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Awe   Listen
noun
Awe  n.  
1.
Dread; great fear mingled with respect. (Obs. or Obsolescent) "His frown was full of terror, and his voice Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe."
2.
The emotion inspired by something dreadful and sublime; an undefined sense of the dreadful and the sublime; reverential fear, or solemn wonder; profound reverence. "There is an awe in mortals' joy, A deep mysterious fear." "To tame the pride of that power which held the Continent in awe." "The solitude of the desert, or the loftiness of the mountain, may fill the mind with awe the sense of our own littleness in some greater presence or power."
To stand in awe of, to fear greatly; to reverence profoundly.
Synonyms: See Reverence.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Awe" Quotes from Famous Books



... due to a Supreme Being, and of external forms calculated to evince such a belief. Into whatever country we cast our eyes, we find priests, altars, sacrifices, festivals, religious ceremonies, temples, or places consecrated to religious worship. Among every people we discover a reverence and awe of the Divinity; an homage and honour paid to him; and an open profession of an entire dependence upon him in all their undertakings, in all their necessities, in all their adversities and dangers. Incapable of themselves to penetrate ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... flocked down to the Willow Pond. On its banks, the centre of an awe-struck crowd, which had been quickly gathering, lay a body, recently taken out of the water. It was all that remained of poor Rachel Frost—cold, and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... constant outlay in building arose from her idea that people would fly to her for succour and protection during the revolutions that she believed to be impending all over the world; her camels, asses, and mules were kept with the same view, and her servants were taught to look forward with awe to events of a supernatural nature, when their services and energies would be taxed to the utmost. In choosing a solitary life in the wilderness, far removed from all the comforts and pleasures of civilisation, Lady Hester seems to have been actuated by ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... was "broad day," and here was nothing sinister to cause Melicent the least little thrill of awe. No owl, no bat, no ill-omened creature hovering near; only a mocking bird high up in the branches of a tall pine tree, gushing forth his shrill staccatoes as blithely as though he sang paeans to ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... Sea-flower, who drank in every note of nature's mighty chorus, scarcely thinking of the perils to which those who were riding at the mercy of the waves, might be exposed; for her young heart shrank not from ocean's awe; she had always looked upon an ocean grave as a hallowed ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... the sanctuary of the cathedral to the right of the main altar. Again they were disturbed and taken on board the brigantine Discovery to the Island of Cuba, where solemnly, once more, the Requiem for the Dead swelled out, filling with awe the immense assembly, comprising, as we are told, all the civil and military notables ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... affect because they are crowded and confused For, separate them, and you lose much of the greatness; and join them, and you infallibly lose the clearness." This is altogether a mistake. The images are vivid enough to make us feel the hovering presence of an awe-inspiring figure having the height and firmness of a tower, and the dusky splendour of a ruined archangel. The poet indicates only that amount of concreteness which is necessary for the clearness of the picture,—-only the height ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... slow, quiet smile, not in itself sardonic or cruel, although under the circumstances it seemed so, for it was difficult to associate any idea of mirth with the scene which was passing in that grim, gloomy chamber. Something of the awe inseparable from this close approach of death was visible in the faces of all the other watchers. Not so in his! It was the contrast which seemed so strange. He stood there, with his hands thrust deep into the pockets ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... these we encountered. All of them stared curiously at me, and several times we were held up by chattering groups. The intense whiteness of my skin, for it looked in this light the color of chalk, seemed to both awe and amuse them. But they treated me with great deference and respect, which I afterwards learned was because of Lylda herself, and also what she told them ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... solicitude, alarm, dread, trepidation, consternation, panic, dismay, terror, fright, cowardliness, timidity, pusillanimity; reverence, awe, veneration. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... certainly had not yet. As for the blacks, their eyes began to open like saucers, when they heard of the quarrel; when it got to the blows, their mouths were all grinning with the delight of a thing so exciting. At the mention of the number of the dead, however, something like awe passed over them, and changed their countenances to dismay. Nick alone was indifferent. By the cold apathy of his manner, the captain saw at once that the battle of Lexington had not been a secret to the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... them, and there they stood, pale, silent, and with a smile upon their lips which filled him with a description of awe and fear that was new to him. Their father was little better; the perspiration stood on his brow, and as he looked at them, he at times began to doubt their very identity, and to believe that the whole interview might be a phantasma, or a ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... how the fact of not finding him in a moment, again roused all their angry feelings against him, and dispelled every feeling of superstitious awe with which he had been surrounded; rage gave place to the sort of shuddering horror with which they had before contemplated his immediate destruction, when they had believed him to be virtually within ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... throne upon the death of his elder brother, was presented to the Welsh as Prince of Wales, a title from that day usually bestowed upon the king's eldest son. At the same time, though Edward built strong castles at Conway and Carnarvon to hold the Welsh in awe, he made submission easier by enacting suitable laws for them, under the name of the Statute of Wales, and by establishing a separate body of local officials to govern them, as well as by confirming them in the possession of their ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... be isolated from his fellows. For that we say of one, we say of all. It is as one that the man has claims amongst his fellows. Each will feel the sacredness and awe of his neighbour's dark and silent speech with his God. Each will regard the other as a prophet, and look to him for what the Lord hath spoken. Each, as a high priest returning from his Holy of Holies, will bring from his communion some glad ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... sense, Rythar was being enslaved and exploited by Earth. True, it was not difficult to dig out the ore, but Mryna resented the fact that the kids on Rythar had not been told the truth. She had long ago lost her awe of the man called god; now she lost ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox

... followed, a swift and singular change came over the face of Mr. Hallowell. He stared at his niece as though fascinated. His lower lip dropped in awe. The look of hostility gave way to one of intense interest. His voice was hardly louder ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis

... they saw her untumbled bed, with just the slight pressure made where she had lain down, as though gone to bed for the night; everything else was unchanged. Mrs. Dering sank trembling into a chair, and pointed to a paper lying on the table. Olive reached it, and read aloud in a frightened, awe-struck voice: ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... Michael Angelo and Raphael was marked. The very splendor and power of their creations, instead of inspiring those who immediately followed them, produced almost the inertia of despair. In the reverence and awe and admiration with which these transcendent masterpieces were approached any power to originate seemed futile by contrast. Imitation rather than creation became the method adopted, resulting in an increased poverty of design ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... to testify to the prosperity of those who remained its friends. Sulla's proud tone in 92 would not have lessened this impression; and, before he appealed to force, the crafty king hoped to make his position securer by fraud. Partly, therefore, from real awe, partly because he was not yet ready, he obeyed Aquillius as he had obeyed Sulla. But Aquillius, who had once put up Phrygia to auction, knew what pickings there were for a senator when war was afoot in Asia, and perhaps may have had the honester ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... the whole of the opposite sex, from the fascinating chorus girls of London and New York to the no less enterprising young women of his own order. As she sat there studying his features, she felt a sensation almost of awe. There was something entirely different, something stronger in his face. She thought for a moment of their father as she had known him in her childhood, the founder of their fortunes, a man who had risen from a moderate ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... will call the people to my aid, and the people will maintain the cause of their sovereigns. We will try our strength at last, and the strife will be a memorable one; our sons shall relate it with awe and terror to their descendants, and it will be a tale of shame which will cleave to your names for centuries to come. Ah, gentlemen, the rule of a woman has rendered you over-bold; and you have forgotten that there have ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... in which his name had been favourably mentioned by friendly reporters. She hoped he would be successful in finding the moat-house murderer. She would have liked to question him about the case, but she stood a little in awe of him and ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... enormous resources of the "Society of Jesus" impress us with feelings of amazement and awe. We almost attribute them to the agency of mysterious powers, and forget the operations of natural causes. The history of society shows that no body of men ever obtained a wide-spread ascendency, except by the exercise of remarkable qualities of mind and heart. And this is the reason why ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... Keturah's wide-awake nights, and she had been wandering off into the fields at the foot of the garden, where it was safe and still. There is, by the way, a peculiar awe in the utter hush of the earliest morning hours, of which no one can know who has not familiarized himself with it in all its moods. A solitary walk in a solitary place, with the great world sleeping about you, and the great ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... in the borough, sir. She is the Mayoress. But you need not stand in awe of her, sir. She is my sister-in- law. [To the Bishop] Ive often spoken of her to your lady, my lord. [To Mrs Bridgenorth] Mrs ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... where it ought to go, and from then on he was looked up to with awe and admiration ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton

... Awe-struck, his sacred wisdom she confest, Which pour'd sweet consolation on her mind; She cross'd her blood-stain'd hands upon her breast, And bow'd her humble, ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham

... curiosity to behold a man who had several times appeared to them under the most appalling circumstances, and against whom the strongest feeling of indignation had been excited for his barbarous murder of Charles de Haldimar. It was with mingled awe and anger they now awaited his approach. At length the captive was seen advancing from the cell in which he had been confined, his gigantic form towering far above those of the guard of grenadiers by whom he was surrounded; and with a haughtiness in his air, and insolence ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... trousers and high shoes of tanned leather set off a form supple and powerful as a panther's. Unlike most Orientals the stranger was fair. A blond beard swept his breast. His eyes were sharp, steel-blue. Never a word spoke he; but Democrates looked on him with wide eyes, then turned almost in awe to ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... with closed eyes, for a long time. I watched the people in the throng of carriages—hundreds of faces all turned toward him, all showing that mingled admiration, envy and awe which humanity gives its exalted great. "The President! The President!" I heard every few yards in excited undertones. And hats were lifting, and once a crowd of enthusiastic ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... man, a sobering change came over him. He had seen death sometimes, and the sight of it had always painfully affected him. He hated to be brought up short, as it were, and forced to see the serious, the solemn, the awe inspiring in life. He wanted to live in the present; he did not want to be forced to face the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... from the road as much as possible. They were in the southern zone of Bhutan lying nearest the Indian frontier, a region of precipitous hills ten or twelve thousand feet high, their sides clothed with dense vegetation, of deep, fever-laden valleys of awe-inspiring gorges, of rivers liable to sudden floods and rising in a few hours ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... Surface, Jr., took this step, in person, by at once telephoning all that was salient to the Post. Brower Williams, the Post's city editor, at the other end of the wire, called the name of his God in holy awe at the dimensions of the scoop thus dropped down upon him as from heaven; and implored the Doc, for old time's sake, by all that he held most sacred and most dear, to say not a word till the evening papers were out, thus insuring the sensation for ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... flashed—he looked all at once like an inspired apostle with the gift of life in his hand. Cicely watched him with a sudden sense of awe. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... naturall causes of things, yet from the feare that proceeds from the ignorance it selfe, of what it is that hath the power to do them much good or harm, are enclined to suppose, and feign unto themselves, severall kinds of Powers Invisible; and to stand in awe of their own imaginations; and in time of distresse to invoke them; as also in the time of an expected good successe, to give them thanks; making the creatures of their own fancy, their Gods. By which means it hath come ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... a grand and solemn truth, expressive of a silent Law of Heaven, which continues forever valid. The most untheological of men may still assert the thing; and invite all men to notice it, as a silent monition and prophecy in this Universe; to take it, with more of awe than they are wont, as a correct reading of the Will of the Eternal in respect of such matters; and, in their modern sphere, to bear the same well in mind. For it is perfectly certain, and may be seen with eyes in any quarter of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... had altered him; and then the thoughts of illness and death seem to turn many of us into gentlemen, and gentlewomen, as long as such thoughts are in our minds. We cannot speak loudly or angrily at such times; we are not apt to be eager about mere worldly things, for our very awe at our quickened sense of the nearness of the invisible world, makes us calm and serene about the petty trifles of to-day. At least, I know that was the explanation Mr. Gray once gave me of what we all thought the great improvement in ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... disposition to shrink from the Negro question. Some avoid it by flippantly denying the danger; others turn from it because they are appalled by it. Thus an able writer on Immigration in a recent number of the Century passes the topic with this awe-stricken remark: "This problem (of the Negro) cannot be touched practically; ancient wrongs bind the nation hand and foot, and its outcome must be awaited as we await the gathering of the tempest—powerless to avert, and trembling over the steady ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various

... years, when the Pope delegated to him the office of preaching the Second Crusade. Pale and attenuated to a degree which seemed almost supernatural, his contemporaries discovered something in the mere glance of his eyes which filled them with wonder and awe. When his words of love, aspiration and sublime self-sacrifice reached their ears, they were no longer masters of themselves or of their feelings. A great meeting had been convened by Pope and king at Vezelay, on Easter, 1146. Bernard, attended by the king, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... well known in Falmouth and pretty generally held in awe. At sight of him advancing, the throng fell back and gave us passage in a sudden lull which reached even to where Nat Fiennes struggled in the grasp of a dozen longshoremen who were hailing him to the quay's edge, to fling him over. He broke loose, and ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... Negro Day and there were thousands of Negroes out to hear Dr. Washington speak.... At times he would make the people laugh and then again he would have a few crying. When I saw the tears in the eyes of his listeners, I looked at Dr. Washington and thought of him with awe because he was so highly honored. I thought of him with admiration because he could speak so well, and I thought of him with pride because he was a Negro.... His speech made me feel as if there were really a few Negro men and women in the world who were ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... failed; but when it came to administrative affairs, he was more critical. He had suffered during his military career from more than one subaltern on whose arid consciousness the brain-wave never beat. He had never met even a field officer before whom, in the realm of intellect, he had stood in awe. If any one of those dimly envisaged and still more dimly remembered officers of the Lancashire Fusiliers had ordered him to stand on his head on top of the parapet, he would have obeyed in cheerful confidence; but he was ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... began to steal in, and it was time to open the doors of God's house. The little server in his linen ephod was at his post as usual, but to-day his shining morning face was clouded and troubled, and there must have been a look of awe in his ...
— The Babe in the Bulrushes • Amy Steedman

... same politeness to which they had accustomed me. Yet I was never quite at my ease with Madam de Luxembourg. Although I was not quite relieved from my fears relative to her character, I apprehended less danger from it than from her wit. It was by this especially that she impressed me with awe. I knew she was difficult as to conversation, and she had a right to be so. I knew women, especially those of her rank, would absolutely be amused, that it was better to offend than to weary them, and I judged by her commentaries upon what the people who ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... directly; and Albinia carried off her prize, exceedingly hopeful and puzzled, and wondering whether her compromise had been a right one, or a mere tampering with temptation—delighted with the confidence and affection bestowed on her so freely, but awe-struck by the impression which the boy had avowed, and marvelling how it should be treated, so as to render it a blessed and salutary restraint, rather than the dim superstitious terror that it was at present. At least there was hope of influencing him, his ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the play began. He burst in, and prophesied that she would ruin herself for ever if she persevered in this resolution to lay down the candlestick! She persisted, however, in her determination, succeeded, was applauded, and Sheridan begged her pardon. She described well the awe she felt, and the power of the excitement given to her by the sight of Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and Sir Joshua Reynolds in the pit. She invited us to a private reading-party at her own house: present only her daughter, ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... Yet even already had begun to gather in the hearts of two or three of the congregation a feeling of quiet sacredness about it: some soft airs of the spirit-wind had been wandering through their souls as they sat there and listened. And a gentle awe, from old associations with lay worship, stole like a soft twilight over Juliet as she entered. Even the antral dusk of an old reverence may help to form the fitting mood through which shall slide unhindered the ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... that a long line of ancestors should have inhabited regions, the scenery of which is now regarded as beautiful. Just as I was about to observe that the chief difficulty attaching to my hypothesis arose from feelings of the sublime (seeing that these are associated with awe, and might therefore be expected not to be agreeable), Mr. Darwin anticipated the remark, by asking how the hypothesis was to meet the case of these feelings. In the conversation which followed, he said the occasion in his own life, when he was most affected by the emotions of the sublime ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... rather a high colour; her features were handsome, but without much refinement, their expression a condescending good-humour. Her mourning garb, if mourning it could be called, represented an extreme of the prevailing fashion; its glint and rustle inspired awe in the female observer. A moment ago the drawing-room had seemed empty; Mrs. Luke, in her sole person, filled and ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... "Awe," drawled the Corporal, "what's the use o' goin' t' all that trouble? If you have t' have any interpretin' done all you got t' do is ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... dear Sir Paul, for I have heard that you were ever the first." Then Paul said, "Nay, I know not the name of the maker of it." Then the boy said, smiling, "Then, dear sir, it must have been the music of the angels." And Paul said, "Ay, it was that." Then the boy was silent, and sate in awe, while Paul mused, touching his lute softly. Then he roused himself and said, "And the second reason, dear child, is this. There comes a time to all that make—whether it be books or music or pictures—when they can make no new thing, but go on in the old manner, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... have not changed in form or color or appearance since some force, next to that of the Almighty, lifted them from the under world and placed them to stand eternal sentinels at the entrance to this strange, impressive, awe-inspiring river—for the wind and wear of unnumbered centuries have left them cold and bare, soilless and treeless, save where some stunted shrub, with a single root, has spiked itself into a crevice, and there stands starved and dying, as it ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various

... brokenly with awe and reverence of her book, as of some mighty presence, some constraining power outside herself. She saw it complete, beautiful—an entrancing ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... sufferings of the workers, sick with the marsh-fever in the hospitals which he had built for them; [Compare PREUSS, iv. 60-71.] when, restless, his demands outran the quickest performance,—there united itself to the deepest reverence and devotedness, in his People, a feeling of awe, as for one whose limbs are not moved by earthly life [fanciful, considerably!]. And when Goethe, himself become an old man, finished his last Drama [Second Part of FAUST], the figure of the old King again rose on him, and stept into his Poem; and his Faust got transformed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... he liked. He saw the meadows whose sweet smell of newly-mown grass had delighted him in his garden; and he wandered down to the shore, where he felt again the strength of the sea-breeze. He heard with awe the sound of many waters as myriad waves dashed against the rocky coast—those same waves which farther along, as the shore became sandy, rippled out in the lowest murmurs. In the caves, too, he saw new forms of life—the many-coloured sea-anemones, ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley

... remove grievances, not to establish the claim to our loyalty by just treatment and equal laws, but to repress the publication of the truth, however much it might be required in the public interest, to prevent us from holding public meetings, to interfere with the Courts, and to keep us in awe ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... master, and its snarling at those it dislikes. If Boileau was too austere to admit the pliability of grace, he compensates by good sense and propriety. He is like (for I will drop animals) an upright magistrate, whom you respect, but whose justice and severity leave an awe that discourages familiarity. His copies of the ancients may be too servile: but, if a good translator deserves praise, Boileau deserves more. He certainly does not fall below his originals; and, considering at what period he wrote, has greater merit still. By his imitations ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... mother-in-law to the post of honour. For the better gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic old soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves. But let us be ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... old Applegate emboldened me. If she would talk so kindly to him, why might she not give me one more word? I had no awe of the professor, and had taken an aesthetic tea at his dismal house, and seen a weak-eyed, sallow Mrs. Applegate and five lank little Applegates. Accordingly, I limped across the room to the spot where Miss Lenox stood, and was rewarded by a bright ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... and passed it on till it merged in the silvery pathway of the moon, which, as Phil had prophesied, was at its height. She sat quite still, realizing as she had never done before the utter grandeur, the awe-inspiring majesty ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... welcome had made that very porch so cheerful to us. We were the only witnesses of this usually unheeded part of the funeral duties: accident had given to us a privilege which was lost to the crowd within. We instinctively uncovered our heads, and stood subdued by an indescribable feeling of awe as the corpse was carried outwards; and we felt grateful, that it had thus fallen to our lot to behold the departure of these the honoured and precious remains of Sir Walter Scott from the house of Abbotsford, where all his earthly affections had been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... Saint Gaudens made To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, And set here in the city's talk and trade To the good memory of Robert Shaw, This bright March morn I stand, And hear the distant spring come up the land; Knowing that what I hear is not unheard Of this boy soldier ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... heard my father use a rough word, 'twas extraordinary with how much awe his people regarded him; and the servants on our plantation, both those assigned from England and the purchased negroes, obeyed him with an eagerness such as the most severe taskmasters round about us could never get from their ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... once more those awe-inspiring eyes, and mine fell before them. Dear, this man is a hopeless enigma. He seemed to ask whether my words meant love; and the mixture of joy, pride, and agonized doubt in his glance went to my heart. It was plain that advances, which would be taken for what they were worth in France, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... broken pathway, stood in silent awe, while the Peruvians looked on from their perches on the mountain side with bulging ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... onward; where to-day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands; While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return, To glean up the scattered ashes into ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... solo dances take the form of comic imitations of the movements of animals, especially the big macaque monkey (DOK), the hornbill, and big fish. These dances .seem to have no connection with magic or religion, but to be purely aesthetic entertainments. The animals that are regarded with most awe are never mimicked in this way. There are at least four distinct group dances popular among the Kayans. Both men and women take part, the women often dressing themselves as men for the occasion (Pl. 61). The movements and ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... own eyes wide and amazed. Her fingers stirred within his hands with a single nervous twitch, and then lay still, while into her eyes crept an expression of wonder and awe. ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger and awe and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou should'st walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... keep warm. The broad-backed old hill (Scofield's Hill, a famous place for papaws in summer) guards them tolerably well; but then, house and barn and hill lie up among the snowy peaks of the Virginian Alleghanies, and you know how they would chill and awe the air. People away down yonder in the river-bottoms see these peaks dim and far-shining, as though they cut through thick night; but we, up among them here, find the night wide, filled with a pale starlight that has softened for itself out of the darkness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... starry canopy, are beautiful. But what are they compared to a human soul? What is an ephemeral flower or an age-lasting star compared with glorious reason, with eternal love, with deathless benevolence, and conscience? What were the material universe with all its sublime grandeur and awe-inspiring magnificence with no soul to gaze upon it? And yet perfect and beautiful as were our souls when God gave them to us, what unsightly, miserable, demoniac things we have made of them! It is evil Education that has done it all. We have trained our minds in wrong schools. We have educated ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... have been in that part of the house which had boon demolished during the Wars of the Roses. Children did not chatter to their parents in days of old as they do now. They might love them never so well, but they held them in reverence and even in awe. They were silent in their presence, as a rule, unless spoken to first, and the habit of conversational intimacy did not grow up until a much later period in their lives. Thus the adventures of Warbel, and ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... twilight of the aisles, the chapels resembling grottoes, the secret passages, the low doorways, in a word everything in a Gothic church reminds you of the labyrinths of a wood, everything excites a feeling of religious awe, of mystery, and of the Divinity." The birds perch upon the steeples and towers as if they were trees, and "the Christian architect, not content with building forests, has been desirous to retain their murmurs, and ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... can't even do that," murmured the little school teacher. She was really so much in awe of this imperious, clever old Aunt Isabel that it was positive heroism on her part to venture even this ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... characteristics of boys. He is said to have known every boy in the school, his appearance, his habits, and his companions. It cannot be said that he was always genial in manner; the youngest boys especially regarded him with awe, and his own sense of the intense seriousness of life and duty gave a sternness and austerity to his aspect which made many of his pupils afraid of him. His conception of a school was that it should be first of all a place for the formation of character, and next a place ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... he was united to a being capable of deep affection and very sensitive, yet grateful for kindness from a husband to a degree not easily imaginable. And Waldershare had really a good heart, though a bad temper, and he was a gentleman. Besides, he had a great admiration and some awe of his father-in-law, and Lord Hainault, with his good-natured irony, and consummate knowledge of men and things, quite controlled him. With Lady Hainault he was a favourite. He invented plausible theories and brilliant paradoxes for her, which left her always in a state of charmed wonder, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... all human probability I shall never be the first to burst into a silent sea, I can declare quite seriously that I never steer into an unfamiliar creek or haven but, as its recesses open, I can understand something of the awe of the boat's crew in Andrew Marvell's "Bermudas;" yes, and something of the exultation of ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... has increased her patience, her resignation," continued Alain; "but if you knew her as we know her you would see how keen is her sensibility, how active the inexhaustible tenderness of her heart, and you would almost stand in awe of the tears she had shed, and the fervent prayers she had made to God. Ah! it was necessary to have known, as she did, a brief period of happiness to bear up as she has done under such misfortunes. Here is a tender heart, a gentle soul in a steel body ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... his lips distill'd:(58) Two generations now had pass'd away, Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway; Two ages o'er his native realm he reign'd, And now the example of the third remain'd. All view'd with awe the venerable man; Who thus with ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... The number voted was 176,615 men, including 30,000 stationed in France; and a vote of 33,000 men for the navy was also agreed to, after a violent debate. Out of the large military force voted 25,000 men were to be stationed in Ireland, in order to keep that country in awe. The necessity of such a force naturally excited some surprise, and led to some animadversions on the measures of the existing cabinet. But no cabinet: which has ever existed can fairly be charged with all the evils and the abuses which have plagued that country. Generally speaking, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... so overruling in whatever inspires us with awe, in all things which belong ever so remotely to terror, that nothing else can stand in ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... of wonder, and it was evident that his unimaginative mind was struggling with new conceptions. There was a gleam of humour in his eyes which contrasted oddly with the suggestion of awe in his voice, as he looked up and answered: "It must be a great place for lovers, professor. And how far away might ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... house it was really quite a journey from her room to her mother's salon. There was the long corridor to pass, at one end of which were Jeanne's quarters, at the other a room which had had for her since her babyhood a mingled fascination and awe. It was hung with tapestry, very old, and in some parts faded, but still distinct. As Jeanne passed by the door of this room, she noticed that it was open, and the gleam of the faint moonlight on the snow-covered ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth

... was incapable of supporting either animal life or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result, it had been ascertained in just such an elevation of the animal spirits as we had latterly experienced. It was the pursuit, the extension of the idea, which had engendered awe. What would be the result of a total extraction of the nitrogen? A combustion irresistible, all-devouring, omni-prevalent, immediate;—the entire fulfilment, in all their minute and terrible details, of the fiery ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this scepter'd sway, It is enthroned in the heart of kings. It is an attribute of God Himself, And earthly power doth then show likest God's, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... whole story. He hid nothing from her, but as he went on he made her understand that it was his intention to conceal the whole deed, to say nothing of it, so that the perpetrator should escape punishment, if it might be possible. She listened in awe-struck silence as she heard the tale of her mother's guilt. And he, with wonderful skill, with hearty love for the girl, and in true mercy to her feelings, palliated the crime of the would-be murderess. "She was beside herself with grief and emotion," he said, "and has ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... glory. They are terrifying, sometimes, to the tenderfoot, giving him the feeling that his world is on fire. Poor old Struthers, during an especially active display, invariably gets out her Bible. Used to them as I am, I find they can still touch me with awe. They make me lonesome. They seem like the search-lights of God, showing up my human littlenesses of soul. They are Armadas of floating glory reminding me there are seas I can never traverse. And the farther north one goes, of course, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... to the world an hour in the twenty and four in which it lays aside the mortality of the earth and clothes itself in an immortality of a very great awe? I think that it is so; and it was out into the whiteness of that hour that I stepped when I had successfully passed from my room to the garden of the home of my Uncle, the General Robert, which is also ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... man of considerable political consequence from his rank and connexions, and from the number of voices he could command or influence. Lord Oldborough knew that, if he could regain the duke, he could keep in awe his other enemies. His grace was a puzzle-headed, pompous fool, whom Heaven had cursed with the desire to be a statesman. He had not more than four ideas; but to those four, which he conceived to be his own, he was exclusively attached.—Yet a person of address and cunning ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boasting as the Gentiles use Or lesser breeds without the law— Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams

... "super-terrestrial" pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grand style of architecture. It seems that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with everlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about the earth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures: dogmatic philosophy has been a caricature of this kind—for instance, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia, and Platonism in Europe. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although it must certainly be confessed that ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... great engines throbbing faster beneath them, and the flotilla, well into the mouth of the Ohio, was leaving the Mississippi behind them. But the Ohio here for a distance is apparently the mightier stream, and they gazed with interest and a certain awe at the vast yellow sheet enclosed by shores, somber in the gray garb of winter. It was the beginning of February, and cold winds swept down from the Illinois prairies. Cairo had been left behind and there was no sign of human habitation. ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... flanked by "Achievement" and "Labor Crowned," noble and timely tributes to the Workers who made the canal. Those here reproduced, opposing them on the western wall, are historic. "Discovery" shows Balboa, "on a peak in Darien," in awe at his great moment of discovering the Pacific. The Spirit of Adventurous Fortune attends him. Watching him, sits the Indian guarding his treasures, a tragic prophecy in face and figure. "The Purchase" commemorates the part of France in ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry

... other, in awe-inspiring tones; "'the Battersea Bruiser.' Consequently when he clapped me on the back, and asked me when the banns was to be, ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... pillows against which the dying patient was reclining. The hearse-like pace at which the carriage moved recalled the overwhelming spectacle of the funeral which had so lately formed part in the most memorable event of my life. But these elements of awe, that might at any rate have struck forcibly upon the mind of a child, were for me, in my condition of morbid nervousness, raised into abiding grandeur by the antecedent experiences of that particular summer night. The listening for hours to the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... beauty of dress, by display of knowledge or intellect, each tries to subjugate others; and so aids in weaving that ramified network of restraints by which society is kept in order. It is not the savage chief only, who, in formidable war-paint, with scalps at his belt, aims to strike awe into his inferiors; it is not only the belle who, by elaborate toilet, polished manners, and numerous accomplishments, strives to "make conquests;" but the scholar, the historian, the philosopher, use their acquirements to the same end. We are none of us content with quietly ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... Public Faith found out for, But to slur men of what they fought for The Public Faith, which ev'ry one Is bound t' observe, yet kept by none; And if that go for nothing, why 195 Should Private Faith have such a tye? Oaths were not purpos'd more than law, To keep the good and just in awe, But to confine the bad and sinful, Like moral cattle, in a pinfold. 200 A Saint's of th' Heav'nly Realm a Peer; And as no Peer is bound to swear, But on the Gospel of his Honour, Of which he may dispose as owner, It follows, though the thing be forgery, 205 And false th' affirm, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time, and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams." Returning to the theatre after an interval of some years, he vainly looked for the same feelings to recur ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... seized, many a large one sunk by these hardy Rangers of the forest. They were as wily as Indians, and as sudden and secret in their movements. The French regarded them with a species of awe and fear. They would sometimes find an English boat or canoe in some spot perfectly inexplicable to them. They could not believe that anyone could pass the fortifications of Ticonderoga unseen and unheard, and would start the wildest hypotheses to account for the ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... of them appeared, bearing the brass bottle with every sign of awe, and depositing it ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... the Romanized cities were a tempting model for imitation. Bridges, aqueducts, palaces, with their splendid mingling of strength and beauty, fragments of which still linger to convince us of our inferiority, these were awe-inspiring to the Frank and filled him with longings to drink deep at this fountain of civilization. The heroic strain brought by Clovis was quickly enfeebled and debauched by luxury. The court of the Merovingian king became a miserable assemblage of half-Romanized ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... and the fire kept up, as we sat around, for two or three hours. Meantime the storm outside was getting worse. Fine snow was sifting into the old camp at all the cracks and crevices. The cold, too, was increasing; the roaring of the forest was at times awe-inspiring. On peeping out at the door, nothing could be discerned; snow like a dense white powder filled the air. Already a foot of snow had banked against the door; the one little window was whitened. Occasionally, above the roar in the tree-tops, could be heard a distant, muffled crash, ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... it with awe and wonder. The sea came rushing in with a tremendous roar, bursting and boiling into foam, and seeming as if it would leap over the tower, and submerge the hill altogether. It has been said of it—"The breaking ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... you, with a mixture of infectious awe and becoming pride, that this is no less than the far-famed private asylum ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... spoke with awe of his genius; Keats dedicated one of his poems to his memory; and Coleridge copied some of his rhythms. One of his best poems is the ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... the crowd was silent, gazing at her with a sort of awe—she did not even know how near they were to the fatal spot, when the cart stopped, and she shrank appalled at a loud shout hideous to her ear, like a vast yell of demons. Hetty's shriek mingled with the sound, and they clasped ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... the grounds upon which these conclusions rest, it may be well to give a slight review of the history of cave research. The dread and awe which kept people away from caves during the Middle Ages preserved their contents for later discoverers. In the seventeenth century, some adventurous spirits began to search in them for what they called Unicorn horns, which were deemed a most efficacious ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... had crossed the Atlantic by sailing ship and the Plains by ox team. She kissed the bullet hole in it, made in the fight at Little Meadow, as she kissed her father's sword, the while she visioned him, as she always did, astride his roan warhorse. With the old religious awe, she pored over her mother's poems in the scrap-book, and clasped her mother's red satin Spanish girdle about her in a farewell embrace. She unpacked the scrap-book in order to gaze a last time at the wood engraving of the Vikings, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... proceeded without scruple to violate all ecclesiastical privileges, which, during that age, were much more sacred than civil; and having once prevailed in that unusual attempt of suppressing some monasteries, he kept all the rest in awe, and exercised over them an arbitrary jurisdiction. By his commission as legate he was empowered to visit them, and reform them, and chastise their irregularities; and he employed his usual agent, Allen, in the exercise of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... on it grew deeper, stronger. It was like the sound of countless multitudes of bees buzzing in the noon among flowers, drowsily, ceaselessly. She stopped under a low mud arch to listen. And when she listened, standing still, a feeling of awe came upon her, and she knew that she had never heard such a strangely ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... feel gratified, his ego expanding. Experimentally, he waved to the massed ranks of bug things as he passed them. A new explosion of twittering broke out, and a forest of twiglike arms waved back at him. They seemed to regard him with happy awe. ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight

... was not a stranger to books, I had no practical acquaintance with men. I had never had occasion to address a person of this elevated rank, and I felt no small uneasiness and awe on the present occasion. I found Mr. Falkland a man of small stature, with an extreme delicacy of form and appearance. In place of the hard-favoured and inflexible visages I had been accustomed to observe, every muscle and petty line of his countenance seemed to be in an inconceivable ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... the beauties which with these dim eyes of ours we daily see in corruptible bodies, . . . seem to us so fair and gracious that they often kindle most ardent fire in us, . . . what happy wonder, what blessed awe, shall we think is that which fills the souls that attain to the vision of divine beauty! What sweet flame, what delightful burning, must that be thought which springs from the fountain of supreme and true beauty!—which is the source of every other beauty, which never waxes ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... wilderness. They were trained by this experience to habits of order and military discipline. At Horeb, the Decalogue, the kernel, so to speak, of the Hebrew codes, the foundation of the religious and social life of the people, was given them under circumstances fitted to awaken the deepest awe. They placed themselves under Jehovah as the Ruler and Protector of the nation in a special sense. The worship of other divinities, every form of idolatry, was to be a treasonable offense. The laws of Jehovah were to be kept in the Ark of the Covenant, in the "Tabernacle," which was the sanctuary, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... Anson, in wondering awe. "She's gone!... My torch went out. I couldn't see. An' jest then I felt somethin' was passin'. Fast! I jerked 'round. All was black, an' yet if I didn't see a big gray streak I'm crazier 'n thet gurl. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... in the garden with Hugh before breakfast; but Hugh was aware of her purpose and avoided her. It was his intention to speak first to his mother; and though his mother was, as he knew, very much in awe of her daughter, he thought that he might carry his point, at any rate for the next three months, by forcing an assent from the elder lady. So he managed to waylay Mrs. Stanbury before she descended to ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... unit is sometimes used to compare the (sometimes widely disparate) rates at which people can generate ideas and actually emit them in speech. For example, noted computer architect C. Gordon Bell (designer of the PDP-11) is said, with some awe, to think at about 1200 mL but only talk at about 300; he is frequently reduced to fragments of sentences as his mouth tries to keep up with ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... Major d'Orvilliers, at Fort Frontenac, in talking over the recent years of history into which their two names and their two lives had gone so deeply. Until his recall to France in 1682, Governor Frontenac had been for ten years building up in the Iroquois heart a fear and awe of Onontio, the Great Father, at Quebec. D'Orvilliers knew that period the better, for Menard had not come over (from the little town of his birth, in Picardy) until Frontenac's policy was well established. But Menard had lived hard and rapidly during his first years in the province, ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... looks within his furnace, Looks around the oven-border, Trusting there to see a maiden Coming from the molten metals. From the fire a virgin rises, Golden-haired and silver-headed, Beautiful in form and feature. All are filled with awe and wonder, But the artist and magician. Ilmarinen, metal-worker, Forges nights and days unceasing, On the bride of his creation; Feet he forges for the maiden, Hands and arms, of gold and silver; But her feet ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.



Words linked to "Awe" :   reverence, admiration, affright, wonder, wonderment, overawe, fright, scare, fear, awe-inspiring



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