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Thwart   Listen
adverb
Thwart  adv.  Thwartly; obliquely; transversely; athwart. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thwart" Quotes from Famous Books



... last moment, he was obliged to give it up, being detained by a cold. And there seemed indeed a fatality which interfered with all attempts to thwart the coming evil. At the beginning of April, 1864, completely broken down, yet without apparent cause, he set out southward with Mr. William Ticknor. On arriving at Philadelphia he began to improve; but Mr. Ticknor's sudden death overthrew the little he had ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... thwart, steeled his muscles, and gripped the oars harder. Short as his inaction had been, he could see that the tide had swept him back a trifle. It was going to be no picnic, that pull ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... of the changes which were going on in public opinion, and the gradual softening of the harsher features of slavery under their influence. The non-importation agreement throughout the Colonies, by which America was trying to thwart the commercial selfishness of her rapacious Mother, had rendered the provincial viceroys peculiarly sensitive to the slightest manifestation of a disposition to approach the sacred precincts of those prerogatives ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... provoked to it, and only acted in self-defense. She thirsted for revenge—more, indeed, than Nicholas, who, bully as he was, having been fairly worsted, was disposed to accept his defeat philosophically. If he could annoy or thwart Jasper he would have been glad to do it, but he did not desire to injure ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.

... He stripped us of the light. He hath marked out the borders of the world, and there created man in His own image, with whom He hopes again to people heaven, with pure souls. We needs must ponder earnestly to wreak this grudge on Adam, if we may, and on his children, and thwart His will if so ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown

... followed. Both higher authority and civil authority occasionally overreach; an officer stands as a shield protecting his men against unfair treatment from any quarter. But it is decidedly not his duty to attempt to cheat law or thwart justice for the sake of his men simply because they are his men. His job, as Shakespeare puts it, is "to unmask falsehood and bring truth to light, to wrong the wronger till he ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... which, with adjacent fences, the assailants presently set fire, in the hope that, as the wind was strong, the flames would catch the fort. When Stevens saw what they were doing, he set himself to thwart them; and while some of his men kept them at bay with their guns, the rest fell to work digging a number of short trenches under the wall, on the side towards the fire. As each trench was six or seven feet deep, a man could ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... resignedly. "There's no use in rowin' about what can't be helped. Bailey says he shipped her for a month's trial, and here comes the depot wagon now. That's her on the aft thwart, I judge. She AIN'T what you'd call a ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... cumber; encumber, incumber; handicap; choke; saddle with, load with; overload, lay; lumber, trammel, tie one's hands, put to inconvenience; incommode, discommode; discompose; hustle, corner, drive into a corner. run foul of, fall foul of; cross the path of, break in upon. thwart, frustrate, disconcert, balk, foil; faze, feaze[obs3], feeze [obs3][U.S.]; baffle, snub, override, circumvent; defeat &c. 731; spike guns &c. (render useless) 645; spoil, mar, clip the wings of; cripple &c. (injure) 659; put an extinguisher on; damp; dishearten &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... disclosing the essential self in the man. Every will is hampered by the fleshly screen of the body. 'I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me,' is the yearning of every heart that is deeply moved. Contending principles successively sway every personality and thwart each other's expression. For these, and many other reasons, the sum-total of every life is but a shrouded representation of the man who lives it; and we, all of us, after all efforts at self-revelation, remain mysteries to our fellows and to ourselves. All this is eminently true ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... of Edith, and environed by enemies, it could hardly be expected that he would come through unscathed. His enemies, fully aware of the difficulties of his situation, undoubtedly were using every endeavor to thwart him, it being certain that they were aware of his identity. To have captured the leader of the Riflemen of the Miami would have been a feat of which even a war-party would have been proud, and the ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... come up, but after his arrival, which he states in his memoirs was not later than ten o'clock, Custer was moved to the right flank, arriving in time to thwart a threatened flanking movement by Gordon and Kershaw. It is evident that every strategic attempt of the enemy, save the morning surprise, was checkmated by the union cavalry and, it must be remembered, that it was the absence ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... very few of the many instances of the debauching of every legislature in the United States. No matter how furiously the people protested at this giving away of their resources and rights, the capitalists were able to thwart their will on every occasion. In one case a State legislature had been so prodigal that the people of the State demanded a Constitutional provision forbidding the bonding of the State for railroad ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... scarcely believed in his existence; or should I ask my mother? alas—love! I wish I could persuade myself that she would wish me back again if I were gone; moreover, how can I respect her judgment, or be guided by her counsel, whose constant aim has been to thwart my feeble efforts after truth and wisdom, and to pamper all ill growths in my unhappy brother Julian? No, Emily; I am a man now, and take my own advice. If a parent forbade me, indeed, and reasonably, it would be fit to acquiesce; but knowing, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... so the youths and maidens soon regained The wonted gayety that late had fled. All save Winona, in whose face and mien, Unto the careless eye, no change was seen; But one that noted might sometimes espy A furtive fear that shot across her eye, As in a forest, 'thwart some bit of blue, Darts a rare bird that shuns the hunter's view. Her laugh, though gay, a subtle change confessed, And in her attitude a vague unrest Betrayed a world of feelings unexprest. A shade less light her footsteps in the dance, And sometimes now the Raven's curious ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... erring devotion was the tribute of one able apparently to command thought from the whole world. Moreover, because the New York papers had taken fire from his great struggle in the Middle West and were charging him with bribery, perjury, and intent to thwart the will of the people, Cowperwood now came forward with an attempt to explain his exact position to Berenice and to justify himself in her eyes. During visits to the Carter house or in entr'actes at the opera or the theater, he recounted to her bit by bit his entire ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... fort of St Marzalis, according to the desire of father Monclaros; whence he proceeded to the town of Inaparapala, near which is another town belonging to the Moors, who, being always professed enemies to the Christians, began to thwart the designs of the Portuguese as they had formerly done in India. They even attempted to poison the Portuguese army, and some of the men and horses actually died in consequence; but the cause being discovered by one of the Moors, they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... Goodness, how they must hate each other! For ten weeks they have been rowing together in the same boring boat, behind the same boring back. I read with grim interest about the periodical shiftings of the crew, how Stroke has moved to the Bow thwart, and Bow has replaced Number Three, and Number Three has shifted to the Stroke position. They may pretend that all this is a scientific matter of adjustment, of balance and weight and so forth. I know better. I know that Stroke is fed up with the face of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various

... exceedingly difficult in practice. Ontario and Quebec had equal representation. One was Protestant, the other Catholic; one French, the other English. Deadlocks, or, to use the slang of the street, even tugs of war, were inevitable and continual. All Ontario had to do to thwart Quebec, or Quebec had to do to thwart Ontario, was to stand together and keep the votes solid. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... been precisely her principal study. True, it had not been his principal study either; but Betty discerned a difference in their modes of approaching it. She attributed that to the Puritan or dissenting influences which had at some time got hold of him. To thwart those would at any rate be a good work, and she ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... is accomplishing more efficiently than can any combination of state governments the amount of supervision demanded by the public interest. But if the Federal courts are to be constantly invoked, in order to thwart the will of state legislatures and commissions, and if at the same time the authority which protects either neglects or is unable effectively to supervise, there is bound to be a revival of anti-Federal feeling in its most dangerous ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... give place, Of deep abhorrence! Scorning the disgrace Of slavish knees that at thy footstool bow, I also kneel—but with far other vow Do hail thee and thy herd of hirelings base; I swear, while life-blood warms my throbbing veins, Still to oppose and thwart, with heart and hand, Thy brutalizing sway—till Afric's chains Are burst, and Freedom rules the rescued land, Trampling Oppression and his iron rod; Such is the vow I ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... did likewise another, moved by Sheridan, on the 4th of March, to the effect that the house should resolve itself into a committee to consider of the seditious practices, &c, referred to in his majesty's speech. All the efforts of the opposition to thwart the measures of government were, indeed, futile: the propriety and necessity of war were acknowledged by the great majority of the nation, as well as of the members of parliament. All the old Whigs ranged themselves on the side ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... seeds of song, A spirit foreordained to cope with wrong, Whose divine thoughts are natural as breath, Who the old Darkness thickly scattereth With starry words, that shoot prevailing light Into the deeps, and wither, with the blight Of serene Truth, the coward heart of Death: Woe, if such spirit thwart its errand high, And mock with lies the longing soul of man! Yet one age longer must true Culture lie, Soothing her bitter fetters as she can, Until new messages of love out-start At the next beating of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... the Rains, and the gap of the sickness of one season was filled to overflowing by the fecundity of the next. Otis was unfeignedly thankful to lay down his work for a little while and escape from the seething, whining, weakly hive, impotent to help itself, but strong in its power to cripple, thwart, and annoy the weary-eyed man who, by official irony, was said to be "in charge" of it. * ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... the old man said, "to thwart the projects of these murderers and to have vengeance upon them. None have thought of me. I was an old man, too insignificant for notice, and I have passed the day in my chamber lamenting the kindest of lords, ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... let's," and we climbed into the boat. Jerry rows very well, and he pulled both the oars while I bailed with an old tin can that I found under the stern thwart. The boat didn't leak badly enough to worry about, but I thought it might be just as well to keep it bailed. We talked in a very nautical way, though Jerry kept forgetting he was Terry Loganshaw and mixing up "Treasure Island" and Captain Moss. But I didn't ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price

... tremendous effort of will I was free. "That shall never be. Somehow, some way, I will thwart you," I cried. "I will free myself from you; I will ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... Rosselin della Tosa, soon after which she died. Here also was Costanza, daughter of Roger I. of Sicily, grandmother of that Manfredi whom he had seen in Purgatory. Here Beatrice instructed Dante as to the imperfection of those wills that held not to their vows, but allowed violence to thwart them. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... Wales, and the infanta Dona Catalina, conspicuous in English history, equally for her misfortunes and her virtues, as Catharine of Aragon. [12] The French viewed with no little jealousy the progress of these various negotiations, which they zealously endeavored to thwart by all the artifices of diplomacy. But King Ferdinand had sufficient address to secure in his interests persons of the highest credit at the courts of Henry and Maximilian, who promptly acquainted him with the intrigues of the French government, and effectually ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... were lines of care and of thought that well became his masculine features. There was a something in his look that told of a set purpose, and there was a light in his dark eyes that spoke a world of warning to anyone who might dare to thwart him. But he seemed thinner, and his cheeks were as white as ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... wishing to heap up provisions for his voyage when he sees himself approaching the end of it. The holy father has written me a most obliging letter: is not that sufficient for me? I have not a doubt of his good-will towards me, but he is encompassed by people who thwart his intentions. Would that those persons could know how much I despise them, and how much I prefer my mediocrity to the vain grandeur which renders them so proud!" After a tirade against his enemies in purple, evidently some of the Cardinals, he reproaches ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... political gathering if a thunder-storm came up, and the augurs had taken advantage of the practice to increase their own power by laying down an occult system of celestial omens which enabled them to bring any such meeting to a close when the legislation promised to thwart their plans. They finally reached the absurd extreme of enacting a law, by the terms of which a popular assembly was obliged to disperse, if it should occur to a higher magistrate merely to look ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... deeply rooted a terror of pain and weakness, imply that He intended joy, of a purified and elevated kind, to be the ultimate inheritance of His creatures; and the sacrifice of man would then be the willing resignation of everything which could in any degree thwart the ultimate ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... love!" This was delightful experience; this was living! Dangerous, yes; for how did she mean to comport herself in the all but certain event of her receiving an offer of marriage from Lord Dymchurch? Mrs. Toplady was right; Lady Ogram had resolved upon this marriage, and would it be safe to thwart that strong-willed old woman? Moreover, the thought was very tempting. A peeress! Could she reasonably look for such another chance, if this were lost? Was she prepared to sacrifice it for the sake of Dyce Lashmar, and ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... balance of population becomes affected by the earlier marriages of some of its classes, and by pointing out the great influence that endowments have had in checking the marriage of monks and scholars, and therefore the yet larger influence they might be expected to have if they were directed not to thwart but to harmonise with natural inclination, by promoting early marriages in the classes to be favoured. I also showed that a powerful influence might flow from a public recognition in early life of the true value of the probability of future ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... would not listen to reason. He carried his coquetry so far that, although I had covered the empty orbit with black silk, he had his shutters closed whenever visitors came; so that, as they always found him in the dark, none would credit his cure. I was very anxious to thwart Don Juan's obstinacy, as may well be imagined; I had not the time to waste, during eighteen months, in dancing attendance at fortune's door; therefore I determined to make this eye myself, without which the coquetish captain would not be seen. I took some pieces of glass, ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... favoured, and Russia, the most autocratic of states, favoured still more vehemently, the development of constitutions wherever it might be practicable, while Austria, being composed of territories with no national cohesion, endeavoured rather to thwart the growth of constitutions. But Russia was also the most active advocate of joint interference where a constitutional reform was effected by unconstitutional means. Great Britain and Austria, on the other hand, with a juster instinct, considered armed interference an extreme remedy which ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... been brought to his attention by the Western railroad magnate had instantly interested the young inventor. The possibility of there being a clash of interests in the matter, and the point Mr. Bartholomew made of his enemies seeking to thwart his hope of keeping the H. & P. A. upon a solid financial footing, were phases of the affair that likewise concerned the young ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... resistance. But the English general left me severely alone, went over Dwaalheuvel by an abandoned wagon-track, and crossed the plateau of the mountains, probably to try and cut us off through the pass near Duivelskantoor. I tried hard, with the aid of 150 burghers, to thwart his plans and we had some fighting. But the locality was against us, and the enemy with their great force of infantry and with the help of their guns forced ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... like them it wished to award the lucrative positions to its friends and flatterers. Unfortunately, and this last feature completes the resemblance, the nation did not control the list of livings; that was in the hands of its agents and representatives. They, on the other hand, took care not to thwart the will ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... leader of a strong confederacy of petty States. Thereafter the Assyrian monarch turned towards the south-west and attacked the Hittite State of Hamath and the Aramaean State of Damascus. The various rival kingdoms of Syria united against him, and an army of 70,000 allies attempted to thwart his progress at Qarqar on the Orontes. Although Shalmaneser claimed a victory on this occasion, it was of no great advantage to him, for he was unable to follow it up. Among the Syrian allies were Bir-idri (Ben-hadad II) of Damascus, and Ahab ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... wished for your perfect happiness; yet, in the state of human perfection and human happiness, you might have fixed your affections with perhaps less propriety; and still, where my unwillingness to thwart your inclinations might not have permitted me to ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... his own standing; and after the checks he had recently received, a coolness had sprung up between him and nearly all the study-boys, which made him more than ever inclined to assert his independence, and defy and thwart ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... The little steamer has long ago submerged her load-line, and is only about ten inches above the water, and still they load, and still the mat-sailed boats and eight-paddled boats, with two red-clothed men facing forward on each thwart, are disgorging men and goods into the overladen craft. A hundred and thirty men, mostly Chinese, with a sprinkling of Javanese and Malays, are huddled on the little deck, with goats and buffaloes, and forty coops of fowls and ducks; the fowls and ducks ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... through the air. What matter whether that all-powerful Love Which moves the worlds, and bears with all our sins, Sent him a chariot and steeds of fire, Or moved the heart of some poor fisherman To bear him over for a brother's sake? All power is His, and men can never thwart His all-embracing purposes of love. Now past the stream and near the sacred grove The deer-park called, the five saw him approach. But grieved at his departure from the way The ancient sages taught, said with themselves They would not rise ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... they sound precisely, or according to the widest extent of signification; but do commonly need exposition, and admit exception: otherwise frequently they would not only clash with reason and experience, but interfere, thwart, and supplant ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... twinkling among the leaves, and wondered what manner of evil he could be planning against them. Wherever there are many conspirators one will be a gabbler or a traitor; so, when the natives had resolved on his murder, he, somehow, learned of their intent and set himself to thwart it. So great was their fear of this lonely man, and of the malignant powers he might conjure to his aid, that nearly fifty Indians joined the expedition, to ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... was at hand, the women were all half crazy about presents, and while good Doctors James and Kate were doing all in their power to cure the nervous affections of their patients, they would thwart the treatment by sitting in the parlor with the thermometer at seventy-two degrees, embroidering all kinds of fancy patterns,—some on muslin, some on satin, and some with colored worsteds on canvas,—inhaling the poisonous dyes, straining ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... and he looked the uncertainty he felt. He was between two stools, for he had no mind to displease Flavia or thwart her brother. At length, "No," he said, "I'll not be doing anything in The McMurrough's absence—no, I don't see that I can ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... protection, to say nothing of respect? Carters, sack-bearers (porters), messengers, and such-like, are the beasts of burden of humanity; they should be treated absolutely with justice, fairness, forbearance and care, but they ought not to be allowed to thwart the higher exertions of the human race by wantonly making a noise. I should like to know how many great and splendid thoughts these whips have cracked out of the world. If I had any authority, I should soon produce in the heads of ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... To transform thee, do thou laugh! Safe thou art if thou but bear The least leaf of moly rare. Close it grows beside her portal, Springing from a stock immortal,— Yes! and often has the Witch Sought to tear it from its niche; But to thwart her cruel will The wise God renews it still. Though it grows in soil perverse, Heaven hath been its jealous nurse, And a flower of snowy mark Springs from root and sheathing dark; Kingly safeguard, only herb That ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... between the two, "monsieur le protecteur" was given and accepted. Bordeaux proposed a treaty of amity, by which all letters-of-marque should be recalled, and the damages suffered by the merchants of the two nations be referred to foreign arbitrators. To thwart the efforts of his rival, Don Alonzo, abandoning his former project, brought forward the proposal of a new commercial treaty between England and Spain. Cromwell was in no haste to conclude with either. He was aware that the war between them was the true cause of these ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... a British force of little more than one third of the French host, watched and waited, maturing his stupendous strategic plan, which those in whose interests it had been conceived had done so much to thwart. That plan was inspired by and based upon the Emperor's maxim that war should support itself; that an army on the march must not be hampered and immobilised by its commissariat, but that it must draw its supplies from the ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... is his revealing of a part of his plan of this world's affairs, to show that God, and not man, is the sovereign of this world. For this purpose he tells beforehand the actions which wicked men, of their own free will, will commit, contrary to his law, and the measures he will take to thwart their designs, and fulfill his own. Nay, he declares he will so manage matters that, without their knowledge, and even contrary to their intentions, heathen armies, and infidel scoffers shall serve his purposes, and show his power; while yet they are as perfectly ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... without the inspection of the argus-eyed agent of the Institution. Parental advice, filial complaints, and confidential communications are equally arrested; and only furnish to the Superiors of the establishment, artifices to thwart the Seniors, to entangle the Juniors, and effectually to cajole both parties. Consequently, it generally happens, that from one term to another, little or no intercourse exists between the youth and her relatives; and it is indubitable, that where any letters do nominally pass between them, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... mothers, who were hearty in their praises of the saucy maid and the irrepressible young brother, while they thoroughly enjoyed the spirited acting of Louise, who, in the person of the widowed mother, did all that lay in her power to thwart the flirtations between the doctor and Allie, until her efforts were set at naught by the disloyalty of her maid and the traditions of amateur acting, which demand a happy ending ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... a sail, he followed me four or five miles, calling all the way. And when I came back to camp at twilight with a big bear in the canoe, his shaggy head showing over the bow, and his legs up over the middle thwart, like a little old black man with his wrinkled feet on the table, Hukweem's curiosity could stand it no longer. He swam up within twenty yards, and circled the canoe half a dozen times, sitting up straight on his tail by a vigorous use of his wings, stretching his neck like ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... will enable me to join you. Leave your muskets behind, lads; they would only be in the way in the jungle, and you have your pistols and cutlasses. You take the lantern, Winthorpe, and Harper, do you take the rope. Fasten one end to the thwart before you start, or, without knowing it, you might drag ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... influence over an older woman to gain access to the heroine." Sounds like a moving picture "cut in," doesn't it? Not only does he (the self-cast hero of the picture) intend to punish the villain's impudent interference with him, but to unmask the wretch in order to thwart his designs upon the heroine. To do this, the said hero has put a ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... middle of the night that, stretched upon the midship thwart of the boat, he noticed a movement among the Moors, who occupied the bow. One of them moved stealthily towards him, and bending over him, cautiously sought the hilt of his dagger; but before he could draw it, the grasp of Botello was ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... are proud of the size and the income of their church; her past contendings and sufferings, and present dangers, all endear their church to their heart. But if tribulation and persecution arise, that is to say, if anything arises to vex or thwart or disappoint them with their church, they incontinently pull up their roots and their religion with it, and transplant both to any other church that for the time better pleases them, or to no church at ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... attacked by five of the Cardinal's guards, and the courage of the youth is made apparent during the battle. The four become fast friends, and, when asked by D'Artagnan's landlord to find his missing wife, embark upon an adventure that takes them across both France and England in order to thwart the plans of the Cardinal Richelieu. Along the way, they encounter a beautiful young spy, named simply Milady, who will stop at nothing to disgrace Queen Anne of Austria before her husband, Louis XIII, and take her revenge upon ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... unprecedented expedient, turned off to the country of the Muscogees. These Indians, always more or less inimical to the colonists, bloodthirsty, cruel, crafty, and but recently involved in a furious war against the Cherokees, were glad to thwart Colannah in any cherished scheme of revenge, and received the fugitive kindly. Although but for this fact his temerity in venturing among them would have cost him his life, they ministered to his needs with ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... ingenuity; it will go far to cure him of any taste (if ever he had one) for the miserable life of cities. And when it has done so, it carries him back and shuts him in an office! From the roaring skerry and the wet thwart of the tossing boat, he passes to the stool and desk; and with a memory full of ships, and seas, and perilous headlands, and the shining pharos, he must apply his long-sighted eyes to the petty niceties ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... companions—was Hudson's evil genius; and I class him with the most finely conceived character in Marryat's most finely conceived romance: the pilot Schriften, in "The Phantom Ship." Just as Schriften clung to the younger Van der Decken to thwart him, so Juet seems to have clung to Hudson to thwart him; and to take—in the last round between them—a leading part ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier

... Aching to thwart the government he hated, Pachuca hastened to ally himself with its particular enemy and to work against it with all the impetuosity of his nature. But Francisco Villa was not an easy man for anyone as heady as Juan Pachuca to get ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... will allow them to go into the trunnion-holes without bringing too great a pressure of the slings against the upper port-sill. Then toggle or hook the gun-purchase to the outer bight of the slings, and sway away. When the breech of the gun is above the port-sill, hook the garnet and the thwart-ship-tackle to the cascabel, and bowse on both. When the slings bear hard on the upper port-sill, lower the gun-purchase, and bowse on the garnet until the breech is high enough for the trunnions to clear the cap-square ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... Kickapoo band up the Wabash to Vincennes, where the trader encountered old Indian friends who soundly rebuked the captors for their inhospitality. Croghan knew the Indian nature too well to attempt to thwart the plans of his "hosts." Accordingly he went out with the band to the upper Wabash post Ouiatanon, where he received deputation after deputation from the neighboring tribes, smoked pipes of peace, made speeches, and shook hands with greasy warriors by the score. Here came a messenger from Saint-Ange ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... sawber, and afeard Nif he in haste shood morry, That he mid long repent thereof; An zo a thwart 'twar best not, thawf To stAc ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings

... legal ghouls grow fat; Where buried papers, fold on fold, Crumble to dust, that 'thwart the sun Floats dim, a pallid ghost of gold. The day is dying. All about, Dark, threat'ning shadows lurk; but still I ponder o'er a dead girl's name Fast fading ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.

... but he had disappeared so soon as the words were uttered. Flammock was disconcerted by this circumstance, which showed him that his interview with Jorworth had been observed, and its purpose known or conjectured, by some one who was a stranger to his confidence, and might thwart his intentions; and he quickly after learned ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... would ultimately prohibit the trade. It was perfectly clear that the utmost would be done to prevent my expedition from starting. This opposition gave a piquancy to the undertaking, and I resolved that nothing should thwart my plans. Accordingly I set to work in earnest. I had taken the precaution to obtain an order upon the Treasury at Khartoum for what money I required, and as ready cash performs wonders in that country of credit and delay, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... that none but English lips could possibly have achieved. And the reason for his eloquence was not far to seek. For he was being thrashed, thrashed scientifically, mercilessly, and absolutely thoroughly—by the man whom he had dared to thwart. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... Attempt to thwart the nesting-instinct in a bird and see how persistent it is, and how blind! One spring a pair of English sparrows tried to build a nest on the plate that upholds the roof of my porch. They were apparently attracted by an opening about an inch wide in the top of the plate, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... morning, she saw nothing but lodging to be possibly added, out of which she was to deduct fire and candle, and the remainder, she thought, would scarce pay her for her trouble. She exerted therefore all the ill-humor of which she was mistress, and did all she could to thwart and perplex everything during ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... Russie; and into its well of blackness one other passenger followed us. Four hearts were at once set beating by the thought that this man might be a spy, who had already heard of our enterprise, and whose mission was to appropriate or else to thwart our secret. The following day two of us drove into Nice and deposited our notes of credit at one of the most important banks, the manager looking at us with an oddly repressed smile, as though he detected in us a new contingent of dupes. We went back to Monte ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... the Latins broken and fainting in the thwart issue of war, his promise claimed for fulfilment, and men's eyes pointed on him, his own spirit rises in unappeasable flame. As the lion in Phoenician fields, his breast heavily wounded by the huntsmen, at last starts into arms, and shakes out the shaggy masses from his ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... picture was not that of the savage, unrelenting parent of the old plays, who used to disinherit his sons and drive his daughters out into blinding snowstorms because they dared thwart his imperial will. Edwin Smith was distinctly a handsome man, gray-haired, of course, and strong-featured, but with a kind rather than a stern expression. As Mary had said when she first saw his likeness, he looked as if he might ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... insist.' I gave in reluctantly. 'Of course I'll put myself at your service. We'll look for him to-morrow.' All sorts of wild expedients to thwart a meeting ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... like other oppositions, to be viewed in many different lights. He regarded it as a mixture of jealousy and dunderheaded prejudice. Mr. Bulstrode saw in it not only medical jealousy but a determination to thwart himself, prompted mainly by a hatred of that vital religion of which he had striven to be an effectual lay representative—a hatred which certainly found pretexts apart from religion such as were only too easy to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... toward the heav'n, nor fears the rage Of elements contending, from that part Exempted, where the gate his limit bars. Because the circumambient air throughout With its first impulse circles still, unless Aught interpose to cheek or thwart its course; Upon the summit, which on every side To visitation of th' impassive air Is open, doth that motion strike, and makes Beneath its sway th' umbrageous wood resound: And in the shaken plant ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... as impersonally as a judge ruling from the bench—"I must remind you again that I am your escort to-night only in order that someone else may not be. What his plans were, I need not now say, but I know, and it became my duty to thwart him. It is hardly necessary to explain how I discovered Mr. Benton's purpose. It was not easy, but it has been accomplished. I have acquainted myself with his movements, his intention, and his preparations; I have even counterfeited his masquerade and stolen his car. There are bigger things ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... Even as "the flesh lusteth against the spirit" (Gal. 5:17), so too carnal friends often thwart our spiritual progress, according to Mic. 7:6, "A man's enemies are they of his own household." Wherefore Cyril expounding Luke 9:61, "Let me first take my leave of them that are at my house," says [*Cf. St. Thomas's Catena Aurea]: "By asking first to take his leave ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... barrister has power, and he certainly has plenty of intrigue, let us manage him. I'll sound him; leave me to do the thing—and, above all, don't thwart his game at ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... something more valuable than money could buy—a baby with a shaven head and aimless legs. It crawls to the thing in the polished brown box, is picked up just as it is ready to eat live coals, and is set down behind a thwart, where it drums upon a bucket, addressing the firebox from afar. Half-a-dozen cherry blossoms slide off a bough, and waver down to the water close to the Japanese doll, who in another minute will be overside in pursuit ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... are all labourers, are well contented with the new arrangements; but the military chiefs and their followers will, for a long time, be a stumbling-block in the way of the government, even if they do not thwart and render nugatory all its ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... thwart him, the child then began, Mrs. Jogglebury holding up her forefinger as well in admiration ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... at Wittenberg again as student of medicine, the parental notion of a strictly professional career of some kind not having yet been abandoned. We must give his father the credit of having done his best, in a well-meaning paternal fashion, to make his son over again in his own image, and to thwart the design of nature by coaxing or driving him into the pinfold of a prosperous obscurity. But Gotthold, with all his gifts, had no talent whatever for contented routine. His was a mind always in solution, which the divine order of things, ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... which the success had been won. After the battle of Cannae the character of the war changes. Hitherto Hannibal had swept everything before him. Rivers and mountains and morasses had been powerless to thwart his progress. Army after army, vastly superior in numbers and composed of the best fighting men the ancient world ever saw, had come against him to be broken, scattered, and destroyed. His career through Italy had been, in the words of Horace, as the rush of the flames through ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... occasional flash of resentment flushed his cheek when he heard something that shook his ancient faith in the established order of things. To a proposition to take a passage with us to San Francisco, he replied warmly that he would on no account leave his flock, nor attempt to thwart the manifest will of Heaven that the town should remain unheard of until delivered from its long sleep by the same agencies that had cut it off from the rest of the world. Neither would he allow any of the people to come ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... was immediately arrested under an accusation of treason, and was thrown into a dungeon, where, soon after, he was assassinated. A reign of terror now commenced, and imprisonment and death awaited all those who undertook in any way to thwart the plans ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... recognition of this independent provision is essential to the richest expansion of human faculty. To narrow or to repudiate such a province, and to insist exclusively on the social bearing of each part of conduct, is to limit the play of motives, and to thwart the doctrine that 'mankind obtain a greater sum of happiness when each pursues his own, under the rules and conditions required by the rest, than when each makes the good of the rest his only object.' To narrow or to repudiate such a province is to tighten ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... be carried there of the existence of our world. But who can say that Teuxical ever will return here again? It may be the whim of his ruler to refuse his request, or any one of a thousand other events might arise to thwart his desire to live among us. No," concluded Dirk passionately, "it never will do to let that great engine of destruction ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... displayed a collection of fragments of many-coloured glass and gay-painted china. Gloating happily over these treasures, which flashed like jewels in the sun, she began to sort them out and arrange them with care along the nearest thwart of the bateau. Mandy Ann was making what the children of the Settlement knew and esteemed as a "Chaney House." There was keen rivalry among the children as to both location and furnishing of these admired ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... dangerous of all, because they are less suspected than others, and it is more difficult to know them. By these means, ministers know what is said of them; yet, of this they avail themselves but little. They are more intent to ruin their enemies, and thwart their adversaries, than to derive a prudent advantage from the free and ingenuous hints ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... conviction of their Truth and Reasonableness: Whence if these Instructions at any time happen strongly to cross the Inclinations of those to whom they are given, it will appear rational to question their Solidity: And when Principles that thwart People's passions or interests, come once to be doubted of by them, it is great odds, that they will sooner be ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham

... lives!" cried the coxswain; and a tremendous sea broke bodily over her, threatening to sweep every man on board away. I held on, as may be supposed, like grim death. The men, slipping from their seats, placed their breasts on the thwart, thrust their legs under them, and clasped them with both their arms, while the water rushed over their backs and heads, so completely burying us that I fully believed the boat was going down; indeed, it seemed as if we were gone. Suddenly regaining its buoyancy, up it ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... off," he commanded. "You can't go; I won't let you. Promise." He laid a hand upon the telephone and eyed her gravely. "Don't thwart me—I'm a dangerous man. You can't use ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... time in all its hideousness, a place of murders and spying and secret machinations. People about her were no longer more or less interesting puppets in a play-world. They were vivid actualities, scheming and planning to thwart and overcome each other. Almost she wished that her dream had been undisturbed and that she had not been waked up to the realities. Almost she was tempted to abandon ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... shall observe that the way of the road doth yet again turn upon itself by the space of half a circle, and this marvel happing again and yet again and still again, it will grieve you that you had thought by vanities of the mind to thwart and bring to naught the will of Him that giveth not a castle a direction from a place except it pleaseth Him, and if it please Him not, will the rather that even all castles and all directions thereunto vanish out of the earth, leaving the places wherein ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... erect, but before he could answer, the Lord Proprietor had gone his way, waving his torch and still shouting for someone to man the bow thwart. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... own affair—no one has a right to control me." Olive was silent. "Do you mean to say you have? Because you are in some sort my guardian, are you to thwart me in this manner? I ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... go with me," said Dorothy. "Well, well, I will not thwart your desires," rejoined Mistress Nutter. And she made a sign ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... do more; and that mankind may be declared unworthy of the enjoyment of those renowned souls, they fright and astonish us with prodigies, monsters, and other foreboding signs that thwart ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... received religious belief by these very pictures of sin and crime among the gods. Their idea is a sort of semi-monarchical aristocracy, where a number of persons have the power to help favorites, and thwart the general progress of affairs; where love of faction overpowers every other consideration, and justifies violence or deceit. [Footnote: "Social Life in ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... at least, her impending fate in the hope that succor might come from some source. But her most subtle wiles proved ineffectual in ridding her, even for a moment, of her harpy jailer; and now that the final summons had come, she was beside herself for a lack of means to thwart ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs



Words linked to "Thwart" :   ruin, prevent, spoil, dinghy, crosspiece, dory, disappoint, baffle, short-circuit, bilk, thwarter, forestall, frustrate, foil, preclude, scotch, thwarting, forbid, cross, rowboat, foreclose, cross thwart, queer, let down



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