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Idol   Listen
noun
Idol  n.  
1.
An image or representation of anything. (Obs.) "Do her adore with sacred reverence, As th' idol of her maker's great magnificence."
2.
An image of a divinity; a representation or symbol of a deity or any other being or thing, made or used as an object of worship; a similitude of a false god. "That they should not worship devils, and idols of gold."
3.
That on which the affections are strongly (often excessively) set; an object of passionate devotion; a person or thing greatly loved or adored. "The soldier's god and people's idol."
4.
A false notion or conception; a fallacy. "The idols of preconceived opinion."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Idol" Quotes from Famous Books



... Ganges.] Originally built of gold, the sins of the inhabitants were punished by its transmutation into stone, and latterly into mud and thatch: whoever enters it, and especially visits its principal idol (Siva fossilised) ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... RECITATIVE. Yet, why complain? What, though by bonds confin'd, Should bonds repress the vigour of the mind? Have we not cause for triumph when we see Ourselves alone from idol-worship free? Are not this very morn those feasts begun? 35 Where prostrate error hails the rising sun? Do not our tyrant lords this day ordain For superstitious ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... but eloquence, it is certain, flourishes most under a bold and turbulent democracy, where the ambitious citizen, who best can mould to his purposes a fierce and contentious multitude, is sure to be the idol of the people. In the conflict of parties, that kept our ancestors in agitation, laws were multiplied; the leading chiefs were the favourite demagogues; the magistrates were often engaged in midnight debate; eminent citizens were brought to a public ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... idol of some one particular tobacco. I know a man who considers a certain mixture so superior to all others that he will walk three miles for it. Surely every one will admit that this is lamentable. It is not ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... the two men, still watching him, betook themselves to work. They seemed to be makers of idols. The father was carving a small wooden statuette of the god Thoth. The son worked on a larger idol, the goddess Apet, or Thoueris, in the shape of a hippopotamus walking upright on hind feet. The idol was of green serpentine, and the mother watched with evident pride the skill ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford

... gained a second or two, for the pass was really to the left, and again Darrin had the pigskin clutched tightly as he started to ran and deceive. Again Dan and the others of the interference sustained their idol and champion. Dave went soon to earth, but he had forced ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... the idol of the day—the names of Jules Favre and Gambetta were by-words of scorn. Even Armand Monnier, still out of work, beginning to feel the pinch of want, and fierce for any revolution that might turn topsy-turvy ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... so easily befallen him with a mother so deeply honored! Around her spun all the boy's love desire and twined itself about her, and all that lava heated feeling belonging so peculiarly to the child alone. He had hung upon that idol the longing of his heart, the phantasies of a power of imagination lustfully excited, which is not indeed wanting in the best of children, although commonly these are inhibited, and later even completely forgotten ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... was concluded at Constantinople, between the emperor and the embassadors of Igor. Imperial embassadors were sent with the written treaty to Kief. Igor, with imposing ceremonies, ascended the sacred hill where was erected the Russian idol of Peroune, and with his chieftains took a solemn oath of friendship to the emperor, and then as a gage of their sincerity deposited at the feet of the idol their arms and shields of gold. The Christian nobles ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... was I aware of this until, on returning to them, I found the reins in the hands of Piper's gin; a tall woman who, wrapped in a blanket, with Piper's sword on her shoulder, and having a blind eye, opaque and white like that of some Indian idol, presented rather a singular appearance as she stood the only guardian of all we possessed. Her presence of mind in assuming such a charge on such an occasion was very commendable, and seemed ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... from having a brilliant war record, had also a lofty political career in North Carolina during and following the reconstruction period. Twenty years or more ago he, in the height of his career, was the idol of Eastern North Carolina. "The silver-tongued orator of the East," his appearance in any town or hamlet was greeted with the greatest enthusiasm. Holidays were proclaimed and houses were decked with flags and ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... rose with the sunrise, and out of the back windows saw the east flaming yellow and orange above the green, glowing grass, while the great pear tree in between stood dark and magnificent as an idol, and under the dark pear tree, the little sheet of water spread smooth in burnished, yellow light, she said, "It is here". And when, at evening, the sunset came in a red glare through the big opening in the clouds, she said again, "It ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... doubtfully, "these silly niggers say. She wife of Big Bonsa, you see, to-morrow p'raps. But their story this, that she get dead sick of Big Bonsa and bolt with white Medicine man, who dare preach she nothing but heathen idol. She want show him whether or no she only idol. That the yarn, priests tell it me to-day. They always watch for her there by the edge of the lake. They always sure Little Bonsa come back. Not at all surprised, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... man in the prime of life, Sole stay of frail children and helpless wife; The bright-eyed, ardent, and beardless boy, Of some mother's fond breast the pride and joy, And the soldier-love, the idol rare Of maiden ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... conduct, had much to do with his attitude concerning the political advantages of the divorce. Such was the young Polish noblewoman's eventual devotion to the father of her boy, that throughout his subsequent life in Europe she ran every risk to be near her idol, and actually followed him to Elba. Their son, the Count Walewski, was a devoted Frenchman, and a man of quality, filling, with dignity, important offices in the service ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... be! However, it is no use exciting ourselves to-night. One likes to keep the peace at Yule-tide, and so I will bow down to your idol as much ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... men not fettered by provincial traditions as invested with this foresight and this faith, is become to a vast party an idol, and from his writings issue oracles. But the priests at his shrines, having waxed fat in honors, have at last so befogged his sentiments and wrested his arguments, that thousands of true men regard him sorrowfully as the promoter of that Slavery-Despotism which to-day blooms in treason. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... Dost began in a very low voice and went on, with his declamation growing louder, till it was a roar, when he suddenly ceased, and dropped down on the ground with his legs under him in the position of an Indian idol, and, with his chin upon his breast, sat there perfectly silent, and as if ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... Maria Clara, the idol of all, grew up surrounded by love and smiles. She won the favor of even the friars when she was dressed in white for some religious procession, her long, wavy hair interwoven with flowers, two silver or golden wings attached to the shoulders of ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... certain night we camped at the foot of a valley outside a great wall which encloses the holy place where their idol is. I rode up to this wall and, through the open gateway, heard some one with a beautiful tenor voice singing in English. What he sang was a hymn that I had ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... in the beginning forwarded the ambitions of Whitman under the impression that his talk of a "square deal" was "just the usual dope" and that Aaron was a "level-headed fellow at bottom." It had developed—after they had let Aaron become a popular idol, not to be trifled with—it had developed that he was almost sincere—as sincere as can be expected of an ambitious, pushing fellow. Now came David Hull, looking suspiciously like Whitman at his ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... seven years old, and the idol of every brother among the Essenes, Miriam fell ill with a kind of fever which often strikes children in the neighbourhood of Jericho and the Dead Sea. Among the brethren were several skilful and famous ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... heart went into mourning for her daughter-in-law whom she had never seen. None but the husband, whose idol she was, lamented her longer and more. Only fifty miles off, but so remote in her seclusion, so shut away, so forgotten; perhaps Mrs. Daniel Mortimer did not think once in a season of her husband's mother; but every day the old woman had thought of her as a consoler and a delight, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... Mata knew her idol and nursling better. Hints of character and of deep-sea passion had risen now and again to the surface of the girl's placid life. There were currents underneath that the father did not suspect. Once, during her childhood, a pet bird had been injured in a fit of anger by old ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... a falsehood and a slander, for the unregenerate know him not; how then can they believe on him? (1 John 3:1). Besides, the worst of men, so far as they pretend religion, set up your idol in their hearts, viz. their own good meanings, their own good nature, the notions and dictates of their nature, living that little which they do live upon the snuff of their own light, the sparks of their own fire, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... short-liv'd fate; Thine attire of past years to lay aside thou chang'st, a Taoist dress to don; How sad, alas! of a reputed house and noble kindred the scion, Alone, behold! she sleeps under a glimmering light, an old idol for mate. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... a quality that normally belongs to the kind of thing denoted, as 'blind' or 'deaf.' We may predicate 'blind' or 'deaf' of a man, dog or cow that happens not to be able to see or hear, because the powers of seeing and hearing generally belong to those species; but of a stone or idol these terms can only be used figuratively. Indeed, since the contradictory of a privative carries with it the privative limitation, a stone is strictly 'not-blind': that ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... a young girl is passionless, pure; a fanciful, poetic devotion to an ideal; the worship of a deified, glorious being who does not, never could, exist. Too often the realisation of the truth that the idol has feet of clay is enough to burst the iridescent glowing bubble. Too seldom the love deepens, develops into the true and lasting devotion of the woman, clear-sighted enough to see the real man through the mists of illusion, but fondly wise enough to cherish him in spite of his faults, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... southern France, had been besieged by the English for some months and was on the point of surrender. Joan, who rode on horseback at the head of her troops, clothed in armor like a man, had now become the idol of the soldiers and of the people. Under the guidance and inspiration of her indomitable courage, sound sense, and burning enthusiasm, Orleans was relieved and the English completely routed. The Maid of Orleans, as she was henceforth called, was now free ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... followed each inflection of the persuasive voice, his lean face glowing with appreciation at every point his idol scored. For the time being, awkwardness was lost and all self-consciousness. Why think about himself, when he could have the chance to watch Reed Opdyke and to listen to him? Scott's nature thrilled in answer to the alien touch, unconsciously ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... with those jingling bells? A string of pilgrims to some accursed shrine, most likely. May these heathen idolaters be all confounded, and the chosen people of Adonai be brought home in peace! I could see, I dare say, if I stood on the wall. They may have some vile idol with them, and if I do not get out of ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... and not without reason, have said that my own poetry is unduly influenced by it. But an article by me in The Fortnightly goes out of its way to dub as a ‘minor poet’ the very writer to whose influence I have succumbed. It is the incongruity between my dubbing my idol a ‘minor poet’ and my real and most obvious admiration of his work that makes Watts, in spite of an external civility, feel unfriendly towards me. Yet there is no real incongruity, for it was the editor, G. H. Lewes, who, after my proof had been returned ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... painful sensation. The lot of a popular idol is in many ways an enviable one, but it has the drawback of uncertainty. Here today and gone tomorrow. Until this moment Raymond Parsloe Devine's stock had stood at something considerably over par in Wood Hills intellectual circles, but now there was a ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... because the worshippers surrounded the Idol so closely that they kept her a prisoner within a double circle, and they were so eager for a few words from her lips that as soon as she moved a step or two they crowded about her in a way to make me think that, in a small way and in her own ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... exulting Hill! dear Plain! Where morn, and eve, my soul's fair Idol stray'd, While all your winds, that murmur'd thro' the glade, Stole her sweet breath; yet, yet your paths retain Prints of her step, by fount, whose floods remain In depth unfathom'd; 'mid the rocks, that shade, With cavern'd ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... Logan returned to Illinois, intending to re-enter the practice of the law; but he loved public life and politics, was the idol of the people of his section of the State, and was soon elected Congressman-at-large on the Republican ticket. When I entered the House in 1865, I found General Logan there, ranking as one of the leaders of the more radical Republicans. He was a forceful speaker, and ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... 'Such triumphs! such intoxication!' as Scudo says; but the glory was that of a shooting star. In eight short years after that brilliant season at Venice, Adelaide Montresor, better known as 'La Malanotte,' the idol of the European musical public, the short-lived infatuation and passion of the celebrated Rossini, was a hopeless invalid, and worse, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... three sorts of persons lurking under this covert. 1. Such as are pusillanimous, who have no courage to act against the enemy; the word is true of them, they cannot act because they dare not act. 2. Such as are selfish men, serving their idol credit: he hath been a man of honour, and now he feareth there will be no credit to fight against this prevailing enemy: therefore he cannot act, and save his credit. Be who thou wilt that hast this before thee, God shall blast thy reputation. Thou shalt neither ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... Accustomed to the company of dead statesmen and heroes, his own ideas had risen to a higher standard. The flattery of society had added a new grace to his natural modesty. He was now a citizen of the world by his reputation; the past was his province, in which he was recognized as a master; the idol's pedestal was ready for him, but he betrayed no desire to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Hindostan, the operation of Diety upon matter is symbolized by images of the same; and in the darkest recesses of their Temples, which none but the initiated were permitted to enter: the Phallus of stone is the solitary idol, before which the illuminated bowed. This symbol, though shameful and abominable, is yet looked upon in India with the profoundest veneration, and is not with them the occasion of shame or reproach. It is, however, a blasphemous abomination; and the marriage between Christ and ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... flung into prison for illegally having in his possession the famous image of the god to which he could show no written right. Moreover, the news of the robbery of the merchants might well have reached Byblos overland. His first action, therefore, was to conceal the idol and the money; and this having been accomplished he sat himself down in his cabin to ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... there. Cornelius admitted only the inoffensive broom of an old Frisian housekeeper, who had been his nurse, and who from the time when he had devoted himself to the culture of tulips ventured no longer to put onions in his stews, for fear of pulling to pieces and mincing the idol of her foster child. ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... the way, had been three times reformed before. Were they then contented? Two thousand (or some great number) of clergy resigned their livings in one day rather than read it: and truly, rather than raise that second idol, I should have adhered to the Directory, as I now adhere to the Common Prayer. Nor can you content other men's conscience, real or pretended, by any concessions: follow your own; seek peace and ensue it. You have no symptoms of discontent in the people to their Establishment. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... testifieth that the Emperor Heliogabalus, to acquire unto himself the reputation of a soothsayer, did, on several holy days of prime solemnnity, in the presence of the fanatic rabble, make the head of his idol by some slight within the body thereof publicly to shake. Plautus, in his Asinaria, declareth likewise, that Saurias, whithersoever he walked, like one quite distracted of his wits kept such a furious lolling and mad-like shaking of his ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... and oracles of Egypt and Greece were duplicated in America. In Peru, in the valley of Rimac, there was an idol which answered questions and became famous as an oracle. ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... a less inexorable deity than the idol usually worshipped under that name, did not forbid her mixing for her literary guest, or asking if he found the result to his liking. On his returning a gracious answer and taking his place at the literary settle, Mr Boffin began to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... ribbons and frills, and furbish bijoux and gems. And thou wilt wear perfume, and carry a nosegay and fan. And thou wilt sweep the most graceful courtesy and queen it everywhere with thy sweet graciousness. Thy father says thou shouldst become an idol to the old man's heart, as my lord is without ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... the most debased forms of fetichism, where the negro kneels in reverential awe before the shrine of some uncouth and misshapen idol, which his own hands, perhaps, have made, the act of adoration, degrading as the object may be, is nevertheless an acknowledgment of the longing need of the worshipper to throw himself upon the support of some unknown power higher than his own sphere. ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... and render himself master of events. 'Coligny was an honest man,' said the Abbe de Mably; 'Guise wore the mask of a greater number of virtues. Coligny was detested by the people; Guise was their idol.' It is stated that the Admiral left a diary, which Charles IX. read with interest, but the Marshal de Retz had it flung into the fire. Finally, a fatal destiny clinging to all who bore the name of Coligny, the last ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... tardy sense of his transgression. Debby was not a starched young lady of the "prune and prism" school, but a frank, free-hearted little body, quick to read the sincerity of others, and to take looks and words at their real value. Dickens was her idol; and for his sake she could have forgiven a greater offence than this. The stranger's contrite countenance and respectful apology won her good-will at once; and with a finer courtesy than any Aunt Pen would have taught, she smilingly bowed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... her, then,' said he, as he paced that narrow chamber—'I have heard her—nay, I have spoken to her again—I have listened to the music of her song, and she sung of glory and of Greece. I have discovered the long-sought idol of my dreams; and like the Cyprian sculptor, I have breathed ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... seventeen, and that, it seems to us, is the quality of enthusiasm which should be felt by a boy of seventeen if he is to make his mark. It is infinitely more important to have felt that flaming enthusiasm for an idol who will be cast down than to have felt what we ought to feel for Shakespeare and Homer. The gates of heaven are opened by strange keys, but they ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... afterward give the king counsel how he should manage with the people, although he might not curse them and overcome them by power,—so that they sinned against God. Then the king sets up an idol, by name Baal-Peor, and causes that the Moabite women, daughters of lords and princes, should ensnare the people to themselves to sacrifice to their gods; and when they had brought them to themselves, they made supplication ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... police, of the soldier onlookers, of the walking wounded, and those upturned faces on the white pillows told as plainly as words could ever tell that the Guard had at last met a force superior to themselves and their war machine. They knew well that they were the idol of their Fatherland, and that they had fought with every ounce of their great physical strength, backed by their long traditions. They had been vanquished by ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... have been grotesquely inflated. Publishers compete among themselves, and then, when the moment comes for paying the gambler's penalty, they complain of having been swindled. Note that the losses of publishers are nearly always on the works of the idols of the crowd. They want the idol's name as an ornament to their lists, and they commit indiscretions in order to get it. Fantastic terms are never offered to the solid, regular, industrious, medium novelist. And it is a surety that fantastic terms are never offered to ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... miraculous escape of the peasantry from various calamities, and the preservation of their crops from floods, drought, lightning and so forth. These poor wretches had done more to better their crops by spending their savings in good ploughshares and harrows than by hanging gew-gaws on a wooden idol. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... So she entered and did her requirement and made the ablution and prayed:[FN307] then she brought out a rosary and began to tell her beads thereon, and the damsel said to her, "Whence comest thou, O pilgrimess?"[FN308] Said she, "From visiting the Idol of the Absent in such a church.[FN309] There standeth up no woman before him,[FN310] who hath a distant friend and discloseth to him her desire, but he acquainteth her with her case and giveth her news of her absent one." Said ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... expediting matters, the committee adopts this resolution and the three men who are to tell their life's history are chosen. The first of these is a man of the world, a fallen idol of society, who had lately joined the ranks of the oppressed as a consequence of dire ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... daughter who was the most beauteous maiden that warrior ever looked upon. She was loving and dainty, and the idol of the stern old warrior, who would have cut off his right hand rather than have the slightest harm come to her. Never did father love daughter more than Chief Wahla loved Mita the Rose ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... handwriting, as he remembered her restless brain and her many whims. He sent her the flowers which he knew she liked best, and told her that she was his life, that he was dying of waiting for her, of longing for her, for her, his idol. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... in their leader. Their feeling for him was fanaticism, and its strength was religion, and never did Mahomet nerve the arms of his believers and strengthen them against pain and death more absolutely than this little grey-coated idol did to those who worshipped him. If he had chosen—and he was more than once upon the point of it—to assert that he was indeed above humanity he would have found millions to grant his claim. You who have heard of him as a stout gentleman in a straw hat, as he was in ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... most daring fete. Miss Cisneros was brought to America and became the greatest sensation of the day. Her beauty, her affection for her aged father, her innocence, and the thrilling events of her rescue, made her the public idol, and gave Cuba libre a new ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson

... their own sakes. When she described my unknown neighbors, from one end of the county to the other, she took it for granted that I must be interested in them on account of their titles and their fortunes. She held me up to my own face, as a kind of idol to myself, without producing any better reason than might be found in my inheritance of an income of sixteen thousand pounds. And when I expressed (in excusing myself for not accompanying her, uninvited, to the dinner-party) a perfectly ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... the good-will of perhaps a hundred Tory M.P.'s. But they proved entirely equal to the task of antagonizing them. They began smashing windows, burning country mansions, firing race-stands, damaging golf-greens, striking as hard as they could at the Tory idol of Property. There is really nothing more left for them to do; they have alienated every friend they ever had; their work is complete beyond ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... ridiculous Chinese cook of brother William's, Ding Dong, or whatever his name is. He tore in just before the wedding ceremony, and insisted upon seeing Billy to give her a wretched little green stone idol, which he declared would bring her 'heap plenty velly good luckee' if she received it before she 'got married.' I wouldn't have the hideous, grinning thing around, but William says it's real jade, and very valuable, and of course Billy was crazy over it—or pretended ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... lightened; the east was fretted over with pink, and a freshness was breathed into the air. Then she began to run. Behind her were all her pretty dreams, and they were dead. Behind her was the love she had cherished, and that was dead, too. From a joyful vision she had awakened to find the idol cold at her breast. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... retreat." The dash of such a theory of war was extremely invigorating, and once more the hearts of the Northern people cherished and exulted in the hope that they had found the "right man for the right place." Popular enthusiasm reacted upon the army; their idol of yesterday was dethroned, and they girded their loins for a renewal of the struggle, in the full belief that, with Pope to lead them, they would write a very different chapter upon the page of History, from that which recorded their ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... corresponding to the first decisive clap of thunder—wherever it was—Chaos set in in that firmament. And Chaos was developing rapidly at the time when the doctor, rescued by Sally's intrepidity from the maternal clutch, started on what he believed would be his last walk with his idol at St. Sennans. Now he knew that, when he got back to London, though there might be, academically speaking, opportunities of seeing Sally, it wasn't going to be the same thing. That was the phrase his mind used, and we know quite well what ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... very difference from other girls that had first interested Carlos Deane, and the fact that he stood out from others, even among his own intimates, that had drawn her interest to him. Deane had been an athlete of renown and a popular idol at school and his energy had been brought to bear in business as successfully as in play. In a hazy sort of way she felt that some day she would listen to the plea that, in some fashion or other, was woven into every letter; but not ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... Templars, and to describe the horrible enormities that were practised among them. It is incredible to us in these days that such charges should be made, and still more that they should actually be believed. It was said that the Templars worshipped some hideous idol in their secret assemblies, that they offered sacrifices to it of infants and young girls, and that although every one saw them devout, charitable, and regular in their religious duties, people were not to be misled by these things, for this was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Hath left in shadows dred, His burning Idol all of blackest hue, In vain with Cymbals ring, They call the grisly king, In dismall dance about the furnace blue; The brutish gods of Nile as fast, Isis and Orus, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... idol of the work divine I consecrate this loving life of mine, Bowing my lips unto that stately root Where beauty springs; and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... met with him accidentally—when he heard who it was that Virginie met. I do not suppose the man had the faintest idea of any relationship or even previous acquaintanceship between Clement and Virginie. If he thought of anything beyond the mere fact presented to him, that his idol was in communication with another, younger, handsomer man than himself, it must have been that the Norman farmer had seen her at the conciergerie, and had been attracted by her, and, as was but natural, had tried to make her acquaintance, and ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... role of being so much loved, whether wrong or right, was an absurd, offensive thing. In all great affections there is one peculiarity; if one loves a person, one gets to the point of changing that person to an idol inside oneself, and from that moment it seems that the person divides into the unreal idol, which is like a false picture of the adored one, and the living being, who resembles the ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... evidence of Eugene Pearson's guilty participation in the robbery, there yet remained many, who, unable to refute the damning proofs against him, were filled with a sympathetic sentiment of regard for their fallen idol, and their prevailing feelings were those ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... Exeter Academy. Wendell Phillips himself began his career at the moment when Madison's State Papers had won him the presidency, when John Adams was the glory of the city, when Channing was the light of the pulpit, and Lyman Beecher was the idol of orthodox Boston. He was in his early teens when he waited four hours on a Boston wharf to see Lafayette's boat come in. He was thirteen when he heard Daniel Webster's oration on Adams and Jefferson. He was sixteen when he entered ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... than the former. The Duc d'Orleans continued busy in his work of secret destruction. In one of the popular risings, a sabre struck his bust, and its head fell, severed from its body. Many of the rioters (for the ignorant are always superstitious) shrunk back at this omen of evil to their idol. His real friends endeavoured to deduce a salutary warning to him from the circumstance. I was by when the Duc de Penthievre told him, in the presence of his daughter, that he might look upon this accident as prophetic of the fate of his own head, as well as the ruin of ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... the next revision; and then asked, what objection such harmless trifles could be to a Church that never pretended to infallibility! But in fact the age was not ripe enough even for a Hooker to feel, much less with safety to expose, the Protestants' idol, that ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... every speculation but the one that Desiree had been sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,—the idol ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... the facts. The middle ages—a trinity of ignorance, mendacity and insanity. There is one thing about humanity. You see the faults of others, but not your own. A Catholic in India sees a Hindoo bowing before an idol and thinks it absurd. Why does he not get him a plaster of paris virgin and some beads and holy water? Why does the protestant shut his eyes when he prays? The idea is a souvenir of sun worship. It is the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... heart. He will have all or nothing. The Church of Christ, the cause of Christ, the people of Christ—these must be the centers of attraction to which the heart of the Christian turns with all the enthusiasm with which an Eastern idolater bows before the shrine of his idol. In return for such devotion Jesus gives to his people every imaginable blessing. Wealth, power, dominion, science, civilization, genius, learning, power over the elements of nature, and insight into its magnitude, do ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... superstitious invocations which rise from the banks of the Ganges or from the burning regions of Africa. The day will come, when our planet, in its revolutions about the sun, shall receive on no point of its surface the rays of the orb of day, without sending back, over the ruins of idol-temples for ever overthrown, a song of thanksgiving to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, become through Jesus Christ ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... prosperous as his heart could desire. The business flourished, and money beyond his moderate wants came in. As for himself he required very little; but he had always looked forward to placing his idol in a befitting shrine; and means for this were now furnished to him. The dress, the comforts, the position he had desired for Sylvia were all hers. She did not need to do a stroke of household work if she preferred ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... threshold, he had no sooner crossed it than he was safe from king, chief, or avenger. These gates were wide, and some faced the sea, and others the mountains. Hither the murderer, the manslayer, the tabu-breaker fled, repaired to the presence of the idol, and thanked it for aiding him to reach the place of security. After a certain time the fugitives were allowed to return to their families, and none dared to injure those to whom the high ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... old Royal Exchange, with a Burmese cross-legged idol perched thereon—the urn to the memory of "POOR BANQUO;" the green-house, with its billiard-table, and even an alcove, the most charming spot in "the wide world" to talk sentiment in, must not detain us from returning to another ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... that the priests would decide against me, and that I should be sacrificed to their great idol, I would risk death in any other form, rather than that," Roger replied. "But it may be that, when they see I have no evil intentions, and neither thought nor power of injuring Mexico, they may lay aside their animosity ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... after her son's death says: "She is eighty-four years old, and quite feeble. She is a plain, unsophisticated old lady, with a frank, open countenance, a warm heart full of kindness toward others, and in many respects very much like the President. Abraham was evidently her idol; she speaks of him still as her 'good boy,' and with much feeling said, 'He was always a good boy, and willing to do just what I wanted. He and his step-brother never quarrelled but once, and that, you know, is a great deal ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... pleasing troubles; Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles; Fame's but a hollow echo, Gold, pure clay; Honour the darling but of one short day; Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin; State, but a golden prison, to live in And torture free-born minds; embroider'd Trains, Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins; And Blood allied to greatness is alone Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. Fame, Honour, Beauty, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... a set of hypocritical libertines. But we say, may not we see the reason in this: the female members of a church are apt to regard their minister with the highest degree of affectionate admiration—as an idol worthy to be worshipped. They load him with presents—they spoil him with flattery—they dazzle him with their glances, and encourage him by their smiles. Living a life of luxurious ease, and enjoying a fat ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... to be the idol of her father's heart, and her mother's, and Ida's. But I really think that if there was one person who idolized her more than all the rest, it was I, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... which had already, in France, flung out the bloody guillotine from its relentless crater. This guillotine had become the altar of the so-called enfranchisement of nations, and upon this altar the intoxicated, unthinking masses offered up to their new idol those who, until then, had been their lords and masters, and by whose death they now believed that they could purchase ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... of planters and merchants,—whole fortunes have been swept away,—and the insurgents have levied taxes which are beyond endurance. To some, Aguinaldo is their idol, but to me he is a base schemer who wants everything, and only for his own glory. But he cannot hold out much longer,—you are pressing him into the very mountains,—and once away from the civilization of the towns, his followers will become nothing but banditti—mark ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... his star, and his heart quickened as he thought of youth and beauty. He saw himself in his prime, and his eyes filled as he thought of youth and beauty wronged, betrayed, and abandoned. He saw himself clasping in his arms the injured idol of his youth; he saw again the strange scene in the forest, the captured wronger, the rude, lawless trial, and the stroke of the great sword which avenged dishonor. He saw again his sad, sweet nuptials; he lived anew through that brief spring and summer and autumn of belated ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... to some recognised religion other than Hinduism, marry within the same limits, believe in God, respect the cow, and cremate the dead." There is room in its ample folds for the Arya Samajist, who rejects idol worship and is divesting himself of caste prejudices and marriage restrictions, and the most orthodox Sanatan dharmist, who carries out the whole elaborate daily ritual of the Brahmanical religion, and submits to all ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... broad and strong, and tall for his age. He was the idol of the school,—dashing, daring, reckless, and good-natured. There was almost nothing that he would not attempt, and there were very few things that he could not do. He never fought, however—from principle; and his strength and size often saved him from the necessity. But he often prevented ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... by the gilded, grinning Mammon-figure which we try to consider as superior to any silver-pinioned god that ever descended in his rainbow car to sing heavenly songs to mortals; but it is an unlovely substitute,—a hideous idol at best; and grasp its golden knees and worship it as we will, it gives us little or no comfort in the hours of strong temptation or trouble. We have made a mistake—we, in our progressive generation,—we have banished the old sweetnesses, triumphs ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... young and brave, the idol of a party of his people—and where was the kingdom in which there were known to be no discontents? He was upheld by the great Sultan of Egypt to whom he owed suzerainty and, if in disfavor of ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... Larry Moore forgot what he had begun to say. He spoke no further word, and I, in glancing at his face, comprehended that, incredible as it seemed, there was some bond between the woman I had seen and this raw-boned, big-framed, and big-hearted idol of the bleachers. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... prevented every time they met had come to pass. He knew at last, and she could see at once what he thought of her. She would never again meet the tolerant loving glance he had had for the Boy, nor note the tender reverence of his face when her own name was mentioned. His idol was shattered, the dream and hope of his life was over, and from all that remained of them, herself as she really was, he shrank as from the dishonoured fragment of some once loved and holy thing—a thing which is doubly painful to contemplate ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... ground. Poor Miriam! her heart's idol torn away. God help my darling! I did not understand that George could die until I looked at her. In vain I strove to raise her from the ground, or check her wild shrieks for death. "George! only George!" she would cry; until at last, with the horror of seeing ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... chivalry were one of the errors of Popery; so completely did the spirit of the ancient orders of knighthood evaporate at the Reformation! The blind enthusiasm of ignorance having engendered superstitions of every kind and colour, the blow struck at the altar of the master idol proved fatal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... here, ide, f., thought, mind. idole, f., idol. Idume, f., Idumaea. ignominie, f., ignominy, shame. ignorer, not to know. illustre, illustrious. image, f., image, vision. immobile, immovable. immoler, to sacrifice. immortel, -le, immortal. impie, impious. impit, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... bodies are preserved free from corruption. In their temples, they have also representations of large serpents, to which they give adoration; besides which every nation, district, tribe or house, had its particular god or idol. In some temples, particularly in those of certain villages which were called Pafao, the walls and pillars were hung round with dried bodies of men women and children, in the form of crosses, which were all so thoroughly embalmed by means of the liquor already mentioned, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... crucifix was carried before him, and other priests bore banners with various devices. There came also a priest, under another canopy, bearing the host, before which numbers fell down, and worshipped as if it were some idol. Those who did not so were frowned at by the priests. Some were buffeted and told that they were heretics, and fit only for the fires of Smithfield. There were also bands of men in various disguises, and there were figures of saints and other devices, before ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... this moment of stupefaction to let herself fall into the ecstasy of that infinite adoration which seizes the heart of a woman, when she truly loves and finds herself in the presence of an idol for whom she has vainly longed. Her eyes were all joy, all happiness, and sparks flew from them. She was under the charm, and fearlessly intoxicated herself with a felicity of which she had dreamed long. She seemed then so marvelously beautiful ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... thereon I fared, Content, where all seemed right.—Ah, happy days! For I was born a princess, even as thou. And as thou stand'st before me, fair and bright And happy, so I stood beside my father, The idol of his heart, and of his folk. O Colchis! O my homeland! Dark and dread They name thee here, but to my loving eyes Thine is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... movement, and thus promotes union. The Andante which follows, consists, as in the 1st Sonata, of a theme with variations. There is nothing novel either in the theme or its mode of treatment. Certain chords, cadences, figures, suggest Schubert—an idol whom Brahms has never ceased to worship; and, in one place, the three staves, and a few passages, show the influence of Liszt, the pianist par excellence of the days in which this sonata was written; but the movement has, in addition ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... mammon, that idol to whom our hearts are sacrificed so ruthlessly!" exclaimed Fanny, indignantly. "For money we sell our youth, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... of forms away with you. Give him a lot of forms!' With which instruction to number two, this sparkling young Barnacle took a fresh handful of papers from numbers one and three, and carried them into the sanctuary to offer to the presiding Idol ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... sixteenth year of the life of a young man, and may be likened to the month of April when spring begins to bloom)—from fourteen until seventeen, I say, I remained at home, doing nothing—for which I have ever since had a great taste—the idol of my mamma, who took part in all my quarrels with father, and used regularly to rob the weekly expenses in order to find me in pocket-money. Poor soul! many and many is the guinea I have had from her in that way; and so she enabled me to cut a ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray

... tones that God their Judge Should be by them rejected: and they cried "A King! give us a King—for thou art old (b) "And in those ways thou all thy life hast walked "Walk not thy sons: lucre their idol is— "And Judgment is perverted by the bribes "They take to stifle justice: give us, then, "A King to judge us. Other nations boast "Of such a chief—a King, give us a King!" So Saul became the crowned of Israel— The first great ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader, tactfully marshaling at will the boys who were his own age, and good-naturedly bullying those ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... subject of the divine nature, with the verbal admission of the doctrine of the divine unity, they heard these idolaters speak of 330,000,000 of gods. Amidst innumerable idol temples they found none erected for the worship of the one living and true God. Services without end they saw performed in honour of the elements and deified heroes, but heard not one voice tuned to the praise or employed in the service of the one ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... any feelings of indignation or hatred. With every scene of his supposed outrage against their gods or their temples, there is always associated the recollection of some instance of his piety, and the Hindoos' glory—of some idol, for instance, or column, preserved from his fury by a miracle, whose divine origin he is supposed at once to have recognized with ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... grief of Shenac's sore heart was spread out before the Lord. All the rebellion of the will that clung still to an earthly idol rose up against him; and in his loving-kindness and in the multitude of his tender mercies he had compassion upon her. That night she "did eat angels' food," on the strength of which she went for ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson

... more, and he stood in the last doorway, right. No matinee idol, nervously awaiting his cue in the wings, could have planned his entrance more carefully than Jock had planned this. Ease was the thing; ease, bordering on nonchalance, mixed with a brisk ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... irregular and interrupted acquaintance with the author which has been my mode of friendship with all the authors I have loved. My worship of Shakespeare went to heights and lengths that it had reached with no earlier idol, and there was a supreme moment, once, when I found myself saying that the creation of Shakespeare was as great as the creation ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... had showed themselves at the first obstacle they had encountered, how uncontrollable they had been in following their fierce impulses. When summoned to prayer just before sunrise during their journey, some had turned toward the day-star rising in the east, others had taken out a small idol they had brought with them, and others still had uplifted their eyes to the Nile acacia, which in some provinces of Egypt was regarded as a sacred tree. What did they know of the God who had commanded ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... idolatrous Christians.—For veiling the Gospel of Jesus, 5 They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest. Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca, Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness. Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol;— Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid—the people with mad shouts 10 Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river Shatters ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... pointed bone. Little earthenware figures (Figs. 51 and 52) were also found, some of which were sent from the Laybach Museum to the French Exhibition of 1878. One of them is said to represent a woman, probably an idol. This is one of the first known examples of the representation of the human figure from a Lake dwelling. At Nimlau, near Olmutz, the drying lip of a little. lake brought to light a Lake Station surrounded by the trunks of oak trees of a large size. They were piled up, one above ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... her face, more than the full curve of her cheek. He watched her hair, which at the back was almost of the colour of the soapstone idol, take the candlelight into its vigorous freedom in front and glisten over ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... stirred in a quarter of a mile. During this interval I have to direct your sympathies on the Vicomte de Saint-Yves! All addressed me softly, like folk round a sick-bed. Our Italian corporal, who had got a dozen of oysters from a fishwife, laid them at my feet, as though I were a Pagan idol; and I have never since been wholly at my ease in the society of shellfish. He who was the best of our carvers brought me a snuff-box, which he had just completed, and which, while it was yet in hand, he had often declared he would not part with under ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... their fathers and mothers do not teach it to them. Their fathers and mothers teach them to pray to gods of gold, or brass, or stone. They take them, while they are very young, to their temples, and teach them to put up their hands before an idol, and say, "Swammie." Swammie means Lord. As idolatry is the root of all sin, these children, as you may suppose, in early life become very wicked. They disobey their parents, speak bad words, call ill names, swear, steal, and tell lies. They also throw ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... not unwittingly aroused the jealousy of the terrible heathen god. When he chose a wife from the lovely maidens of Prescott, then the vengeful Sphinx laid its sinister plans for his undoing, for it is in the nature of cats, small or great, to be exceedingly jealous. The furious idol remembered the people of a long forgotten race, its loyal subjects, who had reared and worshiped it, inconceivably long ago, when the Grand Canyon of Arizona was but a tiny ravine and before icy avalanches had ground the rocks at the Dells into boulders. ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... away, Jimmie beaming with delight over one idol who had not tumbled from his pedestal at ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... The queen's uncles, who had escorted her to her new home, left England disgusted that Edward's love for Gaveston led him to neglect his bride, and the want of reserve shown in the personal dealings of the king and his "idol" suggested the worst interpretation of their relations, though this is against the weight of evidence. Rumours spread that the favourite had laid hands on the vast treasures which Bishop Walter Langton had deposited at the New Temple, and had extorted ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... Cause—but he had never made a public statement for us. At Oakland, one day, the indefatigable and irresistible "Aunt Susan" caught him off his guard by persuading his daughter, Kitty Reed, who was his idol, to ask him to say just one word in favor of our amendment. When he arose we did not know whether he had promised what she asked, and as his speech progressed our hearts sank lower and lower, for all he said was remote from our Cause. But he ended ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... and of the seeds of many noble and generous qualities; but as a man actuated by ungovernable passions, and by an overweening opinion of his own superiority to all other mortals. Self, whether intellectual or sensual, seems to have been the idol that he worshipped. His own antient family, his own talents, his own attainments, his own whims, his own passions, his own excesses, seem all to have furnished food for his vanity, because ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens



Words linked to "Idol" :   heartthrob, juggernaut, golden calf, joss, matinee idol, idol worshiper, ideal, star, gold standard, idolize, beau ideal



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