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Prostrate   Listen
verb
Prostrate  v. t.  (past & past part. prostrated; pres. part. prostrating)  
1.
To lay fiat; to throw down; to level; to fell; as, to prostrate the body; to prostrate trees or plants.
2.
To overthrow; to demolish; to destroy; to deprive of efficiency; to ruin; as, to prostrate a village; to prostrate a government; to prostrate law or justice.
3.
To throw down, or cause to fall in humility or adoration; to cause to bow in humble reverence; used reflexively; as, he prostrated himself.
4.
To cause to sink totally; to deprive of strength; to reduce; as, a person prostrated by fever.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prostrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... are conscious that this is so, they repine not the less; they feel that the freshness and verdure of life must first die away; that the promised recompense will probably come too late to the exhausted frame; that the blessings which would now be received with prostrate gratitude will cease to be felt as boons; and that although the wishes and wants of the heart will take new directions in the progress of years, the consciousness that the spring-time of life — that peculiar season of happiness which can never be known again — has been consumed ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... from her prostrate position, and, with a confident gesture, stroked back the hair from her forehead. She was going to do it, for she had prayed for it. There was no going back, the saints had heard it. Had not the priest always told her in years gone by, when she was still a child, that ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... but the dim outline of gray-clad men, surging madly toward us, or hurled back by the flame of our guns. It was hell, pandemonium, a memory blurred and indistinct; men, stricken to death, whirled and fell, others ran screaming; they stumbled over prostrate bodies, and cursed wildly in an effort to advance. Now it was the sharp spit of revolvers, cracking in deadly chorus. All I knew occurred directly before me. A dozen or fifteen leaped to the porch floor, swinging a huge log against the barricaded door. I heard the crash of it as it fell inward, ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... majesty's pardon," said Frank, stroking his sovereign tenderly on the shoulder; for which affectionate demonstration he was rewarded by a violent push that laid him prostrate. ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... lay through the hall to which the foreign lady had obtained an entrance. Sir Hugh, making such calculations as the moments allowed, determined that he would face the enemy, and pass on to his banquet over her prostrate body. He went quickly down into the hall, and there was encountered by Sophie Gordeloup, who, skipping over the gun-cases, and rushing through the portmanteaus, caught the baronet by the arm before he had been able to approach the dining-room door. "Sir ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... a good twelve feet, but he landed squarely upon the stooping person of Mr. Bacon, who emitted a startling sound that began as a yell and ended as a grunt. He then crumpled up and spread himself out flat, with Mr. Crow draped awkwardly across his prostrate form. For the time being, Mr. Bacon was as still as the ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... me she saw embarrassed and my hands preoccupied—Pierpoint and Ratcliffe useless by position—and the gleam of the dog's eye directed her to his aim. The crow-bar was leaning against the shattered wall. This she had silently seized. One blow knocked up the sword; a second laid the villain prostrate. At this moment appeared another of the turnkeys advancing from the rear, for the noise of our assault upon the door had drawn attention in the interior of the prison, from which, however, no great number of assistants ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... death; whose sword had restored a kingdom to his father—had struggled for Palestine and her holy pilgrims—had given Wales to England, and again and again prostrated the hopes and energies of Scotland into the dust; even he, this mighty prince, lay prostrate now, unable to conquer or to struggle with disease—disease that attacked the slave, the lowest serf or yeoman of his land, and thus made manifest, how in the sight of that King of kings, from whom both might and weakness come, the prince and peasant ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... condition (now it would be different) had opposed the passage of the Russian forces, they would have entered her territory as enemies, the war would have been carried on once more within her borders, and, beggared and prostrate, she might at best have reckoned upon retaining her political independence through the intervention of the European Powers; though, looking at the fact that these had recognised Russia as their executioner in Turkey, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... person or body, but mentally. It matters little whether the body is sitting, kneeling, or standing; riding, walking, or lying down; the throne of grace is equally accessible, if the spirit is prostrate before it—the spontaneous effusions of the soul in sighs or groans, or joyful exclamations, or the pouring forth of heart-felt words; but all must be under a sense of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... account of his cunning and long standing among them, worshipped by the gang of German Illuminati as an idol rather than revered as an apostle. He is their Baal, before whom they hope to oblige all nations upon earth to prostrate themselves as soon as infidelity has entirely banished Christianity; for the Illuminati do not expect to reign till the last Christian is buried under the rubbish of the last altar of Christ. It is not the fault of Montgelas ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... was using his boot-heel on the prostrate man at that moment, when the Hibernian gave him a couple of blows in lightning-like succession. They landed upon the face of the coward with a sensation about the same as if a well-shod mule had planted his two hind ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... of the most extensive and corrupting influence, strained them to the utmost; and gaining ground from that moment on the sense of the nation on that main point, have continued triumphantly and insolently to prostrate the people of Ireland. Every thinking and steady Irishman, however, retained his opinion as to the necessity of reform, and continued by the few means in his power, to promote it. At this point, then, commenced the separation between the Irish administration ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous

... the Israelites. The nomadic children of Abraham have fought and schemed their way, through infinite depths of persecution, from their tents on the plains of Palestine, to a power higher than the thrones of Europe. The world is to-day Semitized. The children of Japhet lie prostrate slaves at the feet of the children of Shem; and the sons of Ham bow humbly before ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... Pulegium, Linn.), a perennial herb of the natural order Labiatae, native of Europe and parts of Asia, found wild and naturalized throughout the civilized world in strong, moist soil on the borders of ponds and streams. Its square, prostrate stems, which readily take root at the nodes, bear roundish-oval, grayish-green, slightly hairy leaves and small lilac-blue flowers in whorled clusters of ten or a dozen, rising in tiers, one above another, at the nodes. The seed is light brown, oval and very small. Like most ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains

... light would only last a moment, to be followed by thick gloom; and I could only tear blindly on, bruising and lacerating my flesh at every step, falling again and again, only to struggle up and on again, now high above the surface, climbing over prostrate trees and branches, now plunged to my middle in a pool or torrent ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... tent and caused me to exclaim with Dr. Henry, "O, ye lightnings, that brood and lie couchant in the sulphureous vapours, that glance with forked fury from the angry gloom, swifter and fiercer than the lion rushes from his den, or open with vast expansive sheets of flame, sublimely waved over the prostrate world, and fearfully lingering in the affrighted skies!" "Ye thunders, that awfully grumble in the distant clouds, seem to meditate indignation, and from the first essays of a far more frightful peal; or suddenly bursting over your heads, rend the vault above and shake the ground below with a ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp

... effort he dragged the enraged man from the prostrate form in the road. It no longer struggled, but ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... bewildered, stunned, semi-conscious. We had all braced our courage for death, but this fearful and sudden new fact—that we must continue to live after we had survived the race to which we belonged—struck us with the shock of a physical blow and left us prostrate. Then gradually the suspended mechanism began to move once more; the shuttles of memory worked; ideas weaved themselves together in our minds. We saw, with vivid, merciless clearness, the relations between the past, the present, and the future—the ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... telling, but full of grief for their own apparent failure. Then in great pity comes the rain, the rain of summer, gentle, refreshing, penetrating, and the swathes are comforted, for they know that standing to greet or prostrate to suffer, the consolations of the former and the latter rain are still their own, with tender touch and cool caress. Then, once more parched by the sun, they are borne away to the new service their apparent failure has fitted ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless

... consider this caning and kicking as a farewell to my house and employ forever!" exclaimed the enraged master, standing in the door-way, and looking down with ineffable scorn upon the prostrate person of the ejected Bart, as he lay sprawled out upon the spot where he landed, without ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... was fulfilled shortly after, for the day was rough enough to produce uncomfortable sensations in those who were not old sailors like myself. My tormentor was prostrate ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... prostrate in mind, and almost in body, but at length recovered sufficiently to attend a little to my affairs which had gone altogether to the bad for a month, and had been going bad for many months. I resolutely set myself against going to J... s Street, and would not have women; indeed ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... flopped back in her face, bewildering her. The weasel, however, had maintained his dogged grip upon the toe of her shoe; so something had to give. That something was the cord which anchored the trap. It broke under the sudden strain. Trap and weasel together went flying over Mrs. Gammit's prostrate head. They brought up with a stupefying slam against the wall of the pig-pen, making the pig ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... dusk, and lo! the day is here, And all the trees flower forth with blossoms bright and clear, The sun from out her brows arises, and the moon, When she unveils her face, cloth hide for shame and fear. All living things prostrate themselves before her feet, When she unshrouds and all her hidden charms appear; And when she flashes forth the lightnings of her glance, She maketh eyes to rain, like showers, with ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... sword tightly, muttering uneasily to himself. Not a sound came from the prostrate multitude. The slow echoes of the explosion died away; again the heavy silence fell. Then Shabako suddenly stared around, and peered up at the ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... restoring the young woman to consciousness; an event which was marked, Bernard tells us, by a volley of invectives addressed to her unfortunate husband. "The horse," continues Bernard, "was now on his legs, but the vehicle still prostrate, heavy in its frame, and laden with at least half a ton of luggage. My fellow-helper set me an example of activity in relieving it of the internal weight; and when all was clear, we grasped the wheel between us, and to the peril ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... was speaking, he gave the prostrate Irishman a kick with his heavy boot, as an illustration of his argument perhaps, and the blow was sufficient to restore ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... a strange inconsistency, we sometimes see the most religious monarchs oppose the enterprises of those whom they regard as God's ministers. A sovereign who is filled with religion or respect for his God, ought to be constantly prostrate before his priests, and regard them as his true sovereigns. Is there a power upon the earth which has the right to measure itself with that ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... one accustomed to command, she walked up to Amyas, glancing proudly round on her prostrate adorers, and pointing with graceful arms to the trees, the gardens, and the huts, gave him to understand by signs (so expressive were her looks, that no words were needed) that all was at his service; after which, taking his hand, she lifted ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... in a gloomier part of the edifice, knelt a row of rueful penitents, smiting their breasts, and lifting their eyes to heaven. Further on, in front of the dark recess, where the sacred relics are deposited, a few desperate, melancholy sinners lay prostrate. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... done that a month ago, Jeff, ez I wanted ye to, instead o' keeping the brute to eat ye out o' house and home, ye'd be better off." Aunt Sally never let slip an opportunity to "improve the occasion," but preferred to exhort over the prostrate body of the "improved." "Well, I hope he mayn't change ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte

... Emancipation. Africa possesses resources which, properly developed, must doubtless render her eventually a great, if not the greatest, producer of all the products of Slave Labor. And how would all good men rejoice to see the blow which shall effectually prostrate the giant Slavery, struck by the Black Man's arm! It is necessary, however, that civilized influences be diffused in her midst or, at least, that facilities for rendering available her products, be supplied equal to the ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... fine characteristic view of the city is to be obtained from the river front, a boat was taken, with half a dozen oarsmen, to pull along the ghats, or flights of broad stone steps, descending to the river from the shattered old palaces, prostrate temples, and half-sunken quays, which extend in a continuous line for more than two miles along the Ganges. Here hundreds, nay thousands of people of both sexes and of all conditions, are to be seen ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... rebellious neighbours. It contains a few large houses, some ruins of others, and a weather-beaten cross, where once stood a church; a mound shows the site of an ancient monastery, and a mud fort by the river is so dilapidated, that cows were grazing peacefully over its prostrate walls. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... the huge ebony figure of Zambo, our devoted negro. Even as we looked, he sprang upon the back of the fugitive and flung his arms round his neck. They rolled on the ground together. An instant afterwards Zambo rose, looked at the prostrate man, and then, waving his hand joyously to us, came running in our direction. The white figure lay motionless in the ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... he trembled with excessive valor, and although a good half mile distant, he seized a musketoon that lay at hand, and turning away his head, fired it most intrepidly in the face of the blessed sun. The blundering weapon recoiled, and gave the valiant Kip an ignominious kick, which laid him prostrate with uplifted heels in the bottom of the boat. But such was the effect of this tremendous fire, that the wild men of the woods, struck with consternation, seized hastily upon their paddles, and shot away into one of the deep inlets of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... the Spanish quarter; and from this time forth, being regarded as impregnable, the place had nothing to fear. It was not even attacked; and when, in 1355, Edward the Black Prince marched into it, the inhabitants had opened the gates to the conqueror before whom all Languedoc was prostrate. I am not one of those who, as I said just now, have a head for such things, and having extracted these few facts had made all the use of M. Viollet-le-Duc's pamphlet ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... the dethroned Sultan of Asoudee, who is living here in state, in the midst of his slaves. He holds a sort of court, and, contrary to the free customs of the Tuaricks, he permits slaves who approach him to prostrate themselves and throw dust on their heads. He is the uncle of the present Sultan of Asoudee, and is called Masouarji. In his fallen condition he gave Overweg a hospitable reception, and a present of dates, which was ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... me I had fallen flat on my face. For a moment they stood and stared at the strange object upon the grass; then turning away, again they walked on as before; and I, rising immediately ran once more in pursuit. Again they wheeled about, and again I fell prostrate. Repeating this three or four times, I came at length within a hundred yards of the fugitives, and as I saw them turning again I sat down and leveled my rifle. The one in the center was the largest I had ever seen. I shot him behind the shoulder. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... she began to feel solitude as something tangible. Bringing saddle and blankets into the cabin, she made a bed just inside, and, facing the opening and the stars, she lay down to rest, if not to sleep. The darkness did not keep her from seeing the prostrate figure of Kells. He lay there as silent as if he were already dead. She was exhausted, weary for sleep, and unstrung. In the night her courage fled and she was frightened at shadows. The murmuring of insects seemed ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... to get free, looked also the same way. Again she uttered a cry for help. At the same moment a man bounded round the corner of the road, and before Miles was aware of his approach, he was laid prostrate on the ground by a blow from Jacob Halliburt's powerful fist. "Run, Miss May, run," he exclaimed, "there are other men coming, but I will settle this ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... acclaim. The crowd was too dense for any one to prostrate himself, but every Egyptian, potentate or slave, assumed as nearly as possible the posture of humility. Kenkenes bent reverently, but he lifted his eyes and looked long at the passing ark. Six priests ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... mother imprinted on my face, the smile, which they tell me, passed from her lips to mine. . . . Oh! blindest of men! how I have hated you at moments! But it does not really seem that a fatality pursues me? That hand with its iron grip fastened on my shoulder, and forcing me to prostrate myself before you, I feel no longer, with its nails pressing into my flesh; and yet my knees, trembling, powerless, bend under me, and again you see me fall at your feet. Yes, my poor pride is dead indeed. ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... sharp thorns of the acacias, the barbed spines of the cactus, and the recurving claw-like armature of the wild aloes. I could see the red blood streaming adown his white flanks—not his blood, but that of the helpless victim stretched prostrate along his back. I could see the lacerated limbs— the ankles chafed and swollen—the garments torn to shreds—the drooping head—the long loose hair tossed and trailing to the earth—the white wan ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... confirmed no doubt by the means which suddenly offered of appropriating a very large sum of money, this woman lent herself as the instrument to the savage vengeance of her aunt—which in one hour laid prostrate the happy prospects of an ancient house and ravaged their peace in a way which time has done nothing to heal. And here it was, Mr. Bertram, that Gillie Godber forfeited all hold on the public sympathy—even amongst those whose rank indisposed them to judge Sir Morgan with any charity. ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... stood with white face and clinched hands during Byrne's recital of his identity. At its close he took a threatening step toward the prostrate man, raising his long sword, with a muffled oath. Billy Mallory sprang before him, ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and prostrate Nature lay, Like some sore-smitten creature, nigh to death, With feverish, pallid lips, with laboring breath, And languid eyeballs darkening to the day; A burning noontide ruled with merciless sway Earth, wave, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... malady had grown worse. On the very evening of Marius' arrival at Vernon, the colonel had had an attack of delirium; he had risen from his bed, in spite of the servant's efforts to prevent him, crying: "My son is not coming! I shall go to meet him!" Then he ran out of his room and fell prostrate on the floor of the antechamber. He ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... was little underbrush hereabouts; the trees stood somewhat apart, well spaced; and in the clearings grew silver birch and maple, spearlike and slender, against the immense stems of spruce and hemlock. But for occasional prostrate monsters, and the boulders of grey rock that thrust uncouth shoulders here and there out of the ground, it might well have been a bit of park in the Old Country. Almost, one might have seen in it the hand of ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood

... fallen rival in the arms of some envious groom; so have we seen one half of him high in air—passive and offenceless—while the other half, head, teeth, eyes, claws, seemed buried and engulfed in the mangled and prostrate enemy. Meanwhile, the gladiators, lapped, and pampered, and glutted upon blood, crowded delightedly round the combatants—their nostrils distended—their lips grinning—their eyes gloatingly fixed on the bloody throat of the one and the indented ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... turn to his own people and tell them of their phenomenal progress since emancipation and of the great and essential part they had played in the upbuilding of the South—left prostrate by the Civil War. One could see their eager, upturned faces glow with pride and self-satisfaction. But suddenly he would shift the tone of his comments and tell them how sadly those of them who were indolent and shiftless and unreliable and vicious were retarding the upward struggles ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... Emperor, who had followed, and now surrounded their parent. This last outrage broke down the old man's patience. "Take my sight," he cried, "rather than force upon it scenes like these." Gholam Kadir at once leaped from the throne, felled the old man to the ground, threw himself upon the prostrate monarch's breast, and, so some historians relate, struck out one of his eyes with his own dagger. Then rising, he ordered a byestander apparently a member of the household, Yakub Ali himself to complete the work. On his refusing, he slew him with his ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... one was dead frantic telegrams had come from the Morleys, in consternation at his disappearance, and Mimo, quite prostrate in his sorrow, as he had been at her mother's death, had left all practical ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... the loss of only one man, but Ralph took no part in that fight. Indeed, when we joined them four days later, for after burying Sihamba Jan and I trekked round through the waggon pass, by the mercy of Heaven escaping the Zulus, they still lay prostrate on a cartel, clasping each other's hands and smiling, but speaking little. The Boers, being warned and awake, beat off the Zulus with great loss to Dingaan, for they had the waggons in front, the koppie behind, and the river ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... most remarkable part of this structure is what is called the oratory of Louis the Wicked; it is at a great depth beneath the foundation of the castle, and the descent to it is by spiral or well-stairs. It is literally nothing more than a dungeon, on a platform, in which is a prostrate statue representing the dead body of our Lord, as taken from the Cross, covered with streaks of blood, and the skin in welts, as if fresh from the scourge. According to the tradition of the neighbourhood, this was the daily scene of the private devotions of Louis the Eleventh; and the character ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... Switzer in his most German comedian voice. "I think you haf fallen. Dit you hurt yourself?" he asked of the prostrate Hen. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... a half-dozen seamen rushed down the companionway, he found Billy sitting astride the prostrate form of the mate. His great fingers circled the man's throat, and with mighty blows he was dashing the fellow's head against the hard floor. Another moment and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... war against a feeble creature, whose hold on life was still an uncertainty; he could not forget his promise to Marian, that no harm should come to her husband through any act of his. So he sat quietly by the bedside of his prostrate foe, watched him silently as he fell into a brief restless slumber, and administered his medicine when he woke with a hand that was as gentle as ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... directed in 1072 that a book should be given to each of the monks, who were to be allowed a year to read it, and what follows gives us some idea of the indolence of these representatives of learning, for it was ordered that if the monk has not then read it he is to prostrate himself, and ask pardon of the abbot. The monks of Winchester were probably not much troubled in this way, for some time afterwards the library of the bishop of that diocese only consisted of seven books. What must then have been the ignorance of the masses of the population! We should ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... the sea it leaves wrecks. What does it leave on land? Funerals. When it subsides, New England is prostrate. It has left its legacy: this legacy is coughs and patent medicines. This is an epic; this is destiny. You think Providence is expelled out of New ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... kick; and as he drew aside to let me pass I took him quickly by the collar, spun him round, and gave him one. A flight of a dozen steps led down from the front door, and he pitched clean to the bottom. Running down after, I skipped over his prostrate body and walked briskly away in the ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... even when, after prolonged efforts, she succeeded in restoring animation to the prostrate figure under her hands. The heavy eyes opening met hers in ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the stems of three species of Euphorbia and of Portulaca oleracea are "normally prostrate or procumbent;" but when they are attacked by an Aecidium, they "assume an erect habit." Dr. Stahl informs us that he knows of several analogous cases; and these seem to be closely related to that of the Abies. The rhizomes of Sparganium ramosum grow out horizontally in ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... Religion;" and if it taught her the insufficiency of such a method, the eighteenth century did its work. Above all, it produced Bishop Butler.—The previous century, (the seventeenth,) witnessed the supremacy of fanaticism. It saw the monarchy laid prostrate, and the Church trampled under foot, and the use of the Liturgy prohibited by Act of Parliament. The "Sufferings of the Clergy" fill a folio volume. But this was the century which produced our great Caroline Divines! From ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... raised that they should, by some agreement, be enabled to share in that ecclesiastical establishment which they had so often opposed; and the bishops met the presbyters in a convocation at the Savoy. A conference was held between the high church, resuming the seat of power, and the low church, now prostrate; that is, between the old clergy who had recently been mercilessly ejected by the new, who in their turn were awaiting their fate. The conference was closed with arguments by the weaker, and votes by the stronger. Many curious anecdotes of this ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... a'right. W'er' Purdy?" The girl shuddered, as Endicott pointed to the ground at some little distance away. The man advanced and bent over the prostrate form. ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... you 'd better talk, Hester," said her husband, in a low voice. He had seen a spasm pass over the face of the prostrate youth. ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... prostrate pair, Mandy was struggling to her knees, gasping; but Deanie lay twisted just as she had fallen, the little face sunken and deathly, a tiny trickle of blood coming from a ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... seen her then, her who has such sublime self-control, prostrate at his feet, wringing her hands and entreating him to fly before it was too late, you would not wonder that the morning sun shone on her ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... as it voted in its heart for his re-election, and applauded the victory in the midst of which he passed away. It will wish with one accord to associate itself with the monument that America will raise to him upon the capitol of prostrate slavery." ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... a remark of Dr. Kane's;—how when, on one of his voyages, in their ice-girt winter quarters, the whole ship's company, save himself, were prostrate below decks, and he with incredible strength and fortitude was literally doing everything, not even omitting to register regular observations of the instruments;—in the midst of that unsurpassable heroism among the polar solitudes, he felt at night a dissatisfaction ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... round of stately and impressive ceremonials. Hitherto a Roman emperor had been an imperator, [5] the head of an army. Now he became a king, to be greeted, not with the old military salute, but with the bent knee and the prostrate form of adoration. Such pomps and vanities, which former Romans would have thought degrading, helped to inspire reverence among the servile subjects of a later age. If it was the aim of Augustus to disguise, it was the aim of Diocletian to display, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... unwonted effort, yet not without a pang of shame at sinning on the edge of the grave, she drags herself to the spot. She is troubled by the savage look of a place all rough with yews and thorns, by the rude, dark beauty of that relentless Proserpine. Prostrate, trembling, grovelling on the ground, the poor old woman weeps and prays. Answer there is none. But when she dares to lift herself up a little, she sees that Hell ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... laboured noisily for breath. A sailor, from time to time and quite methodically, as a matter of routine, dropped a canvas bucket into the ocean at the end of a rope, hauled it in hand under hand, and sluiced its contents over the prostrate man. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... feet, their shape that of a larch, but with the needles long and dark, and cones a foot long. Pines cleft the sky; they were massed wherever level ground occurred; they stood over the Truckee at right angles, or lay across it in prostrate grandeur. Their stumps and carcasses were everywhere; and smooth "shoots" on the sierras marked where they were shot down as "felled timber," to be floated off by the river. To them this wild region owes its scattered ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... followed by the submission of the Butlers. Most of the Geraldines were subjugated by Humphrey Gilbert, but Fitzmaurice remained in arms, and in 1571 Sir John Perrot undertook to reduce him. Perrot hunted him down, and at last on the 23rd of February 1573 he made formal submission at Kilmallock, lying prostrate on the floor of the church by way ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands: scattered vegetation consisting of grasses, prostrate vines, and low growing shrubs; primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for seabirds, shorebirds, and marine wildlife Johnston Atoll: Johnston Island and Sand Island are natural islands, which have been ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... conducted by the parties with an animosity, a bitterness, and an indecency, which had never been exceeded. All the resources of reason and of wrath were exhausted by each party in support of its own, and to prostrate the adversary opinions; one was upbraided with receiving the anti-federalists, the other the old tories and refugees, into their bosom. Of this acrimony, the public papers of the day exhibit ample testimony, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... crossing the Square. Four soldiers were conducting him to the King; trunks, my Brother's and his own, sealed, were coming on in the rear. Pale and downcast, he took off his hat to salute me,"— poor Katte, to me always so prostrate in silent respect, and now so unhappy! "A moment after, the King, hearing he was come, went out exclaiming, 'Now I shall have proof about the scoundrel Fritz and the offscouring (CANAILLE) Wilhelmina; ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... drawing people to its center as a cyclone sucks in leaves. Fright in Arden Wilmot's face, revealed to Adelaide in the light streaming from the big drawing-room windows. A group—a crowd—a multitude—pouring upon the lawns from every direction—swirling round Arden as he stood over the prostrate intermingled forms of his sister ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... in vain; for a little while they continue to wave their naked crests in the gale, and hold forth their gaunt limbs as if life were in them, objects exciting at once commiseration and disgust; until, crumbled into decay, the unseemly skeletons lie prostrate athwart the roots of their once fellows, who were stricken down in their bloom, and so perished by a quicker ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... had not Chipmunk's head been very firmly secured to his shoulders, he would have succeeded. Chipmunk went down as if he had been bombed. It was his unguarded and unscientific rush that did it. Doggie regarded his prostrate figure ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... incomparably surpassing the prayer of any mere creature, yet his own were not all alike, but one far above another. And then if it thus be, of all his holy prayers, the chief seemeth me those that he made in his great agony and pain of his bitter passion. The first was when he thrice fell prostrate in his agony, when the heaviness of his heart with fear of death at hand, so painful and so cruel as he well beheld it, made such a fervent commotion in his blessed body that the bloody sweat of his holy flesh dropped down on the ground. The others were the painful prayers that he made ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... followed by a hundred more in a deadly hail, thick and fast. Men fall, blood flows, short deep curses ring through the sunny air, the fighters creep up to one another, dodging behind trees and broken ruins, till they are at cruelly short range; faster and faster fly the stones, and scores are lying prostrate, bleeding, groaning and cursing. Strength, courage, fierce endurance and luck have it at last, as in every battle. Down goes the leader of Trastevere, half dead, with an eye gone, down goes the next man to him, his teeth broken under his torn lips, down half ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... flung him back into the arms of the onlookers, after which he stooped to aid the loser. His hands were actually upon Bill before he understood the meaning of that peculiar laughter, and saw in Mr. Hyde's shaking fingers that which caused him to drop the prostrate victim as ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... kindly and bade them rise. They did not understand, but lifted their heads and stared appealingly. He raised each in turn. As they once more looked upon his full magnificence, they were about to prostrate themselves again when they caught sight of the Indians. Those dark stolid faces, even that gay attire, they could understand. Glancing askance at the priest, they drew near to their fellow-beings, touched their hands to the strangers' breasts, ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... rage; draw his sabre upon his father, who would retreat into the corner of the room and call out, 'Enough, enough! I am wounded already;' but the little fellow would never leave off until he had laid his gigantic adversary tottering and prostrate on the bed. Paganini had now finished the dressing of his Achillino, but was himself still in dishabille. And now arose the great difficulty, how to accomplish his own toilet, where to find his neckcloth, his boots, his coat. All were hid, and by whom?—by ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... struggle. Towards the end of January, Marmarduke Lovel's health broke down all of a sudden. He was really ill, and very fretful in his illness. Those creditors of his became desperately pressing in their demands; almost every morning's post brought him a lawyer's letter; and, however prostrate he might feel, he was obliged to sit up for an hour or so in the day, resting his feverish head upon his hand, while he wrote diplomatic letters for the temporary pacification of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... the garden and bent over the fallen man. In Mitya's hands was a brass pestle, and he flung it mechanically in the grass. The pestle fell two paces from Grigory, not in the grass but on the path, in a most conspicuous place. For some seconds he examined the prostrate figure before him. The old man's head was covered with blood. Mitya put out his hand and began feeling it. He remembered afterwards clearly, that he had been awfully anxious to make sure whether ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... could tell but that the next would be upon us? Spite of our fatigue, we passed an almost sleepless night. When we arose in the morning, we were made fully alive to the perils by which we had been surrounded. At least fifty trees, the giants of the forest, lay prostrate ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... lay side by side, Each near to death, yet living each; All night the grim Turk moaned and cried, Beset with pangs of horrid thirst, Save when his dagger crept to reach, By wandering, ineffectual way, The prostrate Greek he yearned to slay, And failure stung him till ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... only been my companion one little week. I would not have her any longer, for I am disgusted with myself and my delays; and consider it was a weak yielding to temptation in me to send for her at all; but in truth, my spirits were getting low—prostrate sometimes—and she has done me inexpressible good. I wonder when I shall see you at Haworth again; both my father and the servants have again and again insinuated a distinct wish that you should be requested to come in the course of the summer ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... trimmers; but there was one witness of the name of Stevenson who held high the banner of the Covenant—John, "Land-Labourer,[5] in the parish of Daily, in Carrick," that "eminently pious man." He seems to have been a poor sickly soul, and shows himself disabled with scrofula, and prostrate and groaning aloud with fever; but the enthusiasm of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... as thus prostrate in the dust I write My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears— But why evoke the spectres of black night To blot the sunshine ...
— The Philosophy of Despair • David Starr Jordan

... the cupola, the deep throb of the organ, and the rolling waves of the voices of the people singing the grand Hallelujah, found their way into the darkened chamber. But above all other sounds in the ears of the Pope as he lay prostrate on the altar steps was the sound of a voice which said, "You, the Vicar of Jesus Christ; you, the rock on which the Saviour built His Church; you, the living voice of God; you, the infallible one; you, ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... decided advantage. At last Sohrab succeeded in felling Rustum to the earth, and was about to slay him, when the Persian called out that it was not the custom in chivalrous warfare to slay a champion until he was thrown the second time. Sohrab, generous as brave, released his prostrate foe; and again father and son ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... my sex rises when I see them so eager to prostrate themselves before a simple seeker after truth with a turban and a ruby. A turban and a ruby do so illuminate ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... allowances made to him as a mail contractor. Each was calling the other hard names in a loud tone of voice, and as I reached them they clinched, wrestled for a moment, and then Smith threw Wallach heavily to the sidewalk. Sitting on his prostrate foe, Smith began to pummel him, but at the first blow Wallach got one of his antagonist's thumbs into his mouth, where he held it as if it were in a vise. Smith roared, "Let go my thumb! you are eating it to the bone!" Just then up came Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... father and two brothers put to death, and hast threatened to slay me," replied the undaunted youth. The prostrate king, looking at him in silence a ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... Man closed his eyes. At a touch from another the two prostrate Assassins crept up and kissed his foot, then rose, waiting for the Marquess. He, pale as death, saw, felt, heard nothing. At another sign a man put ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... kindness think. Mad; if haunting, morbid dreads and fancies conjured up by poisonous drugs and never to be laid; if a will laid prostrate under the yoke of unclean habits; if a constitution prone to nervous derangement and blighted by early excess; if such things forcing him by imperceptible daily pressure to choose the things he loathed, to be the thing he feared, to act a part abhorrent ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... proceed with his remarks, for John Miles, seizing him by the shoulder, tripped him up, and strode away, leaving him prostrate, and pouring out a volley of curses. Being a bully, and cowardly as most bullies are, he did not pursue his broad-shouldered enemy, but vowed vengeance ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... back with a flourish, and made a great dig at the water. He missed the surface altogether, his legs flew up above his head, and he found himself lying on the top of the prostrate Rat. Greatly alarmed, he made a grab at the side of the boat, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... resort to arms would betray his own weakness and the power of the rebels, and completely prostrate the dignity and authority of government. It was necessary to temporize, therefore, however humiliating such conduct might be deemed. He had detained the five ships for eighteen days in port, hoping in some way ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... fellow-mortals, trying to find a new home for themselves in the heart of one whom they have amiably idealized! And oh, what hopeless efforts of mediocrities and inferiorities, believing in themselves as superiorities, and stumbling on through limping disappointments to prostrate failure! Poverty comes pleading, not for charity, for the most part, but imploring us to find a purchaser for its unmarketable wares. The unreadable author particularly requests us to make a critical examination of his book, and report to him whatever may be our verdict,—as if he ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... and their glorious ancestors. . . . Indeed, such is the total absence of solemnity in a great portion of modern Catholic buildings in England, that I do not hesitate to say that a few crumbling walls and prostrate arches of a religious edifice raised during the days of faith will convey a far stronger religious impression to the mind than the actual service of half the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... grasping him by the throat, he lifted his head several times, and struck it violently against the pavement. The Carthaginian groaned, and his hold relaxed for a moment. Then, tearing himself free, and with one hand still gripping the throat of the prostrate man, the Roman raised his body, and, turning toward Marcia, reached out for the dagger. With eyes fixed wonderingly on his, she gave it to him, as if only half conscious ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... a revolver-shot fired in the village. Everyone was running excitedly to a certain small "dugan," or shop, and thither we also directed our steps and found a bleeding Montenegrin standing over a prostrate ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... Aylmer that almighty man, The county God—in whose capacious hall, Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king— Whose blazing wyvern weathercock'd the spire, Stood from his walls and wing'd his entry-gates And swang besides on many a windy sign— Whose eyes from under a pyramidal head Saw from his windows nothing save his own— What lovelier of his own had he than her, His only ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... golden spurs his charger's flanks, And, like true baron, lifts his arm to strike, Shivers the Pagan's shield, his hauberk tears Apart. The pennon's folds pass through his breast As with the shaft he hurls him from the selle, A mangled corpse;—here lies he on the ground. Unto the prostrate body Olivier Says proudly:—"Wretch, to me thy threats are vain! Strike boldly, Franks! The victory shall be ours! Montjoie!" he shouts, ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... for nearly half an hour, and not one word was spoken during that time. At last Bertha arose from her prostrate position, and moved toward the electric button which governed a ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... then amid them all The monarch Agamemnon pray'd aloud: "Most great, most glorious Jove! who dwell'st on high, In clouds and darkness veil'd, grant Thou that ere This sun shall set, and night o'erspread the earth, I may the haughty walls of Priam's house Lay prostrate in the dust; and burn with fire His lofty gates; and strip from Hector's breast His sword-rent tunic, while around his corpse Many brave ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... dark pall of the Storm King shrouded all things with a terrifying gloom, the restless moaning of such a mass of writhing boughs, lashed by the fury of the blast, became the angry shriek of the Demons of Destruction, which left him prostrate and trembling in the throes of a paroxysm of worshipful fear. Analyzed, these actions show the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... left breast, notwithstanding which he succeeded in releasing himself from the grasp of his adversary. The sentinel, however, returned to the charge, and following him up closely, felled him to the earth with a blow from the butt-end of his musket. Still, however, the thief struggled violently, and prostrate as he was, endeavoured to bring down his opponent by seizing his legs: the soldier was now compelled, in self-defence, to transfix his prisoner to the ground, by running his bayonet through his left arm, until the serjeant came up, who took him to the guard-house, whither he walked, notwithstanding ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... of his patient's strong and healthy constitution and temper should be hypnotised or mesmerised at all, much less hypnotised to the verge of dissolution; and it was unprecedented that even a weak, hysterical subject should, after being unhypnotised, remain so long in prostrate exhaustion. Then, suppose these circumstances of the case were ordinary, there arose this question, which refused to be solved: Since it was ridiculous to suppose that the hypnotisation was a wanton experiment, and since it had not been ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... war-cries the rescuers of innocence assailed the sooty fiends who fell before their unscientific blows with a rapidity which inspired in the minds of beholders a suspicion that the goblins' own voluminous tails tripped them up and gallantry kept them prostrate. As the last groan expired, the last agonized squirm subsided, the conquerors performed the intricate dance with which it appears the Amazons were wont to celebrate their victories. Then the scene closed with a glare of red light and a "grand tableau" of the martial queen standing in a ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... the terrible thought that we were still at the mercy of the flood. Our friends, who had learned from the negroes the mad adventure we had started upon, now gathered around us, lifted us up from our prostrate position, and moved toward Yesson's mansion. Victor, who through the whole struggle had borne himself up with that firmness which scorns to shrink before danger, now yielded, and sunk insensible. The excitement was at an end, and the strong man had become a child. I, feeble in body, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... manners, joyousness, and confidence, I summoned courage to look alternately at Stephania and him, and the hope, the daring hope that I had never yet named to myself, but which was already master of my heart, and its every pulse and capability, dropped prostrate and lifeless in my bosom. If he did but offer her the life-minute of love, of which I would give her, it seemed to me, for the same price, an eternity of countless existences—if he should but give her a careless word, where I could wring a passionate utterance out of the aching blood ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... three-legged stool, close to the fire-place, he soon began to nod; then, losing his equilibrium, ultimately fell at full length on the floor. I could not suppress a smile at sight of his copper highness's prostrate position, when springing up in a furious passion, he seized an axe, and proceeded to demolish the seat. I wrested the axe from his grasp, and reprimanded him sharply for his insolence. This exasperated him to the utmost: he swore I was in league with the stool to insult him; but ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... cautious and reserved. The doggedness of their ancestors who resisted Philip II. of Spain lives in them still. They have a slow tenacious intensity, like that of a forest fire, which smoulders long among the prostrate trunks before it bursts into flame. But they are, except when deeply stirred, conservative and slow to move. They dislike change so much as to be unwilling to change their representatives or their ministers. A Cape statesman told me that the Dutch members of the Assembly would often say to him: "We ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... and in less than a minit the bodies uv six male Ethiopians wuz a danglin in the air, and the bodies uv six Ethiopian wimin wuz layin prostrate on the earth. The children wuz spared, for they wuz still young, and not hevin bin taught to read so far that they could not forgit it, ef kept carefully from books, they kin be brought up in their proper speer, ez servance to their brethern. (By the way, the ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In this way I often ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... apprehend but the anger of Heaven, or that the measure of our guilt should exceed His mercy. Let us then prostrate ourselves at the feet of the immortal God, who holds the fate of empires in His hands, and raises them up at His pleasure, or breaks them down to dust. Let us conjure Him to enlighten our enemies, and to dispose their hearts to enjoy that tranquillity and happiness which the ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... ill-luck to set. At the close of the summer, when the hot winds were in blast, he had gone down under the worst attack of dysentery he had had since the early days. He really thought this time all was over with him. For six weeks, in spite of the tenderest nursing, he had lain prostrate, and as soon as he could bear the journey had to prescribe himself a change to the seaside. The bracing air of Queenscliff soon picked him up; he had, thank God, a marvellous faculty of recuperation: while others were ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... and walked up to where rugged lava-blocks prevented any further progress. But at this spot our attention was suddenly arrested by a sight of horror. It was a human figure lying prostrate, face downward. ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... is my guilt that makes me so with thee? Have I not languished prostrate at thy feet? Have I not lived whole days upon thy sight? Have I not seen thee where thou hast not been; And, mad with the idea, clasp'd the wind, And doated ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Schaefer is the only good method," answered the doctor; "nothing of the kind. It's the one that suits us best." He stepped over to the prostrate man, never relaxing his vigilant watch for the first sign of life. Then, returning to Eric, he continued, "The Coast Guard uses the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... junior African merchant. Ezra, however, was endowed with a rare vitality, which enabled him not only to shake off the effects of his mishap, but to do so in an extraordinarily short space of time. There was a groan from the prostrate figure, then a feeble movement, then another and a louder groan, and then an oath. Gradually raising himself upon his elbow, he looked around him in a bewildered way, with his other hand pressed to the wound at the back of his head, from which a few narrow little rivulets of ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... woe was depicted on his countenance, and in all his movements, that Lavretzky made up his mind to approach and ask him what was the matter. The peasant started back timidly and roughly, and looked at him.... "My son is dead,"—he said, in hasty accents—and again began to prostrate himself to the floor. "What can take the place, for them, of the consolation of the church?"—Lavretzky thought,—and tried to pray himself; but his heart had grown heavy and hard, and his thoughts were far away. He was still expecting Liza—but Liza ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... this on coarse gravel, with large rounded fragments of rock. (See an admirable paper "Geological and Miscellaneous Notices of Tarapaca" in "Silliman's American Journal" volume 44 page 1.) In many parts of this now utterly desert plain, rushes and large prostrate trees in a hardened state, apparently Mimosas, are found buried, at a depth from three to six feet; according to Mr. Blake, they have all fallen to the south-west. The bed of nitrate of soda is said to extend for forty to fifty leagues along the western margin of the plain, but is not found ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... remorse greater than he could bear, his strength failed him, and he fell senseless, face forward among the flowers of the Prophet's field; . . flowers that, circling snowily around his dark and prostrate form, looked like fairy garlands ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... perpetuate his memory, something more durable than his frail humanity. This propensity doubtless led him in his earliest and rudest state to set on end in the earth the rough and unhewn pillar stone which he found lying prostrate on the surface, and these hoar memorials exist in almost ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... to a poor serf; my throne is usurped, my crown presses the brow of an invader; I have no friends; my troops wander broken in the hills of Wales; reckless robbers spoil my country; my subjects lie prostrate, their breasts crushed by the heel of the brutal Dane. Fate! thou hast done thy worst, and now thou standest before me resting thy hand on thy blunted blade. Ay; I see thine eye confront mine and demand why I still live, why I still hope. Pagan demon, I credit not thine omnipotence, and so cannot ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... and great and small Fell prostrate at her tootsies, They all were noblemen, and all Had ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... between two base-born, cruel-hearted soldiers of fortune, one at the head of a little body of white men, but with all the prestige of their color and development in warfare, and weapons, the other, the now undisputed monarch of a vast if prostrate and exhausted empire, at the head of great armies flushed with victory and eager ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... the wretched man penetrated to a chamber in which the prince's secretary sat writing at the open window, and he hurried over to the prostrate figure. "Whatever is the matter with you?" he said, tapping the man on ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... cause of fright. In the pauses of the horse's prancing, the vicar discovered to his horror the much-dreaded spectacle of the black coach and the headless steeds, and, terrible to relate, his friend Mr Mills lying prostrate on the ground before the sable driver. Little time was left him to call up his courage for this fearful emergency; for just as the vicar began to give utterance to the earnest prayers which struggled to his lips, the spectre ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... finds the dead, so an Apache crept upon Dick as he lay prostrate. But as the Indian aimed, he heard footsteps from a draw. He saw a man approaching the spring. Silently he fled ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... rebel against the ghosts, and nothing less than the blood of the offender could appease the invisible phantom or the visible tyrant. Kneeling was the proper position to be assumed by the multitude. The prostrate were the good. Those who stood erect were infidels and traitors. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, man was enslaved, crushed, and plundered. The many toiled wearily in the storm and sun that the few favorites ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... almost totally covered with grasses, prostrate vines, and low-growing shrubs; small area of trees in the center; primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraging habitat for ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... Our Lady,—"Tell me, friend, Is she handsomer than I?" Scared by her brilliancy, the knight Knows not what to do for fright; He clasps his hands before his face, And in his shame and his disgrace Falls prostrate on the ground with fear; But she with pity ever near Tells him:—"Friend, be not afraid! Doubt not that I am she whose aid Shall surely bring your love to you; But take good care what you shall do! She you shall love most faithfully Of us ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... the way of Salvation. This Celestial-living is here, at our door, but we cannot retouch it without Act of God. What is essential to obtaining this Act of God? Is it necessary to belong to this or that Denomination, to perform this or that ceremony, to stand up, kneel down, or prostrate ourselves a hundred and one times, visit shrines, handle relics, endlessly repeat fixed words and sentences? No, these will not do it. Christianity in its full meaning, a repentant and clean heart and mind—these will do it. It is a direct affair between ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley

... discharging their rifles could be given, the sound of a heavy body falling to the ground, and an accompanying smothered shriek, startled the hunter who was farthest from the tree. Starting up in alarm, he flew to the assistance of his friend, whose prostrate form was covered by a large panther, which had pounced upon him from the overhanging limb of the great oak. It had been but the work of an instant for the powerful cougar to break with his strong jaws the neck of ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... the valiant warrior was prostrate. The colonel's servants were rushing to the spot where the statue had tumbled over ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... to. promptement, promptly. prononcer, to decide. prophte, m., prophet. proposer, to propose, offer. propre, own. proscrit, proscribed, condemned. prosprer, to prosper, thrive. prosprit, f., prosperity. prostern, bowed, prostrate. prosterner (se),to bow, bend the knee. protger, to protect. prudence, f., prudence, tact. publi-c, -que, public. publier, to make known. pudeur, f., modesty, shame. puis, then. puiser, to draw (as from a well). puisque, since. puissance, f., power, might. puissant, powerful, mighty. puisse, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... found her a prostrate and degraded being; and, although it has brought numerous advantages to her sons, it has produced but the simplest changes in her social and domestic condition. She is still the crude, rude, ignorant mother. Remote from cities, the dweller still in the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... primitive man welled up in him. He knew that in the heart of the future there lurked a reckoning—something, somebody—that would count the tally at the appointed time. Then he had turned round the gable of the stable. He saw the ghostly white thing, shadowy in the blackness, lying prostrate before the door. He stood still, his ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... of California confined within her own borders. Mexico, and the islands nestled in the embrace of the Pacific, have felt the quickening breath of her enterprise. With her golden wand, she has touched the prostrate corpse of South American industry, and it has sprung up in the freshness of life. She has caused the hum of busy life to be heard in the wilderness "where rolls the Oregon," and but recently heard no sound, "save its own dashings." Even the wall of Chinese exclusiveness has been broken ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... the floor in an agitated manner. He began to be doubtful of his ability to bring the man back. Worried, he continued his tramp up and down the room. His heart was affecting him. He was tempted to return the seventy-five cents to the prostrate wife ...
— Advanced Chemistry • Jack G. Huekels

... that the Gascon would kill his enemy. D'Artagnan saw that he should disoblige him by again interfering. A few seconds later, Cahusac fell with a wound through the throat. At the same moment Aramis placed his sword's point on the breast of his prostrate adversary, and forced him to sue ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... to him at last and bent over his long, prostrate form. It was racked and heaving. The sobbing was of a kind she had never heard before—the violent, convulsive sobbing ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... imagination in bodying forth the scene described. An earlier figure in the same book of Paradise Lost, because it exhibits a less conspicuous technical cunning, may even better show a poet's care for unity of tone and impression. Where Satan's prostrate bulk is compared to ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... War and the German avalanche which overwhelmed Belgium. Her banks were converted into hospitals; her industry lay prostrate; her people faced starvation. Some vital agency was necessary to centralize relief at home in the same way that the Commission for Relief in Belgium,—the famous "C. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... Gilbert, has conquered thorough-bred colts and fighting Arabs, and a young and beautiful peeress has taken off her bonnet before going to a morning fete, and in ten minutes laid a full-sized horse prostrate and helpless as a sheep in the hands of ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... was rolling, hilly, and densely forested, but, alas, with prostrate trunks and fire-blasted "rampikes," which ranged in all directions in desolate profusion. The timber was Banksian pine, spruce, poplar and birch, much of it merchantable, but not of large size. It was pitiful to see so much wealth destroyed by recent fires, and that, too, at the ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... quickness of a cat the man caught the woman in his arms, groped his way to the open, laid her prostrate body on the charred grass—sprang back into the swirl and choke of the deadly gas and smoke, and the next instant reappeared with the stunned and half-conscious Holcomb on his back, his hair singed, his clothes on fire; then he tripped and ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... upon this substance gave," writes Treves, "was no other than that of treading upon the flank of some immense beast, some Titanic mammoth lying prostrate in a swamp. The surface was black, it was dry and minutely wrinkled like an elephant's skin, it was blood-warm, it was soft and yielded to the tread precisely as one would suppose that an acre of solid flesh would yield. The general impression was heightened by ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... the bodies, and, Mac, swaying a little, stood up. He forgot to take the case of his glasses which he had been using as a pillow, though he had remembered afterwards that the glasses themselves were still on the parapet where he had been wounded. He picked his steps carefully over the prostrate forms, and then, grabbing the Ambulance man firmly by the belt, stumbled after him up the slope. They toiled down the long ridge, falling frequently into hidden holes in the thick scrub; and all the time the rifles blazed along the ridges and the bullets zipped past them in the darkness. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie



Words linked to "Prostrate" :   throw, change, modify, flat, alter, lie, lie down, prone, unerect, bow down



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