Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Plight   /plaɪt/   Listen
Plight

noun
1.
A situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one.  Synonyms: predicament, quandary.  "The woeful plight of homeless people"
2.
A solemn pledge of fidelity.  Synonym: troth.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Plight" Quotes from Famous Books



... better than Peter Doane himself would recognize his desperation of plight—and if he had "gone bad" there was but one road for his feet and the security of the colony depended ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... won an easy victory; but for the past twenty-four hours the rain had been falling incessantly, Turenne's army had been marching on the previous day, and had been fighting for seven hours, and was incapable of further exertions, while that of Enghien was in little better plight, having passed the night in the rain on the ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... spears and shields, and some tobacco which they had received from me. However, they bore it all with the philosophy of an Indian, and laughingly continued their toilette. They appeared, however, to be a little mortified at the thought of returning to the village in such a sorry plight. "Our people will laugh at us," said one of them, "returning to the village on foot, instead of driving back a drove of Pawnee horses." He demanded to know if I loved my sorrel hunter very much; to which I replied, he was the object of my most intense affection. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... her son's sad plight she had spent on the rough journey over. As she sat beside him stroking his heavy hair back from his pallid brow, there was in her face a shadow of haunting anxiety, as if the recollection of some old time of terror added its pangs to those of ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... form of a lady in a light-colored dress with a red scarf upon her shoulders, sometimes moving slowly, sometimes stopping. This was Roberta, and those woods were a far better place than the exposed summit of Pine Top Hill, in which to plight his troth, if it should be so that he should be able to do it, and there were doubtless paths in those woods through which they might afterwards wander, if things should turn out propitiously. At all events, in those woods would he ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... reassuring, the gist of which escaped me, he constituted himself a reception committee of one and started for the ladder's foot. But our doughty Teuton was a resourceful person. Roused to the urgency of his plight, he looked wildly up at me, down at the officer, and, hastily pushing up the nearest window, hoisted himself across its sill, and again took refuge in the ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... miles, except a solitary clump or two, and you will have some idea of Newstead. For the late Lord, being at enmity with his son, to whom the estate was secured by entail, resolved, out of spite to the same, that the estate should descend to him in as miserable a plight as he could possibly reduce it to; for which cause, he took no care of the mansion, and fell to lopping of every tree he could lay his hands on, so furiously, that he reduced immense tracts of woodland country to the desolate ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... cried Bart, as, laughing loudly, he grabbed the halter rope. The other boys came up, filled with merriment over the plight of the beast that had thus trapped himself. They cut the branches that held the ladder and the donkey came back to earth. He did not try to run away, and seemed so much ashamed of what had happened that he stopped braying. Then, the ladder having ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman

... whole day was consumed in the passage of a mail train over the eighty miles traversed. The Seaboard route to Portsmouth, Virginia, was prostrate and out of use. The Wilmington Road, though it was in somewhat better plight, was still served by feeble engines, which drew a few trains slowly along the track, ironed no more heavily than the wheels of a ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... she gave me Right royally dwarf-worked, To none will I pass it For prayer or for sword-stroke, Save to him who can claim it By love and by troth plight, Let that hero speak ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... some time before I got my senses again. When I did I found that I was tied hand and foot, and was lying there on the sands, with three or four of our fellows in the same plight as myself. They all belonged to the jolly-boat in which I had come ashore. The other boat had made a shift to push off with some of its hands and get back to the ship; but I did not know that until afterwards, for I was ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... over-ripeness, as of fruit that is beginning to rot at the core, was the dominant personality in her mind at the moment. She wondered if he knew how repulsive he was, and while she wondered, the judge, unaware of his tragic plight, went on eating lobster with unimpaired relish. His importance, founded upon a more substantial basis than mere personal attraction, had risen superior not only to morality, but to the outward failings of the flesh. Had he been twice as repulsive, she realized that his millions ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... and a profligate, and had got into a house of ill-fame, from which he came out in sorry plight. He complained bitterly that M. Farsetti had refused to lend him four louis, and he asked me to speak to his mother that she might pay for his cure. I consented, but when his mother heard what was the matter with him, she said it would ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Abraham to interpret for me and went to talk with our ten hostages, who were herded together apart from the other ten armed Kurds. They seemed to regard themselves as in worse plight than prisoners and awaited with resignation whatever might be their kismet. So I asked them were they afraid lest Gooja Singh might meet with violence, and they replied they were afraid of nothing. They added, however, ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... hand in his. His chest rose. He knew she was seeking to beguile him, but he could not take his eyes off hers. He was in a worse plight than a woman listening to ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... to think, Mr. Hurdlestone," said one of the men. "I am very sorry to see you in this plight, but appearances are very much against you. Your father was an old man and a bad man, and it is little you owed to his parental care. But he could not have lived many years, and all the entailed property must have been yours; it was an act of ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... to see that speaking record of a city's sorry plight, and at last we all understood. Not to understand after one look at the poverty and disease maps that hung on the wall was to declare oneself a dullard. The tenements were all down in them, with the size of them and the air space within, if there was any. Black dots upon the poverty ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... so quickly that I had scarcely realised our plight. Next I began to calculate our chances of reaching the lines before we would have to land. Our height was 9000 feet, and we were just over nine and a half miles from friendly territory. Reckoning the gliding possibilities of our type of bus as a mile to a thousand feet, the odds seemed unfavourable. ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... head office of the big fruit brokers for whom Dan Cullen had worked as a casual labourer for thirty years. Their system was such that the work was almost entirely done by casual hands. The cobbler told them the man's desperate plight, old, broken, dying, without help or money, reminded them that he had worked for them thirty years, and asked them to do ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... in the same plight, I have no certificate," observed Brotteaux. "We are both suspects. But you are weary. To bed, Father. We will discuss ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... poor man, among the poor children, in that horrible Africa; and a vague longing to sacrifice herself began to awaken within her. Other letters followed, in which, while thanking her for her assistance, her brother-in-law gave to his poverty, to his desolate plight, to the misery that enveloped him, a still more dramatic coloring—the coloring that the common people impart to trifles, with its memories of the Boulevard du Crime and its fragments of vile books. Once caught by the blague of this ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... present state proceeds from fortune's stings; By birth I boast of a descent from kings; Hence may you see from what a noble height I'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... pretense of a wedding ceremony which he had gone through with Madeline. Long since disillusioned but still having power and pride to suffer intensely the latter found herself in the tragic position of being-a wife and yet no wife. In her desperate plight she besought her grandfather's clemency and forgiveness but that rigid old covenanter had declared that even as she had made her bed in willful disobedience to his command so she should lie on it for ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... though he pushed the salt-cellar, as if by accident, below her place. She thought of her myrtle, tended in vain at home by Barbara Schmidt; she thought of Ulm courtships, and how all ought to have been; the solemn embassage to her uncle, the stately negotiations; the troth plight before the circle of ceremonious kindred and merry maidens, of whom she had often been one—the subsequent attentions of the betrothed on all festival days, the piles of linen and all plenishings accumulated since babyhood, and all reviewed and laid out for general ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... resistance useless,' replied Saturn, 'for I tried it and failed; but at least one has a chance of success; and yet, having resisted this spirit and failed, I should not consider myself in a worse plight than you would voluntarily place yourself in ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli

... of your servants can give the necessary information," replied the urbane official. If I had lost an umbrella he could not have viewed my plight with ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... a downright brazen thing, now my hand is in. I declare I'll tell you how to secure me. You make me plight my troth with you this minute, and exchange rings with you, whether I like or not; engage my honor in this foolish business, and if you do that, I really do think you will have me in spite of them all. But there,—la!—am ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... then! they had no battering-train. Ere this arrived, I trusted that Lord Lake would hear of our plight, and march down to rescue us. Thus occupied in thought and conversation, we rode on until the advanced sentinel challenged us, when old Puneeree gave the word, and we passed on into the centre ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... thing the other day,' she said, 'when we upset you on the Versailles road. You were in a bad way; I don't think I remember ever seeing a man in a worse plight! I couldn't help ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... international confusion, is to blame for the wicked ideas which assailed me while I could not even try to sleep. One of them—and a loyal daughter could scarcely have a worse one—was that my own dear father, knowing Lord Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in consequence, and through that knowledge caring little to avenge his death, for wife and children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... way out of this plight for Peter, and that was for him to tell Rosie the truth. And why should he not do it? He was wild about her, and he knew that she was wild about him, and only one thing—his great secret—stood in the way of their perfect bliss. If he told her that great secret, he would ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... through the windows at will What's best to be done in a cold autumn night? Full many I've pass'd in more piteous plight; The morn ever settles ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... offer the English a conference." He says further that ammunition was falling short, and that he thought the enemy might sally in a body and attack him.[155] The English, on their side, were in a worse plight. They were half starved, their powder was nearly spent, their guns were foul, and among them all they had but two screw-rods to clean them. In spite of his desperate position, Washington declined the parley, thinking it a pretext to introduce a spy; but when ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... left him to take his chances in life with no help from me, still less if I did that which he could scarcely forgive. He could not understand all that has happened since we thought him dead. He would only remember that I deserted him in his present pitiable plight. Do you ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... pathetic case; no doubt he hadn't the remotest conception what he really was—and no doubt, also, there are many who would honestly take his view. As if the fact that he was born with all possible advantages did not make him and his plight inexcusable. It passes my comprehension why people of his sort, when suffering from the calamities they have deliberately brought upon themselves by laziness and self-indulgence and extravagance, should get a sympathy that is withheld from those of the honest human rank and file falling into ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... a plank struck; several of us escaped in the boats; we had lots of gold with us, but no water. For two days and two nights we suffered horribly: but at last we ran ashore near a French seaport; our sorry plight moved compassion, and as we had money we were not suspected; people only suspect the poor. Here we soon recovered our fatigues, rigged ourselves out gayly, and your humble servant was considered as noble a captain as ever walked deck. But now, alas, my fate would have it that I should fall in ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "My Lord, Princesses will be wroth; On every side they sit and wait To plight to ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... perhaps the least steadily of the four—yet doggedly enough—was within reach, he struck out at him wildly, determined to get him disposed of first. It was a cruel blow even for a fellow in Dangle's plight. The small boy recoiled half-stunned, and uttered a yell which for an instant ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... are large and forbidding. And, certainly, no one can or should minimize the plight of millions of our friends and neighbors who are living in the bleak emptiness of unemployment. But we must and can give them good ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... led them to the brink of war," she said gravely. "We wait for its declaration every hour, my uncle and I. They know our plight. They are waiting for the ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... slightingly defined by a French gourmand as a country of fifty religions and only one sauce! If this be true of those who have all the resources of the animal kingdom at their disposal, what can be the plight of those from whom these are shut out. This "one sauce" was, I believe, melted butter, or as it is more generally ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill

... flour, meal, sugar, coffee, preserves, jams, jellies, and everything else, was taken. Not a pound of anything to eat was left on the place. All the best cupboard ware, and part of the bedding and my wife's clothing were taken. This was a sorry plight to find ourselves in when we returned from the funeral. The country was full of soldiers, and nothing was done towards recovering the property. Thus we started on a darker and rougher road for ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... the Americans, this did not happen. Washington knew our weakness so well that he could see how easy it would be for a bold and determined enemy to do us great if not fatal harm. But he did not know that the English themselves were in an almost desperate plight. By Rodney's decisive victory at sea they began to recover their ascendancy against the Coalition, but it was then too late to disavow the treaty. In Parliament George III had been defeated; the defeat meaning a very serious check to ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... own safety, it hurt, unaccountably. The anger, the repulsion for these youths, was gone from him now; and at heart he sided fanatically with them against their captors. But it had not as yet occurred to him that his own plight was ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... world's desire, and the tree that shall not be abased, Till the day of the uttermost trial when the war-shield of Odin is raised. So my word is the word of wooing, and I bid thee remember thine oath, That here in this hall fair-builded we twain may plight the troth; That here in the hall of thy waiting thou be made a wedded wife, And be called the Queen of the Niblungs, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... who was so eminently respectable in life should be made so ludicrous on his eminence after death. He is bitter at the inertia of the men who set him up. Were he an ornament of the Church, not of the State that he served so conscientiously, how very different would be the treatment of his plight! If he were a Saint, occluded thus by the municipality, how many the prayers that would be muttered, the candles promised, for his release! There would be processions, too; and who knows but that there ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... and then sat down to supper after our work was done, and turned in to sleep; but not before we had posted watchmen to guard our canoe, lest the daring thieves of Uvira might abstract it, in which case we should have been in a pretty plight, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... that he was executed. I have often heard it said that he died at the foot of the scaffold. Hyvert was left alone, his determined brow, his terrible eye, the pistol in each practiced and vigorous hand threatening death to the spectators. Perhaps it was involuntary admiration, in his desperate plight, for this handsome young man with his waving locks, who was known never to have shed blood, and from whom the law now demanded the expiation of blood; or perhaps it was the sight of those three corpses over which he sprang like a wolf overtaken ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... thermometer well down, a blood-freezing wind blowing, wreaths of clouds drifting below and obscuring vision for minutes at a time, the rain possibly pelting down as if presaging a second deluge, the plight of the vigilant human eye aloft ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... silken reticule and drew forth a small, buckskin bag. "Will you not accept it? Yesterday, at the claims, I panned it out myself. I am sorry for your plight. I am sorry for anyone in the ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill

... down upon a boulder and reflected upon my unfortunate plight. I had not told anyone that I proposed to come to the Blue John mine, and it was unlikely that a search party would come after me. Therefore I must trust to my own resources to get clear of the danger. There was only one hope, and that was that the matches might dry. When I fell into the river, ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... men who could have preserved their reason under monstrous circumstances such as these, and I take it that there is no man living who dare up and say that he would not be abominably frightened were he to find himself in such a plight. In these papers I have endeavored to show Captain Owen Kettle as a brave man, indeed the bravest I ever knew; but I do not think even he would blame me if I said he was badly ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... so sweet as freedom after captivity, safety after danger. When I gained the open street once more and breathed the open air, no one molesting or troubling me, I could have sung with joy. I fairly hugged myself for my cleverness in getting out of my plight. As for the combat I was furthering, my only doubt about that was lest the skulking Lucas should not prove good sword enough to give trouble to M. Gervais. It was very far from my wish that he should come out ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... the arrogance with which they pretend to supply the need themselves, is the best proof of how deeply they misunderstand the gravity of their plight. Look at these Theosophists, Spiritualists, and members of the Inner Light,—mere cliques, mere handfuls of uninspired and uninspiring cranks. They'll never spread a uniform and unifying culture. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... People of the Axe, to whom command was given to run with a message to Bulalio the Slaughterer, their chief, and to return on the thirtieth day. Behold, O King, I have returned, though in a sorry plight!" ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... unusually well, for it is the sensitive, high-strung organism that is appreciative and effective. After a while the worry and fret of the requirements and the constant nag of the schoolroom have their effect upon those who are foredoomed to failure in that particular field. The plight of such young women is particularly hard, for they are usually ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall

... peril and plight the knight travels on until Christmas-eve, and to Mary he makes his moan that she may direct him to some abode. On the morn he arrives at an immense forest, wondrously wild, surrounded by high hills on ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous

... Suppose you, seeing his plight, try to stop him. Since we are pretending that he makes everything he touches elastic, the instant you touch him you bounce helplessly away ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... should have to leave their district it was very doubtful whether they would reach their destination, on account of the condition their horses were in. There were only about 100 burghers left out of 500. They also had about 50 families with them, and these were in a miserable plight. The district would have to be abandoned, and then came the question: What would become of these families? Even now they were very badly provided for. Some women wished to proceed on foot to the British, but he had advised them not to do ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... short of a hand, but thou of the famous wolf; to each the loss is ill-luck. Nor is the wolf in better plight, for he must wait ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday

... and proud, the courage to make others accept one's happiness seems easily within reach; but to be rebuffed in one direction and blamed in another is not a very pleasant plight. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... what ye told me about the snake bates anything I ever told you about Finn. Ochone, Shorsha! perhaps you will be telling me about the snake once more? I think the tale would do me good, and I have need of comfort, God knows, Ochone!" Seeing Murtagh in such a distressed plight, I forthwith told him over again the tale of the snake, in precisely the same words as I have related it in the first part of this history. After which I said, "Now, Murtagh, tit for tat; ye will be telling me one of the old stories of Finn-ma-Coul." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... pronounced confidently from his place at the head of the table, "are already a broken race. They are on the point of exhaustion. Austria is, if possible, in a worse plight. That is what will end the war—the exhaustion of ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... hang heavy on the face of earth, And woods stand leafless in their mourning plight,— Then gentle sympathy has twofold might, And kindness on the social winter's hearth Within our hearts the glow ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... Marianna see her uncle in this wretched plight than she began to scream, whilst a torrent of tears gushed from her eyes; without noticing her lover, who had come along with him, she grasped the old man's hands and pressed them to her lips, bewailing the terrible accident that had befallen him—so much pity had the good child for the old ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... caught, immobilized and connected with the Fatherland. And it was not until they strove to move and discharge their functions on behalf of the Russian nation that they became fully conscious of their plight. German intrigue and subterranean scheming, under the mask of sympathy—now for the autocracy, now for socialism—had effected far-reaching changes in the Empire, which few even among observant politicians appear to have realized. These innovations were ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... otherwise? Is he to live and prosper, who aims at the life of that to which God has given being and authority? Shall he flourish in pride and glory who hath helped to pull down what God built up? Not so, Piso. 'Tis no wonder that the Christians are now in this plight. It could be no otherwise. And in every corner of this huge fabric wilt thou behold some of my tribe looking on upon this sight, or helping at the sacrifice. Yet, as thou knowest, I am not among them. There is ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... a hasty look, Each bent on his eager way; One glance at him was the most they took, "Somebody stuck," said they; But it never occurred to the nine to heed A stranger's plight and a ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest

... a glance at her brother. Roy, despite his plight and the dust which enveloped him, was tight-lipped and defiant. No sign of a breakdown appeared on his features, for which Peggy breathed a prayer ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... hail of straggling small shot hastened their movements, and then Bob proceeded to thank the young chief for saving their lives, explaining to him, as far as he knew, how it was that they had fallen into such a plight. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... door by a pleasant-faced little woman who hurried us to the fire. We told her our plight. "Why, certainly you must stay with me," she said. "I am glad the Bishop and Deb are away. They keep all the company, and I so seldom have any one come; you see Debbie has no children and can do so much better for any one stopping there than I can, but I like company, too, and I am glad of a chance ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... own, and a sturdy kindness, the mere memory of which was comforting and good to think on. The evil she had heard of him did not at all affect the confidence which Christophe had inspired in her. Being herself a victim she had no doubt that he was in the same plight, suffering, as she did, though for a longer time, from the malevolence of the townspeople who insulted him. And as she always forgot herself in the thought of others the idea of what Christophe must have suffered distracted her mind a little from her own torment. Nothing in ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... circulation. The pithy and plausible arguments of "Coin" and his ready answers to questions supposedly put by prominent editors, bankers, and university professors, as well as by J. R. Sovereign, master workman of the Knights of Labor, tickled the fancy of thousands of farmers who saw their own plight depicted in the crude but telling woodcuts which sprinkled the pages of the book. In his mythical school "the smooth little financier" converted to silver many who had been arguing for gold; but—what is more to ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... polish on his rough shoes; his clean-shaven face, touched her now as at other times. She wondered whether, if they had been alone, she would not have confessed her perplexities and asked his counsel. In their talks she had been impressed by his rugged common sense, and her plight was one that demanded the exercise of just that quality. Rose turned the pages of her book. Her father and Nan continued their conference in low tones in the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... the contemplation of the little woman's faith in the truant. Does he know when the robins nest in America? In Japan they had nested three times since Pinkerton went away. The consul quails at that and damns his friend as a scoundrel. Now Goro, who knows Butterfly's pecuniary plight, brings Yamadori to her. Yamadori is a wealthy Japanese citizen of New York in the book and play and a prince in the opera, but in all he is smitten with Butterfly's beauty and wants to add her name to the list of wives he has conveniently married ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... rebuilt by Ramses II. and decorated by the Rames-sides, was in a sorry plight when the XXIInd dynasty came into power. Sheshonq I. did little or nothing to it, but Osorkon I. entirely remodelled it, and Osorkon II. added several new halls, including, amongst others, one in which he celebrated, in the twenty-second year ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... me, doth my lover, Kisses with each breath - I shall one day throw him over, And plight troth with Death. ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... her when she stumbled, blaming her for their plight, threatening to leave her if she should fall, and flaying himself on with renewed panic, he brought her to the top of the double crevasse and the prospector's crossing. But here, with the levels of the spur before them, her strength reached low ebb. This time he was not able to rouse her, ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... pluck of conspirators, and now that there seemed to be a very good chance that their nefarious doings would be made public they were both in deadly fear of the consequences. Silver was in the worst plight, since he was well aware that the law would consider him to be an accessory after the fact, and that, although his neck was not in danger, his liberty assuredly was. He was so stunned by the storm which had broken ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... position thus to treat overtures, friendly and courteous overtures, from one in his position. And never before—never—had a woman been thus unresponsive. Instead of feeling relief that she had disentangled him from the plight into which his impulsive offer had flung him, he was piqued—angered—and his curiosity was inflamed as never before ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... delay. The area of sail was too small to be of much assistance, and while the men were engaged in this work the boat drifted down towards the ice-floe, where her position was likely to be perilous. Seeing her plight, I sent the 'Dudley Docker' back for her and tied the 'James Caird' up to a piece of ice. The 'Dudley Docker' had to tow the 'Stancomb Wills', and the delay cost us two hours of valuable daylight. When ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... ill. But sith I win for thee this grace, I will, brother wolf, that thou promise me to do none hurt to any more, be he man or beast; dost promise me this?" And the wolf gave clear token by the bowing of his head that he promised. Then quoth St. Francis: "Brother wolf, I will that thou plight me troth for this promise, that I may trust thee full well." And St. Francis stretching forth his hand to take pledge of his troth, the wolf lifted up his right paw before him and laid it gently on the hand of St. Francis, giving thereby such sign of good faith as ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... activity and cheerfulness. The Sudra, however, is spoken of everywhere as a being whose degradation can never be removed, and to touch whom is to be defiled. Those who belonged to no caste were in a still worse plight and lived ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... his principle of never accepting a miracle, M. Renan has indeed got into a sorry plight, and Mr. Rogers, in controverting him, has not greatly helped the matter. By stirring M. Renan's bemuddled pool, Mr. Rogers has only bemuddled it the more. Neither of these excellent writers seems to suspect that transmutation of species, the geologic development of the earth, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... top-gallant breeze at north-west. The French fleet wore soon after, standing about north-east-by-north, on an easy bowline. They had been active in repairing damages, and the admiral was all a-tanto again, with every thing set that the other ships carried. The plight of le Scipion was not so easily remedied, though even she had two jury-masts rigged, assistance having been sent from the other vessels as soon as boats could safely pass. As the sun hung in the western sky, wanting about an hour of disappearing from ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... down the great thoroughfare, Howard Jeffries, tired and hungry and thoroughly disgusted with himself, stood still at the corner of Fulton street, cursing the luck which had brought him to his present plight. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... such largess, dispensed from his future, Martin turned and took his one good suit of clothes to the pawnshop. His plight was desperate for him to do this, for it cut him off from Ruth. He had no second-best suit that was presentable, and though he could go to the butcher and the baker, and even on occasion to his sister's, it was beyond all daring to dream ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... mountains a few miles from the city. One day, rushing downhill as fast as he could go, he put his foot into a hole and fell, rolling into a rocky pit of brambles. The king's wounds were not very severe, but his face and hands were cut and torn, while his feet were in a worse plight still, for, instead of proper hunting boots, he only wore sandals, to enable ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... ye could not, though ye would, lift hand— Ye halting leaders—to abridge Hell's reign. . . If such your plight, most hapless ye of men! But if ye could and would not, oh, what plea, Think ye, shall stead you at your trial, when The thundercloud of witnesses shall loom At ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... in the morning in sorry plight, and the delay was one of the injuries to the poor Indians, and counted as sufficient justification for the subsequent massacre. The delay, however, saved their lives. The messenger who aroused the people of St. Cloud in the small hours was traveling post after this Dole commission, for whose ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... wrought by civilization, of curses heaped on a strange, simple people by men who sought to exploit them or to mold them to another pattern, who destroyed their customs and their happiness and left them to die, apathetic, wretched, hardly knowing their own miserable plight. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... another man in Thorolf's place in the boat, and went on fishing as before. Thorolf was ill-contented with his lot, for he felt he had come to shame in their dealings together; yet he remained in the islands with the determination to set straight the humble plight to which he had been made to bow against his will. [Sidenote: Hall's death] Hall, in the meantime, did not fear any danger, and thought that no one would dare to try to get even with him in his own country. So one fair-weather day it happened that Hall rowed out, and there were three of them together ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... and to hold[131] from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,[132] in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part and thereto I plight thee my troth." ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... already at hand. 14. So, having called Damnippus, I spoke to him as follows: "You happen to be a friend of mine, and I have come to your house; I have done no wrong, but I am about to be put to death on account of my property; do you, therefore, in consideration of my wretched plight, kindly use your influence in my behalf to secure my safety." And he promised to do it. But it seemed better to him to mention it to Theognis, for he thought that he would do anything, if one should give him money. 15. And, while he was ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... houses; and to keep them well, Nor, spring and autumn, mourn their wretched plight, To daily toil must vigilance compel, Right ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... his throat; "but for that, I should be all the better for the dip. Let us go on deck again; I am stifling here. And keep up your spirits, Jack. Don't give way the least bit, or it will be all over with you. We are in a fearful plight, but help may yet come." And I promised him solemnly that I would ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... just come through the most dangerous parts of Bosnia in perfect safety; a feat which a blind man can perform more easily than one who enjoys the most perfect vision; for all compassionate and assist a fellow-creature in this deplorable plight. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... her anguish and plight, she led the pony this way and that, up and down, listening, trying to force a shout through her swollen lips. At length, in despair, she knew she could search no more. A lifelessness of feeling was creeping upon her. Mechanically she walked beside her ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... words the knight was in a pitiful plight, and innocently confessed to the Lady that he experienced so much pleasure at this touch that the pains of his malady increased, and that death was preferable ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... to the ground beneath the feet of the struggling men. A descending rifle butt had struck him a glancing blow on the head. Hal, engaged at that moment with another German officer, saw his friend's plight, and jumped back. ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... stopped, as though with a sigh of regret that it could no longer serve him, and Tom knew that volplaning alone would save him now. He was still over the enemy country, and had his plight been guessed at by the Germans, undoubtedly they would have sent a machine up to attack him. But they ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach

... all agreed that he had arrived here some time ago in a very miserable plight, exceedingly dirty, and riding upon a donkey. He was without baggage of any kind, and he introduced himself by giving a present to Kabba Rega of an old, battered metal basin and jug, in which he washed, together ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... time at his mother's house and elsewhere, not so much to escape his own dangers as to avenge Atli on Thorbiorn Oxmain at the right moment. At last he finds it; and Thorbiorn, as well as his sixteen-year-old son Arnor, who rather disloyally helps him, is slain by Grettir single-handed. His plight at first is not much worsened by this; for though the simple plan of setting off Thorbiorn against Atli is not adopted, Grettir's case is backed directly by his kinsmen and indirectly by the two craftiest men in Iceland, Snorri the Godi and Skapti the Lawman, and ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... cool, resolute, a little angry, the blue battery of her eyes fixing him across her white embroidered shoulder. But he had turned away, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his coat, brow rumpled into a frown, jaw set to anathema of the plight in which a needless fortune ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... message I forthwith hastened to the presence of my friend, and was sore troubled to find him in so grievous a plight. It was plain to all beholders that his course was well-nigh run, for a great change had taken place even in the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth." ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... word of his plight reached Boston, and a ship was immediately despatched, not only to bring the castaway home, but with the fine wardrobe necessary to a young gentleman of his station. But the same ship brought word of his father's death—his mother had gone long since—and as there were brothers ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... laughed at her notion, a sign of humour and courage in her (considering the plight) ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... arriving he addressed His care unto his pistols' plight, Replaced them in their box, undressed And Schiller read by candlelight. But one thought only filled his mind, His mournful heart no peace could find, Olga he sees before his eyes Miraculously fair arise, Vladimir closes up his book, And grasps a pen: his verse, albeit With lovers' rubbish filled, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... whom has he let it?" Paul asked quickly. "You see my plight, and my horse is worse off still. We lost our way going home ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... many in different plights, and according to their plight, kept in different places. The well bound were ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of books was a necessary luxury to him, and as it was often a choice between binding an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar volume, which ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

... spots. He had scarcely sat down when the door again resounded, and she played over the same game as she had done with the cauzee, who on his also entering the bed-chamber was somewhat pleased at seeing a brother magistrate in the same ridiculous plight with himself. The venerable lovers condoled by signs with each other, but dared not speak for fear of discovery. The chief of the butchers, on his arrival, was next ushered up stairs, and his present received, then made to undress and put on a blue vest with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... oppressed by thee. On the other hand, O bull of the Bharata race, fight with him with thy arms, putting forth as much strength only as thy antagonist hath now left!' Then that slayer of hostile heroes, the son of Pandu, thus addressed by Krishna, understood the plight of Jarasandha and forthwith resolved upon taking his life. And that foremost of all men endued with strength, that prince of the Kuru race, desirous of vanquishing the hitherto unvanquished Jarasandha, mustered ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... in, and she sees the plight; It will take her wits to set it right: That big bandana on Deb's black head, Ere Dick can jump, 'tis over him spread; Then two soft hands they hold him fast: The bright little rogue ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... hand, I fancied them returning from the cave surly and disappointed, ready to vent their wrath on us. All, except the unspeakable Magnus, had shown so far a rough good nature, even amusement at our plight, but you felt the snarl at the corner of the grinning lips. You knew they would be undependable as savages or vicious children, who find pleasure in inflicting pain. And then there was always my own hideous danger as the favored of the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... such a woman are not to be depended on. If Lord Ventnor has cast her off, her hatred may 'prove stronger than her passion. Anyhow, I should be the last man to despair of God's Providence. Compare the condition of Iris and myself today with our plight during the second night on the ledge! I refuse to believe that a bad and fickle woman can resist the workings of destiny, and it was a happy fate which led me to ship on board the Sirdar, though at the time I saw it ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... After sitting down, on every occasion when I tried to get up again, my head would swim round, and I would fall down oblivious for some time. Being in a chronic state of burning thirst, my general plight was dreadful in the extreme. A bare and level sandy waste would have been Paradise to walk over compared to this. My arms, legs, thighs, both before and behind, were so punctured with spines, it was agony only to exist; the slightest movement ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... act. The duty of providing for their wants, immediate and still to come, fell entirely upon Mary. She felt this to be just, since it was chiefly through her influence that they had been brought to their present plight; but the responsibility was great, and it is no wonder that, brave as she was, she longed for some one to ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... being married to a man of no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! Imagine her distress. At first she chose to pretend that ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... lay in evil plight (So many lovers yet abide!) I would my tongue could praise aright Her name, that should be glorified. Those lovers now, whom foes divide A little weep,—and soon forget. How far from these faint lovers glide The ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang

... you need a good hard impact to send you out of that mud. The wheels are stuck," called Julie, who had been considering the plight. ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... literary productions. Braddock's appeals to the Philadelphia Assembly for a rough wagon-road and wagons for the army succeeded in raising only twenty-five wagons. Franklin visited him in his desolate plight and agreed to assist him, and appealed to the public to send to him for the use of the army a hundred and fifty wagons and fifteen hundred pack-horses; for the latter Franklin offered to pay two shillings a day each, as long as used, if provided with a pack-saddle. ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... artists, he regretted to observe 'motives apparently limited to their own views and ambition to govern.' Again the negotiation was broken off, the project went to pieces, and now the hope of establishing a national academy in England seemed in its worst plight—hopeless—gone down ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... swirled back, albeit with many a rallying eddy, into Vittoria. That town was no place of refuge, but a death-trap; for Graham had pushed on a detachment to Durana, on the high-road leading direct to France, and thus blocked the main line of retreat. Joseph's army was now in pitiable plight. Pent up in the choked streets of Vittoria, torn by cannon-shot from the English lines, the wreckage of its three armies for a time surged helplessly to and fro, and then broke away eastwards towards ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... knaves had hold of Sir Percival's horse and thereupon others swarmed upon him and what with the blows of their maces and clubs, he was in sorry plight. Nor could Sir Launcelot turn to help him for he was in great conflict with the two knights and a large number of them on foot and Sir Neil equally so. As for Allan he had already ridden down two of the ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe

... and Jake crept out, dripping to the very crowns of their heads, with their Sunday shirts and jackets in a horrible plight. The truth, slowly gathered from their mutual accusations, was this: they had resolved to have a boating excursion on Redley Creek, and had abstracted the tub that morning when nobody was in the kitchen. Slipping down through the wood, they had launched it in a piece of still ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... the wide sea, When they be yearning for the heaven-sent shower, When the parched fields be craving for the rain; Then the great sky at last is overgloomed, And men see that fair sign of coming wind And imminent rain, and seeing, they are glad, Who for their corn-fields' plight sore sighed before; Even so the sons of Troy when they beheld There in their land Penthesileia dread Afire for battle, were exceeding glad; For when the heart is thrilled with hope of good, All smart of evils past is wiped away: So, after ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... I fear the absurd nature of their tragic plight excited more of wonder than of concern. They merged into hedges and ditches swallowed them. Their case was only one incident of many, and what became of them I have never heard, except that Lieutenant Lane who commanded our rear guard was with us on the Eighth, so I ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... priest, and the thanksgiving service, though very important and necessary in church, could do nothing for him here, and that there was and could be no connexion between those candles and services and his present disastrous plight. 'I must not despair,' he thought. 'I must follow the horse's track before it is snowed under. He will lead me out, or I may even catch him. Only I must not hurry, or I shall stick fast and be ...
— Master and Man • Leo Tolstoy

... stopped by the obstacle. He plunged in with the terrified old lady, and landed her in safety where her services were wanted. Having put the horse into the stable (where it was afterwards found in a woful plight), he proceeded to the room of the servant, whose duty he had discharged, and finding him just in the act of drawing on his boots, he administered to him a most merciless drubbing with his own horsewhip. Such an important service excited the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... from whoever should not obtain the virgin. But the matter was difficult for her father Tyndarus, whether to give, or not to give [her in marriage,] and how he might best deal with the circumstances, when this occurred to him; that the suitors should join oaths and plight right hands with one another, and over burnt-offerings should enter into treaty, and bind themselves by this oath, "Of whomsoever the daughter of Tyndarus shall become wife, that they will join to assist him, if any one should depart from ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... too violent for raft or boat to live, and at so early a season native craft are never seen on these seas. Briefly, a week might have elapsed before our friends at El-Muwaylah, who were startled by the wildness of the wind, could have learned our plight, or could have taken ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... the times and the utter lack of news from home, when the last tidings had been most alarming. Poor lady! I think it was a comfort to her, for she loved my mother; but we could not but grieve to see her in such a plight. As we went home we planned that we would carry a faggot in the carriage the next day, and that I would take it upstairs to her. And so I actually did, but the sentry insisted on knowing what I was carrying hidden in a cloak, and when he ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and neighbors." That the church is named first as the proper place shows that it is to be preferred for a marriage. It can be solemnized there in a more seemly and dignified way than elsewhere, and those coming to plight their vows may be more deeply impressed with the solemnity and ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... turned to the tyrant Rome for rescue. They who had risen against Florus and had driven him out would have willingly accepted him again in place of Simon bar Gioras and John of Gischala, before two years had elapsed. Now, their plight was so desperate that they clambered daily upon the walls of their unhappy city to look for the first glimpse of the approaching enemy, Titus, whom they had learned to call ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... the amputation of a limb, if it were kindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our difficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor that it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the like plight himself. So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and a diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever their straightener ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... slept fitfully. Now and then she would wake with a start to a half-frightened realization of her surroundings and plight, and whenever she did wake and look past the fire it was to see Roaring Bill Wagstaff stretched out in the red glow, his brown head pillowed on one folded arm. Once she saw him reach to the wood without moving his body and lay ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... man having wife and mother to support, (I mention this in order to properly convey my plight) conditions here are not altogether good and living expenses growing while wages are small. My greatest desire is to leave for a better place but am ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... terrible, wearing misery, away from which there seems to be no road, and out of which there is apparently no escape? That was Harry Clavering's condition for some few days after the evening which he last passed in the company of Lady Ongar; and I will ask any such unmarried man whether, in such a plight, there was for him any other alternative but to wish himself dead? In such a condition, a man can simply walk the streets by himself, and declare to himself that everything is bad, and rotten, and vile, and worthless. He wishes himself dead, and calculates the different advantages ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... of the malcontents turned towards their dethroned monarch; and emissaries were despatched to seek him out, and put before him the project of a restoration. He was found in Hyrcania, in a miserable dress and plight, living on the produce of his bow. At first he suspected the messengers, believing that their intention was to seize him and deliver him up to Tiridates; but it was not long ere they persuaded him that, whether their affection for himself were true ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... thought it would be well to go to New York for a few days until the storm blew over. Jeffries the book-keeper could attend to all that was needed. Mr. Lawrence would find Hope Mills in a bad plight, to be sure; but he would not be the first man who had come to ruin. Mr. Eastman put his desk in order,—he never kept any tell-tale papers,—walked leisurely out of Hope Mills with that serene, impassable face and high heart no misfortune ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... his master there, got on board the steamer again and returned to town. He then called at several places usually frequented by his master, and afterwards went home to Woburn Place. He has frequently been stolen, but always returns, sometimes in sad plight, with a broken cord round his neck, and with signs of ill-usage; but still he contrives to escape from ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... woods, that she seemed least solitary. She knew how to hit to a hair's-breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind—or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... business,—it would be mean to sneak out of that,—and I'll shoulder any sort of a load that's put out on the sand in the daylight. But, captain, I don't want to do anything to make me look into that hole. I can't stand it, and that is the long and short of it. I am sorry that Maka saw me in such a plight—it's bad for discipline; but it can't ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... brief sadistic pleasure as he watched Keaveney's face sag in horror. "What do you think we'll live on, for a year?" he asked. "On this planet, there's not more than a three months' supply of any sort of food a human can eat. And the ships that'll be coming in until word of our plight can get to Terra won't bring enough to keep us going. We need the farms and livestock and the animal-tissue culture plant at Konkrook, and the farms at Krink and on the plateau back of Skilk, and we need peace and native labor to ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... danger to protect the defenseless quartet in the cottage—the three women and the wounded, helpless man. In the very doorway of the cottage one had been killed—killed facing the enemy—the savage blood-thirsty horde who, having learned of the plight of their oppressor, had taken the warpath to venge their wrongs. Surely MacNair must know that this man had died as much in the defense of him as of the women. And yet, when he learned of the death of this man, he had said: "I am damned glad ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... unlike that of the lecturer. By some hard luck he happened to be passing that way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... pretended to notice nothing, and he would rather have been hewn in pieces than agree. And now, of his own accord, he was going!... Twenty times he was on the point of turning back. He walked two or three times round the town, turning away just as he came near the Palace. He was not alone in his plight. His mother and brothers had also to be considered. Since his father had deserted them and betrayed them, it was his business as eldest son to take his place and come to their assistance. There was no room for hesitation or pride; he had to swallow down his shame. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... Persons who had pitied me for having "such a big head and so much hair" now found reason for comment "on my small head with no hair." The most expensive head cover never deceived anyone, however simple, and I was obliged to make my debut in St. Louis in this piteous plight. ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn



Words linked to "Plight" :   assurance, care, predicament, hot water, promise, corner, assure, vow, engage, covenant, troth, box, difficulty, guarantee, vouch



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com