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Sworn   Listen
verb
Sworn  v.  P. p. of Swear.
Sworn brothers, originally, companions in arms who took an oath to share together good and bad fortune; hence, faithful friends.
Sworn enemies, determined or irreconcilable enemies.
Sworn friends, close friends.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sworn" Quotes from Famous Books



... poor mother, whose health was utterly broken, and who seemed to stand in dread of her father. The girl could not bear to leave her mother, though he had implored her to do so and be married at once. "She told me the last time I saw her that old Burnham had sworn to kill me if he caught me around the place, so I have to come armed, you see;" and he exhibited his heavy revolver. "There's something shady about the old man, but I don't know what ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... gluttony, drunkenness, and avarice; for laying aside his father's will in an old mouldy trunk, and turning stock-jobber, newsmonger, and busybody, meddling with other people's affairs, shaking off his old serious friends, and keeping company with buffoons and pickpockets, his father's sworn enemies; that he had best throw himself upon the mercy of the court, repent, and change his manners. To say truth, Jack heard these discourses with some compunction; however, he resolved to try what his new acquaintance would do for him. They sent Habakkuk Slyboots,* who ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... [He had sworn not to commit bloodshed and he confirmed his promise by his actions in spite of plots. He was by nature not at all given to duplicity or guile or harshness. He loved and greeted and honored the good, and the rest he neglected. His age made him still more inclined to ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... attacks upon our prestige, and the like, were aided, and in many cases fomented, steered, and brought to a successful issue—not by Germans or other foreigners, but by Englishmen, and by Englishmen who had sworn allegiance at St. Stephens. It is no more than a bare statement of fact to say that, in the very year of my arrival in London, the party which ruled the State was a party whose members openly avowed and boasted ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption" (Acts 2:25-27). This, saith Peter, was not spoken of David, but he being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne (verse 29,30): He seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption (verse 31). "Thou wilt not ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... count for anything up here, and I'm told they do. P'raps, instead of pinning your ears to a tree, Jim, this same Mister Cale'll consent to walk back with us, and give himself up to a game warden of the great and glorious State of Maine. We mustn't forget that we're all sworn-in officers of the said State, and bound to assist any game warden who is trying to do his duty, and ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... on through the beautiful and perfect prayer, which she repeated in English with infinite sweetness and solemnity, her eyes uplifted, her hands clasped before her. Beverley could have sworn that she was a shining saint, and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... to us:—the things dearest to him—the woman he loved—the children his death cast, nameless and branded, on the world. Ay, weep, father: and while you weep, think of the future, of reparation. I have sworn to that clay to befriend her sons; join you, who have all the power to fulfil the promise—join in that vow: and may Heaven not visit on us both the woes of ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... flags arrayed Sailed from the port of Brest, And the Admiral's ship displayed The signal: "Steer southwest." For this Admiral D'Anville Had sworn by cross and crown To ravage with fire and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... And when can you hope for such another, if this be neglected? Has not Philip, contrary to all treaties, insulted you in Thrace? Does he not, at this instant, straiten and invade your confederates, whom you have solemnly sworn to protect? Is he not an implacable enemy? a faithless ally? the usurper of provinces, to which he has no title nor pretence? a stranger, a barbarian, a tyrant? and indeed, what is ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... kinds, from all affidavits, however honestly sworn, we turn again to the ideas now prevailing as they betray themselves in the lives of the people and the words that fall from their lips. Carefully studying earlier history, we ask ourselves wherein the new ideas differ from the ideas current in India a century ago. Then as progress appears, or ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... says P. P. Pratt,* in which the Lord was represented as saying, "Surely, Zion is the city of our God, and surely Zion cannot fail, NEITHER BE MOVED OUT OF HER PLACE; for God is there, and the hand of God is there, and he has sworn by the power of his might to be her salvation and her high tower." The same "revelation" directed that the Temple should be built speedily by means of tithing, and threatened Zion with pestilence, plague, sword, vengeance, and devouring fire unless she obeyed ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... descendants should never lack for food. They also revere Mahadeo, and on every Monday they worship the cow, placing vermilion on her forehead and washing her feet. The cat is regarded as a sacred animal, and a Mang's most solemn oath is sworn on a cat. A house is defiled if a cat or a dog dies or a cat has kittens in it, and all the earthen pots must be broken. If a man accidentally kills a cat or a dog a heavy penance is exacted, and two feasts must be given to the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... you swear that you never got corn delivered to you except in the dark which you have purchased for your horse and cows?-I have sworn already to the fact. There is no person in Hillswick who will sell corn and bring it to me except in the dark. If the people live at a distance, then it is different. There is a man who lives outside the dyke at Hillswick, Harry Gilbertson, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... was the sworn foe of Jeffreys, who, after Monmouth's fall, brought the brave English Protestant nobles to the scaffold. My father suffered with them. Since that time I have hated the Papists, and do not want one even for a pirate chief. Not even you, Barthelemy, for you are ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... and regulations for the government of all concerned in this expedition, having been previously drawn up by the company of adventurers, revised by the admiralty and approved of by the Stadtholder, Prince Maurice, were publicly read over to them, and every man sworn to obey them. These sailing orders are called Artykelbreefs by the Dutch, and are never suffered to be put in force, till they have received this kind of sanction from the state, when they become the law of the voyage, to which all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... afterwards that the officer had no authority such as he pretended, but that he had sworn to his fellows that he could find out the truth by a pretence of it, thinking Master Richard to be a poor crazed fool who would cry out and confess at the ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson

... am bound to believe what I cannot disprove, and what you so solemnly affirm. If there be no truth in your words, you may yet repent having so solemnly sworn; but whether true or false, I can never repent doing ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... enough, sir. I would have sworn that I had done for him. If I had thought there had been the slightest doubt about it, I would have put a ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... and there along the toiling ranks I even noted a familiar face, and there could be no mistaking the gaunt North Carolina mountaineer, the sallow Georgian, or the jaunty Louisiana Creole. They were Confederates—Packer's Division of Hill's corps, I could have almost sworn—east-bound on forced march, and I doubted not that each cross-road to left and right of us would likewise show its hurrying gray column, sturdily pressing forward. The veteran fighting men of the left wing of the Army of Northern ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... immediately sensational in Mr. Aylmore's evidence were disappointed. Aylmore, having been sworn, and asked a question or two by the Coroner, requested permission to tell, in his own way, what he knew of the dead man and of this sad affair; and having received that permission, he went on in a calm, unimpassioned manner to repeat ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... the good husband, who would not, in truth, be her husband at all; but she did determine, in her own mind, that, however all that might have been, she would clearly have done whatever the Doctor told her. She would have sworn to obey him, even though, when swearing, she should not have really married him. It was terrible to think of,—so terrible that she could not quite think of it; but in struggling to think of it her heart was softened towards ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... favourite tomb, I've seen those sympathetic eyes o'erflow With kind compassion for thy comrade's woe; Or, when less mournful subjects form'd our themes, We tried a thousand fond romantic schemes, Oft hast thou sworn, in friendship's soothing tone. Whatever wish was mine, must be thine own. The next can boast to lead in senates fit, A Spartan firmness,—with Athenian wit; Tho' yet, in embryo, these perfections shine, Clarus! thy father's fame ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... I could indeed have sworn, when I was listening to you, that you were the son of some warrior who dreams of nothing but wounds and bruises, of some Boulomachus or Clausimachus;[388] go and sing your plaguey songs to the spearmen.... ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... He had sworn, and he was a man of his word. He walked straight out of the Casino; but uncertainly, feebly, as a man who has received a staggering blow between the eyes, as a man who has been pitched into a mountain-pool in January, as a somnambulist ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... said he; "these, as you will perceive by the official stamp, are sworn copies, duly attested at the Prefettura—the originals ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... May than any other of the family, Dr. Spencer transferred to her much of the chivalrous distant devotion, with which he had regarded her mother. Ethel was very little conscious of it, but he was certainly her sworn knight, and there was an eagerness in his manner of performing every little service for her, a deference in his way of listening to her, over and above his ordinary polish ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... her emotion that lifted her into an atmosphere almost holy in its significance. "Mr. Blake," said she, "I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice of love pleading in my ear. But in one thing I am strong, and that is in my sense of what is due to the man I have sworn to honor. Eleven months ago I left you because your pleasure and my own dignity demanded it; to-day I put by all the joy and exaltation you offer, because your position as a gentleman, and your happiness as a ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green

... lasted night and day. On the 10th some heavy guns were placed in battery. The operations of the siege were now pushed forward with great ardour, but yet nothing denoted the immediate reduction of the place. The defence of Ab-dallah Pasha was marked by the most determined energy. He had sworn, it was reported, that he would blow up the town. It was, however, of the utmost importance to push forward the operations with the greatest activity. The first disposition of the population, which had been favourable, ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli

... acquainted with the town of Omsk, and he took care to avoid those streets which were much frequented. This was not from any fear of being recognized. In the town his old mother only could have called him by name, but he had sworn not to see her, and he did not. Besides—and he wished it with his whole heart—she might have fled into some quiet portion ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... literature in England, and Mr Arnold was perhaps the last who did it notably in ours. One cannot imagine him writing merely for money, for position, even for fame—for anything but the devoir of the born and sworn servant of Apollo and Pallas. Such devotion need not, of course, forbid others of their servants to try his shield now and then with courteous arms or even at sharps—as he tried many. But it was so signal, so happy in its general ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... sure. 'Tis but a moment since I saw the thing— Bernardo, who last night was sworn thy son, Hath made a villainous barter of thine honor. Thou may'st rely the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... misfortunes of the professional Don Juan that his honour forbids him to refuse battle; he is in life like the Roman soldier upon duty, or like the sworn physician who must attend on all diseases. Burns accepted the provocation; hungry hope reawakened in his heart; here was a girl - pretty, simple at least, if not honestly stupid, and plainly not averse to his attentions: it seemed to him ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sworn (and, as a Briton, I think he had denied himself that satisfaction long enough), he caught up a strip of steel with his pincers, shoved it into the coals, heated it, and, in half a minute, forged two long steel nails. He then nailed ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... Caesar, were not all the same oaths sworn yesterday to Valeria? But I will trust you, at least so far as to partake your present dangers. Flight may be necessary:—form your plans. Be they what they may, there is one who, in exile, in poverty, in peril, asks only to wander, to beg, to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... trundled his barrow blithely along Thirty-eighth Street, halting now and then at the shrill, imperious summons of some small customer, or by reason of the congestion of early traffic, or to swear whole-heartedly and be sworn at by some indignant Jehu. At length he came to Eleventh Avenue and to a certain quarter where the whistle of a peanut barrow was seldom heard, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... glance taking in both figures before her, she could almost have sworn that a lightning-like eye-signal passed between them, before Bertha answered, with ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... 'is this thy love That thou so oft hast sworn to me, To leave me in this lonely grove, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... oath which the Cornish men have sworn. The King has published a ban in every parish: Whosoever may seize you shall receive a hundred marks of gold for his guerdon, and all the barons have sworn to give you up alive or dead. Do penance, Tristan! God pardons the sinner who turns ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier

... is perjury in law only when willfully done, and when the oath has been legally administered. Such qualifying expressions as "to the best of my belief," "as I am informed," may save an averment from being perjured. The law is that the false statement sworn to must be absolute. Subornation of ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... your Majesty addressed to him a few days back, and in which your Majesty condescended to recollect and to remind him of the day now nearly forty years ago, a day he fears not altogether one of pleasure to your Majesty, when together with others he had the honour to be sworn of your Majesty's privy council. Your Majesty is pleased to pronounce upon the government then installed into office a high eulogy: a eulogy which Mr. Gladstone would presume, as far as he may, to echo. He values it, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... was no need of bolts or locks for the fortification of Godolphin Cottages—and went up to her own little sitting-room,—the room in which her father had told her the secret of his life,—the room in which she had sworn to remember the Henry Dunbar. All was dark and quiet in the house, for the mistress of it was elderly-and old-fashioned in her ways; and Margaret was accustomed to wait upon herself when ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... hypothesis which all the preponderating influences of contemporary thought concur directly or indirectly in discrediting, upheld by an organisation which its history for the last five centuries has exposed to the distrust and hatred of men as the sworn enemy of mental freedom and growth, the pretensions of Catholicism to renovate society are among the most pitiable and impotent that ever devout, high-minded, and benevolent persons deluded themselves into ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... found it necessary considering the influences against her, and that her relatives and the community would have left no means untried, however illegal or disgraceful to thwart her in her designs,—nay, would have sworn her into a lunatic asylum rather than to have permitted her to marry me—to consent that our engagement should be broken. This letter was to announce the fact, while at the same time, it gave as the reason—deference to the ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen

... once. It was the horseman with the high red feather in his hat. Even at that distance I could have sworn to the slope of his shoulders and the way he carried his head. I clapped my hands upon Jim's sleeve, for I could see that his blood was boiling at the sight of the man, and that he was ready for any madness. But at that moment ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... haste to declare the principles which are spun into the primitive staple of their frame. They were afraid that a moment's doubt should exist about them. In their very infancy they were in haste to put their hand on their infernal altar, and to swear the same immortal hatred to England which was sworn in the succession of all the short-lived constitutions that preceded it. With them everything else perishes almost as soon as it is formed; this hatred alone is immortal. This is their impure Vestal ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... beauty of distribution, no feature of amenity, no reach of fancy which embellishes our pleasure grounds in England, that is not to be found here. Had China been accessible to Mr. Browne or Mr. Hamilton, I should have sworn they had drawn their happiest ideas from the rich sources, which I have tasted this day; for in the course of a few hours I have enjoyed such vicissitudes of rural delight, as I did not conceive could be felt out of England, being at different moments enchanted by scenes ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... or potency, saying, 'Are not marriages predestinated? and this being the case, are not the progeny thence issuing and the means conducive thereto, predestinated also?' He insisted on adding this cause because he had sworn to it." To this decision was subscribed the letter B. On hearing it, a certain spirit observed with a smile, "How fair an apology is ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

... "Jesus is merciful," followed, Bennet put up his hand and touched the girl's fingers. Tessibel closed her own over his. There was no thought then of her errand, no remembrance that the man before her was a murderer and had sworn his crime ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... Eves," Tristan answered. "That slender fellow in the purple jerkin is one Ren de Montigny, of gentle birth, and a great breaker of commandments. He with the red hair is Guy Tabarie; they are sworn brothers in bawdry and larceny. The ferret-faced knave who is tickling the girl's knee is Jehan le Loup. Bullies and bawds, pandars and parasites: to enumerate their offenses would be to ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... every one sees that the whites must be at the mercy of their servants. The testimony of the honest among them is procured, though indirectly, and it has weight with juries; but it is a wise provision to exclude them as sworn witnesses. So of other things, which theoretically are oppressive, but practically right; while many things in the system which are rigorous are as little used as the equipments in an ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... not yet, however, left the room, when one of the audience, a policeman off duty, stepped forward, and, intimating that he had something to say, was sworn, and went on to tell how he had been leaning against a lamp-post at the extreme of his beat, just resting a bit, in the edge of evening before last, when he saw an old woman that they call Mother Winch ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the excellent voyager (I honor him for a veteran), but in so important a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace. In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself h. durand. one of them, though not precisely .. adapted to our present ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... dike it came—tall, thin, pale, ghostly, and—yes, I could have sworn it, though night does play odd tricks with the human eyesight—faintly phosphorescent. At least, it seemed to glow ever so dimly, like one that moves in ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... from his chair and led the way around to the rear of the stand. Sutter could have sworn he had seen an apple orchard behind the structure as he rode up, but he must have been mistaken for now he saw a low-roofed, aluminum-walled building there, huge doors open on one side. It looked, he thought, ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi

... I confess that at that moment the idea of my boy's chance of succeeding with the heiress did present itself to my mind. According to what my wife had said, Jack would have jumped at the girl with just what she stood up in; and had sworn to his mother, when he had been told that morning about the kiss behind the door, that he would knock that brute's head off his shoulders before many days were gone by. Looking at the matter merely on behalf of Jack, it ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope

... generally placed in Arcadia, but Lucan says that Eurotas rises from the Stygian pools, and that, mindful of this mysterious source, he refuses to mingle his streams with that of Peneus, in order that the gods may still fear to break an oath sworn upon his waters. (24) See on line 429. (25) Chiron, the aged Centaur, instructor of Peleus, Achilles, and others. He was killed by one of the poisoned arrows of Hercules, but placed by Zeus among the stars as the Archer, from which position he ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... had not been forced to prolong the galling masquerade of valet to his inferior officer. He was hopeful, too, that coming events would bring to the fore an opportunity to satisfy the vengeance he had inwardly sworn against the sailor who had so roughly manhandled him a few weeks past—Theriere had not been in error in his estimate ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... pound of tobacco. In June Mr. Fitznoodle sent a blank to be filled out by the claimant, stating whether he had or had not been baptized prior to his enlistment; and, if so, to what extent, and how he liked it so far as he had gone. This was to be sworn to before two witnesses, who were to be male, if possible, and if not, the department would insist on their being female. These witnesses must swear that they had no interest in the said claim, or anything else. On receipt of this, together ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... citizens. William Ferrars, under the inspiration of Zenobia, had thrown in his fortunes with the Duke, and after nine months of disquietude found his due reward. In the January that succeeded the August conversation in St. James' Street with Sidney Wilton, William Ferrars was sworn of the Privy Council, and held high office, on the verge of ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... which he kept order among them, and shoved the best bits to his favorites. The Marquis, in astonishment, recoiled a step, struck his hands together, and exclaimed: 'The Five Great Powers of Europe, who have sworn alliance, and conspired to undo the Marquis de Brandebourg, how might they puzzle their heads to guess what he is now doing! Scheming some dangerous plan for the next Campaign, think they; collecting funds to have money for it; studying about magazines for man and horse; or he ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... earth or sea contains most precious, ask it and fear no refusal. This only I pray you not to urge. It is not honor, but destruction you seek. Why do you hang round my neck and still entreat me? You shall have it if you persist, the oath is sworn and must be kept, but I beg you to ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... deny his faith, cried out from the rack on which he was hanging: "God forbid, dear brother, that you should ask such a thing. Is this what we promised to Jesus Christ? Should not I accuse you at his terrible tribunal? Have you forgotten what we have sworn upon his body and blood, to suffer death together for his holy name?" By these words the other was so wonderfully encouraged that he cried out: "No, no; I ask not to be released: on the contrary, add new weights, if you please, increase my tortures, exert all ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... sworn an oath, for which I should exact, I think, the sum of three shillings and four-pence, Jack the Rover; but, I fear me, thou hast not wherewithal to satisfy the law, even in a small thing, until thou offerest thy ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... introduced to "My son," "Lord Ralles," and "Captain Ackland." The son was a junior copy of his father, tall and fine-looking, but, in place of the frank and easy manner of his sire, he was so very English that most people would have sworn falsely as to his native land. Lord Ralles was a little, well-built chap, not half so English as Albert Cullen, quick in manner and thought, being in this the opposite of his brother Captain Ackland, who was heavy enough to rock-ballast a road-bed. Both ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford

... direct to Venice—between the mud-flats and the sea-mews and those countless groups of piles marking the channel, which always resemble bunches of giant asparagus and sometimes seem to be little companies of drowning people who have sworn to die together. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... an active share in its turmoil and danger. To him the assault on the gates, which had perhaps lasted an hour, appeared to have been going on for ever, while those who were actually engaged in the strife would have sworn it had been an affair of a few minutes at ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... while. First tell us if the oath thou art to make Is sworn as Christian or in Hebrew style; Though truly which to give the preference Is matter to discuss. A Jewish oath Thou canst not take for thou hast been baptised, And sooth to say I have a sort of doubt About ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... 'That's rum,' he said. 'I could have sworn I fastened that door. They must have left the ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... is one of money," he said slowly. "The Emperor has some funds at his disposal, but as you know, that scurvy government of the Restoration never handed him over one single sou of the yearly revenue which it had solemnly agreed and sworn to pay to him with regularity. Now, of course," he continued still more emphatically, "we who believe in our Emperor as we believe in God, we are absolutely convinced that the army will rally round him to a ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... was mainly desirable because it would provide his brother with an indemnity in the west for the loss of his northern provinces. Joseph's protests against such a partition of the land, which Napoleon had sworn at Bayonne to keep intact, were disregarded; but letters on this subject fell into the hands of the Spanish guerillas and were published by order of the Regency at Cadiz. Despised by the Spaniards, flouted by Napoleon, set at defiance ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... the friends of the Constitution. Let us further suppose that he had suddenly placed himself at the head of an armed force to overturn the United States government at Washington, while he was still a Senator from Georgia, sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, and that his cheated friend and counsellor had just left the President of the United States, after a long conference, in which he had attempted to show, to an incredulous listener, that Senator Toombs was a devoted friend to the Union, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... dependent on the authority of Junius, that Koster's principal workman, assumed to be Hans or John Faust—and some, to reconcile improbabilities, even say John Gutenberg—who had been sworn to secrecy, decamped one Christmas Eve, after the death of Koster, while the family were at church, taking with him types and printing apparatus and, after short sojourns at Amsterdam and Cologne, got to Mainz or Mayence with them, and there introduced printing. He is said by Junius to have printed, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... awoke in less than his usual cheerfulness. He thought for a while of the Terror and boots and mud with a gloomy unamiability. Then he rose and betook himself to his toilet. In the middle of it he missed his shaving-brush. He hunted for it furiously; he could have sworn that he had taken it out of his portmanteau. He did swear, but not to any definite fact. There was nothing for it: he must expose his tender chin to the cruel razor of a ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... day of August, 1846, after the close of the late session of the Congress of the United States, I duly appointed five citizens of the county or town of Alexandria, being freeholders within the same, as commissioners, who, being duly sworn to perform the duties imposed on them as prescribed in the said act, did proceed within ten days after they were notified to fix upon the 1st and 2d days of September, 1846, as the time, the court-house of the county of Alexandria as the place, and viva voce as the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... of toddy and cigar in that last quotation, I think. Yet I only smoked two, and liquified with one glass of spirits and water. I have sworn I will not blot out what I ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... they would rather die in their own merry England than conquer new kingdoms in the cold northeast. They were sworn, the leaders of them, to die or conquer, fighting the accursed Frenchman. They were bound to St. Peter, and to St. Guthlac, and to St. Felix of Ramsey, and St. Etheldreda the holy virgin, beneath whose roof they stood, to defend against Frenchmen the saints of England ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... its proper source. Mysterious hints were dropped of political reunions in a house on a thickly wooded hill, a quarter of a mile behind the Governor's, the fortunate guests to which enchanted abode being sworn to secrecy. That it was the nightly resort of Clintonians was an open secret, but that Federalism was being intelligently interpreted, albeit with deepest subtlety, was guessed by few of the visitors themselves, and Hamilton divined ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... respect to me, he would not punish him but by my order, and accordingly, came very gravely to me, to ask what should be done to him; adding, by way of compliment, that if I pleased he would bring me his head. This may give you some idea of the unlimited power of these fellows, who are all sworn brothers, and bound to revenge the injuries done to one another, whether at Cairo, Aleppo, or any part of the world; and this inviolable league makes them so powerful, that the greatest man at court never speaks to them ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... came North, and one never could tell how much his judgment was colored by his peculiar experiences there. It was my impression that if he had spent those two weeks on a barren rock in the ocean, with only one fair spirit for his minister, he would have sworn that it was the most lovely spot on the face of the earth. He always declared that it was the most friendly, cordial society at this resort in the country. At breakfast he knew scarcely any one in the vast dining-room, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... will be made to understand that their sin is grievous in the sight of God, and he will say of them also, "I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth, because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not." "And therefore have I sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... The prophet, having enumerated the sins of Israel, said that God had sworn to take ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... Ever-Green myself, ye know, so take me by the hand, And tell me how Ould Oireland is, and how our chances stand. 'Tis the most disthressful country, dear, that ever yet was seen; But I'm sworn to right ye, darlint, now I'm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various

... animal inside a cage, held captive by immovable bars of obstinate silence and cruel indifference. No one would help me. No one ostensibly knew anything; no one had seen anything, heard anything. The child was gone! My servants, the people in the village—some of whom I could have sworn were true and sympathetic—only shrugged their shoulders. 'Que voulez-vous, Madame? Children of bourgeois as well as of aristos were often taken up by the State to be brought up as true patriots and no longer ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, and they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn, upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough too in their opinion. And this is the cause of their printing lying ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... edge of the writing-table between Miss Levering, who sat in front of it, and Jean, whose chair was on the other side. She was nearest Jean, but it was to her children's sworn friend that she turned to ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... two years Eric Hermannson kept the austere faith to which he had sworn himself, kept it until a girl from the East came to spend a week on the Nebraska Divide. She was a girl of other manners and conditions, and there were greater distances between her life and Eric's than all ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... Francisco, making only about sixteen days on the heaving ocean; and the steamers run once a fortnight, so that you could turn round; and you could thus pass a day or two in the States - a fortnight even - and still see me. But I have sworn to take no further excursions till I have money saved to pay for them; and to go to Ceylon and back would be torture unless I had a lot. You must answer this at once, please; so that I may know what to do. We would dearly like you to come on ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... descends upon you, on the rest of my people, and, I say it again, on all Italy, I pray you to be of one mind, and to keep the faith which you have sworn to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... business in Europe; Lydia had as much business there as anywhere; and, although she had been faithless to Mortimer for a comparatively short time, within that time Desmond already had sworn at her and struck her. So she was quite ready to follow Desmond anywhere in this world or the next. And that, too, had not made her the more considerate ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... then fell under the power and guidance of a wretch who durst not for the soul of him be brought forward in the affair. And, what was worse, his evidence would have overborne mine, for he would have sworn that the man who called out and fought Colwan was the same he met leaving my apartment, and there was an end of it. And, moreover, it is well known that this same man—this wretch of whom I speak, never ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... sick I am!—not of the world, but of the widow's shrub. She's sworn under six thousand pounds; but I think she perjured herself. She howls in E la; and I comfort her in B flat. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... undisguised except by wonder. "You're the first friend I ever had, then. By thunder! how marrying Ettie Wedgewell did improve you, Fred! But," and the captain's face lengthened again, "there's a fellow's reputation to be considered, and where'll mine be after it gets around that I've sworn off?" ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... most affectionate manner, promising to bring him back again as soon as he could possibly do it. He immediately began to manoeuvre for the accomplishment of this purpose. In the mean time, as Gaveston had only sworn to leave England, the king sent him to Ireland, and made him governor general of that country, and there Gaveston lived in greater power ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... knew he'd been jilted," said Lady Martin wisely. "Besides they say he had sworn to marry the first woman who would have him, to get even with Miss Rees, you know, and I haven't a shadow of doubt this girl threw herself at ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... the day, high up in a city building, in a dainty little room, half office, half atelier, a man and a woman had copied an agreement, each for the other, and had sworn an oath ever to remain true to that solemn bond.... She had brought nothing to him, but herself; not even affection. He, on the other hand, had saved her from a life of drudgery by elevating her to a position where, free of the necessity of struggling ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... crush it in him; the world hated it and feared it, and was bound that it should not live; and Thyrsis had sworn to save it—and so the issue was joined. He would hearten himself for the struggle—he would fling himself into the thick of it, again and again; he would summon up that thing which he called his Genius, that ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... a queer organization, the 1st D.C. Vols., composed as it was of a cloud of independent companies—thirty-five, or thereabout, in all, I think—all made up of men from everywhere, largely in the tadpole stage of Unionism, and all sworn in for service in the District, not to go beyond the District. Early in May they were organized into eight battalions of four or five companies each, commanded by lieutenant-colonels, majors, or the senior captains. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... insulted by Epaphus, goes to the Palace of Apollo, to beseech him to give some token that he is his son. Apollo, having sworn, by the river Styx, to refuse him nothing that he should desire, he immediately asks to guide his chariot for one day. He is unsuccessful in the attempt, and, the horses running away, the world is in danger of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... peremptorily ordered by the professor to appear for the measurement. He escaped, and again defied the powers. He was again caught, and it was explained to him by the president that this man of might from the beyond had sworn to drag Jose with him all the way across this wild country slowly to Tehuantepec, thence back to the city of Oaxaca, where the state authorities would deal most painfully with him. And this, indeed, in mighty manner and impressively, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... on very good terms, not only with the master and the old ostler, but with all the domestics and hangers-on at the inn; waiters, chambermaids, cooks, and scullions, not forgetting the "boots," of which there were three. As for the postillions, I was sworn brother with them all, and some of them went so far as to swear that I was the best fellow in the world; for which high opinion entertained by them of me, I believe I was principally indebted to the good account ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... Malays eat the flesh of the tiger, because they believe that by eating it they acquire the courage and sagacity of the animal. Tigers' claws are used as charms, and the most solemn oath of one of the aboriginal tribes of India, the "Santals," is sworn when touching a tiger's skin; handsome brooches and earrings are also made from tigers' claws mounted in gold. In 1854 no less than six persons were killed within the space of a few days not far from the ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... by whom, alleging, that, though he would not have minded breaking any ordinary oath to satisfy the curiosity of Mr. Morton, to whose pious admonitions he owed so much, yet in the present case he had been sworn to silence upon the edge of his dirk, [See Note 33.] which, it seems, constituted, in his opinion, an ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... sworn he will," said the king. "Here, take this, my good lad, and prank thee in it when thou art out of thy time, and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... by William Camden, the historian. Camden was then second master in Westminster School. He procured for young Ben an admission into his school, and there laid firm foundations for that scholarship which the poet extended afterwards by private study until his learning grew to be sworn-brother to his wit. ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... of my readers feel disposed to condemn him for this apprehension,—it would be unjust to style it fear,—let them try to imagine how they themselves would feel if they knew that there were scores of desperate men and women who had sworn to take their lives by means of bullets or explosive bombs, fired or hurled from the centre of some dense crowd, which would destroy the life of the victim of such an outrage without a moment's warning, or without being able ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... Republican Party went to the Chicago Convention sworn to save the party from the disgrace of nominating Blaine. Roosevelt believed the charges against him, and by all that he had written and spoken, and by his political career, he was bound to oppose the politician, who, as Speaker ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... servants from spending too much time in my apartment, snooping among my papers, perhaps; and it my some day come in useful in establishing an alibi if things go wrong with me. You'd have sworn I was in there just ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs



Words linked to "Sworn" :   committed, unsworn



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