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Sting   Listen
noun
Sting  n.  
1.
(Zool.) Any sharp organ of offense and defense, especially when connected with a poison gland, and adapted to inflict a wound by piercing; as the caudal sting of a scorpion. The sting of a bee or wasp is a modified ovipositor. The caudal sting, or spine, of a sting ray is a modified dorsal fin ray. The term is sometimes applied to the fang of a serpent.
2.
(Bot.) A sharp-pointed hollow hair seated on a gland which secrets an acrid fluid, as in nettles. The points of these hairs usually break off in the wound, and the acrid fluid is pressed into it.
3.
Anything that gives acute pain, bodily or mental; as, the stings of remorse; the stings of reproach. "The sting of death is sin."
4.
The thrust of a sting into the flesh; the act of stinging; a wound inflicted by stinging. "The lurking serpent's mortal sting."
5.
A goad; incitement.
6.
The point of an epigram or other sarcastic saying.
Sting moth (Zool.), an Australian moth (Doratifera vulnerans) whose larva is armed, at each end of the body, with four tubercles bearing powerful stinging organs.
Sting ray. (Zool.) See under 6th Ray.
Sting winkle (Zool.), a spinose marine univalve shell of the genus Murex, as the European species (Murex erinaceus).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sting" Quotes from Famous Books



... touches the chord of feeling, and every piece was associated with Bertie. Cecil shut the instrument, and effected a strategical retreat to her bed-room, where, in the luxury of solitude, she might worry and torment herself to her heart's content. His absence was trial enough, but the sting lay in the way it was done, which was such a proof of indifference, that shame urged her to crush out all thoughts of him, and suffer anything rather than let him see the impression his careless affection had ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... conventions, his genius was to me one of the grandest revelations of my life, a lesson of artistic expression. The words fire, energy, abandon, found in him unprecedented meanings. I never heard a speaker or actor who could give such a sting to hauteur or the taunt. I never heard from any other the charm of unswervingly perfect vocalization without trenching at all on mere melody, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... eye and the green!" thought Mrs. Lecount, as the captain caught the ball of conversation in his turn; "thick as your skin is, I'll sting you through it yet!" ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... strength and fragrance from the surrounding forest. The only drawback to our comfort was a hornets' nest in an old apple-tree close to the summer-house. The hornets used to buzz round us at every meal, and at first we supposed they might sting us. This they never did, though we waged war on them fiercely. But no one wants to be chasing and killing hornets all through breakfast and dinner, so we asked the maid of the inn what could be done to get rid of them. She smiled and said Jawohl, which was what she always said; and ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... and lampreys, spring pickled tunny- fish, mackerel, and sting-ray; large fish, too, ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... considerable breadth, and a head much larger than a serpent's in proportion to the body, and shaped more like a bird's, with a sharp, short beak, sprang upon and coiled round my left arm. That it was trying to sting with an erectile organ placed about midway between the shoulders and the tail I became instinctively aware, and presently felt something like a weak electric thrill over all my body, while my left hand, which was naked, sustained a severe shock, completely ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... She stopped as she recognised me, and I saw that she wished to speak. Her eye was bright, and her ample bosom heaved in a way that seemed to portend a certain sharpness of reproach. But the expression of my own face, apparently, drew the sting from her resentment, and she addressed me in a tone in which bitterness was tempered by a sort of dogged resignation. "I know it was you, now, that separated us," she said. "It was a pity he ever brought you to see me! Of course, ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James

... Town, who upon some Misdemeanor fled from his Place to Philip, by whom he was entertained in the Room and Office of Secretary, and his chief Councellor, whom he trusted with all his Affairs and secret Counsels: But afterwards, whether upon the Sting of his own Conscience, or by the frequent Sollicitations of Mr. Eliot, that had known him from a Child, and instructed him in the Principles of our Religion, who was often laying before him the heinous Sin of his Apostacy, and returning back to his old Vomit; he ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... or conjuror, three of which sleep on the grave of a recently interred corpse; when in the night, during their sleep, the dead person inserts a mysterious bone into each thigh of the three doctors, who feel the puncture not more severe than that of the sting of an ant. The bones remain in the flesh of the doctors without any inconvenience to them, until they wish to kill any person, when by unknown means, it is said and believed, they destroy in a supernatural manner their ill-fated victim by the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... that Jack, who was at all times rash, had struck the bees' nest with his axe, and was much more hurt by them than the rest. Ernest, who went to his work in his slow way, got up to it last, and thus did not get more than a sting or two, but the rest were some hours ere they could see out of their eyes. I took a large gourd, which had long been meant to serve for a hive, and put it on a stand, We then made a straw roof to keep it from the sun and wind, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... succeeded. His mother's corpse was under the cold sod at his feet, her blood calling to him for vengeance. And still another passion prompted him to seek it— perhaps the darkest of all, jealousy in its direst shape, the sting from a love promised but unbestowed. For the coon-hunter had never told Jupe of Helen Armstrong's letter. Perhaps, engrossed with other cares, he had forgotten it; or, supposing the circumstance known to all, had not thought it worth communicating. Clancy, therefore, up to that hour, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... of consolation may be spoken in vain—when, instead of soothing a sorrow, they add poison to its sting. I made no attempt, therefore, to rouse my companion from his reverie; but rode on by his side, silent as he. Indeed, there was sufficient unpleasantness in my own reflections to give me occupation. Though troubled by no heart-canker of the past, I had a future before me that ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... were full of balm, for of course it was the sting of jealousy that had made my heart resent the venerable Pepper's powerful influence over my dear Bessie. Being once assured that it was a second-rate power, and that I still held my supremacy, I entered into the Sunday-school ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... side, his face toward the door. His arms and legs began to sting with the sensation known as sleep. He was glad his father had overheard the initial conversation. A wave of terror ran over him at the thought of being set ashore while Jane went on. Still he could have sent a British water terrier in ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... the job with his outer mind, while with his inner mind he turned over and over the things that Pen had said to him the night before the mask ball. Even in the excitement that followed the ball, Pen's scolding, as he called it, had never been entirely out of his thoughts. In spite of their sting, Jim realized that Pen's words had cleared his vision, had given him a sense of content that was comparable only to the feeling he had had on the night so many years ago that he had discovered ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... way of catching Elephants. Their understanding. Their Nature. The dammage they do. Serve the King for executing his Malefactors. Their Disease. The Sport they make. Ants of divers sorts. How one sort of them, called Coddias, came to sting so terribly. These Ants very mischievous. The curious Buildings of the Vaeos, another kind of them. The manner of their death. Bees of several kinds. Some build on Trees like Birds. The people eat the Bees, as well as their Honey. Leaches, that ly in the grass, and creep on Travaylers Legs. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... seals a brand on a maverick, that look left its impress. No voice could have spoken as that simple action spoke, no tongue thrust could have been so pointed. With no intent of discourtesy, no premeditated malice was it given; and therein lay the fine sting, the venom. It was unconscious as a breath, unconscious as nature's joy in springtime; yet in the light of after events, it stood out like a signal fire against the blackness of night, as the beginning of an enmity more deadly ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... would need care to distinguish them. If the dotterel's eggs were put down among grass, or even among the clods of ploughed land, they would be equally difficult to find. You might as well suppose that the whitethroat is aware that nettles will sting the human hand approaching its nest as that eggs are especially adjusted in colour to deceive human eyes. As for deceiving the eyes of those birds that are fond of eating eggs, the thing is impossible; the size of ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... rhinoceros-hide fell across the Englishman's face, leaving a great blue weal. The arm was raised for a second blow; but the Englishman, prisoner though he was, and though his life hung in the balance, closed with his brutal captor. Other Boers, doubtless feeling the sting of the blow as keenly as the recipient, separated the pair before the unarmed Englishman found the ruffian's throat. But the blow had been struck,—an unarmed prisoner of officer rank had been chastised, an act of savagery fit to rank with the cold-blooded murder of an envoy. Yet the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... freshly washed floor, or husband or child came tardily to the breakfast-table, or lingered outside the door after regulation hour for retiring—lo, the Angel became a virago, or a droning mosquito with persistent sting. ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... think few know how he has suffered. Perhaps there is some truth in the old heathen saying, 'Those whom the gods love die young.' Perhaps it has a better fulfilment and significance now that the Light has come into the world, and that there is no sting now in death." ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the memory of these evils should die with me, but you have won me to alter my determination. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... cut my throat for the money that is hid in my belt. 'Tis not much; 'tis not much. With thee I walk at mine ease; with a sharp I dare not go before in a narrow way. Alas! forgive me. Now I know where in thy bonnet lurks the bee, I will ware his sting; I will but pluck the secular goose. 'So be it,' said I. 'And example was contagious: he should be a true man by then we reached Nurnberg. 'Twas a long way to Nurnberg.' Seeing him so humble, I ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... easily puffed up. And for this cause, and because it may be well that thou thyself and all men shall know that thou art but human flesh and blood, thou shalt not escape unscathed in warfare; but thou too shalt feel the sting of fiery dart, and know the scald of ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... day on the mountain still clung around his fancy as he went out upon the street again. A horrible something, as penetrable as mist, as keen as the sting of conscience, as inevitable as the burden of life, seemed to inwrap him. He felt it dully, and wondered how much of it was physical and how much mental, and he ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... he requested Mr. Barton to discharge the accomplices, and hush up the business. He then returned home, clasped the trembling Constantia in his arms, and conjured her never to name her unworthy cousin. "I would bid you not think of him," said he; "but the viper will be remembered by its sting, after we have discovered it to be a poisonous reptile with a beautiful outside. And much gratitude is due to Heaven, that the base infection of his nature has been fully disclosed, before you were bound to him by indissoluble ties." Constantia asked if Monthault was the accuser ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... So it was, for it had thrown round his fingers its long tentaculae, discharging, at the same time, an acrid fluid from them, which caused the pain he felt. We all laughed at him at first very much; but he suffered so considerably during the day from the effects of the sting, that the more humane really pitied him, in spite of the ridiculous complaints ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... that the best remedy against scorpions was to make a commemoration of St. George when going to bed. This, he says, never failed, but he also rubbed the bed with garlic. The following is given as a cure for the sting of the scorpion: "The patient is to sit on an ass, with his face to the tail of the animal, by which the pain will be transmitted from the man to the beast." Or again, a person who was bitten by either a tarantulla or a mad dog must go nine times ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... that bloom in the Spring, Tra la! Are a sell, my dear hub, in our case. I bought this with a "suit"—there's the sting, Pa-pa! Which he said was "a worn-hout hold thing," (O-la!) Just fancy his having the face! Now 'tis shrunken, and shrivelled, and that's why I sing, Oh, bother the flowers that bloom in the Spring! Tra la la ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various

... on high His head is borne, His mighty pow'r asunder Thy gates hath burst, thy bands hath torn, Thyself hath trodden under His feet; who doth in Him confide Thy pow'r and claims may now deride And say, "Thy sting, ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... hurry, The anguish and sting, The heartache and worry That business cares bring; Gone is the hustle, The clamor for gold, The rush and the bustle The day's affairs hold. Peace comes to the battered Old heart of his dad, When "up to the ceiling" He plays with ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest

... not sting, but there was a large red ant, half an inch long, who was most pugnacious; he stood up on his hind legs and fought you with amazing courage, and his jaws were formidable. We made our first acquaintance ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... me a grave injustice, Murphy. In the first place, I do not possess the nature of an Indian, and am not out for revenge. Your slashing at me down in Glencaid has n't left so much as a sting behind. It's completely blotted out, forgotten. I haven't the slightest desire to kill you, man; but I do want to clear my name of the stain of that crime. I want you to tell the whole truth about that night's work at Bethune; and ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... sting of remembering troops of follies and errors, is best alleviated by the thought that they may make me better able to help those who have to go through like experiences, and who are so dear to me that I would willingly pay an even heavier price, to be of use. Depend upon ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... can I write a story, with all my necessary Teutonic ingredients in it, which shall be popular even during the War?" And then I seem to see the satisfaction with which she hit upon the solution of inventing pretty twin girls of seventeen, an age which permits remarks with a sting in them to be uttered apparently in innocence and yet is marriageable or, at any rate, engageable; making them orphans; giving them a German father and an English mother, and very mixed sympathies, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various

... ground because they could hide their families from the Sioux on the sheltered islands of the wooded lake. Night frosts had painted the forests red. The flacker of wild-fowl overhead, the skim of ice forming on the lake, the poignant sting of the north wind—all fore-warned winter's approach. Jean de la Verendrye had not come up with the supplies from Michilimackinac. The explorer did not tempt mutiny by going farther. He ordered a halt and began building ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... "I would love them better than all the wealth in the world! I would love them better than my own life! Ah, the sting it is to think of my ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May

... penniless and friendless—the two terms being practically synonymous in New York—what asylum was there for him now? Suppose daylight found him abroad thus? Suppose he succumbed to exposure and was discovered stiffly frozen in a doorway? Death by processes of congealment must carry an added sting if one had to die in a suit of pink rompers buttoning down the back. As though the thought of freezing had been a cue to Nature he noted a tickling in his nose and a chokiness in his throat, and somewhere in his system, a long way ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... endurance give to the body stronger powers of resistance, so does time by degrees strengthen the mind against the influence of sorrow. A blameless life, therefore, varied only by its unobtrusive charities, together with a firm trust in the goodness of God, took much of the sting from affliction, but could not wholly eradicate it. Had her child died in her arms—had she closed its innocent eyes with her own hands, and given the mother's last kiss to those pale lips on which ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... that seemest to us so cold, Oft'times concealed thee within, may be a sting! Sweet buried hopes may in thy crust be rolled; A sad, burnt crust of ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... of saying that she knew this was not the truth; and unable to bear the sting, he flung away from her, carrying the rook with him, and kicking the pebbles, trying to be angry instead of sorry. And just then came a summons to Lady ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... deepened As a sound deepens into silences; It was of earth and came not by the air; The earth was cooling and drew down the sky. The air was crumbling. There was no more sky. Rails of a broken bed charred in the grate, And when he touched the bars he thought the sting Came from their heat—he could not feel such cold ... She said 'O, do not sleep, Heart, heart of mine, keep near me. No, no; sleep. I will not lift his fallen, quiet eyelids, Although I know he would awaken then— He closed them thus but now of his own will. He can stay with ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... I go ven I haf the greatest rapture, Mr. Garrick.' The little great man's anger instantly cooled. The readiness of this Italian flattery operated exactly contrary to the last line of an epigram—the honey was tasted, and the sting forgot." ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... emptiness of talk, And silence hisses like a snake— Invertebrate and rattling ache.... Then suddenly Eternity Drowns all the houses like a sea And down the street the Trump of Doom Blares madly—shakes the drawing-room Where raw-edged shadows sting forlorn As dank dark nettles. Down the horn Of her ear-trumpet I convey The news that "It is Judgment Day!" "Speak louder: I don't catch, my dear." I roared: "It is the Trump we hear!" "The What?" "THE TRUMP!" "I shall complain! .... the ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... detail in hist'ry's page is met. One night, when company he'd had to dine, And pretty well was fill'd with gen'rous wine, Hans dreamed, as near his wife he snoring lay, The devil came his compliments to pay, And having on his finger put a ring, Said he, friend Hans, I know thou feel'st a sting; Thy trouble 's great: I pity much thy case; Let but this ring, howe'er, thy finger grace, And while 'tis there I'll answer with my head, THAT ne'er shall happen which is now thy dread: Hans, quite delighted, forced his ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... the sea had given up the living, and that the martyrs were triumphant, even in this world, over the powers o' Sin and o' Death. Yea, they were indeed triumphant;—and well might the faithfu' sing aloud in the desert, 'O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?' for these three bodies were but as the weeds on which they lay stretched out to the pitying gaze of the multitude, but their spirits had gane to heaven to receive the eternal rewards o' ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... that way now are brought up for criticism and pondered over until the woman convinces herself of the presence of a hidden meaning. She is not satisfied until she has bent and shapen the original thoughtless sentence into an ugly sting. ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry

... me and comfort me by the sight of her whom I have given to Thee. Thou; presentest her to my eyes with her smile now disarmed; her grace, now become innocent; her beauty from which I have extracted the sting. To please me, my God, thou showest her to me as I have prepared and purified her for Thy designs, as one friend pleasantly reminds another of the rich gift he has received from him. Therefore I see this woman with delight, being assured that the vision comes from Thee. Thou dost not forget that ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... it burned like the sting of a wasp and bled in a most disgraceful manner all over my sock. Then my belt buckle was ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... blest this lowly bed, And robbed the monster of his sting; My Lord will raise me from the dead,— Give me a harp ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower

... more than one vast colonnade of verdant shadow, tremulous with insects, intersected here and there by lanes of sunlight set in purple heather. The loveliness of the woods in March is not, assuredly, of this blowzy rustic type. It is made sharp with a grain of salt, with a touch of ugliness. It has a sting like the sting of bitter ale; you acquire the love of it as men acquire a taste for olives. And the wonderful clear, pure air wells into your lungs the while by voluptuous inhalations, and makes the eyes ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... its sting—the lie dropped into the background and left comfort behind it. The next point came to the front: HAD he rendered that service? Well, here was Goodson's own evidence as reported in Stephenson's letter; there could be no ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... inner shrine; Commune with its deep murmur,—'tis divine; Be faithful to the ebb and flow that bring The outer tide of Spirit to trouble and swing The inlet of thy being. Learn to know These powers, and life with all its venom and show Shall have no force to dazzle thee or sting: ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... Gregg!" I had a vision of that grey old life now brought to an end—"and high time too"—a vision of those Sabbath streets alternately vacant and filled with silent people; of the babel of the bells, the long-drawn psalmody, the shrewd sting of the east wind, the hollow, echoing, dreary house to which "Ecky" had returned with the hand of death already on his shoulder; a vision, too, of the long, rough country lad, perhaps a serious courtier ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... for Sir Everard Kingsland to ride his high horse in the presence of Miss Sybilla Silver, and superbly rebuke her suspicions of his wife, but her words had planted their sting, nevertheless. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... doubt; Next me, she'd pass for Venus. Ho! ho! ho! [Laughing.] Would there were something merry in my laugh! Now, in the battle, if a Ghibelin Cry, "Wry-hip! hunchback!" I can trample him Under my stallion's hoofs; or haggle him Into a monstrous likeness of myself: But to be pitied,—to endure a sting Thrust in by kindness, with a sort of ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... defiance was cut short by the bark of three rifles, as Hervey and Shorty and Little Joe, having halted their horses, pitched their guns to their shoulders and let blaze after the fugitive. There was a sting along the shoulder of Perris as though a red hot knife had slashed him; a bullet ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... its pleasures, think also of the cares they produced and the anxieties they cost you. Behold, they are ended, and forever. Have you reaped from them a moral, or have you been poisoned with their sting? Have you not discovered that pleasure is a phantom, which vanishes in proportion to the eagerness with which it is pursued? that by itself it fatigues without satisfying—that it knows no limits or bounds to gratify the restless and unfettered ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... Wallace imagines, and that's a poor sort of stepping-stone to love! And if it were ever possible that she should, this afternoon has taken away the possibility. For, however magnanimous a woman may be, a thing like that rankles: it can't help it. She will feel the sting of it worse to-morrow than to-day, and, though she will tell herself that she bears no grudge, it will leave a gulf between us. For, of course, she must go on acting, and, whatever depressions she may have, she must believe in herself; no one can go on working ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... wrong. The angel voices whispered me that I must fast and pray; I know I had plenty of food in my closet, but I don't remember eating any more. I fasted eight days, and felt comfortable and happy most of the time. I sang to myself, "O death, where is thy sting, where is thy victory, boasting grave." I wept for my own sins, and wished to die, the world to save. I was trying to perform some ancient right or vow, one day, and my sons came in. I ordered them away, but they would not go. They said they would bring me home, for ...
— Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum • Mary Huestis Pengilly

... skipper, as Singleton ran up the ladder on to the top of the deck-house. "Glorious morning, isn't it? But it is going to be roasting hot a little later on; the sun has a sting already, in spite of ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... fly far from the hive when rain is threatening; flies are annoying and sting sharply before rain, and many times they cling tenaciously to wall or furniture,—that is to keep flat to a surface, so their ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... I drink or eat Save heaven's clear sunlight and the spring Of earth's own welling waters sweet, That never make the pulses sting. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... offence, Madonna, for an honest man," was Gonzaga's answer. "Like the snake in the grass, he is very ready with his sting when we seek ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... another prostrate form. "Both hands! Both hands!" he yelled as again his blanket whirled in air; and so, by dint of desperate work, the inner line of flame at last was stayed, but every man of the gallant little squad of fire fighters had paid the penalty of his devotion and felt the sting of hissing lead—Field the last of all. Westward now, well nigh an hundred yards in width, a broad, black, smoking patch stretched across the pathway of the swift-coming wall of smoke and flame, a safeguard to the beleaguered command worth all the soldier sacrifice it cost. In ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... orderly sympathetic vision. This is supplemented from still another source of value. Through artistic expression pent-up emotions find a welcome release. No matter how poignant be the experience expressed, the weight, the sting of it disappears through expression. For through expression, as we have seen, the experience is drawn from the dark depths of the self to the clear and orderly surface of the work of art; the emotions that weighed are lifted out and up into color and line and sound, where the ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... had studied human nature deeply, and he knew that of all the torments which afflict the mind of man (and far beyond bodily torture), the pains of jealousy were the most intolerable, and had the sorest sting. If he could succeed in making Othello jealous of Cassio, he thought it would be an exquisite plot of revenge, and might end in the death of Cassio or Othello, or ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... primitive, not to say heroic. For example, one man, who had exhausted all other remedies for rheumatism, was advised to go to the forest, thrust the ailing foot and leg into one of the huge ant-hills which abounded there, and allow the ants to sting him as long as he could bear the pain, for the sake of the formic acid which would thus be injected into the suffering limb. I confess that I should have liked to be present at this bit of— surgery, shall I call it? It would have been an opportunity for observing the Russian peasant's ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... hand, I never perceived amongst the wealthier inhabitants of the United States that proud contempt of physical gratifications which is sometimes to be met with even in the most opulent and dissolute aristocracies. Most of these wealthy persons were once poor; they have felt the sting of want; they were long a prey to adverse fortunes; and now that the victory is won, the passions which accompanied the contest have survived it: their minds are, as it were, intoxicated by the small enjoyments which they have pursued ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... gift, that much applauded thing, A constant heart; for fact doth daily prove That constancy finds oft a cruel sting, While fickle natures win ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... thinks, to crush! But he is mistaken. He shall find defiance. Let him but repeat those sarcasms and that sneer which are but too frequent on his lips when he speaks to me, and I will answer him, for the first time, by a narration which shall sting him to the very ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... very successful haul of large fish, that more than amply supplied both ships companies; but our people were not so fortunate. Fish enough was sometimes taken to supply about two hundred persons; but the quantity very rarely exceeded this. Three sting-rays were taken this month, two of which weighed each about three hundred weight, and ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... from hemp and the common sting nettle, the latter being preferred. The nettle-stalks are soaked in water and then dried and pounded till the fibres separate. Ropes and cords are equal to those of civilized manufacture, though sometimes not quite as smooth. Thread for sewing and embroidery comes from ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... sorry wretches, bewildered by Vesey's boldness and dazed by his terrifying doctrines, reply defensively "we are slaves," the harsh retort "you deserve to remain so," was, without doubt, intended to sting if possible, their abject natures into sensibility on the subject of their wrongs, to galvanize their rotting souls back to manhood, and to make their base and sieve-like minds capable of receiving and retaining, at least, a single fermenting idea. And when Vesey was thereupon ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke

... the fairest blonde, and her eyebrows and lashes very dark. Be very careful you do not say anything that would let her know you think her not nice looking. She broods over her appearance in such a morbid manner. It is a weak point with her, so be careful not to sting her sensitiveness in ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... the girl's apparently total indifference to him was too much for his spirits. One of the young men who had had to pick up the heart he had flung at Ann's feet and carry it away for repairs had once confided to an intimate friend, after the sting had to some extent passed, that the feelings of a man who made love to Ann might be likened to the emotions which hot chocolate might be supposed to entertain on contact with vanilla ice-cream. Jimmy, had the comparison been presented to him, would have endorsed its perfect accuracy. The wind from ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... Medicine was very nearly all that he claimed to be; and one of his pet vanities was his horsemanship; he managed to keep within a fine slapping distance of Dunk. He stopped when his hand began to sting through his glove. ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... possible (p. 332) that they would not have been further molested, but for the thoughtlessness of Clement's successor, Paul III. Impotent to effect anything against the King, the Pope did his best to sting Henry to fury by creating Fisher a cardinal on 20th May. He afterwards explained that he meant no harm, but the harm was done, and it involved Fisher's friend and ally, Sir Thomas More. Henry declared that he would send the new cardinal's head to Rome for the hat; and he ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... newspaper is very necessary to make truth known to the people; but an editor really independent must have a heart of oak, nerves of iron, and a soul of adamant, to carry it through. His first attempt will bring a hornet's nest about his head; and, if they do not sting him to death or to blindness, he will have to pursue his march with them continually swarming over him, and be beset on all sides with obloquy ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... course, it isn't an estate," said Lasse suddenly, in order to take the sting out of further criticism. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... came running along to the field, shaking the earth with their roaring and bellowing. The wren King also came with his army, whirring and buzzing and humming enough to terrify any one out of his senses. Then the wren King sent the hornet forward to settle upon the fox's tail and sting it with all his power. As soon as the fox felt the first sting he drew up his hind leg with the pain, still carrying, however, his tail as high in the air as before; at the second sting he was obliged to drop it a little bit; but at the third he could no longer ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... ride him, how could any sane man hope that he could win the purse and the belt under the stringent rules of the contest, where "riding on the spurs," "pulling leather" and a dozen other things were barred? So Andy, under the sting of their innuendoes and blunt reproaches, was so patient as to ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... tormina[obs3], torticollis[obs3]. spasm, cramp; nightmare, ephialtes[obs3]; crick, stitch; thrill, convulsion, throe; throb &c. (agitation) 315; pang; colic; kink. sharp pain, piercing pain, throbbing pain, shooting pain, sting, gnawing pain, burning pain; excruciating pain. anguish, agony; torment, torture; rack; cruciation[obs3], crucifixion; martyrdom, toad under a harrow, vivisection. V. feel pain, experience pain, suffer pain, undergo pain &c. n.; suffer, ache, smart, bleed; tingle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... torture without discrimination upon all who dare invade its domain. Snakes lurk in the fetid swamps and lagoons, the brilliant coral and the deadly mapina. Beneath the forest leaves coils the brown adder, whose sting proves fatal ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... but for the bladder-faced scoundrel ahead of me, now creeping around like a loathsome insect to sting a man of ancient name and fame, and I was eager to be at him again. Sultan, without more urging, had made the furlongs fly in gallant style, and it was time to be looking out for my landmarks. Nance had made me letter-perfect in them. Here, on the right, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... did not hesitate to declare that "the firing upon it at this time is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... which conquered o'er death's sting, Love which has immortal wing, Love which is the only thing My broken heart to heal. It burst through the grave, It brought grace to save, It opened Heaven's gate. I never knew such love could be— This love ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... him a careless glance. The fellow was truculent and had bullied Charnock when he worked in his gang, while the latter had sometimes replied to his abuse with witty retorts that left a sting. Afterwards, he had beaten his persecutor badly in the dispute about the ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... wit (Ripley was a punster with the rest; one of our wags one day called him a Pumpkin— Pun-King—a paraphrase on New England pronunciation of the word), and in conclusion gave us a sentiment: "The Hive! May it be a hive, full of working bees, who make a little noise, a great deal of honey, and sting not at all." ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... up. "That's the only square and safe thing to do, Bromfield. They'll find out who you are, of course. If you go straight to them you draw the sting from their charge that you were an accomplice of Clay. Don't lose your nerve. You'll go through with flying colors. When a man has done nothing ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... yet furiously anxious to discover how it was all done. For he was uncommonly "game" through it all, and had himself well in hand from beginning to end. He was really too excited, probably, to feel ordinary fear; it all swept him away too mightily for that; he did not even notice the sting of the hot candle-grease as it ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... individual don't beleeve what I say, let him buck agin Mr. M., and he will diskiver that the product of his experience will "Bite like a Jersey skeeter, and sting like ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... Colfax County and up in Wyoming he had dealt with many such men, and usually, after they had seen that the law was inevitable, they had resigned themselves to the new condition and had become pretty fair citizens. He had imagined that Dunlavey would prove to be no exception, that after the first sting of defeat had been removed he would meet his adversaries half way in an effort to patch up their differences. The danger was in the time immediately following the realization of defeat. A man of the Dunlavey type was ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... speech took her aback. Yet, sensing in its very churlishness the sting of some old hurt, she answered him ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... relations of the country with Great Britain have so much improved, but much more because the United States has come to consider herself as Great Britain's equal and, in the new consciousness of her greatness, the idea of toadying to England has lost its sting. It is already difficult to throw one's mind back to the conditions of twenty years ago—to remember the deference which (in New York and the larger cities at least) was paid to English ideas, English manners, English ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... inevitable consequence, that man may perchance determine what is a heresy; but God only can know who is a heretic. It does not, however, by any means follow that opinions fundamentally false are harmless. A hundred causes may co-exist to form one complex antidote. Yet the sting of the adder remains venomous, though there are many who have taken up the evil thing, and it hurted them not. Some indeed there seem to have been, in an unfortunate neighbour nation at least, who have embraced ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... call them," nurse said; and, like many of nurse's wise sayings, it was remembered by Susie, and left a little sting in ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow

... would burn for a thousand days, Aziza whom I adore, Be tortured, slain, in unheard of ways If you pitied the pain I bore. You pity! Your bright eyes, fastened on other things, Are keener to sting my soul, ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.

... transition from the larva to the pupa state, which requires, in the early part of the season, eight or ten days; after this time the miller is hatched and is again ready to besiege the fruit with its sting. The insect, being two-brooded in this climate at least, if not disturbed, has an aggregating force to do mischief the second time. The progeny for the succeeding year have alone to depend on the security of this second generation of larv. As they ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... movements, and complained to Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, but she gave me indirect answers. I began to be out of humour, and was soon appeased. I grew peevish again; and Mademoiselle de Chevreuse saying in his presence, to please me and to sting him, that she could not imagine how it was possible to bear a silly fellow, "Pardon me, mademoiselle," replied I, "we suffer fops sometimes very patiently for the sake of their extravagances." This man was notoriously foppish ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... knew everybody aboard, from the captain down. His laughing, half-aloof manner was very taking; and his ironical comments on the various points of discussion, somehow, conveyed no sting. He was continually accepting gifts of newspapers—of which there were a half a thousand or so brought aboard—with every appearance of receiving a favour. These papers he carried down to our tiny box ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... down he came again, but hardly quick enough, for bricks were dislodged all around him, and once he received one on the head. The little man rubbed his cranium ruefully, shook himself like a dog to get rid of the sting, and then with a little more caution began his strange performance again. This is what is going on all round the Japanese posts—men bobbing up and firing rapidly, in some cases only fifty feet away from one ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... man, full of invention, full of imagination, and also, by a precious combination, full of shrewdness and common sense; a man genial, given to repartee, and at the same time not deficient in the tact which deprives repartee of its sting. While he was working to King Robert of Naples, the king, who was watching the painter on a very hot day, said, with a shrug, 'If I were you, Giotto, I would leave off work and rest myself this fine day, 'And so would I, sire, if I were you,' ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense: none can 'compete with life': not even history, built indeed of indisputable facts, but these facts robbed of their vivacity and sting; so that even when we read of the sack of a city or the fall of an empire, we are surprised, and justly commend the author's talent, if our pulse be quickened. And mark, for a last differentia, that this quickening of the pulse is, in almost every ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... suffer, she had ceased even to think; and when, a little later, she followed the station porter down the long platform, she was able to brush aside the memory of her parting from Oliver as lightly as though it were the trivial sting of a wasp. When she remembered the agony of the last year, of yesterday, of the morning through which she had just lived, it appeared almost ridiculous. That death which she had lacked the courage to die seemed creeping over her ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... brook which quenches thirst. A traveller like Clarke takes his life in his hands. He breaks a path which leads he knows not whither: it may bring him to a shore whence he has no ship to sail from; it may end in an abyss he cannot bridge. The thickets rend and sting him, poison may colour a tempting grain or berry, frost may deaden his energies and lull him to the sleep that knows no waking. He has but little aid from science: beyond food and medicine he carries little more than ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... and gave them grounds, that they might hunt and raise corn.—Brothers, the white people are like poisonous serpents: when chilled, they are feeble and harmless; but invigorate them with warmth, and they sting ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... Jim, impressively. "Or if he did there would be a snake sting ready for you, all the same. I know Dud Fielding. He'll get even with you if he dies ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... sadly to the orchard and climbed her favorite wide-branching apple tree, to take count of her injuries. Angry, white puffy swellings showed where each sting had exacted toll. ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence

... Rhoda beside herself with wrath. In writing it he knew it would come into her hands; he hoped to sting her with jealousy. So Mrs. Widdowson had done him a service. He was free to devote himself to Agnes Brissenden, with her six languages, her extreme liberality, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... when we are sensible that our manners, presence, contact, please and soothe the persons we serve. Even when she scolded me—which she did, now and then, very tartly—it was in such a way as did not humiliate, and left no sting; it was rather like an irascible mother rating her daughter, than a harsh mistress lecturing a dependant: lecture, indeed, she could not, though she could occasionally storm. Moreover, a vein of reason ever ran through her passion: she was logical even when fierce. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... omit that great Variety of Arms with which Nature has differently fortified the Bodies of several kind of Animals, such as Claws, Hoofs, and Horns, Teeth, and Tusks, a Tail, a Sting, a Trunk, or a Proboscis. It is likewise observed by Naturalists, that it must be some hidden Principle distinct from what we call Reason, which instructs Animals in the Use of these their Arms, and teaches them to manage them to the best Advantage; because they naturally ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Buzzell!" interrupted the minister's wife, with a smile that took the sting from her speech. "It will be like punishing little Abner Miller; if we think those thoughts on Christmas Eve, we shall surely be ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... from the opposite side and met them halfway. Dalgetty had hardly seen them before he felt the sting ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... no difference 'twixt the king and clown, The poor and rich, the beauteous and deform'd, Wrapp'd in the veil of night and bonds of sleep; Without whose power and sweet dominion Our life were hell, and pleasure painfulness. The sting of envy and the dart of love, Avarice' talons, and the fire of hate, Would poison, wound, distract, and soon consume The heart, the liver, life, and mind of man. The sturdy mower, that with brawny arms Wieldeth ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... the boat while in a state of insensibility, like poor Captain Alphonse, for I do not recollect anything that occurred immediately after I felt the sting of the shot as I was hit, and when I came to myself again I was horrified to find I was far away from the ship, which I could only ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... of all, she remembers that something was the matter with the machine for which she paid her money. Oftentimes only the most drastic and unusual service on the part of the manufacturer will take away the sting that was left in her mind by the original transaction. In club, church, or in confidential chat at home, somewhere she leaves the impression that there is still something the matter or she would not have gotten a poor machine. The advertising value, therefore, of a uniformity of product cannot ...
— The Consumer Viewpoint • Mildred Maddocks

... monster of a bee had been wandering overhead—buzz, buzz, buzz—now among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As free-hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly and drove him from beneath the maple shade. How sweet a picture! This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... from his cupped hands. Amazement was in his eyes, and a sort of horror. The cigarette hung limply from his mouth. He did not speak, but sat looking at her, dazed. Then the match burnt his fingers, and he dropped it with a start. The sharp sting of it seemed ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... boys are coming back," Mr. Linden said, with a smile which hardly belonged to them,—"I must go and get their report. Au revoir, Miss Faith." And he went forward into the midst of the little swarm—so manageable in his hands, so sure to sting anybody else. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... difference. The day of the lecture, till the hour of commencement, I devote to the consideration, what of the mass before me is best fitted to answer the purposes of a lecture, that is, to keep the audience awake and interested during the delivery, and to leave a sting behind, that is, a disposition to study the subject anew, under the light of a new principle. Several times, however, partly from apprehension respecting my health and animal spirits, partly from the wish to possess copies that might afterwards be marketable ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... circumstances would have made me exceedingly happy, only added to my misery when, as it appeared, I had only a short time to live. Nature could charm, she could enchant me, and her wordless messages to my soul were to me sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, but she could not take the sting and victory from death, and I had perforce to go elsewhere for consolation. Yet even so, in my worst days, my darkest years, when occupied with the laborious business of working out my own salvation with ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... is said, "to make our pleasures less." Religion also, if we know what it means, will ever lead us to what are true, innocent, and elevating pleasures, and keep us from those that are false, bad in their influence, and which "leave a sting behind them." "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... thoroughly graceful young fellow of twenty-one or two, booted and spurred, his dark eyes flashing, his face tingling with the sting of the early morning air, dashed past the obsequious darky and burst into Temple's presence with the rush of a north-west breeze. He had ridden ten miles since he vaulted into the saddle, had never drawn rein uphill or down, and neither he nor the ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the sting of the insult, as a high-bred horse winces beneath the lash. Of a sudden rage boiled in his veins like a fountain of fire, and drawing the dagger from his girdle, he rushed at the boys, dragging the hooded hawk, which had become dislodged from his wrist, fluttering ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... and annoy her in a hundred ways, from making love to the housemaids to making evil suggestions to his master, yet never giving her any overt cause of complaint. He could worry and sting her under the politest exterior, and he knew very well that the most effectual form of annoyance was the persuading his master that any discomfort or lassitude was to be removed by some form of narcotic. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... said the man; 'he can do more than that—I tell you he's fly: he carries a sap about, which would sting a ninny like you ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... hath no sting. What was the slight of a poor powerless girl To the deep wrong of this most vile revenge? Oh, how I loved this ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... tree, in which the formidable wasps of the tropics have built for ages. The average savage hurries past the spot in mere bodily fear; for if they come out against him, they will sting him to death; till at last there comes by a savage wiser than the rest, with more observation, reflection, imagination, independence of will—the genius ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... poet—poetess, author, you know." Said Miriam in her blandest tone, without a touch of sarcasm in her voice, "Oh, if he has ever seen you, the mistake is natural!" If I had spoken, my voice would have carried a sting in it. So I waited until I could calmly say, "You know him well, of course." "No, I never saw him before!" she answered with ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... classes there is too often no peace. There the voluble mouth and bright penetrating eye are ever directed toward the Master of the household; and light itself is not more persistent than the stream of Feminine discourse. The tact and skill which suffice to avert a Woman's sting are unequal to the task of stopping a Woman's mouth; and as the wife has absolutely nothing to say, and absolutely no constraint of wit, sense, or conscience to prevent her from saying it, not a few cynics have been found to aver that they prefer the danger of the ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... spear-men, each provided with the three-pronged spears, a horrible weapon which always proves fatal in the hands of these savages. It is a long straight shaft of Caripari wood, about one inch in thickness, divided into three parts at the end, each division being tipped with a barbed bone of the sting-ray. These bones, about three and a half inches long, were smeared with wourahli poison, and thus rendered absolutely fatal even when inflicting only a superficial wound. Each man carried two of these spears, the points being protected by grass-sheaths. The third division was ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... bitter and insolent things to Mr. Wilkins, even while he was giving his consent to the match; that was his temper, his proud, evil temper; but he really and permanently was satisfied with the connection, though he would occasionally turn round on his nephew-in-law, and sting him with a covert insult, as to his want of birth, and the inferior position which he held, forgetting, apparently, that his own brother-in-law and Lettice's father might be at any moment brought to the bar of justice if he attempted ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... howling ministers by whom I climb! For this I've wrought until my weary tongue, Blistered with incantation, flags in speech, And half declines its office. Every brave Inflamed by charms and oracles, is now A vengeful serpent, who will glide ere morn To sting the Long-Knife's sleeping camp to death. Why should I hesitate? My promises! My duty to Tecumseh! What are these Compared with duty here? Where I perceive A near advantage, there my duty lies; Consideration ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea, 70 And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring; But they dar'd not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could sting, So they watch'd what the end would be. And we had not fought them in vain, But in perilous plight were we, 75 Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain, And half of the rest of us maim'd for life In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife; And the sick men down in the hold ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... these lonely days of Mary Haselden's life there was one crowning bliss which was almost enough to sweeten solitude, and take away the sting of separation; and that was the delight of expecting and receiving her lover's letters. Busily as Mr. Hammond must be engaged in fighting the battle of life, he was in no way wanting in his duty as a lover. He wrote to Mary every other day; but though his letters ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... for a better thing—de l'eau sucre. Mrs. Somers, on the contrary, took the cause of Shakspeare, or any other cause that she defended, seriously to heart. The wit or raillery of her adversary, if she affected not to be hurt by it at the moment, left a sting in her mind which rankled long and sorely. Though she often failed to refute the arguments brought against her, yet she always rose from the debate precisely of her first opinion; and even her silence, which Mad. de Coulanges ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... first time the prisoner flushed and the look he darted at his counsel had the sting of a reproach in it. Yet he answered: "It was the token of an engagement I didn't believe in or like. I should have hailed any proof that this ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... might know what the people thought of their God, here in Old Bergamo. For it was not so much their wish to insult God that made them rejoice in the tumult; but they felt satisfaction in knowing that each of their blasphemies was a sting in the ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... this to Miss Panney by a servant, he went his way. Driving along, his conscience stung him a little when he thought of the fable his wife had told him; but the moral of the fable had made but little impression upon him, and as an antidote to the sting he applied his conviction that matchmaking was a bad business, and that in love affairs, as well as in many diseases, the very best thing to do was to let nature take ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... days Albano lived without love or hope, in bitter self-reproach; every recollection darted into him a scorpion-sting. And to him in his agony came the tormenting news that the fickle Roquairol had deserted Rabette. He drove the false one from his presence; sister and brother, beloved and friend, were now utterly lost ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... tears over the doomed city, doomed by the persistent refusal to recognise the Divine voice. But we are here on still deeper ground. The true explanation of the fourth word is to be found in that great principle which St. Paul has laid down in a familiar, but little understood, sentence: "the sting of ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz

... say "snobs." Are names alone Free from all change? Your word "Victorian" Could bite and sting in ninety one But now—it's deader ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... written later, Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools. Here Cowper has the advantage of treating a subject which he understood, about which he felt strongly, and desired for a practical purpose to stir the feelings of his readers. He set to work in bitter earnest. "There is a sting," he says, "in verse that prose neither has nor can have; and I do not know that schools in the gross, and especially public schools, have ever been so pointedly condemned before. But they are become a nuisance, a pest, an ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! Be our joys three parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... Though no sting from outside could harm Sinfiotli, he could neither eat nor drink venom and live. But Sigmund could eat of the bread, since no ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... same instant a dozen rifles crackled among the bushes. The light-hearted Frenchman fell stone dead, a bullet through his head, and two more men were wounded. A bullet had grazed Larkin's shoulder, burning like the sting of a hornet, and, wild with pain and anger, he sprang again ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... whether the gray old miser was capable of either jealousy or shame. He did not know, indeed, what Isom might say to it if his wife's infidelity became known to him, but he believed that he would rage to insanity. Perhaps not because the sting of it would penetrate to his heart, but in his censure of his wife's extravagance in giving away an affection which belonged, under the form of marriage ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... in the corners of the verandahs clay cells for their larvae, are very numerous in the neighbourhood of Rio. These cells they stuff full of half-dead spiders and caterpillars, which they seem wonderfully to know how to sting to that degree as to leave them paralysed but alive, until their eggs are hatched; and the larvae feed on the horrid mass of powerless, half-killed victims — a sight which has been described by ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... share the fate of protestantism, and that capitulation to Cobden was doomed to follow the old scandal of capitulation to O'Connell. They felt that there was something much more dreadful than the mere sting of a parliamentary recrimination, in the contrast between the corn bill of 1842 and Peel's panegyrics in '39, '40, and '41 on the very system which that bill now shattered. On the other side some could not forget that in 1840 the whig prime minister, the head of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... orphan, relieved by my bounty, are greater music to my soul, than the insincere plaudits of my professed friends, who gather around my hearth to feast upon my hospitality, and yet who, were I to lose my wealth, and become poor, would soon cut my acquaintance, and sting me by their ingratitude. To-night I shall have a numerous party of these friends to sup with me, and this supper shall be the last one to which I shall ever invite them. Yes! My wealth shall be employed for a nobler object than to pamper these false and hollow-hearted parasites. From ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn



Words linked to "Sting" :   pang, cheat, prick, offend, suffer, stinger, force, pierce, thrust, rig, bruise, sting operation, hurt, gyp, flea bite, twinge, hurting, mosquito bite, stick, wound, prickle, ache, swindle, pain, injury, injure, nettle, bee sting, con, bunco, bunco game, spite, con game, stinging, bunko, hustle, insect bite, confidence trick, bite, urticate, smart, flimflam, confidence game, bunko game, burn



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