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Smother   Listen
verb
Smother  v. i.  
1.
To be suffocated or stifled.
2.
To burn slowly, without sufficient air; to smolder.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Smother" Quotes from Famous Books



... Spread each pancake thickly with the mixture and roll or make into little pockets or envelopes with the end tucked in to hold the filling. Cook in foil till golden-brown and serve at once with sufficient sour cream to smother them. ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... lifted off the pan, choking in the smother of smoke. She came right-about face swiftly enough. The man had not moved; ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... a mask of quiet dignity. The tragedy in the woman's heart made the more pathetic the comedy of the half-drunken husband. Besides, he was philosopher enough to know that more than half the drunkenness of the world was the pitiful effort to smother a heartache. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... around the point like a wild bird, amid a smother of spray, appeared the advance canoe. As it disappeared I could distinguish De Artigny at the stern, his coat off, his hands grasping a paddle. Above the point once more and in smoother water, I was aware that he turned ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... in silence, and the last of their line had vanished under the horizon before the Indians could smother the indignation and resentment which the strangers had excited within their hearts. Days, however, passed away, and with them the recollection of the event. Afterwards, I chanced to meet, in the Arkansas, with the Colonel who commanded; ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... skins of wild beasts, and thus exposed to be devoured by dogs. They were covered with pitch and set on fire to serve as lamp-posts to the streets of Rome. To justify such atrocities, and to smother all sentiments of compassion, these persecutors accused their innocent victims of the most ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... the freshly cut root tap. Then again these roots may be starved out by never allowing the top or leafy part to form. You will remember that it is the leaf which makes the food. And if there is no food then there will be none to store away in the root for new root formation. Some farmers smother roots. This is done by planting such crops as hemp, clover or cowpeas. These crops choke out the weeds. They cover the ground very completely, and so the weeds have less ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw

... damned Scarlet Pimpernel League has been at work, when a score or so of valuable prizes have been snatched from under the very knife of the guillotine, then, there is much gnashing of teeth and useless cursings, but nothing serious or definite is done to smother those accursed English flies which ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... tell—" Her voice broke in a half-sob she tried to smother. "No one can ever know what it meant to me, but I knew she understood, and suddenly the something that had been tight and cruel snapped, and for ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... rise, but poor Susy had hurt herself, and although she strove to keep back her tears and smother her sobs, Tom saw that she had ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... in his employment, Or maturing his felonious little plans, His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest man's. Our feelings we with difficulty smother When constabulary duty's to be done: Ah, take one consideration with another, A policeman's lot is not a ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... selling land in the west, sent out a five-page letter— enough to smother whatever interest might have been attracted by the advertisement. Here is the third paragraph ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... arguments by which I strove to blind myself to my rising passion for another, and to smother the self-reproaches which assailed me when I first conceived the fatal project of imposing upon the world by the supposed death of my wife, and of seeking your hand in marriage. How often did the better feelings of my nature recoil from such an act ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore

... to a prolonged yawn, Pedro rose and stretched himself. Then he went up to the sleeping Quashy and took him by the nose, at the same time putting his hand on his mouth to smother the inevitable yell in its birth. When sufficiently awake to be released with safety, the amiable negro was permitted to raise himself, and when aware of who had grasped him, he beamed with good-will, ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... up with the yoke, Brown as the sweet-smelling loam, Thro' a sun-swept smother of sweat and smoke The two great ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... amazement, the renegade awoke from his trance, and became aware of the notice which his emotion had excited. He felt ashamed that a token of weakness should have betrayed him before man, and with a strong exertion strove to smother the commotion which swelled his breast. He dashed away the drop that fain would soften the lurid expression of his eye. His pride succeeded in the conflict: soon that lip recovered its sardonic curl, and his features relapsing into their calm ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... his mouth to smother a laugh and his eyes fairly sparkled with mischief. "Who is Conkey?" I ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... tears may smother Smiles, for all that joy or sorrow saith: Joy nor sorrow knows not from each other ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... as you are to see them," came from Mrs. Tom Rover, as both of her sons gave her a warm hug. "There, there! don't smother ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... irksome and so little to his taste. Only the public interest involved forced him to breathe for a time the stifling atmosphere, and mix himself in the nauseating topics, of the royal matrimonial wranglings. Only the imperious need for suppressing a scandal which might smother the new settlement, and the royal power, in the mud of a sordid quarrel, bade him undertake a hateful duty. Honour could not be saved; but disaster might perhaps ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... Swelling with a smother'd sigh, Rose the snowy bosom high Of the blue-eyed lassie. Fleeter than the streamers fly, When they flit athwart the sky, Went and came the rosy dye On the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... with a tired little gasp, looking apprehensively up the long stretch of rough ground rising right in front, and the now gloomy hilltop, above which heavy black clouds hung, like the curtain of night about to descend and smother them in ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... outstretch'd necks, And laughter which no threats can smother, And tell the horror-stricken ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... time—I—I have done things—I have scorned all restraint, all laws except those of my desires, and so, perhaps, I am a vandal. Make sure of this, however—I shall not injure you. Christ is no more sacred to me than you, my heart's treasure. You accuse me of indelicacy because I lack the strength to smother my admiration. I adore you; my being dissolves, my veins are afire with longing for you; I am mad with the knowledge that you are mine. Mad? Caramba! I am insane; my mind totters; I grope my way like a man blinded by a dazzling light; I suffer agonies. But see! I refuse to touch you. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... indicating his opinion that he was another example of the ingratitude of republics. The gentle temper and sense of justice of Othello resisted the insidious wiles of Iago; but ignorance and inexperience yielded in the end to malignity and craft. President Grant was brought not only to smother the Desdemona of his early preferences and intentions, but to feel no remorse for the deed, and take to his bosom the harridan of radicalism. As Phalaris did those of Agrigentum opposed to his rule, he finished by ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... that she would not call Susan. Oh, was she dreaming? Was it really she, Rilla Blythe, who had got into this absurd predicament? She did not care if the Germans were near Paris—she did not care if they were in Paris—if only the baby wouldn't cry or choke or smother or have convulsions. Babies did have convulsions, didn't they? Oh, why had she forgotten to ask Susan what she must do if the baby had convulsions? She reflected rather bitterly that father was very considerate of mother's and Susan's health, but what about hers? Did he think she could continue ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Menie Gray, whose picture you will see in the drawing-room, a distant relation of my father's, who had, however, a handsome part of cousin Menie's succession. There are none living that can be hurt by the story now, though it was thought best to smother it up at the time, as indeed even the whispers about it led poor cousin Menie to live very retired. I mind her well when a child. There was something very gentle, but rather tiresome, about poor ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... different. They work and take care of their families like other people. Only they don't count. If I hadn't money—they'd slam the door on me like that." She indicated the violence of the act by gesture. "As it is, they smother me. There are three of them at Melcourt-le-Danois at this present moment—Anne Marie de Melcourt's two boys and one girl. They're all waiting for me to supply the funds with which they're to make rich marriages. Is it any wonder that I look upon what's done for my own niece ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... often did I strive To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood Stopp'd in my soul, and would not let it forth To find the empty, vast, and wandering air; But smother'd it within my panting bulk, Who almost burst to belch ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... cauliflower plants sown early in summer; and as they now begin to show their heads, break in the leaves upon them to keep off the sun and rain; it will both harden and whiten them.—NOVEMBER. Weed the crops of spinach, and others that were sown late, or the wild growth will smother and starve the crop. Dig up a border under a warm wall, and sow some carrots for spring; sow radishes in a similar situation, and let the ground be dug deep for both. Turn the mould that was trenched ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... respective blankets in order to sleep. We had made a protecting wall with our baggage. My men covered their heads with their blankets, but I never could adopt their style of sleeping, as it seemed to smother me. I always slept with my head uncovered, for not only could I breathe more freely, but I wished to be on the alert should we at any time be surprised by the Tibetans. My men moaned and groaned and their ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... the first place, the smoke will smother us. Then suppose we reached the spot? We might be nearer the rebels than our friends. They know where we are. If they are not taken, they will come back for us. If they are taken, we must do our best to get to our lines and send out a scouting party. Be guided by me, youngster. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... Numidian prince, With how much care he forms himself to glory, And breaks the fierceness of his native temper, To copy out our father's bright example. He loves our sister Marcia, greatly loves her; His eyes, his looks, his actions, all betray it; But still the smother'd fondness burns within him; When most it swells, and labours for a vent, The sense of honour, and desire of fame, Drive the big passion back into his heart. What! shall an African, shall Juba's heir, Reproach great ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison

... and following days Hippolyte threw himself into his work, and to try to conquer his passion by the swift rush of ideas and the ardor of composition. He half succeeded. Study consoled him, though it could not smother the memories of so many tender hours ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac

... preferred his former condition, and wished himself again a watchman. "That was an ugly dream," said he, "but droll enough. It seemed to me as if I were the lieutenant up yonder, but there was no happiness for me. I missed my wife and the little ones, who are always ready to smother me with kisses." He sat down again and nodded, but he could not get the dream out of his thoughts, and he still had the goloshes on his feet. A falling star gleamed across the sky. "There goes one!" cried he. "However, there are quite enough left; I should very much ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... began it looked as though the veteran Marshall players meant to smother their lighter opponents by means of the sheer force of their attack. They immediately carried the ball over into Chester's side of the field, and there was danger of a touchdown before the game had been in progress ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... Sure enough! A thick smother of flakes whirled down into the deserted streets and cutting short Grandfather Harling's story, the visitors bundled themselves ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... were somewhere out in the storm. A wilder day would be hard to imagine; a hurricane was raging, the rain was whirled ahead of it like charges of shot. The mountains behind Kyak were invisible, and to seaward was nothing but a dimly discernible smother of foam and spray, for the crests of the breakers were snatched up and carried by the wind. The town was sodden; the streets were running mud. Stove-pipes were down, tents lay flattened in the mire, and the board houses were shaking as if they might fly to pieces at any moment. The ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... us, Mr Lestrange!" said he, when the dinghy was alongside; "we have room for one. Mrs Stannard is in the quarter-boat, and it's overcrowded; she's better aboard the dinghy, for she can look after the kids. Come, hurry up, the smother is coming down on us fast. Ahoy!"—to the quarter-boat, "hurry up, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... Napoleon, angrily, "were my heart capable of such a change, I should tear it with my own hands from my breast in order to smother its desires. Though she were the most beautiful woman in the world, and offered her love to me, I should turn away from her, and hurl my contempt and hatred into her face. She has offended me too grievously, for it is she who has destroyed all my plans, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... to at last was, that I could not do better than smother my impatience for a whole week; taking, the while, excursions in every other direction so as, if possible, to blind any one who made a study of my movements. Then my journey to the cavern must be made by night, armed with spades, and taking with us a couple ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... were like awakened Rip Van Winkles, and it seemed to us that we were dreaming. On one side the azure sea lapped across the horizon into the azure sky; on the other side the sea lifted itself into great breakers of emerald that fell in a snowy smother upon a white coral beach. Beyond the beach, green plantations of sugar-cane undulated gently upward to steeper slopes, which, in turn, became jagged volcanic crests, drenched with tropic showers and capped by stupendous masses of trade-wind clouds. At any rate, it was a most beautiful ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... Mother! Daughter, they're shouting for you! Let me hold your flowers, darling; they'll smother you!... You mean the one with the yellow curls, madam? The valedictorian? ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... conversation was a fine art. He loved the adequate or picturesque word as a miner loves an ingot of gold, yet he was able to display his linguistic stores without incurring the charge of pedantry, much as certain women can carry without offence clothes that would smother a more ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... she wheeled with flaming face toward the chair. "I have been willing," she said, "to smother my life in an effort to meet your ideas, though I knew them to be little ideas. Now I see that in yielding everything one can no more please you than in yielding nothing. If he goes, I go, too. You may ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... relighted the gas and went downstairs to stand at the parlour window to scan more clearly every face that might pass, and—yes, she would be honest with herself now—to spring into his arms the moment he entered, smother him with kisses and beg him to forgive the bitter words she ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... though it meant business," she muttered. "I'm liable to have to break trail to get them out to feed to-morrow." Then, with a look of anxiety as the thought came to her, "If they ever 'piled up' in a draw they're so fat half of them would smother." ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... avenging guardian of the everlasting element of good in nature's dualism. Yet, strange enough, each of the two kept his and her own secret. Their hearts burned, even as the fire which consumes the wicked, under the smother of a forced silence—itself a torment and an agony; yea, neither of the two would mention the name of Jenny Dodds for the entire world. And there was more than a mutual fear that one should know what the other thought. Each was under a process of exculpation and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... lover can wish to raise in a mistress—these were, esteem and pity—for sure the most outrageously rigid among her sex will excuse her pitying a man whom she saw miserable on her own account; nor can they blame her for esteeming one who visibly, from the most honourable motives, endeavoured to smother a flame in his own bosom, which, like the famous Spartan theft, was preying upon and consuming his very vitals. Thus his backwardness, his shunning her, his coldness, and his silence, were the forwardest, the most diligent, the warmest, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... the tails were cropped, And home each philotadpole hopped, In faith rewarded to exult, And wait the beautiful result. Too soon it came; our pool, so long The theme of patriot bull-frogs' song, Next day was reeking, fit to smother, With heads and tails that missed each other,— Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts: The only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... smother a chuckle when that came out, for I'd already recognized some of the symptoms of a motion picture mind while Ellery was sketchin' out this ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... slow progress. The creeping pace, the languid warmth of the afternoon, the scent of flowering trees, the ceaseless singing of redbird, catbird, robin, and thrush, made it drowsy in the forest. In the midst of an agreeable dissertation upon May Day sports of more ancient times the Colonel paused to smother a yawn; and when he had done with the clown, the piper, and the hobby-horse, he yawned ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... a spy-glass. Sure enough, there was a boat on the water. It was moving ever so slowly. It seemed to stop, and we saw something lifted and waved, and then all was still again. I got a boat's crew together, and away we went in that deadly smother. An hour's row and we got within hail of the derelict—as one of the crew said, 'feelin' as if the immortal life was jerked out of us.' The dingey lay there on the glassy surface, not a sign of life ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... received also instructions to undertake, either by himself or by his captains, the conquest of the countries towards the south, forming part of Chili. Almagro, since his arrival at Caxamalca, had seemed willing to smother his ancient feelings of resentment towards his associate, or, at least, to conceal the expression of them, and had consented to take command under him in obedience to the royal mandate. He had even, in his despatches, the magnanimity to make honorable mention of Pizarro, as one anxious to ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... beginning of September; and, since that time, what with Maroto's disaffection and Turkish news, we have had leisure to forget Monsieur Peytel, and to occupy ourselves with [Greek text omitted]. Perhaps Monsieur de Balzac helped to smother what little sparks of interest might still have remained for the murderous notary. Balzac put forward a letter in his favor, so very long, so very dull, so very pompous, promising so much, and performing so little, that the Parisian public ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... place in her Affections than my self, for there was no Male kind belonging to the Family, her Father and Brother, as she told me at other Times, being in Spain, to take care of some Effects they expected by the Flota from the West Indies. However, I endeavour'd to smother this Impression of Jealousy, attributing the Mistake to the Circumstances of Night, Candle Light, or some other false Medium that might ground it, so I was resolv'd to take no notice of it at my next Visit. But it was not long before I met with another ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe

... often the good destroyed, we wish to believe no more in it as inherent in our being, and rather than suffer repeatedly from its disappearance, we prefer to smother ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi

... wonder what they're doin' home ternight?" Says Jim— An' some of us felt, well—as if we'd like Ter smother him! An' some of us tried hard-like not ter choke, Th' smoke Was pretty thick an' black! A-thinkin' back, Across th' ocean I could sort of see A little house that means just all ter me And, though nobody said a word I knew Their thoughts was goin' on th' self-same track— Thoughts ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster

... send you a formal entry blank to-morrow," said Mr. Stone, as his companion started the motor, and a moment later they were rushing off in a smother of foam thrown up by the ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... Madrid, against the wall of the convent of the Santa Maria de la Castita! At Arcola, by the great devil himself! that was an action. Every man there, gentlemen, swallowed as much smoke in five minutes as would smother you all in this room! I received, at the same moment, two musket balls in the thighs, a grape shot through the calf of my leg, a lance through my left shoulder, a piece of a shrapnel in the left deltoid, a bayonet through the cartilage of my right ribs, a cut-cut ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... obstinacy was large, and her opposition strong, as several well-directed thrusts which reached me in vulnerable places made me aware, but I smiled as if they were flattering compliments. Several times I mentally framed replies only to smother them, for I was the stranger within her gates, and if she saw fit to offend a guest she ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... knew it to be true. But what could be done? There had grown up something for her, holier, greater, more absorbing even than a mother's love. Happily for most young wives, though the new tie may surmount the old one, it does not crush it or smother it. The mother retains a diminished hold, and knowing what nature has intended is content. She, too, with some subsidiary worship, kneels at the new altar, and all is well. But here, though there was abundant love, there was no sympathy. The cause of discord was ever present to them both. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... cold comfort. He didn't want to go out at all. He didn't want to die, not for fifty or sixty years yet, and of all the ways of dying, he wanted least to smother and choke and stifle like a rat walled in its hole in ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... with impunity, to the enrichment of a few knaves, and the ruin of many thousands, till more effectual laws are framed to meet the evil. As they net thousands a night, a few hundreds or even thousands can be well spared to smother a few actions and prosecutions, which are very rarely instituted against them, and never but by ruined men, who are easily quieted by a small consideration, which, from recent judgments, will not be withheld; therefore we shall see recorded but very ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... charged with doom, I began, and rose by dramatically graded stages to my colossal climax, which I delivered in as sublime and noble a way as ever I did such a thing in my life: "Go back and tell the king that at that hour I will smother the whole world in the dead blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack of light and warmth, and the peoples of the earth shall famish and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... which he had been obliged to make use, and it pleased him to think that if things should go well with him after the interview to which he was looking forward, he would read that serenade to its object, and ask her to substitute it in her memory for the inharmonic lines which he had used in order to smother the degenerate melody of a foreign lay. The other poem was intended for use in case his interview should not be successful. But on the way home Mr. Locker experienced an entire change of mind. He came to believe that ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... of potions and incantations they are able to arouse the pangs and to soothe them at will; they can make those bear who have a difficulty in bearing, and if they think fit they can smother the embryo in ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... possessed my heart, I did not feel my dwelling's dreary void; But now, returning home, my rage appeas'd, Their kingdom wasted, and my son aveng'd, I find there nothing left to comfort me. The glad obedience I was wont to see Kindling in every eye, is smother'd now In discontent and gloom; each, pondering, weighs The changes which a future day may bring, And serves the childless king, because he must. To-day I come within this sacred fane, Which I have often enter'd to implore And thank ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... man could live in it, we'd make the attempt without ye, sir," declared Long Jerry, warmly. "But neither dogs nor men could find their way in this smother It looks like it had set in for a big blizzard. You don't know jest what that means up here in the backwoods. Logging camps will be snowed under and mules, horses and oxen will have to be shot to save them ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... that I buried him on the border of the Tarhit watercourse, three marches from Timissao. Everybody can detect that there are things missing in my story. Doubtless they guess at some mysterious drama. But proofs are another matter. Because of the impossibility of collecting them, they prefer to smother what could only become a silly scandal. But now you know all the details as well ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... relieved the tension, and for the first time that day men in that post-office joked and laughed. It even lifted from my heart the gloom that threatened to smother me, and I went home and told the story to my mother and sisters, and they too smiled, so closely akin are tears ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... telescope without a word, and at another time we should all have had to turn away to smother the desire to burst out laughing, as we recalled the irritable remarks about the idiot to whom the glass belonged, and the wretchedness of his eyesight, coupled with an opinion that he ought ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... dark to leeward, She struck—not a reef or a rock But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her Dead to the Kentish Knock; And she beat the bank down with her bows and the ride of her keel: The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock; And canvas and compass, the whorl and the wheel Idle for ever to waft ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... together: "Who ever has taken the eye and the tooth from the Graiai, the ancient daughters of Phorcys, may Mother Night smother him." ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... what's the matter? What is't that ails young Harry Gill? That evermore his teeth they chatter, Chatter, chatter, chatter still. Of waistcoats Harry has no lack, Good duffle grey, and flannel fine; He has a blanket on his back, And coats enough to smother nine. ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... bad—really in its essence it is not bad at all. If we only give the other man a real chance. It is the pushing and pulling and demanding of one human being toward another that smother the best in us, and make life a fearful strain. Of course there is a healthy demanding as well as an unhealthy demanding, but, so far as I know, the healthy demanding can come only when we are clear of personal ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call

... way to him by degrees. He shifted himself uneasily, as though he would have been glad to smother himself beneath the bedclothes, was it not for lack of resolution. A whipped hound never ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... the guide raised the rifle, took quick but careful aim, and fired. There was no puff of smoke, for the new high-powered, smokeless powder was used. Following the shot, there was a commotion in the water. Amid a smother of foam, ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton

... echo at the wheel. The Commander glanced aft through the trail of smoke at the next astern swinging round in the smother of his wake. "Well, we shan't be long now before we tie up to the buoy—curse these fellows! Here come all the drifters with mails and ratings ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... the man who such doings would smother!— On, Luther of Bavan! On, Saint of Kilgroggy! With whip in one hand and with Bible in t'other, Like Mungo's tormentor, both ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... some fine morning that the street in which you live is blockaded with furniture vans, all endeavouring to deliver furniture you don't require and never heard of before, while your staircase is a mass of flowers and fruit constantly increasing upon you and threatening to smother you with their amount no less than with their scent. It would gradually appear that the deliveries both of the flowers and the furniture were being executed in accordance with the orders of one of your friends, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various

... the open space of moonlight toward the trees. Who called, or why, I did not question. But I must smother the noise. "Singing Arrow!" the call came again, and the roar of it in the quiet night made my ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... his that they have in the house, and treat no better than if he were a dog, knows he is there, and goes and looks at him, and calls to him, and cries about him whenever he dares. And you sit here, in your great house, with your carpets and chairs, that half smother you, and your looking-glasses and your fine clothes, and don't start to your feet when I tell you this. I tell you if God doesn't damn everybody who is responsible for this wickedness, then there is no such thing as ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... have taken care that he who gave it to me should run the same danger as myself, and he knows it. There's nothing to fear from that quarter. I've paid him enough to smother ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... wind—something of small fashion, but long and indubitably capacious—something with a hood. A little cloak, possibly: I don't know. But I am sure that it could envelop, that it could boil or roast, that it could fairly smother—a baby! It was lined with golden-brown, crackling silk, which Pattie Batch's mother had left in her trunk, upon her last departure, poor woman! from the sordid world of Swamp's End to regions which were now become ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan

... 'Alas! 310 Trojans we were, and mighty Ilium was; But the last period and the fatal hour Of Troy is come: our glory and our power Incensed Jove transfers to Grecian hands; The foe within the burning town commands; And (like a smother'd fire) an unseen force Breaks from the bowels of the fatal horse: Insulting Sinon flings about the flame, And thousands more than e'er from Argos came Possess the gates, the passes, and the streets, 320 And these the sword o'ertakes, and those it meets. The guard nor fights nor flies; their fate ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... fieri, when that means dying by your own hand. There the unnaturalness comes in and the irrationality. A mother, watching the death agony of her son, may piously wish it over: but it were an unmotherly act to lay her own hand on his mouth and smother him. To lay violent hands on oneself is abidingly cruel and unnatural, more so than if the suicide's own mother ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... attempted to reach the scene of the fire, but were driven back by the dense and suffocating smoke, impregnated with vapours. Endeavours were made to smother the fire, but though the mine remained closed for five weeks, no sooner was it re-opened than the fire burst forth more furiously than at first. The howling of the flames ascending from the lowest depths of the pit ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston

... has not met the Irishman who apes the Englishman, and who forgets his country and tries to forget his accent, or to smother the taste of it, as it were? 'Come, dine with me, my boy,' says O'Dowd, of O'Dowdstown: 'you'll FIND US ALL ENGLISH THERE;' which he tells you with a brogue as broad as from here to Kingstown Pier. And did ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... what wonder you do hit of mine,— 30 Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not Than our earth's wonder; more than earth divine. Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak; Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit, Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, 35 The folded meaning of your words' deceit. Against my soul's pure truth why labour you To make it wander in an unknown field? Are you a god? would you create me new? Transform me, ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... a smother of white dust; the weeds beside it drooped powdered heads; evil odours reeked through the little place; but when Shade and Johnnie had passed its confines, the air from the mountains greeted them sweetly; the dusty white road ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... you there, the stout and staunch, "Red flag" in one hand and "ten swords" in t'other; Saw the strong sword-belt bursting from your paunch; Pitied the foes you'd fall upon and smother; Heard you make droves of pale policemen bleat, Running amok to ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various

... purpose. The surest way to get rid of such weeds, in fact, of all weeds, is to prevent their leaves from growing and making starch and digesting food for them. This is accomplished by constantly cutting off the young shoots as soon as they appear above the soil, or by growing some crop that will smother them. The constant effort to make new growth will soon exhaust the supply of stored food ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... "make this way. Here is the pier," but the splashing continued, and a smother of sound came to me, as if the swimmer were under water, and his voice stifled. Almost without thinking, I gripped the thick, tarry rope and let myself over the basin, until I had reached the surface ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... for a considerable time, utterly refused to raise another, and devoured all the eggs which were given to them for that purpose! This colony was afterwards supplied with an unimpregnated queen, but they refused to accept of her, and attempted at once to smother her to death. I then gave them a fertile queen, but she met with no better treatment. Facts of a similar kind have been noticed, by other observers: thus it seems that bees may not only become reconciled, as it were, to living without ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... he quickly had a little blaze. The others fed this in a cautious manner, so as not to smother it by too much fuel. As a result the fire was in a short time burning freely, and diffusing a genial warmth around that proved very ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen

... Rogers got up and, opening the window wider than before, put out his head. The sunshine caught him full in the face. He tasted the fresh morning air. Tinged with the sharp sweetness of the north it had a fragrance as of fields and gardens. Even St. James's Street could not smother its vitality and perfume. He drew it with delight into his lungs, making such a to-do about it that a passer-by looked up to see what was the matter, and noticing the hanging tassel of a flamboyant dressing-gown, at once modestly ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... distinguished guests that surrounded him. The thing which puzzled me was his grave, sedate demeanor, dignified, almost austere at times. A man, I thought, might grow a beard and dye it, but how could he grow a different set of manners, how smother his jollity, how wipe ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... those that smother griefe too secretly, May wast themselves in silent anguishment, And bring their bodies to so low an ebb, That all the world can never make it flowe, Unto the happy hight of former health. Then be not [so] iniurious to thy selfe, ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... would make a mist and smother Some swain beset, and screen him from the crowd, I prayed for vapours; but his mind was other: Yet was I answered, though the god was proud, For, anyhow, I trod on Miss Pritt's mother And left beneath ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various

... nothing whatever unnatural or wrong or shocking in this fact; and there is no harm in it if only it be sensibly faced and provided for. The mischief that it does at present is produced by our efforts to ignore it, or to smother it under a heap of sentimental ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... second term of President Diaz commenced. The success of the church party would simply throw Mexico back half a century in her march of improvement towards a higher state of civilization. It would check all educational progress, all commercial advance, and smother both political and ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... the Miller he shook For fear his strange cook Should, indeed and in truth, prove successful; But feeling ashamed That his pluck should be blamed, Strove to smother his heart-quake distressful. ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper

... breast while he lowered his head, licking the boy's face all over with his tongue. This made the boy furious but he could do nothing as the goat was heavy, and with his weight on his chest he thought he would smother. ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery

... (only I can't say just exactly the words!): 'Though jealousy be produced by love, as ashes by fire, yet jealousy'—oh, what does come next? Oh yes; I know—'yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother flames.'" ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... unromantic mind, Hal. You just like to write newspaper articles, and type letters, and smother your imagination under ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... is an oil or grease fire, shut off the supply of whatever is burning. Then smother the flames with sand, earth, rugs, or other heavy ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense

... laughing all the while like to choke himself. As for his bronze candlestick, I thought she would have expired on the spot, with her white teeth glancing like ivory, and the tears running down her cheeks, as she every now and then clapped a handkerchief on her mouth to smother the uncontrollable uproariousness ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... of poultry keeping that has been widely advertised. The principle of the Philo box is that of holding the air warmed by the chick down close to them by a sagging piece of cloth. The cloth checks most of the radiating heat, but is not so tight as to smother the chick. This limits the space of air to be warmed by the chicks to such a degree that the body warmth is used to the greatest advantage. That chickens can be raised in these fire-less brooders, is not in question, for that has been abundantly ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... would it? I want you to trust me about this. There's no question of newspaper enterprise involved; but there is a chance for you to serve the community. The very fact that you have never been friendly to the Holtons will give additional weight to what you print to-day. I'm not asking you to smother this talk as a favor to me, but for the good of the town—all of us. And I believe you're big enough and broad ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... rug. If nothing can be obtained in which to wrap up, lie down and roll over slowly at the same time beating out the fire with the hands. If another person's clothing catches fire, throw him to the ground and smother the fire with a coat, blanket, ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... captain; "he's as anxious as you and I to smother things up. This is a tiff; he'd soon talk 'em out of it if he had the chance, and what I propose to do is to give him the chance. Let's allow the men an afternoon ashore. If they all go, why we'll fight the ship. If they none of them go, well then, we hold the cabin, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 'One is obliged to smother one's self in satin and velvet for balls and dinners,' said Lady Kirkbank, when she discussed the great question of gowns; 'but I know I always look my best in my cotton frock and ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... snow-drift on the hill! Who heard him chide the blast, or say 'twas cold? His wounds are freezing! is the anguish told? Tell him his child was murdered with its mother! He seems like carved out stone that has no woe to smother. ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas

... he whispered, reassuringly, passing his arm unchidden about her slight waist. "Don't be frightened, dear! It wasn't a man cut in half. It was the upper half of a man who was wiggling down into a tunnel hidden by that smother of underbrush .... And here I was just wondering why people should bother to come all the way through this path, instead of skirting the woods! Answers furnished while ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... would have been back before now, otherwise, eh?" Meighan seemed to be communing with himself, rather than talking to Kenleigh. "Wouldn't make such an awful noise—didn't need much juice on that safe—pretty slick with the smother ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... more bitter and more degrading than that of the scourged African, or helot Greek. Men may be beaten, chained, tormented, yoked like cattle, slaughtered like summer flies, and yet remain in one sense, and the best sense, free. But to smother their souls within them, to blight and hew into rotting pollards the suckling branches of their human intelligence, to make the flesh and skin which, after the worm's work on it, is to see God,[158] into leathern thongs to yoke ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... influence of Antonina's presence and Antonina's words over the Goth, they had not yet acquired power enough to smother in him entirely the warlike instincts of his sex and nation, or to vanquish the strong and hostile promptings of education and custom. She had gifted him with new emotions, and awakened him to new thought; she had aroused all the dormant gentleness ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... after the year 1824, to make due allowance for the terrible strain upon his mind which disposed him to give violent and hyperbolical expression to the mood of the moment. The unhappy passion which he could at times smother, but never subdue, went boring away into his heart like a subterranean fire, consuming his vitals, and occasionally breaking forth into a wild blaze. The following reference to it, in his letter to Franzen (November 13, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... To attempt to smother the passions is vain, to controul them difficult; besides, it is from energy, arising from passions or propensities, that all good, as well as all evil, arise. The business, then, will neither be to curb nor to crush, but to give a proper direction. This is to be done ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... not know a great man's power and might In spite of innocence can smother right, Colour his villainies to get esteem, And make the honest man the villain seem? I know it, and the world doth know 'tis true, Yet I protest if such a man I knew, That might my country prejudice or thee Were he ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... sheep will always jump from the outer circle of the band to the center, where it is warm; they always huddle together in cold weather, and herders are frequently compelled to remain right with them, nights at a time, working hard every minute separating them so they will not smother. One of the men, owner of the sheep, I presume, met us and said he would show me where to go so I could see everything that was being done, which proved to be directly back of a man who was shearing sheep. ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... said the little Half-Chick. "I have no time to bother with you. I am going to Madrid, to see the King." And he went off, hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick, leaving the Wind to smother. ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... brambles, wild and disorderly. What we could see of the garden was a very wilderness. Tall rank grass flourished on every side, carriage-way and borders alike had been blotted into a springing waste, and the few sprawling shrubs which we could recognize hardly emerged from beneath the choking smother of ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... Paradise (perhaps because few people go there), the road back to town sweeps through sweet farm land; the smell of hay is in the air, loads of hay encumber the roads, flowers in profusion half smother the farm cottages, and the trees of the apple-orchards are gnarled and picturesque ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the man. "Well, as I was saying, it's all a trick," he went on. "Strong alum solution in your mouth, just a dash of alcohol to make a blaze that flares up but goes out quickly if you smother it right. You know the game," and he looked ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... cherished sentiments of loyalty for the exiled family; these were transmitted to Alaster Dhu. The gallant Lochiel and the chief of Glengarry were therefore disposed to smother in their feelings of loyalty the feuds which too often raged between clans nearly approximate. They therefore formed a compact to promote, in every way, the interest of the royal exiles; and in this vain attempt at restoration which ensued, the fate of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... to smother broke out then, and was so infectious, Prue could not help joining her, even before she knew ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... found it necessary to pause. The measures which they had already tried to smother the discontents of the people, and to repress those violent and illegal consequences of it, had not only proved ineffectual, but had aggravated, to a most alarming height, the mischiefs which they were sottishly ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous

... seal sweet kisses which do batten love, And doubling them do treble my good haps. 'Tis neither love the son, nor love the mother, Which lovers praise and pray to; but that love is Which she in eye and I in heart do smother. Then muse not though I glory in my miss, Since she who holds my heart and me in durance, Hath life, death, love and all in ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... the lake. Appalled, I whirled on my heel, just in time to see another huge jet of water rise high in the starlight, another, another, until the entire lake was but a cluster of gigantic geysers exploding a hundred feet in the air, while through them, falling back into the smother of furious foam, great silvery bulks dropped crashing, ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... the bed), let his face be turned to the opposite side. (3.) Let him lie fairly either on his side, or on his back. (4.) Be careful to ascertain that his mouth be not covered with the bed-clothes; and, (5.) Do not smother his face with clothes, as a plentiful supply of pure air is as necessary when he is awake, or even more so, than when he is asleep. (6.) Never let him lie low in the bed. (7.) Let there be no pillow near the one his head is resting on, lest he roll to it, and thus bury his ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... himself, half to Heaven. He rambled on from a petition for forgiveness into a broken thanksgiving for the mercy he already regarded as granted. His labours, the glamour of the present achievement, and the previous long strain upon his mind and body, united to smother reason for one feverish hour. Will walked blindly forward, now with his eyes upon the window under Newtake's dark roof below him, now turning to catch sight of the grey cross uplifted on the hill above. A great sweeping sea of change was tumbling ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... much longer staid, The perfume would have seal'd his obit; For he had a nicer nose than the wench, Who cared not a pin for the smother and stench, In the arms of the Son ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... says my letter must be short, so I smother what remnant of modesty I have, covering nothing with the veil of circumlocution, but telling you plainly what I know you want to hear. I love only you and am true to you in every thought, word, and deed. I long for ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... again, and the fearful heat of midsummer came, too. Red Creek baked in a smother of dusty heat, the trees in the dry orchards, beside the dry roads, dropped circles of hot shadow on the clodded, rough earth. Farms dozed under shimmering lines of dazzling air, and in the village, from ten o'clock until the afternoon began to wane, there ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... whole people; for, in the present state of general agitation, whoever disbelieves the least tittle of the enormous improbabilities which have been accumulated by these wretched reformers, is instantly hunted down, as one who would smother the discovery of the Plot. It is indeed an awful tempest; and, remote as we lie from its sphere, we must expect soon to feel ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the way, if that's what you're thinking of. I'm not that kind of man at all, and I am particularly fond of the child. I scarcely ever complain when she keeps me awake at night, though many men I know would want to smother her. She and my wife are stopping with my mother-in-law in Rathmines. I'm going down for a fortnight's yachting with the Major. I might persuade him to give you a day's sailing, perhaps, if he doesn't find out ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... this Gloom I see in every Face? These smother'd Groans and stifled half-drawn Sighs; Does it offend ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... bit of a bandbox or so were chucked up to us by the watermen, who then shoved off. There was a nice little off-shore breeze a-blowing, and soon after nine we were clear of the harbor and sailing quietly along, the sea smooth and the moon rising red out of a smother of mist. Mr. Robinson came on deck and looked aloft to see what sail was made; I was at the tiller, and stepping ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... gifts confer, in proof Of hospitality and unfeign'd love, Judging, with all wise men, the stranger-guest And suppliant worthy of a brother's place. 670 And thou conceal not, artfully reserv'd, What I shall ask, far better plain declared Than smother'd close; who art thou? speak thy name, The name by which thy father, mother, friends And fellow-citizens, with all who dwell Around thy native city, in times past Have known thee; for of all things ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... so big I should have taken a chance and pitched into him. He is strong enough to eat me alive. I could handle the fellow, Bob, all right, but not Sully. So I have got to stay here all night? Fine, fine! I hope I don't smother." ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... was not good, and this soon gave him cause for additional alarm. If he could not get any fresh air, he might smother before anybody came ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele



Words linked to "Smother" :   jumble, muffle, fuddle, extinguish, suffocate, stamp down, cover, fume, asphyxiate, disorder, stifle, clutter, rummage, disorderliness, suppress, kill, strangle, conquer, spread over, subdue, muddle, welter, repress, smotherer



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