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Ringleader   /rˈɪŋlˌidər/   Listen
Ringleader

noun
1.
A person who leads (especially in illicit activities).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Ringleader" Quotes from Famous Books



... Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka, and probably to San Francisco. This decision was read to the negroes, but they still persisted in their refusal. After warning them of the consequences of mutiny, the Major ordered their ringleader to be put in irons, and he was conveyed on board the Saghalin and imprisoned in the "black hole"; but his comrades still held out. It was of vital importance that the Palmetto should go to sea with the first ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... the name of captain general, while he in fact exercised the whole authority. The intention of these malcontents being discovered, several of them were put to death as seditious people; among whom was Francisco de Chaves, who was put to the rack and afterwards hanged as a ringleader of this new conspiracy. One Antonio de Orihuela likewise, who had only arrived of late from Spain, was beheaded, having imprudently asserted that the Almagrians were tyrants ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... up. Traps were laid for self-committal. Bribes were offered and promises of security to any who would turn State's evidence. Threats were made here and there that leading Catholics should be arrested; at all events, the ringleader should be made to suffer. All seemed to settle down upon that Father Ryan must necessarily have been the aider and abettor, if not the suggestor, in such a high-handed proceeding. It mattered not, that during his five years' stay at Windsor, he had lived ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... the likeliest thing," answered the Governor, "seeing that their ringleader belongs to this plantation. But we do not know. And there may not be time to reach the planters, to give them warning, to arrest these d—d traitors, scattered as they are from the James to Rappahannock, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... got to him and now he declares that the boy must have strayed away to the river-front and been drowned. Well, it occurred to me to treat that Quatrone gang to some of its own medicine by stealing their ringleader." ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... think slightly of his government, when a prefect of Egypt owed his appointment to the emperor's want of power to punish him. Epagathus had headed a mutiny of the praetorian guards in Rome, in which their general Ulpian was killed; and Alexander, afraid to punish the murderers, made the ringleader of the rebels prefect of Egypt in order to send him out of the way; so little did it then seem necessary to follow the cautious policy of Augustus, or to fear a rebellion in that province. But after a short time, when Epagathus had been forgotten by the Roman legion, he ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... across the passage. He had been trodden underfoot by the stream of maddened peasants who had entered by this door which had been opened for them, whom Steinmetz had checked at the foot of the stairs by shooting their ringleader. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... superintendent up there was too soft. These here Swedes got gay. Mac hit the trail for Frozen Gulch. He hammered his big fist into the bread-basket of the ringleader and said, 'Git!' That fellow's running yet, I'll bet. Then Mac called the men together and read the riot act to them. He fired this bunch on the boat and was out of the camp before you could bat an eye. It was the cleanest hurry-up job ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... Air has a power? or an Army of Devils in the High Places of it; and these Devils have a Prince over them, who is King over the Children of Pride. 'Tis probable, That the Devil, who was the Ringleader of that mutinous and rebellious Crew, which first shook off the Authority of God, is now the General of those Hellish Armies; Our Lord, that Conquered him, has told us the Name of him; 'tis Belzebub; 'tis ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... if by magic. Donovan, though so much taller and stronger, was longer in reaching the foot of the steps, and when at length he had pushed his way through the thickest part of the throng he was hindered for the haggard-looking man who had been the ringleader in the assault ran into his very arms. He was evidently struck with horror at the result of his mad enterprise and now meditated flight. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... of Christianity, was not put beyond all exception? Many of the miracles of Christ are said to be done in the streets, nay even in the temple, under the observation of all the world; but the like is not so much as pretended as to this; nay, we have it upon the confession of Peter, the ringleader of the apostles, that Christ appeared, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God. Why picking and culling of witnesses in this case more than in any other? Does it not import some suspicion, raise some jealousy, that this case would not bear ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock

... much dreaded. It is true, these apprentices were not voters, but then some of them speedily would be, and all of them, moreover, had tongues, an instrument Mr. Bragg held in quite as much awe as some men dread salt-petre. In passing the ball-players, he called out in a wheedling tone to their ringleader, a notorious ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... him. He is protected neither by custom nor superstition; the sentimentalist cares nothing for him as an object of poetical regard, and the utilitarian is blind to his services as a scavenger. The farmer considers him as the very ringleader of mischief, and uses all means he can invent for his destruction; the friend of the singing-birds bears him a grudge as the destroyer of their eggs and young; and even the moralist is disposed to condemn him for his cunning ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... that reconciliation had dawned was rudely disturbed when the Great War crashed into civilization. The extreme Nationalists rebelled and it was Botha, aided by Smuts, who crushed them. Beyers, the ringleader, was drowned while trying to escape across the Vaal River, DeWet was defeated in the field, De la Rey was accidentally shot, and Maritz became a fugitive. Botha then conquered the Germans in German South-West Africa and ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... the Heath, we come to Jack Straw's Castle, though there is no evidence to show that the riotous ringleader of 1381 had ever any connection with the hostelry named after him, but it is quite possible that the Heath formed a rendezvous for the malcontents of his time. In early times an earthwork stood on the site, which gave rise to the name "castle." ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... Laudonniere, and confined him to his bed. Improving their advantage, the malcontents gained over nearly all the best soldiers in the fort. The ringleader was one Fourneaux, a man of good birth, but whom Le Moyne calls an avaricious hypocrite. He drew up a paper, to which sixty-six names were signed. La Caille boldly opposed the conspirators, and they resolved to kill him. His room-mate, Le Moyne, who had also refused ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... was a tall, lean man, candle-waxy, hollow-eyed, gaunt of face, pathetic to look at physically, but shrewd. He was an iron-molder by trade and had gotten into politics much as Stener had—because he was useful; and he had managed to make some money—via this triumvirate of which Strobik was the ringleader, and which was engaged in various peculiar businesses ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... very soon came out that the whole country-side was infested with a body of smugglers, wreckers, poachers, robbers, and murderers, over all of whom 'Cruel Coppinger,' as he came to be called by the honest people in the neighbourhood, was captain and ringleader. ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... concessions the sailors of the ships lying at the Nore broke into mutiny on the 20th of May, their ringleader being a seaman of the name of Richard Parker, one of a class of men denominated sea-lawyers. The delegates drew up a statement of demands containing eight articles, most of which were perfectly impossible, ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... 'em! Don't let 'em get away!" called Hawley. "Hold on, it's all right," he quickly added as he perceived Mott in the room. "We don't care for anybody else for we've got the ringleader right here. Let 'em go! Let 'em all go! We don't ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson

... to him in age, having just passed his tenth birthday, was the ringleader. Johnny did not possess particularly kindly feelings toward him. His life had early been embittered by continual giving over and giving way to Will. He had a definite feeling that Will was greatly in his debt and was ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... during the trial of the murderers. Both parties were Roman Catholics, and either twenty-five or twenty-eight of those who took an active part in the burning, were hanged and gibbeted in different parts of the county of Louth. Devann, the ringleader, hung for some months in chains, within about a hundred yards of his own house, and about half a mile from Wildgoose Lodge. His mother could neither go into nor out of her cabin without seeing his body swinging ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... lawlessness, and having ejected the proprietor of the shop, they proceeded to despoil the place of its liquors. Inflamed by their copious libations, the rioters were ripe for any excess. At this moment there arose a ringleader, a man whom no one knew, but who had been active for some weeks past in stirring up the neighborhood. He mounted a cask ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... figure whose trace in history is so black, so brief, and so disastrous—once only had he appeared clearly before, when he intercepted in the interest of the Queen Regent the money sent from England to the Congregation. Now it is in a very different guise. Bothwell, as probably the ringleader in the disorders of the young nobles, was apparently the only person punished. He was confined to his own lodging, and it was apparently at this time that he sought the intervention of Knox, who ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... escorted to the landing with all honors, and their antagonists, barring the ringleader, to the police station. The affair was over so quickly that few had seen anything of it and only one man had pitched in to the support of the soldiers—a civilian who came over on the Vanguard by the authority of General Vinton, the ex-brakeman of the Southern Pacific. While ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... began to lead a religious life. The story, therefore, most likely belongs to the experiences of his first youth after he left school; and there may have been many more of a similar kind, for, except that he was steady at his trade, he grew up a wild lad, the ringleader of the village apprentices in all manner of mischief. He had no books, except a life of Sir Bevis of Southampton, which would not tend to sober him; indeed, he soon forgot all that he had learnt at school, and took to amusements and doubtful adventures, orchard-robbing, ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... at the usual prices; but when it came to cutting it, the Avonnais workmen asked such enormous prices that Monsieur Mariotte was obliged to bring laborers from Auxerre, whom the Ville-aux-Fayes workmen attacked and drove away. The head of the coalition, and the ringleader of the brawl were brought before the police court, and the suits cost Monsieur Mariotte a great deal of money; for, besides the odium of having convicted and punished poor men, he was forced to pay all costs, because the losing side had not a farthing to do it with. A suit against laboring ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... the very few of his comrades who survived were carried back to Neiss, and immediately, as the ringleader, he was brought before a council of war. He refused all interrogations which were made as to his real name and family. 'What matters who I am?' said he; 'you have me and will shoot me. My name would not save me were it ever so famous.' In the same way he declined to make a single discovery ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... been dealt with severely, the dominant faction were still dissatisfied; and Ormonde was obliged to threaten a dissolution, and to expel some members for complicity in a plot to overthrow the English Government, which had just been discovered, and of which the ringleader was a man named Blood. It was now ascertained that the Cromwellian distribution of lands had been carried out with the most shameful injustice towards the very Government which had sanctioned it; and that the soldiers, who went with texts of Scripture on their lips, and swords ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... directed to seize the rioters. Placed in double irons, and effectually drenched with buckets of cold water by their laughing comrades, the unlucky mutineers soon came to their senses, and order was restored. The ringleader, Forrest, was then triced up in the mizen-rigging, "two hours on and two off," to await the punishment ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... march, a band of Indians from the north, finding Hearne defenceless, plundered him of wellnigh all he had. 'Nothing can exceed,' wrote Hearne, 'the cool deliberation of the villains. A committee of them entered my tent. The ringleader seated himself on my left hand. They first begged me to lend them my skipertogan[1] to fill a pipe of tobacco. After smoking two or three pipes, they asked me for several articles which I had not, and among others for a pack of cards; but, on my answering that I ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock

... serious hunt after the philosopher's stone; another time he had narrowly escaped with life and liberty from a frantic conspiracy of the young republicans of his university, in which, being bolder and madder than most of them, he had been an active ringleader; it was, indeed, some such folly that had compelled him to quit Germany sooner than himself or his parents desired. He had nothing of the sober Englishman about him. Whatever was strange and eccentric had ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Heddy immediately to his master, and inform him that I was induced to go away by Heddy's address. Accordingly I set off with him and the rest of my companions for our master's, and arrived there without any difficulty. I informed my master that Heddy was the ringleader of our revolt, and that he had used us ill. He immediately put Heddy into custody, and myself and companions were well received and went to ...
— A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of • Venture Smith

... Nicon, while the streltsi and the greater part of the people held to the "old faith." She had arrested certain "old believers," who at the discussion in the Palace of Facets had challenged the patriarchs and orthodox prelates, and she had caused the ringleader to be executed. Khovanski, chief of the streltsi, whether from sympathy with the raskol or whether he wished to please his subordinates, affected to share their discontent. The court no longer felt itself safe at Moscow. Sophia took refuge with the Czarina and the two young princes in the fortified ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... far-away South Africa lay about a dozen wounded men. They had been lying there for hours, their lives slowly ebbing away. One of them was a Roman Catholic, who had been a ringleader of persecution in the barrack room at home. Not far from him lay 'little Jemmie,' wounded severely, whom many a time the Roman Catholic had persecuted in the days gone by. Hour after hour the Roman Catholic soldier lay bleeding there, until at last a strange dizzy ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers

... the ringleader in this horrible tragedy was a beautiful young woman, a daughter of the people, it seems—one Seraphine Doucet, whom the young viscount had betrayed before marriage—le droit du seigneur!—and but for whom he would have been let ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... command in a distant part of the world. So they mutinied and took possession of one of the ships, and began to make preparations to return to Spain, but Magellan, with the rest of his men who had remained faithful to him, boarded that ship, and executed the ringleader and other leading mutineers, even some who could not legally be so treated: for they were royal officials, who were only liable to capital punishment by the emperor and his council. However under the circumstances no one ventured to resist. Yet there were some, who whispered to one another, that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... this is connected the secret end of keeping watch on these half-tamed and bull-like herds of men whom we call the Helots. If any be dangerous, we mark him for the knife. One of them had thrice been a ringleader in revolt. He was wary as well as fierce. He had escaped in three succeeding crypteias. To me, as one of the Heraclidae, was assigned the honour of tracking and destroying him. For three days and three nights I dogged his footsteps, (for he had caught the scent of the pursuers ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... broaching it, and the brown mead was foaming over, while the mob with roars of laughter were passing up their dippers and pannikins. The German soldier rapped out a rough jagged oath at this spectacle, and shouldering his way through the roisterers he sprang upon the altar. The ringleader was bending over his cask, black-jack in hand, when the soldier's iron grip fell upon his collar, and in a moment his heels were flapping in the air, and his head three feet deep in the cask, while the beer splashed and foamed in every direction. With a mighty heave ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the hatching of a plot—an hour's arrangement and wrangle—whereby, through far-sighted activity, perjury, malpractice and infinite ingenuity, the ringleader would gain a pice and the follower a pie (a farthing and a third of ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... be well reported in the newspapers. We heard a great deal of the long and trying campaigns waged by the Army in revenge for the murder of General Canby in his council tent. We got small glory out of that war, perhaps, but at last we hanged the ringleader of the murderers; and the extreme Northwest remained free from ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough

... heart doth tremble to unfold. A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent, Under the countenance and confederacy Of Lady Eleanor, the protector's wife, The ringleader and head of all this rout, Have practis'd dangerously against your state, Dealing with witches and with conjurers, Whom we have apprehended in the fact, Raising up wicked spirits from underground, ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... or Olaf, an ex-sheriff of London, raised the cry at a tournament, in order to test the feeling of the populace towards Louis. Any serious results that might have arisen were promptly prevented by Hubert de Burgh, the justiciar, who very quickly sought out the ringleader, and incontinently caused him and two of his followers to be hanged at the Elms in Smithfield. Whilst the halter was round his neck, Fitz-Athulf offered 15,000 marks of silver for his life. The offer was declined. He was not to be allowed another chance of stirring ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... their feed from the old woman at midday, made a rush at me and, surrounding me, made me nervous with their abominable rabid cackling. One tore at my tunic, another undid the lacings of my sandals and tugged at them, but one in particular, the ringleader and moving spirit of this savage attack, did not hesitate to worry at my leg with his serrated bill. Unable to see the joke, I twisted off one of the legs of the little table and, thus armed, began to belabor the pugnacious brute. Nor did I rest content with ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... with them, and so long as we remained unmolested, not the slightest injury should be done to them, their villages, or their crops; but that we were determined to reach the country of Lalbura, the Chief who had been the ringleader in the raids upon ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... heads, and twenty tails before he got it here. Old woman lost hers and Knight bought her another—he'd bring her a herd if she wanted it. All the way from the market the boys kept up a running fire of criticism. When the ringleader came too near, Knight sprang at him with a yelp like a dog's. The boy was so taken aback that he ran. Then Knight roared with laughter, and in an instant the whole crowd were his friends—two of them helped him get the calf out of town. When ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... could be turned round so as to cover all the approaches from the river in case there was an attack on the fort. We learned that the day before we arrived at Kapit, Mingo, the Portuguese in charge of the fort, had captured the worst ringleader of the head-hunters in the bazaar at Kapit, and small parties of loyal Dayaks were at once sent off to the homes of the other head-hunters with strict injunctions to bring back the guilty ones, and, failing persuasion and threats, to attack them. [11] In most cases they were successful, and ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker

... and the mess to which they would belong. Ned Davis and Charles Denham returned together to the lower deck. They found, after they had been some time below, that the crew were far from satisfied with their officers. They discovered that the ringleader was a certain John Higson, who was ready to find fault with everything that took place. He was what is generally called at sea, "a king's hard bargain," or in other words, not worth his salt. He was one of those ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... and to shut the gates of Argos against his approach; and shall this stranger affright Pentheus with all Thebes? Go quickly, (this order he gives to his servants), go, and bring hither in chains the ringleader. Let there be no slothful delay in ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... for it, Edgar Doe," said this graceful person, leisurely taking a seat and watching Doe dress. "I'm Cardinal Pennybet, papal legate from His Holiness Stanley the Great. Bickerton had the sauce to send for me and to describe me as a ringleader in all your abominations. I represented to him that he was a liar, and had been known to be from his birth, and that he probably cheated at Bridge; and he told me to jolly well disprove his accusation by fetching you along. I explained they were ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... and I want 'em to know how a strike can be managed, if you take it in time. You see, some of those fellows got a notion that there ought to be a union among the working-men to keep up wages, and dictate to the employers, and Mr. Dryfoos's foreman was the ringleader in the business. They understood pretty well that as soon as he found it out that foreman would walk the plank, and so they watched out till they thought they had Mr. Dryfoos just where they wanted him— everything on the keen jump, and every man worth his weight in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... I, 'and is this the way you love me! Is this the manner you obey the instructions I have given you from the pulpit! Thus to fly in the face of justice, and bring down ruin on yourselves and me! Which is your ringleader? Shew me the man that has thus seduced you. As sure as he lives he shall feel my resentment. Alas! my dear deluded flock, return back to the duty you owe to God, to your country, and to me. I shall yet perhaps one day see you ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... officer and gentleman be the only one pardoned by the usurper, while all his comrades are massacred in cold blood? How does it happen, also, that the same officer and gentleman could live snugly and pleasantly with the rebels, and receive from the ringleader presents of a 'pelisse,' a horse, and a half rouble? What is the occasion of so strange a friendship? And upon what can it be founded if not on treason, or at the least be occasioned by ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... his evening prayer, he asked that God would direct him. He thought upon the subject during the night. Could he carry it through? The scholars all knew him,—had been to school with him,—were his old friends and playmates. Bob Swift was a ringleader; and outside, not in the school, was Philip, who would make all the trouble he could. There was Miss Dobb, who would like to have picked him to pieces. There were others who would rejoice to see him fail. But would it not be glorious to succeed,—to triumph over Miss Dobb? But that was ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... country home, with all its holy influences, for the turmoil and heartlessness of a large school, where I soon became the ringleader in all sorts of mischief. Before long, accounts of my evil doing reached my father; but Louisa, incredulous of evil, as the pure ever are, persuaded him that her brother had been misunderstood, and not treated with sufficient gentleness. 'His spirit has been imprudently roused,' ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill

... set of dastardly cowards, for suffering yourselves to be bullied by a few villains, who wish for nothing better than to see us become the slaves of France.... You were all eager for news and newspapers to see how your great delegate, Parker"—the ringleader at the Nore—"was going on. I thank God I have the satisfaction to inform you that he is hanged.... You looked up to him as an example whilst he was in his glory. I recommend you to look to his end as an example also.... I have now to tell you that I have ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... The miners had scattered; the few passengers also, glad that they were not "wanted" by that infuriated crowd. It was then after sunrise, and, almost crazed by anxiety and wrath, Breifogle had hurried back to Argenta. His first thought seemed to be vengeance on Nolan, whom rumor declared the ringleader of his son's assailants, and a warrant was out for his arrest, even as the big Mogul was rolling into the yard, with its dingy-brown train of freight-cars and the battered body of that luckless youth, Nolan's assailant ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... whose sympathies were enlisted in favour of Mark Drury, brother of their former master, and Dr. Butler seems for a time to have had considerable difficulty in maintaining discipline. Byron, always "famous for rowing," was a ringleader of the rebellious party, and compared himself to Tyrlaeus. On one occasion he tore down the window gratings in a room of the school-house, with the remark that they darkened the hall; on another he is reported to have refused a dinner invitation from the master, with the impertinent remark that ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... am happy to inform you, has been completely quelled, and the ringleader taken into custody. She had a pail of cold water thrown over her, previous to being locked up, and expresses great contrition and uneasiness. We are all in a fever of anticipation about to-morrow; but, now that we are within a few hours of the meeting of the association, and at last ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... wet, miry land. Outskirt, borders. Plague, bother, great trouble. Plight, condition. Wharf, a platform on the shore of a harbor, river, or lake, extending some way into the water. Comrades, companions, playfellows. Magistrate, an officer of the law, justice of the peace. Ringleader, the leader of several persons acting together. Culprits, wrong-doers. Solemnly, with great dignity. Induce, lead persuade. Benefit, ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... about provisions and wine or ale, and shouts demanding more, and when Pierce declared that he would not have the lady insulted, there was a hoarse loud laugh. He was about to order Tordu as ringleader into custody, but Ridley said to him aside, "Best not, sir; his fellows will not lay a finger on him, and if we did so, there would be a brawl, and we might come by ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... That's a pretty swift bunch of females that have been speculating at Kerr Parker & Co.'s. I understand there's one Titian-haired young lady—who, by the way, has at least one husband who hasn't yet been divorced—who is a sort of ringleader, though she rarely goes personally to her brokers' office. She's one of those uptown plungers, and the story is that she has a whole string of scalps of alleged Sunday-school superintendents at her belt. She can make Bruce do pretty nearly anything, they say. He's ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... the bottom of all M. le Comte's follies; he and two or three of the rest of them belong to the other side, the side of M. le Chevalier's enemy, who does nothing but breathe threats of vengeance against you and all the nobles together. They all hope to ruin you through your nephew. The ringleader of the conspiracy is this sycophant of a du Croisier, the pretended Royalist. Du Croisier's wife, poor thing, knows nothing about it; you know her, I should have heard of it before this if she had ears to hear evil. For some time these wild young fellows were not in the secret, ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... a drier spot farther back. The officer was a captain, to judge from certain stripes of red cloth, sewed on the shoulders of his brown jean blouse, but his men were far from prompt in obeying his command, evidently having no taste for the job. One among them, apparently their ringleader in incipient mutiny, an upstanding bully with the jaw of a prize-fighter, took it upon himself openly to defy the officer, exclaiming profanely that he'd be damned if he ever enlisted to do nigger work. The others laughed, and joined in the revolt, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... power of the Taipings was completely broken and the rebellion stamped out. The maintenance of discipline was a perpetual struggle, and at one time there was a mutiny which was only quelled by shooting the ringleader on the spot. Before the summer of 1863 was over, Gordon captured Kahpoo, Wokong, and Patachiaow, on the south of Soo-chow, the great rebel stronghold, and, sweeping round to the north, secured Leeku, Wanti, and Fusaiqwan, so that by October Soo-chow ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... bodyguards had arrived from the palace, Sir Kunz gave him a short account of the shameful way in which the burghers of the city permitted themselves to instigate revolt, and called upon the officer to place the ringleader, Master Himboldt, under arrest. Seizing the Master by the chest, the Chamberlain accused him of having maltreated and thrust away from the cart the groom who, at his orders, was unhitching the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... hitherto believed to be honourable. Of the object aimed at by those who have complicated matters to the point of making their resolution almost impossible by ordinary methods I am aware; as also I am aware of the identity of the ringleader, despite the skill with which he has sought to conceal his share in the scandal. But the principal point is, that I propose to decide these matters, not by formal documentary process, but by the more ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... no fair weather theologian. His Protestantism out-lived King Edward. He sympathized with the demonstration in 1553 against the Spanish marriage. On the failure of the Devonshire movement his cousin, Sir Peter Carew, the ringleader at Exeter, is stated in official depositions to have effected his escape abroad through Walter Ralegh, whom he 'persuaded to convey him in his bark' to France from Weymouth. The wording implies active and conscious intervention. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... excitedly towards the large shed. Matthew had in reality just heard of the fray, and had at once run up to do what he could to stop it. But George Fairburn did not know this. "The knave!" he exclaimed, beside himself with anger, "he's the very ringleader of the party! He's kept himself till now in the background. But he shall pay for ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead

... by their general's prudent and conciliatory conduct. And this was not the only danger which Greene had to encounter. A portion of his army entered into a secret correspondence with the British, for the purpose of delivering him into their power; but the conspiracy was detected, and while the ringleader was shot, the chief of the conspirators deserted. Yet while the American forces in the south were in this desperate condition, the British troops undertook no new expedition, except for the purpose of procuring provisions. Under the impression, indeed, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... abetted by President Hart, he refusing to enforce the fines levied by myself as manager and in that way belittling my authority and making it impossible to enforce the discipline necessary to making the team a success. The ringleader in this business was Jimmy Ryan, between whom and the Club's President the most perfect understanding seemed to exist, and for this underhanded work Ryan was rewarded later by being made the team captain, a position that he was too unpopular with the players to hold, though it is generally thought ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... wishing, as he walked along, that he had never started the hike. He had seen Mr. Wall's eyes travel in his direction as though picking him out as the ringleader in whatever mischief had been afoot. He wondered what the ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger

... attempt was speedily made to fire some of the wheels which appeared to have received the smallest damage; but to little purpose were they lighted, for most of them completely failed. The authour of The Rambler, however, may be considered, on this occasion, as the ringleader of a successful riot, though ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... this time," said Joel with a laugh. "Generally it is Polly that sets all dreadful things going; but this time, it is some other ringleader." ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... The ringleader in this work of destruction was a fanatic named Richard Culmer, commonly known as Blue Dick. A paper preserved in the Chapter library, in the writing of Somner, the great antiquarian scholar, describes the state in which the fabric of the cathedral was left, ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... in commenting upon Musa's conduct, that he felt strongly tempted to shoot Musa and another ringleader, but was, nevertheless, glad that he did not soil his hands with their vile blood. A day or two afterwards, another of his men—Simon Price by name—came to the Doctor with the same tale about the Mazitu, but, compelled by the scant number of his people to repress all such tendencies to desertion ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... had been recaptured or willingly returned. I then heard of their trials and the miseries they had encountered. The drovers also spoke of one prisoner who had disappeared and got away completely, but that there was a hot search after him, as he, it was supposed, was the ringleader in the late outbreak, and that it was planned and carried out by him. I felt that they alluded to myself, and that this place would grow too warm for me, as I knew that I was already an object of public remark, owing to my supposed infirmities and the extraordinary dexterity of my fingers. ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... to Crotchet Castle, to narrate his misadventures, and exhale his budget of grievances on Mr. Mac Quedy, whom he considered a ringleader of the ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... arrangements about this Solomin," Kollomietzev exclaimed plaintively. He had been on the alert all the while, trying to catch what the governor and Sipiagin were saying. "I assure you he's the principal ringleader! I have a wonderful ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... fiasco. Ireland was much disturbed during the year by what was known as the Young Ireland agitation, a movement organised by youthful, and for the most part cultivated, leaders, and utterly different from the sturdy Repeal movement of O'Connell. Smith O'Brien, brother of Lord Inchiquin, was the ringleader, and was backed by Mitchel, Duffy, Meagher, and others, as well as by the Nation and United Irishman newspapers. Like Chartism, the movement ignominiously collapsed and its leaders were convicted of treason. An Act was at the same time passed reducing ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... Religion of the Dutch,[19] gives some interesting contemporary light on this branch of Collegiants whom he calls "Borellists," as follows: "The Borellists had their name from one Borrell, the Ringleader of their {120} sect, a man very learned, especially in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latine tongues. He was brother to Monsieur Borrell, ambassador from the States-General to his most Christian Majesty. These Borrellists do for ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... plot to Champlain as he was planting one of the little gardens which he started as soon as he had been in a place a few days. He went about his business very discreetly, arrested all the leading conspirators, gave them a fair trial, had the ringleader executed by Pont Grave, and sent three others back to France. After this he settled down at Quebec for the winter, taking care, however, in the month of October, to plant seeds and vines for coming up in ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... in the harbour of Antonina, was hid from the town in the darkness of a night that might well have covered the blackest of tragedies. My pirates thought their opportunity had surely come to capture the Aquidneck, and this they undertook to do. The ringleader of the gang was a burly scoundrel, whose boast was that he had "licked" both the mate and second mate of the last vessel he had sailed in, and had "busted the captain in the jaw" when they landed in Rio, where the vessel was bound, and where, of ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... boys threateningly, whereupon they all ran away, with the exception of the ringleader of the mutineers of the last few days, who sat down on the box containing the trading-stock and said they had better go and see whether I was really dead before plundering my luggage. The situation must have grown rather ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... plain," said Miss Mackenzie. "We must get the ringleader into custody, so to speak, and either bind her over to break up the society, and so keep the peace, or expel ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... rising with every minute. They reviled the pride of the priests, and their senseless, worthless, institutions. A drunken soldier, who soon reeled back into the tavern which he had but just left, distinguished himself as ringleader, and was the first to pick up a heavy stone to fling at the huge brass-plated temple gates. A few boys followed his example with shouts, and law-abiding men even, urged by the clamor of fanatical women, let themselves be led away to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... pressed this matter a little too fast and too far. The Colonists became piqued at last, and resolved, in 1764, not to purchase English stuffs for clothing, but to use articles of domestic manufacture as far as possible. Boston, always a ringleader in these mischiefs, diminished her consumption of British merchandise ten thousand pounds and more in this one year. The Harvard-College youth rivalled the neighboring town in their patriotic self-sacrifice, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... nuffin!" growled the ringleader of the quartet. "I dun reckon somebody else in the crowd ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... hopeless, hauled down the red flag. Some had previously made their escape from their midst. Ultimately, the crew of the Sandwich carried their ship under the guns of Sheerness, when a guard of soldiers coming on board, Parker, their ringleader, was delivered up. He, with the chief culprits, was tried, convicted, and executed; others were flogged through the fleet, and many were imprisoned for certain periods, a general pardon being granted to the seamen who had been misled ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... ruffian for whom even the most patriotic historian finds it hard to say a redeeming word—was here the ringleader. On the same day—the 23rd of October—he got possession of the fort of Charlemont, the strongest position in the new plantation, by inviting himself to dinner with Lord Caulfield, the governor, ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... man, who had remained with the evident ringleader of the stowaways, asked a question, in French, and he used the name ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton

... Fleury, and was beginning to snatch a few "fearful joys" in the company of his mignons, such as the Duc de La Tremouille, and the Duc de Gesvres, and a few gay women of whom the sprightly and beautiful Princesse de Charolois was the ringleader. But he was still nothing more than "a big and gloomy child," whose ill-balanced nature gravitated between fits of profound gloom and the wild abandonment of debauch; one hour, torn and shaken by religious terrors, fears ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... him to his retreat. Not for one moment did she lose sight of him; she was determined to solve the enigma of his identity. As the last bellicose words of Prince Eugene rang through the ears of his dismayed followers, the wounded ringleader flung back his head with such sudden haste, that its masses of dark, tangled hair were entirely thrown aside, and the face that was revealed by their removal, caused the countess to start and utter an ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... of human crowds the chief is often nothing more than a ringleader or agitator, but as such he plays a considerable part. His will is the nucleus around which the opinions of the crowd are grouped and attain to identity. He constitutes the first element towards the organisation of heterogeneous crowds, and paves the way for their organisation ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon

... from England to appoint an adventurer, Edward Cranfield, governor; Cranfield went forth with hopes of much plunder; but they would not admit his legitimacy, and he took the unprecedented step of dissolving the assembly; the farmers revolted, and their ringleader, Gove, was condemned for treason, and spent four years in the Tower of London. It was another attempt to convince the spirit of liberty by "the worst argument in the world"; but it was ridiculous as ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... man, who seemed to be the ringleader, eyed me narrowly. We all embarked on a rickety raft, that would, I declare, have drowned any six sober men who risked their lives on it; but drunk men and children seem to do what sober, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... years of my being at school I was of the highest form of the school, and chiefest of that form. I could then speak Latin as well as English; could make extempore verses upon any theme.' 'If any scholars from remote schools came to dispute, I was ringleader to dispute with them.' 'All and every of those scholars, who were of my form and standing, went to Cambridge, and proved excellent divines; only I, poor William Lilly, was not so happy, fortune then frowning on my father's condition, he not in any capacity to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... signal for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but still commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty. "Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?" demanded their ringleader. .. "Turn to! turn to! —I make no promise; —to your duty! Do you want to sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!" and he once more raised a pistol. "Sink the ship?" cried Steelkilt. "Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us turns to, unless you ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... perhaps as a member of the Garrick Club that he has attained his fullest development. All the good things of the Garrick which were not previously said by Sydney Smith may safely be put down to Eustace; and there is no doubt that he is the ringleader in all the subsequent practical jokes which have made the club famous. It was he who pinned to the back of an unpopular member of the committee a sheet of paper ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... ringleaders of the discontent urged the doctor to put poison in his medicine. But the doctor refused. Next they formed a plot to hide a barrel of gunpowder under his bed and blow him up. But Laudonnire discovered that plot, and the ringleader fled ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... (entering) I was quite sure that there was something wrong about him!—He is a ringleader of thieves! The gendarmes, the magistrate, all the excitement she showed mean something—and now the house ...
— Pamela Giraud • Honore de Balzac

... have expected you to be a ringleader in such an escapade as this, Miss Cox," she said, sharply, but in a low voice. "I very well knew, Miss Cox, when the new girls came this fall that you were determined to contaminate them if you could. Every girl here will remain in her seat after prayers in the chapel ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... boys at all, they were only mischievous, and as Urashima spoke they were won by his kind smile and gentle words and began "to be of his spirit," as they say in Japan. Gradually they all came up to him, the ringleader of the little band holding ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki



Words linked to "Ringleader" :   provoker, instigator, firebrand, inciter, instigant



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