spark-plugs were ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... von Schellen's hand away, seized the lever, forcing the periscope to rise to its full height above the conning tower. Nor did he stop there. With the mightiest twist and wrench of which he was capable he jammed the lever so that it could not be promptly ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock

... stood by Tom. Harry attacked one of the tramps with the boat-hook so fiercely that the fellow cried out that he was stabbed, and ran away. Meanwhile Tom was struggling with the third tramp, who had thrown him down, and was trying to wrench the gun from him, while Jim and Joe were hovering around them afraid to strike at the tramp for fear of hitting Tom. But now Harry, having driven off his antagonist, flew to the help of Tom, and seizing the tramp by his hair, and bracing one knee against his back, dragged him ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... eyes for the boat down there. Then she sprang up, and tore down her black locks, and bound them round his feet, so that he had to wrench them off before he ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... interpreters and others whose duty it is to translate from Chinese into Manchu all documents submitted to what is called the "sacred glance" of His Majesty. In a similar sense, until quite a recent date, skill in archery was required of every Bannerman; and it was undoubtedly a great wrench when the once fatally effective weapon was consigned to an unmerited oblivion. But though Bannermen can no longer shoot with the bow and arrow, they still continue to draw monthly allowances from state funds, as an hereditary right ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... said the Lady; "send me that hag hither; she shall avouch what it was that she hath given to the wretch Dryfesdale, or the pilniewinks and thumbikins shall wrench it ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... the door, he closed it, imprisoning the assailant's hand above the wrist joint. The knife clattered to the floor, where it stuck out quivering, grazing Spurling's cheek as it fell. The hand tried to wrench itself free, the fingers opening and closing convulsively, but there was no ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... mark that showed upon the polished surface of the link, a line not so thick as a hair and not to be noticed without close looking; but when I bore upon the link this hair-line grew and widened, it needed but a sudden wrench and I should be free. This threw me into such a rapturous transport that I had much ado to contain myself, howbeit after some while I lifted my eyes to the heaven all flushed and rosy with the young day, for it seemed that God had indeed heard ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... life; yet how often do we find him putting leading questions to his friend and Mentor on all points of Catholic doctrine and casuistry, purgatory, and the invocation of the saints, confession, and the mass! There can be no doubt that this wrench left a deep impress on the confused religious views of Boswell, and this is the clue which explains the opening conversation with Johnson at the beginning of their intimacy. 'I acknowledged,' he writes, 'that ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... land that produces oats (when it can produce oats at all) three-fourths mixed with weeds, and hay chiefly consisting of rushes, naturally discharges its surplus population as families increase; and though the wrench of parting is painful enough, the usual result is a change from starvation to competence. It more rarely happens that a district of peace and plenty, such as Auburn was supposed to see around it, is depopulated to add to a great ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... closed her eyes, however, before she heard a curious noise in the vicinity of her ear, and something unmistakably gave her plait a violent wrench. She started up with a yell, in time to see an enormous head withdraw itself from the tent door. A clatter of ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... yellow devil, with bared arms blooded to the shoulders, pounced upon his prey. With a quick jerk he pulled his fish in, then clutching it with one hand and thrusting the fingers of the other with the prompt ferocity of a young tiger into the panting gills, he tore off with a single wrench the head, and threw the body, yet quivering with life, among the lifeless heap of his victims lying at the bottom of his boat. The sea gulls, hovering about shrieking shrilly and pouncing upon the heads and entrails as they were thrown into the water, fighting over them and gulping ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... would grow forty bushels of wheat after turnips, and that there was a good deal more to do at the house than he expected, the furniture of the late occupants having hidden many defects, added to which they had walked off with almost everything they could wrench down, under the name of fixtures; indeed, there was not a peg to hang up his hat when he entered. This, however, was nothing, and Puff very soon made it into one of the most perfect bachelor residences that ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... conferred with the private secretary of the governor, the first and second in command, and several old residents. They would apply to the British consul for warrants for the arrest of the ruffianly marksmen, they would wrench them from the rails, and sentence them to ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... The Wrench I recd in my Back by the Starting of my Horse at my Gun just as I was mounting him, was so great that I scarcely got off from my Bed next Day, but feel much better of it now; I hear the Regulars have ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... lariat with both bands, Tom gave a strong, sudden wrench and succeeded in drawing the imperiled man out of the sand a ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock

... Brennan and John went directly to the trap door at the top of the stairs at the front of the basement. Brennan pushed upward against the door, but it held fast against his strength. John handed him the steel bar. A thrust, a wrench, a tearing of decayed wood and the door yielded. They scrambled through to the floor of the saloon, finding themselves within a few feet of the room where they were to "plant" ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... car, Andy Foger?" asked Tom calmly as he recognized his squint-eyed rival. "I was just beginning to think it was. Allow me to return your wrench," and he held out the one he had picked up near the log. "The next time you drag trees across the road," went on the lad in the tonneau, facing the angry and dismayed Andy, "I'd advise you to post a notice at the top of the hill, so persons riding down will not be injured." "Notice—road—hill—logs!" ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... wrench on his bruised arms as they were pulled roughly back by the cords caused the veil of unconsciousness to ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... well, Zen, damn you—you fight well," he cried. "So you might. You played with me—you made a fool of me. We'll see who's the fool in the end." With a mighty wrench he tore her from her saddle and she found herself struggling with ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... "I ain't watched you and her for a year for nothing. This ain't going to be the shattering wrench for her you might ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... contact may frequently interfere with the logical arrangement of the course of study; it may wrench many a topic out of its accustomed place in the textbook; it will demand that the applications, which come last in most logically arranged courses, be given first and that definitions and principles which come first be given last. This logical arrangement, it was pointed out, is usually ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... really a tremendous wrench, that parting with my two old friends, the Professor and Merna, and leaving them behind on Mars, although I fully appreciated the Professor's desire to end his days with his dear son, to whom he had been ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... a wrench and twist through every atom of Hanson's body. The universe seemed to cry out. Over the horizon, a great burning disc rose and leaped toward the heavens as the sun went back to its place in the sky. The big bits of sky-stuff around also jerked upwards, revealing ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... "what is pie made for!" If every Green Mountain boy has not eaten a thousand times his weight in apple, pumpkin, squash, and mince pie, call me a dumpling. And Colonel Ethan Allen was one of them,—Ethan Allen, who, as they used to say, could wrench off the head of a ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... come yuh t' fergit the basque? Er what hez happened to it?" cried Sary, sympathetically, while Barbara struggled vainly to wrench herself free from the ill-smelling wrap that generally hung ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... of him. Then he was on the ball, and up again with it tucked against his stomach, and was plunging toward the goal line, a scant six yards away! A Claflin man dived at him and strove to pinion his knees, but with a wrench Clint tore one leg free and staggered on another stride. Arms clutched him about the shoulders and it seemed that he was pulling a ton of weight with him. Then there was a shock, his legs went from under him and he toppled to earth. But as he fell, and as the last breath in ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... and thinking himself back to Beaulieu; then, seating himself on a step, leaning against the wall, he tried to think out whether to give himself up to the leadings of the new light that had broken on him, or whether to wrench himself from it. Was this, which seemed to him truth and deliverance, verily the heresy respecting which rumours had come to horrify the country convents? If he had only heard of it from Tibble Wry-mouth, he would have doubted, in spite of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... in connection with the use of elevators, and which no doubt is common, is the habit many parties have of keeping a key or wrench to turn on and off the water at the curb. This we have sought to remedy by embracing in our plumbers' rules the following: "All elevator connections in addition to the curb stop for the use of the Water Company must be provided with another valve where the pipe first enters the building ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... or Pain in.—For ordinary slight injuries, complete rest, and rubbing with spirit lotion, should be sufficient. But where there is previous weakness, or constitutional tendency, even slight pain and stiffness, caused by wet or some blow or wrench, the joint must be treated thoroughly. Careless and wrong treatment may be given, and result in severe lameness. We wish, however, to point out that the treatment here recommended has cured many cases where this lameness ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... wrench of pain in his foot as, swinging up at last, he tried to catch his off stirrup was reality enough to clear any confusion of spirit. Hanging on as best he might with his knees and one foot, Lockwood, ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... shine of the warrior's sword, The soldier paused beside it: He wrench'd the hand with a giant's strength, But the grasp of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... is it, Harvey?' she echoed. The dog's throat twitched, his body stiffened and shook as though he were going to have a fit. Then he came back with a visible wrench to his unwinking watch. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... the church, claiming to be the visible representative of Christ, casts him out; when multitudes of pious and holy souls, as yet unenlightened in their piety, look on him with horror as an infidel and blasphemer, —then comes the very wrench of the rack. As long as the body is strong, and the mind clear, a consciousless of right may sustain even this; but there come weakened hours, when, worn by prison and rack, the soul asks itself, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... fast diminishing tread of heavy footsteps on a stairway outside. He tried the window bars. The night was black outside; a cool drizzle blew against his face as he peered into the Stygian darkness. Baffled in his attempt to wrench the bars away, he shouted at the top of his voice, hoping that some passer-by—some good Samaritan—would hear his cry and come to his relief. Some one laughed out there in the night; a low, coarse laugh that chilled him to ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... possibility of such dalliance was driving him mad. It was the hour at which he had promised to wait upon the Cardinal. It was absolutely necessary that he should go at once; and he tore himself away from that fatal sofa-seat with a wrench, and a reflection on the purpose of his visit to the Legate, which seemed to him really to ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... young fellow in a grey shirt had attracted general attention by his dexterity. He was resolved to have Nero's rosette. He managed to wrench it from between the bull's horns, but not completely to disengage it. The bull drove after him so close that it was impossible for another man to run between, the grey shirt reached the barrier and swung over, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out of his family for heaven's sake; but the odds are—nay, and the hope is—that, with all this great transition in the eyes of man, he has not changed himself a hairbreadth to the eyes of God. Honour to those who do so, for the wrench is sore. But it argues something narrow, whether of strength or weakness, whether of the prophet or the fool, in those who can take a sufficient interest in such infinitesimal and human operations, or who can quit a friendship ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... gun-locks and strings complete; a flask of priming-powder; two boring-bits; three priming-wires; eight thumbstalls; four boxes of percussion-primers; one box of friction-primers; one spare lock-string for each gun, and one fuze-wrench; a shackle-punch and pin, and some rags for wiping. These boxes are to be placed by the Quarter Gunners in their respective divisions, near the mast, and on the opposite side to ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... of the sluice, and turned it with a wrench. The cogs began slowly to rise. He turned and turned, like a slave, his white figure became distinct. Ursula looked away. She could not bear to see him winding heavily and laboriously, bending and rising mechanically like a slave, turning ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... the top of some black wave only for one last farewell. He drew his arms tightly over his bosom, and choked back the bitter tears, and tried to pray. The poor old soul had such a singular, unaccountable prejudice in favor of liberty, that it was a hard wrench for him; and the more he said, "Thy will be done," ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... stabbing Captain Cook, or the lieutenant of marines. The latter proposed to fire at him, but Captain Cook would not permit it. Coho closing upon them, obliged the officer to strike him with his piece, which made him retire. Another Indian laid hold of the serjeant's musquet, and endeavoured to wrench it from him, but was prevented by the lieutenant's making a blow at him. Captain Cook, seeing the tumult increase, and the Indians growing more daring and resolute, observed, that if he were to take the king off by force, he could not do it without sacrificing the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... gravels round his blather wrench, An' gouts torment him inch by inch, Wha twists his gruntle wi' a glunch O' sour disdain, Out owre a glass o' whiskey ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham



Words linked to "Wrench" :   hand tool, movement, injure, adjustable spanner, hurt, motion, screw key, wrestle, jaw, harm, squirm, hook spanner, writhe, worm, wriggle, deform, distort, contort, twine, injury, trauma, wound



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