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Devilish   /dˈɛvlɪʃ/   Listen
Devilish

adverb
1.
In a playfully devilish manner.  Synonym: devilishly.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Devilish" Quotes from Famous Books



... believes nothing else of God not to be an enemy of God, whose will alone must be blamed for the fact that not all of us are saved? Contrast this opinion with the one that is formed when a man first learns to know the Lord Christ, and it will be found to be nothing but devilish blasphemy. Hence the sense of this passage, 'Many are called,' etc., is far different. For the preaching of the Gospel is general and public, so that whoever will may hear and accept it. Furthermore, God has it preached ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... another for less than this since the world began. There was once a certain Judas who carried out a plan of betrayal for a far smaller figure. But tell me. Have you never associated Gualtier and Hilda in your thoughts as partners in this devilish plot?" ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... what I have put down above is incredible, yet not a single detail have I distorted. With a quite devilish ingenuity they had fastened upon some true bits: I had suggested the change of hats with the cabby, I had wished to ride the giraffe, and the Tuttle person had secured my knife, but how monstrously untrue of me was the impression conveyed by these isolated facts. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... for my frenzy finding no fit name, Sweep round the ample world with every sense, Grasp at the loftiest words to speak my flame, And call the glow, wherewith I burn, Quenchless, eternal, yea, eterne— Is that of sophistry a devilish play? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... the right brand,—wild, tearing, dark, devilish fellows? We want no essence of milk and honey, you know. None but souls bitter as hemlock or scorching as lightning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... over my reluctance? I knew him, indeed, to be masterful, to lead my life at a sign. Suppose, then, this experiment to succeed; suppose him to return to me, hideously restored, like a vampire in a legend; and suppose that, by some devilish fascination.... My head turned; all former fears deserted me; and I felt I could embrace the worst in preference ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... see,' repeated the officer, with iron imperturbability, and the happy hum died into a cold heart-faintness, fraught with an almost incredulous apprehension of some devilish treachery, some mock discovery that would give the Ghetto over to the frenzies of fanatical creditors, nay, to ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... said Charlie, the same handsome young Doone I had seen that night; "this bank is too devilish ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... CUSINS. A most devilish kind of Spanish burgundy, warranted free from added alcohol: a Temperance burgundy in fact. Its richness in natural alcohol made ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... her head and held in place by a fillet of pearl beads. Her cheeks were crimson, her whole body from head to foot instinct and alive with a beauty that to Cyrus and Deborah, as they stood mute with horror in the open doorway, seemed akin to some devilish enchantment. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... himself to-night. He hasn't the spirit to swear. Did you hear the good thing he said Monday night about Miss MOORE? It was devilish good. Says he—" (Repeats ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... eyes were devilish. John, as he faced about and caught their gaze, looked round like a ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Northumberland, since the Earl's confinement, or of the French ambassador and his wife. He prayed their Lordships in the name of 'my many sorrows and the causes, my services and love to my country, not to suspect me to be knowing this unexampled and more than devilish invention.' Some of them, with their master, were capable of thinking, or affecting to think, any incredible evil of him, and all belonging to him. It was accounted an alarming circumstance that in the September of 1605 Lady Ralegh, during a ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... is as near to a jest as he ever comes, but he can enjoy our staff nonsense for all his gravity. I leave you the letter; you may like some day to deliver it. I hope we shall move soon. This camp life is devilish dull. And here is the British mouse in a hole and won't come out, and our serious old cat a-watching. Lord, the patience of the man! Come over and see us soon, Mr. Warder, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... paces, and not more than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the eastern gable, might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have looked through it, standing on the ground, had not ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... customer, Mr. Copplestone. I confess that the whole business puzzles me, though you and your friends here seem to find it devilish amusing. When I told the Chief Constable, the manager of the shipyard, and the Admiral Superintendent of Naval Work that you were the guilty party, they all roared. For some reason the Admiral and the shipyard manager kept winking at one another and ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... all conjugal situations. It so happened that whenever the poor woman reached a depth of despair which gave her courage to question her husband, she met with a few brief moments of happiness when she was able to feel that if Balthazar was indeed in the clutch of some devilish power, he was permitted, sometimes at least, to return to himself. At such moments, when her heaven brightened, she was too eager to enjoy its happiness to trouble him with importunate questions: later, when she endeavored to speak to him, he would suddenly escape, leave her ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... Hitherto the Snake had had him bound and helpless. As it pursued him in nightmares, his knees had turned to water, great chains had bound his arms, devilish gags had throttled him, he could not breathe, and he had not had a chance to escape nor to fight. He could not even scream for help. He could only cling to a shelf. Now he had a chance. His limbs were free, his eyes were open, he ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... lungs, and had there succumbed to the tubercular invasion for which his earlier sickness had laid him open. Blake's slowly awakening and ever-wary mind kept telling him that after all there might be some possibility of trickery, that a fugitive with the devilish ingenuity of Binhart would resort to any means to escape being ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... in front of the house; "what scurvy hospitality is this? What are you fastening doors and ringing alarm-bells for, as if there were more thieves than honest men in the land? We come to pay you a friendly visit, and, instead of welcome and the wine-skin, you shut the door in our faces. Devilish unfriendly, that, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... with art—art was either Pagan or Popish; and as for the centuries before the Reformation, they and all in them belonged utterly to darkness and the pit. As for the heroes of early Christianity, they were madmen or humbugs; their legends, devilish and filthy puerilities. They went to the artists and literary men, and received the same answer. The medieval writers were fools. Classical art was the only art; all painters before the age of Raphael superstitious bunglers. To be sure, as Fuseli said, Christianity had helped art ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... the natives of this country, I find them entirely savage and wild, strangers to all decency, yea, uncivil and stupid as garden poles, proficient in all wickedness and godlessness; devilish men, who serve nobody but the Devil, that is, the spirit which in their language they call Menetto; under which title they comprehend everything that is subtle and crafty and beyond human skill and power. They have so much witchcraft, divination, sorcery and wicked arts, that they can hardly be held ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... of becoming involved in some passionate political attitude regarding Balkan affairs. I am not now prepared to take up the view of the fanatic Bulgar-worshippers who must not only exalt the Bulgarian nation as a modern Chosen People, but must represent Servian, Greek, and Turk as malignant and devilish in order to throw up in the highest light ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

... with the whole congregation, praying that He would not allow the evil one to take from us that which His mercy had once more bestowed upon us after such extreme want; item, that he would bring to light the auctor of such devilish works, so that he might receive the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... thing, there was peace below. Indeed, the spirit seemed completely taken out of all of them, and by some devilish ingenuity the afterguard had been able to sow distrust between them all, while treating them like dogs, so that the miseries of their life were never openly discussed. My position among them gave me at times some uneasiness. Though ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... If the air of the court gives the citizens a good appetite, it makes me devilish thirsty. After a drink, my glorious master, you will see your Quinola a very busy man; for we must not delude ourselves. Between the word of the king and the attainment of success, we shall meet with as many jealous philosophers, scheming tricksters, malicious cavillers, crooked, rapacious, ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac

... back someone sent me two feathers. Two bird's feathers in a sheet of note-paper with a coronet, and fastened with a seal. Sent from a place a long way off; from one who need not have sent them back at all. That amused me too, those devilish green feathers. ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun

... of Lucy as she lay there, the pointed teeth, the blood stained, voluptuous mouth, which made one shudder to see, the whole carnal and unspirited appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... towards the surface, looked somewhat like a flowing garment, but proved to be a monstrous tuft of water-weeds. Hollingsworth, with a gigantic effort, upheaved a sunken log. When once free of the bottom, it rose partly out of water,—all weedy and slimy, a devilish-looking object, which the moon had not shone upon for half a hundred years,—then plunged again, and sullenly returned to its old resting-place, for the remnant of ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... born to be a man of action. Your instinct is always to do something energetic. But supposing, for argument's sake, that we had him arrested tonight, what on earth the better off should we be for that? We could prove nothing against him. There's the devilish cunning of it! If he were acting through a human agent we could get some evidence, but if we were to drag this great dog to the light of day it would not help us in putting a rope round the ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... done with her? I fear the world is wiser than its judges! Turn from her, says the world. By day the sons of the world do. It darkens, and they dance together downward. Then comes there one of the world's elect who deems old counsel devilish; indifference to the end of evil worse than its pursuit. He comes to reclaim her. From deepest bane will he bring her back to highest blessing. Is not that a bait already? Poor fish! 'tis wondrous ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... a bit. "John Donaldson" is a name not impossible to be duplicated. "It was devilish odd," I said, "to run into your own handle like that, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... Sophia being now removed, Jones became the object of the squire's consideration.—"Come, my lad," says Western, "d'off thy quoat and wash thy feace; for att in a devilish pickle, I promise thee. Come, come, wash thyself, and shat go huome with me; and we'l zee to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... in his carriage toward morning he briefly summed up his impressions of Bertha in the following adjectives: intelligent, delightfully unsophisticated, a little bit verdant, but devilish pretty. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... mad fury, from this crocodile, this tiger, this hyaena, this devil of a woman. Yes, I did, I did; I was beating time to Anfossi's canzonet, and brought down my baton too soon whilst she was in the midst of the fermata; I cut short her trill; but why did I meet her eyes, the devilish divinity! The deuce take all fermatas, I say!' In a most curious state of mind I hastened into the arbour along with the priest, and recognised at the first glance the sisters Lauretta and Teresina. The former ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... required to give up you." Of course he had taken her in his arms and kissed her. There are moments in one's life in which not to be imprudent, not to be utterly, childishly forgetful of all worldly wisdom, would be to be brutal, inhuman, and devilish. "Had he told ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... stoically. Then, with studied carelessness and devilish abandon: "I say, old man, toss me a cigar, will you? I feel like ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... compassion and giving shelter to a political offender; nor are the cries for mercy of the martyrs tortured at Smithfield stakes yet forgotten. The torture of New England witches is recent history, while the dismal record of devilish tortures inflicted by white men upon Indian captives is unbroken from the days of Columbus. Did not Frontenac cause an Iroquois warrior to be burned alive in order to terrorize his ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... far as you are concerned. Be advised by Valentine. She's as clever a girl as there is in all Europe. She has her eyes and ears open all the time. A lover will come on the scene before long, and you must be jealous—devilish jealous—you understand?" ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... moment! What devilish key are you singing that in? La, la, la, la; mi, in E major, key of four sharps. By Jove, my little man! here is a fellow who sings B's and C's away up in the clouds; an E sharp, too!" he continued, with astonishment, while the singer made a ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... and we were at it. Oh, I was minded to be rarely devilish this night. Quick and brilliant—that was the thing. Nor was I unmindful of that deceptive moonlight. As with Fortini would I settle with him if he dared the time attack. If he did not, and quickly, then I ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... harm than that of the openly wicked. Whenever the supposed interests of self, or family, or country, or even of church or mission come first, we may be quite sure of the true source of that counsel; it is at least earthly or sensual, if not devilish. ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor

... train for Paddington. He directed me to a small silent station (I cannot even remember the name of it) which stood well away from the road and looked as lonely as a hut on the Andes. I do not think I have ever seen such a type of time and sadness and scepticism and everything devilish as that station was: it looked as if it had always been raining there ever since the creation of the world. The water streamed from the soaking wood of it as if it were not water at all, but some loathsome ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... world of the good tends to erect man above himself, the same generalizing method in the world of the evil tends to degrade human nature below itself; the extremes of the process are the divine and the devilish; both transcend life, but are developed out of it. The difference between these two poles of ideality is that the order of one is an order of life, that of the other an order of death. Between these two is the special province ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... its punishments. In this matter it reached with perfection its prototype, the times of the cruel Roman Emperors.... Never has 'justice' been more barbarous; not even in the darkest Middle Ages has torture been more refined, more devilish, than in the days of Humanism.... Truly it is no accident that immediately after, indeed, even before, the end of the Renaissance, everywhere in Western Europe the fires began to glow wherein thousands of unhappy wretches expired in torments for the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... seen him doing them; and afterwards when she thought about them they were unreal, as if they hadn't happened, as if she had just imagined them. Incredible, and yet the sort of thing you could imagine if you tried. But that last devilish thing he did, it had a hard, absolute reality. Just because it was inconceivable, because you couldn't have imagined it, you couldn't doubt that ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair

... Meister," Dean Stanley tells us that one great benefit traceable to God the Son is the recognition of "humility and poverty, mockery and despising, wretchedness and suffering, as divine." Well, if these things are divine, the sooner we all become devilish the better. Nobody thinks them divine when they happen to himself; on the contrary, he cries out lustily against them. But it is a different matter when they happen to others. Then the good Christian considers them divine. How easily, says a French wit, we bear other people's troubles! Undistracted ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... touch of the fangs it screamed aloud in terror as only a horse can. The rider sprang from its back, and, to our horror, ran to the river's edge, thinking evidently to take refuge in our boat. But before ever he reached the water the devilish ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... to the elders of Au-yoeng's neighborhood, who found and restored the hemp, nearly all. Merchant lets the matter drop. But the neighbors kept after this cormorant fellow, worked one beastly squeeze or another, ingenious baiting, devilish—Rot! you know their neighborhoods better than I! Well, they pushed him down-hill—poor devil, showing that's always possible, no bottom! He brooded, and all that, till he thought the merchant and the Jesus religion were the cause of all. So ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... in the wake of an east wind. It flew to investigate, and the pilot photographed the phenomenon from the rear. This reproduction of a tenuous mass blown along the discoloured earth will show coming generations how the Boche introduced to the black art of warfare its most devilish form of frightfulness. ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... knew the stately prelate who presided over this Corporation of Corruption. I imagine how he would have shivered and turned pale had some angel whispered to him what devilish utterances were some day to proceed from the lips of the little cherub with shining face and shining robes who acted as the bishop's attendant in the stately ceremonials of the Church! Truly, even into ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... fright her voice utterly left her. She could not make a sound. As they lay upon the steps, the captain beneath, the man seized his victim by the neck with both hands, pressing his great thumbs deeply into his throat. Apparently he did not notice Olive. All the efforts of his devilish soul were bent upon stifling the voice and the life out of the witness of his attempted crime. Olive sprang down, and stood over the struggling men. Her uncle's eyes stared at her, and seemed bursting from his head. His face was growing dark. Again ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... most devilish plot I ever heard of," said her companion, passionately, through his tightly-locked teeth. "Your insane jealousy and suspicion, during the years we have lived together, have shriveled whatever affection I hitherto ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... forenoon you may return and taste; it only sparkles, and sharpens, and grows to be a new drink, not less delicious; but with the progress of the day the fermentation quickens and grows acid; in twelve hours it will be yeast for bread, in two days more a devilish intoxicant, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... for. It would puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad. I wanted a little inspiration, a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and— 'Pon my soul and honour,' said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking round the room, 'what a devilish classical thing this is! by Gad, it's ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... children, to be slaves to a wretched man like himself, who, instead of compensating him for his labours, chains, handcuffs and beats him and family almost to death, leaving life enough in them, however, to work for, and call him master? No! no! he would cut his devilish throat from ear to ear, and well do slaveholders know it. The bare name of educating the coloured people, scares our cruel oppressors almost to death. But if they do not have enough to be frightened for yet, it will be, ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet

... to put down over my own face, I stooped and picked up the newspaper. Her devilish determination quite upset me for the moment. I actually had to steady myself before I could ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... ability to cast it out. An incorrect concept of the nature of evil hinders the destruction of evil. To conceive of God as resembling—in personality, or form—the personality that Jesus condemned as devilish, is fraught with spiritual danger. Evil can neither grasp the prerogative of God nor ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy

... not look—though he looked at his plate, and at the busts over his head, and the long portraits of Saint Werner's worthies on the walls, and on this side and on that—Kennedy knew full well that Brogten's eye had been on him from beginning to end, and that Brogten was enjoying, with devilish malignity, the sense of power which he had gained from the knowledge of another's sin. The thought was intolerable to him, and, finishing his dinner with hasty gulps, he left ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... cheerful or helpful. "They're slashing this whole State open from one end to the other with their devilish reform hullabaloo," ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... That devilish Isabelle sowed her poisonous information rather than pronounced it. "She has been seen with a new diamond-studded bandeau," ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... ever the murderous pyre. Had Lord Wellesley remained Governor-General a year longer Carey would have succeeded in 1808, instead of having to wait till 1829, and to know as he waited and prayed that literally every day saw the devilish smoke ascending along the banks of the Ganges, and the rivers and pools considered sacred by the Hindoos. Need we wonder that when on a Sunday morning the regulation of Lord William Bentinck prohibiting the crime reached him as he was meditating his sermon, he sent for another to do the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... along her narrow, pallid cheeks. Her eyes were strange and drugged, heavy under their heavy, drooping lids. Her thin bosom shrugged convulsively. He stared back at her, devilish and unchanging. With another strange, sick convulsion, she turned away, as if she were sick, could feel dissolution setting-in in her body. For with her mind she was unable to attend to his words, he caught her, as it ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... of the altar, and eyes glittered, dusky throats went constricted and dry with terror when she stirred up the brazier and was hidden for a moment in the rising volume of blue smoke in which flashes of devilish light played incessantly. Milo stepped up behind and above the altar, and as the smoke reeked about him vanished seemingly into the face of the cliff. There, in an unsuspected outlet to the great chamber, was the key to much of the magic with which Dolores kept her turbulent crew ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... "Turn round, you devilish idjit?" bellowed the Cap'n. "What do you think this is—one of your circus wagons with a span of hosses hitched in front of it? I told you once before that I didn't want to be bothered with conversation. I tell you so ag'in. I've got things on ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... and wiggletails, Laughing and clapping their hands at me, "All night!" prankishly, prankishly; But I would toss them back in mine, Lobsters and turtles of quaint design; Then leaping out in an abrupt way, I'd snatch them bald in my devilish glee, And skip away when they snatched at me, Fiendishly, fiendishly. O, what a jolly life I'd lead, Ah, what a "bang-up" life indeed! Soft are the mermaids under the sea— We would ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... terribly evil entities. Inflamed with all kinds of horrible appetites which they can no longer satisfy directly now they are without a physical body, they gratify their loathsome passions vicariously through a medium or any sensitive person whom they can obsess; and they take a devilish delight in using all the arts of delusion which the astral plane puts in their power in order to lead others into the same excesses which have proved so fatal to themselves. Quoting again from the same letter:—"These are the Pisachas the incubi ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater

... blessings of a delivered people in their ears. The echoing trumpets of romance called to them from the Cathedral City, and their blood stirred to the call. These were the impressions that led them, in common with the rest of the Division, to surmount appalling obstacles, natural and devilish. They soaked in the snow, and froze in the keen blast; they starved and toiled on the way, but "stuck it," and their reward was the fall of Savy village. There was fighting all along the 50 mile front just then, and Savy did not loom very large in the chronicles of the time, but those who took ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various

... which centres around the junction of the Rue Richelieu with the Avenue de l'Opera. It is as an oasis in a turbulent sandstorm, a beneficent shelf of rock in a whirlpool of rapids. The only thing to be feared therein is that a toy aeroplane of some child will put an eye out, or that the more devilish ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... appeared to me to be exceedingly funny and, in a spirit of utter reckless bravado, I doffed my fur cap, with exaggerated politeness made a low bow, and, addressing the largest and most devilish-looking wolf in ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... the room Delany tried to hide himself among the spectators. Some devilish thing had gone wrong. He hadn't heard all that had passed between the judge and Hogan, but he had caught enough to perceive that the whole ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... of wisdom in what you say, Mr. Brown," replied the Doctor, naively; "but I fear much that it is the wisdom spoken in James, iii. 15, which 'descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.' You avoid the very point of the argument, which is, Is this a sin against God? That it is, I am solemnly convinced; and shall I 'use lightness? or the things that I purpose do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay?' No, Mr. Brown, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... the sardonic, the cruel humour with which Fielding scathed his contemporaries; still, he could hardly have expected even him to deal such a violent and devilish blow. Though he flushed with the smart he bore himself bravely under it. After all, it was to see Fielding that he ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... the fact that she had ceased to like me before there was any reason why she should cease to like me. I'll swear she had. My first thought and intention, when I heard what had happened, was to marry her right away. And what changed my feeling about it, and showed me devilish clear it would be a mistake, was Sabina herself. We needn't go over that. But I'm not going to marry her now under any circumstances whatever, while recognising very clearly my duty to her and the child. And though you ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... pity you should. Odd, would she would like me, then I should hamper my young rogues. Odd, would she would; faith and troth she's devilish handsome. [Aside.] Madam, you deserve a good husband, and 'twere pity you should be thrown away upon any of these young idle rogues about the town. Odd, there's ne'er a young fellow worth hanging—that is a very young fellow. Pize on 'em, they never think ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... compact the poem, how perfect the drama. It is Paradise, perfect in beauty and holiness; attacked with devilish art; in ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... particularly the first man who had tried to lead her astray. He had been considerably more than twice her age, a hardened sinner without any compunction, with a devilish cunning at breaking down defences without any seeming over-persuasion, and at whitewashing his actions into passionate devotion to youngn inexperienced years. She remembered how she had struggled to resist him. It was good to remember ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... speak," proceeded the prisoner, heedless of the intimation from the bench; "or if you deny the truth, my life, as sure as there is a God in heaven, will be required at your hands. If, in consequence of your devilish plotting, these men consign me to a felon's grave, I shall not be cold in it when you will be calling upon the mountains to fall and cover you from the vengeance of the Judge of heaven and earth! Speak, man—save me: save your own soul from mortal peril whilst ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... assure you," continued the speaker as he was warming to his theme under false fires of devilish sophistry, "in the day when the Bible was used in the Sunday school classes, spiritual ignorance abounded ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... to feel a warmth of satisfaction, and she asked shortly, 'Why not?' 'She wouldn't understand. You're human. I'm devilish lonely. Well, you know my circumstances.' A shadow which seemed to affect the brightness of the autumn day, even deadening the clear shouting of the men and the jingling of the chains attached to the horses, passed over Francis Sales's ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... Perfectly! As plain as I see this julep before me. I had just left the Ramierez rancho. The senora,—a devilish pretty woman, sir,—after a little playful badinage, had offered to lend me her daughter's mustang if I could ride it home. You know what it is, Mr. Grey," he said gallantly. "I'm an older man than ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... the kind of warfare the world is seeing today, I doubt very much if it is worse to be asphyxiated than to be blown to pieces by an obus. But this new and devilish arm which Germany has added to the horrors of war seemed the last straw, and within a few weeks, I have seen grow up among these simple people the conviction that the race which planned and launched this great war has lost the very right to live; and that none ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... chills one's blood. This keeps on a long time, with variations. Every change seems worse than the last. But sooner or later it brings one up standing with a laugh impossible to describe, unless it is devilish—so clear, so keen, so intelligent, so beyond expression malicious. Toward morning this sometimes brings sweat. Oh, maybe not if one were alone; but with Nels, watching ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... "I beg your pardon for not being able to enjoy the pleasure of your conversation any longer, but we have to talk, la Peyrade and I, over a matter of much importance, and in newspaper offices this devilish time runs away so fast. If you are willing, we will postpone the question to another day. Madame Phellion is well, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... the opposite side, close to the wooden fence. Then he came back, and paused for a minute in front of Dr. Sloper's dwelling. His eyes travelled over it; they even rested on the ruddy windows of Mrs. Penniman's apartment. He thought it a devilish comfortable house. ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... have been retaken by the Chinese. Gen. Tung Fu Shiang has led the Boxers and the goddesses, and has destroyed twenty foreign men-of-war, killing 6,000 foreign soldiers. The seven devilish countries' consuls came to beg for peace. General Tung now has killed all the foreign soldiers. The secondary devils (the native Christians) must die. General Tung has ordered the Boxers to go to the foreign countries and bring out their devil emperors from ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... David laughed. "You! That's rich." He looked at her with his old, good smile, tender and inarticulate. "What would I have done without you? You've stood by and put up with my cussedness through these three devilish years. It's almost three years, you know, and yet I—I don't seem to get over it—Oh, I'm a perfect girl! How can you put up with me?" He laughed again, and hugged her. "Mother, sometimes I almost wish ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... devilish shepherd, to aspire With such a giantly presumption, To cast up hills against the face of heaven, And dare the force of angry Jupiter? But, as he thrust them underneath the hills, And press'd out fire from their burning jaws, So will I send this monstrous ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe

... not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and, in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed he had been thinking over it all ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... Reuben, "but they are all so good! so devilish good!"—and he puffed at his cigar with a nervous violence. It was not often that such an approach to profanity sullied the lips of Reuben, and Phil noted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... excitement in eyes that had grown tired with proof correcting, passed each other on the stairs and asked for their Chance. It was a chance of seeing the greatest drama in life with real properties, real corpses, real blood, real horrors with a devilish thrill in them. It was not to be missed by any self-respecting journalist to whom all life is a stage play which he describes and criticises from a free seat in the front of ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... the batch in which advance is seen. "The King of Bantam," for instance, is the account of an "extravagant," though not quite a fool, who is "coney-catched" in the old manner. But it opens in a fashion very different indeed from the old manner. "This money is certainly a most devilish thing! I'm sure the want of it had been like to ruin my dear Philibella!" and the succeeding adventures are pretty freshly told. The trick of headlong overture was a favourite with Afra. "The Adventure of the Black Lady" begins, "About the ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... and presently she was bearing on us, and was ere long so close aboard that we could see her every spar and rope, and her folk all gathered to the windward, knights, sergeants, archers, and mariners, to gaze at us and mock us; and huge and devilish laughter arose from amongst them as she ploughed the water so close beside us, that one might well-nigh have cast a morsel of bread aboard her; for clear it was presently that she had no mind to ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... "Devilish rogues, the newspapers," said Claparon. "Monsieur, the newspapers do all the mischief. They are useful sometimes, but they keep me awake many a night. I wish they didn't. I have put my eyes ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... by the fire, with nothing yet decided, he could see it all from the start, with its devilish, delicate intricacy, its subtle slow enchantment spinning itself out of him, out of his own state of mind and body, rather than out of the spell cast over him, as though a sort of fatal force, long dormant, were working ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... brings me here,' resumed the Australian with gusto, 'is devilish delicate, I can tell you. My friend Mr Thomas, being an American of Portuguese extraction, unacquainted with our habits, and a wealthy manufacturer of ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... was a trap set for them in the middle of my uncle's kitchen. It was a treacherous pipe of a special shape, at the bottom of which, in the soapy pan of water there, the flies were invariably drowned. Now on the particular day in which I felt so devilish I bethought me of that disgusting blackish mass at the bottom of the vessel, made up of the thousands of flies drowned during the past two or three days, and I wondered what sort of toothsome dish I should make of it, a pancake, perhaps, ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... soldierly fellow full of fight, who knows the natives and the country. I will undertake to lead you there, but you will have to take great care of me. You will have to have me carried most of the way. I am weak, devilish weak, and I am afraid of dying; but I know the way there, and no other man can say as much! It is in my head here; it is not written down. It is only in my head, and no one can get it ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... the King here!" he thought, "it's devilish monotonous ... can't see anything, and nothing to hear ... hold on, I can distinguish three separate noises, the plash of the water from the fountains, the rumble of carriages, and that heavy sound can only be the passage of trains from the North-South in the tunnel, which ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... lines—not by the letter— 'Tis plain enough that Shakespeare was atrimmin' His own unruly ship and furling sail To meet a British tempest or a gale, And keep cold water from his wine and women. Now I'll admit, when he's a little mellow, The Devil himself's a devilish clever fellow, And, though his cheeks and paunch are somewhat shrunk, He only lacks a cowl to make a monk. Time is the mother of twins et hic et nunc; Come, hood your horns and fill the mug abrimmin', For we are cheek by jowl on wit and wine ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... reassurance sang gayly through him. He had expected this—this was what he had predicted. Hamdi was no foul friend. He was a devilish uncomfortable customer with antiquated notions of revenge, but now he had shot his wad and was ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... them I don't pretend to say, for the French went to and fro like lightning between summer clouds. But of this I am certain: that there never was such a devilish smile as the old Baron turned on me when he got down from the tonneau and took a swift survey of the scene as though sure ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton

... benevolent to a fault, and her development of individuality and self-reliance small, she was one who could be easily persuaded but never driven. Jackson was not slow to learn this, and with honeyed words and protestations of love, he won Pearl Bryan's heart. This won, the accomplishment of his devilish designs, her ruin, was easy. She fell a victim to his lustful desire, and in a short time discovered that she would soon become a mother. Almost crazed at this discovery she knew not what to do or which way to turn. It was the first blot that had ever ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown

... a while Claudine made a bold Sashay to start something devilish, but the Fillies trained on the Farm did not seem gaited for ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... the door of his "stockade," oiling the lock. "Devilish thing don't work well," he said. "A padlock is generally the best lock or the worst; you never can tell which. If I could jest git a drap of the grease into the key-hole I'd soon fix it. But it won't go in, you see. By jings, the devil has his own way about half the time, and his influence ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... Pope Gerbert, as Bishop Otho gravely relates, obtained the pontificate by having given himself up entirely to the devil: others suspected him, too, of holding an intercourse with demons; but this was indeed a devilish age! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... put into operation. The executioner, enveloped in a black robe from head to foot, with his eyes glaring at his victim through holes cut in the hood which muffled his face, practised successively all the forms of torture which the devilish ingenuity of the monks had invented. The imagination sickens when striving to keep pace with these dreadful realities. Those who wish to indulge their curiosity concerning the details of the system, may easily satisfy themselves at the present day. The flood of light which has ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... to make them out more coherent than they were. We don't feel in images or think in words. The images are about us, the words may be at hand; but it may well be that we are better without them. This world is a tight fit, and life in it, as the Duke said of one day of his own life, is "a devilish close-run thing." If the blessed Gods and the legions of the half-gods in their habit as they live, were to be as clear to us as our neighbour Tom or our chief at the office, what might be the lot of Tom's wife, or what the security of our high stool at the desk? As things are, our blank misgivings ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... feel, Mack. That's where a skipper is hog-tied against taking any action. You just sort of feel that there's something devilish afoot, but you don't know enough what it is to be ready to meet it. Puts me in mind of a song I heard once aboard one of my ships. One of the new mates sang it, and called it the microbe song. I ain't got any idea where he picked it up, ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... devilish abdomen!" said Mr. Boggs, slapping that portion of his frame as if he had a special grudge against it and would be glad if he could hit it hard enough to bring it to a realizing sense of its turpitude. "My figure had gone to the devil! It was not as large as it is now, ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... alone, but he would go with me; but he would go first and bring a stout fellow, one of his countrymen, to go also with us; "and one," said he, "as famous for his zeal as you can desire any one to be against such devilish things as these." So we agreed to go, only we three and my man-servant, and resolved to put it in execution the following night about midnight, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... fretting and fuming inwardly. He knew better than that. Nevitt's consummate mastery of his chosen instrument was but of a piece, after all, with the way he could play on all the world, as on a familiar gamut. It was the very skill of the man that made him so dangerous and so devilish. Guy felt that under the spell of Nevitt's eye he himself was but as clay in ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... yard with them all!" quoth the priest; "for rather than not burn Queen Pintiquiniestra, and the shepherd Darinel with his eclogues, and the devilish perplexities of the author, I would burn the father who begot me, were I to meet him in the ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... fool," said Osborn bitterly. "You are a fool, but you have a vein of devilish cunning. You steal and forge; and then expect to shuffle off the consequences on ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... do worse to their wives and darters. Curse 'em! I shan't forget in a hurry that poor young thing as we see lying dead in the cabin of that American ship; and I'd burn the finest craft as ever was launched, afore they should have the chance to commit another sich a piece of devilish villainy. Now, Harry, lad, mind me, we do this here little piece of work. You've got hold of the eend of the right coil of idees, and I can see as your heart's set upon it; and I, Robert Trunnion, ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... live upon an enemy when one invades his land. But the destruction that had here taken place was wanton and savage. One seemed to travel in the footsteps of some fiend who had left his mark upon every home, destroying the things that were probably most prized by the owners, and destroying with a devilish ingenuity that had saved him all unnecessary labour. For example, in one little farmhouse I found a flimsy, showy, London bedroom suite that was clearly the pride of the establishment, with its wardrobe and full-length mirror. The destroyer had smashed just what could not ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... and slaughter into both the British settlements. In all this scheme there was nothing so grateful to the ruthless heart of Coubitant as the idea of Rodolph's death; and that too, as he trusted, by his own hand. O, how he panted for the devilish joy of tearing off his scalp, and carrying it back to throw it triumphantly at Henrich's feet! We shall see whether such joy was ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... marry poor Paw. Now she had made her bed, she must lie in it. Must sit and say "Thank you!" for Aunt Mollie's leavings, precious scraps she dared not refuse—Maw, who had a pride as fierce and keen as any! It was devilish! Oh, it was kind of Aunt Mollie to give; it was the taking that came so bitter hard. And then they weren't genteel about their giving. There was always that air of superiority, that conscious patronage, as now, when Uncle Clem, breaking ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the captain. "You're schoolmaster enough for a tobacco country. You can navigate a ship by the sun and compass, and that's education enough. If you go and let it out that you're a sailor, I'll—well, you've been a captain or mate, and you know devilish well what I'll do with you. I'll serve you as you have served many a poor devil ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... may be jealous of any creature that all women pet. Paul Burton can play to them until their golden souls come soaring out to be playmates with his golden soul. You and I, having no wives, may be able to laugh at such things—but Len Haswell has a devilish pretty one—and a devilish ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... villainess muttering oaths; The bank and the safe and the will and the forgery— All of them built on traditional norms— Villainess dark and Lucrezia Borgery Helping the villain until she reforms; The old mill at midnight, a rapid delivery; Violin music, all scary and shivery; Plot that is devilish, awful, nefarious; Heroine frightened, her plight is precarious; Bingo!—the rescue!—the movement goes snappily— Exit the villain and all ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams

... partially—not wholly under any circumstances—if you arrive at a state of Nirvana before death. ... Gay life this, my boy! I've been so wicked and fast and devilish and hoggish and gluttonous and always rotten and riotous that I needs must spend a few months in this agony by way of preliminary atonement before I may get even a ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... devilish; for all dey was de riches' fam'ly in de lan'. Dey was de out-fightin'es', out-cussin'es', fastes' ridin', hardes' drinkin', out-spendin'es' folks I ever seen. But Lawd! Lawd! Dey was gent'men even in dey cups. De ladies was beautiful wid big black eyes an' sof' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... is the boldest and most bloodthirsty of our small mammals; indeed, none of our larger beasts are more so. There is something devilish and uncanny about it. It persists like fate; it eludes, but cannot be eluded. The terror it inspires in the smaller creatures—rats, rabbits, chipmunks—is pitiful to behold. A rat pursued by a weasel has ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... ghost, who inhabited the Drummers' Hall, a room between the towers over the porter's lodge, and sent forth a mysterious tattoo. Sometimes he left his hall, this devilish musician, and strode along the battlements drumming and drumming, a terrible figure nine feet high. Most people were frightened, but there were those who said that the drummer was nothing more nor less than a gardener in league with the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... mouths gaping on girded Harfleur. Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back; Tells Harry—that the king doth offer him Katharine his daughter; and with her, to dowry, Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms. The offer likes not: and the nimble gunner With linstock[5] now the devilish cannon touches, ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... philosopher, Captain Bunsby, and the Game Chicken, and Mrs. Pipchin, and Miss Tox; and Cousin Feenix with wilful legs so little under control, and yet to the core of him a gentleman; and the apoplectic Major Bagstock, the Joey B. who claimed to be "rough and tough and devilish sly;" and Susan Nipper, as swift of tongue as a rapier, and as sharp? Reader, don't you know all these people? For myself, I have jostled against them constantly any time the last twenty years. They are as much part of my life as the ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... a subtle devilish something or other about autobiographical composition that defeats all the writer's attempts to paint his portrait ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... deep-laid and splendid plan for the regeneration of the empire. It was necessary for the wise and benevolent schemes of the father of his people to lop off those limbs which were infected with irremediable pestilence— "and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds!!"—Still the fall of Andronicus was a fatal blow to the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... on the crimson satin bed, a necklace like a wreath of light. There was no misunderstanding the preciousness of that. The shock of the realization of what they were sent the blood into my face. Her eyes laughed at me with a gleam that seemed devilish. She threw the box into my lap. She took out rings and covered my fingers with them, drops of blood, red, and brilliant green, and rainbow colors. I couldn't seem to speak or move. I thought she ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... thyself caused to burst forth by devilish arts," rejoined the sheriff. "I owe thee little for the service. If for naught else, thou deservest death for thy ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... attentiveness.—H. B. J.) JAB WILL spout and WON'T keep to the point; but, all the same, I fancy, somehow, he's getting round the Jury. He's such a jolly innocent kind of old ass, and they like him because he's no end of sport. The plaintiff's a devilish fine girl, and gave her evidence uncommonly well; but, unless WITHERINGTON turns up again, I believe old JAB will romp in a winner, after all! I haven't taken down anything else, except his wind-up, when of course he managed to get ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... King Theodore's declaration,[1] and wish him success with all my soul. I hate the Genoese; they make a commonwealth the most devilish of all tyrannies! ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... not only justifies the cruelty, but asks in amazement: "What! is a slave so much of a human being?" No wonder that there was a proverb, "As many slaves, so many foes." No wonder that many masters lived in perpetual fear, and that "the tyrant's devilish plea, necessity," might be urged in favor of that odious law which enacted that, if a master was murdered by an unknown hand, the whole body of his slaves should suffer death,—a law which more than once was carried into ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... to call them rumors—they were devilish close to facts when we left town this morning," Mr. Grisben was saying, with an ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... itself was more than suspect. But the fact of its being left in evidence roused other suspicions. Was it the result of some deep and devilish purpose? As to that all speculation soon appeared to be a vain thing. Finally the two officers came to the conclusion that it wras left there most likely by accident, complicated possibly by some unforeseen necessity; such, perhaps, as the sudden need to get away quickly from ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... niggers come 'round our place talking 'bout delegates and voting, and we jest all stayed on the place. But dey was some low white trash and some devilish niggers made out like dey was Ku Klux ranging 'round de country stealing hosses and taking things. Old Master said dey wasn't shore enough, so I reckon he knowed who ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... sooner gone, than the devilish dispositions of her sisters began to show themselves in their true colours. Even before the expiration of the first month, which Lear was to spend by agreement with his eldest daughter Goneril, the old king began to find out the difference between promises and performances. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... halberdiers, the black-visored figure waiting beside the block. As the doomed man dragged himself to the scaffold, how pale that face in the glass box must have been, for any courage that kept him above his fate. It was all very vivid, and the more incredible therefore that such a devilish thing as the death-punishment should still be, and that governments should keep on surpassing in the anguish they inflict the atrocity of the cruelest murderers. If the Salem-born Hawthorne ever visited that church in remembrance of the fact that his people came from the same parish; ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... shameless self-seeking of her waiting-woman, Mrs Slipslop, the swinish avarice of Parson Trulliber, the calculating cruelty of Mrs Tow-wouse, to name but some of the vices here exposed, blazon forth that 'enthusiasm for righteousness' which constantly moved Fielding to exhibit the devilish in human nature in all its 'native Deformity,' it is still Adams who remains the central figure of the great comic epic. Concerning the good parson, appreciation has stumbled for adequate words, from the tribute of Sir Walter Scott to that of Mr Austin Dobson. ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... of speech presents curious similarities in all languages—he told me: 'Most charming couple in London—awfully pretty, wasn't she?—he had been in the Guards—attache at Vienna once—they adored each other. White hair, devilish queer, wasn't it? Suited her, somehow. And then she had been married to a Russian, or something, somewhere in the wilds, and their names were—' But do you know," said Marshfield, interrupting himself, "I think I had better let you find that out for ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... back his deed from the infernal muniment-chest (which must have been fire-proof beyond any skill of our modern safe-makers), and the bishop having read it aloud to the awe-stricken congregation, Theophilus becomes his own man again. In this play, the theory of devilish compact is already complete in all its particulars. The paper must be signed with the blood of the grantor, who does feudal homage (or joing tes mains, et si devien mes hom), and engages to eschew good and do evil all the days of his life. The Devil, however, does not imprint ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... as learned to the full as my fellow-traveller. What a pity that he will spoil a wit and a devilish pleasant fellow (as he is) by wisdom! He talked on Music; and by having read Hawkins and Burney recently I was enabled to talk of names, and show more knowledge than he had suspected I possessed; and in the end he begged me to shape my thoughts upon paper, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... the poisoned water, since anybody trying to reach the spot of the massacre would probably fall a victim to some similar accident before he got back again. It is devoutly to be hoped that the punishment he deserves will sooner or later overtake the author of this devilish ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... did. I may not have liked the tone you took about it, Mary. You are so devilish high-handed. In short, I don't mind telling you that I was annoyed by your interference in the matter. But after mature consideration—I turned the matter over in my mind—I was not the least influenced ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... counter currents to the main drift of affairs. About the time that Lee and his beaten army were making good their escape, terrific riots broke out in New York City in resisting the draft. As is usual in mob rule the very worst elements of human or devilish depravity came to the top and were most in evidence. For several days there was indeed a reign of terror. The fury of the mob was directed particularly against the negroes. They were murdered. Their orphan asylum was burnt. But the government quickly suppressed the riot with a firm hand. ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... Gospel and divine truth come devilish lies; ... from the blood in our body comes corruption; out of Luther come Muentzer, and rebels, Anabaptists, Sacramentarians, and false brethren" (Werke, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... Baronet; "we're all fond of driving, here, Mr. Waxy: there's a young lady who will teach you to handle the ribbons. Gad, she'd make the crop-eared mare step along. Have you got the old mare still? Devilish good ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... dark and horrible dungeon of hell, Diabolus with all the society of the princes of darkness, sends to our trusty ones, in and about the walls of the town of Mansoul, now impatiently waiting for our most devilish answer to their venomous and most poisonous design against the town ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan



Words linked to "Devilish" :   rascally, evil, playful



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