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Swift   Listen
noun
Swift  n.  
1.
The current of a stream. (R.)
2.
(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of small, long-winged, insectivorous birds of the family Micropodidae. In form and habits the swifts resemble swallows, but they are destitute of complex vocal muscles and are not singing birds, but belong to a widely different group allied to the humming birds. Note: The common European swift (Cypselus apus syn. Micropus apus) nests in church steeples and under the tiles of roofs, and is noted for its rapid flight and shrill screams. It is called also black martin, black swift, hawk swallow, devil bird, swingdevil, screech martin, and shriek owl. The common American, or chimney, swift (Chaetura pelagica) has sharp rigid tips to the tail feathers. It attaches its nest to the inner walls of chimneys, and is called also chimney swallow. The Australian swift (Chaetura caudacuta) also has sharp naked tips to the tail quills. The European Alpine swift (Cypselus melba) is whitish beneath, with a white band across the breast. The common Indian swift is Cypselus affinis. See also Palm swift, under Palm, and Tree swift, under Tree.
3.
(Zool.) Any one of several species of lizards, as the pine lizard.
4.
(Zool.) The ghost moth. See under Ghost.
5.
A reel, or turning instrument, for winding yarn, thread, etc.; used chiefly in the plural.
6.
The main card cylinder of a flax-carding machine.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Swift" Quotes from Famous Books



... of mental gruel, easy to assimilate and none too stimulating; but all the innate barbarism of humanity, all of her nervous force responded to the clashing rhythm of the Slavonic Dance, and the swift color came into her face and focussed itself in a tiny circle in either cheek, as she listened. For the moment, she was as fiercely defiant of fate as a Valkyrie ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... give us. I cannot wait forever for chance to bring me freedom. Come," I bent and helped her to her feet, very pleasant and clinging her grasp on my arm, very soft and utterly smooth the flesh of her arm in my hand, very graceful and lovely her swift movement to rise. My heart was beating wildly, she was a kind I understood, but could not resist any the better for knowing. Or was I unkind, and she but starved for kindness and human sympathy, so long among a people who ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell

... horse-shoes to their own feet with pieces of twine; after which, putting themselves in a line at the required distance one from the other, they had started off, both with the same foot, imitating thus the pacing of a swift horse. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... Rhodians, near the isle of Chio: the fleet of Philip consisted of fifty-three decked vessels and 150 gallies; besides these he had several ships called pristis, from the figure of a large fish which was affixed to, or engraved on their bows, either to distinguish them, or as a mark of their swift sailing. The fleet of his opponents consisted of sixty-five covered ships, besides those of their allies, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... banks high in the skies flashed suddenly to dazzling, rolling flame. The ground under their feet was shaken as by a distant earthquake, while, above, the terrible fire spread, a swift, flashing conflagration that ate up ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... orders, from Bombay and Calcutta came numerous vessels which here deposited their poisonous cargoes, and returning for another freight, left it to be distributed by swift-sailing and armed clippers, throughout the dominions of an empire whose laws they had signed a solemn compact to respect, which laws ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... moment arrived only with six o'clock; when my uncle, myself, the guide, two other passengers and the four horses, trusted ourselves to a somewhat fragile raft. Accustomed as I was to the swift and sure steamers on the Elbe, I found the oars of the rowers rather a slow means of propulsion. It took us more than an hour to cross the fiord; but the passage was ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... where there might have been unending wheat fields once upon a time.... Not a solitary animal is in sight.... The road out yonder looks much the worse for wear. It seems ground into a pumice stone by the hoofs of horses and the swift movement of heavy wheels. Every gust of wind sends a cloud of fine dust pyramiding its way across the fields and through the crevices of this suffocating den furnished with a few wooden chairs, a hand-carved bedstead, a small picture of the 'Virgin ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... esteem for Aldus and Elzevir than for Virgil and Horace.' It is very doubtful whether Addison (who wrote this particular Tatler) really had Thomas Rawlinson in mind, whom he describes as 'a learned idiot.' Swift has declared that some know books as they do lords; learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance. But neither description is applicable to Rawlinson, who, for all that, may have known ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... Swift and Spurred On were horses that belonged to two Roman emperors. These horses were fed on almonds and raisins; they had ivory mangers and marble stalls; and one of them drank wine out of a golden pail. But I am sure they were too sensible to like such a life and would have preferred a handful ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... faculty, as walking straight is to all men sound of mind and limb; but, all the same, when cantering beside the rutty ox-cart track to the mine he looked in his English clothes and with his imported saddlery as though he had come this moment to Costaguana at his easy swift pasotrote, straight out of some green meadow at the other ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... craft more than half filled, the oars floating off to leeward, and we ourselves kneeling on the bottom planks for safety. Roll after roll of loud thunder broke, as it were, just above our heads; while in the swift dashing rain that seemed to hiss around us every object was hidden, and even the other boat was lost to our view. The two poor fellows—I shall never forget their expression. One, a devout Catholic, had placed a little leaden image of a saint before him in the bow, and implored ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... certain obstacles to swift, easy passing, there are places commonly spoken of as "that" place. In his journey to the Bar Nothing, Robert Grant Burns had come unwarned upon that sandy hollow which experienced drivers approached with a mental bracing for the struggle ahead, and with tightened lines and whip held ready. Even ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... when she felt critical eyes measuring her, but her first instinctive appraisal of the other women made her easy. It needed no more than a modest estimate of her own attractions to tell her that she was the smartest person in this smart assembly; the swift, startled admiration of the men proved ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... was swift, but not swift enough to deceive his sister-in-law. Her quick eye had detected several little items of interest, although they had occurred simultaneously and in ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... nyhtingale, Which erst was cleped Philomene, Told al that evere I wolde mene, 6000 Bothe of hir forme and of hir note, Wherof men mai the storie note. And of hir Soster Progne I finde, Hou sche was torned out of kinde Into a Swalwe swift of winge, Which ek in wynter lith swounynge, Ther as sche mai nothing be sene: Bot whan the world is woxe grene And comen is the Somertide, Than fleth sche forth and ginth to chide, 6010 And chitreth out in ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower

... it is ebb-time, they turn, the eyes beneath the busbies are gone. But the blood has suspended its timbre, the heart from out of oblivion Knows but the retreat of the burning shoulders, the red-swift waves of the sweet Fire horizontal declining and ebbing, ...
— Bay - A Book of Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... term by which the ancient Greek or Roman used to distinguish hiss religion from the rival religions of other and heretical pagans. Just as Orthodoxy, according to DEAN SWIFT, means "my doxy," and Heterodoxy, the doxy of other people; so the pious Roman used to speak of "my thology" as the only genuine religion; the "thologies" of other men being cheap and worthless counterfeits of the real article. The classic mythology had a large and varied assortment ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various

... elbows on the ground to steady the glasses as he trained them off in the direction the five men had gone. Twice he saw them cross over ridges. Then a tiny, swift-moving speck came into his field of view, traveling up the slope of a distant divide. The ant-like rider dipped over the crest of it and ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... occurred in the third round of the course, and all the other runners seemed to be doing their work with steady resolution, there was still the possibility of one or more of them proving themselves, by endurance perhaps, more than a match for the swift-footed. The excitement, therefore, became intense, and, as round after round of the course was completed the relative position of the ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... themselves, was holding the direction of the Col. There was a solitary individual mounted on a mule, and a single pedestrian, without any guide, or other traveller, in their company. Their movements were swift, and they had not been more than a minute in view, before they disappeared behind an angle of the crags which nearly closed the valley on the side of the convent, and which was the precise spot already mentioned as being so dangerous in the season ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... some readers to learn that Hawaii is the real home of the Brownies, or was; and that this adventurous nomadic tribe were known to the Hawaiians long before Swift's satirical mind conceived ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... been sniffing at Carlotta's skirts, suddenly leaped into her lap. With a swift movement of her hand she swept the poor little creature, as if it had been a noxious ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... swift change in his countenance, Zuleika said, "My friend and true-love, why art thou so affrighted that thou art ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... city of blank casements, a city of citizens feverishly asking questions whose answers they knew beforehand, a city of swift feet and hushed voices, was Verona on the morrow of Can Grande's murder. They carried the two torn bodies covered with one sheet to Sant' Anastasia, and laid them there, not in state but just huddled out of sight, while the bishop and his canons sang a requiem, and "Dirige" and "Placebo" ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... across the main street to his partner, who was trudging along in his swift, slack-jointed way, a naked bottle with frozen contents conspicuously tucked under his arm. ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... far when the paper fell from her hands and she trembled all over. Jane read it, and said, "It is all over." Mary replied, "No, my dear Jane, it is not all over; but this suspense is dreadful. Come with me; we will go to Leghorn; we will post, to be swift ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... Sword Dancers are undoubtedly the Maruts, those swift-footed youths in gleaming armour who are the faithful attendants on the great god, Indra. Professor von Schroeder, in Mysterium und Mimus, describes them thus:[1] they are a group of youths of equal age and identical parentage, they ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... only one rider could cross at a time. The horse on which the Prince and the maiden were riding had just reached the middle when the magic ball flew by. The horse in its fright suddenly reared, and before anyone could stop it flung the maiden into the swift current below. The Prince tried to jump in after her, but his men held him back, and in spite of his struggles led him home, where for six weeks he shut himself up in a secret chamber, and would neither eat nor drink, so great was his grief. At last he became so ill his life was despaired ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... that annulled, for a time, that world to her. So I welcome, rather than fear, the over-susceptibility of the awakening senses to external sights and sounds. A few days will decide if I am right. In this climate the progress of acute maladies is swift, but the recovery from them is yet more startlingly rapid. Wait, endure, be prepared to submit to the will of Heaven; but do not despond of ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the other to throw out the water. After having long sustained the violence of the raging waves, by managing their little boat very dexterously, they suffer themselves to be carried away with the impetuous torrent as swift as an arrow. The affrighted spectator imagines they are going to be swallowed up in the precipice down which they fall; when the Nile, restored to its natural course, discovers them again, at a considerable distance, on its smooth ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... distance, that neither can the Cretans return their shots, nor can those who throw with the hand reach them; and when we pursue them, we cannot go after them any great distance from the main body, and in a short space a foot-soldier, even if ever so swift, cannot overtake another foot-soldier, starting at bow-shot distance. 16. If therefore we would keep off the enemy, so that they may be unable to hurt us on our march, we must at once provide ourselves with slingers and cavalry. There are, I hear, some Rhodians in our army, the greater number ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon

... from Savannah to the several plantations as follows: to Hurricane, the property of Howell Cobb, Lamar's brother-in-law, 760 yards; to Letohatchee, a trust estate in Florida belonging to the Lamar family, 500 yards; and to Lamar's own plantations the following: Swift Creek, 486; Harris Place, 360; Domine, 340; and Spring Branch, 229. Of his course of life Lamar wrote: "I am one half the year rattling over rough roads with Dr. Physic and Henry, stopping at farm houses ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... Swift as thoughts in moments of strong feeling pass in the mind without being put into words, our hero thought all this, and determined, cost what it would, to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... the room with swift steps, and kissed her. "Don't let me ruffle your plumage, Jenny Wren," she said; "I'm ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... its banks, and no boatman would venture on it. There was a little inn hard by, and there poor Eliza hoped to get a little rest for herself and Harry, who was now fast asleep in her arms. She had just sat down by the fire, when, who should ride into the yard but the trader and his guides. The swift horses had brought them much quicker than she and Harry could walk, but the weary mother would not lose her child. She darted out with him that moment, and the verses will tell you by ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown

... necessary to observe, that the words 'this fortnight', in the preceding sentence, were first written in what he calls their little language, and afterwards scratched out and written plain. It must be confessed this little language, which passed current between Swift and Stella, has occasioned infinite trouble in the revisal of these papers" ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... for Amyas! Heaven had delivered them into his hands. Swift and sure, at ten yards off, his arrow rushed through the body of the driver, and then, with a roar as of the leaping lion, he sprang like an avenging angel into the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... Peaches as they advanced made Mrs. Harding glance her way in time to see the first wave of deep colour that ever had flooded the child's white face, come creeping up her neck and begin tinging her cheeks, even her forehead. With a swift movement she snatched her poetry book, which always lay with her slate and primer, thrusting it under her pillow; when she saw Mrs. Harding watching her she tilted her head and pursed her lips in scorn: "'Our!'" she mimicked. "'Our!' Wonder whose she thinks ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... before, and the 'Bride of Lammermoor' and 'Woodstock', but the rest had remained in that sort of abeyance which is often the fate of books people expect to read as a matter of course, and come very near not reading at all, or read only very late. Taking them in this swift sequence, little or nothing of them remained with me, and my experience with them is against that sort of ordered and regular reading, which I have so often heard advised for young people by their elders. I always suspect their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... these young pathfinders had to deal with is perhaps the quickest, feeblest, and most elusive force in the world. It is so amazing a thing that any description of it seems irrational. It is as gentle as a touch of a baby sunbeam, and as swift as the lightning flash. It is so small that the electric current of a single incandescent lamp is greater 500,000,000 times. Cool a spoonful of hot water just one degree, and the energy set free by the cooling will operate a telephone for ten thousand years. Catch the falling tear-drop of ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... women in the lead. As yet they had not observed that they were being followed. The car stops at this turn. As the women came to a stand, one of them saw the approaching men. Instantly she fled up the street, swift as a hare. The other hesitated for a second, then pursued her companion frantically. Whatever doubts the Italian might have entertained, this unexpected flight dissipated them. He knew now; he knew, he knew! ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... pushed back her chair and dropped her napkin; but her movements, though swift, were not alarming. She passed out by a rear door which led to the kitchens, while Ruth walked composedly down the ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... with a second shot from his six-shooter, stretched Kansas on the ground; then, rushing forward with reversed weapon, he brought the butt down on Red's head with such force as to deprive him of consciousness. So swift and deadly were his movements, so wild his appearance as, with long locks streaming in the wind and huge black whiskers hiding all but glittering eyes, aquiline nose and a brief space of tough red skin—so much more like a demon than ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... of glittering stars untold, And striped with golden beams of power unpent, Is raised up for a removing tent Vaulted and arched are his chamber beams Upon the seas, the waters, and the streams; The clouds as chariots swift do scour the sky; The stormy winds upon their wings do fly His angels spirits are, that wait his will; As flames of fire his anger they fulfil. In the beginning, with a mighty hand, He made the earth by counterpoise to stand, Never to move, but to be fixed still; Yet hath no pillars ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... still marooned in flooded homes, their rescue up to that time being impossible because of the swift current of the river. Rescued people in dire straits were brought to the City Hall in a stream all day, where people by the hundreds waited to obtain news of missing ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... all day was upon the Muonio River, the main branch of the Tornea, and the boundary between Sweden and Russia, above the junction. There had been a violent wind during the night, and the track was completely filled up. The Tornea and Muonio are both very swift rivers, abounding in dangerous rapids, but during the winter, rapids and all, they are solid as granite from their sources to the Bothnian Gulf. We plunged along slowly, hour after hour, more than half the time clinging to one side or the other, to prevent ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... alert, young life sparkled in every feature of her pretty, round, dark-skinned face; an elegant mind was expressed in the beautiful eyes which gazed attentively and softly from beneath slender brows, in the swift smile of her expressive lips, in the very attitude of her head, her arms, her neck; she was charmingly dressed. Beside her sat a wrinkled, sallow woman, forty-five years of age, with a toothless smile on her constrainedly-anxious ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... bore the seeds of revolution, its earliest effect upon its devotees was to create, through flattery of human character, a feeling of good-natured complacency. Against this optimism the traditional school reacted in two ways,—derisive and hortatory. Pope, Young, and Swift satirized with masterful skill the inherent weaknesses and follies of mankind, the vigor of their strokes drawing from the sentimentalist Whitehead the feeble but significant protest, On Ridicule, deprecating ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... a swift dive for the box that contained the signal flags used in the international marine signaling code. Moving swiftly, young Somers selected the two flags representing "N" and "D." These he strung to the halliard of the short ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... her eyes sparkled, her cheeks grew rosy, her laugh rang out, and the flaming spirit of her was kindling fires of which she never dreamed. Pleasant saw her dance first with Ham and then with King, and he grinned with swift recognition of her purpose. And he grinned the more when he saw that she was succeeding beyond her realization—saw it by the rage in Polly's black eyes, which burned now at Ham and now at King, for Miss Mary had no further need to ask either of them to dance—one or the ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... a swift bright look at his companion, and then made three leaps up the bank to the cottage door. He came down again smiling, but there was a suspicious veiling of ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... consumption in Great Britain, have, in many cases, served only to encourage smuggling, and, in all cases, have reduced the revenues of the customs below what more moderate duties would have afforded. The saying of Dr. Swift, that in the arithmetic of the customs, two and two, instead of making four, make sometimes only one, holds perfectly true with regard to such heavy duties, which never could have been imposed, had not the mercantile system taught ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... from the Cure to the others, a swift, inquisitive look, then settled back in his chair, and turned, bowing, towards Monsieur Garon. The avocat's pale face flushed, his long, thin fingers twined round each other and untwined, and presently he said, in his little chirping ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... on the waters shine, At his breast the tiny foam-beads rise, His back gleams bright above the brine, And the wake-line foam behind him lies. But the water-sprites are gathering near To check his course along the tide; Their warriors come in swift career And hem him round on every side; On his thigh the leech has fixed his hold, The quarl's long arms are round him roll'd, The prickly prong has pierced his skin, And the squab has thrown his javelin, The ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... an expression of demoniac hate, yet his thrusts became the more adroit and swift, his guard the more impenetrable and firm. His body was as sinuous as a wild beast's, his eye as steady. The longer he fought, the more formidable he became as an adversary. He was worth a score of ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... like a gigantic rainbow, with a long fringe of crimson and yellow streamers stretching up from its convex edge to the very zenith. At intervals of one or two seconds, wide, luminous bands, parallel with the arch, rose suddenly out of the northern horizon and swept with a swift, steady majesty across the whole heavens, like long breakers of phosphorescent light rolling in from some ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... were swirling through the dale, as Boden reached its middle point, pushing his way against a cold westerly blast. The stream, which in summer chatters so gently to the travellers beside it, was rushing in a brown swift flood, and drowning the low meadows on its western bank. He mounted a stone foot-bridge to look at it, when, of a sudden, the curtain of cloud shrouding Blencathra was torn aside, and its high ridge, razor-sharp, appeared spectrally white, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to every wind unfurled The flag that bears the Maple-Wreath; Thy swift keels furrow round the world Its ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts

... He folds his arms and closes his eyes. You can see that he is trying to concentrate his thoughts in preparation for prayer. It is doubtless hard to divert them from the swift channel in which they have been ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin

... desirably it might seem to the lady in Clelia, can surely be the wish only of the young or the ignorant; to every one else, a perpetual vigil will appear to be a state of wretchedness, second only to that of the miserable beings, whom Swift has in his travels so elegantly described, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... a sharp hunting knife. See, I will stick it between the logs, so that you may cut your cords with it. To-night when you hear the owl hoot, free yourself and steal from the hut, if you can. Follow the hoot of the owl and I will be there with swift horses." ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer

... story first and last that we have to consider The Mystery of Edwin Drood. This does not mean, of course, that the details are not often admirable in their swift and penetrating humour; to say that of the book would be to say that Dickens did not write it. Nothing could be truer, for instance, than the manner in which the dazed and drunken dignity of Durdles illustrates ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... a swift and trusty messenger, the British prince opened in all solemnity the feast of Easter, which had come round during the course of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked." Once when He was praying in a certain place His disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray." They had come within the powerful attraction of His Spirit. Like a swift current it had caught them, and they were eager to emulate Him. It is impossible for the saint to gaze long on the stigmata without becoming branded with the marks of Jesus; impossible to see Him hasting to the cross without being stirred to follow Him; impossible to behold the intensity ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... bridge of steel, mortised into the rocks, while the deafening echoes reverberated between the narrowing walls, and rippled the surface of the river flowing deep and black below. Then suddenly another swift, sharp turn, and they were out in the dazzling sunshine, amidst a scene of untold ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... journey done, his share in the labour so nobly borne and patiently executed; the desert crossed, and now to be cut off on the edge of the land of promise! Ah well, it was better so than a lingering death in the desert, a swift and sudden call instead of perhaps slow tortures of thirst and starvation! Poor Charlie! the call of death is one that none of us may fail to heed; I only pray that when I am summoned to the "great unknown" I may be as fit to meet my Maker as ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... the two were locked in each other's embrace, the old stork flew around them in smaller and smaller circles, and at length shot away in swift flight towards his nest, whence he brought out the swan-feather suits he had preserved there for years, throwing one to each of them, and the feathers closed around them, so that they soared up from the earth in the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... seemed eminently truthful; Allis's horse trailed farther and farther behind the others. Out in front galloped with unseeming haste the Indian—a brown blotch of swift-gliding color. Two lengths from his glinting heels raced four horses in a bunch—two bays, a gray, and a black; so close together that they formed a small mosaic of mottled hue against the drab-gray background of the course stables beyond. Then The Dutchman, with ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... a land of streams of every size and kind, and almost all these streams and rivers have three qualities in common—they are cold, swift, and clear. Cold and swift they must be as they descend quickly to the sea from heights more or less great. Clear they all are, except immediately after rain, or when the larger rivers are in flood. In flood-time most of them become raging torrents. Many were the horses and riders swept ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... motherhood had been so forced, so blurred a thing, keep one memory of it from another, or any that was not purely animal ...? But it was his picture she had been looking at which had brought the idea of babyhood back to her, and it was with him personally that her mind connected the swift memory that was more a renascence of an actual sensation. She closed her eyes and clutched at the breast that had fallen on flatness. Her children would all go from her except this one who was coming back.... A warmth that was half-animal, and nearly another ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... incapable of being resisted, thou art the destroyer of all poisons, thou art incapable of being borne (in battle), and thou art incapable of being transcended, thou canst not be made to tremble, thou canst not be measured, thou canst not be vanquished, and thou art victory.[1431] Thou art of swift speed, thou art the Moon, thou art Yama (the universal destroyer), thou bearest (without flinching) cold and heat and hunger and weakness and disease. Thou art all mental agonies, thou art all physical diseases, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... on their sides. As far as mere pleasure is concerned, it is hardly worth while to fish in our river, it is so much like angling in a mud-puddle; and one does not attach the idea of freshness and purity to the fishes, as we do to those which inhabit swift, transparent streams, or haunt the shores of the great briny deep. Standing on the weedy margin, and throwing the line over the elder-bushes that dip into the water, it seems as if we could catch nothing but frogs and mud-turtles, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... night for Philip, and a restless one. At any other time the swing of the cars would have lulled him to sleep, and the rattle and clank of wheels and rails, the roar of the whirling iron would have only been cheerful reminders of swift and safe travel. Now they were voices of warning and taunting; and instead of going rapidly the train seemed to crawl at a snail's pace. And it not only crawled, but it frequently stopped; and when it stopped it stood dead ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... residential centre, or the scattered industrial village into the modern manufacturing town. Considerations of cheap profitable work were paramount; considerations of life were almost utterly ignored. So swift, heedless, anarchic has this process been, that no adequate provisions were made for securing the prime conditions of healthy, physical existence required to maintain the workers in the most profitable ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... still more slowly, perhaps not more than eight or ten miles an hour, for by that time they require rest and food, and we unharness them in places where the snow is not deep, and let them get their food. Early in the winter, when they are in good condition, one can travel with a swift bull reindeer one hundred and fifty miles in a day, and even two hundred miles if the condition of the snow is favorable and the cold is 30 or 40 degrees below zero. The colder the weather is the greater is the speed. Seventy ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... above. Just over the bench hangs still a tangle of the broken bell wires. When colonial Brandon was filled with guests, there must often have been a merry jangle above the old stone bench and a swift patter of feet on the flags. Standing there to-day, one can almost fancy an impatient tinkle. Is it from some high-coiffured beauty in the south wing with a message that must go post-haste—a missive sanded, scented, and sealed by ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... those poor miserable wretches we see at home, which seem little better than rough door-mats sewed up and stuffed; with head, tail, and legs attached, and just enough of life infused to make them move! No, the wild ass of the prairie is a large, powerful, swift creature. He has the same long ears, it is true, and the same hideous, exasperating bray, and the same tendency to flourish his heels; but, for all that he is a very fine animal, and often wages successful warfare with the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... fund of common phrases, any one of which only needed modification by a composer to enable him to express anything he pleased. But Purcell came betwixt the old time and the new, and had to build up a technique which was not wholly his own, by following with swift steps and indefatigable energy on lines indicated even while Lawes was alive. Those lines were, of course, in the direction of word-painting, and I must admit that the first word-painting seems very silly to nineteenth century ears and eyes—eyes not less than ears. To the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... approach of the Priestess some interior vibration had informed Sarthia of her coming and, with a quivering and swift movement, she sprang from her couch and threw herself impulsively into the arms ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner

... in hand was accomplished: we had cut a way through the forest, and each day we were expecting from headquarters orders for our return to the fort. Our division of fieldpieces was stationed at the top of a steep mountain- crest which was terminated by the swift mountain-river Mechik, and had to command the plain that stretched before us. Here and there on this picturesque plain, out of the reach of gunshot, now and then, especially at evening, groups of mounted mountaineers showed themselves, attracted by ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... of my heart— Thou object of my hopeless passion, Though Fate decrees that we must part, I'll leave thee in some novel fashion! I will not do as others do When cheated of prospective bridal, And quit the Bridge of Waterloo With header swift and suicidal. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various

... in, occurred to Peter as her natural limitation. It was not until they had been going out together for a week or more, in such fashion as his mending health allowed, that he had moments of realizing, in her swift appropriations of Venice, rich possibilities of the personal relations with which he believed himself forever done. Oddly it provoked in him the wish to protect, when the practical situation had left him dry ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin

... in advance of the others a short distance, and as it rounded a sharp bend in the river where the swift current bore it rapidly on its way it came suddenly upon the ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... female sex than it was some years ago; more attention is paid to the education of women, more knowledge and literature are expected from them in society. From the literary lady of the present day something more is expected than that she should know how to spell and to write better than Swift's celebrated Stella, whom he reproves for writing villian and daenger:—perhaps this very Stella was an object of envy in her own day to those who were her inferiors in literature. No man wishes his wife to be obviously less ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... eastwards, in these northern parts, there are no cities whatsoever, so that the Greater Bulgaria is the last country which possesses towns and cities. From this country of Pascatir the Huns went, who were afterwards called Hungarians. Isidore writes, that with swift horses they passed the walls of Alexander, and the rocks of Caucasus, which opposed the barbarians, and even exacted tribute from Egypt, and laid waste the whole of Europe as far as France, being even more warlike in their day than the Tartars are now. With them the Blacians or Walachians, the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... is known to one surviving descendant—a man possessing wonderful occult power. Should any person unlawfully discover its whereabouts, four of his fingers are mysteriously removed, and one by one returned to him. The appearance of the final fourth betokens his swift ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... Nile. Not only the railroad battalion, which was nearly 3000 strong, but every available Khedivial soldier, laboured in some way or other at the task. They put their hearts and thews to the toil, for it was recognised that its completion not only solved the transport problem, but was a swift and sure means of return to Egypt. The railroad battalion worked wonders in grading and laying. Fellaheen and negro, they showed a vim and intelligence in track-making that Europeans could not surpass. Native lads, some in their early teens, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... always undertook to do enough for two—his brother and himself—and he really did enough for three. No other was so swift and skillful at taking the gear off horse or mule, nor was there a stronger or readier arm at the wheel when it was necessary to complete the circle of wagons that they nightly made. When this was ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... sleepy-eyed, he was treacherous as a snake, as swift to move when necessary. He had been known to sit as he was now, idly playing, to leap up, crouch, draw and kill a man, and be down again at his place, idly playing, before the breath was done ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... gray castle at the dawn of the morning, and with many a knight to bear him company rode, not eager and swift, like a prince who went to find a treasure, but steady and slow, as we should go to meet sorrow. Not one of the hundred men who followed dared to lilt a lay or fling a laughing jest from his mouth. All rode silent ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson

... and taught by their parents and by publicans to drink, so that the foundation of that dreadful craving disease had been laid, and those desires had begun to grow which, if not checked, would certainly end in swift and awful destruction. One blessed result of this was that the children had not only themselves joined, but had in some instances induced their drunken parents to ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... of her admirer. The man began to loiter, studying with apparent interest the wares of the small fruiterer or tobacconist; twice he returned hurriedly upon his former course; and then, as though he had suddenly conquered a moment's hesitation, once more set forth with resolute and swift steps in the direction of Lincoln's Inn. At length, in a deserted by-street, he turned; and coming up to Harry with a countenance which seemed to have become older and whiter, inquired with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... find what there IS in these books, my son," smiled his father. "You'll love them as well as I do, some day. And your brother—" He paused, a swift shadow on his face. He turned to Mr. Smith. "My boy, Fred, loves books, too. He helped me a lot in my buying. He was in here—a little while ago. But he couldn't stay, of course. He said he had to go and dance with ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter

... and the course of life seems open, and pleasant prospects greet your ardent hopes; but you must remember that the race is not always to the swift, and that, however flattering may be our prospects, and however zealously you may seek pleasure, you can never find it except by cherishing pure principles and practicing right conduct. My heart is full ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... bridge and cautiously look up at the bridge. He did not see Long Jim, so intent was he on looking up; but when the cockney drew a pistol he screamed shrilly and fled into the passage, his long queue sticking out behind like an attenuated pennant, so swift was his flight. ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... Waterman was one of the Major's own generation, and he knew all his life and his habits. Just as Montague had seen him there, so he had been always; swift, imperious, terrible, trampling over all opposition; the most powerful men in the city quailed before the glare of his eyes. In the old days Wall Street had reeled in the shock of the conflicts between him and his most ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... Mr Inglis tried in all the most likely spots for a chub with his live-bait, and at last one took it, was struck, and then darted away swift as an arrow from a bow—right, left, straight ahead, through the smooth water, and off again where the stream ran swiftest; but it was of no avail; the line that he had run out was wound up, and the fine fellow drawn inshore so closely that Harry could put the landing-net ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... Fanny!" But Charlotte had already, with a start and a warning hand, turned from a glance at the clock. She sailed away to dress, while he watched her reach the staircase. His eyes followed her till, with a simple swift look round at him, she vanished. Something in the sight, however, appeared to have renewed the spring of his last exclamation, which he breathed again upon the air. "Poor, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... like a sleuth-hound, still The footsteps of the wicked sternly tracks, And in his mad career o'ertaking him, Brings, when he least expects it, swift destruction, And with a bitter, mocking justice, marks Each sin that did most easily beset him. The eye that spared not woman in its lust, Glaring with maniac terror, sinks in death. The homicidal hand, whose fiendish skill Made man its ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... me a swift glance to hide the bowl, standing between me and our host while I hurriedly stuffed it down under the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood



Words linked to "Swift" :   ridiculer, Collocalia inexpectata, Sceloporus occidentalis, fence lizard, ironist, apodiform bird, satirist, Gustavus Franklin Swift, European swift, swiftness, Chateura pelagica, chimney swift, fast, blue-belly



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