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Frantic   /frˈæntɪk/   Listen
Frantic

adjective
1.
Excessively agitated; distraught with fear or other violent emotion.  Synonyms: frenetic, frenzied, phrenetic.  "Frenetic screams followed the accident" , "A frenzied look in his eye"
2.
Marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion.  Synonyms: delirious, excited, mad, unrestrained.  "Something frantic in their gaiety" , "A mad whirl of pleasure"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Frantic" Quotes from Famous Books



... she had looked back, he readily interpreted it as a sign that in her heart her thoughts had been of him, and he was frantic with irrepressible joy. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... that scorching kiss would tingle upon her lips for ever. It was as if an electric current had suddenly entered her inner-most being and now ran riot in every vein. And so wild was the tumult within her that she knew not whether dread or dismay or a frantic, surging, leaping thing that seemed to cry aloud for liberty were first in that mad race. She clasped her hands very tightly over her face, struggling to master those inner forces that fought within her. Never in her life had so fierce a conflict torn her. Soul ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... save me!" shrieked the distracted Agnes. Then, casting upon the abbot a frantic look, "Hear me," she continued, "man of a hard heart! Insolent in your yet unshaken virtue, your day of trial will arrive. Think then upon your cruelty; and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... the prospect of what he might find, Luther Hansen ran and flung himself down on his knees beside it, dragging at the half-buried form of the girl in frantic haste. She was doubled together and mixed with the hay as if, after being picked up with it, she had been whirled with it many times and then ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... were making for began to loom nearer, but the puffs of wind were coming at longer and longer intervals, and finally they ran into a glassy calm, though they could see slants of wind all about them, a situation to drive pursued sailors frantic. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... was a frantic plunge forward, and though the driver dragged at and worked the bit savagely, the horse tore on at a gallop for about fifty yards, with the cab swaying from side to side; then the tiny flash of equine fire died out, and the horse's knees gave ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... the man who most thoroughly despised and loathed his country's and century's corruption, no such scruple ever came. What consideration need any man or any woman waste upon a husband? What possible disgrace could come to a woman in having a lover? And did not the frantic jealousy of the besotted old husband, his continual attendance, his perpetual spying, most effectually remove any further consideration there might be ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... glory, but marched on with all his army, lamenting to his friends, as it is said, that he should fight with Lucullus alone, and not with all the Roman generals together. Neither was his boldness to be accounted wholly frantic or unreasonable, when he had so many nations and kings attending him, and so many tens of thousands of well-armed foot and horse about him. He had twenty thousand archers and slingers, fifty-five thousand horse, of which seventeen thousand were in complete armor, as Lucullus wrote to the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... to her hair with one hand he contrived to place himself behind her. Then holding her up by one hand with which he grasped her under the shoulder, he said hastily, "Don't move. Don't try to do anything for yourself. There, don't do that," he added as the frantic girl made an effort to seize him. "Don't touch me. Keep just as you are and ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... at home, and said: "My good woman, you must not get in the habit of jabbing your husband's friends with this crooked cutlery, though to be killed by so handsome a woman would indeed be a sweet death," but the bluff did not go, and the woman disappeared behind the curtain, and dad had the frantic ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... that first heavy detonation was very much like a riot. The audience became frantic under the belief that it meant an attack on the town, and that the missiles would presently drop upon the roofs, ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... wagon again only to pillow a little pinched and cold white face upon her weary bosom. The thin red hands went up to her eyes here, and for a few moments she sat still. The wind tore round the house and made a frantic rush at the front door, and from his couch of skins in the inner room Ingomar, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... reached her waist, She called aloud in frantic haste: "I sink, I sink in quagmire sable, To free myself ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... I were so foolish as to be jealous, it would not be of old Betty, but of the beautiful young Betty, her daughter." Perhaps this was rather mischievous on my part, for the poor dark lady went off in a frantic fit of jealousy, but this time it ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... from the vehicle on which it rode, and the vehicle put on speed and got away from under it with frantic agility. The vehicle swerved to one side, and Joe stared with amazed eyes at the pushpot, some twenty feet aloft. It had a flat underside, and a topside that still looked to him like the rounded top half of a loaf of baker's bread. It hung in the ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; The madman. While the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heav'n to earth, from earth to heav'n; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing A ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... schemes afoot among 19—'s members for making their last Mountain Day the best of the four they had enjoyed so much. Horseback riding was the prevailing fad at Harding that fall, and every girl who could sit in a saddle was making frantic efforts to get a horse for an all-day ride among the hills. Betty was a beginner, but she had been persuaded to join a large party that included Eleanor, Christy, Madeline, Nita, and the B's. They were going to take a man to look after the horses, and they had planned their ride so that the ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... who follow'd me out, Went perfectly frantic beholding this boy, Sniff'd at his coat, leaping wildly about, And danced like a dog that dances ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart

... Spanish rancho, with only the native peons around him, and scarcely speaking his own tongue even to his guardian. He spent his mornings on horseback in fields like these, until the vientos generales, as they called them, sprang up and drove him nearly frantic; and his only relief was to bury himself among the books in his guardian's library, and shut out the world,—just as she did. The smile which hovered around the lady's mouth at that moment arrested Clarence, with a quick remembrance of their former relative positions, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... blown a gale the whole day, continued to increase in violence as evening approached, and from seven till nine p.m. accomplished, if not all, the greater part of the devastation to house and woods. The noise of the storm resembled the frantic yells and fiendish laughter of millions of maniacs, broken, at frequent intervals, by what sounded like deafening and rapid volleys of heavy artillery, and, as these died away, louder and louder again ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the militia. For the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... Again he worked with frantic haste, stuffing in the last shreds and rags that could be spared from their bodies, whenever a dull glow from the other side revealed a crack in the barricade. For agonized moments there was no sound in that tomblike ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... Silas Dunlap was dying. He had been shot in the head in the first attack, and all the second day was out of his head and raving and singing doggerel. One of his songs, that he sang over and over, until it made mother frantic nervous, was: ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... prosperity of India. We see a great nation, which has not been in times past sparing of its menaces and predictions of our ruin, apparently resolved to execute, without pause and without remorse, the most dreadful judgments of Heaven upon itself. We see the frantic patient tearing the bandages from his wounds and thrusting aside the hand that would assuage his miseries, and every day that the war goes on we see less and less probability that the great fabric of the Union will ever be reconstructed in its original form, and more and more likelihood ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... lay as flat as any fish, His nose had worn a little furrow; He only had one frantic wish, That like an antbear he ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... for he had never been ill in his life, never known an ache or a pain—except once the mumps, which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy—and couldn't realize suffering of any kind, except such suffering as most school-boys all over the world are often fond of inflicting on dumb animals: this drove him frantic, and led to many a licking by bigger boys. I remember several ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... camp, we heard from a distance the frantic beating of drums, the mournful sounds of the flute and shrill, mad shouting. Our Mongol went forward to investigate for us and reported that several Mongolian families had come here to the monastery to seek aid from the Hutuktu Jahansti who ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... with surprising courage during this trying ordeal. He did not know at what instant the squatter might comply with Bryant's frantic order to "plump him over" or to "put the dogs on him," but he never flinched. He did not even change color; and there is every reason to believe that his bold front ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... the present it seemed as though the flood of enthusiasm would bear down all opposition. The performance of Lohengrin, which I attended, was made the occasion of a frantic ovation, such as I have only experienced from the Viennese public. I was urged to have both my other operas presented also, but felt a sort of shyness at the thought of a repetition of that evening's occurrences. As I had now fully realised the serious weaknesses in the performance of ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... appointment with Mr. Tremayne on the morning that saw Israel Kensky engaged in frantic letter-writing. It was ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... up for lost With a last frantic effort, David tore his head loose, dashed his fist into the face of beggar Number Six, who was holding him, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... and rage and fright, Grace was very nearly frantic For the moment she was powerless—her uncle in the smoking-room, her aunt locked up with her Emersonian meditations, the porter in the lobby; the only available person upon whom she could call for aid a horrible drunken murderer and robber, steeped in all the darkest crimes of the ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... With a frantic yell of agony the half-breed's hand relaxed its grip upon his revolver, and the weapon fell to the ground. The fight was over. With a mighty throw Pete Clancy was hurled headlong, and fell sprawling upon the ground at the foot of the barn wall, and his impact was ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... the aunts arrived in all their best, all cautioning everybody else to keep quiet and all gabbling excitedly at the least provocation. Jamie suffered the most during that day, so divided was he between the desire to behave well and the frantic impulse to shout at the top of his voice, turn somersaults, and race all over the house. Occasional bolts into the barn, where he let off steam by roaring and dancing jigs, to the great dismay of the fat old horses and two ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... stalls, the ratio steadily decreasing; that the employees of "the front of the house" energetically did their duty; in many cases that the unrecognized claque has earned its fee; that the curtain has been raised and lowered with frantic energy, and that a large number of people, after some preliminary clapping, regarded the scene with curiosity and amusement, their pulses beating ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... later the boys saw, by the bright moonlight, the captain, bareheaded, barefooted, with open shirt, standing on the tree directly over the crushed gable, and chopping with frantic rapidity. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... Descriptions of the Terrible Rush of Waters; the great Destruction of Houses, Factories, Churches, Towns, and Thousands of Human Lives; Heartrending Scenes of Agony, Separation of Loved Ones, Panic-stricken Multitudes and their Frantic Efforts to ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... hurriedly dropping the sluices, but at the sound of the continued cries his wife ran out of the house and across the bridgeway. In another moment she would be able to lift Inda ashore; but Viva, frantic with terror, was clamouring to be taken too, and Pixie impetuously lifted her ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... endure the idea of abandoning even a dog. Pulling off shoes and socks, I waded across the stream and triumphantly returned with the shivering animal under my arm. His frantic leaps of joy and other evidences of a dog's gratitude amply repaid me for all ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... warning, flood them with the glaring brilliancy of the noonday sun!" Jarvis half-drew the curtain. "Ah, that's better. Never more than an inch at a time, Jarvis. How many times have I told you that? Never give me a shock like that again; never more than an inch of light at a time. Frantic fiends! From cimmerian, abysmal darkness to ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... excited at court, and the rash attempt to rouse the city of London (8th of February 1601), proved a complete fiasco. The leaders were arrested that night and thrown into prison. Although the actual rising might have appeared a mere outburst of frantic passion, the private examinations of the most prominent [v.03 p.0138] conspirators disclosed to the government a plot so widely spread, and involving so many of the highest in the land, that it would have been perilous to have pressed home accusations against all who might be implicated. Essex ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... demonstration of any kind. On reaching Westminster Abbey, about half-past nine o'clock, the procession was met by Dean Stanley in the Cloisters, who performed the funeral service. A journalist being by accident in the Abbey at the time of the funeral, Mr. Homan remarked that he became almost frantic when he heard who had just been buried, at ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... faces lying back here and there on wrecks of armour showed pale in the light of the great funeral-pile; tears provoked tears, the sobs became shriller, the recognitions and embracings more frantic. Women stretched themselves on the corpses, mouth to mouth and brow to brow; it was necessary to beat them in order to make them withdraw when the earth was being thrown in. They blackened their cheeks; they cut off their hair; they drew their own blood and poured it into ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... object took possession of my soul. I spoke a few hurried but energetic words to my companions, and, having succeeded in gaining over a few of them to my purpose made a frantic sally from the kiosk. We rushed amid the crowd that surrounded it. They retreated, at first, before us. They rallied, fought madly, and retreated again. In the mean time we were borne far from the kiosk, and became bewildered and entangled among the narrow streets of tall, overhanging ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... to Markham's at once. The father and mother of this girl are frantic: a thousand men are hunting for her; ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... I said; 'he is on the coach by this time—a long way off.' The woman became frantic at the thought. 'Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do? Lord, bring ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... men and Christians, or were they slaves and heathens? It must, however, be remembered that politics ran very high at that time; and in this particular instance, at the outbreak of a war, men's minds were half frantic, and we must not judge of the character of a nation by the isolated acts of ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... gave strength to his heart. Miantonomo was buried there on the scene of his defeat, which has ever since been known as the Sachem's Plain. This was in September, 1643, and for years afterward, in that month, parties of Narragansetts used to visit the spot and with frantic gestures and hideous yells lament their fallen leader. A heap of stones was raised over the grave, and no Narragansett came near it without adding to the pile. After many a summer had passed and the red ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... his companion, she now with crimson cheeks poured upon Don Luis as if fairly frantic, he answered in brief, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... cutter seemed to bristle with men, as when Jason sowed the dragon's teeth. Eric, though quick and keen, had all he could do to fulfil the part of the work that was given him and set the crew at the lines of the breeches-buoy. Every man was on deck and every man was working with frantic haste. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... that I cannot find the giant's head, and my earldom is gone after it, and so I am undone, like salt in water." And truly Sancho's waking dream was worse than his master's when asleep. The innkeeper was almost mad to see the foolish squire harp so on the same string with his frantic master, and swore they should not come off now as before; that their chivalry should be no satisfaction for his wine, but that they should pay him sauce for the damage, and for the very leathern patches which the wounded wine ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... do I wander! Loaded with every curse, that drives the soul to desperation! The midnight robber, as he walks his rounds, sees by the glimmering lamp my frantic looks, and dreads to meet me. Whither am I going? My home lies there; all that is dear on earth it holds too; yet are the gates of death more welcome to me. I'll enter it no more—Who passes there? Tis Lewson. He meets me in a gloomy hour; and memory tells me, he has been ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... Rangoon end of that cable squirming and wriggling and stretching itself out toward our ship, but not being able to reach us on account of a want of slack; just as alive as the Madras part of the cable, and just as savage and frantic to get up to us and lay hold of us; and then, after our vessel had been gradually pulled away from it, think of this other part getting weaker and weaker, minute by minute, until it falls flat on the bay, as dead as ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... listening, I heard the sobbing of a woman's voice and the stern tones of men. I was about to try and force open the carriage-door, but instinctively felt that even if I could do so, it would be useless while the carriage was in motion, for in spite of the hill the horses had been urged into a frantic gallop. Still, with the heavy chariot behind them their steps were naturally short, and their speed comparatively slow. So I hurried on, and looking up saw two men sitting on the box, the coachman ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... a frantic effort to keep going on these accounts, but the battle was too much for him. He could not imagine ways and means—he knew nothing of the ropes of finance. He was like a farmer with a scythe against sharpshooters. Ellaphine began to fear that the struggle ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... his own signet rendered Rustum quite frantic; he cursed himself, and would have put an end to his existence but for the efforts of his expiring son. After Sohrab's death he burnt his tents and carried the corpse to his father's home in Seistan, and buried it there. The Tartar army, agreeable to Sohrab's last request, was permitted to ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... ye? I'm ga'en dottle, I think. It was a glove, a woman's glove, in a bit paper. Ay, though she's sittin' still she's near frantic." ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... went out with the coil of rope over his shoulder. When Gregg reached the house, Nelly Pym hugged him, which is the privilege of fat and forty, and then she sat at the foot of the stairs and shouted up gossip while he shaved with frantic haste and jumped into his best clothes. He answered her with monosyllables ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... and appeared to be all over of a dull grey color, to match the Nuns, one might have said. I stood for quite a little while regarding it. Suddenly it stirred, shook itself, awoke and seeing me, immediately broke out into frantic shrieks to the old refrain "And for goodness sake ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... swarm of wasps which, roused from their nest, on which he had been standing, covered his lower extremities, and had made their way inside his pantaloons, stinging him on both legs, and crawling up his body. The pain must have been intense, and fully accounted for his gymnastics and frantic efforts to crush the insects. It was some days before he recovered from the wounds he had received, far more painful—as he averred—than the enemy's bullet, I intimated at the time to my friend that the wasps probably were the ghosts of the sepoys who had been ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... dead is one of the easiest modes of terminating life; yet, rapid as it is, the body has leisure to feel and time to reflect. On the first attempt by one of the frantic adherents of Spain to assassinate William, Prince of Orange, who took the lead in the revolt of the Netherlands, the ball passed through the bones of his face, and brought him to the ground. In the instant ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... branches with them bearing, Troop on troop in bright array To the temples were repairing, Owning Thymbrius' sovereign sway. Through the streets, with frantic measure, Danced the bacchanal mad round, And, amid the radiant pleasure, Only ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... reply, but still continued standing still and regarding her with the same fearful expression. She then cried, "Oh, papa! speak! Tell me, is it Sophia herself?" Still he remained immovable. Almost frantic, she then screamed, "It is Walter! it is Walter! I know it is." Upon which Sir Walter fell senseless on the floor. Medical assistance was speedily procured. After being bled he recovered his speech, and his first words were, "It was very strange! ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... cause his horses to run away. But the blood of his Puritan ancestors became rampant, and in defiance he shouted: 'Rattle your pans; hoot and toot; ring your bells, ye pesky fools, if it does ye any good,' and plying his whip to his now frantic ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... Philip Seconds, the fervid ascetics like Juan de la Cruz, the originals of the glowing tortured faces in the portraits of El Greco. On the other hand are the jovial materialists like the Archpriest of Hita, culminating in the frantic, mystical sensuality of such an epic figure as Don Juan Tenorio. Through all Spanish history and art the threads of these two complementary characters can be traced, changing, combining, branching out, but ever in substance the same. Of this warp ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... leather reposed just in front of the Hillton goal and midway between the ten and fifteen-yard line. Then a plunge through the tackle-guard hole, followed by a tandem on guard, and another five yards was passed. The cheering from the wearers of the blue was now frantic and continuous. There was two years of defeat to make up for, and victory was ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... matter were so honest that I gladly sat down with him to the wearisome task. I played and sang my score to the astonished man on an old grand piano in the rehearsing- room of the Court Theatre, with such frantic vigour that, although he did not mind if the instrument came to grief, he grew concerned about my chest. Finally, amid hearty laughter, he ceased to argue about cutting down passages, as precisely where he thought something might be omitted ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... was gained. As soon as the dog saw Tommy Cabot he became frantic with joy and leaped up and licked the hand of his youthful master. Tommy fairly hugged Wags to ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill

... the squire, Lady Edbury, my aunt, Lady Sampleman, Anna Penrhys, some one or other of his frantic female admirers. But the largeness of the amount, and the channel selected for the payment, precluded the notion that any single person had come to succour him in his imminent need, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... put it all behind him. Kenny, frantic with tenderness and resolution, could sweep him credulously back into bondage if he kept to the siege. His promises were fluent always and alluring. Only by the courage of utter separation could Brian make his longed for ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... 'tis a daughter, Fierce through despair, frantic with fear, and anguish. Hear me ye dread unknown: Yon flinty man Ne'er knew a father's care, and knows not now What 'tis to love, what 'tis to lose a father. But ye, (if e'er a parent's hand hath dried Your infant tears; if e'er your eyes have streamed To ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... out burst the pups. They were perfect monsters, though very young, with huge paws, lithe and graceful but compact forms, full of life and activity, and faces beaming with instinct. Darting out with us, they seemed frantic with joy, snuffed the keen air as they rushed about, sometimes tumbling over each other, and at times bursting against us with a force that nearly knocked us down. They reminded me of two young tigers at their gambols. I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... Mien-yaun desired to appear in. The panic ceased as suddenly as it had arisen. A little while ago, and there was a surplus of supply and no demand; now, the demand far exceeded the supply. Artists in apparel were driven frantic. In three days the entire fashionable world of Pekin had to be new clad, and well clad, for the great occasion. One tailor, in despair at his inability to execute more than the tenth of his commissions, went and drowned himself in the Peiho River, a proceeding ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... discrimination, whether they are reputed hostile to the government under which they live. In times of war we never see them bearing arms, and in times of victory we never see them exulting, like other people. We never see them illuminating their houses, or running up and down the streets, frantic with joy upon such occasions. Their joy, on the other hand, is wounded by the melancholy consideration of the destruction of the human race, when they lament, with almost equal sympathy, over the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... I am attacked. Warn them off. Warn them—" His frantic, hissing dots and dashes died immediately. Beneath his feet the Nagasaki Maru was rolling again, swinging free to the lift and thrust of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... having unburdened his soul to some one, and feeling a little relieved, was watching his chief's face further down the table. That nobleman, hopelessly ill at ease, had given up the pretence of amiability and was now making frantic endeavours to send mute signals across the ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... and Bors, with all their army fresh and eager, broke from their ambush and met face to face the five kings and their host as they came round behind, and then began a frantic struggle with breaking of spears and clashing of swords and slaying of men and horses. Anon King Lot, espying in the midst King Bors, cried out in great dismay, "Our Lady now defend us from our death and fearful ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... practically cut off from wire communication until late in the afternoon. Then two wires into Cincinnati were obtained and operators plunged into great piles of telegrams from Dayton citizens, almost frantic in their desire to assure friends outside of their safety. Operators at opposite ends of the wires reported that thousands of telegrams were piled up at relay offices. These were from people anxious over the fate of ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... fine dark eyes and strong lines and the luxuriant black mustache, became to him furtive witnesses to his shame—secret commentators upon his weakness. He recalled pictures of men held in pillories for communities to gibe at—and he felt that his position was not unlike theirs. He had at times a frantic realization that he had unconquerable strength, but that by some ironic circumstance he could ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... places, then engaged in trying to burn up the world. Arriving in Paris, the party received its first news that a great European war was about to begin. Steamship offices were being stormed by crowds of frantic American tourists. Martial law was declared. The streets were alive with soldiers and weeping women. Shops were closed, the clerks having been drafted into the army. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... Pepe conceal his own conduct connected with this affair. He disclosed all to his half-frantic listener—the after actions of Don Antonio with regard to himself—his imprisonment and subsequent banishment to the fisheries of Ceuta—his escape at a later period to the prairies of America, and his meeting with Bois-Rose—with whom, however, no recognition ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... not answer. With one frantic wrench he freed himself, and ran down Locust Street. At the corner, turning fearfully, he perceived the man in the overcoat calmly ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... mother was to him—I may say, how she doted upon him. Well, one day he announced his intention of going to Italy, with a friend he had picked up, who belonged to Naples. His mother was frantic at the idea, but he actually laughed at her, and behaved in a very unfeeling manner. Your mother was cut to the heart, and has never got over it; but, Valerie, the children who are spoiled by indulgence, always turn out the ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... very next night, and cleared the pool once more, for the watchers were all abed; and in the morning the Captain was frantic in his declarations of what he ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... was fresh with recent face-washing, and his hair was damp, so that a short lock curled and stood up. He had been up- town making frantic efforts for hours, but he had been making them in a spirit of victorious relief, and he did ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the common accounts in any Eastern traveller or voyager of the frantic excesses committed by Malays who have taken opium, or are reduced to ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... hurry on an important mission from Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald to Barrie," she explained to Somerled rather than to the girl, as she got stiffly out of the motor-car. She was almost pathetically anxious not to produce the impression that this frantic journey had been undertaken on Ian's account. If she failed, she would put George Vanneck out of his long misery by marrying him. She would even say that they had been secretly engaged for some time. Anything rather than Somerled should suspect the truth. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... he could not avoid hearing what was taking place; shouts of laughter, groans, and jeers over a failure, and frantic applause over a victory, were wafted to him constantly. Now and then some one hurried by with the information that Andy Black had won the quoits prize or that Andy Black had won the bottle-race. His lip curled contemptuously at sports that required a mere trickster's turn of the wrist ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... own door the second surprise stood waiting for her, in the person of Mrs. Fletcher's servant with a large box and a note from Miss Fanny. How she ever got herself and her parcel up the long stairs Jessie never knew, she was in such a frantic hurry to see what that vast box could contain. She startled her sister by bursting into the room breathless, flushed, and beaming, ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... near sunset when he came in sight of the bay and the village to which it gave the name of Baymouth. How well he remembered the last time he had been at that village—when he had run that frantic race to catch the sleigh which was carrying Claudia away from him, and had fallen in a swoon at the sight of the steamer that was ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... unprepared. They staggered from their tents, still dazed in sleep, to be mowed down by a crashing of firearms which they had never before heard. The poor creatures fled in frantic terror, to be met only by lance point and gun butt. A young girl fell coiling at Hearne's feet like a wounded snake. A well-aimed lance had pinioned the living form to earth. She caught Hearne round the knees, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... you your heart for the more expanded miseries of mankind—pity the mothers of the peasantry who see their sons torn away from their families—pity your poor subjects crowded into hospitals, and calling in their last breath upon their distant country and their young Queen—pity the stupid, frantic folly of human beings who are always ready to tear each other to pieces, and to deluge the earth with each other's blood; this is your extended humanity—and this the great field of your compassion. Extinguish in your heart the fiendish love of military ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... distinguished person would have shown herself behind a stall, had not a certain other more distinguished person expressed an objection; and while the rumour was afloat as to the junior of those two distinguished persons, the young-ladydom of London was frantic in its eagerness to officiate. Now at that time there had become attached to the name of our poor Griselda a romance with which the west-end of London had become wonderfully well acquainted. The story of the Lion and the Lamb was very popular. Mr Maguire may be said to ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... scattered over all the West of Germany, in readiness for nothing but plunder, had to fall more or less distracted in their turn; and do a number of astonishing things. To try this and that, of futile, more or less frantic nature; be driven from post after post; be driven across the Aller first of all;—Richelieu to go home thereupon, and be succeeded by ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... safeguard. It came to her with dreadful certainty that there was no one who could warn him but herself—and she was a prisoner, several miles away. For the moment her own possible fate scarcely concerned her at all. It was the thought of Roger's position which drove her nearly frantic, impelled her to rise with tottering, cautious steps and investigate ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... Father! pardon in me The oscillation of a mind Unsteadfast, and that cannot find Its centre of rest and harmony! For evermore before mine eyes This ghastly phantom flits and flies, And as a madman through a crowd, With frantic gestures and wild cries, It hurries onward, and aloud Repeats its awful prophecies! Weakness is wretchedness! To be strong Is to be happy! I am weak, And cannot find the good I seek, Because I ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... does break through, there is great scattering before him, and closing in behind him, until he is again captured. The man riding on the bull's back clings as long as he can, in spite of the plunging and other frantic efforts of the animal to unseat him; comparatively few stay long in their uncomfortable position, and when they are thrown, much agility is required to escape from ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... let it go as the freighter appeared, and together they stumbled back to where Devine was clinging to the bridle of another horse which lay close at his feet amidst a wreath of snow. He staggered back just as they reached him; there was a frantic scrambling in the snow, and then the half-seen horse rolled over and slid away down the white slope of ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... appreciate. The fact of the matter was that these fits of gloom were constitutional with him, and very possibly had their origin in the state of his mother's mind before his birth, when her whole thoughts were coloured by her morbid and fanciful terror of her husband, and her frantic anxiety to ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... not taken a half hitch round a dead snag, would have lifted me off my feet or pulled the lasso from my hands. As it was, the choking lion, now within reach of the furious, leaping hounds, swung to and fro before my face. He could not see me, but his frantic ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... he tapped out his pipe, and prepared to fill it again. It was as he stood, with his tobacco pouch open in his hand, that something in the sea attracted his attention. He grew rigid, and stared at it—and at the same moment a frantic ringing of the engine-room bell showed that the officer on the bridge had seen it too. Simultaneously everyone seemed to become aware that something was wrong—and for a brief second almost a panic occurred. The ship was swinging to port, ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile

... not much visible except the dim lines of forest and river in the plain below. Our view ought to have ranged as far, almost, as Metz to the north and the Vosges to the south. But at any rate there, at our feet, lay the Forest of Champenoux, which was the scene of the three frantic attempts of the Germans debouching from it on September 8th to capture the hill of Amance, and the plateau on which we stood. Again and again the 75's on the hill mowed down the advancing hordes and the heavy guns behind completed their work. The Germans broke and fled, ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... protector of religion, and is allowed to marry. The magic of these Choichong is in theory and practice different from the orthodox Tantrist magic. The practitioners possess no literature, and hand down their mysteries only by tradition. Their fantastic equipments, their frantic bearing, and their cries and howls, seem to identify them with the grossest Shamanist ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... world How God hath used her to beguile the heathen. It begins! Now it begins! Lo, how dismay Is fallen on the camp in a strange wind: The ground, that seemed as spread with yellow embers, Leaps into blazing, and like cinders whirled And scattered up among the flames, are black Bands of frantic men ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... was terrifying and tested the nerves of the strongest among us. If ever humanity were cast adrift and left to its own devices, it was that night upon "the field." Some of the prisoners were rushing to and fro frantic with fear. Others huddled together as if to keep one another warm. Some were on their knees praying fervently, while other parties were singing hymns in voices which made the strongest-hearted among us blench. Here ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... afterwards amicably arranged by Lord Buckhurst, during his embassy to the States, at the express desire of the Queen. Hohenlo and Sir John Norris became very good friends, while the enmity between them and Leicester grew more deadly every day. The Earl was frantic with rage whenever he spoke of the transaction, and denounced Sir John Norris as "a fool, liar, and coward" on all occasions, besides overwhelming his brother, Buckhurst, Wilkes, and every other person who took their part, with a torrent of abuse; and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... however, were a good deal less scrupulous than this. By way of bringing home to Froude "ecclesiastical malignity of the most frantic kind," he cited the case of Bishop Coxe. "To Hatton," Froude wrote in his text, "was given also the Naboth's vineyard of his neighbour the Bishop of Ely." In a long note he commented upon the Bishop's inclination to ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... musical there. By-and-by they fall to romping, and, to avoid one of their turbulent frolics, Cancut landed us, as he supposed, on the mainland, to lighten the canoe. Just as he was sliding away down-stream, we discovered that he had left us upon an island in the midst of frantic, impassable rapids. "Stop, stop, John Gilpin!" and luckily he did stop, otherwise he would have gone on to tidewater, ever thinking that we were before him, while we, with our forest appetites, would have been glaring hungrily at each ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... reasonable limits of help, and I tried desperately to impress upon Tucker that I was going to be very severe: for this purpose I flourished my stock-whip in a way that drove my own skittish mare nearly frantic, and never touched Tucker, whom F—— was dragging along by main force. At last I gave up the stock-whip, with its unmanageable three yards of lash, and dropped it on the track, to be picked up as we came ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... called Adam one of his men, and though his pay was that of a common laborer, his duties had long been of a much higher order. Abraham had made a very good bargain out of the widow's son. Adam knew well that he could not be spared, and pitied the old man's helpless rage. He took his frantic insults as part of his senility, and felt it no unmanliness to appease it by giving his promise that he would speak no more of love to Emmy while he was taking her father's wages. But Emmy did not indorse this promise fully. To her it looked like weakness, and implied a sort of patience ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... came the blood-curdling signal of danger from the front. It was no unfamiliar sound—the rovers knew it only too well. It meant sudden death—or at best a cruel struggle and frantic flight. ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... nonsense." The Egyptian laughed and I laughed. He kept seizing me by the hand, and exclaiming with vehemence, "Gagliuffi! Gagliuffi! ah! that's a fine fellow! Gagliuffi at Mourzuk." Again the Egyptian laughed, and screamed with frantic gesticulations, and our people coming up were also merry with him. "Ah!" he continued, "Gagliuffi, a real cock of the dunghill, a noble fellow, Gagliuffi! Do you know Gagliuffi?" I said I did not. This he couldn't understand, and said, "Ah, Gagliuffi ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... not, at their pleasures, petulantly rush into the school of one whose pupils they were not, nor were even admitted without his permission. Whereas at Carthage there reigns among the scholars a most disgraceful and unruly licence. They burst in audaciously, and with gestures almost frantic, disturb all order which any one hath established for the good of his scholars. Divers outrages they commit, with a wonderful stolidity, punishable by law, did not custom uphold them; that custom evincing them to be the more miserable, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... Assembly,(587) the attack was only made on the property of the church; but on the establishment of the Convention, when the nation had become frantic at the alarm of foreign invasion, to which the king and clergy were supposed to be instrumental, the monarchy was overthrown, and religion also was declared obsolete. The municipality and many of the bishops abjured ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... Naniwa, finding his orders defied, opened fire on the transport, with such effect that in half an hour it went to the bottom, carrying down with it over one thousand souls. The officers, the Europeans, and many of the Chinese sprang overboard, but numbers of these were shot in the water by the frantic soldiers on board. In all only about one hundred ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... delusions haunt these marbles here, And urge them on to frantic disputations? The terror-striking shout of Pan rings clear, While Moses hurls ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... come to sack the prison. But in either case he had no belief or hope that they would spare him. Every shout they raised, and every sound they made, was a blow upon his heart. As the attack went on, he grew more wild and frantic in his terror: tried to pull away the bars that guarded the chimney and prevented him from climbing up: called loudly on the turnkeys to cluster round the cell and save him from the fury of the rabble; or ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... for the water hole in Yaqui canon had not been either muddied or exhausted, evidence that the raiders had not ranged that way. The sorry looking quartette fairly staggered into the little canon, and the animals were frantic with ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... to describe the almost frantic distraction of that loving father, who, as he said, had no prop to lean upon but his Cooleen Bawn, for he himself often loved to call ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Opposite my writing-table hangs a quaint German picture, illustrating Goethe's ballad of the Erlking, in which the whole wild pathos of the story is compressed into one supreme moment; we see the fearful, half-gliding rush of the Erlking, his long, spectral arms outstretched to grasp the child, the frantic gallop of the horse, the alarmed father clasping his darling to his bosom in convulsive embrace, the siren-like elves hovering overhead, to lure the little soul with their weird harps. There can be no better illustration than is furnished ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... wished to retain it. I thought, if I could struggle on with unremitting firmness and integrity, the children would in time become more humanized: every month would contribute to make them some little wiser, and, consequently, more manageable; for a child of nine or ten as frantic and ungovernable as these at six and seven would be ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... frantic efforts to hang a lot of prominent Southern men for complicity in Booth's crime is sheer insanity. Nobody who has any sense believes them guilty. As a politician I use popular clamour for my purposes, but I am not an idiot. ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... moment a well-known brown bonnet was seen bobbing apologetically up the drive; the Widow Lankton had been making frantic efforts to catch Hildegarde's eye, and now succeeding, began a ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... tried to push the grating aside. It refused to budge, and he grew frantic, for his breath was fast leaving him. It looked as if he would be drowned like a rat ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele

... thing of horror. A yell, wild and hoarse as a brute- cry, burst from her. "Daddie!" She flung herself to a place near the door, where she remained, crouching, her eyes staring at the motionless figure, spattered by the quivering flashes from the fire. Her arms extended, and her frantic fingers at once besought and repelled. There was in them an expression of eagerness to caress and an expression of the most intense loathing. And the girl's hair that had been a splendor, was in these moments changed to a disordered mass that hung ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... crawled slowly along, and yet Horace made no response to the many frantic telegrams that Ann had sent. Never had the hours seemed so leaden-winged as those passed waiting for him to come. Ann had received one note from him, and three letters for Fledra lay unopened in the girl's room. His note to Ann was from Boston, and she immediately sent ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... make a frantic rush to the house when he saw another automobile coming along the road, brushing the projecting foliage aside as some stealthily advancing creature might do. Not far behind it he could hear other ears grinding along that impossible road ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... over him—peace and detachment. Of the noise and babble he heard nothing. His eyes were closed to the crowded frantic street. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... of that childless mother haunted him. She had been one of the hat-shop hands, a flighty, nervous thing, madly in love with Elbridge, whom she ruled with a sort of frantic devotion since their marriage, compensating his cool quiet with a perpetual flutter of exaggerated sensibilities in every direction. But somehow she had put Northwick in mind of his own mother, and he thought of the chance or the will that had bereaved one and spared the other, and ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... morning our dog was sunning himself in the yard, when the neighbor's dog rushed to his side of the fence, and made remarks not to be borne by any self-respecting canine. Then began the usual performance of snarls and barks, and baring of white teeth, as the dogs made frantic efforts to get at each other. The neighbors assembled in a crowd, and the knowing ones predicted a lively time when those two dogs found the hole in the fence. Down the line of the fence the two ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... with nonsense, love orations. Our love is fix'd, I think we've prov'd it; Nor time, nor place, nor art have mov'd it; Then wherefore should we sigh and whine, With groundless jealousy repine; With silly whims, and fancies frantic, Merely to make our love romantic? Why should you weep, like Lydia Languish, And fret with self-created anguish? Or doom the lover you have chosen, On winter nights to sigh half frozen; In leafless shades, to sue for pardon, Only because the scene's a garden? For gardens seem, by one consent, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... looked, life sprang up there again. Once more a shot rang out, followed by two others in sharp succession. And as we stared in that direction, wondering what this new affray could be, we saw a boat shoot out from beneath the bows, with a low, crouching figure in it which was evidently making frantic efforts to get away. Somebody on board the yawl was just as eager to prevent this escape; three or four shots sounded—following one of them, the figure in the boat fell forward with a ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... and extracting a piece of gold from his pocket, dropped it on the ground, and told the men nearest him to pick it up, adding that whoever got hold of it first, might keep it! Several of them made frantic attempts to bend down in order to get the money, but so tight were their uniforms and belts that they found it absolutely impossible to reach, the coin, which Emperor Frederick ultimately picked up himself, and ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy



Words linked to "Frantic" :   wild, agitated



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