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Chafe   /tʃeɪf/   Listen
Chafe

verb
(past & past part. chafed; pres. part. chafing)
1.
Become or make sore by or as if by rubbing.  Synonyms: fret, gall.
2.
Feel extreme irritation or anger.
3.
Cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations.  Synonyms: annoy, bother, devil, get at, get to, gravel, irritate, nark, nettle, rag, rile, vex.  "It irritates me that she never closes the door after she leaves"
4.
Tear or wear off the skin or make sore by abrading.  Synonym: excoriate.
5.
Cause friction.  Synonyms: fray, fret, rub, scratch.
6.
Warm by rubbing, as with the hands.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Chafe" Quotes from Famous Books



... awaited him there, he had serious thoughts of making his escape while it was possible, but Braesig came as close up to him as if he had known what he was thinking of, and that only made him rage and chafe the more inwardly. When Braesig asked Mrs. Behrens who it was that had come up in the nick of time, and she had answered that it was Frank, Triddelfitz stood still and shaking his fist in the direction ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... "Chafe not yourself at the universal fate," said the young man, with a bitter smile on his lips and pointing to the cathedral; "I have not lived long, but I have learned already enough to know this? he who could raise a pile like that, dedicated to Heaven, would ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... you to chafe your Lady, if she have no time to listen," said Lady Louvaine, with a disappointed look: "but indeed, Aubrey, the matter must be seen to, and not ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... and Robin began to chafe under the restraint of city life. He longed for the fresh pure air of the greenwood, and the rollicking society of his yeomen. One day, upon seeing some lads at archery practice upon a green, he could not help but lament, saying, "Woe is me! I fear my hand is fast losing its old time cunning ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... little duties about the plantation fell to his share, so that he was often called the "overseer"; and small as he was, he sometimes took charge of a couple of big men, and went into town with the pack-horses. It was not all play, either, for he had to see that the barrels and boxes did not chafe the horses' backs, and that they were not allowed to come home too fast ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... powdered with a good quality of toilet powder. Ordinary starch, or talcum, or the stearate of zinc is suitable. Fat infants should be powdered in all the skin folds; otherwise they are sure to chafe. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... chafe because he was delaying the march. It was almost noon. The two renegade recruits had not come along yet. They might not come at all; they might be looking around for Sally, without sense enough to read the sign. But the major was anxious to ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... said quietly. "At present I am feeling my way through my thoughts. There is rash blood in Isobel's veins, and I should like her life to be happier than her mother's. She is unconventional and a lover of freedom. The etiquette of our Court at Illghera will chafe her continually. I wonder, Mr. Greatson, if she would not be happier—married to some one of humbler birth, perhaps, but who can give her the sort of life ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... those pleasant meetings on which my memory dwells with gratitude. I hope he thinks of them tenderly, too; for I believe he gave more pleasure and edification than he received. We old men are garrulous, and rather laudatory of the past than enthusiastic about the present. And this must needs chafe the nerves of those whose eyes are always turned toward the sanguine future. Well, this evening we had the famous epilogue of the Third Book of the Odes of Horace for discussion, and our thoughts turned on the poet's certainty of immortality,—the immortality of fame, in which alone he believed. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... chafe, There came a voice without reply,— ''T is man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... father and mother were sent for. The old man came quickly, for Fanny was his idol, and if she should die, he would be bereaved indeed. With untiring love he watched by her bedside until the crisis was passed. He would fan her fevered brow, moisten her parched lips, chafe her hot, burning hands, smooth her tumbled pillow, and when at last he succeeded in soothing her into a troubled slumber, he would sit by her and gaze on her wan face with an earnestness which seemed to say that she was his all of earth, his more than ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... sir,' retorted Brass; 'because to chafe and vex me is a part of her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I don't believe she'd have her health. But never mind,' said Brass, 'never mind. I've carried my point. I've shown my confidence in the lad. He has minded the office again. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... in sent or show. Arabian gummes do breathe here forth, And th' East's come over to the North; The windes have brought their hyre of sweet To see Amyntor Chloris greet; Balme and nard, and each perfume, To blesse this payre, chafe and consume; And th' Phoenix, see! already fries! Her neast a fire in Chloris eyes! Next the great and powerful hand Beckens my thoughts unto a stand Of Titian, Raphael, Georgone Whose art even Nature hath out-done; For if weake Nature only can Intend, not perfect, what ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... man! I am slower, much slower to anger than thyself—slower than most of those who still chafe within this mortal covering—yet am I mortal like thyself, and not wholly free from such foolish passions as vex mortality. Chafe me, and I will repulse thee with scorn. Annoy me, and I close upon thee the book of fate, leaving ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various

... no time to think of any children now, even of a man's own fine breed, and the boat was beginning much to chafe upon the rope, and thirty or forty fine fellows were all waiting, loath to hurry Captain Robin (because of the many things he had dearly lost), yet straining upon their own hearts to stand still. And the captain could ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... very close to the buoy, when the salvagee was laid hold of with a boat-hook, and the BITE of the hawser thrown over the cross-head. But the salvagee, by this method, was always left at the buoy, and was, of course, more liable to chafe and wear than a hawser passed through the ring, which could be wattled with canvas, and shifted at pleasure. The salvagee and cross method is, however, much practised; but the experience of this morning showed it to be very unsuitable for vessels riding ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... unfavourable weather. For many weeks in succession the little trial balloons thrown up to show the course of the wind were driven back upon the shores of France. During all these trials the impatient Roziers continued to chafe and torment himself. ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... toleration and benevolence that a diligent reader of his pages is, as it were, perforce imbued by it. Indeed, we know of few writers whom we can point to with more confidence as calculated, in antidote to the fret and chafe inseparable from existence in our day, to induce a tone of repose and resignation in ourselves, and a disposition to take charity as our watchword ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... disputes in life are among those who are nearest each other in spirit. We do not quarrel with the man in the street, the man with whom we have little or no communication. He has not the chance, nor the power, to chafe our soul, and ruffle our temper. If need be, we can afford to despise, or at least to neglect him. It is the man of our own household, near us in life and spirit, who runs the risk of the only serious dissensions with us. The man with whom we have most points ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... are now ready to start on our way down the Great Unknown. Our boats, tied to a common, stake, chafe each other as they are tossed by the fretful river. They ride high and buoyant, for their loads are lighter than we could desire. We have but a month's rations remaining. The flour has been resifted through the mosquito-net sieve; the spoiled bacon has been dried and ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... she said. "I mind me—thou hast saved me from that horror-haunted place!" And she threw her arms about my neck, drew me to her and kissed me. "Come, love," she said, "let us be going! I am sore athirst, and—ah! so very weary! The gems, too, chafe my breast! Never was wealth so hardly won! Come, let us be going from the shadow of this ghostly spot! See the faint lights glancing from the wings of Dawn. How beautiful they are, and how sweet to behold! Never, in those Halls of Eternal Night, did I think ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... the entire population of Sandy Cove. The child spread it over the seaman's chest, and tucked it carefully down at his sides, between his body and the wet garments. Then the three sat down beside him, and, each seizing a limb, began to rub and chafe with a degree of energy that nothing could resist. At any rate it put life into John Bumpus; for that hardy mariner gradually began to exhibit ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... had rewarded his efforts, he continued to bathe and chafe till the gentle stranger opened her eyes. In a few moments more she recovered her consciousness, and cast a ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... people—her own cousins in particular—were looking upon her with cold and critical eyes; she knew, down in her heart, that she could throw a bomb among them at any time by the mere utterance of a single word. It mattered as little that Edith was beginning to chafe miserably under the strain of waiting and deception; the novelty had worn off for the wife of Roxbury; she was despairingly in love, and she was pining for the day to come when she could laugh again with real instead ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... always foremost in good deeds, and on the whole the most efficient civilizing class, working downwards from knowledge to ignorance, that is,—not so much upwards, perhaps,—that we have. The trouble is, that so many of 'em work in harness, and it is pretty sure to chafe somewhere. They feed us on canned meats mostly. They cripple our instincts and reason, and give us a crutch of doctrine. I have talked with a great many of 'em of all sorts of belief, and I don't think they are quite ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... call no comrade to his lonely side; The giant ocean, wrapped in storm and spray, Has no companion for her endless tide; The forest monarch, where his parents died, Can find no brother in his lofty sway, And mighty rivers chafe their margins wide Where infant rills and childish ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller

... attainted and accursed, If Bruce shall e'er find friends again, Once more to brave a battle-plain, If Douglas couch again his lance, Or Randolph dare another chance, Old Torquil will not be to lack With twice a thousand at his back; Nay, chafe not at my bearing bold, Good abbot! for thou knowest of old, Torquil's rude thought and stubborn will Smack of the wild Norwegian still Nor will I barter freedom's cause For ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... handsome, Exceeding proud, being commended, monstrous. Of an unquiet temper, seldom pleas'd, Unless it be with infinite observance, Which you were never bred to; once well angred, As every cross in us, provokes that passion, And like a Sea, I roule, toss, and chafe a week after. And then all mischief I can think upon, Abusing of your bed the least and poorest, I tell you what you'le finde, and in these fitts, This little beauty you are pleased to honour, Will be so chang'd, so alter'd ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... the sword; now without shield let us ply our warfare bare-breasted, with flashing blades. Let the rumour of our rage beacon forth: boldly let us grind to powder the column of the foe; nor let the battle be long and chafe us; nor let our onset be shattered in ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... river danced merrily past them, singing as it went, the sunshine sparkling on its bright clear waters, and glittering on the pebbles beneath them. Now the stream would chafe and foam against some larger impediment to its course; now it would dash down some rocky height, and form a beautiful cascade; then it would hurry on for some time with little interruption, till stayed ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... much finer city than the town of Boston. It has been built long since Boston. I fancy Boston must lie at a distance from this city, as the good woman seems ignorant of it." At these words his horse began to chafe, and strike the pavement with his fore feet; the stranger seemed a little bewildered, and said "No home to-night," and, giving the reins to his horse, passed up the street, and I saw no ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... took a chair at the fire and proceeded to chafe his hands. "Paris, did you say? Coldish ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... he said; "put a drop or two between her lips while I chafe her hands—so; see, she revives," as the white lids quivered for a second, and then the pretty blue ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... commenced, to procure horses for such of the party as intended to proceed by land. The Wallah-Wallahs are an equestrian tribe. The equipments of their horses were rude and inconvenient. High saddles, roughly made of deer skin, stuffed with hair, which chafe the horse's back and leave it raw; wooden stirrups, with a thong of raw hide wrapped round them; and for bridles they have cords of twisted horse-hair, which they tie round the under jaw. They are, like most Indians, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... looking for summer weather, they encountered the bitter gales of November. Only after they had all safely entered the St. Lawrence, and were beyond injury from the storms, did the gales cease. They had suffered all the injury that tempestuous weather could do them, and they then had to chafe under the enforced restraints ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... include herself.... Then is when the foolish wife lets her husband see how hurt she is that he can want to be with any one but herself.... Then is when the husband—used all his life to independence, perhaps—begins to chafe under these new bonds that hold him so fast.... No man likes to be held up at the end of a threatened scene and made to give an account of himself.... Before a woman has learned to cultivate a comfortable indifference to her husband's comings and goings, she is apt to be ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... come lend an ear; It boots ye naught to chafe or fleer, As overgrown with pride: Ye needs must hear Dan Guerin tell What once a certain priest befell, To market ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... feet, unclasped the handcuffs, snatched a knife from the table, and cut the cords which bound me with eager haste. "Another draught of wine," she said, still in the same hurried, almost insane manner. "You have work to do! Now, while I secure the door, do you rub and chafe your stiffened joints." The door was soon fastened, and then she assisted in restoring the circulation to my partially benumbed limbs. This was at last accomplished, and Marie Duquesne drew me toward a window, which she softly opened. "It is useless," ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... navies of France and Spain were annihilated by a far inferior force; but that force was British, and was directed by one of the most remarkable men of the age, and perhaps the greatest hero of any time. Huge fragments of wreck still frequently emerge from the watery gulf whose billows chafe the rocky sides of Trafalgar: they are relies of the enormous ships which were burnt and sunk on that terrible day, when the heroic champion of Britain concluded his work and died. I never heard but one individual venture to say a word in disparagement ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... and in the best of condition, Dave Darrin enjoyed a famously good breakfast the next morning, as did every officer and man on the destroyer. Still the orders for special duty had not arrived, and Dave was beginning to chafe under the delay. ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock

... situation at the beginning of 1850. It was a period of grave apprehension on the part of older men and women, of intense aggressiveness with the younger, who were eager for action. It is not surprising then that an educated, self-reliant, public-spirited woman who had just reached thirty should chafe against the narrow limits of a school-room and rebel at giving her time and strength to the teaching of children, when all her mind and heart were drawn toward the great issues then filling the press and the platform and even finding their way into the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... saddles. The brief halt is too quickly at an end, and after a ten minutes' rest the advance again sounds down the line from bugler to bugler. All at once fall in, arms are unpiled, and, enlivened by our band, we again step out; now feet begin to ache, and boots to chafe; but the cheery music of the bands, bugles, or drums and fifes of the regiments marching next to us, generally the Rifles, infuses energy into the most footsore. We make three halts in a march of thirteen or fourteen ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... not mean to anger thee, Stephano," cried the valet. "But let us speak lower: chafe ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... could breathe in. But the luxury of others was not what she wanted. A few years ago it had sufficed her: she had taken her daily meed of pleasure without caring who provided it. Now she was beginning to chafe at the obligations it imposed, to feel herself a mere pensioner on the splendour which had once seemed to belong to her. There were even moments when she was conscious of ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... doors, and give me room to chafe in Mine own room, and my liberty: why Maid there, Open I say, and do not anger me, I am subject to much fury: when, ye Dish-clout? When do ye come? asleep ye lazie Hell-hound? Nothing intended, but ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... watch, when we came below, we took off our clothes and wrung them out; two taking hold of a pair of trowsers,—one at each end,—and jackets in the same way. Stockings, mittens, and all, were wrung out also and then hung up to drain and chafe dry against the bulk-heads. Then, feeling of all our clothes, we picked out those which were the least wet, and put them on, so as to be ready for a call, and turned-in, covered ourselves up with blankets, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... in this way about a mile, and the sound of the hunt had quite died away behind us, and I was beginning to chafe, as well as marvel, at conduct so singular, when at last I saw that he was slackening his pace. My horse, which was on the point of failing, began, in turn, to overhaul his, while I looked out with sharpened curiosity for the object ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... limp little body, and made his way to the couch where he deposited it gently among the stiff red pillows there. Then he began to chafe her hands, to push back the tumbled hair from which the fur hat had been displaced, and finally fallen off, and to call ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... not for one day, every day, a year of days—years. He's twenty-five now, feeling the thews of his strength; twenty-seven, twenty-nine, still the old daily round. Did no temptation come those years to chafe a bit and fret and wonder and yearn after the great outside world? Who that knows such a life, and knows the tempter, thinks he missed those years, and their subtle opportunity? Who that knows Jesus thinks that He missed such an opportunity ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... his friends, in order to come back according to his promise. His return had been delayed from week to week, from month to month, in spite of all he could do, and meanwhile his thoughts had not been in America at all, but in Sicily, causing him to fret and chafe at the necessities which bound him to his post. Now, however, the day upon which he had counted had arrived; he had taken his liberty regardless of consequences, and no dusty pilgrim ever longed more fiercely for a journey's end. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... possession of which was of such vital importance to each of the great contending parties, and the populations of which, although much divided, were on the whole more inclined to the League than to the Union. It was natural enough that the Dutch statesman should chafe at the possibility of their being lost to the Union through the adroitness of the Catholic managers and the supineness of the great allies ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Wilder, thoughtfully, though he evidently began to chafe a little under this free sort of catechism. "Let us now return to our study of the tower. What think ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... to sprinkle wine, from the flask he carried, on the brow of the fainting traveller, and to chafe his temples with it. The man at last slowly opened his eyes and said, "I had hoped the morning dew would not again have fallen on me, but that unknown and unlamented I might have perished here in the desert, as must be the case in the end." So saying he closed his eyes again, ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque

... has been my lot," you say, "So many months of late, I must not chafe that one short day Of sickness mars ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... shielded her from her own anger and self-contempt, when she came to herself again. She went out with her for long walks, and did what was kinder still, she let her go by herself, to rest her mind by tiring out her body, at times when the fever fit was on her, making her fret and chafe at trifles that would have made her laugh if all ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... charges a marked saving in the process of production is effected by this new system. The charges being in one block they are more easily handled for the usual periodical examination, and they do not break or chafe at the edges, as in the case of discs and cubes in built-up charges. A general view of the press is given in Fig. 19. The gun-cotton in a container is placed on a cradle fixed at an angle to the press. The mould ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... petted by a nurse than to shoulder my traps and tramp. I could hardly stand, but to go was a necessity. We made that day a march of twenty miles, I think. Not being able to step out squarely, but rather drag and shuffle along, I began to chafe badly, which made the marching very painful. I kept up with the boys till towards the close of day and about a mile from where camp was made, when I grew dizzy. I saw all sorts of colors. I staggered out one side and went down like a bundle of old clothes. I lay there in semi-consciousness, ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller

... those whom injury seems to chafe, So that it makes them greedy for revenge, And such must needs shape ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... have a third (U. pilulifera) very curious in its manner of bearing its female flowers in clusters of compact little balls, which is far more virulent than either of our native species, and is said by Camden to have been introduced by the Romans to chafe their bodies when frozen by the cold of Britain. The story is probably quite apocryphal, but the plant is an alien, and only grows ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... unfortunate nation, received likewise no addition from his new elevation in rank. During the latter part of the year 1560, Margaret of Parma, who still entertained a profound admiration of the prelate, and had not yet begun to chafe under his smooth but imperious dominion, had been busy in preparing for him a delightful surprise. Without either his knowledge or that of the King, she had corresponded with the Pope, and succeeded in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... outshone hers as sunrise outdoes the lighting of a candle, this wanton Greek was capable of despising him in good earnest, and Basil had never been of those who sit easy under scorn. He felt something chafe and grow hot within him, and recalled the days when he, and not Heliodora, had indulged contempt—to his mind a much more natural posture of affairs, The animal that is in every man had begun to stir; ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... got back into bed and she stooped over him, trying to chafe warmth into his cold feet, he looked at her more kindly than ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... asunder the most kindly feelings since the first day they were invented. Yes, ——- them, they are spells to rouse all our angry passions, and I dare say, notwithstanding the opinion of my private and calm moments, I will open on the cry again so soon as something occurs to chafe my mood; and yet, God knows, I would fight in honourable contest with word or blow for my political opinions; but I cannot permit that strife to "mix its waters with my daily meal," those waters of bitterness which poison all mutual love ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... dear children, let us away; Down and away below. Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shoreward blow; Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Children dear, let us ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... selfishly, the higher organs of the state would perish, since only a few can profit by them materially; while if they neglect their work, civilisation loses that intensive development which it was proposed to maintain. Each man would need to forget himself and not to chafe under his natural limitations. He must find his happiness in seeing his daily task grow under his hands; and when, in speculative moments, he lifts his eyes from his labour, he must find an ideal satisfaction in patriotism, in love for that complex society to which he ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... make a leap of twenty-six feet in height, the rebound creating a constant cloud of feathery spray. Then follows the highest of the falls, the Toppoefallet, forty-four feet in height, which is likewise divided by a cliff into two parts, against which the frantic waters chafe angrily. The next fall measures less than ten feet in height, followed a little way down the rapids by what is called the Flottbergstroem, all together making a fall of foaming eddies and whirls equal to about one hundred ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... states, as Walther pauses. "Take careful heed now that the one following must be exactly like it."—"Why exactly alike?" the free-born asks, ready to chafe at the shadow of a restriction. Sachs, indulgent, makes play for this prodigious child's sake of the to him so grave business of song-making: "That one may see that you ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... to wedded happiness, the discovery of the first deceit Captain Rothesay sat silent, with averted face; Sybilla was weeping—not that repentant shower which rains softness into a man's heart, but those fretful tears which chafe him beyond endurance. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... of his own he had. Mrs Milburn had got it for him from the rector, Mr Emmett, to his wife's brother, Mr Charles Chafe, who had interests in Chiswick and a house in Warwick Gardens. Lorne put off presenting the letter—did not know, indeed, quite how to present it, till his stay in London was half over. Finally he presented himself with it, as the quickest way, at the office of ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... chafe, to be irritated, to be uneasy, to be troubled and bothered. It is just the opposite of peaceful, trustful rest. Jesus has promised us rest to our souls, and we may have this rest. We can not have it, however, if we give place to worrying and fretting. God's purpose for us is that we shall ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... and it is fair to presume that posterity will greatly benefit by the Improvement Scheme fathered by Mr. Chamberlain. In the meantime the citizens—at least, those who bestow much thought upon such matters—shake their heads at the load of debt Birmingham bears upon its shoulders, and chafe at the high rates. It is, however, pointed out to the malcontents that they live in a healthier place than Birmingham used to be, and, further, that the city, owing to its improved character and appearance, attracts more visitors, ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... as an aggravation of his original offence, and in spite of his rank he was not at all certain that if he were put on his trial even now he would escape scot free, much less if a new offence were added to the indictment. So, however much he might chafe against the bit, he felt he must ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... sense, now nonsense leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning: And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad: All these, my modest satire bade translate, And own'd that nine such poets made a Tate. 190 How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe! And swear, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... wedded life. Dr. Eben had now lived so much at "Gunn's," that it seemed no strange thing for him to live there altogether. If it chafed him sometimes that it was Hetty's house and not his, Hetty's estate, Hetty's right and rule, he never betrayed it. And there was little reason that it should chafe him; for, from the day of Hetty Gunn's marriage, she was a changed woman in the habits and motives of her whole life. The farm was to her, as if it were not. All the currents of her being were set now in a new channel, and flowed as impetuously there as they had ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson

... now, wi' a belt o' corks an' me to help. Keep a hand on the line an' pull yoursel' along. Tide's runnin' again by now. When you'm tired, hold fast by the rope an' sing out to me. Stop; let me chafe your legs a bit, for how you've lasted out as you have ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Weissschnitzerdoerfer—what an interminable name—is not behindhand this time. On the contrary, it is the train this time which is five minutes late in starting; and the German has begun to complain, to chafe and to swear, and threatens to sue the company for damages. Ten thousand roubles—not a penny less!—if it causes him to fail. Fail in what, considering that ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... permitted information might be made public that would be helpful to the enemy, and propaganda started that would be dangerous to the public safety. But even in war time, the people of a democracy chafe under restrictions upon free speech and a free press, and it is often a delicate question to determine how far such restriction ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... full well the meaning of an oath; and yet I besought him with all my heart to send away his horse, and bid me not farewell when welcome had scarce been spoken. On the morrow it would be a joy to me to ride forth with him, and my uncle could never chafe at a few short ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... saw that by neither meane he could doo good, in a great chafe he brake foorth of the house vpon Kineard, and went verie neere to haue killed him: but being compassed about with multitude of enimies, whilest he stood at defense, thinking it a dishonour for [Sidenote: Kinewulfe slaine ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed

... somewhat lengthy defence. He had but re-stated what many before him had observed as to the exceptional character of demonstrative evidence, and the folly of expecting it where it is plainly inapplicable. A religious mind, itself thoroughly convinced, may chafe against possibility of doubt, but may as well complain against the conditions of human nature. Yet the controversy on this point between Tillotson and his opponents is instructive in forming a judgment ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... has its Fabius, and also its Hotspur. Both are needed—the men of prudence and caution, anxious to avoid extreme courses, slow to commit themselves too far or to burn their boats with the river behind them; and the impetuous spirits, who chafe at half-measures, cannot endure temporising, and are impatient for the order to advance against any odds. Major F.H. Crawford had more of the temperament of a Hotspur than of a Fabius, but he nevertheless possessed qualities of patience, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... pause. The cold was making us silent. My fingers were getting numbed, but I dared not chafe them. I was afraid of ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... toad under a harrow, vivisection. V. feel pain, experience pain, suffer pain, undergo pain &c. n.; suffer, ache, smart, bleed; tingle, shoot; twinge, twitch, lancinate[obs3]; writhe, wince, make a wry face; sit on thorns, sit on pins and needles. give pain, inflict pain; lacerate; pain, hurt, chafe, sting, bite, gnaw, gripe; pinch, tweak; grate, gall, fret, prick, pierce, wring, convulse; torment, torture; rack, agonize; crucify; cruciate[obs3], excruciate|; break on the wheel, put to the rack; flog &c. (punish) 972; grate on the ear &c. (harsh sound) 410. Adj. in pain &c. n., ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... They immediately began to chafe his temples, and the first symptom of his recovery which they perceived was a hollow groan; after which he pronounced these words: "Merciful powers! if I live I saw the commodore with his black patch, in the very clothes ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... not we, my friend! ... Not till we find each other tiresome, . . not till we prove that our spirits, like over-mettlesome steeds, do chafe and fret one another too rudely in the harness of custom, . . wherefore then, and then only, 'twill be time to break loose at a gallop, and seek each one a wider pasture-land! Meanwhile, here's to thee!"—and bending his handsome head he readily drank ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... Nicholson's temper must have been tried time and time again. He was all impatience to get to his goal and urge on the assault, the delay of which every day added to the peril that threatened British India. The tardy progress made, owing to the heavy guns he carried in his train, caused him to chafe as he had done on that rebel-pursuing march from Goodaspore some weeks earlier, when his tireless energy could not brook even a brief halt ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley

... flattered by the sense of having been appealed to concerning Margaret, and then he began to chafe at what she had said of Wetmore's honesty, apropos of her wish that he still had a class himself. Did she mean, confound her? that he was insincere, and would let Miss Vance suppose she had more talent than she really had? The more Beaton thought of this, the more furious ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... hardships with the courage and imperturbable good-nature of a born gentleman. It is when men are starving, when the plating of romance is worn off by the chafe of severe and continued suffering,—it is then that "blood tells." Winthrop had evidently that keen relish for rough life which the gently nurtured and highly cultivated man has oftener than his rude neighbor, partly because, in his case, contrast lends a zest to the experience. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... they must stay where they are, however they may chafe at this fresh halt—as before, a forced one. But the gaucho, with spirits ever buoyant, puts the best face upon it, saying, "After all, we won't lose so much time. By this, our horses would have been pretty well done up, anyhow, after such a hard day's work, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... James narrows its bed between high banks, and for some three miles—from Hollywood cemetery down to "Rockett's" landing—the shallow current dashes over its rocky bed with the force and chafe of a mountain torrent; now swirling, churned into foamy rapids, again gliding swiftly smooth around larger patches of islands that dot its surface. On the right hand hills, behind us, rises the suburb village of Manchester, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... the places where baby is most likely to chafe? The buttocks, in the folds of the neck ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... intervened. When her son spoke about God and about everything that she connected with her faith in him, which was dear and sacred to her, she sought to meet his eyes, she wanted to ask her son mutely not to chafe her heart with the sharp, bitter words of his unbelief. And she felt that Rybin, an older man, would also be displeased and offended. But when Rybin calmly put his question to Pavel, she could no longer contain herself, and said firmly: "When you speak of God, I wish you were ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... the current, but be mild, Ye waves, and spare the helpless child! If ye in anger fret or chafe, A bee-hive would be ship as safe As that in ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... months seemed to disappear. Instinctively he knew what a baby means to a mother,—and she must be its mother. He understood that the agony of loss which was hers was far greater even than the agony which her faithlessness had meant for him. Gently, almost tenderly, he went again to the bed, to chafe the cold, thin wrists, to watch anxiously the eyes, then at last to bend forward. The woman was looking at him, staring with fright ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... room again, and, taking Jane Ryder in my arms, carried her into the next room and laid her on the bed. There was a pitcher of water handy, and I sprinkled her face and began to chafe her cold hands. After what seemed an age, the landlord came cautiously along the hall. "Call the woman," I commanded; "call the woman, and tell her to ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... the operation of coaling commenced, the men working in groups, which were relieved every two hours, and by nightfall about seventy tons had been got on board. The wind was fresh enough to raise a slight sea, causing the two vessels to chafe considerably as they lay closely locked together for the purpose of transhipping the coal. But notwithstanding the breeze, the day was so hot as to deter Captain Semmes from visiting the shore, despite the inevitable longing, after a confinement on board ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... or the yolk of a new laid egg, and smell a piece of asafoetida, especially if she is troubled with a windy colic. If she happen to take cold, it is a great obstruction to the afterbirth; in such cases the midwife ought to chafe the woman's stomach gently, so as to break, not only the wind, but also to force the secundine to come down. But if these should prove ineffectual, the midwife must insert her hand into the orifice of the womb and draw it ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... said to herself now plainly and bitterly that it was a misfortune to belong to him; and she would have pitied her mother most heartily if her mother had ever allowed her the smallest expression of such a feeling. As it was, she was left to wonder and chafe at ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... buried, or made desperate appeals to some apparition that came to him in his dreadful dream. But at the last he grew almost incoherent, thinking that I was the dead lad; and he set himself wildly to chafe my hands, and put spirit at my lips. I was then nigh dead with want of sleep and fatigue, for I had not rested during the fight with the ironclads; and when he covered me with the small tarpaulin, and made a rough pillow in the bow, I went to sleep almost at once; and was as one ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... same in moral matters; no one will become really earnest by aiming directly at earnestness; any one may become earnest by meditating on the motives, and by drinking at the sources, of earnestness. We may of course work ourselves up into a pretence, nay, into a paroxysm, of earnestness; as we may chafe our cold hands till they are warm. But when we cease chafing, we lose the warmth again; on the contrary, let the sun come out and strike us with his beams, and we need no artificial chafing to be warm. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... to be always in company with these, with earth, and sun, and sea, and stars by night. The pettiness of house-life—chairs and tables—and the pettiness of observances, the petty necessity of useless labour, useless because productive of nothing, chafe me the year through. I want to be always in company with the sun, and sea, and earth. These, and the stars by night, are my natural companions.My heart looks back and sympathises with all the joy and life of ancient time. With the circling ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... General Taylor's feelings were during this suspense I do not know; but for myself, a young second-lieutenant who had never heard a hostile gun before, I felt sorry that I had enlisted. A great many men, when they smell battle afar off, chafe to get into the fray. When they say so themselves they generally fail to convince their hearers that they are as anxious as they would like to make believe, and as they approach danger they become more subdued. This rule is not universal, for I have known a few men who were always aching for ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... There are worse things than a loveless marriage with a brute. One is to love a man you cannot marry, and be cast aside by him, while your heart is still alive with the love he has sloughed off like an old skin that has begun to chafe. And then, without friends—with children, perhaps, the world snatching at its skirts as it passes you—the uncommon and terrible disgrace of divorce. Rachael!—will you not ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... elbowed aside so unceremoniously that his temper gave way. Hozier lifted Iris's head gently and unfastened the neck-hooks of her blouse. He began to chafe her cold hands tenderly, and pressed back the hair from her damp forehead. The "chief," not flattered by his own reflections, thought fit to ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... disappeared, Regina fell on her knees, and seizing the right hand, carried it to her lips; then began to chafe it violently between her ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... tired laugh. His terrible headache made him chafe at any prolonging of the scene. Moreover, it made rational thought difficult, twisting common-sense into fanciful shapes. It seemed to him an unendurable thing that he should protect himself under the wing of such a man as Stanhope; and the thought of fierce action ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... fathers, too," added Miss Delany, quickly. "If there is anything I chafe to see it is a strong, hearty man shirking his burdens, putting them on the shoulders of his wife, and taking life ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... close together over the instep. Leather always stretches and loosens at instep and can be taken up by lacing. The foot should always be held firmly, but not too tightly in proper position. If shoes are too loose, they allow the foot to slip around, causing the foot to chafe; corns, bunions, and enlarged joints are ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... of a fortress, for the uncertain enjoyment of those comforts and necessaries, and the doubtful gratification of this attachment. Accustomed as they had been "free to come and free to go," they could not brook the restraint under which they were placed; and rather than chafe and pine in unwilling confinement, would put themselves at hazard, that they might revel at large and wanton in the wilderness. Deriving their sustenance chiefly from the woods, the strong arm of necessity led many to tempt ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... speaker; then, to Dick's stupefaction, Stukely replied in apparently the same tongue, bent over and rapidly loosed the thongs which bound the old fellow's hands and feet together, and proceeded gently to chafe the shrunken limbs. ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... life, had crept into his heart during her six months' stay and he hated to let her go. He was so fond of all young and helpless things. The lambs, the tiny chickens, and the calves appealed to him strongly as they looked out of asking eyes, it seemed to him. He was beginning to chafe under the colorless, repressed life about him, and the little girl had been a great outlet for his affection, though much of it had been nursed ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... girls were nearly crying with vexation. There was no appeal, however. Miss Frazer escorted them into their bedroom, and stood over them, giving directions, until each pair of stockings or pocket-handkerchief was disposed according to her ideas of neatness. They might chafe and fret inwardly at the delay, but outwardly they were obliged ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... was surprised at the degree of agitation which Balfour displayed, "chafe not thyself because of the ungodly. Heaven will use its own instruments; and who knows but ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... she may get through with whatever she is doing before I can think of something else to occupy her time. But with her we need have none of the feeling that we have with Jane and Ellen. She is young, and susceptible to new impressions. She can fall in with new rules, while the other two might chafe under them. Now, I say we wait until we find out if we cannot let well enough alone, and not raise discord in ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... now to sense, now nonsense leaning, Means not, but blunders round about a meaning: And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad: All these, my modest satire bade translate, And owned that nine such poets made a Tate. How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe And swear not Addison himself was safe. Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blessed with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... Any change from my present state would seem a relief. But a man cannot go into these things like an impulsive girl, even if he believes in them, which is more than I do. I seem to have fallen into a state of moral and physical imbecility, in which I can only doubt, suffer, and chafe. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... on his rough seat in the Chimney, began to chafe at the delay. He did not overlook the fact that the Breezes were merry fellows, and that, though they took no liberties while they were under his eye, and talked only in whispers among themselves when they perched in the Chimney nooks, they had only ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... meeting There, in endless sunshine free! And the airs on those hills greeting, How reviving must they be! But me checks yon raving river That betwixt doth chafe and roll; And its dark waves rising ever Strike a horror ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... which beheld him then Might none draw nigh to him, how fain soe'er, So fast were they in that grim grapple locked Of the wild war that raged all down the wall. But as when shipmen, under a desolate isle Mid the wide sea by stress of weather bound, Chafe, while afar from men the adverse blasts Prison them many a day; they pace the deck With sinking hearts, while scantier grows their store Of food; they weary till a fair wind sings; So joyed the Achaean host, which ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... fingers, especially in the matter of handling rope; and sure enough, in about twenty minutes, I'm blessed if he hadn't worked those lashings so loose that I presently managed to slip my hands clear of 'em altogether. The moment that I was free I set to work to chafe my fingers and get the life back into them,—for they had lashed me so tight that I had lost all feeling in my hands,—and as soon as I was able to tell once more that I'd got a complete set of fingers, I whipped a knife out of my pocket and cut the lashings off my feet, after which I went the ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... from Baltimore, in Maryland, to Wheeling and Parkersburg, on the Ohio;—crossing the lowlands to the Washington Junction, thence up the Patapsco, down the Monocacy, to the Potomac; up to Harper's Ferry, where the Potomac and the Shenandoah chafe the rocky base of the romantic little town perched high above; winding up the North Branch to Cumberland,—the terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and of the great national turnpike to the West, for which Wills' Creek opened so grand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various



Words linked to "Chafe" :   exasperation, experience, annoyance, chevy, hassle, irritation, molest, adjoin, plague, rag, torment, get, rankle, displeasure, frustration, rub down, vex, abrase, tenderness, harry, corrade, ruffle, get under one's skin, irritate, antagonize, get at, fret, temper, harass, contact, antagonise, beset, feel, fray, peeve, eat into, aggravation, ire, rawness, gall, gravel, anger, grate, choler, harassment, rub off, warm, annoy, rub, devil, provoke, chevvy, chivvy, soreness, touch, chivy, meet, pique, abrade, displease



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