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Weak spot   /wik spɑt/   Listen
Weak spot

noun
1.
A place of especial vulnerability.  Synonyms: soft spot, weak part.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Weak spot" Quotes from Famous Books



... are to be found in every Indian bungalow, and returned, still absently holding it between his finger and thumb. A confession of weakness: there is no denying it. But let him who has not yet found the devil's chink in his own defences cast the stone. Head, heart, or heel—there is a weak spot in the strongest. Not even Achilles' self was plunged wholesale into the waters ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... him but crudely. If you want to catch him in a weak spot, try him on Belloc. Hear him rumble ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... the farmers found some additional weak spot in the Grain Act and suggested remedial legislation. Records are lacking to show in what order the various changes came; but step by step the farmers were gaining their rights. It all seemed so wonderful—to get together thus and frame requests of the Government ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... he said. "You've put your finger on the weak spot. No one in Whitehall saw it, and they're seamen. I didn't see it, and—and I'm called a scientist." He made an imperceptible inclination of his head towards his companion as ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... diverticulum consists in the protrusion of the mucous and submucous coats through a defect or weak part in the muscular tunic; it is therefore of the nature of a hernia and not a localised dilatation of the tube as a whole. Anatomically, there is such a weak spot in the posterior wall opposite the cricoid cartilage, known as the pharyngeal dimple, between the circular and oblique fibres of the crico-pharyngeus muscle. As the pouch increases in size by pressure ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... lives day and night. Knock at that door and you will find him at home. Touch upon some vital need in his business— some defect or tangle that is worrying him—some weak spot that he wants to remedy—some cherished ambition that haunts him—and you will have rung the bell of his interest. A few openings that are designed to get the reader's attention and induce him to read farther, are ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... seat himself at the desk, elated for a moment with the idea that perhaps Jo was not going to regard their offence as particularly heinous after all; but his better judgment scouted the idea, and he returned to his scrutiny of the wall. There was a weak spot near where Hector, Peterson's billy-goat, had butted his way through on a memorable occasion, and escape was still ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... cultivated a more complete silence than hitherto; but he was always kind to Caterina, treating her as he would one of his beasts which had been injured, with a mutual silent acceptance of the fact that she had a sorrow, a weak spot as it were, which must not be touched. With a stolid tact he never mentioned the mountains, or those unfortunate men who dwelt therein. If he met Pedro Casavel he did not mention the encounter to Caterina. Neither did he make any reference to Caterina ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... spontaneously charges itself with electricity. If the glass has a weak spot, a scratch say, an electric spark is produced at that point and the vessel crumbles, just like a ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... two and two makes four. I've lived with him too many years not to know the signs. And I did hope," he added, regretfully, "that maybe he was tryin' to break off. It's been a good long spell, an extry long spell, since he had his last spree. Ah hum! it's a pity a good man should have that weak spot in him, ain't it? But if you could hang around a few more days, while the vacation's goin' on, I'd appreciate it, Al. I kind of hate to be left here alone with nobody but Issachar to lean on. Issy's a good deal like a post in some ways, especially in ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... think them brilliant at all," he answered quietly; "but I do think them sound and solid, which is of much more importance. At those dreary committee meetings it is always you who put your finger on the weak spot in everybody's logic." ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... was here, now there; from the death room he returned to the company; from them he passed to the kitchen. The wife thought of the friend and priest. "Tomobei, go to the store-room and bring wine." Myo[u]zen was a curious mixture. His weak spot was touched—"Deign it, honoured lady, for all. Let the occasion be made seemly, but more cheerful. Cause not sorrow to the dead by an unmeasured grief. This does but pain the Spirit in its forced communion with the living. Death perchance is not the misfortune of subsequent existence in this ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... Nature has designed should be expelled in that direction. The blood is thus driven inward, causing congestion. If the system is in a sound, healthy condition, with respiration good and the colon clean, it should be next to impossible to take cold. If, however, there is a weak spot in the body, be sure the cold will find it, when, if not promptly dealt with, serious ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... woman can make of a man! I have known this woman two years; I have danced and dined with her, made love, and here I can scarce breathe! I am lost if she sees me in this condition, or finds a weak spot. How I love her, love her! I have kissed the air she leaves in passing by. Oh! I will solve this enchanting mystery. I have the right now; ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... the pond had now risen to a point where the engineers had begun the construction of three lodges. On the third day the destructive instinct of the otter began its work. He began to examine the dam, close down to the foundation. It was not long before he found a weak spot to begin work on, and with his sharp teeth and small bullet-like head he commenced his drilling operations. Inch by inch he worked his way through the dam, burrowing and gnawing over and under the timbers, and always through the cement. The round hole he made was fully seven ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... is the body of which Christ is the head, and you and I are "members in particular." Let us see to it that we are not the weak spot in the body, crippling and maiming the whole. The church is the city of God among men, and we are its citizens, bound by its laws, loyal servants of the Great King, sworn to obey his commands and enlarge his kingdom, and repel all the ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... parties I am too much in earnest for either humility or vanity Ignorance is a solemn and sacred fact Imperative demand of patients and their friends Invectives against such as dared to doubt the dogmas Kept extreme remedies for extreme cases Logical errors Loud outcry on a slight touch reveals the weak spot Medical Jounals must find something to fill their columns Medical logic which does not seem to have been taught Medicines proper, which hurts a well man, hurts a sick one Much as you know, something is still left for you to ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger

... thus that the faults in the school attack did not lie with the halves, forwards, or centres, it was more or less evident that they must be attributable to the wings. And the search for the weak spot was even further narrowed down by the general verdict that Clowes, on the left wing, had played well. With a beautiful unanimity the six occupants of the first fifteen room came to the conclusion that the man who had let the ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... mused, "there must have been some good in the man. He desired to make amends. He sent me the old contract, so that his wife should not find it after his death. He confessed everything to her before he died. There is a weak spot somewhere in the heart of the Devil himself. I shouldn't wonder if he ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... the deeper planes is prevented from pointing directly to the surface by the firm fasciae and other fibrous structures. The pus therefore tends to burrow along the line of the blood vessels and in the connective-tissue septa, till it either finds a weak spot or causes a portion of fascia to undergo necrosis and so reaches the surface. Accordingly, many abscess cavities resulting from deep-seated suppuration are of irregular shape, with pouches and loculi in various directions—an arrangement which ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... your home and your car and your maids for some small hotel?" she questioned, with her favorite air of neatly placing her fingertip upon the weak spot in her opponent's armor. "No clubs, no dinners, none of your old friends—have you ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... be termed the physical evidence," continued Harley, "is complete, I admit: too complete. There lies the weak spot. But what I will call the psychological evidence points in a totally different direction. A man clever enough to have planned this crime, and Camber undoubtedly is such a man, could not—it is humanly impossible—have been fool enough, deliberately to lay such a train ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... found a discolored crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power smashing blows, nose-first. The screen-work broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubbish, and ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... held the place at the head of the line of men, piling up sacks of sand lest the water take out a full half mile of the road. He dreamed of the road at night, waking again and again at the thought of some weak spot ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... intellectual machine was not shattered; it simply ran down. To this fact the phenomenon owes its peculiar interest. For we behold here in the case of man the same spectacle that we see cosmically in the case of the moon, the spectacle of a world that has died of old age. No weak spot in their social organism destroyed them from within; no epidemic, in the shape of foreign hordes, fell upon them from without. For in spite of the fact that China offers the unique example of a country that has simply lived to be conquered, mentally her masters have invariably ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... our road lay for a mile or so along a canal with open fields on either side. Uhlan patrols had been reported in this part of the country, which was in a weak spot in the Belgian lines, and the Colonel told the staff officer to keep a sharp lookout and be ready with his revolver and prepared for a burst of speed. That military genius replied with an air of assurance: "Oh, that's all right. They cannot cross the canal." ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... deal, and I set it down that there was with Sorenson mixed in, and with Vorse and Burkhardt the witnesses named in the deed and Judge Gordon taking the acknowledgment of Joseph Weir's signature, as the record shows, then there should be some weak spot that could be attacked. There may be men yet alive conversant with the circumstances; they may know whether duress or fraud was exercised, supposing the sale was not honest. Some of the old Mexicans may remember Weir, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... with whom I had to deal. I may occasionally even have left the other party to make this needful adjustment, and I have never known him fail to do so. I felt, therefore, very little scruple in making use of the one weak spot discoverable in the defenses of our redoubtable opponent, his Excellency the President of Aureataland. No doubt the reader's eye has before now detected the joint in that great man's armor at which we directed our missile. As a lover, I grudged the employment of the signorina in this service; ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... which earthquakes are chronic it would seem as if there must be a particularly weak spot in the earth some miles below the surface. A shrinkage of the earth, in the course of the incessant adjustment between the interior and the exterior, will take place by occasional little jumps at this particular centre. The fact that there is this weak spot at which small adjustments ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... with caustic replies. He even defended American newspapers, which he had himself more than once violently assailed for misreporting him and for other journalistic shortcomings, and he bitterly denounced every shaky British institution, touched upon every weak spot in hereditary rule. He did not print—not then—[An article on the American press, probably the best of those prepared at this time, was used, in part, in The American Claimant, as the paper read before the Mechanics' Club, by "Parker," assistant editor of the 'Democrat'.]—he ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... acts and not by their eyes; but human nature has its ingrained likes and dislikes, and I for one couldn't question Amos, because I hate a hunchback, and I wouldn't trust one of they humped people—man or woman—with anything that belonged to me. The broadest-minded of us have got a weak spot like that somewhere and hate some harmless thing if ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... to be done in that direction, she had discovered another weak spot in Christophe, one more easy of access: his moral faith. In spite of his squabble with the Vogels, and in spite of the intoxication of his adolescence, Christophe had preserved an instinctive modesty, a need of purity, of which he was entirely unconscious. At first it struck Ada, attracted ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... that they would, and a moment later Tarzan had traced upon the map the location of three that had been bothering the English. "There is a weak spot here," he said, placing a finger upon the map. "It is held by blacks; but the machine guns out in front are manned by whites. If—wait! I have a plan. You can fill that trench with your own men and enfilade the trenches to its right with ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... looking so forlorn that had any observing fellow come along just then and noticed the expression on his face, he might have spread an alarm to the effect that the big fullback was ill, and consequently there would be a weak spot in the line-up that afternoon, as ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... human touch I had seen about her, and I was glad to have found a weak spot in her armour. Moreover, from that moment she was ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... with a wink, snugging up to the lady, I did; For she'd found a weak spot in my 'art, this cold classical gal, and no kid. I'd been 'aving a pull at my flask, up that tree, and her pluck and blue eyes Made me feel a bit spoony; in fact I was mashed. But, ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... not won my wish—not all of it. They say there is a weak spot in every man's armour; there is always an Achilles' heel. I am no exception. Well, the gods ordained that I, James Sefton, a man who thought himself made wholly of steel, should fall in love with a piece of pink-and-white girlhood. What a ridiculous bit of nonsense! ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... her lap. For once she was grateful that an ENGAGED sign shielded them from interruptions, for Latin was her shakiest subject, especially the rules of indirect discourse. The instructor had warned the class that this weak spot was to be the point of attack. If Robbie Belle should not succeed in drumming the rules into her head before the ideas in it began to spin around and around in their usual dizzy fashion when she waxed sleepy, she might just as well stay ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it much. People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than is good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable subjects for biographies. But we don't care most for those flat pattern flowers that ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... Government is powerless to pass these laws. For many decades, tight held by the cramping bonds of Constitutional limitation, it has strained and struggled, like Samson in the temple, to find some weak spot at which it could free itself, and endangered the very supporting columns of the edifice of the Republic. It was bound in its lawmaking powers to the limitation of eighteen specific phrases, beyond which all power remained with the States and the people. In the matter of enacting uniform ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... great Hungarian plain which faces Belgrade across the Danube—that an artificial frontier will be inevitable, if the Serb districts of Hungary are to be included in the new State and if the Serb capital is to be rendered immune from the dangers of future bombardment. The weak spot in so drastic a solution is the inclusion of the Slovene districts, which—in view of their geographical position, cutting off the German provinces of Austria from the sea—is unthinkable, save in the event of a complete collapse ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... local conditions, instantly changing his heart with his change of sky, and learning to wave his stars and stripes with the best of the native-born, must seem miraculous to the ordinary patriot. And here we touch the weak spot in Mr. ZANGWILL'S paean of the Melting Pot. For those who migrate to America for the sake of its democratic freedom are the few; and those who go there for the sake of its dollars are the many; and into the Melting Pot—or, to use an image more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various

... as he remembered the weak spot in his tracing; but he answered, "I don't think so, sir; though it does look as ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe

... of the Hsieh family which also formed an important group in the court clique. The purpose of the northern campaigns was not, of course, merely to defend private interests of court cliques: the northern frontier was the weak spot of the southern empire, for its plains could easily be overrun. It was then observed that the new "Earlier Ch'in" state was trying to spread from the north-west eastwards into this plain, and Ch'in was attacked in an attempt ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... Zee, was now sprinkled thickly with forts, hastily thrown up, but strong enough to serve the temporary purpose of the stadholder. In vain the fleet-footed and audacious Spinola moved stealthily or fiercely to and fro, from one point to another, seeking an opening through which to creep, or a weak spot where he might dash himself against the chain. The whole line was securely guarded. The swollen river, the redoubts, and the musketeers of Maurice, protected the heart of the republic from the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Rosamond. "I've a very weak spot in my head. You can't tell the mischief you might do. ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... you be so ignorant as not to know that God is a Spirit? I am astonished at you." And Mrs. Bullen passed on without a single doubt in her mind that there was a single weak spot in her creed, or that anybody could question its intelligibility and coherence who would not also question the multiplication-table. She told her husband when she got home that it was really dreadful to think that the poor had such ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... of what? You don't think she eloped with your Jap or stole the spoons, do you?" snapped Carson. He had been interrupted at the crucial point in a game of cribbage with Poker Face and the cattleman's weak spot was cribbage. He ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... busy!" he ordered. "I don't think he's done for, not unless he has some mighty weak spot he should have had labelled before he waded ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... must have some weak spot in his insane armor, some way by which he could be reached and destroyed—and Bentley swore to himself that it would be he who would ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks

... life there would be a weak spot in her heart for Dalberg; and, such is the peculiarly inconsistent nature of the female, a hatred that fed itself ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... Arabs who think that a flank attack is a mean, unmanly device. War is not a big game, my English friends. It is a desperate business to gain the upper hand, and one must use one's brain in order to find the weak spot of one's enemy. It is not fair to blame me if I have found yours. It was my duty. Perhaps those officers and sailors who scowled at the little Iota that May morning have by this time done me justice when the first bitterness ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... been given him to guide his division on the Berryville pike. As the line pressed forward, Ricketts observed this widening interval and endeavored to fill it with the small brigade of Colonel Keifer, but at this juncture both Gordon and Rodes struck the weak spot where the right of the Sixth Corps and the left of the Nineteenth should have been in conjunction, and succeeded in checking my advance by driving back a part of Ricketts's division, and the most of Grover's. As ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... intelligence and of exultation shot across the weather- beaten face of the old fisherman, for he detected a weak spot in the other's knowledge. The worthy Captain, with that species of exclusiveness which accompanies excellence in any one thing, was quite ignorant of most matters that pertain to the land. That there should be a tree, so ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... come on their dark business and are welcomed; and then—an insensate act of folly! The weak spot in their remorseless plan! Again Doria rouses Robert Redmayne from the grave; again he challenges you! A thousand simple and safe ways had offered to dispose of Albert Redmayne. The region in which he chose to live and his own trusting and ingenuous character had alike made him ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... that Sir James rode back from his reconnaissance. He had fetched a circuit of Steens without discovering a weak spot, and his temper had steadily risen with the increase of the crowd. His dignity now stood fairly at stake. He moved his soldiers up the road and gave orders ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... with all his soul that we may have more and more girls who are like that bit of solid granite, strongly resisting those things that seek a tiny crevice by which to enter. For we have so many who through some weak spot have let the tide of evil in and slowly it has done its work until now the once strong and fine ideals lie broken and ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery

... temperament which he himself believed to be a blight, were a little more honest than that. They had fought him according to their own rules, which debarred nothing, with every foul trick they knew. If there was a weak spot in a man's record, go after it; if he had been a weakling, temporarily a fool, seek it out. There were human bloodhounds always sniffing to come upon such a scent. Hunt ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans

... to determine how he shall deal with the strange conditions raising their barrier between him and the object of his desire. Magdalene calls to her the object of hers. The middle-aged spinster has a weak spot in her heart for David. The boyish shoe-maker's apprentice on his side adores her—and the pleasant bits she maternally smuggles to him from Pogner's kitchen. Questioned, he informs her that he is making the place ready for the master-singers. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly grounds—the only grounds ever worth taking into account—it was a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... closet for evidence of warm clothing and overshoes, then to note whether the children put them on when they go out for lunch or recess. Whether "cold" settles in the nasal passages, ear, or stomach depends upon which is the weak spot. Draughts, thin soles, wet soles, exposure when perspiring, may be the immediate cause of the nutritional or respiratory disturbances that give cold germs a foothold. Adenoids, diseased teeth, inflamed ears, may furnish the food supply. "There is no use treating children and sending them on fresh-air ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... And this is the invariable result of every such conflict. In other classes of beings, even the weakest hunted thing occasionally succeeds in inflicting pain on its persecutor, and the small trembling mouse, unable to save itself, can sometimes make the cat shriek with paiu; but there is no weak spot in the wasp's armour, no fatal error of judgment, not even an accident, ever to save the wretched victim from its fate. And now comes the most iniquitous part of the proceeding. When the wasp has sufficiently rested after the ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... more and more exasperated. He was happening upon every weak spot in the crust, and floundering at almost every step. All at once, as the surface broke there came to his nostrils the familiar smell of a partridge. It was a fresh scent. The fox forgot his indignation. He poked his narrow snout into the snow, sniffed sharply, and began to dig with all ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... latent for a generation and reappear in the grandchildren of the person affected, or the latent tendency may never reappear unless some disturbing factor such as scarletina, meningitis or other acute disease attacks the weak spot. This possibility suggests that the influence of heredity may be vastly greater than the etiological tables would indicate. The apparent causes may be only agents which assist in developing the evil really engendered by an ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... claims that Rood committed suicide, because he was despondent over something—business I guess; and of course they did find a discharged revolver in the bar. The weak spot in that, father says, is that the bullet Rood was shot with is much too small for ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... there," he reported, as they let the board settle silently down into position. "The back part of this building must be set up on piles. I reckon we could pry that plank up with the bench, Neb, but it's liable to make considerable racket. Let's hunt about first for some other weak spot." ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... about the middle of the house, fixing her eyes on her teacher with a kind of settled intention that made Margaret shrink as if from a danger she was not able to meet. There was something bright and hard and daring in Rosa's eyes as she stared unwinkingly, as if she had come to search out a weak spot for her evil purposes, and Margaret was so tired she wanted to lay her head down on her desk and cry. She drew some comfort from the reflection that if she should do so childish a thing she would be at once surrounded by a strong battalion of friends from the camp, who ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... greater part of Macedonia should be given to Bulgaria, had hard work after the victory in convincing his countrymen that this was fair. In fact, the claims of the three allies to this district proved the one weak spot in the combination. The occupation of this country by Greeks and Serbs in the course of the first war against Turkey, while the Bulgarians were defeating the main Turkish army just northwest of Constantinople, brought on the second war. Bulgaria was ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet

... the McKinstry-Harrison boundaries, and that the new landlord would at once attempt its legal possession. The inspiration of genius that had thus effected a division of the Harrison-McKinstry combination at its one weak spot excited even the admiration of the sceptics. No one in Indian Spring knew its real author, for the suit was ostensibly laid in the name of a San Francisco banker. But the intelligent reader of Johnny Filgee's late experience during the celebration will have ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... not believe we rejoice with a very full heart: maybe we are not heavenly enough. We can never be sure of our own strength until some far-reaching test is applied, and yet it may not be an entirely true test. It may quiver about the weak spot in our souls; but, while there is any feeling, one cannot be entirely lost. That is why I say he never forgot. And you and I ought to rejoice that he did come back instead of going off in that gloomy, diseased, Manfred style, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... I sure am glad to see you back. Between you and me, Cateye, left guard has been the weak spot on our team since you were laid up. Besides, Benz hasn't been playing up to standard and although we've been trimming the seconds we haven't got that old fighting spirit. The boys are due to recover ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman

... in Hogarth's situation", he slowly said, "is always liable to attack. Why should two sharp old fellows like you and me, whose interests are identical, quarrel?"—and instantly Frankl took note of that surrender, that weak spot, and knew ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... arguments, to some extent at least, to the exigencies of the debate. They will find it desirable to make a change in one place in order to join their arguments harmoniously to those of their colleagues; they will wish to make changes in another place for the sake of assailing an obviously weak spot or in order to ward off an unexpected attack. This versatility is practically impossible if one is delivering an argument that he has memorized word for word. Again, a memorized argument cannot carry with it the force and the conviction that may be found in an effort ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... men to the present political situation was peculiar, and, as it turned out, was to constitute the weak spot in the Cowperwood-McKenty campaign. Tiernan and Kerrigan, to begin with, being neighbors and friends, worked together in politics and business, on occasions pooling their issues and doing each other favors. The enterprises ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... right. We've got to do our level best in the second half. Once let us develop a weak spot, and they'll aim for that every rush. There's Frank calling to me again. Five minutes more, and we'll be at it, hammer and tongs," and Lanky hurried away to where the captain stood, with the very last word ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... With nature in her every mood was she in sympathy. She was fond of poetry and of music; indeed, to sum up her character in as few words as possible, she was everything that so critical a dreamer of the ideal as Mr. Augustus Richards could have wished for, nor was there one weak spot in the armor of her character at which he ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... take some position offered him there by the Philadelphia committee, now thinks he will remain here,—for which I am very glad. Very few men could be so useful as he in this place; for though he has a weak spot on the question of negro character, he has a vast deal of good sense in detail, and is perfectly unimpeachable in his stern regard for justice, never allowing himself to be used in any way for the furthering of the designs of interested parties. ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... all points!" I said impulsively. "There must have been a weak spot somewhere, or he wouldn't be lying here like that!" Somehow his impassiveness surprised me. I had expected that he would find a valid argument in my phrase; but it did not move him, at least not in the way I thought. Something like a smile flickered over his swarthy ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... heated to redness by burning alcohol, and is thus vaporized—first passes through several convolutions of pipe within the burner, and then issues from a hole so fine that some people would not call it a hole at all but an orifice or something like that. That little hole is the weak spot of the primus stove. Sometimes it gets clogged, and then a fine wire mounted upon some sort of handle must be used to dislodge the obstruction. Now, the worst thing that can happen to a primus stove is to get the wire pricker broken off in the burner hole, and that is ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... on the right. From both sides an attempt was made to turn the Boer flanks, but they were found to be very wide and strong. All day a long-range action was kept up while Clements felt his way in the hope of coming upon some weak spot in the position, but in the evening a direct attack was made by Paget's two infantry regiments upon the right, which gave the British a footing on the Boer position. The Munster Fusiliers and the Yorkshire Light Infantry lost forty killed and wounded, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Ah! this was the weak spot in his armor; the instinct of a mother was not mistaken. M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment; but he finally conquered the weakness that had threatened to ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... There was only one weak spot in the programme, the Black Stallion, the cause of the hunt, seemed made of iron, that ceaseless swinging pace seemed as swift and vigorous now as on the morning when the chase began. Up and down he went rounding up the herd and urging them on by voice and example ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... just now that if Mr. Jellicoe had murdered John Bellingham and disposed of the body in the mummy-case, he would have been absolutely safe for the time being. But there would be a weak spot in his armour. For a month or more the disappearance of his client would occasion no remark. But presently, when he failed to return, inquiries would be set on foot; and then it would appear that no one had seen him since ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... "'The weak spot in all this yere humor grows out of the idees this tenderfoot's been gainin', an' the improvements he's been makin', while stragglin' about in our s'ciety. I onhesitatin'ly states that if this yere joke is pulled off by Jaybird when Todd first enters our ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... so," acquiesced the coach. "There's only one weak spot in the back field, and that's at left half. Martin, for some reason, isn't playing his game. He's too slow in starting, and he doesn't tackle as hard and fast as he ought to. Then, too, he's a little bit thick when it comes to the signals. He got mixed up twice to-day, and he was all at sea ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... let us change the subject, for it is very wrong of you to attack a poor queen in her weak spot. Tell us the customs of the ladies of the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... issues. The less endowed player, however, is not left quite defenceless; he has necessarily to adopt a different system, namely, to try to find a weak point in the arrangement of his opponent's forces and concentrate his attack on that weak spot. As a matter of fact, in a contest between players of equal strength, finding the weak point in the opponent's armour is the only possible plan, and this may be said to be the fundamental principle of the modern school. In the good old days the battles were mostly fought in the neighbourhood ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... some reason which we do not understand, the forces beneath the surface increased their activity. The force of the steam and other gases was too great to be restrained, and at a weak spot in the overlying rocks they broke through. Molten lava accompanied them, and a new volcano came into life in the valley where Cinder Cone now raises its ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... Denham, pleasantly, though the blood mounted to his face. "You have found out my weak spot. I confess I am not ambitious. I aspire to ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... twenty mile from the English coast, as I make it, and with a fair wind. Here you be, three times that distance and more from any port o' your own, the wind dead on her nose, and you ram-stamming the weak spot of her at a sea that's knocking the bows to Jericho. Now, Mossoo, you put her about, and run for Plymouth. She may do it. Pitch over a couple of guns forr'ad, and quit messing with a ship you don't understand, an' I'll warn she will ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... the performances of the "Holy Rollers," were even more ludicrous and unnatural. Such appearances are a puzzle alike to the physiologist and the philosopher; their frequency shows that they are based on some weak spot in human nature; and in proportion as we pity the victims we have a right to condemn those who sow the seeds of the pestilence. True religion is never spasmodic; it is calm as the existence of God. I know of nothing more shocking than such attempts ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... servants wore a quiet, tasteful livery. Mac himself had been trimmed and titivated almost out of recognition. He who had been wont to lounge half the day in his pyjamas was now almost smartly dressed; his beard was cropped, and his bristly poll brushed and oiled. If George had a weak spot in him it was for a simple song well sung. Mrs. Mac, accompanying herself on the piano, sang to him "The Land o' the Leal" and brewed him a mild peg with her own fair hands. George by bedtime did not know whether he was on his head ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... Ch'aka who broke the stalemate when he plunged his dagger into the ground and on the next roll caught the handle in his mouth. Holding his opponent's arms in both his hands he plunged his head down and managed to find a weak spot in the other's armor: M'shika howled and pulled free and when he climbed to his feet blood was running down his arm and dripping from his fingertips. Ch'aka jumped after him but the wounded man grabbed up his club in time to ward off the charge. Stumbling backward he managed to pick up most of his ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey

... instincts too strong for their convictions. An aristocrat of aristocrats, Scipio was a reformer only so far as he thought reform might prolong the reign of his order. From any more radical measures he shrank with dislike, if not with fear. The weak spot often to be found in those cultured aristocrats who coquet with liberalism was fatal to his chance of being a hero. He was a trimmer to the core, who, without intentional dishonesty, stood facing both ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... mental powers of perception, which seem like duplicates of the senses, had the mysterious power of swift projection that astonishes us in intellects of a high order—slingers who are quick to detect the weak spot in any armor. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... our units are shaken, no doubt, by loss of Officers (complete); by heavy losses of men (not replaced, or replaceable, under a month) and by sheer physical exertion. Small wonder then that one weak spot in our barrier gave way before the solid mass of the attacking Turks, who came on with the bayonet like true Ghazis. The first part of the rifle fire last night was entirely from our own men. The break by one battalion gave a grand chance to the only ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... the foot, and dragged him out. In his despair he had grabbed at a box standing by the tent canvas, and instead had caught hold of a tent rope, which gave way. Then the lion, with his prey in his mouth, had run along the fence looking for a weak spot, and when he had found one, he dashed right through the fence. Next morning fragments of clothing and flesh were found on the paths. The other lion had waited outside, and they had ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... of madmen in their black despair. How they tore through the black night; what unguarded weak spot they found in Ian's castle walls; how they fought their way through it, leaving their dead bodies in the path, none really ever knew. By what strange chance Dark Malcolm came upon Wee Brown Elspeth, craftily set to playing hide-and-seek with a child of ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... her head lower yet over her work. She thought she could see in Susie's speech a vindictive and critical intention. All the time she had, Aggie thought, been choosing her words judicially, so that each unnecessary eulogy of John should strike at some weak spot in poor Arthur. She felt that Susie was not above paying off her John's old scores by an oblique and cowardly blow at the man who had supplanted him. She wished that Susie would either leave off talking about ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair

... found, was to deprive him of money. A man can't carry out many schemes unless he can get hold of money. Jenkins had kept a close eye on Jim Crill, and had grown continually more uneasy lest the old chap become too favourably impressed with Rogeen. He had early sensed the old man's weak spot—one of them—Crill hated to be pestered. That was the vulnerable side at which Evelyn Barnett, the niece, could jab. And Reedy had planned all her attacks. This last move of Crill's—hiring Rogeen to lend money for him, had alarmed Reedy more than anything that had happened. ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... "None behaved better than Greene's colored regiment, which three times repulsed the furious charges of veteran Hessians." Williams says: "The black regiment was one of three that prevented the enemy from turning the flank of the American army. These black troops were doubtless regarded as the weak spot of the line, ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... weak spot, too, which is more important for our purposes. If His Gracious Majesty went to bed to-night with as many guineas in his pocket as that"—he jingled his loose coin vigorously ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... broodin' over things in gen'ral, it got to Hackett Wells in his weak spot,—heart, or liver, or something. Didn't quite finish him, you understand, but left him on the scrapheap, just totterin' around and stavin' off an obituary item by ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford



Words linked to "Weak spot" :   underbelly, good part, Achilles' heel, weakness, weak part, soft spot, jugular



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