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Sway   /sweɪ/   Listen
Sway

verb
(past & past part. swayed; pres. part. swaying)
1.
Move back and forth or sideways.  Synonyms: rock, shake.  "The tall building swayed" , "She rocked back and forth on her feet"
2.
Move or walk in a swinging or swaying manner.  Synonym: swing.
3.
Win approval or support for.  Synonyms: carry, persuade.  "His speech did not sway the voters"
4.
Cause to move back and forth.  Synonym: rock.  "Rock the baby" , "The wind swayed the trees gently"



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"Sway" Quotes from Famous Books



... royal fleet as the governor and general thereof, with the purpose of discovering the lands and islands of the West, which are and always were within his demarcation, in order to propagate and teach therein the gospel and the evangelical law, and to spread the Christian sway of our holy Catholic faith—the thing which, most of all, his majesty purposes in these parts. In the course of my expedition I arrived at these islands, where I was obliged to provide myself with certain supplies which I needed and which I did not have at hand; and in search ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... vociferating oaths dreadful to hear; and caught me in the act of stowing his son sway in the kitchen cupboard. Hareton was impressed with a wholesome terror of encountering either his wild beast's fondness or his madman's rage; for in one he ran a chance of being squeezed and kissed to death, and in the ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... that he should receive credit for having so promptly and generously accomplished the hopes of the nation; and he had prepared a long proclamation to the French people in his own hand, in which he sincerely congratulated himself and them on the happiness, that France was about to enjoy under the sway of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... December, 1851, a successful ambush, a crime, odious, repulsive, infamous, unprecedented, considering the age in which it was committed, has triumphed and held sway, erecting itself into a theory, pluming itself in the sunlight, making laws, issuing decrees, taking society, religion, and the family under its protection, holding out its hand to the kings of Europe, who accept it, and calling them, "my brother," or "my ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... organisms, the "abhorrence of self-fertilization" which Mr. Darwin speaks of as so conspicuous and inexplicable a phenomenon, is but one example of the sway of a law which as action and reaction, thesis and antithesis, is common to both elementary motion and thought. The fertile and profound fancy of Greece delighted to prefigure this truth in significant symbols and myths. Love, Eros, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... pale, impassive, and unrighteous, as if the effects of a drug were beginning to steal upon the senses. And the white, square-nailed hands beat gently upon the piano till many people, unconsciously, began to sway ever so little to and fro. An angry look came into Millie Deans's eyes, and when the last drum throb died away and the little girl of Tombouctou slept for ever in the sand, slain by her Prince of Darkness, for a reason that seemed absurdly inadequate to the British ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... it's an elephant!" cried Bunny, as he, too, saw the tent sway. "It's an elephant got loose from the circus, ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope

... fettered to the heavy aftermath of his greed that night. His heart swelled within him in answer to the sovereign's call, till it seemed to send new blood, hot and compelling, racing through all his veins into the last least crevices of his remotest members. His massive head ceased to sway. It was uplifted in the moment that a roaring baying cry escaped him; he knew not how or why. And that was the moment called psychological. For it was the instant of a new and different attack from Bill, this tremendous ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... building such expensive monuments in memory of tyrannical rulers of the Hohenzollern type, the world might never have witnessed the indescribable horrors of a world war. What matters it if Russia and Italy contain such marvelous cathedrals as long as ignorance holds sway among the peasant? Mr. Vassar shall long live in the memory of a grateful people, and he erected a monument so vast and magnificent that only Eternity will rightly gauge its proportions, for he built not for a dead past, but ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... passed without rest or deviation from the course. Vegetation entirely ceased. The sand, so crusted on the surface that it broke into rattling flakes at every step, held undisputed sway. The Jebel was out of view, and there was no landmark visible. The shadow that before followed had now shifted to the north, and was keeping even race with the objects which cast it; and as there was no sign of halting, the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... slumber did not long hold sway over the senses of our friends, but even so, time, the relentless, striding ever along, did not leave them any spare minutes. Breakfasting at nine, with the exception of Lady Esmondet, and Mrs. Haughton, who partook of their first meal in their own apartments, the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... conviction that he is an outcast from public respect and sympathy. He is moved by the language of kindness; and if suitably warned of his danger, and pointed to the way of escape, may be saved from ruin. Persuade him to refrain till reason resumes her sway, and the burning desire for stimulus has subsided. A few months will generally effect this great change. In his sober hours he often weeps over his folly, his ear is open to the voice of friendship, and he will yield to kind remonstrance—perhaps ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... from thought, that mysterious thing! in its lowest form, through all the gradations of sentient and rational beings, till it arrives at a Bacon, a Newton; and then, when unincumbered by matter, extending its illimitable sway through Seraph and Archangel, till we are ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... that melodious play, A' deidly awn the quiet sway - A' ken their solemn holiday, Bestial an' human, The singin' lintie on ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson

... incomprehensible, the results of which we can see, without being able to penetrate the darkness in which they dwell. But assuming its truth, and appreciating the consequences which would follow, we should rule the tongue with a sterner sway, and guard the heart with a more watchful care than is our wont. Think of the obscene word becoming a living entity, the profane oath a thing of life; the filthy or impure thought, assuming form and vitality, all starting ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... up f'r wan thing or another. Between times th' polis give him his own side iv th' sthreet, an' on'y took him whin his back was tur-rned. Thin he'd go in the wagon with a mountain iv thim on top iv him, sway in' an' swearin' an' sthrikin' each other in their hurry to put him to sleep with ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne

... lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a convict's; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come rushing down, and not one hair of ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... moment he stood motionless, speechless, staring at her, and then he seemed to sway a little and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... hands, pausing to make no prisoners. Atollo, after fighting like a tiger, though almost alone, succeeded in making his escape with a few of his attendants. The victors promptly carried the war into the neighbouring islands, both of which were completely subdued, and afterwards remained under the sway of Eiulo's grandfather until his death, when the present chief succeeded. Atollo, after resisting as long as there remained the slightest prospect of success, had sought refuge among the recesses of the mountains, where he still lurked ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... each other with extreme bitterness, carrying fire-water, dissension, and disaster all over the wilderness of Rupert's Land. Happily the two companies coalesced in the year 1821, and from that date, onward, comparative peace has reigned under the mild sway of ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... have heard me. I know, already, all that young Anstruther knows of the whole Johnstone matter. I do not intend to meet him at Paris," she demurely said. "I am absolutely untrammeled in this world. I am free to act as a woman's moods sway her. I have plenty of money, a fact which lifts me above the degradation of man's chase, and I indulge in no illusions. I am a soldier's daughter, and my dead father was the son of one of Napoleon's heroes of La Grande Armee. My whole life has been ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... main hall, the Bourgeois, or partners, of the great North-West Company were holding their annual General Assembly behind closed doors. Clerks lowered their voices when they passed that room, and well they might; for the rulers inside held despotic sway over a domain as large as Europe. And what were they decreeing? Who can tell? The archives of the great fur companies are as jealously guarded as diplomatic documents, and more remarkable for what they omit than what they state. Was the policy, that ended so tragically ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... seen at all the quais, and, even more, to the little steamers from London which contrive to get under the bridges.) In some of the modern records this ancient corporation is given great importance—with many sans doutes and il paraits—in the history of the city, both before and during the sway of the Romans. Caesar found it "fully organized," though it was founded on the Roman corporation of the Nautae Tyberis, navigators of the Tiber, composed of senators, magistrates, and knights, which transported grain and other merchandise from the port ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... tracks are seen through the clear sea water like the ruts upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the thick weed that fringes the banks with the weight of its sullen waves, leaning to and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide. The scene is often profoundly oppressive, even at this day, when every plot of higher ground bears some fragment of fair building: but, in order to know what it was once, let the traveller follow in his boat at evening the windings of some unfrequented channel far ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... British colonies which became the United States of America; that in India the representatives of both mother countries were striving for mastery, not merely through influence in the councils of native rulers, but by actual territorial sway, and that the chances seemed on the whole to ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... "people's advocate," has watched from a safe recess the issue of the battle. Not for him, the risking of his precious skin! Later, in the councils of the new democratic State, he shall sway ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... believed in him, for a certain Yorkshire monk declared that the historian had "lied saucily and shamelessly"; and some years later, Gerald the Welshman tells of a man who had intercourse with devils, from whose sway, however, he could be freed if a Bible were placed upon his breast, whereas he was completely under their control if Geoffrey's History were laid upon him, just because the book was so full ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay

... scholar, and the statesman bless the world. They lead us through happy isles; they clothe our thoughts and hopes with beauty and with strength; they dissipate the general gloom; they widen the sphere of life; they bring the multitude beneath the sway of law. ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... to borrow a history of the French revolution, which he mastered stretched prone before the sap-fire, while watching the kettles of sap transformed to maple sugar. Thus was it that he laid the foundation of his education, which in after years enabled him to sway such mighty power at Albany; known as ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... closed Lincoln's life as an orator. The Cooper Union speech was an isolated aftermath in alien conditions, a set performance not quite in his true vein. His brief addresses of the later years were incidental; they had no combative element. Never again was he to attempt to sway an audience for an immediate stake through the use of the spoken word. "A brief description of Mr. Lincoln's appearance on the stump and of his manner when speaking," as Herndon aptly remarks, "may not be without interest. When standing erect, he was six feet four inches ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... as it were, on hair-triggers, held the stage. In Christian, the fiend of laughter held sway, in poor Barty, the angel of tears. It was perhaps well for them both that their next step in advance took them round a bend in the path, and brought them face ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... still. The light was fading; all the yellow was fading, too, from the columns and the temple walls. I stayed till it was dark; and with the dark the old gods seemed to resume their interrupted sway. And surely they, too, called to prayer. For do not these ruins of old Egypt, like the muezzin upon the minaret, like the angelus bell in the church tower, call one to prayer in the night? So wonderful are they under stars and moon that they stir the ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... surface of the foaming water, while her broad white streak glanced like a silver ribbon along her clear black side. She was a very large craft of her class, long and low in the water, and evidently very fast; and it was now clear, from our having been unable as yet to sway up our fore—topmast, that she took us for a disabled merchantman, which might be cut off ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... a chair, feeling as if she should never want to eat again; but with that last thought, her hopes revived, hunger once more asserted its sway, and she ate her breakfast with a good deal of ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley

... the convict director, whom none can approach without giving formal notice, and who generally leaves the prison followed by the curses and maledictions of the majority of the prisoners. In reality, the prison director holds absolute sway over some thousands of his fellow men; there is no appeal from his decisions; his court is held, and prisoners are sentenced and punished, but there are no reporters for the press. The wholesome influence of public opinion does not penetrate that secret and irresponsible ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... with its Spanish American and Hindoo and Negro and "Pidgin" dialects, it was the everyday-language of two-thirds of humanity. On the Continent, save as remote and curious survivals, three other languages alone held sway—German, which reached to Antioch and Genoa and jostled Spanish-English at Cadiz; a Gallicised Russian which met the Indian English in Persia and Kurdistan and the "Pidgin" English in Pekin; and French still clear ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... we have said, Puritanism was temporarily consistent with the philosophy of life and Nature for one age. It held no divided sway over John Winthrop, but filled his heart, his mind, and his spirit. If, by its influence over any one human being, regarded as an unqualified, unmodified style of piety, demanding entire allegiance, and not yielding to any mitigation through the tempering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... all those, and those only, who obey God by their manner of life are saved; the rest of mankind, who live under the sway of their pleasures, are lost. (57) If we did not believe this, there would be no reason for obeying God ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza

... infused a portion of her own spirit into his mind, assigning reason upon reason why he should not shrink from what he had undertaken; how easy the deed was; how soon it would be over; and how the action of one short night would give to all their nights and days to come sovereign sway and royalty! Then she threw contempt on his change of purpose, and accused him of fickleness and cowardice; and declared that she had given suck, and knew how tender it was to love the babe that milked ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... only under most favorable conditions, from July to September opens a succession of pink flowers that often fade to white. The yellow eye is bordered with carmine. They measure about one inch across, and are usually solitary at the ends of branches, or else sway on slender peduncles from the axils. The upper leaves are narrow and bract-like; those lower down gradually widen ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... back door sat Bas Rowlett gazing outward, and his physical position, beyond the margin of the group proper, seemed to typify a mental attitude of detachment from those mounting tides of passion that held sway within. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... commodore knew it, and sat with bowed head in his gaunt arms, wondering, wondering. Slowly his body began to sway; he muttered something, slid forward on his face, and lay still. And as he lay there on the threshold of the unknown he dreamed that the Maggie II came into view around the headland, a bone in her teeth and every stitch of canvas flying. He saw her luff up into the wind and hang there ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... For there's that sweetness in a female Mind, Which in a Man's we cannot find; That by a secret, but a pow'rful Art, } Winds up the Spring of Life, and do's impart } Fresh Vital Heat to the transported Heart, } I'd have her Reason, and her Passions sway, Easy in Company, in private Gay. Coy to a Fop, to the deserving free, Still Constant to her self, and Just to me. A soul she shou'd have for great Actions fit, Prudence, and Wisdom to direct her Wit. Courage to look bold danger in the Face, No ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous

... said to the messengers—'Now tell to King Harold these my words:—I will only agree to be his lawful wife upon the condition that he shall first, for sake of me, put under him the whole of Norway, so that he may bear sway over that kingdom as freely and fully as King Eric over the realm of Sweden, or King Gorm over Denmark; for only then, methinks, can he be called king of a people.' Now his men came back to King Harold, bringing him the words of the girl, and saying she ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... Richard had returned to his home, had become, to all intent and purposes, its master; for the justice would never be in a state to hold sway again. He had resumed his position; and regained the favor of West Lynne, which, always in extremes, was now wanting to kill him with kindness. A happy, happy home from henceforth; and Mrs. Hare lifted up her full heart in thankfulness to God. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... deed is dun! The tiranikle government which hez sway at Washington hez finelly extinguished the last glimerin flicker uv Liberty, by abolishin slavery! The sun didn't go down in gloom that nite—the stars didn't fade in2 a sickly yeller, at wich obstinacy uv nachur ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... Lucca and San Marino; and the two ancient republics of Venice and Genoa, long since shorn of their empires, their maritime power, and their economic and political importance. All but universally absolutism held sway, and in most of the states, especially those of the south, absolutism was synonymous with ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... the junior partner, who conducted the classical department and never whacked—only sent down his subjects, with every confidence, to his friend. I make out with clearness that Mr. Forest was awful and arid, and yet that somehow, by the same stroke, we didn't, under his sway, go in terror, only went exceedingly in want; even if in want indeed of I scarce (for myself) know what, since it might well have been enough for me, in so resounding an air, to escape with nothing worse than a failure of thrill. If I didn't feel that interest ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... is held by foreigners,—by the Irish in the East, and by the Germans in the West. And those who see the rapid growth of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, especially in those sections of the country where Puritanism once had complete sway, and the immense political power wielded by Roman Catholic priests, can understand why the conservative classes of England are opposed to the recognition of the political rights of a people who might unite with socialists and radicals in overturning the institutions ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... put their toes into holes and niches in the rocks and kept talking all the while. Every now and then they would stop, sway their heads about and sing a kind of low chant in not unmusical tones. As we crept up slowly behind, with difficulty finding the rude steps in the uncertain light, the last of the string of dwarfs kept turning to us bowing and crooning. I confess I began to be anxious, fearing ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... Love alone o'er hearts has sway Heart to heart and soul to soul | Ah Love! to thee do we surrender. Love binds us in his fetters. | (yielding to her lover's (placing his arm around MIMI embrace) Love now shall rule our hearts | Sweet to my soul the magic voice alone, | Of love ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica

... I will relate an incident, to show what a fiend even woman, gentle, lovely woman, may become, after she has fallen under the sway of the demon of slavery. Said a lady of Savannah, on a visit in the city of New York, "I wish he (Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Cox) would come to Savannah. I should love to see him tarred and feathered, and his head cut off and carried on a pole around Savannah." This lady is ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... mysterious depths, Where wild beasts lurk and strange winds sough; From ancient forests dense and dark, Where gray moss wreathes the cypress bough; 'Mid marshes green with flowers starred, Through fens where reeds and rushes sway, Past fertile fields of waving grain, Down to the sea I take ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... is simply the perfection and fulfilment of sensation. The act of apperception in which a sensation is reflected upon and understood is already an internal reproduction. The object is retraced and gone over in the mind, not without quite perceptible movements in the limbs, which sway, as it were, in sympathy with the object's habit. Presumably this incipient imitation of the object is the physical basis for apperception itself; the stimulus, whatever devious courses it may pursue, reconstitutes itself into an impulse to ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... taught the boy to play the accordion. The great heavy bellows was half as large as he was, but the little chap would sit in McHurdie's harness shop of a summer afternoon and swing the instrument up and down as the melody swelled or died, and sway his body with the time and the tune, as Watts McHurdie, who owned the accordion, swayed and gyrated when he played. Mrs. Barclay, hearing her son, smiled and shook her head and knew him for a Thatcher; ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... cure its ancient sickness. Little as men could see into the issues of the future, the meaning of the present was beyond mistake. The new world faced the old, and all was ready for the league which joined the names of Rome and Christendom, and made the sway of ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... muttered curses of the wretched echoed from the Flint to the Chickasawhatchee, until by 1860 there had risen in West Dougherty perhaps the richest slave kingdom the modern world ever knew. A hundred and fifty barons commanded the labor of nearly six thousand Negroes, held sway over farms with ninety thousand acres tilled land, valued even in times of cheap soil at three millions of dollars. Twenty thousand bales of ginned cotton went yearly to England, New and Old; and men ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... of the tempest she had raised in Holcroft's soul or its causes, and so was in no mood to make allowances for him. By this time, the first gust of his passion was passing and reason resuming its sway. He paced up and down in the road a moment or two, and then sat down as he said, "I don't half understand what you've been talking about and I fear you don't. You've evidently been listening and watching and have got hold of something. Now, I'll be as patient ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... top-hat became intolerable, and quite "respectable" people began to be seen in the streets with Panamas and straws. But these were only concessions to an irresponsible climate, and the silk hat still held its ancient sway as the crown and glory of our City civilisation. And now it has toppled down and is on the way, perhaps, to becoming as much a thing of the past as wigs or knee-breeches. It is almost as rare in the Strand ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... just gone aft, and had taken the wheel of the vessel; but Christy sent French to take his first trick at the helm. The tide was still setting into the bay, and it was within half an hour of the flood. The schooner was beginning to sway off from the shore as the tide struck her, when the gong bell in the engine-room of the steamer was heard. She went ahead very slowly, and straightened the towline. Christy took a careful survey of ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... Thou didst seek the gloom, Tasting death in meekness, Resting in the tomb— On that dark and woful day, Hades owned Thy kingly sway. ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie

... Scots, Pitt haughtily declared his esteem for a people whose courage he had been the first to enlist on the side of loyalty. His noble figure, the hawk-like eye which flashed from the small thin face, his majestic voice, the fire and grandeur of his eloquence, gave him a sway over the House of Commons far greater than any other minister has possessed. He could silence an opponent with a look of scorn, or hush the whole House with a single word. But he never stooped to the arts by which men form a political party, and at the height of his power his ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... preparations for invasion as was perhaps to be expected. There may be a delay, after all, before Parma can be got safely established in London, and Elizabeth in Orcus, and before the blood-tribunal of the Inquisition can substitute its sway for that of the "most noble, wise, and learned United States." Certainly, Philip the Prudent would have been startled, difficult as he was to astonish, could he have known that those rebel Hollanders of his made no more account ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to a voice in the government as the rich man, and a vastly greater need to possess it as a means of protection to himself and his family." It was because the Democrats enfranchised poor white men, both native and foreign, that that strong old party held absolute sway in this country for almost forty years, with only now and then a one-term ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... did not listen to him, and did not reply, but suddenly she also began to sway her hips about like an almah[10]. The reverend gentleman could not believe his eyes, and in his stupefaction, he did not think of covering them with his hands or even of shutting them. He looked at her, stupefied and dumbfounded, a prey to the hypnotism of ugliness. He watched her as ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... Harblow submitted. It was much the same surprise that growing young people feel when they reach some shelf that has hitherto been inaccessible. The crisis soon passed. At his first visit the doctor was a little doubtful whether the Harman nursery wasn't under the sway of measles, which were then raging in a particularly virulent form in London; the next day he inclined to the view that the trouble was merely a feverish cold, and before night this second view was justified by the disappearance of ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... turf, and wild flowers grew upon every hillock, and peeped out from every mossy glade. There were little wildernesses of honey-suckles, too, scattered through the woods, and long, pale green fern leaves, fit for a fairy to sway to and fro upon; and there were vines of wild grapes, with branches so strong, that they ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton

... bolder hand, Ne'er formed a fabric fair As Southern wisdom can command, And Southern valor rear. Though kingdoms scorn to own her sway, Or recognize her birth, The land blood-bought for Liberty Will reign supreme ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... series of military enterprises in the north-west of India, which greatly tried the bravery of our soldiers, and were attended even with serious disaster. They resulted, however, in the conquest of the territories in the basin of the Indus, and in establishing the British sway in ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... companions should lie down and sleep. This seemed impossible at first, but after a while drowsiness and fatigue asserted their sway. Randy went down to the canoes and returned with three blankets. He and Clay wrapped themselves up, and chose a soft spot among the bushes. In five minutes ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... ever giving him with a liberal hand in the whorls of shells, the veins of leaves, the life of flames, the convolutions of serpents, the curly tresses of woman, the lazy grace of clouds, the easy sway of tendrils, flowers, and human motion. He was no literal interpreter of her whispered secrets. But the Grace of his Art was a deliberate grace,—a grace of thought and study. His lines were creations, and not instincts or imitations. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... Antolinez from Burgos, tried and true, And Jerome the bishop also, a worthy clerk is he, With a hundred ride you ready to fight if need shall be. Through Saint Mary's to Molina further onward shall ye wend; Avelgalvon there holds sway my vassal and my friend. With another hundred horsemen he will watch you on your way. Ride forth unto Medina with all the speed ye may, With Minaya Alvar Fanez my wife and daughters there Haply ye shall ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon

... ever had in the earth—the world-renowned speakers of the sweet, plain language which hath the charm of divinity within it, and in which love always chooses to express its tender emotions—adopted the idea that religion should extend its sway over the subject of Dress. In this they did well; but, in my humble opinion, erred in putting the shears into the hands of sectarianism to cut every man's Dress by exactly the same pattern, and to choose it all from the same grand web of drab. It is sectarianism, and not religion, which ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... succeeded Philip the Fair only a portion of the Netherlands was subject to his sway. With steady persistence he set himself to the task of bringing all the seventeen provinces under one sovereign. In 1515 George of Saxe-Meissen sold to him his rights over Friesland. Henry of Bavaria, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... that mark your tomb: 430 The marble mountain, and the sparry steep, Were built by myriad nations of the deep,— Age after age, who form'd their spiral shells, Their sea-fan gardens and their coral cells; Till central fires with unextinguished sway Raised the primeval islands into day;— The sand-fill'd strata stretch'd from pole to pole; Unmeasured beds of clay, and marl, and coal, Black ore of manganese, the zinky stone, And dusky steel on his magnetic throne, 440 In deep morass, or eminence superb, Rose from the wrecks of animal or herb; ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... suppose that this man had brought his infirmity upon himself—I do not mean by the mere neglect of physical laws, but by the doing of what he knew to be wrong. For the Lord, although he allowed the gladness of the deliverance full sway at first, when he found him afterwards did not leave him without the lesson that all health and well-being depend upon purity of life: "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more lest a worse thing come unto ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald

... Trixy's bitter trials had ended—her sea-sickness a dismal dream of the past. She was able, in ravishing toilet, to appear at the dinner-table, to pace the deck on the arm of Sir Victor. As one having the right, she calmly resumed her sway where she had left it off. Since that moonlight night of which she (Trixy) happily knew nothing, the bare civilities of life alone had passed between Miss Darrell and the baronet. Sir Victor might try, and did, but ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... whom the most efficient captain was the terrible Cesare Borgia, had full power to crush the liberties of cities, exterminate the dynasties of despots, and reduce refractory districts to the Papal sway. For these services they were rewarded with ducal and princely titles, with the administration of their conquests, and with the investiture of fiefs as vassals of the Church. The system had its obvious disadvantages. It tended to indecent nepotism; and as ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... him. He stooped and whispered a few words. He felt her thrill from head to foot, felt her rock and sway for a moment, and then—he had just time to catch her before she fell a ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... one say that our life is poor in poetical influences; still does the enchantress sway us mortals as of old. Rather let each take heed what dreams he nurses in his heart's innermost fold, for when they are full grown they may prove tyrants, ay, and cruel ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... had grown up a mighty state whose kings were descended from Poseidon and had extended their sway over many islands and over a portion of the great continent; even Libya up to the gates of Egypt, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia, submitted to their sway.... Afterward came a day and night of great floods and earthquakes; Atlantis disappeared, ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... name of Lee's Hill, the Commander-in-Chief, surrounded by his generals, was giving his last instructions. It was past nine o'clock. The sun, shining out with almost September warmth, was drawing up the mist which hid the opposing armies; and as the dense white folds dissolved and rolled sway, the Confederates saw the broad plain beneath them dark with more than 80,000 foes. Of these the left wing, commanded by Franklin, and composed of 55,000 men and 116 guns, were moving against the Second Corps; 30,000, under ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... of the Latin to see things written in fire and blood, which the slower-brained Anglo-Saxon only sees written in red paint—if, indeed, he ever arrives at seeing them written at all. To- night the Latin held absolute sway in Dominic Iglesias. With freedom had come a curious reversion to type. His humour, like his smile, was a trifle cruel. He observed, criticised, judged, condemned unsparingly, all mental courtesies in abeyance. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... and that two years before, when, as if some demon had possessed him, he shook off all remembrances of the past, and yielding to the baleful fascinations of one who seemed to sway him at will, plunged into a tide of dissipation, and lent himself at last to an act which had since embittered every waking hour. As if all the events of his life were crowding upon his memory this night, he thought of two years ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... seat sate Governor Bradford; men, matrons, and maidens fair, Miles Standish and all his soldiers, with corselet and sword, were there; And sobbing and tears and gladness had each in its turn the sway, For the grave of the sweet Rose Standish o'ershadowed ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... thin black riding-crop. Minna's ruddy color faded. She knew the Loscheks, knew their furies. Strange stories of unbridled passion had oozed from the old ruined castle where for so long they had held feudal sway over the countryside. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... citizens of the world. It is very different from the inland New England manner; as different as the gentle, slow speech of the shore from the clipped nasals of the hill-country. The lounging native walk is not the heavy plod taught by the furrow, but has the lurch and the sway of the deck ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the contrary, Miss Hartwell was looking out of the window. She saw, below the shafts of sunlight already streaming over the mountain, the line of buckets stop, swing back and forth, saw the cable tremble, and again the long line of buckets sway gently as the cable grew taut and the buckets again slid up and down. Her heart was beating wildly as she lifted her eyes to the dizzy height. She knew well what the stopping and the starting meant. Sharp drawn against the lofty ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... fault, I think, in the case of Belgium. In any event Belgium is a small country, and in its case the actual area of devastation is a small proportion of the whole. The first onrush of the Germans in 1914 did some damage locally; after that the battle-line in Belgium did not sway backwards and forwards, as in France, over a deep belt of country. It was practically stationary, and hostilities were confined to a small corner of the country, much of which in recent times was backward, poor, and sleepy, and did not include the active industry of ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... contrary to the feeling of mediaeval Christendom for a woman to be emperor; it was not till late in the Middle Ages that Spain saw a queen regnant, and France has never yet allowed such rule. It was not till long after Saxo that the great queen of the North, Margaret, wielded a wider sway than that rejected by ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... Masque entertainment long held sway, and was a light form of amusement, consisting of Pantomime, music, singing, and dancing, and an adaptation of the Fabulae Atellanae of ancient Italy. The performers wore masks, also high-heeled shoes, fitted with brass or iron heels, which jingled as they danced. This ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... under the protection of British rule, continued to discharge his sacerdotal functions, not only among his followers in India, but towards the more numerous communities which acknowledged his religious sway in distant countries, such as Afghanistan, Khorasan, Persia, Arabia, Central Asia, and even distant Syria and Morocco. He remained throughout unflinchingly loyal to the British Raj, and by his vast and unquestioned influence among the frontier tribes on the northern borders ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... a landmark in English history. None who witnessed it will ever forget that spectacle, of men of all races and color, of all creeds and traditions, assembled together as brothers and fellow-subjects, to do honor to a woman's gracious sway of sixty years. And is there not a deep significance in the fact that these men of warring creeds and opposed traditions came together to do homage to no commanding personality, no Semiramis or Boadicea of old, no ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... themselves only as a part of nature; they had not yet conceived the idea of rising above their condition and setting their intelligence to battle with its blind laws. Incapable of realising their individuality, they bowed in passive submission to nature's undisputed sway. They were members of a tribe, and the fragmentary existence of the single individual was of no importance when it clashed with the welfare of the clan. The family—centred round the mother—and the tribe were the real individuals, in the same way as the swarm ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... louder than any that had come before. For above a minute that blue flash lingered playing, it seemed, on steel, and a cold shuddering thrill crept through the frame of Nigel Bruce, sending the life-blood from his cheek back to his very heart, for either fancy had again assumed her sway, and more vividly than before, or his wild thoughts had found a shape and semblance. Within the arch formed by the high window stood or seemed to stand a tall and knightly form, clad from the gorget to the heel in polished steel; his head was bare, and long, dark hair shaded a face pale and shadowy ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... free from the influence of the latter feeling. This tyrant of the human mind, which ruses on it prey through a thousand avenues, almost as soon as men begin to think and feel, and which seldom relinquishes its iron sway until they cease to do either, had made some impression on even the just propensities of this individual, who probably offered in these particulars, a fair specimen of what absence from bad example, the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... Burned with the iron of hopeless pain, Into thoughts that grapple and eyes that strain, Pierces the memory, cruel and vain! Never again shall he walk at ease Under his blossoming apple-trees That whisper and sway in the sunset-breeze, While the soft eyes float where the sea-gulls ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... of the city behind us, we flew along the rails in the waning twilight of this grewsome day. On the windward windows and the roof rattled fierce flights of sleet and showers of cinders from the engine. Occasionally we felt the car sway in the howling gusts of wind, as we passed some opening in the hills and neared the more level prairie. Stories of cars blown from the rails flitted through my mind; and in contemplating such an accident my thoughts busied themselves with the details of plans for getting free from the wrecked ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... not on the assembled armies, for nearer came the mountainous diplodocus, its lumbering strides making the howdah sway like a ship in a gale and preventing ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... wheel of Fortune; transientness &c. 111[obs3]. V. fluctuate, vary, waver, flounder, flicker, flitter, flit, flutter, shift, shuffle, shake, totter, tremble, vacillate, wamble[obs3], turn and turn about, ring the changes; sway to and fro, shift to and fro; change and change about; waffle, blow with the wind (irresolute) 605; oscillate &c. 314; vibrate between, two extremes, oscillate between, two extremes; alternate; have as man phases as the moon. Adj. changeable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... reasons the Ptolemaic system so long held its sway. It was for reasons it went, too, when it did, hideous and oppressive nightmare! The celestial revelations of the sixteenth century came as the necessary complement of the new mental firmaments then dawning on the thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... and they entertain the same repugnance to the actions of the multitude, and the same secret contempt of the government of the people. I do not mean to say that the natural propensities of lawyers are sufficiently strong to sway them irresistibly; for they, like most other men, are governed by their private interests and the advantages ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... I take leave, as a reasonable person, to doubt whether it can lie in the heart of a family to hate a man who has dandled its baby and whether a man can be rancorous against a family whose baby he has nursed. But fashion's sway is omnipotent in emotion as in dress. Ever since the war, journalists, authors, and public opinion generally had hammered it into the French nation that if it were not to be a traitor to its patriotism, the first article ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... she called by name of Love raised the chorus within to stop all outer buzzing, was, in a perpetual struggle with a whirlpool, a constant support while she and Victor were one at heart. The sense of her standing alone made her sway; and a thought of differences with him caused frightful apprehensions of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... sir, with your gentle blood! Here's a red stream beneath this coarse blue doublet, That warms the heart as kindly as if drawn From the far source of old Assyrian kings. Who first made mankind subject to their sway. Old Play. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... has, for centuries, taken possession of the Hindu mind, and never before did it rule with more absolute sway than it ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... Mammon's power to sway the nations is usury. When bonds bear no increase his sovereignty is gone. All motive to involve the nation in debt at once disappears, and the power to control is lost. Moses' law was divinely wise that forbade interest, ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... with intent to kill, but was perhaps a stratagem resorted to in order to separate the herd and expose the lambs, which hugged the cattle very closely. When he occasionally alighted upon the oaks that stood near, the branch could be seen to sway and bend beneath him. Finally, as a rifleman started out in pursuit of him, he launched into the air, set his wings, and sailed away southward. A few years afterward, in January, another eagle passed through the same locality, alighting ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... it makes the nearest approaches are those of Southern Arabia and Abyssinia. The old traditions have then been confirmed by comparative philology, and both are side lights to Scripture. * * * "The primitive race which bore sway in Chaldea Proper is demonstrated to have belonged ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... highness has become warmly attached to the people of these rebel provinces?" demanded Gonzaga, not choosing to declare the rumour prevalent in Spain, that an opportunity had been afforded to the prince by the Barlaimont faction, of converting his viceroyalty into the sway of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... trades to come out with the sign of their trade in their hand, and he would see which was the best. And there came ten hundred fishers, having all white flannel clothes and black hats and white scarves about them, and he gave the sway to them. It wasn't a year after that, the half of them were lost, going through the fogs at Newfoundland, where they went for a better way ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory

... purpose of all Babylonian astronomical observation, however, was astrological, to cast horoscopes, or to predict the weather. Babylon retained for a long time its ancient splendor after the conquest by Cyrus and the final fall of the empire, and in the first period of the Macedonian sway. But soon after that time its fame was extinguished, and its monuments, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... circumstances arise which make it the only fit place for a person, I insist upon his going, still no sooner does he actually begin the descent than my sense of justice is appeased, my natural sweetness of disposition resumes sway, and I trip along by his side chatting as gaily as if I did not perceive it was the Valley of Humiliation at all, but fancied it the Delectable Mountains. So, upon the first symptoms of placability, I ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... avowed reason, finally, for secession, though the true reason was the absolute restriction of slavery and the overthrow of the slave power in the Republic. The election of a Republican President was, of course, a disappointment to Southern statesmen, long used to absolute sway in Congress and in the administration of the government. The charge that Lincoln was a sectional President was true only to the extent that freedom was sectional. Slavery only was then, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... given to the West of England—Malory and Tennyson both do so. But the traditions that became most popular sprang up in an age when the Cymry were forgetting the former wide extent of their tribal sway, and were limiting their racial pride to a part of the country that was still free from the Teuton. The fact that Arthur's last fight was with the Picts, and against Mordred, is almost conclusive as to its location. ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... into them some of his own experiences and the current beliefs of the tribe. At the same time these traditional accounts doubtless exercise a potent influence on the thoughts, beliefs, and actions of the people. In Tinguian society, where custom still holds undisputed sway, these well-known tales of past times must tend to cast into the same mould any new facts or experiences which ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... in the scene. The skeleton sank backwards like a drunken man; the lamps began to sway on their chains, the salt-cellar was spilt on ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... work. That is one of its merits. Women are forced to use body and mind, they are not, cannot be idlers. Perhaps that is the reason military nations hold sway so long; their reign continues, not because they draw strength from the conquered nation, but because their women are roused to exertion. Active mothers ensure ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch

... country would make some strenuous effort to recover the territory as they temporized with the Indians and held out vague hopes, yet, as the years passed on, they found themselves insensibly yielding to the sway, and compelled now and then to fight for their homes against a treacherous enemy. Mayor Gladwyn had been a hero to them ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... however, that Galileo, though by no means a saint, was yet a really religious man, a devout Catholic and thorough adherent of the Church, so that he would have no dislike to place himself under her sway. Moreover, he had been born a Tuscan, his family had lived at Florence or Pisa, and it felt like going home. His theological attitude is worthy of notice, for he was not in the least a sceptic. He quite acquiesces in the authority of the Bible, especially in all matters concerning faith and conduct; ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... the man sway toward the edge, and, an instant later, topple over into the water, where there was quite ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster

... occasionally, having found it necessary to watch her mother and sister also. They could perceive, however, not only that the crowd which followed Mogue appeared to be a good deal in his confidence, and under his sway, but that it increased so rapidly as he went along, that they became alarmed, especially as the Cannie Soogah had not yet made ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... contributions raised among her credulous admirers and followers, she erected two spacious stone buildings, which soon became filled with proselytes of both sexes. The patriarch of Lebanon was named the director of this establishment, and for twenty years Hendia reigned with unbounded sway over the little community—performing miracles, uttering prophecies, and giving other tokens of being in the performance of a divine mission; and though it was remarked that many deaths yearly occurred among the nuns, the circumstance was generally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... the emperor allowed him only the territory, with the title ethnarch. Antipas was named a tetrarch by Herod, and his territory was Galilee and the land east of the Jordan to the southward of the Sea of Galilee, called Perea. Antipas was the Herod under whose sway Jesus lived in Galilee, and who executed John the Baptist. He was a man of passionate temper, with the pride and love of luxury of his father. Having Jews to govern, he held, as his father had done, to a show of Judaism, ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees

... his wings, expanded either way, overshadowed the whole known world. When Cyrus awoke and reflected on this ominous dream, it seemed to him to portend some great danger to the future security of his empire. It appeared to denote that Darius was one day to bear sway over all the world. Perhaps he might be even then forming ambitious and treasonable designs. Cyrus immediately sent for Hystaspes, the father of Darius; when he came to his tent, he commanded him to go back to Persia, and keep a strict watch over the conduct of his son until he himself should ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... of the fatherless, To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise His offspring, who expired in other days To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,— This is to be a monarch, and repress Envy into unutterable praise. Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, For who would lift a hand except to bless? Were it not easy, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... continued, and as the scores and hundreds came together "at the sound of the church-going bell," from day to day the leader seemed to develop in power from God to move, melt and sway the hearts of the listening crowds, as he sung and prayed and talked "of Jesus and his dying love." After more than five weeks' continuance, the services closed. Scores were converted, many valuable additions were made to the Church, Christians ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn



Words linked to "Sway" :   lash, anti-sway bar, weave, oscillate, displace, totter, brachiate, vibrate, waver, hold sway, act upon, nutate, roll, pitch, lurch, work, influence, move back and forth, powerfulness, swag, move, pitching, power



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