Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Clutch   Listen
noun
Clutch  n.  
1.
A gripe or clinching with, or as with, the fingers or claws; seizure; grasp. "The clutch of poverty." "An expiring clutch at popularity." "But Age, with his stealing steps, Hath clawed me in his clutch."
2.
pl. The hands, claws, or talons, in the act of grasping firmly; often figuratively, for power, rapacity, or cruelty; as, to fall into the clutches of an adversary. "I must have... little care of myself, if I ever more come near the clutches of such a giant."
3.
(Mach.) A device which is used for coupling shafting, etc., so as to transmit motion, and which may be disengaged at pleasure.
4.
Any device for gripping an object, as at the end of a chain or tackle.
5.
(Zool.) The nest complement of eggs of a bird.
Bayonet clutch (Mach.), a clutch in which connection is made by means of bayonets attached to arms sliding on a feathered shaft. The bayonets slide through holes in a crosshead fastened on the shaft.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Clutch" Quotes from Famous Books



... ask to see my dance order?" He made a defensive clutch at his pocket as if she had, and quick colour swept into his cheeks. She watched it, and watched it fade, leaving his face tired and sullen, and too old ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... clutch closed upon his arm. He was whirled backwards into a chair. For a moment he was too dazed to grasp what had happened. He saw zu Pfeiffer's face. The sentries over his moustaches quivered like a row of fixed bayonets. The eyes seemed needle points. Then the fact ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... a great clutch and hiss in the crowd. The boy still stood unmoved, holding by one hand behind him, looking down from above, from his dangerous elevation, in a sort ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... forboded that the aid she had given was not hidden from her father, and that quickly she would fill up the cup of woe. And she dreaded the guilty knowledge of her handmaids; her eyes were filled with fire and her ears rung with a terrible cry. Often did she clutch at her throat, and often did she drag out her hair by the roots and groan in wretched despair. There on that very day the maiden would have tasted the drugs and perished and so have made void the purposes of Hera, had not the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... all. In our own country the British land shark has made his appearance. His vile clutch, which our forefathers unwrenched in the strength of their Colonial greatness, has again been fastened upon our throat. The following table will show the extent to which the parasite has insinuated himself into our vital parts. Let the good people of this country—who should know that monopoly ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... clutch them, Though none was in the room, Old players' dead fingers touch them, Shrunk ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... Abbe Susini glanced uneasily over his shoulder. These still, stony valleys were peopled by the noiseless, predatory Ishmaels of the macquis. They were, it is true, not numerous at this time, but those who had escaped the clutch of the imperial law were necessarily the most cunning ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... Chicago Wheat Pit the hand of the great indicator stood at seventy-five cents. Jadwin sold out his September wheat at this figure, and then in a single vast clutch bought three million ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... a branch and brought it home, thinking that perchance it might have come down to us from one planted by Marban's hand. Of blackthorns there are plenty. The adjective he uses is "dusky." Could he have chosen a more appropriate one? I thought, too, of "the clutch of eggs, the honey and the mast" that God sent him, of "the sweet apples and red whortleberries," and of his dish of "strawberries ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... he may, at this juncture, have wished to find his way out, escape was, in fact, out of the question; on the south and north was one continuous dead wall, which, even had he wished to scale, there was nothing which he could clutch and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... bursting and his eyes starting from their sockets, he found himself once more at the surface, breathing in great gulps of the blessed air, and alone. For a moment he could not believe it, but gazed wildly about him, expecting each instant to feel the awful clutch that should again drag him under. He was nearly exhausted, and so weak that had not a floating oar come within his reach he must quickly have sunk, to ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan

... away; it touched on all that is precious, mysterious, and holy on earth. It breathed of deathless sorrow and mounted dying away to the heavens. Lavretsky drew himself up, and rose cold and pale with ecstasy. This music seemed to clutch his very soul, so lately shaken by the rapture of love, the music was glowing with love too. "Again!" he whispered as the last chord sounded. The old man threw him an eagle glance, struck his hand on his chest and saying deliberately in his own tongue, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... rose as they poured in; the dancers ceased to dance; the music ceased to play; and Margot, shutting a tight clutch on the loosened part of her half-unfastened bodice, swung away from Cleek's side, and flew in a ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... in his desert lair— Now half the world! Beholding with dismay That Human Freedom is the tiger's prey, A giant, down whose shoulders, broad and bare, The long, thick, crimson flow is Sampson's hair, Makes haste to clutch the beast. Oh, how the clay beneath their struggle, reddens, night and day, Till lies the beast, a ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... three successive attempts he kept prudently out of reach of these terrible weapons. His adversary held her fore-legs wide open, as though she was desirous of getting the other to rush between them, that she might clutch him, after the manner of the bears. This was exactly what she wanted, and in this consists the chief mode of defence adopted by these animals. The puma, however, seemed to ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... my wishes," replied she, relaxing her clutch of his arm. "Le Gardeur de Repentigny can speak for himself. I will not allow even my brother to suggest it; still less will I discuss such a subject with ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... method is the reverse of Dr. Van Dyke's. If he has held his hand anywhere the reader does not suspect it, for it seems, with its relentless power of realization, to be laid upon the whole political life of Kansas, which it keeps in a clutch so penetrating, so comprehensive, that the reader does not quite feel his own vitals free from it. Very likely, it does not grasp the whole situation; after all, it is a picture, not a map, that Mr. White has been making, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the stream, and a small boy was struggling to maintain his desperate clutch on the sloping side of the craft floating ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... flattered by your admiration, pardieu," says the Pretender, with a rueful grin down at the shabby clothes which were so tight upon him, and a clutch at ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... down in the valley, that the big brown owl did not get one or the other of them. He was asleep on a big dead branch as brown as himself, and looking so like a part of it that they were just going to alight, either upon him or within reach of his deadly clutch, when a red squirrel saw them and shrieked at them. Two great, round, glaring orange eyes opened upon them from that brown prong of the branch, so suddenly that they gave two startled squawks and nearly fell to the ground. ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... fact that never, never more would her destroyed visage lean in a real manner on that of Ramuntcho; then, in the doubt of having a mind which would fly, in the horror and the misery of annihilation, of becoming powder and nothing, she wanted again kisses from that son, and she clutched at him as clutch the wrecked who fall into the black ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... bondage to the fatal drug, and although he had not given her his promise—foreseeing even then the possibility of this black hour—he had meant, at the moment, to turn his back for ever on the seductive thing which whispers such sweet, such deliriously fatal promises to the man in the clutch of any agony he does not know ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... cloak and with a muffled lantern in his hand, went in and knelt by her side calling out, 'Mi reina! Mi reina!' and sometimes breaking through the formal etiquette that in Spain governs every separate action of life, and sets limits even to the sorrow of a King, he would clutch at the pale jewelled hands in a wild agony of grief, and try to wake by his mad kisses the cold ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde

... lean and quivering hands of Wilfred Bohun went up to his head and seemed to clutch his scanty yellow hair. After an instant they dropped, and he cried: "That was the word I wanted; you have ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... comparatively small and select part of humanity. Instinct and emotion are still forces of tremendous magnitude, against which Reason wages an upward struggle of incredible bravery. Only the strong can escape the clutch of the primitive, wherefore there can be no successful social order which does not conform in its essentials to the blind impulses of the natural man or man-ape. We are in danger of overestimating the ascendancy and stability of Reason, for it is in reality the most fragile and rudimentary element ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... use of it. A second later be gave a very good pretense of pain in his finger-ends as the thief burst free. The native made a dive at his bosom for the knife, but he frustrated that. Then he made a prodigious effort, just too late, to clutch the man again, and he did succeed in tearing loose a piece of shirt; but the fleeing robber must have wondered, as he bolted into the blacker shadows of the station building, why such an iron-fingered, ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... of my publishers to know that they have no ideas of their own about literature save what they can clutch at as believing it to be a straight tip from a business point of view. Heaven forbid that I should blame them for doing exactly what I should do myself in their place, but, things being as they are, they are no use to me. They have no confidence in me and they must have this or they ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... reached the fork and swung himself out on the branch with not a second to spare. The grizzly, frothing with rage and hate, had hurled himself against the tree and his up-reaching claw had torn the bark in a vain attempt to clutch the leg that he only ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... boy had thrown so much energy into his action that as Phil's ankle glided through his hand, he failed to clutch the ratline beneath, swung round, and unable to get a fresh hold, began to fall from rope to yard, to rope again, and then came heavily on the fore yard, which partially broke his fall, but after a moment or two he came down heavily upon the deck, making his companions there scatter and then ...
— The Powder Monkey • George Manville Fenn

... these sons of blood! As I came on, his face so madden'd me That ever and anon I clutch'd my dagger ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... his seat to get a look at her, then shifted the clutch and slowly started the car. The woman sat quiet. While bumping over the uneven road at a reckless speed the driver turned at times to cast stealthy glances at the person beside him. Finally he asked ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... clutch again as the party broke into laughter, and they darted across the tracks behind ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... and again; they would draw back so as to avoid those stinging strokes, sniff, growl and push upward, more eager than ever to clutch the poor fellow, who was compressing himself between the limb and the trunk, and raining his blows with the persistency ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... the strip of wool that the giants had threshed, and whirled it round and round until it had twisted it into hard thin thread. Then it would make a clutch with fingers of steel at the thread that it had gathered, and waddle away about five yards and ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... nightmare. I remember those trees especially, and my desperate running along under them, and how, every time I fell, roars of laughter went up from the other drunks. They thought I was merely antic drunk. They did not dream that John Barleycorn had me by the throat in a death-clutch. But I knew it. And I remember the fleeting bitterness that was mine as I realised that I was in a struggle with death, and that these others did not know. It was as if I were drowning before a crowd of spectators who ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... Each tyrant rages 'gainst opposing foe In deadly fight—yet brings to light no friend: In travail sore hope comes not to the birth— Fear hydra-headed terror still begets;— All fancies grim I see, and straight embrace, At hope I clutch, who still eludes my grasp; Her rainbow hues adored are but a frame That serve by contrast to make fear more dark. Severus haunts me—oh, I know his love, Yet hopeless love must mate with jealousy,— While Polyeucte, who has won what he has lost, Can meet no rival with ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille

... upon one that must have been asleep. He did not see it till it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made a clutch as startled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there remained in his hand three tail-feathers. As he watched its flight he hated it, as though it had done him some terrible wrong. Then he returned and ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London

... letter, which is slowly crumpling under the clutch of his nervous fingers, is worthy of attention, for it is written on crested paper which is blue. And the ink is blue, too, and might reasonably indicate the tone of the blood of the sender, though hardly ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... Roy's bed. But where are you two going? You're not fit to be out of bed, Syd," as the latter reeled and made a quick clutch at the bannisters. ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... restraint of the fiddles everything must have been swept to the floor. There were one or two minor accidents. A steward, taken unawares, was thrown headlong on top of his laden tray. Others were compelled to clutch the backs of chairs and cling to pillars. One man involuntarily seized the hair of a lady who devoted an hour before each meal to her coiffure. The Sirdar, with a frenzied bound, tried to ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... me. It's been four years. And I'm so changed. This"—she gave herself a downward look—"this isn't the 'gel' he wants.... Probably by now he's given me up. Maybe he's found another. Everything that's bad and hateful can find me out here. Bad things can find you out and try to clutch after you anywheres. But when something wild and clean comes hunting for you, something out of the big lonely places—why, it would be scared to follow ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... had even seemed to smile her forgiveness when Mavis turned, with no good-by, to follow Jason. Hand in hand the two little mountaineers had crossed the threshold of a new world that day. Together they were going back into their own, but the clutch of the new was tight on both, and while neither could have explained, there was the same thought in each mind, the same nameless dissatisfaction in each heart, and both were in the throes of ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... these big men were generous, and were willing to give away what they had acquired. Though grasping, they were not avaricious. They grasped things with the strong prehensile grasp of the infant, rather than with the clutch of the miser. They took them because they were there, and not because they had any well-defined idea as to whether they belonged to ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted her like a kitten and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever increasing speed down the drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came and went in the golden ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... the flute!" he cried, "the soother of sorrow, the orphan's comforter. Let me clutch you in my grasp. Oh, it brings ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... fight. I have never beheld anything that so closely and humiliatingly resembled the battle on the cambric square under the big sweeting. The wary advance after the recoil from the first encounter; the circling about at close quarters, each watching for his antagonist's weak point, the sudden clutch, embrace, and wrestle, which I, with umpiric instinct, interrupted, once and again, to prolong the combat,—none of these were wanting ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... true knight. Woe! woe! the eager dream is broken by mad war-whoops! Alas! to those fierce wild men, what is love, or loveliness? Pride, and passion, and the old accursed hunger for gold flame up in their savage breasts. Wrathful, loathsome fingers clutch the long, fair hair that even the fingers of love have caressed but with reverent half-touch,—and love, and hope, and life go out in one dread moment of horror and despair. Now, through the reverberations of more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... business upon earth was done. Catherine was not condemned to absolute poverty—the poverty which grinds and gnaws, the poverty of rags and famine. She had still left nearly half of such portion of the little capital, realised by the sale of her trinkets, as had escaped the clutch of the law; and her brother had forced into her hands a note for L20. with an assurance that the same sum should be paid to her half-yearly. Alas! there was little chance of her needing it again! She ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... moment," said the prisoner, extending his arm as if to clutch at a still vague inspiration—"wait a moment. When I arrived in Paris I had with me a trunk containing my clothes. The linen is all marked with the first letter of my name, and besides some ordinary coats and trousers, there were a couple of costumes ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... carrying them out. For the most glutinously indefinite minds enclose some hard grains of habit; and a man has been seen lax about all his own interests except the retention of his snuff-box, concerning which he was watchful, suspicious, and greedy of clutch. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... knew to be little short of sixty feet, but in the dark night it appeared an abyss of horrible profundity. A cold sweat broke out upon him, and for one moment he felt an almost irresistible tendency to let go the umbrella and clutch the window-sill, but he was too late. Like lightning he shot down for a couple of yards; then the parachute expanded and checked him with such violence, as he swung round, that he nearly lost his hold and was thrown into a horizontal position—first on one side, ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne

... duty which we cannot escape. She was lying, not on the bottom, but in a niche of rock into which she had been thrown and wedged by the force of the current. One arm was free and was washing about; I tried to clutch this arm as I went down, but it eluded me. When I arose, the rush and swirl of the water was against me and I felt my senses going, but enough instinct was left for me to snatch again at the arm as I passed, and though ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... huge crowd which filled the square began to run in tumult to the neighbouring streets, where each one rushed to find shelter, and a few moments later the leaders of the Austrian party, with the mayor at their head, came to clutch at my hand and beg me to spare the town. I agreed on the condition that they would send immediately to tell the miners and workmen to go back to their homes. They hastened to comply, and the elegant young ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... relic broke down in a fit of coughing. No sooner had he recovered than he leaped into the air, making a frantic clutch at ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... blocked upright on the ground, Solomon backed his Moreland out of the way, carried a tray of tools to the engine and squatted in the dirt to work. First, the intake manifold came off and was bolted to the clutch housing so the carburetor mounting flange faced skyward. Solomon stopped for a minute to worry. "If it works," he thought, "when I get them nearer each other, it'll go up in my face." Scanning the yard he thought of ...
— Solomon's Orbit • William Carroll

... loyalty to the King. New York was thus the chief lodging-place of all that embodied British sovereignty in America. Naturally the material tokens of British rule radiated from the town, covering all of the island of Manhattan, most of Long Island, and all of Staten Island, and retaining a clutch here and there on the mainland ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... elder man was tiring, and the youngster must have shared that opinion. There was a leap to the right, a sudden flurry of dart and retreat, and then a net curled high and fell, enfolding flailing arms and kicking legs. When the clutch rope was jerked tight, the captured youth was thrown off balance. He rolled frenziedly, but there was no escaping the ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... of him—of my only son in the clutch of his bitter foe, and I thank you for reminding me of him, little as I have for these long years needed spur to my remembrance. Bring in ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... began suddenly, "have you decided what you will do? Your mine in the mountains—it will be foolish to return there while the hands of the Vigilantes are reaching out to clutch you; do you not think so? More of the tale I have heard from Valencia, who returned with Manuel. Those men who died at the hand of your friend—and died justly, I am convinced—had friends who would give much for ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... his rifle, Henry would have asked no other favor. Just that one little gift from fortune! The clutch of his fingers on the stock tightened, and the involuntary motion sent a new thought through him. The rifle lay unmoved across his shoulder, its muzzle pointing upward. Before him in the water the shadow still lay, unchanged, beside his own. He ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... life was Care. There was no hint of happiness in his long narrow face, dull sunken eyes, and bloodless compressed lips. His expression was not that of one unable to tear himself away from the last glimpse of a loved wife fallen from his arms into the clutch of Death. It was the gaze of one immersed ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... her eyes. She was silent. Then—"I should need no hired bravo to kill my lover if he forsook me!" she cried at last, and laughed, but the marvelously wrought gold comfit box in her fingers was crushed by her convulsive clutch. ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac

... of his many-sided experience of dissection-rooms, and morgues, and other ghastlinesses to which he had long since accustomed himself from principle, drew back at the sight—perhaps because he had come to this strange place to clutch the world-old mystery of the life-essence, and found himself, instead, confronted on its threshold by the equal mystery ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... careless touch; Endurance hardens with a word; She holds a trifle with a clutch So strangely, childishly absurd, That he who loves and ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... there are no vegetables, there is no food, and every man is robbing his neighbour. Men wish to walk, but they are unable to move; the young man drags along his limbs, the hearts of the aged are crushed with despair, their legs fail them, they sink to the ground, and they clutch their bodies with their hands in pain. The councillors are dumb, and nothing but wind comes out of the granaries when they are opened. Everything is in a state of ruin." A more graphic picture of the misery caused ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge

... Winter firmly; but the other stayed him with a clutch of thin, nervous fingers on an arm strong enough ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... saw her dash to the platform, seize Frank in a clutch of desperation. There was a violent wrench as if some monster were twisting at his vitals. He closed his eyes against the blinding light, then realized that utter silence had followed the erstwhile confusion. He sat ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... time to search for its owner. There were half a dozen different cars with which Van Buren was familiar. He ran to it, glanced at its levers, wheel, and clutch, recognized the one type he had coveted, and hurled ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... handle employed should be provided with a special fastening (e. g., a clutch similar to that employed for the free wheel of a bicycle), or should be readily detachable so that, on ceasing to turn, the handle should not, by its weight and air resistance, act as a brake and stop the machine ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... at once with a start, and, seeing the window shut, rose hurriedly to go and open it for the "Boy." He had done so before at night often when he chanced to forget it. But when he got to it now he had to clutch the frame to support himself, and he looked out stupidly for some seconds, wondering in a dazed way why the sun was shining when it should be dark. Then suddenly full consciousness returned, and he remembered. He should never open the window again ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... felt a touch Of Cockram's greedy clutch, Which though it was not much, Yet their stubbornness ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... suddenness of attack commonly kills the victim on the instant. The weapon of death is not the beak, but either the wing or the claws; a flap of the wing or a clutch of the talons is usually enough for the purpose. The eagle kills and eats birds that are smaller and weaker than himself, he lives upon the best of the game, and he drags the best of the fish out of the river or the sea. He carries off the farmer's poultry, and ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... the interior, from a reliable source, which indicates that the situation on the other side of the Rhine is anything but calm. More than ever now must we hang on, for the victory is almost within our clutch. ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... torn and stubborn jersey, or at finding lost shin-guards and nose masks, and so he found a seat out of the way, and, searching the room with his gaze, at length found Prince. That gentleman was having a nice, new pink elastic bandage put about his ankle. He was grinning sturdily, but at every clutch of the web his lips twitched and his brow puckered. Joel watching him wondered how much more he would stand, and whether his (Joel's) chance would come ere the fatal whistle piped the end of ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... not cry; but Macklewain saw his hands clutch the staves tightly, and the muscles of his naked ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... he gritted through his teeth, as he jabbed the key with frantic haste into the lock. "I'll fix you for this!" He made a clutch at her throat, as he swung ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... of the three courses. He held it with the nervous clutch of a weak nature until overmastered by two grim men who gradually hypnotized his will. The turning-point for Buchanan, and the last poor crisis in his inglorious career, came on Sunday, December 30th. Before that day arrived, his vacillation had moved his friends to pity and ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... reply, but allowed her to grasp my hand, which she did with a bony, nervous clutch, and endeavored with some difficulty to keep pace with the long strides—I might well call them bounds, for they seemed the springs of a wild animal rather than the paces of a young girl—with which she covered the ground. Not a word more was uttered until ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... and he came out before her barn. There was a hole in the barn-door and he went through that. And in the north-west corner of the barn, he saw Old Mother Hatchie sitting on a nest of straw and he knew that there was a clutch of eggs under her. She cackled when she saw the Fox on the floor of the barn but she never stirred off the nest. Rory left what was in his mouth on the ground. Old Mother Hatchie put her head on one side and looked at the Egg that was clear ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... gave his lectures standing, and had had a reading-desk placed on the platform, adapted to his own very tall stature, so that when I came to get his manuscript it was almost above my head. Though rather disconcerted, I was determined not to go back without it, and so made a half jump, and a clutch at the book, when every leaf of it (they were not fastened together), came fluttering separately down about me. I hardly know what I did, but I think I must have gone nearly on all-fours, in my agony to gather up the scattered leaves, and retreating ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... undertone. "You held the nose of the boat true enough, too, I guess, when I let the torpedo drive. But that infernal Jack Benson was on the watch, and he saw the thing coming. Of course he stopped his boat and put the reverse clutch on just in the nick of time. That young Benson always appears to be in the nick ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... Harry!" exclaimed my uncle, catching my disengaged hand in his, while by an effort I dragged the other away from Garcia's cold clutch, his eyes fixing mine the while, and seeming to say, "Be careful, or I'll have your life!"—mine, if they could speak a language that he could interpret, plainly saying, "You cowardly hound, ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... theirs who strove to win The blood-stained heathen to the Christian fold; To free from Satan's clutch the slaves of sin; These labors, too, with loving grace ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... get to Charing Cross in three minutes," he cried out, and the man, accepting the spirit of the thing, thrust in his clutch, eagerly. For a moment it seemed as though temporarily, at any rate, Richard would get clear away. In about fifty yards, however, there was a slight block. The door of the taxicab was wrenched open, and one of the men who were ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... was the track,—she must go faster, it was getting dark. But was this the track after all,—it seemed to be fading out as the other had done? She put on the gas and bumped heavily into a hidden rut. Quickly she threw the clutch into low, and—more gas— What was that? The wheel did not grip, the engine would not pull,—the matchless Harmer Six was helpless. Again and again Connie tried to extricate herself, but it was useless. She got out and took her bearings. It was early evening, but darkness was coming fast. The ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... waiting men was very great when their companions arrived with the prisoner. Smiley told the story, laying stress on the warning cry which he had cut short with his throttling clutch. The general opinion was that Chippy had been posted there as a spy, and threats of vengeance ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... the groups of people scattered in little dusky pools against the snow, until they touched the very doors of the church.... I saw all this, was conscious that the stars and the church candles mingled... then suddenly I had to clutch the side of the booth behind me to prevent myself from falling. My head swam, my limbs were as water, and my old so well-remembered friend struck me in the middle of the spine as though he had cut me in two ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... George's stumbling rush, feeling a twinge of pity for the battered humanoid. It was no contest. Strong as he was, George didn't know the rudiments of hand-to-hand fighting. His reactions were those of an animal, to close, clutch, bite, and tear. Even if he were completely well, the results would have been the same. It would merely have taken longer. Kennon drove a vicious judo chop to the junction of the Lani's neck and shoulder. Brute strength was no match for the highly ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... was swift and strong, and, good swimmer as he was, it was no easy task which Alleyne had set himself. To clutch at Tranter and to seize him by the hair was the work of a few seconds, but to hold his head above water and to make their way out of the current was another matter. For a hundred strokes he did not seem to gain an inch. Then at last, amid a shout of joy and praise from ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... now noble Pompey? What, at the wheels of Csar? Art thou led in triumph? What is there none of Pigmalions Images newly made woman to bee had now, for putting the hand in the pocket, and extracting clutch'd? What reply? Ha? What saist thou to this Tune, Matter, and Method? Is't not drown'd i'th last raine? Ha? What saist thou Trot? Is the world as it was Man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? Or how? The tricke of it? Duke. Still thus, and thus: still worse? Luc. How doth my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... bring into a world, so filled with shadow, an increasing number of our species. What a supreme act of faith the continuance of the race is. ... Oh, the cunning of Nature—how empty the heart of man or woman who has not felt the clutch of a baby's hand, or drunk deep of the heaven- made perfume of a baby's breath. And the impulse that babies give to life, the challenge that they make to the father is always a noble one. It is ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... madame," replied Louis XIV., tearing the parchment which Mazarin had not yet ventured to clutch; "yes, I annihilate this deed, which despoiled a whole family. The wealth acquired by his eminence in my service is his own wealth ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... as I felt as if I was beginning to fly right off over the blue sea, and away into the fleecy clouds, and as I made an effort to get rid of the clutch upon my shoulder, he ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... to repent. "Say, Lord have mercy on my soul. Look up Unto the Lamb of God, for He can save Even to the uttermost." Slight heed obtain'd This adjuration, wild the glazing eye Fix'd on the wall,—and ever and anon The stiffening fingers clutch'd at things unseen, While from those spent lungs came a shuddering sound, "That's he! That's he! The old man! His grey hairs Dabbled with blood!" Then in a loud, long cry, Wrung out by torturing pain, "I struck the blow! I tell ye that I struck the blow, and scaped. Conrad ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... crushing him beneath its rough and ragged sides. All thoughts of self-murder vanished with the presence of actual peril, and uttering that despairing cry which had been faintly heard by Troke, he flung up his arms to clutch the monster that was pushing him down to death. The log passed completely over him, thrusting him beneath the water, but his hand, scraping along the splintered side, came in contact with the loop of hide rope that yet hung ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... "flivver" as it bounced and squeaked and rattled and splashed its way along. But Mr. Pulcifer himself was not sad, at least his appearance certainly was not. Swinging jauntily, if a trifle ponderously, with the roll of the little car, his clutch upon the steering wheel expressed serene confidence and his manner self-satisfaction quite as serene. His plaid cap was tilted carelessly down toward his right ear, the tilt being balanced by the ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... tongue and made it wag tauntingly. "You didn't get me the last time; that was a slip and police stools got me. All by yourself, Gavegan, you couldn't get anything. Your brain's got flat tires, and its motor doesn't fire, and its clutch is broken. The only thing about it that still works is the horn. You've got a hell of a horn, Gavegan, and ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... 'but I daren't drive. My left leg is so weak that I couldn't work the clutch. Springfield had to run us over here to-day. There's barely enough petrol to take us ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... cared for now was to get to Ellen and pour out her troubles, and she was quite silent while she jumped ashore, although the wavering boat made her clutch ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... to be Billie's day for bumping into people—for at the foot of the stairs she had to clutch the banister to keep from colliding with Miss Walters, the beautiful and much loved head of ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler

... from neighing.—If a troop of horsemen pass near your hiding-place, it may be necessary to clutch your steed's muzzle with both ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... and talked the usual hard luck. Been in the stock business thirty years and never had a good year yet. Nothing left of his cattle but the running gear; and his land so poor you couldn't even raise a row on it unless you went there mad; and why he keeps on struggling in the bitter clutch of misfortune he don't know. But I always know why he keeps on struggling. Money! Nothing but money. So when he got through mourning over his ruined fortunes, and feebly said something about taking some mules off my hands at a fair price, I shut him off ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... one, full of absorbing interests, and as she stood drinking in the perfume from a spray of lilac she had broken to choose the bit for the Deacon, she suddenly realized that not one minute had she found in which to let the horrible dread creep close and clutch at her throat. Helping along in the construction of a bucket of tea-cakes, the printing of four cakes of butter, the simmering of a large pan of horehound syrup and the excitement of pouring it into the family bottles that Mother ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... do when he realized how badly both master and servant were in the clutch of their beliefs and superstitions, was to wonder at it. But by the time Sancho had finished his words, the repast was being served ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... lies in other men's souls; we all have our secrecies and sanctuaries, rarely acknowledged even to ourselves. But no one can read Joyce Kilmer's poems without grasping his vigorous idealism, his keen sense of beauty, his devout and simple religion, his clutch on the preciousness of common things. He loved the precarious bustle on Grub Street; he was of that adventurous, buoyant stuff that rejects hum-drum security and a pelfed and padded life. He always insisted ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... Mr. Montagu. "I don't see through you! I don't!" But as he leaned forward to clutch at him in his terror, all that he could see before him was a closed door beyond a dozen tables, a disused entranceway diagonally opposite the one that had let them in. "I don't believe you!" he wailed. "Oh, my God, my God, my God, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... grow careless. Mr. Forster sprained his wrist the other day with a back-fire, which he ought to have avoided, and I heard of a horrible accident in Paris, when a chauffeur started his car with the clutch in gear, with the consequence that it dashed over a bridge into the Seine, and the occupants—a lady and two little children—were drowned before his eyes. There's no need to be nervous if you take proper care, but cars are not playthings to be ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... Chinaman's natural craving for as much of it as he can secure. At the same time, the abominable system of official extortion must go far to crush a spirit of enterprise which would otherwise most undoubtedly be rife. Everybody is so afraid of bringing himself within the clutch of the law, that innovation is quite ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... stood on the very point of the pier, where the strong stone-work divided the current, and held his hooked pole ready to make a clutch at the roof, whichever side it took. Jim Leonard saw him there, but although he had been holloing and yelling and crying all the time, now he was still. He wanted to say, "O Bob, save me!" but he could not make ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells

... wellnigh indescribable, and may be said, in general terms, to have been naught but the blind and desperate clutch of two great bodies of men, who could scarcely see each other when they were but a few feet apart, and who fired at random, rather by sound than sight. A Southern writer, describing the country ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... tormented him swimming, Flood-beasts no few with fierce-biting tusks did Break through his burnie, the brave one pursued they. The earl then discovered he was down in some cavern Where no water whatever anywise harmed him, And the clutch of the current could not come anear him, Since the roofed-hall prevented; brightness a-gleaming Fire-light he saw, flashing, resplendent. The good one saw then the sea-bottom's monster, The mighty mere-woman; he made a great onset With weapon-of-battle, his hand ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... lay by his side at night her arm stole about his, as if to clutch him, fearful lest in the empty reaches of sleep he might escape, lest his errant man's thoughts and desires might abandon her for the usual avenues of life. Long after he had fallen into the regular sleep of night, she lay awake by his side, her eyes glittering with passion and defeat. Even ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... mind, he stood by the window feeling awkward and embarrassed. The man who climbed the flag pole having put the rope through the ring at the top slid suddenly down the pole and thinking for the moment that he had fallen Sam made a quick clutch at the air with his hand. His gripping fingers closed over Sue ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... not a drowning man clutch the raft that floats by? And the lawless ones do not take his ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... his best efforts at self-control, Wilbur felt a slow, cold clutch at his heart. That sickening, uncanny lifting of the schooner out of the glassy water, at a time when there was not enough wind to so much as wrinkle the surface, sent a creep of something very like ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... of his own danger, Francesco gave him a push, and losing his balance the captain fell over the edge, a distance of sixty feet, upon the jagged rocks beneath. But not alone! Still retaining his fierce clutch upon the Italian's throat, the murderer, too, fell with him, and both were stretched in an instant, mangled and lifeless, at the bottom of ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger

... your spark and open the throttle—that speeds her up. This is the spark and this the gas, here. Then you shove your shifting lever—see, here it is—over to the next speed. Remember that, any time you shift the gears, you'll have to pull the clutch. The machine has to gain headway on one speed before it ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... "Here is the clutch of your Stronghold," said the old man urgently. "Break that and all goes down. Dare you ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... greater classic tradition), to evoke a variegated vision of the tragi-comedy of life in its height and its depth, its freedom, and its wide horizon. This drama has for the most part little to do with the operation of the Fate which works itself out when a man's soul is in the stern clutch of Necessity. We are far here from Euripides and from Ibsen. Life is always a pageant here, a tragi-comedy, which may lean sometimes more to comedy, and sometimes more to tragedy, but has in it always, even in Lear, an atmosphere of enlarging ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... I explain to this dear, misguided one that, even as those rollicking words were spoken, I felt the clutch of a cold foreboding that I ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... unless I could arrive in time to save him, armed with a reprieve or pardon—I didn't quite know which—that I had got from Washington. I waked up crying out, because a hand had been stretched forth through darkness to clutch my shoulder, and prevent me from getting to El Paso until too late. Even then, when I was wide awake, the dream had been so horribly vivid that I couldn't persuade myself it wasn't true. I had always laughed at superstitious people who believed in dreams, yet I couldn't ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... in the clutch and rolled northward. This was the strangest "pinch" of his experience and he didn't know just what to make of it. After he had gone a few blocks he turned ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... looked at the face. Ah, there was no imperial grandeur here! Only a feeble, sallow, tired, and sickly creature, whom a strong man could crush down with one blow of his fist. Rohan grew weak as he looked, and the long knife almost fell from his clutch. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... the outraged pioneers lay in the faraway camps of hostile tribes. George Girty had so sunk his individuality into the savage's that he was no longer a white man. Jim Girty stalked over the borderland with a bloody tomahawk, his long arm outstretched to clutch some unfortunate white woman, and with his hideous smile of death. Both of these men were far lower than the worst savages, and it was almost wholly to their deeds of darkness that Simon Girty owed his ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... but it's a-goin'!" Aunt Mary exclaimed, as the thing began to whiz and she felt suddenly impelled to clutch wildly at her flanking escorts. "Suppose we ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... to see once again the settlement at Sydney, whence had radiated the series of his valuable and unsparing researches; but on the next and final occasion he was "caught in the clutch of circumstance." His leave-taking in August, 1803, was essentially his farewell; and his general observations on the country he had served, and which does not forget the service, are, though brief, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... a last clutch at my resolution. "People who do that kind of thing always get into trouble. She might miss her train. She's almost certain to ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... whether it or you are going the faster, when suddenly there seems to be a hush, almost a lull, in the uproar. You look astern, and see a wall of water rising majestically higher and higher, at the same time drawing nearer and nearer. Instinctively you clutch at something firm, and hold your breath. Then that mighty green barrier leans forward, the ship's stern seems to settle at the same time, and, with a thundering noise as of an avalanche descending, it overwhelms you. Of course the ship's way is deadened; she seems like a living ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... to the number of eggs in laid clusters. We collected clutches of six, four, four and one; adding one more of three (Lowe, op. cit.) gives an average of 3.6 eggs per cluster; the average is 4.2 eggs if our clutch of one is discarded on ...
— Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii • Richard F. Johnston

... the slope it stood still for what seemed an age. They saw the two in bow and stern struggle desperately again and again to wrest their craft from the clutch of the current. Then, almost with a leap, freed from the fierce resistance of the rapids, the canoe slid over the brink of the incline, into the deeper part ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... functions of the clutch, carburetor, valves, magneto, spark plug, differential cam shaft, and different speed gears, and be able to explain difference between ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... hind feet and rushed to meet poor Wunny, squeezing him in a terrible embrace that checked the Chinaman's yell instantly. Until a touch of Bruin's teeth upon his thinly clad shoulder and a bite of sharp teeth awoke it again. A clutch of his queue from the great paw brought forth greater shrieks and seemed to give the victim an extraordinary strength. By some means he wrenched himself free and escaped, the grizzly pursuing on all fours again—and both ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond

... forgetting any cause of dislike he might have to Dansowich, joined heart and hand in the plans formed by the pirates for the deliverance of their leader. Every man in Segna, whether young or old, all who could wield a cimeter or clutch a knife, hastily armed themselves, and crowded into the fleet of long light skiffs in which they were wont to make their predatory excursions. Then breaking furiously through the line of Venetian ships, stationed between Veglia and the mainland, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... stamping her little feet, and clenching her little hands, and swearing to herself by all her gods, that this wretched, timid lordling should not get out of her net. She did, in truth, despise him because he would not clutch the jewels. She looked upon him as mean and paltry because he was willing to submit to Mr. Camperdown. But still she was prompted to demand all that could be demanded from her engagement,—because she thought that she perceived ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... front of the hall had been reached, and she had gone up half a dozen steps into a small dressing-room. This was crowded to suffocation—by men who played the Game, she concluded, in one capacity or another. And here she lost Joe. But before the real personal fright could soundly clutch her, one of the young fellows said gruffly, "Come along with me, you," and as she wedged out at his heels she noticed that another one of ...
— The Game • Jack London

... the sounds, and then I saw something come up above the sill, and clutch at the broken window-frame. It caught a piece of the woodwork; and, now, I could make out that it was a hand and arm. A moment later, the face of one of the Swine-creatures rose into view. Then, before I could use my rifle, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... me!" It was the last fierce flicker of hope when hope seemed dead: the last clutch of the drowning at the straw that ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... 'A rispettarmi apprenda' (Learn to respect me) is a triumph for Carthagenova, who will express superbly the offended pride and the duplicity of a sovereign. The Throne will speak. He will withdraw the concessions that have been made, he arms himself in wrath. Pharaoh rises to his feet to clutch the prey ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... the mighty stranger. "And you will never get out of my clutch until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... said) when the winter changed the time of its appearance. The like might befall Markheim: the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch. Ay, and there were soberer accidents that might destroy him; if, for instance, the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of his victim, or the house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all sides. These things he ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... being ambitious. We can't blame them for wanting to better their condition in life, and we can't blame them for falling prey to the white slave monster, with its tentacles spread throughout the country ready at every possible chance to clutch them within its grasp. We can only warn them to be more cautious, to investigate carefully before going away from home with people they do not know. Fathers and mothers are too negligent in this regard, and through their laxity and carelessness they have allowed their daughters to ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... troop carried a rifle balanced across his saddle pommel; each was dressed in the garb of the range-rider; and the face of each, glimpsed by the light from some window or doorway, was grimly stern. The sight was one calculated to make Fear clutch like an ice-cold hand at the hearts of those with guilty consciences; a spectacle which induced such respectable men as saw it to arm themselves and fall in behind the advancing line. These knew without being told what this noiseless band of stern-eyed riders portended, and ever since the coming ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... The sudden clutch was wholly unexpected, and the knife dropped. With his other hand Jack picked it up. As he did so, the March Hare uttered a cry. It was neither loud nor long, but there was something so startling in it that the commotion of the fight ceased suddenly, and ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe

... stretched over the small bones. I stooped beside her, in answer to an appealing look. She could not lift the frail, tired hand that lay by her, its fingers uncurled, the hand of one who, dying, relinquishes gladly its grasp on life. The hands of the strong, torn from a world they love, clench and clutch at the last; it is an involuntary hold on earth. The doctor moved away. The whining sobs of the old man became more audible. I put my ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... in fury, until at the farther wall Gresh flung Vic from him against the jagged rock with a force that cut a gash across the boy's head. The blood splashed on both men's faces as they renewed the strife. Then with a quick twist Burleigh threw the outlaw to the floor and held him in a clutch that weighed him down like a ledge of rock; and it was pound ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... the muddy fields, the small barn and outbuildings. The clutch of fear made him shout their names, though he knew ...
— Now We Are Three • Joe L. Hensley

... spoke, the guaco, which had hopped down to the lowest branches of a neighbouring tree, swooped suddenly at the snake, evidently aiming to clutch it around the neck. The latter, however, had been too quick, and coiling itself, like a flash of lightning darted its head out towards the bird in a threatening manner. Its eyes sparkled with rage, and their fiery glitter could be seen ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... was instantaneous: the red face became mottled with yellow: a thick-fingered, tottering hand made a clutch at the tell- tale ribbon. 'Medal!' the man cried, wonderfully sobered. 'I have ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the clutch and set out on her drive. She rarely had a settled route for these outings of hers, preferring to zigzag about New York, livening up the great city at random. She always drove herself and, having, like ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... touch, Her lips whose kisses pout to leave their nest, Bid man be valiant ere he merit such; Her glance how wildly beautiful—how much Hath Phoebus woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek, Which grows yet smoother from his amorous clutch, Who round the north for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear! how languid, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... that chin which bears his touch: Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest, Bid man be valiant ere he merit such: Her glance, how wildly beautiful! how much Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch! Who round the North for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear? ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... a divinely appointed instrument of vengeance. Something outside her obsession had its clutch upon her also, but it was new, and she did not guess that ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... replied Krag sternly. "His world is no joke. He has a strong clutch—but I have a stronger... Maskull was his, but Nightspore ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... this time lay at full length in the mud. The guardsmen tried to rouse him by shaking, but in vain. Finally, one of them, losing all patience, pricked him with his bayonet on the lower part of the ribs exposed by the raising of the jacket as he fell. I was now near enough to act, and with a sudden clutch I pulled the guardsman away, whirled him around, and stood in his place. As I was stooping over the Turk he raised himself slowly, doubtless aroused by the pain of the puncture, and turned on me a most beseeching look, which changed at once into something like joy ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... us," thought Denis, and a chill of despair seemed to clutch his heart, as he rose in his stirrups and, dagger in hand, strove, but in vain, to give some aid to his two defenders, who were growing breathless with their exertions and hampered and overpowered by ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... apples, honey of wild bees And after them of eggs a clutch, Haws, berries of the juniper; Who, King, could cast ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... whipped up his rifle Melissy sprang forward. She heard the sound of the explosion fill the draw, saw Bellamy clutch at the air and slowly sink to the ground. Before the echoes had died away she had flung herself toward ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... they were stupefied by this great flux of life which swept them on day after day to another day. Often unexpressed, this, but felt dumbly below the chatter and dry laughter. They waited, waited, circling about in a gray maelstrom until the grave sucked them in. He himself had been in the clutch of it. But that ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... blood was beating in her ears like the deafening roar of waves, and the room was darkening with the film that was creeping over her eyes. Her hands fell powerless to her sides and her knees gave way limply. He was holding her upright only by the clutch on her throat. The drumming in her ears grew louder, the tent was fading away into blackness. Dimly, with no kind of emotion, she realised that he was squeezing the life out of her and she heard his voice coming, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... paw, hand, finger, wrist, fist, neaf^, neif^. bird in hand; captive &c 754. V. retain, keep; hold fast one's own, hold tight one's own, hold fast one's ground, hold tight one's ground; clinch, clench, clutch, grasp, gripe, hug, have a firm hold of. secure, withhold, detain; hold back, keep back; keep close; husband &c (store) 636; reserve; have in stock, have on hand, keep in stock &c (possess) 777; entail, tie up, settle. Adj. retaining &c v.; retentive, tenacious. unforfeited^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget



Words linked to "Clutch" :   temporary state, clutches, slip clutch, arrest, catch, grab, nestle, hold tight, grapple, clutch bag, seize, clench, clasp, disk clutch, take, overpower, clutch pedal, assemblage, coupling, overtake, foot pedal, transmission, take hold, take hold of, prehend, cling to, embracing, purse, brood, snatch, friction clutch, sweep over, wrestling hold, embracement, nab, cone friction clutch, overwhelm, transmission system, prehension, schmeer, slip friction clutch, snatch up, taking hold, grasp, foot lever, grip, bag, rack, pocketbook, apprehend, get, nest, claw, treadle, collection



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com