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Extricate   /ˈɛkstrəkˌeɪt/   Listen
Extricate

verb
(past & past part. extricated; pres. part. extricating)
1.
Release from entanglement of difficulty.  Synonyms: disencumber, disentangle, untangle.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Extricate" Quotes from Famous Books



... consideration, too simply a consideration of self-attention. We pity poverty, loss of friends, etc.,—more complex things, in which the sufferer's feelings are associated with others. This is a rough thought suggested by the presence of gout; I want head to extricate it and plane it. What is all this to your letter? I felt it to be a good one, but my turn, when I write at all, is perversely to travel out of the record, so that my letters are anything but answers. So you still want a motto? You must not take my ironical one, because your book, I take it, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... dreams for Roderick Drew. While Wabi and the old Indian, veterans in wilderness hardship, slept in peace and tranquillity, the city boy found himself in the most unusual and thrilling situations from which he would extricate himself with a grunt or sharp cry, several times sitting bolt upright in his bed of balsam until he realized where he was, and that his adventures were only ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... promote the interests of the former, than ever a good man did to serve a good man or a good cause? For have we not been prodigal of life and fortune? have we not defied the civil magistrate upon occasion? and have we not attempted rescues, and dared all things, only to extricate a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... but were awakened by the noise of a serpent of surprising length and thickness, whose scales made a rustling noise as he wound himself along. It swallowed up one of my comrades, notwithstanding his loud cries and the efforts he made to extricate himself from it. Dashing him several times against the ground, it crushed him, and we could hear it gnaw and tear the poor fellow's bones, though we had fled to a considerable distance. The following day, to our ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... he makes an effort to extricate the arm, heaving his shoulder upward. In vain.—It is held as in a vice, or the clasp of a giant. There is no alternative—he must submit to his fate. And such a fate! Once more he will see the sole enemy of ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... extricate himself from the mire into which he sank, was advised to make use of a Political Pull. When the Political Pull had arrived, the Ox said: "My good friend, please make fast to me, and ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... stump of the foremast, so as to embarrass the Frenchmen as much as possible in any attempt that they might make to rig up a jury spar. But the French captain was game to the backbone, and, helpless as he was to retaliate upon us, omitted no effort to extricate himself from the difficulties by which he was surrounded. What would he not have given, at that moment, for a single gun powerful enough to have reached us? As it was, he fired at us at frequent intervals, for the apparent purpose of ascertaining whether we had inadvertently ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... own room before the enemy could locate him or even extricate themselves from the confusion of Maenck's sudden collision with the other two. But what could Barney gain by the slight delay that would be immediately followed ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... momentary contact. Helene kept up a continual flow of small talk, of which he heard not a syllable. Rising hurriedly, her long train caught in a low branch that stretched across the walk, and he bent to extricate it. ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... the ebbing tide enabled her people to reach land with no great difficulty,—although a boat, sent to her from another war-steamer, capsized with the loss of seven men. For nearly two months, repeated efforts were made to extricate the Sphynx from her awkward position: and after her masts, guns, and most of her stores and machinery had been removed, and the hull itself buoyed up by a vast number of empty casks, and some decked lighters (called camels), she was at length brought off and towed into Portsmouth ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon

... to attend you in this tour of yours through France and Italy!—Psha! said I, and do not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum compagnon du voyage the same round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay besides? When man can extricate himself with an equivoque in such an unequal match,—he is not ill off.—But you can do something else, La Fleur? said I.—O qu'oui! he could make spatterdashes, and play a little upon the fiddle.—Bravo! said Wisdom.—Why, ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD." Martin Luther's "Here I take my stand," was not braver ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... Englishman in the north—that soldier-policeman for whom she would willingly have foregone all pride of place, all luxury of wealth, all satisfaction of achievement! Yet this he would never know, seeing her, as he ever must, framed in a vast fortune from which she could not extricate herself. She thought if she might choose, she would remain quietly with her father for ever, doing good, as he, by stealth and without ostentation, feeding her heart on a memory that would never ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... enabled so to dispose of the several members of my department, as to form them into a regular system; whereas, by throwing the whole immediately upon me, I shall be inevitably involved in a labyrinth of confusion, from which no human efforts can ever afterwards extricate me. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... certain queries proposed to him about the time of the Embassy, remarks, "I cannot help observing, that the situation of the Company's servants and the trade in general is, in this respect, very dangerous and disgraceful. It is such that it will be impossible for them to extricate themselves from the cruel dilemma a very probable accident may place them in, I will not say with honour, but without infamy, or exposing the whole trade to ruin." Yet we have just now seen, on the recurrence of such an accident, that by the circumstance of a direct and immediate communication ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... easily conceive that this caused a little uneasiness at the court, in the city, and even in my army. It required boldness and good-fortune to extricate one's self from it. The general who might have succeeded me would, and indeed, almost must, have thought that he should be lost if he retreated, and be beaten if he did not retreat. Every day made our situation worse. The numerous artillery of the Turks had arrived on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... creatures; on the other hand, in not allowing them to have a soul, they have furnished their adversaries with authority to deny it in like manner to man, who thus finds himself debased to the condition of the animal. Metaphysicians have never known how to extricate themselves from this difficulty. DESCARTES fancied he solved it by saying that beasts have no souls, but are mere machines. Nothing can be nearer the surface, than the absurdity of this principle. Whoever contemplates Nature without prejudice, will readily acknowledge that there is no other ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... attempting to make the wheels move on again, it was too apparent that much of it had become deranged, and the parts no longer moved in harmonious action with the whole. The more these difficulties pressed upon him, the deeper did he drink, as a kind of relief, and, in consequence, the more unfit to extricate himself from his troubles did he become. Every struggle, like the efforts of a large animal in a quagmire, only tended to involve him deeper and deeper ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... deserted little square, turning pink or green according as he passed before one or other of his bottles. From time to time he threw up his arms, uttering disjointed words: "Unhappy man!.. lost... fatal love... how can we extricate him?" and, in spite of his trouble of mind, accompanying with a lively whistle the bugle "taps" of a dragoon regiment echoing among the plane-trees of ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... undertaking. Like an over-weening predilection for brandy-and-water, it is a misfortune into which a man easily falls, and from which he finds it remarkably difficult to extricate himself. It is of no use telling a man who is timorous on these points, that it is but one plunge, and all is over. They say the same thing at the Old Bailey, and the unfortunate victims derive as much comfort from the assurance in the one ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... is won. Darius did not—indeed he could not—"set the example of flight." Hemmed in by vast masses of troops, it was not until their falling away from him on his left flank at once exposed him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he could extricate ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... throughout had a note of reserve and was never boisterous. Mr. JACK BUCHANAN'S quiet methods in the part of the Hon. Bill Malcolm, universal philanderer, lent themselves to this quality of understatement. In a scene where he tried to extricate himself from a number of coincident entanglements with various members of the Club he was quite amusing without the aid of italics. Mr. GILBERT CHILDS, again, as Weekes—Club porter and Admirable Crichton of the island—though a little broader in his style, was too clever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various

... he been far stronger and more skilful, had he been a Richelieu or a Sully, he would still have fallen. It no longer appertained to any one arbitrarily to raise money or to oppress the people. It must be said in his excuse, that he had not created that position from which he was not able to extricate himself; his only mistake was his presumption in accepting it. He fell through the fault of Calonne, as Calonne had availed himself of the confidence inspired by Necker for the purposes of his lavish expenditure. The one had ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... logical force of a first-class lawyer's brief. Indeed, I was on the point of asserting that you have a good lawyer's head on your shoulders, but prefer saying that you have a head which obeying the inspirations of your heart enables you to discern and appreciate the truth and extricate it, as well, from the entanglements of chicanery and fraud. Be assured, my dear Madam, that I shall treasure up your letter fondly, at once as a consolation and as a powerful support of the endeavors which I have been making for years to rescue my name from the obloquy of an accusation, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... protestation against it: all who had sat in Parliament or on the Committee of Estates after the coronation of Charles at Scone: all who had borne arms at the battle of Worcester. From this proscribed list, however, Argyle managed to extricate himself. He had fortified himself at Inverary, and summoned a meeting of the Estates to which the chiefs of the Royalist party had been bidden. To conquer him in his own stronghold would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... morning has dawned in serenity and loveliness, but there are signs of a late devastation all about. Broken limbs of trees are strewn hither and thither, while now and then one wholly uprooted lies prostrate across the street. Busy men are working hurriedly to extricate a poor family whose house a land-slide has quite buried. The mother and father have escaped the catastrophe, but their boy and girl are crushed in the fallen ruins. Deep gullies in the hill above her home show Nannie how fearful was the storm, and a mass of stones and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... caused her helm to become jammed temporarily and took the ship in the direction of the enemy's line, during which time she was hit several times. Clever handling enabled Captain Edward M. Phillpotts to extricate his ship ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... gun wheels sank deep in the mud, and the soldiers, unable to extricate them, abandoned ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... appearances, believes in her innocence, keeps her so long from the clutch of the officers of justice. That key, and the silence preserved by her in regard to it, is sinking her slowly into a pit from which the utmost endeavors of her best friends will soon be inadequate to extricate her." ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... me. By what right you presume to refer to any harmony of relations between us, and to speak of the value of my "friendship" I am at a loss to comprehend. That harmony was first disturbed by the pecuniary difficulties in which you so dishonestly involved me, and from which I am only now beginning to extricate myself, apart from which I could entertain no feelings of "friendship" for an officer for whom I have such abundance of reasons for entertaining sentiments of a very different description. I have no doubt that my remarks to General Greene and others have been correctly reported to you, ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... To extricate Nott's argument (in his edition of Surrey) from entanglement would not repay a tithe of the trouble; suffice it to say that he holds that as English verse, before Chaucer, was rhythmical, it is not likely that Chaucer all at once made ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... battle. Defence of the character {p.129} indicated requires little change after the primary dispositions have been made; the men for the most part stand fast when placed, and do not incur the risk of confusion from which the well-practised only can extricate themselves. ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan

... of these birds approaching during her momentary absence, and, seizing a skein of some kind of thread or yarn, made off with it to its half-finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast in the branches, and, in the bird's effort to extricate it, got hopelessly tangled. She tugged away at it all day, but was finally obliged to content herself with a few detached portions. The fluttering stings were an eyesore to her ever after, and, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... in his "Memoirs" that the exaggerated system of general causes affords surprising consolations to second-rate statesmen. I will add, that its effects are not less consolatory to second-rate historians; it can always furnish a few mighty reasons to extricate them from the most difficult part of their work, and it indulges the indolence or incapacity of their minds, whilst it confers upon them the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... the troops that had been seeking all possible cover showed themselves, that the umpires might inspect the position and see whether there was any possible chance for the entrapped regiments of the Blue army to extricate themselves. ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland

... pivots our fate turns sometimes! How small are the guiding-points of destiny! A momentary entanglement of my bracelet, with one of the tassels of the curtain, delayed me an instant, inevitably, in my impulsive endeavor to extricate myself from its meshes, and what I then heard, determined me to remain where I was, at any cost to my own sense of ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... Olympia and her mother for an instant departure so soon as positive information came. With them Marcia Perley went, trembling and tearful, and Telemachus Twigg, to extricate his son from danger, for it was uncertain what his status was in the forces. Kate, too, joined the melancholy pilgrimage that set out one morning followed to the station by weeping kinsmen imploring ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... then passed on to another apartment, almost contiguous, where nothing more remarkable had been found than an iron crow: an instrument with which perhaps the unfortunate wretch, whose skeleton I have mentioned above, had vainly endeavoured to extricate herself, this room being probably barricaded by the matter of the eruption. This temple, rebuilt, as the inscription imports, by N. Popidius, had been thrown down by a terrible earthquake, that likewise destroyed a great part of the city (sixteen years before the famous eruption of Vesuvius ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... of Ebene's generous offer to bestow his only daughter in marriage on the princess Badoura, who could not accept of it because she was a woman, gave her unexpected trouble, and she could not presently think of an expedient to extricate herself out of it. She thought it would not become a princess of her rank to deceive the king, and to own that she was not prince Camaralzaman, but his wife, when she had assured him she was he himself, whose part she had hitherto acted so well, that her sex was not in the least suspected. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... of his little personal battle with the world, the end of judging and striving, the end of revolt. He should live on, strangely enough, into many years, but not as they had tried to live in self-made isolation. He should return to that web of life from which they had striven to extricate themselves. She bade him go back to that fretwork, unsolvable world of little and great, of domineering and incompetent wills, of the powerful rich struggling blindly to dominate and the weak poor struggling blindly to keep their lives: ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... connexion that has grown up in our minds between the objects of sight and touch; whereby the very different and distinct ideas of those two senses are so blended and confounded together as to be mistaken for one and the same thing; out of which prejudice we cannot easily extricate ourselves. ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley

... said in conversation to a party of Englishmen, "some of your measures are too rough; and if subjection, too gentle. In short, I do not understand these matters; I have no colonies. I hope you will extricate yourselves advantageously, but I own ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... was likely to avenge, either by secret guile or by open force. Me it no way touched, save as the humble vassal of thy charms; and it was by the wisdom and the art of the sage Agelastes, that I was able to extricate thee from the gulf in which thou hadst else certainly perished. Nay, weep not, lady, for as yet we know not the fate of Count Robert; but, credit me, it is wisdom to choose a better protector, and consider ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... arose with alacrity, saying, "Mr. Graham, you have brought me into danger, and must now extricate me. Papa is an inveterate whist- player, and you have put my errand here quite out of my mind. I didn't come for the sake of your delicious muffins altogether"—with a nod at her hostess; "our game has been broken up, you know, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... particular interest in the family's affairs. He employed Corentin to clear up the dark side of the life of Clotilde's fiance. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Some time before this M. de Chaulieu made one of the portentous conclave assembled to extricate Mme. de Langeais, a relative of the Grandlieus, from ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... which relates to the paying of debts, is highly curious. In the Gypsy language, the state of being in debt is called PAZORRHUS, and the Rom who did not seek to extricate himself from that state was deemed infamous, and eventually turned out of the society. It has been asserted, I believe, by various gorgio writers, that the Roms have everything in common, and that there is a common stock out of which every one takes what ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... is more than likely the Nez Perce leader exaggerated the number of his assailants, no doubt they were superior to the smaller company. The latter put up a brave fight, but before they could extricate themselves from the trap five of their number were shot from their horses. This statement showed that originally the Nez Perces numbered more ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... to extricate himself entirely from the sensualistic school, attempted the reform of philosophy, which resulted in a movement in Italy similar to that produced by Reid and Dugald Stewart ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... that we should make another, and probably a last, effort to extricate ourselves. The winter is not far off, game is getting scarcer and scarcer, our stock of provisions is running low, and the sick—especially, I am sorry to say, the sick in the Wanderer's hut—are increasing in number day by day. We must look to our own lives, ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins

... Books without number have been written with the openly expressed intention to give a clear exposition of the subject, but the seeker for a scientific method soon finds himself in a maze of conflicting human opinions from which he cannot extricate himself. ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger

... cold and went off. He tried Lauzanne twice again, but the Chestnut seemed thoroughly soured. Now he was back at Ringwood, a dark cloud of indebtedness hanging over the beautiful place, and prospect of relief very shadowy. If Lucretia wintered well and grew big and strong she might extricate him from his difficulties by winning one or two of the big races the following summer. About any of the other horses there was not even this ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... foreigner: whether from some hazy conception of "foreign politeness," or a hasty deduction that what was not the language of one part of the world must be that of another, I cannot say. At any rate, the fishermen regarded him approvingly as the one man who could—if human powers were equal to it—extricate them from the ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... income is no longer sufficient to meet even our limited expenditures. The education of Maurice at the University of Paris, and your own charities, have not merely drained our purse, but involved us in debt. I hail the offer made me by this American company, because it may extricate us from some very serious difficulties. I am much mortified at your resolute disapproval of the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... Gospel profit us and produce fruit. The gift is too sublime and noble for God to cast it before dogs and swine, who, when by chance they hear the preached message, devour it without knowing to what they do violence. The heart must recognize and feel its wretchedness and its inability to extricate itself. Before the Holy Spirit can come to the rescue, there must be a struggle in the heart. Let no one imagine he will receive the Spirit ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... and, in their flight, went into a pit of water, into which my father also ran in the darkness which prevailed. The thieves roared loudly for help, which my father did not stop to accord them. He, being a good swimmer, soon got out, leaving the thieves to extricate themselves as they could. There were several very pleasant country walks which went up to Low-hill through Brownlow-street, and by Love-lane (now Fairclough-lane). I recollect going along Love-lane many a time with my dear wife, when we were sweethearting. We used to go to Low-hill and thence ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... only extricate himself from this coil in which he stood, find his way back to activity and his rightful place, and many things might look differently. Perhaps—who could say?—in the future, when youth was still further forgotten by both ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... room) The youngster saved me, but I do not know how he happened to see me in the avenue! One more piece of carelessness like this may ruin us! I must extricate myself from this situation at any price. Here is Pauline refusing Godard's proposal. The General, and especially Gertrude, will try to find out the motives of her refusal! But I must hasten to reach the veranda, so that I may have the appearance of having come from the main avenue, ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac

... enthusiasm, feeling that she is somewhat of a French prig. She became first engaged to a snob, who jilted her; and then, though in truth she loved another man who was hardly good enough, she could not extricate herself sufficiently from the collapse of her first great misfortune to be able to make up her mind to be the wife of one whom, though she loved him, she did not altogether reverence. Prig as she was, she made her way into the hearts ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... Kite, was working its way through the ice fields off the Greenland shore, a cake of ice became wedged in the rudder, causing the wheel to reverse. One of the spokes jammed Peary's leg against the casement, making it impossible to extricate himself until both bones of the leg were broken. The party urged him to return to the United States for the winter and to resume his exploration the following year. But Peary insisted on being landed as originally planned at McCormick ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... pick out, get out; wring from, wrench; extort; root up, weed up, grub up, rake up, root out, weed out, grub out, rake out; eradicate; pull up by the roots, pluck up by the roots; averruncate|; unroot[obs3]; uproot, pull up, extirpate, dredge. remove; educe, elicit; evolve, extricate; eliminate &c. (eject) 297; eviscerate &c. 297. express, squeeze out, press ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... dark did Van Duyk and his men come with a ladder to remove the thatch again. It took but a minute to extricate Will from ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... did not know Zillah's thoughts. She supposed she was trying to find a way to extricate herself from her difficulty. So ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... Pasha's relief, nor in any sense for his present position. However, from motives of humanity, it would make representations in the hope that the Egyptian Government would act; but it was not improbable, in view of past experiences of Claridge Pasha, that he would extricate himself from his present position, perhaps had done so already. Sympathy and sentiment were natural and proper manifestations of human society, but governments were, of necessity, ruled by sterner considerations. The House must realise that the Government ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... was for the moment raging more fiercely than before. The Rebu who had seen the fall of their king had dashed forward to rescue the body and to avenge his death. They cleared a space round him, and as it was impossible to extricate his chariot, they carried his body through the chaos of plunging horses, broken chariots, and fiercely struggling ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... that the author was a distinguished friend of the people. The earthquake of applause which succeeded this announcement was almost frightful, and while the scene was at its height, the three friends with great difficulty managed to extricate themselves from the multitude which wedged up the lobbies, and to make ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... boastful, but continually betraying his fears; showing on all occasions such a desire of peace as hindered him from ever enjoying it. Having no spirit of order, he never looked forward,—content by any temporary expedient to extricate himself from a present difficulty. Rash, arrogant, perfidious, irreligious, unquiet, he made a tolerable head of a party, but a bad king, and had talents fit to disturb another's government, not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... hundreds of square miles of perfectly straight pine trees of great height, where neither man nor beast could find the way out. Even experienced trappers dare not enter these forests without blazing trees along their pathway, so that they may be able to extricate themselves by retracing their steps. In these huge evergreen solitudes there is an inexhaustible supply of the finest timber in the world. In every sense of the word they are solitudes; for one may travel scores of miles without meeting or hearing ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... this last advice was not to be neglected; and, glad to extricate himself from the raillery of his cousin, walked down towards the gate of the Castle, meaning to cross over to the village, and there take horse at the Earl's stables, for ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... multitude of bales of cloth, logs of ebony, cramps, and spoiled martin-skins, and found himself half in and half out of a box of mildewed oranges, into which he had plumped, and which repaid the intrusion by splashing him all over with their pulpy and unpleasant remains. It was some time before he could extricate himself from this disagreeable mass, and still longer before he could cleanse off the filthy fragments from his garments. When he had done so, however, his next care was to bestow the papers he had rescued from Burrell into some safe place. "The Lord," he thought, "hath, at his own ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... are almost as bad as that detective person. I am not bothering my brains as to Curtis's desirableness or otherwise, or comparing him with a worm like de Courtois. I want this marriage annulled. I want him arrested. I want the aid of the law to extricate my daughter from the consequences of her own folly. Surely, such a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... He remarked, with a significant allusion to the great numbers which the horse-dealer was continually recruiting in the country, that the thread of the crime threatened in this way to be spun out indefinitely, and declared that the only way to sunder it and extricate the government happily from that ugly quarrel was to act with plain honesty and to make good, directly and without respect of person, the mistake which they ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... give a smart tug on one of the strings, and pass it over hastily to his neighbor. Gillsey would wake up with a nervous yell, and grabbing his toe, seek to extricate it from the loop. Then would come another and sharper pull at the other toe, diverting Gillsey's attention ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... our prospects of a ready deliverance were not very hopeful. The bystanders, however, went to work with their hands, and we were soon relieved, not without casualty, the spectator having the worst of it. Struggling to extricate himself, instead of abiding his time, he dragged one leg out of the pile ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... got down to fact and he explained that this scout business was most important. It appeared that the other five bhoys depinded on him to extricate thim from their difficulties and set them all up as scouts, with uniforms and knives and a knowledge of wild animals and how to build a fire in a bucket of watther. We debated the thing back and forth till the sun dropped behind the trees and the could air came up from the ground and ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... certain they will pay," he said, a triumphant expression flitting across his troubled, peevish countenance. "I have properly frightened them and put them in wholesome dread, so that they will not dare to oppose us longer. Yes, they will pay and thus extricate us from the dilemma in which we find ourselves at present. Ah! what a hard, fearful thing is life, and how little does it fulfill the hopes with which I looked forward to it in the years of my youth! My blessed father was such a fortunate ruler! With him everything ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... for a few moments to extricate himself from a tangle of brambles consequent upon his having trusted his legs too much, and, looking up then, he found that he was a very short distance from the edge of the beech-wood, and a second glance showed him that he was very near the spot where ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... bits of paper containing the names of the boys present at the party, while across the room is a similar tub in which the names of the girls are placed. With hands tied behind them the young folks endeavor to extricate the apples with their teeth, and it is alleged that the name appearing upon the slip fastened to the apple is the patronymic of the future helpmeet of the one securing the fruit from ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... little pitiful exclamation as the girl realised the net which was closing about her feet, but from the meshes of which she made a last desperate effort to extricate herself. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... be assisted by the Dean's money, which was wormwood to him. And he found himself to be driven whither he did not wish to go, and to be brought into perils from which his experience did not suffice to extricate him. He already repented the step he had taken in regard to his brother, knowing that it was the Dean who had done it, and not he himself. Had he not married, he might well have left the battle to be fought in after years,—when his brother should ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... other and did not restrain himself at all to pronounce it. Murat complained, as he had done before, that he, as King of Naples, was an instrument of domination and tyranny, and added that he could find a way to extricate himself from such an intolerable exigency. Napoleon reproached Murat of his more and more marked inclination to disobey, of his digression in language and conduct, and of his suspicious actions. He looked at him with a severe mien, spoke harsh words, and treated him altogether ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... When the 'Jackson resolutions' were passed by the legislature of Missouri, instructing Benton to endorse measures that led to nullification and disunion, he saw the dilemma in which he was placed, and did the best he could to extricate himself. He presented the resolutions from his seat in the Senate; denounced their treasonable character, and declared his purpose to appeal from the legislature to the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... manoeuvres excited in her husband's mind. Thus she frequently entered upon a scheme merely for pleasure, or perhaps for the love of contradiction, plunged deeper into it than she was aware, endeavoured to extricate herself by new arts, or to cover her error by dissimulation, became involved in meshes of her own weaving, and was forced to carry on, for fear of discovery, machinations which she had at first resorted to ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... valley was utterly impossible. The drifts were many feet over my head, in several places they must have been at least twenty feet in depth; and having once got into them, I had the greatest difficulty, by scratching and struggling, to extricate myself from them again. It was now dark. I did not know into which of the ravines I had fallen, for at this part there is a complete network of them intersecting each other in every direction. The only way by which I had thought to escape was hopelessly blocked up, and I had to face ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr

... prophets, therefore, must decide this question, and the foundation of Christianity must be laid upon them; or else, to avoid one difficulty, Christians will be forced into such absurdities, as no man can palliate, much less can extricate himself out of. ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... the city had steamed the last train while a stream of civilian refugees had struggled away on foot, the river patrolled by pickets of cavalry ordered to extricate every able-bodied man from the throng and press him into the struggle. Forrest's orders were plain: Every male able to fight goes into the works, or into ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... situations. What puzzled him beyond any mystery he had ever stumbled on in the intricate make-up of his charming neighbor was her evident cool and detached enjoyment of his and Long's awkwardness. At any rate, he reflected with satisfaction, he could extricate himself from the tangle, and in that, at least, he felt that he ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... in this mission, which amounted to seven hundred, the most distinguished and remarkable of all was that of a chief some sixty years of age, and highly esteemed in that region. In this case much time was needful to extricate his conscience from the former robberies and tyrannies which we have already described. He gave their freedom to many slaves, and, in order to settle other obligations which were not defined by the church, presented ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... got in her arithmetic. But Rowland seemed to open a new rule, farther on in Butler than addition and substraction. In short, she found herself lost in the maze of fractions, and could not extricate herself. When she jumped up from her easy-chair, she was trying to reduce the following complex fractions, into one ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... To extricate herself from her momentary confusion, which she was very conscious had not escaped the observation of Pierre,—and the thought of that confused her still more,—she rose and went to the harpsichord, to recover her composure by singing a sweet ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... across Phil's brain, and his face grew set. Of course it had been his fault, since she said so. It remained therefore for him to extricate her, if he could. He turned ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... here; not a friend. When he came he said that, passing a cave where there were no others near, he heard groans, and found a shell had struck above and caused the cave to fall in on the man within. He could not extricate him alone, and had to get help and dig him out. He was badly hurt, but not mortally, and I felt fairly ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... be quiet, no flourishes, that's enough, that's enough, please," Petrusha muttered hurriedly, trying to extricate ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... but he was deaf to persuasion. He squatted down on the snow, and watched the efforts his companion made to extricate the old lady. When she was nearly out he started on a run, and was at a safe distance before Mrs. Payson was in ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... that," said Jim, softly. It appeared that he could say or do nothing to extricate himself from the work of the plotters, whose shadows disappeared as he drew nigh. "But if you would only give me, the accused, a chance to make a defense, I could incidentally prove Hopkins innocent and have him at our wedding. That I should like to ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... of the wreck attentively for some time, I thought I perceived a man moving among the tangled collection of timbers and ropes and sails, endeavoring to extricate himself. Whatever it might be, it was some distance above the sea,—so high, indeed, that the waves no longer washed it fairly,—only ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... and his own brother Robert, and one day he discovered that the queen's coffers were empty. Joan was wretched and desperate, and her lover, though generous and brave and anxious to reassure her so far as he could, did not very clearly see how to extricate himself from such a difficult situation. But his mother Catherine, whose ambition was satisfied in seeing one of her sons, no matter which, attain to the throne of Naples, came unexpectedly to their aid, promising solemnly that it would only ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... fallen man had striven to extricate himself; but Stanley's knee moved not from his breast, nor his sword from his throat, until a strong guard had raised and surrounded him: "but the horrible passions imprinted on those lived features were such, that his ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... that—in fact the measure of the thing was full, and a French Revolution had to end it. To maintain much veracity in such an element, especially for a king, was no doubt doubly remarkable. But now, how extricate the man from his Century? How show the man, who is a Reality worthy of being seen, and yet keep his Century, as a Hypocrisy worthy of being hidden and forgotten, in ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle

... that he had escaped from the river bearing him to the pool of celibacy to find that the bird had been captured by another. Although he had known that before attaining his desire he would have had to extricate Bakuma from the net of the tabu, yet, lover-like and human, that task unconsidered had seemed as easy as stalking a buck in a wood. But the joy of his own release had been dissipated as a cloud of dust by a shower by the news of ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... driven deep into the hand, it can be extracted without pain by steam. Nearly fill a wide-mouthed bottle with hot water, place mouth of the bottle over splinter and press tightly. The suction will draw the flesh down, and in a minute or two the steam will extricate the splinter and the inflammation ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... to exhibit more Feminine Tact than I expected. Got entangled in swampy forest on Zambesi (I think), and Arabs declined to extricate us unless their pay was doubled! Also one of negresses—horrid woman!—has deserted me—come to place that she pretended to recognise as her native village, and said she meant to stay! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various

... you.' And he remembered the tones of her voice as, with her last words, she had said to him, 'My love, my love!' They had been very pleasant to him then, but now they were most unfortunate. They were unfortunate because there had been a power in them from which he was now unable to extricate himself. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... woman or an outcast always met with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. He would burn the midnight oil with equal zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a wealthy corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no less crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, provided that the rascal seemed the victim of hard luck, inheritance or environment. His weather-beaten conscience was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under the expansive influence of ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... know," said Harley. "I left him to get out of his predicament as best he could. Possibly he did challenge Willard. I haven't taken the trouble to find out. If, as I think, however, he's a living person, he'll extricate himself from his difficulty all right; if he's not, and I have unwittingly allowed myself to conjure him up in my fancy, there's no great harm done. If he's nothing more than a marionette, let him fall on the floor, and stay there until I ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs

... but struggle staggering along while work is given and his health and strength remain. When these fail he falls and must become entangled in debt, from which there is no hope of being able to extricate himself. ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... advantage that she crowded too near the bier, stepped on the sliding earth, and pitched into the grave. As she weighed over two hundred pounds, and was in a position of some disadvantage, it took five men to extricate her from the dilemma, and the operation made a long and somewhat awkward break in the religious services. Aunt Hitty always said of this catastrophe, "If I'd 'a' ben Mis' Potter, I'd 'a' ben so mortified I believe I'd 'a' said, 'I wa'n't plannin' to be buried, but now ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... territory along the western border of the Basuto country apparently free of the enemy. The British were in Bloemfontein and in the surrounding country, and it seemed almost impossible that the six thousand men could ever extricate themselves from such a position to join the Boer forces in the north. It would have been a comparatively easy matter for six thousand mounted men to make the journey if they had not been loaded down with impedimenta, but the three generals were obliged to carry with them all their huge transport ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas

... with water, and a misstep on either side of its entire length would have plunged the unfortunate who should make it into a bottomless morass. From it, without assistance, he would never be able to extricate himself, but would only sink deeper and deeper, until he had disappeared forever. It happened that one of the French prisoners did step from the trail on this occasion. The brutal savages watched with pleasure his frantic struggles to regain a footing, but without offering ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe

... extricate him from this drudgery and let him follow up his aspirations. Love may have been a still stronger motive for its acquisition. So he tried his hand at invention, and, in conjunction with his brother Sidney, produced what was playfully described as 'Morse's Patent Metallic Double-Headed ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... time; 'take all my skins and furs; and when the dawn of the morning appears, return home, stranger, and bring a fresh supply of this celestial beverage. My existence had indeed begun to be a burden: I was meditating, to extricate myself by the shortest method. I have now learned wisdom, and am convinced, that it is variety alone that can make ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... for a time in a local bank of which Leslie's father was the president, and while there had discovered old Mr. Sherwood guilty of serious defalcations. Sherwood was too deeply involved to extricate himself short of stupendous good luck and years of effort, so Simon cunningly stored away his knowledge against a day when it might come ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... Monsoreau can alone extricate you from your dangerous position, and this danger is immense. Trust, then, to him as to the best friend that Heaven can send to us. I will tell you later what from the bottom of my heart I wish you to do to acquit the debt ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... paid his usual visit to the field where Grant was plowing, and again was he the bearer of a message. With much difficulty he managed to extricate ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... opposition would come to their help, and put on them a force to which they would gladly have yielded. But the majority of the opposition, though hating the Princess, hated Grenville more, beheld his embarrassment with delight, and would do nothing to extricate him from it. The Princess's name was accordingly placed in the list of persons qualified to hold ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... ten Arabs to fight one negro; no wonder their spiritual life is apathetic, unfruitful, since the digits that explore and design, following up the vagrant fancies of the imagination, are practically atrophied. You will see beggars who find it too troublesome, on cold days, to extricate their hands for the purpose of demanding alms! Man has been described as a tool-making animal, but the burnous effectually counteracts that wholesome tendency; it is a mummifying vesture, a step in the direction of fossilification. Will the natives ever realize that the abolition ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... out. It was urged, for instance, by Miss Younghusband that it was substantially impossible for her to play the part assigned to her; Miss Mann was in a similar dilemma, from which no modern views on the sexes could apparently extricate her; and some young ladies, whose surnames happened to be Low, Coward, and Craven, were quite enthusiastic against the idea. But all this happened afterwards. What happened at the crucial moment was that the lecturer produced ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... tempests, threatened destruction to the ship and to the crew. As far as the eye could reach, a dreary view of chilling waves and of floating ice warned them of dangers, from which no earthly power could extricate them. The ship was far away from home, and in regions which had been seldom, if ever, seen by mortal eyes. The boldest were at times appalled by the dangers, both seen and unseen, which were clustering around them. Under these circumstances the spirit of ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott

... not, on account of your opinions, suspect anyone here to-night, who hitherto in spite of all hardship and bitterness, has faithfully stood under arms, of being afraid. Only by standing firmly together and taking one another by the hand can we extricate ourselves from the deep abyss in which we now stand. Believe me, it is bitter for me to have to speak as I do, and if you can remove my difficulties I shall be ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... said he, stretching a hand to the old man as soon as he could extricate himself from Mammy's embrace. "My, my, you do look scrumptious! How's ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... in my room, with feet protruding from the window, and body inclined rearward, (the American attitude of despair,) the piano tinkled. It was the same melody which had attracted me a few happy days before. Strengthening myself with a powerful resolution to extricate myself from the bewitching influence which had surrounded me, I arose, and went straightway to the parlor. Could it be that a flash of pleasure beamed on Miss Tarlingford's face? or was I a deluded gosling? The latter suggestion seemed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... Continence is socially necessary, but beyond a certain age it is physically and mentally harmful. Man is thus placed on the horns of a dilemma from which it will take the greatest wisdom and the finest humanity to extricate him. But I cannot lay claim to any part of the knowledge and ability necessary to formulate the plan. Let us at least be candid; let us not say grandiloquently that the sexual urge can be indefinitely repressed without harm to the average individual. We may safely ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... far too lazy and shallow to extricate itself from this palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized about love; but it believed in cruelty. It was afraid of the cruel people; and it saw that cruelty was at least effective. Cruelty did things that made money, ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... unable to exert himself. And that one of mighty arms and of leonine shoulders, though possessed of strength often thousand elephants, yet seized by the snake, and overpowered by virtue of the boon, lost all strength. He struggled furiously to extricate himself, but did not succeed in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... grand vizier began to be in greater confusion than before, and was thinking how to extricate himself. He endeavoured to pacify the prince by good words, and begged of him, in the most humble and guarded manner, to tell him if he had ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... that he judged it best to run her among the largest masses, and there let her lie. In this situation, says the journalist, "some of our men fell sick; I will not say it was of fear, although I saw small sign of other grief." As soon as the storm abated, Hudson endeavoured to extricate himself from the ice. Wherever any open space appeared, he directed his course, sailing in almost every direction; but the longer he contended with the ice, the more completely did he seem to be enclosed, till at last he ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... another Indian; the husband came upon them unawares; he jumped into the boat, when the other cut the cord, and in an instant it was carried into the middle of the stream, and before he could seize his paddle was already within the rapids. He exerted all his force to extricate himself from the peril, but finding that his efforts were vain, and his canoe was drawn with increasing rapidity towards the Falls, he threw away his paddle, drank off at a draught the contents of a bottle of brandy, tossed the empty bottle into the air, then quietly folded his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... direction the ugly man should go nor the spot on which he should alight. The fates decreed a bitter punishment, for the dwarf came plump into the pot of warm tar which had been prepared for the preacher. Turner was wedged in the pot, so that he could not extricate himself, and meantime the thick fluid beneath was making a warm acquaintance with his trousers and legs. This unlooked-for disgrace and undoing of the two leaders brought the pitched battle to a close. The unknown rascals, having broken away from their antagonists and seeing ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... s'agit precisement de ca! Withdraw: yes, certainly, at the quickest possible: but how? You perceive that our aeroplane is so placed that one cannot extricate it without assistance. If monsieur will be so good as to lend us his distinguished help, so that we may ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... species of irritation, that the girl was discoursing volubly about the offending chair merely in order to extricate an apparently shy and tongue-tied young man from a morass of his ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... given her son to Cazeaux to be exposed, and that that ruffian had made tolerably certain of his work, by carrying the lad 600 miles from home, to the vicinity of Peronne, and there abandoning him in a dense wood, from which the chances were he would never be able to extricate himself, but in the mazes of which he would wander till he died. God alone, the Abbe declared, guided the helpless and hungry lad within the reach of human assistance, and sent the traveller to rescue him, opened the woman's heart to give him shelter, and brought ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... it seemed as if the stranger meant to beat a precipitate and none too dignified retreat now that the adoring eyes of Lady Sue were no longer upon him. But Mistress de Chavasse had no intention of allowing him to extricate himself quite so easily from an ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight? So soon, and so successless? As I said,[61] The Architect of all on which we tread, 20 For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay, Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought, Were it not that all life must end in one, Of which we are but dreamers;—as he caught As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,[62] Thus spoke he,—"I believe the man ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... had landed on the satellite, that he had taken the advice. He was led from one underground lab to another, to compare Centaurian developments with Solarian. Finally, Colonel Korman appeared to extricate him, giving curt answers to such researchers ...
— Irresistible Weapon • Horace Brown Fyfe

... of rigging in the larboard scuppers lay two bodies, as I could just faintly discern; it was impossible to put the lantern close enough to either one of them to distinguish his face, nor had I the strength even if I had possessed the weapons to extricate them, for they lay under a whole body of shrouds, complicated by a mass of other gear, against which leaned a portion of the caboose. I viewed them long enough to satisfy my mind that they were dead, and then with a heart ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... mischief; but he laid them a wager that he should not only escape punishment, but that he would even make the old farmer perfectly satisfied with his conduct. They accepted his bet, and anxious to see how he would extricate himself, they accompanied him to the ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... the noise and came rushing out. "Oh, boys—boys!" she cried in a fright, "are you hurt?" for everything seemed to be in a heap together, with some small legs kicking wildly about, trying to extricate the ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... ingenious persons who have contrived to pay twelve shillings with sixpence, Joseph was not one of them. He had never contracted a debt in his life, and was consequently the less ready at an expedient to extricate himself. Tow-wouse was willing to give him credit till next time, to which Mrs Tow-wouse would probably have consented (for such was Joseph's beauty, that it had made some impression even on that piece of flint which that good woman wore in her bosom by ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... implied rebuke, "Monsieur Hammond was too reserved to communicate, he himself too incurious to inquire." At length, Mr. Gotobed's business, which was, in fact, a commission from a distressed father to extricate an imprudent son, a mere boy, from some unhappy associations, having brought him into the necessity of seeing persons who belonged neither to the beau monde nor to the haut commerce, he gleaned from them the information he desired. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... when the soil is unfavourable. The insect props itself against a branch, thrusting alternately with back and claws, jerking and shaking vigorously until the point where at it is working is freed from its fetters. In one brief shift, by dint of heaving their backs, the two collaborators extricate the body from the entanglement of twigs. Yet another shake; and the Mouse is ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... had ill-fortune from the very beginning. An amusing letter has come down to us, pathetic too, for it records the first incident in the tragedy. Leonardo Aretino writes to Poggio, that when going home one day he came across a party of men trying to extricate a wagon which had stuck in the deep ruts. The oxen were out of breath and the teamsmen out of temper. Leonardo went up to them and made inquiries. One of the carters, wiping the sweat from his brow, muttered an imprecation upon ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... whole naval force of Virginia, under the command of such expert seamen as Gardiner and Larimore, attacking us from the river. No, no, the only way to untie the Gordian knot is to cut it, and the only way to extricate ourselves from this difficulty is to ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... mental processes by which we think constructively, or, in other words, reason, we find first of all that there is recognition of a problem to be solved. When we start to reason, we do it because we find ourselves in a situation from which we must extricate ourselves. The situation may be physical, as when our automobile stops suddenly on a country road; or it may be mental, as when we are deciding what college to attend. In both cases, we recognize that we are facing a problem which must ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... learning. He was a student of the Greek and Latin classics, which he much admired, and was also a devoted and loyal lover of Judaism. Unfortunately, circumstances thrust him into a political position from which he could extricate himself only by treachery and duplicity. As a young man he had visited Rome, and there acquired enthusiastic admiration for the Romans. When he returned to Palestine, he found his countrymen filled with fiery patriotism and about to hurl ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams

... water, pitch and oil, molten lead, and unslaked lime, were poured upon them every moment. Hundreds of tarred and burning hoops were skilfully quoited around the necks of the soldiers, who struggled in vain to extricate themselves from these fiery ruffs, while as fast as any of the invaders planted foot upon the breach, they were confronted face to face with sword and dagger by the burghers, who hurled them headlong into the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas



Words linked to "Extricate" :   untangle, extrication, disengage, free, disencumber, disentangle



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