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Frighten   /frˈaɪtən/   Listen
Frighten

verb
(past frightened; pres. part. frightening)
1.
Cause fear in.  Synonyms: affright, fright, scare.  "Ghosts could never affright her"
2.
Drive out by frightening.



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"Frighten" Quotes from Famous Books



... see!" he said, smoothly,—"Richmond Examiner, May 28, Richmond Enquirer, May 22. There! You have them! Go in peace! Give my respects to General McClellan! Townsend, old fellow, you have done your full duty. Don't let this young person frighten ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... the Indian horse thieves is to creep into camp, cut loose one animal and thoroughly frighten him. This animal seldom fails to frighten the remainder, when away they all go with long ropes and picket-pins dangling after them. The latter sometimes act like harpoons, being thrown with such impetus as to strike and instantly kill a valuable steed from among the ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... a year. After I arrested him very powerful interests tried to frighten me; tried to make me believe the prisoner was such an important person that his name must be whispered only. That, in fact, he was Mr. Lincoln's personal man, and reporting only to Mr. Lincoln. They threatened to have my commission taken from me. Finally the prisoner himself offered to give ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... and a snowstorm was impending, before I was joined by the other drivers and herds, and as the former had diminished to three, with only three dogs, it was very difficult to keep the cattle together. You drive them as gently as possible, so as not to frighten or excite them,[18] riding first on one side, then on the other, to guide them; and if they deliberately go in a wrong direction, you gallop in front and head them off. The great excitement is when one breaks away from ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... said Bartley. And on perusing it: "A woman's telegram. Don't frighten him too much; leave him the ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... Wren's tin house, Miss Kitty Cat had been enjoying herself thoroughly, while the birds made a great how-dy-do and tried in vain to frighten her away. ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... glasses for a time, and at last caught the spot pointed out to him. "I see," said he, in a whisper. "Goats! Lots of them." They showed so plainly in the glasses, in fact, that he spoke carefully, as though he feared to frighten them. ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... I had neither simplicity of aim, nor stability of affection. One slip from the path, and I hadn't energy to take the road again. One vicious inclination, and the virtuous resolves of years melted before it. The sneer of a fool could frighten me from rectitude—the smile of a girl render me indifferent to the pangs that tear a parent's heart. Look at us both. Look at him—the man whom I treated with contemptuous derision. What a return home for him—his mission accomplished—HIS DUTY DONE! Look at me, the outcast, the beggar, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... along, and found them right; but when I got to the Grey Room, the seal was broken; though the card, over the keyhole, was untouched. I ripped it off, and unlocked the door, and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine; but the whole room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light. I examined all my seals, and not a single one was disturbed. The old butler had followed me in, and, suddenly, he called out:—'The ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... extinguished before the lating was concluded. Candles were given out according to the number of inmates of a house—one for every person—but it was optional for one to carry his own candle, or to find a substitute who would sally out for him to frighten the witches. The custom originated in the belief that if a lighted candle were carried about from eleven to twelve o'clock at night without being extinguished, the person it represented would be proof against witches during the year, but ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... was fully awake to what it was. He knew there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was all quite plain before him what to do,—to go to the Bank, to tell them what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... evening she left the hut and wandered about all night, but she returned before the sun rose. Before she quitted the hut at nightfall to roam abroad, she painted her face red and put on a mask of fir-branches, and in her hand, as she walked, she carried a basket-rattle to frighten ghosts and guard herself from evil. Among the Lower Lillooets, the girl's mask was often made of goat-skin, covering her head, neck, shoulders and breast, and leaving only a narrow opening from the brow to the chin. During the nocturnal hours she performed ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... snake, curling along the grass, shooting straight up, with a venomous blue light in its folds that was enough to frighten one; but it sort of melted away in sparks, and then a great wheel of fire—crimson, blue, green, yellow, rainbowish in every line and spoke—began to whirl round and round at the other end of the home lot, sending ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... all the Women's Questions." And in another, written in August, "I here, as usual" (at Ventnor), "get the luxury of fine fruit at this season (and the unusual luxury of mushrooms), but I do protest that their demand of 4s. a pound for grapes is enough to frighten Cato the elder. [Footnote: Marcus Portius Cato, born at Tusculum 234 B.C., passed his childhood on his father's farm. In later years he wrote several works on husbandry, its rules, etc. When he was elected ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... frighten us!" exclaimed Arabella, whose heart was still going pitter-patter. "We thought you were going ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis

... Charlie will fancy how Charlotte looked at them! They shuffled, and tried to explain it away, but Charlotte was too acute for them, or rather, she held steadily to "be that as it may, Lord Kilcoran ought to know it." They tried to frighten her with the horrors of betraying secrets, but she said none had been confided to her, and mamma would judge. They tried to persuade her it was the way of all lovers, and appealed to Laura s example, but there little Charlotte was less to be shaken than on ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to help him. She really did, too, for she played ghost one night to frighten the old care-taker, and she told Jules's uncle, when he came back, how cruelly the poor ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston

... that he will be brought round in time," said the Rector. "But you were pulling one way, Elinor, and we were pulling another. You wanted to frighten him away from expense, and we want to frighten him into it. Better let him try to be popular and see that his character as a landlord stands in his way. I don't think it signifies two straws about the 'Pioneer,' or Ladislaw, or Brooke's speechifying to the Middlemarchers. But it does ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... off again au grand galop, drivers and outriders giving, from time to time, the most extraordinary shrieks to encourage the horses and to amuse themselves, wild and shrill enough to frighten any civilized quadruped. The road grew more picturesque as we advanced, and at length our attention was arrested by the sight of the two great pyramids, which rise to the east of the town of San Juan Teotihuacan, which are mentioned by Humboldt, and have excited the curiosity and attention ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... arose in great splendour, and little Henry saw at a distance an old abbey, all covered with ivy, and looking so dark and dismal, it would frighten any one from going in. But Henry's little heart, occupied by the idea of his mamma, and with grief that he could not find her, felt no fear; but walking in, he saw a cell in the corner that looked like a baby-house, and, with ...
— The Adventures of Little Bewildered Henry • Anonymous

... ought to have written before, to say that Aunt Stanbury is not as well as we could wish her; but, as I know that you cannot very well leave your office, I have thought it best not to say anything to frighten you. But to-night Aunt herself has desired me to tell you that she thinks you ought to know that she is ill, and that she wishes you to come to Exeter for a day or two, if it is possible. Sir Peter Mancrudy has been ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... with The Merriweather Girls?" cried Bet, bringing her horse up sharply. "We're letting two cowardly ruffians frighten us away. I'm ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm

... the debts which the princes make as private persons? The baron occupies precisely the same position. The king, who has honored the newly returned baron with two highly important trusts, master of ceremonies and master of the robes, will frighten his rather lavish old friend from making debts. He chooses, therefore, the same means by which he seeks to restrain his royal brothers, and forbids all persons to lend gold to Pollnitz: as he cannot well ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... elephants and buffaloes, Or frightened by the lions, deer Are flying through the wood in fear. I fain would know who seeks this place Comes prince or monarch for the chase? Or does some mighty beast of prey Frighten the silvan herds away? 'Tis hard to reach this mountain height, Yea, e'en for birds in airy flight. Then fain, O Lakshman, would I know What cause disturbs ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... by that cold, threatening justice which sternly uncovers the soul, examines it, and seeing everything estimates its value with incorruptible eyes, weighing it rigorously with honest hands. Here was nothing to frighten her by ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... of the money-market began to frighten even Mr. Sandford who had been predicting a panic. There had been but few failures, and those were generally of houses that ought to fail, being insolvent from losses or mismanagement. Mr. Sandford studied ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... I'll sit here at the desk and go on with my book; and Alice will sit over there with her embroidery and look at me as she's looking now. And life will go on like that for any number of years.' The prospect frightened me a little, but at the time it didn't frighten me as much as doing anything to hurt her; and ten minutes later she had my seal ring on my finger, and my promise that when I went abroad she ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... rest of my party were sent to guard the gold, because their horses were lame. Next morning I arrived at that town, and did not find any armed men there, and it turned out that the Indians had told lies, perhaps to frighten us and induce ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... ripping chap, isn't he? I wish I had one. They're such fun. They frighten people so, and they're never fierce with their—the people they belong to." Suddenly he squeezed my arm. "I say, do look at that old woman. Who is she? Why does she look like that? ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield

... similar appellations. "He is," says Eitel, "the personification of lust, the god of love, sin, and death, the arch-enemy of goodness, residing in the heaven Paranirmita Vasavartin on the top of the Kamadhatu. He assumes different forms, especially monstrous ones, to tempt or frighten the saints, or sends his daughters, or inspires wicked men like Devadatta or the Nirgranthas to do his work. He is often represented with 100 arms, and riding on ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... own country, looking up at the white mountains! I have been insulted here, because I don't belong to this land of rogues and sellers of rotten oranges; and those hussies are all banded together against me, because I told them that not all their Seville jacques,** and all their knives, would frighten an honest lad from our country, with his blue cap and his maquila! Good comrade, won't you do anything to help ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee

... company. Besides, of course, there is no real danger to be apprehended now. Weeks will elapse before the rioters can again rally, or plan any other attempt; and I am much mistaken if Moore and Mr. Helstone will not take advantage of last night's outbreak to quell them altogether. They will frighten the authorities of Stilbro' into energetic measures. I only hope they will not be too severe—not pursue the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... book before they give it into the usher's hands to say by heart. He now feels a deep interest in the statistics of the Hall, and is horrified at hearing that "nine men out of thirteen were sent back last Thursday!" The subjects, too, that they were rejected upon frighten him just as much. One was plucked upon his anatomy; another, because he could not tell the difference between a daisy and a chamomile; and a third, after "being in" three hours and a quarter, was sent back, for his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... approve of modern journalism nor of its methods. In your own case you have got hold of some absurd notion that the man John Marbury was in reality one John Maitland, once of Market Milcaster, and you have been trying to frighten Miss Baylis ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... let anything I've said frighten you away; for if you have the least inclination to stay and rail, you know the old conditions; 'tis but your asking me pardon next day, and you may give your passion any liberty you ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... his game if he will only give them his ring. Siegfried, who attaches no value whatever to the trinket, but wishes to tease them, refuses it at first; but when they change their bantering into a prophetic tone and try to frighten him by telling him the ring will prove his bane unless he intrust it to their care, he proudly answers that he has never yet learned to fear, and declares he will keep it, and see whether ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber

... These threats did not frighten Tchin-Sing in the least. He quickly replied that he would accept for his wife the first maiden who touched his heart, and until then he should ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... powerful on this island, and brigandage is by no means confined to the neighborhood of Castrogiovanni, as the guide books would have you believe. The people seem simple and harmless enough, but Kenneth and I always keep our revolvers handy, and believe it is a reasonable precaution. I don't want to frighten you, John; merely to warn you. Sicily is full of tourists, and few are ever molested; but if you are aware of the conditions underlying the public serenity you are not so liable to run yourself and your nieces into needless dangers.' How's ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... lumbering through the darkness. An asthmatic sheep! Dead, as I judge, by this time. Leaving Frank to guard him, I took Andrew with me, and went all round the monument, and down into the ditch, and examined the field well, thinking it likely that somebody might be taking advantage of the sheep to frighten the village. Drama ends with discovery of no one, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French,—woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue, Like a crowd of frighten'd porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, With the English fleet ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... having proved that all matter was in your mind, wrote a book to prove that wood tar would cure all diseases. Nobody reads it now. The name is enough to frighten them off: "Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tar Water." He had a sort of mystical idea that tar contained the quintessence of the forest, the purified spirit of the trees, which could somehow revive the spirit of man. People ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... that there were three young ones in the drove?" said he. "Their home is very likely in this forest and we must not frighten them away from it." ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... beyond the grave, but instead of that a world of life and light which may be known to us as clearly and fully and accurately as this physical world in which we live now. We have created the gloom and the horror for ourselves, like children who frighten themselves with ghastly stories, and we have only to study the facts of the case, and all these artificial clouds will roll away at once. We have an evil heredity behind us in this matter, for we have inherited all kinds ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant

... his lips to answer, and drew a breath to still the beating of his heart. He could not imagine why he felt excited. After all, who was old Blackmore to frighten him? But old Blackmore went on ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... success of Strauss, for instance, of Debussy, and now of Jacques Sennier—our own Elgar, too! What I mean is that perhaps the things you have done hitherto are for the very few. There is something terrible about them, I think. They might almost frighten people. They might ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... because the wire had not been cut. Before the days of Tanks the means employed consisted, broadly speaking, in artillery fire, which it was also hoped would put the enemy's machine-guns out of action and frighten his garrison. Our Infantry advanced immediately this fire had ceased or 'lifted' to the next objective. During the Battle of the Somme it was found that the enemy often left his actual trenches and came forward into shell-holes in No-Man's-Land so as to ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... matter! What a word he's found to frighten me with! Whatever charge you make against a man, you may be certain he deserves twenty times worse than ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... a-leapin' an' a-dancin' about 'mong the trees—ah! an' I 'eerd shouts as was enough to curdle a man's good blood.' 'Pooh! what's lights?' says Joel Amos, cockin' 'is eye into 'is empty tankard; 'that bean't much to frighten a man, no, nor shouts neither.' 'Aren't it?' says John Pringle, fierce-like; 'what if I tell ye the place be full o' flamin' fire—what if I tell ye I see the devil 'isself, all smoke, an' sparks, an' brimston' ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... Heywood, quietly. "He has barked. Earlier than we figured, Gilly. Lucky the scaffolding's up. Gentlemen, we all know our posts. Guns are in the first bedroom. Quietly, now. Rudie, go call Chantel. Don't frighten the women. If they ask about that noise, tell 'em anything—Dragon Boat Festival beginning. Anything.—We can easily hold this place, while the captain gets ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... horizontal bars of brown and white! I am always so glad when they do this, for it seems so wicked to kill such graceful creatures. It is very seldom that I watch the approach, but when I do happen to see them come up, the temptation to do something to frighten them away from those ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... words are merely forms of Diabolos. Other expressions, such as Old Nick, Old Harry, have found a home in Wales. Y gwr drwg, the bad man, Gwas drwg, the wicked servant, Yr yspryd drwg, the wicked spirit, Yr hen fachgen, the old boy, and such like expressions, are also common. Silly women frighten small children by telling them that the Bo, the bogey, the bogey bo, or bolol, etc., will take them away if ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... endeavored to remember the holy man dates of our Redeemer, when he bids us love them who despitefully use you, in my intercourse with this incomprehensible boy, said Marmaduke. I know not what there is in my dwelling to frighten a lad of his years, unless it may he thy presence ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... Indians. They were going through all the stores. Everything was given to them, and they got everything they could wish for and took us up the hill towards their camp. We had only gone but a short distance from the house when we heard the reports of guns, but thought they were firing in the air to frighten us; but they had shot Quinn, Dill and Gilchrist, whom I did not see fall. Mr. and Mrs. Delaney were a short distance ahead of my husband, I having my husband's arm. Mr. Williscraft, an old grey-headed man about seventy-five years of age came running by us, and an Indian shot ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney

... said Fletcher. "You can choose the alternative: disgrace and penal servitude. Don't stand over me; you won't frighten me, I can assure you. ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... to gain as much as other men)—and a difference in my duty towards you. They call me 'independent,' Gilbert, because, though a woman, I dare to think for myself; I know not whether they mean praise by the word, or no; but I think it would frighten away the thought of love from many men. It has not frightened you; and you, however you were born, are the faithfullest and best man I know. I love you with my whole heart, and I ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... wear the yellow and black of Princeton, you know," spoke up Lucy Marsh, "and love to call themselves the Tigers. They think to frighten their opponents by a great exhibition of rough play, and try to act as if they expected to just ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... It does sound rather awful when you put it that way; but I am not going to let you frighten me. I believe Mother Earth will receive her wandering children quite ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... what it is often taken to be, a threatening of God's abandoning of the idolatrous nation. I dare say we have all heard grim sermons from this text, which have taken that view of it, and have tried to frighten men into believing now, by telling them that, perhaps, if they do not, God will never move on their hearts, or deal with them any more, but withdraw His grace, and leave them to insensibility. There is not a word of that sort ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... to frighten Renny in this fashion," muttered Captain Jack as distinctly as the clench of his teeth upon the pipe would allow him. Sir Adrian paled a little, he began to descend his ladder, mechanically flicking the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... likes, she can be very happy, but tell her that she must encourage happiness and not frighten it away. She will have near her a confidential attendant and a servant, and that she will be taken care of in the way she likes. Her room is as elegant as I can make it. . . . Make her promise not to object to what I wish her ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... she only laughed at. "I mind not," said she to herself, "all that can be said, were it worse; I only laugh at them and shall pursue my way." At last, she climbed so high that she could perceive the cage and the Bird which endeavoured, in company with the voices, to frighten her, crying in a thundering tone, notwithstanding the smallness of its size: "Retire, fool, and ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... walk off towards the towers and said to herself, "She is glad to go, half because she wants to see the view, and half because she wants to get away from me. I was a fool to frighten her by losing my temper with Mrs. Winter. But the blasphemy, the silly blasphemy of coming from a woman who has just lost her baby and talking of the kindness of God!..." The tears she had held back ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... he did not speak to me or interfere with me or frighten me it was none of my business, or something to that effect." She laughed helplessly. "Really, the flat is so wonderful and so cheap that one cannot afford to get out—you don't know how grateful I am to you, doctor, for having ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... quicksands? What now? She was so borne down by all that she had lived through; he was so much a part of the mountainous solitudes towering about them. And was she one to love the wilderness—for long? Or did it not begin to bear down upon her uncertain spirit? Did it not menace and frighten and, in the end, would it not repel? Oh, if she had only let him go on alone this morning; if she had remained where she could rest and think and thus come to see clearly, even into ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... compulsory eight hours' day for all trades—but in the course of the agitation for that precious illusion, and by the help of a great deal of beating of tom-toms, and gathering of clans, we shall get a great many other things by the way that we do want. Hearten your friends, and frighten your enemies—there is no other way of scoring in politics—and the particular score doesn't matter. Now don't look at me as if you would like to impeach me!—or I shall turn the tables. I am still ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... "That is children's talk—a fable for the police. Do you know what I say to myself sometimes? That he is a fable invented by the Inner Ring, a bogy to frighten us with. It might ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... note into her voice which intoxicated the man with hope and joy. But he restrained himself. He would not frighten ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... Roddy tolerantly, "children trying to frighten you with a mask on. And old man Codman—he's caught it, too. The fact that he's been down here eighteen years is the only thing against him. He's lost his sense of humor. The idea," he exclaimed, ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... did, I should be worth a thousand dollars more for it. He would sit hours with his peach brandy, cursing and swearing, laughing and telling stories full of obscenity and blasphemy. He would sometimes start up, take my whip, and rush out to the slave quarters, flourish it about and frighten the inmates and often cruelly beat them. He would order the women to pull up their clothes, in Alabama style, as he called it, and then whip them for not complying. He would then come back roaring and shouting to the house, and tell me what he had done; if I did not laugh ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... a gallant effort to frighten their opponents away by chanting the "Land Song" in the Lobby, but it is supposed that the Government supporters had copied Ulysses' method with the Sirens, for enough of them remained faithful to defeat the land-taxers by 190 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various

... idea mounted and cleared, his body requiring time to strike its rhythm. Chakkra sang to him. The sun became hotter and higher—until it hung at the very top of the universe and forgot nothing. There was a stillness in the hills that would frighten anything but a fever bird to silence. To Skag it was a weight against speech and he sat rigidly for many moments at a time—all his life of forest and city, of man and creature, passing before his tortured eyes. . . . And the words Carlin had spoken; all the mysteries of his nights near Poona ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... always observed. But, for God's sake, take care of him; and caution our little jewel to be as much upon her guard as she can. I am terribly afraid, this bird will endeavour to do mischief. He must be watched with a hawk's eye. I almost wish some hawk, or Jove's eagle, would either devour him or frighten him away. ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... our part; everything was cheap, and every meal was a feast. This first breakfast was a trial, but I made a noble meal of it. The sailor, Bill, pretended to believe that I had killed a man on shore and had gone to sea to escape the gallows. Ace and Paddy to frighten me, I suppose, talked about the dangers and difficulties of the driver's life; while the captain gave all of us stern looks over his meal and looked fiercely at me as if to deny that he had ever been kind. When the meal was over he ordered Ace to the tow-path, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... her treasures, the baby elected to have a general romp with Santa Claus, whom she well knew to be her father. Jim had made no attempt to disguise lest it should frighten the child, and so his own gay young face looked out from a voluminous snow-white wig and long white beard. His costume was the conventional red, belted coat, edged with white fur, and a fur-trimmed red cap with a ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... in the school-room. He showed them magnified abominations enough to frighten all the children into fits, and dilated on horrors enough to spoil all appetites: he proved to them that, though they had the finest water in the world all over the town, they had contrived to poison almost every drop of it; he waxed eloquent, witty, sarcastic; ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... Puritan creed were utterly hateful to most Englishmen. They were, if I may venture on saying so, like the "Rouge" element in France and elsewhere—the sole revolutionary force in the entire State, and were hated as such. That force could do little of itself; indeed, its bare appearance tended to frighten and alienate the moderate and dull as well as the refined and reasoning classes. Alone it was impotent against the solid clay of the English apathetic nature. But give this fiery element a body of decent-looking ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... this speech, and the tone in which it was said. It seemed as if my companion was not always in his constant mind, or that he was willing to try if he could frighten me. I laughed at the extravagance of his language, however, and asked him in reply, if he was fool enough to believe that the foul fiend would play so ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... to do, frighten me? You might as well stop that. This opening is lined with guns, and if one of you fire a shot we'll pour lead into you. More than that; if you attempt to climb out, you'll meet a hot reception. There is a brass carronade trained on the hatch to sweep you to kingdom ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... suggested the hunter; 'the report would frighten the vicunas, if they be in the plain—it is near. I know these guanacos. I know where they will retreat to—a defile close by—we can have a chance at them on ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... don't seem like a sick man could do it, but he did. He struck out for the Works as soon as I got outside and I after him. Didn't you hear him shriek. He was quite a ways ahead, and I let him keep so. Soon as I was sure about him I knew I oughn't to frighten him ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... bed in a house in that narrow street: she was sick unto death, and the cruel landlord came up, and tore away the thin coverlet, her only protection against the cold. 'Get up!' said he; 'your face is enough to frighten one. Get up and dress yourself, give me money, or I'll turn you out into the street! Quick—get up!' She answered, 'Alas! death is gnawing at my heart. Let me rest.' But he forced her to get up and bathe her face, and ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... it, my dear. You've been mixed up with so many mysteries that you attach suspicion to the most commonplace events. What should there be about Sarah Judd to frighten anyone?" ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)

... frighten you,"—in her slow, grave way. "I suppose there are not so many people in all the world beside." (It was Ellen's only experience of a city.) "So I was there alone at the depot, waiting for Joe. I was so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... world. He was not only big and strong of limb and broad of chest, but he was very swarthy, and had closely curled black hair. He feared nothing, not even the teacher, and was always doing some dare-devil thing to frighten the children. And because he was dark, morose, and made no friends, and wished none, but went solitary his own dark way, Phil fancied that he must have Spanish blood in his veins, and would no doubt grow up to be a pirate. No other boy in the winter could skate like Murad Ault, with such strength ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... knew what it was the bowing Commissaire said as he turned away, or paid heed to Chevet's final growl, but I know the sister gently answered them, and drew me within, closing the door softly, and shutting out every sound. It was so quiet in the stone passageway as to almost frighten me, but she took me in her arms, and looked searchingly ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... a lengthen'd sigh he drew, A doleful sound, and vanish'd from the view: The frighten'd billows gave a rolling swell, And, distant far, prolong'd the dismal yell, Faint and more faint the howling echoes die, And the black cloud dispersing, leaves the sky. High to the angel-host, whose guardian care Had ever round us watch'd, my hands I rear, And Heaven's ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... Swedes, was plighted to a certain giant, and holding accursed an union so unworthy of the blood royal, entered on a Swedish war; being destined to emulate the prowess of Hercules in resisting the attempts of monsters. He went into Gothland, and, in order to frighten people out of his path, strode on clad in goats' skins, swathed in the motley hides of beasts, and grasping in his right hand a dreadful weapon, thus feigning the attire of a giant; when he met Groa herself riding with a very small escort of women on foot, and making her way, as it chanced, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... you all the better for talking Rommany; it is a sweet language, isn't it? especially as you sing it. How did you pick it up? But you picked it up upon the roads, no doubt? Ha, it was funny in you to pretend not to know it, and you so flush with it all the time; it was not kind in you, however, to frighten the poor person's child so by screaming out, but it was kind in you to give the rikkeni kekaubi to the child of the poor person. She will be grateful to you; she will bring you her little dog to show you, her pretty juggal; the poor person's child will come and see you again; you ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... the pistol into my tail-pocket, and followed the sound up the ramshackle stairs. My footsteps made such a racket on their old timbers as fairly to frighten me, but it never disturbed the flute-player. He had harked back again to "Like Hermit Poor" by this time, and the dolefulness of it was fit to make the dead cry out, but he went whining on until I reached the head of the stairs ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... left us alone as regards the manuscript; tomorrow these gentlemen will inspect the costumes, which perhaps will frighten them. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... imagination from wandering; insomuch that he seemed to study as he spake. The design of his Sermons—as indeed of all his discourses—was to shew reasons for what he spake; and with these reasons such a kind of rhetoric, as did rather convince and persuade, than frighten men into piety; studying not so much for matter,—which he never wanted,—as for apt illustrations, to inform and teach his unlearned hearers by familiar examples, and then make them better by convincing applications; ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... the quarter-deck, not where common malefactors are; came out at twelve, sat down in a chair, for he would not kneel, and refused to have his face covered, that his countenance might show whether he feared death; but being told that it might frighten his executioners, he submitted, gave the signal at once, received one shot through the head, another through the heart, and fell. Do cowards live or die thus? Can that man want spirit who only fears to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... it. Supposing they sent those awful Futurist things; why, he'd frighten me into fits. Can't you see Horatio stalking in out of his dressing-room, all magenta ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... good woman was suddenly cut short by the whizzing of a tomahawk past her head, which slightly grazed her cheek, and lodged in the tree a few feet beyond. Whether it was aimed at her life and missed its mark, or whether it was merely done to frighten her, does not appear; though the manner of the savage, after the weapon was thrown, inclines us to the latter supposition; for instead of rushing upon her with his knife, he walked deliberately to the tree, withdrew the tomahawk, ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... St.-Dominique, I went over the whole case in the taxi, and still I didn't see. I let the fellow confide in me on the ship and warn me on the train and give me a final solemn ultimatum at the inn last night and come on here to frighten you and threaten you—when just a word to the police would have settled him forever. By George, I can't believe it! I should take a prize at ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... quite consciously it had attempted the outright ludicrous: it had thrown up the snow into the semblance of some formidable animal—more like a gorilla than anything else it looked, a gorilla that stands on its four hands and raises every hair on its back and snarls in order to frighten that which it is afraid of ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... is using my own weapon against me. If she has seen the man, he didn't frighten her. It serves me right!' With a dry laugh, he turned ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... his own part, it was astonishing how easily, the central truth being hidden—that the tunic in the armoire was not his—the deception had run on its own wheels. Why, after all, should that tunic frighten him? He, John a Cleeve, had not killed its wearer. He had never buttoned it about him nor slipped an arm into one of its sleeves. Menehwehna had offered to help him into it and had shown much astonishment on being refused. John's own soiled regimentals they had weighted with ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... what to make of this letter; and though inclined to think it a foolish attempt to frighten and ridicule him, he judged it safest to carry it to Lord Salisbury, secretary of state. Though Salisbury, too, was inclined to pay little attention to it, he thought proper to lay it before the king, who came to town a few days ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... shaking with excitement, though he did not know it, stretched forth his arms for silence, and it came so suddenly as to frighten the people in ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... Horace!" exclaimed Sylvia, recoiling. "I'd so much rather not. I don't like things that have come out of brass bottles. I shouldn't know what to say, and it would frighten me horribly." ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... has not done it; he is acting!' she pursued, restraining her precious tears for higher purposes, as only true heroines can. 'Thinks to frighten me into submission!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... He had certainly never before in his life been thus defied. He simply did not know what to do about it. If he had thought that bullying would frighten her he would, I believe, have bullied her, but he knew quite well that it wouldn't. And then, as I now began to perceive (I had at first thought otherwise), he was for the first time in his life experiencing something deeper and more confusing than his customary ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... the trenches and firing for several days upon the fort without any great effect, the French at last made their approach so near as to frighten the enemy, who sent to offer to release all the French women and children, on the condition of obtaining a lasting peace, and of being suffered to live peaceably on their ground, without being driven from thence, or ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... sure I do not seek to frighten you," says he. "But to the interrogation; and let me warn you to volunteer nothing beyond the questions I shall ask you. It may consist very immediately with your safety. I have a great discretion, it is true, but there are bounds ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Does my face frighten him?" Emilia thought. It made her look on herself with a foreign eye. This is a dreadful but instructive piece of contemplation; acting as if the rich warm blood of self should have ceased to hug about us, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was M. de Montespan; but Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente did not speak of it, it seemed to me, in such a manner as would frighten suitors away." ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Varna slyly. "But Gyuri was afraid I might do it, for he isn't always strong enough to frighten me with his eyes. Those were the hours when I could make him afraid—I liked ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner

... know of—about the heir to a peerage. Who is this heir to a peerage? I don't know what you mean, but you frighten me. Is that a reason why I should be dragged out of my seclusion and made to appear in his defence? Oh, no—surely no; if he is that, they will let him off. They will not press it. I shall not be wanted. John, the more reason that you should stand ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... stray into my garden," said Adela, "I should certainly send for you to frighten them out. You 'shoo' beautifully. Meanwhile, do you mind trying to drive that ox away? That is a Mademoiselle Louise Bichot that he's begun on now," she added in icy calm, as a glowing orange head was crushed into the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... as they went mad in the onslaught at Ypres in October, 1914; just, indeed, as they had lost their reason during other terrible periods. Yes, your German war lord is no sympathetic commander. Losses, frightful losses, do not frighten or trouble him so long as he is reasonably sure ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... that's the trouble! A little girl, Rada, a little girl? Well, Santa Claus Must wash his hands. We mustn't frighten her. ...
— Rada - A Drama of War in One Act • Alfred Noyes

... of relief. "Oh! I hope he is!" she cried fervently. "It was dreadful! No storm could frighten me as did that face!" and ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... be bold and depend on our own strength; let us frighten Austria by threatening an alliance with Russia, frighten Russia by letting her think we may join the Western Powers; if it were true that we could never side with Russia, at least we must retain the possibility of threatening ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... and enraptures me—than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or high plantation in a cloudy winter day and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees and raving over the plain. I listened to the birds, and frequently turned out of my path lest I should disturb their little songs or frighten them to another station." Auroral visions were gilding his horizon as he walked in glory, if not in joy, "behind his plough upon the mountain sides."; but the swarm of his many-coloured fancies was again made grey by the atra ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... superstition all and every belief in spells, charms and exorcism. Saint Augustine teaches that when the Scriptures exhort us to resist the demons, it requires us to resist our passions and intemperate appetites. Nothing is more detestable than the deviltries wherewith the Capuchins frighten old women." ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... frighten us as much as you please—after you are dead. But it is difficult to believe that you mean what you say. Will you try to give us some sign of your great resentment—after your head has ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn

... with you, Mrs. Bernaner? You're so nervous since yesterday. Are you ill? Everything seems to frighten you? Why did you run away from that gate so suddenly? I thought you wanted me to ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner

... people, Ma'am Sahib, think great serpent is swallowing the sun, and they try to frighten ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... Hungry for hope they gulp a moldy creed And dine on faith. 'Tis easier to believe An old-time fiction than to wear a tooth In gnawing bones to reach the marrow truth. Priests murder Truth and with her gory ghost They frighten fools and give the rogues a roast Until without or pounds or pence or price— Free as the fabled wine of paradise— They furnish priestly plates with buttered toast. Your priests of superstition stalk the land With Jacob's winning voice and Esau's hand; Sinners ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... silence—filled the room beyond the door. She could hear nothing except her own rapid breathing. Presently she heard a horse whinny. Was Yuma at the horses? It seemed incredible that any man should visit the cabin purposely to attack her. Perhaps Yuma had only intended to frighten her; he had said that Dunlavey had told him to follow her, but she believed that Dunlavey, in spite of his reputation for lawlessness and trickery, was not so unmanly as to incite the half-breed to attack her. He ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... because they came down on the furniture for poor-rate. Says I to the landlady, who was crying and wringing her hands, "Why not come to the country where there's no taxes at all, nor rent either, if you choose?" Then it would frighten one, all she counted up on her fingers—poor-rate, paving-rate, water-rate, lighting, income-tax, and no end of others. I reckon that's what you pay for your high civilisation. Now, with us, there's a water privilege on a'most every farm, and a pile of maple-logs has fire and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... all on fire, at the Trinity House on that side, and the Dolphin Taverne on this side, which was very near us; and the fire with extraordinary vehemence. Now begins the practice of blowing up of houses in Tower-streete, those next the Tower, which at first did frighten people more than anything, but it stopped the fire where it was done, it ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... faith. And, in like manner, the only way by which men can be made steadfast and immovable in brave, pertinacious adherence to the simple law of right, whatsoever temptations may try to draw them aside, and whatsoever frowns may gather upon the face of affairs so as to frighten them from the path of rectitude—the only way by which they can conquer evil, so as not to be hurried into forbidden paths, is this same making sure of their hold upon God, and carrying with them day by day, and moment by moment, into all the little difficulties ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... time. Oh, not only because they aren't rich and lucky, but because they really suit you best, in little ways as well as big ways. You understand them, and they understand you. All the butlers and footmen and lady's-maids frighten me so; I don't like telling them to do things; they're so—so solemn and respectable. And I don't like creatures to be killed, and I don't like eating them afterwards. But Denis and his friends and the ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... scowl, the Carver gathered his mighty limbs and arose, and looked round for his weapons; but I had put them well away. Then he came to me and gazed, being wont to frighten thus ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various



Words linked to "Frighten" :   awe, stimulate, intimidate, dispel, terrify, horrify, excite, dread, appall, bluff, alarm, shake up, fear, turn back, drive out, spook, drive off, shake, consternate, drive away, appal, terrorize, stir, terrorise, dismay, chase away, run off



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