"Stun" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perfect shot, and it is not every man of the west who carries a rifle that can do it successfully. Creasing consists in sending a bullet through the gristle of the mustang's neck, just above the bone, so as to stun the animal. If the ball enters a hair's-breadth too low, the horse falls dead instantly. If it hits the exact spot the horse falls as instantaneously, and dead to all appearance; but, in reality, he is only stunned, and if left for a few minutes ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... great size of the headsail. She has obviously stowed her working jib and foresail and set her balloon jib. When running before a breeze such a craft could set not merely all plain sail, but her squaresail, square-topsail and even stun'sls. Therefore, the smuggling vessel that was being chased must needs be pretty fleet of foot to ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... stun'd with being knock'd down; Gads zoors, a Man may be kill'd with the but-end of a Musquet, as soon as with the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... so glad and so sorry in my life," said Solomon. "It's a hell-mogrified place to be in. Smells like a blasted whale an' is as cold as the north side of a grave stun on a Janooary night, an' starvation fare, an' they's a man here that's come down with the smallpox. ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... used with good success, and the concussion from a gun loaded simply with powder, and aimed in the direction of the bird, will often stun it so that it will fall to the ground. If a strong stream of water be forced upon the little creature, as it is fluttering from flower to flower, the result is the same, as the feathers become so wet that ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... to stare at us. It was the most amusing thing in the world to see them finger my gloves, whip, and hat, in their intense curiosity. One of them had caught the following line of a song, "O, carry me back to old Martinez," with which he continued to stun our ears all the time we remained, repeating it over and over with as much pride and joy as a mocking-bird exhibits when he has ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... a little run, near by, steppin' as soft as a cat. I could just see a white stun on the side o' it. I lifted my foot to step on the stun an' jump acrost. B-r-r-r-r! The stun jumped up an' scampered through the bushes. Then I was scairt. Goshtalmighty! I lost confidence in everything. Seemed so all the bushes turned ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... it for keeps on the smeller; chugs it one in the short ribs, drives right and left into its stummick, and Mr. Smith's mind breaks for cover; then Mr. Smith tells his wife that—he's made up his mind—He, mind you. Wouldn't that stun you? ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... body the next day certain bruises of which she said nothing except to Aggie; but she had got hold of his cravat, and did her best to throttle him. Cosmo did the same for the mastiff with less effect, and had to stun him with a blow on the head from a great stone, when he caught up Covenant in his arms, and handed him over the wall and the gate to his father. The same moment the bailiff got away from Grizzie, and made at him, calling to the mastiff. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... when the trade breeze swelled to hurricane speed, the coconuts in their long bearded husks would be wrenched free and would come hurtling through the air like fletched cannon balls. When one of them struck a tin roof there resulted a terrific crashing sound fit to wake the dead and to stun the living. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the calamitous recital was to stun her. She gazed at him with unintelligent eyes, and her lips moved without speaking. For one reared in constant contemplation of God's nearness to His children, acquainted with divine politics, divine literature and divine law, cut off from the world and devoted wholly to religion, the story ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... splashing of the water as the vessel rolled heavily from side to side, and the bumping and thumping of some casks that had got loose, and were smashing against one another, and the shouting, and the roaring of wind and waves, there was enough to stun and terrify any creature, be he quadruped ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... Alarming things have been said about it, but they are not true. It is a great and mighty noise, but it is not, as Hennepin thought, an "outrageous noise." It is not a roar. It does not drown the voice or stun the ear. Even at the actual foot of the falls it is not oppressive. It is much less rough than the sound of heavy surf— steadier, more homogeneous, less metallic, very deep and strong, yet mellow and soft; soft, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... alas! I know not what to do, If I run fast it is perchance that I May fall and stun myself, much better so, Never, never again! not ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... that first week, in which the stun and shock were reacting in prompt, cheerful, benevolent organizing and providing,—in which, through wonderful, dreamlike ruins, like the ruins of the far-off past, people were wandering, amazed, seeing a sudden torch laid right upon ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... thinkin' o' steppin' out the door wi' ye're new boots an' ye're pack an' trippin' up to Blood River in maybe it's two walks, wi' naught in ye're belly but a can o' cold fish an' a stun weight o' Mary Burrage's bread, which there ain't no more raisin' into it nor ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... Zeisberger. On deck one man was knocked down by another, striking his head on the deck so as to stun him. In the evening we held our song service at the same hour that the English had theirs. I spoke with Mr. Oglethorpe and the two English clergymen, who asked concerning our ordination and our faith. Mr. Oglethorpe said he would be as our father, ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... mighty dead that live in endless praise, Resolved I stand; and haply had survey'd The godlike Theseus, and Pirithous' shade; But swarms of spectres rose from deepest hell, With bloodless visage, and with hideous yell. They scream, they shriek; and groans and dismal sounds Stun my scared ears, and pierce hell's utmost bounds. No more my heart the dismal din sustains, And my cold blood hangs shivering in my veins; Lest Gorgon, rising from the infernal lakes, With horrors arm'd, and curls of ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the tremor had left her hands. She had expected something like this, of course; yet when it came—somehow it failed to stun. She would not turn over the direction of the school, or the direction of the education of these people, to those who were most opposed to their education. Therefore, there was no need to hesitate; ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of gin and smokes, And two girls' breath and fifteen blokes, A warmish night and windows shut The room stank like a fox's gut. The heat, and smell, and drinking deep Began to stun the gang ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... a bucking jeep with the best of them, and he could spot, single out, and stun a steer in forty seconds flat; then use his electronic brander on it and have the critter back on its feet ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... easy prey, and then be gone. He snapped shut his face-plate under their assault. Sometimes there came different, more powerful wings, and he would duck in mechanical reaction, sensing the wings sweep past, often feeling them as, with sharp pecks and quick thudding blows, they sought to stun him. But the suit was stout; the repulsed attackers could only follow a little, glaring at him with fire-green malevolent eyes, then leave ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... flats an' 'oles where they was stored, an' at the end o' two hours' hard work Number One 'e made out eleven sails o' different sorts and sizes. I don't know what exact nature of sail you'd call 'em—pyjama-stun'sles with a touch of Sarah's shimmy, per'aps—but the riggin' of 'em an' all the supernumerary details, as you might say, bein' carried on through an' over an' between the cutter an' the forge an' the pork an' cleanin' guns, an' the Maxim class an' the Bosun's ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... chest-lids, and cymbaling of tin pans; the few invalids, who, as yet, had not been actively engaged with the rest, now taking part in the applause, creaking their bunk-boards and swinging their hammocks. Cries also were heard, of "Handspikes and a shindy!" "Out stun-sails!" "Hurrah!" ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... boy went home half mad, his only thought being to destroy that will. In this state of mind, and fortified by drink, he stole later into Frederick's apartments. I don't believe the boy actually intended to murder his cousin, but he did intend to stun him with a blow from behind, seize the paper, and escape unseen. It was a wild, hare-brained project, but he was only a boy, half drunk, worked into frenzy by Celeste La Rue. He got into the room—probably through the bath-room window—unobserved, but after Frederick had departed. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... occasion; and it is there, in short, that we reject the falsehood we had embraced. Far from judging that master, it is by him alone we are judged peremptorily in all things. He is a judge disinterested, impartial, and superior to us. We may, indeed, refuse hearing him, and raise a din to stun our ears: but when we hear him it is not in our power to contradict him. Nothing is more unlike man than that invisible master that instructs and judges him with so much severity, uprightness, and perfection. Thus our limited, uncertain, defective, fallible reason, is but a feeble ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... of a new one, at fifteen thousand, from the Vienna theatre. Vienna is a very pleasant place. Fifteen thousand florins are thirty-two thousand francs, or twelve hundred of your English pounds sterling. Upon that stun two persons can live excellently ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... a sudden, aslant the road, A brightness to dazzle and stun, A glint of the bluest blue, A ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... sufficiently indicated by the wringing of her hands, and the convulsive agitation of the bosom, which the covering could not conceal. Two of her gossips, officiously whispering into her ear the commonplace topic of resignation under irremediable misfortune, seemed as if they were endeavouring to stun the grief which they could ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... o'clock. At that time the severe strain he had imposed upon himself began to be felt, for when within hearing distance he stated that he had fallen asleep for a few moments and had been unceremoniously awakened by a sea breaking over him with such force on the side of the head as almost to stun him. The crew now expressed their thorough appreciation and admiration for Boyton's intrepidity and powers of endurance, and declared he had done as much as to cross the straits three times over in point of distance; but he persistently turned a deaf ear to their entreaties ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Fire Girls followed two of the men down the cellar steps. It was evident to them that resistance would be worse than useless. A single blow from the fist of one of those powerful men would stun any of the girls, if it did not knock her unconscious. In fact their captors could make quick work of them if necessary, and, cooped up as they were in this isolated prison, they could scarcely hope to send forth an effective cry of distress before they were ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... new and different life. But she would hear of the scandal, and that surely would alter the gentle child's view of him. Irene Mitchell would overlook such an offense if she gave it a second thought, but Dolly—Dolly was different. It would simply stun her. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... in the act of repeating the form, "I take God to witness——" when a vivid flash of lightning shot from the darkness above them, and a peal of thunder almost immediately followed, with an explosion so loud as nearly to stun both. Una started with terror, and instinctively withdrew her hand ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... within my bosom aye Clamors and bids me still renew my tears, Doth stun my senses and my soul bewray With wandering fantasies and cheating fears; The gentle form of her that is but ta'en A little from my sight I seem to see At life's bourne lying faint and pale with pain,— My love ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... leavin' me with a run-down farm and mortgidge! After sendin' me a marked copy of a paper with your death-notice, and after your will was executed on and I wore mournin' two years and saved money out of hen profits to set a stun' in the graveyard for you! You mis'sable, lyin' ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... would be imprudent to proceed any further, and we halted. We brought the butts of our rifles to the ground, and being of a botanical turn, I stooped to pick up a flower. At that moment a tremendous roar echoed through the forest, and seemed to stun me. I staggered a little, as if from a blow; but recovering myself, grasped my rifle, for I immediately guessed it was the tiger. My friend, with an exclamation, 'What an escape!' dashed away to the right, and I was about to follow, I knew not exactly whither, when ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Phidian freaks, Misshapen monuments and maimed antiques; 1030 And make their grand saloons a general mart For all the mutilated blocks of art: Of Dardan tours let Dilettanti tell, I leave topography to rapid [162] GELL; [163] And, quite content, no more shall interpose To stun the public ear—at ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... her husband's tobacco ashes 'n' carryin' 'em out to throw over the wall. Jest what they do in Broek. Ever been in Broek? Tell ye 'bout it some time. But how d'ye s'pose this town was built? I didn't see no stun up here that was fit for quarryin'. So I put it to a lot of fellers where they got their buildin' m'ter'ls. Wal, after figurin' round a spell, 'n' makin' signs by the schuner load, found out the hull thing. Every stun in this place was whittled out 'f the ruff-scuff at the bottom ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... light burst upon him, to dazzle and stun him. It was so inevitably what must have been believed, and yet it had never crossed his mind. O the damnable simplicity of it! At another time his disappearance must have provoked comment and investigation, perhaps. But, happening when ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... to lay out a hundred and fifty or more," said Petrovich, and pursed up his lips significantly. He liked to produce powerful effects, liked to stun utterly and suddenly, and then to glance sideways to see what face the stunned person would put on ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... dealeth him a great buffet of his sword so as that it went nigh to stun him altogether. Howbeit the Coward Knight moveth not. Perceval looketh at him in wonderment and thinketh him that he hath set too craven a knight in his place, and now at last knoweth well that he spake truth. The robber-knight smiteth him all over his ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... shudderingly beneath them; and they all fell forward flat upon their faces. From all but Grom there went up a shriek so piercing that in their own ears it disguised the stupendous rending roar which at that moment seemed to stun the air. The mighty arch of the cave mouth had slipped and crashed down, completely jamming the entrance, and opening up a gash of blue heaven ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... couple pairs of woolen socks that was putty much all darns, was expected to see me through the winter, an' I went barefoot f'm the time the snow was off the ground till it flew agin in the fall. The' wa'n't but two seasons o' the year with me—them of chilblains an' stun-bruises." ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... was right. The four men who emerged all had their blasters or riot stun-rifles at ready, and the sights of those weapons were trained at the middles of the Free Traders. As Dane's empty hands, palm out, went up on a line with his shoulders, he estimated the opposition. Two ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... hands as if to gaze more intently—and at length burst into an exclamation of surprise and pleasure. At that instant Alice turned, and her gaze met that of the stranger. The fascination of the basilisk can scarcely more stun and paralyse its victim than the look of this stranger charmed, with the appalling glamoury of horror, the eye and soul of Alice Darvil. Her face became suddenly locked and rigid, her lips as white as marble, her eyes almost started from their sockets—she pressed her hands convulsively ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lay thine care, And there such ghastly noise of iron chaines, And brazen caudrons thou shalt rombling heare, Which thousand sprites, with long-enduring paines, Doe tosse, that it will stun thy feeble braines; And often times great groans and grievous stownds, When too huge toile and labour them constraines; And often times loud strokes and ringing sounds From under that deep rock ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... had run on and on, up and down, up and down; he had not dared to stand still, and he had not known it would end. He had been so strong, that when he struck his head with all his force upon the stone wall it did not stun him nor pain him—only made him laugh. ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... almost reverently. It was the first time he'd held one since he'd been beamed down himself, so long ago. He turned the intensity knob down to the "stun" position. ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... serves only to increase the difficulty. What has happened at Rome, I perceive to have been the case in Greece. The modern orators of that country, such as the priest [b] Nicetes, and others who, like him, stun the schools of Mytelene and Ephesus [c], are fallen to a greater distance from AEschines and Demosthenes, than Afer and Africanus [d], or you, my friends, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Now then, all you as are lovers o' the Noble and Manly Art o' Self-Defence, step inside and see it illusterated in a scientific an' fust-class manner! This (introducing first Pupil, who rubs his nose with dignity) is 'OPPER of 'Olloway, the becoming nine-stun Champion. This hother's BATTERS o' Bermondsey, open to fight any lad in England at eight-stun four. Is there anyone among you willing to 'ave a round or two with either on 'em fur a drink an' admission free?—if so, now's his time to step forward—there's no waiting, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... time or place. As soon as Mike the Dago espied the dame it was all off. He rushed and drove a straight-arm jab, which had it reached would have given him the purse. But shifty Sadie wasn't there. She ducked, side-stepped, and landed a clever half-arm hook, which seemed to stun the big fellow. They clinched, and swayed back and forth, growling continually, while the orchestra played this trembly Eliza-crossing-the-ice music. Jim, I'm not swelling this a bit. On the level, it ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... of dusk gathering, and remembering that spear, could not resist glancing back over his shoulder now and then. He wondered if the metallic click of his boot soles on the pavement might not draw attention to them, attention they would not care to meet. His hand was on his stun gun. But the officer gave no sign of being worried; he walked along with the assurance of one who has ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... Hildebrand. This service he performed with much such grace and good-will, as a peasant who is compelled to act as guide to a hostile patrol; and in the same manner I was obliged to guard against his deserting me in the labyrinth of low vaulted passages which conducted to "Stun Hall," as he called it, where I was to be introduced to the gracious presence ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... Fancy, which one course to run Permits not, calls me hence in sudden wise; And thither I return, where paynims stun Fair France with hosile din and angry cries, About the tent, wherein Troyano's son They holy empire in his wrath defies, And boastful Rodomont, with vengeful doom, Gives Paris to the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... was obviously to cut off our supply of weapons of war to Britain, and Russia and China—weapons which increasingly were speeding the day of Hitler's doom. The act of Japan at Pearl Harbor was intended to stun us—to terrify us to such an extent that we would divert our industrial and military strength to the Pacific area, or even ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and stun the air, A mob of solid bliss. Alas! that frowns could lie in wait For such ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... them was shocked by the dreadful report more than once, for the main band kept far away and each time a new company was sent into the battle. When the Wizard had fired all of his twelve bullets he had caused no damage to the enemy except to stun a few by the noise, and so be as no nearer to victory than in the beginning of ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... us good voyage, gentle stream—we stun not Thy sober ear with sounds of revelry; Wake not the slumbering echoes of thy banks With voice of flute and horn—we do but seek On the broad pathway of thy swelling bosom To glide in ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... fixed on the dog, paying no attention to the man, until by and by the long staff would be swung round and a blow descend on the poor, silly head from the opposite side, and if the blow was not powerful enough to stun or disable the hare, the dog would have it before it got many yards from the cosy ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... friend Miss Sherman, in her Broome Street cellar,—it is always the attic or the cellar,—would object to Mrs. Ben Wah's claim to being the only real American in my note-book. She is from Down East, and says "stun" for stone. In her youth she was lady's-maid to a general's wife, the recollection of which military career equally condones the cellar and prevents her holding any sort of communication with her common neighbors, who add to the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... know. It all has come so suddenly that I scarce believe that either of us realizes the real terrors of our position. I feel that I should be reduced to panic; but yet I am not. I imagine that the shock has been so great as to partially stun ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a-pouring out, knocking each other's heads so fast, that they seems to stun one another; you hardly know what he's arter, do you?' 'That's the great merit of his style of speaking,' rejoined Mr. Muzzle. 'Take care of the last step, Mr. Weller. Would you like to wash your hands, sir, before we join the ladies'! Here's ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... night. Little by little his coolness returned; he thought of Lorraine and his promise, and he knew that now he could not keep it. He thought, too, of the marquis, never doubting the terrible fate of the half-crazed man. He had seen him stun the soldier with a blow of the steel box, he had seen the balloon shoot up into the midnight sky, he had heard the shot and caught a glimpse of the glare of the burning balloon. Somewhere in the forest the battered body of the marquis lay in the wreck of the shattered car. The steel ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... blow on the head. It did not stun him, but he staggered under it. Had he run against a tree? No. There was the dim bulk of a man disappearing through the boles. He darted after him. The man heard his footsteps, stopped, and waited in silence. As Hugh came up to him, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... him, so their general servant of all work tells me. And that lad Charley that looks after the horse is all in a daze about it. The stun-poll ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... quick as the lines could be baited, and the bottom of our own craft presented a gruesome sight—a lather of blood and froth and kicking fish, some of which were over 20 lbs. weight. Telling the two boys to cease fishing awhile and stun some of the liveliest, I unthinkingly began to bale out some of the ensanguined water, when a score of indignant voices bade me cease. Did I want to bring all the sharks in the world around us? I was asked; and old Viliamu, who was a sarcastic ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... up above him at arm's length. When he struck it was full on his back, the back of his head coming in contact with the hard ground with such force as to stun him almost to the point of unconsciousness. As he struck he gave Dimples a little throw so that she cleared his body, landing on the ground ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... hero, watching over him and protecting him as a father. He had done even more, for he had with Jack thrown himself before Captain Wilson, at a time that he had received such a blow with the flat of a sword as to stun him and bring him down on his knee. And Jack had taken good care that Captain Wilson should not be ignorant, as he really would have been, of this timely service on the part of Mesty, who certainly, although with a great deal of sang-froid in his composition when in repose, was ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... which was somewhat swollen, and found the scalpskin was torn away from his head just above the temple. The bullet from the pistol of the trooper had glanced across his head with force enough to stun him without making a very bad wound. He washed it with the handkerchief, and then tied it over the top of his head, and ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... shall have the whole tale. The first effect of the news of Harry's death in October last was simply to stun me. You may remember how once, years ago when we were children, we rode home together across the old Racecourse after a long day's skating, our skates swinging at our saddle-bows; how Harry challenged us to a gallop; and how, midway, the roan mare slipped down neck over crop on the ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... have remained floating on my back I don't know—some hours, I suppose, in smooth water; but as it was, the squall had blown up a sea, and the spray kept dashing over my head and half drowned me. On a sudden I found my head strike against something with so much force as almost to stun me, and, turning round, I found myself in contact with a large object. I caught hold of it. Ropes were hanging down from it into the water; I climbed up by them, and found that it was the top and parts of the topmast of a ship of large size. I felt thankful that I was not likely ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... now so heartily tired, that it would be absolutely barbarous to stun your ears any longer; only give me leave to tell you in one good round sentence, that your prose is admirable, and that I am just now (at three o'clock in the morning) sitting over the poor pale remnant of a once glorious blazing fire, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... struck at Bascomb's temple with his clinched fist, and he finally landed with sufficient violence to stun the big fellow. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... crowded into the small division of time to which I refer, none had so confounded, perplexed, alarmed, and grieved me, as the discovery of Mr Clayton's criminality and falsehood. There are mental and moral concussions, which, like physical shocks, stun and stupify with their suddenness and violence. This was one of them. Months after I had been satisfied of his obliquity, it was difficult to realize the conviction that truth and justice authoritatively demanded. When I thought of the minister—when his form presented ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... himself run up at a yard-arm, or stun'sail-boom end, has he—hey! Wychecombe? Daly's an Irishman, and has only to show himself to show ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... been wedded until now. Whether it will ever fully embody itself in a bridal train of a dozen stanzas or not is uncertain; but it exists potentially from the instant that the poet turns pale with it. It is enough to stun and scare anybody, to have a hot thought come crashing into his brain, and ploughing up those parallel ruts where the wagon trains of common ideas were jogging along in their regular sequences of association. No wonder the ancients made the poetical impulse wholly external. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... an honest man called Jeppe of the Hill, as sure as that's true, I have been in paradise and have seen things that it will stun ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... Sandy!" There was a subtle plea in glance and words. The girlish need was driving the desperate woman back and out of sight. Cynthia could not kill the truth that had been born within her, but she could blind it, stun it and still keep for her own what ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... She was a woman of the type that must have been recognised in its girlhood as stunning, or ripping, by the then frequenters of the bar of The Pigeons, and which now was reluctant to admit that its powers to rip or stun were on the wane at forty. It was that of an inflamed blonde putting on flesh, which meant to have business relations with dropsy later on, unless—which seemed unlikely—its owner should discontinue her present one with those nips and cordials. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... stun his sensibilities by work. He would give himself no leisure to indulge in idle dreams of what might have been. His plans were never so carefully finished, and his studies were never so continuous as now. But the passion still wrought within him, and, if he drove ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 'blammo' someone. While in actual fact the only incarnation of the blammo-gun is the command used to forcibly eject a user, operators speak of different levels of blammo-gun fire; e.g., a blammo-gun to 'stun' will temporarily remove someone, but a blammo-gun set to 'maim' will stop someone coming back ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... head snapped forward. His hands already hooked in the other's armpits, the Terran heaved the alien up and over onto the deck of the control cabin. It was only when he was about to bind his captive that Ross discovered the Baldy was dead. A blow calculated to stun the alien had been too severe. Breathing a little faster, the Terran rolled the body back and hoisted it into the navigator's swing-seat, fastening it with the take-off belts. ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... formalities in a lawyer's office, when he suddenly fell to the ground in an apoplectic fit. A mounted messenger was at once dispatched to Jeanne, but her father died before she could arrive. The shock was so great that it seemed to stun Jeanne and she could not realize her loss. The body was taken back to Les Peuples, but the Abbe Tolbiac refused to allow it to be interred with any sacred rites, in spite of all the entreaties of the two ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... practically unarmed, although some of the men carry shot-guns, pistols, rifles, clubs, stones; but they know these will avail little against murderous machine guns. They know they must find strength in their weakness and overwhelm the enemy by the sheer weight of their bodies. They must stun the invaders by their willingness to die. That is the only real power of this Boston host, their sublime ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... refrigeration. V. be insensible &c adj.; have a thick skin, have a rhinoceros hide. render insensible &c adj.; anaesthetize^, blunt, pall, obtund^, benumb, paralyze; put under the influence of chloroform &c n.; stupefy, stun. Adj. insensible, unfeeling, senseless, impercipient^, callous, thick- skinned, pachydermatous; hard, hardened; case hardened; proof, obtuse, dull; anaesthetic; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was developed, such as I had heard of the deaf possessing. I seemed existing in a new medium. I felt the sound in my lungs, in my bones, on all my nerves to the minutest fibre, and yet it did not stupefy nor stun me with a harsh clangor. It was deep, DEEP. It was an abyss, gorgeously illuminated of velvet softness, in which I floated. The sound was fluid like water about me. I closed my eyes. Where was I? Had some prodigious monster swallowed me, and, like another Jonah, had I "gone down ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... words without replying. They seemed to stun her. She stood for a few moments, after the vials of my wrath were emptied, her face paler than usual, and her lips almost colorless. Then she turned and walked from my room with a slow but firm step. There was ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... beasts that perish, he would be comparatively happy. But his curse is that he thinks. He is a man, and must think. He cannot always drown thought or memory. He may, and does, fly for false solace to the drink, and may stun his enemy in the evening, but it will rend him like a giant in the morning. A flower, or half-remembered tune, a child's laughter, will sometimes suffice to flood the victim with recollections that either madden him to excess or send ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... Paradise, which are brought from the east side of the island, appeared to be plentiful; they are shot by the natives (from whom the traders purchase them for one rupee each) with blunt arrows, which stun them without injuring the plumage, and are then skinned and dried. The natives describe them as keeping together in flocks, headed by one, they call the Rajah bird, whose ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... numbering the novels which I criticised, and speculating on the probability of my being plucked. "I was familiar with all the novels whose names he had ever heard." If so frightful an accusation did not stun me at once, I might perhaps hint at the possibility that this was to be attributed almost as much to the narrowness of his reading on this subject as to the extent of mine. There are men here who ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... swiftness was amazing, almost inconceivable, more like the effect of a trick or of a mechanism. The thump on the door was awful as if he had not been able to stop himself in time. The shock seemed enough to stun an elephant. It was really funny. And after the crash there was a moment of silence as if he were recovering himself. The next thing was a low grunt, and at once he picked up the thread of his ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... name, is not so large as the crocodile; it loves heat, and will bury itself in the mud in cold weather. It feeds mostly upon fish, and will drive them before it in a shoal, until they have got into some creek or narrow bend of the river, and then stun them by blows of its great tail. Mr. Waterton, who knew the South American rivers so well, tells us that he once came upon what he thought a pretty sight—a number of young alligators, about a ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... and city hotels between times. They want the best their money can buy, and they got plenty of it. She"—he meant Mrs. Lander—"has been tellin' my wife how they do; she likes to talk a little betta than he doos; and I guess when it comes to society, they're away up, and they won't stun' any nonsense." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of detection and disgrace; men marked out by some lucky planet for universal confidence and friendship, who have been consulted in every difficulty, intrusted with every secret, and summoned to every transaction: it is the supreme felicity of these men, to stun all companies with noisy information; to still doubt, and overbear opposition, with certain knowledge or authentick intelligence. A liar of this kind, with a strong memory or brisk imagination, is often the oracle ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... to America,' were his words. 'You would only stun Europe; you would not gain her aid. Go to America. There, and there only, will you find what you require. They, and they of all men, have the courage, the brains, the money, the enterprise, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... model, he, when in company with some of the same sort who worked at Wasborough's mill, and were complaining of its irregularities and frequent disasters, told them he could put them in a way to make a rotative motion which would not go out of order nor stun them with its noise, and accordingly explained to them what he had seen me do. Soon after which, John Steed, who was engineer at Wasborough's mill, took a patent for a rotative motion with a crank, and applied it to their ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... and struck out in all directions at its invisible foe, leaping and bounding hither and thither. Beric easily avoided the onslaught, and taking every opportunity struck it three or four times with all his force on the ear, each time rolling it over and over. The last of these blows seemed almost to stun it, and it lay ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... female whom your shadow touches Grudge you the glad, but deferential, eye; Should any cripple fail to hold his crutches At the salute as you go marching by; Draw, in the KAISER's name—'tis rank high treason; Stun them with sabre-strokes upon the poll; Then dump them (giving no pedantic reason) Down cellars with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... wearing, as the weather was very cold, a stout cotton handkerchief over a thick black silk cravat, both of which were perforated by a bullet, and which prevented its entering his neck: the violence of the blow was, however, so great, as to stun and dismount him. The following letter contains some interesting particulars relative to this campaign, and the part taken in it ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... said, in reply to the question. "Thar ain't no conveyance to the clarin'. It's off in de woods a piece, right smart. You sticks to de road a spell, till you comes to a grave—what used to be—but it's done sunk in now till nuffin's thar but de stun an' some blackb'ry bushes clamberin' over it. Then you turns inter de wust piece of road in Floridy, and turns agin whar some yaller jasmine is growin', an fore ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... pushed its way into classic usage, or effected a lodgement in the dictionaries, the force it names is no less a reality of the popular consciousness, and the word itself no less a part of popular speech. Men who possessed the thing were just the men to snub elegance and stun propriety by giving it an inelegant, though vitally appropriate name. There is defiance in its very sound. The word is used by vast numbers of people to express their highest ideal of manliness, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... to buy a pot of black paint, with which to efface the gildings of the chair, and to reduce its appearance to that ordinarily used by the citizens. He was ordered to get a supply of rope, and some wood, to make gags for the men they were to stun. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... Chief finds time To stun the first sensation of his crime, And raise it in his followers—"Ho! the bowl!"[357] Lest passion should return to reason's shoal.[fb] 100 "Brandy for heroes!"[358] Burke could once exclaim— No doubt a liquid path to Epic ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... many o' them. But I can jist tell you a story. Once at Wimbledown, when the kooroo-mengroes were odoi (when the troopers were there), I used to get a pound a week carryin' things. One day, when I had well on to two stun on my dumo (back), the chief of police sees me an' says, 'There's that old scoundrel again! that villain gives the police more trouble than any other man in the country!' 'Thank you, sir,' says I, wery respectable to him. 'I'm glad to see you're earnin' a 'onest ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... ears they stun, And curse him o'er and o'er! 'You bloody-minded dog! (cries one,) To slit your windpipe were good fun, 'Od blast you for an impious son[300:1] ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... says the old constable, slappin' his leg. "That's one on me, boys. Why, Lizzie Dorsett told me only last week that her mother had the stun took up and sent away to have the name of her second husband cut on't. Only last week she told me, and here I'd ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... almost enough to stun him again, and he lay there with a hot sensation of rage against the treacherous young scoundrel who had lured him on to that struggle, and held him so thoroughly fixed against the bars till he was secured and bound. Yes, and his eyes were bandaged. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... poets were once profound and sublime characters: now they are talkers. A talker is a sonorous bell, whom the least shock suffices to set in perpetual motion. With the talker, the flow of speech is always directly proportional to the poverty of thought. Talkers govern the world; they stun us, they bore us, they worry us, they suck our blood, and laugh at us. As for the savants, they keep silence: if they wish to say a word, they are ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... hoarse bellow of swamped obesity, the whine of the convalescent invalid, the yell of unmixed delight, the te-hee and squeak of the city exquisite learning how to laugh out loud, the splash of the brine, the cachinnation of a band of harmless savages, the stun of the surge on your right ear, the hiss of the surf, the saturnalia of the elements; while overpowering all other sounds are the orchestral harmonics of the sea, which roll on through the ages, all shells, all ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage |
