Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Throw off   /θroʊ ɔf/   Listen
Throw off

verb
1.
Get rid of.  Synonyms: cast, cast off, drop, shake off, shed, throw, throw away.  "Shed your clothes"
2.
Get rid of.  Synonyms: escape from, shake, shake off.






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





"Throw off" Quotes from Famous Books



... still the old aunt would not die, and as they sought not her, nor heir's (quite contrary to St. Paul's disinterestedness), she was looked upon in the light of an incumbrance, on her own property and in her own house. Mrs. Tracy longed to throw off the yoke of dependance, and made small secret of the hatred of the fetter: for the old woman grew so deaf and blind, that there could be no risk at all, either in speaking one's mind, or in thoroughly ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... scarcely a disease or a symptom that I ever heard of that has not at some time preyed upon my mind lest I become a victim of it. These fears are hard to throw off or laugh out of existence when once they have become a part of your very being. In order to avert untoward conditions which I thought might overtake me, I have changed from one occupation to another about as often as the man in the moon modifies his physiognomy. ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs

... throw off the memories of his vacation so easily as he had at first imagined. The busy week that followed his return to Schwarzburg furnished enough excitement to divert his thoughts for a time into a more cheerful channel, and he was further ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... got one for us?" inquired the cattle-buyer of Baugh. "This is no time to throw off, or refuse ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... material importance to us at this time, as they lay in the direct road between Tlascala and our head-quarters at Tezcuco, but both of them were garrisoned by Mexican troops; and though Cortes was at this time solicited by several important districts to enable them to throw off the yoke of Mexico, he considered it as of the first necessity to dislodge the Mexicans from these two towns, on purpose to open a secure communication with our allies, and to cover the transport of our ship timber from Tlascala. He sent therefore ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... could one so unused to art have concealed the flushing cheek, the sparkling eye, the trembling voice, which would invariably have betrayed her? No; it was infatuation,—blind, maddening infatuation,—strengthened by indignation towards her parents; by the wish to prove she could throw off their control, and choose for herself, and love whom and where and how she liked, without their choice and sympathy; and it was thus she completely veiled her feelings. Can we condemn her mother for refusing to believe the child she had trained and watched, and prayed for so long, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... understood it all. A slight color mounted to his cheeks. The soldiers then saw him stretch his limbs, little by little, and under the pretense of much heat throw off the Scotch plaid ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... he tried to indoctrinate Charlie into the state of morality among the Noelites, either Charlie did not understand him, or else quite openly expressed his disapproval and even indignation; and when finally Wilton quite tired out, did throw off the mask, Charlie shook him away from him, turned with a sickening sensation from the unbared features of vice, and unfeignedly loathed the boy who had pretended to be his friend—loathed him all the more because he had tried to like him, but ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... by the Hamian-garabas—a powerful tribe, who could bring 2000 horsemen into the field, and among whom the various tribes that had at different times sworn allegiance to the French government always found willing allies whenever they chose to break their treaties and throw off the yoke. He was to destroy every village throughout this region that refused submission; and thus it was hoped that the retreats of Abd-el-Kader might be cut off, and that by a speedy termination of the war, the country might become settled, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... criminal was almost desperate. It had been his by-play for years to play at hide and seek with humanity, using his duplex characters at first to throw off any pursuit of the Vienna police; and, later, to hide his nefarious operations ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... America the ice-storm is an event. And it is not an event which one is careless about. When it comes, the news flies from room to room in the house, there are bangings on the doors, and shoutings, "The ice-storm! the ice-storm!" and even the laziest sleepers throw off the covers and join the rush for the windows. The ice-storm occurs in midwinter, and usually its enchantments are wrought in the silence and the darkness of the night. A fine drizzling rain falls hour after hour upon the naked ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... my birthday (I was nineteen years old), when the waiter of our first hotel stepped into the room to announce the visit of two foreign ladies who had just arrived in the town. Before my uncle could throw off his dressing-gown—it was of a large flower pattern—and don his coat and vest, his visitors were already in the room. You know what an electric effect every strange event has upon those who are brought up in the narrow seclusion of ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... the part of the Italians entirely to throw off the yoke of Frederic Barbarossa, and as fruitless attempts of the Emperor to make himself absolute master throughout the whole of his Cisalpine dominions, the bloody struggles of four-and-twenty years were happily brought to a close ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... spite of the errors of testimony, the frauds of tradition, the dust of time, the loss or alteration of texts. It is the sagacity of the hunter whom nothing deceives for long, and whom no ruse can throw off the trail. It is the talent of the Juge d'Instruction who knows how to interrogate circumstances, and to extract an unknown secret from a thousand falsehoods. The true critic can understand everything, but he will be the dupe ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... possibly approaching blindness was hardly to be thought of. When one added one's incapacity to work and earn a living, with all that that implies, it seemed as if it would take the faith that moves mountains to throw off the weight oppressing me. It is true that to move mountains you only need faith as a grain of mustard seed, but as far as one can judge not many of us ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... Ireland where 15,000 Protestants were in arms, without authority, for their own defence, many of them well-wishers to the Americans, and all so ruined that they insisted on relief from Parliament, or were ready to throw off subjection; Holland pressed by France to refuse us assistance, and demanding whether we would or not protect them: uncertainty of the fate of the West Indian Islands; and dread at least that Spain might take part with France; Lord North at the same time perplexed to raise ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... shoulder, to forget everything, and to banish her last tears with a smile. That was what always happened, but Renovales, knowing the game, drew back roughly. That must not begin again; it could, not be repeated, even if he wanted to. He must tell her the truth at any cost, end it forever, throw off ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... slop; perspire &c (exude) 295; breathe, blow &c (wind) 349. tap, draw off; bale out, lade out; let blood, broach. eject, reject; expel, discard; cut, send to coventry, boycott; chasser [Fr.]; banish &c (punish) 972; bounce [U.S.]; fire [Slang], fire out [Slang]; throw &c 284, throw out, throw up, throw off, throw away, throw aside; push &c 276; throw out, throw off, throw away, throw aside; shovel out, shovel away, sweep out, sweep away; brush off, brush away, whisk off, whisk away, turn off, turn away, send off, send away; discharge; send adrift, turn adrift, cast adrift; turn out, bundle out; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... be the character of the Portugueze Nation; be it true or not, that they had a becoming sense of the injuries which they had received from the French Invader, and were rouzed to throw off oppression by a universal effort, and to form a living barrier against it;—certain it is that, betrayed and trampled upon as they had been, they held unprecedented claims upon humanity to secure them from further outrages.—Moreover, our conduct towards them was ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... hope) will convey this note to you. My object is this: I particularly entreat you to consider the catastrophe. You write to be read, of course. The close of the story is unnecessarily painful—will throw off numbers of persons who would otherwise read it, and who (as it stands) will be deterred by hearsay from so doing, and is so tremendous a piece of severity, that it will defeat your purpose. All my knowledge and experience, such as they are, lead me straight to the recommendation ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... made; that he held it in his power to appoint a brigadier-general, and put him in command of the department, and he offered me the place. I told him I had once offered my services, and they were declined; that I had made business engagements in St. Louis, which I could not throw off at pleasure; that I had long deliberated on my course of action, and must decline his offer, however tempting and complimentary. He reasoned with me, but I persisted. He told me, in that event, he should appoint Lyon, and ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... to their pieces. They throw off their coats, and work in their shirt-sleeves. They ram home the cartridges and stand beside their pieces, waiting for ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... still covering the baby crocuses away off in Central Park, down in Gramercy their pink and yellow heads are popping up all over the enclosure. When the big trees in Union Square are stretching their bare arms, making ready to throw off the winter's sleep, every tiny branch in Gramercy is wide awake and tingling with new life. When countless dry roots in Madison Square are still slumbering under their blankets of straw, dreading the hour when they must get up and go to ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Cuba. The importance of this movement was, unfortunately, so much exaggerated in the accounts of it published in this country that these adventurers seem to have been led to believe that the Creole population of the island not only desired to throw off the authority of the mother country, but had resolved upon that step and had begun a well-concerted enterprise for effecting it. The persons engaged in the expedition were generally young and ill informed. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore

... the first in a village rather than second at Rome." Oddly enough, we are contented to be slaves in our villages while we are conquerors in Rome. Can it be that the struggles of our ancestors for freedom were fought in vain? Did they throw off the yoke of kings, cross the Atlantic, found a new form of government on a new continent, break with traditions, and sign a declaration of independence, only that we should succumb, a century later, yielding the fruits of their hard-fought battles with craven supineness into the hands of corporations ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... grounds of my duty. By temperament, and through natural dedication to despondency, I felt resting upon me always too deep and gloomy a sense of obscure duties attached to life, that I never should be able to fulfil; a burden which I could not carry, and which yet I did not know how to throw off. Glad, therefore, I was to find the whole tremendous weight of obligations—the law and the prophets—all crowded into this one pocket command, "Thou shalt obey thy brother as God's vicar upon earth." For now, if, by any future stone levelled at him who had called me ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... Sa Leonite is the horror of Europeans on the West Coast. He has been formally expelled by his neighbours, the Liberians. At Lagos and Abeokuta he lost no time in returning to his original fetishism, which the 'recaptive' apparently can never throw off. Moreover, he became an inveterate slave-dealer, impudently placing himself under native protection, and renegading the flag that saved the crime-serf from lifelong servitude. These 'insolent, vagabond loafers' were the only ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... spotless woman, who had never stooped to listen to temptation, she became still more bitter against the base and cowardly actions to which sensual love will drive a man who is not strong enough to throw off its degrading chains. The whole of humanity seemed to her unclean as she thought of the obscene secrets of the senses, of the caresses which debase as they are given and received, and of all the mysteries which surround ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... be done was, of course, to sit upon their chests, so as to produce the stifling sensation of nightmare. Then, as their beds were quite close to each other, to stand between them in the form of a green, icy-cold corpse, till they became paralysed with fear, and finally, to throw off the winding-sheet, and crawl round the room, with white bleached bones and one rolling eye-ball, in the character of 'Dumb Daniel, or the Suicide's Skeleton,' a role in which he had on more than one occasion produced a great effect, and which ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... thirty-five millions of lives and that wrecks the economic machinery of a continent in four short years? Yet the failure of the revolutionary forces to avail themselves of the opportunity presented by the war proved the unreadiness of the masses to throw off the yoke of the old regime and to lay the foundations of a new order. The world rulers painted a picture of liberated humanity that led tens of millions to fight with the assurance that victory would make that hope a reality. The workers ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing

... the Baptists at Wallingford. This last procedure was the work of the Consociation of New Haven county, which thereby began a six years' contest, 1741-47, with the Branford church. In 1745 this church attempted to throw off the yoke of the Consociation by ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... sank, but was caught by the strong arm of Sill, and pulled upon the keel. In a state of great discomfort, though of safety, there both remained for some time, waiting for assistance. None arriving, Sill, at last, became impatient, and as he was an excellent swimmer, proposed to throw off the heavier part of his clothing, and swim to land to hasten succor. As Mr. Armstrong made no objection, and the danger appeared less than what was likely to proceed from a long continuance on the boat, exposed ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... life, even of a founder of Empire, is short. Canute's sons were degenerate, cruel, and in forty years after the Conquest had so exasperated the Anglo-Saxons that enough of the primitive spirit returned, to throw off the foreign yoke, and the old Saxon line was restored in ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... the brief sleep of death, when thou art permitted to throw off for ever thy garb of clay, and when by thine own ceaseless love and longing thou hast won the right to pass the Great Circle, thou shalt find thyself in a land where the glories of the natural scenery alone shall overpower thee with joy—scenery that for ever changes ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... auspicious, sir," said Bagshaw, who thought it requisite he should throw off something fine ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... dealings, others by lying, deceit, and all the countless, forms of dishonest and fraudulent gain, by which men are for ever seeking to get riches and abundance without toil. But while such men are striving to throw off the yoke righteously imposed on them by God, they are heaping on their shoulders a heavy burden of sin. Not so, however, do the reasonable sons of Adam proceed; but, recognising in sorrow that for the sins of their first father God has righteously ordained that only ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... tended him. To natural toughness of constitution he added a power of will unbroken by the long strain; and for the sake of others to whom his life meant so much, he wished to recover and willed to do everything towards recovery. And so he managed to throw off the influenza and the severe bronchitis which attended it. What was marvellous at his age, and indeed would scarcely have been expected in a young man, most serious mischief induced by the bronchitis disappeared. By May he was strong enough to walk from the terrace ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... for a mistress. Throughout the whole picture, it seems to be the poet's design to show that to call forth the poetry which has its indwelling in nature and the human mind, nothing is wanted but to throw off all artificial constraint, and restore both to mind and nature their original liberty. In the very progress of the piece, the dreamy carelessness of such an existence is sensibly expressed: it is even alluded to by Shakspeare in the title. Whoever affects to be displeased, if in this romantic ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... asked Ida, with an air of innocent inquiry in her big blue eyes, "what are we to do when your commands and Mrs. Westmacott's advice are opposed? You told us to obey her. She says that when women try to throw off their shackles, their fathers, brothers and husbands are the very first to try to rivet them on again, and that in such a matter no man ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... pence being less a great deal than is paid for licensing a common alehouse. A clergyman indeed cannot be entitled to a benefice without being, in some measure, subject to his diocesan; but he may throw off his gown, and assemble a congregation that shall be much more beneficial to him, and propagate what doctrines he sees fit (as is evident in the case of orator Henley): ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... white men, when I recollected how many act in a way so totally at variance with their character as Christian and civilised men, and how bad an example they set to those whom they despise as heathens and savages. I have very frequently met young men who fancy when they are abroad that they may throw off all restraints of religion and morals, under the miserable excuse that people should do at Rome as the Romans do,—in other words, act as wickedly as those among whom they have gone to live. What would have become ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... to throw off his desperate feeling of apprehension, chattering all sorts of comforting reasons and excuses to himself as he scurried about the rooms with aimless haste. Try as he would, however, when the time came, he could not read—not even of his courage-inspiring ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... comment, the necessity of asylum physicians having a very liberal supply of holidays, so as to insure a complete change of thought from not only the objective but the subjective world in which they live, and this before the time comes when they are unable to throw off their work from their minds, as happened to a hard-working friend of mine, who, even during his holiday among the Alps, must needs dream one night that he was making a post-mortem upon himself, and on ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... such judgments each planet must be examined by itself, but first it is desirable to glance at the planetary system as a whole. To do this we may throw off, in imagination, the dominance of the sun, and suppose ourselves to be in the midst of open space, far removed both from the sun and the other stars. In this situation it is only by chance, or through foreknowledge, that we can distinguish our sun at all, for it is lost among the stars; and when ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss

... back and forth, till by and by he left me to throw off the rails, and went to show the boys how to build ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge

... sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed something. The millions ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... which all other nations must take notice, that this whole country belongs to the people of the United States. No foreign power shall possess a foot of it. If the majority of the people of a State can throw off their allegiance to the Union, they can transfer their allegiance to England or Spain at their pleasure, as well as to a new confederacy of their own devising. The battles of the Revolution which secured our independence were fought by the whole country, and for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... time until we meet. Let the people take their weapons, and every man be at his post, so that all may be ready when the war-horn sounds the signal to cast off from the land. [See note 1.] Then let us throw off at once, and together, so that none go on before the rest of the ships, and none lag behind when we row out of the fiord. When we meet, and the battle begins, let people be on the alert to bring all our ships in close order, and ready to bind them together. Let ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... several accounts, and among the rest for monopolising the trade on the Malabar coast.—Astl. I. 43. a. We may easily conceive that one strong ground of favour to the Portuguese at Cochin, was in hopes by their means to throw off the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... heat, and prevent the radiation into space as soon as the surface begins to warm. We have not yet the data to determine exactly how much the temperature of the lunar rocks would have to be raised above the absolute zero (-273 deg. C. or -459 deg. F.) in order that they might throw off into space as much heat in a second as they would get from the sun in a second. But Professor Langley's observations, made on Mount Whitney at an elevation of fifteen thousand feet, when the barometer stood at seventeen inches (indicating that about fifty-seven per cent. of the air was still ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various

... fellow," said Dacres at last, giving a long breath, in which he seemed to throw off some of his excitement, "you're right, of course, and I am helpless. There's no chance for me. Paying attentions is out of the question, and the only thing for me to do is to give up the whole thing. But that isn't to be done at once. It's been long since I've seen any one ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... gowns. The sun beats down on the shores, on the multicolored parasols, on the blue-green sea; and all is gay, delightful, smiling. You sit down at the edge of the water and you watch the bathers. The women come down, wrapped in long bath robes, which they throw off daintily when they reach the foamy edge of the rippling waves; and they run into the water with a rapid little step, stopping from time to time for a delightful little thrill from the cold water, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... the spiral turn of the bullet, by diverting a part of the transmitted vibrations into a second direction, must, in the case of wounds of the body, help to throw off contiguous structures, and while those that are in actual contact are more severely contused, the surrounding ones suffer somewhat less direct injury. It must be borne in mind, also, that rapidity of revolution does not fall ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... to accept your invitation: but alas I have no hope of the kind, for that humiliating malady which now has fastened upon me for a full year and a half has not let go its hold, nor is it likely to do so. A man who is journeying in the 88th year of his pilgrimage is not likely to throw off such a chronic malady. Indeed were I well enough to come I am deaf as a post and half blind, and if I were with you I should only be able to play dummy. Several years have passed away since I was last at your Visitation and I had great joy in seeing Mrs Airy and some lady ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... Jonas from this plan; but Jonas said he must go, and that, as they had oxen with them, there would be no danger. "First," said he, "we must throw off our load." ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott

... all smart and neat in his new black, and he was whistling a hymn tune softly. Our house was betwixt Barber's shop and the church, not a stone's-throw off, anyway; and I prayed to God that Barber would turn the other way and not come by our house, where father he was sitting at his bench ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit

... may be able lightly to throw off that past in which they have (or believe they have) lost nothing, whilst we of the "mid-century" are borne down under its heavy burden. These people neglect no occasion to advise us to forget and they do it gracefully, lightly showing ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... we throw off indicate that the substances which compose our bodies are being constantly broken down and reduced to a condition such that they are useless to us. In normal persons hunger signifies that they need material to replace what has been used up. The substances thus required, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... English letter [29] from the Political Agent at Aden to the Amir of Harar, proposing to deliver it in person, and throw off my disguise. Two reasons influenced me in adopting this "neck or nothing" plan. All the races amongst whom my travels lay, hold him nidering who hides his origin in places of danger; and secondly, my white ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... seemed as if old Quebec would never throw off her ermine mantle. Richelieu was now at the helm in France, and that country and England were at war with each other. Quebec was looking forward to supplies and reinforcements ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... we have a lot who ran away at Tel-el-Kebir here. They are no good. The Egyptian rule has been a curse to the Soudan, and the Egyptian troops are the greatest curs that ever tempted a brave but unarmed people to throw off the yoke. But suppose we ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... Germany must choose new representatives, and the chief, if not the sole question to be decided by the election was, Are the Socialists to be dealt with under a special act, or to come under the common law? Schrotter now felt it justifiable, nay, that it was his duty, to throw off the reserve he had maintained since his return to the Fatherland, and come forward as a candidate for the Reichstag, though for a suburban district, as the city district to whose poor he had been an untiring benefactor as physician and friend, with help, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... and, striking it, bent over his lamp to adjust the wick. It flared up steady and strong at last, flooding the narrow place with its illumination; then he straightened up and turned towards the bed to throw off his coat, when suddenly every muscle of his body leaped with an uncontrollable spasm, as if he had uncovered a deadly serpent coiled and ready to spring. In spite of himself his lungs contracted as if with the grip ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... thought, had money; what could he better do than turn her against Tupman, and marry her himself? With this plan he went to Tupman, recited what the fat boy had told, and advised him, for a time, in order to throw off the suspicions of the old lady and of Mr. Wardle, to pay special attention to one of the younger daughters and to pretend to care nothing for the spinster. He told Tupman that the latter herself had made this ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... with you of a night. And that is a good deal to ask of a man like him, for he is as fond of me as ever he was the day we were married. I don't know how it is. It is the lodge, you see; we are always there together! Don't you throw off the things like that!" she cried, making a dash for the bedhead to draw the coverlet over Pons' chest. "If you are not good, and don't do just as Dr. Poulain says—and Dr. Poulain is the image of Providence on earth—I will have no more ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... and glanced quickly over at her daughter. Jessie was poring over her book. The sight of such absorption raised a certain feeling of irritation in the mother. It seemed to her that Jessie could too easily throw off the trouble besetting them all. She did not know that the girl was fighting her own battle in her own way. She did not know that her interest in her book was partly feigned. Nor was she aware that the girl's ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... I, Mrs. Barker,' said Pitt, coming in and beginning at once to throw off his greatcoat. 'In the usual room? Is the colonel less well ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... Carabas grows more stupid every day. I have a great mind to throw off his boots, and leave him to his fate. I was intended for a court, and to a court I will go, and make my own fortune as I have made his. The emperor will appreciate ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... the princess, "I can assure you I am in my right senses; ask my husband, and he will tell you the same circumstances." "I will," said the sultaness, "but if he should talk in the same manner, I shall not be better persuaded of the truth. Come, rise, and throw off this idle fancy; it will be a strange event, if all the feasts and rejoicings in the kingdom should be interrupted by such a vision. Do not you hear the trumpets of congratulation, and concerts of the finest music? Cannot these inspire you with joy and pleasure, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... dollars per gallon. I use it only for medicine." I found the flask; the water had not injured it. A small quantity was taken, when a most favorable change came over my entire system, mental as well as physical, and I was able to throw off one suit and put on another in the icy wind, that might, without the stimulant, have ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... Doctor Price, "and won't be for several days. I haven't found several of those shot, and until they're located I can't tell what will happen. Your son has a good constitution, but it has been abused somewhat and is not in the best condition to throw off an injury." ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... diver's suit and helmet, and I will weaken the pressure of the air gradually, to prevent bleeding at the nose and ears which a sudden change might cause. When you are used to the low pressure, you can throw off the helmet and ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... and when he had ceased speaking, they both waited in silence. At last Amy looked up with a mischievous smile, seeking to throw off the serious mood into which Austin's speech had put them. She was always afraid of ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale

... saving his life!" This unexpected sally convulsed the audience, and gave a gay and rollicking touch to the speeches that came after. Mr. M'Gregor, a farmer from Resipol, broad and brawny, rose to make a few remarks. The schoolhouse was very hot and close, but he disdained to throw off the thick and ample Highland cloak which he had on, and which he had worn all day at the Oban Cattle Show, and on the deck of the boat that had brought him thence. Mr. M'Gregor had been much struck by my remarks on the knights of King Arthur, and their custom of sitting at the Round Table, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... long year through, was in field sports; he would be on his feet the worst days in winter, and wade through snow up to the middle after his game. If he had company he was in tortures till they were gone; he would then throw off his coat and put on an old jacket not worth half-a-crown. He drank his bottle of wine every day, and two if he had better sport than usual. Ladies sometimes came to stay with his wife, and he often carried them out in an Irish jaunting-car, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... strongholds, and in defence of whom they would have risked their property and their lives, prepared them to follow any chieftain who would head his countrymen against the present dynasty, and direct them in their struggle to throw off the English, or rather, perhaps, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here, Foul as the morn may be. There, shut the world out! How do you feel now, Ottima? There, curse The world and all outside! Let us throw off 40 This mask: how do you bear yourself? Let's ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... not a beautiful and pathetic story, full of shrewdly considered knowledge of men, and of a good art struggling to free itself from self-consciousness. But it does mean that Balzac, when he wrote it, was under the burden of the very traditions which he has helped fiction to throw off. He felt obliged to construct a mechanical plot, to surcharge his characters, to moralize openly and baldly; he permitted himself to "sympathize" with certain of his people, and to point out others for the abhorrence ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... those about him at defiance, and gratuitously proclaimed himself everything that he was, and some things that he was not. All this subdued itself as time advanced, and the coming man in him could throw off the wayward child. It was all so natural that it might well be forgotten. But it distressed his mother, the one being in the world whom he entirely loved; and deserves remembering in the tender sorrow with which he himself remembered it. He was always ready to say that he had been ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... saloon-keeper and kill a man was to be illustrious. Hence the reader will not be surprised to learn that more than one man was killed in Nevada under hardly the pretext of provocation, so impatient was the slayer to achieve reputation and throw off the galling sense of being held in indifferent repute by his associates. I knew two youths who tried to "kill their men" for no other reason—and got killed themselves for their pains. "There goes the man that killed Bill Adams" was higher praise and a sweeter sound ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... irreparably destroyed, there was no disease that he could not cure; no decrepitude to which he could not restore vigour: yet his science was based on the same theory as that espoused by the best professional practitioner of medicine, namely, that the true art of healing is to assist nature to throw off the disease; to summon, as it were, the whole system to eject the enemy that has fastened on a part. And thus his processes, though occasionally varying in the means employed, all combined in this,—namely, the re-invigourating ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... him. Her face was bright with smiles, and her words had even a ring of mirth in them; but below all there was a stubborn weight that she could not throw off, a darkness of spirit that no sunshine could brighten. Since Julius had come into their home, home had never been the same. There was a stranger at the table and in all its sweet, familiar places, and she was sure that to her he always would be a stranger. Something was ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... biologists that the milky juice, aromatic compounds, alkaloids, etc., found in plants have no direct use in the economy of the plant. They are not connected with the nutritive processes. They are excretions or waste products that the plant has little or no power to throw off. There can be little doubt, however, that these excretory substances often serve as a means of protection. Entomologists have frequently stated that the milky juice and resins found in the stems of various plants act as a protection against stem boring insects. In like manner the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... sixteen hundred dollars behind in your accounts, Mr. Blaze," said the President, "but in view of your faithful and efficient services we shall throw off eight hundred ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne

... this college opened for the autumn term, and Professor Warwick and his charges were well settled in residence before the old gentleman was obliged to acknowledge that Hal seemed unable to throw off the shock of the accident, or the chill that seemed to cling to him in spite of all care; but he tucked in bravely at his studies, and only the Professor knew that the boy was ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... to dream before." A horror grew upon him, a feeling that something, some being antagonistic, repugnant to his very nature was sharing the darkness with him. The strokes of the bell above him seemed to grow horribly menacing to his feverish fancy. He struggled with himself to throw off the mantle of terror descending upon him but the feeling grew and grew. With a rush of unreasoning anger he flung up his gun and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... vary quickly enough, are obliged to succumb in the struggle for existence. As Professor Marsh well observes: "In every vigorous primitive type which was destined to survive many geological changes, there seems to have been a tendency to throw off lateral branches, which became highly specialised and soon died out, because they were unable to adapt themselves to new conditions." And he goes on to show how the whole narrow path of the persistent Suilline type, throughout the entire ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... was a generous forgetfulness of self-importance—it was as if a placid and beneficent moon had come to beam upon a cluster of stars. To the men he would quote stocks, as if, a lover of letters, he were giving a poem to a "mite society." Upon the ladies he would smile and throw off vague hints of ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... business of it, but apologised in sufficiently handsome terms for being spokesman instead of the Duke of Wellington. The Duke of Rutland made a very respectable speech in reply, and it all went off swimmingly. To-day I went to see the hounds throw off; but though a hunter was offered to me would not ride him, because there is no use in risking the hurt or ridicule of a fall for one day. A man who goes out in this casual way and hurts himself looks as foolish as an amateur soldier who ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... act was to carry the girl in. His second was to throw off several packs and drag them to the room. He then took the ax and made all haste to gather an armful of dry pitch pine, with which he soon had a roaring fire going in the ancient fireplace. Then, with a pine branch, he swept out the place, cleaned ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... Hotspur's force set out for the Cheviots to intercept Douglas and his followers, which they did at Homildon Hill, near Wooler; and it was the quarrel in connection with the prisoners taken on that day which led Hotspur and his father openly to throw off their allegiance to Henry IV., so that a few months later the peasants of Warkworth saw their idolised young lord set out for what was to prove the fatal field of Shrewsbury. They saw Hotspur's father, the first Henry Percy to receive the title of ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... once celebrated throughout Europe. The city is rich in works of art, the best known being the cathedral, which, after St. Peter's at Rome and the cathedral of Seville, is the largest church in Europe. Though the Milanese were able to throw off the imperial authority, their government fell into the hands of the local nobles, who ruled as despots. Almost all the Italian cities, except Venice, lost their freedom in ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... these beclouded climates of the West ever so truly deserved its name. As if the imagination of the age, pent up in wretched alleys and narrow dwelling-houses, had resolved for once to throw off its ordinary trammels and recompense itself for its long restraint, it prepared to realize those visions of enchanted bowers and ancient pageantry on which it had fed so long in the fictions and romances of the Middle Ages. I have thought it worth while to notice so much ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... over, the fences and the palisaded walls of the villages, the earthen forts and the small towers with which the territory was dottedall these were the work of the barbarian communities. And when a community grew numerous it used to throw off a new bud. A new community arose at a distance, thus step by step bringing the woods and the steppes Under the dominion of man. The whole making of European nations was such a budding of the village communities. Even now-a-days the Russian ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... so laid was meant for permanence. A width of ground was carefully prepared, trenches were dug at the sides, three different layers of road material were deposited, with sufficient upward curve to throw off the water, and then the whole was paved with closely-fitting many-cornered blocks of stone. In the chief instances there were sidewalks covered with some kind of gravel. The width was not great, but might be anything between ten and fifteen ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... with a sigh, "I've been longing to see the fox hounds throw off, near Kilkenny; these three weeks I've been thinking of nothing else; but I'm not sure how my nerves will stand the cry; I ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... the power of auto-hypnotism is manifested, and we have obsession, fraud and folly as the result. There is one sure method of detecting the auto-hypnotic trance, and showing the difference between that and the genuine spirit trance. Any competent magnetist or hypnotiser can throw off the spell in all cases of self-induced trance, unless it has reached the condition of complete catalepsy. But if a spirit has induced the trance and controls the medium, it will laugh at the hypnotist's efforts to restore ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... remained untouched. He had a tent in common with several other 'aides de camp'; but for his better accommodation I gave him mine, and I scarcely ever quitted him. Entering his tent one day about noon, I found him in a profound sleep. The excessive heat had compelled him to throw off all covering, and part of his wound was exposed. I perceived a scorpion which had crawled up the leg of the camp-bed and approached very near to the wound. I was just in time to hurl it to the ground. The sudden motion of my ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... big town. Hurry out. Stopped for ticket. Throw off disguise of somebody else's overcoat, and declare myself. Guard called out to escort me. When they are looking the other way, hide under refreshment-counter, and get out of station unobserved on all-fours. Am collared by a policeman. Again have to declare ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various

... partial illustration of this, he caused a little globe of oil, suspended in an aqueous liquid of nearly its own specific gravity, to rotate, and as it rotated it was seen, by means of its magnified image upon the screen, to throw off from its outer circumference rings and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... name the exquisite pathos of the contradiction given to such a speech by such a speaker; I only know that the next instant I heard myself throw off with homely force: "Stuff and nonsense!" But the next after that I must have sounded stern ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... here," I said. "We'll run up on him, throw off a lot of slack line, then cut it and tie it to ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... weighed anchor and sailed during the night. When Velasquez discovered that his plans had been check-mated he concealed his indignation, but at the same time, he made every arrangement to stop the man who could thus throw off all dependence upon him with such consummate coolness. Cortes anchored at Macaca, to complete his stores, and found many of those who had accompanied Grijalva now hasten to serve under his banner: Pedro de Alvarado and his brothers, Christoval de Olid, Alonzo de Avila, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... urged him to slow up; he had the bit in his teeth and no human hand could pull down his head; but into the blind love, blind terror, blind rage which makes up the consciousness of a horse entered a force which he had never known before. He realized suddenly that it was folly to attempt to throw off this clinging burden. He might as well try to jump out of his skin. His racing stride shortened to a halting gallop, this to a sharp trot, and in a moment more he was turned and headed back for Morgan's place. The black, who had followed, ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand



Words linked to "Throw off" :   escape, slough, exuviate, withdraw, abscise, remove, autotomise, exfoliate, moult, escape from, get away, break loose, molt, take, autotomize, take away



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com