Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Vow   Listen
noun
Vow  n.  
1.
A solemn promise made to God, or to some deity; an act by which one consecrates or devotes himself, absolutely or conditionally, wholly or in part, for a longer or shorter time, to some act, service, or condition; a devotion of one's possessions; as, a baptismal vow; a vow of poverty. "Nothing... that may... stain my vow of Nazarite." "I pray thee, let me go and pay my vow." "I am combined by a sacred vow."
2.
Specifically, a promise of fidelity; a pledge of love or affection; as, the marriage vow. "Knights of love, who never broke their vow; Firm to their plighted faith."






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 |





"Vow" Quotes from Famous Books



... thing, I vow! 'Tis winter still within my body: Upon my path I wish for frost and snow. How sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy, The moon's lone disk, with its belated glow, And lights so dimly, that, as one advances, At every step one strikes ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... I say, Arvina, when I tell you, that you are as free as air from the oath, with which I bound you. That wicked vow compels you only so long as I hold you pledged to its performance. Lo! it is nothing any more—for I, to whom alone of mortals you are bound, now and forever release you. The Gods, above and below, whom you called to witness ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... disgrace of a rejection, we are content to urge our suit patiently, and to give our constant attendance. At length a friend is accepted, and the engagement is concluded with our most solemn oath: 'to live together and if need be to die for one another.' That vow is faithfully kept: once let the friends draw blood from their fingers into a cup, dip the points of their swords therein, and drink of that draught together, and from that moment nothing can part them. Such a treaty of friendship may include three persons, but no more: a man of many ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... the alleged injustice felt by Signer Mancussi, who stood at the foot of the sloping list in letters less than an inch long; and he had made a solemn vow to revenge himself on M. Bartin the first time that they met after the concert. Their simultaneous appearance at Mrs. Slapman's was that time. M. Bartin had been privately informed of the Signer's intentions, and regretted that that ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... unsuspecting heart; And vice, with a progressive sway, More hardened makes her every day. Averse to good and prone to ill, And dexterous in seducing skill; To look, as if her eyes would melt: T' affect a love she never felt; To half suppress the rising sigh; Mechanically to weep and cry; To vow eternal truth, and then To break her vow, and vow again; Her ways are darkness, death, and hell: Remorse and shame and passions fell, And short-lived joy, with endless pain, Pursues ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte

... stand before the altar with me this day, and vow to God to be a true and faithful husband? And is this all the respect you show ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... the verse which has occupied so much attention should be seen not only in its scholarly fascination, but in its wide-spread influence in the circles of the learned and the circles even of the fashionable in Paris and throughout France, binding this great nation by an unchangeable vow to the support of American liberty. Words are sometimes things; but never were words so completely things as those with which Turgot welcomed Franklin. The memory of that welcome cannot be forgotten in America. Can it ever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... charger in the fight!— And a cry of exultation from the bearded warriors rose, For we loved the house of Claver'se, and we thought of good Montrose. But he raised his hand for silence—"Soldiers, I have sworn a vow; Ere the evening star shall glisten on Schehallion's lofty brow, Either we shall rest in triumph, or another of the Graemes Shall have died in battle harness for his country and King James! Think upon the Royal Martyr—think of what his race endure— Think on him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... of the besieging mob, which was led by a recreant though professed minister of the gospel. But the brutish passion of the mob was not yet sated; propping the body against a well-curb in the jail-yard, the murderers poured a volley of bullets into the corpse, and fled. Thus was the unholy vow of the mob fulfilled, that as law could not touch the "Mormon" leaders, powder and ball should. John Taylor, who became years afterward president of the Church, was in the jail at the same time; he received four bullets, and ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... looking towards it and laughing. Mr. Leatherby had come out from his shop; Mr. Noggin, the cooper, was there, smoking his pipe; also, Mrs. Shelbarke, who lived across the street. Philip was there. "That is a 'cute trick, I vow," said he. Everybody was on ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... all, that his health was better than it had ever been. On the whole, and most of the time, he was a sad spectacle; he looked so hopelessly idle. If he was not querulous and bitter, it was because he had taken an extraordinary vow not to be; a vow heroic, for him, a vow which those who knew him well had the tenderness to appreciate. Talking with him was like skating on thin ice, and his companions had a constant mental vision of ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... visit : viziti. vocabulary : vortaro. voice : vocxo. void : eljxeti, nuligi. volcano : vulkano. volley : salvo. volume : volumo; volumeno, amplekso. voluntary : memvola, propravola. voluptuous : volupta. vote : vocxdoni. vow : solene promesi, dedicxi. vowel : vokalo. vulgar : vulgara. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... violations of canon law. Three of the bishoprics he held he never visited at all; York, which he had obtained fifteen years before, he did not visit till the year of his death, and then through no wish of his own. He was equally negligent of the vow of chastity; he cohabited with the daughter of "one Lark," a relative of the Lark who is mentioned in the correspondence of the time as "omnipotent" with the Cardinal, and as resident in his household.[321] By her (p. 118) he left two children, a son,[322] for whom he obtained a ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... appointed for the wedding, Arturo has to aid Enrichetta (Henrietta, widow of Charles I.) in her escape, and Elvira, supposing he is eloping with a rival, temporarily loses her reason. On his return, Arturo explains the circumstances, and they vow never more to part. At this juncture Arturo is arrested for treason, and led away to execution; but a herald announces the defeat of the Stuarts, and free pardon of all political offenders, whereupon Arturo is released, and marries ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... theatres to see our sport, Now find us tossed into a tennis-court. These walls but t'other day were filled with noise Of roaring gamesters and your dam'me boys; Then bounding balls and rackets they encompast, And now they're filled with jests, and flights, and bombast! I vow, I don't much like this transmigration, Strolling from place to place by circulation; Grant heaven, we don't return to our first station! I know not what these think, but for my part I can't reflect without an aching heart, ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... said Captain Guy to me, 'I couldn't do that, for I'd lost time enough already, and the wind was very light and variable; so all I could do was to vow to the ladies that when we got to Lisbon we'd be bound to find a steamer going south, and that she could easily keep a lookout for the Sparhawk, and take off the friend.' 'That was a pretty big contract ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... tributaries from the left or western side—the whole plateau having a smartish inclination to the east; one of the tributaries in a handsome little web of silver hanging in the forest. Twice I was startled by birds; one that barked like a dog; another that whistled loud ploughman's signals, so that I vow I was thrilled, and thought I had fallen among runaway blacks, and regretted my cutlass which I had lost and left behind while taking bearings. A good many fishes in the brook, and many crayfish; one of the last with a queer glow-worm head. Like all our brooks, the water ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Christ, but is perplexed at His manhood; he wishes to get as firm a hold of it 'as if Christ came to meet him out of a wood.' His friend thereupon exhorts him to be humble, since this was only a doubt sent him by the Devil. Soon after it occurs to the penitent that he has not fulfilled a vow made in his youth to go on pilgrimage to the Impruneta; his friend promises to do it in his stead. Meantime the confessor—a monk, as was desired, from Savonarola's monastery— arrives, and after giving him the explanation quoted above of the opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas on tyrannicide, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... can agree in our Resentments, For I have vow'd he shall not live a day; He has an Art to pry into our Secrets: To all besides our Love is either hid, Or else they dare not see—But this Prince Has a most dangerous ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... he had long suspected This trespass of old Goody Blake, And vow'd that she should be detected, And he on her would vengeance take. And oft from his warm fire he'd go, And to the fields his road would take, And there, at night, in frost and snow, He watch'd to seize ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... her on the warm, white brow, And told her in fonder words, the vow He whispered under the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... not very good," Alix said, hesitatingly. "But a vow is a vow, you know. If it was limited, then my—my fulfillment of it would be limited, I suppose. Of course," she added, honestly, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... Rapt as in a dream, Scarce conscious of my turn, nor how I spake, I watched with wondering eyes the delicate face And figure of Perpetua; for her We that were youngest of our company Loved with a sacred and absorbing love, A passion that our martyr's brotherly vow Had purified and made divine. She stood In dreamy contemplation, slightly bowed, A glowing stillness that was near a smile Upon her soft closed lips. Her turn had come, When, like a puppet struggling up the steps, Her father from the pierced and swaying crowd Appeared, ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman

... but times has changed whin they land me gr-reat an' good frind with a fine that's about akel to three millyon dhrunk an' disorderly cases. 'Twud've been cheaper if he'd took to dhrink arly in life. I've made a vow, Hinnissy, niver to be very rich. I'd like to be a little rich, but not rich enough f'r anny wan to notice that me pockets bulged. Time was whin I dhreamed iv havin' money an' lots iv it. 'Tis thrue I begun me dhreams at th' wrong end, spent th' money befure I got it. I was always ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne

... very much for the honor, my dear Bernat bacsi, but I intend to remain faithful to my vow never to marry." ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... like you, Reuben Hallowell," he said, "to be willing to ruin my plans by your foolish scruples just when a real prize is within reach. But I vow you shall not do it. You shall be a wealthy man in spite of yourself, and let me remind you that, two years ago, before we built the Huntress, you ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... sighed David; and remembering his vow to Billy to watch over this girl, he sighed again and ordered her below in ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... there's the clock, and looking-glass Reflecting me again; She vow'd her Love was very fair— I see I'm very plain. And there's that daub of Prince Leboo, 'Twas Pamela's fond banter To fancy it ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... 12 er'clock. Ah tole him ah couldn' preach. Den ah heard a voice above mah haid. Ah stopped and wondahed and pondered wid mahself knowin' de condition uv mahself. Ah said, "Lord yo knows ah caint preach." Den ah made a vow and ah stuck to hit but ah heard nother voice say, "Go and preach" again. And ah heerd ah nother voice say "Yo go in de mawnin and pray befo sunrise." Ah goes thar and gits on mah knees and tried ter pray an ah heard dogs a barkin and chains rattlin ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... participated in its belief. It would be foreign to the end I have in view, to relate here the various circumstances of my childhood and youth, which preserved me from being brought into the bosom of the Catholic church by the usual rites and ceremonies. God so ordered it, that I made no vow by which I might[5] have afterwards felt myself bound to the church ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous

... the manners, the religion, and even the language, of the civilized nations of the South. The fierceness of his temper was exasperated by cruel superstition; and it was universally believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow, to reduce the city into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the most illustrious of the Roman senators on the altars of those gods who were appeased by human blood. The public danger, which should have reconciled all domestic animosities, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... is therefore obliged to pitch his tent. After raving for a while he sinks down for the first time exhausted, but being urged, like his prototype Hamlet, by the spirit of his father to complete his vow of vengeance, he himself suddenly falls into the power of the enemy during a night assault. In the subterranean dungeons of the castle he meets Roderick's daughter for the first time. She is a prisoner like himself, and is craftily ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... seen you through what I must specify as a serious illness; dangerous I will not call it, although I might do so if I were to look into the future and anticipate the development the disease will most certainly take, unless, indeed, you will be guided by me, and make a vow against all ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... before men, before Thee I shall be cleared never, unless Thy mercy shall be my succour. I confess I have sinned against Thee, nor shall I do so more. Thou seest how this paper on which I write is now all wet with my tears: pardon me, Redeemer mine, and grant that the vow I now take to Thee I may sacredly perform. Let a thousand dogs bark at me, a thousand bulls of Bashan rush upon me, as many lions war against my soul, and threaten me with destruction, I will reply no more, defended ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... her, as I have heretofore desired. I must entreat you also to respect my maids, and give them in marriage, which is not much, they being but three, and to all my other servants, a year's pay besides their due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various

... heaven. Then Jacob arose early and took the stone that lay under his head, and raised it for witness, pouring oil thereon, and called the name of the place Bethel which tofore was called Luza. And there he made a vow to our Lord, saying: If God be with me and keep me in the way that I walk, and give me bread to eat, and clothes to cover me, and I may return prosperously into the house of my father, the Lord shall be my God, and this stone that I have raised ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Launfal now Remember the keeping of his vow? ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... This vow seemed to have given Hadrian some comfort. For above half an hour he paced his tent with a firmer tread, then he desired that Heliodorus his secretary ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... food.' He gave another order to the waiter, who ranged the dishes before them and darted away. Trent was, it seemed, a respected customer. 'I have sent,' he said, 'for wine that I know, and I hope you will try it. If you have taken a vow, then in the name of all the teetotal saints drink water, which stands at your elbow, but don't seek a cheap notoriety by demanding milk ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... principal supporters of the new kingdom at Jerusalem were the orders of knights, in which were united the spirit of chivalry and the spirit of monasticism. To the monastic vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, they added a fourth vow, which bound them to fight the infidels, and to protect the pilgrims. These military orders acquired great privileges and great wealth. Each of them had its own peculiar apparel, stamped with a cross. The two principal orders were the Knights of St. John, or ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the gods; and vow, for my escape From the hard grip of premature Jehannun, One golden-tissued bottle ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... room, and locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own heart never to resume my labours; and then, with trembling steps, I sought my own apartment. I was alone; none were near me to dissipate the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... Holleschow and retire to Poland. But moved by the dangers to which were exposed the people whom he loved so dearly in Christ, he returned to his parish, after having venerated the Holy Virgin at her shrine of Crenstochow, in fulfilment of a vow which he had made. Soon after his return the heretics cast him into prison as a traitor to his country, but, in reality, on account of his zeal in preaching the Catholic faith. He was subjected to vigorous interrogatories, and in order to induce him ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... the silence, Owen considered if he had not been too abrupt. His dealings with women had always been conducted with the same honour that characterised his dealings on the turf, but he need not have informed her so early in their acquaintanceship of his vow of celibacy. While he thought how he might retrieve his slight indiscretion, she struggled in a little crisis of soul. Owen's words, tone of voice, manner were explicit; she could not doubt that he hoped to induce her to leave ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... be hard on poor Sara. She didn't mean to bring me mucilage. It's really all my own fault, I know. I made a solemn vow when Peter was dying that I would never curl my hair again, and I should have kept it. It isn't right to break solemn vows. But my hair will look like ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... girls wuz like pieces of their own hearts, and these wives in the grief made recklessness of despair, made a hash vow that they would break up Perkinses saloons or die in the attempt, so they sot on him that night and gin him ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... dangerous enemies of the Roman State. Having likewise repulsed from our walls an invasion of the Sabines, he routed them by the aid of his cavalry, and subdued them. He also was the first person who instituted the grand games which are now called the Roman Games. He fulfilled his vow to build a temple to the all-good and all-powerful Jupiter in the Capitol—a vow which he made during a battle in the Sabine war—and died after a ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... protuberance, she immediately divined that the mayoress was hiding behind there, and that the protuberance was caused by her portly form. Now she discovered the mayor's design, and that it was probably a caprice of his spouse, and she made a vow not to suffer herself to be shorn unless she acquired by these means the five hundred maravedis needful to pay the Arabian physician who would give her father ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various

... equal to this burst unless it be the first speech of Prometheus in the Greek drama, after the exit of Vulcan and the two Afrites. But Shakspeare alone could have produced the vow of Hamlet to make his memory a blank of all maxims and generalized truths, that 'observation had copied there,'—followed immediately by the speaker ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... he feels that the spirit moves him will carry it himself. In Wardha the Kunbis worship Khwaja Sheikh Farid of Girar, and occasionally Sheikh Farid appears to a Kunbi in a dream and places him under a vow. Then he and all his household make little imitation beggars' wallets of cloth and dye them with red ochre, and little hoes on the model of those which saises use to drag out horses' dung, this hoe being the badge of Sheikh Farid. Then they go round begging to all ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... physician's success: his genial magnetism cures when his medicine is useless, although, of course, he does not know it. As is the difference between these two forces, so is the difference in the method of their employment for the purpose of cure." However, when I left I promised—and I mean to keep my vow—that if ever I am unfortunate enough to find my vertebrae creaking like "an old hinge," I will come to Mr. Ashman and have it greased. The remark in his book as to the success of medicine depending on the qualities of him who administered ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... to offer one hundred oxen to the goddess in recognition of this happy event." The Senate at once veered to his side. So when I saw myself defeated by this ox filth, I outbade the fellow, crying, "Two hundred!" And beyond this I moved, that a vow be made to Diana of a thousand goats if the next day anchovies should only be worth an obol a hundred. And the Senate looked towards me again. The other, stunned with the blow, grew delirious in his speech, and at last the Prytanes and the guards ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... "I vow you are an unaccountable girl: have you no curiosity to see the inside now? for my part I could no more let a letter addressed to me lie unopened so long, than I could work miracles: he writes a good hand," continued she, turning the letter, to look ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... third mention, in way of ordinance, is a far more solemn one: "Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off." "The Place," the mountain of myrrh, or of bitterness, chosen to fulfil to all the seed of Abraham, far off and near, the inner meaning of promise regarded in that vow: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh mine help." And the fourth is the delivery of the law on Sinai. It seemed then to the monks that the mountains were appointed by their Maker to be to ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... in blowing dirt and impurities from gold dust offered for sale, were not over-careful about blowing away gold dust, too, which would be caught on buckskin placed out of sight behind the counter. Palmer's dust was very fine, and more than once he had suffered through such sharp practice, only to vow he never would suffer so again. In Francis he had found a strictly honest banker, whose virtue he was inclined to attribute to correct political principles, overlooking the moral delinquencies of other Democratic neighbors. But the old man, through long ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... realise that Life's journey is long, and that the sorrows to be encountered are many and inevitable, a supreme effort is required to keep up my strength of mind. Some evenings, as I sit alone staring at the flame of the lamp on the table, I vow I will live as a brave man should—unmoved, silent, uncomplaining. The resolve puffs me up, and for the moment I mistake myself for a very, very brave person indeed. But as soon as the thorns on the road worry my feet, I writhe and begin to feel serious misgivings as to the ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... stir out of thy bed, I do vow to strike thee dead. I do come to do thee good; Recall thy wits and starkled[8] blood. The money which thou up dost store In soul and body makes thee poor. Do good with money while you may; Thou hast not ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to keep her vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Vain vow! No hint of mine may hence To theeward fly: to thy locked sense Explain none can Life's pending plan: Thou wilt thy ignorant entry make Though skies spout fire and blood ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy

... to look at close at hand, therefore, we determined to go on our travels, like Ulysses; not amongst the islands, which we had already visited, but towards the mountains, Captain Buncombe having made a vow ere he left England to see the ruins of Thebes, after which, he said, he would have no further object in life, and would perform the Japanese feat ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... feeble in body, and so exhausted as to be obliged to sit down in a chair on deck, he expressed a wish to pursue the flying enemy; but Sir Roger Curtis, the Captain of the Fleet (Chief of Staff, as Douglas to Rodney) said, 'I vow to God, my lord, if you do they will turn the tables upon us.' This anecdote I had from the late Admiral Bowen, who was master of the Queen Charlotte and a party to the conversation." Under circumstances approaching similarity,—so ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... well through the spacious church. And the parson did absolutely nothing to revenge himself, but treated Pelle exactly as he did the others. At the most solemn part of the ceremony, Lasse thought of Karna, and how touching her devotion was. He scolded himself in an undertone, and made a solemn vow. She should not ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... seven hundred sequins. I had three hundred more, so that my fortune amounted to one thousand sequins; I kept two hundred, and for the rest I took a letter of exchange upon a Ragusan who was established in Ancona. I left Rome in the coach with a lady going to Our Lady of Loretto, to fulfil a vow made during a severe illness of her daughter, who accompanied her. The young lady was ugly; my journey ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... might have miscarried? What had she not suffered? Alone, friendless, disgraced in the eyes of the world. Motherhood, death, the bitterness of feeling herself deserted—all—all had been tasted by her for whom he would willingly have laid down his life; and he registered a solemn vow that the devotion and love of his whole life should henceforth shield her and guard her from every sorrow as far as ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... beside the body of John Ring and realized that he had died for love of me, I made a vow that has formed my life. I vowed that from that moment I would live not only my own life, but that I would also live the life of John Ring. And from that moment I have worked sixteen hours every day—eight for John Ring's work and eight hours for ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... to bed but not to sleep. What, he asked himself, had been the contents of the black portmanteau? Stolen goods? the carcass of one murdered? or—and at the thought he sat upright in bed—an infernal machine? He took a solemn vow that he would set these doubts at rest; and, with the next morning, installed himself beside the dining-room window, vigilant with eye and ear, to await and profit by the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Well, I vow if it aint—speak of the old fellar and he's sure to appear," cried Moses. And instantly they were recognized by the stalwart young lawyer who was on his ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... How Perseus and his mother came to Seriphos How Perseus vowed a Rash Vow How Perseus slew the Gorgon How Perseus came to the AEthiops How Perseus came home again The Argonauts How the Centaur trained the Heroes on Pelion How Jason lost his sandal in Anauros How they built the ship ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley

... was denner-time, The lift (firmament) was in a low; The reek rase up, as it had been Frae Sodom-flames, I vow. We ran like mad; but corn and byre War blazin'—wae's the fell!— As gin the deil had broucht the fire, To mak' anither hell. 'Twas ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... which the rest of life must be somewhat related. For instance, every man falls in love; and no man falls into free love. When he falls into that he calls it lust, and is always ashamed of it even when he boasts of it. That there is some connection between a love and a vow nearly every human being knows before he is eighteen. That there is a solid and instinctive connection between the idea of sexual ecstasy and the idea of some sort of almost suicidal constancy, this I say is simply the first fact in one's own psychology; boys and girls know it almost before ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... meetings with Giles she had seen the love light in his eyes, and his reluctance to bind himself irrevocably with the ring was due to a hope that something might happen to permit his choosing for himself. But nothing had happened, the age of miracles being past, and the vow to his dead father bound him. Therefore on this very night he had locked his shackles and had thrown away the key. Anne had made it plain to him that she could not, nor would she, help him to play a dishonorable part. He had accepted ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... recollection of her brother in the mind of Amelie. He mingled as the fairy prince in the day-dreams and bright imaginings of the young, poetic girl. She had vowed to pray for him to her life's end, and in pursuance of her vow added a golden bead to her chaplet to remind her of her duty in praying for the safety and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... open hands over the sea, poured forth prayers and called the gods to hear his vows: 'Gods who are sovereign on the sea, over whose waters I run, to your altars on this beach will I bring a snow-white bull, my vow's glad penalty, and will cast his entrails into the salt flood and pour liquid wine.' He spoke, and far beneath the flood maiden Panopea heard him, with all Phorcus' choir of Nereids, and lord Portunus ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily hear; Till in life's latest hour I bow, And bless in death a bond ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... strikes one then they both will wither; If one its vesture of emerald shows, The other mantles with green its boughs. Our lives in joy and in grief thus blended, I cannot think of the union ended. But I'm alone. O, thou noble Var Who wanderest over the earth afar, To record on gold every vow that's spoken, Forego thy pastime, the vows are broken. The tablet filled with but falsest lies, The faithful gold 'gainst the insult cries. Of Balder's Nanna I've oft been dreaming, But truth in mortals is only seeming. In faithfulness ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... t'other eye"; While the dose is so strong, to his grief and surprise, She merely says, "Thankee, Sir Walter," and dies. At that moment the King, who is riding to cover, Pops in en passant on the desperate lover, Who has vow'd, not five minutes before, to transfix him— So he does—he just pulls out his arrow and sticks him. From the strength of his arm, and the force of his blows, The Red-bearded Rover falls flat on his nose; And Sir Walter, thus having concluded ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... teach our servants idleness and nonsense; for to be sure nothing better can be learned by such idle shows as these. I remember when puppet-shows were made of good scripture stories, as Jephthah's Rash Vow, and such good things, and when wicked people were carried away by the devil. There was some sense in those matters; but as the parson told us last Sunday, nobody believes in the devil now-a-days; and here you bring about a parcel ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... you left her our little lady was as one half dead; her heart died within her. Ah, she loved you, Arillaga, far more than you deserved. She drooped swiftly, and one night all but passed away. Then it was that she made a vow that if God spared her life she would become the bride of the church—would forever renounce the world. Well, she recovered, became almost well again, but not the same as before. She never will be that. So ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... of Faithful Men! with best of grace thy vow * I will accomplish as 'twas vowed and with the gladdest gree. I sinned not adulterous sin when loved her I, then how * Canst charge me with advowtrous deed or any villainy? Soon comes to thee that splendid sun which hath no living ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... regretted the vow he had made, never to visit the Mertons again unless they sent ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... of novitiate the novices are under the direct rule of the mistress of novices, whose authority over them is paramount, though she herself is of course under a vow of obedience to the superior. When a novice receives a visit from one in the world she is accompanied by the "mistress," and if the visitor be a near relation and a woman the curtain behind the grating is withdrawn; if only a friend, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... must find some means to know," said I. "I cannot continue to go dovering round in the black night with two men's lives at my girdle! Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try hard to put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it. See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... wild tumult has subsided now, Hushed is the pleading prayer and woe strung vow, Breathed by fond parents, brothers, husbands, wives Of near three hundred late ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby

... love from her heart; to devote herself to one aim and object; to win title and station, that she might be able to give power and permanence to her disdain of those qualities in others; and in the secrecy of night she repeated the vow which had consoled her father's death-bed, and solemnly resolved to crush love within her heart and marry solely for station ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... saying, "He resolved never to marry his daughter on a Smithfield match; that whoever had love for her to take her would, when he died, find her share of his fortune in his coffers; but he had seen such examples of undutifulness happen from the too early generosity of parents, that he had made a vow never to part with a shilling whilst he lived." He commended the saying of Solomon, "He that spareth the rod spoileth the child;" but added, "he might have likewise asserted, That he that spareth the purse saveth the child." He then ran into a discourse on the extravagance of the youth of ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... the Martians our Earth is a star of the morning and evening; doubtless they have determined her phases. Many a vow, and many a hope must have been wafted toward her, more than one broken heart must have permitted its unrealized dreams to wander forth to our planet as to an abode of happiness where all who have suffered in their native world might find a haven. But our planet, alas! ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... though making a vow, "that all I can ever do to make this friendship stronger I shall do; oh, ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... our sketch books in battle array, but our pencils were asleep; we began to regret the uninteresting, even country we had passed from Metz to Mayence, and the time which might be called lost in coming so far for so useless a purpose, and to make vow after vow that we would never in future believe the account given by others respecting people and places. By this time our appetites began to grow keen, luckily, just at the time when our spirits began to flag, and, accordingly, we went on shore at Rudesheim, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... speed! her failing breath Left her within the jaws of death, When doubling quick, thus sorely prest, She sprang for shelter to your breast. That breast, awake to pity's plea, My kind protector! rescued me: Your generous cares assuag'd my pangs, And sav'd me from the terrier's fangs. 'Twas then I vow'd, the very hour That gave me back my form and power, To seek your humble roof with speed, And recompense the ...
— Think Before You Speak - The Three Wishes • Catherine Dorset

... an indescribable shock at these unwelcome tidings; even victory, if purchased with the death of Don Alonso, she would consider a reverse, but attended, as it was, with complete overthrow, it created the most lively sensations of indignation and sorrow. She made a solemn vow in the presence of the archbishop her confessor, and her nobles, that she would neither wear linen nor sleep on her royal couch until that daring rebellion had been annihilated, and its agitators brought to retribution. She ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... my reckless hands so much? With no vow spoken, You gave me a goblet, which at a touch Were utterly broken! Your smile replied: "Since the glass was filled It little mattered Whether the wine were drunk or ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert

... hour of deliverance and victory record the solemn vow, that our right hand shall forget her cunning before we forget them and their sufferings,—that our tongue shall cleave to the roof of our mouth if we remember them not ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Mrs. Dundas—nor the day before that," Belle bursts out angrily. "I vow she looks as old as my mother when you get a fair view of her in the daylight. But what does that ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford

... permits it to be publicly declared. This secrecy secures it from the poisonous intermixture of vanity, which might plume itself with pretensions or boasts of a confessed preference; it gives it the appearance of a vow, which from its mystery is the more sacredly observed. This morality does not, it is true, condemn cunning and dissimulation if employed in the cause of love, and in so far as the rights of honour may be said ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... evidence of such entire depravity, nor equally injurious in its effects upon the morals, good order, and happiness of domestic life. Montesquieu, Pothier, and Dr. Taylor all insist that the cases of husband and wife ought to be distinguished, and that the violation of the marriage vow, on the part of the wife, is the most mischievous, and the prosecution ought to be confined to the offense on her part.—"Esprit des Loix," tom. 3, 186; "Traite du Contrat de Mariage," No. 516; "Elements ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... again, and when her little Willie was first laid upon her bosom, and she felt her husband's tears upon her cheek as he promised to reform for her sake and for his son's, she would not have exchanged her lot with that of the proudest in the land. That vow, alas, was ere long broken, and then, though she wept bitterly over his fall, she felt that she was not desolate, for there was music in her Willie's voice ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes

... reckless; he fell in with evil company; he grew to be a shameless ruffian, a man who brought his women into his wife's presence, and struck her while they were there. And in his passions he called her terrible names. He made a vow that when children came he would make them things of scorn. In her great trouble, the Princess came to my inn, where the Princess Hildegarde was born. The Prince refused to believe that the child was his. My mistress ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... incubus of debt; but then how small a figure I had cut in the eyes of Dr. Cheron! Besides, I was small for the second time—reproved for the second time—lectured, helped, put down, and poohpoohed, for the second time! Could I have peeped at myself just then through the wrong end of a telescope, I vow I could not have looked smaller ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... Jester, a character in the Irish ballads, was "a kind of Thersites, but brave and daring even to rashness. He had made a vow that he would never take a blow without returning it; and having ... descended to the infernal regions, he received a cuff from the arch-fiend, which he instantly returned, using the expression in the text ('blow for blow')." Sometimes the proverb is worded thus: "'Claw for claw, and the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... is nobody but Rees Hopkin's cow Watching, the dusk on the milk-white sea; 'Tis the time and the place for a life-long? vow, Such as I owe you, ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... 90.—The sovereigns, in compliance with a previous vow, caused a superb monastery, dedicated to St. Francis, to be erected in Toledo, with the title of San Juan de los Reyes, in commemoration of their victory over the Portuguese. This edifice was still to be seen in ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... "I vow and protest," said Mr. Mumbray, in a confidential ear, "that if it weren't for the look of the thing, I would withhold my vote altogether! W.-B. is in his dotage. And to think that we might have put new ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... A.S. thanks him profusely, and edges away with an inward vow to avoid his and the Auctioneer's eyes, as he would ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various

... vow; it is iron necessity that drives him. He finds himself, he finds his way—each day ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... sir. I've registered a vow afore my old father," went on Robin, lifting his right arm, "and I register it again afore you, sir—afore our future master, Mr. Lionel—that I'll never leave a stone unturned by night nor by day, that I'll make it my first and foremost business in life to find that ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... terrific fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse; and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe; By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... in Ostend. Presently my master grew tired of the Town, as he did of most Things, and longed for change. He had no better words for the Innkeepers, Merchants, and others who attended him, than to call them a parcel of Extortionate Thieves, and to vow that they were all in a conspiracy for robbing and bringing him to the Poor House. He often did us the honour to accuse us of being in the Plot; and many a time I felt inclined to resent his Impertinence, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... vow of poverty and given his heritage to the poor, became by a cruel irony a great landowner as soon as he was elected Bishop of Hippo. Doubtless he had stewards under him to look after the property of the diocese. This did not save him from going into details of management and supervising ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... set down had been well considered and frequently thought over; but was it right, after all, to send in his application just at this moment? Was it right for him to break the vow he had made to himself that he would test himself carefully, that he would pass a year in command of the battery before making his final decision? Ought he not to stand by the calling to which his life had been dedicated, until he could resign quite voluntarily, fully convinced, ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... for his power and his fame, and she wedded him. They were married in that church. It was on a summer afternoon—I recollect it well. During the ceremony, the blackest cloud I ever saw overspread the heavens like a pall, and, at the moment when the third bride pronounced her vow, a clap of thunder shook the building to the centre. All the females shrieked, but the bride herself made the response with a steady voice, and her eyes glittered with wild fire as she gazed upon her bridegroom. He remarked a kind of incoherence in ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... and was continued till the last years of the Republic. In 596 Narses, the general of the Greek Emperor, was furnished by the Venetians with means of transport by sea from Aquieja to Ravenna for the army which he was leading against the Ostrogoths; and he made a vow that if successful in his campaign, he would requite their generosity by erecting two churches in Venice. Accordingly, when he had beaten the Ostrogoths, he caused two votive churches to be built,—one to St. Theodore, on the site of the present St. Mark's ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... gaming-house, and gave it as a last stake for the chance of restoring his friend to freedom, and to his afflicted family. The event was fortunate, and, while he had awaited the issue of this momentous stake, he made a solemn vow never again to yield to the destructive and fascinating ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe



Words linked to "Vow" :   assurance, profess, betroth, give, plight, pledge, consecrate, devote, affiance, commit, swear, dedicate, engage



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com