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Ravage   /rˈævɪdʒ/   Listen
Ravage

verb
(past & past part. ravaged; pres. part. ravaging)
1.
Make a pillaging or destructive raid on (a place), as in wartimes.  Synonym: harry.
2.
Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly.  Synonyms: desolate, devastate, lay waste to, scourge, waste.






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"Ravage" Quotes from Famous Books



... less carefully guarded; and with incredible diligence, but by a different road, returned towards the mountains of Italy. [32] Aurelian, who considered the war as totally extinguished, received the mortifying intelligence of the escape of the Alemanni, and of the ravage which they already committed in the territory of Milan. The legions were commanded to follow, with as much expedition as those heavy bodies were capable of exerting, the rapid flight of an enemy whose infantry and cavalry moved with almost equal swiftness. A few days afterwards, the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... the chambers in France, had brick floors without any carpetting; they were, however, clean; and, after ordering a good fire in one of them (for the sudden and unusual frost, which, in the beginning of summer, committed so much ravage throughout Europe, commenced the day we had first the honour of seeing Madame P——); and, after enjoying those comforts which weary wanderers require, we mounted our lofty beds, and went ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... might be more easily obtained. That they have few or none of either in Sky, they impute to the ravage of the foxes, and have therefore set, for some years past, a price upon their heads, which, as the number was diminished, has been gradually raised, from three shillings and sixpence to a guinea, a sum so great in this part of the world, that, in a short time, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... sentiments, O Rae, In your last Journey-Work, perchance you ravage, Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say I'm but a heedless, creedless, godless savage; A very Guy, deserving fire and faggots,— A Scoffer, always on the grin, And sadly given to the mortal sin Of liking ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... Ermengarde, who has been for hours leaning out of the high window at Steinbrunnen, and looking anxiously for her expected lover—is nothing to him now. His promised aid to Sir Rudolph to-morrow, with helm on brow and lance in rest, against the invader who threatens the lands of both with ravage, is nothing to him now. Love and duty are alike forgotten. The temptation has done its full work through indolence and indulgence, and the knight is lost. The brown-haired Lurline is worth all earth and heaven. Let all ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... strict enforcement of this Act, the Pan-Antis are authorized and empowered to organize expeditionary forces, by recruitment or (if necessary) by conscription and draft, to proceed into the territory of the enemy, lay waste and ravage all dandelions, gooseberries and other unlawful plants. Until this is accomplished Nature shall be and hereby is declared a barred zone, in which civilians and non-combatants pass at their own peril; and all citizens not serving with the expeditionary ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... Claudius the barbarians united under the Gothic standard, and in six thousand vessels prepared again to ravage the world. Against three hundred and twenty thousand of these Goths Claudius advanced, and defeated them at Naissus in Dalmatia. Fifty thousand were slain, and three Gothic women fell to the share of every soldier. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... mischievous as monkeys. Their curiosity is boundless, and they will pry into everything within reach. Anything, to be beyond their reach, must be under lock and key. They use their forepaws as hands, and will unlatch a door with ease, and soon learn to turn a knob. Alf there could not begin to ravage a pantry like a tame 'coon. They will devour honey, molasses, sugar, pies, cake, bread, butter, milk—anything edible. They will uncover preserve-jars as if Mrs. Leonard had given them lessons, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... ruts the artillery's track, So often lost and won; And close beside, the hardened mud Still shows where, fetlock-deep in blood, The fierce dragoon, through battle's flood, Dashed the hot war-horse on. These spots of excavation tell The ravage of the bursting shell - And feel'st thou not the tainted steam, That reeks against the sultry beam, From yonder trenched mound? The pestilential fumes declare That Carnage has replenished there ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... all the rashes of the Emperor, and recognised the Archduke as King of Spain. Philip V. immediately ceased all intercourse with Rome, and dismissed the nuncio from Madrid. The Imperialists, even after the Pope had ceded to their wishes, treated him with the utmost disdain, and continued to ravage, his territories. The Imperialist minister at Rome actually gave a comedy and a ball in his palace there, contrary to the express orders of the Pope, who had forbidden all kinds of amusement in this period of calamity. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... cried, in despair, "stop, fiend!—this is too much!" I sprang at the monster, and seized it by the throat. Our eyes, peering into each other's, seemed to ravage out, as by fire, the secrets hidden in our hearts. My blood hurled itself through my veins. There was something clamorous and wild in it. Then I fell prone on the ground, and remembered that I had eaten one marron for dinner. This explained everything, and I remembered no more till I came to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various

... Governor-General, but extends, as it must upon that principle, to every servant of the Company in any station whatever, then, if each of them were to receive an entertainment, I will venture to say that the greatest ravage of an hostile army could not, indeed, destroy the country more entirely than the Company's ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... infantry of the Acharnians would refuse to submit to the ruin of their property, and would force a battle on the rest of the citizens. On the other hand, should the Athenians not take the field during this incursion, he could then fearlessly ravage the plain in future invasions, and extend his advance up to the very walls of Athens. After the Acharnians had lost their own property they would be less willing to risk themselves for that of their neighbours; and so there would be division ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... and virtuous, Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous, Quickening underneath the mould Grains beyond the price of gold. So deep and large her bounties are, That one broad, long midsummer day Shall to the planet overpay The ravage of ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... that the full measure of sufferings inflicted on the lane—and me. That beautiful green passageway happened to be a short cut from the meadow, and horse-rake and hay-wagon made the ravage complete. The one crushed and dragged out every sweet-growing thing spared by the previous devastators, and the other defiled with wisps of dead grass every branch that reached over its grateful shade. It was pitiful, as much for the exhibition thus made ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... having remained for some time in sight of Lisle, and made a general forage without molestation, they retired to their former camp on the Schelde, from whence they soon marched into winter-quarters. Count Saxe at length quitted his lines; and by way of retaliation, sent out detachments to ravage the Low-countries, to the very gates of Ghent and Bruges. The conduct of the allied generals was severely censured in England, ridiculed in France, not only in private conversation, but also on their public theatres, where it became the subject ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... you; you spread your coarse feasts on their lawns, And 'ARRY's a hog when he feeds, and an ugly Yahoo when he yawns; You litter, and ravage, and cock-sky; you romp like a satyr obscene, And the noise of you rises to heaven till earth might ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various

... and ravage were vain; And Nature, that never yields, Is busy with sun and rain At her old sweet work again On the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... hostile, and were drawn up in great force against him. However, after some hard fighting the Spaniards were victorious, and having taken possession of the town of Tabasco, Cortes sent messengers to the chiefs saying that if they did not at once submit themselves he would ravage the country with fire and sword. As they had no mind for any more fighting they came humbly, bringing presents, and among them thirty slaves, one of whom, a beautiful Mexican girl named Malinche, was afterwards of the ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... completely the ideal of the drama. In the succession of his profane masterpieces we may say of the last that it is lesser than the first and greater. Phedre lacks the balance and proportion of Andromaque; but never had Racine exhibited the tempest and ravage of passion in a woman's soul on so great a scale or with ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... wife of Ernest Hamilton had been dying—slowly, surely dying—and though when the skies were brightest and the sunshine warmest she ever seemed better, each morning's light still revealed some fresh ravage the disease had made, until at last there was no hope, and the anxious group which watched her knew full well that ere long among them would be a vacant chair, and in the family ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... come for a forward march. It is clear that riotous license is subversive of discipline, and conduces to defeat—as it probably has in recent Continental experience. For, although ancient warriors used to ravage a country, and although women have occasionally intervened in order to stop a battle, surely never before in the history of the world have women and children been forced forward in defense of a fighting line! Yet undoubtedly war can be so conducted that foes mutually respect each other; indeed, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... 1314—1322.—Edward was thrown by his defeat entirely under the power of Lancaster, who took the whole authority into his hands and placed and displaced ministers at his pleasure. Lancaster, however, was a selfish and incompetent ruler. He allowed the Scots to ravage the north of England without venturing to oppose them, and as he could not even keep order at home, private wars broke out amongst the barons. In 1318 Bruce took Berwick, the great border fortress ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... apathy let Stoics boast Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost; Contracted all, retiring to the breast; But strength of mind is exercise, not rest: The rising tempest puts in act the soul, Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale; Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storm, and ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... between the parties on the bridge itself, lasting until eight o'clock the next morning. At last the rebels were defeated, and the city freed from their presence. Offers of pardon were made and accepted, and the rebels dispersed. Cade, however, continued to plunder and ravage the country, until a price having been put upon his head, he was apprehended by the Sheriff of Kent,(849) and died the same night from injuries received at his capture. His head was subsequently set up ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... by his companions, and corn consumed by the horses, and remonstrances against the insolence of the huntsman, and the frauds of the groom. The huntsman was too necessary to his happiness to be discarded; and he had still continued to ravage his own estate, had he not caught a cold and a fever by shooting mallards in the fens. His fever was followed by a consumption, which in a few months ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... compliment. The bristled Baptist Boar, impure as he, But whiten'd with the foam of sanctity, With fat pollutions fill'd the sacred place, And mountains levell'd in his furious race; So first rebellion founded was in grace. But since the mighty ravage, which he made In German forests, had his guilt betray'd, With broken tusks, and with a borrow'd name; 50 He shunn'd the vengeance, and conceal'd the shame: So lurk'd in sects unseen. With greater guile False Reynard[96] ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... hat, before ordering to fix bayonets. What avails it? The Plebeian "Court of Cassation," as Camille might punningly name it, has done its work; steps forth, with unbuttoned vest, with pockets turned inside out: sack, and just ravage, not plunder! With inexhaustible patience, the Hero of two Worlds remonstrates; persuasively, with a kind of sweet constraint, though also with fixed bayonets, dissipates, hushes down: on the morrow it is once more all ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... hostility; war was thus practically declared. "We must adopt anticipatory measures," thought Napoleon; "we must destroy this advanced guard of the Ottoman empire, overthrow the ramparts of Jaffa and Acre, ravage the country, destroy all her resources, so as to render the passage of an army across the desert impracticable." Thus was planned the expedition ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... unquestionably accompanied with much unnecessary plundering; but there is no convincing evidence of any systematic laying waste of large districts to bring about a submission which everything would show to be coming of itself, and it was not like William to ravage without need. He certainly hesitated at no cruelty of the sort at times, but we can clearly enough see reasons of policy in most at least of the cases, which may have made the action seem to him necessary. Nearly all are instances either ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... in?" he wondered as he observed the swift and angry leap of the forest-fire to northward. "It may ravage thousands of square miles before rain puts an end to it. It may devastate the whole country. A change in the wind may even drive it back on us, across the river, sweeping all before it. This may ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... poem is lost, so we can only guess how the poet told of the ravage wrought by the general of King Nabuchodonoser in the countries close to Palestine, and how submission was as vain as resistance to a power which, for the time being, was allowed ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... and his pandours always led the van, and as he thence had an opportunity to ravage the enemy's country, at the head of troops addicted to rapine, we must not wonder that Bavaria, Silesia, and Alsatia were so plundered. He alone purchased the booty from his troops at a low price, and this he sent by water to his own estates. If any one of his officers had made a rich capture, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... that his wife was dreaming, but as her dream continued, and he heard the waggoner moving about and breathing hard, he gently put down his hand, and found what ravage the stallion of the waggoner was making in his warren;—at which, as he loved his wife, he was not well content. He soon made the waggoner with draw, and said ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... gaming-houses;[4] when the honor of God is thought to consist in the poverty of his temple, and the column is shortened, and the pinnacle shattered, the color denied to the casement, and the marble to the altar, while exchequers are exhausted in luxury of boudoirs, and pride of reception-rooms; when we ravage without a pause all the loveliness of creation which God in giving pronounced good, and destroy without a thought all those labors which men have given their lives, and their sons' sons' lives to complete, and have left for a legacy to all their kind, a legacy of more than their ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... them, and one recent one where a tigress had reached for his shoulder and gone down to the bone. I could see the neatly mended rents in the coat he had on. His right arm, from the elbow down, looked as though it had gone through a threshing machine, what of the ravage wrought by claws and fangs. But it was nothing, he said, only the old wounds bothered him somewhat when rainy ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... upon such occasions, comprehended almost all the able-bodied males of the country,—for all, excepting the priests and the bards, were soldiers,—and to settle the order of their descent upon the devoted marches, where they proposed to signalize, by general ravage, their sense of the insult which their Prince had received, by the rejection ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... melancholy and heaviness of mood, have many ways of relief and diversion; they may go where they will, may hear and see many things, may hawk, hunt, fish, ride, play or traffic. By which means all are able to compose their minds, either in whole or in part, and repair the ravage wrought by the dumpish mood, at least for some space of time; and shortly after, by one way or another, either solace ensues, or the dumps become less grievous. Wherefore, in some measure to compensate the injustice of Fortune, which to those whose strength is least, as we see it to be in the delicate ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... shipwreck, cataclysm; washout. extinction, annihilation; destruction of life &c 361; knock-down blow; doom, crack of doom. destroying &c v.; demolition, demolishment; overthrow, subversion, suppression; abolition &c (abrogation) 756; biblioclasm^; sacrifice; ravage, razzia^; inactivation; incendiarism; revolution &c 146; extirpation &c (extraction) 301; beginning of the end, commencement de la fin [Fr.], road to ruin; dilapidation &c (deterioration) 659; sabotage. V. be destroyed &c; perish; fall ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... darkened orb shall wheel no more To Love's rejoicing summer back: My spirit walks a wintry shore, With not a star to light its track. Speed swifter, Night! thy gloom and frost Are free to spoil and ravage here; This last wild requiem for the lost I pour ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various

... after-life, General Harmer was dispatched with a competent force to punish the predatory incursions of the Indians; but he was glad to return, with the loss of many of his men. In the following year, General St. Clair proceeded with another army to ravage the Miami and Shawanee settlements, and was even more unfortunate than his predecessor, as the Indians boldly advanced to meet him on the way, attacked his encampment, and put his troops to a total rout, in which the greater part were cut off ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... his brother-in-law, Kaplan-pasha of Aleppo, which were marching to the support of Hussein, fell back in dismay to their former, ground on the right bank of the Danube. The Poles, however, made no further use of their triumph than to ravage Moldavia, and the death of the king, on the same day with the victory at Choczim, recalled Sobieski to Warsaw, in order to become a candidate for the vacant crown. On his election by the Diet, in May 1674, he made overtures for peace to the Porte, but they were rejected, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... Long Knives were past understanding. He asked many questions. How was it with the garrison at Vincennes? Monsieur Vigo was exact, as a business man should be. They were now reduced to eighty men, and five hundred savages had gone out to ravage. There was no chance, then, of Hamilton moving at present? Monsieur Vigo threw up his hands. Never had he made such a trip, and he had been forced to come back by a northern route. The Wabash was as the Great Lakes, and the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the Genius of Orthodoxy will not kick, and push, and toss; that he will not, if he can, shake the axe from his neck, and hurl his mitred butcher into the air? We know these men fully as well as the Bishop; he has not a chance of success against them. They will ravage, roar, and rush till the very chaplains, and the Masters and Misses Peterborough, request his lordship to desist. He is raising a storm in the English Church of which he has not the slightest conception, and which will end, as it ought to ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... to ease; and, of its joy secure, 40 The heart luxuriates with indifferent things, Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones, And on the vacant air. Then up I rose, And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash And merciless ravage: and the shady nook 45 Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower, Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up Their quiet being: and, unless I now Confound my present feelings with the past; Ere from the mutilated bower I turned [11] 50 Exulting, rich beyond the wealth ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... love better than the country they would ruin, would have little remorse in marching over your body, even among the ashes of your farm-house. Doubtless you would stand at your threshold, and welcome their butchery, should their ruffian legions ravage our land as far as your ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... more daring as their situation became more hopeless. Never had Ferdinand experienced such vigorous sallies and assaults. Musa[1], at the head of his cavalry, harassed the borders of the camp, and even penetrated into the interior, making sudden spoil and ravage, and leaving his course to be traced ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... round it is extremely hostile, and they prevent supplies being brought in from that direction. Get hold of the principal men in the place, and tell them that if I hear any more complaints of hostility in that neighborhood I will send out a regiment of horse, burn their village, and ravage all the country. I don't think you need apprehend any opposition; but of course you will ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... November 1794 Grenville instructed Jackson, British charge d'affaires at Madrid, to demand the recall of that arrogant official.[382] Charmilly also averred that the brigands often sallied forth from Spanish territory to ravage the western districts.[383] Other facts point in the same direction. Whence could the Republicans and their black allies have gained supplies of arms and ammunition but from the Spaniards? The survey of ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... The ravage of pain can be, in great measure, surmounted and concealed; but that baser thing, functional disturbance—in this case present as heart spasm, threatening suffocation, with consequent agonized and uncontrollable ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... inhabitants had betaken themselves to woods and caves. This was easily accounted for, considering the imminent dangers of a feud which all expected would become one of the most general signals for plunder and ravage that had ever distracted ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... Famed Beauclerc called, for that he loved The minstrel, and his lay approved? Who shall these lingering notes redeem, Decaying on Oblivion's stream; Such notes as from the Breton tongue Marie translated, Blondel sung? O! born Time's ravage to repair, And make the dying muse thy care; Who, when his scythe her hoary foe Was poising for the final blow, The weapon from his hand could wring, And break his glass, and shear his wing, And bid, reviving in his strain, The gentle poet live again; Thou, who canst give to lightest lay An unpedantic ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... circumstances the relations between Great Britain and the United States had become tense and strained. The provincial officers at Quebec and the Indian partisans at Detroit quickly echoed the mood of the home government. In the event of a new war, England could again command the savage allies and ravage the frontiers as she had done during the revolution. The Indians would not only prove to be a useful barrier in the event of an American invasion of Canada, but they might help England to regain in part the territory she had lost. "Hence, instead of promoting a pacification, the efforts of the Canadian ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... fleet upon the coast It was commanded by the Duke d'Anville, and consisted of forty ships of war, besides vessels with soldiers on board. With this force the French intended to retake Louisburg, and afterwards to ravage the whole of New England. Many people were ready to give up the country ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... this only son? — O Letty! — O gracious heaven! how my heart palpitates, when I tell you that this only son of Mr Dennison's, is that very identical youth who, under the name of Wilson, has made such ravage in my heart! — Yes, my dear friend! Wilson and I are now lodged in the same house, and converse together freely — His father approves of his sentiments in my favour; his mother loves me with all the tenderness ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... a thread at the end of a darn, and a new hole displayed its ravage over the yellow surface of ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... more difficult to guard against the enterprises of those within; the assemblings of the malcontents which were held nightly, and those of the gentry of sack and cord who, as soon as the gates were opened, set off eagerly to ravage the suburbs of Paris, returning in the evening to conceal themselves in the quarters where no one scarcely ventured to go in search of them. The Cour des Miracles was the usual refuge of all those wretches who came to ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... the errors of other proselytizing monarchs, and put down Paganism with a stern and bloody hand, no merely personal injury ever weighed with him. How grand is his reply to those who advise him to ravage with fire and sword the rebellious district of Throndhjem, as he had formerly punished numbers of his subjects who had rejected Christianity:—"We had then GOD'S honour to defend; but this treason against their sovereign is a much ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... Trapezus (5), a populous Hellenic city on the Euxine Sea, a colony of the Sinopeans, in the territory of the Colchians. Here they halted about thirty days in the villages of the Colchians, which they used as a base of operations to ravage the whole territory of Colchis. The men of Trapezus supplied the army with a market, entertained them, and gave them, as gifts of hospitality, oxen and wheat and wine. Further, they negotiated with them in behalf of their neighbours the Colchians, ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... persuasion untried to convince him that such a resolution would injure the interests of Christianity, that to enter the Red Sea only to ravage the coasts would so enrage the Turks that they would certainly massacre all the Christian captives, and for ever shut the passage into Abyssinia, and hinder all communication with that empire. It was my opinion that the Portuguese should first establish themselves at Mazna, and that a hundred ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... Sir William died. He was succeeded in his title, and a part of his estates by his son John. The dreams of Sir William vanished, and his plans failed in the hands of his weak, arrogant, degenerate son. Sir John hesitated, temporized, broke his parole, fled to Canada, returned to ravage the lands of his countrymen, and ended by being driven ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... was born of the news that the Carthaginian was turning aside to the west, through Umbria and Picenum, how far by the rumour that Spoletum had closed her gates and repulsed his vanguard, or how far by wrath at the tales of ravage and the numberless murders of Roman citizens that marked his line of march, it would be difficult ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... such a shock; and here the work of restoration will be costly, whether to the nation or the individual. Revenue must be regained, roads and bridges repaired, markets supplied; nor can we omit the large and multitudinous losses from ravage of fields, seizure of stock, suspension of business, stoppage of manufactures, interference with agriculture, and the whole terrible drain of war by which the people are impoverished and disabled. If to the necessary appropriation and expenditure for all these things is superadded the annual ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... House of Nero! Look at your feet,—look around; the waving weed, the broken column—Time's witness, and the Earthquake's. In that contrast between grandeur and decay,—in the unutterable and awful solemnity that, while rife with the records of past ages, is sad also with their ravage, you have ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it was my desire to save my lands from ravage, ruin, and ultimate confiscation by the victors; that for this reason he had summoned me, and I had come to confer with him and with other branches of our family, seeking how best this might ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... civilization, but also to meet, conquer, and in time civilize the barbarian hordes from the North which overwhelmed the Roman Empire. A new and youthful race of German barbarians now appeared upon the scene, with resulting ravage and destruction, and anarchy and ignorance, and long centuries ensued during which ancient civilization fell prey to savage violence and superstition. Progress ceased in the ancient world. The creative power of antiquity seemed exhausted. The digestive and assimilative ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... exposed between the glove and the edge of the sleeve, is ornamented with a regular swelling like a bracelet all round the arm; in a word, wherever the enemy has been able to penetrate, he has wrought indescribable ravage.... ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... to relieve Me and my family from this abuse. Ourselves are not sufficient; we, alas! Too feeble should be found, and yet to learn How best to use the little force we own; Else, had I pow'r, I would, myself, redress 80 The evil; for it now surpasses far All suff'rance, now they ravage uncontroul'd, Nor show of decency vouchsafe me more. Oh be ashamed[6] yourselves; blush at the thought Of such reproach as ye shall sure incur From all our neighbour states, and fear beside The wrath of the Immortals, lest they call Yourselves one day ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... Edgar's parents carried her home to nurse. As we know, they took the infection and died within a few days of each other. Nor was this the only ravage that the fever made. Catharine, always hasty and fitful in temper, was henceforth subject at rare intervals to violent and furious rages, which threatened her life and reason by their extremity. The ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... of Algiers. A Dey once said to an English consul, "The Algerines are a company of rogues, and I am their captain." The definition cannot be improved. That such a power should have been permitted to exist and ravage is one of the anomalies of modern history. Yet within the memory of living men this hoard of pirates flaunted its barbarism in the face of the civilization of the nineteenth century. But in 1830 the Dey filled the cup of wrath to the brim. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... Frontenac dispatched an expedition from Quebec to ravage the New England settlements; their leader was Portneuf, brother of Menneval and Villebon. There were fifty French and seventy Indians in the original party, which was afterwards joined by thirty-six French and a large band of Maliseets from the St. John, also by the Indians of Passamaquoddy and Penobscot, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... journey on the territories of Persia, reduced the fortress of Sisaurane, and sent the governor, with eight hundred chosen horsemen, to serve the emperor in his Italian wars. He detached Arethas and his Arabs, supported by twelve hundred Romans, to pass the Tigris, and to ravage the harvests of Assyria, a fruitful province, long exempt from the calamities of war. But the plans of Belisarius were disconcerted by the untractable spirit of Arethas, who neither returned to the camp, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... that all his efforts for internal reform must be in a comparative sense futile so long as piracy, that curse of Borneo, was permitted to ravage unchecked. "It is in a Malay's nature," says the Dutch proverb, "to rove on the seas in his prahu, as it is in that of the Arab to wander with his steed on the sands of the desert." No person who has not investigated the subject can appreciate how wide-spread and deep-seated this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... where there are about fifty Jews, at their head being R. Solomon and R. Jacob. The city is situated at the foot of the hills of Wallachia. The nation called Wallachians live in those mountains. They are as swift as hinds, and they sweep down from the mountains to despoil and ravage the land of Greece. No man can go up and do battle against them, and no king can rule over them. They do not hold fast to the faith of the Nazarenes, ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... north and on his left high mountains, which he believed to be the southern coast of Hispaniola which he had not before visited. On the calends of September he reached the port he had named San Nicholas, and there repaired his ships, intending to again ravage the cannibal islands and burn the canoes of the natives. He was determined that these rapacious wolves should no longer injure the sheep, their neighbours; but his project could not be realised because of his ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... four cardinal points of the compass of suspicion, and govern the stormy sea of soliloquies. From these frightful tempests which ravage a woman's heart springs an ignoble, unworthy resolution, one which every woman, the duchess as well as the shopkeeper's wife, the baroness as well as the stockbroker's lady, the angel as well as the shrew, the indifferent as well as the passionate, ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... the leaves of Autumn, Trampled in the dust around them, Where they soon will be forgotten, Sleeping in the depth of ages. Gory red the river runneth, And the plains with blood are steaming— Boiling blood, which from the wounded Floweth, gushing fast and freely. Why is all this ruthless ravage, And this people fiercely warring? It is for a vain ambition, Or a little earthly matter Which they cannot settle better Than in war and deadly bloodshed, Or to gain an angry vengeance For some insult which appeareth To imagination hideous. ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar

... came messengers from the king of Leinster to the king of Munster praying the latter, by virtue of league and alliance, to come to his assistance as Leath-Chuinn and the north were advancing in great force to ravage Leinster. This is how Failbhe was situated at the time: he had lost one of his eyes and he was ashamed to go half-blind into a strange territory. As soon as Mochuda realised the extent of the king's diffidence he blessed the eye making on it the sign of the cross and it was ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda

... cries. "Ships are in the offing, and many of them too! It must be the fleet of Philip of Spain come to ravage our beauteous country!" ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... bow'd her captive head; } By Treachery's axe her slaughter'd senate bled, } And her brave chief was numbered with the dead. } Piled with her breathless sons, th' uncultured land With daily ravage fed a wasteful band; And ruthless Christiern, wheresoe'er be flew, Around his steps a track of crimson drew. Already, by Heaven's dark protection led, To Dalecarlia Sweden's hero fled; There, with a pious friend retired, unknown, He mourn'd his country's sorrows, and his own. Those ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... so severe visited England, that even the Danes forebore to ravage so poor a land; but in 1006, the next year, they overspread Wessex like locusts. Here the action of our tale ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... falsehood, and hate slink away— From the crypt in which error lies buried in chains— This foul apparition stalks forth to the day, And would ravage the land which his ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... am bound to say that when we met in the morning for breakfast he showed few traces of ravage. Youth is strange; it has resources that later experience seems only to undermine. One of these is the masterly resource of beautiful blankness. As we grow older and cleverer we think that too simple, ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James

... on her brow had faded thee!—My care Screen'd from the sun and dew thy golden glow; And thus her early beauty dost thou wear, Thou all of that fair Frame my love cou'd save From the resistless ravage of ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... accessions to his troops. The "viscounts," whose arrival had turned the scale at the conclusion of the last war, lingered in Guyenne, with an army of six thousand foot soldiers and a well-appointed cavalry force, preferring to protect the Protestant territories about Montauban and Castres, and to ravage the lands of their enemies, as far as to the gates of Toulouse, rather than leave their homes unprotected and join Conde. A dispute respecting precedence had not been without some influence in causing the delay, and M. de Piles, who had been twice sent to urge them ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... times that the country round about was ravaged of a werewolf, a creature that was feared by all men howe'er so valorous. This werewolf was by day a man, but by night a wolf given to ravage and to slaughter, and having a charmed life against which no human agency availed aught. Wheresoever he went he attacked and devoured mankind, spreading terror and desolation round about, and the dream-readers ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... not sure that the Andrea in the cloisters is not the best of all his work. It is very simple and wholly beautiful, and in spite of years of ravage the colouring is still wonderful, perhaps indeed better for the hand of Time. It is called the "Madonna del Sacco" (grain sack), and fills the lunette over the door leading from the church. The Madonna—Andrea's favourite type, with the eyes ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... de fus' time I see Marse Fess Trunion wuz terreckerly atter de Sherman army come 'long. Dem wuz hot times, suh, col' ez de wedder wuz. Dee wuz in-about er million un um look like ter me, en dee des ravage de face er de yeth. Dee tuck all de hosses, en all de cows, en all de chickens. Yes, suh; dee cert'n'y did. Man come 'long, en 'low: 'Aunty, you free now,' en den he tuck all my ginger-cakes w'at I bin bakin' 'g'inst Chris'mus; en den I say: 'Ef I wuz free ez you is, suh, I'd fling ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... Covenanting force at Tippermuir, near Perth: here he had but his 2500 men (September 1); to repeat his victory at Aberdeen {182} (September 13), to evade and discourage Argyll, who retired to Inveraray; to winter in and ravage Argyll's country, and to turn on his tracks from a northern retreat and destroy the Campbells at Inverlochy, where Argyll looked on from ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... also contains his tomb. The disturbances and calamities that desolated Strasburg during a great part of the fourteenth century, the revolution of 1332 that altered the form of the government of the town, the ravage caused by the black plague in 1349 with the insurrections accompanying it, the contest of bishop Berthold with his chapter and with the emperor, all this retarded of course the progress of the construction of the Cathedral. Nevertheless they terminated in 1365 the northern ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous

... coax my unwilling helpers on a four days' journey across a war-stricken countryside, swept of all supplies, infested with savage dogs (fortunately well fed by the harvest of the battlefields), liable to ravage by ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

... insects of every kind he can catch—even scorpions and beetles—and where the primeval forest does not afford him full rations, he will enter the cultivated grounds and make havoc among the crops. Strange enough, he does not meddle with the wheat; though he will ravage the fields of buckwheat and barley! At night he enters the gardens contiguous to the houses, and plunders them of all kinds of fruits and vegetables. He even approaches still nearer—abstracting their honey from the tame bees—the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... luxuriance of vine-covered forests which are enveloped in a deep solitude which has become dignity. Restless waters ebb and flow by its side, restless winds kiss its bare sand dunes, a genial sun brings to maturity its wealth of tree and vine and shrub. Protected from the storms which ravage the ocean beyond, it sleeps in quiet beauty, content with its heritage of fame as the first home of the ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten

... northward Crossing over Lodge Pole creek, Threading Colorado's stretches— Sandy deserts wild and bleak— Where the sun wars on the living, Struggling 'neath his blinding light, Then resigns his work of ravage To the chilling frosts of night; Where the bleaching bones of horses Here and there bestrew the plains, Telling many a ghastly story Of misguided settlers' trains— Where the early frontier ranger Marked the first trail to ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker

... held to be a grasshopper under the Old Empire, it was because he flew far up in the sky like the clouds of locusts driven from Central Africa which suddenly fall upon the fields and ravage them. Most of the Nile-gods, Khnumu, Osiris, Harshafitu, were incarnate in the form of a ram or of a buck. Does not the masculine vigour and procreative rage of these animals naturally point them out as fitting images of the life-giving Nile and the overflowing of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... ravage, growth, diminish, add, Here peoples sane, there peoples mad, In choiceless throws ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... stanza, in his castle villa, or his palace at Ferrara. But suddenly he stops and his bright fiddle and lute music jars and ends: "While I am singing, O Redeeming God, I see all Italy set on fire by these Gauls, coming to ravage I know not what ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... discovered in the year 1517. (88) And the discoverers gave serious offence to the Indians in that discovery, and committed several homicides. In the year 1518 men calling themselves Christians went there to ravage and to kill; although they say that they go to populate. And from the said year 1518, till the present day (and we are in 1542) all the iniquity, all the injustice, all the violence and tyranny that the Christians have practised in the Indies have reached the limit and overflowed: because they ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan— Without a grave, unknelled, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... sway! fair Austria spreads her mournful charms, The Queen, the Beauty, sets the world in arms; From hill to hill the beacon's rousing blaze Spreads wide the hope of plunder and of praise; The fierce Croatian, and the wild Hussar, With all the sons of ravage, crowd the war; 250 The baffled prince, in Honour's flattering bloom, Of hasty greatness finds the fatal doom, His foes' derision, and his subjects' blame, And steals to death from anguish ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the universe; the poet can call a universe from the atom; the chemist may heal with his drugs the infirmities of the human form; the painter, or the sculptor, fixes into everlasting youth forms divine, which no disease can ravage, and no years impair. Renounce those wandering fancies that lead you now to myself, and now to yon orator of the human race; to us two, who are the antipodes of each other! Your pencil is your wand; your canvas may raise Utopias fairer than ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the North, as the public was ignorant of the reasons for it; and in the excited state of mind then prevailing, it was generally expected that the reinforced Confederate army would again cross the Potomac, ravage Maryland and Pennsylvania, and possibly capture Washington. Mutterings of dissatisfaction reached me from many sources, and loud calls were made for my removal, but I felt confident that my course would be justified when the true situation was understood, for I knew that I was complying ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan

... his country to Lewis XIV. Sarsfield detested his treachery, and invited Berwick to undertake the government. Of James's French counsellors, one was Lauzun, who commanded the auxiliary army, and proposed to burn Dublin to the ground and ravage the open country. The other was the ambassador D'Avaux, who wished him to make short work of all ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... head of the Hiawassee are filled with "harnts," among them many animal ghosts, that ravage about the country from sheer viciousness. The people of the region, illiterate and superstitious, have unquestioning faith in them. They tell you about the headless bull and black dog of the valley of the Chatata, the white stag of the Sequahatchie, and the bleeding horse of the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... they went at a great rate up the stream. Hemming himself had come to their rescue. He had felt some misgivings about them, and had returned, intending, if he did not meet them, to land and threaten to ravage the black king's whole territory with fire and sword if they were not given up. Jack was received with warm congratulation by his friends; but there was not much time for compliments, as Hemming instantly went off in pursuit of the canoes. The canoes paddled fast, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed—I mean the attachment of the people. Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend on it, this government cannot last. By such things the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... he found the greatest difficulty in inducing the supine government of Madras to take any steps. They protested that, were they to make any show of activity, Tippoo would descend the ghauts, and at once ravage the whole country; and they declared that they had no force whatever that could withstand him. They continued in their cowardly inactivity until the governor general was forced to override their authority altogether, and take the matter ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... was the fertile brain, That bid him onward flee, The Indian moon was on the wane And drooped the hawthorne tree. The light canoe of rounded bark Scarce dared to skim the flood, For they had come with meaning dark To ravage lake and wood. ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... GREEK FLEET.—The fleet then set sail; but mistaking the Mysian coast for that of Troy, they landed troops and commenced to ravage the country. Telephus, king of the Mysians, who was a son of the great hero Heracles, opposed them with a large army, and succeeded in driving them back to their ships, but was himself wounded in the engagement by the spear of Achilles. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... Christians could invest the city its ruler took care to ravage the adjacent territory, poison the wells, and thus belted the walls with a desert. He provisioned the city against a siege, and fashioned all known engines of war. The garrison of forty thousand was increased by ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell

... on his return from this expedition that Electryon had been killed. Amphitryon accordingly took the field against the Taphians, accompanied by Creon, who had agreed to assist him on condition that he slew the Teumessian fox which had been sent by Dionysus to ravage the country. The Taphians, however, remained invincible until Comaetho, the king's daughter, out of love for Amphitryon cut off her father's golden hair, the possession of which rendered him immortal. Having defeated the enemy, Amphitryon put Comaetho ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... in those that flee. Now if the pursuer fails he loses a dinner, but if the fugitive fails he loses his life, from which it follows that the very best sort of ears will be found among those beasts that do not ravage but run. ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)



Words linked to "Ravage" :   demolition, plural form, destroy, wipeout, ravaging, destruction, ruin, plural



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