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Cretan   Listen
adjective
Cretan  adj.  Pertaining to Crete, or Candia.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cretan" Quotes from Famous Books



... been a fascinating man to talk to. He discussed topics ranging from theories of matter to the early Cretan culture, and related them all to one dominant scientific thread. He spoke like a man of wide knowledge and experience.... As I walked up the Drive, bits of his conversation came disjointedly back to me with the clarity and significance of sentences ...
— The Chamber of Life • Green Peyton Wertenbaker

... to remain on the island until a Cretan militia has been organized. This militia is to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 38, July 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... come, the adventures that have previously befallen him. He says that he, with Mentor (Minerva in disguise), found himself in Crete. Mentor had been there before, and was ready to tell Telemachus all about the country. Telemachus was naturally interested to learn respecting the Cretan monarchy. Mentor, he says, informed ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... to the island of Philyra, where Cronos, son of Uranus, what time in Olympus he reigned over the Titans, and Zeus was yet being nurtured in a Cretan cave by the Curetes of Ida, lay beside Philyra, when he had deceived Rhea; and the goddess found them in the midst of their dalliance; and Cronos leapt up from the couch with a rush in the form of a steed with ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... his dense black forehead, which display'd The enduring chiefs as their distracted fleets Tossed, toiling with the waters, climbing high, And plunging downward with determined beaks, In lurid anguish; but the Cretan king And all his crew were 'ware of under-tides, That for the groaning vessel made a path, On which the impending and precipitous waves Fell not, nor suck'd ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... The Cretan tincture was extracted from a plant which Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny respectively name. The last calls it the Phycos thalassion. This was not a sea-weed, but a lichen—probably the same from which the orchid purple of modern art ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... There was no need of exaggeration of any penny-a-line news, or of any sensationalism. The world had witnessed and experienced much the last few years. The Pacific Railroad had been completed ; Grant had been elected President of the United States; Egypt had been flooded with savans: the Cretan rebellion had terminated ; a Spanish revolution had driven Isabella from the throne of Spain, and a Regent had been appointed: General Prim was assassinated; a Castelar had electrified Europe with his advanced ideas ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... lieutenant in the navy of the Confederate States. Although today known as a distinguished war correspondent, in those days Burleigh was something of a soldier of fortune himself, and was organizing an expedition to assist the Cretan insurgents against the Turks. Between the two men it was arranged that MacIver should precede the expedition to Crete and prepare for its arrival. The Cretans received him gladly, and from the provisional government he received a commission in which he was given "full power to ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... doubt proving too much of a tongue-twister for the Spaniards, was quickly superseded by a capital nickname, "The Greek." His birthplace was the island of Crete and his birth-year between 1545 and 1550. Justi was the first to demonstrate his Cretan ancestry, which was corroborated in 1893 by Bikelas. In 1570, we learn through a letter written by Giulio Clovio to Cardinal Farnese, El Greco had astonished Roman artists by his skill in portraiture. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... saw sweet beautie in her face, Such as the daughter of Agenor had, That made great Ioue to humble him to her hand, When with his knees he kist the Cretan strond ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... is descended from a Cretan family, whose name is famous in the annals of Candia. He was born in Russia, and was studying in Germany when the Greeks took up arms against the Turks. His elder brothers, Nicolas and Manolis, having resolved to join the cause of their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... so aldermanic That one would furnish forth ten dinners, Where reigns a Cretan-tongued panic, Lest news Russ, Dutch, or Alemannic 210 Should make some losers, and ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... hissing snow, through rain, through many hundred Mays VII Gods dine on prayer and sacred song VIII A smile will turn away green eyes IX Two Kings there were, one Good, one Bad X I see that Hermes unawares XI Semiramis, the whore of Babylon XII Bring hemlock, black as Cretan cheese XIII Walking through the town last night XIV The change of many tides has swung the flow XV Piero di Cosimo XVI I would know what cannot be known XVII The yellow bird is singing by ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... officers under the International Control, on March 1, 1914. Had the Powers meant honestly by Albania they would have sent a force to clear the land of the lurking Greek bands of soldiery. But in spite of several questions asked in the House of Commons, Cretan and Greek komitadjis continued to land at Santa Quaranta, the Greek Government persistently denying all knowledge. "There are none so blind ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... thou, O Jove, first saw the morn On Cretan Ida's sacred mountain-side; Others that thou in Arcady wert born: Declare, Almighty Father—which have lied? Cretans were liars ever: in their pride Have they built up a sepulchre for thee; As if the King of Gods and men had died, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... When will your Cretan volume, crowned [Untranslatable pun on the words "cretois" and "crete."] with erudition and philhellenism, be finished? Shall you return this summer for its publication? I hope you will, and I will confess to you without any ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... laurel-wreaths Beside her Cretan helmsman and her king! Wax-pale, the world stands listening and holds Its breath, ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... him through the windings of the labyrinth, he escaped out of it and slew the Minotaur, and sailed back, taking along with him Ariadne and the young Athenian captives. Pherecydes adds that he bored holes in the bottoms of the Cretan ships to hinder their pursuit. Demon writes that Taurus, the chief captain of Minos, was slain by Theseus at the mouth of the port, in a naval combat, as he was sailing out for Athens. But Philochorus gives us the story thus: ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... hind of Diana, with its hoofs of brass; the fourth, the taking alive of the boar of Erymanthus; the fifth, the cleansing of the stables of Augeas; the sixth, the destruction of the Stymphalian birds; the seventh, the capture of the Cretan bull; the eighth, the capture of the mares of Diomedes of Thrace; the ninth, the seizure of the girdle of the queen of the Amazons; the tenth, the killing of Geryon and capture of his oxen; the eleventh, fetching of the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides; the twelfth, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... corresponded, as you see by her letters, with the small poets of that time; but, having no Theseus amongst them, consoled herself, as it is said, like Ariadne, with Bacchus.(675) This might be a fable, like that of her Cretan Highness—no matter; the fry of little anecdotes are so numerous now, that throwing one more into the shoal is of no consequence, if it entertains you for a Moment; nor need you believe ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... the Nautilus, every pleasant or unpleasant incident that had crossed my path since I went overboard from the Abraham Lincoln: the underwater hunting trip, the Torres Strait, our running aground, the savages of Papua, the coral cemetery, the Suez passageway, the island of Santorini, the Cretan diver, the Bay of Vigo, Atlantis, the Ice Bank, the South Pole, our imprisonment in the ice, the battle with the devilfish, the storm in the Gulf Stream, the Avenger, and that horrible scene of ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... freemen. The murder of one hundred thousand Armenians meant nothing to Mammon. But when the Cretans were persecuted by the same Sultan, the suffering and bloodshed was soon ordered stopped by these same six powers, at Mammon's command. The Cretans were servants of the common master; the Cretan bonds were endangered. The cry of suffering humanity came up to deaf ears, but the cry of endangered bonds was heard from afar by this reigning ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... and harvests they accounted their own, whenever they had the means of driving off the one or of seizing upon the other; nor did the least scruple on the right of property interfere on such occasions. Hamish Mhor argued like the old Cretan warrior: ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... blood extraction, descendant of the old Dukes of Athens, Venizelos is a Cretan by birth. Beginning his public career in his native island as a "brigand" insurgent against Turkish power, he finally became the leader of his people, being Prime Minister of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... in Aphrodite's care, You comb your locks, and on the girlish lyre Select the strains most pleasant to the fair; In vain, on couch reclining, you desire To shun the darts that threaten, and the thrust Of Cretan lance, the battle's wild turmoil, And Ajax swift to follow—in the dust Condemned, though late, your wanton curls to soil. Ah! see you not where (fatal to your race) Laertes' son comes with the Pylean sage; Fearless alike, with Teucer joins the chase ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... the striking picture of his own youthful feeling toward the Church of England contained in the "Chapter of Autobiography," and the refined criticism of "Robert Elsmere," published in 1888. Almost the last thing he wrote, a pamphlet on the Greek and Cretan question, published in the spring of 1897, has all the force and cogency of his best days. Two things were never wanting to him: vigor of expression and an ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce

... Cretan Chloe rules me quite; Skill'd in the lyre and every measure, For whom I'd die this very night, If but the Fates, in death's despite, Would Chloe spare, my soul's ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... restricting ourselves to the circle of Hellenic etymologies, we find ('Etymol. M.', p. 532, 12) that [Greek word] is intimately associated with [Greek word] or rather with [Greek word], whence we have [Greek word] or [Greek word] Welcker ('Eine Kretische Col in Theben', s. 23 — A Cretan Colony in Thebes) combines with this the name [Greek word] , as in Hesychius [Greek word] signifies a Cretan suit of arms. When the scientific language of Greece was introduced among the Romans, the word 'mundus', which at first had only the primary meaning of [Greek word] ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... as many ships as possible to be speedily sent to him, as he stood in daily expectation of a battle. Twenty were accordingly sent, but instructions were given to their commander to go first to Crete. For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortys, who was proxenus of the Athenians, had persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, promising to procure the reduction of that hostile town; his real wish being to oblige the Polichnitans, neighbours of the Cydonians. He accordingly went with the ships to Crete, and, accompanied ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... misspent. President Wilson was at first nowise disposed to lend a favorable ear to the claims of Greece, which he thought exorbitant, and down to the very last he gave his support to Bulgaria against Greece whole-heartedly. The Cretan statesman passed many an hour of doubt and misgiving before he came within sight of his goal. But he contrived to win the President over to his way of envisaging many Oriental questions. He is a ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... exceeding joy and was filled with amazement and could think of nothing save the gold; but, whilst he was occupied with taking up the lumps of metal from the melting-pot, the Persian pulled out of his turband in haste a packet of Cretan Bhang, which if an elephant smelt, he would sleep from night to night, and cutting off a little thereof, put it in a piece of the sweetmeat. Then said he, "O Hasan, thou art become my very son and dearer to me than soul and wealth, and I have a daughter whose like never have eyes beheld for ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... ox before a household slave. That society then which nature has established for daily support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called by Charondas homosipuoi, and by Epimenides the Cretan homokapnoi; but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of the descendants of one family, ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle

... to be appointed in the Cretan churches (1:5-16). Special moral and spiritual fitness is set forth as necessary in view of the peculiar character of the Cretans and certain forms ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell

... will, O'er thrones and globes elate Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. Smit by her sacred frown, The fiend, Dissension, like a vapor sinks; And e'en the all-dazzling crown Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Such was this heaven-loved isle, Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore! No more shall freedom smile? Shall Britons languish, and be men no more? Since all must life resign, Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave 'Tis folly to decline, And steal ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... o'er populous domains, Now soothe the minds of men. But if thou thinkest Labours of Hercules excel the same, Much farther from true reasoning thou farest. For what could hurt us now that mighty maw Of Nemeaean Lion, or what the Boar Who bristled in Arcadia? Or, again, O what could Cretan Bull, or Hydra, pest Of Lerna, fenced with vipers venomous? Or what the triple-breasted power of her The three-fold Geryon... The sojourners in the Stymphalian fens So dreadfully offend us, or the Steeds Of Thracian Diomedes breathing fire From out their nostrils ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... of old Fled Cretan settlers when the dusky sail (33) Spread the false message of the hero dead; Here, where Hesperia, curving as a bow, Draws back her coast, a little tongue of land Shuts in with bending horns the sounding main. Yet insecure the spot, unsafe in storm, ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... the neighborhood in which his stall was situated—that more than Cretan Labyrinth called the "Dials"—was so infested with "young warmint" that he found it utterly impossible to turn one honest penny by his ginger-pop, for if his eyes were off his board for an instant, the young brigands who were eternally on the look-out, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... the tale, That drew, the Student said, its pith And marrow from the ancient myth Of some one with an iron flail; Or that portentous Man of Brass Hephaestus made in days of yore, Who stalked about the Cretan shore, And saw the ships appear and pass, And threw stones at the Argonauts, Being filled with indiscriminate ire That tangled and perplexed his thoughts; But, like a hospitable host, When strangers landed on the coast, Heated himself red-hot with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... birth a Cretan; my father was a well to do man, who had many sons born in marriage, whereas I was the son of a slave whom he had purchased for a concubine; nevertheless, my father Castor son of Hylax (whose lineage I claim, and who was held in the highest honour among ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... Thessaly and Crete. During the ensuing strifes in Crete the Powers demeaned themselves by siding against the Christian insurgents, and some Greek troops sent from Athens to their aid. Few events in our age have caused a more painful sensation than the bombardment of Cretan villages by British and French warships. The Powers also proclaimed a "pacific" blockade of Crete (March-May 1897). The inner reasons that prompted these actions are not fully known. It may safely be said that they will need far ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... was; doomed to torturing visions and scourgings, and the wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable Theseus might have been victorious Charlemagne, and Phaedra's maidens belonged rather in the train of Blanche of Castile than at the Cretan court. In the earlier studies Hippolytus had been done with a more pagan suggestion; but in each successive drawing the glorious figure bad been deflowered of something of its serene unconsciousness, until, in the canvas under the skylight, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... thought, "were I a thrifty man and a spiteful one, I would not eat them. Instead, I should have the same cluster served me every morning that I might say to mine enemies, with truth, that I have Cretan grapes for breakfast daily. They will keep," he added presently, "for it is tradition that stores laid up ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... was a very ingenious artist of Athens, who planned the Cretan labyrinth, invented carpentry and some of the tools used in the trade; but I don't know why his name was ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... any atheist. He still has a destiny. The atheist lays down dogma after dogma. In this changing world, where even the little balance-wheel of a watch must be "compensated," it is clearly as impossible for any atheist to lay down an undeviating dogma as it was for the Cretan to truly say that all Cretans were liars! "Broadly, an unselfish deed is impossible. There never was a human thought that reached beyond the human body." Let us capture those two atheistic dogmas and ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... questions that came before the civilized world for consideration, and almost to the exclusion of the Armenian question, was the Cretan Question. Greece heroically sustained the insurrection of the Cretans against the Turkish rule. The scene of Turkish cruelty was now transferred to the isle of Crete. For the time the Armenian massacres were forgotten. The Greeks rushed to the rescue, while all Europe held aloof. Mr. Gladstone ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... art is the personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am willing to excuse a thousand faults. I suppose Velasquez was a better painter than El Greco, but custom stales one's admiration for him: the Cretan, sensual and tragic, proffers the mystery of his soul like a standing sacrifice. The artist, painter, poet, or musician, by his decoration, sublime or beautiful, satisfies the aesthetic sense; but that is akin to the sexual instinct, and shares its barbarity: he lays before you ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... doom; A wife and mistress mark'd them for the tomb!— The next is he that on Antandros' coast His fair Creusa mourn'd, for ever lost; Yet cut the bonds of Love on Tyber's shore, And bought a bride with young Evander's gore. Here droop'd the victim of a lawless flame: The amorous frenzy of the Cretan dame He fled abhorrent, and contemn'd her tears, And to the dire suggestion closed his ears. But nought, alas! his purity avail'd— Fate in his flight the hapless youth assail'd, By interdicted Love to Vengeance fired; And by his father's ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... and bow would you like Phoebus bear, A brighter Phoebus Phaon might appear; Would you with ivy wreath your flowing hair, Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare: Yet Phoebus loved, and Bacchus felt the flame, One Daphne warm'd, and one the Cretan dame; Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me, Than e'en those gods contend in charms with thee. 30 The Muses teach me all their softest lays, And the wide world resounds with Sappho's praise. Though great Alcaeus more sublimely sings, And ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... Minerva is said to have been called Tritonia, either from the Cretan word trito, signifying 'a head,' as she sprang from the head of Jupiter; or from Trito, a lake of Libya, near which she was said to have ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... the forest maze, Or Cretan lab'rinth solve, On Nature's myst'ries gaze, Or Gordian ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various



Words linked to "Cretan" :   Crete, European, Kriti, Minoan



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