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Terror   /tˈɛrər/   Listen
Terror

noun
1.
An overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety.  Synonyms: affright, panic.
2.
A person who inspires fear or dread.  Synonyms: scourge, threat.
3.
A very troublesome child.  Synonyms: brat, holy terror, little terror.
4.
The use of extreme fear in order to coerce people (especially for political reasons).



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"Terror" Quotes from Famous Books



... into the place before some boys at play among the rocks outside the houses, spying my hat, threw stones in our direction. One hit my horse. I raised my whip and rode at them. They fled with screams of terror. Glancing back, I could perceive no sign of my devout companion. But when I returned at leisure, having driven the young rogues to cover, I found him vigorously beating a small boy who had fallen in the panic flight and, finding himself left behind, had ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... fitted his key, had a nerve-tingling shiver of apprehension when the latch yielded with a click and he found himself under the hall lantern formally shaking hands with the statuesque young woman of the many imaginings. It gave him a curious thrill of mingled terror and joy to find her absolutely unchanged. Having, for his own part, lived through so many experiences since that final glimpse of her standing on the saloon-deck guards of the Belle Julie at St. Louis, the distance in time seemed ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... occurred to Mustapha, that Selim might be able to assist his views. He talked fast and loud, vaunted his own exploits, curled his whiskers as he swore to the most improbable assertions, and had become a general nuisance and terror since he had obtained ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... woman, dressed in a black alpaca and white collar and cuffs. At the entrance of Ishmael she glanced up with large, scared-looking black eyes that seemed to fear in every stranger to see an enemy or peril. As Ishmael advanced towards her those wild eyes grew wilder with terror, her cheeks blanched to a deadly whiteness, and she clasped ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... that, loving Elspie as she did, such thoughts should come at all—that her mind was not utterly numbed with grief and terror. But Olive was a strange child. There were in her little spirit depths ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... haunting terror was lest someone who had known them in the days of their prosperity with a decently furnished little house of their own should run into ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... nutrition, and sex, while there are others whose conduct cannot be thus summarized. The behavior of the tiger and the cat is simple and easily comprehensible, whereas that of the dog with his conscience, his humor, his terror of loneliness, his capacity for devotion to a brutal master, or that of the bee with her selfless devotion to the hive, furnishes phenomena which no sophistry can assimilate without the aid of a fourth instinct. But little examination will show that the animals whose conduct ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... Poe began his work as a critic. It is hardly necessary to say that his criticism was of the slashing kind. He became little short of a terror. With a great deal of critical acumen and a fine artistic sense, he made relentless war on pretentious mediocrity, and rendered good service to American letters by enforcing higher literary standards. He was lavish in his charges of plagiarism; and he made use of cheap, ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... no safe footing: but close to it he saw the outside leaves of a tree. That tree, then, must grow close to the corner; could he but get round to it he might yet reach the ground whole. Urged by that terror of a madhouse which is natural to a sane man, and in England is fed by occasional disclosures, and the general suspicion they excite, he leaped on to a piece of stone no bigger than one's hat, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... voices at once—"The King is dead!" The tidings struck a chill to the heart of the poor little waif, and sent a shudder through his frame. He realised the greatness of his loss, and was filled with a bitter grief; for the grim tyrant who had been such a terror to others had always been gentle with him. The tears sprang to his eyes and blurred all objects. For an instant he felt himself the most forlorn, outcast, and forsaken of God's creatures—then another cry shook the night with its far-reaching ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... soles upon the ground, and in an instant leapt and from their purpose freed himself. Thereat each was stung (with guilt); but he most who had been the cause of the mistake; he therefore started forth, and shouted: 'Thou'rt caught!' But little it availed (him); for wings could not outspeed the terror; the sinner went under; and he, flying, raised up his breast: not otherwise the duck suddenly dives down, when the falcon approaches, and he returns up ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... from the spade. The winter floods, which inflict a temporary devastation, bear with them the elements of succeeding fertility; the fruitful field is covered with sand and shingle in momentary judgment, but in enduring mercy; and the great river, which chokes its mouth with marsh, and tosses terror along its shore, is but scattering the seeds of the harvests of futurity, and preparing the seats of ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... got up regardless of expense in the way of arms; for their belts were perfect arsenals, and their wooden swords were big enough to strike terror into any soul, though they struck no sparks out of Bluebeard's blade in the awful combat which preceded the ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... upon the inhabitants of the happy valley. A dreadful famine first broke out, during which it is said that slaves sold for four pice (three half-pence) each. The famine produced its natural result, a pestilence, which swept away many thousands of the people; an eclipse also added to their terror, and storms of rain followed by floods carried ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... and replied to every remonstrance he made with a growl and a shake, that left no doubt he would resort to more vigorous measures in case of opposition. Afraid or ashamed to call for help, Terence was kept in this disagreeable state, nearly frozen to death with cold and trembling with terror, until the morning was considerably advanced, when he was discovered by some of the servants, who released him from the guardianship of his surly captor. Without waiting to account for the extraordinary circumstances in which he had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... scared, white-faced spectre shrank under his covering, till she could see no more of him except two wild eyes full of terror which was almost madness. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... nervous knees were no longer plunging; then he heard a voice, a little-girl voice, always shrill, but now high pitched to a squeak with terror. It was the voice of Lily Jennings. She stood near and yet aloof, a lovely little flower of a girl, all white-scalloped frills and ribbons, with a big white-frilled hat shading a pale little face and covering the top of ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... surprised to find a difficulty made of his seeing the lady: but, insisting on it, he found her to be wholly spiritless, and in terror; afraid to speak, afraid to look, before her cousin Laurana; yet seeming to want to complain to him. He took notice of this to Laurana—O Father, said she, we are in the right way, I assure you: when we had her first, her chevalier, ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... with the stuff, you are likely to go out with a bang and a puff of bluish-brown smoke when you go. On the other hand, you may believe the weird tales one reads now and then, of how whole mountainsides have been thrown down by the discharge of a few sticks of dynamite. Or of one man striking terror to the very souls of a group of mutinous miners by threatening to throw a piece at them. Very well, now this is the truth without any frills of exaggeration ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower

... a puff of smoke was seen to proceed from one of the retreating frigate's after-ports, and the next instant poor Gipples was spinning along the deck, shrieking out with terror and pain. Out of all the crew, in spite of the heavy fire to which the corvette had been exposed, he and another poor fellow were the only men hit. This shot seemed a parting one of revenge. As Captain Brine watched the receding frigate, he could scarcely ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... preface, and for want of a preface, the volume was never published. I stood up, trembling through every fibre: but remembering that in this I was but imitating Tully, I took courage, and had actually proceeded almost as far as 'Mr. Chairman,' when, to my astonishment and terror, I perceived that every eye was riveted upon me. There were only six or seven present, and the little room could not have contained as many more; yet was it, to my panic-stricken imagination, as if I were the central object in nature, and assembled ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... among the soldiers of the Garrison, and steered, as we have shown, by the dexterous Sambo, now glided past the spot, the recollections of the tradition connected with the bridge drew from several of the party expressions of sympathy and feigned terror, as their several humours dictated. Remarking that Miss Montgomerie's attention appeared to be deeply excited by what she heard, while she gazed earnestly upon the dwelling in the back ground, Gerald Grantham thought to interest her yet more, and amuse and startle ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... There is no equality and no community in virtue; it is only original sin that makes us all equal and human. Old Lucifer, fallen, crushed, and damned, knows the worth of forgiveness—not young Michael, flintily hard and monumentally upright in his steel coat, a terror to the devil himself. And youth can have something of that archangelic rigidity. Youth is not yet ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... resist. A thousand plans were formed, and clamorously insisted upon by their respective advocates, for averting the danger. This only added to the confusion, and the city became at length pervaded with a universal terror. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... would speak Of something that should not be known—and still Sighs half suppressed seemed struggling with the will. It told how oft at eve was Leon gone In moody wandering to the wood alone; And in the night, how many a broken dream Of bliss, or terror, seemed to shake his frame. How Florence too, in long abstracted fit Of soul-wrapt musing, for whole hours would sit; Nor even the power of music, friend, or book, Could chase her deep forgetfulness ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... Paris. These battered and broken-nosed old fellows saw many and many a cavalcade of mail-clad knights come marching home from Holy Land; they heard the bells above them toll the signal for the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, and they saw the slaughter that followed; later they saw the Reign of Terror, the carnage of the Revolution, the overthrow of a king, the coronation of two Napoleons, the christening of the young prince that lords it over a regiment of servants in the Tuileries to-day—and they may possibly continue ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... retained a large body of his men encamped under the walls of the Garde Doloureuse, for protection against some new irruption of the Welsh, while with the rest he took advantage of his victory, and struck terror into the British by many well-conducted forays, marked with ravages scarcely less hurtful than their own. Among the enemy, the evils of discord were added to those of defeat and invasion; for two distant relations of Gwenwyn contended for the throne he had lately occupied, and on this, as on many ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... to each nest they flew, in wild quest Of their homes and their fledgelings—that they loved the best; And straighter than arrow of Saxon e'er sped They shot o'er the curving streets, high overhead, Bringing fire and terror to roof tree and bed, Till the town broke in flame, wherever they came, To the Briton's red ruin—the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... saying in the world. He had the greatest reputation. He's still the handsomest man in the United States—that's admitted—with his white hair! They used to say he was the cruellest, but it's not so. Though of course he could be a perfect terror with his companies." ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... that?" breathed the fellow, a note of suppressed terror in his voice. "Did you hear it, friend? Tell me!" His ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... and the very wolves had to crouch on their stomachs to prevent themselves being hurled by its fury into the ravine below. Then even above the storm a deep roar was heard. It grew louder and louder. The wolves, as if struck with terror, leaped to their feet, and scattered on either way along the path ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... to plead the limitations of the flesh; in vain would the puffing and breathless ponas Jokubas insist, in vain would Teta Elzbieta implore. "Szalin!" Marija would scream. "Palauk! isz kelio! What are you paid for, children of hell?" And so, in sheer terror, the orchestra would strike up again, and Marija would return to her place ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... 'but I heard nought thereof, nor had I noted it in my terror. The death of others, who were slain before him, and the loss of many, we knew not how, made them ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... They became aware of the remote hooting and yelping of the machines of one of the General Intelligence Offices, and suddenly came men running, and along the platforms and about the ways everywhere was a shouting and crying. Then a woman with a face of mute white terror, and another who gasped ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... an evil spirit for a god, which spirit from the beginning has dwelt in the largest elephant in all the world, a beast that none can kill, but which kills many and bewitches more. While that elephant, which is named Jana, lives we, the People of the Child, go in terror, for day by day it destroys us. We have learned—how it does not matter—that you alone can kill that elephant. If you will come and kill it, we will show you the place where all the elephants go to die, and you shall take ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... De Surville himself; a pretended editor, who is said to have found by mere accident the precious manuscript, and while he was copying from the press, in 1793, these pretty poems, for such they are, of his grande tante, was shot in the Reign of Terror, and so completely expired, that no one could ever trace his existence! The real editor, who we must presume to be the poet, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... was afloat upon the seas, and her name before a year was over became as well known as that of the Happy Delivery. From the Bahamas to the Leewards, and from the Leewards to the Windwards, Copley Banks became the rival of Sharkey and the terror of traders. For a long time the barque and the brig never met, which was the more singular as the Ruffling Harry was for ever looking in at Sharkey's resorts; but at last one day, when she was passing down ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the Listening-in-Service, came the rumour of the strike. The first report of the strike gave me no clue to the grievance and I asked for fuller reports. When these came the next day I was shocked beyond belief. If I had anticipated anything in that interval of terror it was that my workers were to strike because their communications had been shut off or that they were to strike in sympathy for their fellows and demand that all hours be shortened like their own. But the grievance was not that. My men were ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... loudly proclaimed, some symptoms at least of a like danger ought by this time to have been betrayed by the Senate of Maryland, but no such symptoms have appeared. On the contrary, the jealousies at first entertained by men of the same description with those who view with terror the correspondent part of the federal Constitution, have been gradually extinguished by the progress of the experiment; and the Maryland constitution is daily deriving, from the salutary operation of this part of it, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... Louis to death, he fought the others fiercely,—even though unable to speak French,—persistently opposing them, with a passionate determination and courage which came near to costing him his life. For, as Brailsford says, "The Terror made mercy a traitor." ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... intercourse, to remove a living presence. The substitution of an image for a reality, the present broken off short and replaced by the past; enumerating this by no means gives the equivalent of that odd and unnatural word GONE. And the terror of death itself lies surely in its being the most sudden and utter act ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... the Turks, who viewed his tactics with mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria, the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate engagements, was anxious to ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... Dan, and the bully fell back with a cry of terror, for, as old readers know, Dan ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield

... has always been an object of terror and dread. Not only is it a supramundane and magnified man—that it will always be while its spots are so anthropoid, and man himself is so anthropomorphic—but it has ever been, and still is, a being of maleficent and ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... and drowned her supplication. One man screamed—a shrill, high neigh like that of a hurt horse. Janice caught a momentary glimpse of the pallid face of Joe Bodley shrinking below the edge of the counter. There was no leer upon his fat face now; it expressed nothing but terror. ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... controversialists who had made up their minds that it was their opponents who had erected the guillotine, confiscated the sacred property of the church, slaughtered and banished her children, and filled the land with terror and confusion. It is hard amid the smoking ruins of the homestead to do full justice to the theoretical arguments of the supposed authors of the conflagration. Hence De Maistre, though, as has been already ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... which seemed an eternity, she was conscious of nothing but an agonized terror. She could not reason or decide how to act. And then her fine courage came back, ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn

... scene of terror. The invisible tormentor now changed his manner, and used more gentle means. One evening, soon after, a loud clapping of hands was heard under her window. Antonelli, as a favourite actress and singer, was no stranger to these sounds; they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various

... pots and pans—all that came in the way of them went flying. The noise was awful; then suddenly ceased—for Little John had grasped his prey by the short skirt of his tunic. In another second of time Roger was secured, fluttering, cursing, and green with a sick terror. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... Leading society girl? Why, every shop-girl who commits suicide is immortalized in the daily press as 'a leading society girl,' and every deceased Tom, Dick, or Harry has become a 'well-known club man.' It has added a new terror to death. Thank God, ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... but Betty would tell me nothing. I believe she has been frightened in some way, for at times she started up in terror, and her whole body trembled. I wonder what ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... staff have arrived, that half his army preceded him, and the remainder will soon follow. The campaign is considered a disastrous failure, and it is anticipated that henceforth the scene of operations is to be transferred from Richmond to Washington. They say President Lincoln's face expresses "great terror," and affairs there are ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... learning their capabilities and the warmth of their hearts and the strength of their endurance, we became convinced that freedom was yet to be theirs. Meanwhile, you know, our operations were shrouded in inscrutable secrecy; the French held Rome in frowning terror and subjection; the Pope trembled on his chair, and clutched it more franticly with his weak fingers: it was not even known that we, the leaders, were now in the city; all supposed us to be awaiting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... swift, and are used for coming with great speed to assault any city, as was once done by this king's father, who assaulted Ahmedabad in Guzerat, when he was supposed to be at Agra; going there with 12,000 men in nine days upon dromedaries, striking such terror into the Guzerats by his sudden arrival, that they were easily reduced. This king has much reduced the numbers of the Rajaput captains, who were idolaters, and has preferred Mahometans, who are weak-spirited men, void of resolution; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... makes him a source of evil to others; for it is the cruellest of all human states. It transforms the man into the likeness of the cat, who, when she is caught in a trap, or shut up in a room, has too low an intellect to understand that you wish to release her; and, in the madness of terror, bites and tears at the hand which tries to do her good. Yes; very cruel is blind fear. When a man dreads he knows not what, he will do he cares not what. When he dreads desperately, he will act desperately. When he dreads beyond all reason, he will behave beyond all reason. He has no law of ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... employing that old ruse of cowards who wish to appear brave, he began to sing; but as he advanced, his voice trembled, and though the innocence of the song proved the serenity of his heart, on arriving opposite the passage he began to cough, which, as we know, in the gamut of terror, indicates a greater degree of fear than singing. Seeing, however, that nothing moved round him, he took courage, and, in a voice more in harmony with his present situation than with the sense ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... excitement, forgetting all about his empty stomach, the terror-stricken goose rushed out into the yard to think over the mystery, but the longer he puzzled, the more strange it all seemed. Then he thought of Hu-lin, and wished that she would come by, that he might ask her opinion. He had a high regard for the slave girl's knowledge and believed that she ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... an infinite relief. He suddenly recognized the fact that he had been chiefly restrained from repeating the words by an unrealized terror lest they prove true—lest something his father claimed was not ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... confidence so dreadful. The circumstances are fearful; but far more dreadful to me, the mystery in which I have lived ever since. I sometimes think I have only myself to blame. But you know, my poor brother, why I consented, and with what agony. Ever since, I have lived in terror, and worse, in degradation. I did not know, until it was too late, how great was my guilt. Heaven knows, when I consented to that journey, I did not comprehend its full purpose, though I knew enough to have warned me of ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... because the money gleams, and some Because they are in terror of the grave, And some because their neighbours sold before, And some because there is a kind of joy In casting hope away, in losing joy, In ceasing all resistance, in at last Opening one's arms to the ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats

... woman at some self-revealing pose, to surprise the hidden secret of personality, all this was his passion, and in all this he excelled as no one had ever done, before or since. His battle picture is not some gorgeous and romantic cavalry charge, but a confused melee of horses snorting with terror, of men wild with the lust of battle or with hatred or with fear. His portraits are either caricatures or prophecies: they lay bare some trait unsuspected, or they probe some secret weakness. Is not his portrait of himself a wizard? Does not his Medusa ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... folded behind him and a cane stretched along his back, was of opinion that she had a female complaint, and prescribed warm compresses. In old days, when Laevsky loved her, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's illness had excited his pity and terror; now he saw falsity even in her illness. Her yellow, sleepy face, her lustreless eyes, her apathetic expression, and the yawning that always followed her attacks of fever, and the fact that during them she lay under a shawl and looked more ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... point of view at once revealed the stranger, leaning against the trunk of a tree. She was dressed in the deep mourning of a widow. The pallor of her face, the glassy stare in her eyes, more than accounted for the child's terror—it excused the alarming conclusion at which she ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... tortured, killed by rack or flame. But some escaped the fury of the fiends who loved their enemies and died naturally in their beds. It would not do for the church to admit that they died peacefully. That would show that religion was essential at the last moment. Superstition gets its power from the terror of death. It would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the bible, refuse to kiss the cross; contend that humanity was greater than Christ, and then die as sweetly as Torquemada did after pouring molten lead into the ears of ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... strife of the sparrow and the moth, is he pigeon hawk's pursuit of the sparrow or the goldfinch. It is a race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of wing and wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries of terror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the right and left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and such silent determination on the part of the hawk, pressing the bird so closely, flashing and turning, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... arrest, because of the ill effects the terror might have had upon her, in that hoped-for circumstance, has concerned me more than on any other account. It would be the pride of my life to prove, in this charming frost-piece, the triumph of Nature over principle, and to have a young ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... as well ask my shadow that lay so still by me on the young grass in that morning sunshine. I never knew before how still I could keep. It wasn't the stillness of terror. I remained, knowing perfectly well that if I ran he was not the man to run after me. I remember perfectly his deep-toned, politely indifferent 'Restez donc.' He was mistaken. Already then I hadn't the slightest intention to move. And if you ask me again how far ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... the poor child, weak and giddy from her morning's most unwonted exertion, suddenly found herself turning faint. She was in the middle of the crossing, the wagons were upon her, but she could not run. She had scarcely time to throw up her arms, to utter one piercing cry of terror, before she was thrown to the ground. She had a horrible sensation of her life being crushed out of her, of every bone being broken; then ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... quarters, and raged with such violence for the space of nearly three days, that the city was completely desolated. The earthquake happened on a holy-day, when the churches and convents were full of people, very few of whom escaped."(482) "The terror of the people was beyond description. Nobody wept; it was beyond tears. They ran hither and thither, delirious with horror and astonishment, beating their faces and breasts, crying, 'Misericordia! the world's at an end!' Mothers forgot their children, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... through her. They seemed to tear and lacerate her. As in a nightmare vision she saw the bitterness that lay behind her, the utter emptiness before. She still stared full at him, but she saw him not. Her terror had taken awful shape before her, and all her courage was gone. She ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... was over, he had become so much attached to Belize, that he decided to make it his future residence. His daughter said she could not imagine what he found to like in the place, for between earthquakes and yellow fever, one was in a continual state of terror; there was no society, the population being almost entirely negro, and no schools; consequently the children of the few white resident families were obliged to go to England or to the ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... being now the most fearsome things about them! No one can deny that the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all the rest of their tribe did exist; and were they to be encountered in these days would spread the same terror around, and find man almost as helpless before them as did any fierce dragon of the fairy tales. That part of the legends, therefore, has its foundation in fact; though from the nature of the case, we certainly do not possess an authenticated account of any particular contest ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... soft and liquid yet so charged with terror. She spoke meaningless words and phrases, but at the touch of her hand upon his face ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... must have been, with the entire course of Roman warfare in these parts from the attack of Crassus to the last defeat of his own immediate predecessor, he can scarcely have regarded the subjugation of Persia as an easy matter, or have expected to do much more than strike terror into the "barbarians" of the East, or perhaps obtain from them the cession of another province. The sensible officer, who, after accompanying him in his expedition, wrote the history of the campaign, regarded his actuating motives as the delight ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... omission of purely theological rites upon infants? Have you thought of the mothers of those children, listening, whose little ones were sick or delicate, and who felt each word of that hard, ominous warning as an agonizing terror? And haven't you wanted to kick the minister out of the pulpit, through the reredos and into the middle of next week? How can anybody harrow up such tender feelings? How can anybody like to believe that a little child ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... Spanish quarters, and she appeared to assent to the proposal that she should, that night, leave the Spaniards altogether. Making an excuse to leave the room for a few minutes, Marina hastened to Cortez and informed him of what she had heard. The cazique's wife was at once seized, and being in terror of her life, she repeated the statements she ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... the opening phrase; she had received the first shock. But the tone of her exclamation gave no clue at all to her attitude. It might mean anything—anything. She shut her eyes; then glanced at him, terror-struck, appealing, wistful, implacable. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... that "these imprudent suggestions rather gave warning than struck terror." It was evident that the event, which implied "new counsels," meant what subsequently was practised—the king governing without a parliament! As for "the ghosts who wore wooden shoes," to which the house was congratulated that they ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... The poor wretch was evidently in a paroxysm of terror, and was muttering eagerly behind his gag, while he gazed up at me with eyes that were eloquent ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... she said this was indescribable. I think it gave me a more thrilling consciousness of human terror in face of the supernatural than anything which I had yet heard in this connection. Surely her motive for remaining in the haunted house ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... Pyrrha, "Beloved, solitary companion of my life, as far as I can see through all the surrounding country, I can discover no living creature. We two must people the earth; all the rest have been drowned by the flood. But even we are not yet certain of our lives. Every cloud that I see strikes terror to my soul. And even if danger is past, what shall we do alone on the forsaken earth? Oh, that my father Prometheus had taught me the art of creating men and breathing ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... careless and imprudent. He had once, indeed, in a violent fit of self-reproach, confessed as much, allowed that what ought to have been spent in the maintenance of his family, had gone in gambling, but immediately after, he had been seized with a fit of terror, and implored Guy to guard the secret, since, if once it came to the knowledge of his creditors, it would be all over with him. Concealment of his present difficulties was therefore no less necessary than assistance in paying the sum he owed. Indeed, as ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the time comes. Then God shows us the way, and because He is there we do not have any terror. We just go to Him. It is a great mystery. No ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... farthest corner and placed her bag on the adjoining seat. She had decided suddenly to accompany Darrow to Paris, had even persuaded him to wait for a later train in order that they might travel together. She had an intense longing to be with him, an almost morbid terror of losing sight of him for a moment: when he jumped out of the train and ran back along the platform to buy a newspaper for her she felt as though she should never see him again, and shivered with the cold misery of her last journey to Paris, when she had thought herself ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... revenge, refused to leave the body of the princess. On the last day, however, the soldier ordered all the bells rung. On the demon's asking what all the noise was about, the soldier said, "I have ordered your mother-in-law summoned, and she has just arrived." In great terror the Devil at once quitted the princess, and the soldier was left "in victorious possession of ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... up at the ceiling, and saw a naked sword hanging by a single hair directly over his head. He grew pale with terror, the laughter died on his lips, and, as soon as he could move, he sprang from the couch, where he had been in such danger of being killed at any minute by the ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... of activity, as he had already seen the real woman by chance in a temper of reverie and unguarded emotion. In both she was very unlike the pale, self-disciplined creature of majesty that she had been to the world. With that amazement of his went something like terror of her dark beauty, which excitement kindled into an appearance scarcely mortal in his eyes. Incongruously there rushed into his mind, occupied as it was with the affair of the moment, a little knot of ideas... she was ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... come up in terror for the young lady's safety, broke out into loud encomiums upon Fitzallen's strength and gallantry. "By 'r Lady," said he, taking off his cap, and wiping his sun-burnt face with his sleeve, "well struck, and in good time! But now, boys, doff your bonnets, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... pause. He had told me the end of the tragedy so swiftly and in a voice so keyed to the terror of the scene, that I lay horror-stricken, unable to speak. He buried his face in his hands, and between the fleshy part of the palms I saw the muscles of his lips twitch horribly. I remembered, with a ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... his eyes fixed on the horizon, as they were drawn irresistibly nearer and nearer to the harbour. "It is the men-of-war I dread coming near," the captain was saying to his mates; "those deadly rams are a terror in this weather." ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... subjection. Terror-stricken, the people rushed wildly in every direction, and the most ill-founded reports in the excitement gained ready credence. It was announced that General Buell would speedily arrive and open his batteries from across the river, and that gunboats would lay the city in ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... at Marcos and gulped something down in his throat. He was not afraid of Marcos, but he was in terror of some one or of something else. Marcos studied the white face, the shrinking, hunted eyes, with the quiet persistence learnt from ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... the temple. But without paying the least homage to the image of the 'Lo' spirit, he simply kept his eyes fixed intently on it; for albeit made of clay, it actually seemed, nevertheless, to flutter as does a terror-stricken swan, and to wriggle as a dragon in motion. It looked like a lotus, peeping its head out of the green stream, or like the sun, pouring its rays upon the russet clouds in the early morn. Pao-y's tears unwittingly trickled ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... say, my reader, is the awakening of a love dream so powerful as to undermine the health of the sleeper—so dark as to cast a terror and a gloom upon many who loved her; it is even so in life, and would you have it otherwise? Do you commend that morbid affection which clings to its object not only through sorrow, but sin? through sorrow—but not in sin. Nor is ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... the diminishing water supply will suffice for the needs of the dwindling population. Thus the race will gradually die out naturally, and become extinct long before the conditions of our world can make life a terror. There will, therefore, be no self-slaughter, nor murderous extermination, amongst ourselves—we shall simply die ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... gigantic staircase, guarded on either hand by huge sculptured elephants cut in the living sandstone. Below clustered the town, an intricate mass of tangled alleys. I had never seen anything so picturesque or so dirty in my life; as for Elsie, she was divided between admiration for its beauty and terror at the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... face reflected the nervous uneasiness of the other women. Every time an especially heavy rush of rain or wind struck the unsubstantial little house, Mrs. Barwick said, "Oh, my!" in patient, hopeless terror, and the two young women looked at each other with a ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... efforts to contract upon its diminished contents, and Fournier, anxious, and pale himself almost as his victim, trembled when his finger felt in vain for the bleeding artery and caught only a faint tremulous thrill, so feeble that he scarcely knew whether the heart was beating at all or not. In terror he threw the ends of the little tent and fanned him, and moistened his lips, and gave him brandy, and hastened to begin the experiment for which he had waited so long and for which both subjects were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... at Medoctec village in 1689, relates the following ridiculous incident, which sufficiently shows the unreasonable terror inspired in the mind of the natives of the river in his day by ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... you to bother feeding them yourself," Jim said magnanimously; "that 'ud be rather too much of a contract for a kid, wouldn't it? Only keep an eye on 'em, and round up Billy if he doesn't do his work. He's a terror if he shirks, and unless you watch him like a cat he'll never change the water in the tins every morning. Lots of times I've had to do ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... small terror of some in the audience, there appeared in the upright cabinet the figure of a grinning skeleton, outlined in flickering flames. It was startling, and there was a moment of silence before thunderous applause broke out at the effectiveness ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum

... but one flower, and we are offered noisome thousands—refused that we wish, we live in loathing of that not worthy to be received—mourners from our cradle to our grave, we utter the shrill cry at our birth, and we sink in oblivion with the faint, wail of terror. Why should we, then, ever commit the folly to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... down on the seat. She felt the body of the guard sink against her knees. Then she seemed to feel, to hear through an icy, sickening terror. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... She stood there tongue-tied, spell-bound, present to nothing but a nameless chill of fear and heart-sinking. She was afraid to speak afraid to touch her aunt, and abode motionless in the grasp of that dread for minutes. But Mrs. Rossitur did not stir a hair, and the terror of that stillness grew to be ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... their battles for so many centuries; a country dyed so often with blood that at last Red River came to be its name. But while our task is to present the career of this apostle of insurrection and unrest; stirred as we may be to feelings of horror for the misery, the tumult, the terror and the blood of which he has been the author, we must not neglect to do him, even him, the justice ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... madame," said Brand, "you must not imagine that it was from terror that Miss Lind handed over the man to me—it was from kindness. That is more natural to her ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... minute and coming on and on in our direction, were shortly right over the hill above us. The bullets rained like hail and shells shrieked and split the universe from end to end. We lay in our beds, trembling, while utter terror seized us as the fracas would subside a little and then roll nearer and nearer in a perfect deluge of horrible sounds. Suddenly in the middle of it all a terrific blast rent the air; the forts had entered into this hideous contest! Oh the joy of ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow



Words linked to "Terror" :   rapscallion, mortal, panic, scamp, swivet, fearfulness, person, scalawag, individual, coercion, scallywag, someone, soul, terrify, rascal, imp, fear, monkey, fright, somebody



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