Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Stake   Listen
noun
Stake  n.  
1.
A piece of wood, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a support or stay; as, a stake to support vines, fences, hedges, etc. "A sharpened stake strong Dryas found."
2.
A stick inserted upright in a loop, eye, or mortise, at the side or end of a cart, a flat car, or the like, to prevent goods from falling off.
3.
The piece of timber to which a martyr was affixed to be burned; hence, martyrdom by fire.
4.
A small anvil usually furnished with a tang to enter a hole in a bench top, used by tinsmiths, blacksmiths, etc., for light work, punching upon, etc.
5.
That which is laid down as a wager; that which is staked or hazarded; a pledge.
6.
(Mormon Ch.) A territorial division; called also stake of Zion. "Every city, or "stake," including a chief town and surrounding towns, has its president, with two counselors; and this president has a high council of chosen men."
At stake, in danger; hazarded; pledged. "I see my reputation is at stake."






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 |





"Stake" Quotes from Famous Books



... up a net, and clambering along the ledge sprang lightly upon the log. It was sharply rounded, the bark was wet, and the way along it obstructed by the stake-like ends of torn-off limbs, but the man crawled forward foot by foot with the swift whirl of current close beneath him. Then he knelt where the tree dipped almost level with the flood, and grasping the line with one hand swept the net in and out amidst the broken-off branches, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... was taken up with the scrutiny of the self-sacrifice of a mother for her child, of the abandon of the lover who dies in saving his mistress from fire or flood, of the hero's courage in the field and the martyr's at the stake. Each he found springing from the unconscious love of self and the dread of the greater pain which the self-sacrificer would suffer in-forbearing the sacrifice. If we had any time left from this inquiry that day, he must have devoted it to a high regret that Napoleon did not carry out his purpose ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... D'Alembert, of Turgot, was the first to sound bitter warning that Robespierre was at heart a priest. The suggestion was more than a gibe. Robespierre had the typic sacerdotal temperament, its sense of personal importance, its thin unction, its private leanings to the stake and the cord; and he had one of those deplorable natures that seem as if they had never in their lives known the careless joys of a springtime. By and by, from mere priest he developed into ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... encounters giants and lion, of how he fights with a great demon, and of how at length he arrives at his journey's end in safety. A great writer has said, "There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language, no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... "I'll gamble with you—for one more stake: If Ellerbee's device is on the level, you'll make a grant to Clearwater and other institutions of like qualifications, and ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... of his death little need be said, except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson,[321] had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an elegant lunatic—a sentimental suicide—he merely cut the "carotid artery," (blessings on their learning!) and lo! the pageant, and the Abbey! and "the syllables of dolour yelled forth"[322] by the newspapers—and the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... secession merchants, are moving seriously in the great project of establishing a "SOUTHERN CANDLE-FACTORY"—a thing much needed in the "up-country;" while our graver statesmen (who don't get the State out of the Union fast enough for the ignorant rabble, who have nothing but their folly at stake) are pondering over the policy of spending five hundred thousand dollars for the building of another war-ship-one that "will go over the bar;" and while curiously-written letters from Generals Commander and Quattlebum, offering ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... what he did, their lives at stake, Stoddard blazed away with his automatic, sweeping it from side to side of the stony walls ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... to set the bombs in just a short while," he said crisply. "Let's get busy. Koa, load all bombs but one ten KT on the landing boat. Stake the rest of the equipment down. While you're doing that, I'll find the spots where we plant the charges. I'll need two men now and ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... whit less active or prompt was Peter Pax, but Peter had apparently more of method in his madness than Phil, for he wrenched up a stout stake in ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... convinced of the truth of what she said than she was, as he felt her loving arms about him. If the Golden Dustman's riches had been his to stake, he would have staked them to the last farthing on the fidelity through good and evil of her affectionate and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... from you, and I am leaving this check to cover the amount. I am going on a fishing trip. Maybe to Mexico where dad made his stake. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... Persecutor." He also found at first some difficulties in the rushing style of execution, which was a tradition from Mendelssohn, who was idolized in England. His untiring energy, however, prevailed everywhere where art was at stake, and the last of the eight concerts, in which Mozart's C Major Symphony and Beethoven's Eighth were given, and the "Tannhaeuser Overture," was encored, brought him, in a storm of applause, compensation for the unworthy calumniations of the press, notably, of the Times. Notwithstanding ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl

... he did not for a moment consider the possibility of drawing back. There was too much at stake. As Monteith had said, everything depended upon his faithfully filling his post. To lose the favour of Raye & Hemming meant to lose everything he had set his heart upon, Captain Herbert's friendship, his education, ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... was at this point that the sinister character of the adventure first really declared itself, and he became genuinely alarmed. The stability of his rather fluid little personality was at stake, he felt, and something in his ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... to his horror and surprise, he was taken back to Surinam, and tied to a stake at the whipping-place, and lashed until the very flesh was torn from his bones. His captors then bound him in chains, and cast him into a prison. From this, however, he was at last rescued by Mr. Trefry. But the shame ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... the bronchos securely to a tree and went back to offer aid. The Galician, a heavily-built man, was standing on the trail with a stout stake in his hand, viewing the ruins of his load and expressing his emotions in voluble Galician profanity with a bad mixture of halting and broken English. Kalman stood beside French with wrath growing ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor

... Calling to aid the hardy hearts of field-folk thereabout; And swifter than the thought they came; for still that bitter Bane Lurked in the silent woods: this man a half-burned brand did gain For weapon; that a knotted stake: whate'er came first to hand, The seeker's wrath a weapon made: there Tyrrheus cheers his band, Come from the cleaving of an oak with foursome driven wedge, Panting and fierce he tossed aloft the wood-bill's grinded edge. 510 But she, ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... will stake my reputation on it, unable as I am to explain every circumstance, and close up every gap. Have you any further questions to ask or shall I leave you to ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... The stake was soon brought and lashed to the robber's back in such a manner that he was rendered utterly powerless. The others were secured in a similar manner, and then the two travellers ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... trap, a plot?—if Rolf had brought him there on purpose to fight, the horses being only a pretext? Thorgrim's wink, his allusion to Alwin's swordsmanship, it had all been arranged between them; the velvet cloak was the clew! Rolf had wished to possess it. He had persuaded Thorgrim to stake it on his thrall's skill,—then he had brought Alwin to win the wager for him. Brought him, like a trained stallion or a ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... leaders, who builded better than they knew a chart for the guidance of man. Do you know the history of the mind of man? Do you know the story of those ragged bleeding feet—of the great thinkers of the ages who have found the path of truth through blood and tears and then walked its way to the stake, to the block and the gallows? Come with me into the big world of the past—read, study, think, and gird yourself with power! We're just entering on the struggle that means life or death to our Republic. I believe as I believe in God, that we have set a beacon light ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... thy armour shall be stripped off, and thou shalt be tied to a stake in front of the works, and riddled with arrows for a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... be adjourned and another one called, with a new Chair!' remarked Margery, who felt that the honour of her sex was at stake. ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the unworthy multitude of people. Over and over again has this fact been brought home to those who would labor for the good of the world. And still we hear the querulous complaint that the Inner Teaching is reserved for the Few—why not scatter it broadcast among the people? The stake, the rack, the stones, the prison cell, the cross and their modern prototypes—these are the silent answers to ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... here. You are kind to me. Few would have been so generous. We both are passers-by. It is too soon for us to judge each other in the full. I must be sure—oh, I must be sure of myself. Can you understand? I must be sure of myself, and I am not sure now. You do not know how much there is at stake, you can not possibly know what it would mean to me if I were to discover that our adventure had no real significance in the end. I know it sounds strange and mysterious, or you would not look so puzzled. But unless ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable. But any people or part of a people who resort to this remedy, stake their lives, their property, and every claim for protection given by citizenship—on the issue. Victory, or the conditions imposed by the conqueror—must ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... Interest Lands Conservation Act was one of the most important conservation actions of this century. At stake was the fate of millions of acres of beautiful land, outstanding and unique wildlife populations, native cultures, and the opportunity to ensure that future generations of Americans would be able to enjoy the benefits of these nationally significant resources. As a result ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... him for being able to think of such matters when his father's rescue was at stake; but he bade me ask his mother and mine whether it were not an important question, and then told me that he must make me understand the little comedy in which he ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... finds out, They scorned his power, and therefore scorned the pain, "Nay, nay," quoth he, "let be your strife and doubt, You both shall win, and fit reward obtain." With that the sergeants hent the young man stout, And bound him likewise in a worthless chain; Then back to back fast to a stake both ties, Two harmless turtles ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... the detective, "especially where my reputation is at stake! I've got orders from Forbes to catch that thief, and, as you are the easiest bird to catch, I'm just going to bag you—that's all there is about it. I'll swear that I found this wad of bills in ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon

... answer of peace to a man's soul, or it may not. But in this matter we are dealing with things in which we cannot afford to risk an equivocal or a despairing answer. We must win in every encounter. It is not an hour's joy, but a life's outlook that is at stake. No hour's fight was ever worth fighting if it was fought for the sake of the hour. The moments are ever challenging the eternal, the swift and busy hours fling their gauntlets at the feet of the ageless things. The real battle of life is never between ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... tossed upon a sea of dreams, dreams of the King, who threatened her with his great voice; of Cromwell, who took everything she had down to her cloak; of Commissioner Legh, who dragged her back to the stake because he had ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... fresh not to keep alive a deep aversion on the part of the proletariat towards the National Guard, and a strong feeling of mistrust on the part of the leaders of the secret societies for the democratic leaders. In order to balance these differences, great common interests at stake were needed. The violation of an abstract constitutional paragraph could not supply such interests. Had not the constitution been repeatedly violated, according to the assurances of the democrats themselves? Had not the ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... Gilbert, and Sir John M'Caskill, attacked in echelon of lines the enemy's infantry, almost invisible amongst wood and the approaching darkness of night. The opposition of the enemy was such as might have been expected from troops who had every thing at stake, and who had long vaunted of being irresistible. Their ample and extended line, from their great superiority of numbers, far outflanked ours; but this was counteracted by the flank movements of our cavalry. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... smiled the other, who did not seem one whit disturbed by the non-appearance of the swamp boy; "but don't you believe that cuts any figure in his keeping away. I've been studying Tony right along, ever since we met him first; and I'd stake a heap on his fidelity. He has come to care for us, too. I could see that by the way he watches us, and the light in his eyes at times. But there he comes right now, Larry; and he's holding up some game you ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... felt any fear now for the future. The revulsion from the stake and torture was so great that it did not seem to him that he could be taken again. Moreover, they had seized him the first time when he was asleep. They had taken an ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... hungry hardships, Summers of pest-ridden heat; Dicing with death for a grub stake, Risking his life for meat. Tossing away his young manhood, Giving the best of his youth To the holes that he bedrocked on wildcats, Where gold ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter

... seen old and unsentimental gamblers, who told me that this game was particularly pleasing because you did not see from whom you were winning, as is the case in other games; a lackey brought, not money, but chips; each man lost a little stake, and his disappointment was not visible . . . It is the same with roulette, which is everywhere prohibited, and not ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... d'Aix, amounting to twelve thousand men, were at my disposal. But I saw there was no prospect of ultimate success, though I might have occasioned a great deal of trouble and bloodshed, which I did not choose should take place on my account individually;—while the Empire was at stake, it was another matter." ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... in an instant that everything is at stake, and, ignoring the point, overwhelms him with indignant and contemptuous personal reproach. But he yields to it because he is himself half-ashamed of that answer of his, and because, for want of habit, the simple idea which it expresses has no hold on ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... fulfilled; and wide was the ruin occasioned by the indefatigable zeal, with which the bloodhounds of the tribunal followed up the scent. In the course of this persecution, two hundred individuals perished at the stake, and a still greater number in the dungeons of the Inquisition; and there was scarcely a noble family in Aragon but witnessed one or more of its members condemned to humiliating penance in the autos da fe. The immediate perpetrators of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... furnished him by a sorceress. The governor then ordered him to be seized. Duke Almanzor was set free. His wife gently reprimanded him for risking his life so foolishly. As for Abdala, he was beheaded, and the sorceress who helped him was burned at the stake. ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... Her army of heroes, the few sung, the many forgotten, is disbanded. The long peace won by their blood and pain is settled on the land. She had fashioned Cyril Harjohn for one of her soldiers. He would have been a martyr, in the days when thought led to the stake, a fighter for the truth, when to speak one's mind meant death. To lead some forlorn hope for Civilisation would have been his true work; Fate had condemned him to sentry duty in a ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... th' prisident iv th' coort, 'th' eyes iv Fr-rance is upon us, th' honor iv th' nation is at stake. Th' naytional definces, th' integrity iv that ar-rmy upon which Fr-rance must depind in time iv peace, th' virtue iv public life, an' th' receipts iv th' exposition is involved. Incidentally, ye ar-re bein' thried. But why dhrag ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne

... able to do with a million more? Sir, a million more would by no means answer in the same proportion. When a sum is given her, which with the best economy can suffice barely to put her troops in motion, when the enemy is at her very gates, her all at an immediate stake, there can be no room for a misapplication of it. But a sum so immense as that of a million and a half, would dazzle the eyes of a court so little used to see such sums; and as an honourable gentleman, [Mr. Horace WALPOLE,] long versed in foreign affairs, and well acquainted with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... sat stunned to inaction by the vital issues at stake, Quita hurried on toward the temple, with no purpose in her going save to escape from the consciousness of human presence. She stood still at length, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... his untouched food. He would utter nothing but monosyllables when Nancy spoke to him. Then he was simply afraid of the girl falling in love with him. At other times he would take a little wine; pull himself together; attempt to chaff Nancy about a stake and binder hedge that her mare had checked at, or talk about the habits of the Chitralis. That was when he was thinking that it was rough on the poor girl that he should have become a dull companion. He realized that ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... live under the Empire, and who now, hating vulgarity and insolence as much as he did himself, would have pointed out that General Ratoneau's military brutality was not worth resenting; that there were greater things at stake than a momentary annoyance; that the man's tongue had been loosened, his lumbering spirit quickened, by draughts of sparkling wine of Anjou, and that his horrible curiosity carried no intentional insult with it. Indeed, as Monsieur ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... made to me over and over again by many German soldiers when I say that the men in the ranks are thoroughly tired of the war, that they have abandoned all thought of conquest, and that they fight on only because they believe that their homes and families are at stake. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... naturally engender. Enthusiastic, yet tender; fervent, yet melting in her soul; and while she does not attempt to close her eyes to the conviction that she is cherishing a passion which is preying upon her very vitals, she nevertheless clings to it as a martyr to the stake! Oh! my lord, canst thou marvel if I feel deeply for ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... now. Such a gude, purty gal as she was, tu! An' so mute as a twoad at the buryin', wi' never a tear to soften the graave dust. For why? She knawed she'd be alongside her man again 'fore the moon waned. An' I hope she may be. But 't was cross-roads an' a hawthorn stake in my young days. Them barbarous ancient fashions be awver, thank God, though whether us lives in more religious times is a question, when you see the things what happens every ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... has been the bane of my life. When I think of all the sufferings I have endured out of mere politeness—though by no means accounted a polite person—tears of grief and indignation spring to my eyes. Old John Rogers at the stake never suffered such martyrdom. But there is an end of it! The tchai of Moscow finished all this sort of thing—so far, at least, as the male sex is concerned. I would still eat a coyote or a weasel to oblige a lady, but as to drinking two gallons of ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... feel on subjects of the highest importance; for nothing short of this intense conviction is adequate to explain the ferocity with which they treated those over whom they had triumphed in matters of religion. Burning at the stake was the common method of expiation. The fires of Smithfield consumed brave, humble victims, while Erasmus jested over the rising price of wood, In France the Inquisition entrapped many men of literary distinction, Louis de Berquin ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... no great issue at stake in these disastrous wars; no burning question was settled by the victory of either side; no great principle or national interest was involved. It was little more in reality than the struggle for supremacy and place amongst the overbearing ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... non-commissioned officers and constables may, to the superficial onlooker or reader, seem of no great value, but these men, by tact and firm, friendly dealing with the natives and traders, really introduced a new code of ethics in the Northland. The questions at stake may not have been very large ones from our standpoint, but the ownership of a sled-dog or the fairness of values in exchange of furs, were as important to the children of the wild as the possession of a province might be to people in Europe. And in these local ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... head and tail of the mandarin, Keshin, to be sent in pickle to the imperial court at Pekin. A new mandarin has arrived, who has presented a chop to Captain Elliott, but I hope, where there is so much at stake, that he will not be put off with a chop. There is no description of tea to be had in the market now but gunpowder, which, by the last reports, is going off briskly. Our amusements are not very numerous, being chiefly confined to yawning and sleeping; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... no effort to stake. After a moment's hesitation she yielded up her place, and moving backwards, seated herself upon an empty divan. Rapidly the thoughts began to form themselves in her mind. Her delicate eyebrows drew closer together in a distinct frown. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... trial we have a better chance of proving his innocence. Under ordinary circumstances I would be certain of the result; but where so much property is a stake I do not like to trust the superintendent ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis

... Once a Norwegian vessel arrived upon the coast of Ermonie laden with a freight of hawks and treasure (hawks at that period were often worth their weight in gold). The captain challenged anyone to a game of chess with him for a stake of twenty shillings, and Rohand and his sons, with Tristrem, went on board to play with him. Tristrem moved so skilfully that he overcame the captain, and won from him, in many games, six hawks and the sum of a hundred ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... to the danger, but Tell's carelessness about it was so clearly the result of his high-minded freedom from suspicion that it seemed as though every heart should beat quicker at his nobleness. These girls have moral courage. I dare say some of them would die at the stake rather than tell a lie. But it would take a sharply defined test like that to rouse them. Too much thought has made it difficult for them to take any risk through unconsciousness of danger. They could not act freely ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... attaining her end than by deceiving her tried companion and protector. It was revolting to one so sincere and natural, so pure of heart, and so much disposed to ingenuousness as Mabel Dunham, to practise deception on a friend like June; but her own father's life was at stake, her companion would receive no positive injury, and she had feelings and interests directly touching herself which would have ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... become a frown. Is it any wonder that I, with my whole nature vibrating with passionate, whole-hearted love, was often torn by jealousy when I came upon those closed doors of her life which she was so determined not to open? Reason came at times and whispered how foolish it was that I should stake my whole life and soul upon one of whom I really knew nothing. Then came a wave of passion once more ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... decisions, wise in his counsels and exhortations, ever anxious to aid them in their difficulties. Tender and lenient as a mother to those who wish to do right, and to correct evil, he is inflexible when a principle is at stake, and can be stern when the offender is obdurate. Notoriety and display are supremely distasteful to him. He would have his work done, and thoroughly done, and his own name or his part in it never mentioned. ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... force of reason lies in righteous judgment. But now in turn hear what we say: The rules of kings are framed to avoid the use of force when hatred has arisen from low desires, or else to avoid the sudden use of violence in trifling questions where some trifling matter is at stake. But we for the sake of law are about to fight. What wonder is it! Swollen pride is a principle to be opposed, for it leads to the overthrow of society; no wonder then that Buddha preached against it, teaching men to ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... return home with him. The news of Undine's disappearance had reached him, and he would no longer suffer Bertalda to remain in the castle alone with its lord. "I do not ask whether my daughter cares for me or not," said he; "her character is at stake, and where that is the case, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... doubt but that they had the upper hand. However, there was so much more at stake than the liberty or even the lives of Dian and myself, that I did not deem it expedient to accept their offer without ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... so many to show. At first the accused denies, then under torture she confesses, then relapses and denies; tortured again she confesses again, amplifies her story, and accuses others. When given to the stake, she not seldom asserts all her confessions to be false, which is ascribed to the power which the fiend still has over her. Then she is burnt and her ashes given to the winds. Those who wish to read one unexampled, perhaps for ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... wind as we wanted her. She wouldn't, although we both almost hung on the wheel and wrenched it off the deck. 'Hard up with the helm, men, do you hear?' again sings out the chief officer, rushing aft as he spoke. 'Hard up, men! all our lives are at stake!' ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... an unknown author, written on a really living person, Sir John Oldcastle, who had been the friend of some duke. This Oldcastle had once been convicted of heresy, but had been saved by his friend the duke. But afterward he was condemned and burned at the stake for his religious beliefs, which did not conform with Catholicism. It was on this same Oldcastle that an anonymous author, in order to please the Catholic public, wrote a comedy or drama, ridiculing this martyr for his faith and representing him as a good-for-nothing man, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy

... Government is in earnest about the Budget. The Budget carries with it their fortunes and the fortunes of the Liberal Party. Careful argument, reasonable amendment, amicable concession, not affecting the principles at stake—all these we offer while the Bill is in the House of Commons. But when all that is said and done, as the Bill leaves the House of Commons so it must stand. It would be a great pity if Lord Curzon, the Indian pro-Consul, or the London Spectator—it would ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... be, but they would reckon much on the confusion that would follow, and might think so to get away. They would probably have horses somewhere close at hand, and might ride for the port where they had left their ship. It is a great stake they are playing for, and doubtless they are desperate men; though they would know the danger they might calculate that some at least would escape to claim the reward. Then again, they might manage to mingle with ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... the custom," continued the priest, "at every council. To the Indians a promise is not given, a statement is not true, a treaty is not binding, unless there is a present for each clause. We have much at stake, and we must give what ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... you will be a live bait or a dead bait," and I cocked the rifle significantly, although, in truth, the last thing that I wished or intended to do was to shoot my faithful old Hottentot friend. But Hans, knowing all I had at stake, came to a ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... miracles on a small scale, and yet the explanations flowed as naturally as water from his lips. At the time of Moses and the prophets, such a man would have been placed among the sages of the land; in the middle ages they would have burnt him at the stake. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... out, Grandpa was surprised, but not as much as Sunny Boy. He leaned over, and jabbed the obstinate wheel with his stick; the dry end of the stake snapped, and Sunny Boy, stick and all, tumbled head-first into the water. In after him leaped a flash of brown and ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White

... evening we saw a horseman coming, and riding as if his life were at stake. Coming up, the horseman proved to be Jim Clark, who informed us that the Indians would be upon us in a few minutes and that they had killed his brother-in-law, George Masterson, a lad of 18 years. Horses were at once rounded ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... you should have printed them last week, as I suggested. Do so at once; the time is short. You have been too gentle; it has the air of fearing to offend, and of catering, as if we were afraid of antagonizing people against us; as though we had a personal stake in the convention. Possibly you consider our subscription books as such; I do not. But if they are, go ahead twice as hard. What if it does give the enemy a weapon in case McCune is nominated; if he is (and I begin to see a danger of it) we will be with ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... in the form first of the heroine's highly respectable but quite negligible husband and, second, of her close friend and quasi-sister our own admirable Aunt; with Alexander's younger brother, above all, the odd, the eccentric, the attaching Henry, for the stake, as it were, of the game. So for the spectator did the figures distribute themselves; the three principal, on the large stage—it became a field of such spreading interests—well in front, and the accessory pair, all sympathy and zeal, prompt comment and rich resonance, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... the United are at stake, and it is imperative that the membership exercise the most careful and independent reflection before accepting the views of radicals bent on ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... the best citizens of the Republic. Wife and children are the sources of patriotism, and conjugal and parental affection beget devotion to the country. The man who, undefiled with plural marriage, is surrounded in his single home with his wife and children has a stake in the country which inspires him with respect for its laws and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... swallowed up in the morasses of hate and vengefulness. Whilst we turn to our God for help in maintaining our just cause, which we cannot doubt is indeed His cause, we still must guard our actions and our thoughts, to prevent the blotting out of the moral issues that are at stake. ...
— No. 4, Intersession: A Sermon Preached by the Rev. B. N. Michelson, - B.A. • B. N. Michelson

... before were flaccid and weak in the extreme. Still the voyage had done something; the strong will growing up within him did more, and without a moment's hesitation, feeling as if his reputation was at stake, he went sharply to the starting-point, took the short run, and leaped, but too hurriedly. If he had gone quietly to work it would have been different; as it was, he cleared the gulf and landed on the other side, but without throwing himself forward sufficiently to recover himself, and Ned uttered ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... it was caused by blazing bits of tow fastened to the circumference of the big wire hoops. And thus through the blazing circles Joe Strong slid down the slanting wire on his head. At the lower end of the wire, where it was fast to a stake in the ground, he caught hold of the cable in his gloved hands and so slowed his speed. Then he leaped to his feet and bowed in acknowledgment of ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... the conference, Sir Robert and his cavaliers had resumed their seamen's attire, for they were to go over that night; and two hours before dusk, those who had been at a conference, in which the fate of kingdoms and crowned heads was at stake, were to be seen labouring at the oar, in company with common seamen, and urging the fast boat through the yielding waters, towards her ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Golden-Winged Woodpecker, alias, "High-Hole," alias, "Flicker," alias, "Yarup." He is an old favorite of my boyhood, and his note to me means very much. He announces his arrival by a long, loud call, repeated from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in the fence,—a thoroughly melodious April sound. I think how Solomon finished that beautiful climax on Spring, "And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land," and see that a description of Spring in this farming country, to be equally characteristic, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... highly Ingenious Mode of Torment known as the "Spanso Bocko."[C] The manner of it was this. You took your Negro and tied him wrists and ankles, so bending him into a neat curve. Then, if his spine did not crack the while, you thrust a stake between his legs, and having thus comfortably Trussed him, pullet fashion, you laid him on the ground one side upwards, and at your leisure scarified him from one cheek to one heel with any instrument ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... weighed against this. No human tie, however sacred, can hold against its claim. Not only must houses and lands, but father and mother and wives and children must take second place, so soon as eternal life is at stake. And yet, somehow or another, this salvation can only be attained by loss; self can only live if it be mortified, can only be saved by its own denial. Individuality, as has been said, can only be preserved ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson

... been said to him, 'You will be an immense proprietor: knowledge is essential to your self-preservation. You will be puzzled, ridiculed, duped every day of your life, if you do not make yourself acquainted with all by which property is assailed or defended, impoverished or increased. You have a stake in the country: you must learn all the interests of Europe, nay, of the civilized world; for these interests react on the country, and the interests of the country are of the greatest possible consequence to the interests of the Marquis of Castleton.' Thus, the state of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... it. My honor is at stake," said Anne solemnly. "I shall walk that ridgepole, Diana, or perish in the attempt. If I am killed you are to have ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... because all the crows that ever flew to Boston was shot by them lousie taverin keepers to make meals out of Ethen I never tast it nothing so rotten in my life as the meals they give us there & the priceis would knock your I out. 3 shillings for a peace of stake about as big as your I, and 4 pence for a cup of coffy. The streets sent the only thing about Boston thats crook it. Them taverin keepers is crook it ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart

... pastures, to attempt the plunge they were about to take without proper guidance as to the depth of the water and the set of the currents. They knew they were embarking in a most intricate and difficult business and with so much at stake on behalf of the whole farming population of Western Canada it was necessary to place the helm in the hands of somebody who could pilot them through the shoals. At best it promised to be ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... the substance of the Eighth Amendment had been incorporated into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but did intimate that the latter clause would invalidate punishments which would involve "torture or a lingering death," such "as burning at the stake, crucifixion, breaking on the wheel, and the like." Holding that the infliction of the death penalty by electrocution was comparable to none of the latter, the Court refused to interfere with the judgment of the State legislature that such a method of executing the ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... struggling, felt an added weight of apprehension. Not only her own safety was at stake—Lily, who was so weak, was in danger of being hurt. She ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... seemed to her now at stake. If by his dying act Mr. Redmain should drive her from under Hesper's roof, what was to become of her! Durnmelling, too, would then be as certainly closed against her, and she would be compelled to take a situation, and teach music, which she hated, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... much of their time in the chase, and still more time in sleep and gluttonous feasts. They were hard drinkers, too, and so passionately fond of gambling that, when a man's wealth was gone, he would even stake his liberty on a single game. In some of these respects the Germans resembled ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... shipwrecked on a strange island, and entered, with his companions, a sort of palace. At nightfall, a one-eyed giant entered, and ate one of them for supper, and another for breakfast next morning. This went on for a day or two, when Sindbad bored out the giant's one eye with a charred olive stake. The giant tried in vain to catch his tormentors, but they ran to their rafts; and Sindbad, with two others, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... rowte at the stake, An' pownies reek in pleugh or braik, This hour on e'enin's edge I take To own I'm debtor, To honest-hearted, auld Lapraik, For ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... the point in difference between them. If the Whig abolitionists of New York had voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be President, Whig principles in the ascendant, and Texas not annexed; whereas, by the division, all that either had at stake in the contest was lost. And, indeed, it was extremely probable, beforehand, that such would be the result. As I always understood, the Liberty men deprecated the annexation of Texas extremely; and this being so, why they should ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... threatened, and her own well-being was in question; she was compelled to consider, not how to rule other tribes, great or small, but how to keep her own possessions intact and independent: in short, her very existence was at stake. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... vengeance had prompted the bad priest to betray his confession. Saint-Thomas, hearing this, thought that this incident was of more importance than the trial, which concerned the life of only one person, whereas the honour of religion was at stake, with consequences infinitely more important. He felt he must verify this statement, and summoned the confessor. When he had admitted the breach of faith, the judges were obliged to revoke their sentence and pardon ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... white flag fluttered, the stake left from some recent sailing races. Gracefully the Chelton rounded the stake first. Drayton had lost time in running too close to shore. Only a minute later the Dixie swayed after the Chelton, then the final stretch was taken up in earnest. Spectators on the bank might wave ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose

... said Sneak: "only a spark of fire got agin the Indian's foot. He ain't as good pluck as the other one we had—he could stand burning at the stake ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... not so hard by far as for them out there, yet hard enough. Those at home must do their part as well. If we remain true to ourselves, keeping our own house in order, maintaining internal unity, then we have won existence and the future for our Fatherland. Everything is at stake. The German people is called upon now, in these weeks heavy with impending decision, to show that it ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... must be defined and registered by a certain date. Now, the folk of the archipelago are half nomadic; a man can scarce be said to belong to a particular atoll; he belongs to several, perhaps holds a stake and counts cousinship in half a score; and the inhabitants of Rotoava in particular, man, woman, and child, and from the gendarme to the Mormon prophet and the schoolmaster, owned—I was going to say land—owned at least coral blocks and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to attack. Everything that he cared about in this world was at stake. This desperate maneuver would save it all—or it would not. He gave the order to attack—and then he went for a walk on the outskirts of the little village of Plancy. His companion was one of his staff officers, Lieutenant Ferasson of the artillery; and as they walked ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

... from beginning to end of the true spirit of genuine evangelical religion. Dr. Ullerston remained in uninterrupted and perfect communion with the church of Rome; and yet no Protestant, who ever suffered at the stake for his opposition to her, could have more faithfully exposed the practical grievances under which Christendom then mourned in consequence of her dereliction of duty, whilst she assumed to herself all supreme authority, and paralyzed the efforts of national churches to remedy ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... I, now I grow worse and worse, now I am farther from conversion than ever I was before. If now I should have burned at the stake, I could not believe that Christ had love for me; alas, I could neither hear him, nor see him, nor feel him, nor savor any of his things. Sometimes I would tell my condition to the people of God, which, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... seat at the piano and played one of her most brilliant pieces—to sing, and her rich contralto voice rang out with new passion and power. I tell you even women can only marvel at the power many of the sex preserve over themselves when playing for a great stake, and the least betrayal of look or movement might be ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... his nose," maintained the captain, with the obstinate air of a man prepared to go to the stake for his opinions. "Like as two peas their noses are; you'd know them for father and daughter anywhere by ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs

... man," observed Stirling, "has no rights that he isn't prepared to hold on to in a rather uneven fight. With Weston it's all or nothing, and just now I don't quite know which he'll get. He and his partners will have to stake everything they own on a ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... the lions. In later days, they have been chased and worried from hiding-place to hiding-place, they have been cut down by the sword, buried alive, thrown from the tops of rocks, and burned at the stake. And in peacefuller times they have left their homes and countries and gone to the ends of the earth to tell the gospel. They have done what was given them to do, without regarding ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... public interests, too, at stake, of which, however, he probably thought but little. It proved, in the end, that the history of the whole Roman world, for several centuries, was depending upon the manner in which the question now ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... well why I am still sufficiently a child to tremble before you, Marianne," murmured Jose. "At my age, it is folly; but I am as superstitious as gamblers—or sailors, those other gamblers, who stake their lives, and I have never met you without feeling that I was ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... direction where he pointed, and a small object was visible on the surface of the water. They quickly rowed toward it. It was a lady's hat, which John instantly recognized as Hilda's. The long crape veil seemed to have caught in a stake which arose from the sandy beach above the water, placed there to mark some water level, and the hat floated there. Reverently, as though they were touching the dead, did those rough men disentangle the folds, and lay the hat on ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... the ground. Several of them lead directly into St. Claude, at some considerable distance from the customs stations, and it is these tracks which are being used by M. Aristide Fournier for the felonious purpose of trading with the enemy—on this I would stake my life. But I mean to be even with him, and if I get the help which I require from you, I am convinced that I can lay him by ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... Asias, who smote him in the middle of his shield with the sharp brass, attacking him in close combat; but azure-haired Neptune weakened the spear, grudging[435] him the life [of Antilochus]. Part of it remained there, like a stake burned in the fire,[436] in the shield of Antilochus, and the other half lay upon the ground; whilst he gave backwards into the crowd of his companions, shunning death. Meriones, however, following him departing, smote him with his spear ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... towards the garden fence, the dog still following him up. He had tried coaxing and conciliation, and they had failed. As he cautiously backed from the house, his feet struck against a heavy cart stake, which seemed to suggest his next resort. He was well aware that any quick movement on his part would cause the dog to spring upon him. Placing his toe under the stake, he raised it with his foot, till he could reach it with ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... to be reconciled. As they were not admitted to realize their Fortune, it consisted of ready Money, and that gave ready Power. As they were not permitted to purchase, or accept a Tenure of any valuable Length, Loyalty, perhaps, might induce them to fight for their King; but where was the Stake to impel them to fight for a Country in which they had no Inheritance? Without an Interest in Lands, they had little to lose by any Change of Estate. Without a Loan lodged with Government, they had the less to lose by a ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... Wash., has made his "stake" by growing tulip and hyacinth bulbs. He had a little place on Orcas Island, in Puget Sound. He did not know anything about growing flowers, but he did know that certain varieties of bulbs brought good ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exalted, while it trembled, at his honorable love—so pure and lofty that ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... crossed by dozens of lodes of gold-bearing quartz, generally running in a north-easterly and south-westerly direction. In this district the discoverer of a lode was entitled to claim and stake off 200 feet in length, then others could in succession take 100 feet each, in either direction from the discovery hole, and these claims, in order to be valid, were all recorded in the record office of the district. Owners of these various ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton

... to stand by me, when you were yourself free. In a nobler warfare, such an action would have been rewarded with a cross of honour, as it truly deserved. It is true, as well, that you were not so intimately connected with the main question at stake, as I was, since it was I who was suspected of being in possession of unlawfully gotten goods. You were consequently, I think, at liberty to take your freedom if you could get it, without consulting your conscience further. Now my position was, and is, very different. I do not speak ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... finds by them is one from which it will not easily be dislodged. On the other hand, if it is antagonism which is roused in the mind by the Atonement, it is an antagonism which feels that everything is at stake. The Atonement is a reality of such a sort that it can make no compromise. The man who fights it knows that he is fighting for his life, and puts all his strength into the battle. To surrender is literally to give up himself, ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney

... Jewess, "but in chief measure by a balsam of marvellous virtue;" and in reply to another question, Isaac reluctantly told that Rebecca had obtained her secret from Miriam, whom the Grand Master designated a witch and enchantress, whose body had been burned at a stake, and her ashes scattered to the four winds. "The laws of England," exclaimed Beaumanoir, "permit and enjoin each judge to execute justice within his own jurisdiction. The most petty baron may arrest, try, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... protection to a man's political rights as a British subject. No tenant farmer can vote against his landlord in obedience to his conscience without the risk of ruining his family. The greater his interest in the land, the larger his investments, the heavier his stake; the greater his accumulations in his bank—the farm—the greater will be his dependence, the more complete his political bondage. He has the more to lose. Therefore, if a Conservative, he must vote for a Radical or a Catholic, who would pull down the ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... his eyebrows. "The large property at stake of course rendered the most satisfactory proofs of it necessary. His father had died only a month previous, and of course they were seeking the presumptive heir, the so-called 'Captain John Dornton'—your man—when they made the ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... he knew not. I gave him leave to ask me what should help him, and enlightened him by my word." And after again being nervously shown the door: "Here I sit by the fireside," speaks blandly Wanderer, suiting the action to the word, "and I set my head as stake in a match of wits. My head is yours, you have won it, if you do not, by questioning me, succeed in learning what shall profit you; if I do not, by ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... was puffing and panting, with a very red face and astonished air; but the new theory had taken possession of him, and he would have died at the stake rather than allow that turning summersaults was not the exercise best adapted to old ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... that merchants carried on their shoulders. The famous bards, and story-tellers and harpists would not come until noon-time when the business of the fair would have abated, but with the crowd of beggars came ballad-singers, and the tellers of the stories that were called "Go-by-the-Market-Stake," because they were told around the stake in the market place and ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... taught me to sink the next set of stakes ten or fifteen feet below the surface of the ice, instead of five; and the experiment was attended with happier results. A stake planted eighteen feet deep in the ice, and cut on a level with the surface of the glacier, in the summer of 1840, was found, on my return in the summer of 1841, to project seven feet, and in the beginning of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... driven into the ground; at each stake, sat or stood the leader of a band; a sort of father to his people; then the rest of them stretched out in several long lines, young bucks and old ones, squaws and pappooses, the families together, about seventeen hundred souls in all. ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... be respected, it is the duty of other nations to require that this important passage shall not be interrupted by the civil wars and revolutionary outbreaks which have so frequently occurred in that region. The stake is too important to be left at the mercy of rival companies claiming to hold conflicting contracts with Nicaragua. The commerce of other nations is not to stand still and await the adjustment of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... WANTON GOSPELLER," which betokened that he had dared to give interpretations of Holy Writ unsanctioned by the infallible judgment of the civil and religious rulers. His aspect showed no lack of zeal to maintain his heterodoxies even at the stake. The woman wore a cleft stick on her tongue, in appropriate retribution for having wagged that unruly member against the elders of the church, and her countenance and gestures gave much cause to apprehend that the moment the stick should be removed a repetition of the offence would demand ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... reprehension of the respectable part of the community. Every citizen is interested, and is moreover bound to manifest his interest by his acts, in bringing every offender to prompt and condign punishment. The stake which every one has in the good order of the community, is great—it behoves, then, every one to exert himself to ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... times more than he deserved! But he's ended by betraying us.... But, hang it all, I don't care! You'd better try running away now, any of you! No one of you has the right to give up the job! You can kiss him if you like, but you haven't the right to stake the cause on his word of honour! That's acting like swine and spies ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... man, woman, and child, was an idea opposed to the deepest instincts of Brahmanism; and when, at the end of the chapter on the first missions, we read the simple words of the old chronicler, "who would demur, if the salvation of the world is at stake?" we feel at once that we move in a new world, we see the dawn of a new day, the opening of vaster horizons—we feel, for the first time in the history of the world, the beating of the great heart ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... this matter, lady? Let us have done with jealousies and be plain, for the lives of all of us hang upon threads that, for some, must break within a day or two, and with them those of a thousand, thousand others. Aye, the destiny of the world is at stake. You say you love this man, whom I will tell you I love also. Well, if you win him, and he lives, which he scarce can hope to do, he gets your kisses in whatever corner of the earth will shelter him and you. ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... wos paid to eat 'em," says the doctor. "Four crumpets a night," he says, "vill do your business in six months!" The patient looks him full in the face, and turns it over in his mind for a long time, and at last he says, "Are you sure o' that 'ere, Sir?" "I'll stake my professional reputation on it," says the doctor. "How many crumpets, at a sittin', do you think 'ud kill me off at once?" says the patient. "I don't know," says the doctor. "Do you think half-a-crown's wurth 'ud do it?" says the patient. "I think it might," says the doctor. "Three shillins' ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... nor pain for her great dread. And if she were troubled as to the getting in, she was far more troubled as to the getting out. But she bethought her that it was no good to linger there; and she found a sharpened stake which had been thrown by those within in the defence of the castle; and with this she made steps one above the other, and with much difficulty climbed up till she ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous

... however, and the kitchen given over to the Hawthorne pots and pans—in which the great Hawthorne himself used often to have a stake, according to the testimony of his wife, who once wrote in this connection, "Imagine those magnificent eyes fixed anxiously upon potatoes cooking in an iron kettle!"—the ghosts came no more. Of the great people who in the flesh passed pleasant hours in the little parlour, Thoreau, Ellery Channing, ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... the people is a great temptation to kings. It is very likely that after the coup-d'etat of December, the trembling puppet who had sat shivering over his fire in the palace of the Elysee while Morny and Fleury and St. Arnaud and the rest of the cool gamblers were playing their last desperate stake on that fatal night, really persuaded himself that the work was his, and that he had saved society. That the fly should imagine he is moving the coach is natural enough; but that the horses, and the wooden lumbering machine, and the passengers ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... arms, to place The Caesars' crown upon the Emperor's head. But still at home they ruled themselves in peace By their own laws and ancient usages. The Emperor's only right was to adjudge The penalty of death; he therefore named Some mighty noble as his delegate, That had no stake or interest in the land, Who was call'd in, when doom was to be pass'd, And, in the face of day, pronounced decree, Clear and distinctly, fearing no man's hate. What traces here, that we are bondsmen? Speak, If there be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... love in the heat of war, and you and I and those who are with us are at war with the powers of the earth, and higher things than the happiness of individuals are at stake. You know my training has been one of hate and not of love, and till the hate is quenched I must ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... to me rather a cowardly thing, Raymond, from you to me. I tell you that your wife's good name is at stake. For, since you've called me your wife so often, I suppose I may do the same. And if you're so careless for my credit, then I must ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... thought and he half wished he were not so consciously undeserving of national vertebral honors himself—that Elfrida's warnings had a little more basis of probability. Not that he wanted to drop his work, but a man owed something to his country, especially when he had what they called a stake in it—to establish a home perhaps, to marry, to have children growing up about him. A man had to think of his old age. He told himself that he must be the lightest product of a flippant time, since these things did not occur to him more seriously; and he threw himself ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... triumphantly as she touched the outer circle with one bullet and placed the other almost in the centre. It was plain that the two were evenly matched, and several shouts of approval came from the crowd. The turkey was hobbled to a stake at the same distance, and both were to fire at its head, with the privilege of shooting at fifty yards if ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.

... turn to reach Tunbridge Wells. In the distance he heard the baying of dogs, and he guessed that they were being set upon his track. In that case he could not hope to escape them, and might just as well await them where he was. He picked out a heavy stake from the hedge, and he sat down moodily waiting, in a very dangerous temper, ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... write, as well, something about the trial, to say to them that when Danvers's life was at stake I had no thought but to save him. Right or wrong, innocent or guilty, the only thing I wanted was that he ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... the city square the soldiers built a great burning-pile, and upon the top of it they placed King Croesus, bound him to a stake, and set fire to ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... was left. A discussion arose as to whether he was a match for a tiger. This battle is to settle the question; and the bets are mostly in favor of the tiger, though the Guicowar, with a few others, places his stake on the bull," ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... I wish you the happiness which you deserve. If I hesitated at all, it is because I know how much is at stake, and because the thing is so sudden, so unexpected." Her thin white hand stole up to the black cross upon her bosom. "These are moments when we need guidance, John. If I could persuade ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... whose cheek more plump. Then shrewd women began to study artifice. Deception is wrong, without doubt; but before we too severely censure these women, let us remember how deeply they were wronged, how great their temptations, how much they had at stake. In order to retain any thing like a comfortable or respectable position in their husband's houses, the waning beauties resorted to flattery and to the invention and skillful use of various articles which would conceal the declension of beauty or artfully ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... whether the American idea is to govern this continent, whether the Occidental or the Oriental theory of society is to mould our future, whether we are to recede from principles which eighteen Christian centuries have been slowly establishing at the cost of so many saintly lives at the stake and so many heroic ones on the scaffold and the battle-field, in favor of some fancied assimilation to the household arrangements of Abraham, of which all that can be said with certainty is that they did not ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... We mustn't be angry, the gestures of it are ugly. I, who am always being angry, who sometimes groan aloud my thoughts are so blasphemously bitter, I am telling you what I at bottom know. The game is so unfair, it calls for magnanimity on our part to stake handsomely and lose patiently. Patience, that's it! We must be patient—patient as a cab-horse! Pride and dignity demand that we be patient, absolutely. For the sake of certain beautiful things and sweet people in the world, we must give it a good name. But hear me! Hear me giving counsels to you—you ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... you down for thirty cents an hour, you to work as many hours as will be required to pay for whatever sand and gravel you get. Of course, you can do the work whenever you have the spare time. We'll stake out the post holes and show you the size we want them dug. You must always let us know when you're going to work, though, so we can keep account of your time and ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... the word, it could be true, but would be, in that case, a platitude; while the latter wish to maintain that it is true in the proper sense of the word, without any further dressing; a belief, which, as we ought to know is only to be enforced by inquisitions and the stake. As a fact, however, myth and allegory really form the proper element of religion; and under this indispensable condition, which is imposed by the intellectual limitation of the multitude, religion provides a sufficient satisfaction for those metaphysical requirements of mankind ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... pastoral labor which was peculiarly congenial to Lem; perhaps because he did it well. Not one of the ranch "hands" could guide the plow with such precision through the loose prairie soil. Certainly, very few of them would have taken the trouble to set up a stake at the end of the furrow with a flying bit of red flannel to steer by. Lem had the habit of plowing with his eyes fixed upon the stake, his shoulders slightly stooping. Yet the sense of what was going on in the sky and on the prairie was never lost. To-day the sun rose as ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... an ancient man that was with Her, told me that My Lady had lost no whit of her maidenhood for the Child. Well pleased was I the while this thing lasted me. It seemed me that I saw it like as I do you. Thereafter, methought I saw a Man bound to a stake, in whom was great sweetness and humility, and an evil folk beat Him with scourges and rods right cruelly, so that the blood ran down thereof. They would have no mercy on Him. Of this might I not hold myself but that I wept for pity of Him. Therewithal I ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown



Words linked to "Stake" :   portion, instrument of execution, stake driver, kitty, secure, double up, hazard, pot, security interest, fasten, adventure, percentage, back, fix, reversion, terminable interest, fee, share, impale, game, at stake, winning post, put on the line, stake race, interest, kill, part, law, stakes, lay on the line, right, gamble, punt, pierce, bet on, parlay, ante, equity, starting post, undivided interest, gage, jackpot, pool, jeopardize, mark, grubstake, risk, visual signal, bet, post, venture, jurisprudence, vested interest, undivided right, controlling interest, play, wager



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com