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Restive   Listen
adjective
Restive  adj.  
1.
Unwilling to go on; obstinate in refusing to move forward; stubborn; drawing back. "Restive or resty, drawing back, instead of going forward, as some horses do." "The people remarked with awe and wonder that the beasts which were to drag him (Abraham Holmes) to the gallows became restive, and went back."
2.
Inactive; sluggish. (Obs.)
3.
Impatient under coercion, chastisement, or opposition; refractory.
4.
Uneasy; restless; averse to standing still; fidgeting about; applied especially to horses.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Restive" Quotes from Famous Books



... D.C., April 17, 1892. Birth and early childhood up to four years of age were normal. At that time he was rather seriously bitten by a large St. Bernard dog, following which he was ill for about two months. He was rather restive under this enforced confinement and one day in attempting to escape from the house he fell from a second story window. His relatives attribute all his difficulties to these two accidents, for it was soon after that his stealing tendencies became manifest. The patient ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... and I changed the saddles, and in a few seconds Margaret was on Sultan. I asked him in vain to take the sorrel and leave the mare to me, for she was getting restive, and the Colonel was not quite so able as I was with a strange horse. I insisted, however, in taking off my coat and wrapping it about the mare's head, and, being thus blanketed, she gave us no further trouble. By the Colonel's orders, Margaret, on Sultan, took her place between us, heading ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... circumstances, no man could do justice to any subject. At least, when speaking not before a tribunal of justice, but before the people in council assembled—that is, in effect, on his greatest stage of all—Demosthenes (however bold at times, and restive in a matter which he held to be paramount) was required to bend, and did bend, to the local genius of democracy, reinforced by a most mercurial temperament. The very air of Attica, combined with great political power, kept its natives in a state of habitual intoxication; and ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... a very angry and irritable mood, for the horse was restive and smelt his stable, and wished to break away from me. And all angry and irritable as I was, I turned around to see if this man were coming to relieve me; but I saw him laughing and joking with the people inside; and they were all looking my ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... shuttered windows of the Palacio. Here in the Zocalo, in the central plaza, the sometime first lady of Her Imperial Majesty's household sat in her barouche, and opposite her a pretty girl, and she was talking with an officer of Chasseurs d'Afrique whose horse was restive, and all the while there was the rumbling of wheels, the tread of feet, and the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can it be; and they that are in the flesh cannot please God." But in repentance the soul changes its attitude. It no longer refuses the yoke of God's will, like a restive heifer, but yields to it, or is willing to yield. There is a compunction, a sense of the hollowness of all created things, a relenting, a wistful yearning after the true life, and ultimately a turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. The habits ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... The serious part of the speech—made to convince the financial people, who are restive about Mexico, that we do not mean to forbid legitimate investments in Central America—has had a good effect here. I have received the thanks of ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... was eager to learn, and keenly attended to his duties as the provider of the lodge; but at length he grew weary of their tranquil life, and began to have a desire to show himself among men. He became restive in their retirement, and was seized with a longing to ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... sullenly that they had been in the service of old Mr. Pickle, and now that he was dead, thought themselves bound to obey nobody but their lady, and her son Mr. Gamaliel. Our hero ordered them to decamp without further preparation, and as they continued restive, they were kicked out of doors by Hatchway. Young Gamaliel flew to the assistance of his adherents, and discharged a pistol at his brother, who luckily escaped the shot and turned him out into the court-yard, to the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... my surprise, the creature had an ism of his own, to which he was loyal; and he left me to go alone to the Cathedral—or perhaps not to go at all—and stole off down a deserted alley to some Bethel or Ebenezer of the proper shade. When we met again at lunch, I rallied him, and he grew restive. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... looked at her—not, however, forgetting Keith, who was growing restive. Beatrice's cheeks were very pink, and her eyes were bright and big and earnest. He could not look into them without letting some of the sternness ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... As restive they turn, how sore they feel, And cross, and sleepy, and full of spleen, And curse the war. "Fools, North and South" Said one right out. "O for a bed! O now to drop in this woodland green" He drops as the syllables leave his mouth— ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville

... had been growing more and more restive. His brow had flushed; his moustache had begun to twitch. And now he squared his shoulders and faced his ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... has passed within I replace my uplifted hat and seek an egress through the crowd, past the restive four-in-hand and down the street which leads to Wooded Island, in pursuit of the little brunette, who had vanished in that direction. And now there seemed a breaking up of the crowd, strains of music could be heard in the distance, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... holy see. He is a gouty old fellow, of some learning, residing in an old hall, near the great western seaport, and is one of the very few amongst the English Catholics possessing a grain of sense. I think you could help us to govern him, for he is not unfrequently disposed to be restive, asks us strange questions—occasionally threatens us with his crutch; and behaves so that we are often afraid that we shall lose him, or, rather, his property, which he has bequeathed to us, and which is enormous. I am sure that you ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... begun and the enemy has resorted to the use of a new weapon—poison gas. He had already poisoned wells in South West Africa, but this is an uglier outcome of the harnessing of science to the Powers of Darkness. Italy grows restive in spite of the blandishments of Prince Buelow, and as the month closes we hear of the landing of the Allies in Gallipoli, just two months after the unsupported naval attempt to force the Dardanelles. British and Australian ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... carriage and discharging her men-servants and selling her horses, and living again the life of a retired gentlewoman. Yet all these changes had come to pass, and Sibylla's inward spirit turned restive. She had everything that any reasonable mind could possibly desire, every comfort; but quiet comfort and Sibylla's taste did not accord. Her husband was out a great deal at Verner's Pride and on the estate. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... the book on December 15th, and M. de Balzac began it on November 17th. M. de Balzac and the Figaro both have the strange habit of keeping their word. The printing-office was ready, and stamping its foot like a restive charger. ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... harness mankind to abstract principles—liberty, justice or equality—and to deduce institutions from these high-sounding words. It did not succeed because human nature was contrary and restive. The new effort proposes to fit creeds and institutions to the wants of men, to satisfy their impulses as fully ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... purpose over a wide area and in a great number of citizens, could not but affect party allegiance and the conduct of party leaders. Simultaneously with its development the legislatures of the Northwest—Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa—became restive under existing conditions, and assumed an attitude which became characteristic of the Grange,—one of hostility to railroads and their management. With the approval of the people, these States passed, between 1871 and 1874, a series of regulative acts respecting the railways, ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... although a common case To find our children running restive—they In whom our brightest days we would retrace, Our little selves re-formed in finer clay, Just as old age is creeping on apace, And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day, They kindly leave ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... keeping guard over her, while Lucy's children, crowding near, were shouting themselves hoarse. Every one was on hand. Close by, the cobbler, having somewhere picked up a shoe to mend, waved it frantically by its leather string. Joyce's own carriage, with Gilbert proudly controlling the restive horses, was drawn up beside the platform, and on its seat, reckless of danger, stood Camille waving the dust-cloth in utter forgetfulness of what she had in her hand. In close proximity stood Dorette, and by Dr. Browne's side, in his shambling old buggy, sat ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... the State now grew restive and began to agitate for organization for the coming campaign. During 1910 and 1911 Washington and California had enfranchised their women and Oregon remained the only "black" State on the Pacific Coast. This was a matter of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... and the growing freedom of her institutions, are leading her population to think, and to express their thoughts. The governments of the eastern continent, whatever may be their form, are daily becoming more and more sensitive to public opinion. The people already restive under their burdens, would soon discover that those burdens would be greatly diminished by the adoption of the American policy. Before long, some state would commence the experiment on a small scale, and its example would be followed by others. In time these conventions would give way to ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... "The women, restive 'neath our rule, Would learn to scorn our name, And from her deed to us would come ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper

... Bishop had, of a sudden, grown restive under the Knight's gratitude; or as if some train of thought had awakened within him, to which he did not choose to give expression, and which must be beaten back before ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... by housing conditions are wasteful of time, energy, and money, and the people are restive, they know not why. As was said earlier, shelter was found by early students of social conditions to be most in need of ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards

... men who were waiting for Dixon's return became a little restive, as the minutes dragged along and he did not appear. Even those ready means of beguiling time common to men of their stamp—the telling of highly-seasoned and apropos stories interspersed with frequent libations, began to pall. Some of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... throw all the work on the recruits. This was not effected without suspicion; but he contrived to allay it, by giving his own beasts sundry punches in the sides, so adroitly bestowed as to render them too restive to work. By way of triumph, each poke was accompanied by a knowing leer at Francois, all whose sympathies, a tribute to his extraction, I have had frequent opportunities of observing, to my cost, were ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... on his first leave in London, when he found that Myra was growing less restive under his absence, when he felt proud to think that she was learning the lesson of sacrifice and how to bear up under it. He saw his second Channel crossing with a flesh wound in his thigh, when there seemed to his hyper-sensitive mind a faint perfunctoriness in her greeting. It was on ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... Everybody had become silent. Barililand had produced the question on which Lord Hove was supposed to be restive. Disney laughed and looked at his wife. She rose from the table. Mr Disney had either learnt what he wanted or had finished amusing himself. Mina did not know which; no more, oddly enough, did ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... had to contend with the suspicions of the Belgian nobles, headed by Guillaume de Croy, Lord of Chievres, whom Philip had appointed governor on leaving the country. The people of Ghent again became restive, while, owing to the intrigues of Louis XII, Robert de la Marck and the Duke of Gelder caused serious trouble in Luxemburg and in the North. The States General, on their side, clamoured for peace. While ordering the tax to be levied for war, in spite of the opposition of the States, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... fall without a drop of water. A first hail was somewhat larger than pellets from a popgun, and when these struck me, they hurt considerably. Little by little it increased in size, until the stones might be compared to balls from a crossbow. My horse became restive with fright; so I wheeled round, and returned at a gallop to where I found my comrades taking refuge in a fir-wood. The hail now grew to the size of big lemons. I began to sing a Miserere; and while I was devoutly uttering this psalm to God, there fell a stone so huge ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... the depot she observed an immense crowd of people gathered together, among which the red coats of the firemen were conspicuous. A fight was evidently in progress, and as the horses began to grow restive she begged of the driver to let her alight, saying she could easily walk the remainder of the way. Scarcely, however, was she on terra-firma when the yelling crowd made a precipitate rush towards her, and in ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... devotion to their work, but not as much in any one day. That is, the older men were less quick, but more steady and, therefore, in the end accomplished as much. In some kinds of labor the older men did better than the younger because usually more patient of detail and less restive in monotonous toil. In the larger enterprises older men are proverbially less speculative, more conservative, less venturesome than the young. American business would, perhaps, not suffer if a larger admixture of these qualities were found in ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... came to apply this brisk statement of the case practically, we found it by no means easy of execution. El Sabio grew restive as we arranged the slings of rope about his body, evidently remembering, fearfully, the strange journey that he had made in the air when we had rigged him in a like manner in order to trice him up to where the stair began; and he grew yet more restive as we fastened the rope slings to the end ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... The restive, irritable beast sustained his reputation by nipping angrily at Mr. Farnshaw as he dodged under the straps with which the horses were tied to the reach ahead. To have passed in front of this team unencumbered and alone when the power was in motion would have been foolhardy; ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... political unity. Here the diverse conditions of the littoral and the wall of the great central terrace of the country have emphasized that tendency to defection that belongs to every periphery, and therefore necessitated a strong centralized government to consolidate the restive maritime provinces with their diverse Galician, Basque, Catalonian, and Andalusian folk into one nation with the Castilians of ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... ideas in deep and restive disgust. He urged instant and copious bloodshed. His big brother's gang could "let daylight into the dude" with enjoyment and despatch. They would watch him ceaselessly and they would ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... from a scrub oak he approached the snake cautiously while the rest sat in their saddles silently anxious, and Charley edged his restive pony a little ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... people continued restive. The King's departure had been fixed for noon; but in face of the popular unwillingness to let him go, the departure seemed impossible. It became evident that the methods of persuasion which sufficed for the Premier did not suffice for the people. Something ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... they took, sir, is the same that runs down the valley afore our very eyes. An' 'pon the brow o't, just when it comes in sight, the off horse turned restive. In a minute 'twas as much as the post-boy could ha' done to hold 'en. But he didn' try. Instead, he fell to floggin' harder, workin' his arm up an' ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... intelligence, started down the aisle towards young Willard; but that restive youth perceiving the movement, made rapid time for the door, and dashed down-stairs closely pursued by the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... commercial travelers, and the more fragile, but not less bulky, saratogas, doubtless the property of the ladies who sat patiently in the omnibus. Another vehicle which had just arrived was backing up to the curb, and the irate driver used language suitable to the occasion; for the two restive horses were not behaving exactly in the ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... understand his attitude towards her in the very least. In the first instance he had yielded with a fairly good grace to Kitty's advice regarding the date of the wedding, but within a few days he had suddenly become restive and dissatisfied. Had Nan known it, an apparently careless remark of Isobel Carson's had ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... himself much drawn toward Seppi, from whom he had received anything but a very friendly welcome when they first met; the drover had, moreover, a rough and uncultivated manner, which was somewhat repulsive. His treatment of the animals was unduly harsh when any of them became restive and obstinate, and he seemed angry when Walter checked his cruel behavior, and pointed out to him that the dumb animals intrusted to his care should be treated with kindness and patience. But by degrees the young men became more reconciled to each other; and as Walter accustomed himself to the ungainly ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... accepted this development philosophically for the opening two or three weeks, realizing that the moment when the Expeditionary Force was being spirited over to France was no time for visitors in the war zone. But after that the Fourth Estate became decidedly restive. Enterprising reporters proceeded to the theatre of war without permission, while experienced journalists, deluded by past promises, remained patiently behind hoping for the best. The old hounds, in fact, were ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... loafed his mornings away at his club, and he lunched there, leaving his mother to lunch alone, and was dreamily preoccupied in the evenings which he spent at home, sitting at his desk, with the paper before him, unable to coax the thoughts from his brain to its alluring blank, but restive under any attempts of hers ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... gangways of the vans whose gray trunks and black mouths one sees by the dancing and smoking flame of torches, artillerymen are leading horses. There are appeals and shouts, a frantic trampling of conflict, and the angry kicking of some restive animal—insulted by its guide—against the panels of the van ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... my mother of the 8th I forgot—no, I had not time to say that we had a restive mare at Dunshaughlin, who paid me for all I ever wrote about Irish posting, and put me in the most horrible and reasonable apprehension that she would have broken my aunt's carriage to pieces against ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... husband serves no one himself (which is not often the case, however); so that you would often suppose them relations—the Servente making the figure of one adopted into the family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive and elope, or divide, or make a scene: but this is at starting, generally, when they know no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or some such anomaly,—and is ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... grew restive, and the people at the North nervous. Thomas was ordered to fight, Logan was dispatched to relieve him if he did not, and Grant himself started West to take command. Thomas was too good a soldier to be forced to offer battle, until he was sure of victory. He knew that time ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... the keepers at the Antibes lighthouse had been an auxiliary soldier in the fort of Sainte-Marguerite during the early years of the war. He told us that some of the trapped tourists were very restive, but that most of the German civilians who were residents of the Riviera were far from being discontented with their lot. Better a prison on the Ile Sainte-Marguerite than exile from the Riviera! This was better taste and wiser philosophy than we expected of Germans. One could ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... fleeced. Towards the end of 1788 we begin to detect in the correspondence of the intendants and military commandants the dull universal muttering of coming wrath. Men's characters seem to change; they become suspicious and restive.—And just at this moment, the Government, dropping the reins, calls upon them to direct themselves.[1111]. In the month of November 1787, the King declared that he would convoke the States-General. On the 5th of July 1788, he calls ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... are some of their descendants, and are a portion of the army of the Sultan of Morocco, here for the purpose of receiving instruction in gunnery. Though they have such proud looks they are extremely bashful and restive under our gaze, constantly shifting their position to escape our scrutiny; as for making a sketch of one, that is nearly impossible, for immediately he sees you put your pencil to paper he vanishes in the crowd, as though he had detected you ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... President commands, and commands above all, so some of his shrewdest observers tell me, when he is thrown suddenly on his own resources, has no scrap of paper to help him, and must speak as Nature and the Fates bid him. It is said that the irreverent American Army, made a little restive during the last months of the year by the number of Presidential utterances it was expected to read, and impatient to get to the Rhine, was settling down in the weeks before the Armistice, with a half-sulky ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... uncertain voyage, I had time not only to coax into quietness my restive horse, but also to conclude that it would never do to dismiss our Charon on the other bank, as half an hour might put on our track a squad of cavalry, who, in our ignorance of the roads and country, would soon return us to Rebeldom ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... man of the Highland Company, the rear company of the battalion. He gave the order to halt. He then asked me, "Where?" I pointed out to him where I saw the men and the horses. He had a field-glass which he then used. He tried to use it on horseback, but his horse was so restive that he could not use the glass. He then dismounted by my side. At this moment Major Gillmor came up. I directed him to the proper point to see them. Both Col. Booker and Major Gillmor seemed convinced that all was not right in the bush. The leading company of the column was then sent ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... French artillery-fire To the right still renders regiments restive there That have to stand. The long exposure ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... the fatal spot. Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the gruesome spectacle before him, with ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... right, sir; right, For twenty crowns! So there's my rapier up! You've done me a good turn against my will; Which, like a wayward child, whose pet is off, That made him restive under wholesome check, I now right humbly own, and ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles

... Leblanc was glad of the opportunity of halting to repair some of the carts with the ever serviceable "Shaganappi," a large supply of which was carried for the purpose, as also to mend the harness and other gear which had been broken by the restive movements of the horses during ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston

... A huge receptacle of gloom and damp. There savage wolves and beasts of such a stamp Might lodge secure and plan most daring deeds. Gloomy the prospect, though the solar Lamp Was full two hours from setting, and the steeds Restive become and ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... made, a call, and entered his name on her majesty's visiting book. He then rode slowly up Constitution Hill. When he arrived nearly opposite the wicket gate leading to the Green Park, his horse suddenly became restive. The baronet was a bad horseman, and he soon lost all control of the animal, which at last threw him over its head. Several gentlemen rendered assistance immediately, and among them two medical men. Mrs. Lucas, of Bryanstone ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the great vault above me, and looked out upon the restive waters, and as I turned I saw a shadowy Mrs. Purblind sitting beside me on the beach, and questioning with sad eyes and heart, the stars ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... at least for not laundering him in public. Though not good at showing admiration, he admitted that she was behaving extremely well, with all her children at home gaping like young birds for news of their father—Imogen just on the point of coming out, and Val very restive about the whole thing. He felt that Val was the real heart of the matter to Winifred, who certainly loved him beyond her other children. The boy could spoke the wheel of this divorce yet if he set his mind to it. And Soames was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... feel restive under this concession in your favor," said I, putting on a serious manner, "I would suggest independence as ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... soothe my restive charger, which whinnied after me impatiently as I went away again, just as if the poor brute felt disappointed because I had not mounted ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... same time the uproar was deafening. The sweep of the propellers created back draughts that swept off the spectators' hats and gave the men who were holding on to the struggling machines all they could do to keep them from getting away. They were like so many restive race-horses breathing blue flames ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... been doubted in England; I was therefore fortunate in being present when one (Desmodus d'orbignyi, Wat.) was actually caught on a horse's back. We were bivouacking late one evening near Coquimbo, in Chile, when my servant, noticing that one of the horses was very restive, went to see what was the matter, and fancying he could distinguish something, suddenly put his hand on the beast's withers, and secured the vampire. In the morning the spot where the bite had been ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... the beasts were on board. The cages had been hoisted by the crane, and the horses were following; one of them grew restive, and slipped from the grasp of the man in charge of it. It would have made a bolt for it, but Dene, who happened to be standing quite close, caught hold of the bridle. As he did so, the hands waved ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... made while Gurth was buckling on the Knight's heels a pair of large gilded spurs, capable of convincing any restive horse that his best safety lay in being conformable to the will of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... formidable weapon than a pine branch stripped of its needles. But the crux of the situation lay in the fact that, between the fourth and fifth buffaloes an Englishwoman, in a brown habit, mounted on a restive chestnut pony, was in imminent danger of slipping off the road to certain death among the rocks and boulders below. For the chestnut had succeeded in wrenching his hindquarters outward, his heels were already over the edge, and his rider, leaning well forward, was applying whip and ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... don't like that sort of thing, you know. Geraldine's a very fine woman, but she can't twist a man round her fingers as you can, Laura. Why don't you speak to George Fairfax, and hurry on the marriage somehow? The sooner the business is settled the better, with such a restive couple as these two; uncommonly hard to drive in double harness—the mare inclined to jib, and the other with a tendency to shy. You're such a manager, Laura, you'd make matters ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... its spirits. It is a nomad, a child of nature. It takes no thought for the morrow, as our modern prophets teach us to do. I remember well an excellent bum (I mean excellently conforming to type), one Bain, who, growing restive under restraint, lost a position which he happened to have. I asked him what he was going to do now. There was something sublime about that being. He had faith that the Lord would provide. His simple reply was: "Well, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... youth joyfully took his place and grasped the coveted reins, but no sooner did the fiery coursers of the sun feel the inexperienced hand which attempted to guide them, than they became restive and unmanageable. Wildly they rushed out of their accustomed track, now soaring so high as to threaten the heavens with destruction, now descending so low as nearly to set the earth on fire. At last the unfortunate ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... a very Machiavel, Chiffinch," said his friend. "But how if the youth proved restive?—I have heard these Peak men have hot heads and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... unwilling; not in the vein, loth, loath, shy of, disinclined, indisposed, averse, reluctant, not content; adverse &c. (opposed) 708; laggard, backward, remiss, slack, slow to; indifferent &c. 866; scrupulous; squeamish &c. (fastidious) 868; repugnant &c. (dislike) 867; restiff|, restive; demurring &c. v.; unconsenting &c. (refusing) 764; involuntary &c. 601. Adv. unwillingly &c. adj.; grudgingly, with a heavy heart; with a bad, with an ill grace; against one's wishes, against one's will, against the grain, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... The foal grew restive. Gruberwaldl, who had come with them in order to hold it, was not strong enough, and one of the boatmen was obliged to go to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... just come back, and as I am not very sleepy I shall write a bit. It was pouring rain at eight o'clock, so a trap was sent for us, and a note asking us not to whip the horses too hard. I thought they must be very restive animals, but it turned out to be a joke. There were no horses in the ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... their donkeys, Mrs. Peterkin attempted to learn something from Mr. Peterkin about the other little boys. But his donkey proved restive: now it bore him on in swift flight from Mrs. Peterkin; now it would linger behind. His words were jerked out only at intervals. All that could be said was that they were separated; the little boys wanted to go to Vesuvius, but Mr. Peterkin felt they ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale

... Men and women no longer exchange dull speeches; they converse with easy spontaneity and delight us by the beauty of their language. A poet may be a dramatist at last without feeling that his imagination must be held back like a restive horse lest the decorum of human ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... is as restive as a bull-moose in black-fly season. He's doing his work on the land, as about every ranch-owner has to, whether he's happily married or not, but he's doing it without any undue impression of its epical importance. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... hers, and it was only the quick change in her expression, and the restive start of her horse, that made him swerve suddenly aside and glance at the blazed pine they were passing. Leaning against the tree, with her arms resting on the bars, and her body as still as if it were chiselled out of stone, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... be absolutely destroyed, notwithstanding its great artistic beauty, and then they were to return to the city in triumph. As they drew near to the building two or three shots were fired from it, and one soldier was wounded in the arm. The usual cursing began, and the men were restive to get at the Porsslanese garrison. Sam ordered the infantry to fire a volley, and then, as the return fire was feeble, he ordered the squadron of cavalry to charge, leading it himself. The natives turned and fled as soon as they saw them coming, and the cavalry, skirting the enclosure ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... an able commander in battle; but his propensity seemed to be to remain in quarters, and thence to present extravagant exactions, and to conduct endless disputes with the President and the general-in-chief. He seemed like a restive horse, the more he was whipped and spurred the more immovably he retained his balking attitude. Mr. Lincoln was sorely tried by this obstinacy, and probably had been pushed nearly to the limits of his patience, when at last Rosecrans ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... else that one of our ships has sunk or captured the Huascar; nothing less would, I imagine, have roused them to such a pitch of excitement. We Chilians are maintaining a ridiculously small army of occupation here; far too small for the purpose, in my opinion; and if the Bolivians were to turn restive, as they seem very much inclined to do, we should have rather a bad time of it, I am afraid. However, we are not far away from the house where this old Inca witch-woman, or whatever she calls herself, lives. It used to be in one of the small hovels on ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... cards, he shot his nose off for a bet. With this unenviable reputation, and at the urgent solicitations of his agent, after years of absence he returned to his ancestral home. We met as of old—it was Paul and Henry—and though still the same restive, hot-headed spirit as he had ever been, he yet always listened patiently to what I said, and I could, in a manner, control him. He paid very little attention to his property, however, and when he did go to the city to consult with ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... for independence, only makes our foreign critics more apprehensive of its effects. It is a dangerous power to them, because, founded in the consent of the people, there is no limit to its possible extension, except in the madness or guilt of that portion of the people who are restive under the restraints of justice and impatient under the rule ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... Nationalists had already become restive, for, while not openly repudiating Home Rule as an ultimate solution, several of the friends and adherents of Lord Rosebery among the leaders of the Liberal Party had proclaimed that they would not only not support, but would ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... not dissipated, but was fond of pranks, and so restive under his father's positive hand that he twice ran away to distant seaports, and thus incurred a remarkable amount of intuitive gossip, such as belongs to all old settled suburban societies. This occasional firmness of character in the ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... flattering way of studying her poses, remarking on the lines of her gowns and her hats. He was constantly discovering interesting things about her that she had not known before. But sometimes, as now, she was restive ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... conjuring performance at a cafe in the town, and some of us desert the ladies and enter its chaos of mirrors and tobacco smoke. The prestidigitator, a nervous, restive Frenchman with an astonishing rapidity of tongue, stands near the centre of the room and juggles and struggles with hats and rings and eggs and his own overmastering fluency. Now he will dart across the floor ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... the management to the last ounce, or peradventure because they've planned a series of cheap visits at home for our beautiful summer and one or two of the Idle Rich have remembered to be less idle than they were last year, and more restive. ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... which was about two hundred yards distant, while on all sides there were other boats setting us the example, or following in our wake; in front of us there was a heavy cart backed as far out into the sea as she would stand, with the horses turned restive and jibbing, for there was a heavy load behind them, and the more the driver lashed them, the more the brutes backed out in the shallow water, while every moment the wheels kept sinking farther into ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn

... his position on his own right wing. The legions were growing restive, and there was no longer cause for delay. The officers were shouting the battle-cry down the lines. The Imperator nodded to his trumpeter, and a single sharp, long peal cut the air. The note was drowned in the rush of twenty thousand feet, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... in prison became restive, and on October 31, 1776, presented a memorial, addressed to the North Carolina members of the Continental Congress, which at once met with the approval ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... so determined that they entirely intercepted our line of march, especially at the broken bridges, and from this moment nothing but confusion and dismay prevailed among our troops. It rained so heavily that some of the horses became restive and plunged into the water with their riders; and to add to our distress our portable bridge was broken down at this first gap, and it was no longer serviceable. The enemy attacked us with redoubled fury, and as our soldiers made a brave resistance, the aperture became soon choked ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... all scorned Waukegan, which was the first sizable town beyond the Station. Chicago was their goal. They were like a horde of play-hungry devils after their confinement. Six weeks of restricted freedom, six weeks of stored-up energy made them restive as colts. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... Prince. Comrade B. and I do not get on well together. Purely for his own good, I drew him aside yesterday and explained to him at great length the frightfulness of walking across the bowling-screen. He seemed restive, but I was firm. We parted rather with the Distant Stare than the Friendly Smile. But I shall persevere. In many ways the casual observer would say that he was hopeless. He is a poor performer at Bridge, as I ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... generous measure of local self-government, been promptly redeemed. But European complications, with serious troubles on the Indian frontier, caused interminable delay in the maturing of this scheme; and as the disappointed Boers grew restive, a "Hold your Jaw" Act was passed, making it a penal offence for any Transvaaler even to discuss such questions. In our simplicity we sit upon the safety valve and then wonder why the boiler bursts. To the "Hold your Jaw" policy the Boer reply was an appeal to arms; and at Majuba in the ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... in an increasing hurry of spirits, gets his hair down as well as he can—which is not very well; for, after these glutinous applications it is restive, and has a surface on it somewhat in the nature of pastry—and gets to the club by the appointed time. At the club he promptly secures a large window, writing materials, and all the newspapers, and establishes himself; immoveable, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... from the base of the Tooth he dismounted, tying the restive roan to a bush to prevent him from wandering around, nibbling investigatingly at weeds, bushes, all the things that interest ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... features of maleness. In the many books about women it is, naturally, their femaleness that has been studied and enlarged upon. And though women, after thousands of years of such discussion, have become a little restive under the constant use of the word female: men, as rational beings, should not object to an analogous study—at least not for some time—a few centuries ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... rather warmly, for he felt rather restive at this part of Harrington's discourse, "it is absurd to compare such sovereign acts of inexplicable will on the part of God with his command to a being so constituted as man ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... and one of Isaaco's attendants in front, Lieutenant Martyn in the centre, and Mr. Anderson and Park bringing up the rear. But their progress was slow, for some of the asses were overloaded, and others were restive and threw off their burdens, so that they had soon to purchase an additional number. On the 10th May they arrived at Fatteconda, where the son of Park's friend, the former king of Wooli, met him, from whom he learnt that his journey was looked upon with great jealousy by some of the ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... park had been reached. The groom swung himself down and ran forward, but confused by the growing darkness and the thick atmosphere he fumbled for a time before finding the heavy latch. The horses became somewhat restive, snorting and fidgeting. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... spot and perform that rite. Neither tiredness, weakness, haste, rough ground, nor rain would induce him to confirm from the saddle. A young bishop afterwards, with no possible excuse, would order the frightened children up among restive horses. They came weeping and whipped by insolent attendants at no small risk—but his lordship cared nothing for their woe and danger. Not so dear Father Hugh. He took the babes gently and in due order, and if he caught any lay assistants troubling them would reproach ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... RESTIVE. Some of the dictionaries, Richard Grant White, and some other writers, contend that this word, when properly used, means unwilling to go, standing still stubbornly, obstinate, stubborn, and nothing else. In combating ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... silver chiding; it is better than my best hound's bay! This adventure is worth a month's watching. What! will you not come?—restive—shrieks too!—Francesco, Pietro, ye are the gentlest of the band. Wrap her veil around her,—muffle this music;—so! bear her before me to the palace, and tomorrow, sweet one, thou shalt go home with a basket of florins which thou mayest say ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... their love-songs—old and sad and free—and gazed into the gathering opalescent mists. Their songs seemed to overflow from their hearts, and were sung to the youths who stood around them like sombre, restive shadows, ogling and lustful, like the ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... of the passers-by gathered round, and a more efficacious correction than mine was administered to the restive horse, who rose in a vile ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... of science had drawn in his restive horse, and had turned with a keen, freshened interest toward the witch-face. It was with a look of smiling expectancy that he encountered the aspect of snarling mockery, half visible or half imaginary, of that grim human similitude. The mountaineer's brilliant dark eyes dwelt ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... into the belief that they have it. You can make them proud for a day by sending them on some responsible errand. If you will not place care upon them, they will make it for themselves. You shall see a whole family of dolls stricken down simultaneously with malignant measles, or a restive horse evoked from a passive parlor-chair. They are a great deal more eager to assume care, than you are to throw it off. To be sure, they may be quite as eager to be rid of it after a while; but while this does not prove that care is delightful, it certainly ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... you'll pass among The Great Unwashed,—then thumbed and sped, Be fretted of slow moths, unread, Or to Ilerda you'll be sent, Or Utica, for banishment! And I, whose counsel you disdain, At that your lot shall laugh amain, Wryly, as he who, like a fool, Thrust o'er the cliff his restive mule. Nay! there is worse behind. In age They e'en may take your babbling page In some remotest "slum" to teach Mere boys their rudiments ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... reindeer, though he states that the latter are more fleet, when put to their full speed. They are not docile however. When the snows are deep, and the roads difficult, if the reindeer be pressed to exert himself he becomes restive and stubborn, and neither beating nor coaxing will move him. He will lie down and remain in one spot for several hours, until hunger presses him forward; and if at the second attempt he is again embarrassed, he will lie down and perish in the snow for want of food. Reindeer consequently require ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... in the life of nearly every boy who attends Sunday school when, no matter how faithful to it he may have been, he finds gradually stealing in upon him the feeling that he is growing too old for it, and he becomes restive under its restraints. He sees other boys of the same age going off for a pleasant walk, or otherwise spending the afternoon as they please, and he envies them their freedom. He thinks himself already sufficiently familiar with Bible truth for all practical purposes, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... do," she said, as they got into the road; but Jacob squirmed away from her; and the wind rising, she took out her bonnet-pin, looked at the sea, and stuck it in afresh. The wind was rising. The waves showed that uneasiness, like something alive, restive, expecting the whip, of waves before a storm. The fishing-boats were leaning to the water's brim. A pale yellow light shot across the purple sea; and shut. The lighthouse was lit. "Come along," said Betty Flanders. The sun blazed in their faces and gilded the great blackberries ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... Even Winter became restive under this style of address. Brett caught his eye, and moved by common impulse, they lessened the whisky-mark ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... the distant ultra-marine, for which you journeyed to Brussels, worthless? Are you unable to grind a new white? Is the oil bad, or the brushes restive?" ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac

... Noticing General D'Hubert getting restive and trying to place a word, the old emigre raised his hand, and added with dignity, "I've been a soldier, too. I would never dare suggest a doubtful step to the man whose name my niece is to bear. I tell you that entre galants hommes an affair can ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... nor at any other time," he said sturdily. "Gadzooks! have not his Majesty's servants enough on hand without employing their time in pinking one another? Here are the Chickahominies restive, and those plaguy Ricahecrians amongst us, and the Nansemond Independents prophesying the end of the world, and the witches' trial coming on, and the Quakers to be routed out, and on top of it all this ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... to America,—so great that the population of Ireland declined from eight and a half to four and a half millions. The Irish Catholics, however, were comparatively quiet during the administration of Mr. Canning, whose liberal tendencies had given them hope; but on his death they became more restive. The coalition ministry under Lord Goderich was much embarrassed how to act, or was too feeble to act with vigor,—not for want of individual abilities, but by reason of dissensions among the ministers. It lasted only a short ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... stocks for the feet, and chains to stretch across, in case of need, and stop a mob. In the suburbs were oak cages for nocturnal offenders. At the church doors might now and then be seen women enveloped in sheets, doing penance for their evil deeds. A bridle, something like a bit for a restive horse, was in use for the curbing of scolds; but this was a later invention than the cucking-stool, or ducking-stool. There is an old print of one of these machines standing on the Thames' bank: ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... regarding the reign of Ramses II. In transforming the land of Goshen into a cultivated, agricultural region the nomadic Hebrews were naturally put to task work by the strong-handed ruler of Egypt. That the Hebrews were restive under this tyranny was natural, inevitable. Apparently their rebellious attitude also increased the burden which was placed upon them. The memory of the crushing Hyksos invasion, which meant the rule of Egypt by nomadic invaders from Asia, was still fresh ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks

... threw off the last slumbrous mood of autumn, as a sleeper starts from a dream. A fortnight was gone, and still no message came from the absent leader. One shore was restive, uneasy; the other confident, mocking. Between the two, Rome Stetson waited his chance at ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.

... taught them rather to be industrious, orderly, and loyal, and thus show that they were fit for liberty. If a slave disobeyed his master they punished him. They acted wisely. If the Brethren had preached emancipation they would simply have made their converts restive; and these converts, by rebelling, would only have cut their own throats. Again and again, in Jamaica and Antigua, the negroes rose in revolt; and again and again the Governors noticed that the Moravian converts took ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... getting—restive. Caterham keeps harping on what may happen if it gets loose again. I say over and over again, it won't, and it can't. But—there ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... General Harrington had not forbidden them to meet as of old, and that his prohibition of speech could not extend to the mother, who had already been to some extent confided in. In short, Ralph was young, ardent, and restive of trouble, so, after a brief battle with himself, he resolved that the General had meant nothing by his prohibition, but to prevent premature gossip in ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... ice pressure, of how the Fram rose to the occasion as she was built to do, the story has still, after twenty-eight years, the thrill of novelty. She drifted over the eightieth degree on February 2, 1894. During the first winter Nansen was already getting restive: the drift was so slow, and sometimes it was backwards: it was not until the second autumn that the eighty-second degree arrived. So he decided that he would make an attempt to penetrate northwards by sledging during the following spring. As Nansen has told me, he felt that the ship ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... friends with the strangers; but when more Frenchmen and still more Frenchmen crossed the narrow channel, until they overran the Tortuga and turned it into one great curing house for the beef which they shot upon the neighboring island, the Spaniards grew restive over the matter, just as they had done upon ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... negociation negotiation noviciate novitiate ouse ooze opake opaque paroxism paroxysm partizan partisan patronize patronise phrenzy phrensy pinchers pincers plow plough poney pony potatoe potato quere query recognize recognise reindeer raindeer reinforce re-enforce restive restiff ribbon riband rince rinse sadler saddler sallad salad sceptic skeptic sceptical skeptical scepticism skepticism segar cigar seignor seignior serjeant sergeant shoar shore soothe sooth staunch stanch streight straight suitor suiter sythe scythe tatler ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... advance from the city. As they passed along the whole camp was a scene of hurry and consternation—some hastening to their posts at the call of drum and trumpet; some attempting to save rich effects and glittering armor from the tents; others dragging along terrified and restive horses. ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... washing room into the first hot room. Without turning round, he may be led into the second hot room and thence into the washing room again. In the hot rooms, which are heated by a convoluted stove, are stocks, wherein, if restive, the animal can be secured. A similar arrangement is made in the washing room, where, after undergoing the sweating process, the horse is groomed down, an operation that should be performed in part with an iron strigil, much after the pattern of ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

... not invariably fools in their sensitiveness. They serve you on the field of Mars, and on other fields to which the world has given glory. These execrate him as the full-grown Golden Calf of heathenish worship. And they are so restive because they are so patriotic. Think a little upon the ideas of unpatriotic Celts regarding him. You have heard them. You tell us they are you: accurately, they affirm, succinctly they see you in his crescent outlines, tame ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... therefore, devoutly hoped that Tyrrel's restive disposition might continue, to prevent the decision of the bet, while, at the same time, he nourished a very reasonable degree of dislike to that stranger, who had been the indirect occasion of the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... passed with only occasional rounds of hissing from the loyalists outside. But, as the evening wore on and the speeches inside still continued, the crowd became restive. Stone-throwing began and was not discouraged by the two magistrates, the Rev. Dr. Spencer and John Carles, who had now arrived. In fact, the clergyman with an oath praised a lad who said that Priestley ought to be ducked; Carles also promised the rabble drink; and when ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... which time we had travelled more than a thousand miles, without any great misfortune. At the commencement of our journey, the cooee of my companions, who were driving the bullocks and horses after me, had generally called me back to assist in re-loading one of our restive beasts, or to mend a broken packsaddle, and to look for the scattered straps. This was certainly very disagreeable and fatiguing; but it was rather in consequence of an exuberance of animal spirits, and did not interfere with the ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... employees of Chicago and Omaha, the potters of Green Point, Long Island, the puddlers of Johnstown and Columbia, Pennsylvania, the machinists of Buffalo, the tailors of New York, and the shoemakers of Indiana. The year 1881 was scarcely less restive. But 1886 is marked in labor annals as "the year of the great uprising," when twice as many strikes as in any previous year were reported by the United States Commissioner of Labor, and when these strikes reached a tragic climax in the Chicago ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... past experience with the Indians and treacherous border men, and for all he knew these two men might return after a short time, and make trouble for them. Ten minutes passed in perfect silence though the engineer began to feel extremely restive from hunger. Finally Jim rose to ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... "ferrymen" found room to row in front, the coachman attended to his horses, one of which was inclined to be restive, while a man, whose flaxen hair was so light it looked positively white against his red burnt neck, stood rowing behind us; and thus in three-quarters of an hour we reached the other side, in as wonderful a transport ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... the Barksdale Bill, which had now been rejected by the House. Congress was about to adjourn, and before it reassembled elections for the next House would be held. "The measure is dead for the present," said the Mercury, "but power is ever restive and prone to accumulate power; and if the war continues, other efforts will doubtless be made to make the President a Dictator. Let the people keep their eyes steadily fixed on their representatives with respect to this vital matter; and should ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... term can express the action of the Corean policeman. The man is taken before the magistrate soon after his arrest, and should he offer resistance he is dragged before him by his top-knot or his pig-tail, according respectively as he is a married man or a bachelor. If he is strong and restive, a rope with a sliding knot is passed round his neck, after his hands have been firmly tied behind his back. After his interview with the magistrate at the yamen, if he be found guilty, he is generally ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... have precluded the possibility of sleep without this additional cause. Some time after midnight, growing restive under the storm and the continuous pain, I moved back to the log-house under the bank. This had been taken as a hospital, and all night wounded men were being brought in, their wounds dressed, a leg or an ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... might have got the steed on which he sat, it was a splendid animal—a restive Transylvanian full-blood, with tail and mane long and strong reaching to the ground; not for an instant could it remain quiet, but ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... Desforets's notorious position and the stories of her private life which were current in all circles. She had decided in her own mind that French art meant a tainted art, and she had shown herself very restive—Kendal had seen something of it on their Surrey expedition—under any attempts to make her share the interest which certain sections of the English cultivated public feel in foreign thought, and especially in the foreign theatre. Kendal took particular pains, when they glided off from the topic ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... horses and raw colts for miles around had been tamed I spent some days idling about my cottage and getting acquainted with it and with Septima. But within not many days I grew restive. I told the Villicus I wanted something ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... how Cilly has run restive from babyhood? A pretty termagant she was, as even I can remember. And how my poor father spoilt her! Any one but Honor would have given her up, rather than have gone through what she did, so firmly and patiently, till ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was fond of children, he became suddenly restive. He took out his watch, and was nervously surprised at the lapse of time. The carriage was sent for, and in a few minutes that dignified vehicle was bowling back ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... on ahead, his big black horse restive in the light from the lamps behind him. At the end of ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... rosin was not applied to the seams till we reached this lake. When I knelt down in it for the first time and put its slender maple paddle into the water, it sprang away with such quickness and speed that it disturbed me in my seat. I had spurred a more restive and spirited steed than I was used to. In fact, I had never been in a craft that sustained so close a relation to my will, and was so responsive to my slightest wish. When I caught my first large trout from it, it sympathized a little too closely, and ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... dashing service. All the Western Canadians gave a good account of themselves. They were not strong on the fine points of military etiquette, and sometimes offended by failing to recognize and salute officers in strange uniforms. They were rather restive in barracks, and did not take kindly to the life in Cape Town, but they were at home when in the saddle on really active duty, and got their full share of it before the war was over. Their presence on the veld and their effective work won high praise from such high-class officers as Sir ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... people that longed for glory but also yearned to heal the wounds of eight years' warfare. His own position as First Consul was as yet ill-established; and he desired to be back at Paris so as to curb the restive Tribunate, overawe Jacobins and royalists, and rebuild the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose



Words linked to "Restive" :   restiveness, uptight, nervy, overstrung, edgy



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