Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Agape   /əgˈeɪp/   Listen
Agape

adjective
1.
With the mouth wide open as in wonder or awe.  Synonym: gaping.  "We stood there agape with wonder" , "With mouth agape"






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





"Agape" Quotes from Famous Books



... applied in the New Testament to Timothy, who may have been "the husband of one wife." See 1 Tim. iv, 12, and v. 2. It is also applied by Polycarp, in his Epistle, to married women. "Let us teach your (or our) wives to walk in the faith that is given to them, both in love and purity" ([Greek: agape kai hagneia]).—Epistle to the Philippians, Sec. 4. See also "The Shepherd of Hermas," book ii. command. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... himself of the pistol, pointing the barrels towards Edgar Ferrier, who stood with mouth agape and lifted arm arrested, and said quietly: "Monsieur, have the goodness to open that window." Ferrier mechanically obeyed. "Now, hireling," continued Lebeau, addressing the vanquished Pole, "choose between the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it must be hot indeed," said I, and, though I did not exactly put faith in his account, I began to wish we had been bound elsewhere. The boatswain saw Spellman listening with mouth agape. ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... the Huntsman disappeared. They had already prayed to God for food, but it did not come as promptly as their necessities seemed to demand. They searched for Thorhall for three half-days, and found him on a projecting crag. He was lying there, and looking up at the sky, with mouth and nostrils agape, and mumbling something. They asked him why he had gone thither; he replied, that this did not concern anyone. They asked him then to go home with them, and he did so. Soon after this a whale appeared there, and they captured it, and flensed it, and no one could tell what manner of whale it was; ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... had never thought that this door would open again. In her mind it had been walled up ever since the hour of Macquart's death. And amidst her amazement she felt angry, indignant with the sacrilegious hand that had penetrated this violation, and left that white open space agape like a yawning tomb. She stepped forward, yielding to a kind of fascination, and halted erect within the framework ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... at nine, a review at ten, a memorial service in the cathedral at eleven, lunches at twelve, receives provincial deputations at one, inaugurates the Delgratz Polo Club at two and the Danubian Rowing Club at three,—Alec round the clock, and all Europe agape to know what next he will be up to—and you and I here, unknown, unrecorded,—you and I, the brains, the eyes, the organizers of the whole affair! Oh, it makes me sick when I remember how I stood like a stuck pig in old Delgrado's flat and let the son jump in and snatch from the father's ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... gun, shrieks o'er the sea his curse from the covered deck, My brother, the mine, lies sullen-dumb, agape for the dreadnought's wreck, I glide on the breath of my mother, Death, and my ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... have, I think, shown too great a disposition to maintain that metta is something less than Christian love and little more than benevolent equanimity. The love of the New Testament is not eros but agape, a new word first used by Jewish and Christian writers and nearly the exact equivalent of metta. For both words love is rather too strong a rendering and charity too weak. Nor is it just to say that the Buddha as compared with Christ preaches inaction. ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... be able to see the prince from our seats!" said Isabel, whose eyes were more widely open than usual, and her mouth half agape with excitement. "I'm always stuck in some corner where I can't see them, when the royal ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... "It is certainly like, but it is much better looking;" and you might well reply as did the painter, "It is the truth, told lovingly"—and all the more true that it is so told. You have, indeed, been enabled to speak the truth, or as the Greek has it, {aletheuein en agape}—to truth ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... it again and twirled it about by the crumpled vellum covers, and could have wandered on reading it through a perilous path of fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves, skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe drawers agape, and cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun. But the crowd is really too thick to walk amongst. As we are on pleasure bent, let us be recklessly extravagant and take a twopenny ride on top of ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... eyes of the listeners were agape, M. Radisson not budging a pace to go ashore, the governor scarce courting rebuff in ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... say that they are witty knaves, whose rants and jests keep the minds of the commons from busying themselves with state affairs, and listening to traitorous speeches, idle rumours, and disloyal insinuations. When men are agape to see how Marlow, Shakespeare, and other play artificers work out their fanciful plots, as they call them, the mind of the spectators is withdrawn from the conduct of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... the individual sin; he alone can pray the prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses," out of a full heart. Forgiveness is the only cure of wrong. And hand in hand with Sense-of-injury walks ever the weak sister-demon Self-pity, so dear, so sweet to many—both of them the children of Philautos, not of Agape. But there was no hate, no revenge, in Godfrey, and, I repeat, his weakness he kept concealed. It must have been in his eyes, but eyes are hard to read. For the rest, his was a strong poetic nature—a nature which half unconsciously turned ever toward the best, away from the mean judgments ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... altogether disproportionate amount of the space at my disposai I must before passing on attempt to give some notion of the kind of narrative contained in the romance, all the more so as it is little known except to students. With this object I have translated a characteristic passage from the tale of Agape[55]. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... or two the other three stared at Rip agape. The audacity and danger of what he suggested was a little stunning. Since men had taken regularly to space no ship had made a direct landing on their home planet—all had passed through the quarantine on Luna. It was not only risky—it was so unheard ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... the lawn; The glory of the daffodil; The three black windmills on the hill, Whose magic arms, flung wildly by, Sent magic shadows o'er the rye. Within the leafy coppice, lo, More wealth than miser's dreams could show, The blackbird's warm and woolly brood, Five golden beaks agape for food; The Gipsies, all the summer seen Native as poppies to the Green; The winter, with its frosts and thaws And opulence of hips and haws: The lovely marvel of the snow; The Tamar, with its altering show Of gay ships sailing up and down, Among the fields and by the Town; And, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... Glug maids, well aware of their charms, And stern, massive matrons with babes in their arms. There were querulous dames who complained of the "squash," The pushing and squeezing; for, briefly, all Gosh, With its aunt and its wife, stood agape in the ranks— Excepting Sir Stodge ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... words, a monk, with flushed cheeks and mouth agape, flung himself down at the King's feet, beating his brow repeatedly upon ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... any follow me hither, to avoid insular eccentricities of dress. The best plan, before exploring wholly remote regions of France, is to buy the neatest possible head-gear and travelling-costume in Paris. Without meaning to be impertinent, bystanders will stand agape at the sight of any strangers, English or French. Even my young French companion was stared at, just because she was not a native of the place. Very obligingly, she offered to fetch my letters from the poste restante, and look out ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... though "wonderfully similar" to her "in powers and capacity," was "infinitely superior to her in faith and development," and she saw in him "'Agape'—so rare to find—of which she had read and admired the meaning in her Greek Testament; having, from her great facility in learning languages, read the Scriptures in their original tongues." Of course! Greek and Hebrew are mere play to a heroine; Sanscrit is no more ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... sites: the Knights of Columbus Council 4828, a Catholic men's group associated with St. Patrick's Church in Fallon, Nevada, http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/SpiritSt/kofc4828, which was blocked by Cyber Patrol in the "Adult/Sexually Explicit" category; the Agape Church of Searcy, Arkansas, http://www.agapechurch.com, which was blocked by Websense as "Adult Content"; the home page of the Lesbian and Gay Havurah of the Long Beach, California Jewish Community Center, http://www.compupix.com/gay/havurah.htm, which was blocked by N2H2 as "Adults Only, ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

... the ice rattling at every movement, my appearance was ridiculous in the extreme. But not more so than that of the audience. The faces of that crowd would certainly have been the delight of a painter. Some of them were agape with surprise and amazement; others were agonized with sympathy for the poor minister; and others still were full of mirth, and would have laughed outright if they had not been in a religious meeting. As to myself, the whole matter took a mirthful ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... stared, agape, until presently the weapon wavered and was lowered and the woman's voice, touched with irony, brought ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... into vacuity; his snub nose grew out of a flattened face whose pallor was accentuated by the reflection of the glittering leaves—it looked faded and sodden, like blotting-paper that has been left out all night in the rain. Sporadic greenish-grey hairs were scattered about his chin. The mouth was agape. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... prospect. All very well to talk of my own way, and my own niche, all very well to dream of fairy wands, and of the soothing, self-ingratiating role of transforming other people's grey into gold, while the said people sat agape, transfixed with gratitude and admiration, but—how extraordinarily prosaic and unromantic the process became when worked out in sober black and white. To mend stockings, to stifle shrieks, to be snubbed by a cross ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... off horses. O John, John! why did you, why did you?" She suddenly lifted herself and sat rigid, staring at her daughter. "Mary," she said in tragic whisper, "the kitchen door isn't locked!" Already she was bended forward to listen, her mouth agape, her eyes fixed upon ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... the Lapithae. Oh! all too happy tillers of the soil, Could they but know their blessedness, for whom Far from the clash of arms all-equal earth Pours from the ground herself their easy fare! What though no lofty palace portal-proud From all its chambers vomits forth a tide Of morning courtiers, nor agape they gaze On pillars with fair tortoise-shell inwrought, Gold-purfled robes, and bronze from Ephyre; Nor is the whiteness of their wool distained With drugs Assyrian, nor clear olive's use With cassia tainted; yet untroubled calm, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... mind that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature, but that it is the Reality, which, by means of the physical, is persistently striving to enter into our consciousness, to tell us what? [Greek: Theos agape estin] (God is Love). As in Thompson's suggestive poem, "The Hound of Heaven"—the Hidden which desires to be found—the Reality is ever hunting us, and will never leave us till He has taught us to know and therefore ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... evening meal. A huge Newfoundland dog sits upon his haunches near this circle, his eyes eagerly watching for a morsel to be thrown him, the which, when happening, his jaws close with a sudden snap, and are instantly agape for more. A green and gold parrot also wanders about this knot of men, sometimes nibbling the crumbs offered it, and anon breaking forth into expressions which, from their tone, evince no great respect for some of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... nothing in the rest of the article to incriminate him, but the offending paragraph was enough in itself. Guiltily Eric looked round a second time. Two of his fellow-passengers, slumbering with mouths agape, were clutching "The World and His Wife" to their stomachs; it was the one periodical of later date than "Punch" and the monthly reviews which his parents took in at the Mill-House. Saturday was made eventful by its appearance; even Sir ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... ordinary agricultural district? Nay, what becomes of an average country squire or parson? How many of these worthy persons who, as their wont is, read the Quarterly Review, would do other than stand agape, if you asked them whether they had ever reflected what their sensations and perceptions ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... so nice to do As pay a visit to the zoo, And see beasts that, at different times, Were brought from strange and distant climes. I love to watch the tapirs tape; I stand intent, with mouth agape. Then I observe the vipers vipe; They're a most interesting type. I love to see the beavers beave; Indeed, you scarcely would believe That they can beave so cleverly, Almost as well as you or me. And then I pass along, and lo! Panthers ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... the exploits of his masters and the thrashings they gave him, and saying, "They can't go on for ever," foreseeing their ultimate downfall, looking out for it out of the corner of his eye, and silently laughing at the thought of it, with his great mouth agape. One fine day it turned out that Gargantua and Friar John were drowned while they were away on a crusade. Patience honestly regretted their loss, merrily took heart of grace, saved Panurge, who was drowning ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... space the revellers stood agape, unable to understand all that had been done in such haste. But anon their bemused wits awoke to the nature of the deed which was like to be done upon the moorlands. Everything was now in an uproar, some calling for their pistols, some for their horses, and some for another flask ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... be hundreds of people in the room, nudging one another, waiting agape for him to do something idiotic; a well-advertised fool on parade. He stalked about, now shamefaced, now bursting out with a belligerent, "Aw, rats! I'll show 'em!" now plaintively beseeching, "I ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... was unreal, that sight—unreal like the slow, grinding movement of the avalanche under him. Wildfire's head seemed a demon head of hate. It reached out, mouth agape, to bite, to rend. That horrible scream could not be the scream ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... he is to leave behind him to begin? I know nothing so deadening, as a long course of preliminary study in any art, and nothing so living as work plunged into at once by one who is studying hard—over it, rather than in preparation for it. Jones talking with me once on this subject, and about agape as against gnosis in art, said, "Oh that men should put an enemy into their brains to steal away their hearts." At any rate he and I have written "Narcissus" on these principles, and are not without hope that what it has lost in erudition it may have gained in freshness. ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... of lightning that I had ever seen, accompanied—not followed—by a crash of thunder that temporarily deafened all hands of us and caused the ship to quiver and tremble from stem to stern. Then, while we were all standing agape, our ears deafened by the thunder and our eyes blinded by the glare of the lightning, a fierce gust of hot wind swept over us, filling our two staysails with a report like that of a cannon and laying the ship over to her sheer-strake. Tasker, who was again officer ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... Belknap, I presume—this shameful business. There is no use of secrecy, where all the world is already agape. My sister, you tell me, has eloped with a low brute. I am numbed with the horror of it. But I must hear it all; every word, every particular. Who brought you ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... ever was, "in Christ." He lives. His life remains here and beyond. His faith in God, in prayer; his hope for every man; his utterly wonderful, amazing love,—they still remain. For nuni menei (nothing can rob us of the word) pistis, elpis, agape, ta tria tauta; ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson

... tones not unangelic, starting up, half awake, he stared before him, but saw nothing, for the stranger stood behind. What with cat-naps, dreams, and bewilderments, therefore, the voice seemed a sort of spiritual manifestation to him; so that, for the moment, he stood all agape, eyes fixed, and one ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... arms. "Your work is ended and mine begun," said I to him. We embraced each other, and he gave me the pike and a pair of scissors. I told Soradaci to cut our beards, but I could not help laughing to see the creature—his mouth all agape-staring at the angel, who was more like a devil. However, though quite beside himself, he ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... commanded that silence should be kept, that not even a whisper should breathe from other lips than his own. He drew a line with his crutch upon the floor, and forbade that any should attempt to pass this imaginary demarcation. The auditors were all agape, and but that the door was fastened, some would doubtless have gone back, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... every side I saw the barren land, Even to the distant sky's inclosing blue, Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves Save one were open—not as newly dug, But rather as by some internal force Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split And wide agape, and in their iron decay The massive mausoleums stood in halves. With mildewed linen all the ground was white. Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones Hung without motion in the soulless air. While greatly marveling how this should be I heard, or fancied that ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... Christmas tide? With that dread past, its wounds agape, Forever walking by our side, A fearful shade, an awful shape; Can any promise of the spring Make green the faded autumn leaf? Or who shall say that time will bring Fair fruit to him who ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... instruments. Many constitute effigies—of birds, fishes, quadrupeds, men. In Wisconsin is a mound 135 feet long and well proportioned, much resembling an elephant; in Adams County, 0., a gracefully curved serpent, 1,000 feet long, with jaws agape as if to swallow an egg-shaped figure in front; in Granville, in the same State, one in the form of a huge crocodile; in Greenup County, Ky., an image of a bear, which seems leaning forward in an attitude of observation, measuring ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... have been fully half a minute that Bram stood like a living creature turned suddenly into dead stone. His eyes had left Philip's face and were fixed on the woven tress of shining hair. For the first time his thick lips had fallen agape. He did not seem to breathe. At the end of the thirty seconds his hand unclenched from about the whip and the club and they fell into the snow. Slowly, his eyes still fixed on the snare as if it held for him an overpowering fascination, he advanced ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... of genuine scholarship among members of the race there will be a different attitude assumed towards it. But as long as the Negro prefers to construe owlish looks as wisdom, to bow down to clam like silence as profound philosophy, to stand agape over blatant mouthings as eloquence, and to measure mental calibre by bodily avoirdupois, he not only gives evidence of weakness in a lack of sound discrimination, but he subjects the entire race to consequent criticism ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough

... transformations are so infinitely slow, and attended with such struggle and suffering. Strike out the element of time and we have before us a spectacle more novel and startling than any hocus-pocus or legerdemain that ever set the crowd agape. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... dull reader for not getting on with my lesson, but I used to sit and picture to myself the red hen, with its wings beating helplessly, screeching in terrified protest, or perhaps, if he had got it by the neck, with beak wide agape and silent, and eyes staring, as it left the farmyard for ever. I have seen blood-spillings and down-crushings and abject defeat here and there in my time, but the red hen has remained in my mind as the type of helpless tragedy." He was silent for a moment as if he were again ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... to one so insignificant. She claimed the promised forbearance of his lordship to any faults. My father followed her example, and gave his thanks. Such entertainment as the humble house afforded was now produced. After partaking his lordship departed in state. The neighbours had been agape at the great lord's train stationed at the gate. For them and for the curious and discreet questioning, the congratulations at such promotion in the world, this Shimo cared little. His lordship's will had prevailed. Henceforth Shimo would ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... scurried across the street when he spied the butcher; but he waited there, mouth agape, stump of tail wagging, and a knowing cock to his good ear, to see how his adopted master was coming out with ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison

... had turned his attention to the conversation at the other end of the table. His florid face was agape with astonishment at the doctor's temerity. Parker Hitchcock shrugged his shoulders and muttered something to Miss Lindsay. The older men moved in their chairs. It was an unhappy topic for dinner ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... understand," the Mayor answered piteously, his mouth agape with horror, his fat cheeks turning in a moment all colours. "This gentleman, whom you seem ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... answered Damanaka, 'and awaits thee with ears pricked, tail stiffened, paw upraised, and muzzle agape, then thou mayest get thee to thy weapons like a ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... especially at meetings of the Dorcas Society, when neither Laura nor Mrs. Jaynes was present. But, just at this juncture, an event occurred which gave a new direction to the current of village gossip, setting every member of the Dorcas sisterhood all agape with wonder and surprise, and all agog with excitement and curiosity. Of this strange and memorable affair I will presently give a veritable account, and even show the reader how it came to pass. But in the mean time the fortunes of the Bugbee family ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... old pioneer himself fell agape as he encountered the look on her face. There is a vast respect in the country for that many-phased quality called "second sight"; and, if Old Dalton had ever seen signs of the possession of it on a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... on his back! Look! as Prometheus in my picture here! Quick, or he faints! stand with the cordial near! Now—bend him to the rack! Press down the poisoned links into his flesh, And tear agape that healing wound afresh! ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... our Kaffir servants were riding quietly up to the mouth of the Nek, we saw a great horse thundering towards us, black with sweat and flecked with foam, its shoulder bloody, its eyes staring, its red nostrils agape, and perched upon its bare back a little woman who swayed from side to side as though with weariness, holding in her ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... frog-like eyes standing out from his sun-reddened face, stared agape. "Well, by cripes!" He hesitated, looking about him; but whether his search was for more pie or for moral support he did not say. Truth to tell, there was plenty of both. He reached for another pie and another knife, and he grinned his wide grin at Irish, who had just come ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... aboard," said Lund slowly, "leavin' out Mr. Rainey, Tamada an' Sandy. You an' me, an' Carlsen an' Harris there"—he nodded toward one of the seaman delegates who listened with his slack mouth agape, scratching himself under ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... Abbot stood astonished and agape, when at once he beheld his office filled, and saw all which he ought to have ordered, going forward at the dictates of the youngest monk in the convent. But ere the orders of Eustace, which nobody dreamed of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... black lips bak'd Agape they hear'd me call: Gramercy! they for joy did grin And all at once their breath drew in As ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... her husband's mistress. Other ladies had done so. He quoted history and recent events: Louis XIV., Louise de la Valliere, and Marie Therese of France, and so on. Also he represented to her that the first meeting with Johanna Elizabetha would be a trifle awkward with the whole court agape, so perhaps this private family gathering was an excellent opportunity; besides, as Landhofmeisterin, it was correct she should be included in the ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... panes. Moire-like shadows darted along the walls, all the paintings became dim, the spectators themselves were blended in obscurity until the cloud was carried away, whereupon the painter saw the heads again emerge from the twilight, ever agape with ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... hand, fumbling at his buttons with the other, Watson marched into the customs house, while the populace waited agape; but he returned very soon to report that the building was untenanted. Captain Montgomery frowned. He had counted on the pomp and punctilio of a formal surrender—a spectacular bit of history that would fashion gallant words for a ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... of one blunt weapon, often enough stands agape at his own powerlessness before the invulnerable woman of ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... a pig, wilt never have done irking me? See, I scratch thee off me!" Maso drove home his gibe with a dramatic performance. The trattoria was agape. Every table held its three craning necks and six piercing, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... her mistress and bobbing the nerve-reviver to her nose, but it failed to produce the usual effect. All the servants in attendance stood with their mouths agape, while the three jewel daughters proceeded quietly with their breakfast, and Alice sat among them, a silent spectator of the scene. And now, as if to cap the climax, in walked the culprit, Mr. Jack Camford, in propria persona, looking ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... He was undressed and flat on his back. His arms were stretched out, his head thrown back, his mouth agape. And the white sheet under him was red with blood. It had trickled over the edges and to the floor. His eyes were loosely closed. After the first shock Doctor Marston reacted swiftly. He bent over Rossland, ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... And at this point, the labour of the rancher ended. Here, at the lip of the chute, he parted company with his grain, and from here the wheat streamed forth to feed the world. The yawning mouths of the sacks might well stand for the unnumbered mouths of the People, all agape for food; and here, into these sacks, at first so lean, so flaccid, attenuated like starved stomachs, rushed the living stream of food, insistent, interminable, filling the empty, fattening the shrivelled, making it sleek and ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... Ringing and joyous, fresh and clear, Where a troop of rosy boys at play Awaken the echoes far away. They have moulded the snow with hand and spade, And a strange, misshapen image made: A Caliban in fiendish guise, With mouth agape and staring eyes, And monstrous limbs, that might uphold The weight that Atlas bore, of old; Like shapes that our troubled dreams distress, Ghost-like and grim in their ugliness; A huge and hideous human form, Born of the howling wind and storm: And yet those boyish sculptors glow With ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... attack the city) sail'd up the East River under a gentle Breeze towards Hell-Gate, & kept up an incessant Fire assisted with the Cannon at Governrs Island: The Batteries from the City return'd the Ships the like Salutation: 3 Men agape, idle Spectators had the misfortune of being killed by one Cannon-Ball, the other mischief suffered on our Side was inconsiderable Saving the making a few Holes in some of the Buildings; one shot struck within ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... murmur was near to a laugh. Yet there was no mirth in it. It had that touch of the maniacal in it which freezes the blood. Silent halted in the midst of his rush, with his hands poised for the next blow. His mouth fell agape with an odd expression of horror as Dan stared up at him. That hideous chuckling continued. The sound defied definition. And from the shadow in which Dan was crouched his brown eyes blazed, changed, and ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... ours there is no more delicate or more important branch of the art of material success than learning to play one's own tune on the trumpets of fame. To those who watch careers intelligently and critically, and not merely with mouth agape and ears awag for whatever sounds the winds of credulity bear, there is keen interest in noting how differently this high art is practiced by the fame-seekers—how well some modest heroes disguise ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... her mouth a grimace. "Why, you—you ridiculous little monster!" Victor d'Arlan stepped forward belligerently. "Say, now look here! This is all very—" Beardsley placed a hand on d'Arlan's chest and shoved, and the latter stumbled back with mouth agape. Pederson was gazing at Beardsley with delight and admiration, seeming to visualize this little man as material for his next tele-column. Mandleco stood transfixed, a monument of agony, twisting a fist into his palm. ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse

... the ranks, rolls onward with his thirty thousand. Saint-Antoine, with pike and cannon, has preceded him; a mixed multitude, of all and of no arms, hovers on his flanks and skirts; the country once more pauses agape: Paris ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... she went along, The wicked words of the popular song; Or supposing she listened—as gossips will - At a door ajar, or a window agape, To catch the sounds they allowed to escape. Those sounds belonged to Depravity still! The dark allusion, or bolder brag Of the dexterous "dodge," and the lots of "swag," The plundered house—or the stolen nag - The blazing rick, or the darker crime, That quenched ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... god-like Guest, walks forth, without more train Accompani'd then with his own compleat Perfections, in himself was all his state, More solemn then the tedious pomp that waits On Princes, when thir rich Retinue long Of Horses led, and Grooms besmeard with Gold Dazles the croud, and sets them all agape. Neerer his presence Adam though not awd, Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek, As to a superior Nature, bowing low, 360 Thus said. Native of Heav'n, for other place None can then Heav'n such glorious shape contain; Since by descending from the Thrones ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... desert of wind-carved sandstone, dry and cruel, whipping dust into clouds that sunlight could never penetrate. Others prognosticated an ocean planet with little or no solid ground at all, populated by enormous serpents waiting to greet the first Earthlings with jaws agape. ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse

... landlord, his eyes at their full stretch, his mouth agape, and his neglected pipe in his right hand. "Who, in the Fiend's ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... there are men in this place who wouldn't stick at even that! You don't know. If Wallingford had done all the things he'd vowed to do, there would have been such an exposure of affairs here as would have made the whole country agape. And some men would have been ruined—literally. I know! And things will come out and be tracked down, if no red herrings are drawn across the trail. You're going to get ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... put spur to my horse, and as we went up the bank I screamed at him, 'Claude, you fool, go home to your wife and take shame to yourself.' And when I was near the road I looked back, and he still stood there all agape." ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... sidewalks, and ended up splendidly with rockets and fire-balloons and drunken Indians vociferous on their way to the lock-up. Such a day for the hotels, with teams hitched three abreast in front of their aromatic barrooms; such a day for the circus, with half the farmers of Fox County agape before the posters—with all their chic and shock they cannot produce such posters nowadays, nor are there any vacant lots to form attractive backgrounds—such a day for Mother Beggarlegs! The hotels, and the shops and stalls for eating and drinking, were the only places in ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... seven are they, In the ocean deep seven are they, Battening in heaven seven are they, Bred in the depths of ocean.... Of these seven the first is the south wind, The second a dragon with mouth agape....[44] ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... which I give an example. A family consisting of father, mother, and children, are sitting around a table, upon which the [Greek: ichthus] or fish is served; the banquet is presided over by two mystic figures, Irene or Peace on the left, Agape or Love on the right. The head of the family addresses Peace with these words: "Irene, da calda!" and Love, "Agape, misce mi!" The last words are easily understood: "Give me to drink," the verb mescere being still used in the same sense in Tuscany, where a wine-shop is sometimes ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... mischief did they get those uniforms?" demanded Tom Percival, of the North Grammars, his mouth agape. ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock

... the street to the veranda of the hotel, as he passed through the gate of the corral. The men were standing in a long and awe-stricken line, their eyes wide, their mouths agape. Whoever Ronicky Doone might be, he was certainly a man who had won the respect of this town. The men on the veranda looked at Bill Gregg as though he were already a ghost. He waved his hand defiantly at them and the mare, at a word from him, sprang into a long-striding gallop that whirled ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand

... windows, even in the dusk, you see a swelling run through the street, an aspiration, as with arms outstretched, eyes desiring, mouths agape. And then we peaceably subside. For if the exaltation lasted we should be blown like foam into the air. The stars would shine through us. We should go down the gale in salt drops—as sometimes happens. For the impetuous spirits will have none of this cradling. Never any swaying ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... his face increased. He clenched his hands. "I marvel myself that I did not," he answered passionately—and went out, slamming the door after him, and leaving her ladyship agape ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... children too indifferent to aeronautics to cease their playing. But in the Crest Hill direction—the place looked extraordinarily squat and ugly from above—there were knots and strings of staring workmen everywhere—not one of them working, but all agape. (But now I write it, it occurs to me that perhaps it was their dinner hour; it was certainly near twelve.) I hung for a moment or so enjoying the soar, then turned about to face a clear stretch of open down, let the engine ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... There was a gleam in his black eyes, and his mouth was agape. Buell's gaze followed Bud's, and his face grew curious, intent, then fixed in a cunning, bold smile of satisfaction. He rose ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... them, and the promise of volcanic action back in them; the awful confidence that shone in them; the threat compelling Hamlin against his will, deadening his muscles, jumbling his thoughts—brought chaos into the man's brain, and he stood, his mouth agape with wonder over the thing that was happening to him, as Lawler walked steadily to him. He made no resistance as Lawler deliberately wrenched the pistol from his hand and as deliberately walked to a side wall and ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... floor, insolent dogs lie sprawling, their jaws agape, panting to snap up the bones and scraps their master ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... do another. In spite of an active mind, which showed itself in unexpected ways, the senses had but to assert themselves, and the darkened brain seemed to exist no longer. He might have astonished wise men; he was capable of setting fools agape. His desires, like a sudden squall of bad weather, overclouded all the clear and lucid spaces of his brain in a moment; and then, after the dissipations which he could not resist, he sank, utterly exhausted in body, heart, and mind, ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... all this publicity," Telt complained, looking at the people. "It's the last day, or I'd be turning back. They know our cars; we've raided them often enough." Turning a corner, he braked suddenly, mouth agape. ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... above me, and was surprised that I could play the fiddle so well. The grim old man from the castle came too, and was as much amazed, and at last the maids came, and they all stood up there together agape, while I fingered away, and wielded my bow in the most artistic manner, playing cadenzas and variations until ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... sailor to the page in the prayer-book where the collect of thanksgiving would be found, and the rector began reading it, the sailor kneeling where he stood, and repeating it after him word by word in a distinct voice. The people, who had remained agape and motionless at the proceeding, mechanically knelt down likewise; but they continued to regard the isolated form of the sailor who, in the precise middle of the chancel-step, remained fixed on his knees, facing the east, his hat beside him, his hands joined, and he quite unconscious ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... Camballo in combat. Chaucer does not give us the sequel of this tale, but Spenser says that three brothers, named Priamond, Diamond, and Triamond were suitors, and that Triamond won her. The mother of these three (all born at one birth) was Agape, who dwelt ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... which the wise and prudent about a century ago began to regard the birth-rate? They beheld the geometrical progression of life catching up the arithmetical progression of food with fearful strides. Mankind became to them a devouring mouth, always agape, like a nestling's, and incessantly multiplying, like a bacillus. What was the good of improving the condition of Tom and Sal, if Tom and Sal, in consequence of the improvement, went their way and in a few years produced Dick, Poll, Bill, and Meg, who proceeded to eat up the ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... heard in the depths of the forest a happy nightingale singing, and deemed thy voice had taken bird-shape and followed me! And that I sent for thee in haste, blame me not!—as well blame the desert athirst for rain, or the hungry heart agape for love to come and fill it!" Here his restless eye flashed on Theos, who stood quietly behind Sah-luma, passive, yet expectant of he ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... who are you?' cried one, agape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. 'I know not,' said the second Shape, 'I only died ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... had been leaning forward, fell back heavily in his seat, his eyes full wide and his mouth agape. Then, to express his utter bewilderment, he raised his hands above his head and ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... He stopped, agape on his next word, for the lectured had turned on the lecturer, dropped his hands on his hips, and broke ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... ignorance in a very learned man. OBS. 8.—In Greek and Latin, the verb frequently agrees with the nearest nominative, and is understood to the rest; and this construction is sometimes imitated in English, especially if the nouns follow the verb: as, "[Greek: Nuni do MENEI pistis, elpis agape, ta tria tanta]."—"Nunc vero manet fides, spes, charitas; tria haec."—"Now abideth faith, hope, charity; these three."—1 Cor., xiii, 13. "And now abideth confession, prayer, and praise, these three; but the greatest of these is praise."—ATTERBURY: Blair's Rhet., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Henceforth to stand recorded) who ye are, And what this multitude, that at your backs Have past behind us." As one, mountain-bred, Rugged and clownish, if some city's walls He chance to enter, round him stares agape, Confounded and struck dumb; e'en such appear'd Each spirit. But when rid of that amaze, (Not long the inmate of a noble heart) He, who before had question'd, thus resum'd: "O blessed, who, for death preparing, tak'st Experience of our ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... loud and so startling upon the silence of the room that every shattered nerve in our hero's frame tingled and thrilled in answer to it. He stood petrified, scarcely so much as daring to breathe; and then, observing that his mouth was agape, he moistened his dry and parching lips, and drew his jaws together with ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle

... gave each other very immodest kisses, and that they judged the degree of their faith by the voluptuousness of these kisses; that the husband said to his wife, in presenting a young initiate to her: "Have an agape with my brother," and that they had ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, laughing, jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched, crackling and sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over a kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, there was no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, as in such crowds on market-day at home, but a kind of facetious suavity which ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... them!" he cried for sympathy in his delight. "Did ever you see eyes so bright? Mouths so wide agape? and happiness so intense! Ah! if those to whom they belong could see them now, all hardness would vanish in ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... joy to the world! the hour is come, When the nations to freedom awake, When the royalists stand agape and dumb, And monarchs with terror shake! Over the walls of majesty, "Upharsin" is writ in words of fire, And the eyes of the bondmen, wherever they be, Are lit with their wild desire. (<) Soon, soon shall the thrones that blot the world, Like the Orleans, into the dust ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... halt. It startled the public and set the Whitney forces agape. My proposition was decidedly novel, and on its face absurd—the State could not under the law accept a million dollars or any other sum for its charter—but, on the other hand, it was the quickest-acting horse-sense producer that could possibly have been brought to bear. It was discussed everywhere. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... The farmers looked completely agape at this announcement; but making nothing of it, after silently staring at Dutton and each other, with their pipes in their hands and not in their mouths, till they had gone out, stretched their heads simultaneously across the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... one, they might well have chosen as their celestial protagonist, had ordained that the seven o'clock train should leave its human (or inhuman) deposit at Fish. At two minutes after seven Percy Washington and John T. Unger disembarked, hurried past the spellbound, the agape, the fearsome eyes of the twelve men of Fish, mounted into a buggy which had obviously appeared from nowhere, ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... of Paris life, all the laziness and vice, and ill-luck and injustice which the torrent rolls on, and throws off like scum. Some slept on, quite annihilated, with the faces of corpses. Others, lying on their backs with mouths agape, snored loudly as if still venting the plaint of their sorry life. And others tossed restlessly, still struggling in their slumber against fatigue and cold and hunger, which pursued them like nightmares of monstrous shape. And from all those human ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... Large sums of British money had been flung away on fortifications,[383] and people talked of Corfu as they talked in later years about Cyprus, as a needed supplement to the strength of Gibraltar and Malta, and indispensable to our Mediterranean power. People listened agape to demonstrations that the Ionian islands were midway between England and the Persian Gulf; that they were two-thirds of the way to the Red Sea; that they blocked up the mouth of the Adriatic; Constantinople, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... bitter. Thus the whole force of our English "charity" depends on the guttural in "charis" getting confused with the c of the Latin "carus;" thenceforward throughout the middle ages, the two ideas ran on together, and both got confused with St. Paul's [Greek: agape], which expresses a different idea in all sorts of ways; our "charity" having not only brought in the entirely foreign sense of alms-giving, but lost the essential sense of contentment, and lost much more in getting too far away from the "charis" ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... one running, eyes wild, mouth agape, and I recognised the man Ford who had been my chief ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... number two, lively with panthers; gap number three, thrilling with wolves; and where the war-path led into the shades of night, there the woods were alive with ghosts. We shall, therefore, make our dip into the medley just at that point where the narrator, having brought his listeners all agape to the hazardous edge of ambush and battle subsides into the possible; the story now rising of itself into the wonderful, and having no great need of exaggeration or ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... did the stranger stare with jaws agape for wonder at my Beltane's saying, and, so staring, turned him to the door and back again, and fain would speak, yet could not for ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol



Words linked to "Agape" :   open, religious ritual, religious ceremony, love, gaping, opened, Christian theology



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com