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Sturdy   Listen
adjective
Sturdy  adj.  (compar. sturdier; superl. sturdiest)  
1.
Foolishly obstinate or resolute; stubborn; unrelenting; unfeeling; stern. "This sturdy marquis gan his hearte dress To rue upon her wifely steadfastness." "This must be done, and I would fain see Mortal so sturdy as to gainsay." "A sturdy, hardened sinner shall advance to the utmost pitch of impiety with less reluctance than he took the first steps."
2.
Resolute, in a good sense; or firm, unyielding quality; as, a man of sturdy piety or patriotism.
3.
Characterized by physical strength or force; strong; lusty; violent; as, a sturdy lout. "How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!"
4.
Stiff; stout; strong; as, a sturdy oak. "He was not of any delicate contexture; his limbs rather sturdy than dainty."
Synonyms: Hardy; stout; strong; firm; robust; stiff.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sturdy" Quotes from Famous Books



... gathered together from all parts of Europe. In spite of his feeling of pride and, as it were, of the return of youth, with his favorite daughter on his arm, he felt awkward, and almost ashamed of his vigorous step and his sturdy, stout limbs. He felt almost like a man not dressed in ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... constant use the boy's strength was daily increasing until he was becoming a veritable young giant? With no small satisfaction he beheld the muscles of his arms tighten and stand out; and when he swung his axe and brought down a sturdy sapling it was with a glow of pleasure that he heard it crash to the ground. Certainly there were compensations in hard work! Moreover was not every French boy who was too young to serve in the army being a man at home? He was but doing what all his friends were. Nevertheless the thought of a ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett

... the new fort which the government is erecting on the lake, a little to the north of the town, commanding the entrance of Niagara river. It is small, but of wonderful apparent strength, with walls of prodigious thickness, and so sturdy in its defences that it seemed to me one might as well think of cannonading the cliffs of Weehawken. It is curious to see how, as we grow more ingenious in the means of attack, we devise more effectual means of defence. A castle of the middle ages, in which a grim warrior ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... round, Where Dasaratha wise and great Governed his fair ancestral state, With every virtue crowned. Like Indra in the skies he reigned In that good town whose wall contained High domes and turrets proud, With gates and arcs of triumph decked, And sturdy barriers to protect ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... Finance Corporation, to States that have exhausted their own resources, guarantee that there should be no hunger or suffering from cold in the country. The large majority of States are showing a sturdy cooperation in the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... was the sturdy answer; "and it is I in a sane frame of mind, old fellow. Come, it's no sin to be human; and as far as I can see that's the ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... way and we wanted to go the other, so after nearly wrecking a couple of tugboats and a brick scow, we fixed the sail so the wind would push the boat right along. Aye, aye, captain, a fish sou'-sou' by east with the wind in his teeth! The sturdy vessel was just tearing along. Honest, you could see it move—right along, just like a clam, when Alla, who, you all know, is the human goat, in trying to reach for a bottle of beer that didn't belong ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... A Sturdy Democrat (in front, over his shoulder). Pity yer didn't send word you was coming, Mum, and then they'd ha' kep' the place clear of us common people for yer! [Mrs. L.S. is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various

... better than to travel with Luke Robbins. He felt that he should be safe with the sturdy hunter, who was strong, resolute ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger

... and then was quiet. He was the most delicious bit of five-year-old humanity I had ever beheld and I doubt if any childless woman could have seen such a child cuddle to another woman's breast and shoulder and not have had something of the same thrill of pain. His whiteness and pinkness and sturdy chubbiness were like many another infant's charms but his jet black top-knot that ascended on one side and cascaded over his ear on the other in a hauntingly familiar way, his violet eyes under their long lashes ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... "Here him best donkey"—"you Englese no walk"—"him kick highest"—"him fine jackass"—"me take you to Cairo." There were also plenty of custom-house folks demanding fees to which they had no right, and sturdy rascals seeking buckshish, and miserable beggars imploring alms. Walking through this promiscuous crowd, with all the dignity they could muster, there were venerable sheiks, or Egyptian oolema, with white turbans, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various

... Plymouth in New-England and Proceedings Thereof; London, 1622 (Bradford and Winslow) Abbreviated In Purchas' Pilgrim, X; iv; London, 1625.] but they were homeless now, facing a new country with frozen shores, menaced by wild animals and yet more fearsome savages. Whatever trials of their good sense and sturdy faith came later, those days of waiting until shelter could be raised on shore, after the weeks of confinement, must have challenged ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble

... we approached the town of Florence, the great blue army wagon containing our household goods, hove in sight—its white canvas cover stretched over hoops, its six sturdy mules coming along at a good trot, and Sergeant Stone cracking his long whip, to keep up a proper pace in the eyes of ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... still more his yearning after tears; and he began to weep, holding his loved and faithful wife. As when the welcome land appears to swimmers, whose sturdy ship Neptune wrecked at sea, confounded by the winds and solid waters; a few escape the foaming sea and swim ashore; thick salt foam crusts their flesh; they climb the welcome land, and are escaped from danger; so welcome ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... powerful pen. Mr. Wade is satisfied that Sir Philip Francis was Junius; a theory of which it is said, "Se non e vero e ben trovato:" and, if he does not go the length of Sir F. Dwarris in regarding Sir P. Francis, not as the solitary champion, but the most active of the sturdy band of politicians whose views he advocated, he shows that he was known to and assisted by many influential members of his own political party. Some of the most curious points in the Junius history are ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various

... his head. A curious procession was filing in through the open French window. First came Mr. Crocker, still wearing his hideous mask; then a heavily bearded individual with round spectacles, who looked like an automobile coming through a haystack; then Ogden Ford, and finally a sturdy, determined-looking woman with glittering but poorly co-ordinated eyes, who held a large revolver in her unshaking right hand and looked the very embodiment of the modern female who will stand no nonsense. It was part of the nightmare-like atmosphere which seemed ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... You love to lean on the free-stone slab which lies over the bones of the Mathers,—to read the epitaph of stout John Clark, "despiser of little men and sorry actions,"—to stand by the stone grave of sturdy Daniel Malcom and look upon the splintered slab that tells the old rebel's story,—to kneel by the triple stone that says how the three Worthylakes, father, mother, and young daughter, died on the same day and lie buried there; a mystery; the subject of a moving ballad, by the late BENJAMIN ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... footfalls in the bare hall below, and a sudden easy desire for companionship seized him; he drew on the sturdy Meikeljohn coat and descended the stairs to the lower floor. Harry Kaperton's door was open and Elim saw the other moving within. He advanced, leaning ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... a moment's lull in the proceedings, broken only by a confused murmur of voices; then Acton jumped to his feet. The football captain was popular with everybody, and the sight of his jovial face and sturdy figure was greeted with a burst ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... their stems to a degree not possible so long as they were overshadowed and stifled by the lordly oak and pine. While, therefore, the New England forester must search long before he finds a pine fit to be the mast Of some great ammiral, beeches and elms and birches, as sturdy as the mightiest of their progenitors, are still ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... halls. The two Misses McKeen have devoted a high degree of skill and energy to the upbuilding of this institution; but they have had a superior ancestry. They inherited strength and fortitude. They descended from the sturdy men and women ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... away from this man as soon as I civilly could, and, putting on my hat, I walked out with no other company than my sturdy walking-stick. I visited the inn-yard, and looked up to the windows of the Countess's apartments. They were closed, however, and I had not even the unsubstantial consolation of contemplating the light in which that beautiful lady was at that moment writing, or reading, or sitting ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... at the capstern by Captain Poynder. An honest, sturdy-looking gentleman stepped forward ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... told me that he was going to get married, and it gave me a shock as if he had robbed me or betrayed me. When a man's friend marries, it is all over between them. The jealous affection of a woman, that suspicious, uneasy, and carnal affection, will not tolerate that sturdy and frank attachment, that attachment of the mind, of the heart, and mutual confidence which ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... his winter meat. Joan was left alone. She spent her time cleaning and arranging the two-room cabin, and tidying up outdoors, and in "grubbing sagebrush," a gigantic task, for the one hundred and fifty acres of Pierre's homestead were covered for the most part by the sturdy, spicy growth, and every bush had to be dug out and burnt to clear the way for ploughing and planting. Joan worked with the deliberateness and intentness of a man. She enjoyed the wholesome drudgery. She was proud every sundown ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... lover light, In search of fresh beauty and bloom that night Its wing was plumed by the moon's cold ray, And noiseless it flew o'er the hills away. It flew, yet its dallying fingers played, With a thrilling touch, through the maple's shade; It toyed with the leaves of the sturdy oak, It sighed o'er the aspen, and whispering spoke To the bending sumach, that stooped to throw Its chequering shade o'er a brook below. It kissed the leaves of the beech, and breathed O'er the arching elm, with its ivy wreathed: It climbed to the ash on the mountain's ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... of her busy morning watched them till they entered the pasture, the sturdy little baby figure pattering along importantly ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... have their periods of youthful vigor, their manhood of sturdy strength, the tottering of decrepit age, the imbecility of superstitious dotage—and their death is final extinction. Such is man, and such is the world. What we are, we know; what we shall be, we know ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... presently stepped aside to a young sapling oak, which having outgrown its strength bent its slim altitude in a beautiful parabolic curve athwart the sturdy stems of cedars and yellow pines which lined the path. Anderese stopped there and looked at Elizabeth. She had stopped too, without noticing him, and stood sending an intent, fixed, far-going look into the pretty wilderness ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... harshly through the midst of his dream, and gradually replacing it with realities. Hardly conscious of the change from sleep to wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and throwing wide the toll- gates for the passage of a fragrant load of hay. The timbers groan beneath the slow-revolving wheels; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen, and, peering from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house, is seen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed a nap some ten miles long. The toll is paid,—creak, ...
— The Toll Gatherer's Day (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... physical strength. The ardor of his mental efforts left its mark on him in ailments and enfeebled health from which, vigorous as he was, his frame never wholly freed itself. But he was destined to be known, not as a scholar, but as a preacher. In his addresses from the pulpit the sturdy good-sense of the man shook off the pedantry of the schools as well as the subtlety of the theologian. He had little turn for speculation, and in the religious changes of the day we find him constantly lagging behind his brother-reformers. But he had the moral ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... himself God's sword of vengeance, but he is nothing more than a weak tool, which we bend and use at our will," muttered Wriothesley, with a hoarse laugh. "Poor, pitiful fool, deeming himself so mighty and sturdy; imagining himself a free king, ruling by his sovereign will alone, and yet he is but our servant and drudge! Our great work is approaching its end, and we shall one day triumph. Anne Askew's death is the sign of a ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... mental characteristics are clear insight, unconquerable pertinacity, dogged obstinacy, absolute honesty, and a sturdy sense of independence. Bjoernson has well remarked concerning his people: "Opinions are slowly formed and tenaciously held, and much independence is developed by the rigorous isolation of farm from farm each on its own freehold ground, unannoyed and uncontradicted by any ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... appeared, with their wolfish dogs and their sturdy and all-enduring squaws burdened with the heavy hide coverings of their teepees, or buffalo-skin tents. They professed friendship and begged for arms. Those of one band had blackened their faces in mourning for a dead chief, and calling ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... the crowd was right. Mormon knew little of boxing, but he knew enough to throw a cushion of sturdy arm across his jaw, the left elbow crooked, nose buried in it, eyes—one eye—indomitable above it. And the blunted elbow like a ram, as he ducked and Russell's straight right slid over his bald pate. He was ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... free, his companion sprang hardily to the rescue. She hurled herself with all her weight and strength full upon the stegosaur's now unprotected flank. So tremendous was the impact that, with a frightened grunt, he was rolled clean over on his side. But at the same time his sturdy forearms clutched his assailant, and so crushed, mauled and tore her that she was glad to ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... by the side of the boat, and was pulled away in a caique. As he went he laughed to himself, and pulled out Barndale's pipe—remembrancer of his mean triumph, since repaired by his own hands. He filled and lit it, smoking calmly as the sturdy caiquejee pulled him across the Golden Horn. Suddenly the caique fouled with another, and there came a volley of Turkish oaths and objurgations. The Greek looked up, and saw Miss Leland in the other boat. Her eyes were fixed upon him ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... been made public,—for good reasons. In the first place, the bourgeois of Issoudun refused to allow the military to enter the town. They followed the use and wont of the bourgeoisie of the Middle Ages and declared themselves responsible for their own city. The government was obliged to yield to a sturdy people backed up by seven or eight thousand vine-growers, who had burned all the archives, also the offices of "indirect taxation," and had dragged through the streets a customs officer, crying out at every street lantern, "Let us hang him here!" The poor man's life was saved ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... the four bounds of earth arose—whilst from the crags and hills, dust and ashes fell like rain. The sun and moon withdrew their shining; the peaceful streams on every side were torrent-swollen; the sturdy forests shook like aspen leaves, whilst flowers and leaves untimely fell around, like scattered rain. The flying dragons, carried on pitchy clouds, wept down their tears; the four kings and their associates, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... correction, that it exerted this, because it was so complete a type of the general tendency of the Greek mind, deductive, rather than inductive; of unrivalled subtlety in obtaining results from principles, and results again from them ad infinitum: deficient in that sturdy moral patience which is required for the examination of facts, and which has made Britain at once a land of practical craftsmen, and of ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley

... a sturdy short man of thirty or thereabouts; very good-natured, and humorous. When Chowpereh speaks in his dry Mark Twain style, the whole camp laughs. I never quarrel with Chowpereh, never did quarrel with him. A kind word given to ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... practices obtain now mostly among a class of fair maids who have none of Mrs. Pepys' fears of 'paynters,' and who are not averse even from a bright young plumber. Indeed, it is to be feared that the one sturdy survival of St. Valentine is to be sought in the 'ugly valentine.' This is another of Time's jests: to degrade the beautiful and distinguished, and mock at old-time sanctities with coarse burlesque. We see it constantly in the fortunes of old streets and squares, once graced with ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... I would, did you?" she asked, with her blushing face snuggled against his sturdy breast. "Still, you gave me a map so that ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... sturdy republican, who has friends enough in the Comite, I have obtained the means necessary for flight; I have purchased them. For a consideration I can ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... class, however, it is well known that the words father-in-law's house have a double meaning. It is a euphemism for jail, the place where we are well cared for, at no expense to ourselves. In this sense would the sturdy pedlar take my daughter's question. "Ah," he would say, shaking his fist at an invisible policeman, "I will thrash my father-in-law!" Hearing this, and picturing the poor discomfited relative, Mini would go off into peals of laughter, in which her ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... Ticknor, the senior partner of my father's publishers, was the only figure familiar at the outset. He was one of the most amiable of men, with thick whiskers all round his face and spectacles shining over his kindly eyes; a sturdy, thick-set personage, active in movement and genial in conversation. It was James T. Fields who usually made the trips to England; but on this occasion Fields got no farther than the wharf, where the last object ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... jumping clear out of the grasp of the juvenile Mantillini, and dashing himself on to the head and shoulders of the next seat occupants, one of whom was a sturdy civilized Irishman, who made "no bones" in grasping the sickly-looking dog, and to the horror and alarm of the entire female party ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... know, the heroism of the hero is but remotely due to system; it is due not to arguments, nor reasoning, nor to any consciously recognised perceptions, but to those deeper sciences which lie far beyond the reach of self-analysis, and for the sturdy of which there is but one schooling—to have had good ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... fact, makes the remarkable comment that this was done 'perhaps in the hope that such stores would go to Holland,' with whose people we were at war. As the heavy mortality in the navy had always been ascribed to the use of bad provisions, we cannot refuse to give to the sturdy Republicans who governed England in the seventeenth century the credit of contemplating a more insidious and more effective method of damaging their enemy than poisoning his wells. One would like to have it from some jurist ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... be lurking for him in this thicket. Every step forward might involve him in fresh dangers. Exhausted and in despair, Jean Debry supported his tottering body against a tree, the sturdy trunk of which he encircled with his arms. This tree was now his only protector, the only friend on whom he could rely. To this tree alone he ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... the Chinese Sea, and, turning the southernmost point of Borneo, penetrated the straits and sounds between Java and Celebes, never stopping in their ruthless course until they came face to face with the sturdy pirates of New Guinea, and returned, after a voyage of ten thousand miles and an absence of two years, laden with spoils and captives. How hapless was the fate of the poor Dyak! If he stayed at home, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... into two, and from thence taking his way towards the left side, issued forth at her left ear. As soon as he was born, he cried not as other babes use to do, Miez, miez, miez, miez, but with a high, sturdy, and big voice shouted about, Some drink, some drink, some drink, as inviting all the world to drink with him. The noise hereof was so extremely great, that it was heard in both the countries at once of Beauce and Bibarois. I doubt ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... desolate shore, her decks and the stumps of her masts drifted over with snow. Six short months before, she had bounded over the Atlantic wave in all the panoply of sail and rigging pertaining to a large three-master, inclosing in her sturdy hull full many a daring heart beating high with sanguine hopes, and dreaming of fame and glory, or perchance of home. But now, how great the change!—her sails and masts uprooted, and her helm—the seaman's ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... rebellion of passion against the restraining influences of Christianity is going out of fashion. Christian people were meeting too many heretics in the flesh, and did not recognise the thing described from the pulpit. The sturdy Archbishop will have none of this pampering. Unbelief is a matter of the will as well as the understanding. And he actually believes that God guided the thoughts of William II in engineering this war—believes it for a reason a hundred times ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... sturdy, good-looking fellow, about two years older than myself, good at games, and, though not brilliant in other respects, rather idle than dull. He was popular in the school, and I believe his general disposition was by no means bad; ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... of the roads there are the natural objects of the woods, the lanes, and the fields; the blossoming hawthorn and the wild roses trailing from the hedges, the hares and rabbits, the birds, the butterflies, and the flowers; sturdy teams with the time-honoured ploughs and harrows, the sowing of the seed, the young gleaming corn, the scented hayfields or the golden harvest; every man at his honourable labour, happy children dashing out of school; noble timber, hazel coppices, grey old villages; ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... private-enterprise economy the tourism industry is the number one foreign exchange earner followed by marine products, citrus, cane sugar, bananas, and garments. The government's expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, initiated in September 1998, led to sturdy GDP growth averaging nearly 4% in 1999-2006. Major concerns continue to be the sizable trade deficit and unsustainable foreign debt. The government in 2006 announced it would seek a restructuring of its sovereign debt and has been negotiating ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... my love entombes the hope of Fraunce: Rifling the bowels of her treasurie, To supply my wants and necessitie. Paris hath full five hundred Colledges, As Monestaries, Priories, Abbyes and halles, Wherein are thirtie thousand able men, Besides a thousand sturdy student Catholicks, And more: of my knowledge in one cloyster keep, Five hundred fatte Franciscan Fryers and priestes. All this and more, if more may be comprisde, To bring the will of our desires to end. Then Guise, Since thou hast all the Cardes within thy hands To shuffle ...
— Massacre at Paris • Christopher Marlowe

... to get back to his old office, where, if he could find nothing else to do for her, he could at least bury himself in his law books. This unknown man strode across the lobby so confidently—every sturdy line of him suggesting blowsy strength. The unknown woman tripped along at his heels in absolute trust of it. And he, Donaldson, sat here, a helpless spectator, with a worthier woman trusting him as though he were ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... perhaps he was safer out of the way, as he might have set on the aunts to put a stop to her proceedings. Of Mysie's sympathy she was sure, yet she would have her scruples about the aunts, and she was a sturdy person, hard to answer—-poor Mysie, whooping away helplessly in the schoolroom at Rotherwood! Gillian felt herself heroically good-humoured and resigned. Moreover, here was the Indian letter so long looked for, likely by its date to be an answer to the information as to Alexis ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from the carriage to the churchyard, the sexton was ringing the bell for the closing. The worshippers came filing out of the church. As they passed the King, where he stood with one foot on the carriage step, he was impressed with their stalwart bearing and sturdy, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... most of the armed roamers in these ocean Zaaras at one time were of a suspicious order,) that every night, duly as the sun went down and the twilight began to prevail, a sound arose—audible to other islands, and to every ship lying quietly at anchor in that neighborhood—of a woodcutter's axe. Sturdy were the blows, and steady the succession in which they followed: some even fancied they could hear that sort of groaning respiration which is made by men who use an axe, or by those who in towns ply the "three-man beetle" of Falstaff, as paviers; echoes they certainly heard of every blow, from ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... nearer, especially when one thinks what it would be if one were not allowed to die." Tennyson has expressed in Tithonus the idea at which Froude glances, and from which he averts his gaze. Carlyle's senility was not enviable, and even that sturdy veteran Stratford Canning* told Gladstone that longevity was "not a blessing." Like Cephalus at the opening of Plato's Republic, Froude found that he could see more clearly when the mists of ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... flock of geese, And put them all to flight— Except one sturdy gander That thought ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... surrounded our group. Philip and I immediately removed the table, and helped Cornelius to his feet. The pedagogue's face was afire; his fists were clenched; his chest swelled; and one could judge from his wrists what sturdy arms his sleeves encased. As he advanced upon Ned, he was all at once become so formidable a figure that no one thought to interpose. Ned himself, appalled at the approaching embodiment of anger and strength, retreated ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... strong. Deep down in the Roman's heart was the proud conviction that Rome should rule over all her neighbors. For this he freely shed his blood; for this he bore hardship, however severe, without complaint. Before everything else, he was a dutiful citizen and a true patriot. Such were the sturdy men who on their farms in Latium formed the backbone of the Roman state. Their character has set its mark ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... and the men in the boat were seen to lie upon their oars, while one in the stem seemed to be in the act of attaching a rope to the formless matter. For a few moments there was a cessation of all movement; and then again the active and sturdy rowing of the boatmen was renewed, and with an exertion of strength even more vigorous than that they had previously exhibited. Their course was now directed towards the vessel; and, as it gradually neared that fabric, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... begun, they turned in to the Vicus Patricius, and soon found themselves before the dwelling of Aulus. A young and sturdy "janitor" opened the door leading to the ostium, over which a magpie confined in a cage greeted them noisily with the ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the hammer and sat down to survey his work, drawing a breath of relief. He felt more at home now with the photographs of his fellow students smiling down upon him. Opposite was the base-ball team, frowning and sturdy; to the right the Glee Club with himself as their leader; to the left a group of his classmates, with his special chum in the midst. As he gazed at that kindly face in the middle he could almost hear the friendly voice calling to ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... of Fisheries for the United States Government, Mr. Chas. Frederick Holder and his associates for the anglers of America, and the sturdy and honorable class of commercial fishermen are raising to the utmost of dignity and value one of the oldest and greatest of all industries. Not till the waste of waters is tamed as has been the wilderness of land will their work be ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... clearings?" "All of us," he replied. "Why, we ain't happy here, unless we are getting one of these coves under cultivation." I instantly felt that I had been losing the whole inward significance of the situation. Because to me the clearings spoke of naught but denudation, I thought that to those whose sturdy arms and obedient axes had made them they could tell no other story. But, when they looked on the hideous stumps, what they thought of was personal victory. The chips, the girdled trees, and the vile split rails spoke of honest sweat, persistent toil and ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... Royalist, lampooned the heads of the University, and was forced to ask pardon on his bended knees. When he had left college, he earned a humble subsistence by reading the liturgy of the fallen Church to the families of those sturdy squires whose manor houses were scattered over the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his loyalty was rewarded with the post of chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost his employment. But ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... out by that body to a rich tenant, who sublet it to these lodging-house owners. This veritable den of infection and misery has now been demolished; but there are plenty of others quite as bad. Notably, there is the Cite Jeanne d'Arc (a poor compliment to have named it after that sturdy heroine), an enormous barrack of five stories, which contains 1,200 lodgings and 2,486 lodgers. No wonder that it was decimated in 1879 by smallpox, which committed terrible ravages here. The Cite Dore is grimly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... to cover the twelve miles over the macadamized road to the hospital in the city, and if it was to be her last bath in the good outdoors for some time, as the doctor had said—King drew a long breath, filling his own sturdy lungs with the balmy yet potent April air, feeling very sorry for the unknown ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... came to Paradise was an Irishman, the son of an archdeacon with a large family and a small income. He was a strapping fellow, strong and sturdy as a camel—and quite as obstinate. He always spoke affectionately of his people, but I fancy they were not deeply grieved when he left England. I dare say he was troublesome at home; you know what that means. However, he was warmly welcomed in Paradise, for he brought with him two hundred pounds ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... English market, the legislature passed strong resolutions expressive of their alarm, and addressed the crown, representing that free trade in corn between the neighbouring states and the mother country would be productive of the heaviest injuries to the colony. This address was one of the most sturdy pronouncements of protectionist opinion which the discussions of the day brought forth. The Canadians were happily disappointed. The imperial legislature was not checked in the enactment of its free-trade measures by this memorial; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... irresponsible satirists, and prejudiced historians. Take, for example, the following passage from Knickerbocker's History of New York,[22] wherein he pretends to describe "the curious device among these sturdy barbarians [the Connecticut colonists], to keep up a harmony of interests, and promote population. * * * * They multiplied to a degree which would be incredible to any man unacquainted with the marvellous fecundity of ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles

... unswerving, unflinching, unsleeping[obs3], unflagging, undrooping[obs3]; steady as time; unrelenting, unintermitting[obs3], unremitting; plodding; industrious &c. 682; strenuous &c. 686; pertinacious; persisting, persistent. solid, sturdy, staunch, stanch, true to oneself; unchangeable &c. 150; unconquerable &c. (strong) 159; indomitable, game to the last, indefatigable, untiring, unwearied, never tiring. Adv. through evil report and good report, through thick and thin, through fire and water; per fas et nefas[Lat]; without ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... flatboat was rowed across the river with horses or cattle or sheep. And the season was now close at hand when for weeks, sometimes months, the river was unfordable. There were a score of permanent families, a host of merry, sturdy children, a number of idle young men, and only one girl—Lucy Bostil. But the village always had transient inhabitants—friendly Utes and Navajos in to trade, and sheep-herders with a scraggy, woolly flock, and travelers ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... more gladly than before the young man now plied his sturdy staff! A few steps, and he had crossed the flood that was rushing between himself and the maiden; and he stood near her on the little spot of greensward in security, protected by the old trees. Undine half rose, and she threw her arms around his neck to draw him gently down upon ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... the hall of their island home two years later. This sturdy log-house is no mere extension of the hut we have seen in process of erection, but has been built a mile or less to the west of it, on higher ground and near a stream. When the master chose this site, the others thought that all he expected from the stream was a sufficiency ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie

... growth, with small, glossy, dark leaves, and pale rose-coloured flowers. Its sturdy, dwarf habit, constant verdure, and pretty sweet-scented flowers, should make this species a favourite with cultivators. Known ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster

... said Lord Tanlay, with a feeling of profound sadness, "providing that with this aneurism you give me this mother who weeps for joy on seeing you again; this sister who faints with delight at your return; this child who clings upon your neck like some fresh young fruit to a sturdy young tree; this chateau with its dewy shade, its river with its verdant flowering banks, these blue vistas dotted with pretty villages and white-capped belfries graceful as swans. I would welcome your aneurism, Roland, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... on a ninety-nine-year run of luck; he always lands on his feet at the right time and place." "What they call a man of destiny," I suggested. "Yes," he replied; "he is the Yankee Oliver Cromwell. He can't help 'getting there,' and he has a sturdy, evident honesty of purpose that carries him through. A team of six horses won't keep him out of the White House." This is the general opinion regarding the Vice-President, that while he is not a remarkable statesman, he already overshadows ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnapers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... means for taking this nutting trip far afield; his name was Kenneth Kinkaid, but among his friends he answered to the shorter appellation of "K. K." Then came a fourth boy of shorter build, and more sturdy physique, Julius Hobson by name; and last, but far from least, Horatio Juggins, a rather comical fellow who often assumed a dramatic attitude, and quoted excerpts from some school declamation, his favorite, of course, being ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson

... to the charity and compassion of the passersby; but we still leave unblotted the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of succeeding ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. This is no fiction. Not a week passes over our head, but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some of these men must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... states, they did not find, and never have found, that the possession of and rule over barbarous, or semi-civilized, or inert tropical communities, were inconsistent with the maintenance of political liberty in the mother country. The sturdy vigor of the broad principle of freedom in the national life is attested sufficiently by centuries of steady growth, that surest evidence of robust vitality. But, while conforming in the long run to the dictates ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... sturdy cow-boy I would be And chase this buffalo out in the West. An Indian pony I know I could ride, And "round up" with ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... the blankets without answering, and Jean began putting on her clothes. It seemed but a moment before she slid to the floor, rolled her sleeves high above a pair of sturdy elbows, and went to finish her toilet at the basin. There she washed her face and combed her hair, while Jock, cautiously opening one eye again, observed her from his safe retreat. He watched her part her hair, wet it, plaster ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... French was small, and he had a peremptory way of demanding what he required, as he divided his neat pieces of butter for our service. He could not be more than five feet high, but was a sturdy, strong-built man, though of very small proportions. One day when delivering his charge to Jeannotte, she asked him in patois,—her own tongue—if he was married; he started at the question, and begged to know her reason for inquiring; she informed him it was for the benefit of Mademoiselle, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... sturdy auxiliary; and with considerable manual exertion and remarkable agility, he gave the unfortunate Adolphus a peculiar twist that at once deposited him behind the bar ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various

... beset all the approaches to the house. He said it would be an easy task for a designing seditious person to raise a tumult and disorder among them: that gentlemen might give them what name they should think fit, and affirm they were come as humble suppliants; but he knew whom the law called sturdy beggars: and those who brought them to that place could not be certain but that they might behave in the same manner. This insinuation was resented by sir John Barnard, who observed that merchants of character had a right to come down to the court ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... of Parinacochas burros. It is the custom hereabouts to enclose the packs in large-meshed nets made of rawhide which are then fastened to the pack animal by a surcingle. The Indians who came with the burro train were pleasant-faced, sturdy fellows, dressed in "store clothes" and straw hats. Their burros were as cantankerous as donkeys can be, never fractious or flighty, but stubbornly resisting, step by step, every effort to ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... the elephant, And, happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl "God bless me! but the elephant ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... a few years have made a vast difference in table, as well as all other decorations, and to-day the same Venetian gardens have their faithful devotees, as is proved by the continuous procession of the dainty wonders, ever moving toward our sturdy shores. ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... the ugly, sturdy little Carp had borne heroes in her womb, and like her, too, she had paid terrible toll of her ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... woman capable of humor, though I think Mrs. Garrison did as much to sustain the paper's reputation for wit as even Mr. Harding. A. H. Dooley succeeded Mr. Harding as editor of the Saturday Herald, and it remained under his management a sturdy advocate of woman's enfranchisement. The Saturday Review was established by Mr. Harding in October, 1880, with Mrs. Garrison associate editor. Upon the death of Mr. Harding, May 8, 1881, Mr. Charles ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... achieve results in any direction. On the other hand, a mature and vigorous man, English to the core, stable in his tested views of life, already an active participant in the affairs of the nation and certain to move victoriously onward; a sure patriot, a sturdy politician. It was humiliating to ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... but few nations of the human race have attained to such a degree of discipline as to adopt, they continue till they gain the fastnesses of a neighbouring wood. Their principal foe, next to man, is the tiger; but only the weaker sort, and the females fall a certain prey to this ravager, as the sturdy male buffalo can support the first vigorous stroke from the tiger's paw, on which the fate ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... of the hardy and enterprising race by which these regions have been settled, and the answer is undoubtedly a true one: but it does not appear to me to contain the whole truth; it does not appear to account for all the phenomena. Why, gentlemen, our ancestors had hearts as brave and arms as sturdy as our own; but it took them many years, aye, even centuries, before they were enabled to convert the forests of the Druids, and the wild fastnesses of the Highland chieftains, into the green pastures of England and the waving cornfields of Scotland. How, then, does it come to pass, that ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... when they were close to I noticed with satisfaction that most of them were sturdy, well-built fellows. They came up to us, and we all shook hands, and before even asking them to help me, I inquired if they would like some grog to dry ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke

... about it at first—being of the sturdy type that makes light of a cold. But when Cash began to cough with that hoarse, racking sound that tells the tale of laboring lungs, Bud began to feel guiltily that he ought to do something ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... household was up early that cold winter morning, when Mrs. Seymour's coach, with its pair of sturdy, strong gray horses, drew up at the front door. It took some twenty minutes to bestow Betty's trunk and boxes on the rumble behind, during which time Mrs. Seymour alighted and received all manner of charges and advice from Miss Euphemia, who, now that Betty was fairly on the wing, ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... Jats. Everywhere in the plains, except in the extreme north-west corner of the province, they form a large element in the population. In the east they are Hindus, in the centre Sikhs and Muhammadans, and in the west Muhammadans. The Jat is a typical son of the soil, strong and sturdy, hardworking and brave, a fine soldier and an excellent farmer, but slow-witted and grasping. The Sikh Jat finds an honourable outlet for his overflowing energy in the army and in the service of the Crown beyond the bounds of India. When he misses that he sometimes ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... certain acts of parliament; when he found, that to trick a gauger was thought an excellent joke, he stood in silent moral astonishment. He knew about as much of the revenue laws as the clerks did of Cicero and Pliny; but his sturdy principles of integrity could not bend to any of the arguments, founded on expediency, which were brought by his companions in their own and their master's justification. He declared that he must speak to ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... brayed temptation at him from the fence of a forest shanty. A negress stood in the doorway. Kenny, in no mood for haggling, recklessly offered what he thought the mule was worth. It looked incredibly sturdy. His voice evoked a ragged husband who came up out of a cellar doorway eating a dwarfed banana. The sight of the banana made Kenny ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... the sturdy legs about his waist Mascola felt his strength going from him. With bursting lungs he tore at the corded muscles of Gregory's throat. But his fingers had but little power. Sharp pains seared his eyeballs. A deadly numbness was creeping over his entire body. Then ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... successful implementation of an IMF-recommended structural adjustment program that is helping the economy grow, diversify, and attract foreign investment. Mali's adherence to economic reform and the 50% devaluation of the African franc in January 1994 have pushed up economic growth to a sturdy 5% average in 1996-2002. Worker remittances and external trade routes have been jeopardized by continued unrest in neighboring ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... whom he had forbidden his wife to show any civilities. To Clarendon's bitter annoyance, the King imposed on him of all men the irksome duty of attempting an arrangement with the Queen. Clarendon had already met the request, when first made, by sturdy remonstrance, and by a powerful appeal to the King's sense of honour. It was only when no other plan could be devised for composing the ugly business, that he felt it his duty to remonstrate with the Queen. It was; he felt, "too delicate a province for so plain-dealing a man." The caprice ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... consolidate their power; they attended to the interests of the common people (who then were in a state of villanage) just so far as they could clearly see would be for their own interest, and no further. The world is much indebted to those sturdy barons; they did more good than they ever thought of doing. There were germs in that charter that have borne ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... decreased, would always insist on taking some of her granddaughter's, deeming that the little maiden had enough to do to trot on so many miles by her side, without having to carry a burden on her back in addition. Nelly would declare that she did not feel the weight, but the sturdy old dame generally gained her point, though she might consent to replenish Nelly's basket before entering the town, for some of their customers preferred the fish which the bright little damsel offered them for sale to those in her ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston

... carefully finished young woman, was unbelievable. Tall and finished in detail, from the delicate hands and fine ears to the sharply moulded chin, she presented a puzzling contrast to the short, thick, sturdy figure of her mother. And her quick appropriation of the blessings of wealth, her immediate enjoyment of the aristocratic assurances that the Hitchcock position had given her in Chicago, showed markedly in contrast with the tentativeness ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... by Ben's confident words. Our hero was strong and sturdy, his limbs active, and his face ruddy with health. He looked like a boy who could get along. He was not a sensitive plant, and not to be discouraged by ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger

... It occupies a bluff that overlooks the Schuylkill a hundred feet below to the eastward, and is bounded by the deep channels of a pair of brooks equidistant on the north and south sides. Up the banks of these clamber the sturdy arboreal natives as though to shelter in warm embrace their delicate kindred from abroad. Broad walks and terraces prevent their too close approach and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... several locations. It was a very lively and bustling sight to see the marketing going on. When a lady was observed approaching, likely to be a customer, she was at once surrounded by the "caddies." They were a set of sturdy hard-working women, each with a creel on her back. Their competition for the employer sometimes took a rather energetic form. The rival candidates pointed to her with violent exclamations; "She's my ledie! she's my ledie!" ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... mind that you have done that more than once before and that because of it misguided heads louped from sturdy shoulders," I answered. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... fallen into a descriptive vein it may be as well to describe the rest of our friends offhand. Norman Grant was a sturdy Highlander, about the same size as his friend Temple, but a great contrast to him; for while Temple was fair and ruddy, Grant was dark, with hair, beard, whiskers, and moustache bushy and black as night. Grant was a Highlander in heart as well as ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... restored, Tartarin in a few sturdy strides struck the highroad to Fluelen, at the side of which the Hotel Tellsplatte spreads out its long facade. While awaiting the dinner-bell the guests were walking about in front of a cascade over rock-work on the ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... gentleman "drumming around" our suburb, I had the curiosity to stop and inspect his live freight. In doing so I lighted upon Dicky Chips, as I subsequently christened him: a sturdy little bullfinch, who looked somewhat out of place, and lonesome, amongst his screaming companions from foreign lands. I purchased him for a trifle, and have never since regretted the bargain, for, he was a dear, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... minutes, the carriage swung in through a stone gateway and on between a double row of arched and interlacing walnut trees. On either side stretched lawns, their broad sweep broken here and there by great sturdy-limbed oaks. In the near distance, in contrast with the young-green of the tended grass, sunburnt hay-fields showed tan and gold; while beyond were the tawny hills and upland pastures. From the head of the lawn, on the first soft swell from the valley-level, ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... speak to me," exclaimed the sturdy Presbyterian in excessive wrath, "about a man that has the blood of the saints at his fingers' ends? Did na his eme [Uncle] die and gang to his place wi' the name of the Bluidy Mackenyie? and winna he be kend by that name sae lang as there's a Scots tongue ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... a flock of sheep was coming toward them. He was a sturdy fellow, with a red feather in his cap, which was cocked a bit saucily on one side of his head. It was evident that he was a shepherd, whose sheep had been driven into the lowlands by the storm. John, both from prudence and natural consideration, brought his machine down to a slow pace, ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the shore. This manoeuvre which, in the language of the course, would have been called "taking the track," had the additional advantage of throwing upon those who followed some trifling impediment from the back-water. The sturdy and practised Bartolomeo of the Lido, as his companions usually called him, came next, occupying the space on his leader's quarter, where he suffered least from the reaction caused by the stroke of his oar. The gondolier of Don Camillo, also, soon shot out of the crowd, and was seen ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it.' Johnson's Works, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... and his merciless memory, when suddenly the little man's recollections took a more interesting turn. He was relating the imprisonment of the Duke de Longueville, with the Princes Conde and Conti, in the chateau of Vincennes, and the ineffectual efforts of the Duchess to rouse the sturdy Normans to their rescue. He had come to that part where she was invested by the royal forces in the chateau of Dieppe, and in imminent danger of falling ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... defeated, though it took him longer to rise this time than before. He was wary, too, and plainly disliked the idea of coming in contact with those sturdy arms of Hugh Morgan. Seeing that Nick did not mean to attack him, but had commenced to say harsh things in the endeavor to force his rival to assume the aggressive, in hopes that the advantage would fall to his share, Hugh lost ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... musical as well as a Christian professor—a bold fife, to cheer the Guards and the brave Marines as they marched with measured step, obeying an insane command, up Bunker's height, whilst the rifles of the sturdy Yankees were sending the leaden hail sharp and thick amidst the red-coated ranks; for Philoh had not always been a man of peace, nor an exhorter to turn the other cheek to the smiter, but had even arrived at the dignity of a halberd in his country's service before his six-foot ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... a lad should be, and sturdy in consequence of his out-of-door life, Stephen, for that was his name, found it an easy matter to breast the surging tide of spectators following the procession, to slip in where he could to best advantage ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... demands of the people for self-government, were gathering around the sturdy Dutch governor. The English were pressing him from the east, and in New Netherland itself they were aggressive and defiant in their attitude toward Dutch authority. Charles II. granted New Netherland ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... ride these sturdy nags through the lovely English country, even if we weren't to have the extra attraction of seeing a fine lady ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... Toby! Toby, Toby, Toby! How quickly her mind worked! It was like acid, testing and comparing; and yet its action was soft and caressing when she remembered his figure and his voice—some of the little gestures, some turns of speech, his sturdy contempt for what he called "yobs," which she discovered to be the word "boys" spelt in an unfamiliar way. Those were the things she loved. The rest she had exploited. The mixture of pleasure and tactics filled her ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... and rudely-built log-cabin a sturdy boy of four years issued, and looked earnestly across the clearing to the pathway that led through the surrounding forest. His bare feet pressed the soft grass, which spread like ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... everything culminated in the longing to seize this heavenly child—this heavenly woman—to seize and kiss her—a sturdy sense of honesty warned him that not so could he, with honor, go forward. He must see his way more clearly than that. Strange that he had been so blind, till now, of where all ways, since his coming to Vermont, had been leading him. He could see ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Godstone's newer buildings, the almshouses erected by Mrs. Hunt of Wonham House in memory of her daughter; like the additions to the church, they are the work of Sir Gilbert Scott. Nothing could be more admirable than the repose and solidity of these delightful houses, with their massive oak beams and sturdy red chimneys. Sir Gilbert himself lived for a time at Rokesnest, between ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... Flag of the sturdy fathers, Flag of the royal sons, Beneath its folds it gathers Earth's best and noblest ones. Boldly we wave its colors, Our veins are thrilled anew By the steadfast bars, the clustered stars, The red, the white, ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... colonists was specified. As for their quality, convicts could be taken if more eligible candidates were not forthcoming. The sixty unfortunates landed by La Roche on Sable Island in 1598 were all convicts or sturdy vagrants. Five years later only eleven were ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... shepherd; a single furrow was driven across a field to prove it was still under the plough; to avoid holding illegal numbers of sheep flocks were held in the names of sons and servants.[225] The country swarmed with heaps of miserable paupers, 'sturdy and valiant' beggars, and thieves who, though hanged twenty at a time on a single gallows, still infested all the countryside, their numbers being swollen by the dissolution of the monasteries and the breaking up of the bands of retainers kept ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... MOTLEY (1814-1877).—As naturally as the love of adventure sent Prescott to the daring exploits of the Spanish feats of arms, so the inborn zeal for civil and religious liberty and hatred of oppression led Motley to turn to the sturdy, patriotic Dutch in their successful struggle against the enslaving power of Spain. His histories are The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856), The History of the United Netherlands (1860-1868), The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... too, was born to the vision—to the longing after the nationally perfect that had become legendary since the time of the great-grandfather—to the sweet, neighborly affection that ran through all the tales of that man's son—to the sturdy righteousness of Uncle Sim—to the standards of honor from which poor Claude had fallen as angels fall—and to God only knew what high promptings strangled and vitiated in his father. Thor was heir to it all, with ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits, Even in the chair of state! belike he means, Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer, To aspire unto the crown and reign as king.— Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father; And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... coarse but melodious, lent itself to the negro rhythm, the swing and lilt of the lullaby. The little darkies, eyes rolling, preternaturally solemn, linked arms and swayed rhythmically, right, left, right, left. The glasses ceased clinking; sturdy citizens forgot their steak and beer for a moment and listened, knife and fork poised. Under the table the Dozent's hand pressed its captive affectionately, his eyes no longer on Le Grande, but on the woman across, his sweetheart, she who would be mother of his ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... bunches of bright scarlet blossoms, exactly like the geranium. In the course of my stroll, I came upon a genuine shanty of a new settler, full of fine children. The husband away at work—a little patch cleared for Indian corn and a few vegetables, the sturdy trees enclosing all. Truly the pair have their work before them, but they have likewise hope and comfort. I chatted a little while with the wife, a genuine specimen of the Anglo-Saxon race—clean, industrious, and hopeful: left home to avoid being starved, and sat down here, in rude comfort, with ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various

... would not be comforted; he lifted his sturdy head aloft, and his sorrowing face was turned ever toward the fleeting object of his love. Hills, valleys, forests, plains, and other mountains separated them now, but over and beyond them all he could see was her fair face lifted pleadingly toward him, while her white arms tossed ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... with sloped boards at its entrance so that Patrick's chair could easily be wheeled into it; now they were passing the horse-chestnut tree which she herself had planted years ago—with the head gardener's assistance!—in place of one that had been struck by lightning. It had grown into a sturdy young sapling by this time. Here was the Queen's Bench—an old stone seat where Queen Elisabeth was supposed to have once sat and rested for a few minutes when paying a visit to Barrow Court. Sara reflected, with a smile, that if history speaks ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... true," replied the cook, who had been my only friend since I had been on board, none of the others, officers or men, having a kind word for me, save the carpenter, a sturdy Englishman, named Tom Bullover, and one of the Yankee sailors, Hiram Bangs, who seemed rather good-natured, and told me he came from some place 'down Chicopee way'—wherever that might be. "But, never yer ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Greece beside Fragonard. I met him, a while ago, the miserable old man, trotting by under the arcades of the Palais-Egalite, powdered, genteel, sprightly, spruce, hideous. At sight of him, I longed that, failing Apollo, some sturdy friend of the arts might hang him up to a tree and flay him alive like Marsyas as an everlasting warning ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... guns, as the enemy command the bridge with their artillery." When the Naval battery had been withdrawn the burghers ventured across the river and made prisoners of the party in the donga, Colonel Bullock making a sturdy resistance to the last. Then the guns, with their ammunition wagons, were limbered up and taken leisurely over the river as the prizes of the fight. Lord Dundonald's brigade on its way back to camp had made a detour ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... but with a sturdy, dependable noise which comforted Pilar, who was half laughing, half frightened, at this her first adventure. At any instant now we might come upon the Lecomte held in the snow-trap ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... of their social structure, for by preventing intermarriage within the clan or the gens the blood was kept at its best. Added to this were the hardships of the Indian life, which resulted in the survival only of the fittest and provided the foundation for a sturdy people. But with advancing civilization one foresees the inevitable disintegration of their tribal laws, and a consequent weakening of the entire social structure, for the Indians seem to have absorbed all the evil, and to have embodied little of the ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... the backs of the auxiliaries than on those of the Roman troops before Numantia,[452] the chastisement, which he would have doubtless liked to inflict on all, was but an expression of his interest in their welfare. Next he admired the type for its own sake. The sturdy peasant class was largely represented here, and he probably had more faith in its permanence amongst the federate cities than amongst the needy burgesses whom the commissioners were attempting to restore ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... them on the trail. They had sturdy horses, used to mountain roads, a camping outfit and provisions that would last them two weeks, with plenty of ammunition, and each ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... Rodney waited, but no one came. When ten minutes had elapsed she rang the bell. A few minutes more and there sounded a heavy foot in the passage; then a heavy knock at the door, and Mr. Turpin presented himself. He was a short, sturdy man, with hair and beard of the hue known as ginger, and a face which told in his favour. Vicious he could assuredly not be, with those honest grey eyes; but one easily imagined him weak in character, and his attitude as he stood just within ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... Against this torrent, a sturdy and energetic figure fought its way across the square; a figure carefully arrayed in black morning-coat and grey trousers, and looking alertly about with a pair of very bright eyes magnified by heavy glasses. The haughtiest of the carriage-crowd felt honoured by his ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... portable vocabulary. It is suited to the manners of a day that has produced salad- dressing in bottles, and many other devices for the saving of processes. Fill me such a wallet full of 'graphic' things, of 'quaint' things and 'weird,' of 'crisp' or 'sturdy' Anglo-Saxon, of the material for 'word- painting' (is not that the way of it?), and it will serve the turn. Especially did the Teutonic fury fill full these common little hoards of language. It seemed, doubtless, to the professor of the ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... Many sturdy fellows are down. He's down to stay. Typhoid, you know. Bad case. No hope from ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... arrived, to take command of the troops, October 20th. He was again arrested next month; but the court did not sit until July of the next year, and their decision is not known. Col. Butler died Sept. 7, 1805. Out of the arrest and persecution of this sturdy veteran, Washington Irving (Knickerbocker) has worked up a fine piece of burlesque, in which Gen. Wilkinson's character is inimitably delineated in that of the vain ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... her, and that I had adorned with some flowers. She was introduced to me; we shook hands; and I was soon a member of the family. What a curious flock of little white-heads, of all ages, they were—sturdy, rosy, chubby, healthy, merry, and loving toward one another. They brought very little of their poor furniture with them; it was too shabby for the new surroundings; they gave it away to their former neighbors. But I noticed that the father carefully carried into the kitchen ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... superstition will come down in thunder and wreck at the long, loud blast of the Gospel trumpet. March on! march on! The besiegement will soon be ended. Only a few more steps on the long way; only a few more sturdy blows; only a few more battle cries, then God will put the laurel upon your brow, and from the living fountains of heaven will bathe off the sweat and the heat and the dust of the conflict. March on! march on! For you the time for work will soon be passed, and amid the outflashings of the ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... till it was gone. How much money did you give Murray—and why?" and Connelly's eyes were looking straight into those of Foster as he spoke, compelling respect for sturdy manhood. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... discomfort that bigger ones did: she sat with open beak as though panting for breath; she flew around with legs hanging, and even alighted on a convenient leaf or cluster of flowers, while she rifled a blossom, standing with sturdy little legs far apart, while stretching up to reach the bloom ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller



Words linked to "Sturdy" :   hardline, rugged, hard-line, uncompromising, hardy, robust, sturdiness, stout, compromising, tough, inflexible, stalwart



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