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Abruptly   /əbrˈəptli/   Listen
Abruptly

adverb
1.
Quickly and without warning.  Synonyms: dead, short, suddenly.



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"Abruptly" Quotes from Famous Books



... the windows of the train when he crossed America. They were like huge mole-hills, rounded and smooth, and they rose from the plain abruptly. Dr Macphail remembered how it struck him that they were ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... him in less time, my dear, and we'll have Carter called, too, and——" Mrs. King stopped abruptly at the look in the girl's eyes. "Josita will show you the way," she said in quite another tone. "You must carry my sunshade and ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... and seize the road. In order to divert the Boers' attention from these matters, a demonstration was ordered along the whole British line. Advancing carefully the infantry met with little opposition, a fact which made French suspicious. As the silence continued he abruptly ordered the "Retire." The moment that his men obeyed, a fierce fire broke out from the enemy, who were present in force. French's caution ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm

... better. She knew all that this meant, how much and how little. For an interval, long or short, as it should happen to be, she was again a rational human being. She abruptly swerved around from the window and swept the room with her eyes, recognizing it as the one she was occupying before she "went under," as she put it to herself, and trying, from association with the familiar ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... her, shrieking for help. It was nearly high tide, and the beach sloped a little more abruptly there than in most places. Cricket rose to her knees with Kenneth in her arms, stumbled and fell forward again, face downward, limp with the excitement and the strain. Eunice, knee-deep in water, dragged them both up, and, between pulling ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow

... rocks, now winding through broken, shaggy chasms and huge, wandering fragments, now suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, where Peace, long established, seems to repose sweetly in the bosom of Strength. Everywhere beauty alternates wonderfully with grandeur. Valleys close in abruptly, intersected by huge mountain masses, the stony water-worn ascent ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... grinning from ear to ear over Mr. Jevons's delicious joke, and Jimmy waving his khaki cap in a final valediction, and Kendal's grin dying abruptly as he achieved the military salute ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... England Plateau.—This region embraces the New England States and practically includes all the eastern part of New York and northern New Jersey. The abruptly sloping surface affords a great wealth of water-power, and the region is one of the most important centres of light manufacture in the world. This industry resulted very largely from the conditions imposed by the War of 1812 and its ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... Sheik Hajaar, sitting in his tent door, calmly smoking his pipe: the Sheik was surprised at seeing him, and begged him to dismount and refresh himself; but this the Prince refused to do, saying that he had only come to explain his past strange behaviour in leaving his hospitable abode so abruptly. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... to know—" began Tom, when he stopped abruptly, for out of the brushwood an old man had stepped, gun ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield

... and a succulent stew, with big juicy pears to follow, all washed down by remarkably good red vin du pays, I remember. There were perpetual halts on the road, which we did not understand, but soon after leaving Morienval we were abruptly ordered to turn sharp off to the left and make for Crepy. The fact was, a force of German cavalry had turned up at Bethisy, just as our billeting parties were entering it, and the latter had only ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen

... one word and broke off abruptly, and rose from her chair. In the familiar room she moved almost as securely as if she could see. She went to the window and listened. Dolores came and stood ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... entered abruptly, his spurs clanking with a sharp ring at his boot-heels, and nodded with little enough graciousness of manner to the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... downward to a small float which rocked lazily in the capping swells thrown up by a passing fishing-boat. Close by, another wharf jutted out into the bay. Upon it were a number of swarthy fishermen, piling nets. Blair stopped abruptly at the head of the gangway, his eyes searching the water. The fishing-boat was swinging up into the tide and ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... her hand, kissed it passionately, then dropped it and turned abruptly away. She looked after him wistfully; but felt a glad assurance spring up in her heart that the object of so many prayers could not be ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... vole's burrow was situated about a foot below the summer level of the river, and in a kind of buttress of gravel and soil, which, at its base, sloped abruptly inwards like an arch. This buttress jutted out at the lower corner of a little horse-shoe bay; and hereabouts, during summer, a shoal of minnows had often played, following each other in and out of every nook and cranny beneath the bank, or floating up and flashing ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... Elmer strayed between the white tombs which lean against the wall, crossing the grass to read a name, hurrying on when the grave-keeper approached, hurrying into the street, pausing now by a window with blue china, now quickly making up for lost time, abruptly entering a baker's shop, buying rolls, adding cakes, going on again so that any one wishing to follow must fairly trot. She was not drably shabby, though. She wore silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes, only the red feather in her hat drooped, and the clasp of her bag ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... once, abruptly and impressively She hinted at the eight thousand of which he stood in such terrible need. She told him in detail of the dowry. Stepan Trofimovitch sat trembling, opening his eyes wider and wider. He heard it all, but he could not realise it clearly. He tried to speak, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Pelletan," he said, abruptly, turning back, "is there a hoodoo on the house, or what's ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson

... The land everywhere rises abruptly from the sea or from an exaggerated beach to an undulating plateau-like interior, reaching a maximum elevation of one thousand four hundred and twenty-five feet. Nowhere is there a harbour in the proper sense of the word, though six or ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... shell pink, a sun-fired surface like an opal sea, rippled and webbed, with the exquisite texture of an Oriental fabric, pure, delicate, lovely—as no work of human hands could be. It mirrored all the warm, pearly tints of the inside whorl of the tropic nautilus. And it ended abruptly, a rounded depth of bank, on a broad stream of clear sky, intensely blue, transparently blue, as if through the lambent depths shone the infinite firmament. The lower edge of this stream took the golden lightning of the sunset and was notched for all its horizon-long ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... kind oblique eyes follow me as I go. And something like a feeling of remorse seizes me at thus abruptly abandoning the void, dusty, crumbling temple, with its mirrorless altar and its colourless lanterns, and the decaying sculptures of its neglected court, and its kindly guardian whom I see still watching my retreating steps, with the yellow kakemono in his ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... and are not contracted to correspond with the narrowed arch below; whereas on the south side they are so contracted. By this means the square angle of the western pier was continued to the roof. On the north side the western pier ends abruptly at the capital ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse

... seen the strong-minded woman in so much agitation. "Frank knows what my feelings are," she said, abruptly. "I have a great respect for himself, but I have no confidence in his principles. I—I have explained ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... secured the rooms, paid a month's rent in advance at my own request, and moped in them dreadfully until the week was up and Raffles due any day. I explained that the inspiration would not come, and asked abruptly if ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... phantoms, the men moved toward the further end of the settlement. Opposite the last shanty a man assumed form in the gloom. He had just emerged from his dwelling and stopped abruptly at sight of the trio ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... 21.—Two miles north of the city a large grey fox fought for its life this morning, and lost. Conrad Wittman shot and wounded him a mile south of Hunter's Point. The fox was trailed by the dogs past Regele's creamery, when the trail came abruptly to an end. A search was begun, and a short time afterward the fox was found in a tree, dead. He had leaped to the lower branches as the dogs were overtaking him, and died from the gun-shot wound ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... Tonsilitis begins abruptly with pronounced prostration and a high fever the first day. The patient feels distinctly sick all over. The second day the patient feels somewhat better, the fever is lower and the prostration and ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... courteous, your Excellency, to move abruptly from here without waiting for an answer from the Duke of Burgundy? You may not know that we are negotiating with his Highness, and that there is likely to be a fortnight's truce between us; and on his part a pledge to deliver Paris into our hands without the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... as Saharanpur on the eastern, and Hansi on the western side. The actual commencement of hostilities between Suraj Mal and the Moghuls arose from a demand made by the former for the Faujdarship (military prefecture) of the small district of Farokhnagar. Unwilling to break abruptly with the Jat chief, Najib had sent an envoy to him, in the first instance, pointing out that the office he solicited involved a transfer of the territory, and referring him to the Biloch occupant for his consent. The account of the negotiation is so ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... Dr. Alec turned his back abruptly and affected to be examining the pictures again; but the aunts understood how dear the child was to the solitary man who had loved her mother years ago, and who now found his happiness in cherishing the little Rose who was so like her. The good ladies ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... than the hat'll cover if I don't stop spending money! But why a hat, anyway?" he continued; "you don't wear it in the house. That's the only time your dress suit shows. When you're out of doors you wear it under an overcoat." He paused abruptly. "An overcoat! Great Scott! Have I got to have a ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge

... her upturned, laughing face rosy with the newly-risen sun. Before her, looking down into her eyes, was John Carr. Howard came abruptly to a dead halt. They saw him, and Helen called something to him. Again he came on, but the joyous spring had gone out of his stride and he realized in a dull, strange fashion that for the first time in his life he was not glad to see ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... showed that his brain was working by shutting them abruptly on something that seemed very much as if it had started ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... She turned abruptly to the side and sank down on one of the numerous seats before which the endless procession of morning promenaders were ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... them. It was impossible not to continue the conversation, though Hugh would much have preferred to have forced an assent from his mother before he opened his mouth on the subject to his sister. "My mother agrees with me," said he abruptly, "and so does Dolly, that it will be absurd to move away ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... sprang Banker, who was in such a hurry to go that he forgot to pay for his beer, and when he performed this duty, after having been abruptly reminded of it by a waiter, he was almost too late to follow the two black men, but not quite too late. He was an adept in the tracking of his fellow-beings, and it was not long before he was quietly following Mok and Cheditafa, keeping at some distance ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... might knit, I should think," said her visitor, "it's dreadful for a girl as big as you are to sit all day idle; I had sore eyes once when I was a little girl—how old are you?" she asked, abruptly. ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney

... The sidewalk lights abruptly flicked on in a flood of amber light that thickened the twilight beyond their circle to an opaque ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... whispers had become more definite. Pete Lamoury, a French-Canadian, whom Mr. Edwards had hired as a drover, and abruptly discharged, was spreading stories about his former employer which made Blackbeard, the pirate, seem like a babe by comparison. Pete was not a very credible witness; but still, building upon a suspicion that already existed, he succeeded in adding something ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... fortifications are a marvel of almost impregnable strength and engineering ability, and, owing to its wonderful provision of underground granaries, etc., could stand a siege for years. These great mathematical, dazzling granite walls, bristling with big guns, and rising defiantly and almost abruptly out of the blue sea, form a proud sight to Englishmen when approached from seaward. And, then, glancing at its geographical position, almost in the centre of the Mediterranean, in proximity to three Continents, and taking into consideration that other great stronghold (the door to the Mediterranean, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... abruptly. Whether he wrote any more after this time, I know not; but probably not much, as he arrived in England about the 12th of November. These short notes of his tour, though they may seem minute taken singly, make together a considerable mass of information, and exhibit such an ardour of enquiry ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... CATILINE. [Abruptly.] Ah, these are but delusions of the night, Mere dreaming phantoms born of solitude. At the slightest sound from grim reality,— They flee into ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... off abruptly and gripped my arm. High up in the basalt barrier, at a spot about three quarters of a mile from where we were crouched, a tiny flame suddenly appeared, blazed for an instant, then died away again. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... at him a bit keenly; for, after all, he was not a bad judge of men. "How long has that bottle been there?" asked he, abruptly. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... time. For some reason or other, they both avoided mention of the one subject which was in the minds of both. It was not until after the steward had brought him some coffee and they were more than half-way across, that Thomson a little abruptly ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... its splendor almost tawdry. It hurt me to go to rehearsal to-day. Westervelt's presence was a gloating presence, and I hated him. Hugh's report of the exultant 'I told you so's' of the dramatic critics sickened me—" Her letter ended abruptly, almost at ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... scrambled to her feet, her eyes snapping menacingly, her hands clenched so tightly as to show white ridges at the knuckles. Then she caught sight of the Chief Guardian about to enter the tent and brought up abruptly in her charge on Crazy Jane who had not deigned to look at Patricia after dumping her out of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge

... abruptly one morning, and her unquestioned energies diverted to a new channel. A turkey which had been sitting in the root-house appeared with twelve children, and a family of bantams occurred almost simultaneously. Em'ly was importantly scratching the soil inside Paladin's corral when the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... forest, where he was told some Indians had encamped. He tied his pony at the entrance of the wood, and followed a path through the underbrush. He had walked about a quarter of a mile, when his ears were pierced by a shrill, discordant yell, which sounded neither animal nor human. He stopped abruptly, and listened. All was still, save a slight creaking of boughs in the wind. He pressed forward in the direction whence the sound had come, not altogether free from anxiety, though habitually courageous. He soon came in sight of a cluster of wigwams, outside of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... first moment of its release it halted abruptly in the arena, raised itself half on end, snuffing the upward air with impatient signs, then suddenly it sprang forward, but not on the Athenian. At half-speed it circled round and round the space, turning its vast head from side to side with an anxious and perturbed gaze, as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... would!" Mrs. Fueyo shrieked. She almost came through the screen at him. "You are a great man, Mr. Malone! I will say many prayers for you! I will never stop from praying for you because you help me!" Her voice and face changed abruptly. "Excuse me now," she said. "I must go back ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett

... distrust of the New York Senator. The unanimous nomination of Abraham Lincoln for United States senator and his great debate with Douglas, disclosing the incompatibility between Douglasism and Republicanism, abruptly ended this plan; but the plausible assumption that the inhabitants of a territory had a natural right to establish, as well as prohibit, slavery had made such a profound impression upon Northern Democrats that they did not hesitate to approve the Douglas doctrine regardless of its unpopularity ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... I have long required rest and mere amusement, and now obey Nature as much as I can. If she pleases to restore me to an energetic state, she will by-and-by; if not, I can only hope this world will not turn me out of doors too abruptly. I value my present position very much, as enabling me to speak effectually some right words to a large circle; and, while I ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... high and clear that every man of that dense host could hear and follow him, he burst abruptly into the spirited and stirring speech which has been preserved complete by the most ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... announcement with pleasure and promptly stowed themselves away in the big limousine which was to whirl them to Long Island where the works were located. All the way out Van was singularly silent, and appeared to be turning something over in his mind; once he started to speak, but checked himself abruptly. ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... sea bathing under any circumstances. Altogether, he was fervently thankful when his firm of employers found him a new range of activities in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux. His thankfulness, however, ceased abruptly at the Franco-Italian frontier. An imposing array of official force barred his departure, and he was sternly reminded of the stringent law which forbids the exportation of Italian ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... feet. For the first few days something seemed to have gone wrong with the benefactor's appetite, but presently he took very kindly to the new diet; and, as he could not get away, he lodged there, rent-free, all the days of his life—which terminated very abruptly one evening when the lion had not met with his ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... them "very richly netted, as in the males of the same species." Brauer "explains the phenomenon on Darwinian principles by the supposition that the close netting of the veins is a secondary sexual character in the males, which has been abruptly transferred to some of the females, instead of, as generally occurs, to all of them." Mr. MacLachlan informs me of another instance of dimorphism in several species of Agrion, in which some individuals are of an orange colour, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... that might have been traced by a Chinese pencil. The silken down on his cheeks, like his bright curling hair, shone golden in the sunlight. A divine graciousness transfused the white temples that caught that golden gleam; a matchless nobleness had set its seal in the short chin raised, but not abruptly. The smile that hovered about the coral lips, yet redder as they seemed by force of contrast with the even teeth, was the smile of some sorrowing angel. Lucien's hands denoted race; they were shapely hands; hands ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... the Riviera." Tudor's eyes fell away from hers abruptly. "At least they have been. Someone said they were coming home." He stooped to put wood on the fire, and there ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... face brightened, and, softly opening the slide, she peered into the kitchen. But the music had stopped, and all she saw was a girl in a blue apron scrubbing the hearth. Rose stared about her for a minute, and then asked abruptly, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... ridges,—which, as well as the low grounds between them, were covered with trees and shrubs of the most luxuriant kind—continued to recede inland for about two miles, when they joined the foot of a small mountain. This hill rose rather abruptly from the head of the valley, and was likewise entirely covered even to the top with trees, except on one particular spot near the left shoulder, where was a bare and rocky place of a broken and savage character. Beyond ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... she was saying, until he caught the words: "Mrs. Houghton's like Auntie—she thinks I've injured you—" Before he could get on his feet to go and take her in his arms, and deny that preposterous word, she turned abruptly and came and sat on his knee; then, with a sort of sob, let herself sink against his breast. "But oh, I did so want to be happy!—and you made ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... ago," he answered, somewhat huskily, "and I stopped on the street to listen; then I came here to be nearer. The spell of your voice—" He broke off abruptly to change the word. "The spell of the song came over me—it is my dearest favorite—so that I stood afterward in a sort of trance, only hearing again, in the silence, 'The stolen heart, like the gathered ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... affections. As he was by many degrees the best match about the neighborhood, he never doubted that his addresses would be received with a warm welcome, and intoxicated with this security, he seems to have made his advances so abruptly, that the girl felt herself entitled to give him an equally abrupt refusal. To aggravate his mortification, he discovered that a young man, called Giuseppe Ripa, had been a secret witness to the rejection, which took ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... a fair index to his mind; nor were his words intended to deceive. Never did Wyandotte forget the good, or evil, that was done him. After looking intently, a short time, at the Hut, he turned and abruptly ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... The maid stopped abruptly, for Flora Schuyler drove her towards the door. "Go and undo your work," she said. "Slip down at the ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... short distance beyond its gates you plunge at once into a desert. There is no gradual subsidence of the busy life of the gay metropolis, through suburban houses, villages, and farms, into the quiet seclusion of the country. You pass abruptly from the seat of the most refined arts into the most primitive solitude, where the pulse of life hardly beats. The desolation of the Campagna, that green motionless sea of silence, comes up to and almost washes the walls of ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... continued from the back of Cape Palmerston, a distance of 150 miles, here ceases or retires, and leaves a gap of ten or twelve miles wide of low land; to the North-West of which, Mount Eliot, a hill of considerable height, rises rather abruptly; and, as the shores of the bay were not distinctly traced, there is fair reason for presuming that there is a river ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... comes to the end of his account of Miss Gladkowska's first appearance on the stage, he abruptly asks the question: "And what shall I do now?" and answers forthwith: "I will leave next month; first, however, I must rehearse my Concerto, for the Rondo is now finished." But this resolve is a mere flash of energy, and before ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... of the little boy who was a King?" he asked, abruptly. "They put him in prison and he escaped. He was carried out in a clothes-basket. Funny, is it not? And he escaped from his enemies and reached another country, where he became a sailor. He grew to be a man and he married a woman of that country, and she died, leaving ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... She stopped abruptly, for he caught her by the arm and held her. Jerry said that even yet he was timid of her delicacy—fearful of the things he had thought her to be. But he still held her, though she struggled to ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... wild and cloudy; many were prostrated by sickness; only five sat down to tea in the second cabin, and two of these departed abruptly ere the meal was at an end. The Sabbath was observed strictly by the majority of the emigrants. I heard an old woman express her surprise that, "The ship didna gae doon," as she saw some one pass her with a chess-board on the holy day. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... place on a rocky bottom, and we were engaged till nearly dark getting hawsers secured to some rocks under water. The coast of Ke along which we had passed was very picturesque. Light coloured limestone rocks rose abruptly from the water to the height of several hundred feet, everywhere broken into jutting peaks and pinnacles, weather-worn into sharp points and honeycombed surfaces, and clothed throughout with a most varied and luxuriant vegetation. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... the residence of Mr. Grant. It seemed as though she had been absent a year, and everything looked strange to her, though the change was all in herself. All the currents of her former life had ceased to flow; the movements of the wheel of events had been abruptly suspended. What gladdened her before did not gladden her now, and what had once been a joy was now a sorrow. She felt as though she had been transferred from the old world, in which she had rejoiced in mischief and wrong, ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic

... of Bulgarians, Austrians, and Germans coming together from the north, east, and south met with resistance from the Rumanians on the other side of the river. For an entire day the Rumanians held back the enemy, then suddenly broke and fled so abruptly that they had not time to destroy the bridges, over which the invaders streamed after the retreating Rumanians, capturing several ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... hollow root on the beach, my band of crane-flies had danced for a thousand hours, but here was a sound which had apparently never ceased for more than a year—perhaps five thousand hours of daylight. It was a low, penetrating, abruptly reiterated beat, occurring about once every second and a half, and distinctly audible a hundred feet away. The "low bush" from which it proceeded last year, was now a respectable sapling, and the source far out of ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... Malmesbury. His name is said to have been Somerset, and he was Norman by one parent and English by the other. The date of his birth is unknown, that of his death has sometimes been fixed as 1142 on the ground that his latest work stops abruptly in that year. His history, written in Latin, falls into two parts, Gesta Regum Anglorum (Acts of the Kings of the English), in five books, bringing the narrative down from the arrival of the Saxons to 1120, and Historia Novella ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... In this happy dream-life, and then it was abruptly brought to an end by the death of my father and mother almost simultaneously by an epidemic fever prevailing in the neighborhood. I was away from home at a bachelor uncle's at the time, and so was unexpectedly thrown on his hands, an orphan, penniless, except in the possession of the small house ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... discussion, however, had reached the ears of the soldiers, and having nothing else to do, they agreed among themselves to pass the time by building a fort. Choosing a place of great natural strength, where the rocky coast descends abruptly to the open sea, they went to work with a will. As they had no tools for stone-cutting, they picked out the stones, and fitted them together according to their shape; and for want of hods they carried the mortar, wherever it was required, on their backs, stooping forward and ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... as he turned abruptly away. He himself it was who tempted Ned away, and caused the boy to neglect his duty, bringing down all this misfortune. He had been thinking himself the only person in fault for being wilfully absent, but it was worse and worse! He had lured away, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... him, regretting, at the same time, the necessity he had of arousing him; and Crequy swore back, in mock tones of injury, that he would have a special cell built for disturbers of his rest, and, wishing us the day, retired abruptly. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... the town, bursting into soliloquies in public places, or asking odd questions, suddenly, a propos de bottes. "I'll be hanged if I do it for you, my Lord," he was heard to say in the hall at Brooks's, standing by himself, and addressing the air after much thought. "Don't you consider," he abruptly asked a fellow-guest at Lady Holland's, leaning across the dinner-table in a pause of the conversation, "that it was a most damnable act of Henri Quatre to change his religion with a view to securing the ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... as it is, is decidedly to be preferred to that of the female House Wren, with its Chit-chit-chit-chit, when suspicious or in anger. The male, however, is a real poet, let us say—and sings a merry roulade, sudden, abruptly ended, and frequently repeated. He sings, apparently, for the love of music, and is as merry and gay when his mate is absent as when she is at his side, proving that his singing is ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various

... to the trim girl-soldier at the wheel to start. "He lent it to me when he heard that I was to meet you this morning. Taxis are so scarce, and I didn't know how well you could walk, so——" She turned from the subject abruptly. "You're so changed. I scarcely recognized you at first. I was expecting that you'd still ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... abruptly, and after a few minutes returned with Agnes, who came in lingering, and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... adopt the same resolution simultaneously; for each caught up his favourite weapon, and, leaving his defence behind, sprang to the door. I snatched up a long rapier, abruptly, but very finely pointed, in my sword-hand, and in the other a sabre; the elder brother seized his heavy battle-axe; and the younger, a great, two-handed sword, which he wielded in one hand like a feather. We had just time to get clear ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... for about three miles from the old diligence road between Florence and Rome at La Storta—the last post station where horses were changed about eight miles from the city. It is situated amid ground so broken into heights and hollows that you see no indications of it until you come abruptly upon it, hid in a fold of the undulating Campagna. And the loneliness of the district and of all the paths leading to it is hardly relieved by the appearance of the ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... thou rememberest not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not loved: Or if thou hast not sat, as I do now, Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, Thou hast not loved: Or if thou hast not broke from company, Abruptly, as my passion now makes me, Thou hast ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... been more gallant, and that you must allow." Mrs. Pope stuck to her point (which is a capital thing to do in a fog), but only to let it go abruptly a moment later. "Besides," she added, "my new cap is no better than a pulp already. I can feel it. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... Custom-house, poor, ragged, and miserable? "My dear boy! My dear golden boy, Antonio, good day, good day!" Thus he was greeted by the old beggar-woman, who sat on the steps leading to St. Mark's Church, and whom he was going past without observing. Turning abruptly round, he recognised the old woman, and, dipping his hand into his purse, took out a handful of sequins with the intention of throwing them to her. "Oh! keep your gold in your purse," chuckled and laughed the old woman; "what should I do with your money? am I not rich enough? But ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... fairly possessed!" she said, in rather an awestruck voice, as he rose abruptly to bid her good-day. "I don't believe you can think of anything ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards

... act. At the close of the period (verse) the active tensions die out, either because of the introduction of some unusual stimulus which causes the positive muscle set to strike a heavy blow, and abruptly upset the balanced tensions, or because a pause of indefinite length ensues in which the tensions die out. This is the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... last to hunt for the Italian, and the latter evidently had a similar design. They met on the platform and, though it was quite dark, each recognized the other. The American was on the point of addressing the duke when that gentleman abruptly turned and reentered the train, one coach ahead of that occupied by Quentin, who returned to his compartment and proceeded to awaken the snoring man-servant. Without reserve he confided to Turk the whole story of the ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... so, M. de Wissant," he exclaimed abruptly, "but you look extremely ill! You mustn't allow this sad business to take such a hold on you. It is tragic no doubt that such things must be, but remember"—he uttered the words solemnly—"they are the ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... Inca, wasn't he?' said the doctor, abruptly, 'and one of the highest rank, too, from what you have said. He lived just about the time of the Conquest, didn't he—the time when the priests stripped their temples, and the nobles emptied their palaces of their treasures to ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith

... never love so heartily: If thou remember'st not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not lov'd: Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, Thou hast not lov'd: Or if thou hast not broke from company Abruptly, as my passion now makes me, Thou hast not lov'd: O ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... barrow had been trundled down the hill at top speed—by the manner in which the iron tire had abraded the surface of the slope. We had no difficulty in following the trace as far as the edge of the timber, and for some distance into it: but there, to our great surprise, the wheel-track abruptly ended! It was not that we had lost it by its having passed over dry or rocky ground. On the contrary, around the spot where it so suddenly disappeared, the surface was comparatively soft; and even an empty barrow would have made an impression sufficiently traceable, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... feel proud at that moment when the great game was about to open. The cheering died away as though by some prearranged signal; indeed, it is simply astonishing how during the progress of a game the volume of sound will suddenly break out like a hurricane, and then cease almost as abruptly, so that the whistle of the referee may be heard ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... they joined battle with the forces of Sittas and Belisarius and gained the advantage over them. An invasion was also made near the city of Nisibis by another Roman army under command of Libelarius of Thrace. This army retired abruptly in flight although no one came out against thorn. And because of this the emperor reduced Libelarius from his office and appointed Belisarius commander of the troops in Daras. It was at that time that Procopius, who wrote this history, was chosen as ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... it contains not only confirm the most material facts related in these preceding voyages, but give a satisfactory account of many things which are there but imperfectly related, often continuing the history which in these breaks off abruptly, and bringing to light some remarkable achievements of our countrymen, of which otherwise no mention could be found in our voluminous ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon. What are you jabbering about, shipmate? said I. He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that sort in other chaps, abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis upon the word he. Queequeg, said I, let's go; this fellow has broken loose from somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't know. .. Stop! cried the stranger. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... is built the town, which contains above twenty thousand inhabitants, and is singularly picturesque, as well from its situation, backed as it is by the steep cliff to the east, which, instead of terminating here abruptly, takes an inland direction, as from the diversity in the forms and materials of the houses of the quay, some of which are of stone, others of grey flint, more of plaster with their timbers uncovered and painted of different colors, but most of brick, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... to take the samovar,' answered Nikolai Petrovitch, and he got up to meet her. Pavel Petrovitch said 'bon soir' to him abruptly, and went away ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... more pines. The road dipped strongly once, then again; and then abruptly the forest ceased, and they found themselves cantering over broad rolling meadows knee-high with grasses, from which meadow larks rose in all directions like grasshoppers. Soon after they passed the canvas "schooners" of some who had started the evening before. Down the next long slope the ponies ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... the faces of the people whom he met, looked at him with no great favor, but he smiled. "We've already learned some things which have astonished us," he said. Then, though, despite the fact that his remark had greatly aroused Holton's curiosity, evidently, he changed the subject somewhat abruptly, and ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... to leave off fighting it. We run on up past Talagouga Island, where the river broadens out again a little, but not much, and reach Njole by nightfall, and tie up to a tree by Dumas' factory beach. Usual uproar, but as Mr. Cockshut says, no mosquitoes. The mosquito belt ends abruptly ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... supper would be good for thee, neighbour Smith,' said Mrs. Savery in her gentle voice, as she handed him some coffee in one of her favourite blue willow-pattern cups. But John Smith did not take the cup from her. Instead, he turned his back abruptly, went over to the high carved fireplace, and leaning down looking into the glowing coals, said in a choked voice, 'It is the first time I ever stole anything, and I can tell you I have felt very bad about it ever since. I don't know how it is. I am sure I didn't ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... abruptly at the time of the painful end met with by her sister, we have supplemented it by abridged accounts of the chief incidents in the tragedy which overwhelmed the royal house she so faithfully served, taken from contemporary records and the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... abruptly and switched off the playback. Turning to Wallace, he pleaded, "I can't listen to it again! I know it by heart. Instructions on how to get to the time capsule; instructions on what to take, and how ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... on the 17th June. The appearance of the Niger at this place disappointed them much. "Black rugged rocks rose abruptly from the centre of the stream, causing strong ripples and eddies on its surface." At its widest part, the Niger here did not exceed a stone-cast in breadth. They sat on the rock which overlooks the place where the intrepid Park was murdered. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... from one scene to another, with vivid clear-cut pictures, intensely imagined, between gulfs of dim twilight memories, full of shadow figures, faces seen a little while and then lost, conversations begun abruptly and then ended raggedly, poignant emotions lasting for brief moments and merging into others as strong but of a different quality, gusts of laughter rising between moods of horrible depression, tears sometimes welling from the heart and then choked back by a brutal touch of farce, ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... began rather abruptly to simmer down in the soul of Alonzo Rawson. He saw the consequences of too violently reversing, and knew how difficult ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... She stared at the tiny tuft of hair which had sprouted on that bare wrist. She was thinking abruptly, unhappily, about that chignon she had bought yesterday. They had let her buy that for eight dollars when with this stuff she could ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey

... seated, she began, without waiting for any ceremony, or requiring any solicitation, abruptly to talk of her affairs, and repiningly ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)



Words linked to "Abruptly" :   short, abruptly-pinnate leaf, dead, abruptly-pinnate, abrupt



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