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Breaking away   /brˈeɪkɪŋ əwˈeɪ/   Listen
Breaking away

noun
1.
The act of breaking away or withdrawing from.  Synonym: breakaway.  "A breaking away from family and neighborhood"
2.
Departing hastily.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Breaking away" Quotes from Famous Books



... mean in you, sir, thus to overstep the golden mean of manners. Scourge you? Ah, I fear you well deserve it;—and yet if I could, I would put to scourging that word, 'mean,' that has just escaped from out of my petulent lips, as sometimes a froward, disobedient child runs into danger; breaking away from out of the nurse's arms. But you should not have played the bold intruder, and joined in these vain vigils;—nay, begone, or I must, myself, withdraw. I do entreat you, stay no longer; come some other time,—but go to-night; make no excuse for staying, or you may yet compel me to be angry with ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... has gained. They can never be too often pointed out or praised. One of them is the habit of trained and disciplined good temper towards the opposite party when it fairly wins its innings. It was by breaking away from this habit that the Slave States nearly wrecked our Nation. The other is that of fierce and merciless resentment toward every man or set of men who break the public peace. By holding to this habit the free States ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... prowled about in every direction, breaking away bark, and lifting stones with all the ardor of a neophyte in entomology. Since meeting with the coral-serpent, he took precautions which gave me confidence; for it is quite uncertain how a reptile or any other creature may behave ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... got no further, being suddenly collared from behind, and beaten with a cane which stung like hornets. Screaming under the punishment, and struggling hard, he at last succeeded in breaking away just as Costantin came running round a corner of the house and terrified faces appeared at its lower windows. He heard his assailant, panting, exclaim, "That's the only argument the beggars understand. We learnt that in India," as he (Iskender) ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... sentiments in the Declaration of Independence"; and then he spoke of the sacrifices which the founders of the Republic had made for these principles. He asked, too, what was the idea which had held together the nation thus founded. It was not the breaking away from Great Britain. It was the assertion of human right. We should speak in terms of reverence of a document which became a classic utterance of political right and which inspired Lincoln in his fight to end slavery and to make "Liberty ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... begins to freeze in the autumn, the seals gnaw holes in it to reach the air, and they keep these holes open all winter. It freezes so fast in that cold country that they have to be busy almost every minute all through the winter breaking away the ice there. They get their sleep in snatches of a minute or so at a time, and between their naps they clear the ice ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... Breaking away from Lady Dawn, she crossed over to him. Resting her hand on his arm, she sank her voice and commenced speaking so hurriedly that he alone could ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... lands, filling the valley of the Thames and of the Wey with vast beds of drift gravel, containing among its chalk flints, fragments of stone from every rock between here and Wales, teeth of elephants, skulls of ox and musk ox; while icebergs, breaking away from the glaciers of the Welsh Alps, sailed down over the spot where we now are, dropping their imbedded stones and silt, to confuse more utterly than before the records of a world rocking and throbbing above the shocks ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... responsible just because you were present." He smiled as the young man took his seat opposite. "But you constituted a new element in politics. I had been having my dreams in the peace of my home—and one of those dreams was to see the young men of this State breaking away from the political bondage of the fathers. But I'm afraid I am older than I thought. I have an old man's fears. I have had enough—too much—of the contact of men. Now this next idea is fanciful—another proof that ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... chain of the Alps girded the whole horizon to the north—a wall of jagged blue, here and there showing through its clefts a wilderness of misty precipices, fading far back into the recesses of Cadore, and itself rising and breaking away eastward, where the sun struck opposite upon its snow, into mighty fragments of peaked light, standing up behind the barred clouds of evening, one after another, countless, the crown of the Adrian Sea, until the eye turned back from pursuing them, to rest upon the nearer burning of the campaniles ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... again, and kissed her respectfully but firmly, making a sort of shuffling dive across the counter. Breaking away, he fumbled in his pocket and produced a ring, which he proceeded to place on her finger with the serious air ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... of the ropes ceased their first efforts to escape. Then, bit by bit, as carefully as an angler plays a game fish, the beasts were drawn out of the mob, while Sax, Vaughan, and Calcoo kept the others from breaking away. ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... the razor-backed whale, from a prominent ridge on its back. It is found 100 feet long. As it is constantly moving along at the rate of five miles an hour, and is very powerful and active, frequently breaking away and carrying lines and gear with it, only the most daring whalers, in default of other prey, venture to attack it. There is a third sort of whale, called the broad-nosed whale, which is in many respects like a razor-back, but ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... mother. In the course of the battle the young elephant was wounded, and it uttered immediately a piercing cry of pain and terror. The mother heard the cry, and recognized the voice that uttered it through all the din and uproar of the battle. She immediately became wholly ungovernable, and, breaking away from the control of her keepers, she rushed forward, trampling down every thing in her way, to rescue and protect her offspring. This incident occurred at the commencement of the attack which the Roman reserve made upon the elephants, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... afraid of his breaking away. Look how he is straining at his halter, and how rough his coat is. It looked like satin yesterday. If he broke loose what ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... New Zealand, although apparently Socialistic, is producing results directly opposed to Socialism by converting a lot of dissatisfied people into stanch upholders of private ownership of land and other forms of private property. The small farmers, then, are breaking away from their former allies, the working people of the towns, who now find themselves in the minority, but who are increasing in numbers and who will demand, sooner or later, a large share in the product of industry as the price of loyalty ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... as an angry flush covered his face; "who sayeth 'must' to the son of Henry the Emperor? Who sayeth 'must' to the grandson of Barbarossa? Stand off, churl of Kapparon! To me, Sicilians all! To me, sons of the Prophet!" and, breaking away from the grasp of the burly knight, young Frederick of Hohenstaufen dashed across the small stone bridge that led to the marble pavilion in the little lake. But only Abderachman the Saracen crossed to him. The wrath of the Knight of ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... curious preoccupied stillness hush of the power-house which makes the false world of the stage so singularly unreal by contrast when watched from the back. The house was packed from floor to ceiling, for the Palaceum's policy of breaking away from revue and going back to Mr. Mackwayte called "straight ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... this world-church idea for more than a thousand years. As already stated, the reformers, whose minds were directed chiefly toward the restoration of evangelical doctrine, had at first no idea of breaking away from this standard. Evidently they had no conception of that moral and spiritual dominion of Christ by which alone he governs his church—a 'kingdom that is not of this world.' They therefore abandoned the world-church idea reluctantly, and not ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith

... will not find true humility in aiming low—he must never be timid or afraid of trying to express that which he feels is far above his power to express, any more than he should be afraid of breaking away, when necessary, from easy first sounds, or afraid of admitting that those half truths that come to him at rare intervals, are half true, for instance, that all art galleries contain masterpieces, which are nothing more than a history of art's beautiful mistakes. He should never ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... Christian influence. The extent to which this prevailed may be judged from the testimony of the schoolmaster, that "of the boys brought up under his tuition, not one had, so far as he could find, taken more than one wife," which showed a great breaking away from the ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... Such socialism, if it be so called, will depend upon the highest individual initiative, the most voluntary co-operation and will include the individualism which is the cherished boon of democracy. It is significant that those who represent this type of socialism and who think for themselves, are breaking away from the orthodox party, under the courageous leadership and example of John Spargo, in increasing numbers, since our entrance into the War. They are as instinctively American and democratic in sympathy, as those of the opposite ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs

... after all," he said; but before she had time to answer, Mrs. Dorset, breaking away from a lifeless colloquy with her host, had stepped between them with ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... that he was an endless experimenter with no past at his back. This is just what Nature is. She experiments endlessly, seeking new ways, new modes, new forms, and is ever intent upon breaking away from the past. In this way, as Darwin showed, she attains to new species. She is blind, she gropes her way, she trusts to luck; all her successes are chance hits. Whenever I look over my right shoulder, as I sit at my desk writing ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... I can't go on deck," continued Florry, breaking away from the disagreeable conversation. "They are not ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic

... with his arms cased in the terrible mittens, before every cabin of the great common house, till pallid, staggering, and with chattering teeth he triumphantly laid the gloves before the old chief and received the congratulations of the men and the caresses of the women; then breaking away from his friends and admirers he threw himself into the river and remained in its cool soothing water till nightfall.[148] Similarly among the Ticunas of the Upper Amazon, on the border of Peru, the young man who would take his place among the warriors must plunge his arm ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... to show him what is vouchsafed to such men and to such only—the enormity of his own mistakes. Better that a man should feel the divergence between Christian theory and Christian practice, that he should be shocked at it—even to the breaking away utterly from the theory until he has arrived at a wider comprehension of its scope—than that he should be indifferent to the divergence and make no effort to bring his principles and practice into harmony with one another. A true lover of consistency, it was intolerable to him to say one thing with ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... from the porter—"that's the Aiberdeen slow; it's no made up yet, and little chance o't till the express an' the Hielant be aff. Whar 'll it start frae?" breaking away; ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... her finger up her cunt?" "I shan't tell you all that," said she turning nasty. "Is her cunt as open as yours?" "No it ain't." "Then she can't get her finger up." "Oh! you are a rum cove, you are," said she breaking away from me, "I never seed the like of you. I must go,—tell me what time it is." "Half-past four." "I'll go,—I give the children something to eat about this time." "Come here, or I won't give you the shillings." We resumed ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... the individual concerned," remarked one of the company, "I should not be long in breaking away ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... Breaking away from her disappointed father Kaala sprang through the crowd and threw herself into the victor's arms. The king placed their hands together and said: "You have won her nobly. She is now your wife. Take ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... entirely an infantry action, but about the middle of the day we were sent down to the river on the Boer right, as parties of the enemy were thought to be breaking away in that direction. And here, I am sorry to say, poor Parker who had served in the Greek-Turkish war, and used to beguile our long night marches with stories of the Thessalian hills and the courage ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... proper-going duenna would say, and so, too, little children should be told; but between you and me there can be no necessity for falsehood. We have grown beyond our sugar-toothed ages, and are now men and women. I perfectly understood your breaking away from me. I understood you, and in spite of my sorrow knew that you were right. I am not going to accuse or to defend myself; but I knew that you ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... earnest searching party, in the Polar twilight, has sought him in that region of ice and snow, in a silence broken only by the howl of the arctic blast, the scream of sea-fowl or the thundering report of an ice-floe breaking away from ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... maple molasses, and pumpkin-pie as the unsettled nature of the times would admit. His eyes are blue and bright, large and wide open—such as can look you full in the face, yet without boldness or impertinence. One would naturally suppose that a boy who was in the weekly habit of breaking away from apron-string control, and getting a whipping for it, ought to have long, narrow, half-shut eyes, of some uncertain color, which, though they can stare boldly enough at your boots, buttons, or breastpin, can never look you full in the face, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... no means say that he was not a brute. But whether brute or no, he was an honest man, and had no remotest dream, either then, on that morning, or during the following days on which such thoughts pressed more quickly on his mind—of breaking away from his pledged word. At breakfast on that morning he told all to Miss Le Smyrger, and that lady, with warm and gracious intentions, confided to him her purpose regarding her property. "I have always regarded Patience ...
— The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne • Anthony Trollope

... Pictish broch. Habichstein belongs to the Wallenstein family that possesses a stately schloss at the head of the upper lake. It has been abandoned for, probably, two hundred years, as it can never have been a comfortable residence; moreover, the sandstone is continually breaking away. Below the hill and castle is the village. In 1811 there was a fall of the rock, and again in 1815, when it crushed three ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... such a vast body of water, rolling down an inclined plane, is broken into eddies and cross-currents by rocks projecting from the cliffs and piles of boulders in the channel, it requires excessive labor and much care to prevent the boats from being dashed against the rocks or breaking away. Sometimes we are compelled to hold the boat against a rock above a chute until a second line, attached to the stem, is carried to some point below, and when all is ready the first line is detached and the boat given to the current, when she shoots down and the men ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... things about the King. He was sent for to be examined by Henry and his Council, and this he well knew was the interview on which his safety would turn, since the accusation was a mere pretext, and the real purpose of the King was to see whether he would go along with him in breaking away from Rome—a proceeding that Sir Thomas, both as churchman and as lawyer, could not think legal. Whether we agree or not in his views, it must always be remembered that he ran into danger by speaking the truth, and doing what he thought right. He ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... money was not a prospect that charmed me, though it was pleasant lying in Kiomi's arms to hear Osric play us off to sleep; it was like floating down one of a number of visible rivers; I could see them converging and breaking away while I floated smoothly, and a wonderful fair country nodded drowsy. From that to cock-crow at a stride. Sleep was no more than the passage through the arch of a canal. Kiomi and I were on the heath before sunrise, jumping gravel-pits, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Lefever, surrounded by their followers, were crowding him as race touts crowd a favorite jockey with final words of admonition and advice. When the one target was satisfactorily adjusted, Laramie breaking away from everybody returned alone to the starting point. Dismounting, and taking his time to everything, he again tested his cinches, drew his gun from its holster and breaking it slipped a sixth cartridge into the cylinder. Dropping the gun back ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... cried bitterly, and breaking away from him, as he would have detained her, darted across the road, and was immediately ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler

... sang out Poke Stover, and, leaping to a slight knoll, he took careful aim at one of the mules attached to the piece and fired. Then he discharged his pistol at a second mule. Both beasts were badly wounded, and, breaking away, they tore first through the cavalry and then through the infantry, throwing the ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer

... scattering, whichever way it turned its ugly face. It happened that Sigurd was better informed, having seen a similar specimen kept as a pet at the court of the Norman Duke; so the terror of the others amused him and his companion mightily. They stayed until the creature put an end to the show by breaking away from its captor and taking refuge in ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... see a little more, now I am here. I say, it's awful!—it's grand! The rocks, as far as I can see, are as smooth as can be, and all sorts of colours, just as if they were often breaking away. Some are dark and some are browny and lavender, and there's one great patch, all glittering grey granite, looking as ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... Journal, iv. 336: "These two years of war have witnessed a more rapid progress in liberal opinions than the whole previous century. The public mind has opened itself as it has never been open before." In vi. 3, he said: "There are great and striking changes going on. Men are breaking away from old opinions, and there is a great work for us to do." This was said in December, 1864. William G. Eliot, Monthly Journal, iv. 349: "The war has proved that our Unitarian faith works well in time of trial. No other church has been ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... was less time for music now than there had been in the winter. As the snow vanished from the woods, and the frost leaked out of the ground, and the ice on the lake was honeycombed, breaking away from the shore, and finally going to pieces altogether in a warm southeast storm, the Sportsmen's Retreat began to prepare for business. There was a garden to be planted, and there were boats to be painted. The rotten old wharf in front of the house stood badly in need of repairs. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

... with all that it involved. He built himself a new capital at El Amarna, and there he instituted the worship of the sun, or rather of the heat or power of the sun, under the name of Aton. In so far as the revolution constituted a breaking away from tiresome convention, the young Horemheb seems to have been with the King. No one of intelligence could deny that the new religion and new philosophy which was preached at El Amarna was more worthy of consideration on general lines than was the narrow doctrine of the Amon priesthood; and all ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... Earl turned away to reenter the castle, the desperate Budd made another attempt to escape, and succeeded in breaking away from Holmes. Down the driveway he tore at a mile a minute or so, holding his manacled hands up before him, while Holmes for a moment seemed to be dying of heart failure, judging by ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... infrequent windy roar of trains on the Third Avenue L, empty clapping of horses' hoofs on the asphalt ... the yowl of a sentimental tomcat ... a dull and distant grumble, vague, formless, like a long, unending roll of thunder down the horizon ... the swish and sough of waters breaking away from the flanks of the Autocratic ... and then, finally, like a tocsin, the sonorous, musical chiming of the grandfather's clock ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... pished, and poohed; and then, breaking away from them, rode home. He felt that he must at any rate put an end to this annoyance about the countess, and that he must put an end also to his state of doubt about the countess's daughter. Clara had been kind and gracious to him in ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... mine— this noble beach, which extends a mile or more from that craggy promontory to yonder rampart of broken rocks. In front, the sea; in the rear, a precipitous bank, the grassy verge of which is breaking away, year after year, and flings down its tufts of verdure upon the barrenness below. The beach itself is a broad space of sand, brown and sparkling, with hardly any pebbles intermixed. Near the water's edge there is a wet margin, which ...
— Footprints on The Sea-Shore (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... been uneasy ever since the furious popular outburst which had followed their breaking away from my direction and restraint. When they saw an opposition legislature, they readily believed what they read in the newspapers about the "impending reign of radicalism." Silliman, the opposition leader, ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... and by losing sight of its other embodiments fail to aspire to more complete vision. So Shelley says of this period, "I was laid asleep, spirit and limb." By a great effort, however, the next step was taken,—the agonizing one of breaking away from the bondage of this individual, in order that beauty in all its forms may appeal ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... the third of the serial stories published in "OUR BOYS AND GIRLS," where it appeared as the sequel of "BREAKING AWAY." The author had no more reason to complain of its reception than of that accorded to its predecessors; and he returns his sincere thanks to all those young friends who have written hundreds of letters to him, containing the most generous commendation, ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... as a mother beholds the birth or the awakening of intelligence in her child; he has perceived its first gropings, known its first resistance and its first triumphs; he has watched it taking shape, breaking away and gradually rising to the point at which it stands to-day; in a word, he is the father and the principal and sole ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... brings a blessing along with it. Now let us pace together—the reader's fancy arm in arm with mine—this noble beach, which extends a mile or more from that craggy promontory to yonder rampart of broken rocks. In front, the sea; in the rear, a precipitous bank the grassy verge of which is breaking away year after year, and flings down its tufts of verdure upon the barrenness below. The beach itself is a broad space of sand, brown and sparkling, with hardly any pebbles intermixed. Near the water's edge there is a wet margin ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... names on my way upstairs, Major. Three of the gentlemen you have never met before, but," he added suddenly breaking away from his high-flown book-learned English, as was his custom when in earnest, "Jeekie think they just black niggers like the rest, thief people. There ain't a white man in this house, except you and Miss Barbara and me, Major. Jeekie ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... shaped like a filbert-nut, but rounder, fixed by its stalk to the ground. In a very little while, however, it puts forth a number of beautiful moving arms. It is now a sea-lily! And now follows another change. Breaking away from the traditions of its tribe—the sea-lilies—it cuts itself off from the stalk, and grows in its place a number of short finger-like processes, and lo! from a sea-lily it becomes the rosy feather-star! (What this looks like you can see in fig. 7.) ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... sure enough, that was precisely what they did, a great bull giraffe, evidently the leader of the herd, and the animal which I had finally fixed upon as my own particular prey, suddenly tossing up his head and breaking away up the valley in a long, lumbering, ungainly canter, instantly followed by the rest of ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... about her, and we stole out into the darkness. At the door she turned up her face to Mark. "Kiss me, my brother." He kissed her, and breaking away (as I thought) with a low groan, strode from ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... furnished the sergeant with a raw-hide rope, from which he cut off a couple of lengths sufficient to securely bind the hands of Phil and Dick firmly behind their backs, and this operation was at once so effectually performed that anything in the nature of escape by simply breaking away and running for one's life was rendered impossible, quite apart from the sinister and significant order to shoot which had been given to the soldiers. A quarter of an hour later the entire party were on the move, and the two Englishmen had the mortification ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... works worthy of mention are the clavier concertos and several symphonies and quartets, which date from about 1777. His first important opera is "Idomeneo, King of Crete," written for the Munich opera. In this he adopts the principles of Gluck, thus breaking away from the wretched style of the Italian opera of the period, although the work itself was written in Italian. His next opera was in German, "Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail," and was given with great success at Vienna, in 1782. It was followed by "The ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... fog breaking away early, we set sail for Agamenticus, running along the coast and off the mouth of the Piscataqua River, passing near where my lamented Uncle Edward dwelt, whose fame as a worthy gentleman and magistrate is still living. We had Mount ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... first to come out of it, responding to her voice a good deal as if she dashed cold water in his face, his eyes breaking away from Barbara's, his lips parted in a nervous smile. He ran a hand through his hair—an inelegant gesture for him at ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... It was surmised that they were created in numbers. The old idea, that animals were all created in individual pairs, was found to be incompatible with the discovery of animal remains, in profusion, in rocks which were mud ages before any Adam could have existed to give them Hebrew names. Then, breaking away from the theological bonds, there sprang into active thought men of far-reaching minds, who began a thorough reconstruction of the whole theory of creation. The handwriting on the wall was NATURAL LAW. All creation, man included, was but the result of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... collapsible lunchbox in his hand, Barrent walked down the corridor to the landing stage. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should leave the weapon on the ship. He decided not to part with it. An inspection would reveal him anyhow; with the needlebeam he would have a chance of breaking away from police. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... Inca, and the mortal terror of his faithful subjects. Then, as all hands scrambled to their feet again and instinctively regained possession of their weapons, the hooked saurian started to "run", in the vain hope, possibly, of breaking away from the restraining influence which had so suddenly and unaccountably seized upon it. The yacht was whirled violently round—almost capsizing in the process—and dragged, with her bows nearly buried in the hissing and curling water, back toward the head of the lake, at a steadily increasing ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... information of them from Aix, Aubagne, Apt, Brignolles, and Eyguieres, while there are a series of them at Marseilles, one in July, two in August, and two in September;[3297] but this he must be used to. What disturbs him here is to see the national bond dissolving; he sees departments breaking away, new, distinct, independent, complete governments forming on the basis of popular sovereignty;[3298] publicly and officially, they keep funds raised for the central government for local uses; they ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Daddy Neil, yell at them! Yell!" screamed Peggy, breaking away from Polly to run to her father's side and literally shake him, as the crews drew ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... to realise their predicament the sentries were on them. The Huns singled out a Captain Wilson (R.F.C.), and before he could get away, surrounded him, while one villainous-looking little Hun lunged straight at him. By a quick movement Wilson avoided the thrust and succeeded in breaking away, the bayonet passing through his clothes. The guard continued to press every one back into the centre of the camp, very serious trouble again only just ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... your pardon," he said a little stiffly. The idea of stooping to such assistance had long been revolting to him. He was within an ace of breaking away from ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... I tell you he is not," he cried hoarsely, breaking away from her. "He is well. He looks strong. Do you think I would lie to you? I tell you he is well and ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... was! He kept saying, breaking away from some other thing, to say it: "I can't think this is all true. I can't think that you are just you, and I am just I, all over again. And that we're really going to be the two happiest ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton

... immediate result that came with that intense rapidity possible only to mental powers. At once they were both conscious of something that had not entered their thoughts before. To the pure all things are pure. To the imagination hurt by breaking away from God, the purest things can bring up suggestions directly opposite. Through the open door of disobedience came with lightning swiftness the suggestion of using a pure, holy function of the body in a way and for a purpose not intended. ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... down, and went straight to Satan, and began to moan and mutter brokenly, and Satan began to answer in the same way, and it was plain that they were talking together in the dog language. We all sat down in the grass, in the moonlight, for the clouds were breaking away now, and Satan took the dog's head in his lap and put the eye back in its place, and the dog was comfortable, and he wagged his tail and licked Satan's hand, and looked thankful and said the same; I knew he was saying ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... clean up. But, Major, by the time both of us are wrung out and dried, and sister has looked up some dinner, I'll be ready to unfold a plan that will make things look as bright for you and Winn and the rest of us as the sun that's breaking away the clouds is going to make ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe

... the new man, had his face tied up in a bandage for a cut he had got in breaking away from the mutineers; and that poor old Tom Redruth, still unburied, lay along the wall, stiff and stark under the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... this point the colonists, if rebellious in their practical attitude, had been strictly constitutional in their avowed aims. In the "Declaration of Colonial Right" of 1774, and even in the appeal to arms of 1775, all suggestion of breaking away from the Empire was repudiated. But now that the sword was virtually drawn there were practical considerations which made the most prudent of the rebels consider whether it would not be wiser to take the final step, and frankly ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... we rounded the slope we came upon him, Mr. Fett, and Billy Priske, the trio seated within a semi-circle of admiring Corsicans, and above a scene so marvellous that I caught my breath. The slope, breaking away to north and east, descended sheer upon a vast amphitheatre filled with green acres of pine forest and pent within walls of porphyry that rose in tower upon tower, pinnacle upon pinnacle, beyond and above the tree-tops; and these pillars, as they soared out of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... sense from the body, or matter, which is only a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning of God, or good, and the nature of the immu- 261:24 table and immortal. Breaking away from the mutations of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own iden- 261:27 tity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... strokes. About a mile from the hotel, we met the landlord rowing with desperate haste. It seems that the rain had been even more violent at his end of the lake, having been magnified into a squall upon the water, and a tornado upon land, blowing down trees, and breaking away the lattice-work of the hotel piazza; consequently he supposed our boat must have been ingulfed, and had come to look for the corpses. His amazement at finding us alive, and, though very wet, in ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... time the Indians were dealing with a seasoned man. Bouquet swung his fighters in a circle round the stampeding horses and provision wagons. The heat was terrific, the men almost mad with thirst, the horses neighing and plunging and breaking away to the woods; and the army stood, a red-coated, tartan-plaid target for invisible foes! By this time the men were fighting as Indians fight—breaking ranks, jumping from tree to tree. It is n't easy to keep men standing as targets when they ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... entry into the Cape Colony reached Lord Kitchener, he hurried down from the Transvaal to De Aar to superintend the casting of the nets. His first dispositions were made with the object of preventing De Wet and Hertzog breaking away into the districts lying west of the railway to Capetown, and an ingenious and elaborate scheme of columns springing out from the line in succession from the north, was arranged. It was not, however, put into action, for Knox and Plumer had headed back De Wet, and for the time being had prevented ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... cry Erica rushed toward him, breaking away from Donovan and forcing a way through that rough crowd as if by magic. Donovan, though so much taller and stronger, was longer in reaching the foot of the steps, and when at length he had pushed ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... Johnny and his mother and his sisters walking towards the West door! What a situation! And then there was Johnny breaking away from his own family and hurrying towards ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... around his right arm, and he sits down, bracing himself to resist the struggles of the animal to free itself. It usually makes three desperate efforts to escape, and then the hunter begins to haul in on his line, and, breaking away the snow around the hole, to admit of the passage of the body, lands his prey on ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... know quite well the curse which has rested upon us. We have become a party of units, and our whole effectiveness is destroyed. We want welding into one entity. A single session, a single year of office, and the thing would be done. We who do the mechanical work would see that there was no breaking away again. But we must have that year, we must have Mannering. That is why I watch him like a child, and I must say that he has given me a good ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... that the external mass of ice was in motion. In the course of the day, the wind shifting to the W.N.W., we once more discovered a small opening between the old and young floes, and at eleven P.M., the whole body of the ice in the harbour was perceived to be moving slowly out to the southeastward, breaking away, for the first time, at the points which form the entrance of the harbour. This sudden and unexpected change rendering it probable that we should at length be released, I sent to Captain Sabine, who had been desirous of continuing his observations on the pendulum to the last moment, to request ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... gave a wild whoop and, breaking away from his fellows, dashed towards the three strangers. In a moment the overcoat and muffler were thrown aside and the hat knocked off, revealing the fair-haired and smiling ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... of devoted sacrifice: she was sensible of her physical and moral charm: and she made a show of taking her under her protection. She had no children: but she loved young people and often had gatherings of them in her house: and she insisted on Antoinette's coming also, and breaking away from her solitude, and having some amusement in her life. And as she had no difficulty in guessing that Antoinette's shyness was in part the result of her poverty, she even went so far as to offer to give her a pretty frock or two, which Antoinette refused proudly: ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... labor, involves, as we know, the conversion into fragments and dust of a very considerable portion of the underside of the seam of coal, the workman laboring in a confined position, and in peril of the block of coal breaking away and crushing him beneath it. Coal-getting machines, such as those of the late Mr. Firth, worked by compressed air, reduce to a minimum the waste of coal, relieve the workman of a most fatiguing labor in a constrained position, and save him from the danger to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... instalment of the promised reforms in the document known as the Provisions of Westminster. During Henry's absence in France the situation became strained. The oligarchic party, headed by Gloucester, was breaking away from Montfort; and Edward was forming a liberal royalist party which was not far removed from Montfort's principles. Profiting by these discords, the Lusignans prepared to invade England. The papacy was about to declare against the reformers. When the monks of Winchester ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... had never again communicated with their respective families, nor had given their children the means of doing so. There must, I think, have been something nearly approaching to guilt on the second brother's part, and the bride should have broken a solemnly plighted troth to the elder brother, breaking away from him when almost his wife. The elder brother had been known to have been wounded at the time of the second brother's disappearance; and it had been the surmise that he had received this hurt in the personal conflict in which the latter was slain. But in truth the second brother had stabbed ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Br.—A tall shrub or tree 20 or 30 feet high, native of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania. The wood has been experimented upon in this country, and though to all appearances it is an excellent wood, yet Mr. Worthington Smith reported upon it as having a bad surface, and readily breaking away so that the cuts ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... therefore, more the result of an obvious necessity than of any accustomed habit of his life, he withdrew himself as soon as possible from the crowd, at the moment when Pippin—who never lost a good opportunity—had mounted upon a stump in order to address them. Breaking away just as the lawyer was swelling with some old truism, and perhaps no truth, about the rights of man and so forth, he mounted his horse, which he had concealed in the neighborhood, and rode off to the solitude and ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... the song of birds have been dear to me; yet, about that period, I was not cheerful, my mind was not at rest; I was debating within myself, and the debate was dreary and unsatisfactory enough. I sighed, and turning my eyes upward, I ejaculated: "What is truth?" But suddenly, by a violent effort breaking away from my meditations, I hastened forward; one mile, two miles, three miles were speedily left behind; and now I came to a grove of birch and other trees, and opening a gate I passed up a kind of avenue, and soon arriving before ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... growl ahead of him, a sudden breaking away of the bushes, and then he was thrown back, stunned and bleeding, because a great paw had smitten him. Whatever the beast might be, it was hungry and had found what seemed easy prey. There was a difference, though, which the animal,—it was doubtless ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... away back to Clayton on the day after to-morrow," I said, breaking away to explanations. "I have been writing shorthand here for Melmount, but that is almost over now. . ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... The first breaking away from Severndale was harder for Peggy than anyone but Mrs. Harold guessed. Somehow intuition supplied to her what actual words could never have conveyed, even had they been spoken, but Peggy, once her resolution had been taken to go away to school, was not a girl to bewail ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... need be at all afraid; there is no disruption, no breaking away from old anchorage—not at all. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there were two movements—first, the peasants in the town were striving to fortify each man his own house—to set up the towns against the kings; then, in the colleges, the great philosophers ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... had hardly begun to undo the halter, when he saw the utter impossibility of getting the horse to the stable before the storm would be upon them. So, to prevent Snowfoot from breaking away and dashing the buggy to pieces, he determined to leave him tied to the tree, and stand by his head, until the first whirl or rush should have passed. This he attempted to do; and patted and encouraged the snorting, terrified animal, till he was himself flung by the first ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... Reluctantly breaking away from such old friends, we pass through a door into a long vault-like stone passage or hall, down one side of which there seem to be high large windows, about as far apart as windows of a long room commonly are. Behind each of these is a sea-pool ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... influence of war they have rules and customs governing their home life that are entirely in keeping with the highest state of Christian civilization. To them, polygamy is not a sinful practise. Without light beyond that which comes from their own fireside, they do not see the necessity of breaking away from a practise that is peculiar to mankind in the earliest stages of social life. But they hold tenaciously to the rule, that all men and all women among them must respect the matrimonial customs by which they are governed. These customs cannot ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... Yann, who, at the first, was going to kneel to her as before a saint, felt himself fired again. He glanced stealthily towards the old oaken bunk, irritated at being so close to the old woman, and seeking some way not to be spied upon, but ever without breaking away from those ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... the things which I have to overcome are just little fussy woman things—but they are big to me because I am breaking away from family traditions. All the women our household have followed the straight and narrow path of conventional living. Even Grace does it, although she rebels inwardly—but Aunt Frances keeps her to it. Once Grace tried to be an artist, and she worked hard in Paris, until ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... life as others value their lives. Who shall say? In any case he did not descend by one of the slanting strips. In another moment the timber under him was splitting and giving way at the cleated join, and sagging threateningly. Then came the loud sound of final splitting and breaking away, and a deep sagging preceding ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... not look forward to having a gallop, for hounds are being taught to hunt and kill a cub in covert, and the most useful service she can render at such times is to stand by the covert side and prevent any foxes from breaking away. I believe that only people who are really fond of hunting take part in the morning and dress by candle, lamp, or gas-light. When they are ready to ride perhaps a long distance to covert, there is often only sufficient daylight to see with, rain drizzling down steadily ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... came on him more and more thickly through all those hours of the dreary night. They came, too, with a growing force, each one as it returned having more the character of a waking dream, vivid almost to the point of reality. But all ended alike. He always found himself breaking away from Rosey in the veranda in the bungalow at Umballa, and could hear again her cry of despair: "Oh, Gerry, Gerry! It is not as you think. Oh, stay, stay! Give me a chance to show you how I love you!" The tramp of his horse ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... in one hand, the child in the other. The fray which followed, was a short one. It began with Phebe's dropping the thermometer on the floor and plumping the child bodily into the bath. It ended with the child's breaking away and diving into bed again, dripping with bath-water and tears, while Phebe picked up the scattered fragments of the thermometer and fished the towels from the tub ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... immense height like a chimney-piece, with sheer precipice below, when there came rolling from above, with fearful velocity, a block of stone about the size of one of the fountains in Trafalgar-square, which Egg, the last of the party, had preceded by not a yard, when it swept over the ledge, breaking away a tree, and rolled and tumbled down into the valley. It had been loosened by the heavy rains, or by some wood-cutters afterwards reported to be above." The only place new to Dickens was Berne: "a surprisingly ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... frail creatures, and I'm the last man to hurt the feelings of the Seminary. Seminary laddie mysel', prize medal Greek. Bygones be bygones!... No man in Muirtown I respect more than ... Speug an honourable tradesman" (breaking away on his own account with much spirit), "a faithful husband, and an affectionate father. What? All a mistake from beginning to end. Family trouble did it—conduct of a relative," and the Bailie wept. ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... this exercise will not be found as easy as one might suppose. The magnetic power of the pupils is great and one will experience some slight difficulty in breaking away from it. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... outlook of the world from my childhood's days, when Sunday was a day of strict theological habit, from which no departure could be permitted! The laxity of modern life, by comparison is, I think, somewhat appalling. We have made the mistake of breaking away from old beliefs and convictions without replacing them with something better. We do not make as much, or as good, use of our Sundays as we might do. There is a medium between the rigid Sabbatarianism of our ancestors and the absolute waste ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... Thrusting aside detaining hands and answering rude queries with an old sailor's ready banter, bidding them on no account to cease the festivities because of his departure, and in fact ordering a new draught of rum for all hands, he succeeded in breaking away under cover of the cheers which ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady



Words linked to "Breaking away" :   secession, departure, going, breakaway, withdrawal, leaving, going away



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