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Turbulent   Listen
adjective
Turbulent  adj.  
1.
Disturbed; agitated; tumultuous; roused to violent commotion; as, the turbulent ocean. "Calm region once, And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent."
2.
Disposed to insubordination and disorder; restless; unquiet; refractory; as, turbulent spirits. "Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit."
3.
Producing commotion; disturbing; exciting. "Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes."
Synonyms: Disturbed; agitated; tumultuous; riotous; seditious; insubordinate; refractory; unquiet.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Turbulent" Quotes from Famous Books



... Canadian authorities would ultimately do substantial justice to all, and hence they awaited patiently though somewhat anxiously the developments of time. But the French half-breeds, more fiery and more easily excited, more turbulent of spirit and warlike in disposition, accustomed to more or less fighting on the plains, and withal, as a class, less well informed than their white brethren, were not content to wait. They felt that the course being followed by the Canadian authorities might lead to the loss of their ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... she was young and pretty and unattainable: consequently, being unattainable, held as the moral pot of gold under the rainbow, which, could it have been caught, would have made all life glad. The sentimental rest which she and her people had afforded during the turbulent times of that volcanic Pepita had also its sweet savor of association that did not make her less delightful in the present; and when he looked at her now, faded as she was, he used to try and conjure back her image, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... 1120 They sate them down to weep, nor onely Teares Raind at thir Eyes, but high Winds worse within Began to rise, high Passions, Anger, Hate, Mistrust, Suspicion, Discord, and shook sore Thir inward State of Mind, calme Region once And full of Peace, now tost and turbulent: For Understanding rul'd not, and the Will Heard not her lore, both in subjection now To sensual Appetite, who from beneathe Usurping over sovran Reason claimd 1130 Superior sway: From thus distemperd brest, Adam, estrang'd in look and alterd stile, Speech intermitted thus to Eve renewd. Would ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... was to stamp out a riot, and whether the victim was 'that Egyptian' or not, to prevent his being murdered. He knew nothing, and cared as little, about the grounds of the tumult, but he was not going to let a crowd of turbulent Jews take the law into their own hands, and flout the majesty of Roman justice. So he lets the nearly murdered man say his say and keeps the mob off him. It was a strange scene—below, the howling zealots; above, on the stairs, the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... who rioted in the Commune—the rank and file of that turbulent army—may be found wherever there are blouses in Paris. Occasionally, arrests are made, even now, of men who were prominently active, unduly noisy, in that terrible time: the French police has got a list of such, and will go ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... worm-eaten barriers have cracked all at once, their easy-going, timid, incapable guardians having allowed things to take their course. Society, accordingly, disintegrated and a pell-mell, is turned into a turbulent, shouting crowd, each pushing and being pushed, all alike over-excited and congratulating each other on having finally obtained elbow-room, and all demanding the new barriers shall be as fragile and the new guardians as feeble, as defenseless, and as inert as possible. This is what has been done. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... its skill, and opulence its treasures, have been erected to perpetuate a nation's gratitude and admiration. Thus artificially excited, courage has risen to an extraordinary and factitious degree of heroism; and arrayed in all the glorious "pomp and circumstance of war," this turbulent quality has even been able to eclipse many of those quiet but invaluable virtues which silently ennoble the human character and swell ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... count the midnight gloom their chiefest glory. As the Cynic spoke, several of the party were startled by a gleam of red splendor, that showed the huge shapes of the surrounding mountains and the rock-bed of the turbulent river with an illumination unlike that of their fire on the trunks and black boughs of the forest trees. They listened for the roll of thunder, but heard nothing, and were glad that the tempest came not near them. The stars, those dial-points of heaven, now warned the adventurers to ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... for many years, scarcely prudent, and certainly not expedient, to proffer any information concerning the objects of royal indignation, except that which the newspapers afforded: nor was it perfectly safe, for a considerable time after the turbulent times in which the sufferers lived, to palliate their offences, or to express any deep concern for their fate. That there was much to be admired in those whose memories were thus, in some measure, consigned to oblivion, except in the hearts of their descendants; much which deserved to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... with the primitive Christian Churches such as Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch. But the Moslems were animated with an ardent love of liberty and Kufah under Al-Hajjaj the masterful, lost 100,000 of her turbulent sons without the thirst for independence being quenched. This can hardly be said of the Early Christians who, with the exception of a few staunch-hearted martyrs, appear in history as pauvres diables and poules mouillees, ever oppressed by their ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... that one and the same tribal chief claimed territorial rights in Gaul and Britain at once; just like so many of our mediaeval barons. The other was the coincidence that just at this period the British tribes began to be affected by the turbulent stage of constitutional development connected, in Greece and Rome, with the abolition ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... sudden a storm having arisen, with great thunder and lightning, enveloped the king in so dense a mist, that it took all sight of him from the assembly. Nor was Romulus after this seen on earth. The consternation being at length over, and fine clear weather succeeding so turbulent a day, when the Roman youth saw the royal seat empty, though they readily believed the fathers who had stood nearest him, that he was carried aloft by the storm, yet, struck with the dread as it were of ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... assimilating his congregation in a spirit of love and charity, which, mingled with tact and firmness, succeeded in subduing the anarchy and mismanagement that had previously prevailed. His victory over the turbulent spirits under his charge was as signal and complete as that he had achieved over the Presbytery, which in March, 1822, consented to his ordination, after having threatened to ostracise him on the ground that he would persist, under all circumstances, in reading his discourses. ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... demonstration became more turbulent, and, amid the threatening hubbub, voices arose, showing too well the purpose of the gathering. Aroused to a fever of excitement by the shooting of the tenants, they were no longer skulking, stealthy Indians, but a ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... was by this time seriously ill; and would have fallen off horseback, if unsupported. The lights, the tumult, and his previous exhaustion, all contributed to confuse him: and, like one who rises from his bed in the delirium of a fever, he saw nothing but a turbulent vision of torches, men, horses' heads, glittering arms; windows that reverberated the uncertain gleams of the torches; and overhead an army of clouds driving before the wind; and here and there a pencil of moonlight that ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... the reign of the Iron Czar actually came to an end. But the news of his death was made public in Moscow only two days later. For forty-eight hours the sudden closing of that rule, which had been as sombre, as turbulent, as tyrannical as that of any Borgia or Medici, was concealed from the nation. But the morning of the twenty-first found the petty-official world, risen early from sleepless unrest, pushing aside its early tea to re-read the unexpected bulletin from ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... of still greater consequence, they are always contrary to the private interest of the governing part of it, who would thereby be deprived of the disposal of many places of trust and profit, of many opportunities of acquiring wealth and distinction, which the possession of the most turbulent, and, to the great body of the people, the most unprofitable province, seldom fails to afford. The most visionary enthusiasts would scarce be capable of proposing such a measure, with any serious hopes at least of its ever being ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... the chasm, seven hundred feet across, and stretching over a muddy, turbulent, seething cauldron of spray, a brilliantly distinct rainbow in the full light of day may be seen with its scarcely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various

... remembrance of his own infirmities, teach him to look forward, almost with outstretched neck, to that promised day, when he shall be completely delivered from the bondage of corruption, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. In the anticipation of that blessed period, and comparing this churlish and turbulent world, where competition, and envy, and anger, and revenge, so vex and agitate the sons of men, with that blissful region where Love shall reign without disturbance, and where all being knit together in bonds of indissoluble ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... sufficient to suffer two carriages to move by each other without touching, being from necessity dug out of the base of the mountain; a precipice of many feet led to the river, which was high and turbulent at the time; there was no railing nor any protection on the side next the water—and in endeavouring to avoid the unprotected side of the road, two wagons had met a short time before, and one of them lost a wheel in the encounter—its ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... side to side, their feet sinking into the dark mud, and thus discoloring the yellow water with a black track visible, step by step, through its shallowness. But still the Arno is a mountain stream, and liable to be tetchy and turbulent like all its kindred, and no doubt it often finds its borders of hewn stone not too far apart ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... arms and legs were tied respectively to one of four horses, which were then driven by lashes of whips in four different directions. Finally his head was severed from the trunk of his body and impaled. To this day it remains a ghastly memorial of the turbulent past. The most unsatisfactory part of the story is the fact that the girl who had made such sacrifices in her lover's behalf was after all not permitted ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... sheer cliffs, and a broad valley are to be considered, then the Souris may lay claim to some distinction. For a few weeks in the spring of the year, too, it is a swift and mighty flood that goes sweeping through the valley, carrying on its turbulent waters whirling ice-jams, branches of trees, and even broken bridge-timbers from the far country known as the "Antlers of the Souris." When the summer is very dry, the river shrinks to a gentle, trickling thread of water, joining shallow ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... the Cyrenian, was just a plain man, coming into town on his own business, and meeting at the gate this turbulent group surging out toward the place of crucifixion, with the malefactor in their midst. Suddenly Simon finds himself turned about in his own journey, swept back by the crowd with the cross of another man on his shoulder, and the humiliation ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... be seen. It bent around in such a curve as to end in a wide angle toward two degrees forty minutes north latitude. Lofty mountains uplifted their arid peaks at this extremity of Nyanza; but, between them, a deep and winding gorge gave exit to a turbulent and ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... dispatches to the government, Col. Fremont says: 'with me, Carson and truth mean the same thing. He is always the same—gallant and disinterested.' He is kind-hearted, and averse to all quarrelsome and turbulent scenes, and has never been engaged in any mere personal broils or encounters, except on one single occasion, which he sometimes modestly describes to his friends. The narrative is fully confirmed by an eye-witness, of whose presence at the time he was not aware, and whose ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... healthy a moral sentiment as other children. Citizens of feudal states are alarmed at our democratic institutions lapsing into anarchy, and the older and more cautious among ourselves are learning from Europeans to look with some terror at our turbulent freedom. It is said that in our license of construing the Constitution, and in the despotism of public opinion, we have no anchor; and one foreign observer thinks he has found the safeguard in the sanctity of Marriage among us; and another ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... circumstances, under which its frequent wars were partly conducted. The revenues of the many states of Italy being, at that time, insufficient to the support of standing armies, even during the short periods, which the turbulent habits both of the governments and the people permitted to pass in peace, an order of men arose not known in our age, and but faintly described in the history of their own. Of the soldiers, disbanded at the end of every war, few returned to the safe, but unprofitable ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... state, the magnitude of the result of which gives it a place in the history of Minnesota, although it was strictly a matter of United States cognizance and jurisdiction. In Cass county there is a Chippewa Indian reservation, and like all other Indian reservations, there are to be found there turbulent people, both white and red. There is a large island out in Leech lake, called Bear island, which is inhabited by the Indians. On Oct. 1, 1897, one Indian shot another on this island. A prominent member of ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... Cafe Castille. He found a large number of students collected there, and was a little disgusted at their turbulent gayety, and, hastily withdrawing, he spent the rest of the weary evening in his own rooms with Bruno, who, for his part, would have much preferred the open country. He had really only enjoyed the four evenings on which he had visited the Martre; ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... had such a series of cold turbulent weather, such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, that the regular migration or appearance of the summer birds was much interrupted. Some did not show themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks after their usual time; as the black-cap and white- throat; ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... them in the order in which I saw them in succession from south to north. The last of these three stages is near nine feet high, and forms by its breadth a magnificent cascade. I must here repeat, however, that the turbulent shock of the precipitated and broken waters depends not so much on the absolute height of each step or dike, as upon the multitude of counter-currents, the grouping of the islands and shoals, that lie at the foot of the raudalitos or partial cascades, and the contraction of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... Sanseverini brothers, "i gran Sanseverini," as they were called in the court poet's verses, as much on account of their great strength and stature as of the exalted position which they held at the Milanese court. Their father, that turbulent soldier Roberto, after making three desperate attempts to unseat the prince whose return to power he had effected, and being three times proclaimed a rebel and outlaw at Milan, had taken service under Pope Innocent VIII. and led the campaign against Alfonso of Calabria, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... fourteen,—you were almost the first of my Harrow friends, certainly the 'first' in my esteem, if not in date; but an absence from Harrow for some time, shortly after, and new connections on your side, and the difference in our conduct (an advantage decidedly in your favour) from that turbulent and riotous disposition of mine, which impelled me into every species of mischief,—all these circumstances combined to destroy an intimacy, which affection urged me to continue, and memory compels me to regret. But ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... send Mary and the child down to Bombay, tomorrow. It is all very well to have her with me, when everything is peaceable; but although I do not think there is any actual risk, it is as well that, in turbulent times like these, with nothing but a force under such incompetent leading between us and a powerful and active enemy, she should be safe ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... victory continued to exercise a moderating influence on Gishkhu's desire for expansion and secured a period of peaceful development for Shirpurla without the continual fear of encroachments on the part of her turbulent neighbour. We may assume that this period of tranquillity continued during the reigns of Enannadu II, Enlitarzi, and Lugal-anda, but, when in the reign of Urukagina the men of Gishkhu once more emerge from their temporary obscurity, they appear as the authors of deeds of rapine and bloodshed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... on quietly, but his thoughts were turbulent. She was giving him strange qualms, and he could not quite understand her direction. That something worked in her head he guessed, but, unwilling to hear of it, he asked no questions. It was very comfortable by the fire, and ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton

... heads looked out as the sheriff and his men—six men besides Green from the station—got off; then the train rumbled away in the darkness toward the surging, turbulent river, and the ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... able to afford so much slept in hovels, consisting of four uprights with 'wattle and daub' for the sides, a roof of thatch, no window, and a fire in the middle of the floor. They lived very roughly: they endured many hardships: but they were a well-fed people, turbulent and independent: their houses were crowded in narrow lanes—how narrow may be understood by a walk along Thames Street; they were always in danger of fire—in 962, in 1087, in 1135, the greater part of the City was burned to the ground. ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... Where clung the salt wet locks, and on their breasts Beards, the thick growth of many a proud campaign; And on their brows the bright invisible crown Victory sheds from her own radiant form, As o'er her favourites' heads she sings and soars. But dreams came not so calmly; as around Turbulent shores wild waves and swamping surf Prevail, while seaward, on the tranquil deeps, Reign placid surfaces and solemn peace, So, from the troubled strands of memory, they Launched and were tossed, long ere they found ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... during this debate, had still continued drinking, regardless of all opposition from his wife and Cecilia, now grew more and more turbulent: he insisted that Mr Simkins should return to his seat, ordered him another bumper of champagne, and saying he had not half company enough to raise his spirits, desired Morrice to go ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... and two miles to the east flowed the indolent waters of the Rio Pecos itself. The distance separating the town from the river was excusable, for at certain seasons of the year the placid stream swelled mightily and swept down in a broad expanse of turbulent, yellow flood. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... when fought as ours has been, upon principles of liberty, and upon principles of honour—what is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds? And heaven is my witness, brother Shandy, that the pleasure I have taken in these things,—and that infinite delight, in particular, which has attended my sieges in my bowling-green, has arose within me, and I hope in the corporal too, from the consciousness we both had, that ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... island in the North Sea, five miles from the Dutch coast, stretches a dangerous ledge of rocks that has proved the graveyard of many a vessel sailing that turbulent sea. On this island once lived a group of men who, as each vessel was wrecked, looted the vessel and murdered those of the crew who reached shore. The government of the Netherlands decided to exterminate the island pirates, and for the ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... soon broken on rocks, and new ones had to be made from drift logs. The constant hammering of the boats made them leaky. To calk the seams, the men had to climb thousands of feet to get resin from some stunted pine tree. 20 More than once a boat filled with water in a turbulent passage, but the swiftness of the current carried it to more placid waters below, where it ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... physician in Fribourg, Switzerland. Thereafter he became a vagabond and almost a beggar. Like his contemporary, Paracelsus, he advanced the most paradoxical theories during his adventurous career, which latter was partly scientific and partly political, but always turbulent. Finally he established himself at Lyons, where he again practised medicine, and became physician to Louise of Savoy, Regent of France, and the mother of Francis I. Here Agrippa soon fell into disgrace and was banished. In 1528 he joined the Court of Margaret of Austria, ruler of the Netherlands, ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... raised, and loosely constructed, out of rude material perilous to handle. But—putting aside that military aptitude inherent in every Frenchman—in all ranks there was a leaven of veterans strong enough to keep the turbulent conscripts in order, though the aristocratic element of authority was wanting. Traditions of subordination and discipline survived in an army, not the less thoroughly French, because it was rabidly Republican. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... its power, and as a "property" dwindled to comparative insignificance. Mr. Hook derived but small income from the editorship during the later years of his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons. I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more than one occasion, while acting under him, was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... accepted the acclamations and deliberately set Himself to stir up enthusiasm, He sought to purify the gross ideas of the crowd. What more striking way could He have chosen of declaring that all the turbulent passions and eagerness for a foot-to-foot conflict with Rome which were boiling in their breasts were alien to His purposes and to the true Messianic ideal, than that choosing of the meek, slow-pacing ass to bear Him? A conquering king would ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... when I became President; wars, the victorious heroes of which have their pictures frescoed on the quaint rooms of the palace at Panama city, and in similar palaces in all capitals of these strange, turbulent little half-caste civilizations. Meanwhile the Panama railroad had been built by Americans over a half century ago, with appalling loss of life, so that it is said, of course with exaggeration, that every sleeper laid represented the death of a man. Then the French ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... true, Vanderscamp had frequent nautical visitors, and the sound of revelry was occasionally overheard in his house; but every thing seemed to be done under the rose; and old Pluto was the only servant that officiated at these orgies. The visitors, indeed, were by no means of the turbulent stamp of their predecessors; but quiet, mysterious traders, full of nods, and winks, and hieroglyphic signs, with whom, to use their cant phrase, "every thing was smug." Their ships came to anchor at night in the lower bay; and, on a private ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... bed changed. This was because she would dress quietly and come to pass hours by my bed, resting her head on the pillow. She said she wished to smell the perfume of my health and freshness. This continual turbulent desire had now nauseated me, and I wished to avoid it altogether. Later I heard that she had formed a relationship which was not ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... was left almost wholly in the hands of his maternal uncle, who bore the title of Mama-Sahib; but his influence was far from adequate to repress the feuds of the refractory nobles, and the mutinies of the turbulent and ill-paid troops, who frequently made the capital a scene of violence and bloodshed. The relations with the cabinet of Calcutta continued, however, friendly; and Lord Auckland, when on his return on his famous tour to the Upper Provinces, paid a visit to Gwalior in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... this woman had taken in the fugitive from honest chastisement! She would yet have sought another seat but the congregation rose to sing; and her neighbour's offer of the use in common of her psalm book, was enough to quiet for the moment the gaseous brain of the turbulent woman. She accepted the kindness, and, the singing over, did not refuse to look on the same holy page with her daughter's friend, while the ploughman read, with fitting simplicity, the parable of the Prodigal Son. It touched something in both, but a different something in each. Strange ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... Algonquin heeded what Lawyer Ed said when he was angry, but Mr. McPherson was in no mood to put up with even him. He became deadly slow and deliberate. He turned his back on the turbulent young man, and addressed the ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... feathers and bright flowers one sees on the boulevards. They are a type apart, the modern grisettes, so quiet and well-behaved as to be almost respectable. One always hears that the Quartier Latin doesn't exist any more—the students are more serious, less turbulent, and that the hardworking little grisette, quite content with her simple life and pleasure, has degenerated into the danseuse of the music-halls and barriere theatres. I don't think so. A certain class of young, impecunious students will always live ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... Drake performed their part; before their day many a fleet swept over this watery way; the Crusaders crossed here; before them, a thousand years, the great Julius came and invaded England; before him, a hundred savage nations worked their rude boats in these turbulent seas. When the light of civilization well-nigh went out in the land where it was first kindled, it was re-lighted on these shores, and though it burned slowly for a long time it never quite went ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... author hereinbefore cited. And, being of an early rising habit, it was my wont to get up long before breakfast and tramp up and down along the river for an hour or two, thinking, I suppose, as I gazed upon the turbulent flood, of brave Horatius disdainfully escaping from the serried hosts of Lars Porsena and false Sextus, or of Caesar and Cassius buffeting the torrent on a "dare," and with lusty sinews flinging ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... seized with faintness and trembling. The phantom Prince vanished suddenly from before him, and his own Veil that Blinds rose in darkening folds across his eyes. The Veil that Chokes swept across his mouth, and his turbulent voice was stilled. He began to shrink upward, to waver and fade, and presently he drifted helplessly into the great smoke dome and was swallowed ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... dress, his character, his manners, his mode of fighting, were all in keeping with the early training he had received in the land of his birth. He moved about with the activity of a cat, and neither the thickness of the trees, nor the depth of the water could stop him. He was a bold, turbulent spirit; and from revenge imbrued his hands in the blood of all the whites he could meet. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, and loss of sleep he seemed made to endure as if by peculiarity of constitution. His air was ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... of the house, he paused to regard the sky again. Its noontide splendour was dazzling; masses of rosy cloud sailed swiftly from horizon to horizon, the azure deepening about them. Yet before long the west would again send forth its turbulent spirits, and so the girls might perhaps be led ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... than confirmed. All had the same tale to tell—a story of strange restlessness, a turbulent spirit, a frequent display of insolence and insubordination among the coolies ordinarily so docile and respectful. But this was only in the gardens that numbered Brahmins in their population. The influence of these dangerous men was growing daily. ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... another field are the Dutch painters great—the sea. The sea, their enemy, their power, and their glory, forever threatening their country, and entering in a hundred ways into their lives and fortunes; that turbulent North Sea, full of sinister colors, with a light of infinite melancholy beating forever upon a desolate coast, must subjugate the imagination of the artist. He, indeed, passes long hours on the shore, contemplating ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... Root. D.—These roots are considered rather as articles of food than of medicine: they are supposed to afford little or no nourishment, and when eaten liberally they produce flatulencies, occasion thirst, headachs, and turbulent dreams: in cold phlegmatic habits, where viscid mucus abounds, they doubtless have their use; as by their stimulating quality they tend to excite appetite, attenuate thick juices, and promote their expulsion: by some they are strongly ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... winding and steep, dipping down to the swift little stream that twists a turbulent passage through the town. The day was coming fast but the fog remained white and impenetrable. After a few minutes I began to see dark shapes on either side of the road. Tall, thin, irregular shapes, some high, some low, but with outlines ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... cackled at him angrily. Casin Cholet bluntly proposed to lend the cit a slap on the chops; and Huguette enquired with every emphasis of impoliteness: "What's his age to you, sobersides?" But Villon quietly waved his turbulent companions into tranquility. "Patience, damsels," he said blandly. "Patience, good comrades of the Cockleshell. If our friend is inquisitive at least he has paid his fee," and as he spoke he hid his face for a moment behind ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... glimpses through the closely-latticed windows. The upper part of the town was inhabited principally by Greeks, whose sympathies were, for the most part, with the Russians, and who were as quarrelsome and turbulent as the ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... learned scholar and an acute theologian, but he does not seem to have been a ruler of men or a judge of character. He got involved in an unfortunate dispute with Everard Digby, one of the Fellows, a man of considerable literary reputation, but of a turbulent disposition. Whitaker, who clearly wanted to get rid of Digby, seized upon the pretext that his bill for a month's commons, amounting to 8s. 7-1/4d., was left unpaid, and deprived Digby of his fellowship. An appeal was lodged with Whitgift and Cecil, who ordered Whitaker to reinstate ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott

... or that night when you drew my hand through your arm and softly kissed my fingertips, then I am no mate for you, whose love, however critical, has never wavered, but has made itself felt, even in rebuke, as the strongest, sweetest thing that has entered my turbulent life. Because I would be worthy of you, I submit to a separation which will either be a permanent one or the last that will ever take place between you and me. John will not bear this as well as you, yet he does not love me as well, ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... margin of the frozen field, which exhibited an outline of crystallizations that slowly receded toward the north. At each step the power of the winds and the waves increased, until, after a struggle of a few hours, the turbulent little billows succeeded in setting the whole field in motion, when it was driven beyond the reach of the eye, with a rapidity that was as magical as the change produced in the scene by this expulsion of the lingering ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... from this man, so shrewd and well-informed, and yet so ignorant. What did it mean that citizens of Missouri should go over in force and vote in the Territory of Kansas? We had heard something of this in Illinois, but supposed it was something done by that turbulent and somewhat lawless element that gathers along the borders of civilization; but now it was apparent that this movement was under control of leading citizens of Missouri, and had been participated in by conscientious men, members of the various ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... judgment might place the justice of a given situation, it is understood that one's sympathy is not alienated by wrongdoing, and that through this sympathy one is still subject to vicarious suffering. I recall an incident during a turbulent Chicago strike which brought me much comfort. On the morning of the day of a luncheon to which I had accepted an invitation, the waitress, whom I did not know, said to my prospective hostess that she ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... King was then declared heir-apparent to the throne, and Mostafa Allee has ever since been in strict confinement under him. The general impression, however, is that he was the eldest son of the late King, and repudiated solely on account of his violent temper and turbulent conduct. That he was treated as such during the life of Mahommed Allee Shah, and that the late King dared not repudiate him while his father ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... 1815 Guyana had become a British possession. The abolition of slavery led to black settlement of urban areas and the importation of indentured servants from India to work the sugar plantations. This ethnocultural divide has persisted and has led to turbulent politics. Guyana achieved independence from the UK in 1966, and since then it has been ruled mostly by socialist-oriented governments. In 1992, Cheddi JAGAN was elected president in what is considered the country's first free and fair election since independence. After his death five ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... against a political system which the people mildly resented and which only statesmen felt to be pernicious and found to be past cure. The cause appealed to far-seeing political aspiration and appealed also to turbulent and ambitious spirits and to whatever was present of a merely revolutionary temper, but the ordinary law-abiding man who minded his own business was not greatly moved one way or ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... and individuals. Some cried out that the troops were coming. A detachment of the king's household, sent out to disperse these dangerous gatherings, came full front down the street, as had so often come the arm of the military in this turbulent old city of Paris. Remorselessly they rode over and through the mob, driving them, dispersing them. A moment later, and Law stood almost alone at the steps of his own house. The squadron wheeled, headed by an officer, who rode upon him with sword uplifted ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... wrathful eyes And "Why so turbulent of soul? (he cries;) Can these lean shrivell'd limbs, unnerved with age, These poor but honest rags, enkindle rage? In crowds, we wear the badge of hungry fate: And beg, degraded from superior state! Constrain'd a rent-charge on the rich I live; Reduced to crave the good I once could give: ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... as we have said, all sense of becoming restraint and shame was now abandoned, and the timid girl, or modest mother of a family, or decent farmer, goaded by the same wild and tyrannical cravings, urged their claims with as much turbulent solicitation and outcry, as if they had been trained, since their very infancy, to all the forms of impudent cant ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... Chamber, and the High Commission Court. [Footnote: The first was a tribunal established by Henry VIII., and was now employed by Wentworth as an instrument for enforcing the king's despotic authority in the turbulent northern counties of England. The Star Chamber was a court of somewhat obscure origin, which at this time dealt chiefly with criminal cases affecting the government, such as riot, libel, and conspiracy. The High Commission Court was a tribunal of forty-four ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... that it was nothing but his headstrong temper which had brought on all his misfortunes and left him, well along in his thirties, a wanderer, with nothing he could call his own. As with most men of his turbulent disposition, fits of fury were usually followed by keen revulsions of feeling. In Dave these paroxysms had frequently been succeeded by such a sense of shame as to drive him from the scene of his actions, and in the ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... distinguished by his eloquence as by his political abilities;—and after him the celebrated Pericles, who, though adorned with every kind of excellence, was most admired for his talent of speaking. Cleon also (their cotemporary) though a turbulent citizen, was allowed ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... could come to the rescue; or that some officious bystander might act on the side of the law; or that a shot might drop him as he fled; or, finally, and most probably of all, that he might be drowned in the turbulent stream. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... years of wandering there had been dark hours turbulent with pain, hours when his vision, his hope, his memory had not availed to uplift him, and he had known the terror of a doubt lest the whole of it should, after all, be but a creation of his yearnings, a mirage of his desires. Everywhere men ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... of the villages of the Wakaranga; the people caught sight of us, and manifested considerable excitement. I sent men ahead to reassure them, and they came forward to greet us. This was so new and welcome to us, so different from the turbulent Wavinza and the black-mailers of Uhha, that we were melted. But we had no time to loiter by the way to indulge our joy. I was impelled onward by my almost uncontrollable feelings. I wished to resolve my doubts ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... observed Billy, continuing to kick the wall. "I wish I was going somewheres." Smoky, level, and hot, the south wind leapt into Separ across five hundred unbroken miles. The plain was blanketed in a tawny eclipse. Each minute the near buildings became invisible in a turbulent herd of clouds. Above this travelling blur of the soil the top of the water-tank alone rose bulging into the clear sun. The sand spirals would lick like flames along the bulk of the lofty tub, and soar skyward. ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... And can you by no drift of circumstance [Sidenote: An can | of conference] Get from him why he puts on[2] this Confusion: Grating so harshly all his dayes of quiet With turbulent ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... all the known world. Merchantmen brought to Ptolemy the wares of India and the porcelains of China. Marauders from upper Egypt skulked about the native quarters, and sallied forth at night to rob the wayfarer. The king's guards were recruited with soldiers from turbulent Greece, from Asia, from Italy. Settlers were attracted from Syracuse by the prospect of high wages and profitable labour. The Jewish quarters were full of Israelites who did not disdain Greek learning. The city in which this multitude found a home was beautifully constructed. ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... organs; so that he who dies at a month old, is in the next life as knowing (though more innocent) as they who live to fifty; and after death, they have as perfect a memory and judgment of all that passed in their lifetime, as I have of all the revolutions in that uneasy, turbulent condition of yours; and, you'd say, I had enough of it in a month, were I to tell you all my misfortunes." "A life of a month, can't have, one would think, much variety; but pray," said I, "let ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... on! with pitiless force and destructive haste, the tempest rolled, thundered, and shrieked its way through Dariel. As the night darkened and the clamor of the conflicting elements grew more sustained and violent, a sudden sweet sound floated softly through the turbulent air—the slow, measured tolling of a bell. To and fro, to and fro, the silvery chime swung with mild distinctness—it was the vesper-bell ringing in the Monastery of Lars far up among the crags crowning the ravine. There the wind roared and blustered its loudest; ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... ways, become wholly English and settle down to make her life a happy walk through an enchanted valley. He would take her to England and there, far from all sights, sounds and smells of the East, far from everything wild, turbulent, violent, crush out all the Pathan instincts so terribly aroused and developed during the late glorious time of War. He would take himself cruelly in hand. He would neither hunt nor shoot. He would eat no meat, drink no alcohol, nor seek excitement. He would school himself until he was a quiet, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... host of turbulent and tormenting memories, there appeared a different Lucia, an invincible but intimate presence that brought with it a sense of deliverance and consolation. It was Lucia herself that saved him from Lucia. Her eyes were full of discernment and of an infinite ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... rule, and naught now remains but to receive the signatures of the respective parties and their friends," resumed the bailiff. "A happy menage is like a well-ordered state, a foretaste of the joys and peace of Heaven; while a discontented household and a turbulent community may be likened at once to the penalties and the pains of hell! Let the friends of the parties step forth, in readiness to sign when the principals themselves shall have discharged ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... neighborhood, whose bad conduct had aggravated their misery. Notorious for their turbulence, audacity, and energy, these men might exercise a dangerous influence on the majority of their companions, who were peaceful, laborious, and honest, but easily intimidated by violence. These turbulent leaders, previously embittered by misfortune, were soon impressed with an exaggerated idea of the happiness of M. Hardy's workmen, and excited to a jealous hatred of them. They went still further; the incendiary sermons of an abbe, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... these rocks as an offering to the turbulent deities, which they believe preside over spots fatal to many a large canoe. We were slily told that native Portuguese take off their hats to these river gods, and pass in solemn silence; when safely ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... we were doomed to have turbulent meals this voyage. I like to eat in quiet; arguing passengers always annoy me. There were still three seats vacant at our table; I wondered who would occupy them. I soon learned the answer—for one seat at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... of Orleans, and came in view of the superb Falls of Montmorenci; two hundred and fifty feet of sheer precipice, leaped by a broad full torrent, eager to reach the great river flowing beyond, and which seemed placidly to await the turbulent onset. As Robert gazed, the fascination of a great waterfall came over him like a spell. Who has not felt this beside Lodore, or Foyers, or Torc? Who has not found his eye mesmerized by the falling sheet of dark polished waters, merging into snowy ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... too turbulent, Walter," the bowyer said one day when a haberdasher from the ward of Aldersgate came to complain that his son's head had been badly cut by a blow with a club from Walter Fletcher. "You are always getting into ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... another school; but this convenience he cannot obtain. The question is not what is now convenient, but what is generally right. If the people of Campbelltown be distressed by the restoration of the respondent, they are distressed only by their own fault; by turbulent passions and unreasonable desires; by tyranny, which law has defeated, and by malice, which virtue ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... sister, known by the pet name of Dot. His father had two assistants in the care of the ranch, Jared Plummer, a man in middle life, and Tim Brophy, a lusty young Irishman, about the same age as Warren. But the ranch was not fitted to withstand an attack from any of the bands through the country. Those turbulent bucks were the very ones to assail his home with the fury of a cyclone, and if they did, Heaven help the loved ones there, even though the three men were well provided with ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis

... the State could not pay interest on the public loans. Calonne could no longer disguise the serious business from himself or the king. There was nothing for it but to call the Assembly of Notables. They met at Versailles on the 22nd of February 1787. Calonne fell, to give place to his enemy the turbulent and stupid Cardinal de Brienne. The Court was completely foul of the people when De Brienne threw up office in the midst of riots in Paris and throughout the country, and, in panic, fled to Italy, leaving the Government in dire ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall

... a practical, an illogical, a turbulent time, yes; it always is. The age of Jesus Christ was a practical age, yet Jesus Christ was sweetly impractical. In an illogical period Socrates reasoned clearly, and logically died for it. Nero's time ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... appeared as a political orator, greatly contributed to his popularity. I need not describe his memorable career; his successive election to all the highest offices of state, his detection of Catiline's conspiracy, his opposition to turbulent and ambitious partisans, his alienations and friendships, his brilliant career as a statesman, his misfortunes and sorrows, his exile and recall, his splendid services to the state, his greatness and his defects, his virtues and weaknesses, his triumphs and martyrdom. These are foreign to my purpose. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... mother's breast. If I were seeking to restore some wild prodigal, brazen-fronted by his own wicked will and by the scorn with which men have battered him—if I were looking for some gleam of promise in his turbulent nature, and sounding its depths to find some spring of repentance—I should never despair if I could discover one gentle pulse that beat with the memories of a good and happy home. Why, who needs to be told of the potency of this our ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... Lactantius (Inst. div., II, 16, Sec. 5 ff., p. 168 Brandt); on the celestial court, see also Arnobius, II, 36; Tertullian, Apol., 24.—Zeus bore the name of king, but the Hellenic Olympus was in reality a turbulent republic. The conception of a supreme god, the sovereign of a hierarchical court, seems to have been of Persian origin, and to have been propagated by the magi and the mysteries of Mithra. The inscription of the Nemroud Dagh speaks of [Greek: Dios Oromasdou thronous] (supra, ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... select the finest, fattest and largest of them, and enclose them in their cage. In order to heighten and secure their enjoyment, the Squire and Hector chose four of the stoutest servants, gave the cage into their custody, and ordered the ratcatcher to attend. Away they then went in turbulent procession. They even wanted Olivia to go with them to see the sport; and young Hector, probably with malice prepense against me, when she refused, was for using force; but she was a favourite with the Squire, and being very determined was ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... followed flash, swifter, nearer, more vivid; the thunder crashed and roared as if it would have beaten the house to the ground and rent the very earth whereon it stood; the rain fell in torrents that broke the flowers like hail and ran in turbulent rivulets along the paths. Never had there been such a furious tempest as this at North Aston since the days of tradition. It made the people in the village below quail and cry out that the day of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... agony at some imaginary aid. I sat gazing in horror on the vacant sea before us; but a breathing-time before, a human being, full of youth and strength and hope, was there; his cries were still ringing in my ears, and echoing in the woods; and now nothing was seen or heard save the turbulent expanse of water, and the sound of its chafing on the shores. We pushed back our shallop, and resumed our station on the cliff beside the old mariner and ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... stallions; cuffing the surly caravan dogs; paying off camel-drivers; taking on new grooms; swearing, shouting, arguing, and chaffering in the packed square. The cloisters, reached by three or four masonry steps, made a haven of refuge around this turbulent sea. Most of them were rented to traders, as we rent the arches of a viaduct; the space between pillar and pillar being bricked or boarded off into rooms, which were guarded by heavy wooden doors and cumbrous native padlocks. Locked doors showed that ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... leaders engaged with Spain, for the purpose of setting up barrier states, in some degree feudatory to the Spaniards; the movement in Kentucky for violent separation from Virginia, and the more secret movement for separation from the United States; the turbulent career of the commonwealth of Franklin; the attitude of isolation of interest from all their neighbors assumed by the Cumberland settlers:—all these various movements and attitudes were significant of the looseness of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... knuckles on his desk, staring first at Hiram and then at the strange burden he had brought. A sudden hush fell upon all, though the voices of those without sounded as loud and turbulent as ever. "What is it, Hiram?" ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... in one degree or another, seem to have used their influence to prevent the inhabitants from taking the oath, and to persuade them that they were still French subjects. Some were noisy, turbulent, and defiant; others were too tranquil to please the officers of the Crown. A missionary at Annapolis is mentioned as old, and therefore inefficient; while the cure at Grand Pre, also an elderly man, was too much inclined ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... passion was, in his bosom, so regulated by principles or controlled by circumstances, that it was neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice, were unsought by himself; and, in consenting ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... romaine, i, 182. An illustration of religious ideas in the third century is afforded by the enrollment of Caracalla among the heroes, a divinizing decree of the Senate having been extorted by the turbulent and mercenary soldiery (Dio Cassius, ed. Boissevain [Eng. tr. by H. B. ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... page after page of cryptographic memoranda. It means little enough to the lay reader, yet one gets an impression somehow of the swirling, turbulent water and a lonely figure in that high glassed-in place peering into the dark for blind land-marks and possible dangers, picking his way up the dim, hungry river of which he must know every foot as well ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and not as a minister of peace; and we may doubt whether his virtues qualified him for the mitre. If even a Pope, however, in latter days, commanded a sculptor to pourtray him with a sword in his hand, the martial tendency of an archbishop may well be pardoned in more turbulent times. The following distich, from his epitaph, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... which is occupied in hunting after some way of finishing the sentence they have begun. They repeat themselves; they wander off in digression. They stand stiff without moving; or if they are of a lively temperament, they are full of the most turbulent action; their eyes and hands are flying about in every direction, and their words choke in their throats. They are like men swimming, who have got frightened, and throw about their hands and feet at random, to ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware

... in some of his auditors (it should be remarked that the bottles were constantly uncorked during his speech); but this unexpected conclusion calmed even the most turbulent spirits. "That's how a clever barrister makes a good point!" said he, when speaking of his peroration later on. The visitors began to laugh and chatter once again; the committee left their seats, and stretched their legs on the terrace. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky



Words linked to "Turbulent" :   unquiet, tumultuous, disruptive, turbulency, roiled, agitated, roily



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