Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Legion   Listen
noun
Legion  n.  
1.
(Rom. Antiq.) A body of foot soldiers and cavalry consisting of different numbers at different periods, from about four thousand to about six thousand men, the cavalry being about one tenth.
2.
A military force; an army; military bands.
3.
A great number; a multitude. "Where one sin has entered, legions will force their way through the same breach."
4.
(Taxonomy) A group of orders inferior to a class.
Legion of honor, an order instituted by the French government in 1802, when Bonaparte was First Consul, as a reward for merit, both civil and military.






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 |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Legion" Quotes from Famous Books



... one thing needful at Trouville—in the water, or on the sands. Look at that old French gentleman, with the cross of the Legion of Honour on his breast; he is neat and clean, his dress is, in all respects, perfection; and it is difficult to say whether it is the make of his boots, the fit of his gloves, or his hat, which is ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... locusts shall not eat up their vine-blossoms; a legion of owls and kestrels will devour them. Moreover, the gnats and the gall-bugs shall no longer ravage the figs; a flock of thrushes shall swallow the whole host down to the ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes

... be no idle threats. Forts Bridger and Supply were vacated and burnt down by the Mormons to deprive our troops of a shelter after their long and fatiguing march. Orders were issued by Daniel H. Wells, styling himself "Lieutenant General, Nauvoo Legion," to stampede the animals of the United States troops on their march, to set fire to their trains, to burn the grass and the whole country before them and on their flanks, to keep them from sleeping by night surprises, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... countenance. Michaud, who was dressed in dark blue cloth, still wore the black satin stock and high boots of a soldier, which increased the slight stiffness and rigidity of his bearing. The shoulders sloped, the chest expanded, as though the man were still under arms. The red ribbon of the Legion of honor was in his buttonhole. In short, to give a last touch in one word about the moral qualities beneath this purely physical presentment, it may be said that while the steward, from the time he first entered upon his functions, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... no doubt do much for me," I answered, "still I warn you, cara mia, that in accepting me as your husband you take a broken-down man, one whose whims are legion and whose chronic state of invalidism may in time prove to be a burden on your young life. Are you sure your decision is ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... villages, and by a bold dash, seize my wife and bear her defiantly off in the very teeth of my adversaries. This would have been very spirited and chivalrous, no doubt, but unfortunately, the obstacles that opposed themselves to this plan were legion. No sooner did I convince myself of the impracticability of such a mode of procedure, than other plans would present themselves, which, in their turn would have to be relinquished when submitted to the rigorous test of practicability. ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... King's American Regiment, the Maryland Loyalists, the 42nd Regiment, the Prince of Wales American Regiment, the New York Volunteers, the Royal Guides and Pioneers, the Queen's Rangers, the Pennsylvania Loyalists, and Arnold's American Legion. All these regiments were reduced, of course, to a fraction of their original strength, owing to the fact that numbers of their men had been discharged in New York, and that many of the officers had gone to England. But nevertheless, with their women and children, ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace

... Legion,' she replied, uprearing her proud form as if she would have crushed him; 'you and your master have raised them in a fruitful house, and they shall tear you both. False to him, false to his innocent child, false every way and everywhere, go forth and boast of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... thirst for dominion, seek to cultivate in man all the noble attributes given by the Creator, to us who teach clearly and without sophistry and gross superstitions the plan of salvation as it is found in the word of God; or to this legion of corrupt and hypocritical parasites, corruptors of youth, whose character they seek to debase and villify by ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray

... appearance, as it were. And, with the few dollars which alone remained of the fortune which I took with me to Texas, I mounted my horse and started northward, to join that noble army of martyrs, that brotherhood of sufferers, that fraternity of the busted, whose members are legion, and who are ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... at which the others, by Mulready, Webster, and Leslie, were painted would preclude their appearance here, if strict chronological sequence were imposed, as they were painted about 1840. It is instructive, however, to group them together, to show that these artists and their followers, who were legion, thought at least as much of subject as of method. Not that the latter quality is lacking. On the contrary, it is only too evident; but it is a method of convention. No one would imagine for a moment, in looking at any one ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... Guerrera, commandant of Ghent citadel, and by the Archbishop of Roermond, while three distinguished hostages were placed in the keeping of the mutineers until the contract should be faithfully executed: Guerrera himself, Count Fontenoy, son of Marquis d'Havre, and Avalos, commander of a Spanish legion. Thus, after making a present of the services of these veterans for a twelvemonth to the stadholder, and after employing a very important portion of his remaining forces in a vain attempt to reduce their revolt, the archduke ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to you, Jack?" I answered. And my voice was all but gone, for the sight of him revived the memory of every separate debt of the legion I owed him. "How am I to piece words enough together to thank you for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... that still hung beside the door of the hut; but, I confess, my aunt's looks were none too delectable, and ancient custom rendered her wrath yet terrible. If the farmers thereabouts were to be trusted, I knew Old Legion's bailiff would shortly be at hand, to distrain upon a soul escheat and forfeited to Dis by many years of cruel witchcrafts, close wiles, and nameless sorceries; and I could never abide unpared nails, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... bearded, heavily armed, with red-rimmed unshifting eyes, rode silently out of the mists of illusion to look on you steadily, and then to ride silently back into the desert haze. They might be only the herders of the gaunt cattle, or again they might belong to the Lost Legion that peopled the country. All you could know was that of the men who ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... poor Laws in-lungs call cause or cure Lay, go forth my simple Leaf, lade as a —, the sear, the yellow Leap, look before you ere you Learning, whence is thy —, a little is a dangerous thing Leather or prunella Leaven leavenet the whole lump Leer, assent with civil Legion, my name is Leopard, his spots Less, beautifully —, of two evils choose the Let dearly or let alone —others hail Libertine, the air a chartered Liberty, I must have, withal Lief not be, as live to be Life, death in the midst of —, the crown of —, care's ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... many notes I have been compelled to take of the wants of religion in this our age, none so amazes me as the lack of preachers. We have priests and monks. Their name is Legion. Who of them can be said to have been touched with the fire that fell upon the faithful of the original twelve? Where among them is an Athanasius? Or a Chrysostom? Or an Augustine? Slowly, yet apace with ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... the Polish army. He was present at all the engagements fought during 1792-1794, especially distinguishing himself at the battle of Raclawice, when he was General Rymkiewicz's adjutant. On the formation of the Italian legion he joined the second battalion as major, and was publicly complimented by General Oudinot for his extraordinary valour at the storming of Peschiera. He also distinguished himself at the battles of Modena, Busano, Casabianca and Ponto. In 1807 he commanded ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... girl was a veteran. He had turned eighty if a day. His face was powder-blown, an empty sleeve, was folded across his breast, and the medal of the Legion of Honor fell over the Sleeve. As the girl and her elderly escort, presumably her father, turned about to leave, she unpinned the flowers and offered them impulsively to ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... deep-lurking snares of specious fraud, The threats of giant-faction can deride, And stem with stubborn arm her roaring tide. 10 For him unnumber'd brooding ills await, Scorn, malice, insolence, reproach, and hate: At him, who dares this legion to defy, A thousand mortal shafts in secret fly: Revenge, exulting with malignant joy, Pursues the incautious victim to destroy: And slander strives, with unrelenting aim, To spit her blasting venom on his name: Around him faction's harpies flap their wings, And rhyming vermin dart ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... once attack the mighty horde Choo Hoo commanded with the only troops he could get quickly together in this emergency. These were the rooks, the praetorian guard of his state, the faithful, courageous, and warlike tenth legion of his empire. No sooner did he thus finally resolve than his whole appearance seemed to change. His outward form in some degree reflected the spirit within. His feathers ruffled up, and their black and white shone with ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... almost any hue and within the general limits of a circle of any form. Now it is a chariot wheel with petals for spokes; now a ball of fire with lambent tongues of flame; while another kind seems the button of some natural legion of honor, and still another a ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... "Picture Page Wanting Words," the usual Monthly Prizes are offered for the best Original Stories on the subject of "A Skating Adventure," namely—-a Guinea Book and an Officer's Medal of the LITTLE FOLKS Legion of Honour for the best Story; and a smaller book and Officer's Medal for the best Story (on the same subject) relatively to the age of the Competitor, so that no reader is too young to try for this second prize. All Competitors ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... perfecting this great enterprise have decided that instead of a favored few being allotted the entire amount, all shall be treated alike. Captious critics of "Coppers" will probably again cry their sarcastic "philanthropy," but to the legion of broad-minded investors who have followed and profited by this great industrial revolution, the policy of this liberal treatment will be obvious—the consolidated company is to be many times larger than its present capital indicates; ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... orchestras, beneath the rushing bow of their lord and leader. Into lonely prisons with improvident artists; into convents from which arose, day and night, the holy hymns with which its tones were blended; and back again to orgies, in which it learned to howl and laugh as if a legion of devils were shut up in it; then, again, to the gentle dilettante, who calmed it down with easy melodies until it answered him softly as in the days of the old maestros; and so given into our ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee

... guard your lonely bed; Sunshine and rain fall with their calming breath; You need no pall, so young and newly dead, Where the Lost Legion ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... also some were put to death; the rest were sold or carried off to the mines and amphitheatres. The city was levelled with the ground; the tenth legion was left behind in charge. Titus took with him to Rome for his triumphal procession Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala, along with seven hundred other prisoners, also the sacred booty taken from the temple, the candlestick, the ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... personality known as Lotys,—concerning whom a thousand extravagant stories were rife, none of which were true. It was rumoured among other things as wild and strange, that she was the illegitimate child of a certain great prince, whose amours were legion—that she had been thrown out into the street to perish, deserted as an infant, and that Sergius Thord had rescued her from that impending fate of starvation and death,—and that it was by way of vengeance ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... the Trinity was at that time more fortunate: it was suffered to continue unappropriated, till, upon the institution of the Legion of Honor, Napoleon applied it to some purposes connected with that body, by whom it was a few years ago ceded for its present object, that of a workhouse for the department. The choir alone is now used ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... 471 Czechs, i.e. over 60 per cent., entered the Foreign Legion and greatly distinguished themselves by their bravery. The majority of them have been mentioned in dispatches and received the Military Cross. They have also won five crosses and twenty medals of ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... me have room with my fish spear!" whispered Bandy-legs, nervously, just as if he fully expected that they were about to be attacked by a legion of fierce wild-cats, and wished to be able to impale the first that showed up on ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... virtue of their new charter, they deemed it advantageous to have the court of the vicinage presided over by one who had proved himself a friend. Douglas at once confirmed this good impression. He appointed the commander of the Nauvoo Legion a master in chancery; and when a case came before him which involved interpretation of the act incorporating this peculiar body of militia, he gave a constructive interpretation which left the Mormons independent of State officers in military affairs.[135] Whatever ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... their own way, only pausing in their work on their ancient Festival days which they still celebrate just as they have always celebrated them since the beginning of their history. The petty daily activities of a vast legion of people grouped together in this extraordinary way, and actuated by impulses which seem sharply to conflict with the impulses of the other great races of the world, appear incredible to Westerners who know what the outer perils really are, and who believe that China is not ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... of Buccaneer Cove discovered that a legion of relieved and rejuvenated rheumatics had without remuneration or constraint sung the virtues of the Kurepain and the praises of Hook. Poor ignorant Jim Grimm did not for a moment doubt the existence of the Well-Known Traveller, the Family Doctor, the Minister of the Gospel, ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... nephew, and she's as rich as a pig. He follows her out here every year, waiting for her empty shoes. But they are an unsavoury couple. I've met 'em in various parts, all over Egypt, but they always come back to Helouan in the end. And the stories about them are simply legion. You remember—" he turned hesitatingly to his wife—"some people, I heard," he changed his sentence, "were made quite ill ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... the jury bestowed none of its prizes, as before, the Government acknowledged the artist's talent and politics by making him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Further, from 1833 to 1853 he was intermittently employed in decorating the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, and other public buildings. In 1855 he showed at the Great Exhibition a series of thirty-five of his ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... monuments: one, to the memory of the Hon. Sir Alexander Gordon, brother to the Earl of Aberdeen, who there terminated a short but glorious career, at the age of twenty-nine, and "fell in the blaze of his fame;" the other, to some brave officers of the German Legion, who likewise died under circumstances of peculiar distinction. There is also, on an enormous mound, a colossal lion of bronze, erected by the Belgians to the honour of the Prince of Orange, who was wounded at, or near, to ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... disaster. Every race has made its great blunders, to which it has nevertheless adhered, inasmuch as the corresponding modification of other structures and instincts was found preferable to the revolution which would be caused by a radical change of structure, with consequent havoc among a legion of vested interests. Rudimentary organs are, as has been often said, the survivals of these interests—the signs of their peaceful and gradual extinction as living faiths; they are also instances of the difficulty of breaking through any cant or trick which we have long practised, and which ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... each distant aid; Those chief that never heard the lion roar! Within whose souls lives not a trace portrayed Of Talavera or Mondego's shore! Marshal each band thou hast, and summon more; Of war's fell stratagems exhaust the whole; Rank upon rank, squadron on squadron pour, Legion on legion on thy foeman roll, And weary out his arm—thou canst ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... sufficiently unified—cemented in blood and suffering—to appreciate a literature that distinctively interprets her life and history. It may be that she has been swamped by the alien literature of alien lands, for the writers of English to-day are legion. Or it may be the deeper cause beneath the dearth of world literature just now—lack of that peace, that joyous calm, that repose of soul and freedom from distraction, that permits a creator to ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... himself, "that in these mountains which abound in inexplicable noises, and where lightning shines under a calm sky, we have only men to fight against! But if the fog contained a legion of devils—if the valley really contains, as you say, several years' income of the king of Spain, please, Senor Don Fabian, to recall your recollections, and tell us if we are still far ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... advantageous to his customers. Is it too much to imagine that the lesson of provident forethought thus agreeably learned by multitudes of the struggling classes—for these clubs abound everywhere in London, and their members must be legion—have a moral effect upon at least a considerable portion of them? If one man finds a hundred needy customers wise enough to relish a plum-pudding of their own providing, surely they will not all be such fools as to repudiate the practice of that very prudence ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various

... candles—there was nothing to be seen. Both husband and wife pointed to the place where the writing had appeared; but nothing but some smeared dirt was visible there. My friend kept his counsel, and the miracle was blazed all over Bologna the next day; and we left a legion of wondering priests in the house at ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... go to China, or Japan, to be rid of that impetuous clack of yours. Farewell, thou legion of tongues ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... honourable-looking youth, in the rich habit of a military knight, standing beside his horse, and already making preparations to depart. It happened that Marius, too, was to take that day's journey on horseback. Riding presently from the inn, he overtook Cornelius—of the Twelfth Legion—advancing carefully down the steep street; and before they had issued from the gates of Urbs-vetus, the two young men had broken into talk together. They were passing along the street of the goldsmiths; and Cornelius must needs enter one of the workshops for the repair of some button or link ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... general direction was to be towards Wheeling and Pittsburg; that Richmond's defence was to be left to Beauregard, with Pickett's division of 15,000 men, the Maryland Line, details from hospitals, conscripts, militia of Governor Smith's call (fifty to fifty-five years of age), and a foreign legion of forced aliens.( 5) ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... beneficent sunshine or life-giving rain, is by him traceable to any known physical cause. They are the results of influences utterly beyond his understanding—supernatural,—matters upon which imagination is allowed free scope to run riot, and from which spring up a legion of myths, or attempts to represent in some manner these incomprehensible processes, grotesque or poetic, according to the character of the people with which they originate, which, if their growth be not disturbed by extraneous influences, eventually ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... as he began fumbling in his trunk; "but the King won't know the difference. He couldn't tell a cross of the Legion of Honor from a medal for the tug ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... he received the first recognition in nearly ten years. He was given official thanks, and decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden

... had some of the gelatinous "birds'-nest" soup, without knowing what it was. It is excellent; but as these nests are brought from Sumatra and are very costly, it is only a luxury of the rich. The fish shops and stalls are legion, but the fish looks sickening, as it is always cut into slices and covered with blood. The boiled chrysalis of a species of silkworm is exposed for sale as a great delicacy, and so are certain ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... Council of State in the afternoons, and went to bed at nine o'clock. In recognition of such labor, the King had made him a knight of his various Orders. Monsieur de Serizy had long worn the grand cross of the Legion of honor; he also had the orders of the Golden Fleece, of Saint-Andrew of Russia, that of the Prussian Eagle, and nearly all the lesser Orders of the courts of Europe. No man was less obvious, or more useful in the political world than he. It is easy to understand that the world's honor, the ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... passing through the dense forest which it had traversed the night before, when a deep, mournful howl was borne to the ears of the party. Another followed, and then a succession of similar sounds, till the forest resounded with the bayings as if of a legion ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... Introduction to the Shih. The former of these two works complete, and portions of the latter, are still extant. After the time of King the other three texts were little heard of, while the name of the commentators on Mo's text speedily becomes legion. It was inscribed, moreover, on the stone tablets of the emperor Ling (A.D. 168 to 189). The grave of Mo Kang is still shown near the village of Zun-f, in the ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... yet throughout the centuries that follow, returns of galvanic life, recollections of its ancient valour—as in Stilicho, Belisarius, Heraclius, and Zimisces[4]—bear far into the Middle Age the dread name of the Roman legion, though the circuit of the eagle's flight, once wide as the ambient air, is then narrowed to a league or two on either side ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... Orange—the Arausio of Roman times, colonized by the veterans of the Second Legion—was not the best of these many noble edifices. Decidedly, the good fortune that has preserved so large a part of it would have been better bestowed upon the far more beautiful, because more purely Grecian, theatre at Arles: which the blessed Saint ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... into faction and anarchy, where the morals of a nation are depraved; and continued habits of vice will eradicate the very love of it out of the hearts of a people. A Marcus Brutus in my time could not have drawn to his standard a single legion of Romans. But, further, it is certain that the spirit of liberty is absolutely incompatible with the spirit of conquest. To keep great conquered nations in subjection and obedience, great standing armies are necessary. The generals of those armies will not long remain subjects; and whoever ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... the leaves of our peaches and plum-trees, as they wither under a blight. What does Paley see in this? A legion of animated beings (for such is a blight) claiming their portion of the bounty of Nature, and made happy by our comparatively trifling privation, We are tortured by bodily pain,—Paley himself was so, even at the moment that he was thus nobly vindicating ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various

... reception in France. During his absence nothing had gone well, and the French nation looked to him to redeem their disasters. Italy was again in the hands of the Austrians. To aid in their expulsion, the formation of an Italian legion was decreed, and this Pepe hastened to join. Upon reaching Dijon, where it was organising, he found that every corps had its full compliment of officers. As a supernumerary he was ordered to a depot, where he would receive lieutenant's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... Medico-Chirurgical Institute of Naples, of the Academy of St. Petersburg,—Assessor of the College of the Empire of Russia, Physician of his late Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Constantine, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, etc." Hydrosudopathy or Hydropathy, as it is sometimes called, is a new medical doctrine or practice which has sprung up in Germany since Homoeopathy, which it bids fair to drive out of the market, if, as Dr. Bigel says, fourteen physicians afflicted ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... of their uncle's fine furniture and large library with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming, he being now an officer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed by the king a chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel—perhaps on account of his retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But when the architect and painter and upholsterer had arranged everything in the most comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... face by covering it with my veil, at the risk of being smothered. But the next band were so minute and active, and secret in their movements, that I never knew where to expect them. But the last slow, heavy legion which came crawling insidiously on, were the most tormenting and sickening of all. To be tortured by such a crowd of little fiends was enough to produce delirium. But I will not recall the visions of the night. It was worse than ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... in Rome and of Caesar in particular,(8) formed the main portion of his province. His jurisdiction extended south as far as the Arnus and the Rubico, and included Luca and Ravenna. Subsequently there was added to Caesar's official district the province of Narbo with the one legion stationed there—a resolution adopted by the senate on the proposal of Pompeius, that it might at least not see this command also pass to Caesar by extraordinary decree of the burgesses. What was wished was thus attained. As no ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... of conjugal medicine will doubtless be regarded favorably by all who are gouty, are impotent, or suffer from catarrh; and by that legion of old men whose dullness we have quickened by our article on the predestined. But it principally concerns those husbands who have courage enough to enter into those paths of machiavelism, such as would ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... great men of antiquity. He also pretended to have found the philosopher's stone; and said that, in search of it, he had descended to hell, and seen the devil sitting on a throne of gold, with a legion of imps and fiends around him. His works on alchymy have been translated into French, and were published in Paris in ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... one we've got, that is, after Fleetfoot. Father got her from a man who couldn't manage her, and she came to us with a legion of bad tricks. Father has taken solid comfort though, in breaking her of them. She is his pet among our stock. I suppose you know that horses, more than any other animals, are creatures of habit. If they ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... the heroines of the books that she had read, and the lyric legion of these adulterous women began to sing in her memory with the voice of sisters that charmed her. She became herself, as it were, an actual part of these imaginings, and realised the love-dream of her youth as she saw herself in this type of amorous women whom she had so envied. Besides, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... notable by the Leges Iuliae; and before he went out of office his position was secured by the Lex Vatinia, conferring on him the government of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for five years, with the command of three legions; Transalpine Gaul and another legion were added by the Senate. The following nine years (58-50) were occupied with the subjugation of Gaul and the two invasions of Britain (55 and 54). At the conference at Luca, in the winter of 57-56, it was agreed that Caesar should be continued in office for a second period ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton

... years to follow her, should be so full of this world's avarice and ambition; so eager to make more, and more, and more money, and to stand at the head of the list of all the wealthiest men in the land. Strange, yet the name of such a one is legion. But in the case of Old Aaron Rockharrt there might have been this additional motive—the necessity to seek refuge from the pains of grief and remorse in the anxieties and activities of speculation. So he was very eager to get back ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... deep upsprung The legion of Apsarasas, so named That to the watery element they owed Their being. Myriads were they born, and all In vesture heavenly clad, and heavenly gems; Yet more divine their native semblance, rich With all ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman

... precision and arrangement, men's minds were faced with clear and definite problem which, this time, could not be challenged. Scientific committees followed one another at Elberfeld; and their reports became legion. Learned men of every country—including Dr. Edinger, the eminent Frankfort neurologist; Professors Dr. H. Kraemer and H. E. Ziegler, of Stuttgart; Dr. Paul Saresin, of Bale; Professor Ostwald, of Berlin; Professor A. Beredka, of the Pasteur Institute; Dr. E. Clarapede, of the university ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... mutinied at Ely, and were punished, the guard on the occasion being furnished by the cavalry of the German Legion. Cobbett noticed this in the most inflammatory manner, and it being war time, was indicted, tried, found guilty, and sentenced ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... in the twilight no one ever knew; but David received promotion for bravery in a harder battle than any he was going to, and from his mother's breast a decoration more precious to him than the cross of the Legion of ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... set to work and re-married him. The second Mme. Ingres, although thirty years his junior, gave him, his biographer tells us, "that domestic peace and happiness of which for a brief space he had been deprived." Heaped with honours, named by Napoleon III. Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, Senator, Member of the Institut, Ingres died in 1869. Within a year of ninety, he was Dominique Ingres to the last, undertaking new works with the enthusiasm and vitality of Titian. A few days before his death he gave a musical party, favourite works of ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... drunk that he could scarcely stagger, so that I was surprised to hear what he said about the war. He was talking to someone who evidently had been in the army himself, but on the other side—a gentleman with the loyal-legion button in his coat, and with a beautiful scar, a sabre-cut across his face. He was telling of a charge in some battle or skirmish in which, he declared, his company, not himself—for I remember he ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... A legion of dogs accompanied them on these occasions; a miscellaneous pack composed of Masters Huz and Buz (in great spirits at finding themselves in such capital quarters), a black Newfoundland (answering to the name of "Nigger"), a couple of setters (with titles from the heathen mythology ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... hindmost, and we are the hindmost. There are tidings to-day of a new earthquake in Bithynia, and three days' darkness, also of outbreaks of pestilence, and incursions of the barbarians, too numerous as well as too disagreeable to mention. At this moment some revolted legion is probably forcing the purple upon some reluctant general; and the Persian king, a great equestrian, is doubtless mounting his horse by the aid of my father's back. If I had been an old Roman, I should by this time have avenged my father, but I am a man of my age. Take the money for ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... small-clothes and waistcoat of white doeskin, so exactly did they fit every line and curve of his perfect figure. His dark-blue military coat of finest cloth was set off by heavy epaulets of gold and by a broad azure ribbon crossing his breast and bearing the jeweled insignia of the Legion of Honor. The crimson sword-sash which bore his sword sheathed in a scabbard of gold flashing with jewels, completed in his own dress the tricolor of France. He wore high military boots, I think to carry out the military effect of his epaulets ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... 'gloom,' if one's friends are not included in the reputants, is of great service; as it saves one from a legion of impertinents, in the shape of common-place acquaintance. But thou know'st I can be a right merry and conceited fellow, and rarely 'larmoyant.' Murray shall reinstate your line forthwith.[85] I believe the blunder in the motto was mine:—and yet I have, in general, a memory for you, and am sure ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... election, he gladly returned to his former constituency. The seat at Ludgershall was never in the nature of a true political representation, and even when Member for Gloucester Selwyn seems to have attended but little to the House of Commons. He was one of a legion of sinecures—a true specimen of the place-man of the age. Possessed of some political influence, he was able to find in politics a means of increasing his income. It would be absurd to censure him because he was a sinecurist; he was acting ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... could the lot of the fender-fisherman be happier? No colds, quinsies or asthmas follow his incursions into the realms of fancy where in cool streams and peaceful lakes a legion of chubs and trouts and sawmon await him; in fancy he can hie away to the far-off Yalrow and once more share the benefits of the companionship of Kit North, the Shepherd, and that noble Edinburgh band; in ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... only from the neighborhood, but even from the departments round about. The Empress Marie Louise, passing through the town, had honored the curiously kept greenhouse with a visit; so much was she impressed with the sight, that she spoke of it to Napoleon, and the old judge received the Cross of the Legion of Honor. But as the learned gardener never mingled in society at all, and went nowhere except to the Blandureaus, he had no suspicion of the President's underhand manoeuvres; and others who could see the President's intentions were far too much afraid ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... bed in the centre of London town, and was bitten so grievously by creatures whose name is "legion," mad with the delight of getting a wholesome farmer among them, that verily I was ashamed to walk in the courtly parts of the town next day, having lumps upon my face of the size of a pickling walnut. The landlord said that this was nothing; and that he expected, in two days at ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... the image of the Holy Virgin,(6) mother of God, upon his shoulders, and through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the holy Mary, put the Saxons to flight, and pursued them the whole day with great slaughter.(7) The ninth was at the City of Legion,(8) which is called Cair Lion. The tenth was on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit.(9) The eleventh was on the mountain Breguoin, which we call Cat Bregion.(10) The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur ...
— History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum) • Nennius

... so?" said the baron: "then I take it that makes you look for him so often in my buttery. Will you cast out the devil whose name is Legion, when you cannot cast out the imp ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... their complete armour, as, in steady and solemn order, they swept on to the swaying and clamorous ranks of the Moorish infantry. Boabdil learned the danger from his scouts; and hastily quitting a tower from which he had for a while repulsed a hostile legion, he threw himself into the midst of the battalions menaced by the skilful Ponce de Leon. Almost at the same moment, the wild and ominous apparition of Almamen, long absent from the eyes of the Moors, appeared in the ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was about to write to you concerning the accusations which you have so long brought against me, wherein you call me impious, buffoon, rogue, impostor, calumniator, swindler, heretic, disguised Calvinist, one possessed of a legion of devils. I wish the world to know why you speak thus, for I should be sorry that anyone should think thus of me; and I had already made up my mind to complain publicly of your calumnies and impostures when ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... in the remote Atlantic to which his mind turned so strongly a little later. He left England speedily, and came home again to Ireland after an absence of eight years. It was in Ireland that a strange windfall came to him and amazed him. On that fatal afternoon when Swift, with a legion of wild passions tearing at his heartstrings, rode over to Marley Abbey to fling back at Vanessa's feet the letter she had written to Stella, Hester Vanhomrigh received {294} her death-blow. But she lived long enough to inflict a curious little piece of vengeance, the only vengeance ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... humanity. We have commenced to build a city called "Nauvoo" in Hancock co., we number from six to eight thousand here besides vast numbers in the county around and in almost every county of the state. We have a city charter granted us and a charter for a legion the troops of which now number 1500. We have also a charter for a university, for an agricultural and manufacturing society, have our own laws and administrators, and possess all the privileges that other ...
— The Wentworth Letter • Joseph Smith

... me! Isn't that funny? It isn't anything very valuable and perhaps you won't care for it, but I have a feeling that I want you to have it. It's the cross of the Legion of Honor, which belonged to my grandfather. My mother left it to me among some trinkets of hers, which have all been sold. Don't look sorry about it; you don't know how little it matters now! This I could never have sold, and besides it is worth very little really—but I felt I wanted ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder

... the mandate of the King. Everything else is forgotten in the recollection of the Earl's youth, his lofty origin, his brilliant talents, his rank as a man of letters, and his prompt consignment to a bloody grave, the last of the legion of patricians sent by Henry to the block or the gallows. Yet it is Surrey upon whom Mr. Froude makes his last attack, and whom he puts down as a dirty dog, in order that Henry VIII may not be seen devoting what were all but his very latest hours to the task of completing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... sought the place where this man of God was teaching the people. But, lo! when the King entered the brave man's presence his courage, fidelity and integrity overcame Saul and conquered him unto confession of his wickedness. Just here we may remember that stout-hearted Pilate, with a legion of mailed soldiers to protect him, trembled and quaked before his silent prisoner. And King Agrippa on his throne was afraid, when Paul lifting his chains, fronted him with words of righteousness and judgment. Carlyle says that in 1848, during the riot in Paris, the mob swept down ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... cabinet safe where no one can get at it, the man we want will walk into our hands. And I'll tell you more than that, Simmonds; if we do get him, I'll have the biggest story I ever had, and you will be world-famous. France will make you a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, Simmonds, mark my words. Don't you think the ribbon would look well in ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... himself in the army of Napoleon. In the conquest of Italy, he had served in the ranks, and continuing to follow Napoleon through all his campaigns, had arrived to the grade of captain of cavalry. He had distinguished himself on many occasions, was a favourite of the Emperor's, wore the cross of the Legion of Honour, and was considered in a fair way to rapid promotion, when he committed a great error. During the time that his squadron was occupying a small German town, situated on the river Erbach, called Deux Ponts, he saw my mother, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... not very dangerous, in fact it does not matter, in America, where there are very few lay moral philosophers; but it is a very great danger in France, Italy and Belgium where their name is legion. ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... was to portion out the land among the veteran soldiers, six thousand men of the Sixth Legion occupied the town and country round—such of it, at all events, as was not under water—and thenceforth the city took the name of Arelate Sextanorum. Tacitus gives us a picture of the proceedings on such occasions. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... from Lupin's eyes and he saw, as in a flash of lightning, a whole legion of things which, until then, had been hidden ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... Fritz: for the moment after it was heard, the dog came rushing back into the hut, as if pursued by a legion of horned bulls; and, though he kept up his angry baying, he appeared altogether ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... against. I hope many now reading these words will say, "I will!" If God says we can, all the devils in hell cannot stop us. All the infidels in the world cannot prevent us. That little boy, that little girl, can say, "I will!" If it were necessary, God would send down a legion of angels to help you; but He has given you the power, and you can accept Christ this very minute if you are really ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody

... be informed direct from Trouble Headquarters, Stewart. Headquarters was at the Soldiers' Memorial in the park when I came past. I gathered that they were picking out a delegation to call on you. Post-Commander Lanigan of the American Legion was doing the picking. He's heading the bunch that I see coming ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... affairs called for an immediate and drastic remedy, for, so long as it persisted, it irritated those whom it condemned to avoidable hardship, and their name was legion. It was also part of an almost imperceptible revolutionary process similar to that which was going on in several other countries for transferring wealth and competency from one class to another and for goading into rebellion those ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... all opposing obstacles. They were so much interested, and so absorbed in the ever increasing success of the Crusade, that the happy months and years flew swiftly by. Their devotion to each other, was a potent charm which begat in the hearts of a legion of admiring followers, an intense loyalty to them, and to the banner of the Crusade, which had led them to so many victories in the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... pale, slender, and delicate in appearance, a man of honor and true courage, who would fight a duel for a yes or a no, had never yet fought upon a battle-field, though he wore in his button-hole the cross of the Legion of honor. He was, as you perceive, one of the blunders of the Restoration, perhaps the most excusable of them. The youth of those days was the youth of no epoch. It came between the memories of the Empire and those of the Emigration, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... Infantry, as a prisoner of war to General Morgan." His services brought him to the attention of General Greene, and he was sent on a tour of difficult duty through North Carolina. He was so successful in this, that the commanding general authorized him to raise a partisan legion of infantry and cavalry for service in Georgia. By means of his native eloquence, which was said to be almost irresistible, he succeeded in raising the legion in a very short time. Wherever he addressed ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... the spirit of rebellion was breathed from the pulpit in language yet more intemperate, and often profane and obscene. Military preparations were made with the greatest bustle; and the Nauvoo Legion—under which name, transplanted from Illinois, the militia were organized—was drilled daily in the streets of the city. The martial fervor ran so high that even the boys paraded with wooden spears and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... dance. But they are too busy with their partners to be friendly. We admire them, but they are unconcerned with us. In Mr. Black's large family the Whaup seems most congenial to some strangers; the name of one of Mr. Payn's friendly lads is Legion, and Miss Broughton's dogs, with THEIR friend Sara, and Mrs. Moberley, welcome the casual visitor with hospitable care. Among the kindly children of a later generation one may number a sailor man with a wooden leg; a Highland gentleman, who, though landless, bears a king's name; an ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... visited chestnut stands infected with the blight. Endothia parasitica was first discovered by Professor Guido Paoli in 1938 on a private estate in Busalla, about twenty miles north of the seaport city of Genoa. Since then the blight has been detected throughout the province of Genoa in the legion of Liguria; and other widely separated infections have been found. The fungus has been cultured and identified by Professor Biraghi of the Royal Pathological Station in Rome, as Endothia parasitica. It is believed to have ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... badge of the Sacred Legion," said Julie gravely. "You know Malta? Well, that's part of the British Empire, of course, and the English used to have a regiment there to defend it from the Turks. It was a great honour to join, and so it was called the Sacred Legion. This officer ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... of Dragoons, was Orderly Officer to General Durando at the capitulation of Vicenza. Prince Bartolomeo Ruspoli served as a private soldier in the Roman Legion; he was one of the three Commissioners who were sent to the camp of Radetzky to treat for the ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... a way is that to do? First you come lumbering about the place bringing a legion of vagabond goblins along with you to worry me to death, and then when I overlook an indelicacy of costume which would not be tolerated anywhere by cultivated people except in a respectable theater, and not even there if the nudity were of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... ponds of their day, they sent, at enormous expense, for melons and dates from Persia. Melons, in particular, seemed to be the high spot in those Lucullan feasts, and, in this connection it is well to remember that Lucullus, himself, as commanding general of a Roman legion, had long lived in Persia and had, no doubt, acquired a taste for Persian delicacies. His princely estates near Rome, no doubt, grew rare plants from Asia Minor and were very likely tended by the skilled Aryan, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various

... wi' might and main; Till first ae caper, syne anither, Tam tint his reason a' thegither, And roars out, 'Weel done, Cutty-sark!' And in an instant all was dark; And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, When out the hellish legion sallied. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum



Words linked to "Legion" :   legionnaire, throng, Roman Legion, military unit, military group, legionary, foreign legion, army, Sabaoth, concourse, French Foreign Legion



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com