Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Perpetrate   Listen
verb
Perpetrate  v. t.  (past & past part. perpetrated; pres. part. perpetrating)  To do or perform; to carry through; to execute, commonly in a bad sense; to commit (as a crime, an offense); to be guilty of; as, to perpetrate a foul deed. "What the worst perpetrate, or best endure."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Perpetrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... situation. The absence of it made him more angry than before. He stormed and hurled denunciations at the offender; he rehearsed the mischief he had done during the day, and alluded in strong terms to that which he intended to perpetrate in the "dead watches of the night"—which was the poetical rendering of half-past six in the evening; for the squire was fond ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... flashing eye, her queenly gait, her haughty aspect, and all the workings of pride and craft and ambition expressed in her faded but still striking features. With what utter contempt would she look upon the husband who sank into despondency because he had not the skill to devise, or the will to perpetrate, the iniquity which would insure ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... here the 31st chapter of Numbers, but it is unfit to read. It tells a story of shame and crime unequalled in atrocity. It tells that God commanded Moses and Eleazar, the priest, to produce vice and perpetrate crime on an unparalleled scale. It tells us that they obeyed the order, and that 16,000 helpless girls were dragged in the mire of infamy and divided amongst the victorious soldiers. They were made dissolute by force, and by ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... over the keyboard from bottom, to top and back again with a series of curious modulations. Then opening his bag and beginning to get out his tools, he said, "Before I went into the army, there was a man named Bernstein in these parts, who used to perpetrate outrages like this ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... "Don't you dare perpetrate that," said Mae. "You are thinking of the famous old sob song, 'Oh, Fair Dove, oh, Fond Dove'. But please forget it. It does ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... in number, made another visit to the camp. The shores were strewed with articles of inestimable value to these poor Indians. Sentinels were stationed to prevent any robbery; but the Indians manifested no disposition to perpetrate any ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... them. As to the "rancorous hatred that smouldered in that sad heart of his," in spite of all his oddities, all his "cantankerousness," to use one of his own words, he was a singularly steadfast and loyal friend. Indeed, it was the very steadfastness of his friendship that drove him to perpetrate that outrage at Mr. Bevan's house, recorded in Dr. Gordon Hake's "Memoirs." I need only recall the way in which he used to speak of those who had been kind to him (such as his publisher, Mr. John Murray for instance) to show that no one could ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... misfortune. Therefore, as every one complains, the course of the world now is such that both young and old are altogether dissolute and beyond control, have no reverence nor sense of honor, do nothing except as they are driven to it by blows, and perpetrate what wrong and detraction they can behind each other's back; therefore God also punishes them, that they sink into all kinds of filth and misery. As a rule, the parents, too, are themselves stupid and ignorant; one fool trains ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... them. If this was a sort of Pearl Harbor attack by human enemies—and you can guess who it might be—they might as well start killing us on the largest possible scale at the beginning. If monsters with no information about us landed, they might perpetrate some massacres with the entirely foolish idea of cowing us. But there haven't been any massacres. So it's neither a cold war trick nor an unadvised landing of monsters. There's another angle in it somewhere. Monster-human cooperation is only a guess. I'm not satisfied, ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... as this precious document implied, could have been offered to the common sense of a whole community, even by the late tory administration; or that men could have been found in the nineteenth century to perpetrate so gross an outrage on the best feelings of a numerous body of reputable men." During the ensuing four or five years, we are told by the same authority that it was completely in the power of the archdeacon and clergy "to have formed a noble institution for the general education of the youth of ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... extenuated? Is there not a good that I can do thee? Must I perpetrate unmingled evil? Is the province assigned me that of an infernal emissary, whose efforts are concentred in a single purpose, and that purpose a malignant one? I am the author of thy calamities. Whatever misery is reserved for thee, I am the source ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... opportunity to outwit our vigilance. The other, the grey fly, works jointly with the greenbottles, who do not venture inside our houses and who work in the sunlight. Less timid, however, than they, should the outdoor yield be small, she will sometimes come indoors to perpetrate her villainies. When her business is done, she makes off as fast as she can, for she does not feel at home ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... fall from it; and that nothing the artist can do, though they be the veriest "aegri somnia," will separate from him habitual followers, who, with a zeal in proportion to the extravagances he may perpetrate, will lose their relish for, and depreciate the great masters, whose very principles he seems capriciously in his age to set aside, and they will from followers become his worshippers, and in pertinacity exact entire compliance, and assent to every, the silliest, dictation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... THEM. Which can be easily justified, inasmuch as there is no shepherd who does not place barriers against the wolves, and does not endeavour to save his flock, and I have already exposed to your Majesty the damage which the Gitanos perpetrate ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... piece of folly that had to come in some form, I suppose," she soliloquized, "although I did not think Willard anything like so sure to perpetrate it as most young men. Well, the girl has saved me not a little trouble, for, of course, I should have been compelled to break the thing up;" and she sat down to watch and wait. She waited so long that anxiety decidedly got the better of ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... exclamation of horror, for until now he had hardly believed it was possible that even Nana Sahib could perpetrate so atrocious a massacre. Not another word was spoken until ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... bribe, a reward; it does not differ very much from the principle upon which all criminal legislation is founded, to say the least of it. We punish men when they do wrong. I never heard that it was an objection to legislation that it punished those who perpetrate a wrong. I never heard that it was an objection to legislation that it held out rewards to ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... food he became so furious, that he would instantly perpetrate the deed. On this it is related as in the Sigurdarkvida, when Gunnar and Brynhild ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... boys, so as to secure admission for each before the end of his tenth year. It was the delay of the authorities in granting the request which, after the lapse of three years or more, made Joseph ineligible. The father could have had no motive in 1776 to perpetrate a fraud, and after that date it was impossible, for the papers were not in his hands; moreover, the minister of war wrote in 1778 that the name of the elder Buonaparte boy had already been withdrawn. That charge was made during Napoleon's lifetime. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... think of something to say, but find, to your horror, that your reasoning faculties have left you. It is a moment of despair, and your evil genius, seizing the opportunity, suggests to you some of the most idiotic remarks that it is possible for a human being to perpetrate. Glancing round with an imbecile smile, you sniggeringly observe that "it hasn't got much hair has it?" Nobody answers you for a minute, but at last the stately nurse ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... criminals were in active demand; their bodies were expeditiously transferred from the gallows or scaffold to the operating table, and their dead limbs were made to struggle and plunge, their eyeballs to roll, and their features to perpetrate the most horrible contortions by connecting nerves with one pole, and muscles with the opposite pole ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... me merely to take off my hat: the bow and the general effrontery were of my own invention. God knows what instigated me to perpetrate the outrage! In my frenzy I felt as though I were ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... and as a natural consequence, there was upon them a dim gleamy look—a spectral character that was frightful, and filled the mind with an impression that the meeting must have been one of supernatural beings, if not an assemblage of actual devils, in visible shape, coming to perpetrate on earth some deed of darkness ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... narrative, and said the miscreant must have lowered himself by a rope from the parapet, and passed the powder inside without entering. "He periled his life to perpetrate this crime; and he also risked penal servitude for ten years. That he was not deterred by the double risk, proves the influence of some powerful motive; and that motive must have been either a personal feud of a very virulent kind, or else trade ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... to the prison, Hester Prynne was found to be in a state of nervous excitement that demanded constant watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe. As night approached, it proving impossible to quell her insubordination by rebuke or threats of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician. He described him as a man ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... "check" the growth of the colonies, Franklin indignantly exclaimed: "It is a modest word, this 'check' for massacring men, women, and children!" If Canada is to be "restored on this principle, ... will not this be telling the French in plain terms, that the horrid barbarisms they perpetrate with Indians on our colonists are agreeable to us; and that they need not apprehend the resentment of a government with whose views they so happily concur." But he had the audacity to say that he was abundantly certain that the mother country could never have any occasion to ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... A. Oh, Farcillo, perpetrate the dark deed tomorrow; let me live till then, for my past kindness to you, and it may be some kind angel will show to you that I am not only the object of innocence, but one who never loved ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... exaggerations, and absurdities of certain tour-writers. It is a lamentable fact that, now-a-days, every booby who gets on board a steamer, and leaves England for a few weeks or months, thinks himself entitled to perpetrate a book about what he sees and hears. We would fain whisper to such persons, that mere locomotion never qualified any body to write a book, even of travels; that some powers of observation, and a certain correctness of judgment, and even some previous acquaintance with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... are about to perpetrate will only exasperate the Indians the more," said I. "If they were to treat them well, and let them go, they would be more likely to put ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... wedding has confused my brain. Sis"—turning suddenly to Abbie—"Have you prepared Ester for her fate? Does she fully understand that she and I are to officiate? that is, if we don't evaporate before the eventful day. Sis, how could you have the conscience to perpetrate a wedding in August? Whatever takes Foster abroad just now, any way?" And without waiting for answer to his ceaseless ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... make good terms for herself with Spain, "if the worst came to the, worst." It will also soon be shown that he did his best to carry these schemes into execution. There is no evidence, however, and no probability, that he had received the royal commands to perpetrate such a crime. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... our day who have sinned most against the laws of writing are Browning and Meredith, the one in verse, the other in prose. I speak not merely of obscurities, to perpetrate which is in every sense to stand in one's own light, but of sheer fatuities, tweakings-of-the-nose to our reverend mother-tongue, as either might have expressed it. But what I am most concerned to suggest here is that the distinction between prose and ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... here. During his second visit to London he came in contact with a certain amateur violinist whose professed fondness for the extreme upper notes of his instrument was such as to incite Haydn to perpetrate a joke at his expense. He therefore wrote a seemingly simple sonata for piano and violin, which he called 'Jacob's Dream,' and dispatched it anonymously to the conceited violinist. The player was charmed with the manner in which the piece began. It was apparent ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... wickedness of woman." And in the same manner, as we may gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles, Tully, describing the nature of women, says, "Men, perhaps, for the sake of some advantage will commit one crime; but woman, to gratify one inclination, will not scruple to perpetrate all sorts of wickedness." Thus ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... downwards, wits and authors innumerable have made themselves and the public more or less merry at the expense of the earlier efforts of the student of a strange tongue; but it has been reserved to our own time for a soi disant instructor to perpetrate—at his own expense—the monstrous joke of publishing a Guide to Conversation in a language of which it is only too evident that every word is utterly strange to him. The Teutonic sage who evolved the ideal portrait of an ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca

... find one in manuscript of 550 pages, compiled in 1766, in the Cuomo Library at Naples.] treated in the heroic style and metre, as though he were a new Achilles. As a jeu d'esprit the book might pass; but it is deadly serious. Single men will always be found to perpetrate monstrosities of literature; the marvel is that an entire generation of writers should have worked themselves into a state of mind which solemnly approved of ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... characteristics of criminals have much to do with not only the crimes they commit, but the manner in which they perpetrate their deeds, and in a consideration of what has been accomplished, heredity plays a strong part. Some men are born with an adeptness for crime of a certain character. Let the opportunity arise, and they yield to the stress of circumstance and become ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... ingenuities of this kind. For instance, if the kind of taxation—in the shape of a Compulsory Loan—proposed by "Ex-M.P." were enforced, how can we be sure that it would not take a large slice off capital, the next heir to which is a soldier or a sailor? Bad finance is so much easier to perpetrate than to remedy that one is almost certain to come across such objections as this to any scheme for making the war profiteers "cough ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... liver and temper inflamed. He kicked his phonographic-news machine to pieces, dismissed his valet, and resolved that he would perpetrate a terrible revenge upon Elizabeth. Or Denton. Or somebody. But anyhow, it was to be a terrible revenge; and the friend who had made fun at him should no longer see him in the light of a foolish girl's victim. He knew something of the little ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... and so mischievous!" ejaculated the Prince; and then he conversed with Vivian for some time in a whisper. "Essper," at length Vivian said, "you have committed one of the most perfect and most injurious blunders that you could possibly perpetrate. The mischief which may result from your imprudent conduct is incalculable. How long is it since you have thought proper to regulate your conduct on the absurd falsehoods of a drunken steward? His Highness and myself wish to consult in private; but on no account leave the house. Now ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... another occasion, and, as was believed, with the approbation of the whole country, remonstrated against outrages similar but even less inhuman than those which by her new edicts and decrees she has threatened to perpetrate, and of which the late inhuman massacre at Tabasco ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... Physco's friends, and slew a great number of them; nay, after this Ptolemy saw a terrible ghost, which prohibited his hurting those men; his very concubine, whom he loved so well, [some call her Ithaca, and others Irene,] making supplication to him, that he would not perpetrate so great a wickedness. So he complied with her request, and repented of what he either had already done, or was about to do; whence it is well known that the Alexandrian Jews do with good reason celebrate this day, on the account that they had thereon been vouchsafed such an evident ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus

... latter days by a terrible disorder which racked his body with pain, and inflamed his soul with suspicions, while his court was distracted with cabals from his own family, which poisoned his life, and led him to perpetrate unnatural cruelties. He had already executed two favorite sons, by Mariamne whom he loved, all from court intrigues and jealousy, and he then executed his son and heir, by Doris, his first wife, whom he had divorced ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... asked her how she dared perpetrate such a fraud, she protested she had no ill designs; but that, as Miss would be never the worse for it, she thought it pity nobody should ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... on no grounds, which will not equally serve to justify the assassins who have been instanced. The conclusion cannot be eluded; no man was ever more fully persuaded of the innocence of any action, than these men were, that the horrid deed they were about to perpetrate was not lawful merely, but highly meritorious. Thus Clement and Ravaillac being unquestionably sincere, they were therefore indubitably innocent. Nay, the absurdity of this principle might be shewn to be even greater than what has yet been stated. It would not be going too far to assert, that whilst ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... blow. Hid in a weedy lake all night I lay, Secure of safety when they sail'd away. But now what further hopes for me remain, To see my friends, or native soil, again; My tender infants, or my careful sire, Whom they returning will to death require; Will perpetrate on them their first design, And take the forfeit of their heads for mine? Which, O! if pity mortal minds can move, If there be faith below, or gods above, If innocence and truth can claim desert, Ye Trojans, from ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... murdered you." As he uttered these words he sprang to the side, and would have thrown himself overboard, had not Thole, who just then came on deck, caught him by the legs and dragged him forcibly back. The unhappy man struggled violently in his endeavour to perpetrate his intention. "Jim, Jim, my son! you gone—gone for ever; how can I go home and face your mother, my boy?" he cried, his bosom heaving with the passion raging within. Then he turned frantically to us, swearing oaths ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... can exist. An awful judgment! But it was for the most awful crime that man can commit in the sight of God, of which the punishment is on earth. Exhaust the catalogue of human depravity—name every crime human turpitude can possibly perpetrate, and which has been perpetrated on earth since the fall of Adam, and no such judgment of God on any people has ever before fallen, on their commission. But one crime, one other crime, and that crime the same for which he had destroyed every living thing on earth, save ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne

... infuriated Heselrigge; and in that moment he plunged his sword into her defenseless breast. Halbert, who had all this time been held back by the soldiers, could not believe that the fierce governor would perpetrate the horrid deed he threatened; but seeing it done, with a giant's strength and a terrible cry he burst from the hands that held him, and had thrown himself on the bleeding Marion, before her murderer could strike his second blow. However, it fell, and pierced through the neck of the faithful ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... trembled at the contemplation of the wickedness she was about to perpetrate; but she did not draw back from it. She slid her arm around his neck and kissed him ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... the bantling's dawning days?— Precocious shall he prove, and harass The world with inconvenient ways And lisped conundrums that embarrass? (Such as Impressionists delight To offer each aesthetic gaper, And faddists hyper-Ibsenite Rejoice to perpetrate on paper?) ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various

... book of a bishop or a missionary may be and often is of undoubted value in reference to his work and matters connected with his work, but when the writer gets outside this particular province and deals with subjects his knowledge of which must be at the best second-hand he is almost certain to perpetrate some flagrant mistakes, and occasionally indite the most egregious nonsense. I shall not particularly apply these remarks, but I think it necessary to utter this word of warning as the literary effusions of some very estimable men and women in regard to Japan have ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... castle in the service of the Church. Thereat the Pope, raising his hand, and making a large open sign of the cross upon my face, told me that he blessed me, and that he gave me pardon for all murders I had ever perpetrated, or should ever perpetrate, in the service of the Apostolic Church. When I felt him, I went aloft, and never stayed from firing to the utmost of my power; and few were the shots of mine that missed their mark. My drawing, and my fine studies in my craft, and my charming art of music, all were swallowed ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... which Colonel Sziszkinski now bears, and that will end the matter. If not, we must maroon the fellow upon some spot from which it will be practically impossible for him to escape, as he is altogether too wicked a man to be permitted the opportunity to perpetrate further wrong." ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Horatio was hanged. Since there was no curtain, the actors could never be "discovered" on the stage and were forced to make an exit at the end of every scene. Plays were produced by daylight, under the sun of afternoon; and the stage could not be darkened, even when it was necessary for Macbeth to perpetrate a midnight murder. ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... these cruel and wicked deceptions, and many more like them, are regarded, on the highest commercial authority, as 'forms of competition' and justifiable proceedings in trade. Do you believe in the honourable accumulation of wealth by men who hold such opinions and perpetrate such impostures as these? I don't! Do you find any brighter and purer prospect when you look down from the man who deceives you and me on the great scale, to the man who deceives us on the small? I don't! Everything we eat, drink, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... the surgeons were debating the propriety of amputating it in his hearing, he begged them to spare the leg, as it was very valuable, being an "imported leg." He was of Irish birth, and this well-timed piece of wit saved his leg, for the surgeons thought, if he could perpetrate a joke at such a time, they would trust to his vitality ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... like unto the Saracens, that ye have abolished true religion and worship and have turned to a superstition corrupt and fatal, the which in your zeal to maintain and to spread abroad there be no shame nor cruelty ye do not dare to perpetrate. You defile the sacraments of the Church, tear to pieces the articles of her faith, overthrow her temples. The images which were made for similitudes you break and throw into the fire. Finally such Christians as embrace not your faith you massacre. What fury, what ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... sweetly. "Which means that I am to be held to the strict obligations of my position, but that the Grand Duke Armand can perpetrate any inconsistency ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... still had an idea of playing some sort of a joke upon Jack Sheldon, albeit a good-natured one, and not the kind that Herring and boys of that ilk would be likely to perpetrate. ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh

... would revisit my mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that could not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness. I had an obscure feeling that all was not over and that he would still commit some signal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the past. There was always scope for fear so long as anything I loved remained behind. My ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... no man's hand Assuredly, except my own:—or thine, If so thou wilt. Ah, perpetrate the deed; Kill me; and drag me, palpitating yet, Before thy judge austere: my blood will be A proud acquittance ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... exclaimed stoutly. "I dare you to fire, if you can bring yourself to perpetrate so ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... remarks of this rat that they are only second to the white ants for the mischief they perpetrate. "They burrow in the gardens, and destroy the sweet potatoes; they make their nests in the roofs by day, and visit our houses and larders by night. They will eat into teak drawers, boxes, and book-cases, and can go up and down anything ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... while they are often absurd, they are rarely baseless. People do not go about inventing rumors, except for purposes of hoax; and even a practical joke is never (to parody the proverb) hoax et praeterea nihil. There is always a reason for wanting to perpetrate the hoax, or a reason for believing it will ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... Under the government of this prophet, the anabaptists mastered the city of Munster. Here they confiscated property, plundered churches, violated females, murdered men who refused to join the gang, and, in briefs practised all the enormities which humanity alone can conceive or perpetrate. The prophet proclaimed himself King of Sion, and sent out apostles to preach his doctrines in Germany and the Netherlands. Polygamy being a leading article of the system, he exemplified the principle by marrying fourteen wives. Of these, the beautiful widow of Matthiszoon was chief, was called ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... offended, I hope," returned Wood, drily, "if I say that your voice, your manner, and, above all, your very extraordinary way of laughing, put me strangely in mind of one of the 'droll dogs,' (as you term them,) who helped to perpetrate the outrage ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... what she has done, I shall leave your house and disown you for my brother if you perpetrate this outrage upon my niece. She is dear to me as if she were my own child. Have I not brought her up since babyhood? If you carry out this order, brother, I will leave Haddon ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... destructive energy they are peculiarly subject to a long reaction of weakness which very often leads to their own destruction. If this were not a natural law, if criminals could exert continually the same energy and command the same superhuman cunning which momentarily helped them to perpetrate a crime, the world would be in danger of being possessed and ruled by them, instead of being mercifully, and perhaps too much, inclined to treat them as degenerates and madmen. Their conduct after committing a murder, for instance, seems to depend much more on ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... who had cautiously evaded it, stumbles over it at Bunker Hill. And why? Because it is not political, but moral,—because it is not local, but national,—because it is not a test of party, but of individual honesty and honor. The wrong which we allow our nation to perpetrate we cannot localize, if we would; we cannot hem it within the limits of Washington or Kansas; sooner or later, it will force itself into the conscience and sit by the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... peruko. Periwinkle (plant) vinko. Perjury jxurrompo. Permanent konstanta, dauxra. Permeable penetrebla. Permission permeso. Permissive permesa. Permit permesi. Permutation intersxangxo. Pernicious pereiga. Perpendicular perpendikulara. Perpetrate elfari. Perpetual eterna. Perpetuate dauxrigi. Perplex konfuzi, cxagrenegi. Perplexity konfuzeco, sxanceligxo. Perron perono. Perruquier perukisto. Persecute persekuti. Persecution persekutado. Perseverance persisto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... emerge from the unknown with his notebooks and route maps replete with most interesting facts for the student and the cartographer. Then another explorer would enter the same region, discover facts that had escaped the notice of the pioneer, correct blunders his predecessor had made and perpetrate blunders of his own; so explorer followed explorer, each adding something to geographical knowledge, each correcting earlier misconceptions, till the total product, well sifted by critical geographers, gave the world a fair ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... the awful manner in which Pomponio had accomplished his evasion disclosed. Stupefied, the commandant and his men gazed at, the traces of the deed, the pools of half-dried dark blood and the two pieces of bone, eloquent of the fortitude he must have possessed, the desperation he was in, to perpetrate such an act. ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... me. He conjured me to tell him at once what was the cause of the fracas.—'Oh, my good sir!' said I to him, continuing to cry like a child, 'imagine the most horrible cruelty, figure to yourself the most inhuman of atrocities—that is what G—— M—— has had the cowardly baseness to perpetrate: he has pierced my heart. Never shall I recover from this blow! I would gladly tell you the whole circumstance,' added I, sobbing with grief; 'you are kind-hearted, and ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... trumped up. I will select one more from his numerous letters now in my possession, to show that nothing but revenge at being disappointed in my co-operation to ensure his personal aggrandisement, could have influenced him to perpetrate such an ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... the news of a conspiracy. Ay! ay! thought he; the Irishman is cunning enough! But we shall be too many for him: he wants to throw all the good sober folks of Hereford off their guard, by feasting, and dancing, and carousing, I take it; and so to perpetrate his evil designs when it is least suspected; but we shall be prepared for him, fools as he takes us plain ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... tones, Answered in turn, in verbal nothingness; The crabbed cynic might no longer rail; Nor those of sober countenance discourse In melancholy and foreboding strains; Nor light and frivolous sons of levity On others perpetrate the humorous jest; Fathers attempted to correct their sons, Who, listening with filial reverence, Heard ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King

... by this imperial law, the Church still suffered occasionally in particular districts. Hostile magistrates might plead that certain edicts had not been definitely repealed; and, calculating on the connivance of the higher functionaries, might perpetrate acts of cruelty and oppression. The Emperor Aurelian had even resolved to resume the barbarous policy of Decius and Valerian; and, in A.D. 275, had actually prepared a sanguinary edict; but, before it could be executed, death stepped in to arrest his violence, and to prevent the persecution. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... myself, who have many duties and many privileges of my own - I myself, Mr. Vandeleur, could scarce handle the intoxicating crystal and be safe. As for you, who are a diamond hunter by taste and profession, I do not believe there is a crime in the calendar you would not perpetrate - I do not believe you have a friend in the world whom you would not eagerly betray - I do not know if you have a family, but if you have I declare you would sacrifice your children - and all this for what? Not to be richer, nor to have more ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... is the greatest and most enormous a subject can perpetrate; but what epithet can there be given to him who, to preserve an authority unlawfully acquired, asssociates in his guilt a Supreme Pontiff, whom the multitude is accustomed to reverence as the representative of their God, but who, by this act ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... efforts of Paco Gomez, Garnet could not be made to believe that he was acting in good faith. His jocose nature and the practical jokes he had been known to perpetrate had made an unfavourable impression on the Indian. It was in vain that he put on a grave and circumspect manner and held long conversations on the rise and fall of stocks, besides praising his house above all modern buildings, and giving him valuable hints in the game of ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were not ...
— The Republic • Plato

... amongst them. Thackeray's "Codlingsby" has almost extinguished "Sidonia." And the strange phantasmagoria of the Anglican Church, revivified by the traditions of Judaism, and ascending to the throne of St. Peter, is perhaps the most stupendous joke which even Disraeli had ever dared to perpetrate. In the ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... Adrian and Irene, and filled the silence of the house with voices. Something was afoot, clearly; something not unpleasant, to judge by the laugh of the latter. The room-door, whose hasp never bit properly—causing Adrian to perpetrate an atrocious joke about a disappointed Cleopatra—swung wide with an unseen cause, which was revealed by a soft nose, a dog's, in contact with Sir Hamilton's hand. He acknowledged Achilles, who trotted away satisfied, to complete an examination of all the other inmates of the house, his invariable ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... professing principles hostile to all government and justifying the murder of those placed in authority. Such individuals as those who not long ago gathered in open meeting to glorify the murder of King Humbert of Italy perpetrate a crime, and the law should ensure their rigorous punishment. They and those like them should be kept out of this country; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came; and far-reaching provision ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt

... travelling Showman came along; he had a large aviary of birds of all sorts, some for sale, some not. Among them was a glorious Humming Bird of wonderful brilliancy and plumage, a creature full of beauty and grace and charm and elegance. The man became passionately attached to it; he was ready to perpetrate any folly for the sake of obtaining possession of it, and indeed he did commit numbers of regrettable actions, and at last stole the bird from the Showman and carried it away. Then, in a foreign palace, for a short while he revelled ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn

... of expediency—political expediency. Sometimes political expediency can overreach itself and perpetrate the most grave injustices. Individuals at times are unnecessarily called upon to suffer in the interests of a cause. Your Excellency will remember a certain affair at Tavora some two months ago—the invasion of a convent by a British officer with rather disastrous consequences ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... a little side-gate. The church was a grand pile of every style of architecture that had prevailed since the Cistercians had settled in Vale Leston, and of every defacement that the alternate neglect and good-will of the Underwoods could perpetrate. The grand tower at the west end was, however, past their power to spoil, and they had not done much damage to the exterior, except in a window or buttress here and there. But within! The brothers, used to the heavy correctness of the St. Oswald's ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... abandoned to the debates and the experiments of men. Thus the human mind is never left to wander across a boundless field; and, whatever may be its pretensions, it is checked from time to time by barriers which it cannot surmount. Before it can perpetrate innovation, certain primal and immutable principles are laid down, and the boldest conceptions of human device are subjected to certain forms which ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... Drona unto the region of Brahman, addressed Drona, that ornament of battle, and said, "Thou art fighting unrighteously. The hour of thy death is come. Laying aside thy weapons in battle, O Drona, behold us stationed here. After this, it behoveth thee not to perpetrate such exceedingly cruel deeds. Thou art versed in the Vedas and their branches. Thou art devoted to the duties enjoined by truth, especially, thou art a Brahmana. Such acts do not become thee. Lay aside thy weapons. Drive away the film of error that shrouds thee. Adhere now ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the sage, O good Brahmana, whose vow is to do harm to no creature, doth inflict injury to animal life. Only, on account of greater needfulness, the harm is less. Men of noble birth and great qualities perpetrate wicked acts in defiance of all, of which they are not at all ashamed. Good men acting in an exemplary way are not commended by other good men; nor are bad men acting in a contrary way praised by their wicked compeers; and friends are not agreeable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... we are now going to develop, or perpetrate, is rather intensely of the accursed, or the advanced. It's a lost soul, I admit—or boast—but it fits in. Or, as conventional as ever, our own method is the scientific method of assimilating. It assimilates, if we think ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... amazing fact of history. It took the Methodist Church forty years to get a membership of 138,000. Mormonism in forty-four years counted 250,000. It seems incredible, nevertheless it is a fact. In this brief space of time it has also been able to nullify our laws, oppose our institutions, openly perpetrate crimes, be represented in Congress, boast of the helplessness of the nation to prevent these things, and give the Church supremacy over the State and the people. Bills introduced in Congress adequate to their overthrow have been year after year ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... it vicious in its principle. Engaging to raise men for the common weal It sets a harmful and unequal tax Capriciously on our communities.— The annals of a century fail to show More flagrant cases of oppressiveness Than those this statute works to perpetrate, Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames, And clothes with tapestries of rhetoric Disguising their real web of commonplace] Though held as shaped for English bulwarking, Breathes in its heart perversities of party, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... was always with the Austrian queen, and for five of those years their armies fought side by side. In the year 1759, Elizabeth sent an army of one hundred thousand men into Prussia. They committed every outrage which fiends could perpetrate; and though victorious over the armies of Frederic, they rendered the country so utterly desolate, that through famine they were compelled to retreat. Burning villages and mangled ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... who are you to speak of vileness? Have you not turned on the Heads, your benefactors, now your brothers, who raised you to their height? Are you not leading a revolt of the workers which would deny them the means of sustaining life? Are you not seeking to perpetrate—murder?" ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg

... the United States, have violated our laws prohibiting the introduction of slaves, have practiced various frauds on our revenue, and committed every kind of outrage on our peaceable citizens which their proximity to us enabled them to perpetrate. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... uncivilized foes is, I think, wrongly taunted as degenerate. Of course it has ceased to be heroic in the old grand style. But I verily believe that this is because it now sees something better. It has a conscience. It will still perpetrate peccadillos. But it is afraid, afraid in the good sense, to engage ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... precise object that the miscreant, who is watching all our movements in the dark, may not postpone his crime and may perpetrate it, not at the hour chosen by himself, but at the hour ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... ceremony; for they say that "the elephant is a great lord; his trunk is his hand." Before the Amaxosa Caffres attack an elephant they shout to the animal and beg him to pardon them for the slaughter they are about to perpetrate, professing great submission to his person and explaining clearly the need they have of his tusks to enable them to procure beads and supply their wants. When they have killed him they bury in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... being most anxious to show forth, only wanting to be pressed, in order to enhance their own importance, and stimulate the curiosity of the company. Nor is this the worst of the case; for no sooner do they perpetrate one song, than they volunteer a dozen, interlarding the intervals between their performances with pedantic disquisitions on music, and flooring every man who ventures to hazard an opinion on the subject. These people, whether amateur or professional, must be extinguished; and the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various

... permattay maydemosels etre lay filles d'ung seraglio! je ne vou pau! je vous defang! je suis biang atonnay!" And so she departed, with our prompter's copy, leaving us rather surprised, ourselves, at the unsuspected horror we had been about to perpetrate, and Mademoiselle Descuilles shrugging her shoulders and smiling, and not probably quite convinced of the criminality of a piece of which the heroine, a pretty Frenchwoman, revolutionizes the Ottoman Empire by inducing her Mohammedan lover to dismiss his harem and confine his affections to her, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... the murders perpetrated by the Spaniards, I must tell you that I cannot blame them; for, horrible as are their deeds, they are simply acts of retaliation for the abominable atrocities which Marshal Tesse allows and encourages his troops to perpetrate upon the population. I have the highest respect, sir, for the French nation, but if I were the Earl of Peterborough, and Marshal Tesse fell into my hands, I would hand him over to the Spaniards to be torn in pieces ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... wealth to the "hold-up," the gambler, the fugitive from the law. It was said of Leaping Horse that it only required the "dust" to buy any crime known to the penal code. And here, here at the Elysian Fields, on any night in the week, could be found the man or woman to perpetrate it ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... in discreditable tricks Until he reached the comfortable age of thirty-six, May then for half an hour perpetrate a deed of shame, Without incurring permanent ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... "so ornamental, especially the original performance in the corner, which you would perpetrate, in spite of my ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... been served infamously, often, in modern and semi-modern times. I have been compelled by base men to create fraudulent history, and to perpetrate all sorts of humbugs. I wrote those crazy Junius letters, I moped in a French dungeon for fifteen years, and wore a ridiculous Iron Mask; I poked around your Northern forests, among your vagabond Indians, a solemn French idiot, personating the ghost of a dead Dauphin, that the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... day, perfectly recovered. Could a person in this condition execute violence against another?—I, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage—no ability to accomplish—no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact;—without interest, without power, without motives, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Merton coming to meet them. There was nothing in this, for Rosalind was a gay young person and had many friends in Kingsdene. Few days passed that did not see her in the old town on her way to visit this friend or that, or to perpetrate some little piece of extravagance at Spilman's or at ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... with augmented mildness. There was, indeed, compassion and sorrow at my heart, and these must have somewhat influenced my looks. "Be not alarmed. I came to confer a benefit, not to perpetrate an injury. I came not to censure or expostulate with you, but merely to counsel and aid a being that needs both; all I want is to see her. In this chamber I sought not you, but her. Only lead me to her, or tell me where she is. I will then ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... by this wholesale libeller himself. The conduct of the government has been vilified, because they are accused of supplying Mr Shee with a police force, under whose protection, and by whose assistance, he is said to perpetrate the most glaring felonies in the open day—we leave the defence of their participation in Mr Shee's enormities to her Majesty's ministers, when they are called to account, as no doubt they will be, for allowing a force, paid for the protection of her Majesty's subjects, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... its laws: But there may be exceptions, and the present case is without doubt one.—Suppose there was no law of society to restrain you from murdering your own father, what think you? If either of you should please to take it into your head to perpetrate such a villainous act, so abhorrent to the will of the society, would you not be restrained? And is the Liberty of your Country of less importance than the life of your father! But what is most astonishing is, that some two or three persons of very ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... about town that the Union Hall was to be wrecked on this day but the loggers at the hall were of the opinion that the business men, having driven their Secretary out of town a short time previously, would not dare to perpetrate another atrocity so soon afterwards. In this ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin

... faults on the stage, not as being sorry for them, but rather wishes still he might find more occasions to work on. He is the general corrupter of spirits yet untainted, inducing them by gradation to much lascivious depravity. He is a perspicuity of vanity in variety, and suggests youth to perpetrate such vices as otherwise they had haply ne'er heard of. He is (for the most part) a notable hypocrite, seeming what he is not, and is indeed what he seems not. And if he lose one of his fellow strolls, in the summer he turns king ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... All the outrages burglaries, thefts, and murders—which were then so common in Paris, crowded upon her mind; she was sure it was a band of cut-throats who were making all this disturbance outside; they must be well aware how lonely the house stood, and if let in would perpetrate some wicked deed against her mistress; and so she remained in her room, trembling and quaking with fear, and cursing Baptiste and his sister's ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... admired your Log, but why, oh why, did you perpetrate such a monstrosity as The Booming ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... the locality of exit at such a distance from the oily irradiators which now dazzle the eyes of him who addresses you. I am, cries the Queen of Terrors, robbed of my fair proportions. When the king-killing Thane hints to the breathless auditory the murders he means to perpetrate, in the castle of Macduff, "ere his purpose cool;" so vast is the interval he has to travel before he can escape from the stage, that his purpose has even time to freeze. Your condition, cries the Muse of Smiles, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... means prevent any injury to be done to those guests. When they no way abated of their earnestness for the strange woman, but insisted absolutely on their desires to have her, he entreated them not to perpetrate any such act of injustice; but they proceeded to take her away by force, and indulging still more the violence of their inclinations, they took the woman away to their house, and when they had satisfied their ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... sensations of pain, but having no emotion of resentment? Did you imagine that there was no danger in inflicting on me pains, however great; miseries, however direful? Do you believe me impotent, imbecile, and idiot-like, with no understanding to contrive my escape and thy ruin, and no energy to perpetrate it? I will tell the end of thy infernal works. The country, in justice, shall hear me. I would that I had the language of fire, that my words might glow, and burn, and drop like molten lava, that I might wipe you from ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... and Domnina, two suicides, were canonized for their purity and piety. When a Japanese Virginia saw her chastity menaced, she did not wait for her father's dagger. Her own weapon lay always in her bosom. It was a disgrace to her not to know the proper way in which she had to perpetrate self-destruction. For example, little as she was taught in anatomy, she must know the exact spot to cut in her throat: she must know how to tie her lower limbs together with a belt so that, whatever the agonies of death might be, her corpse ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... experience, that we have attempted to set in order there. They bore him company, not insufficiently—considering, in especial, his fuller resources in that line—while he worked out—to the last lucidity the principle on which he forbore either to seek Fanny out in Cadogan Place or to perpetrate the error of too marked an assiduity in Eaton Square. This error would be his not availing himself to the utmost of the convenience of any artless theory of his constitution, or of Charlotte's, that might prevail there. That artless theories could ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... themselves while at work in the fields, and fifty more, after setting fire to a farm-house while my back was turned, escaped to join a gang of their companions, who are now robbers in the woods. These fellows, however, are the last of the troop who will perpetrate such offences. With the concurrence of my patron, I have adopted a plan that ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... exists not;—whether we rove by its margin, and perpetrate a sonnet; limn some graceful tree, hanging over its waters; or gaze on its unruffled surface, and, noting its aspect so serene, preach from that placid text, peace to the ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... Valley of the Shadow and set me in the Garden of Life. Good, deluded man! He does not realise that he has been merely the tool of the Arch-Jester. He has no notion of the sardonic joke his knife was chosen to perpetrate. That naked we should come into the world, and naked we should go out is a time-honoured pleasantry which, as far as the latter part of it is concerned, I did my conscientious best to further; but that we should come into it again naked at the age of eight-and-thirty is a piece of irony ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... the road became more unknown to them, and their weariness grew upon them, they fell to indulging in those stale jokes that young ladies will perpetrate when they don't know what else to do. As they declared, with much laughter, and many smart ways of saying it, that Chautauqua was a myth of Eurie's brain, or that she had been the dupe of the fine young theological student who had chanced her way and that the search for paradise would come ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... force &c (display) 882; feat, exploit; achievement &c (completion) 729; handiwork, workmanship; manufacture; stroke of policy &c (plan) 626. actor &c (doer) 690. V. do, perform, execute; achieve &c (complete) 729; transact, enact; commit, perpetrate, inflict; exercise, prosecute, carry on, work, practice, play. employ oneself, ply one's task; officiate, have in hand &c (business) 625; labor &c 686; be at work; pursue a course; shape one's course &c (conduct) 692. act, operate; take action, take steps; strike ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... your deeds, and insult the woman whom you have robbed and made a widow. It was with a prophecy on your lips that you went forth just now to perpetrate your greatest crime; but it falls on your own head, for you laugh over our misfortune—and it cannot regard me, for my blood does not run cold; I am not overwhelmed nor ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... at Carr. There were times when she utterly despaired of her father. But she could find comfort in the thought that if that Sanchia woman sought to perpetrate any more of her villainy and deceit, she was going to stand at her father's side through all of it. Meantime the two riders came on swiftly. As they drew up at the door Helen saw that Howard looked worried and ill at ease ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... servants of the suitors came also and cut wood for the fires. Eumaios arrived early, driving three fat hogs. He saluted Odysseus and asked him if he were well treated by the suitors, or if they continued to scoff at him. Odysseus answered him: "May the gods punish the ruthless men who perpetrate such wrongs in a stranger's home." While they were talking together the goatherd joined him, and repeated the sneers and abuse of the preceding day. Odysseus took no notice of it, except to shake his head as one ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... hotel at Lawrence, Kansas. The man who called him was one of Quantrell's guerrillas, and he wanted him to hurry downstairs, and be shot. All over the border town that morning people were being murdered. A band of raiders had ridden in early to perpetrate ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... his career he had contracted vicious habits, the most pernicious for him being that of drink, for when sober he was in his right mind, but the moment the drink was in his common sense departed, and he became a raving maniac, ready to fight or perpetrate any other act of folly. Up to this time he had never been tempted to steal only in order to supply ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... of publication, and actually published by himself, accused the executive, before the tribunal of the people, on those specific points, from its decisions respecting which he was said to have threatened the appeal. As if the offence lay, not in perpetrating the act, but in avowing an intention to perpetrate it, this demonstration of his designs did not render his advocates the less vehement in his support, nor the less acrimonious in reproaching the administration, as well as Mr. Jay and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... "To kill a man in cold blood! an innocent man! What harm has poor Geronimo ever done me? Stab him! My heart fails me—I cannot perpetrate such a cruelty. And yet, and yet I must! The crime horrifies me, but I have no alternative. Only by the sacrifice of his life can my master escape the scaffold, and I the gallows. Fate irresistibly ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience

... he was so to a much greater degree, and his position and his influence made him responsible for the mischief he had driven the boys to perpetrate. It would have been better for them, as a body, to submit until redress could be obtained in a better way—as by the circular addressed to their parents, which was even then in the hands of the printer. I palliate, I do not justify, the conduct of ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... capitals painted on the packages entrusted to his care; he was also able, from long habit, fluently to read the usual announcement of "Vinos y licores finos," inscribed above tavern doors; and, when required, he could even perpetrate a hieroglyphic intended for the signature of his name; but these were the extent of his acquirements. As to deciphering the contents or superscription of the letter now in his possession, he knew that it would be mere lost labour to attempt it. He was far too wary, however, to display ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... with Some Inconveniences" is such a frightful satire upon the abuses of Christianity by its professed followers that it is impossible for us to say whether Swift intended to point out needed reforms, or to satisfy his conscience,[190] or to perpetrate a joke on the Church, as he had done on poor Partridge. So also with his "Modest Proposal," concerning the children of Ireland, which sets up the proposition that poor Irish farmers ought to raise children as dainties, to be eaten, like roast pigs, on the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... long to place herself in the immediate reach of tyranny? You see I pronounce the decisive word! I am really unable to comprehend it. Can she not go to Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, or London? Yes, London would be the right place! There she can perpetrate libels whenever she pleases. At all of these places I will leave her undisturbed with the greatest pleasure; but Paris is my residence, and there I will tolerate those only who love me! On this ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... "If we are to perpetrate this outrage at all," insisted Bundy, pulling in calculation at his little chin-whisker, "let us do it thoroughly. A hundred dollars can't take Potts any too far. We must see that he keeps going until he could never get back—" We ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... injurious influence and enable justice to be done to all the parties concerned. We too often forget that our failure to recognize such variations merely means that we accord in such cases an illegitimate permission to perpetrate injustice. In those parts of the world in which polygyny is recognized as a permissible variation a man is legally held to his natural obligations towards all his sexual mates and towards the children he has by those mates. In no part of the world ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... King William and Queen Mary to the Province of Maryland and all the English Dominions." Now followed a confused time of accusations and counter-accusations, with assertions that Maryland Catholics were conspiring with the Indians to perpetrate a new St. Bartholomew massacre of Protestants, and hot counter-assertions that this is "a sleveless fear and imagination fomented by the artifice of some ill-minded persons." In the end Coode assembled a force of something ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... civic banquet, set out for the next place, his portmanteau fuller of music-paper than of other effects, and perhaps a dozen sequins in his pocket. His love of jesting during these gay Bohemian wanderings made him perpetrate innumerable practical jokes, not sparing himself when he had no more available food for mirth. On one occasion, in traveling from Ancona to Reggio, he passed himself off for a musical professor, a mortal enemy ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... through the hedge had made his way; The pale was next, but proudly with a bound He leapt the fence of the forbidden ground: Yet fearing to be seen, within a bed Of coleworts he conceal'd his wily head; Then skulk'd till afternoon, and watch'd his time (As murderers use) to perpetrate ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... disciplined by dismissal from office, in which case the party must appeal to the country for re-election. That means time; and time allows passion to simmer down; and an entire electorate is not likely to perpetrate a policy inimical to Imperial interests. In practice, that represents the whole, sole and entire power of England's representative in Canada—a power less than the nod of a saloon keeper or ward boss ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... were popularly accounted no unworthy successors. Colley Cibber (1671-1757) as actor, theatrical manager, and dramatic critic, was both a loyal disciple of Betterton and a lover of Shakespeare, though his vanity and his faith in the ideals of the Restoration incited him to perpetrate many outrages on Shakespeare's text when preparing it for theatrical representation. His notorious adaptation of 'Richard III,' which was first produced in 1700, long held the stage to the exclusion of the original version. But towards the middle of the eighteenth ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... of, although, in truth, I play but an indifferent game. If you will make amends by teaching me I will try to perpetrate as few blunders ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... actually trying to perpetrate a weak joke, and endeavoured to laugh. But it was a rather dreary laugh. Patty, after a hard evening's study, felt tired and discouraged, and she was really dreadfully disappointed about the party, although she wouldn't have let Carry ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... take what is not his own from the hedges? Does he play on the fiddle, or make faces in public-houses, in order to obtain pence or beer? or does he call for liquor, swallow it, and then say to a widowed landlady, 'Mistress, I have no brass'? In a word, what vice and crime does he perpetrate—what low acts does he commit? Therefore, with his endowments, who will venture to say that he is no gentleman?—unless it be an admirer of Mr. Flamson—a clown—who will, perhaps, shout: 'I say he is no gentleman; for who can be ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... both had at the same time busied themselves about the person of the king, though the regulations of the palace assigned definite hours of service to the one different from those assigned to the other. This made it clear that they intended to perpetrate a dark ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... objections to hearts hanging like humble buttons, or to buttons being humble at all, but one should not stop to quarrel about such trifles with a poet who can perpetrate ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... persons whose industry to excite resistance has increased with the appearance of a disposition among the people to relax in their opposition and to acquiesce in the laws; insomuch that many persons in the said western parts of Pennsylvania have at length been hardy enough to perpetrate acts which I am advised amount to treason, being overt acts of levying war against the United States; the said persons having, on the sixteenth and seventeenth of July last, proceeded in arms (on the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... follow much more rigidly than is customary with a good many of our later philosophers, who protest against the assumption of premisses; but having so protested neglect the ambiguity of terms, and leave their middles undistributed, and perpetrate illicit process with a gaiety of heart which is extremely edifying, or who fancy that they are building systems of philosophy when they are in reality constructing dictionaries of terms. But his argument is of less concern to us here ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... up their feelings and incite one another to fight. They will fight hard among themselves. The rebels, who are now exiles in foreign lands, taking advantage of the chaos in China, will return in very little time to perpetrate the worst crimes known in human history. The royalists who are in retirement will likewise come out to fish in muddy waters. Persons who have the qualifications of leaders will be used as tools to fight for the self-aggrandizement of those who use them. I do not wish to mention names, but I can ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... in the midst of the bog. The sequel was, that the Mexicans and their Indian friends retreated as fast as possible, and never stopped until they had reached a place of safety. My companions became vexed to think any man could perpetrate such a story on travelers, who considered they knew a thing or two, and commenced quizzing the old gentleman by asking him what the Indians knew of Satan; but the old Mexican evaded the answer by taking down the little wooden cross which hung on the wall ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... Cardinal replied that it was probably among his papers at Brussels, but that he doubted whether it would be possible to find it in his absence. Whether such a document ever existed, it is difficult to say. To perpetrate such a fraud would have been worthy of Charles; to fable its perpetration not unworthy of the Cardinal. In either case, the transaction was sufficiently high-handed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... still appeared doubtful whether Jesus was really dead, and the brutality they had shown in breaking the legs of the thieves made the holy women tremble as to what outrage they might next perpetrate on the body of our Lord. But Cassius, the subaltern officer, a young man of about five-and-twenty, whose weak squinting eyes and nervous manner had often excited the derision of his companions, was suddenly illuminated by grace, and being quite overcome at the sight of the cruel conduct of ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... by reason of the murder done vppon his owne sister, were very straite and slacke to pardon: because they would not incourage the posteritie to like inconuenience, nor prouoke wel doers in their glorye and triumphe, to perpetrate thinges vnlawfull. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... of gentleman depend upon the avocation followed. I know of one or two clowns in the ring who are educated physicians, and not thought to be any the less gentlemen because they propound conundrums and perpetrate jests instead of ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... stood thinking what she should do. In the first place, it was useless to say anything to Quenu. For a moment it occurred to her to provoke an explanation with Florent, but she dismissed that idea, fearing lest he would only go and perpetrate his crime elsewhere, and maliciously make a point of compromising them. Then gradually growing somewhat calmer, she came to the conclusion that her best plan would be to keep a careful watch over her brother-in-law. It would be time enough to take further steps at ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... attack in force, and his garrison being much reduced, resolved to evacuate the fort and abandon the country. But before doing so he resolved, in obedience to instructions from the War Department at Washington, to perpetrate an act of inhuman barbarity which shall hand down his name to infamy so long as the story shall be told. In order to deprive the British troops of winter quarters he determined to burn the town of Niagara, leaving the innocent and non-combatant inhabitants, helpless women ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... will always remember Eugene Field as the author of Little Boy Blue, the many friends of Field, in addition to their memory of him as the charming poet of childhood, will always think of him as the irrepressible prince of merry-makers. To perpetrate a joke Field spared neither labor nor his friends. Many of his pranks were mere whimsicalities, innocent pleasantries that hurt no one. He would spend three hours in illustrating a letter to a friend, filling the letter with gossipy trivialities and using ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... the sake of sparing those feelings in another, of which the supposition implies she could not possibly partake; and if she should be encouraged by the father, whose affections for an infant child may be more gradually unfolded than the mother's, to perpetrate so horrid an act, we must allow that to the evidence of unnatural and murtherous parents must be added that of hired ruffians; so that Chinese virtue would gain little by such ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... I have always assumed all blame for our marriage; and that I shall always charge myself with it. I have no reply to make to your reproaches,—no defence; I was not in love with you when I married you—which is as serious an offence as any man can perpetrate toward any woman. And I do not now blame you for a very natural refusal to tolerate anything approaching the sympathy and intimacy that ought to exist ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... of those rights which would then properly belong to us. On what ground, then, or by what authority, do we dare to deprive of their rights those children who will soon be men? Why are we not struck with the injustice which we perpetrate on our descendants, by endeavouring to transmit them as a vile herd to masters whose vices are all ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine



Words linked to "Perpetrate" :   pull, move, commit, perpetrator, recommit, act, make, perpetration



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com