Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Prostrate   Listen
adjective
Prostrate  adj.  
1.
Lying at length, or with the body extended on the ground or other surface; stretched out; as, to sleep prostrate. "Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire."
2.
Lying at mercy, as a supplicant.
3.
Lying in a humble, lowly, or suppliant posture. "Prostrate fall Before him reverent, and there confess Humbly our faults."
4.
(Bot.) Trailing on the ground; procumbent.






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 |





"Prostrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... brought the telegram. It was bald-headed with age, but still legible. The boy was prostrate with travel and exposure, but still alive, and I went out to condole with him and get his last wishes and send for the ambulance. He was waiting to collect transportation before turning his passing spirit to less serious affairs. I found ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... beseech you, let me be fit to go to the ball this evening!" the young woman would say, prostrate on her lounge, and whose voice ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... the more. Did any of the prostrate raise their eyes to the Madonna on the banner, they must needs turn to him next; and presently the superstitious souls, in the mood for miracles, began ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... sentiments, and another for winged speeches. Woman is not yet the object of this tenderness; Charlemagne's peers do not remember Aude while they fight; they expire without giving her a sigh. But their eyes are dim with tears at the recollection of fair France; they weep to see their companions lie prostrate on the grass; the real mistress of Roland, the one to whom his last thought reverts, is not Aude but Durandal, his sword. This is his love, the friend of his life, whose fate, after he shall be no more, preoccupies him. Just as this sword has a name, it has a ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... publications are generally adorned with a rude wood-cut; which, if it be copied from truth, affords a sufficiently striking proof of the severity of the ancient discipline: for the master is usually seated in a large arm-chair, with a tremendous rod across his knees; and the scholars are prostrate before him, either on the ground upon bended knees, or sitting upon low benches. Nor was this rigid system relaxed in the middle of the same (xvith) century; when Roger Ascham composed his incomparable treatise, intitled the "Schoolmaster;" ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... no!" shrieked a voice of sudden anguish, startling all who heard, and even Edward, by its piteous tones, and the form of a page suddenly fell prostrate before the monarch. "Mercy, mercy! for the love of God, have mercy!" he struggled to articulate, but there was no sound save a long and piercing shriek, and the boy ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... you will find them joyous indeed, sometimes loud in song or conversation, and taking generally a sort of pride in a dash of rudeness, calling it independence, but you will never find them sottish; nowhere cumbering the footway with their prostrate carcases; nowhere reeling zigzag, blear-eyed and stupid, to ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... and thickly clustered. It is distinguishable at a long distance by its dignity and grace. But the mass of its foliage is a drawback, inasmuch as few trunks can sustain the weight; and one sees everywhere the great trunk prostrate, the roots clinging to the soil, and the upper branches doing their best to overcome the disadvantages of ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... remark of Dr. Kane's;—how when, on one of his voyages, in their ice-girt winter quarters, the whole ship's company, save himself, were prostrate below decks, and he with incredible strength and fortitude was literally doing everything, not even omitting to register regular observations of the instruments;—in the midst of that unsurpassable heroism among the polar solitudes, he felt at night ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... elapsed.' 'Twas a rueful prospect! What a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakness, and folly! my life reminded me of a ruined temple. What strength, what proportion in some parts, what unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruins in others!" The fragment, To Ruin, seems to have had its origin in moments ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... his horse's head round to the road, pressed his knees into its sides, and then as the poor, weary beast started to amble leisurely down the road, Maurice looked back for the last time on the prostrate, pathetic figure of the lonely man who had given his all for him: he looked at every landmark which would enable him to find that man again—the angle of the forest where it touched the meadow,—the milestone, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... Kuehleborn derides her and the attendants are about to seize him, in order to turn him out-of-doors, when the statue of the water-god breaks into fragments, while Kuehleborn stands in its place, the waters pouring down upon him. All take flight, but Undine raises the prostrate Berthalda, promising her protection ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... second, only, Captain Eri stood there motionless, stooping over the body of his friend. Then he sprang into vigorous action. He dropped upon his knees and, seizing the shoulder of the prostrate figure, shook it gently, whispering, "John! John!" There was no answer and no responsive movement, and the Captain bent his head and listened. Breath was there and life; but, oh, so little of either! The next thought was, of course, ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... under the nominal control of a native prince, who bears the title of "regent," holding his office under the government of Holland, from which he receives, an annuity of about forty thousand dollars. Among the natives he maintains the state of a grand Oriental monarch, and his subjects prostrate themselves in profoundest reverence before him; but both he and his domain are really controlled by half a dozen resident Hollanders, at the head of whom is the prefect. The palace of the regent is a massive structure, completely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... homelike in any room that is in perfect order; but, on the other hand, there is little of the home feeling in a room that is not bright and fresh with cleanliness. Tables littered with books, chairs and sofas strewn with gloves and ribbons, and even a floor encumbered with a prostrate doll or two, are cheerful; a trail of leaves and mosses from a basket of woodland treasures is endurable dirt. But dust in the corners which shows the dirt to be chronic and not accidental, unwashed windows, dingy mirrors, etc., etc., have no redeeming quality. It is a good thing for the mother of ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... a bound of him, the man he most dreaded. By the light of the stars he beheld the uplifted arm and the threatening saber. Fear, exhaustion, and despair seized his heart, and the intended victim fell at the feet of the dragoon. The horse of Lawton struck the prostrate peddler, and both steed and rider came violently ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... The prostrate woman made no answer, save by a slow rolling of her body,—her sobs continuing without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... had little time for reflection; scarcely had he hastily wiped off with the little cloak that lay beside him the blood which covered the face of the prostrate man than he started back in horror, for the person who had sought his life was the very one whom he had honoured with his highest confidence, and had chosen as the teacher and companion of the wife who was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... blamed by Jerome, who cause their sons and nephews to read comedies and the verses of the poets; because also to this purpose and to other base purposes they divert the money of the church. Wherefore he says that such priest should be punished as was Eli who fell prostrate from his seat and died because he did not correct his sons. The statements which follow are clear as far as paragraph "But on the other ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton

... may seem, all lend help to the imagination in bodying forth the scene described. An earlier figure in the same book of Paradise Lost, because it exhibits a less conspicuous technical cunning, may even better show a poet's care for unity of tone and impression. Where Satan's prostrate bulk ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... bushes were small inclosures containing graves, sometimes no more than one. They were recognized as graves by the discolored stones or rotting boards at head and foot, leaning at all angles, some prostrate; by the ruined picket fences surrounding them; or, infrequently, by the mound itself showing its gravel through the fallen leaves. In many instances nothing marked the spot where lay the vestiges of some poor ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... servant, as I left my own habitation for the comfortless walls of a prison. My poor Lucy, distracted with her fears for us both, sunk on the floor and endeavoured to detain me by her feeble efforts, but in vain; they forced open her arms; she shrieked, and fell prostrate. But pardon me. The horrors of that night unman me. ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... foreshortened face at the focal point in the centre, his arms outstretched towards the sides of the picture. Under the arch of the horse's belly, between his legs, the eye looked through into an intense darkness; below, the space was closed in by the figure of the prostrate man. A central gulf of ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... ignore that we live in a motor age. The motor car reflects our standard of living and gauges the speed of our present-day life. It long ago ran down Simple Living, and never halted to inquire about the prostrate figure which fell as its victim. With full recognition of motor-car transportation we must turn it to the most practical use. It can not supersede the railway lines, no matter how generously we afford it highways out of the Public Treasury. If freight traffic by motor ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding

... before it had been well: I had not then solicited your father To add to my distress; Have I not languish'd prostrate at thy feet? Have I not liv'd whole days upon thy sight? Have I not seen thee where thou hast not been? And, mad with the idea, clasp'd the wind, And ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young

... a dull thump on the ground: a couple had fallen, and lay in a mixed heap. The next couple, unable to check its progress, came toppling over the obstacle. An inner cloud of dust rose around the prostrate figures amid the general one of the room, in which a twitching entanglement of arms and legs ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... time to see the elephant, with his trunk uplifted, close to Harry, who had not had time to reload or take shelter behind a tree. I fired, aiming behind the ear of the elephant, when down it came, as mine had done, prostrate on the ground. If my uncle had been equally successful, we should have made a grand haul. Without stopping to finish off our elephants, we hurried in the direction we supposed him to be, reloading as we went. We uttered a loud shout to attract his ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston

... strengthened; opposition always sharpened my faculties, instead of overcoming and depressing me. The whole gradually prospered from the first, under every disadvantage and notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the short-sighted and bigoted. These things laid my first patrons prostrate, and the Society of great names which followed, was soon dissolved. Every effort was made by the enemies of true training and education, to crush the thing in the bud, and not only the thing, but also the man ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... not until then, as he re-entered the coach, that the conductor became aware of the prostrate man on the floor and Morris and other passengers gathering around him in excitement and solicitude. Ralph ventured across the platform near to the door ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman

... rate it began to fall, slowly at first, then more swiftly, and afterwards at an incredible pace, so that in a few seconds the mouth of the pit above us grew small and presently vanished quite away. I looked up at Yva who was standing composedly in the midst of our prostrate shapes. She bent down ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... was something in that sound more than the mere fact of the strong vibration that produced the instantaneous effect on the frame of the prostrate man, and for the time completely shook off the obstruction of paralysis. The chest had belonged to his father and his father's father, and it had always been rather a solemn business to visit it. All long-known objects, even a mere window fastening ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... brigantine, and to inquire what they should next do. Looking over the Indiaman's lofty bulwarks down on to the deck of the brigantine, I saw that there too the prisoners had been secured and passed below, and that our lads were already busy overhauling the prostrate bodies and separating the living from the dead. I thereupon directed the coxswain to release the crew of the Indiaman—who were at that moment lying bound hand and foot down in the forecastle—to rout out three lanterns, and to hang them lighted one above the other in ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... rock, over which its roots wander afar in the wildest reticulation, whilst its tall, furrowed, and often gracefully sweeping red and grey trunk, of enormous circumference, rears aloft its high umbrageous canopy, then would the greatest sceptic on this point be compelled to prostrate his mind before it with a veneration which perhaps was never before excited in him by any other tree." The colour of the pine has been objected to as murky—and murky it often is, or seems to be; and so then is the colour of the heather, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... stumps above mentioned, the dirt-bed contains the stems of silicified trees laid prostrate. These are partly sunk into the black earth, and partly enveloped by a calcareous slate which covers the dirt-bed. The fragments of the prostrate trees are rarely more than three or four feet in length; but by joining many of them together, trunks ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... assailant. The sword penetrated and caught in a link of the gold chain about the fellow's neck, so that Demetrios was forced to wrench the weapon free, twisting it, as the dying man stumbled backward. Prostrate, the soldier did not cry out, but only writhed and gave a curious bubbling ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

... much Beauty's prostrate at my Feet, What is't I can deny?—rise, thou brightest Virgin That ever Nature made; Rise, and command my Life, my Soul, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... his face. "Come along," he called, as some dozen English and American students pushed into the circle and gathered round the prostrate Englishman. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... G. Eddy:—I add one more testimony of a cure from reading your book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Five years ago I lay prostrate with piles and inflammation of the bowels. All the coating came off, apparently. A stricture was formed, beyond medical reach. I then lived in Chicago; one of the best physicians, who made a specialty of treating piles, attended me. The pain ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... 1917, because the latter was forthwith sustained by Great Britain and the United States, with such abundance of military and economic resources as made up in the long run for that of Russia. Japan, on the other hand, has as yet no substitute for her prostrate ally. She is still alone among Powers some of whom decline to recognize her equality, while others are ready to thwart her policy and disable ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... present left the Court and formed a procession behind him. Prostrate at his feet, Princess des Boscenos held his legs in a close embrace, but he went on, stern and impassive, beneath a shower of handkerchiefs and flowers. Viscountess Olive, clinging to his neck, could not be removed, and the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... drooping spirits of the men, and to give a new power of endurance through the long and painful hours of suffering. First with one, then at the side of another, a friendly word here, a gentle nod and smile there, a tender sympathy with each prostrate sufferer, a sympathy which could read in his eyes his longing for home love, and for the presence of some absent one—in those few minutes hers was indeed an angel ministry. Before she left the room she sang to them, first some stirring national melody, then some sweet or plaintive ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... off and fractured a very costly Chien Lung vase and ruined four boxes of mandarin-blossom tea. In his excitement he ducked behind the counter, and when sufficiently revived he crawled forth to find what had once been Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, and the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with a hip splintered by a stray bullet. On the sidewalk outside the window lay the remnants of the bag of pepper, a knife broken short off at the handle, a heavy bar of soft iron slightly bent, and a ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... the different countries were represented by comical figures, each meant to hit off the peculiarities of the nation it stood for, according to popular apprehension. For Prussia there was an immense giant, one of whose knees was on the stomach of Austria represented as a lank figure utterly prostrate, while the other foot threatened to crush South-western Germany. One hand menaced France, whose outline the designer had managed to give rudely in the figure of a Zouave in a fierce attitude; and the other was thrust toward ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... the house. He had seen Lucy Kingston fall prostrate at the same instant as the ruffian facing her. Strung up to the highest tension, and expecting in another second to be shot, the crack of Vincent's pistol had brought her down as surely as the bullet of Mullens would have done. Even in the excitement of ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... poor girl through the tortures of a hunger which gnaws upon the vitals—of a cold which chills the young blood with its ice—of a weariness under which the limbs tremble, the head reels, the whole frame sinks prostrate. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... wild and delirious as he, they paused by the hut where Mr Dallas lay. Syd passed his hand over his eyes to clear away the mist which hung before him and obscured his sight, and then, fairly sane for the moment, he looked about him to see that every man was prostrate, and that his faithful henchman, Barney Strake, was leaning against ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... pocket a rouble, and threw it up in the air. Ammalat raised himself in the saddle, without waiting till it fell; but at the very instant his horse stumbled with all his four legs together, and striking the dust with his nostrils, rolled prostrate. All uttered a cry of terror; but the dexterous horseman, standing up in the stirrups, without losing his seat, or even leaning forward, as if he had been aware that he was going to fall, fired rapidly, and hitting the rouble with his ball, hurled it far among the people. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... hope, not obedience, and have come as a beggar, and not for lucre!—Do unto me what is worthy of thyself; but deal not with me as I myself have deserved.—Whether thou wilt slay me or pardon my offence, my head and face are prostrate at thy threshold. Thy servant has no will of his own; whatever thou commandest, that he will perform. At the door of the Cabah I saw a petitioner, who was praying and weeping bitterly. I ask not, saying, "Approve of my obedience, but draw the pen ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... background, though George Vanneck and I had done our best, on an Edinburgh Sunday, in the way of roses. Somerled had forgotten to incarnate his sympathy in flower form, and I read remorse in his eyes as they fell upon Aline, piteous and prostrate. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... manhood by relying on itself, it has preserved its patriotism and attachment to the Government under which it was born. It saw no cause of complaint, imaginary or real. Six or seven per cent of slave population has not proved sufficient as a slave interest, to prostrate or corrupt its national fidelity, nor to undermine its national pride. It still retains its representation in Congress against the influences of surrounding treason. There is a cheering satisfaction ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... the officer; and it appeared that he had made some arrangements as to how the order was to be obeyed, for the second man fired his carbine, and then scrambled over his prostrate comrade; after which he stooped, and the third fired his carbine likewise, and then hurried forward in ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... reach and swung the butt of his gun for Slade's head as the table went down but Slade, with the same motion, vaulted the prostrate sheriff. The force of the blow threw Harris off his balance and as he tripped and reeled to his knees Slade's boot heel scored a glancing blow on his skull and floored him. He regained his feet, gripping a fragment of the chair Morrow had smashed ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... to follow up its victory by dancing on its prostrate foe, when Hans galloped up. The bird turned on him at once, with a hiss and a furious rush. The terrified horse reared and wheeled round with such force as almost to throw Hans, who dropped his gun in trying ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... fist straight into the grinning visage with all the force he could concentrate in his good right arm. The amazed youth described a back somerset, his moccasins up in the air, and his ugly nose flattened to the shape of a crimson turnip. Then leaping over the prostrate figure, Jack made several bounds, and dove into the lodge just in time to avoid colliding with Ogallah, who had approached the door from the inside to learn the cause of the ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... supernatural, and made no resistance, but followed her to the fig-tree. Even then she did not recognize the little creature, released from his bonds, half-clothed, covered with flowers, and surrounded by three divinities, for she took us for such, and wished to prostrate herself before us. She was still more convinced of it when I took up her son, and placed him in her arms: she recognized him, and the poor little infant held out his arms to her. I can never express to you the transport of the mother; she screamed, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... as usual, had ascended the tower of St. Stephen's; while in the city below every form was prostrate in prayer. With his own hand he fired the nightly rocket, and watched its myriads of stars as they shot heavenward, illumined the darkness, and then fell back into nothingness. His heart beat painfully, as the last scintillations ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... taking the prostrate Envoy by the shoulders] Ambrose: you must make an effort. You cannot go back to Baghdad without the ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... last prostrate victim of that powerful combination—rum and riot—had performed the frog's march to the baggage-car, the raving saloon-keeper had been instructed to send his bill of damages to the chief quartermaster across the bridge, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... and equally popular stamp pictures a soldier with bandaged head standing by a prostrate comrade and pointing to a fleeing German. The inscription reads: "We chase the Germans during the war. You, civilians, will you allow them ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... CRUIKSHANK than by myself; but looks are not everything. Art simply didn't exist for her. Revue might have been her real line; or, better still, a strong-woman turn on the Halls. There was the episode, for instance, where, having to prostrate herself before the Baron, she insisted upon a backward exit (with the usual result) and then made an acrobatic re-entrance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... of his horse, holding his stirrup-leather with his left hand and the saddle with his right. With the help of the holster he made one desperate effort, but the holster partially gave way, and it must have been then that the horse trod upon him and galloped off, leaving his master prostrate on the ground. The Prince then regained his feet and ran after his friends, who were far in advance. Twelve or thirteen Zulus were at this time only a few feet behind him. The Prince then turned round, and, sword in hand, faced his pursuers. From ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... come, and when it is over let us be careful not to make the same mistake or the same sort of mistake as Germany made when she had France prostrate at her feet in 1870. (Cheers.) Let us, whatever we do, fight for and work towards great and sound principles for the European system. And the first of those principles which we should keep before us is the principle of nationality—that is to ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... wine, the best, The sweet convivial wine, and test Its four-year-old maturity: To Jove commit the rest, Nor question his divine intents For, when he stays the battling elements, The wind shall brood o'er prostrate seas And fail to move the ash's crest Or stir the stilly cypress trees. Be no forecaster of the dawn; Deem it an asset, and be gay— Come, merge to-morrow's misty morn In ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... their conduct to each other, have given evidence that they are worthy of the blessings now to be solemnly invoked. When the day arrives the bride is dressed in white without a single jewel. Both she and the bridegroom prostrate themselves when receiving the blessing. As the ceremony is supposed to be exclusively ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... answer to some remarks from Marie, 'we must take it, no doubt, as God gives it to us, but we need not spoil it in the handling. Sit down, my dear; I want to speak to you for a few minutes.' Then they sat down together on a large prostrate pine, which was being prepared to be sent down to the saw-mill. 'My dear,' said he, 'I want to speak to you about Adrian Urmand.' She blushed and trembled as she placed herself beside him; but he hardly noticed it. He was not quite at ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... antique wonders of the place. Foremost in my memory came an old picture, called "Sir Josseline going to the Holy Land," where Sir Josseline de Mowbray stood, in complete armour, pointing to a horrid figure of a prostrate Jew, on whose naked back an executioner, with uplifted whip, was prepared to inflict stripes for some shocking crime.—This picture had been painted in times when the proportions of the human figure were little attended ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... one of the first to come to himself and scramble to his feet after the Browndean catastrophe, and he had no sooner remarked his prostrate nephews than he understood his opportunity and fled. A man of upwards of seventy, who has just met with a railway accident, and who is cumbered besides with the full uniform of Sir Faraday Bond, is not very likely to flee far, but the wood was close at hand and offered the fugitive at least a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it, you clumsy Irish beggar!" he yelled, jumping up and stumbling over Mervin, who was presently afoot and marching over another prostrate form. ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... This is enough: the prostrate Beetle no longer stirs, lies as though dead. The legs are folded on the belly, the antennae extended like the arms of a cross, the pincers open. A watch beside me tells me the exact minute of the beginning and the end of the experiment. Nothing ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... bade her good-night, and, bestowing a sly kick upon the prostrate form of Mr. Sikes while her back was turned, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... soldiers were conducting him to the King; trunks, my Brother's and his own, sealed, were coming on in the rear. Pale and downcast, he took off his hat to salute me,"— poor Katte, to me always so prostrate in silent respect, and now so unhappy! "A moment after, the King, hearing he was come, went out exclaiming, 'Now I shall have proof about the scoundrel Fritz and the offscouring (CANAILLE) Wilhelmina; clear proofs to cut the heads off them.'"—The two Hofdames again interfered; ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... silence. It was plain to the vulgar that the solemn new-comer had brought with him some exquisite specific: it was evident, from the grave self-complacency of the stranger, that with a glance, he had detected the cause of sickness in the horse,—and that, in a few seconds, the prostrate animal, revivified by the cunning of the sage, would be up, and once more curvetting and caracoling. The master of the steed eyed the stranger with an affectionate anxiety; the mob were awed into breathless expectation. The wise man shook his head, put his cane to his nose, and proceeded to open ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... then taken off the shoulders of the prostrate prelate, was presented to him with an injunction to receive and to preach the gospel. Finally, the bishop bestowed on him the kiss of peace; and all the other bishops did so in their turn. Posada then retired, and his head and hands being washed, he soon after returned with ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... turning them and their proceedings into ridicule. The Jesuits especially, whom he regarded as a fallen body, he treated with extreme freedom; exposing their deceptions, and holding up to public contumely certain quacks whom they patronised. The Jesuitic Beast was prostrate, but not dead: it had still strength enough to lend a dangerous kick to any one who came too near it. One evening an official person waited upon Schubart, and mentioned an arrest by virtue of a warrant from the Catholic Buergermeister! Schubart ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... favorite war horse to the front of his lodge. He mounted and rode round the village, singing his war song in a loud hoarse voice amid the shrill acclamations of the women. Then dismounting, he remained for some minutes prostrate upon the ground, as if in an act of supplication. On the following morning I looked in vain for the departure of the warriors. All was quiet in the village until late in the forenoon, when the White Shield, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... hearing the sighing from a distance, suspected her repentance, which might make him lose his delight, and to prevent this, he came and, finding her prostrate before the image, began to rebuke her harshly, telling her that if she had any scruples of conscience she should confess herself to him, and that she need not so act again unless she desired; for she might behave in either way without sin. ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... world, I beheld the old, familiar, yet no less revolting sight of Mammon, enthroned upon a dais of bleeding hearts, and I saw the ruthless wheels of the social Juggernaut slowly crushing the beautiful form of liberty lying prostrate on the ground. * * * I saw men, women and children, without number, sacrificed on the altar of the capitalistic Moloch, and I beheld a race of pitiful creatures, stricken with the modern St. Vitus's dance at the shrine ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... up the stairs and looked forward. The stars illuminated the deck sufficiently for him to see the prostrate forms scattered about, but not enough for him to distinguish one from another until he had crept close. The big machinist, Sampson, he found nearest to the companion, as though he had picked this spot to guard, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... system, he never cared, and in his days there was written over the Academic entrances "No Mysticism." He distinguished himself in Mathematics, and soon found, by his own vaunt, the Principia of Newton prostrate at his feet: he was a favourite pupil of Leslie, who escaped the frequent penalty of befriending him, but he took no prizes: the noise in the class room hindered his answers, and he said later to Mr. Froude that thoughts only came to ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... gentleman, "was his sword." It was a light dress rapier, with a very highly cut and ornamented steel hilt. I half drew the blade, thinking how it had flashed from its scabbard, startling England and dazzling Scotland at its first unsheathing, and in what inglorious gloom of prostrate fortunes it had rusted away at last, the scorn of those who had opposed, and the despair of those who had embraced, its cause. "And so that was the Pretender's sword!" said I, hardly aware that I had spoken until the little, withered, snuff-colored gentleman snatched rather than took it from ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... and I saw several acres of very bad drawing, very bad perspective, and very incorrect proportions. Paul Veronese's dogs to not resemble dogs; all the horses look like bladders on legs; one man had a RIGHT leg on the left side of his body; in the large picture where the Emperor (Barbarossa?) is prostrate before the Pope, there are three men in the foreground who are over thirty feet high, if one may judge by the size of a kneeling little boy in the center of the foreground; and according to the same ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... phrase for my conduct. I have found out my villany. I have not done a day's sensible work, or had a single clear thought, since I parted from her. She has had brain-fever. She has been in the hospital. She is now prostrate with misery. While she suffered, I—I can't look back on myself. If I had to plead before you for more than manly consideration, I could touch you. I am my own master, and am ready to subsist by my own efforts; there is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... it," the other replied; and Helen went and knelt by the prostrate figure. The woman was muttering to herself, but she seemed to be quite dazed, and not to know what was going on about her. Helen did not hesitate any longer, but bent over and strove to lift her; the woman was fortunately of a slight ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... which he received, and the low inclinations of the body that were made before him, I imagined that he must be a royal personage, and I was soon informed as much, when I came near; for several blows on the head were given me, as hints to make me prostrate myself before a shahzadeh, or prince. A large circle being made, he ordered me to be released, and, as soon as I felt myself free, at one bound I disengaged myself from those near me, and seizing upon the skirt of his cloak,[21] as he was seated on his horse, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... towards the spot; hastily, to hinder the dog from tearing him, which the enraged animal seems determined to do. Chiding it off, he bends over the prostrate body, which he perceives has ceased to breathe. A sort of curiosity, some impulse irresistible, prompts him to look for the place where his bullet struck. In the heart, as he can see by the red ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... faith, and affection, still kept their hold;—amid the ruins of the intellect, that tender heart remaining still unbroken! These last lines remain as the surest evidence of the mysterious power that laid his spirit prostrate, and of the noble elements of which that spirit was composed,—humble, and reverent, and ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... California confined within her own borders. Mexico, and the islands nestled in the embrace of the Pacific, have felt the quickening breath of her enterprise. With her golden wand, she has touched the prostrate corpse of South American industry, and it has sprung up in the freshness of life. She has caused the hum of busy life to be heard in the wilderness "where rolls the Oregon," and but recently heard no sound, "save its own dashings." Even the wall of Chinese exclusiveness has been ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... lawn, their calves with them; and evidently these cows and calves were the only mowing-machines employed. On this wide-stretching meadow were various old trees; one elm I saw had fallen split through the center—each part prostrate, yet growing green. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... misdeeds, for they have been unkind. And now we humbly pray thee be inclin'd To pardon our offences, and the rather For that we serve the God e'en of thy father. And Joseph wept when they thus spake, and they Came nearer, and before him prostrate lay, And said, We are thy servants all this day. And Joseph bad them not to be afraid, For in the place of God am I he said: For though you meant me ill, God meant it good, And sent me hither to provide you food. Now therefore trouble not yourselves, for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... was one of the notorious brothers, was standing in careless security the Quaker sprang upon him like a panther upon his prey. He knocked the revolver from his hand with one powerful blow, felled him to the ground, and placed his foot upon his prostrate form. ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger

... out-run discretion, and tempt me to chastise your folly.—Attend to what I say—accept the duke, or quit this castle for ever, and wander where you will.' Saying this, he burst away, and Julia, who had hung weeping upon his knees, fell prostrate upon the floor. The violence of the fall completed the effect of her distress, and she fainted. In this state she remained a considerable time. When she recovered her senses, the recollection of her calamity burst upon her mind with a ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... was held up by a notched stick. Nan put her head and shoulders out into the frosty air and stared down at the prostrate girl, who stared up at her ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... me how on the night he had his own wound French and German soldiers talked together by light of the moon, which shed its pale light upon all those prostrate men, making their faces look very white. He heard the murmurs of their voices about him, and the groans of the dying, rising to hideous anguish as men were tortured by ghastly wounds and broken limbs. In that night enmity was forgotten by those ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... and Jarvis Islands: scattered vegetation consisting of grasses, prostrate vines, and low growing shrubs; primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for seabirds, shorebirds, and marine wildlife; closed to the public Johnston Atoll: Johnston Island and Sand Island are natural islands, which have been expanded by coral dredging; North ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the comedy only the stronger," replied the free baron curtly, as he knelt by the side of the prostrate figure and thrust his hand under the torn doublet. Having procured possession of the object which chance had revealed to him, he arose and, without further ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... yourself. Whatever has happened, don't sink under it like a woman. Help me to lift him. Merciful Heaven!" he added, as he raised the prostrate figure. "He is dead!" ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... avoided, and a cure effected in a very short time. In an extensive practice, in which we yearly treat thousands of cases, we have never yet failed to give perfect and permanent relief from stricture, or disease of the prostrate gland, without the necessity of using cutting instruments of any kind, when we have been consulted before injury to the urethra has been produced by the improper use of instruments. Having specialists who devote their entire time and attention to the study of these diseases, we are ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... hold upon the things that make his life desirable. Philosophy is sunk in the slough of ignorant, perversely subtle disputation upon subjects destitute of actuality. Theological fanaticism has extinguished liberal studies and the gropings of the reason after truth in positive experience. Society lies prostrate under the heel of tyrannous orthodoxy. We discern men in masses, aggregations, classes, guilds—everywhere the genus and the species of humanity, rarely and by luminous exception individuals and persons. Universal ideals of Church and Empire clog and ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... he proceeds, "the Persians are not only pious, but prudent in worshipping their kings as gods: for kingship is the shield of public safety," and he ends thus, "I, myself, when the king enters a banquet hall, should prostrate my body on the ground; other men should do the like, especially those who are wise " (Curtius, viii. Para. 66). (39) However, the Macedonians were more prudent - indeed, it is only complete barbarians who can be so openly cajoled, and ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... Germany against the Entente, or fighting with the Entente against Germany until Germany herself gave way. A slight foretaste of what would have happened was given us through the separatist steps taken by Andrassy at the last moment. This utterly defeated, already annihilated and prostrate Germany had yet the power to fling troops toward the Tyrol, and had not the revolution overwhelmed all Germany like a conflagration, smothering the war itself, I am not sure but that the Tyrol might at the last moment have been harried by war. ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... Gertrude. "She has fainted. Carry her in there," and she pointed to the bedroom. Bailey was beside the prostrate girl in a moment, and already had her in his arms. He followed Gertrude into the adjoining room and ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... egregious display of incapacity which followed; but Hazlet rather piqued himself on his indifference to the poor blind heathen poets, on whose names he usually dealt reprobation broadcast. "Like lions that die of an ass's kick," those wronged great souls lay prostrate before Hazlet's wrathful heels. ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... forward prostrate on the floor, squirming in my agony of body and mind, while within me a battle went raging on between the spirit and the flesh. My eyes would search for the packet of drugs lying on the floor within my reach and rest upon the sight of it, staring as mad ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... on shouting these words over and over again till the liquid has given out and the clock strikes one; when, with a final blow or kick at the prostrate ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... inform them of the head chief's death, and then, burying him according to his directions, we slowly proceeded homewards. My very soul sickened at the contemplation of the scenes that would be enacted at my arrival. When we drew in sight of the village, we found every lodge laid prostrate. We entered amid shrieks, cries, and yells. Blood was streaming from every conceivable part of the bodies of all who were old enough to comprehend their loss. Hundreds of fingers were dismembered; hair torn from the head lay in profusion about the paths; wails and moans in every ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... evidently sunk into a chair the moment she came in, a position from which she must have seen Verena walk through the garden and down to the water with the intruder. She remained as she had collapsed, quite prostrate; her attitude was the same as that other time Verena had found her waiting, in New York. What Olive was likely to say to her first the girl scarcely knew; her mind, at any rate, was full of an intention of her own. She went straight to her and fell on her knees before her, taking hold of ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... a charming Pieta of Fra Bartolommeo's occupies a place near the Pieta of Andrea del Sarto, the two pictures forming a most interesting contrast of style. The kneeling Virgin and S. John support the head of the prostrate Saviour, S. Catherine and Mary Magdalen weep at his feet, the latter in an agony of grief crouches prone on the ground hiding her face. The colouring is extremely rich, broad masses of full-tone melting ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)

... am on the Mount of Transfiguration, but very much in the condition of the disciples when they were prostrate in the dust. I got terribly tired in Boston. I went to the Athenaeum Gallery on Monday morning, and in the evening Hawthorne came and said that he went to the Allston gallery on Saturday afternoon. I went to Allston's on Tuesday evening. He was in delightful spirits, but soft as a summer ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... then gave chase to Jack, who kept out of the way for a few yards only, when, getting his legs entangled in the grass, he fell so suddenly that his pursuer dashed over him without doing him any bodily injury. However, as the animal went over his prostrate form, Jack felt the buffalo's tail brush across his face, and, rising suddenly, he caught it with a terrific grip and hung to it, thus keeping out of the reach of his enemy's horns, till his strength was just giving out, when Sam hove in sight and put ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... long enough to see the baffled officers unbarring the window shutters for the purpose of giving the alarm, before I closed the peephole, and with a farewell look at the distorted face of my prostrate enemy, Screw, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... cripple, unable to take active work upon himself, acted as Secretary to the Committee, Mr. Els was old and infirm, and Mr. Botha, as we have heard, had been struck by lightning and was frequently prostrate with headaches ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... even the present war has not equalled. The civilian population suffered hideously. Whole provinces were desolated and whole states were bereaved of their men. When, from mere exhaustion, the war came to an end, Germany lay prostrate, and the chief gains of the war fell to the rising monarchy of France, which had intervened in the middle of the struggle. By the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 Alsace and Lorraine went to France, and the rule of the great monarch, Louis XIV, had ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... work, and either caressing with his brush one of those graceful angelic figures which have made him immortal, or reverently outlining the sweet image of the Virgin before which he himself would kneel in adoration. Legend pictures him devoutly prostrate in prayer before commencing work, that his soul might be purified, and fitted to understand and render the divine subject; and again in oration after leaving his easel, to thank heaven for having given him power to make his holy visions ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... was descending from Mount AEtna with a very lively talkative guide, we passed through a village (I think called) Nicolozzi, when the host happened to be passing through the street. Every one was prostrate; my guide became so; and, not to be singular, I went down also. After resuming our journey, I observed in my guide an unusual seriousness and long silence, which, after many hums and hahs, was interrupted by a low bow, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... the entrances were blocked up with large stones that had fallen from the walls; yet not so totally, but that a slender person might find admittance into the building from the south-porch. As he looked in, he thought fancy might select this as the scene where the Anglican church, prostrate on her own ruins, mourned her departed glory and her present desolation in undisturbed silence, far from the sympathy of her friends, and the insults of her enemies. He called aloud, but the echo of ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... the witness, and had lifted him from the witness stand. One said something hurriedly, and Stafford King left his seat. He was bending over the prostrate figure, tearing open the collar from his throat, and presently was joined by the police surgeon, who was in court. There was a little whispered consultation, and then Stafford King straightened himself up and his ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... climbed up on the corpses of their fellows and literally descended on our heads from the air. We could not have held out much longer; our breath was coming in quick, painful gasps; Harry stumbled on one of the prostrate brutes and fell; I tried to lift him and was unequal ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... down and quiet. All sounds had ceased, but with a feeling of such terror as even these awful events had not inspired I now saw again the mysterious movement of the wild oats, prolonging itself from the trampled area about the prostrate man toward the edge of a wood. It was only when it had reached the wood that I was able to withdraw my eyes and look at ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... Southland crept the spell, That e'en from out its brightness spread, And prostrate, powerless, she fell, Rachel-like, amid her dead. Her bravest, fairest, purest, best, The waiting grave ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... worked until late 1800s) Land use: arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% meadows and pastures: 0% forest and woodland: 5% other: 95% Irrigated land: 0 km2 Environment: almost totally covered with grasses, prostrate vines, and low-growing shrubs; small area of trees in the center; lacks fresh water; primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for seabirds, shorebirds, ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... And Rama lent a willing ear And promised to allay his fear. Sugriva warned him of the might Of Bali, matchless in the fight, And, credence for his tale to gain, Showed the huge fiend(33) by Bali slain. The prostrate corse of mountain size Seemed nothing in the hero's eyes; He lightly kicked it, as it lay, And cast it twenty leagues(34) away. To prove his might his arrows through Seven palms in line, uninjured, flew. He cleft a mighty hill apart, And down to hell he hurled his dart. Then high ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... but he would make it difficult for Nicholas to get the knife. The struggle in that way was equalized. He turned in the gripping arms about him and the men were chest to chest. Neither spoke; each fought solely to get the other prostrate, while Nicholas developed a secondary pressure toward the blade buried in the wall. This Woolfolk successfully blocked. In the supreme effort to bring the struggle to a decisive end neither dealt the other minor injuries. There were no blows—nothing ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... strongest winds blow, the spot was protected by still higher land towards the interior, and the fine trees of various kinds and sizes, (some of them evidently the growth of many years), among which could be seen no prostrate trunks, showed, as we thought, that nothing was to be ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... back would be self-supporting, if not too much exposed to high winds. The question is a very practical one, and should be decided largely by experience and the grower's locality. There are fields and regions in which gales, and especially thunder-gusts, would prostrate into the dirt the stoutest bushes that could be formed by summer pruning, breaking down canes heavy with green and ripe fruit. In saving a penny stake, a bit of string, and the moment required for tying, one ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... convention, and heard with loud applause; when I see the sword of fanaticism extended to force a political creed upon citizens who were invited to submit to the arms of France as the harbingers of liberty; when I behold the hand of rapacity outstretched to prostrate and ravish the monuments of religious worship, erected by those citizens and their ancestors; when I perceive passion, tumult, and violence usurping those seats, where reason and cool deliberation ought to ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... past a hundred leagues before the breeze which Circe had lent them suddenly stopped. It was stricken dead. All the sea lay in prostrate slumber. Not a gasp of air could be felt. The ship stood still. Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far off, and that they had charmed the air so with their devilish singing. Therefore he made him cakes of wax, as Circe had instructed him, and stopped the ears ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... for they pointed out her grave, and a smaller one beside it, though whose that was, none knew. There was a tradition that when she died—it was on a winter night, and the clock was just striking twelve—there arose a stormy wind which swept through the neighboring oak-wood, laying every tree prostrate on the ground. And from that hour there was no record of the Elle-people or the mighty Kong Tolv having been ever again seen ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... gained the top now and, scarcely pausing to take a long breath, he ran out over the ties till he reached Mr. Tyler's prostrate form. He had fallen fortunately not very far from the beginning of the trestle, but he was quite unconscious and could not help himself. Roy must carry him away from ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... man in the fleet followed his example and fell upon his knees. The soldier, poising his firelock, knelt at his post by the bulwarks, the gunner knelt with his lighted match beside his gun. The decks gleamed with prostrate men in mail. In each galley, erect and conspicuous among the martial throng, stood a Franciscan or a Dominican friar, a Theatine or a Jesuit, in his brown or black robe, holding a crucifix in one hand and sprinkling holy water with the other, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... island have been greatly promoted by the relaxation of those restrictive regulations which under the old peninsular system bound down all foreign commerce with the colonies of Spain, and laid it prostrate at the feet of the mother-country. It cannot be said that the sound principles of free trade, in any large or extended sense of the term, have been recognized or acted upon even at the single port of Havana. The discriminating duties imposed by the supreme government ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson

... us talk with the impious, who have been brought up from their infancy in the belief of religion, and have heard their own fathers and mothers praying for them and talking with the Gods as if they were absolutely convinced of their existence; who have seen mankind prostrate in prayer at the rising and setting of the sun and moon and at every turn of fortune, and have dared to despise and disbelieve all this. Can we keep our temper with them, when they compel us to argue on such a theme? We must; or like them we shall go mad, though with more reason. ...
— Laws • Plato

... prostrate ourselves, our privileges, our all, at the gracious feet of your majesty, with an entire resolution to serve you ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... cries of joy, and their wives stood erect, as a mark of respect, at their tent-doors, waiting their arrival. As soon as they approached, they advanced with a submissive air, put their right hand upon the head of their husband; then, having kissed them, fell down prostrate before them. This ceremony over, they regarded us first with a look of curiosity, and then proceeded to abuse us. Not content with that, they spat in our face, and threw stones at us. The children, following ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... bent over the prostrate man with a cynical laugh: one might have thought he was Satan watching the departure of a soul too utterly ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... hopeless frenzy in her harsh and hollow laugh. I wrestled once, with all the strength I could command, and with a piercing scream I awoke! Cold clammy drops lay on my face and hands. My heart was throbbing wildly against my breast. I lay prostrate, paralyzed with fear, staring into the outer gloom. It was just at the turn of the darkness when things are outlined though still colorless and shadowy, and I could see the delicate frame opposite me suspended by invisible cords from an invisible nail—that cursed thing that had haunted ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... the young lexicographer's patience. He picked up a folio and incontinently let fly at the bookseller's head, and then stepping over the prostrate victim he made his exit, saying: "Lie there, thou lump ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... deceived. There are thousands of people in the great town who will not sleep a moment to-night. Go up that dark court. Be careful, or you will fall over the prostrate form of a drunkard lying on his own worn step. Look about you, or you will feel the garroter's hug. Try to look in through that broken pane! What do you see? Nothing. But listen. What is it? "God help us!" No footlights, but tragedy—mightier, ghastlier ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... transmuted plunder! From the tree Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen 265 Rudely disbranchd! Blessed Society! Fitliest depictured by some sun-scorched waste, Where oft majestic through the tainted noon The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp[119:1] Who falls not prostrate dies! And where by night, 270 Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs The lion couches: or hyaena dips Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws; Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk, Caught ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Whatever their mode of action, the results obtained are of the most gratifying kind. The pitiable condition in which some patients of this class present themselves, is familiar enough to every physician; but it appears that the greater the degree of exhaustion and the more prostrate the various functions, the more striking are the effects of the baths. The patients seem to live up anew under their influence. While in many if not most other complaints that come under electro-balneological ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig

... weakness might suggest) a far better. The storm has gone over me; and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honors, I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth. There, and prostrate there, I most unfeignedly recognize the Divine justice, and in some degree submit to it. But whilst I humble myself before God, I do not know that it is forbidden ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... weapon. Instinctively he struck out with his fist, catching Wyatt on the jaw, and sending him down as if he had been shot. Shif'less Sol and Tom Ross ran bodily over Coleman, hurling him down, and leaping across his prostrate figure. Then they ran their utmost, knowing that their lives depended ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the stooping person of Mr. Bacon, who emitted a startling sound that began as a yell and ended as a grunt. He then crumpled up and spread himself out flat, with Mr. Crow draped awkwardly across his prostrate form. For the time being, Mr. Bacon was as still as the grave. He ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... I'll come back presently, and have a round with you all in turn, if you like," said Fred, who felt confidence in his power of boxing with his dearly beloved brethren. But just now he wanted to hasten back to Caleb and the prostrate youth. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... were rather peculiar. At nightfall, wrapped in a great cloak, he would lie prostrate upon the ground, where he spent the night in contemplation of the heavenly bodies. At sunrise he would retire to his dwelling, where he spent a portion of the day in repose. But as he seemed to require less sleep than most people, he employed the hours of the afternoons ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... the Iroquois that were following the false scent, and tomahawking the laggards.[1] It was from Three Rivers that the Mohawks had captured the Algonquin girl who escaped by slipping off the thongs that bound her. Stepping over the prostrate forms of her sleeping guards, such a fury of revenge possessed her that she seized an axe and brained the nearest sleeper, then eluded her pursuers by first hiding in a hollow tree and afterward diving under the debris of ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... so weak, disheartened, and debased that you lie prostrate in the mire of your own evil nature, as it were, and with no power ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... Hugh was struck by a shot. The solid trunk, nearly three feet in diameter, parted asunder as if it were the brittlest of vegetable matter. The upper portion started aside with a monstrous groan, dropped in a standing posture to the earth, and then toppled slowly, sublimely prostrate, its branches crashing and all its leaves wailing. Ere long, a little further to the front, another Anak of the forest went down; and, mingled with the noise of its sylvan agony, there arose sharp cries of human suffering. Then ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... hemmed in a corner, and Miss Lucinda had run for a rope to tie him, when, just as she returned, the beast made a desperate charge, upset his opponent, and giving a leap in the wrong direction, to his manifest astonishment, landed in his own sty! Miss Lucinda's courage rose; she forgot her prostrate friend in need, and, running to the pen, caught up hammer and nail-box on her way, and, with unusual energy, nailed up the bars stronger than ever, and then bethought herself to thank the stranger. But there he lay quite ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... what to say, I was going to prostrate myself before this wonderful book, a way of answering equally pleasing to gods and kings, and which has the advantage of never giving them any embarrassment, when a little incident happened to divert conversation into ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... up. As his gaze fell upon the motionless figure beside him he uttered a sort of a gasping cry and sprang to his feet. He had hardly gained them before the noose did its work, and, tripped by it, he fell heavily to the ground. The tall Indian had also sprung to his feet, and now stood over the prostrate form of his victim, with a cruel ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe

... Then he was prostrate in the midst of all these ruins. He would rather have lost an arm, than have tampered with his blessed illusions. In his heart he mourned. But there was so much sap in him, so much reserve of life, that his confidence in art was not shaken. With a young man's naive presumption he ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... that a resort to arms would betray his own weakness and the power of the rebels, and completely prostrate the dignity and authority of government. It was necessary to temporize, therefore, however humiliating such conduct might be deemed. He had detained the five ships for eighteen days in port, hoping in some ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... mystery'? To our amazement it turns out that they are of the faith of Mr. Phoebus of 'Lothair.' They have preserved the old gods of paganism; and their hopes, which surely cannot be those of Disraeli, are that the world will again fall prostrate before Apollo (who has a striking likeness to Tancred) or Astarte. What does it all mean? or does it all mean anything? The most solemn revelation has been given by that mysterious figure which appeared in Sinai, in 'the semblance of one who, though not young, was still untouched ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... healthy development, he must become a worshipper. This is attested by the universal history of man. We look down the long-drawn aisles of antiquity, and everywhere we behold the smoking altar, the ascending incense, the prostrate form, the attitude of devotion. Athens, with her four thousand deities—Rome, with her crowded Pantheon of gods—Egypt, with her degrading superstitions—Hindostan, with her horrid and revolting rites—all attest that the religious principle is deeply seated in the nature of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... discourse a Pesant's shape May represent the person of a king; Then in the person of the great Lentulus I doe salute Sunne-bright Terentia. Lady, vouchsafe a Saint-like smile on him (From that angell forme) whose honord minde Lies prostrate lowly at Terentia's feete; Who hath put off a Golden victors honour And left the Parthyan spoyle to Lepido; Whome many Ladies have bedecked with favours Of rich esteeme, oh proud he deignd to weare them, ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... way of quick relief; than to cause the impending rock to impend a little farther, and fall upon her head. So I leaned against a tree, and listened to her sobs, in unbroken silence. She was half prostrate, half kneeling, with her forehead still pressed against the rock. Her sobs were the only sound; she did not groan, nor give any other utterance to her distress. It ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... maturity, was a good deal of a boy, and the Indian war-dance he executed around the prostrate buffalo left nothing in the way of delight unexpressed. Joe watched the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... Switzer in his most German comedian voice. "I think you haf fallen. Dit you hurt yourself?" he asked of the prostrate Hen. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... apparently through the writer's cautious respect for place and influence. He was vaguely described as goodly in appearance, of high family, but not abundantly supplied with riches. However he chanced to come to the obscure settlement was not stated. He did come, saw Desire Michell, and fell as abjectly prostrate before her as any youth who never ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... what words for token And what adoring tears Of reverence risen to passion, In what glad prostrate fashion Of spirit and soul subdued, May man show gratitude For thanks of children spoken ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... it had once looked down upon orgies such as few modern minds can imagine, had seen naked Bacchantes surrounded by tamed jungle beasts and having their arms enwreathed with living serpents, flinging themselves prostrate before its altar, and then amid delirious dances calling upon the Bull-faced Bacchus of whom we read in ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... his shovel, sprang at Tom Evert who was stooping down to pick up a drill, and gave him so violent a push that he was sent sprawling on his face some little distance away. Carried forward by his own impetus, Derrick fell on top of the prostrate miner. Behind, and so close to them that they were covered with its flying splinters, crashed down the great pillar of coal, weighing several tons, that the "robbers" had been working on. It had unexpectedly given way before their efforts, and would have crushed Tom Evert beyond human recognition ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe

... law. At last the party also left the path free; and now it was full night. They pursued their way, they cleared the wood; before them lay the field of battle; and a deeper silence seemed to fall over the world! The first stars had risen, but not yet the moon. The gleam of armour from prostrate bodies, which it had mailed in vain, reflected the quiet rays; here and there flickered watchfires, where sentinels were set, but they were scattered and remote. The outcasts paused and shuddered, but there seemed no holier way for their feet; and the roof ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that rose in her throat, the black-eyed girl by the window wheeled toward her playmate, now lying prostrate on the floor, and dropping on her knees beside her ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... the trees, and with the inner three He pushes a bit farther on. And now He pushes on quite alone in the farther lone recesses of the woods. And now the intensity of His spirit bends His body as He kneels, then is prostrate. And the agony is upon Him. He is fighting out the battle of the morrow. He is sinless, but on the morrow He is to get under the load of a world's sin; no, it was yet more than that, He was to be Himself reckoned and dealt with as sin itself. All the horror ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... unfasten it from the stake to which it was tied, and with a vigorous push to send it half-way across the channel, was the work of but an instant. A few dextrous and strong strokes of the paddle soon sent it grating on the pebbled shore, and with a bound he was by the side of the prostrate man. He lay with his face to the ground, with one arm stretched out, and the other cramped up beneath his body. Near him the leaves and grass were stained with drops of blood, and at a short distance a ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams



Words linked to "Prostrate" :   lie down, unerect, prone, change, semi-prostrate, flat



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com