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Stratagem   Listen
noun
Stratagem  n.  An artifice or trick in war for deceiving the enemy; hence, in general, artifice; deceptive device; secret plot; evil machination. "Fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." "Those oft are stratagems which error seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stratagem" Quotes from Famous Books



... made on purpose, might cause them to be late ere they arrived at the place of their destination. He had remarked, however, that the Messenger was somewhat proud of the beast that carried him, and he thought it in no degree wrong to make use of a stratagem in order to ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... of malcontents could not be so easily stopped, and threw itself into the castle of Noizay. It seemed more feasible to overcome them by stratagem than by open assault. The Duke of Nemours, having been sent to reduce the place, allowed Baron de Castelnau, commander of the insurgents, a personal interview. Here the Huguenot defended his adherents against the imputation of having revolted against their lawful monarch, and maintained ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... him—for my own sake entreats me To guard from danger him I hold imprison'd— He will reveal a secret, the joy of which Will even outweigh the sorrow.'—Why what can this be? Perchance it is some Moorish stratagem, To have in me a hostage for his safety. Nay, that they dare not! Ho! collect my servants! I will go thither—let them ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Evidently a Hopi Stratagem. The Hopis of to-day, with whom I have talked, insist upon it that Cardenas was taken to the barren and desolate point near the junction of Marble Canyon, the Little Colorado Canyon and the Grand Canyon. Here, the river may be said to come from the northeast and turn toward the south-southwest, ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... returned through the entrance-gates, got down from the panting Rattler, and went into the house to take a hasty luncheon. But I believe there have been men since his day who have ridden a long way to avoid a rencontre, and then galloped hastily back lest they should miss it. It is the favourite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... her. Frompolitical motives he was equally hateful to certain petty German tyrants, who, in order to effect his ruin, accused him of heresy. But his brother Louis would not deliver him up to their fury, and they resolved to effect by stratagem, what they could not by intrigue. Accordingly, Leonore von Luzelstein, disguised as the Virgin Mary, and the father confessor of the Elector, in the costume of Satan, made their appearance in the Elector's bed-chamber ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... Accordingly, every delay was used to hinder him from collecting his forces together, and stop his expedition to Flanders. Bussi and his other dependents were offered a thousand indignities. Every stratagem was tried, by day as well as by night, to pick quarrels with Bussi,—now by Quelus, at another time by Grammont, with the hope that my brother would engage in them. This was unknown to the King; but Maugiron, who had engrossed the King's ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... while Roger gazed at her with aloof impersonality, simply curious. He watched her score her point and wondered just how far she intended to pursue the advantage. What was her plan? Was she, after all, technically innocent, able to prove the fact? Or was this a bold stratagem, to throw dust in his eyes? He was totally unable to choose between the two ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... inveterate enemies, asserted that the Communion of St. Jerome was little more than a copy of the same subject by Agostino Caracci, at the Certosa at Bologna, and he employed Perrier, one of his pupils, to make an etching from the picture by Agostino. But this stratagem, instead of confirming the plagiarism, discovered the calumny, as it proved that there was no more resemblance between the two works than must necessarily result in two artists treating the same subject, and that every essential part, and all that was admired was entirely ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... But the stratagem failed to have effect. She was thinking of the apparent inexhaustibility of her own supply. Two nights before she had heard him go from the tent, and the next morning the ring which he usually wore on ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... about the greggos. Despairing, after all he had heard, of getting them by fair means, he resolved to try a stratagem. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... Mississippi punish any person who shall take any female under the age of fourteen years, against her will, and by force, menace, fraud, deceit, stratagem or duress, compel or induce her to be defiled, by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than five nor more than fifteen years. Section ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... that stratagem—and yet as Philip looked at the man now his last doubt was gone. Bram Johnson was hovering on ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... Persuaded, however, if he could but make himself known, he should no longer be shunned, he entered one of the lateral passages, and ever and anon, as he proceeded, repeated Mabel's name in a low, soft tone. The stratagem was successful. Presently he heard a light footstep approaching him, and a gentle voice ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... preferred to rely on the gun. It is next to impossible to kill a wood-chuck with shot so quickly that he will not, after being hit, succeed in running into his hole, and thus defeat the evidence that he is a dead wood-chuck. Addison, however, hit upon a stratagem for shooting them at short range. He could imitate their peculiar "whistle" quite cleverly, and having observed that when one wood-chuck whistles, all the others within hearing are apt to exhibit some little curiosity as to what ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... he snuffled her hand, and then only by stratagem she mounted, swinging herself in a bound to the saddle as the groom slipped to the ground on the off-side; upon which el-Sooltan wheeled sharply and headed straight for the village of Khankah, which is the outskirt proper of ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... were much in want of. On the 4th he rejoined with his squadron; having received intelligence from the Euryalus by telegraph, that the French ships in Cadiz were embarking their troops, and preparing to sail. Lord NELSON however conceived this to be merely intended as a stratagem, to draw him nearer to Cadiz, for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of his force; and therefore directed Admiral LOUIS to proceed in the execution of the orders ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty

... found it near the spot last seen. It was a fine specimen. The arrow had pierced it from front to rear completely through and was lost; a center shot at eighty yards; a most remarkable bit of archery and hunting stratagem. This head now decorates the dining room of the Young home in San Francisco. Unfortunately the moose antlers were cached near a river in Alaska and an unprecedented flood carried them out ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... to travel home in that state, however severe the weather. If resistance be expected, they not unfrequently murder before they attempt to rob. The traders, when they travel, invariably keep some men on guard to prevent surprise, whilst the others sleep; and often practise the stratagem of lighting a fire at sunset, which they leave burning, and move on after dark to a more distant encampment—yet these precautions do not always baffle the depredators. Such is the description of men whom ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... be seen abroad for four or five hours after; for so long have I watched the nature of this strange Insect, the contemplation of whose so wonderfull sagacity and address has amaz'd me; nor do I find in any chase whatsoever, more cunning and Stratagem observ'd: I have found some of these Spiders in my Garden, when the weather (towards the Spring) is very hot, but they are nothing so eager of hunting as they are ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... and it swung open, revealing to his gaze two stark-white white boys, one of them holding an enormous pistol and both staring at him in stupor of ultimate horror. For, to the glassy eyes of Penrod and Sam, the stratagem of the young coloured man, thus dropping to earth, disclosed, with awful certainty, a ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... laughed heartily at the success of his stratagem, and polished and fondled the great eye until that optic seemed to grow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... by bountiful Nature naked and cold, has to cover himself as best he may with a sorry patchwork of shreds and tatters such as he can contrive to procure either from vegetable fibres, the tissue of silkworms, or the furs or feathers he is driven to secure by force or stratagem either from beasts or from ourselves. In almost every particular the wretched creature is a mere drudge, slaving continually for others and getting nothing by his toil for himself. Who planted this charming grove, who waters and ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... formed by some United Irishmen, combined with a gang of Luddites, and a special committee sent over by the Pope at the instigation of the beastly Corsican fiend, for destroying all the loyal part of the audience on the anniversary of that deeply-to-be-abhorred-and-highly-to-be-blamed stratagem, the Gunpowder Plot, which falls this year on Thursday the fifth of November. The whole is under the direction of a delegated committee of O. P.'s whose treasonable exploits at Covent Garden you all recollect, and all of whom would have been hung from the chandeliers at that time, but for ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... of the stratagem which had shown the housemaid's face to Mr. Brock as the face of Miss Gwilt. And so—by shaking Midwinter's trust in his own superstition, in the one case in which that superstition pointed to the truth—did Mother Oldershaw's cunning triumph over ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... heard with great interest the tale of the adventures of the Rose; and when the Earl of Evesham said that it was to Cuthbert that was due the thought of the stratagem by which the galley was captured, and its crew saved from being carried away into hopeless slavery, the king patted the boy on the shoulder with such hearty force as nearly to throw Cuthbert ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... and watched each other several days, then the Gentiles made two efforts to force their way into the town by stratagem; but seeing our forces in order they did not come within range of our guns. The Mormons stood in the ranks, and prayed for the chance of getting a shot; but all to no effect. The same evening we learned of the massacre at Haughn's Mill. The description of this ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... havoc among our merchantmen. It is said that everything is fair in love and war—in war, it may be the case; in love, nothing is fair that is not straightforward and honourable. Our captain considered that stratagem in war was, at all events, allowable, and he used to disguise the frigate in so wonderful a way, that even we ourselves, at a little distance, should not have known her. By this means many an unwary craft fell into ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... that had kept sailing around a dovecote for many days to no purpose, was at last forced by hunger to have recourse to stratagem. Approaching the Pigeons in his gentlest manner, he described to them in an eloquent speech how much better their state would be if they had a king with some firmness about him, and how well such ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... convenient place for landing troops, on the low-lying shore where the river Anapus flows into the Great Harbour. Here he determined to make a sudden descent, and in order to avoid disembarking in the face of an enemy, he contrived a stratagem to remove the whole Syracusan force out of reach. A citizen of Catana, who was attached to the Athenian interest, was sent with a message to the Syracusan generals, which held out a tempting prospect of gaining an easy and decisive advantage over the ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... of flaming fire. 220 Her, confident in signs from heaven, he slew. Next, with the men of Solymae[14] he fought, Brave warriors far renown'd, with whom he waged, In his account, the fiercest of his wars. And lastly, when in battle he had slain 225 The man-resisting Amazons, the king Another stratagem at his return Devised against him, placing close-conceal'd An ambush for him from the bravest chosen In Lycia; but they saw their homes no more; 230 Bellerophon the valiant slew them all. The monarch hence collecting, at the last, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... Mendez with the Caciques for Supplies of Provisions.—Sent to San Domingo by Columbus in quest of Relief. II. Mutiny of Porras. III. Scarcity of Provisions.—Stratagem of Columbus to obtain Supplies from the Natives. IV. Mission of Diego de Escobar to the Admiral. V. Voyage of Diego Mendez and Bartholomew Fiesco in a Canoe to Hispaniola. VI. Overtures of Columbus to the Mutineers.—Battle of the Adelantado ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... who did not hold with war—and with this one least of all, which he maintained was being waged for the exclusive benefit of the capitalist classes. In the eyes of the stalwarts of Wellingsford, he was a horrible fellow, capable of any stratagem ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... put on the clothing of the other dead royalists. Then he took six of his best men, with their own Camisard uniforms on, and bound them with ropes, to represent prisoners. One of them had been wounded in the arm, and his bloody sleeve helped the stratagem. Putting these six men at the head of his troop, with a guard of their disguised comrades over them, he marched towards the Castle of Servas. There he declared himself to be Count Broglio's nephew, and said that he had met a company of the Barbets, or Camisards, and had defeated them, ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... he marched with the regiment of these mountaineers, who carried tomahawks and scalping-knives, the people of Williamsburg trembled for their lives. At that time, the country near Harper's Ferry was the Far West. In a very little while, these mountaineers, by mingled stratagem and system, defeated Lord Dunmore, very much as Andrew Jackson defeated the British at New Orleans thirty-five years later. Marshall then went with the army to the vicinity of Philadelphia; was in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, and in the long Winter of Valley Forge. Almost naked at that ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... where they were destroyed, to so much as kill one Indian for every hundred of their own men who fell. The provincials who were with the regulars were the only troops who caused any loss to the foe; and this was true in but a less degree of Bouquet's fight at Bushy Run. Here Bouquet, by a clever stratagem, gained the victory over an enemy inferior in numbers to himself; but only after a two days' struggle in which he suffered a fourfold ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... of the churning wheel. The struggle was short but fierce. Griswold got a strangling arm around the big man's neck and strove to sink with him so that the wheel might pass over them. He was only partly successful. The mate was terror-crazed and fought blindly. There was no time for trick or stratagem, and when the thunder of the wheel roared overhead, Griswold felt the jar of a blow and the mate's struggles ceased abruptly. A gasping moment later the worst was over and the rescuer had his head out; was swimming gallantly in the wake of the steamer, supporting the unconscious ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... formerly had on the like conditions. The Romans, hearing this, dreaded a war, yet thought a surrender of their women little better than mere captivity. Being in this doubt, a servant-maid called Philotis (or, as some say, Tutola), advised them to do neither, but, by a stratagem, avoid both fighting and the giving up of such pledges. The stratagem was this, that they should send herself, with other well-looking servant-maids, to the enemy, in the dress of free-born virgins, and she should in ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... ascertained that they were really asleep, proposed that they themselves should retire to the wagon, and leave the Caffres on guard, which they did; as they well knew that a Hottentot once fast asleep is not easily roused up even to "treason, stratagem, or spoil." ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... Syracuse; while Syracusan horsemen even went so far as to insult the Athenians in their camp, riding up to ask if they were come to settle as peaceful citizens in Katana, instead of restoring the Leontines. This unexpected humiliation at length forced Nikias to proceed to Syracuse, and he devised a stratagem by which he was able to approach that city and pitch ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... comical abruptness to the attractive interruption with all the zest of a scholar. I often trembled lest he should see through the thinly covered trick, but he never did. On his return from the prince's palace, however, even this innocent stratagem failed us; and on one occasion of my having recourse to it he peremptorily ordered me away, and forbade my coming into his presence again unless sent for. Daily, after this, one or more of the women suffered from his petty tyranny, cruelty, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... spite of the distance and their complete ignorance of the intervening ground. They have, in their own fashion, the instinct of my Mason-bees. A second point remains to be cleared up, that of the swinging motion in the bag. Are they thrown out of their latitude by this stratagem, are or they not? I was thinking of making some experiments, when more precise information arrived and taught me that it was not necessary. The first who acquainted me with the method of the revolving bag was telling the ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... among his Tartar relatives, started for Ts'i, his original idea being to replace the philosopher Kwan-tsz as adviser to the First Protector; but, shortly after he reached Ts'i, the First Protector died, and it was only by stratagem that his friends succeeded in rescuing the future Second Protector from the arms of his Ts'i Delilah and his d'elices de Capue. His chief adviser, and at the same time his brother-in-law from a Tartar point of view, was the ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... that its pose could not be improved, the scout then turned the boat directly away from the bank, never changing its course until the very middle of the Gila was reached, when he began paddling in as leisurely a manner as if no danger threatened. It was a daring stratagem, but it is only by such means that men are enabled to escape from peril, and although fully aware of the danger he was incurring, he kept on his way with that coolness that years of experience ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... remarked M. Segmuller, who was now quite calm again—no outward sign of wounded vanity being perceptible—"I suppose you have decided what stratagem must be employed to lull the prisoner's suspicions if he is permitted ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... would not be sufficient to buy it from the hands of this vindictive fellow, whose passion for revenge was insatiable. To calm his master he added that they must try to find another method, and that, as the miscreant probably was not especially attached to it for its own sake, perhaps, by using stratagem, they might get possession of the paper, which was of so much importance to the Elector, through the instrumentality of a third ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... culprit's deed. The cat—true to her domestic instinct—had run home; but the constable had not immediately seen her. As soon as he discovered the tell-tale pussy, he hastened over to Woodville, expecting to find Fanny penitently studying the commandment, which was the moral of Mr. Grant's stratagem; but before he reached the house he saw two girls on the pier, and recognized ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic

... ever, his eye was calm and keen again, and the work progressed. The fine features of the young Bithynian were distinct to his mind's eye, and when, about four hours after, his mother looked in at the window to see what Pollux was doing, whether her little stratagem had succeeded, she cried out with surprise, for the favorite's bust, a likeness in every feature, stood on a plinth side by side with the original sketch. Before she could cross the threshold her son had run to meet her, lifted her in his arms, and kissing her forehead and lips he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... murky and inextricable labyrinths, of which Necessity, Secresy, and Suspicion, formed the keystone; where Danger lurked at every winding, and whose darkling portals were watched by Mystery, and Stratagem, and Disgrace, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... with which he had honoured us, could be guilty of such infamous proceedings; being convinced, if he had meditated hostility, he would have met us honourably in the field of battle: But at the same time to assure him, that day or night, field or town, fair battle or villainous stratagem, were all the same for us, as we were always prepared for every emergency. Montezuma had become exceedingly thoughtful and alarmed on account of the failure of the plot in Cholula, and now sent an embassy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... without any deceit." "I think so," said Euthydemus. "But," continued Socrates, "when a general sees that his troops begin to be disheartened, if he make them believe that a great reinforcement is coming to him, and by that stratagem inspires fresh courage into the soldiers, under what head shall we put this lie?" "Under the head of justice," answered Euthydemus. "And when a child will not take the physic that he has great need of, and his father makes it be given him in a mess of broth, and by that ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon

... exceedingly desirable that she should be prevented from doing any further injury to the maritime interests of the South. But it seemed almost incredible that Corny Passford should be employed to bring about her capture by stratagem. His cousin was not a sailor; at least, he had not been one the last time he had met him, and it was hardly possible that he had learned seamanship, navigation, and naval tactics in so short a time, and so far as Christy ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... hall door and had had time to close it. But instead of closing it, he merely bumped noisily against it, and rattled the knob, and stood listening. As if his departure were a signal, a roar of laughter from within followed his stratagem. One ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... cakes devoured before his eyes, the young lord began to suspect that there was some use in being a quick runner, and seeing that he had two legs of his own, he began to practise running on the quiet. I took care to see nothing, but I knew my stratagem had taken effect. When he thought he was good enough (and I thought so too), he pretended to tease me to give him the other cake. I refused; he persisted, and at last he said angrily, "Well, put it on the stone ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... one of the Chinese Ministers was Ong Kang and of another ONG SUM PING, and the latter had recourse to a stratagem. He made a box with glass sides and placed a large lighted candle therein, and when the dragon went forth to feed, ONG SUM PING seized the precious stone and put the lamp in its place and u the dragon mistook it for the ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... us with an explanation of the reason why Pastafrollo was forced to employ a stratagem in order to prevent his being stopped in the hall by the family of Rossini. Pastafrollo arrived at Bologna, under the name of Donzelli, and took care to have inscribed on his passport tenor instead ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... government, which, leaving no root in consent or affection no foundation in similarity of interests—no support from any one principle which cements men together in society, could only be upheld by alternate stratagem and force. The unhappy people of India, feeble and effeminate as they are from the softness of their climate, and subdued and broken as they have been by the knavery and strength of civilization, still occasionally start up in all the vigor and intelligence ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... thought came like a full-blown rose, Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart Made purple riot: then doth he propose A stratagem, that makes the beldame start: "A cruel man and impious thou art: 140 Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream Alone with her good angels, far apart From wicked men like thee. Go, go!—I deem Thou canst not surely be the same that ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... seen his stratagem well on the way to success, and feeling once more the well-earned confidence of his fellows, slept soundly that night in his own bed, ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... "gallant encounter" the day before, and exchanging presents with him in token of mutual regard. And before one can turn the page he is discovered swooping down upon Marstrand, taking town and fleet anchored there, and the castle itself with its whole garrison, all with two hundred men, swelled by stratagem into an army of thousands. We are told that an officer sent out from the castle to parley, issuing forth from a generous dinner, beheld the besieging army drawn up in street after street, always two hundred men around ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... among whom slavery has disappeared, from which circumstance the sovereignty of public opinion may again be observed. If public opinion is sovereign in the domain of force, it is much more so in the domain of fraud. Fraud is its proper sphere. Stratagem is the abuse of intelligence. Imposture on the part of the despoiler implies credulity on the part of the despoiled, and the natural antidote of credulity is truth. It follows that to enlighten the mind is to deprive this species of spoliation of ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... all hope of interference had expired. It was clear that Berwick had been ultimately foiled, and his daring spirit and teeming device were the last hope, as they were the ablest representation, of Roman audacity and stratagem. The Revolutionary Committee, whose abiding-place or agents never could be traced or discovered, had posted every part of the city, during the night, with their manifesto, announcing that the hour had arrived; an attempt, partially successful, had been ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... Sheila's stratagem succeeded? That pretty trick of hers in decorating the room so as to resemble the house at Borvabost had done all that she could have desired. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... The Greeks admired cunning and successful stratagem. Odysseus was wily. He was a clever hero. His maternal grandfather Autolykos was, by endowment of Hermes (a god of lying and stealing), a liar ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... by night; often making simultaneous attacks on the three divisions on the causeways, while at the same moment troops from the neighboring towns attacked their camps in the rear. He did not content himself with open attacks, but resorted to stratagem. On one occasion he had a large number of canoes in ambuscade, among some tall reeds bordering the lake. Several large boats then rowed near the Spanish vessels. Believing that they were filled with provisions ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... their documents in a pillar of the church. It is not known to me whether any search has been made. The owner of the site, Jens Grim, was attacked by people from Lubeck; they besieged his two fastnesses. They succeeded in taking one of them by a very simple stratagem. Jens Grim had lost his knife, which the Lubeckers found, and took it to the fastness, where they knew he was not, and said they had come to take possession by Jens Grimes order, and produced the knife. They were ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... amalgama (the amalgamation) La diadema (the diadem) La estratagema (the stratagem) La ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... win the wager made him now have recourse to a stratagem to impose upon Posthumus, and for this purpose he bribed some of Imogen's attendants and was by them conveyed into her bedchamber, concealed in a large trunk, where he remained shut up till Imogen.was retired to rest and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... years ago there was a famous belle here who had the Springs at her feet, and half a dozen determined suitors. One of them, who had been unable to make the least impression on her heart, resolved to win her by a stratagem. Walking one evening on the hill with her, the two stopped just at a turn in the walk—I can show you the exact spot, with a chaperon—and he fell into earnest discourse with her. She was as cool and repellant ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... for the answer, new attempts were made to overcome the resistance of the accused; and both stratagem and terror were brought into play. In the course of a second admonition, May 2d, the preacher, Master Chatillon, proposed to her to submit the question of the truth of her visions to persons of her own party. She did ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the very words, "Sursum corda" in the church service, pointed Him out as to be found at the right hand of God in heaven. Indeed, the eloquent preacher had nearly convinced his royal listener, when the Cardinals of Tournon and Lorraine, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded in destroying the impression he had received, and, it is said, in inducing Le Coq to make a retraction.[312] But the opposition to the public proclamation of the reformed doctrines was too formidable for their ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... replied only by beating down with his staff all the tallest poppies in his garden. This is exactly what Herodotus, in the passage to which reference has already been made, relates of the counsel given to Periander, the son of Cypselus. The stratagem by which the town of Gabii is brought under the power of the Tarquins is, again, obviously copied from Herodotus. The embassy of the young Tarquins to the oracle at Delphi is just such a story as would be told by a poet whose head was full of the Greek mythology; and ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... effect. They thought that their thick mats would defend them from a ball, as well as from a stone; but being soon convinced of their error, yet still at a loss to account how such execution was done among them, they had recourse to a stratagem, which, though it answered no other purpose, served to shew their ingenuity and quickness of invention. Observing the flashes of the musquets, they naturally concluded, that water would counteract their effect, and therefore, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... for we had not thought of this stratagem. And the next second I became aware that there was some one among the horses. At first I thought that the palisade had been stormed, and then I heard a soft voice which was no Indian's. Heedless of orders, I flung myself at the rough gate, and in a ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... confined you here, and that I desire and will pray for your speedy recovery. You cannot suspect the house of Stramen of conniving at such a cowardly assault; they are too powerful in the field to resort to such a pitiful stratagem. Our effort shall now be to ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... ignominious retreat, confronting a recognized foe, or standing at bay. These leaders are generally extremely cunning, one old stager with whom I was intimately acquainted having baffled all attempts to effect its capture for more than ten months. I got him at last by a stratagem. He had a knack of always keeping near a flock of sheep, and on the approach of the dogs ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... represent and defend him before the same tribunal. Vasco Nunez at once exerted himself to prove his capacity as governor. His first expedition was against Careta, the neighbouring cacique of Coyba, for the purpose of obtaining supplies. By a stratagem he made captives of the cacique, his wives, and children, and many of his people. He discovered also their store of provisions, and returned with his booty and ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... displeased was highly diverted, and asked the Emperor which of the three suits he liked best. The Emperor pointed to that of Mabuse, as excelling in whiteness and beauty of the flowers; and when he was told of the painter's stratagem, he would not believe it, till he had examined it with ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... the name which was essential to man, as also to inanimate things. Without a name nothing really existed. The knowledge of the name gave power over its owner; a great myth turns on Isis obtaining the name of Ra by stratagem, and thus getting the two eyes of Ra—the sun and moon—for her son Horus. Both in ancient and modern races the knowledge of the real name of a man is carefully guarded, and often secondary names are used ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie

... however, be confessed, that sometimes the answer of the oracle was clear and circumstantial. I have related, in the history of Croesus, the stratagem he made use of to assure himself of the veracity of the oracle, which was, to demand of it, by his ambassador, what he was doing at a certain time prefixed. The oracle of Delphi replied, in verse, that he was causing a tortoise and a lamb to be drest in a vessel ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... to him in no other way, he would demand her in legal fashion of the Church. (2) The wife, dreading that if the law should take the matter in hand she and her chanter would fare badly, devised a stratagem worthy of such a woman as herself. Feigning sickness, she sent for some honourable women of the town to come and see her, and this they willingly did, hoping that her illness might be a means of withdrawing her from her evil ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... sometimes it is, in solitude, that this should happen to minds morbidly meditative,—that when we stretch out our arms in darkness, vainly striving to draw back the sweet faces that have vanished, slowly arises a new stratagem of grief, and we say, 'Be it that they no more come back to us, yet what hinders but we should go to them?' Perilous is that crisis for the young. In its effect perfectly the same as the ignoble witchcraft of the poor African Obeah, his sublimer witchcraft of grief will, if left ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... young trees and brush piled up to obstruct approach. Lieutenant Fitzgibbon had only some forty-three regulars and two hundred Indiana, to oppose a force of nearly six hundred men, including fifty cavalry and two field-pieces. He must effect by stratagem what he could not effect by force. Every man who could sound a, bugle, and for whom a bugle could be found, was sent into the woods, and these were posted at considerable distances apart. The Indians and thirty-four red-coats, concealed behind trees, ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... decide what contributed to the success or failure of Israel in each case. (10) The story of the fall of Jericho. (11) The sin of Achan, its results, its discovery and punishment. (12) The story of the Gibeonites, their stratagem, its embarrassment to Joshua and consequent slavery to them. (13) The portion of land allotted to each tribe and how it was secured. (14) The miraculous element running through the narrative. List ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... you. You have nothing to fear, sir; she would not for the world yield you her hand, unless in return you could give her your heart. Nor was she willing you should know that she made this request, but wished me to introduce you, as it were by stratagem. Confident, however, that you would thus far yield to the caprice of a lady, I chose to tell you the truth. She resides near by, and it will not hinder ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... out by fair or foul means. The Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys himself came down into Buckinghamshire, for the purpose of assisting a gentleman named Hacket, who stood on the high Tory interest. A stratagem was devised which, it was thought, could not fail of success. It was given out that the polling would take place at Ailesbury; and Wharton, whose skill in all the arts of electioneering was unrivalled, made his arrangements ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... strong as his enemy, and, as he had managed to keep both his arms free, he hauled back the rope with all his might and main. But, in spite of his efforts, he was gradually losing ground, and, quite forgetting how important it was that the enemy should be kept in ignorance of the stratagem that was being carried out in the rear, he shouted to ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler

... mean, you sot? You who neither know how to use strength or stratagem! A woman has accomplished what you could not do! I have told you that this child is a giant to you; and had ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... rage. In every field we meet the foe, Each gale comes fraught with sounds of woe; 50 The morning but awakes our fears, The evening sees us bathed in tears. But must we ever idly grieve, Nor strive our fortunes to relieve? Small is each individual's force; To stratagem be our recourse; And then, from all our tribes combined, The murderer to his cost may find No foes are weak whom Justice arms, Whom Concord leads, and Hatred warms. 60 Be roused; or liberty acquire, Or in the great attempt expire." He said ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... an accent of forced bravery in it and I was ashamed of my paltry stratagem. I had to call the name again before Mahony saw me and hallooed in answer. How my heart beat as he came running across the field to me! He ran as if to bring me aid. And I was penitent; for in my heart I had always despised ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... affection, are painful. If a lady be compelled so to marry, we pity her doom; if she do it voluntarily, we cannot but feel a disgust at the connection. Yet how often, could we unveil human hearts, should we see at the altar, nothing deeper than stratagem, expediency, fancy, or at best, friendship, as the chief attractive cause. Is it right to complain ourselves, or should we wonder, at the spectacle of miserable matches in others, if the temple of marriage rest thus on wood, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... not only to the Greeks on the walls of Portus, but to the Gothic soldiers at. Ostia, who forthwith crossed in little boats, and lay awaiting the ship at the entrance to the haven. Observant of this stratagem, the garrison, by all manner of signalling, tried to warn the sailors of the danger awaiting them; but their signals were misunderstood, being taken for gestures of eager welcome; and the ship came on. With that lack of courage which characterised them, the Greeks did nothing ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... he said, "that when a woman finds herself in a tight corner, she invariably tries to divert attention by asking unnecessary questions. It's a harmless little stratagem that may serve her turn. But in this case, let me assure you, it is sheer waste of time. I hold you—and your brother, also—in the hollow of my ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... although the most formidable, who undertook to revenge the disgrace his country had suffered. He entered the Roman territories at the head of twenty-five thousand men, and not content with a superiority of forces, he added stratagem also. 13. Tarpe'ia, who was daughter to the commander of the Capit'oline hill, happened to fall into his hands, as she went without the walls of the city to fetch water. Upon her he prevailed, by means of large promises, to betray one of the gates to his ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... believed. As far as I knew, the result would have been a real service to him, in delivering him from unjust possession—a thing he would himself have scorned. It was all very wrong—very low, if you like—but somehow it then seemed simple enough—a lawful stratagem for the right.' ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... position. I therefore, ran the boat ashore, and landed with M'Leay amidst the smaller party of natives, wholly unarmed, and having directed the men to keep at a little distance from the bank. Fortunately, what I anticipated was brought about by the stratagem to which I had had recourse. The blacks no sooner observed that we had landed, than curiosity took place of anger. All wrangling ceased, and they came swimming over to us like a parcel of seals. Thus, in less than a quarter of an hour from the moment when ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... His stratagem had succeeded beautifully. The stinking coat had landed on the top of a small bush, about ten feet in front of the jeep and ten feet from the ground. The nighthound, erect on its haunches, was reaching out with its front paws to drag it down, and slashing angrily at it with its single-clawed ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... by some stratagem to find out from you what the surprise is that you are preparing for the ball to-morrow," Pyotr ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... blind man" had gone to bed, but in reality he had simply passed down to the terrace, and would sit there smoking till the other conspirators saw the moment to go down and fetch him. 'I fear it was by this stratagem that he had helped me to defeat Ayrton's Bill for throwing a piece of the Park into the Kensington Road opposite the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... friends of freedom; let us hold ourselves aye ready to act. I suspect a mighty peril; I foresee another Tyranny like Hippias'.[433] I am sore afraid the Laconians assembled here with Cleisthenes have, by a stratagem of war, stirred up these women, enemies of the gods, to seize upon our treasury and the funds whereby I lived.[434] Is it not a sin and a shame for them to interfere in advising the citizens, to prate of shields and lances, and to ally themselves with Laconians, fellows ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... not, her punishment has, I think, been fully adequate to her crime; for the last I heard of her, she was an inmate of a mad-house—remorse for her conduct, the abuse heaped upon her by society, and her own severe fright at the termination of the stratagem, having driven her insane. Now comes the most tragic ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... having, through the interference of poor W——, secured to herself a settlement which made her independent for life, threw out the well-planned story of the lottery ticket, as a 'tub to the whale': a stratagem that, for some time, succeeded admirably, until a malicious wag belonging to the company undertook to solve the riddle of her prosperity, by pretending to bet a wager of one hundred, that the lady had actually gained twenty thousand pounds ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... cruelties of the siege outweigh. The galleys of Ptolemy, though unable to keep at sea against the larger fleet of Demetrius, often forced their way into the harbour with the welcome supplies of grain. Month after month every stratagem and machine which the ingenuity of Demetrius could invent were tried and failed; and, after the siege had lasted more than a year, he was glad to find an excuse for withdrawing his troops; and the Rhodians in their joy hailed ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... conversation with Nan on the two occasions he had spoken with her, and gave them to understand that his efforts to induce Donald to "be sensible" had not been successful. Finally, his distress making him more communicative, he related the cunning stratagem by which Daney had made it possible for Donald to be separated from the ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... Colonel Cotymore. It was in this neighborhood, and, as it were in defiance of this force, that the war was begun. Fourteen whites were massacred at a blow, within a mile of this station. This was followed up by a stratagem, by which Occonostota, one of the principal warriors, aimed to obtain possession of the fort. Pretending to have something of importance to communicate to the commander, he dispatched a woman who had usually obtained access to the station, to solicit an interview ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... Birch (1616-1691) was of Lancashire. Swift calls him "of Herefordshire," because he had been appointed governor of the city of Hereford, after he had captured it by a stratagem, in 1654. Devotedly attached to Presbyterian principles, Birch was a man of shrewd business abilities and remarkable oratorical gifts. On the restoration of Charles II., in which he took a prominent part on account of Charles's championship of Presbyterianism, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... swift as the Northmen's vessels," he said; "and although I would right gladly join any great fleet which might be assembled for an attack upon them, I would rather proceed alone than with a few other ships. Not being strong enough to attack their whole armament I must depend upon stratagem to capture the galley of which I am specially in pursuit, and will with your permission set out as soon as I have transformed my ship so that she will pass muster as a galley of Genoa ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... have added "you know," and then the episode would have been delightfully complete. The assumption of the whole point at issue in an innocent parenthesis is perhaps to be expected from a pulpiteer, but it is not likely that the "infidel" will be caught by such a simple stratagem. All these questions are so irrelevant and absurd that we doubt whether his Grace would have the courage to put one of them to any sceptic across a table, or indeed from any place in the world except the pulpit, which is beyond all risk of attack, and whence a man may ask any number ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... he, with a diabolic grin, as he walked away delighted with the success of his stratagem, "now hesitate which bundle of hay to attack first, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... that they might avoid destruction to their persons or their houses, or a desertion of their shops. This insidious advice tended to confound those who wished well to the object of the association with the seditious against whom the association was directed. By this stratagem, the confederacy intended for preserving the British Constitution and the public peace would be wholly defeated. The magistrates, utterly incapable of distinguishing the friends from the enemies of order, would in vain look for support, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... enemy were marching from another point to secure the fort, and he ordered one hundred Indians to place themselves in ambush on both sides of the road in a wood through which the enemy must pass. This stratagem was completely successful. All the Americans were captured, and when the Indians had brought them to the front of the fort they prepared to put them to death, in atonement for the blood of their tribe which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... hand of a friend that had dealt the blow, there was no complaining or quarrelling. The hemp-beater, who was half flattened out, rubbed his sides, saying that he cared very little for that, but that he did protest against the stratagem of his good friend the grave-digger, and that, if he had not been half-dead, the hearth would not have been conquered so easily. The matrons swept the floor, and order was restored. The table was covered with jugs ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... Gudelaere, Christiania, 1847) ingeniously identified the old man with Odin, come in person to conduct Sinfjoetli to Valhalla, since he would otherwise have gone to Hel, not having fallen in battle; a stratagem quite in harmony with ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday

... edification; in all ways diligently "administering the discipline of the Church." It may be said, too, that in private disposition the new preachers somewhat resemble the mendicant Friars of old times; outwardly, full of holy zeal; inwardly, not without stratagem, ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... to alarm them; this he did, that by their countenance he might know what to expect, whether they were still in heart to fight, or were so heartily beaten as to be discouraged, and so he might manage accordingly. This stratagem took: for as soon as the savages heard the first gun, and saw the flash of the second, they started up upon their feet in the greatest consternation imaginable; and as our men advanced swiftly towards them, they all ran screaming and yelling away, with a kind ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... distributed daily among the sick, as it was not in their power to prepare it themselves. Wine and other necessaries being given judiciously among those whose situations required such comforts, many of the wretches had recourse to stratagem to obtain more than their share by presenting themselves, under different names and appearances, to those who had the delivery of them, or by exciting the compassion of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins



Words linked to "Stratagem" :   plant, gambit, tactical manoeuvre, scheme, strategy, pump-and-dump scheme, wangling, manoeuvre, maneuver, wangle, tactical maneuver, contrivance



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