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Disengage   Listen
verb
Disengage  v. i.  To release one's self; to become detached; to free one's self. "From a friends's grave how soon we disengage!"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disengage" Quotes from Famous Books



... pretences, is no better than she should be; or rather, a great deal worse. Think of Mrs M. falling into hysterics about a Captain Hope! It's a case of a breach of promise. What should we do now, ma'am?" he said, anxious to disengage himself, and a little piqued at the want of confidence his advances had hitherto been received with. "If you'll tell me the whole story, I shall be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... musicians play with spirit fine selections from the last operas, or favorite airs from old ones; the eye gratified by the sight of pleasant faces, or dwelling enraptured on the beautiful landscape spread before it—how can the brain disengage itself to think of Liberty, won through toil and battle, only to be preserved by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... affectionate friend! May the triumphs of fashion make you amends for all you sacrifice to obtain them!"—"Alas!" thought she, "Ellen foresaw that I should soon be disgusted with this joyless, heartless intercourse; but how can I recede? how can I disengage myself from this Lord Bradstone, now that I have encouraged his addresses?— Fool that I have been!—Oh! if I could now be advised by that best of friends, who used to assist me in all my difficulties!—But she ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... formulae, we should immediately encounter symbolism and relativity. For life is progress, whilst the geometrical method is commensurable only with things. Mr Bergson is aware of this; and his rare merit has been to disengage specific originality from biology, while elevating it to a typical ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy

... all the advantage that is given by interests stronger and more substantial than those of mere literature; and, conversely, all the hindrance that such irrelevant interests provide, when "mere literature" attempts to disengage itself ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... exchange is between efforts, [time and] labor. It is certainly not for hydrogen gas that I pay, for this is everywhere at my disposal, but for the work that it has been necessary to accomplish in order to disengage it; work which I have been spared, and which I must refund. If I am told that there are other things to pay for, as expense, materials, apparatus, I answer, that still in these things it is the work that I pay for. The price ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... opposite bank, and nothing would induce him to come near the river, so I told the gun-bearer to drag him across by force. This he accordingly did, and the dog swam with frantic exertions across the river, and managed to disengage his head from the rope. The moment that he arrived on terra firma he rushed up a steep bank and looked attentively down into ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... retreating northwards with their spoil when they were defeated on the 7th near Nipur by Nergal-ushezib. He had already rescued the statues of the gods and the treasure, when his horse fell in the midst of the fray, and he could not disengage himself. His vanquished foes led him captive to Nineveh, where Sennacherib exposed him in chains at the principal gateway of his palace: the Babylonians, who owed to him their latest success, summoned a Kaldu prince, Mushezib-marduk, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... political author. The views at which he has arrived by this inductive process, he sums up in the term—social-political-conservatism; but his conservatism is, we conceive, of a thoroughly philosophical kind. He sees in European society incarnate history, and any attempt to disengage it from its historical elements must, he believes, be simply destructive of social vitality. {164} What has grown up historically can only die out historically, by the gradual operation of necessary ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... disengage our thoughts from the war; we cannot, and we ought not. Still less can we take refuge from it in idle dreams of peace and security; but at a time when every paper and book that we see is full of the war ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... clinging to each other by their legs; each bee with its two fore-legs clinging to the two hinder legs of the one above it. In this way as many as 20,000 bees may be clinging together, and yet they hang so freely that a bee, even from quite the centre of the swarm, can disengage herself from her neighbours and pass through to the outside of the ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... and finding she could grow faster than he, she wound round and round him until she had passed up all the line she had. The oak, however, continued to grow, and as she could not disengage her coils, she was just lifted out by the root. So that ends the oak-and-ivy business, and removes a powerful temptation from the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne. Thanks be to God Almighty that we have any teachers among us now. And therefore I command thee to do as I believe thou art willing, to disengage thyself from worldly matters as often as thou canst, that thou mayst apply the wisdom which God has given thee wherever thou canst. Consider what punishments would come upon us on account of this world if we neither loved it (wisdom) ourselves nor suffered ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... in the minds of the philosophers or teachers who would fain relieve the unhappiness of the world, has been always to suggest ways in which this vulnerability may be lessened; and thus their object has been to disengage as far as possible the hopes and affections of men from things which must always be fleeting. That is the principle which lies behind all asceticism, that, if one can be indifferent to wealth and comfort and popularity, one has a better chance ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... church of Laodicea. All that he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra by one side; all that he left undone, to be stigmatized as proof of lukewarmness and backsliding by the other. Meanwhile he was to carry on a truly colossal war by means of both; he was to disengage the country from diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril undisturbed by the help or the hindrance of either, and to win from the crowning dangers of his administration, in the confidence of the people, the means of his safety and their own. He has contrived to do it, and ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... glad that he has lived thus long, And glad that he has gone to his reward; Nor can I deem that Nature did him wrong, Softly to disengage the vital cord. For when his hand grew palsied, and his eye Dark with the mists of age, it ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... arrive in Britain from the south. One of these heads shall deliver messages of great importance to the governing party, and the other to the party that is opposite to them. The first shall believe the monster, but the last shall discover the impostor, and so happily disengage themselves from a snare that was laid to destroy them and their posterity. After this the two heads shall unite, and the monster shall appear in his ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe

... companion to where he sat, and he helped to disengage her from her coverings while Mrs. Beale, from a little distance, smiled at the hand he displayed. "There's a stepfather for you! I'm bound to say, you know, that he makes up for the ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... driving so hard after this world, as to hinder thyself and family from those duties towards God, which thou art by grace obliged to; as private prayer, reading the scriptures, and Christian conference. It is a base thing for men so to spend themselves and families after this world, as that they disengage their heart to God's worship. Christians, 'The time is short: it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... diskreta. Discretion singardemo, diskreto. Discriminate distingi. Discursive tro skribema. Discuss diskuti. Discussion diskutado. Disdain malsxati. Disease malsano—ego. Disembark elsxipigxi. Disengage liberigi. Disentangle liberigi. Disfavour malfavoro. Disgrace malhonori. Disguise alivesti. Disgust nauxzi. Dish plado. Dishcloth telertuko. Dishearten malkuragxigi. Dishonest malhonesta. Dishonesty malhonesteco. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... wide; and although the thread was so fine as to be invisible in the subdued light, until closely looked for, it was enormously strong; so strong indeed that it required quite a powerful tug on my part to disengage my cap. My efforts to do so caused the web to vibrate strongly, and that, I suppose, irritated the owner, for while I was still tugging, the brute suddenly appeared from nowhere in particular, running swiftly over the web in the direction of the still entangled ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... relish nothing in the play. We endeavoured to disengage ourselves sufficiently to attend to the sequel—but all seemed frigid and uninteresting till the mad dying scene of Alexander again furnished Mr. Cooper with an opportunity to give scope to his talents, which he did, so successfully, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... elements of which many of the books in this ancient literature are made up. Certain books of the New Testament also present the problem of the discrimination of elements of different ages, which have been wrought together into the documents as we now have them, in a way that almost defies our skill to disengage. The synoptic Gospels are, of course, the great example. The book of the Acts presents a problem of the same kind. But the Pentateuch, or rather Hexateuch, the historical books in less degree, the writings even of some of the prophets, the codes which formulate the law and ritual, are composites ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... the rolling of drums and screaming of pipes; and the regiment formed up in darkness rendered tenfold more confusing by a mob of citizens, some wildly excited, others paralysed by terror, and all intractable. We had, moreover, no small trouble to disengage from our ranks the wives and families who had most unwisely followed many officers abroad, and now clung to their dear ones bidding them farewell. To end this most distressing scene I had in some instances to use a roughness which it still afflicts me to remember. ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... reverses, a man seems to think it necessary to abide by his employment and his station, even if he starves in the one, and excites pity or ridicule in the other. He will not see that he has suffered shipwreck; that he has been thrown into entirely new circumstances; that he must disengage himself from old habits and prejudices, and construct anew his scheme of life. He is one of a tribe, and must stand or fall by his profession and his order. He has lost all perception of his own individuality, and is afraid to take a single ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various

... must at the same time present but a slight resistance, since, as soon as the liquid paste has flowed out, the piece begins to shrink, and it is necessary that at the first movement downward it shall be able to disengage itself, since it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... much exhausted, and knowing that they had suffered severely, I determined to interpose a new line with the advancing troops, and thus disengage General Scott and hold his brigade in reserve. Orders were accordingly given to General Ripley. The enemy's artillery at this moment occupied a hill which gave him great advantage and was the key to the whole position. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... splenitis, nephritis, epistaxis, odontalgia, cardialgia, diarhoea, and a whole legion of devils with Latin names! D—n all doctors again, say I!" And with this exclamation, he hurled a curious crown of crockery at my head, which fitted on so tightly, that only by breaking it, could I disengage myself from the delfic diadem. I hastily ran down stairs, and, meeting the man of six and forty in the passage, I inquired of him very minutely concerning the state of his master. He answered all my questions with perfect candour, and not without a certain archness of look and manner rather unusual ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various

... hang his Grace at Tyburn, in revenge for justice done, under his administration in Ireland, on some of their companions. "This refinement in revenge," says Pennant, "saved the duke's life; he had leisure to disengage himself from the villain on horseback, to whom he was tied; by which time he was discovered by his servants, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various

... death; and that, in this agony, he saw the heavens open and about eight thousand champions, all covered with white armor, descend, who fell instantly to encourage him by giving him this assurance: that they were come to fight for him and to disengage him from that doubtful combat. And when, with infinite comfort, and tears in his eyes, he besought them to do him the favor to let him know who they were that had so highly obliged him: "We are," said they, "the souls whom you ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... affrighted Delia, "whither are we going? This cannot be the way to Southampton. What do you mean? But ah, it is too plain! Why else this impotence of insult?" endeavouring to disengage her hands. And she turned from him in a rage of indignation. "Ah," cried his lordship, "do not avert those brilliant eyes! Turn them towards me, and they will outshine the lustre of the morn, and I shall perceive nothing of the sun, even when he gains his meridian height." "And ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... acquainted with. Their hoofs, indeed, slip from the side of the image, but nevertheless they never cease neighing vehemently and leaping furiously on the figure till they are driven off by the whip or by some other violent means, for till such methods are applied, it is impossible to disengage them ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... calling to mind that there were other pools, many other pools, free of obstruction and with fish in them. Yet such is the perversity of fishermen, we were back losing more Royal Coachmen the very next day. In all I managed to disengage just three rather small trout from that pool, and in return decorated their ancestral halls with festoons of leaders and the ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... disengage himself from the porter he ran upstairs and hurried to the window. Immediately below the clear space in the chestnut leaves, the two gentlemen were seated in conversation over a cigar. The General, a red, military-looking man, offered some traces of a family resemblance to his brother; ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... as only expounding the sense of words, or as if they were propositions only by satisfying the forms of language, not by fulfilling the function of propositions in conveying a knowledge of facts. They are also called 'Analytic' and 'Explicative,' when they separate and disengage the elements of the connotation of the subject. Doubtless, such propositions may be useful to one who does not know the language; and Definitions, which are verbal propositions whose predicates analyse the whole connotations of their subjects, are indispensable instruments ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... those centuries. Maddalena Doni, in her portrait, painted by Raphael, which hangs in the Pitti Palace at Florence, wears a pair of these rich, heavy sleeves, fastened slightly at the shoulder, and worn over a shorter sleeve belonging to her dress. Thus we see how it was that a lady could disengage her sleeve at the right moment, and give it to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... had a high forehead to which the quality of the skin gave a singular polish—it glittered even when seen at a distance; a nose which achieved a high free curve; and a tendency to throw back her head and carry it well above her, as if to disengage it from the possible entanglements of the rest of her person. If you had seen her walk you would have felt her to tread the earth after a fashion suggesting that in a world where she had long since discovered ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... his aim, and rather prove false to a party, who had no justice and honour on their side, than to a King, whom all the laws of heaven and earth obliged him to serve; however, he was so far in the power of these people, that he could not disengage himself without utter ruin to himself; but that as soon as he was got into France, he would abandon their interest, let the censuring world say what it would, who never had right notions of things, or ever made true ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... negative process has to be carried on, a clearing away of useless abstractions which we have inherited from the past. Many erroneous conceptions of the mind derived from former philosophies have found their way into language, and we with difficulty disengage ourselves from them. Mere figures of speech have unconsciously influenced the minds of great thinkers. Also there are some distinctions, as, for example, that of the will and of the reason, and of the moral and intellectual faculties, which are carried further than is justified by ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... employment in the tranquillisation of the Northern provinces. Gameiro did not venture previously to apprise me of the act lest I should resist it—but insultingly sent an order to the officers of the Piranga to "disengage themselves from all obedience to my command." (Se desligao de toda subordinacao a o Ex'mo S'r Marquez do Maranhao), thus unjustifiably terminating my services—as I was on the point of returning, in obedience to the order of the Emperor. The ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... world turns and makes an admiring grimace. Once the men were so great and so few, they appear, Through a distant Olympian atmosphere, Like vast Caryatids upholding the age. Now the men are so many and small, disengage One man from the million to mark him, next moment The crowd sweeps him hurriedly out of your comment; And since we seek vainly (to praise in our songs) 'Mid our fellows the size which to heroes belongs, We ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... Octave's lips were fastened upon this rather trembling hand, as if he wished to imbibe, to the very depths of his soul, the soft, perfumed tissue. Twice the Baroness tried to disengage herself, twice her strength failed her. It was beginning to be time for the aunt to awaken, but she slept more soundly than ever; and if a slight indecision was to be noticed in the upper hand, the lower notes were struck with an energy capable of metamorphosing Mademoiselle ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... tiles. When they came back on to the roof, the father and mother, with outstretched arms, tried to follow them through the opening, but the soldiers repeatedly pushed them back, and had at last to strike them on the head with their swords, before they could disengage themselves ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various

... Mr. Wright, the postmaster, to cut him down, but Mr. Wright, who was using both hands and his voice trying to disengage a package of pin-wheels from the back portion of his coat, which were on fire and throwing out colored sparks, said he hadn't got time, as he was going down to the river to take a ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... surrounding them with bodies which did not conduct the current. He electrified some water in a jar, and communication having been established between the water and the prime conductor, his assistant, who was holding the bottle, on trying to disengage the communicating ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... that followed was all they had expected it would be—and more. Their clothes were whipped about their legs as if about to disengage themselves and fly away from their owners forever. And several times they were forced to stop and turn their backs to catch their breath and gather strength to ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... insured after this method, was run ashore by the captain, in such a manner that he imagined none but himself able to recover it, and therefore, though it cost five thousand pounds, sold it for five hundred; but the purchaser, no less expert than the captain, found means very speedily to disengage it, to restore it to a proper condition with little expense, and was much enriched by his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... a week. I once put a wasp into the net; but when the spider came out in order to seize it, as usual, upon perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal with, it instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and contributed all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable an antagonist. When the wasp was set at liberty, I expected the spider would have set about repairing the breaches that were made in its net; but those, it seems, were irreparable; wherefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... Mr. Bullock was positively ruining and pinching himself to death to buy land), how was the darling girl to be provided for? "I expect YOU, dear," Mrs. Bullock would say, "for of course my share of our Papa's property must go to the head of the house, you know. Dear Rhoda McMull will disengage the whole of the Castletoddy property as soon as poor dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is quite epileptic; and little Macduff McMull will be Viscount Castletoddy. Both the Mr. Bludyers of Mincing Lane have settled their fortunes on Fanny Bludyer's little ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... overfed Newfoundland dog, upon whose throat a sharp and bitter terrier has fastened. At length, after much exertion, he succeeded in standing erect against the wall of the apartment, though still unable to disengage Robin's long arms and bony fingers from his throat, where he hung like a mill-stone: it was some minutes ere the gigantic man had power to throw from him the attenuated being whom, on ordinary occasions, he could have lifted between his ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... most intelligent and best-bred persons I have known in any country. We assisted at her conversazione, which was numerous. She pressed us to pass the winter at Genoa; and indeed I was almost persuaded: but I had attachments at Nice, from which I could not easily disengage myself. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... a little bigger they exercise themselves in small skiffs, with which they learn to overcome the waves. Nothing can be more dangerous, or require greater dexterity than the management of a Greenlander's boat. The least thing will overset it, and then, the man who cannot disengage himself from the boat, which is fastened to his middle, sinks down below the waves, and is inevitably drowned, if he cannot regain his balance. The only hope of doing this, is placed in the proper application of his oar, and, therefore, the dexterous management of this implement forms the early ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... and agility, in the end tript the sword out of his hand; they closed and wrestled, till both fell to the ground in each other's arms. The English officer got above Lochiel, and pressed him hard, but stretching forth his neck, by attempting to disengage himself, Lochiel, who by this time had his hands at liberty, with his left hand seized him by the collar, and jumping at his extended throat, he bit it with his teeth quite through, and kept such a hold of his grasp, that he brought away his mouthful; ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... for a sermon from the patriarch, who now leaned upon his hoe and shook his head with a slow ruminative motion, as if he hoped by this action to disengage from it some profound moral reflections, and then began to enumerate how many of these good people he had helped to bury; but before he had well begun this discourse we had turned away and were about leaving the place, when he recalled us by saying, "I have got one tombstone yet to show you, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... discernment of inevitable necessity, he advocated in the community to which he belonged the policy of the closest adherence to Rome. It was a policy in the highest degree judicious and beyond doubt well-intentioned, but it was far from being high-spirited or proud. Nor was Polybius able wholly to disengage himself from the vanity and paltriness of the Hellenic statesmanship of the time. He was hardly released from exile, when he proposed to the senate that it should formally secure to the released their former rank in their several homes; ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... then hied him to the garden, and sate down at the foot of the pine to await Anichino. The lady no sooner wist that he was out of the room, than she rose, and locked the door. Anichino, who had never been so terrified in all his life, and had struggled with all his might to disengage his hand from the lady's clasp, and had inwardly cursed her and his love, and himself for trusting her, a hundred thousand times, was overjoyed beyond measure at this last turn that she had given the affair. And so, the lady ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... obliged to discharge a debt of Myrtle's, at Bordeaux, amounting to about five thousand livres, to get that vessel away, and he now duns us at every post for between four and five thousand pounds sterling, to disengage him in Holland, where he has purchased arms for you. With the same view of saving your credit, Mr Ross was furnished with twenty thousand pounds sterling, to disentangle him. All the captains of your armed vessels come to us for their supplies, and we have not received a farthing of the produce of ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... different species of poetic composition. The greatest Masters in the Epopee often introduce metaphors, which have only a general relation to the subject; and by pursuing these through a variety of circumstances, they disengage the reader's attention from the principal object. This indeed often becomes necessary in pieces of length, when attention begins to relax by following too closely one particular train of ideas. It requires however great judgment in the Poet to pursue this course with approbation, as he must ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... chief object in selling out was that he might disengage himself from business. He had been a long time in it; he was getting somewhat advanced in life, and had accumulated sufficient to insure him against want, and he deemed it best to step out, and give room to the young-an example worthy ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... the thread was tied had patiently continued perfectly quiet, could no longer support the pain without dismal cries and anguish: he squeaked as loud as his little throat would let him, exerting at the same time the utmost of his strength to disengage himself. But in such a position, with his head downward, in vain were all his efforts to procure relief; and the barbarous monster who held him discovered not the smallest emotions of pity for his sufferings. Oh! how at that moment did I abhor my ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... the throat, threw him onto his back, so that he could not disengage himself from her, and half strangling him, she shouted into his face: "I am in the family way! Do you hear? I ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... and cold, did not very gracefully disengage herself from the high muddy wheel and step. When she mounted to the porch she saw that Mrs. Hutter was a woman of middle age, rather stout, with strong face full of fine wavy lines, and ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... for his Royal Highness to disengage his person from the accumulating pile of papers that encompassed it." —Lord CASTLEREAGH'S Speech upon Colonel M ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... with an audience, where the ventilation is inadequate, the lamps will emit but a faint light, because the oxygen is soon expended, and there is not enough of the vivifying principle to unite with the oil and disengage light. In the human body, when the respired air has lost some of its life-giving properties, the combustion that takes place in different parts of the system is not so complete as when it contains a proper proportion ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... Twig the cull, he is peery; observe the fellow, he is watching us. Also to disengage, snap asunder, or break off. To twig the darbies; to knock off ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... rendering it difficult, distracted as he was by the contest, to extricate it, turned round and swam several strokes from his enemy, who, however, pursued him with the ferocity of one of the bloodhounds beside them. This ruse was to enable Shawn to disengage his middogue, which he did. In the meantime this expedient of Shawn's afforded his opponent time to bring out his skean,—two weapons which differed very little except in name. They once more approached one another, each with the armed hand up,—the left,—and ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... grimly, making no effort to disengage himself, which would only have given Doughty the further purchase needed to throw him. Instead he began to work round in the other's arms. As soon as he had sufficient twist on his hips he entwined ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... could disengage myself I hunted up Jackson, the negro head-waiter and general house-man, who knows everything that happens at the club. He had just finished his dinner and I drew him into the cloak-room so that our talk might be uninterrupted. I took out a five ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny

... Manning went with Edna aboard the steamer, and both laughed heartily at her efforts to disengage herself from a pertinacious young book-vender, who, with his arms full of copies of her own book, stopped her on deck, and volubly extolled its merits, insisting that she should buy one to while away the tedium ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... world,' rejoined Sir Mulberry. Thus speaking, he leaned over, as if to replace her in her chair; but the young lady, making a violent effort to disengage herself, he lost his balance, and measured his length upon the ground. As Kate sprung forward to leave the room, Mr Ralph Nickleby appeared in the doorway, and ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... of morality. An enlightened conscience, or a rational conviction of duty, will consist essentially in the viewing of life with a certain remove from its local incidents. In conduct, as in all matters where validity or truth is concerned, the critical consciousness must disengage itself and view the course of things in its due proportions, allowing one's dearest interests to lie where they lie among the rest. I have read so admirable a representation of the moral function of the logical imagination in a recent paper by H. G. Lord, ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... and the doctor could disengage his attention from the horses. He did not fail to note the emotion that lit up her expressive face, and made her ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... of Miss Aldclyffe to Manston had plainly been concerning the first watcher, for Manston, with his spade in his hand, instantly rushed to where the man was concealed, and, before the latter could disengage himself from the boughs, the steward struck him on the head with the blade of the instrument. The man fell ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... Fouchette who first moved to disengage, and she did so with a sigh so profound as to appear quite real. This was the second, and she felt it would be the last time. They would never again hold each other thus. Her eyes were red and swollen and her dishevelled hair stuck to her tear-stained face. She was not at all pretty ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... leant over that of the maid, drawing her close in his embrace. He was now so drunk he did not hear the door creak as Janet and Katherine did; the former, seeing the pale, triumphant face of Constance reflected in a mirror, as she stood half-way inside the door. Katherine tried to disengage herself by reaching for another glass of wine. The Duke reached it for her and would hold it to her lips; but she, looking up at him with a feint of a ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... sacrifice is offered up for the sins of all—that the offering of Christ is for ever repeated. To this Protestantism has objected vehemently, that there is but one offering once offered—an objection in itself entirely true; yet the Romish doctrine contains a truth which it is of importance to disengage from the gross and material form with which it has been overlaid. Let us hear St. Paul, "I fill up that which is behindhand of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body's sake, which is the Church." Was there then, something behindhand of Christ's sufferings remaining uncompleted, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... of the apartment, in that part of it enclosed by the circular portion of wall, was a sinister-looking machine, and to the gearing of one of its handles was attached a short piece of iron rod which he thought he might disengage without much difficulty. Forthwith he applied himself to the task, with such success that, half an hour later, he found himself in possession of what he required. True, it was somewhat stouter than it should have been for his purpose, but this was one of those occasions ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... persons suffering pain of conscience, to plunge into new excesses, in order to disengage themselves from wretchedness of remorse, and, as they hope, to divert their sorrows! This infatuation is attended with mischievous effects: it diminishes sensibility to sin, and confirms the habit. The thorns which at first grew in the path of indulgence, are trampled down by frequent passage; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... took hold of that hand to disengage it. But Mlle. Nadiboff merely held the tighter, while the boy was conscious that she was gazing up at ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... an unelastic or fixed state, it is one of the properties of combustion to disengage and render it elastic, great part of which, during the low combustion which it supports, and in which heat is visible or perceptible, and light in an invisible state developed, three parts of this oxygen, with about one third of its ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... union was Leonardo. Since the decay of ancient art no painter had been able to fully express the human form, for imperfect mastery of technique still proved the barrier. Leonardo was the first completely to disengage his personality from its constraint, and make line express thought as none before him could do. Nor was this his only triumph, but rather the foundation on which further achievement rested. Remarkable as a ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... by other affections. Now, though on this subject I should be silent, it is easy for any one to know how much I have suffered; yet I never dared refuse her whom my father forced upon me. With difficulty did I withdraw myself from another, and disengage my affections so firmly rooted there! and hardly had I fixed them in another quarter, when, lo! a new misfortune has arisen, which may tear me from her too. Then besides, I suppose that in this matter I shall find either my mother or my wife in fault; and when I find such ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... remain, while he was engaged in the recreation. Desisting from the exercise, he found the finger, on which he had put his ring, contracted firmly against the palm, and attempted in vain either to break it, or to disengage his ring. He concealed the circumstance from his companions, and returned at night with a servant, when he found the finger extended, and his ring gone. He dissembled the loss, and returned to his wife; but, whenever he attempted ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... down from woman and poured in torrents along his thighs. The dear boy was so overcome with the delight that I thought at first he must have fainted, but I soon discovered it was only the swoon of pleasure. Raising him up in my arms, as soon as I could disengage my unruly member from the pleasant quarters it still clung too, I laid him on the bed by the side of Laura who was not in much better condition and stood equally in need ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous

... for those who form designs of making libraries, that is, that they must disengage themselves from all prejudices with regard either to ancient or modern books, for such a wrong step often precipitates the judgment, without scrutiny or examination, as if truth and knowledge were confined to any particular times or places. The ancients ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley

... sinners from this sacred assembly, for they will be cut off from it at the great day! Stand forth now, ye righteous! where are you? Remnant of Israel, pass to the right hand! True wheat of Jesus Christ, disengage yourselves from this chaff, doomed to the fire! O God! where are thine elect? and what remains there ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... with any self-respect or care for his credit even as a thinker and a man would like to repeat the superficial and shallow flippancy and irreligion of the last century. Two things have been specially insisted on. We have been told that if we are to see the truth of things as it is, we must disengage our minds from the deeply rooted associations and conceptions of a later theology, and try to form our impressions first-hand and unprompted from the earliest documents which we can reach. It has been further urged on us, in a more believing spirit, that we should follow the order by which in fact ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... longtime Palestinian leader Yasir ARAFAT in November 2004, the election of his successor Mahmud ABBAS in January 2005 brought about a turning point in the conflict. In February 2005 the Israeli Government voted to disengage from the Gaza Strip by dismantling all Israeli settlements and removing all Israeli settlers. This process was completed in September 2005. Nonetheless, Israel maintains offshore maritime control as well as airspace control. The future political status of the Gaza Strip ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... his own sense of horror and repulsion, he tried to disengage the cold and rigid hand of the dead from the trembling grasp of the Quakeress. But she would not relinquish her hold, only she turned and looked steadily at the young lad, whilst her voice rose firm and harsh above the ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... [153] during which time there were some skirmishes between the enemy and our men, who were very often surrounded by the former, rather through their imprudence than from lack of courage; for I assure you that every time we went to the charge it was necessary for us to go and disengage them from the crowd, since they could only retreat under cover of our arquebusiers, whom the enemy greatly dreaded and feared; for as soon as they perceived any one of the arquebusiers they withdrew speedily, saying ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain

... centuries, so that we have no present interest in them, it is strange how the proudest empires assume an empty and spectral aspect. Their growth and decline occupied ages; but what a brief achievement it appears now! Why puzzle ourselves about their origin, or seek to disengage the true from the fabulous in their history? Why strain laboriously to settle names, and dates, and dynasties? What mere point they have occupied in the processes of the great universe! Their hieroglyphic pillars, their gray old pyramids;—what are they ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... disengage his weapon, but Hordle John bent his arm slowly back until, with a sharp crack, like a breaking stave, it turned limp in his grasp, and the mace dropped from the nerveless fingers. In vain he tried ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Lancers, striking at them, shooting into them. He saw the Lieutenant-colonel of his own regiment tumble out of his saddle; saw Major Lent put his horse to a dead run and ride over a squad of infantry; saw Colonel Arran disengage his horse from the crush, wheel, and begin to use his heavy sabre ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... lashed so that the gunwale may be as nearly as possible on a line with the level of the wharf. The elephant being placed with his back to the water is forced by goads to retreat till his hind legs go over the side of the quay, but the main contest commences when it is attempted to disengage his fore feet from the shore, and force him to entrust himself on board. The scene becomes exciting from the screams and trumpeting of the elephants, the shouts of the Arabs, the calls of the Moors, and the rushing of the crowd. Meanwhile the huge ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... the morning. Then, binding their prisoner's hands behind him, and tying his feet firmly together, they laid down to sleep, with an Indian on each side and the remaining one to keep guard. As soon as the blaze of the fire died away, Mayall tried to disengage his hands, which began to pain him cruelly, but all in vain. If he could once free himself, he could reach his home before the sun could rise again, and once more see his wife and children; but six miles of forest parted ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes

... sandals. Now for the stone wall. On the other side are thick set the thorny stalks of last summer's "high-bush" blackberries. A plunge and a scramble take you through in comparative safety; and stopping only to disengage your skirts from a too-fond bramble, you are in the woodland. Thick-strewn the dead leaves lie under foot. What music there is in the rustling murmur with which they greet your invading step! On, deeper and deeper into the wood,—now dodging under the green and snaky cat-briers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... it should never be mixed with lime, and it should be plowed in. In his experiments, the lime in the soil had the effect to disengage the ammonia, and not being sufficiently buried or mixed up with the earth to prevent its escape during a very dry season, much of its value went afloat in the atmosphere. If he had given a bushel of plaster as a top dressing, there is no doubt the effect upon the grass crop ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... the Devil had retired, he carefully drew from his pocketbook a slip of paper and affixed it on the hook. The line had scarcely reached the current before he felt a bite. The hook was swallowed. To bring up his victim rapidly, disengage him from the hook, and reset his line, was the work of a moment. Another bite and the same result. Another, and another. In a very few minutes the roof was covered with his panting spoil. The broker could himself distinguish that many of them were personal ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... officer friend was once acting as cavalier to a party of ladies on horseback at a review, when, unfortunately, the troop in which his horse belonged happening to pass by, the animal bolted from the group of ladies, and took his accustomed place in the ranks, nor could all the efforts of his rider disengage him. Finally, our friend was obliged to dismount, and, holding the horse by the bit, back him out of the troop to his station with the party of ladies—a feat performed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... health, which are effectual and substantial good, to pursue this vain phantom. And of all the irrational humours of men, it should seem that the philosophers themselves have the most ado, and do the least disengage themselves from this the most restive and obstinate of all the follies. There is not any one view of which reason does so clearly accuse the vanity, as that; but it is so deeply rooted in us, that I doubt whether any one ever clearly freed himself from it, or no. After you have ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... not?" She moved restlessly away at the question, and tried to disengage herself from Phillis's firm grasp. "The Divine Father hears all ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change—that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, struck out. To be so, they must be reasonably true to the human ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... world, to put it aside, to put it aside, into its place. Yet ever anew it gained ascendency over her, it laid new hold on her. Oh, the unutterable weariness of her flesh, which she could not cast off, nor yet extricate. If she could but extricate herself, if she could but disengage herself from feeling, from her body, from all the vast encumbrances of the world that was in contact with her, from her father, and her mother, and her lover, and ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... however, when the animal uttered a cry of fright, and began beating the air with his fore hoofs. The lightning enabled Richard to discern the cause of this new distress. Coiled round the poor beast's legs, all whose efforts to disengage himself from the terrible assailant were ineffectual, was a large black snake, seemingly about to plunge its poisonous fangs into the flesh. Again having recourse to the talisman, and bending down, Richard stretched it towards the snake, upon which the reptile ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... have declined any responsibility; but, on the contrary, I have been, under these circumstances, detained in a situation without responsibility, which was actually objected as a charge against Mr. Pitt, while I have been labouring to disengage myself; and, ultimately, I have received Lord Northington's appointment, dated on the 24th (two days after it had been communicated by every one connected with Government to their friends), without one line of the King's approbation of my conduct, in circumstances ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... and threw him, then bolted. Tired already, the sudden appearance of the monstrous ray of light and the roar of the approaching motor was too much for that horse. Fred was not hurt by the fall. Having had no stirrups from which to disengage his feet, he was able to let himself go. And he had no sooner landed than he was up. For just a moment, he knew he must be plainly visible in the glare of the searchlight. But he dashed for the side of the road and made ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... price is right, there are many reasons that tempt my friend Tranquillus to buy—the nearness of the city, the convenient road, the modest dimensions of his villa and the extent of the farm, which is just enough to pleasantly disengage his thoughts from other things, but not enough to give him any worry. In fact learned schoolmen, like Tranquillus, on turning land-owners, ought only to have just sufficient land to enable them to get rid of headaches, cure their eyes, ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... Crump, who had taken the omnibus at a quarter-past twelve instead of that at twelve, had just opened the drawing-room door and was walking in, when Morgiana, turning as red as a peony, and unable to disengage her left hand, which the musician held, raised up her right hand, and, with all her might and main, gave her lover such a tremendous slap in the face as caused him abruptly to release the hand which he ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... The enemy started in pursuit. Unluckily, as we issued from the village, our guns traversing a hollow road, we were stopped by ditches and channels full of mud, in which the guns stuck fast. As I was trying to disengage them the English reached us, and surrounded us so as to cut off all retreat. Then I surrendered with 3 or 4 officers and about 40 soldiers who were with me, and the guns. It was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th of January, 1761, a moment whose ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill

... attempted to disengage one of two forms of the old original poem from the parasitic later growths; he has promised to show us a smooth and masterly narrative, and the result is a narrative on which no Achasan poet could have ventured. In II. 50 the heralds are bidden [Greek: kurussein], ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... discovered, but the Mid[-e] alone has the power to expel him. The exorcism of demons is one of the chief pretensions of this personage, and evil spirits are sometimes removed by sucking them through tubes, and startling tales are told how the J[)e]ssakk[-i]d can, in the twinkling of an eye, disengage himself of the most complicated tying of cords and ropes, etc. The lodge used by this class of men consists of four poles planted in the ground, forming a square of three or four feet and upward in diameter, around which are wrapped birch bark, robes, or canvas in such a way as to ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... necessity created by the evil elements of the eighteenth century. When the mineral was in a state of fusion in the bowels of the earth, it became mixed with foreign and gross elements. But we cannot now disengage the impure accessory by breaking the mass with a hammer. If it be put into the crucible just as it is, the elements will separate of themselves. The theology of Holland, like that of every other Protestant country, is ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... you. Let me chide you, then, for coldness, for insensibility: but no; I will not. Let me enjoy the rewards of self-denial and forbearance, and seal up my accusing lips. Let me forget the coldness of your last salute, your ill-concealed effort to disengage yourself from my foolishly- fond arms. You have got at your journey's end, I ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... sexual force would return, for my prick was in her sheath. She moved to release herself. Stronger far than me, she could in any other attitude have easily done so; but the most difficult position for a woman to disengage herself from a man, is when he is on the top of her, well between her thighs, and clasping her backside tightly. As she moved there was no strong will in it; how could it be otherwise? She in the prime of life ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... gave a cry, and started off ahead of the wagons; the oxen raised their heads to the wind, and those which were not in the yokes after a short while broke from the keepers, and galloped off, followed by the horses, sheep, and dogs. The oxen in the yokes also became quite unruly, trying to disengage themselves ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... down this shaft, which is square at this point, but round inside the loose pinion 4. Pinions 2 and 3 are keyed to a square secondary shaft, and are respectively always in gear with 1 and 4; but 5 can be slid backwards and forwards so as to engage or disengage with 6. In the illustration no gear is "in." If the engine is working, 1 revolves 2, 2 turns 3, and 3 revolves 4 idly ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... let thyself he disturbed with chimeras, to let thy mind be troubled with phantoms which thine own imagination has created, or to which arch imposture has given birth. Renounce thy vague hopes, disengage thyself from thine overwhelming fears, follow without inquietude the necessary routine which nature has marked out for thee; strew the road with flowers if thy destiny permits; remove, if thou art able, the thorns scattered over it. Do not attempt ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... mingled his laughter with hers, gently seeking to disengage his arm. "And perhaps," he said, "I, clinging to the weeds of the river's bed, shall see dimly the boats and the oars pass over me, and shall be able to ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... a breathless time of it indeed. His Despatches, passionately long-winded, are exceedingly stiff reading to the like of us. O reader, what things have to be read and carefully forgotten; what mountains of dust and ashes are to be dug through, and tumbled down to Orcus, to disengage the smallest fraction of truly memorable! Well if, in ten cubic miles of dust and ashes, you discover the tongue of a shoe-buckle that has once belonged to a man in the least heroic; and wipe your brow, invoking the supernal ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... supporter's. By dint, however, of almost dislocating her shoulder, she managed to disengage it. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... This does not break up as a proto-compound but is merely set free, a and the 2 bs whirling in a plane vertical to the paper and the two smaller bodies, cc, whirling on a plane at right angles to the other. These two disengage themselves, forming a quartet as a meta-compound, while a makes a whirling cross and bb a single sextet; these further dissociate themselves into four pairs ...
— Occult Chemistry - Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements • Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater



Words linked to "Disengage" :   withdraw, turn, disencumber, declutch, relinquish, release, unstuff, disentangle, let go of, let go, engage, loosen up



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