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Detachment   /dɪtˈætʃmənt/  /ditˈætʃmənt/   Listen
Detachment

noun
1.
Avoiding emotional involvement.  Synonym: withdrawal.
2.
The act of releasing from an attachment or connection.  Synonym: disengagement.
3.
The state of being isolated or detached.  Synonyms: insularism, insularity, insulation.
4.
A small unit of troops of special composition.
5.
Coming apart.  Synonyms: breakup, separation.



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"Detachment" Quotes from Famous Books



... the jingle of the bell, cried out, sleepily, in his barbarous voice, "Who goes there?" An under-officer of Cossacks and a headborough [22] came out. I explained that I was an officer bound for the active-service detachment on Government business, and I proceeded to demand official quarters. The headborough conducted us round the town. Whatever hut we drove up to we found to be occupied. The weather was cold; I had not slept for three nights; I was tired out, and I began to ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... many foreign dignitaries to be received and guided; there must be lively and presentable youths to help manoeuvre them. Raymond, who was supposed to have mingled in European society (instead of having viewed it from afar, in detachment), was asked to serve ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... complied, and on a bright June day in 1665 a glittering cavalcade disembarked at Quebec. The Marquis de Tracy with two hundred gaily caparisoned officers and men of the regiment of Carignan-Salieres formed this first detachment; the other companies followed a little later. Quebec was like a city relieved from a long siege. Its people were in a frenzy ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... hands of the drill sergeant with my friends Dashwood, Batty, Browne, Lascelles, Hume, and Masters, and mounting guard at St. James's for a few months, we were hurried off, one fine morning, in charge of a splendid detachment of five hundred men to join Lord Wellington in Spain. Macadam had just begun to do for England what Marshal Wade did in Scotland seventy years before; and we were able to march twenty miles a day with ease ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow

... General to be so ignorant as to allow him to be attacked by the magnificent force of his opponent, nor did he think that Pugasceff would possess such want of tactics as, whilst he saw before him a strong force, to turn with all his troops to annihilate a small detachment. Both these things happened. Pugasceff quietly allowed his opponents to cross over the frozen river. Then he rushed upon them from both sides. He had the ice broken in their rear, and thus destroyed the entire force, capturing twelve ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various

... after a delay of two months, the shock of arms decided the fate of Iran. Thirty thousand Persians fell on the battlefield, and eighty thousand were drowned in the moats surrounding the camp. Firouzan was pursued into the mountains and killed by a detachment ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... distinct matter. Here, in all these cases, what is required is the detachment of two portions of the parental organisms, which portions we know as the egg or the spermatozoon. In plants it is the ovule and the pollen-grain, as in the flowering plants, or the ovule and the antherozooid, as in the flowerless. Among all forms of animal life, the spermatozoa proceed ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... after the Wil'sbro' business," said Raymond, glad of the reprieve. He could not bear the prospect of banishment for his mother or himself from the home to which both were rooted; and the sentence of detachment from her was especially painful when she seemed his only consolation for his wife's perverseness. Yet he was aware that he had been guilty of the original error, and was bound to give such compensation to his wife ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... action on this part of the field most efficient service was rendered by Lieutenant John H. Parker, Thirteenth Infantry, and the Gatling gun detachment under his command. The fighting continued at intervals until nightfall, but our men held resolutely to the positions gained at the cost of ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... from the standard of Julian, under which they had acquired their fame and discipline; that in each of the remaining bands three hundred of the bravest youths should be selected; and that this numerous detachment, the strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march, and exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. The caesar foresaw and lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the auxiliaries, who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... army entered Naples in March, 1821, overthrew the constitutional government that had been inaugurated, and restored Ferdinand II to absolute power. The revolution which had broken out in Piedmont was also suppressed by a detachment of the Austrian army. England held aloof from all participation in the conferences at Troppau and Laybach, though her ambassador to Austria was present to watch ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane

... although less formal and official, was more difficult. It was addressed to the commandant of the nearest Federal barracks, who was an old friend and former companion-in-arms. He alluded to some conversation they had previously exchanged in regard to the presence of a small detachment of troops at Redlands during the elections, which Courtland at the time, however, had diplomatically opposed. He suggested it now as a matter of public expediency and prevention. When he had sealed the letters, not caring to expose them to the espionage of the local postmaster ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... fixed my eyes on her well-known form and features as upon a stranger's whom I would understand and judge. I have called her a woman and certainly I had loved her as such, but as, in this moment of strange detachment, I watched her descend, swaying foot following swaying foot falteringly down the stairs, I was able to see that only the emotions which denaturalised her expression were a woman's; that her features, her pose, and the peculiar childlike contour of the one cheek open to view were those of one whose ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... that among the few words I did manage to pick up by straining my ears to the limit, were just three that gave me an idea they took us for a detachment of militia, either Canadian or Yankee, out on the lake on some serious business that might interfere with their trade. Those three words were 'soldiers,' ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter

... she found that Allan Harrington's attitude of absolute detachment made the whole affair seem much easier for her. And when Mrs. Harrington slipped a solitaire diamond into her hand as she went, instead of disliking it she enjoyed its feel on her finger, and the flash of it in the light. She thanked Mrs. Harrington ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer

... Lafourche, arriving at Thibodeaux April 1st. On the 3d we moved to the Railroad Station at Terra Bone, taking the cars for Bayou Bueff, where we arrived on the 4th. Remained here until the 9th. Arrived at Brasher City, La., on the 11th, in company with the 13th Connecticut, 26th Maine, and a detachment of Cavalry. Boarded river steamer Laurel Hill, and proceeded up Berwick Bay, into Grand Lake, accompanied by Grover's Division, numbering about 8,000 men. Had with us three small gun-boats, moving cautiously. Reached the Bend without ...
— History of the 159th Regiment, N.Y.S.V. • Edward Duffy

... us, that we should seek happiness only in the calm of our own minds, not allowing external conditions or the opinions of others to influence our ways. This lofty detachment from environment is achieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers themselves (who may be said to have invented the art of "posing") were generally as vain as peacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with the verdict of their contemporaries and ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... the deck rail for a few moments before the ship started on her voyage; leaned there idly and indifferently, as he did most things, smoking his cigarette with an air of complete detachment from the world. He was going to no one, and leaving no one behind. He had money enough to live on, but life had always been something of a bore to him and he could not have endured it without regular ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... now began to add their terrors to those of the wolves. If a small detachment straggled out of the blinding snow, unseen until that time would come a rush of the furious and valiant horsemen of the steppes, and the detachment, hungry and exhausted, would be cut to pieces. They fought with heroic courage, but no man ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... his grasp, and advancing up the chancel with a beating heart and a rapid step. Burrell took advantage of the momentary reprieve, and was hastily proceeding round to the window, when the tramp of many horses came upon his ear. The steel caps and polished blades of a detachment of Cromwell's own Ironsides glittered amid the ruins and trees that surrounded the chapel, and his progress was again stayed by no other than ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... speak of Lord Althorp, his opponent, and of Lord Aberdeen, his chief, dwelling upon the beautiful truthfulness and uprightness of the former and the sweet amiability of the latter, knew that the impression of detachment he gave wronged the sensibility of his own heart. Of how few who have lived for more than sixty years in the full sight of their countrymen, and have been as party leaders exposed to angry and sometimes dishonest criticism, can ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce

... you, however, for the present, glad as I am to have so unexpectedly met you; I have many matters yet which must be attended to; but I will rejoin you without fail the moment I feel myself at liberty to do so. Meanwhile, have no fear of any further violence; a strong detachment of my crew is in possession of both vessels, and the schooner herself is not far distant. I will send some men in to release your companions from their bonds and to help you all in putting matters straight once more; and, as I see that several of you ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... my bed, extracting a selection of barbed wire and splinters from my hands with a large needle, when a Dutch officer walked in to see the curiosity. He greeted me cordially in very good English, introducing himself as Lieutenant Hoffman, in charge of the local detachment of the Frontier Guard, and asked me to lunch ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... straight contest or to become his vassals. The reply came that if Darius wished a conflict he had better outrage their ancestral tombs; as for slavery, they acknowledged only Zeus as their master. But the threat of slavery did its work. A detachment was sent to the Danube to induce the Ionian Greeks to strike for freedom by breaking down the bridge they were guarding, thus cutting off Darius' retreat. To the King himself a Scythian herald brought a present of a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows, implying that unless ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... of Gorgo which lies on the extreme Persian frontier, and that departing thence they were now advancing against his army, remaining himself with the greater part of his troops inside the trench, he sent forward a small detachment with instructions to allow themselves to be seen at a distance by the enemy in the plain, and, when once they had been seen, to flee at full speed to the rear, keeping in mind his command concerning ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... storm, and had put its soldiers and inhabitants to the edge of the sword; on another side, Gilbert of Montpensier, who had been lighting up the sea-coast so as to keep open the communications between the French army and their fleet, had met with a detachment sent by Paolo Orsini to Sarzano, to reinforce the garrison there, and after an hour's fighting had cut it to pieces. No quarter had been granted to any of the prisoners; every man the French could get ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... is, history or no history," Charley replied. "Perhaps all the voyages of gentlemen adventurers following Columbus were not known to the historians of the time. Perhaps this place may have been built by a detachment of De Soto's expedition. We must bear in mind that Florida was long the favorite land amongst the Spaniards. From the small number of buildings, I should say that this place was very likely built by a comparatively small party, using, no doubt, the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... My company was one of those stationed at Fort Phil Kearney, commanded by Colonel Carrington. The country is more or less familiar with the history of that garrison, particularly with the slaughter by the Sioux of a detachment of eighty-one men and officers—not one escaping—through disobedience of orders by its commander, the brave but reckless Captain Fetterman. When that occurred, I was trying to make my way with important dispatches to Fort C. F. Smith, on the Big Horn. ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce

... single-handed, but by the overpowering force of his executive. The rebellious individual has to brave a disciplined host; there are spies who will report his doings, a local authority who will send a detachment of soldiers to drag him to trial; there are prisons ready built to hold him, civil authorities wielding legal powers of stripping him of all his possessions, and official executioners prepared to torture or kill him. The tyrannies under which men have lived, whether under rude barbarian chiefs, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... thirteen, mounted on every available animal in camp. Henry was left behind, but Frank accompanied us, mounted on the recently captured Sancho, proud of his horse and proud to be included in the detachment. ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... The detachment of fifty being on deck—airing—the prison was not quite so hot as at night, and many of the convicts made up for their lack of rest by snatching a dog-sleep in the bared bunks. The four volunteer oarsmen were allowed ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... was therefore ordered to retreat further south, selling every yard of ground as dearly as it had done since 5 o'clock on Thursday. But it was found impossible, without hazarding far larger forces, to disentangle the detachment of the Royal Highlanders of Montreal, Thirteenth Battalion, and of the Royal Montreal Regiment, Fourteenth Battalion. The brigade was ordered, and not a moment too soon, to move back. It left these units with hearts as heavy as those with which his comrades had said farewell to Captain McCuaig. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... and the town rose against its English masters and shut the gates against their brethren. It flew to Mont Pipeau, to Saint Simon, and to this, that, and the other English fortress; and straightway the garrison applied the torch and took to the fields and the woods. A detachment of our army occupied Meung ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... quadrangle two companies of native soldiers and a detachment of artillery constitute the feeble garrison. Don Miguel Peralta canters up to the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... were in possession at Beausejour, Monckton sent a detachment of three hundred men, under Col. Winslow, to demand the surrender of the fort at Bay Verte. Capt. Villeray accepted the same terms as Vergor, and on the 18th of June, 1755, the Isthmus passed for ever out of the possession of the King of France. A large amount ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... before him lay letters to his lawyer, to the coroner, to his wife; and hidden by a mass of papers, but within reach of his hand, was an automatic pistol. The promise it offered of swift release had made the writing of the letters simple, had given him a feeling of complete detachment, had released him, at least in thought, from all responsibilities. And when at his elbow the telephone coughed discreetly, it was as though some one had called him from a world from which already he had ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... scarcely more than a ghost of a sensation, the mere brush of a dexterous hand that slid as quietly as a shadow along the edge of his jacket pocket and groped into it with long clever fingers, while its owner, sitting beside him on the bench, gazed meditatively before him with an air of complete detachment from that skilled felonious hand. Raleigh, waking without moving, was able for a couple of seconds to survey his neighbor, a slim white-faced youth with a black cotton cap slouched forward over one eye. Then, ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... had submitted began to feel the pressure of French domination and to resent the supercilious conduct of French officials. In the spring of 1845 their former Sultan reappeared. He swept down into the valley of the Tafna and routed and cut to pieces a French detachment. In this action the lower part of his right ear was carried away by a musket-ball, the only wound which he ever received. Another detachment of six hundred men laid down their arms without firing a shot. Some stir was made among the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... In the year 1638 a ship, on board of which were all the Electoral jewels to the amount of sixty thousand gulden, was plundered by a detachment from the corps of General Monticuculi, and all the jewels abstracted. Count Schwarzenberg had three officers concerned in it arrested, and carried to Spandow for trial. Although the Emperor himself desired the release of the imperial officers, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... been encouraged by secret promises of cooperation from several other tribes. These failed him, however, when the time of trial arrived, and an improvised force of State volunteers, assisted by General E. P. Gaines and his detachment, had little difficulty in compelling the Indians to re- cross the Mississippi, and to enter into a solemn treaty on the 30th of June by which the former treaties were ratified and Black Hawk and his leading warriors bound themselves ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... an uneasy sense of strain and self-consciousness which it gave him. Maitland's idea seemed to be that all impulses, except the religious impulse in its narrowest sense, needed to be sternly repressed; that the highest life was a severe detachment from all earthly things; that the Christian pilgrim marched along a very narrow way, bristling with pitfalls both of opinion and practice; that the way was defined, hazily by Scripture and precisely by the Church, along which the believer ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... of suffering that would have well served a better cause, this picked detachment of the United States army made its way to the Green River country; and there, counting well the cost of proceeding farther, went into camp at Fort Bridger. Many of the troops had almost perished in the storms, for it was late in November, and the winter had closed in early. Colonel Cooke ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... from Spithead; and in the afternoon of the 20th, having a light breeze from the eastward, with fine weather, our departure was taken from the Start, bearing N. 18 deg. W. five or six leagues. On the following day we fell in with vice-admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell, with a detachment of four three-decked ships from the grand fleet cruising before Brest. It was gratifying to learn from the admiral, that although he had not dropped an anchor for seventeen weeks, there was not a scorbutic man ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... Chamber of Deputies. Being refused admission to the hall, they proceeded to break windows and do other damage. Then a party of dragoons began to clear the bridge, but good-humoredly, and the people were retiring as fast as they might, when a detachment of the Municipal Guard arrived. The Municipal Guard was a handsome corps of mounted police, the men being all stalwart and fine-looking. They wore brazen helmets and horse-tails and glittering breastplates, but they were very unpopular, while the National Guards were looked ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... to desire more. He waited patiently, a slightly ironical and self-contemptuous worshipper at a shrine that very seldom opened its doors, and never admitted him to its altar. It was this irony that Maggie liked in him; she regarded herself in the same way. Their friendship was founded on a mutual detachment. It prospered exceedingly. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... Philistia, and many of them are called Philistines to this day. In the turbulent times of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread all Europe, occupying most of the high places in politics, art, literature, science and theology. Since a detachment of Dullards came over with the Pilgrims in the Mayflower and made a favorable report of the country, their increase by birth, immigration, and conversion has been rapid and steady. According to the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... make decisions on a personal basis, he thought slowly. You had to look at it from the viewpoint of a thousand years. You had to develop a certain detachment, even though one man's lifetime was far too short a period ...
— Decision • Frank M. Robinson

... apparatus consisting of a platinum vessel containing a solution of silver nitrate into which solution a silver anode dips, whose end is wrapped in muslin to prevent the detachment of any particles. When a current is passed by connecting one terminal to the dish and the other to the rod, securing a proper direction of current, silver will be deposited on the dish and the same amount will be ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... said I, 'your trade is spiritual, my father: ask the ghost of Nelson.' A French captain who was in the carriage, was immensely delighted with this small joke. I met him at Calais yesterday going somewhere with a detachment; and he said—Pardon! But he had been so limited as to suppose an Englishman incapable of that bonhommie!" In humouring a joke he was excellent, both in letters and talk; and for this kind of enjoyment his least important little notes are often worth preserving. Take ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... male of the family, a youth of the name of Damon, who was surnamed Peripoltas, and who far surpassed all the youth of his time in beauty and spirit, although he was uneducated and harsh-tempered. The commander of a detachment of Roman soldiers who were quartered during the winter in Chaeronea conceived a criminal passion for Damon, who was then a mere lad, and as he could not effect his purpose by fair means it was evident that he would not hesitate to use force, as ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... at night, all hands were called, those assigned to take part in the expedition were mustered, when Lieut. Shubrick, the commander of the detachment, gave them special orders; when they entered the boats and proceeded to the shore, where they effected a landing near the dawn of day, amid a heavy surf, about a mile and a half to the north of the town, undiscovered by the enemy, and without any serious accident having befallen ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... I cried. "There are times when a higher law than that of military despotism should control our actions. I am going there, orders or no orders. Ebers can command your detachment and accomplish all the service you possibly could. Your rightful place is between these ruffians and the woman you love. How many additional men will be required to make the back of ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... north where the great camp lay he saw spires of smoke rising, and to the east, where a detachment guarded the boats in the river, another column of smoke floated off into the blue dawn. So he inferred that they were yet uncertain about their campaign and that their forces would remain stationary for a little while. But he was sure that warriors ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of the Wallachian party; the other a director of the States Railway Company. In consequence of a serious disturbance which took place some years ago, the elections are now always held outside the town. The voting was in a warehouse adjoining the railway station. A detachment of troops was there to keep order, in fact the two parties were divided from each other by a line of soldiers with fixed bayonets. It was extremely ridiculous. The whole affair was as tame as possible; no more show of fighting than at a Quakers' ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... while at Bennaschen, I was commanded out, with a detachment of thirty hussars and twenty chasseurs, on a foraging party. I had posted my hussars in a convent, and gone myself, with the chasseurs, to a mansion-house, to seize the carts necessary for the conveyance of the hay and straw from a neighbouring farm. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... herds chariots slowly passed, carrying holly barlet, pulled by slow, heavy oxen; here and there passed a detachment of Hoplites or heavy armed troops, corseleted in copper, going to guard Piraeus and Athens during ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... I told the officer that there were from seven to ten thousand Rebel cavalry at Chattanooga, a detachment of whom would surprise him some morning if he ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... in the foregoing section, which; was brought to him by a Peruvian captain named Yllatopa; and, though he considered it as a very unfortunate incident, he took immediate measures to counteract their intentions of joining the enemy, by sending a detachment to occupy the passes of the valley of Jauja, through which they must necessarily march on their way from Guanuco to join Gonzalo. For this purpose, he immediately ordered his brother Vela Nunnez to march in all haste with a detachment of forty light armed cavalry, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... Ber-Rechid, Lieutenant Fardet's detachment being obliged to retreat before a band of four hundred Moors, Private Perenna asked leave to cover the retreat by installing ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... her—and death wouldn't be the worst thing, would it?—it's your fault. Do you hear what I say? It's all your fault!" In all the years since he had known him Jimsy had never seen Carter Van Meter like this,—cool Carter, with his little elegancies of dress and manner, his studied detachment. This was a different person altogether,—hot-eyed, white-lipped, snarling. "Your fault if she dies here, dies of thirst; your fault if they get in here and carry her off, those ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... of its drum. Before I had gone another quarter of a mile it would be in full pursuit of me. I would jump upon a tram, and travel for miles. Then, thinking I had shaken it off, I would alight and proceed upon my walk. Five minutes later another detachment would be upon my heels. I would slink home, the Belgian Army pursuing me with its exultant tattoo. Vanquished, shamed, my insular pride for ever vanished, I would creep up into my room and close ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... Absolutely so. Trust me. Yes. Yes. . . . At my age one knows what one is talking about—que diable!" . . . He had delivered himself of all this as immovably as though he had been the mouthpiece of abstract wisdom, but at this point he heightened the effect of detachment by beginning to twirl his thumbs slowly. "It's evident—parbleu!" he continued; "for, make up your mind as much as you like, even a simple headache or a fit of indigestion (un derangement d'estomac) is enough to . . . Take me, for instance—I ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... En route he was inveigled into a controversy of unwonted bitterness with an innkeeper at le Muy. The scene is conjured up for us with an almost disconcerting actuality; no single detail of the author's discomfiture is omitted. The episode is post-Flaubertian in its impersonal detachment, or, as Coleridge first said, "aloofness." On crossing the Var, the sunny climate, the romantic outline of the Esterelles, the charms of the "neat village" of Cannes, and the first prospect of Nice began gradually and happily to effect a slight mitigation ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... a sharp, involuntary cry. For the sullen steadiness, dispassionateness, detachment with which it was said made it more real than it had been at the ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... who had landed with the kegs were all armed with pistol and cutlass, and the countrymen had heavy sticks and bludgeons. The ten revenue men would have been overpowered, but suddenly a shout was heard, and another party of sailors ran up along the shore, and joined in the fray. It was the detachment from the other station, which had been waiting, at some little distance along the shore, for ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... was detached with 100 men to reconnoitre the country for two leagues round our post; and on seeking Melchorejo to attend as interpreter, he was discovered to have deserted during the night, leaving his clothes behind. A second detachment of equal strength was sent in a different direction under Francisco de Lugo, who had not gone far when he was attacked by several large bodies of the enemy so furiously that he was obliged to fall back, which he did in perfect ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... struck the eye of the Countess de Saldar that Olympus would be a fitting throne for her, and a point whence her shafts might fly without fear of a return. Like another illustrious General at Salamanca, she directed a detachment to take possession of the height. Courtly Sir John Loring ran up at once, and gave the diplomatist an opportunity to thank her flatteringly for gaining them two minutes to themselves. Sir John waved his handkerchief in triumph, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... prince Cardinal Begins his route at the approach of spring From the Milanese; and leads a Spanish army Through Germany into the Netherlands. That he may march secure and unimpeded, 195 'Tis the Emperor's will you grant him a detachment Of eight horse-regiments from the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... and looked at her cousin from the corner of her eye. She had her own ideas about his ability to maintain such detachment. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... Battalion between October, 1914, and April, 1915, while garrisoning the Sudan were of great variety. With the gunners at Khartum Fort, they constituted part of the British force then in the country, of which Colonel Gresham was commander. The detachment left at Port Sudan organised its defences, ran an armoured train, and patrolled the Red Sea in the Enterprise. One group, under Captain R.V. Rylands (afterwards killed on Gallipoli), guarded the railway works at Atbara. ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst

... notwithstanding, the sensitive yet strong intelligence of the priest had gone straight for some core of thought in the Englishman that it seemed only he divined. And it was clear that his own utter selflessness—his poetic and passionate detachment from all the objects of sense and ambition—made him a marvel to Manisty's more turbid and ambiguous nature. There had been a mystical attraction between them from the first; so that Manisty, even when he was most pugnacious, had yet a filial air ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... yellow cloth. These falling back over the flanks of their horses, with their square lancer caps, plumed, and overtopped by the points of the pennoned lances, give them an imposing martial appearance. Though it is but a detachment of not over fifty men—a single troop—riding by twos, the files stretch afar in shining array, its sheen all the more brilliant from contrast with the sombre ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... that Colonel Clark actually crossed the river with his troops, the flight of the Indians is easily explained. They were probably apprised of Colonel Clark's being at Kaskaskia, and his name was every where a terror to the Indians. As an evidence of this, a short time afterwards, he sent a detachment of one hundred and fifty men, as far up the country as Prairie des Chiens, and from thence across Rock and Illinois rivers and down to Kaskaskia, meeting with no molestation from the Indians, who were struck with terror at the boldness of the enterprise, saying that if so few dared to come, they ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... the presence of mind of a servant named Gill, who, unperceived, put into his master's hands an old passport in the name of General Churchill. The Frenchman, intent only on plunder, seized all the plate and valuables in the boat, and made prisoners the small detachment of soldiers who accompanied them; but, ignorant of the inestimable prize within his grasp, allowed the remainder of the party, including Marlborough, to proceed on their way. On this occasion, it may truly be said, the boat carried Caesar and his fortunes. He arrived in safety at the Hague, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... liberty and authority had been very nearly attained in the British Constitution, as nearly perhaps as common human frailty would permit. The prevailing "thirst for liberty," which seemed to be "the ruling passion of the age," Mr. Hutchinson was therefore able to contemplate with much sanity and detachment. "In governments under arbitrary rule" such a passion for liberty might, he admitted, "have a salutary effect; but in governments in which as much freedom is enjoyed as can consist with the ends of government, as ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... to go, but somehow I lost the road. At last, as I thought, I found it, and had gone a few steps when I came on a detachment of wooden soldiers, drawn up on their lazy tongs. I thought it better to wait till they got out of the way, so I turned back, and sat down in a corner in some alarm. As I did so, I heard a click, and the lid of a small box ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Rider. He tried to ridicule the black troops engaged in the Battle of Rhode Island and contended that only a few of them took part in the contest.[54] On the other hand we have two distinguished witnesses in their favor. The Marquis de Chastellux said that "at the passage to the ferry I met a detachment of the Rhode Island regiment, the same corps we had with us the last summer, but they have since been recruited and clothed. The greatest part of them are Negroes or Mulattoes; but they are strong, robust men, and those I have seen had a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... Then, nerving himself to the effort, he set off at a little, waddling gait, which shook his fat paunch and made the whole detachment laugh till they cried. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... Wood started about an hour after breakfast—Lady Laura, Mrs. Dacre, Barbara Fermor, and Clarissa, in one carriage; two Miss Dacres, Lady Geraldine, and Mrs. Wilmot in the other; Lizzy Fermor and Rose Dacre on horseback; with a small detachment of gentlemen in attendance upon them. There were wide grassy waste lands on each side of the road almost all the way to the wood, on which the equestrian party could disport themselves, without much inconvenience from the dust of the two carriages. Once ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... step, was that Dolfo Spini with a band of his Compagnacci was to be posted in ambush on the road, at a lonely spot about five miles from the gates; that he was to seize Savonarola with the Dominican brother who would accompany him according to rule, and deliver him over to a small detachment of Milanese horse in readiness near San Casciano, by whom he was to be ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... is at the foot of the hill, where they have made a halt. We must wait a few moments, till I can ascertain what they mean to do. Ah! I see. They are dividing into three parties. One detachment, headed by Nicholas Assheton, with whom are Potts and Nowell, is about to make the ascent from the spot where they now stand; another, commanded by Sir Ralph Assheton, is moving towards the but-end of the hill; and the third, headed by Sir Thomas Metcalfe, is proceeding to the right. These are goodly ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... talk and forgot his unhappy chance, she further reflected, "I don't think I've ever seen him till now in evening dress; it does make him a good figure." This went on behind a faultless coiffure and an expression almost classical in its detachment; but if Miss Milburn could have thought on a level with her looks I, for one, would hesitate to take any ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... sort of twilight—there came another curious picture. Thus—a wooden town shut in among low, treeless, rolling ground, a calling river that ran unseen between scarped banks; barracks of a detachment of mounted police, a little cemetery where ex-troopers rested, a painfully formal public garden with pebble paths and foot-high fir trees, a few lines of railway buildings, white women walking up and down in the bitter cold with their bonnets off, some Indians in red blanketing with buffalo horns ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... excited by some unguarded expression of the common men, respecting his conduct, and which, to the jealous ear of a new created and untried authority, sounded like the tone of disaffection. Only the cavalry were allowed to mount guard, the infantry were, provisionally, superseded by a detachment from a fine regiment of hussars. On account of the shortness of this parade, which is always dismissed precisely at ten minutes past twelve o'clock, it is not much attended. The band is very fine, they had a turkish military instrument, which ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... not suspecting that at that moment Dubois's police had sent a detachment to each of their dwellings, and that an exempt was even then on the spot with orders to arrest them. Thus all who had taken part in the meeting, saw, from afar, the bayonets of soldiers at their houses: ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... in the neighbourhood of Tipperary, but he quickly saw the folly of attempting a revolution with the scanty band of unarmed men that rallied round him. On the evening of the 6th his followers were attacked by a detachment of soldiers at Ballyhurst Fort, about three miles from Tipperary; Burke saw the uselessness of resistance, and advised his followers to disperse—an injunction which they appear to have obeyed. Burke himself was thrown from his horse and captured. He was conveyed to the jail of ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... be there. You shall receive half the payments we have agreed upon before we start, the rest shall be paid you when you return with the boats and hand them over for the second detachment to go." ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... poetically, or else are misinterpreting your experience. But if you do not deny this, then you will admit that the action and characters of the poem, as you separately imagine them, are no part of it, but a product of it in your reflective imagination, a faint analogue of one aspect of it taken in detachment from the whole. Well, I do not dispute, I would even insist, that, in the case of so long a poem as Hamlet, it may be necessary from time to time to interrupt the poetic experience, in order to enrich it by forming such a product ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... retreat, the report turned out to be but too true. A detachment of the enemy came to my father and informed him, that the whole army was encamped not far out of his dominions, and would invade the territory and deprive his people of their liberties and rights, if he did not comply with the following terms. These ...
— A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of • Venture Smith

... up in the fairway. I'd come to look on Rocky's aunt as such a permanency at her own home that it didn't seem possible that she could really be here in New York. I stared at her. Then I looked at Jeeves. He was standing there in an attitude of dignified detachment, the chump, when, if ever he should have been rallying round the young master, ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... in town, Anderson, who was very punctilious in regard to settling all debts due by the United States to citizens, determined to send a detachment, under Lieutenant Davis, back to Fort Moultrie as a guard to Captain Foster, to enable him to pay off the claims of the workmen he had left behind. Doctor Crawford went over also, to look after some ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday

... hack'd, and hew'd, yet not destroy'd. The little ones unbutton'd, glowing hot, Playing our games, and on the very spot; As happy as we once to kneel and draw The chalky ring and knuckle down at taw. This fond detachment to the well known place, When first we started into life's long race, Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it e'en in age and at our latest ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... scenery, seems to identify itself with nature, and on returning to its normal state asks with surprise, can it be that what seems a small distant personality is really I? The usual form of Jhana comprises four stages[686]. The first is a state of joy and ease born of detachment, which means physical calm as well as the absence of worldly desires and irrelevant thoughts. It is distinguished from the subsequent stages by the existence of reasoning and investigation, and while it lasts the mind is compared to water agitated by waves. In the second Jhana reasoning ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... whose work lies chiefly in the remote rural districts, far away from the few cities in which European conditions of life to some extent prevail, are brought daily into the very closest contact with the people, and because of their absolute detachment from the prejudices and passions and material interests by which Indian society, like all other societies, is largely swayed, they enjoy the confidence of the people often in a higher degree than ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... coming out, and, on a boat from the Leviathan boarding her, the master informed the officer in command that the French fleet had sailed some days before. This report was found to be correct, and the same evening the reconnoitring detachment rejoined the fleet. ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... Thermopylae beheld the approach of Xerxes with dismay; they had anticipated considerable re-enforcements from the confederate states, especially Sparta, which last had determined to commit all her strength to the campaign, leaving merely a small detachment for the defence of the capital. But the Carneian festival in honour of the great Dorian Apollo, at Sparta, detained the Lacedaemonians, and the Olympic games diverted the rest of the allies, not ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the closely built portion of the city when the skirmish line came running back to say that it had been met by a detachment of Mendoza's cavalry, who had galloped away as soon as they saw them. There was then no longer any doubt that the fact of their coming was known at the Palace, and Clay halted his men in a bare plaza and divided them into three columns. Three ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... scattered the main body of the enemy a detachment of riflemen had ridden round to attack the British rear and convoy. A few volleys from the escort drove them off, however, with some loss. Altogether, what with the loss of nine guns and of at least 200 men, the rout of Haartebeestefontein ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... 5th, a detachment of Arabs and slaves, seven hundred strong, scoured the surrounding country, and carried fire and devastation up ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... become primary necessaries in the appointment of a well-furnished house. Here, indeed, is a revolution; a revolution more formidable than the French and the American emancipation put together. We all remember the time when one tea-table, two or three card-tables, a pier glass, a small detachment of chairs, with two armed corporals to command them, on either side the fire-place, with a square piece of carpet in the centre of the floor, made a very decent display in the drawing, or (as it was then preposterously called) the dining-room. As yet, rugs for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various

... well-armed men, all Civil War veterans, had slipped across the Niagara River at Fort Erie. They made short work of all in sight, threw out a couple of hundred men who burned a bridge and tore up the railroad tracks. Their scouts fired on a small British detachment, which ran. On the morning of June 2 news came of a larger Canadian force advancing, and O'Neill went out to meet them. Deploying his men in a field near the high road at a place called Ridgway, he sent his pickets forward. They found heavy ground in front and about three-quarters of ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... following leads to Grunsdorf; which, according to the information I collected before leaving, cannot be above a mile distant. Now, we must be cautious. It is quite possible that a detachment of the enemy may have been sent up to the village, and in that case we might catch a Tartar. Even if there are no Germans there, we must be cautious, or the bird will escape. We neither know him, nor the house he lives in and—as he would naturally guess that his treachery had ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... rapidly and thought them almost within grasp. But "the best laid plans of mice and men, etc., etc." Desperation nerved them and they flew down the pike, scattering the stones behind. But we ran them into the net prepared. The detachment that had gone out later from camp struck the pike opportunely and received the enemy warmly as we drove him into their arms. A brisk engagement followed, partly hand to hand. The fight was soon over, ...
— Bugle Blasts - Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of - the Loyal Legion of the United States • William E. Crane

... colleague Dr. Theodor Herzl.' We have thus this extraordinary situation. Many orthodox Jews stood aloof from the Zionistic movement because it was not Messianic, while many unorthodox Jews joined it just because of the movement's detachment from Messianic ideas. ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams

... room at his pleasure with bolts and bars untouched. Broad and open as is this Gate of Memory, when you pass its portals the wall closes behind you; there is no visible opening to mark the spot of your entry. A feeling of detachment comes over you. This is augmented by the burst of light and color that flashes across the field of your vision, and for the first time you understand the purport of those 'banners yellow, glorious, golden' which 'do float and flow.' ...
— The Fourth Dimensional Reaches of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition • Cora Lenore Williams

... on himself. How often in the past ten years it had done that! He had sat off, with a sort of professional detachment, and studied his own case. With the entrance into his world of the new science of psycho-analysis he had made now and then small, not very sincere, attempts to penetrate the veil of his own unconscious devising. Not very sincere, for with ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... rusty and mean. His face, shaved but once in two or three days, his dirty bald head, his black nails, old snuff-colored-coats, greasy hats, threadbare cravats, black woolen hose, and coarse shoes, recommended him singularly to his clients, by giving him an air of detachment from the world, and a perfume of practical philosophy, which charmed them. "To what pleasures—what passions— could the notary," said they, "sacrifice the confidence which was shown him? He gained, perhaps, sixty thousand francs a year, and ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... rarer; you wade in sand. One realizes how useless it would be to construct a good road in these parts, since every storm would drown it. And such storms are sometimes of great force; there was a celebrated one in 1857 which lasted for seventy-two hours. It threw some of the riders of a French detachment off their horses, and finally obliged the whole company to stamp up and down for twenty-four hours in the twilight of raging sand for fear of being buried alive. It submerged several hundred palm trees of the Tozeur oasis up to their crowns (they ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... beautiful watch and presented it to the enemy's officer, who received this present in the same way as his had been accepted. After these acts of courtesy, the Russian rear-guard filed off rapidly to give ground to our vanguard. The King of Naples, followed by his staff and a detachment of cavalry, went down into the streets of Moscow, traversed alternately the poorest and the richest quarters, rows of wooden houses crowded together, and a succession of splendid palaces rising from amidst vast gardens: he found everywhere the most profound silence. It seemed as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... at Ascension on November 7th. This barren and inhospitable volcanic island has presented a singularly unpromising field of labour to the naval detachment which for many years has been maintained there. Solid and capacious stores, extensive ranges of buildings, miles of roads, the tanks, the hospitals on the seashore and on the mountain, the farm on the peak—a green oasis crowning a heap of cinders—attest ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... the new life began. The neighborhood was quaint and poor, a part of that old Greenwich Village which at one time was a center of quiet and chaste respectability, with its winding streets, its old-fashioned low brick houses, its trees, its general air of detachment and hushed life. Now it was a scene of slovenliness and dust, of miserable lives huddled thickly in inadequate houses, of cheap roomers and boarders, of squalid poverty—a mix of many nations well-sprinkled ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... on boats as I thought," replied Henry, "and he left a detachment here with the boats, while he went across country. Maybe he was on an exploring expedition or something of that kind, when Braxton Wyatt overtook him ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... time had brought the car to ground, and were now standing about on one leg with folded wings and an air of detachment. The Marshal alighted and advanced slowly towards the Stimpsons while the heralds sounded ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... December. He again repaired on board of one of the ships, and on the first of January, 1776, the frigate Liverpool, two corvettes and the governor's armed sloop, opened a terrible fire on the city; and at the same time, a detachment of marines landed, and set fire to the houses. In this manner was destroyed on of the most opulent and flourishing cities ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin

... quite complete, the night was needed for him to finish them. During the night, Moreau, having heard of Seckendorff's success on his extreme right, sent an order to Serrurier commanding him to leave at Lecco, which was an easy post to defend, the 18th light brigade and a detachment of dragoons only, and to draw back with the rest of his troops towards the centre. Serrurier received this order about two o'clock in the morning, and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... thousand different manners, and, when he had seen the small number of his enemies, he could not believe that they really meant to oppose his passage; but when he was told that this was surely their design, he sent out a small detachment of his troops, and ordered them to take those Grecians alive and bring them bound before him. The Persian troops set out and attacked the Grecians with considerable fury; but in an instant they were routed, the greater part slain, and ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... was really dramatic. While a long procession of priests and young virgins in white veils, bearing tapers, marshalled itself in one of the streets, a review of the King's troops went forward outside the town. On its return a large detachment of cavalry passed across the space where the incense was burning, the pictured banners swaying and the litany being droned, and checked the advance of the little ecclesiastical troop. The long vista of the street, between the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... might have remarked that the emotional temperature rather rose at so unemotional an interruption. The detachment of a professional celibate seemed to reveal to the others that they stood round the woman as a ring of amorous rivals; just as a stranger coming in with frost on his coat will reveal that a room is like a furnace. The presence of the one man who did not care ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... a man that wasted no time, was Colonel Clark, and within the hour our little detachment had joined the others, felling trees and shaping the log-ends for the cabins. That night, as Tom and Cowan and McCann and James Ray lay around their fire, taking a well-earned rest, a man broke excitedly into the light with a kettle-shaped object balanced on his head, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... could be. Next he inserted a long fuse. A dozen men rolled the cannon to the top of the stairs leading down into the city, first removing it from its carriage. One of them then lit the fuse and the whole thing was given a shove down the stairway, while the detachment turned and scampered to ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs



Words linked to "Detachment" :   breach, patrol, falling out, rupture, rift, detach, rearguard, press gang, change, flanker, break, provost guard, isolation, modification, separation, indifference, severance, army unit, bodyguard, picket, alteration



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