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Missile   /mˈɪsəl/   Listen
Missile

noun
1.
A rocket carrying a warhead of conventional or nuclear explosives; may be ballistic or directed by remote control.
2.
A weapon that is forcibly thrown or projected at a targets but is not self-propelled.  Synonym: projectile.



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"Missile" Quotes from Famous Books



... short by a loud roar from the jingal. The fallen dacoit had trained it perfectly before he dropped, and a comrade now touched off the piece. At the next moment a terrific crash rang through the building. The heavy missile had lighted full on the point where the door was secured by the stout bar, had smashed its way through door and bar and hurled the door open. As the portal flew back, there was a tremendous yell from the edge of the jungle. Then a cloud of blue figures burst into sight. With ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... teeth. The dart is taken between the thumb and the second finger, the truncated ends of the leaves being pressed against the tip of the first finger, by which and the simultaneous impulse of the arm the dart is propelled. Accurate shots may be made with the missile, which has a range up to about thirty yards, with a penetrative force sufficient to pierce the skin. Occasionally the boys of the camp in opposing sides indulge in mimic fights, when the air rustles with the darts, and the yelling combatants exhibit expertness ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... is a larger mark than the man, and hence is more frequently hit, so that more than twice the number of horses fall in every engagement than men. The cavalryman is more shielded from the deadly missile than the infantryman. The horse's head and shoulders will often receive the bullet which was intended for the rider's body. This is true also of the elevated portions of the saddle, with the rolls of blankets ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... and execution followed the shout. Fixing their spears in the ground, in order that they might be lighter to mount the heights, they advanced uphill at a run. The Volscians, having discharged their missile weapons at the first onset, hurled down the stones that lay at their feet upon the Romans as they were making their way up, and having thrown them into confusion by incessant blows, strove to drive them from the higher ground: thus the left wing of the Romans was nearly overborne, had not ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... tirade for the epigram as the vehicle of his satire, and handled this lighter missile with unsurpassed brilliance and verve. Despite his sycophancy and his fulsome flattery of prospective benefactors, he displays more of the sober moderation and sane common-sense of Horace than either of his contemporaries. There are few better satirists of social and literary pretenders ...
— English Satires • Various

... functionaries of the place, surrounded the house in which he was, avowing that they had come to arrest him by order of some person exercising the chief authority. While parleying with them he was wounded by a missile from the crowd. A boat dispatched from the American steamer Northern Light to release him from the perilous situation in which he was understood to be was fired into by the town guard and compelled to return. These incidents, together with the known character of the population ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... must get him into a boat. I fear he is wounded." Wenlock was obeying his commander, when just at that moment he felt a severe pang, and was conscious that a missile of some sort had passed through his side. In spite of his wound, however, he followed the captain. The earl was seated at the table, with a handkerchief over ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston

... caught his victim up, holding him overhead and sending the bravo, heels first, into the face of another scoundrel. The man, struck by this human missile, went to earth dazed, and with a broken ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock

... day—a hundred and a hundred years ago it was—he had gone to chase a deer. The deer fled into a cave. He followed with his hounds and his sword, his trumpet and his missile-ball. He went astray and fell asleep in the Cave. And when he wakened up, his hounds were heaps of dust beside him. He went into the world, and he found that his companions were dead for a hundred and a hundred years and ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum

... a perfectly rounded form. It may be made in such a shape as will offer less resistance to the air in flight, but its actual propulsion through space does not depend on how it is made, but on the power which propelled it, and such a missile is a ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... little—nothing more than the rifles and sword bayonets of the two or three men who constituted the garrison, a circumstance which seemed to occasion them much disappointment. They were particularly earnest and pressing in their inquiries for hand-grenades, a species of missile which they had supposed was always kept "in stock" in such places. They could scarcely believe that there were none to be had. Some charges of grape-shot which they laid hands on might be, they thought, the sort of weapon they were in quest of, and they proceeded to dissect ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... but he made it so much a matter of earnest to see the bruise of the old Election missile on her fair arm, that, with a pardonable soft blush, to avoid making much of it herself, she turned her sleeve a little above the wrist. He took ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Talley, as he examined the missile. "I was sure that no mere ball of snow could break that heavy window. To put such a stone in a snowball was little less than criminal," he went on gravely. "If that had hit any one on the temple it would ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... who, as you know, are always 'there,' 'Sous les Ponts de Paris,' 'Madelon' and other sentimental compositions, and if by accident, in your desire to please, you were prone to compare them to the heroes of Homer, it's more than likely your pains would be rewarded by the first missile on which they could lay their hands and launch in your direction. They ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... me as I stood thus helpless against my howling tormentors, chief of whom was the great fellow I have mentioned, who (by reason of height and length of arm) struck me oftenest; once indeed when (beside myself with fury) I raised my head to curse him, he took me a blow in the mouth with some vile missile that set ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... leaves, here and there, shone like pale jewels of pink, amber, and violet. The mirror-like surface of the river was blurred with twisting spirals of mist, silvery and opalescent, through which the dim-seen figure of a duck in straight flight shot like a missile. ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... disposed in the top of a rank alder, trying to look as much like a crowded branch as his supple, shining form would admit, the old vengeance overtook him. I exercised my prerogative, and a well-directed missile, in the shape of a stone, brought him looping and writhing to the ground. After I had completed his downfall and quiet had been partially restored, a half-fledged member of the bereaved household came ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... recal with what unexampled ingenuity, we laboured to befit the snow white egg for a rare tenant—attar-gul. Well do we remember how that face, usually so cloudless, became darkened almost to a frown, as our heart's mistress saw the missile approach her. What a radiant smile bewitched us, as it burst on her lap, and filled the air with its fragrance! Truly we had ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... the archdeacon, handing the offensive missile to his father-in-law; 'I am not going to be the bearer of his love letters. You are her father, and may do as you ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... such a moment. But when the word is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good-humour at all may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every bare place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, and reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a fine moral reaction, and ready, with a shrinking readiness, one-third loath, for a repetition ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... twenty yards another such gap yawned in the ground. And Chester, rising, hurled a missile from ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes

... Death, Rejoice in thee; and hail with loudest shouts The auspicious era when deep-searching Art From out the hidden things in Nature's store Cull'd thy tremendous powers, and tutor'd Man To chain the unruly element of Fire At his controul, to wait his potent touch: To urge his missile bolts of sudden Death, And thunder terribly his vengeful wrath. Thy mighty engines and gigantic towers With frowning aspect awe the trembling World. Destruction, bursting from thy sudden blaze Hath taught the Birds to tremble ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... The bomb was round shaped and rather larger than a cricket ball. A black tube affair an inch or two long projected from it and emitted, when lit, a jet of hissing, spitting sparks. The bomb-thrower seized the missile quickly, stepped clear of the sheltering corner of the trench, threw the bomb, and jumped back under cover. A couple of bullets slapped into the wall of the trench, and ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... falling of the second missile, the third one fell, landing near Madrid, Spain. The Spaniards, having received news of the El Paso and Peking tragedies, avoided the ugly mass of rock as though it were a dreaded pestilence. In every way its action was similar to that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... the ponderous missile was swift and sure until a projection on the side of the cliff was reached, when with a terrific concussion the bowlder glanced. It suddenly shot outward like a cannon ball, and was carried fairly over the ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... his horn, Silenus's ass sent forth a martial bray, and the maenads leapt shrill-voiced on the foe, girt with serpents and baring now the steel of their thyrsus-heads. In a moment Indians and elephants turned and fled disordered, before even a missile could carry across; and the end was that they were smitten and led captive by the objects of their laughter; they had learnt the lesson that it is not safe to take the first report, and scorn an enemy of ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... made his landing, and where he allowed himself to be worshipped as a god, is about in its original condition, having been repaired in recent years. When Captain Cook attempted to seize the King as a prisoner, the natives naturally rallied to the King's defense. A stone or other missile struck Cook on ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... followed, rolling slowly but steadily in his direction. Ruggedo threw his sceptre at them, and then his ruby crown, and then he drew off his heavy golden sandals and hurled these at the advancing eggs. But the eggs dodged every missile and continued to draw nearer. The King stood trembling, his eyes staring in terror, until they were but half a yard distant; then with an agile leap he jumped clear over them and made a rush for the passage that led ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... decisive struggle in the open, but they always seemed to be stealing something which belonged to the men who were engaged in the struggle. And apart from this they were so indifferent in their practice of archery that they drew the bowstring only to the breast[5], so that the missile sent forth was naturally impotent and harmless to those whom it hit[6]. Such, it is evident, was the archery of the past. But the bowmen of the present time go into battle wearing corselets and fitted out with greaves which extend up to the knee. From the right side hang ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius

... gave one look at the place where the German missile had fallen, not ten feet away, and then, with a shrug of his ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton

... unexpected and sudden, disconcerted the enemy, and, at the first onset, decided the victory. He was the first to introduce the Indian war-whoop in his battles with the savages, the Tories, and the British. More harmless than the leaden missile, it was not less efficient, and was always the precursor and attendant of victory. The prisoners at King's Mountain said, "We could stand your fighting; but your cursed hallooing confused us. We thought the mountains had regiments, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... found them, immediately. Those weaknesses are everywhere apparent, for they are physical. You're one of a dying race, Littlejohn. Mankind's days are numbered. There's no need for grandiose schemes of reactivating warheads in buried missile-centers, of loosing thermo-nucs upon the world. Merely by killing off the central council here in New Chicagee, we can accomplish our objective. A dozen men die, and there's not enough initiative left to replace them. It's as simple as that. And ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch

... leaden missile sang through the air. It flattened against a rock in front of which the ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... more effective disguise about the extended form. But an unforeseen and in the circumstances rather horrible interval followed, for Creake, in accordance with some detail of his never-revealed plan, continued to shower missile after missile against the panes until even the unimpressionable ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... barrel and made for accuracy in shooting. He now took a lump of resinous gum from his charm-bag and rubbed it on the point of the arrow until the latter was covered with a thick, black coat, resembling old beeswax. A cap of a joint of slender bamboo was fitted over the end of the missile to prevent the rain from washing away the supposed poison, and it was ready to be ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... saw the bear reaching wildly for the wall of the pen, clawing frantically in his eagerness to climb over and get away. She had given him a lesson, that was clear; but she was resolved to give him a good one while she was about it. Swinging far forward, she launched her terrible missile straight upon his huge hind-quarters just as they went over the wall. But at the same moment she lost her balance. With an indignant yell she plunged downward into ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... he was in the ways of society. Such an accusation, however, remained perforce under an open verdict. Too many of those who might have decided against him had delicate glass-houses of their own to care for, and it would likely prove a treacherous missile that would aim at the well-propped reputation of ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... forlorn hope, before it had accomplished its purpose, he rushed forward, killed the commanding officer with his own hand, and seizing the colours, led them back, undismayed, by a grove of pikes and a shower of missile weapons. With desperate but successful valour he carried the redoubt and escaped with life. All this passed under the immediate observation of Cromwell, whose retentive memory never forgot any signal action, and whose discriminating policy generally placed the man ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... other than speculation and circulation, the newspapers had soon begun to refer authoritatively to these "ghost rockets" as guided missiles, and implied that they were from Russia. Peenemunde, the great German missile development center and birthplace of the V-l and V-2 guided missiles, came in for its share of suspicion since it was held by the Russians. By the end of the summer of 1946 the reports were widespread, ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... by shafts of lurid fire. Masses of metal shot in all directions, leaving a trail of sparks behind them; bits of shell shrieked past my head and buried themselves in the walls and sandbags. One large missile fell in an open space about forty feet on my left, and exploded with a deafening, ear-splitting crash. At the same moment another exploded directly in front of me. Instinctively I ducked my head. The blinding ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... order they halted on the brink, and from it wounded the Germans with every kind of missile; while, if any of them escaped from death of that kind by the celerity of their movements, they still sunk to the bottom from the weight of their ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... that again," he thought; "the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me—the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... big gentleman in spectacles, but his bravery had inspired him with a very genuine feeling of respect, so, when his practiced ear detected a shell coming their way, he had acted the part of a friend and placed the civilian in a safer position. The missile landed some ten paces from where they were and exploded, covering them both with earth and debris. The citizen kept his feet and received not so much as a scratch, while the officer had ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... Rama by his prowess slew Ravana in battle. Here also is narrated the story of Savitri; then Karna's deprivation by Indra of his ear-rings; then the presentation to Karna by the gratified Indra of a Sakti (missile weapon) which had the virtue of killing only one person against whom it might be hurled; then the story called Aranya in which Dharma (the god of justice) gave advice to his son (Yudhishthira); ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... extraordinary effect on Richard Haddon. For a boy to be kicked, or clouted, or tweaked by strange men is the fortune of war—it is a mere everyday incident, the natural and accepted fate of all boys, and is swiftly resented with a jibe or a missile and forgotten on the spot; but to be taken in cold blood by one strange man, not a schoolmaster or in any way privileged, and deliberately and systematically larruped with a belt under the eyes of another, is burning shame. It tortured all Dick's senses into revolt, and awakened in him a hatred ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... he had escaped only by a successful and ingenious stratagem. At length, wearied with contention, he took up his abode in Protestant Switzerland, where he passed in quiet the latter years of his useful and honored life.[9] It was while here that he compiled this book, and sent it as a missile into the camp of his opponents, the enemies of freedom of thought and of the right of private judgment. From this time Pasquin's fame became universal. The words pasquil or pasquinade were adopted info almost every European tongue, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... windows possessed nervous systems. Nor must this probable apprehension on the part of cats and the like be thought mere superstition. Cats have superstitions, it is true; but certain actions inspired by the sight of a boy with a missile in his hand are better evidence of the workings of logic upon a practical nature than of ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... wish. I also hope for him a misfortune at night. That returning all-fevered from horse practice, he may meet an Orestes,[259] mad with drink, who breaks open his head; that wishing to seize a stone, he, in the dark, may pick up a fresh stool, hurl his missile, miss ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... room. A man's figure was framed in the lighted window—a bloated bulk that he knew was Spulvedo. A flame shot from that figure into his very face. The missile struck the roof close to his side and splattered shingle and dirt in his face. Without hesitation, he straightened his own arm and fired point blank at the living mark. Spulvedo emitted a stifled shriek and ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... round wildly in the direction from which the dazzling missile had come, and saw that at this point the sable facade of fir and pine was interrupted by a smaller road at right angles; which, when he turned it, brought him in full view of the long, lighted house, with a lake and fountains in front of it. Nevertheless, he did not look at this, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... pulled at Dorking. SWINBURNE was, I regret to say, pagan in his views, but, unlike some pagans, he was incapable of adhering to the golden mean. ARISTOTLE, I feel certain, would never have condescended to the use of such a missile, and it is beyond "imagination's widest stretch" to picture, say, the late Dr. JOSEPH COOK, of Boston, the present Lord ABERDEEN, or the Rev. Dr. Donald McGuffin acting in such a wild ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various

... of the hall he was standing with the instrument in his hands, clutching it with the stupidity of a man who has been struck by an unexpected and unexplainable missile. His face had gone to a grayish white, and his hands trembled as he set the receiver on the hook. His eyes were bulging from emotion and he kept wetting his lips as he stood in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... he cut fusion and watched on the altimeter dial the battle between gravity and inertia. Near the Mississippi delta he was wrenched in a sharp maneuver as the De-Meteor suddenly took over. He was fortunate to see the streaking missile glow brightly and flare out of existence in the thin regions of atmosphere miles ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll

... missile struck the seventh rib of right side and glanced off, leaving a horizontal scar 2-1/4 inches long and one-half inch wide, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... Control Regime (MTCR) established-16 April 1987 aim-to arrest the proliferation of missiles (unmanned delivery vehicles of mass destruction) by controlling the export of key missile technologies and equipment members-(28) Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, NZ, Norway, Portugal, Russia, South ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... without violence, so judging that the head was barbed, and that tearing would be dangerous, he at once made a bold cut down into the flesh, parallel with the flat of the arrow head, and then pressing it gently up and down, he drew the missile forth. He followed this up by carefully washing out the wound with clean water, and finally, before bandaging, ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... great brute launched his massive stone-tipped spear, and I raised my shield to break the force of its terrific velocity. The impact hurled me to my knees, but the shield had deflected the missile and I was unscathed. Jubal was rushing upon me now with the only remaining weapon that he carried—a murderous-looking knife. He was too close for a careful bowshot, but I let drive at him as he came, without taking aim. My arrow pierced the fleshy part of his ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... was usually commenced by the light troops, who skirmished with missile weapons; the hasta'ti then advanced to the charge, and if defeated, fell back on the prin'cipes; if the enemy proved still superior, the two front lines retired to the ranks of the tria'rii, which being composed of veteran troops, generally turned the scale. But this order was not always ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... creature gave another of its alarming growls. Hardly thinking what he was doing, Billy, startled by a shrill caterwaul, which followed the growl, flung his lighted torch full at the eyes, and heard a screech that sounded as if his blazing missile had struck its mark. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... feather at the nock, and while the rear binding started an inch or more from the butt of the arrow, the feather drooped over the nock. This gave a pretty effect and seemed to add to the steering qualities of the missile. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... were places where things were not so tranquil. By this time there were already troops in motion in long trains of personnel-carrying trucks. There were mobile guided missile detachments moving at top speed across state lines and along the express highway systems. Every military plane in the coastal area was aloft, kept fueled by tanker planes to be ready for any sort of offensive or defensive action that might be called for. The short wave ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... from the men as they rapidly obeyed orders, and not a man seemed to flinch as the long gun of the English schooner sent forth its heavy missile again, this time to strike the water some distance ahead and then rise and go crashing amongst the trees, whose leaves could be seen to ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... situation rapidly, and perceived that in any contest his round body would inevitably suffer from friend and foe alike. He was not even sure but that he would be used as a missile, a sort of ponderous pillow swung at one end. So he replied briskly, 'Yes, I am being carried as you see, dear brethren; I don't care ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... any one was hurt; at least, no one fell. The captain observed the riflemen with the utmost intensity; and as soon as the missile had spent its power, the men sprang part way up the hill, and placed themselves behind the trees. The first company had obtained a footing on the hard ground, and the first thing they did was to form and march at the double-quick towards the hill ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... on the wall, the top of which was all frayed and crumbled by the action of the towing ropes. The fat Frenchman, who was good-naturedly tipsy, picked up a loose half brick and tossed it after the departing Slasher. The missile took him between the shoulders, and he, turning in wrath, flung out one windy buffet at his assailant, and toppled him over the bridge into the canal. There was a momentary flurry, and then a bystander lent the immersed Frenchman one end of a barge-pole, and he was drawn to the side, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... discretion of your captain and officers. Precedent—the decision of the courts—has decided the privilege of a captain or officer to punish insolence or lack of respect from a sailor with a blow—of a fist or missile; but, understand me now, a return of the blow makes that man a mutineer, and his prompt killing is justified by the law of the land. Is this plain to you? You are here to answer and obey orders respectfully, adding the word 'sir' to each response; you are never to go to windward of an officer, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... that no one dares to resist or ill-treat them. Hence, access to the town is often difficult; for should one of the apes take a dislike to any unlucky traveller, he is sure to be assailed by the whole community, who follow him with all the missile weapons they can collect, such as pieces of bamboo, stones, and dirt, making at the same time a most hideous howling. Of the danger attending a meeting with enemies of this description, the following ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown

... with grease and lowered from a drum to a few yards above the spot where the bomb was destined to fall. To this plummet adhered fragments of various objects, animate or other, which the explosion of the missile hurled into the air. Such a fragment the Captain was now extending for my observation. I admitted that to my uninitiated eye it closely resembled a portion of the outer surface of a cow or some kindred animal. "You are indeed ignorant," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various

... on a previous occasion Redmond demonstrated his ability to think and act quickly. He upheld that reputation now. Like a flash he ducked behind Slavin's broad shoulders and backed into the passage. Picking up at random the first missile available—to wit—an empty soda-water bottle, he tip-toed swiftly along the passage to a door opening into the bar lower down. This practically brought him broadside-on to his man. A moment he peered and judged his distance then, drawing ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... banged the mizzen shrouds to port, and then came swooping back across the deck, to slam against the starboard shrouds. The clanging, tethered missile it bore on its end seemed to be searching for a victim. When the boom met the starboard shrouds in its headlong rush, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... Only a dog, and with a "shoo!" he thought to scare the creature off. The yellow eyes went from the fire to his face, a red tongue slithered out over the black nose, and the dog sat down again. All round were the white breasts of the pack, as they sat in silence and stared. He searched about for a missile, found an empty cartridge, and threw it. A dog leapt up and sniffed. The circle ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... "soaker" of a snowball in his left ear while hurrying to the gymnasium. He did not know who threw the missile, but was satisfied in his mind that it came from ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)

... Irrigated land: NA km2 Environment: occasionally subject to typhoons; two archipelagic island chains of 30 atolls and 1,152 islands Note: Bikini and Eniwetok are former US nuclear test sites; Kwajalein, the famous World War II battleground, is now used as a US missile test range ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... more than contusions," said the operator, bending his gaze in every direction in vain, in quest of the hand from which the missile had been hurled. "It must be meteoric; there is no living ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... many things in a patois he had never learned in the provincial school, went back to the milk-room. The lynx ventured to show his head, and a flat-iron dented the floor close beside it. Then the animal circled the room, dodged another missile, and hid in a ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... fitted into a peg which enters the tip of the shaft. The peg is secured to the shaft by twine made of the fibres of pineapple leaves, the twine being some thirty or forty yards in length, and neatly wound round the body of the arrow. When the missile enters the shell, the peg drops out, and the pierced animal descends with it towards the bottom, leaving the shaft floating on the surface. This being done, the sportsman paddles in his montaria to the place, and gently draws the animal by the twine, humouring it by giving it the ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... Bluebird," she said aloud, "please hurry up!" By and by her eyes rested upon Sahwah, silhouetted against the sky on top of the diving tower. Picking up a big dry pine cone from the floor of the Crow's Nest, she took careful aim and sent it sailing downward in a swift, curving flight. The prickly missile hit Sahwah squarely in the back of the neck. She started violently and threw up her arms, while the spyglass fell into the water with a loud splash. Hinpoha laughed a ringing laugh when she beheld the effect of her ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... was far from being a calm one. He fidgetted in his chair and finally rolled his paper into a hard wad and threw it at the counter as if it had been a missile. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... drawback, that she had now got somewhat crazy in her fastenings, and made rather more water in a heavy sea than her one little pump could conveniently keep under. As the fitful gust struck her headlong, as if it had been some invisible missile hurled at us from off the hill-tops, she stooped her head lower and lower, like old stately Hardyknute under the blow of the "King of Norse," till at length the lee chain-plate rustled sharp through the foam; but, like a staunch Free Churchwoman, the lowlier she bent, the more steadfastly ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... though the king at last put the Mamelukes to flight, his loss was dreadful. The Nile rose and cut off his return. He lost great part of his troops from sickness, and was horribly harassed by the Mamelukes, who threw among his host a strange burning missile, called Greek fire; and he was finally forced to surrender himself as a prisoner at Mansourah, with all his army. He obtained his release by giving up Damietta, and paying a heavy ransom. After twenty years, in 1270, he attempted another crusade, which was still more unfortunate, ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was armed, it appeared, with a fission-throwing weapon in one hand and some sort of tranquilizer—I deem it to have been a Stollgratz 16—in the other; moreover, he wore an invulnerability belt. The police aboriginals were attempting to strike him with missile weapons, which the belt deflected. I neutralized his shield, collapsed him and stored him in my carry-all. "Not an Adjuster," I asserted my father, but he had already perceived that this was so. I left him to neutralize and collapse the police aboriginals while I zeroed in on the portatron. ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl

... fair with fierce and fastened lips, Clear eyes, and springing muscle and shortening limb— With chin aslant indrawn to a tightening throat, Grave, and with gathered sinews, like a god,— Aimed on the left side his well-handled spear Grasped where the ash was knottiest hewn, and smote, And with no missile wound, the monstrous boar Right in the hairiest hollow of his hide Under the last rib, sheer through bulk and bone, Peep in; and deeply smitten, and to death, The heavy horror with his hanging shafts Leapt, and fell furiously, and from raging lips Foamed out the latest wrath of all his life. ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Germany uses a Mauser rifle, with a bullet of millimeters caliber, steel and copper coated. Great Britain's missile is the Lee-Enfield, caliber 7.7 mm., ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... up the injured window, and crimson with rage he leaned far out and flung half a broken bottle at the group below. All heads ducked, but the ragged missile only just ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... chambers than the Turk wiped his mouth after his tea and opened his Evening Hate. There was the distant boom of a shell. Before we could realise what the sound was, and say "Hallo! they've begun," the missile had exploded among the stores on the beach. That was my baptism of fire. Without the least hesitation I copied Major Hardy and Monty, and went flat on my face behind some brushwood. Only Doe, too proud to take cover, remained standing, and then blushed ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... be a work of many weeks' duration, when the imperfect implements at the natives' disposal are taken into consideration. In the first place, his missile must be perfectly straight, and of the hardest wood; and no bough, however large, would fulfil these requirements, so it must be cut out bodily from the stem of an iron-bark tree, and the nearer the heart he can ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... game as could well be designed, had either driver been less skilled, but it was safe enough now. Gerard was laughing as he drove, when the first tiny missile rattled ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... fair do," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his wounded toe in hand and fixing his eye on the third missile. "I don't understand it. Stones flinging themselves. Stones talking. Put yourself ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... face to face with his judge. He has been deprived of his cap, and of everything else "which may be employed as, or contain, a missile." (They think of everything in ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... rumours had spread through the city, and on the way back the troops were mobbed. They were pelted with every kind of missile and many were hurt, though none seriously; and it understates the truth to say that they were in no danger. They had their bayonets, and from time to time made thrusts at their assailants. At last, on the quays, at a place called Bachelor's ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... of all the earth, God rest the lady fowl that gave thee birth! Fit missile for the vilest hand to throw— I freely tender thee mine own. Although As a bad egg I am myself no slouch, Thy riper years thy ranker worth avouch. Now, Pickering, please expose your eye and say If—whoop!— (Exit ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... the spear, he missed both squirrel and tree, losing his missile far among the tangled undergrowth of the jungle. However, it could be but a few steps within the forbidden labyrinth. The women were all about in the field. There were warriors on guard within easy hail, and so little Tibo boldly ventured ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... "Nice gentle missile, wasn't it? So like a man! Course, the boy never got over it. But he's the only one I can recommend at all. He painted my house for me last spring. It looks real ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... information from popular writings, where the doctrines were very imperfectly laid down; so that some of his book is occupied in demolishing constructions of straw, unrecognisable by professed physicists except as caricatures at which they also might be willing to heave an occasional missile. ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge

... promise. The monkey at first took no notice of the crab's complaints, but at last he picked out the hardest, greenest persimmon he could find and aimed it at the crab's head. The persimmon is as hard as stone when it is unripe. The monkey's missile struck home and the crab was sorely hurt by the blow. Again and again, as fast as he could pick them, the monkey pulled off the hard persimmons and threw them at the defenseless crab till he dropped dead, covered with wounds all over his body. There he lay a ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... at that instant screamed over the ruin; the young girl raised her head with simple curiosity—not a particle of fear evidently—to watch the course of the missile; and, as the youth executed the like manoeuvre, they both became aware of my presence at ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... started out, but O'Brine stopped them. "Use one long-range screen for scanning high space toward Mars. Let me know the minute you get a blip, because it probably will be that Consops cruiser. Have the missile ports cleared ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... of Edward I, 1272, down to that of James II, 1688." In glass cases, and in forms of trophies on the walls, we find arms and armor of the old Romans, of the early Greeks, and Britons, and of the Anglo-Saxons. Maces and axes, long and cross bows and leaden missile weapons and shields, highly adorned with metal figures, all tend to make more vivid the word-pictures of the historian. Of the small burial-ground in this Tower, Macaulay writes: "In truth there is no sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery. ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... powder-magazine, so suddenly blazed up the anger of Quadaquina, when he felt the touch of the rod. He jumped back as though bitten by a snake, and snatching up a stone, hurled it with all his strength at Ohquamehud. It was well that the Indian leaped behind a tree near which he stood, else the missile, with such true aim and vindictive force was it sent, might have proved fatal. As soon as the stone was thrown, the Indian stepped up to the boy, who stood trembling with passion, but observing no intention on the part of the latter to renew his violence, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... discerned a litter of metal fragments. From such of the scraps as retained any shape at all, I figured that they had been part of the protective casing of a gun mounted somewhere above. The missile which wrecked the gun flung its armor down here. I searched my brain for a simile which might serve to give a notion of the present state of that steel jacket. I didn't find the one I wanted, but if you will think of an earthenware pot which has been thrown from a very high building upon ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... with the aid of a stick and Lennox's arm, while Dickenson was rolling up a cigarette composed of the very last dust of his tobacco, ready to hand it to the captain, who suffered a good deal still from the bullet wound, the missile having passed right through his thigh. They had to pass two of their men, seated upon a rock in a shady corner, one of them being minus his right leg, which had been removed half-way between knee and hip; the other was recovering very slowly from a bullet wound in the face, an injury which had mended ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... are not more remarkable and peculiar in their construction than general in their use on every shore of New Holland. The spear is thrown by means of a woomera which is a slight rod about three feet long having at one end a niche to receive the end of the spear. The missile is shot forward by this means with great force and accuracy of direction; for by the peculiar method of throwing the spear the woomera affords a great additional impetus from this most ingenious lengthening of the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... in train, I set me down to work upon one of the arrows; for I was anxious to see what sort of a fist I should make of them, knowing how much would depend upon the balance and truth of the missile. In the end, I made a very fair one, feathering it with its own leaves, and truing and smoothing it with my knife; after which I inserted a small bolt in the forrard end, to act as a head, and, as I conceived, give it balance; though whether I was right in this latter, I am unable to ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... at the window, as though some missile had struck it, followed by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower of sand were being sprinkled from a window overhead; then the fall spread, took on an order, a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming, musical, innumerable, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... smart cobs stepping to the music of jingling harness, with bandy-legged grooms on the boot, and beside her some perfectly tailored creature in a glistening top-hat. It was a gallant picture, and one in which there was no part for me. Metaphorically I hurled at it a missile of the common clay of which, after all, we were both made. Surely fishing was a subject on which her ideas ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... one to see. He fitted an arrow to the string and glanced at the man and woman. Between her breast and arm the flesh of the man's side showed white. Keen bent the bow and drew back the arrow to its head. Twice he did so, calmly and for certainty, and then drove the bone-barbed missile straight home to the white flesh, gleaming yet more white in the dark-armed, ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... that moment one of the youngsters flung a butternut at the Major, who caught the missile deftly and shot ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey

... woodsman's shaft, master!" quoth Roger, turning the missile over in his hand ere he gave it to Beltane, "no forester doth wing his ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... a strictly temporary star, but even from a quarter-million-mile distance it was incredibly bright. It was a bomb, blasting a metal-foil flimsy which the electronic brain of a missile-rocket could only perceive as an unidentified and hence enemy object. Bomb and rocket and flimsy metal foil turned together to ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... be short and soon over, for nothing would persuade her to go back in the boat with Hugh again. She raised her arm; and the sound of a shot was sent over the water, followed simultaneously with a sharp, splintering sound, as the little leaden missile tore its way along the stern of ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... the big picture of the huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between his legs, and his legs—well, his legs in stockings. And here is the little picture of a raw mutton-chop, in which Such-a-one knocked a hole last summer with no worse a missile than a plum from the dessert. And under all these works of art so much eating goes forward, so much drinking, so much jabbering in French and English, that it would do your heart good merely to peep ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and began silently manufacturing snowballs. He packed the soft substance as hard as he could while circling it about in his palms and rounding it into shape. When the missile suggested a 12-pound shot he laid it at his feet, with the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... that this brave fellow turned his back directly on the cook, and set off walking for the beach. But he was not destined to go far. With a cry, John seized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of his arm-pit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air. It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with stunning violence, right between the shoulders in the middle of his back. His hands flew up, he gave a sort of gasp, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his armour. But little he knew of courts of law and the penetrating art of cross-examination, which could make a hole in the triple-plated coat of fraud, hypocrisy, and cunning. I was in no such panoply. I fought only with my little pebblestone and sling, but took good aim, and then the missile ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... bottle off the counter as he ran; and as the bartender made a leap he hurled the missile at him with all his force. It just grazed his head, and shivered into a thousand pieces against the post of the door. Then Jurgis started back, rushing at the man again in the middle of the room. This time, in his blind frenzy, he came without a bottle, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... explosive upon the printing machines of The Times, and returning securely to Calais for another similar parcel. They are things neither difficult nor costly to make. For the price of a Dreadnought one might have hundreds. They will be extremely hard to hit with any sort of missile. I do not think a large army of under-educated, under-trained, extremely unwilling conscripts is going to be any good ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... one of the first on Shorty's heels. I saw Nosey Murphy pause long enough to throw his knife at the mate. The missile went wide, with a metallic clang struck the brass tip of one of the spokes of the Elsinore's wheel, and clattered on the deck. The second mate, with his empty revolver, and Bert Rhine with his sheath-knife, fled ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London



Words linked to "Missile" :   sidewinder, pellet, vane, arrow, seeker, weapon, boomerang, arm, dart, throw stick, spitball, rocket, shot, slug, throwing stick, cannonball, bullet, weapon system, air-to-ground missile, cannon ball, round shot, nose



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