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Brawny   /brˈɔni/   Listen
Brawny

adjective
1.
(of a person) possessing physical strength and weight; rugged and powerful.  Synonyms: hefty, muscular, powerful, sinewy.  "A muscular boxer" , "Powerful arms"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Brawny" Quotes from Famous Books



... killed and was being cooked, some of it in pots and some by roasting; also there were several strange Zulus present. Within the fence of the kraal, seated in its shadow, I found Umbezi and some of his headmen, and with them a great, brawny "ringed" native, who wore a tiger-skin moocha as a mark of rank, and some of his headmen. Also Mameena was standing near the gate, dressed in her best beads and holding a gourd of Kafir beer which, evidently, she had just been ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... formidable. After making himself sure of the seat of life, by gently removing the folds of the intervening cloth, he raised his keen weapon, and was about to unite his strength and skill in the impending blow, when the young man threw his brawny arm carelessly backward, exhibiting in the action the vast volume of ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... power of Charles Egbert Craddock, Lanier writes in the same book of the mountain scenery of that region: "Here grow the strong sweet trees, like brawny men with virgins' hearts. Here wave the ferns, and cling the mosses and clamber the reckless vines. Here, one's soul may climb as upon Pisgah, and see one's land of peace, seeing Christ who made all these beautiful things." Again, it ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... where salt is sprinkled; And ere three shrill notes the pipe had uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling— Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats. Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails, and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... brawny back over the steering-oar, and the clumsy craft slowly turned toward the left-hand shore, where a long, low bank of green willows and cottonwoods gave welcome relief to the eyes. Upon the opposite side of the river Shefford saw a boat, ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... Bab and me, and nobody must know if you want to git off with a whole hide. I could git a hundred dollars by givin' you up, but you don't s'pose Jack Jennin's is agwine to do that ar infernal trick? No, sir,' and he brought his brawny fist down upon his knee with a force which made me tremble, while I tried to express my thanks for his great kindness. He was a noble man, Helen, while Aunt Bab, the colored woman, who nursed me so ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... knew of the matter, for most foolishly we had neglected to keep a watch, was the unpleasant sensation of brawny savages kneeling on us and trussing us up with palm-fibre ropes. Also they thrust handfuls of dry grass into our mouths to prevent us from calling out, although as air came through the interstices of the grass, we did not suffocate. The thing ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... and lunged for the watering-pool. Stewart let him drink a little, then with iron arms dragged him away. In this action the man's lithe, powerful form impressed Madeline with a wonderful sense of muscular force. His brawny wrist was bare; his big, strong hand, first clutching the horse's mane, then patting his neck, had a bruised knuckle, and one finger was bound up. That hand expressed as much gentleness and thoughtfulness for the horse as it had strength to drag ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... her father's desire they followed Alton into the mill. A cloud of pungent smoke hung about it, and the steady pounding of an engine jarred through the monotone of the river, which was low just then, while there was a pleasant fragrance in the open-sided building where brawny men moved amidst the whirling dust with the precision of the machines they handled. Alice Deringham could see with untrained eyes that there was no waste of effort here. The great logs that slid in at one end passed straight forward over ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... itself in action, desperately striving to find utterance even in sabre-clash and gun-fire, or when Truth and Freedom, in their mistaken zeal and distrustful of their own powers, put on battle-harness, that I can feel any sympathy with merely physical daring. The brawny butcher-work of men whose wits, like those of Ajax, lie in their sinews, and who are "yoked like draught-oxen and made to plough up the wars," is no realization of my ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... hinges, and saw an opening in the wall to my right, where I had perceived no door. Two men came forth—brawny, muscular, bearded men in coarse, black hose and leathern waistcoats cut deep at the neck and leaving their great arms entirely naked. The foremost carried a thong of ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... who always came next day with the ticket, and indignantly took back her household goods. There was the young sailor's wife, too, with her baby in her arms, who came rarely at first, but afterwards more often, to pawn her few poor treasures, until at length a glad day came when the brawny tar himself, with his pockets full of cash, came with her and redeemed ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... and brawny and picturesque. His hands, bronzed by the tan of sixteen summers, were clasped under his head, and his legs were crossed, one soleless shoe on high vaunting its nakedness in the face of an indifferent world. A sailor's blouse, two sizes too large, was held together ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... To Douglas gave a golden ring, While coldly glanced his eye of blue, As frozen drop of wintry dew. Douglas would speak, but in his breast His struggling soul his words suppressed; Indignant then he turned him where Their arms the brawny yeomen bare, To hurl the massive bar in air. When each his utmost strength had shown, The Douglas rent an earth-fast stone From its deep bed, then heaved it high, And sent the fragment through the sky A rood beyond the farthest mark; And still ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... near by, drove them up and down in front of the camp, beyond rifle range. They made gestures for us to come and take them—an invitation which, for obvious reasons, I declined to accept. I quite agreed with Private Tom Clary, who, as he placed his brawny shoulder to a big log to roll it up the slope, remarked to his "bunky," Private George Hoey, "That's an invitation, begorra, I ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... this figure in the street, and live, and even smile at the recollection. But conceive of her in a ballroom, with the bare, brawny arms that she invariably displays there, and all the other corresponding development, such as is beautiful in the maiden blossom, but a spectacle to howl at in such ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... sooner shown itself the next morning than Sam started away from the camp on a tour of observation. He was a fine looking fellow as he strode through the woods, straight as an arrow, broad shouldered, brawny, with legs that seemed all the more shapely for being clothed in closely fitting trowsers that were thrust into his long boot legs. Two of his companions watched him walk away ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... afternoon of Monday, April 25th, we bade Mackenzie and Fraser farewell, George and I, with our baggage and Hubbard's body, were taken across through the cakes of floating ice in one of the Company's big boats, manned by a crew of brawny post servants. ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... the bloody clout from his head, waved it, and cried out, "Paradise!" Whereupon arose a great confusion. Some bawled for Paradise, some for Red Gil, a few for the Spaniard. The two gravediggers locked horns, and a brawny devil with a woman's mantle swathed about his naked shoulders drew a knife, and made for a partisan of the Spaniard, who in his turn skillfully interposed between himself and the attack the body of a bawling well-wisher to ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... which men were toiling beneath the ground to excavate the soil and pass it to their companions above, who quickly hurried with it to the banks of the creek, where twelve hundred "cradles," rocked by brawny arms, were washing the sand from ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... spears, nor practise their usual assaults and rapid motions, being compelled by their crowded condition to adopt a stationary manner of fighting. On the contrary, our soldiers, with shields fitted to their breasts, and their hands firmly grasping their sword hilts, could gash the brawny limbs and naked faces of the barbarians, and open themselves a way with havoc to the enemy. Besides, the activity of Arminius now failed him, being either exhausted by a succession of disasters or disabled by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... He's only a day at the depot, sir. Sit still, you blackguard, or I'll smash you!"—this to Murray, who, half suffocated, was writhing in his effort to escape. "A—ch!" he cried, with sudden wrenching away of the brawny hand, "the beast has bitten me," and the broad palm, dripping with blood, was held up ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... shrill notes the pipe uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives— Followed ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... lungee round his loins, and a scarf over his head; a white- bearded, delicate-featured old gentleman, with probably some caste- mark of red paint on his forehead; his thin limbs, and small hands and feet, contrasting strangely with the brawny Negroes round. There comes a bright-eyed young lady, probably his daughter-in-law, hung all over with bangles, in a white muslin petticoat, crimson cotton-velvet jacket, and green gauze veil, with her naked brown baby astride on her hip: a clever, smiling, delicate little woman, who ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... at Quirk with his brawny fist, as he rose from the prostrate form of Guly—"Wretch, you have killed him!" and, seizing the offender by the collar, with the united force of foot and hand he hurled him into the street. The two other young men, who had drunk less freely of the wine, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... whose head was framed for enterprises of this nature, soon recovered from the assault, and, after many unavailing efforts in the dark, at length succeeded in opening one of the vessels of the broad nose of his brawny assailant, whose blood, enriched by good living, streamed out most copiously. In this condition we saw these orbless combatants, who were speedily separated from each other. Some of the crowd were endeavouring to form a treaty of ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... flames of fire, his countenance grim and ugly, and his cheeks like a couple of large flitches of bacon, while the bristles of his beard resembled rods of iron wire, and the locks that hung down upon his brawny shoulders were like curled snakes or hissing adders. Jack alighted from his horse, and, putting on the coat of darkness, went up close to the giant, and said softly, "Oh! are you there? It will not be long before I take you fast by the beard." ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... mates, to take care of ourselves, you know," began one tall, brawny fellow; "but, if we bean't to be sucked to death by a vampyre, why we must have ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... one inch; but he seemed somewhat inclined to stoop. Nature had gifted him with an immense head and placed it clean upon his shoulders, for amongst the items of his composition it did not appear that a neck had been included. Arms long and brawny swung at his sides, and the whole of his frame was as strong built and powerful as a wrestler's; his body was supported by a pair of short but very nimble legs. His face was very long, and would have borne some slight resemblance to a human countenance, had the nose been more visible, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... dead body of the Kukuana soldier, or rather what had appeared to be his dead body, suddenly sprang up, knocked Good head over heels off the ant-heap, and began to spear him. We rushed forward in terror, and as we drew near we saw the brawny warrior making dig after dig at the prostrate Good, who at each prod jerked all his limbs into the air. Seeing us coming, the Kukuana gave one final and most vicious dig, and with a shout of "Take that, wizard!" bolted away. Good did ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... this bedside. How mellow The light showers down on that brow! Such a brave, brawny visage, poor fellow! Some homestead is missing him now. Some wife shades her eyes in the clearing, Some mother sits moaning distressed, While the loved one lies faint but unfearing, With the enemy's ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... in me is very touching. I am not quite so confident about myself. No doubt I could protect her easily against five or six great brawny hulking porters ... armed with coal-hammers ... but I am seriously doubtful whether a dozen or so, aided with a little luck, mightn't get ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... full, for the Indian Lands people believed in going to church, and there was not a house for many miles around but was represented in the church that day. There they sat, row upon row of men, brawny and brown with wind and sun, a notable company, worthy of their ancestry and worthy of their heritage. Beside them sat their wives, brown, too, and weather-beaten, but strong, deep-bosomed, and with faces of calm content, worthy to be mothers of their husbands' sons. The girls ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... to their senses a moment later to find themselves held firmly by brawny peacemakers, the black cars rushing swiftly by ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon

... score of dark figures appeared, coming swiftly from the direction of the light. The next instant the girls were surrounded, seized in brawny arms, and borne away, their gasping cries of terror being smothered ere they ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... blame life he'll heap fight!" said Curly, from his position upon Juan's brawny breast as he held him down. "He's good for any two ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... pile stood the old mountaineer, on his countenance expression of mingled pain and chagrin, the latter dominating. His right hand still grasped the keen-edged axe, while Rose stood beside him, clasping his brawny left forearm with both of her ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... was born about this time—a dark-skinned, brawny man-child whom it seemed the most natural thing in the world to christen Douw. He bears the name still, and on the whole, though he has forgotten all the Dutch I ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... while serpentine stripes of black, white, and vermilion alternately were smeared on his forehead, and descended over his cheek-bones to his chin. His manly chest was similarly tattooed and painted, and round his brawny neck and arms hung innumerable bracelets and necklaces of human teeth, extracted (one only from each skull) from the jaws of those who had fallen by the terrible tomahawk at his girdle. His moccasins, and his blanket, which was draped on his arm ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... before they went back to the school room several of the boys, Jack among the rest, were standing in front of the main building when Peter Herring, a big, brawny fellow with a disagreeable face and manner said ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh

... nobody would; not because he stood in need of her, but because she was much in need of him. And when, not long after his father's death, Percy appealed to a well-to-do citizen on the widow's behalf, he was refused, and the brawny son and heir of the well-to-do citizen told of the incident, and was idiot enough in Percy's presence to repeat this old village saw as the reason of the refusal, it nearly led to tragedy. Seizing the first available weapon, a flail, which he wielded with uncommon skill, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... got the right of it," volunteered a brawny youth known as Slim. "All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of big outfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious. There's sure ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... brawny arms. "Fit mate for me," he said. "Little vixen, had you done otherwise I would have ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... similar materials. We parted with mutual smiles; but I thought there lingered something like a feeling of reproach, in the last quiver or turn of his lip, at my not having slipt two or three florins into his hand—which was broad and brawny enough to have grasped threescore or a hundred. "I will remember you on my return,"—exclaimed I, as the carriage drove off. He gave me a most sceptical shake of the head, as he retreated into his little tenement, like ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... he had just kept up to sustain them till then, and when they no longer depended on him for encouragement, he sank. The moment came at last. He was drawn up perfectly insensible, together with a great brawny-armed hewer, a vehement Chartist, and hitherto his great enemy, but who now held him in his arms like a baby, so tenderly and anxiously. As soon as he saw Lady Lucy, he called out, "Here he is, Miss, I hope ye'll be able to bring him to. If all lords were like he now!" and then his wife had hold ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... by the seat of his trousers, and Elmendorf's speech wound up in a shriek, as he was lifted backward off the truck, a big Irish sergeant glowering at him as he landed him on terra firma. "I yield to force," screamed Elmendorf. "Go and tell it." And then between a couple of brawny, unsympathetic soldiers he was rushed back, and, in the twinkling of an eye, hustled into the smoking-compartment of a vacant Pullman and there locked in, with a bayonet at the window. For a moment the throng howled, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... father controlled the people. They yielded in an instant to his will: one tall blacksmith seemed scarcely to relish his somewhat imperious demeanour, and stood rooted to the ground; but Baroni, placing only one hand on the curmudgeon's brawny shoulder, while he still continued playing on his instrument with the other, whirled him away like a puppet. The multitude laughed, and the disconcerted ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... negress, of elderly years, compares not unfavorably with her whiter Spanish sister of the same age. Both display inordinate vanity, which consorts ill with the brawny calves and large feet they cannot help showing on account of their short though voluminous skirts, and both have ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... as I stared A sudden buffet from a brawny hand Made all my senses swim, and the room rang With laughter as upon the rush-strewn floor My feet slipped and I fell. Then a gruff voice Growled over me—"Get up now, John-a-dreams, Or else mine host must find another drawer! Hast thou not heard ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... he said. He was a head taller than either, coatless and hatless, a lean but brawny figure in white crash trousers. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, displaying hard, sinewy forearms, browned by the sun and wind. "It's very good of you to come down. I'm sure we won't have to call out the British or American gunboats to preserve ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... a man of might In the days when earth was young; By the fierce red light of his furnace bright The strokes of his hammer rung; And he lifted high his brawny hand On the iron glowing clear, Till the sparks rush'd out in scarlet showers, As he fashion'd the sword and spear. And he sang—"Hurra for my handiwork! Hurra for the Spear and Sword! Hurra for the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... buccaneer had indulged in to all outward intent passed harmlessly down his lean and craggy throat. He drank alone—the more solitary the drinker the more dangerous the man—yet the room had another occupant, a tall, brawny, brown-hued, grim-faced savage, whose gaudy livery ill accorded with his stern and ruthless visage. He stood by the Vice-Governor, watchful, attentive, and silent, imperturbably filling again and again the goblet from ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... movements of the new dispensation took the form of trying to draw the colonists together into towns, of reviving the Navigation Acts, of levying taxes on their infant commerce, and in general of tying fetters of official red tape on the brawny limbs of a primitive and natural civilization. The colony was accused of being the refuge of outlaws and traitors, rogues and heretics; and Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, one of the proprietors under the Model Constitution, was deputed to make as much mischief ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... think that at the same moment a brawny, clownish monk was standing in Cyril's private chamber, and, indulged with the special honour of a cup of good wine in the patriarch's very presence, was telling to him ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... he turned back his sleeve, distending the muscles of his brawny, hairy, tattooed arm, till ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... bell, the scream of a hoarse little whistle, and Mandeville rushed to the gang-plank to welcome the outside world. Juanita put her hand through a waiting arm, and tripped away with her Mercer, big and blond and brawny. "Un Americain, pah!" said the little mother of the black eyes. And Mandeville sighed sadly, and shook its head, and was ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... friend," adjured Cimon, sorely perplexed, while Hiram struggled and began tugging out a crooked knife, before two brawny seamen nipped him fast ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... brawny, big-made Yorkshire corn-factor, bluff, brusque, honest, and kind-hearted. He befriends poor Smike, and is much, attached to Nicholas Nickleby. John Browdie marries Matilda Price, a miller's daughter.—C. Dickens, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... to hear that, I assure you. Jim! Bill!" And beckoning very quietly to two brawny fellows, in a trice Israel found himself kidnapped into the naval service of the magnanimous old gentleman of Kew Gardens—his Royal ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... enabled him to get the crisp outside, if it happened to start from his end of the table. There were judges and generals and senators and legislators of various ranks all about him. Crude, rough, wholesome fellows, most of them, with big, brawny hands like his own, and loud, hearty voices. It was impossible to stand in awe of a judge who handled his knife more deftly than his fork, and spooned the potato out of the big, earthen-ware dish with a resounding slap. He began to see that these men were exactly like ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... Burns, physician and surgeon, descended from the car, a brawny figure in an enveloping gray motoring coat. He wore no hat upon his heavy crop of coppery red hair—somewhere under the seat his cap was abandoned, as usual. His face was brown with tan—a strong, fine face, with dark-lashed hazel eyes alight under thick, dark eyebrows. From head to foot he was ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... the cowmen and rustlers of the West. He leaned forward, as if he would help his horse to reach his goal at the earliest instant. His broad-brimmed hat fitted so well that it kept its place on his head without any fastening; but his own long, dark locks fluttered over his brawny shoulders, while the trusty Winchester was held in a firm grasp across the saddle in front, where it could be used on the ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... the dried mud out of his kilts. The horses were munching in their nose-bags, and the driver had disappeared. The Americans hadn't happened to meet with any Highlanders before, and were curious. This one must be a good fighter, they thought; a brawny giant with a bulldog jaw, and a face as red and knobby as his knees. More because he admired the looks of the man than because he needed information, Hicks went up and asked him if he had noticed a military cemetery on the road back. The ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... and she was straining her ears to catch the sound of the oars. Then we were rewarded. For at that moment we heard the long sweep of the oars in the water, and out from the mouth of the creek came the boat, the brawny negroes ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson

... men. At the same time, he placed swivel-guns about his house, in order to withstand a sudden attack. He energetically organized the settlers on his domains into a protecting force. In particular the Highland loyalists in his district rallied to his aid, and soon a hundred and fifty brawny clansmen were ready to take the field ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood

... race without whip or spur. With what scenes of blood and flight she would ever he associated! And then I thought of home, unvisited for four long years—that home I left a stripling, but to which I was returning a bronzed and brawny man. I thought of mother and Bob—how they would admire her!—of old Ben, the family groom, and of that one who shall be nameless, whose picture I had so often shown to Gulnare as the likeness of her future mistress; had they ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... but time to give out one wild cry—a shriek. Before either can utter a second, brawny arms embrace them; blinds are thrown over their faces; and, half stifled, they feel themselves lifted from their feet, and borne ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... carv'd glass, Fring'd with the morning's spangled grass; And pendant by their brawny thighs Hang cimetars ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... high, Ben had the whole force of the wind to urge him on, and his steady seamanship made the progress up stream less dangerous than the descent had been. But the toil was great and every muscle of his brawny arms rose to its full strain as he bent all his strength upon the oars. But with his greatest anxieties at rest, Ben cared little for this. With no life but his own at stake, the tempest was nothing ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... a picture worthy the pencil of that great student of the wild and picturesque, Salvator Rosa; the groups of brawny outlaws, with their women and children, all disposed carelessly on the grass, with the background of dark hill and wood, or of hollow rock, while Martin, standing on a conspicuous hillock, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... her children, and asked Althea if she did not think that they were looking very well. They certainly were, and Althea had to own it. 'But don't let them overdo their athletics, Aunt Julia,' she said. 'It is such a pity when girls get brawny.' ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... face. Abbot raises a hand in warning, and glances quickly from the prisoner at the door to the frame whence fast is ebbing the imprisoned soul. The hand that had faintly clasped his is slowly creeping up to the broad and brawny chest, so feeble now. Far across the rippling waters of the Rappahannock the notes of a bugle, prolonged and distant, soft and solemn, float upon the still night air. 'Tis the soldiers' signal "Lights Out!"—the soldiers' rude yet never-forgotten lullaby. ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... afterwards the soldiers, of Valentinian, are accused, by an eye-witness, of delighting in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the woods for prey, it is said, that they attacked the shepherd rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, which they prepared for their horrid repasts. If, in the neighborhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of cannibals has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the Scottish ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... have secured positive information that now and again there have appeared among the brawny men of the forest noble specimens of all that is true and kind, let us not fail to record their deeds of faithfulness and heroism. The least we can do for such is to bring to light their actions and preserve their history. When beneath the shade of the forest, on the trackless desert, on the ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... however, interferes not in the very least with his intention to "get on" by dint of his handsome face and brawny figure. On the very day of his wedding he goes to visit a lady of position, and also of devoutness, who is a great friend of the President and his wife, has been present at the irregular enquiry, and has done something for him. This quickly results in a regular assignation, which, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... they stood in the starn an' hauled us aboard by main force—lifted us clear out of the water. Van Note's a tremendous musc'lar fellar, he is. He caught me by the wrist jest as I was goin' down for the last time: I'm not a small fish, either," slapping his brawny thigh. "Yes, sir. Van Note and I never mixed much together afore or sence. But he did that for me: I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... His followers spread out, below; sharp-shooters took position to cover his ascent. Prince Burvanny and Tobbh the Slave started to follow him. They hesitated as each motioned the other to precede him; then the nobleman followed the general, his blaster drawn, and the brawny ...
— Flight From Tomorrow • Henry Beam Piper

... suddenly altered his course and put the historic treaty table between him and me. He didn't like the appearance of my rather brawny fist. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... now may he do, Who shall do greatly? Doth he gird his waist With a monk's rope, like Luther? or pursue The goat, like Tell? or dry his nets in haste, Like Masaniello when the sky was blue? Keep house, like other peasants, with inlaced Bare brawny arms about a favourite child, And meditative looks beyond the door (But not to mark the kidling's teeth have filed The green shoots of his vine which last year bore Full twenty bunches), or, on triple-piled Throne-velvets ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... you to be just such a woman; so remember, my darling, if I"——He scratched the last words out: why should he hint to her that he could die? Holding his life loose in his hand, though, had brought things closer to him lately,—God and death, this war, the meaning of it all. But he would keep his brawny body between these terrible realities and Floy, yet awhile. "I want you," he wrote, "to leave the plantation, and go with your old maumer to the village. It will be safer there." He was sure the letter would reach her. He had a plan ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... a dory came toward the schooner, pulled by the brawny arms of two men. In the stern of the oncoming boat sat a solitary figure, who strained ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... that had been spoken were still ringing in her ears, she was rescued. She had been drawn up into a small boat in which there were only three persons besides herself—a brawny old sailor dressed in his best, an elderly woman with round, owlish eyes, and a poor little heartbroken boy, who had on nothing but a ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... children of the common school. Secondly, because they wanted freedom from books as man makes them, and opportunity to open the ponderous tome of boulder and strata as God printed them. Churches and scientific institutions, these will be the men to call—brawny and independent, rather than the bilious, short-breathed, nerveless graduates who, too proud to take healthful recreation, tumble, at commencement day, into the lap of society so ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... the first captain—a great, brawny, good-natured fellow, who has spent years at sea—deftly fastens the bight of the rope to the handle of the breechblock. He then retreats a short distance and signifies ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... and rushed for the young man. At that minute a brawny fellow with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and his trousers tight over his ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... And next, and swiftly, came the vision of her, alone with those same three scoundrels, on the Emily, sailing out to sea from Guvutu in the twilight with darkness coming on. Then came visions of Adamu Adam and Noa Noah and all her brawny Tahitian following, and his anxiety faded away, being replaced by irritation that she should have been capable ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... know better." The big brawny fisherman came nearer to Dotty and scowled at her. "I seen you jumping around there and play-actin' like you was wild with grief! Don't deny it, now! Ye know well ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... as ten minutes' walk from the court. Vainly you think to yourself that it can hardly be of such vital import that you, her father's friend, saw little Letty Murphy's hand ensconced one evening in the brawny palm of that false Lothario O'Flanagan; yes, of serious import is it—if not to Letty, or to Terence—yet to that facetious barrister, Mr. O'Laugher, who, at your expense, is going to amuse the dull court for ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... their drink; treated them handsomely when he was in cash himself; and was an honorary member of Barker's academy. Nay, when the guardsman was not forthcoming, who was standing for one of Barker's heroic pictures, Bayham bared his immense arms and brawny shoulders, and stood as Prince Edward, with Philippa sucking the poisoned wound. He would take his friends up to the picture in the Exhibition, and proudly point to it. "Look at that biceps, sir, and now look at this—that's Barker's ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... your host, axe in hand, playfully performing a number of passes over your unconscious head. His dress is designed admirably to suit the exercise. Coat and waistcoat are doffed; the immortal collars are turned down, displaying the columnar throat and the brawny chest; the snow-white shirt-sleeves are turned up to the elbow, disclosing biceps that SAMSON would envy and SANDOW covet. His braces are looped on either side of his supple hips, and his right hand grasps the axe which, a moment ago had been performing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various

... clump upon the head From the teak-noddled "TED," Or e'en a straight sockdollager from "JEM;" But somehow "bhoys" like them, Who mill three rounds to an uproarious "house," And only nap "a mouse," Though one before the end of the third bout Is clean "knocked out,"— Such burly, brawny buffetters for hire, Who in ten minutes tire, And clutch the ropes, and turn a Titan back To shun the impending thwack,— Such "Champions" smack as much of trick and pelf As venal JULIA's self. GRAHAM may be a "specialist," ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various

... and saw his rival standing behind him. He gave a bitter curse, and whispered something to his half-drunken companion. The latter turned, and with an inarticulate cry, like a wild beast, rushed at the young man and seized him by the throat with his brawny hands. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... they stood, on their short, clumsy hoofs, and, snorting violently, blew out their angry breath from their protruded muzzles, as if they were already aware of the nearly approaching danger. What terribly powerful brutes! what vast strength in their broad and brawny necks! It would have been a noble sight, had not their eyes the while expressed ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... of corn for roasting, she caught a glimpse of a moccasin and a brawny limb fringed with leggins, projecting behind a clump of bushes not twenty paces from her. Repressing the shriek which rose to her lips, she quietly and leisurely strolled back to the house with her basket of ears. Once she thought she heard the stealthy tread of the savage behind ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... distance. Down here all was on a big, rough, broken scale. Jean did not find even a few rods of level ground. Bowlders as huge as houses obstructed the stream bed; spruce trees eight feet thick tried to lord it over the brawny pines; the ravine was a veritable canyon from which occasional glimpses through the foliage showed the Rim as ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... gravel-pathed, was a trim place, all green and white. It contained four poplars, and in the center was a fountain, where three Nereids contended with a brawny Triton for the possession of a turtle whose nostrils spurted water. A circle of attendant turtles, half-submerged, shot inferior jets from their gaping mouths. It was an odd, and not unhandsome piece, [Footnote: Designed by Simon Guillain. This fountain is still to be seen at Bellegarde, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... and a sacrifice of meal will be accepted!" In the third and fourth Satires he complains of the universal ignorance of our true interests, the ridicule which the world heaps on philosophy, and the hap-hazard way in which men prepare for hazardous duties. The contemptuous disgust of the brawny centurion at the (to him) unmeaning problems which philosophy starts, is vigorously delineated; [17] but some of his tableaux border on the ridiculous from their stilted concision and over-drawn sharpness of outline. The undeniable virtue ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... works are a beautiful sight at night, with their huge, glowing furnaces and the forms of the brawny workmen, passing between us and the light. In one furnace they are heating pieces of cast-iron, about twelve inches long, four inches wide, and one-half ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... suddenly stricken down with a fell disease which was at that time ravaging many of the towns in the West Riding, she nursed him faithfully, and when he died,—holding her little white hand in his brown, brawny fist, she shed the bitterest tears that had ever dimmed her beautiful blue ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley

... to roll up his sleeves, baring his brawny arms. There was a flush on his face and an ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... in the one-and-twentieth year of his age. He was of the highest degree of middle stature; his limbs were put together with great elegance, and no less strength; his legs and thighs were formed in the exactest proportion; his shoulders were broad and brawny, but yet his arm hung so easily, that he had all the symptoms of strength without the least clumsiness. His hair was of a nut-brown colour, and was displayed in wanton ringlets down his back; his forehead was high, his eyes dark, and as full of sweetness as of fire; his nose a little inclined ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... chairs, or on the edges of the bunks with their legs a-dangle, their eyes interestedly upon the cook's operations, were half a dozen men, rough of garb, rough of hands, big, brawny, uncouth. As Conniston came into the room every pair of eyes left the cook to examine him swiftly, frankly. He paused a moment for the introduction Rawhide Jones would make. But Rawhide Jones had no idea of doing anything more than enough to fulfil his orders. He strode on ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... have on her head a most wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and good measure too, or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room in advance of the inn servants, and soon settled the question of his detachment from the poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending him flying back against the ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... great favorites in France. Their gaiety, humor and inexhaustible spirits under the most trying conditions have captivated everybody. Through the villages on their route these brawny fellows march with their pipers to the proud lilt of "The Barren Rocks of Aden" and "The Cock o' the North," fine marching tunes that in turn give place to the regimental voices while the pipers are recovering their breath. "It's ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick

... the fire flash into his honest eyes, and leap into his swarthy cheek, and nerve his brawny arm, and clinch his horny fist, as he marched straightway up to the doomed offender, fiercely denounced his dishonesty, and violently demanded redress? Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, and eagerness and delight on every countenance, and a ring formed, and the prospect ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... sledge had more than five dogs; some had only three. The dogs were fine-looking, wolfish animals, and either white or tan colour. The well-fed appearance of the natives astonished us all; without being tall (averaging about 5 ft. 5 in.), they were brawny-looking fellows, deep-chested, and large-limbed, with Tartar beards and moustachios, and a breadth of shoulder which denoted more than ordinary strength. Their clothing consisted of a dressed seal-skin frock, with a hood which served for a cap ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... shoulder by a large round button or brooch, flowed behind and in front, but left both arms free. His cap differed in shape from the Norman's, being round and full at the sides, somewhat in shape like a turban. His bare, brawny throat was curiously punctured with sundry devices, and ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... carried, some of them cruelly wounded and a few dead but all who lived swearing horribly, the prisoners were hustled to the street. Last of all came Monte Joe, securely held by two brawny cow-punchers. At sight of his mottled, blood-besmeared visage, ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... dazzling sunlight, which falls upon many a group that a painter would love to copy—tall, gaunt Armenians, whose high black caps and long dark robes make their pale, hollow faces look doubly spectral; low-browed, sallow, bearded Russians; brawny English sailors, looking down with a grand, indulgent contempt upon those unhappy beings whom an inscrutable Providence has doomed to be "foreigners;" stolid Turks, tramping onward in silent defiance of the fierce looks cast at them ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... let me git at him, cap'n!" came from Bahama Bill, who was being held back by Fred and Songbird. "I'll show him wot I think o' sech a measly scoundrel!" And he shook his brawny fist ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer

... Most writers would have contented themselves with composing the female portion of the brigands' society, of some dark-browed Italian contadina, with flashing eyes and jetty ringlets, a knife in her garter and a mousquetoon in her brawny fist, and a dozen crucifixes and amulets round her neck. At most, one might have expected to meet with some English lady in a green veil, (all English ladies, who travel, wear green veils,) whose carriage had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... they forgot to give more than a passing thought to poor, careless Mike, whose working days were ended. But that came later; and among all his mourners there were none more sincere than the little group at the Everetts', who knew and appreciated the real worth of the jovial, brawny Irishman, whose pleasant word and helping hand were extended to all with whom he ever came in contact. They were still talking of him when the bell rang; and, a moment later, Wang Kum ushered Dr. Brownlee into the parlor. At sight of him, Marjorie ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... their way, and a tougher, hardier, more athletic class of men it would be difficult to find. Handsome they are not, but quite the reverse, and the most of them have an awkward and uncouth air; but it is refreshing to look at their broad shoulders, their brawny chests, and the massive muscles of their legs and arms. During the whole voyage, I saw but one man who appeared to be diseased. Such men, I suspect, were the Vikings—rough, powerful, ugly, dirty fellows, with a few primitive virtues, and any amount of robust vices. We noticed, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... I am not sure that he wore a necktie at all. Let me try and draw his portrait as he stood there in the doorway, in questioning attitude. A thick, burly man under thirty years of age, some five feet five in height, with broad sallow face, brawny bull-neck, and wide square-set shoulders—a squat Hercules; dark-brown hair, cut short, lies close to his head; he is bearded, and has a dark-brown pointed moustache; shaggy brows overhang his small steel-gray eyes; his nose is coarse ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... tall and brawny Bavarians, and their clothes fitted Fergus and his companions well. Fishermen's hats completed their costume. The little cabin had been almost oppressively warm, and they had completely got over their chill when they left it, closing ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... palace, from whose windows you look down upon a sea, a kind of whirlpool, of melancholy grey mountains. Then there are the people, dark, bushy-bearded men, riding about like brigands, wrapped in green-lined cloaks upon their shaggy pack-mules; or loitering about, great, brawny, low-headed youngsters, like the parti-colored bravos in Signorelli's frescoes; the beautiful boys, like so many young Raphaels, with eyes like the eyes of bullocks, and the huge women, Madonnas or St. Elizabeths, as ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... seems by nature far better fitted for this part than was his predecessor, Josef Mayr, who took that part in 1870, 1880, and 1890. Mayr is very tall, brawny, athletic. His hair was black in those days, and his countenance now is severe. He must have done it well, but I can hardly imagine him impersonating gentleness and complete submission to abuse. But Anton Lang, with his blonde complexion, his light hair, blue eyes and delicate ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... dreadful day, let each contend; No rest, no respite, till the shades descend; Till darkness, or till death, shall cover all: Let the war bleed, and let the mighty fall; Till bathed in sweat be every manly breast, With the huge shield each brawny arm depress'd, Each aching nerve refuse the lance to throw, And each spent courser at the chariot blow. Who dares, inglorious, in his ships to stay, Who dares to tremble on this signal day; That wretch, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... lights, At St Abbs on the Berwickshire coast, to the skirl of the pipes, The lift of the wave in his heels, the sea in his veins: A Cherokee Indian, as though he were one with his horse, His coppery shoulders agleam, his feathers aflame With the last of the sun, descending a gulch in Alaska; A brawny Cleveland puddler, stripped to the loins, On the cauldron's brink, stirring the molten iron In the white-hot glow, a man of white-hot metal: A Cornish ploughboy driving an easy share Through the grey, light soil of a ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... painfulness. The sting of envy and the dart of love, Avarice' talons, and the fire of hate, Would poison, wound, distract, and soon consume The heart, the liver, life, and mind of man. The sturdy mower, that with brawny arms Wieldeth the crooked scythe, in many a swath Cutting the flowery pride on velvet plain, Lies down at night, and in the weird[316] folds Of his wife's arms forgets his labour past. The painful mariner and careful smith, The toiling ploughman, all artificers, Most humbly yield to my dominion: ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... tall Orion stalking o'er the flood: When with his brawny breast he cuts the waves, His shoulder scarce the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... life, which he held it the poet's first duty to teach and to exemplify." And so there came into his verse a solemn, worshipful element, dominating it everywhere, and giving loftiness to its beauty. For he was the democrat whom he described in contrast to Whitman's mere brawny, six-footed, open-shirted hero, whose strength was only that of ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... His brawny figure seemed to dilate and he made a queer hissing noise as he looked after her. Turning ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... murmurs thro' the weeds and willows dank, As I chewed the Cud of fancy, from the water there appeared An old man, fierce-eyed, and filthy, with a long and tangled beard; To the oozy shore he paddled, clinging to my Funny's nose, Till, in all his mud majestic, Cam's gigantic form arose. Brawny, broad of shoulders was he, hairy were his face and head, And amid loud lamentations tears incessantly he shed. "Son," he cried, "the sorrows pity of thy melancholy sire! Pity Camus! pity Cambridge! pity our disasters dire! Five long years hath Isis triumphed, five long years have seen my ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... in ceremonious procession, entered the arena. They swept round the oval space very slowly and deliberately, in order to give the spectators full leisure to admire their stern serenity of feature—their brawny limbs and various arms, as well as to form such wagers as the excitement of the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... were quite bewildered as they stepped ashore by the bustle and confusion. Brawny porters carrying heavy packages on their backs pushed along unceremoniously, saying from time to time in a mechanical sort of way, "By your leave, sir!" but pushing on and shouldering passersby into the gutter without the smallest compunction. The narrowness and dinginess of the streets greatly ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... 'His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd, Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter; His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd; Being ireful, on the lion he will venture: 628 The thorny brambles and embracing bushes, As fearful of him, ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... Emmaus in the Louvre: there they sit at supper as they might have sat. Rubens and the Venetian Painters did neither one thing nor the other: their Holy figures are neither ideal nor real: and it is incongruous to see one of Rubens' brawny boors dressed up in the ideal red and blue drapery with which the early Italians clothed their figures of Christ. But enough of all this. I have seen Trench's Sabbation, and like it much: how do you like those centuries of couplets, which are a German fashion? They are ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... infectious, that, after the customary bath, they had given to them the cap and coarse gray trowsers of the convict. A phrenologist would have attentively studied these ghastly and bronzed faces, with their flat foreheads, their cruel and insidious glances, wicked mouths, and brawny necks; almost all offered a frightful resemblance to the brute. On the cunning features of this, one would find the subtle perfidy of the fox; on another, the sanguinary rapacity of the bird of prey; on a third, the ferocity of the tiger; and on another, again, the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... my fellow-students were brawny and high-spirited young peasants from the neighbourhood of Treguier, and, like most individuals occupying an inferior place in the scale of civilization, they were inclined to air an exaggerated regard for bodily strength, and to show a certain amount of contempt for women and for anything ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... length, then," said Henry, extending his brawny arm: "I will have no more close hugs—no more bodkin work, like last night. I care little for a wasp's sting, yet I will not allow the insect to come near ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... its whiskers, And twine so close, that time should never, In life or death, their fortunes sever; But with his rusty sickle mow Both down together at a blow. 280 So learned TALIACOTIUS from The brawny part of porter's bum Cut supplemental noses, which Wou'd last as long as parent breech; But when the date of NOCK was out, 285 Off ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... shock my readers with a description of the cool-blooded butchery that followed. The result of the combat was what anybody might have predicted. At the eleventh round, poor Ned refused to "give in"; the brawny pugilist, unhurt, in good wind, and pale with concentrated and as yet unslaked revenge, had the gratification of seeing his opponent seated upon his second's knee, unable to hold up his head, his ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... had been a reed. Nothing daunted by the defenceless state in which he found himself, Scipio made his way to the front of Wilder, where, with a body divested to the waist of every garment, and empty handed, he fought with his brawny arms, like one who despised the cuts, thrusts and assaults, of which his athletic frame immediately became the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... town before and now went straight to the Red Hawk Tavern, a small place on the water-front that catered chiefly to seafaring men. The tavern-keeper, a brawny Swede, to whose blue eyes half the seamen that plied along the coast were familiar, held out a big hand to him as he entered. He had known the tall mariner when he had been on the Virginia bark before Hornygold had captured ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... stevedores, and we are volunteers. We did not wait for the draft to come, to put aside our fears; We flung them away on the winds of fate, at the very first call of our land, And each of us offered a willing heart and the strength of a brawny hand. We are the army stevedores, and work as we must and may, The cross of honour will never be ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... from his thumbs. This of itself one would have thought sufficient torture for almost any offence, but in addition to it he received two dozen lashes with an improvised cat-o'-nine-tails, laid on by the brawny arm of one of the harpooners. We were all compelled to witness this, and our feelings may be imagined. When, after what seemed a terribly long time to me (Heaven knows what it must have been to him!), he fainted, although no chicken I nearly fainted ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... spring my uncle hired a man to work for us—a noisy, brawny, sharp-featured fellow with keen gray eyes, of the name of Dug Draper. Aunt Deel hated him. I feared him but regarded him with great hope because he had a funny way of winking at me with one eye across the table and, further, because he could sing ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... of an Indian. Otto was riveted to the spot by the sight of a brawny savage striding toward him. He came from the darkness of the wood, and, when he moved into the clearing, was just in time to catch the first beams of the moon rising ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... walk now. These shrill sounds jarred on the summer air. Groups of girls in procession in faded gear or tawdry finery; brawny men with an old-country, heavy cast of feature, in blue flannel, with arms bared to the elbow, and throats exposed; pale stripling youths of the American type, boys with the rough fun not yet knocked out of them by hard work or the harder blows ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... war, still dense it rose Where all the hills were bare, and Caesar now Its fall commanded. But the brawny arms Which swayed the axes trembled, and the men, Awed by the sacred grove's dark majesty, Held back the blow they thought would be returned. This Caesar saw, and swift within his grasp Uprose a ponderous axe, which downward fell Cleaving a mighty ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... and Dick, Raven wondered, to go on fighting? Was it the inevitable course of up-to-date courtship? Perhaps the new generation, from its outlook on elemental things, was taking to marriage by capture, clubbing the damsel and striding off, her limpness flung over a brawny arm. It seemed to him a singularly bare, unshaded way to the rose-leaf bowers his poets had been used to sing; but undoubtedly the roads were many, and this was one. Possibly the poets wouldn't say the same now. Dick ought to know. But at least there ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... stood beside them a half-dozen brawny men, with their legs and chests bare. The beach on which they stood glared white in the yellow light, giving the effect of a landscape in Polar seas. One or two solitary headlands loomed gloomily up, covered with snow. In front, the waters at the edge of the sea broke at their feet in long, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... crowd at the ghat, and as Desmond gradually worked his way through it he suddenly saw, just in front of him, two men whose backs were very familiar. They were in the dress of seamen: one was tall and thin, the other broad and brawny, and Desmond did not need his glimpse of the iron hook to be sure that the men were none other than his old friend Bulger and Mr. Toley, the melancholy mate. They were standing side by side watching in silence the arrival ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... drew the line when the mother hinted that he might as well stay there altogether. He feared a trap; and when she pointed out the danger of two women living alone in the house, he looked at her brawny arms ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... Thomson guided his powerful team through the deep snow, over the rough forest road; and sometimes brawny arms carried the sleigh bodily over the ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... till they hang in your light." "You're an impudent slut," cries the smung at his bellows, "And I the unhappiest of all marry'd fellows: I know you have made me a ram, I have seen it, I catch'd you, you Whore, in the critical minute, Fast lock'd in the arms of your lecherous God, Whilst his brawny posteriors went niddity nod; And you, like a Slut, lay as pleased and contented, As if every joint of your body consented; Altho' when you found you were spy'd by your buck, Then you struggl'd and strove like a pig ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous

... interesting sight, this bucket brigade, that stands in line and passes slowly by the serving windows, which are attended by half a dozen brawny Norwegian women with bare arms and broad, good-natured-looking faces. They wear neat white aprons and caps, and handle the food with a dexterity that shows long experience. They seem to know most of the customers and carry on a familiar conversation with them while ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... felt that the remedy was considerably worse than the disease itself. Lige brought his brawny hand down with a resounding whack, squarely between Tad's shoulders, which operation he repeated ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin

... the troops appointed for the attack assembled without sound of trumpet or drum, and were silently formed in fitting order. The young ensign was in his place, weary and wretched after his miserable night. Before him he saw a great, broad-shouldered lieutenant, whose brawny hand seemed almost too large for his sword-hilt, and in any one of whose limbs played more animal life than in the whole body of the pale youth. The firm-set lips of this officer, and the fire of his ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... type; the humblest, meanest and most common-place subjects suit the one; the other requires research, splendour, and dignity. In the one you may describe the bones, muscles, and nerves of the body, in the other brawny parts and flowing manes. In oratory one wants force, invective, sustained attack; in history the charm is obtained by copiousness and agreeableness, even by sweetness of style. Lastly, the words used, the forms of speech, and the construction of the ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... whispered, patting Brown's brawny arm even while she continued toying playfully with the silken mane, "he know me, he lofe me. He bettah as any man, for he nevah tell lie,—nevah,—only be nice all de time. He ride me till he drop dead, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... a man who bore every mark of being a street laborer sprang to his feet and poured a perfect torrent of abuse against the corporations, especially the railroads. The minute his time was up a big, brawny fellow, who said he was a metal worker by trade, claimed the floor and declared that the remedy for the social wrongs was Trades Unionism. This, he said, would bring on the millennium for labor more surely than anything else. The next man endeavored ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon

... Red-faced, brawny Fred Gibbs, the butcher, his equally red-faced, though slightly more refined wife, and their several sons and daughters, belonging, most of them, to the category of "fine" boys and girls, were a good-humoured, kindly people enough; yet between them and the pretty, dark-eyed ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... immediately afterwards heard upon the stair, and in two or three minutes a man was introduced, handcuffed and fettered. He was thick, brawny, and muscular, and although his shagged and grizzled hair marked an age somewhat advanced, and his stature was rather low, he appeared, nevertheless, a person whom few would have chosen to cope with in personal conflict. His coarse and savage ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Brawny" :   brawn, brawniness, strong, powerful



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