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Bitter end   /bˈɪtər ɛnd/   Listen
Bitter end

noun
1.
The final extremity (however unpleasant it may be).
2.
(nautical) the inboard end of a line or cable especially the end that is wound around a bitt.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bitter end" Quotes from Famous Books



... I tell you that I am choosing Pearlie Schultz as my leading lady you are to understand that she is ugly, not only when the story opens, but to the bitter end. In the first place, Pearlie is fat. Not, plump, or rounded, or dimpled, or deliciously curved, but FAT. She bulges in all the wrong places, including her chin. (Sister, who has a way of snooping over my desk in my absence, ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... and stand-up collars struggle dismally through to the bitter end. Often a member of the unemployed starts cheerfully out, with a letter from the Government Labour Bureau in his pocket, and nothing else. He has an idea that the station where he has the job will be within easy walking distance of Bourke. Perhaps he thinks there'll be a cart or ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... are not continually in hell. On the contrary, "they are not in trouble as other men are, neither are they plagued like other men. Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart could wish." This proves that they are self-ignorant; that they know neither their sin nor its bitter end. They sin without the consciousness of sin, and hence are happy in it. Is it not so in our own personal experience? Have there not been in the past ten years of our own mental history long trains of thought,—sinful thought,—and vast processions of feelings and imaginings,—sinful ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... I am gone," said the beautiful one wearily; "you may count on the same revulsion in him. I know it. I have been through it. There is nothing so loathsome in the bitter end ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... futile, it was extremely important that the interests of religion and the rights of the Holy See should be ably defended; and Father Lainez therefore insisted that Canisius should not only remain at the Diet of Regensburg to the bitter end, but that he should hold himself in readiness to ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... village, enthusiastic about this resistance, was ready to support and back up its pastor to the bitter end, to risk anything, considering this tacit protest as a safeguard of the national honor. It seemed to the peasants that in this way they deserved better of their country than Belfort or Strasbourg, that they had ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... was foolish, of course. But foolishness is a disease not so easily cured. There was not the slightest chance of giving Rebecca anything that she needed; Ruth knew that quite well. Her finery—and cheap enough it was—the girl would flaunt to the bitter end. ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson

... adoration of Valentine is such that even a hint might easily lead him to regard both you and me as his enemies. Keep your own counsel and mine, but act with me on the silent assumption that Cresswell being a madman, we are justified in fighting him to the bitter end, you and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... highest regard for the judges who have tried their cases, he told the following story: A worthy but unfortunate south-country farmer had fought his case in the teeth of adverse decisions in the Lower Courts to the bitter end in one of the divisions of the Court of Session. After the decision of this tribunal affirming the judgment he had appealed against, and thus finally blasting his fondest hopes, he was heard to mutter as he left ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... fight or he must become as a squaw and a slave," said Pontiac. "The English will press him to the bitter end. They say they are our friends, but they come as wolves in the night to take away our all. You ask how are we to fight them, for they are many? We must use our cunning, we must not let them think we are their enemies. We ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer

... uncharacteristic of women.[38] In fact, she is a very perfect (not of course in the moral sense) gentlewoman. She is at once popular with the knights, and loses that popularity rather by Lancelot's fault than by her own, while Gawain, who remains faithful to her to the bitter end, or at least till the luckless slaughter of his brethren, declares at the beginning that she is the fairest and most gracious, and will be the wisest and best of queens. She shows something very like humour in the famous and fateful remark (uttered, it would ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... had a paper chase in Vailele Plantation, about 15 miles, I take it, from us; and it was all that could be wished. It is really better fun than following the hounds, since you have to be your own hound, and a precious bad hound I was, following every false scent on the whole course to the bitter end; but I came in 3rd at the last on my little Jack, who stuck to it gallantly, and awoke the praises of some discriminating persons. (5 7 2.5 14.5 miles; yes, that is the count.) We had quite the old sensations of exhilaration, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and gave a calculating glance. When the chain had been paid out to the bitter end the ship would bring up perforce if the anchor had caught on, for the bitter end had a round turn taken about the foot of the foremast, and was shackled to the keelson with a monster shackle. But—what was the width of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... him, so Cortes writes to Charles V., was conspiracy. The evidence was flimsy enough, yet it is probable that Cortes believed it. The expedition was far from Mexico, surrounded by hostile nations, and Cortes, as usual, was in great danger. Helps thus describes the bitter end of ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... when the end-of-track camp was still forty miles away, but the breaking day brought no surcease of strugglings. When it came to the bitter end, when his eyelids would close involuntarily and he would wake with a start to wonder dumbly how far the 956 had come masterless, Gallagher took a chew of tobacco and began to rub the spittle into his eyes—the last resort ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... longer would be a crime. Oh! what was the crime not to wait! Had he only shared the bitter end, then, in the common trench, his memory might have been hidden. The end had come when he appeared to make of benignant victory a quenchless revenge. One more selection from his apostrophe will do. It suggests the manner of ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... openly countenance anybody who wore Billy's clothes. She was all the angrier for her own moment of snobbishness—men ought to be above such paltry things, she reasoned; anyway, she was bound to stand by Billy to the inevitably bitter end. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... They had no doubt that Boston, Baltimore and Charleston were doing the same. The strong men of the Colonies intended to assure England of their staunch support, and the English-speaking race not dreaming perhaps even then that it was to become such a mighty factor in the world, would fight to the bitter end ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... English readers Have welcomed MARTIN's admirable leaders— Which prove that all that's honest, clean and wise In the United States is pro-Allies— And learned to recognise in Life a friend On whom to reckon to the bitter end. But these good services you now have crowned By something finer, braver, more profound— Your "John Bull Number," where we gladly trace Pride in the common glories of our race, Goodwill, good fellowship, kind words of cheer, So frank, so unmistakably sincere, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various

... ordered his forces to retire on the fortified positions lying behind and south of the capital. Several detachments of the defenders, however, had already been cut off and were obliged to remain. Some fought grimly to the bitter end, inflicting heavy losses on the invaders; others were obliged to surrender. In some of the streets the fighting took on a bloody, hand-to-hand character, in which some of the civilians took part. All through the night Mannlicher rifles ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... prices as they may be inclined to offer. The victory will be ours. A glorious victory truly! But, we must not expect to gain this victory without a severe struggle. In the earlier stages of the movement, the monopolist will soon recognize the co-operative farm as an enemy which must be fought to the bitter end, must be stamped out. To this end they will strive in every way to prevent us from obtaining possession ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... illusive chase. The waits were so frequent that the riders had little chance of growing fatigued, and the Saxon contingent, being refreshed with pocketed stores of biscuits and chocolate, boldly announced its intention of following to the bitter end. ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... she, "another robbery! Lies not the weight of one injustice upon my conscience, that you would seek to burden my soul with another! Think you that I have forgotten Poland!—No! The remembrance of our common crime will follow me to the bitter end, and it shall not be aggravated by repetition. I am empress of Austria, and while I live, Joseph, you must restrain your ambition within the bounds of justice and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... ahead of us all, with the sorely wounded admiral lying bleeding in his cot on her deck, our gallant chief persisting in watching the battle to its bitter end, in spite of being compelled from absolute exhaustion to give up the immediate command of the squadron to his senior officer, Captain Shadwell; though it was as much as the gunboat could do ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... by hereditary or acquired immunity, he contracted tuberculosis and faded away before our eyes. Because he had no natural resistance, he received no benefit from such hygienic measures as serve to arrest the disease in the Caucasian. We did everything possible for him, and nursed him to the painful bitter end. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... whilst the North, the benign influence of the great Lincoln withdrawn, proceeded to decide its fate. To this ghastly end had come slavery and secession, and all the pomp, pride and circumstance of the Confederacy. To this bitter end had come the soldiership of Lee and Jackson and Johnston and the myriads of ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... into the courts, then," was the passionate retort. "I will defy you all to the bitter end. And you," turning with blazing eyes and crimson cheeks to Ray, "I suppose you imagined that you were to win a princely inheritance with your promised wife; that when you found this piece of parchment you would thus enable Mona Forester's ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... our new line, yet it was hoped that Bireh would be reached before serious opposition was encountered. The enemy, however, changed his mind. Having, early in November, decided to withdraw from Jerusalem, he now determined to hold it till the bitter end. Turkish resistance stiffened immensely. Pushed far into the hills, as were our advanced troops, and without much artillery support, it was found impossible for them to reach Bireh in the first stride; and further operations upon a more elaborate scale ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... he was cruel and unfair. Two experiences had taught him that—first the poisoned bird and now the unprovoked attack. Hereafter he would match his cunning with the man-creatures and if necessary, it would be a battle to the bitter end. Vast as the wilderness was, it was too small to harbor both the ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... been allowed to grow under the bottoms of the ships that made so quick a passage. But Nelson was "sorrowful" that no results had accrued. Like a strong man who has opinions and carries them through to the bitter end, he did not "blame himself." He blew off some of the pent-up bitterness of an aching heart by writing to a friend, "But for General Brereton's damned information, I would have been living or dead, and the greatest man England ever ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... to win. Grant is the ablest general we have. His losses are appalling. But the struggle is now on to the bitter end. Our resources of men and money are exhaustless. The South cannot replace her fallen sons. Her losses, ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... lie!" cried Marthe, maddened by the admission. "It is not true. A woman: is that what you mean? No ... no.... Ah, Philippe, I beseech you!... Monsieur le ministre, I swear to you that he is lying ... I swear it to you.... He is keeping up his falsehood to the bitter end. He betray me! He love another woman! You're lying, Philippe, are you not? ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... were shot to pieces and the traverses were reduced to rubbish heaps by the bursting of the numerous shells of the enemy. And all that was finally left round the tattered Stars and Stripes was a little group of heavily wounded gunners, performing their duty to the bitter end, and these heroes were honored by the enemy by being permitted to keep their arms. They were sent by steamer from Seattle to the Canadian Naval Station at Esquimault on the seventh of May, and their arrival inspired the populace to stormy demonstrations against the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... bell of the State House rang out the tidings; the Declaration was read to a surging, excited crowd in the square; it was sent off in all directions by fleet messengers, and read at the head of each brigade of the Continental army; and the colonies now knew that the fight was to go on to the bitter end. Thenceforth there was no thought of patching a compromise with the mother country, or of returning to the old allegiance to the British crown. On the side of England, national pride and royal obstinacy urged forward every preparation ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle

... from the hand of an assassin, whilst the city of Amsterdam, but lately resolved to surrender and prepared to send its magistrates as delegates to Louis XIV., suddenly decided upon resistance to the bitter end. " If we must perish, let us at any rate be the last to fall," exclaimed the town-councillor Walkernier, "and let us not submit to the yoke it is desired to impose upon us until there remain no means of securing ourselves against it." All the sluices were opened and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... recitative—taunts the patricians with their bad conduct and their reckless readiness to break all the vows they have made. The nobles announce their intention of going elsewhere to fight out their quarrel to the bitter end, and they go. Rienzi beseeches the crowd to wait their time, and he will lead them to destroy their oppressors. They quietly disperse; Rienzi, Adriano and Irene have a scene; Rienzi recognises in his sister's ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... pitiful scenes before Elisaveta. He loved her and he hated her. He would have killed her—had he dared! And he had not the force to hate either Elisaveta or Trirodov to the bitter end. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... rushed up, and I was surrounded by some thirty men, who attacked me from every side, and clinging to me with all their might succeeded in grabbing my arms, legs and head. Weak as I was, they knocked me down three more times, and three more times I regained my feet. I fought to the bitter end with my fists, feet, head and teeth each time that I got one hand or leg free from their clutches, hitting right and left at any part where I could disable my opponents. Their timidity, even when in such overwhelming numbers, ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... indeed, Guido, so large that you have no idea of its extent!), "thus my honor will be satisfied" (and so will mine in part), "and you, I am sure, will have a better opinion of yours to command." Perhaps I shall, Guido—mine to command as you are—perhaps when all my commands are fulfilled to the bitter end, I may think more kindly of you. But not till then! In the meantime—I thought earnestly for a few minutes, and then sitting down, I penned the ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... appearance. Huxley, as is known, took the lead of that school, and in a paper written in 1888 he represented primitive men as a sort of tigers or lions, deprived of all ethical conceptions, fighting out the struggle for existence to its bitter end, and living a life of "continual free fight"; to quote his own words—"beyond the limited and, temporary relations of the family, the Hobbesian war of each against all was the normal ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... die, it should be as became one of his race and training. But, oh! it was hard! He was so young, so full of life and hope. Could he hold out to the bitter end? Yes, he must. He had chosen to be a soldier. He was a soldier. Other soldiers had met their death by savage torture and faced it bravely. What they had done, he must do. But was there no help for him, none at all? As he searched ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... listeners; so pathetic, so heart-breaking, so laden with death and with love, that it was as though all the sorrowing souls in our poor Rome breathed in one soft sigh together. Only a poor monk dying of love in a monastery, tenderly and truly loving to the bitter end. Dio mio! there are perhaps many such. But a monk like this, with a face like a conqueror, set square in its whiteness, and yet so wretched to see in his poor patched frock and his bare feet; a monk, too, not ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... begged him, holding out his foot that Leduc might put on his shoe again, "I might have supposed that you would suppose that, and disposed accordingly. You had better investigate to the bitter end." ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... tears that were now rolling down her cheeks. In a flash I realised what was to be the tragic close of her tale, and I tried to spare her the details. But she refused to be spared, and, forcing back the tears, went on to the bitter end. ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman

... inclined rather than otherwise to represent fate as a monstrous spider, unaccountable, often maleficent, hard to run away from. But he loves the fantastic comedy of the high heart which persists in the heroic game against the spider till the bitter end. His Youth is just such a comedy of the peacockry of adventure amid the traps ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... the way with a simple tongue, hers spoke more wisdom that it wot of. It was indeed quite true that poor Arthur Carroll, seating himself in the Port Willis trolley-car, had in the bitter end cheated himself worse than he had any of his creditors. He was more largely in his own debt than in that of any other man; he had, in reality, less of that of which he had cheated than had any of his ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Rebels were naturally very much interested in the result, as they believed that the election of McClellan meant compromise and cessation of hostilities, while the re-election of Lincoln meant prosecution of the War to the bitter end. The toadying Raiders, who were perpetually hanging around the gate to get a chance to insinuate themselves into the favor of the Rebel officers, persuaded them that we were all so bitterly hostile to our Government for not exchanging us that if we ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... and at their feet, though sickness was raging in their hospitals, and hunger was wasting away their kindred, they swore to resist for two weeks longer. So they could but save Vienna, their fatherland, and their emperor, they were willing to endure their sufferings to the bitter end. The Turks pressed closer, but every foot of ground cost them thousands of men; and their advance was disputed by heroes whose bodies were weakened with fasting and sickness. Not a morsel of bread or of fresh meat was to be seen; for a while a cat was esteemed ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... drive these Southern women to the protection of a Union relative in New Orleans. The hated Eagle Oath must be taken, the beloved Confederacy must be renounced at least in words. Entries in the Diary become briefer and briefer, yet are sustained unto the bitter end, when the deaths of two brothers, and the crash of the Lost Cause, are told with the tragic reserve of a ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... but all unkind words should be silenced by a common desire to let that one day pass happily for all. Guests who snatch at wedding-favours to take home, who are boisterous in their leave-taking of the departing couple, who stay to the bitter end and pocket morsels of bridecake, who loudly appraise the value of the presents, or audibly speculate as to "what it has cost So-and-So to get his daughter off," have as yet to ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux

... women this privilege, though society leaders have enjoyed it for ages. We all know that though most fashionable hotels permitted their feminine guests to smoke, the Haymarket of dubious memory always tabooed the custom to the bitter end! ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... for, though obviously determined not to enjoy themselves, they come punctually, do not cause inconvenience by going out between the acts to waste money on high-priced refreshments, and remain in their places to the bitter end—unlike the cash patrons, so many of whom bustle away brutally towards the close of the entertainment for fear lest they should miss the chance of earning a nightmare at a fashionable restaurant. Seeing what service they render ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... the enemies of Russia would be lowered, and their armies swept from our soil like chaff blown away by the wind,' rendered all dreams of diplomatic solution impossible, and made England, in spite of the preachers of peace at any price, determined to push forward her quarrel to the bitter end. The nation, to borrow the phrase of one of the shrewdest political students of the time, had now begun to consider the war in the Crimea as a 'duel with Russia,' and pride and pluck were more than ever ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... so far he had become very angry, but his anger was now directed against his lawyer. Had he not told Mr. Boltby that he had changed his mind; and what business had the lawyer to interfere with him further? But he read the letter on to its bitter end:— ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope

... footsteps, wherever they went, by a trail of blood. Louis was equally their blinded tool. The Order—the "Society of Jesus"—was created to extirpate heresy, and in this instance it was carried out to the bitter end. The persecution of the Protestants under Louis XIV. was the most cruel and successful of all known persecutions in ancient or modern times. It annihilated the Protestants, so far as there were any left openly to defend their cause. It ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... mess," she summed up at last, unable to think of any other sufficiently strong description. "Meryl doesn't want to marry van Hert, and van Hert doesn't want to marry Meryl; they both want to marry someone else; and yet they both mean to go on to the bitter end, because of some rotten-cotton notion about serving South Africa. O! I've no patience with these heroic attitudes! They are not suited to commonplace everyday life. If they'd a little more sound ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... contrary things in a speech, this is called contentio, which Tully calls one of the rhetorical colors (De Rhet. ad Heren. iv), where he says that "it consists in developing a speech from contrary things," for instance: "Adulation has a pleasant beginning, and a most bitter end." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... do, to go to my poor old father and mother and tell them everything—how it all happened. It will be better than for them only to know it from the papers. They will understand then how it was I went wrong so quickly, right to the bitter end." ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... her lips firmly together. She had made a valiant struggle. She would defy him to the bitter end. She was no coward, this beautiful, imperious girl. She would die hard. Alas! she had been too sanguine, hoping Lester Stanwick would not return before ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... and excitement she'll forget about the ring. I have told one big lie about it, and I have insinuated a dozen more, and I vow and declare one thing—that I will not be discovered now. I'll go on to the bitter end now, come what will. Heigh-ho, is that you, Nan? What are you doing? Don't you know that Mrs. Willis has come? What is that you ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... story, and I feel confident now that I shall get it done. Furthermore, I shall send the chapters to Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick as I write them, so that there must be no failure. I shall be compelled to finish the tale, whatever may happen, and Miss Andrews shall go through to the bitter end, willy-nilly." ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs

... to be refused all aid, either because he is unjust or because the courts find no remedy for his troubles. He refuses to settle actual grievances, carries the case from one court to another and finally develops an insatiable desire to fight to the bitter end. The statutes appear to him inadequate and even the fundamental principles of law fail him. He cannot abide by the ultimate decision after all the usual means of justice have been exhausted. In his attempts to gain justice ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... hailed him as a deliverer sent by God; but it is one of the strangest features of their history that we never can tell what part they took in these political conflicts. Comenius was now in Lissa. It is said that he openly sided with Charles X., and urged the Brethren to hold out to the bitter end. I doubt it. For a while the Swedish army triumphed. In that army was an old Bohemian general, who swore to avenge the "Day of Blood"; and the churches and convents were plundered, and monks and priests were murdered. For a moment the Day of Blood was avenged, but for a moment only. As the arm of ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... doomed to die who loved me! O bitter, bitter end of tenderness! O doleful issue of my happiness! Weep, little maid, for ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... now given up all thought of sullen resistance to the bitter end. He rolled a cigarette for himself, and had the foreign cheek to say to ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... night was illuminated redly and vividly by the flashes of the guns. The Black Pearl, finding escape impossible, had determined to fight to the bitter end. Her guns were run out, and they at once opened a galling and well-directed fire upon the Elizabeth, which replied in kind, and the night air resounded with the report of cannon and small-arms, and was rent ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... girl, I am not angry with you. It is my fault more than yours. You were too young to know your own mind. I am an old fool, and shall always be one until the bitter end." ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... De Grasse's flag-ship, the "Ville de Paris," struck her colors to the "Barfleur," carrying the flag of Sir Samuel Hood. The French accounts state that nine of the enemy's ships then surrounded her, and there is no doubt that she had been fought to the bitter end. Her name, commemorating the great city whose gift she had been to the king, her unusual size, and the fact that no French naval commander-in-chief had before been taken prisoner in battle, conspired to bestow a peculiar brilliancy upon Rodney's victory. Four other ships-of-the-line were ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... had Priam's fortunes; so his days Were finished, such the bitter end he found, Now doomed by Fate with dying eyes to gaze On Troy in flames and ruin all around, And Pergamus laid level with the ground. Lo, he to whom once Asia bowed the knee, Proud lord of many peoples, far-renowned, Now left to welter by the rolling sea, A huge ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... had to go through with it to the bitter end," she said, in a low voice. "Henri didn't spare ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... to squirm out of. But here, Mistress Tabbie, was one you couldn't escape. Here was a situation that had to be faced. Here was a time I had to knuckle down, had to grin and bear it, had to go through with it to the bitter end. For other folks, whatever they may be able to do for you, aren't able to have your babies ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... but then we all have our faults, and I fancy he will improve greatly on acquaintance. When I know him better, Die, I shall delight in arguing with him. There is no use arguing with Mr. Carlyon, he always gives in to me at once; but Mr. Herrick would fight it out to the bitter end." ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... about boar hunting which will prove of value in the future. The Chinese can sell wild pig meat for a very high price since it is considered to be a great delicacy. Therefore, if I wound a pig in the future I shall, myself, follow its trail to the bitter end. Moreover, I learned that, to knock over a wild boar and keep him down for good, one needs a heavy rifle. The bullet of my 6.5 mm. Mannlicher, which has proved to be a wonderful killer for anything ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... that the mind is shut up within the circle of the messages that are conducted to it along the sensory nerves, and that it cannot directly perceive anything truly external. He carries his doctrine out to the bitter end in the conclusion that, since we have never had experience of anything beyond sense-impressions, and have no ground for an inference to anything beyond, we must recognize that the only external world of which we know anything is an external ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... do not think me either slack or changeable of purpose. I mean to go through this business to the bitter end—whatever it may be. Be satisfied that my first care is, and shall be, the protection of Mimi Watford. To that I am pledged; my dear boy, we who are interested are all in the same danger. That semi-human monster out of the pit hates and means to destroy us all—you and me certainly, ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... almost delight. It was ended then, all was over; the game was lost. No more anguish now, no more useless fright and foolish terrors, no more dissembling, no more struggles. Henceforth he had nothing more to fear. His horrible part being played to the bitter end, he could now lay aside ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... behind him friends whom he knew were not "the flatterers of the festal hour"—friends whom he returned to mourn and nobly celebrate. Byron was not Harold, but Harold was an ideal Byron, the creature and avenger of his pride, which haunted and pursued its presumptuous creator to the bitter end. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... capricious creature? I must try her elsewhere. I have already been told that the people of this place are exceedingly ambitious. Evidently there is no room for me here. So, adieu! gentleman of the court, and follow to the bitter end this will-o'-the-wisp! They tell me that Dame Fortune has temples in Surat. Very well! ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine

... of it. It will be composed of men sworn to oppose to the bitter end any prosecution of this war. They intend to recognize the Southern Confederacy, and dissolve their own Federal relation with the United States. It may be necessary, sir——" he paused and fixed the President with compelling ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... "To the bitter end," Mitchy loyally responded. "For how CAN, how need, a woman be 'proud' who's so preternaturally clever? Pride's only for use when wit breaks down—it's the train the cyclist takes when his tire's deflated. When that happens to ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... of the Insurgents in their ability to whip the cowardly Americans, rather than any fixed determination on their part to push a struggle for independence to the bitter end, led ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... use quibbling and fighting against it. We've got to keep at it, and wring out of it what we can, and always go back to it, and bend to it, and still keep at it, to the bitter end!" ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... on thee, Fortune! thou hast foiled the hope And power of Persia: to this bitter end My son went forth to wreak his great revenge On famous Athens! all too few they seemed, Our men who died upon the Fennel-field! Vengeance for them my son had mind to take, And drew on his own head these whelming ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... him that he must "never relax," and he never would. He would go on, working to the utmost and striving for the highest, to the bitter end. His industry grew almost maniacal. Earlier and earlier was the green lamp lighted; more vast grew the correspondence; more searching the examination of the newspapers; the interminable memoranda more punctilious, analytical, and precise. His ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... perverse. It would seem, as the strife waxes hot, that the glory of God was never so much in their hearts as now. They pray with fervor, they are constant in their public religious duties, they pass through the most scrupulous self-examinations, and then fight on to the bitter end; believing, I suppose, that they are really doing God service, when they are only gratifying their ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... to do so on that one occasion on which he had pleaded his love to her successfully. Let any reader who is intelligent in such matters say whether it would have been possible for him then to have commenced the story of Mrs Hurtle and to have told it to the bitter end. Such a story must be postponed for a second or third interview. Or it may, indeed, be communicated by letter. When Paul was called away to Liverpool he did consider whether he should write the story. But there are ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... can't punish myself! I asked her forgiveness because I wanted to punish myself to the bitter end. She would not forgive me.... I like her for that!" she added, in an unnatural voice, and her eyes flashed ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... gold, could we but join our waiting wives, who wring their hands on distant shores, all then were well. But we can not fly; our prows lie rotting on the beach. Ah! home! thou only happiness!—better thy silver earnings than all these golden findings. Oh, bitter end to all our hopes—we die in ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... favour of his uncle, Israel Werner, and in case of his prior death, in favour of a cousin, Ruth Werner. This theory gained but little currency among those who knew the man best, and although the insurance companies prepared to resist payment of the policies to the bitter end, yet, as time went on, no one attempted to prove his death, nor to claim the handsome sum which would result from it. Moreover, Israel Werner and his daughter Ruth, the beneficiaries under the policies, persisted in believing that their relative was ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass



Words linked to "Bitter end" :   seafaring, end, line, sailing, terminal, navigation, extremity



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