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Muscle   /mˈəsəl/   Listen
Muscle

noun
1.
One of the contractile organs of the body.  Synonym: musculus.
2.
Animal tissue consisting predominantly of contractile cells.  Synonym: muscular tissue.
3.
A bully employed as a thug or bodyguard.  Synonym: muscleman.
4.
Authority or power or force (especially when used in a coercive way).
5.
Possessing muscular strength.  Synonyms: brawn, brawniness, heftiness, muscularity, sinew.



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"Muscle" Quotes from Famous Books



... punts until their breath came in gasps. They practiced the forward pass until they were dizzy and seemed to see ten balls flying over the field instead of one. But no one complained or shirked, although every separate bone and muscle seemed to have its own particular ache. A short respite, the 'Varsity and scrub faced each other as ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... we commenced the advance; slowly at first, but gradually increasing our speed, until the horses were straining every muscle in their headlong race. Lances were slung, and bows and arrows got in readiness with an ease and expertness that was truly wonderful, considering our rapid riding. The bridles were dropped on the necks of the mustangs, the riders using their knees ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... is complete without him; indeed, I have heard that the principal scholastic agents keep a section in their lists of "Appointments Required" headed, for private reference, with his sole name. Ascyltos is generally the Captain of the XV or XI, sometimes of both, and represents the unending war of muscle against mind; Encolpius is, of course, the hero of every school story ever written, though (to be fair) the authors of most of them have never guessed it. Agamemnon is the sort of form-master whom it is conventional ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... very sure that you draw your inference amiss. You sit in judgment on the King, not knowing him. You push aside the firm trust of us who know him as a thing of no account. And because once, in a mood of remorse at my own presumption, I ascribed one trivial exploit—at the best a success of muscle and not brain—to the King which was not his, you strip him of all merit on the instant." He saw that her face flushed. Here, at all events, he had hit the mark, and he cried out ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... ever to the "Pelican" alone or with a friend I go, I sigh for men of muscle who could fight a fight like BENDIGO. He didn't fight in feather-beds, or spend his days in chattering, But faced his man, and battered him, or took his foeman's battering. He didn't deal in gas, or waste his time in mere retort at all; But now the "pugs" are interviewed, and journalists ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various

... Celebrity himself. Her double meaning was, naturally, lost on Farrar, but he enjoyed the thing hugely, nevertheless, as more or less applicable to Mr. Allen. I made sure that gentleman was sensible of what was being said, though he scarcely moved a muscle. And Miss Trevor, with a mirthful glance at me that was not without a tinge of triumph, jumped lightly to the deck and went ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... my simplicity that she ventured to say that she considered her Adam by far more beautiful than her Eve, because in her drawing of the man she had omitted nothing, every muscle being visible, while there was none conspicuous in Eve. "It is," she added, "a figure ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... caught in the Harem or Gynaeceum is to strip and throw them and expose them to the embraces of the grooms and negro-slaves. I once asked a Shirazi how penetration was possible if the patient resisted with all the force of the sphincter muscle: he smiled and said, "Ah, we Persians know a trick to get over that; we apply a sharpened tent peg to the crupper bone (os coccygis) and knock till he opens." A well known missionary to the East during ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... where, an instant before, had been only empty ground. There was a sharp crackle, a strident hum and then the muffled plop of bullets burying themselves in the earth six hundred feet in the rear. The Nig grew taut in every muscle; then she edged slowly towards the huge khaki-colored horse that bore the Captain, and, for an instant, the two ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... and simple,' is becoming more rare, though the type of which the late Mark Pattison was one will never quite die out. But it is not the strenuous scholar that one is so anxious to perpetuate, as it is the strenuous and scholarly man of affairs and men of trained ability who have mental muscle for parliamentary work and social problems. Such a class ought to have many recruits from ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys

... of an important artery or vein, which may be caused by a very slightly displaced bone, an indurated muscle, or other organ, may produce an excess of blood in one part of the body, thereby causing a deficiency in some other part. A dislocated member will generally show alteration in the form of the joint and axis of the limb; loss of power ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... the door and admitted us without moving a muscle. He would betray no incorrect astonishment if I brought home a hippogriff to dinner. I have an admiration for the trained serving-man's imperturbability. It is the guardian angel of his self-respect. I ordered him to send Antoinette to me in ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... never seen a trail as perilous as this. He was afraid for his horse. A slip there meant death. The way Nagger trembled in every muscle showed his feelings. But he never flinched. He would follow Slone anywhere, providing Slone rode him or led him. And here, as riding was impossible, Slone went before. If the horse slipped there would be a double tragedy, for Nagger ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... beads do move; but the explanation is simple, although the Indians account for it by saying that the beads become alive by the recitation of the sacred formula. The shaman is laboring under strong, though suppressed, emotion. He stands with his hands stretched out in a constrained position, every muscle tense, his breast heaving and voice trembling from the effort, and the natural result is that before he is done praying his fingers begin to twitch involuntarily and thus cause the beads to move. As before ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... cannot compose either of them from the heroes of antiquity. Each is original—new—self-subsisting. The monarch of Thrace is invested with more of uncouth and savage terror. He is bigger, broader. Might for destroying is in his bulk of bone and muscle. Bulls draw him, and he looks taurine. A bear-skin mantles him; and you would think him of ursine consanguinity. The huge lump of gold upon his raven-black head, and the monster hounds, bigger than the dog-kind ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... scorneth the foe and fire Heyoka will crown with his heart's desire!" He snatched from the embers a red-hot brand, And held it aloft in his naked hand. He stood like a statue in bronze or stone,— Not a muscle moved, and the braves looked on. He turned to the chieftain,—"I scorn the fire,— Ten feathers I wear of the great Wanmdee; Then grant me, Wakawa, my heart's desire; Let the sunlight shine in my lonely tee. [19] I laugh at red death and I laugh at red fire; ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... conversation that stops a man's recognizing the delicious pleasure of his sex, or a woman hers? Nature he proclaims inherently clean. Sex will not be put aside; it is the great ordination of the universe. He works the muscle of the male and the teeming fibre of the female throughout his writings, as wholesome realities, impure only by deliberate intention and effort. To men and women, he says, you can have healthy and powerful breeds of children on no less terms than these of mine. Follow me, and ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler

... stretching between him and her, which seemed to vibrate when he grew anxious about her. The bond between him and his brother was equally strong, but in feeling different. Between him and Alister it was a cable; between him and his mother a harpstring; in the one case it was a muscle, in the other a nerve. The one retained, the other drew him. Given to roaming as he was, again and again he returned, from pure love-longing, to what he always felt as the PROTECTION of his mother. It was protection indeed ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... red-faced, smooth-shaven gentleman whose personal dimensions and displacement were such that they seemed to dwarf the small office to the proportions of a room in a doll's house. He stood well over six feet, was broad, deep-chested and bulky, but moved with a light-footed agility that argues muscle rather than fat. Simon was not a small man himself, but he felt like a pigmy as his hand disappeared into one that opened ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... visions of the future; and to get rid of them he would run to the bank on an errand with such fury that his haste suggested a panic. But in spite of all his changes of intention he was growing manly; making character, developing mental fibre and muscle; his mother trusted him with her hopes and fears, and his father talked to him with a respect that was very consoling to his wounded spirit. Also the boys ceased to come for him in the evening; if they met him on the street, ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... always a holiday in Geneva. He had stayed long at the merrymaking and had taken many mugs of beer. They made him drowsy and stupid. The American gentleman and his wife stayed long in the enameller's shop. He could scarcely keep his eyes open. Presently, although he never moved a muscle of his back and sat up stiff and straight as a poker, he was sound asleep, and the reins in his grasp slipped ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... the soldiers are maimed in hand or arm. On the broad beach of La Panne, in front of the Ocean Hospital of Dr. Depage, a young soldier talked with my wife one afternoon. Early in the war his right arm had been shot through the bicep muscle. He had been sent to London, where a specialist with infinite care linked the nerves together. Daily the wounded boy willed strength into the broken member, till at last he found he could move the little finger. It was his hope to bring ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... I could get the words out the tram eased up, for some reason or other, and that, of course, shot me forward again, and I butted into a white-haired old chap, who looked to me like a professor. Well, he never smiled, never moved a muscle." ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... and use speech, while in France and Northern Italy the gesture is only slight. A Sicilian sometimes omits words, but if he omits gestures it is only by exercising great self-control. When he is talking naturally, every muscle of his body is at work helping him to express his meaning. It is as though he had not yet learnt to trust speech, everything must be acted too, as half-educated people have not yet learnt to trust the written word ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... hold on the ends of the coat. With a "One, two, three!" from the Master, the Legionaries threw all their muscle into the lift. "Now, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... yourself hunting for a situation with three-fourths of the great world out of town. I am afraid you would make a poor job of it at the best, Dora dear, and at the worst it is not to be thought of; it would be a waste of nerve-tissue and muscle, as well as of pounds, shillings, and pence. You will come too; we'll be all together, or nearly together, again, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... as for the earth has day and night each its ministry and message. Of pain come hardihood and strength and sympathy. What a sapless, fibreless thing is a man untrained by endurance and untaught by suffering! How flaccid in muscle, how narrow in ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... leg may be turned wrong side out down to the toes and all flesh and muscle cut away from the leg bones with knife and scissors. The tail also is to be removed from its skin and the ears turned wrong side out to their tips. In skinning no flesh of any consequence should be left adhering to the skin and it should never ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... his lines, he blew into the dead boy's nostrils. Not a movement! Then pretending to yield to despair—always in consonance with the part he was playing—Lemaitre pulled the hair of the defunct with frantic gestures. Not a muscle stirred! Whereupon Lemaitre seemed to break down utterly under his grief, let go of the body, and it fell hard upon the stage like an inert mass. The effect was superb. The whole house applauded, the bravos became ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... life-indeed the poets have made it the seat of love and the emotions in general. If anything, the brain and nervous system should be regarded as the real center of life, but the function of the heart, the marvelous muscle-pump, is so vital and indispensable that the world is accustomed to thinking of it as the organ of first importance. And so it is. Should it cease its efforts for a few moments even, life becomes extinct, ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... muscle of the body is supplied by one large artery, whose main trunk distributes the blood into its lesser branches, and thence through the capillaries. Cutting off this main artery, it would seem, should cut off entirely the blood-supply to the particular organ which is supplied by this vessel; ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... the great productions of Webster's mind. In force, compactness, and completeness, in closeness of thought to things, in closeness of imagery to the reasoning it illustrates, and in general intellectual fibre, muscle, and bone, it cannot be compared to such an oration as that on the "First Settlement of New England," or such a speech as that which had for its theme, "The Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign States"; but, after ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... could see of it, was a fine well grassed open forest. Conglomerate and sandstone cropped out in several sections. Mosquitoes and sandflies were very trouble-some. I found a species of snail nearly resembling Succinea, in the fissures of the bark of the Myal, on the Box, and in the moist grass. The muscle-shells are of immense size. The well-known tracks of Blackfellows are everywhere visible; such as trees recently stripped of their bark, the swellings of the apple-tree cut off to make vessels for carrying water, honey cut out, and fresh ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... person, we have said, stood upon the pillory. He took no part in aiding the tormentor in his task; but he watched all that was done with atrocious satisfaction. Not a groan—not the quivering of a muscle escaped him. He felt the edge of the knife to make sure it was sharp enough for the purpose, and saw that the iron was sufficiently heated to burn the characters of shame deeply in. When all was accomplished, he seized Mompesson's arm, and, in a voice that seemed scarcely human, cried,—"Now, I ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... the other end of the line. It was not until all this had been done and he could do no more that he sank limply down on the couch and stared into the darkness. Now that everything was over he found that he was shaking like a leaf. His hands were icy cold and he quivered in every muscle of his body. It was useless for him to try to sleep; he was far too excited and worried for that. Therefore he lay rigidly on his bunk, thinking and waiting ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... quickly. "Surely it is not necessary to keep Miss Ruth any longer, sir? She has told you that she can give you no more information. It is cruel to the girl—" He broke off as if afraid of speaking too strongly; and Mr Farrell lay back in his chair with a sudden weary slackening of muscle. ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... a muscle of her face moving; and, without replying, she looked steadily into the doctor's eyes. In her turn, she was studying him. It was like a defiance before ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... muscle, he hardly breathed. Soon the turtle's tail was sticking straight out and one forward claw was ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... Willoughby had been by long tradition what is known as "all-round men." There was something in the air of the place that seemed specially favourable to the development of muscle and classical proficiency at the same time, and the consequence was that the last three heads of the school had combined in one person the senior classic and the captains of the clubs. Wyndham had been the best of these; indeed he was as much ahead of his fellows ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... straight; the carinal margin is rounded, protuberant, and of unusual length compared to the basal margin. The surface of the valve is convex near the umbo; and beneath there is a large deep hollow for the adductor muscle. ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... on the battlements of Don Loris' castle felt a shadow over his head. He jumped a foot and stared upward. Then his hair stood up on end and almost threw his steel helmet off. He stared, unable to move a muscle. ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... protrude from their sockets and stare with a leaden dullness at vacancy. The color deepened in his face and became an opaque purple. His hands hung down limp, his body collapsed with a shiver, every muscle relaxed its tension and ceased from its function. The Dwarf took away his hand and the column of inert mortality sank mushily ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... twin brother," chuckled the packer, without moving a muscle. "He beats your eight-footer by a dozen inches, Jimmy! An'"—he paused at this psychological moment to pull a plug of black MacDonald from his pocket and bite off a mouthful, without taking the telescope ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood

... door, "and for yer good intintions, but ye missed it as yer did yer mither's blessing—and as ye do most of the things ye try io hit." This was said without raising his voice or changing a muscle of his face, his eyes fixed on the door inside ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... at her cousin, then at her aunt, then back at her cousin. Mrs. Murray involuntarily laid her hand on her son's knee, and watched his face with an expression of breathless anxiety; and Edna saw that, though his lips blanched, not a muscle moved, not a nerve twitched; and only the deadly hate, that appeared to leap into his large shadowy eyes, told that the name ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... still represented the prime of life, a tall, athletically-built man, his complexion that of a schoolboy after summer holidays, his brown hair abundant and crisp, spring and stay declared in every muscle of his limbs and frame. Lightly he arose, gracefully he swung forward, with the bow and smile of one who knows not constraint. Mr. Kerchever followed the law, but he also, whenever a chance offered, followed ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... boy ceased to have periods of despondency. While he could not do the things that Dick did, he was improving, and he never lamented his lack of strength. It seemed to him a matter of course, so far as Dick could judge, that in due time he should be the equal of the older and bigger boy in muscle ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... of bed was pleasant as he walked on for he realized that he was tired in every muscle of his body. The street was deserted saving the figure of a boy he saw coming toward him. As he was turning a corner the ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... clouds, Thirlwell let the sheet run round a pin; sometimes he sank the paddle deep and she saw its handle bend and the blood flush his face. Drops of sweat ran down his forehead, but his glance was fixed and calm. The strain on brain and muscle braced without exciting him; he seemed to accept it as something to which he was used. He could be trusted in an emergency, and for some obscure reason she was glad to feel he was the man ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... moment every nerve and muscle of my whole system was in full stretch; and every facility of the mind brought into action striving to save myself from being re-captured. I dared not go to the forest, knowing that I might be tracked by blood-hounds, and overtaken. I was so fortunate ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb

... a spring. She came up straight and tall, a concluded resolution in every muscle. She laid a hand upon ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... ceased to be an object worthy of his efforts; the kids took their turn, afterwards the goats. He had acquired such dexterity of movement, and such strength of muscle, such certainty of eye, that to leap from one projection of rock to another, to spring at one bound over ravines and deep cavities, was to him but a childish sport. In these feats ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... they came to a dip much deeper than usual, but it was worth the descent into it, as they found there in the sheltered spaces plenty of grass for the horses, and they were quite willing to rest also, as every nerve and muscle was racked by the mountain climbing. Still holding that time was their most abundant possession, the hunter suggested that they spend a full day and night in the dip, and all the ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... him down. He beat his way for a second to the surface and gasped for breath and was drawn down again, striking savagely at the eddies which seemed to twist his limbs into useless, heavy masses of flesh and muscle. Then he dived down and down, seeking a possibly less rapid current at the muddy bottom of the river; but the current drew him up again until he reached the top, just in time, so it seemed to him, to breathe the pure air before his lungs split with the awful pressure. ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... out, with all the force there is in fourteen-year-old muscle. The fist caught Bunny Hepburn on the side of the face and sent ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... therefore call critical. I am sure I see it of that twenty-five miles of fresh autumnal walking. I was in tiptop spirits. I found the air all oxygen, and everything "all right." I did not loiter, and I did not hurry. I swung along with the feeling that every nerve and muscle drew, as in the trades a sailor feels of every rope and sail. And so I was not tired, not thirsty, till the brook appeared where I was to drink; nor hungry till twelve o'clock came, when I was to dine. I called myself as I walked "The Child of Good ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed by his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and exertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was rather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung and indurated by unremitted exposure and toil. He wore a hunting shirt of forest-green, fringed with faded yellow*, and a summer cap of skins which had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of wampum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... now I can see her walking up the avenue. She is as straight as an arrow, young-looking, and fresh. Her step is firm and light and elastic, and she moves with an easy grace only possible when every muscle is unconstrained. Her dress is a work of art, light in weight, but rich in ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... simply down and out. He didn't seem to have the power to move a muscle. When his master whistled, the big collie stood still, cocked one ear, and then trotted over, as if what he had done to poor Bull were ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... hound started from a dark corner with a growl, but was immediately kicked by the old man into obscurity, and silenced again. I can't tell why, but I instantly received the impression that for a long time the group by the fire had not uttered a word or moved a muscle. Taking a seat, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... a favourite volume with Dr. Darwin, printed at la Haye, 1614, 12mo. Dr. Darwin, in his Botanical Garden, thus speaks of opium: "the finest opium is procured by wounding the heads of large poppies with a three-edged knife, and tying muscle-shells to them, to catch the drops. In small quantities it exhilirates the mind, raises the passions, and invigorates the body; in large ones, it is succeeded by intoxication, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... face had not moved a muscle during the other's outburst. His eyes were still fixed on that place that was so far away, yet which he tried to bring close in his mind, close enough to see, to comprehend the mystery that should be ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... Barbados, being of opinion that it might be advantageously employed as human food, requested Dr. Shier, the analytical chemist, of Demerara, to determine in his laboratory its richness in protein compounds (the muscle-forming part of vegetable food) in comparison with Indian corn. He, therefore, caused a sample of each to be burned for nitrogen, when the following results ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... spiritual health. And confession in the early days meant risk, venture which exposed the life to the shedding of blood. It meant a frank defiance of the world, and an eager challenge of the devil. And it is on such fields of open encounter for the Lord that muscle is made, and the soul goes "from strength to strength," and ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... no salt, as a rule. No one knows the intense longing for this, when one goes without it for a while. When, after a privation of weeks we would get a teaspoonful of salt apiece, it seemed as if every muscle in our bodies was invigorated. We traded buttons to the guards for red peppers, and made our mush, or bread, or dumplings, hot with the fiery-pods, in hopes that this would make up for the lack of salt, but it was a failure. One pinch of salt was worth all the pepper ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... her eyes or in her imagination, and the youth from the hardware store, she was unable, swiftly comparing them, to find anything in common. To the one nature had denied even full growth and development; upon the other she had lavished muscle, blood, and bone. The small boy had a ragged, peaked, pathetic face, hair that sprouted every which way, the eyes of an invalid, ears of unequal size and different shapes, that stuck straight out from ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... fecundity of fancy, and choice of language, which in this instance, and, indeed, on almost all occasions, he displayed. It was well observed by Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore, 'The conversation of Johnson is strong and clear, and may be compared to an antique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct and bold. Ordinary conversation resembles ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... the bone is broken by "traction" or "tearing." The sudden and violent contraction of a muscle may tear off an epiphysis, such as the head of the fibula, the anterior superior iliac spine, or the coronoid process of the ulna; or a bony process may be separated, as, for example, the tuberosity of the calcaneus, the coracoid process of the ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... was Lome Riddle; a big bluff chap with a promising moustache, encouraged by private, tuition. "Come along there, Haviland," he exclaimed, "a nob like you should be one of the 'boys!'" These fellows don't know what life is—but to think of a man of muscle going back ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... ready to comply with this demand. He determined to depart on the afternoon of the 30th of June. He had nothing more to do but to take leave of his friends and family. He did this with cold, tearless composure, with an immovable, iron countenance; no muscle of his face quivered, and his glance was ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... magnificent commerce, the increasing manufactures, the teeming soil, the wealth fast accumulating, they would never have made us, after all, a great people. They would have eaten the manhood out of us at last. We were becoming selfish, self-indulgent, sybaritic rapidly. The nation's muscle was softening, its heart was hardening. If we were to become a great nation, we needed more than commerce, more than plenty, more than rapid riches, more than a comfortable, indulgent life. If we were to be one of the world's great peoples, a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... forward in front of Patty. "Put down that whip, father, or I'll take it from you and break it across my knee!" Her eyes blazed and she held her head high. "You've made me do the work of a man, and, thank God, I've got the muscle of one. Don't lift a finger to Patty, or I'll defend her, I promise you! The dinner-horn is in the side entry and two blasts will bring Uncle Bart up the hill, but I'd rather not call him unless you force ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... and quite delighted to find such an unexpected vein of grave pleasantry about the demure-looking church-dignitary; for the Deacon asked his question without moving a muscle, and took no cognizance whatever of the young man's tone and smile. First-class humorists are, as is well known, remarkable for the immovable solemnity of their features. Clement promised himself not a little amusement from the curiously sedate drollery ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... their reach, thus disconcerting the aim of many an otherwise deadly stroke. For a few breathless seconds all was fire, smoke, and fury, pistols cracking, steel rasping upon steel, cheers, execrations, groans, the dull crunching sound of cutlasses sheering through muscle and bone, the heavy fall of the stricken on deck, the scuffling of feet, and shouts of defiance exchanged between the contending parties; then a few of us contrived to get in on deck, forcing back the pirates and making room for those who followed us, until all who were not too ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... having his life-work torn away from him he was like a man whose leg has been crushed and then amputated, the phantom of the lost limb aching in every muscle, bone, and nerve. This was partly the secret of his pain while in Europe, at the mere thought of his former active life; it haunted him with memories of its lost opportunities, its shortcomings in motive or achievement, or what he fancied to be such, in view of the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... succeeds in passing his opponent and turning the hare again, he receives a point, and so on. The old-fashioned open-air sport was cruel enough, for it often happened that the hare ran for two or three miles with her ferocious pursuers hard on her track, and every muscle of her body was strained with poignant agony; but there is this to be said—the men had healthy, matchless exercise on breezy plains and joyous uplands, they tramped all day until their limbs were thoroughly exercised, and they earned sound repose by their wholesome exertions. Moreover, the element ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... hands and knees, after he recovered from his first astonishment, found he had only Eph to fight. Young Somers was all grit when aroused, nor was he lacking in muscle. But he was no match for Josh. There was a brief, heated contest. Then Eph, dizzy from a blow in the chest that winded him, staggered back. Owen swiftly vanished in the darkness, but Eph, when he got to his feet again, clutched ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham

... the same pail at the same moment, and a wrangle ensues, in the course of which each disputant reminds the other of all her failings, nicknames, and undesirable connections, living, dead, and unborn; until an attendant interferes, with more muscle than argument, punctuating the sentence of justice with newly coined expletives suggested by the occasion. The centre of the room, where the bathers fill their pails at the faucets, is a field of endless battle, especially on a crowded day. The peaceful women seated within earshot stop their ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... looked as if he had gone into service along with the sleigh and the other belongings of his mistress, sat primly upon the front seat. He expressed as much pleasure at seeing the little Peppers coming, as his stoical countenance would allow, but he didn't move a muscle of face or figure. At any other time Joel would have howled with delight at seeing Miss Parrott's man sitting there before the house, and in a sleigh. And it wouldn't have been a minute before he would have been in that sleigh, and on that front seat, besieging ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man. The feeling with which it rushes into consciousness is akin to physical sensation; and the whole body—every nerve, muscle, and drop of blood—is thrilled with purpose and passion. "Spunk" does not express it; for "spunk," besides being petite in itself, is courage in effervescence rather than courage in essence. A person usually ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... bone, periosteum, and tendon, for example, have a high power of regeneration, and in them the reparative process may result in almost perfect restitution to the normal. More complex structures, on the other hand, such as secreting glands, muscle, and the tissues of the central nervous system, are but imperfectly restored, simple cicatricial connective tissue taking the place of what has been lost or destroyed. Any given tissue can be replaced only by tissue of a similar kind, and ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... through the British Museum, I came upon an exhibit that riveted my attention as nothing else had. It was a huge stone arm, torn from the shoulder of some rock image, with doubled fist and every rigid muscle instinct with angry menace. Where it came from or what was its story I do not know. I did not ask. It was its message to us I was trying to read. I had been spending weary days and nights in the slums of London, where hatred ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... no money," came the quick reply, "but we've got plenty of muscle. Send us a stone and I'll warrant you the foundation will be built and ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... the most noisy and showily dressed—laughing loudly, gesticulating violently, and bragging tremendously. Near to them were collected a number of sterner spirits—men of middle age, with all the energy, and muscle, and bone of youth, but without its swaggering hilarity; men whose powers and nerves had been tried over and over again amid the stirring scenes of a voyageur's life; men whose heads were cool, and ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... Henry. He had not known before that air could be so pure and keen, such a delight and such a source of strength to the lungs. The figure that had seemed to shrink within the narrow walls suddenly expanded and felt capable of anything. Strength flowed back in renewed volume into every muscle. Before him beyond the walls curved the dark green world, vital, intense, full of everything that he loved. It was there that he meant to go, and his confidence that he would ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... smoothness of the royal road to knowledge now provided in the great array of easy books in all departments will not conduce to the formation of such mental growths as resulted from the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. There is doubtless more knowledge; but is there as much power and muscle ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... to be in the wilderness, good to be savage, good to be unclothed beneath God's high heaven and know that by my muscle and my cunning I was king. No ordinary king who went about with a jeweled crown upon his head could ever feel this exuberance of being, and in pure delight ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... following the edge of the stream, the cries continued, filling the cavern with racing echoes. They could not quicken our step; we were already straining every muscle as we bounded over the rock. Luckily, the way was clear, for in the darkness we could see but a few feet ahead. Desiree's voice ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... might; it is when it is immersed in water, and subjected to heat, and metamorphosed into malt. In this form it can be converted into a beverage that is simple and healthful, and, when used aright, conducive to strength of muscle and general vigour of life; but when it has undergone a further process, which I am about to describe, it evolves a spirit so masterful that the weak would do well to withstand its seductiveness, for only a strong head and a stout will dare with impunity to enter the lists with ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness

... I shall die of the sickening and pining of sense and limb—of the wasting of bone and muscle. Day by day is my eye more dim, and my right arm more feeble. But I have never complained of evils that the bravery you speak of would not meet. Have I ever said that you ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... generous brush, with a more spontaneous energy, than the carefully studied piece at the Gesuiti. The tawny harmonies finely express in their calculated absence of freshness the scene of brutal and unholy violence so dramatically enacted before our eyes. The rendering of muscle, supple and strong under the living epidermis, the glow of the flesh, the dramatic momentariness of the whole, have not been surpassed even by Titian. Of the true elevation, of the spiritual dignity that the subject calls for, there is, however, little ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... dash every time I come to the canyon, to keep my muscle up, but this is the first time I have had anyone to race ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... muscle in his body; it made each minute seem an hour. But he clung there, till his head reeled. Anything to help her—anything, if only he could have ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... disorder in a region where greens and collards form the largest dishes on the tables of the people," interrupted Stevens, but without changing a muscle of his countenance. ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... two, I sauntered round to the gentleman who sat cross-legged upon my weapon. He was as heedless of me as I, outwardly, of him. When well within reach, mindful that 'DE L'AUDACE' is no bad motto, in love and war, I suddenly placed my foot upon his chest, tightened the extensor muscle of my leg, and sent him heels over head. In an instant the rifle was mine, and both barrels cocked. After yesterday's immersion it might not have gone off, but the offended Indian, though furious, doubtless inferred ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... the sea-born stranger roves, Each muscle quickens, and each sense improves; Cold gills aquatic form respiring lungs, And sounds aerial ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... was planted, and behind that square shoulder was straining all the muscle of his two hundred pound body. The result was all that he desired. When he ceased pushing, a slab of rock gaped wide before him, giving entrance to a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... and as the door opened the wind blew a handful of snow in upon her. The snow had deepened during the night, and fall was heavier than ever. Shivering with cold and aching in every muscle, she got up and put on her underclothing. It was almost dry already. Then, wholly miserable and dejected, she lay down again between her blankets, waiting for Bill's return. And his step was heavy and slow on ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... exact description, I could never discover. On the approach of a swell which he knows will answer his purpose, the steersman, suddenly changing his quiet and almost contemplative air for a look of intense anxiety, grasps his oar with double firmness, and exerting his utmost strength of muscle, forces the boat's stern round, so that her head may point to the shore. At the same time he urges his crew to exert themselves, partly by violent stampings with his feet, partly by loud and vehement exhortations, and partly by ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... with folded arms; but that shot was fired by me,—me, Henry Pritchard,—through my clothes, from a derringer hidden in my waistcoat! Understand me, I do not ask your gratitude now. But that pistol is in my right hand, and now covers you. Make a single motion,—of a muscle,—and it ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... absurd of Emilio to think of cutting him out with a girl—Emilio, an old man, all beard and brains! As if any living woman really cared for brains! Impertinence, gayety, agility, muscle—that was what women loved in men. And he ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... Will you be my wife? We might have been exiles, so to speak, for we should perhaps have been cast off by our own kindred, and might never have returned to our native land; but your presence would have made this new country,—this young Hercules of lands,—this land full of sinews, bones and muscle, not yet clothed with rounded symmetry of outward form, but fresh and strong and teeming with promise, a true home to us. Its vast, ever-growing mind would have given new expansion to our own mental faculties. We should have grown spiritually, and reached nobler heights ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... application, discovery and practical realization leading to new discoveries, cunning of brain and of hand, toil of mind and muscle—all work together. Each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... perpendicularly and crosswise, after the pattern of a portcullis, expressive of a double despair. Laban Tall's lips were thin, and his face was rigid. Matthew's jaws sank, and his eyes turned whichever way the strongest muscle ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... weight is such that no well-freighted porteuse can, unassisted, either "load" or "unload" (chg or dchg, in creole phrase); the effort to do so would burst a blood-vessel, wrench a nerve, rupture a muscle. She cannot even sit down under her burden without risk of breaking her neck: absolute perfection of the balance is necessary for self- preservation. A case came under my own observation of a woman rupturing a muscle in her arm through ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... before the others, and came with glowing cheeks and distended arms, throwing down great white chips with their green mossy bark, scattering tufts on the floor. "Good," said he softly to himself, as he leaned on the top of his gold-headed cane; "there's energy, ambition, muscle;" and he nodded his head once or ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... hideous thoughts filled my brain as my eyes remained riveted. Now the fingers looked like snakes—strange, flesh-tinted reptiles with eyes emerald green and ruby red, cruel, sinuous. Now great knots of muscle stood out upon her bare arms. Her hands were clutching something—what it was I could not see. The fingers grew twisted and distorted ... they had crimson stains upon them ... the very nails were shot with blood and ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... but twice she nearly had him out of the saddle, and it is certain that if he had not been blest with almost inexhaustible staying power, combined with a pliant strength of muscle, he would have come off second best in the contest of wills, for the mare seemed tireless, and looked as though she could go on bucking—and enjoying the process, too—till the crack of doom. Finding, ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... to the soldier's head, and picking up the axe, he took a quick step forward. The light from the open door shone upon the grave, harsh face of the friar, but not a muscle twitched nor a feature changed as he saw the axe whirl up in the hands of a furious man. He only signed himself with the cross, and muttered a Latin prayer under his breath. It was that composure which saved his life. De Catinat hurled down ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... still as she wished him to sit, and in a queer huddled attitude; she was even holding her breath; she was staring at Durrance with a great fear in her eyes; her face was strained forward, and not a muscle of it moved, so that Willoughby, as he looked at her, was conscious of a certain excitement, which grew on him for no reason but her remarkable apprehension. He began unaccountably himself to fear lest he and she ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... proper period, I should have climbed to chieftainship upon uplifted shields. I might have been an Attila, an Alaric. Among the civilised one can only climb by crawling, and I am too impatient to crawl. Here I am king at once by force of brain and muscle." So in Poplar he remained, poor in fees ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... The iris of the eye contains an immense number of minute nerve filaments, which through the optic nerves, the optic brain centers and the spinal cord are connected with and receive impressions from every nerve in the body. The nerve filaments, muscle fibers and minute blood vessels in the different areas of the iris reproduce the changing conditions in the corresponding parts or organs. By means of various marks, signs, abnormal colors and discolorations in the ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... and suffering, he fell into a tranquil slumber, which lasted a long time. The serene expression of his countenance remained unchanged, and there was no motion of limb or muscle, when the spirit passed away. This was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, on the seventh of May, 1852. After a long interval of silent weeping, his widow laid her head on the shoulder of one of his sons, and said, "Forty-seven ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... their adoption. The General ordered his horse, to visit Hood, and told me to await intelligence from him. On his return from Hood, he informed me that the army was moving to the northwest, and would cross the Tennessee river near the Muscle Shoals. As this plan of campaign had met the sanction of President Davis, and Hood felt confident of success, he declined to interfere. I could not blame Beauregard; for it was putting a cruel responsibility on him to supersede a gallant veteran, to whom fortune ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... anatomical cabinet, very celebrated for its preparations in wax. All parts of the human frame are represented so wonderfully exact, that students of medicine pursue their studies here in summer with the same facility as from real "subjects." Every bone, muscle, and nerve in the body is perfectly counterfeited, the whole forming a collection as curious as it is useful. One chamber is occupied with representations of the plague of Rome, Milan, and Florence. They are executed with horrible truth to nature, but I regretted afterwards having ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... of telling this story was quite admirable. I never heard any anecdote (and I believe this one to be true) related with such genuine drollery, which was enhanced by his not changing a muscle himself, while every one of his hearers was in a paroxysm ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... keyed up to a tremendous tension. I stared until my eyes ached; every muscle and nerve was taut. Everything depended on seeing the beast promptly, and firing quickly. With the manifest advantage of being able to see us, she would spring to battle fully prepared. A yellow flash and a quick ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... See! I guess maybe that Greaser don't savvy good U. S. lingo. Look at that dirty yaller face turn green. Put one eye on Nels and Monty! That's great—just to see 'em. Just as quiet and easy. But oh, the difference! Bent and stiff—that means every muscle is like a rawhide riata. They're watchin' with eyes that can see the workin's of them Greasers' minds. Now there ain't a hoss-hair between them ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... hired to clutter up my insides with the messes I see goin' up to the tables of some I work for. Cocktails, an' entrys, an' foody-de-gra-gra, an' suchlike. No! I believe in reel, straight nourishment. The things that builds up your bones, an' gives you red blood, an' good muscle, so's you can hold down your job, an' hold up your head. I believe in payin' for that kind o' food, if I do have ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann

... twenty, escaped lashing. Mr. Dobbins' lashings were very vigorous ones, too; for although he carried, under his wig, a perfectly bald and shiny head, he had only reached middle age, and there was no sign of feebleness in his muscle. As the great day approached, all the tyranny that was in him came to the surface; he seemed to take a vindictive pleasure in punishing the least shortcomings. The consequence was, that the smaller boys spent their days in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... padding noiselessly in the shadows of the pines and olives. Crouching behind a tree, he felt in his breast-pocket and drew out a small package which he quietly unwrapped from its foldings. Then he waited his moment with every muscle tensed ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low thunder. Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right, and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with her prayer-book, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... said, "don't do it justice. We've opened a recruiting office here. Looking for young men with brains, and muscle, and ambition. It's a great chance. We don't get to these ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... cleverer than to hit me. You ought to know that when it comes to—to muscle, I guess I've got ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... no one who has pictured the pathos of lives so near and yet so far apart as has George Eliot when she says: "Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion, and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every moment. We hear a voice with the very cadence of our own uttering the ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... by the shoulders and turned her face toward the door. He was a clean-looking, blondish fellow, younger than his sister—an athlete, a boxer, with far more restlessness of muscle than absorption of mind. He had failed at Harvard, where his great-grandfather had distinguished himself; he had, with the influence of a Congressman, secured a West Point cadetship, and there had fallen under the rapid fire of a battery of mathematics, and had ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... a lethal gas shot from the flying ship had made Captain Blake as helpless as if every muscle were frozen hard, and he had got it only lightly, mixed with the saving blast of oxygen. His heart had gone on, and his breathing, though it became shallow, did not cease; he was even able to turn his eyes. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... we not say, in fugitive language, that the French Constitution which shall march is very rheumatic, full of shooting internal pains, in joint and muscle; and will not march ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle



Words linked to "Muscle" :   levator, ruffian, muscular, muscular structure, sphincter, scalene muscle, yob, animal tissue, tensor, dominance, roughneck, authority, tonus, say-so, strength, go through, authorisation, potency, pectoral muscle, supinator, pass, yobbo, go across, tone, yobo, tonicity, rectus, authorization, anatomical sphincter, musculature, contractile organ, rowdy, pronator, hooligan, tough, contractor, bully



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