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Cling   Listen
verb
Cling  v. t.  (past & past part. clung, obs. clong; pres. part. clinging)  
1.
To cause to adhere to, especially by twining round or embracing. (Obs.) "I clung legs as close to his side as I could."
2.
To make to dry up or wither. (Obs.) "If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cling" Quotes from Famous Books



... ecstatic sound so twined round our hearts that they must cease to throb ere we forget it; 'tis our first love; 'tis part of religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost worship ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... interesting account by Iglesias is printed in the Appendix to the Diccionario Universal de Geographia y Historia (Mexico, 1856). Other writers testify to the tenacity with which the Mixes cling to their ancient beliefs. Senor Moro says they continue to be "notorious idolaters," and their actual religion to be "an absurd jumble of their old superstitions with Christian doctrines" (in Orozco y Berra, Geografia ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... "Cling to me closer, closer, Iona! There is the water beneath us. We must escape. See, yonder there is a boat. I must carry ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... to pay tribute to its crimson-clad king. So he happily built his city of the clouds until the ceremonies were almost over and a salute of twenty-four guns made little Peninah start with terror and cling to him, crying aloud ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... Then, all his fury in its utmost strength, Raging, he cry'd;—"Thou, Lychas, thou supply'd "This deadly gift. Thou art the author then "Of my destruction."—Shuddering he, and pale, In timid accents strove excuse to plead: Speaking, and round his knees prepar'd to cling, Alcides seiz'd him, with an engine's force Whirl'd round and round, and hurl'd him in the waves, Which by Eubaea roll. He, as he shot Through air, was harden'd. As the falling showers Concrete by freezing ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... kindled his wife's eyes, stimulating the deputy and his follower to coarse playfulness, enthralled his own limbs to the convulsive tightening of his fingers around the rungs of his chair. Yet he managed to cling to his idea of keeping his wife occupied, and of preventing any eyeshot between her and her guests, or the indulgence of dangerously flippant conversation, by ordering her to bring some refreshment. "What's gone o' the whiskey ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... servants should not be aware of all these advantages, the times when such requisitions may be gracefully made and the sums which may be levied are carefully indicated,—not by the cardinal in person, of course, but by his underlings; and many of the fellows who carry the umbrella and cling to the back of the cardinal's coach, covered with shabby gold-lace and carpet-collars, and looking like great beetles, are really paid by everybody rather than the padrone they serve. But this is not confined to the Eminenze, many ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... you have of escaping from it. You have a claim on me: not only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence, but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption. Will you return to this gang of robbers, and to this man, when a word can save you? What fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery? Oh! is there no chord in your heart that I can touch! Is there nothing left, to which I can appeal against ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... laughed a little laugh, and then, changing his tone, resumed: "Yes, dear child, we are not here to do battle with giants; we are here to be happy like the flowers, if we can be. It is because you could, that I have always secretly admired you. Cling to that trade; believe me, it is the right one. Be happy, be idle, be airy. To the devil with all casuistry! and leave the state to Gondremark, as heretofore. He does it well enough, they say; and his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... home Sir George Murray. He expressed his surprise the Duke should cling to the hope of reclaiming the ultra-Tories, whom he would not get, and who were ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... he answered, as a stumble over a root cut short her words and made her cling to him more tightly. "You are an ideal sister. You'd be an ideal wife for a scoundrel. You would be a godsend to any one with phoney stock to sell. Your credulity is perfect. And your feminine curiosity is under lots better control than most women's. I suppose they told you this so-called treasure ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... of age. Then the fire eateth, 220 Burneth the body, while borne is the soul, The fated one's spirit, where flesh and bone Shall burn in the blaze. But it is born anew, Attaineth new life at the time allotted. When the ashes again begin to assemble, 225 To fall in a heap when the fire is spent, To cling in a mass, then clean becometh That bright abode— burnt by the fire The home of the bird. When the body is cold And its frame is shattered and the fire slumbers 230 In the funeral flame, then is found the likeness Of an apple that ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various

... was not proof against the popular superstition of the bees, particularly as it appeared to be an augury to which his enamored heart could cling with all the hope of young and ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... tell scores of impressions the world had made upon me in its aspect of religion, or of politics, or of society! What essays could I not compose here—the mind elevated by that buoyancy which comes of the consciousness of being free for a great effort! Free from the vulgar interruptions that cling to poverty like a garment, free from the paltry cares of daily subsistence, free from the damaging incidents of a doubtful position and a station that must be continually asserted. That one disparagement, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... hopes, long cherished, vanish in an instant, or when we are on the point of losing what is dearest to us, why is faith in God and in His providence not then weakened in the religious man? Why, on the contrary, does he cling to it more and more? The reason is, because such a faith is not a cold theorem, against which some doubt may eventually arise, but a truth rooted in the love inherent in our nature; and consequently it acquires vigour with the growth ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... again and again with his sound tusk, with the terrified and despairing keeper trying to cling to the broken tusk and save himself. At last the point of the sound tusk drove full and fair through the flat of Thuman's left thigh, as he lay, and stopped against the ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... cling to ancient castles where only a shell of stone is standing, and to the ash-trees that grow by the feudal gateway, and supplied the wood for spear shafts—these and all the stories of red men that haunt the moors, and of kelpies that make their dwelling in the waters, become ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... replied, "that's the very reason I cling to the small town. I want to see the people about whom I am writing, and live with them. That's what brings the rewards in our business. It's the personal side that makes it worth while, the real living of a newspaper instead of merely ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... we are not as near the island as we thought. But it won't be long of—See! There it comes," said the hermit. "Now, Winnie, cling to my arm and put your trust ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... be scraped from it. Although this is the state in which the stock should be for grafting, the condition of the scions should be almost the opposite, rather dry and showing no signs of cambium activity. The bark should cling firmly to the woody part of the scions, whereas the bark of the stock should slip off readily. Another good and fairly satisfactory rule is never to graft the stocks of nut trees until ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke

... water, the roar is deafening. One can only cling to the narrow railing or his guide, as he picks his way for more than a hundred feet behind the ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... willing to see it in the pleasantest light. Mrs. March—that was their name—wouldn't allow me to say that I enjoyed Quebec, because if I hadn't seen Europe, I couldn't properly enjoy it. 'You may think you enjoy it,' she was always saying, 'but that's merely fancy.' Still I cling to my delusion. But I don't know whether I cared more for Quebec, or the beautiful little villages in the country all about it. The whole landscape looks just like a ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... who cannot write with half their being, and who must write with their whole being, and they bring their poor relation, the body, with them wherever they go, and are not ashamed of it. They are not at warfare with the spirit, but have a kind of instinct that the clan of human powers ought to cling together as one family. With the best poets of this school, like Shakespeare and Whitman, one rarely can separate body and soul, for we feel the whole man is speaking. With Keats, Shelley, Swinburne, and our own Yeats, one feels that ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... and larger; and she had just time to spring in, before it galloped away with a series of bounds that made it very difficult to cling on. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... meritorious in action, he still enquired of him about the reason of his affection for the tree. This tree is withered and it is without leaves and fruits and is unfit to be the refuge of birds. Why dost thou then cling to it? This forest, too, is vast and in this wilderness there are numerous other fine trees whose hollows are covered with leaves and which thou canst choose freely and to thy heart's content. O patient one exercising due discrimination in thy wisdom, do ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... in utter defiance of the sense, either forwards or backwards, or from the eighth line to the first, alternately the odd and even lines—in short, whatever the passage required; the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state that this singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... was speechless with a joy so deep that it wore the aspect of an almost heart-breaking sorrow. She could only cling with choking sobs to her husband's arm. "What's all this fuss, Uncle Joe?" queried the captain. "Let go the old darkie; what's she ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... And honour'd live! See yonder isle set single In the lake, near by where Earn darts swiftly 'neath The rustic bridge to bear the music of the place To broader Tay, who murmurs from afar In the rich harmony of his many streams—yon isle, The haunt of lovers now, where hearts that touch And thrill, cling closer in the eerie sense Of fear that lurks amid the tumbled stones Of robbers' lair. Here, once upon a time, When might was right, and men made wrongful Gain of Nature's fastnesses, a ruffian couched And ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... needless to enlarge on the contrariety of ideals between the beasts that prey and those they prey upon, between those of the animals that have to work hard for their food and the sedentary parasites that cling to their bodies and suck their blood and so forth. A large number of suffrages in favour of maternal affection would be obtained, but most species of fish would repudiate it, while among the voices of birds would be heard the musical protest of the cuckoo. Though ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... and wide, by placards in the scattered stores and post-offices that cling near the railway stations and dot the Haywood Road on the other side of ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... Ginx's with a bitterness of humor that mocks the sentiment of Howard Payne's song. As a specimen of clean realism, this description is more effective than anything of Zola's; for Zola's realism is idealism gone mad. The squalor of the slum is heightened by the associations that cling to the name Rosemary. A bit of sermonizing upon the responsibilities of landlords for the souls in that slum, and the author reverts to Ginx ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... not be attended with any serious difficulty; at least not to the observant student who reads his musical page thoughtfully, and attaches some meaning to the figures and motives of the melody; who endeavors to recognize the extent to which the successive tones appear to cling together (like the letters in a word) and constitute an unbroken melodic number,—and, in so doing, also recognizes the points where this continuity is broken, and a new number is announced. Much assistance may be derived from the fact—striking ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius

... hen. But when the intruder refuses to be dislodged, when the blood moves more slowly and the eyes grow dimmer, then it is that Dr. Winter is of more avail than all the drugs in his surgery. Dying folk cling to his hand as if the presence of his bulk and vigour gives them more courage to face the change; and that kindly, windbeaten face has been the last earthly impression which many a sufferer ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... if furnished with the means and implements for profitable husbandry, their life of entire dependence upon Government rations from day to day is no longer defensible. Their inclination, long fostered by a defective system of control, is to cling to the habits and customs of their ancestors and struggle with persistence against the change of life which their altered circumstances press upon them. But barbarism and civilization can not live together. It is impossible that such incongruous conditions should ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... the drawing below, alter them, and then, finally, with a long, thin brush paint them in, over the charcoal, with water-colour lamp-black, this time a true sixteenth of an inch wide. Don't dust the charcoal off first, it makes the paint cling much better to ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... too, to make her own death, now close at hand, of use to them, from this time up to the hour when they should each of them have to quit this world. Her hope was that it might help guide them on their path; that the Faith which she had taught them to cling to, would have sunk deep in their hearts; and that all their works should spring from love to God. She could but pray that they would bear these words in mind, and put their whole trust in Him who had borne their sins on the Cross, and had been ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... insect on the wing, having learned that trick, perhaps, from his neighbor, the little western flycatcher, which also lived on the slope. Hermit thrushes, Audubon's warblers, and warbling vireos dwelt on the lower part of the acclivity. When I climbed far up the steep wall, scarcely able to cling to its gravelly surface, I found very few birds; only a flycatcher and an Audubon's warbler, while below me the hermit thrushes were chanting a sacred oratorio in ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... feather; Pate-leaves cease to cling together; Citrons clear their welted rind; Vines their ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... welfare of the community must be inculcated, together with new conceptions of personal dignity and worth. To the domestic sentiment in those cramped and distorted forms in which it still survives in Britain, where we cling tenaciously to so many institutions devoid of life and utility, a less commanding part must be assigned in the future than heretofore. Above all, it behoves us to encourage the scientific spirit with its correlates, patient thought and study, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... reached his gate, and after she had rung and was beating upon the door with the palm of her hand, she had to cling to ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... in, Frank gave the horses a flick with the whip. The afternoon air was keen and the high-spirited team needed no further urging. They swung out of the farm gate at a pace that made Reggie cling to the seat. ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... said I, with a laugh, "and let Dale alone. Allow him to do whatever irrational thing he likes, save bringing the lady here to tea. If you try to tear him away from her he'll only cling to her the closer. If you trumpet abroad her infamy he'll proclaim her a slandered and martyred saint. Leave him to ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... Cling, clang—creak! Cling, clang—creak! So the discordant bell sounded forth in the playground, the interval between the strokes being filled by a harsh, rusty squeak that set one's teeth on edge. The message it bore to the boys was, "Come in—quick! Come in—quick!" ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe

... in earnest, I should get on better. But, perhaps you will judge me more fairly when you think it over. I'll say only one thing more. I can't give up hope. It's about all I've got left—hope of you—belief in you. I must cling to that. I'll go ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... from outside made them cling more closely to one another. There was something of the hunted animal in them; Lars Peter was reserved in his manner to people, and was ready to fly out if attacked. The whole family grew shy and suspicious. When the children played outside the house, and saw people approaching ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... than walk the earth. The wearers seemed amphibious, as if they did but creep out of salt water to sun themselves; nor would it have been wonderful to see their lower limbs covered with clusters of little shellfish such as cling to rocks and old ship-timber over which the tide ebbs and flows. When their fleet of boats was weather-bound, the butchers raised their price, and the spit was busier than the frying-pan; for this was a place of fish, and known as such to ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... put Saxon in behind the protection of the picnic table. Mary, who was hysterical, had evinced a desire to cling to him, and he had sent her sliding across the top of the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... robots were up with the sun. The children were up with the robots. There was breakfast and more stories, and now the children clustered about the robots, holding onto their arms, where they could cling, tagging and frisking along behind the robots as they went down into the town. The sun was warm, and it was early, early, and very bright from the morning ...
— There Will Be School Tomorrow • V. E. Thiessen

... strength of which I tell you. Though I have given myself to you as your wife, I can bear to be divorced from you now,—now. And, my love, though it may sound heartless, I would sooner be so divorced from you, than cling to you as a log that must drag you down under the water, and drown you in trouble and care. I would;—indeed I would. If you go, of course that kind of thing is over for me. But the world has more than that,—much more; and ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... of these things would begin to move before her with persistence, as if they were going to make a pattern; she could hear a thin cling-clang, a moving white pattern of sound that, when she tried to catch it, broke up and flowed away. The image pattern and the sound pattern belonged to each other, but when she tried to bring them together ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... authorities of Cambridge University put it, unfortunately, it had taken the form of his right hand flourishing a loaded firearm in the very face of a distinguished don, and driving him to climb out of the window and cling to a waterspout. He had done it solely because the poor don had professed in theory a preference for non-existence. For this very unacademic type of argument he had been sent down. Vomiting as he was with revulsion, from ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... the way they have been treated up to the 1st Of July, the French and Austrians still sullenly cling to the ruins of the French barricades. But on the 1st the Chinese, elated at their success in capturing the eastern half of the French Legation, pushed their barricades nearer and nearer, and only ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... way began breaking against them with remarkable persistency. Plays that had won game after game went wrong and youth was not resourceful enough to offset the breaks. The White Sox began to fall away fast in percentage, but managed to cling to the lead until June 10. Boston passed them right there and the Chicagoans ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster

... heavy brooches and chains and rings appeared clumsy when compared to the hoar-frost tracery of the platinumsmith's exquisite art. But their skirts had pleats when pleated skirts were worn, and their sleeves were snug when snug sleeves were decreed. They were inclined to cling over-long to a favourite leather reticule, scuffed and shapeless as an old shoe, but they could hold their own at bridge on a rainy afternoon. In matters of material and cut Mrs. Mandle triumphed. Her lace was likely to be ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... narrowly into his countenance. His bronzed skin appeared to cling closely to his angular features, but there were none of those deep furrows that betray the presence ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... nose is arched and thin. She wears no make-up whatever, and, however plainly she may feel it her duty to dress in these days, her clothes are cut by a master and an excessively modern one at that; there is none of the Victorian built-up effect, to which our own grandes dames cling as to the rock of ages, about Madame d'Haussonville. Her waist line is in its proper place—she does not go to the opposite extreme and drag it down to her knees—and one feels reasonably sure that it will be there at the age of ninety—presupposing that the unthinkable amount ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... brought his dismembered forces down to a total of 10,000 men, of whom 3,500 only were now under his immediate command, the rest being with Lee and Heath. And the work of disintegration was steadily going on. Always hopeful so long as there was even a straw to cling to, Washington seems to have expected that the people of New Jersey would have flown to arms, upon hearing that the invader had actually set foot upon the soil of their State. Vain hope! His appeal had fallen flat. The great and rich State of Pennsylvania was nearly, if not quite, ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake

... my girl, may bid us part, Our souls it cannot, shall not sever; The heart will seek its kindred heart, And cling to it as close ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... first be restrained. The Americans, who attempted to escape into the woods, were quickly driven back by the Indians; and many, cut off in their return to the main body, and terrified at the sight of these exasperated warriors, flung themselves wildly over the cliffs, and endeavoured to cling to the bushes which grew upon them; but some, losing their hold, were dashed frightfully on the rocks beneath; while others, who reached the river, perished in their attempts to swim across it. Such, alas! are the dreadful horrors too often arising from human warfare! ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... embittered by acts of enmity being practised by both sides to the extreme provocation of the faithful few. Their forbearance will be sorely tried, and this is the final test of men. By those who cling to prejudice and abandon self-restraint, extol enmity, and always proceed to the further step—the plea to wipe the enemy out: the counter plea for forbearance is always scorned as the enervating gospel of weakness and ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... chance,' said he. 'We can cut the cords which hold the car, and cling to the net! Perhaps the balloon will rise. Let us hold ourselves ready. But—the barometer is going down! The wind ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... but in its specifically human part—the front—it is very low and bestial; while the heavy ridges over the large eyes, the large flat stumpy nose, the thick bulge of the lips and teeth, and the almost chinless jaw, show that the traces of his ancestry cling close to man after some hundreds of thousands of ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... held some suggestion at least of merry-making, but the ceremony had been shorn of all possible resemblance to its English form. The Puritans were in terror lest any Prelatical superstitions or forms should cling to them in faintest degree, and Bradford wrote of the first marriage which took place in the Plymouth Colony: "The first marriage in this place, which, according to the laudable custom of the Low Countries, in which they had ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... Mountain by a road not much frequented. In the morning's ride we did not meet a trap of any kind or a rider,—something quite unusual in that country of riders and drivers. The road seemed to cling to the highest hills, and we climbed up and up for hours. Only once was the grade so steep that we were obliged to dismount. We passed through no village until we reached the other side, but every now and then we would come to a little clearing with two or three houses, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... their minds more fraught with the rich beauty of auburn ringlets than in the untoward confusion, for example, of irregular Greek verbs; yet I much fear that admonition would be of no use. If their fate be woven of a texture similar to that of mine, how can they help it? A man may have an idea that to cling to the shelter which he has found, and indulge in the sleep that has overtaken him amid the stormy blasts of the waste mountains, may be little else than opening for himself the gates of death, yet the toils of the way through which he has already passed may also have rendered ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... strength of will rather, to awe and intimidate him. She knew the folly of such means against the brutal desire of the man. But she clung to it as a meed of hope, because she had naught else to which to cling. Without a hope, even the falsest, she ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... into them anew the spirit of life. Read this Declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn, and the solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, or perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill and in the streets of Lexington ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... small holdings common enough even now in Connaught cannot be made to support the farmer, or rather labourer, and his family decently, even in the best of years, and that any failure of crop must signify ruin and starvation. Any observation of this kind is ill received by the people, who cling to their inhospitable mountains as a woman clings to a deformed or idiot child. And in this astonishing perversion of patriotism they are supported in unreasoning fashion by their pastors, who seem to imagine that because a person is born on any particular spot he must remain ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... further interviews Bunter showed himself very mild and deferential. He seemed to cling to his captain for spiritual protection. He used to send for him, and say, "I feel so nervous," and Captain Johns would stay patiently for hours in the hot little cabin, and feel ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... or any other cause, from fishing, these people suffer severely. They have then no resource but to pick up shellfish, which may happen to cling to the rocks, and be cast on the beach, to hunt particular reptiles and small animals, which are scarce, to dig fern root in the swamps or to gather a few berries, destitute of flavour and nutrition, which the woods afford. To alleviate the sensation of hunger, they tie ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... that there should be vast and rapidly growing portions of the globe that are not only at peace with us, but at one with us; how unspeakably important it is to the future of the world that the English race, through the ages that are to come, should cling as closely as possible together. As a distinguished statesman who lately represented the United States in England[4] has admirably said, 'If it is not always true that trade follows flag, it is at least true that "heart follows flag,"' and the feeling that our fellow-subjects ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... cracks of the cabin; a pitching motion, as if it were afloat, made the son of the negro cling closer to the Jew. ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... last quoted, "Flens mihi meam famam commendasti." "Believe," he says, "that I cling to the doctrines which you yourself have taught me. They are ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... recommendation in the eyes of people who still cling to the baubles of nobility, and all women are of this class. There is something, I know not what, delicate and knightly in this title, which suits a youngish bachelor. Duke above all titles is the one that sounds the best. Moliere and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... I do not mind their nonsense, but however my heart may cling to dear Fred's memory, I must think of my precious boys," was her conclusion. To which Katherine answered, "Of course," as she would have answered any proposition, however wild, provided only she could save her mother from worry, at least for ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... teapot, and thought for a few moments about the marks; presently, however, I felt the whirl returning; the marks became almost effaced from my mind, and I was beginning to revert to my miserable ruminations, when suddenly methought I heard a voice say, 'The marks! the marks! cling to the marks? or—' So I fixed my eyes again upon the marks, inspecting them more attentively, if possible, than I had done before, and, at last, I came to the conclusion that they were not capricious or fanciful marks, but were arranged systematically; when ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... faith and hope, under so severe and trying a dispensation. Let me entreat you to remember the many instances recorded in scripture, where answer has been given from on high to the prayers of those who can faithfully cling to them." But while the worthy man strove to lead the sufferer beyond this sublunary sphere, his heart bled for the poor children she was leaving. The first blow she received, was the sudden news of her husband's death ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French

... that he who by long desire or through accident of birth possesses the power of piercing into their hidden abode can see them there, those who were once men or women full of a terrible vehemence, and those who have never lived upon the earth, moving slowly and with a subtler malice. The dark powers cling about us, it is said, day and night, like bats upon an old tree; and that we do not hear more of them is merely because the darker kinds of magic have been but little practised. I have indeed come across very few persons in Ireland who try to ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats

... a big dry-land wave, and Ollie seized it. If the poor pony had been frightened before, she was now terror-stricken, and gave a jump like a tiger, and shot away faster than we had ever seen her run before. Ollie had lost control of her, and could only cling to the saddle with one hand and hold to the big blundering weed with the other. Fortunately the pony ran toward the wagon. As they came up we could see little but tumbleweed and pony legs, and it looked like nothing so ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth

... a kind of bread baked until it becomes crisp and hard, and plenty of steaming hot coffee. I never saw any people so fond of this beverage as the Boers are. The Australian bushman and digger loves tea, and can almost exist upon it; but these Boers cling to coffee. They live, when out in laager, like Spartans, they dress anyhow, sleep anyhow, and eat just rusks and precious little else. Talk about "Tommy" and his hard times, why a private soldier at the front sleeps better, dresses better, and eats better than a Boer general; ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... could do nothing but cling instinctively to the twiggy bough up which he had struggled till his face was a little above the surface, his hands a few inches higher still, and his body dragged out level with the water; while it seemed to him that the unfortunate boy he had tried to save was tugging violently at his ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... think, that the instinctive motive of Vera's life was her independent pride. Cling to that, and however the world might rock and toss around her she could not be wrecked. Imagine, then, what she must have suffered during the weeks that followed her surrender to Lawrence. Not that for a moment ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... State. The Convention—that model of energy—was made up in a great measure of young heads; no sovereign can ever forget that it was able to put fourteen armies into the field against Europe. Its policy, fatal in the eyes of those who cling to what is called absolute power, was nevertheless dictated by strictly monarchical principles, and it behaved itself like any of the ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... figures seized us, shoved us prone on the metal platform. It was barely four feet wide; a low railing, handles with which to cling, and a tiny ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... clouds, and cannot but pass. Ah, reader! it may be your cloud has not yet passed, and you scorn to hear it called one, priding yourself that your trouble is eternal. But just because you are eternal, your trouble cannot be. You may cling to it, and brood over it, but you cannot keep it from either blossoming into a bliss, or crumbling to dust. Be such while it lasts, that, when it passes, it shall leave ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... what his father was like—and here he was before him. In those days he had nursed a hatred against that unknown sire, but now there was no more of that. If only,—Chester kneeled by the side of the minister's chair, letting the old man cling to his hand. He looked without wavering into the ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... in whose depth Ilse, the fairy transform'd, In a thousand water-breaks light Pours her petulant youth— Climbing the rock which juts O'er the valley, the dizzily perch'd Rock—to its iron cross Once more thou cling'st; to the Cross Clingest! with smiles, with ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... and tears and turmoil, than if you had been born, for instance, in England. But somehow life is warmer and closer; the hearth burns more redly; the lights of home shine softer on the rainy street; the very names, endeared in verse and music, cling nearer round our hearts. An Englishman may meet an Englishman to-morrow, upon Chimborazo, and neither of them care; but when the Scotch wine-grower told me of Mons Meg, it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... agrees with their own religion, has proved more embarrassing to the natives than their perplexity as to others in which it essentially differs; till at last, too timid to doubt and too feeble to inquire, they cling with helpless tenacity to their own superstition, and yet subscribe to the new faith simply by adding it ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... Of fusion: when, set free From semblance of mortality, Yielding its dust the richer to endue A common avenue Of earth for other souls to journey through, It shall put on in purer guise The mutual beauty of its destiny. And who shall fear for his identity And who shall cling to the poor privacy Of incompleteness, when the end explains That what pride forfeits, beauty gains! Therefore, O spirit, as a runner strips Upon a windy afternoon, Be unencumbered of what troubles you— Arise with grace And greatly go!—the ...
— The New World • Witter Bynner

... their winter dreariness, hungry, wasted, dying, cowering beneath the accumulation of their woes, he might have regarded the scene as presenting but a reasonable retribution upon a stolid obstinacy in the most direful and needless self-inflictions. "Why could they not have been content to cling to the comforts of Old England, and to restrain their wilfulness of spirit?" The question is answered now differently from what it would have been then. We have used one wrong word about those exiles, in speaking of them as cowering under their woes. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... that clung to the steep incline. On the left it was overhung by the forest; on the right, earth fell suddenly away in a wooded precipice. As the highway clung to the mountain-side, so did quaint villages cling to the highway. They came to an old Gasthaus, the hinder end of which was buttressed over the brink ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... of it all appears to me to be that the increase of wealth in the upper class is exterminating the home idea, to which I cling, single woman as I am; and consequently the middle classes, as blind copyists, also are tending to ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... for irony, too detached for sentiment and, as I said above, entirely merciless. Towards the end I found myself falling back on the old frightened protest, "People don't do these things." I still cling to this belief, but the fact remains that Miss HOLDING has a haunting trick of persuading one that they might. Minor faults, such as an irritating idiom and some carelessness of form, she will no doubt correct; meanwhile you have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various

... and scratch all day, But yet get children (as the neighbours say). The reason is: though all the day they fight, They cling and close some minutes of ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... partially—to his daughter's passive government. A day or two after Ralph Ray's departure, Rotha had gone in search of her father, and had brought him back with her. She had given him his work to do, and had tried to interest him in his occupations. But a sense of dependence seemed to cling to him, and at times he had the look of some wild creature of the hills which had been captured indeed, but was watching his opportunity ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... sub-order of lizards. Their chief characteristic is their adhesive toes, which enable them to cling to and run on smoothest surfaces even when upside down. They do not like the hot sunlight and largely feed at twilight and at night. The Reef Gecko is found in Florida; the Warty Gecko, so called on account of the rows of large ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... person dearer to you than your own self—some one breast into which you can pour every thought, every grief, every joy! One person, who, if all the rest of the world were to calumniate or forsake you, would never wrong you by a harsh thought or an unjust word,—who would cling to you the closer in sickness, in poverty, in care,—who would sacrifice all things to you, and for whom you would sacrifice all—from whom, except by death, night or day, you must be never divided—whose smile is ever at your hearth—who has no tears while you are well and happy, and your ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... for the reformers because the traditionalists were able to cling to the secretary's proviso that old sections of the cemeteries be left alone, and the Army continued to gather its dead in segregation and in bitter criticism. Five months after the secretary's directive, the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... have a wife and children. If I have worked for them all my life, could I stand back now at the last and see them robbed of their inheritance by a black-hearted scoundrel when I could still lift a hand to prevent it! I had one way left. What is my life? I am too old a man to cling to it where they are concerned. I have referred to my insurance several times. I have always carried heavy insurance"—he smiled a little curious, mirthless smile—"THAT HAS NO SUICIDE CLAUSE." He swept his hand over the desk, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... could not hit upon the stuff of which her shift was made. It looked like coarse silk, had a web, had fibres or threads. It may have been flax, but that it was much too sinuous. It seemed to stick to the body where it touched, even to seek the flesh where it did not touch, that it might cling like gossamer with invisible tentacles. In colour it was very pale yellow, not worn nor stained. It was perfectly simple, sleeveless, and stopped half-way between the hip and the knee. I looked for, but could not discover, either hem or seam. Her feet and hands were very lovely, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... with frank and boyish mien, Straight back and sturdy shoulders, he lords it o'er the scene; His grip is firm and manly, his cheeks are smooth and red; The tangled curls cling tightly about his jolly head. And when we launch the eight-oar I hear his orders ring; With dauntless iteration I see his body swing: The pride of all the river, the mainstay of our crew— O Postumous, my bold one, can this ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... that, so far away from their native land, these would-be Mexican rulers, stranded among a people with whose customs and mode of thought they had no sympathy, and of whose traditions they knew nothing, should cling to the little circle of trusted friends who had followed them in their adventure. It was natural also that the Mexicans, seduced by the vision of a monarchy in which THEY hoped to be the ruling force by virtue of their share in its inception ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... man to do this: one is the consideration of the Divine Goodness and of His benefits, whence the words of the Psalmist: But for me it is good to cling close to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God.[88] And this consideration begets love, which is the proximate cause of devotion. And the second is man's consideration of his own defects which compel him to lean upon God, according to the words: I have lifted up mine eyes ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... She thinks he may be still on the island. She said to me, "I thought he must be there, dead or alive. I thought he might go crazy and kill himself after having done all that." At last she steals out. The little dog frisks before her; it is so cold her feet cling to the rocks and snow at every step, till the skin is fairly torn off. Still and frosty is the bright morning, the water lies smiling and sparkling, the hammers of the workmen building the new hotel on Star Island sound through the quiet air. Being on the side of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... yourself clear of the yards and stays as I lower you down. Don't cling anywhere. I'll ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... that Sir Joseph and Lady Webling were in a state of panic, too. They smiled at her with a wan pity and fear. She caught them whispering often. She saw them cling together with a devotion that would have been a burlesque in a picture seen by strangers. It would have been almost as grotesque as a view of a hippopotamus and his mate cowering hugely together and nuzzling each other under the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... the ground. There was a panicky "Chee! Chee!" from behind him, and Murgatroyd came dashing to swarm up his body and cling apprehensively to his neck. ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster

... path, Still to the twig a leaf or twain Will cling and weep, not Winter's wrath, But that foreknown forlorner pain— To fall when green ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q

... learned some English expressions from his pupils. He was returning through the hall from a hobbling excursion to make sure that all the windows down stairs were closed. The candle dropped from his hand and he was left in the dark. His crutch slid from under his arm, and he was forced to cling to a table for support and call for his wife to come and find ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith

... suddenly had merged with the sentinel. For an instant, in stark silence, the two seemed to cling together. Then the Shadow fled, and the lanky Missourian slumped to the earth in a sprawling heap, his ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... the racing droshky to be got out, and set off to the forest to shoot woodcock. It is pleasant making your way along the narrow path between two high walls of rye. The ears softly strike you in the face; the cornflowers cling round your legs; the quails call around; the horse moves along at a lazy trot. And here is the forest, all shade and silence. Graceful aspens rustle high above you; the long-hanging branches of the birches scarcely stir; a mighty oak stands like a champion beside a lovely lime-tree. ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... our childhood fair and sacred. Sapless doctrines doth rehearse, And the milk of falsehoods acrid, Burns our babe-lips like a curse, Cling we must to godless prophets, as the suckling to ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... delight from Johnnie. Then his grandmother carries him to the door, and glories in seeing him resist his mother's blandishments to cling to her. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... if emancipated, will overrun the North and West. But why should they fly from the South to the cold winters and less genial climate of the North or West? It is servitude which degrades the negro; and if the stigma which he now bears is removed, why should he not cling to the region in which he was born and bred, and to which he is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various



Words linked to "Cling" :   hang, agglutinate, mold, edible fruit, cleave, touch, cling film, hold fast, clingstone, bond, cling to, cohere, stick to, hold on, stick, bind, attach, meet, grasp



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