Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Alert   Listen
noun
Alert  n.  (Mil.) An alarm from a real or threatened attack; a sudden attack; also, a bugle sound to give warning. "We have had an alert."
On the alert, on the lookout or watch against attack or danger; ready to act.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Alert" Quotes from Famous Books



... clear of the stirrup, and he swung it idly. His left hand, in which he held the reins, rested lightly on the horn of his saddle, and his right gripped the cantle at his back. He hummed a ditty of the desert, but his gaze, keen and alert, continually sought the open stretches of trail above him, and at regular intervals flashed back along the way he ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... fear, and the thought of the dead changed him from an indolent fellow into a valuable aid to my chief packer in watching the animals at night. His senses became so keen as to be quite reassuring in regard to robbers at night, and from that time on he was really a valuable man, active and alert. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... many meannesses. But, after all, no temptation and no menace, no pains or penalties for thinking about certain subjects, and no rewards for turning to think about something else, could divert such men as Voltaire and Diderot from their alert and strenuous search after such truth as could be vouchsafed to their imperfect lights. A catastrophe followed, it is true, but the misfortunes which attended it were due more to the champions of tradition and authority than to the soldiers of emancipation. Even ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... prevent damage, so it was difficult to detect that there was any false bottom at all. However, after this practice had been in vogue for some time it was discovered by the Revenue officers and the matter made generally known among the officials at all the ports, so that they could be on the alert ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... very promptly put themselves to bed; thanks to which circumstance and to their having, during the previous hours, in their commodious cabin, slept the sleep of youth and health, they began to feel, toward eleven o'clock, very alert and inquisitive. They looked out of their windows across a row of small green fields, bordered with low stone walls of rude construction, and saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue sky, and flecked now and then ...
— An International Episode • Henry James

... bow of Lawrence Croft's life action called out: "Breakers ahead!" and almost instantly its engine was stopped, and every faculty of its commander was on the alert. "I do not know," he said, "that I am entitled to your confidence. Would it be of any advantage to you to tell me ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... meanwhile, being shrewd and alert, had escaped the conflagration. She had taken alarm early, having seen a fire in the woods once before and conceived an appreciation of its powers. Instead of flying straight before it, and being inevitably overtaken, she ran at once to the river and galloped madly down the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... survival of the fittest of these various settlers in New York. While thousands fail and go back home or drop by the way, these men have made their way by superior ability, foresight, and adaptability through the fierce competitions of the great city. They are unusually keen-witted and alert. For the evening of the banquet they leave behind their business and its cares and are bent on being entertained, amused, and instructed. They are a most catholic audience, broad-minded, hospitable, and friendly ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... the interests of particular classes or persons. But the democratic revolution and the introduction of bureaucracy has swept all that away; and governments in every civilized country are now moving towards the ideal of an expert administration controlled by an alert and intelligent public opinion. Much, it is true, has yet to be done before that ideal will be realized. In some countries, notably in the United States, the necessity of the expert has hardly made itself felt. In others, such as Germany, popular control is very inadequately provided ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... mounting of the verge on a small steel pin inserted in one end of the short arm. But in spite of all the improvements he had made, Mr. Terry did not sit down with folded hands and feel there was nothing further to be done. Constantly he was alert for practical suggestions that should better his handiwork. For example, he heard that some one was making machinery according to a definite scale so that parts of it could be exchanged from one article to another. Why, thought he, should not the parts of a clock be made so they ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett

... peeped out of the windows, in perfectly proper curiosity, to watch the Bottle River jacks flounder into town. Not she! Pattie Batch was busy. Pattie Batch was so desperately employed that her swift little fingers demanded all the attention that the most alert, the brightest, the very most bewitching gray eyes in the whole wide world could bestow upon anything whatsoever. Christmas Eve, you see: Day done. Something of soft fawn-skin engaged her, it seemed, with white patches matched and arranged with marvellous exactitude: something ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan

... sociable race, and on the very best of terms with the Nutcracker Grays. Young Tip Chipmunk, the oldest son, was in all respects a perfect contrast to Master Featherhead. He was always lively and cheerful, and so very alert in providing for the family, that old Mr. and Mrs. Chipmunk had very little care, but could sit sociably at the door of their hole and chat with neighbours, quite sure that Tip would bring everything out right for them, and have plenty ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... good couriers for the conveyance of despatches back across the Danube to Bucharest, whence everything was telegraphed to London; but they were essentially fair-weather men. The casual courier may be alert, loyal, and trustworthy; he may be relied on to try his honest best, but it is not to be expected of him that he will greatly dare and count his life but as dross when his incentive to enterprise ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... passions, the dread of detection in proportion to it, she never had remained. There she was, and she could not get away again. The subtle dexterity which had served her in coming might desert her in returning. Had their senses been on the alert they might have ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... military spirit, as nothing is more taking to boys when first put to drill, than to have arms; and although many requisites of discipline, such as marching, wheeling, &c. can be acquired full as well without them; yet nothing makes a young lad so alert as to have a musket put ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... sworn in hate, exerts his ruffian might Where'er young genius meditates his flight. Erewhile, when WHITE, by this fell fiend oppress'd, Felt Hope's fine fervours languish in his breast, When shrunk with scorn, and trembling to aspire, He dropp'd desponding his insulted lyre. Alert in zeal, with art benigh endued, SOUTHEY! thy hand his blasted strength renew'd, And lured him on, his labours scarce begun, To win those laurels which thyself had won. In vain! though vivified with pristine force, O'er learning's realms he shot with meteor course; To worth ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... have understood the difference in both position and demands, but she enjoyed the atmosphere of ease. And there was a certain aspect of luxury, a freedom from the grinding exactions of conscience that had been trained to keep continually on the alert lest ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... death of Mr. Purnell, two years before. The town called them Easterners because their home was as far East as Michigan, but they had never been city dwellers, as Dorothy's fresh complexion and lithe, alert figure bore witness. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... only 20 miles long, but it is 20 miles of concentrated water-power energy and grandeur, the fall being about 400 feet, the walls 2700. Never for a moment does it relax its assault, and the voyager on its restless, relentless tide, especially at high water, is kept on the alert. The waters indeed come rushing down with fearful impetuosity, recalling to Powell the poem of Southey, on the Lodore he knew, hence the name. The beginning of the gorge is at the foot of Brown's Park through what is called the Gate of Lodore, an abrupt gash in the Uinta Mountains 2000 feet deep. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... His alert faculties of observation belied the leisurely manner of his approach to the main street. He was a keen-strung, watching, listening machine. The lighting and smoking of a cigarette was mechanical pretense—he did not want ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... Marna, Daughter of the fire! Marna of the deathless hope, Still alert to win new scope Where the wings of life may spread For a flight unhazarded! Dreaming of the speech to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... the man with a man's mistakes, his fears, his heart-burnings, was gone, and in his place stood Horace Clay, the doctor, keen, alert, masterful, indomitable, with the look of battle on his face. He worked rapidly, never faltering; his eyes burning with the joy of the true physician who fights to save, to save a human life from the grim ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... if you don't mind," he said unpleasantly, and the girl, whose every sense was alert, picked up a wrap and walked into the garden, with Marcus following ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... changed Jones; much thinner and "finer" than when, eight weeks before, he had embarked on his new career, at the newspaper owner's instance. The young man's color was less pronounced, and his eyes, though alert and eager, ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... those lines in which Jessica and Lorenzo murmur melodious words to one another, capping each other's utterance; but passion shines bright and clear through the conceits that amuse them. He did not know what there was in the air that made his senses so strangely alert; it seemed to him that he was pure soul to enjoy the scents and the sounds and the savours of the earth. He had never felt such an exquisite capacity for beauty. He was afraid that Sally by speaking would break the spell, but she said never a word, and he wanted ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... isolation, is everywhere taken for granted. Man lives not to himself nor dies to himself, even though he be Richard Rolle the hermit, or Margaret Kirkby the recluse, that is the plain teaching of these plain-speaking pages. And all through them too is a tough common sense, and an unusually alert power of observation; and there is perhaps an element of that business capacity, which some of the Saints and Mystics have shewn, in his inclusion among "sins of deed" of "beginning a thing that is above our might"; for in that there ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole

... all on the alert, and the moment "Away aloft!" reached our ears we flew up the rigging. The boatswain's pipe sounded shrill, the topsails came down smartly with a loud whirr. The ship was rounded to, the men lay out on the yards and briskly handed the canvas, and the anchor was let ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... scene in the ring of a circus. The horse, proud, dignified, began to pace slowly to the time of the accompanying music, executing difficult steps that must have tried the patience of both animal and trainer during the teaching period; the rider, lithe, alert, proud also, smiling ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... suddenly and he made a sharp movement to catch it up. Wang was unable to see the reason of this because of the table, and leaped away from what seemed to him a threatening symptom. When Heyst looked up, the Chinaman was already at the door facing the room, not frightened, but alert. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... few people came to this clearing, in the woods, far off from the main-traveled roads of the Yumuri, and the day, as usual, passed uneventfully. Evangelina worked, with one eye upon her Rosa, the other watchfully alert for danger. When evening came she prepared their scanty meal, upbraiding Rosa, meanwhile, for her attempts to assist her. Then they sat for an hour or two on the bench outside the door, talking about Juan O'Rail-ye and the probable ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... lies in its artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities, which produce an emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from the fountain of life. I once remarked that there seemed to be a deeper relationship between the old-fashioned mother and hostess, ever on the alert for the happiness of her little ones and the comfort of those she loved, and the truly new woman, than between the latter and her average emancipated sister. The disciples of emancipation pure and simple declared me a heathen, fit only ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... spoke in her look, her attitude, and the silent gesture of one outspread hand, but it was the Keep back! of love, not of fear, the command of an outraged soul, conscious of its rights and instinctively alert to maintain them. ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... attentive to the study of the Vedas, that are devoted to the service of their preceptors, that are observant of penances and excellent vows, that are firm in truth, that never utter anything that smacks of disobedience or enmity to their preceptors, that are always alert, and ever ready in service of seniors and preceptors,—they repair, O great Rishi, to such regions, they that are pure (of mind and body), that are endued with cleansed souls, that are of restrained speech, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... swain recollected the snake, which was as slender, and supple, and quick, and sparkling as the girl who lay there on the hill-side, and wept and made fun at the same time and looked oddly alert and wary. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... 22nd both Diggins and Lowther got M.C.'s. If it was the former's elan which carried our wave into the enemy's guns, the latter's judgement played a great part in extricating us without disaster. Hasted, the alert and watchful, had already been gazetted after the fall of Baghdad as D.S.O. He left us shortly after, returning to his own regiment, the Durham Light Infantry, in India. In Rawal Pindi he delivered a lecture on the action in which he had ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... grand conspiracy was hastening to its accomplishment Madame Bonaparte and I had contrived a little plot of a more innocent kind. We let no one into our secret, and our 16th Brumaire was crowned with complete success. We had agreed to be on the alert to prevent any fresh exchange of angry words. All succeeded to the utmost of our wishes. The conversation languished during dinner; but it was not dulness that we were afraid of. It turned on the subject of war, and in that vast field Bonaparte's ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... other members of the group. These latter two were members of the Black Bear Patrol of New York. All the lads appeared to be about eighteen years old. Their tidy uniforms, their well-knit frames and their alert attitudes bespoke the ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... of such a thing. My father, at the age of 63, was one of the most healthy, vigorous, active men in the kingdom, and had scarcely ever had a day's serious illness in his life. To see him walk, ride, mount his horse, or in fact do any thing; he was so active, so alert, that his motions were more like a youth of eighteen or twenty than those of an old man; and to look upon him, no one would guess his age to be much above forty, though his hair lead been as white as the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... correct. The dull rabbits, the sleepy Persian cats, and the silly sheep had died outright of lethodyne; the cunning, inquisitive raccoon, the quick hawk, and the active, intense-natured weasels, all most eager, wary, and alert animals, full of keenness ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... subjected to brutal violation, and then turned out naked, with their children, to starve on the barren heaths. One whole family was enclosed in a barn, and consumed to ashes. Those ministers of vengeance were so alert in the execution of their office, that in a few days there was neither house, cottage, man, nor beast, to be seen within the compass of fifty miles; all was ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... this absence from the crowd in the ante-rooms. In the midst of so much intrigue and continual striving for power, designing men, on the one hand, were ever on the alert for what they imagined would prove willing instruments; and on the other, the Prince's councillors kept a watchful eye on the dispositions of every one of the least consequence; so that, although but twenty-five, Felix was already ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... stole quietly up to the tent and looked in, the beating of his own heart nearly choking him. Dr. MacTavish slept on the lounge, the peaceful sleep of a child, or of a man who has done good work. Beside the bed sat Dr. Clay, watching, alert, hopeful. From the tent door where he stood he could see the little white face on the pillow and he knew from the way the child breathed that she was sleeping easily. The eastern wall of the tent was rosy with the dawn. Then he went back to the stable, hitched up his team, and drove home ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... grew and developed, Abel, on his part, taught him to be keenly alert, patient, self-reliant and resourceful—qualities that every successful hunter and ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... only by the operation of an enlightened public sentiment. It is obvious now that, in the midst of all this agitation about other matters, Mr. Calhoun and the South Carolinians never lost sight of the conflict for which they were preparing, and that they were on the alert to bring nullification to the front in a more menacing and pronounced fashion than had ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... and now every man in the room was sitting up, alert, with gloomy eyes fixed upon Pierre: "Patterson is the first, but he ain't the last. He's just the start. Who's next?" He ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... dusky tide. I fought as a man who gives his life for his brother's life, who knows that his time is short, that Death's doom above him hangs. But know ye, if 'Abdallah be dead, and his place a void, no weakling unsure of hand, and no holder-back was he! Alert, keen, his loins well girt, his leg to the middle bare, unblemished and clean of limb, a climber to all things high; No wailer before ill-luck; one mindful in all he did to think how his work to-day would live in to-morrow's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by way of the Birch Path. On Anne's birthday they were tripping lightly down it, keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss Stacy had told them that they must soon write a composition on "A Winter's Walk in the Woods," and it behooved ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... some blankets in which they rolled themselves and then lay down before the fire, which their host kept alive with fuel all through the night. Trot wakened several times and found the Mountain Ear always alert and listening intently for the slightest sound. But the little girl could hear no sound at all except the ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... reckoned as good as dead, Charley stepped outside the wigwam and cast a quick look around. A smile of satisfaction parted his lips as he noted the distant figures of his companions behind the tree barricade, each at his post, gun in hand, nervously alert. From them, his glance went on to the point, where the battle was still going on. To even an unobserving person, it was clear that the firing from the canoes was slackening rapidly, and with a sigh of regret and anxiety, the lad turned back ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... our people had been on the alert, on account of a feud between them and the Ghawarineh Arabs. On coming up to the print of a human footstep, this was carefully examined as to its size, direction of the tread, etc. The circumstances were not, however, exactly parallel ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... Some inward standard Marius seemed to detect there (though wholly unable to estimate its nature) of distinction, selection, refusal, amid the various elements of the fervid and corrupt life across which they were moving together:—some secret, constraining motive, ever on the alert at eye and ear, which carried him through Rome as under a charm, so that Marius could not but think of that figure of the white bird in the market-place as undoubtedly made true of him. And Marius was still full of admiration for this companion, who ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... itself, fell into their hands. The Eastern Empire, the last survival of the Empire of the Romans, perished beneath the sword of Mahomet. Then the pathway by land to Asia, to the fabled empires of Cathay and Cipango, was blocked by the Turkish conquest. Commerce, however, remained alert and enterprising, and men's minds soon turned to the hopes of a western passage which should provide a new route to ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock

... the day he had been deeply concerned for her comfort, sorry for her disappointment, under Brother Sam's indignant ironies patient, and at all times gentle and considerate. Now, in the light from the onrushing cars, she noted his alert, laughing eyes, the broad shoulders bent across the wheel, the lips smiling with excitement and in the joy of controlling, with a turn of the wrist, a power equal to sixty galloping horses. She found in his face much comfort. And in the fact that for the moment her safety ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis

... prone to abuse it. His fine constitution, than which perhaps there was hardly ever a better, gave him great opportunities of indulging himself in these excesses; and his good spirits enabled him to pursue his pleasures of every kind in so alert and sprightly a manner, that multitudes envied him, and called him, by a dreadful kind of compliment, ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge

... the deAngelis flared to a 98.4 then started inching down again. The young reporter sat up, alert, from where he had been dozing. The loud clang of a bell had brought ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick

... "Here," says the alert young officer who is acting as instructor, unrolling a chart, "is a picture of an action in a little village south of Mons. A company of our fellows were holding the village. There are, you see, only two roads ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... alert for invaders; and as soon as they were quite sure that the keen ears of Erebus had made no mistake and that a car was coming up the board aisle, the princess and the Terror squirmed their way up to the secret ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... his first connection with the office, been under the control of Mr. Fairbanks, and he feels a just pride in the perfection to which these details have been brought. His heart is in his profession, and it is his constant study. No improvement in it escapes his observation, and he is ever on the alert to avail himself of everything promising to increase the efficiency of his establishment. It is a noticeable fact, that the Herald has never missed a daily issue, although at times during the war the scarcity of paper was so great that the issue of the Morning ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... fat, exhibited fewer effects of his battle with the wasps. His one outstanding defect was an entirely closed eye. With the other, wide open and alert, he looked about him. In spite of his one bad eye and his stiff legs he was inspired with the optimism of one who at last sees fortune turning his way. He was rid of the man-beast, who had killed his mother; the forests were before him again, open and ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... one at all; but that was chiefly because he did not want to meet any one. He went with his ears and his eyes alert, and was not above hiding behind a clump of stunted bushes when two horsemen rode down a canyon trail just below him. Also he searched for roads and then avoided them. It would be a fat morsel for Marie and her mother to roll under their tongues, ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... two appeared Mrs. Frothingham; alert, lightsome, much improved in health since the first year of her widowhood. She had been visiting here for a fortnight, and tomorrow would return to her home in the south. Movement, variety, intimate gossip, supported her under the affliction which still seemed to be working ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... to be up and doing early on the following morning, but my slumbers proved so profound, that I did not wake until about eight; on arising, I again found myself the sole occupant of the apartment, my more alert companion having probably risen at a much earlier hour. Having dressed myself, I descended, and going to the stable, found my horse under the hands of my friend the ostler, who was carefully rubbing him down. "There a'n't a better horse in the fair," ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... Achilles around the walls of Troy. And when they met there would be a duel of giants. Twice Whistling Dan was sighted. Once Jim Silent fought a running duel with a posse fresh from Elkhead. The man hunters were alert, but it was their secret hope that the two famous outlaws would destroy each other, but how the wild chase would end no one could know. At last Buck Daniels rode to tell ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... month had passed since the incident of the false Dionysius had led to the two men meeting. It was now December. Whatever Mr. Carlyle's step might indicate to the inner eye it betokened to the casual observer the manner of a crisp, alert, self-possessed man of business. Carlyle, in truth, betrayed nothing of the pessimism and despondency that had marked ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah

... syllable Fawkes sprang into an attitude of alert and fearful attention, listened as to the pronouncement of a foreman juror, and replied, "No, sir," with the relieved air of a man surprised to find himself still living. "I see Flamby Duveen, I did," he continued, ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... Crosbie, within two miles of the town. Here arms were distributed and orders given by their leader, named Roche. Silently and quickly they reached the town they hoped to surprise. But the regular troops, of which the garrison was chiefly composed, were on the alert, though their preparations were made full as silently. When the peasantry emerged from Tullow Street, into an exposed space, a deadly fire was opened upon them from the houses on all sides. The regulars, in perfect security themselves, and abundantly ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... Mansoul is reduced to the greatest straits and sadness. In this extremity, prayers are incessantly offered up to Emmanuel; but, for a long time, they can obtain no satisfactory answers. Both parties are on the alert; but Diabolus finds it impossible, either by treachery or by storming with his legion of doubts, to gain possession of Heart-castle. Being worsted in a general engagement, the doubters are slain, and are buried with their armour; yea, all that did but ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... lost his arm by one stroke of Manlius' short Roman sword; the next was by main strength hurled backwards over the precipice, and Manlius stood along on the top, for a few moments, ready to strike the next who should struggle up. The whole of the garrison were in a few moments on the alert, and the attack was entirely repulsed; the sleeping sentry was cast headlong down the rock; and Manlius was brought, by each grateful soldier, that which was then most valuable to all, a little meal and a small measure of wine. Still, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... months, during all of which time, consumed by organic disease, and worn out by long and uninterrupted service, his dauntless resolution never wholly failed him. For weeks and weeks his eagle eye, ever on the alert to spy out a vulnerable point in that seemingly immaculate coat-of-mail, scanned the redoubts from Cape Rouge to the Montmorenci. There was no fool-hardiness—no wilful throwing away of life—but ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... Sunday our intention was, after taking bearings from the summit of Luxmore Head, to delay our further proceeding until the next morning, but the circumstance that occurred kept us so much on the alert that it was anything but a day of rest. Having landed at the foot of the hill we ascended its summit, but found it so thickly wooded as to deprive us of the view we had anticipated; but, as there were some openings in the trees through which a few distant objects could be ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... know the loss we have sustained in our departed sister. She was ever alert and kindly, ever bountiful though without extravagance. To the last she preserved her characteristics. On the fatal morning of her removal from among us, she rose as usual and came to the family breakfast-table. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... strangely, the cloud of terror seemed to roll away. Her faculties cleared. Her mind was all alert and quickened. She thought of things she had heard of years before, and long forgotten. That a wet cloth about the face would defend from smoke. That down low, close to the floor, was always a current ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... Tommy and the twins at the Rat Hole—the skipper established in comfort by the stove, a cup of tea at his hand, his stockinged feet put up to warm: the twins sitting close, both grinning broadly, each finely alert to anticipate the old man's wants, who now had acquired a pampered air, which sat curiously upon him. "Seems t' me, Davy," he said, in a solemn whisper, at the end of the tale, new told for me, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... the main question which had previously agitated the Emperor and his advisers, and particularly his stage-manager, Fouche, whom he now restored to his old office, came up once more. "What next?" and it was harder to answer than ever, for Bonaparte's mind was no longer alert. He was listless and given to delay, and, worst of all, invariably sleepy. It was evident that Elba had not proved as restful as ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs

... noiselessly behind her. I saw her face: she was my old friend Suzanne. When her eyes fell on me, she started in surprise, as well she might; but the caution and fear, which had made her knock almost noiseless, her tread silent, and her face all astrain with alert alarm, held ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... the laughing, romping girl, but the woman with alert eye and tightly closed lips. "What are you ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... in charge of the work, whom we found in a little office in front partitioned off by ground glass, was an old man with an alert, vigorous mind on whom the effects of plain living and high thinking showed plainly. He was looking over some new blanks with a young woman who seemed to be working with him, directing the force of clerks ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... as his word, and Willa found that he had spoken truly. His sister proved to be a thin, pleasant-faced woman with a humorous curve to her lips and alert twinkling brown eyes. She was ready and willing to take Dan's employer as a lodger and the terms were ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... making three, in our first-class compartment in the all-day express train from Cologne to Berlin after it left Hanover. He was a naval officer of about forty-five, clean-cut, alert, clearly an intelligent man. His manner was proud, ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... At last he decided on a ruse. He would head for the main gate, get out, and use his electronic key without waiting for the guard to admit him. At the same time, he would press a secret warning bell to alert the ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton

... the appointed hour, Kai Lung was again led before the Mandarin Shan Tien. To the alert yet downcast gaze of the former person it seemed as if the usually inscrutable expression of that high official was not wholly stern as it moved in his direction. Ming-shu, on the contrary, disclosed all his ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... world with the noise of their business—spiders, butterflies, and centipedes, ants, beetles, and flies, and mysterious entities that crawl nameless under foot. A pea-hen shrieks in the grass, and a kite whistles aloft. A remote speck in the sky denotes a watchful vulture, alert for any mishap to the citizens of the woods, and a crash of twigs may mean anything from a buck to a rhinoceros. There is a hectic ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... was cold and rainy, and the irresolute Italian railroads were interrupted by the floods. A tawny deluge rolled down from the mountains through the bed of the Arno, and kept the Florentine fire-department on the alert night and day. "It is a curious thing about this country," said Mr. Hinkle, encountering Baron Belsky on the Ponte Trinita, "that the only thing they ever have here for a fire company to put out is a freshet. If they had a real conflagration ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the realization that he was not to be permitted to round out his fourth successful season at first base. But if Jimmy was momentarily stunned he gave no outward indication of the fact, and in the brief interval of silence following the president's ultimatum his alert mind functioned with the rapidity which it had often shown upon the gridiron, the ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the shot John stopped, and listened for some sound, and the natives, usually so alert ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... moments passed, and the men in the arbor gave no sign of suspicion he gained confidence, all his professional instincts aroused at the import of this secrecy and the magnificence of the impending revelations. He was England, waiting, alert, on guard, for the safety and peace of Europe. He did not dare to look at Marishka, for fear of the slightest motion or sound which might betray them. Only their hands clasped, though by this time neither of them was conscious ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... can keep a good man down, if you've got enough headstart, are alert and persistent ... so long as he limits himself to acting like ...
— Instinct • George Oliver Smith

... hours. Old Jack Rabbit hopped before him, Then sat up, to watch him pass, Dusky horned-toads scurried nimbly Through the withered buffalo grass. Here and there the buzzing rattler Whirred a warning, head alert, Then retreated from the snapping, Stinging strokes of Billy's quirt. Day by day the wild breeze flying, With'ring in its scorching heat, Hummed a tune to labored beating Of the plodding ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker

... could they have peeped into the girl's mind. She liked being alone, being still. There had been considerable strain to keeping up a reputation as a school terror. It had meant being constantly on the alert for an opportunity to misbehave; it meant thinking up plots, living up to an exacting standard of wickedness. The reaction had come with these idle days and she ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... Longman's apartments, where he found all on the alert—the governess and her nieces recounting their experiences of February, which convinced them that there was more danger in returning than in remaining. Miss Longman was urgent to keep Isabel and Lord Fitzjocelyn for ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... belt, there came to him a thought of the way in which Mukee had avenged Cummins' wife, and he turned again upon the trail. He no longer touched the low- hanging bushes. He was no more than a shadow, appearing and disappearing without warning, trailing as the white ermine follows its prey, noiseless, alert, his body responding sinuously and without apparent effort to the working commands of ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... tender mercies—his instructions did not include any such extreme measures as Maillot had suggested—confident that he was the proper person to relieve me of this unwelcome intrusion. It has always been hard for me to talk to these sharp-eyed, alert young chaps of the press, without saying something I had no business to say. Even if I did n't say it, some one of them would be sure to make a pretty shrewd guess, sometimes causing me no end of trouble. Stodger ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... many a hold-up. And to-day, at his age, he simply must not be robbed. It would break his heart. In sheer desperation he drew his six-shooter, examined it carefully, glanced at his fellow-passengers and sat silent, alert and grim. ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... Mex was constantly dartling, and her ear was alert to catch every syllable Pierce uttered. She paid no attention to Sheldrake, who responded guardedly to ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... An alert young officer of the guard raised his hand in salute as Stuyvesant addressed him. No, there were no ambulances, no soldiers from the Presidio. They might be waiting across ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... Jones. First blood was drawn by David Porter, illustrious scion of a family which gave five generations to brilliant service in the navy. On August 13, 1812, Porter, with the Essex, engaged in a sharp battle with the British ship Alert, which, after an action of eight minutes, surrendered in a sinking condition. He had seen hard service before that, had been twice impressed by British vessels and twice escaped, had fought French and pirates, and spent some time ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... lips of the dying man bent the ear of Dyke Darrel, every nerve on the alert to catch the ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... answered, "that though her master was a deal on the wrong side of seventy, and though, to look at him, you'd think he was glued to his chair, and would fall to pieces if he should stir out of it, yet he was as alert, and thought no more of going about, than if he was as young as the gentleman who was now speaking to her. It was old Mr. Reynolds' delight to come down and surprise his people at his different places, and see that they ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... going to bring your account back to us, Mrs. Salisbury," said the alert salesman who waited upon them. "We are always sorry to ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris

... and indifference and look a little more closely upon the play of wild life about him to realize how much interesting natural history is being enacted every day before his very eyes—in his own garden and dooryard and apple-orchard and vineyard. If one's mind were only alert and sensitive enough to take it all in! Whether one rides or walks or sits under the trees, or loiters about the fields or woods, the play of wild life is going on about him, and, if he happens to be blessed with the seeing eye and the hearing ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... He was thinking, now, his thin face set in a frown, the upper teeth biting hard over the under lip and drawing up the pointed beard. While he thought, he watched the man extended on the chair, watched him like an alert cat, to extract from him some hint as to what he should do. This absorption seemed to ignore completely the other occupants of the room, of whom he was the central, commanding figure. The head nurse held the lamp carelessly, resting her hand over one hip ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... camp like two Indians, silent and alert, looking out for dead bodies and live Indians, for really we more expected to find the camp devastated by those rascals than to find that it still contained our friends. To the east we could plainly see what seemed to be a large salt lake ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... town, past the head-quarters, where Roberts reviewed us and the 38th. He was standing with a large Staff at the foot of the steps. The order "eyes right" gave us a good view of him, and very small, fit, and alert he looked. ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... were always alert. And they at once negatived any unauthorized wireless so that German spies could only snap out a signal or two at any time. They could ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... the streets shouting, "The city taken! Down with the Papists! A new world!" Hearing this, the Protestants in the city recognised their co-religionists, and the Catholics their opponents: but whereas the former had been warned and were on the alert, the latter were taken by surprise; consequently they offered no resistance, which, however, did not prevent bloodshed. M. de St. Andre, the governor of the town, who during his short period of office had drawn the bitter hatred of the ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... appeared, and soon there were fourteen or fifteen. Slip and Buck glided about among them quietly, their eyes alert, their hats drawn down over their eyes, taking a hand here, throwing bones there, poking up the coal fire, putting on coffee, making sandwiches, every moment on the qui vive, communicating with each other by jerks of the hand, lifting ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... green grass-hoppers—who need not be further indicated—that he had already begun a well-simulated note of challenge to those around clad in brown, and to leap upwards in a preparatory essay, when the ever-alert Sir Philip took him affectionately by the arm, on the plea that the seclusion of a neighbouring pavilion afforded ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... She was on her feet, with bright, wild eyes glancing here and there. There was no suggestion of childishness in her, but a certain willingness to flee from a great danger or attack a weaker force. She stood alert, rather than frightened, with her head back as if she scented the wind to learn what approached. The ball of gray fur straightened into the sharp ears and the flashing teeth of a coyote puppy. Buck Daniels' foot slipped on a pebble and at the sound the coyote darted to ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... part in this conversation, but had wandered about the top of the mesa rather aimlessly, from time to time looking sharply at the surroundings beneath him in the alert manner of one whose life has been passed ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering

... alert to publicity possibilities. Among other things he organized a drum corps composed of volunteers who were only too glad to serve him. He inspired this corps to such proficiency that its marching and counter-marching ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... charge of the ponderous knights, amongst the reedy pools. William decided on constructing a causeway, and employed workmen to cut trenches to drain off the water, and raise the bank of stones and turf, under the superintendence of Ivo Taillebois. However, Hereward was on the alert, harassing them perpetually, breaking on them sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, in such strange, unexpected ways, that at last the viscount came to the conclusion that he must have magic arts to aid him, and persuaded ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... congregations opened this morning in a similar manner, and songs of praise were heard from the marching multitudes wending their way to the State House Park. There was shooting from a hotel window. Two of the suspected men were taken to Libby Prison. With the soldiers on the alert, and an increased force of policemen, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... half-past six, having conveyed her baggage to the station and left it in charge of an amiable porter, she paid a last visit to the Casino Municipale. She disliked the thought of leaving Ginger without having uplifted him. Like so many alert and active-minded girls, she possessed in a great degree the quality of interesting herself in—or, as her brother Fillmore preferred to put it, messing about with—the private affairs of others. Ginger had impressed her as a man ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... come up to her, a pretty little white goat, alert, wide-awake, glossy, with gilded horns, gilded hoofs, and gilded collar, which he had not hitherto perceived, and which had remained lying curled up on one corner of the carpet watching his ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... the others are on the alert, and not wasting their time in thinking about me; and that, if this troop make along the river, they will ride to warn the queen in time. Hearing nothing, she will assume that the road is clear, and that she can go ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... or fourth time, moved cautiously towards the window. His expression suddenly changed. He glanced downwards, frowning slightly. An alert light flashed ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... instantly alive, and Woods was wakened. A faint click went away on the night breeze, and a moment later three jets of flame carried warning to the up-creeping foe that the whites were both alive and on the alert. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... backwards as if in reference to the two children, and then at Hake, after which he flung his club with such violence and precision at Karlsefin's head that the stout Norseman would certainly have measured his length on the sand, if he had not been very much on the alert. As it was, he received the missile on his shield, from which it glanced with a loud clang, and went ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... rose up in their course, and at length these became so numerous that they were completely bewildered among them. After a time they emerged again into a more open space, when Archy, whose quick eyes were ever on the alert, cried out that he saw three objects ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston

... It struck his alert wit that Agatha would trust his sister rather than himself, whom the Egyptian had several times abused as a criminal; and seeing the old woman of Polybius's household making her way up to Melissa, out of breath, indeed, and with disordered hair, he felt light dawn ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... getting lower and lower. The last three words would have been almost inaudible to ears less sensitively alert than were Alice Greggory's. For a moment after the words were uttered, only the clock's ticking broke the silence; then, with an obvious effort, the man roused himself, as if breaking away from some benumbing ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... readers in general, know nothing whatever. There is, for one, that fine, old, standard publication, Barrel and Box, devoted to the subjects and the interests of the coopering industry; there is, too, The Dried Fruit Packer and Western Canner, as alert a magazine as one could wish—in its kind; and from the home of classic American literature comes The New England Tradesman and Grocer. And so on. At the place alone where we went to press twenty-seven trade journals were printed ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... military idea underlying it. What will become of an army if the sentries go to sleep? And what chance will a Christian man have of doing his devoir against his enemy, unless he keeps himself awake, and keeps himself alert? Watchfulness, in the sense of always having eyes open for the possible rush down upon us of temptation and evil, is no small part of the discipline and the duty of the Christian life. One part of that watchfulness consists in exercising a very rigid and a very constant and comprehensive ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... to keep on the alert to take him. He came to the cabin last night. If he does to-night we can ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... a quarter of an hour before anything returned to the ventilator. But at last came the same metallic interference again; the fans stopped and the face reappeared. Graham had remained all this time in the same place, alert ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... hastily of sunken mines, of soldiers crouching behind the barriers, behind the houses at the next corner, of Mausers covering us from the latticed balconies overhead. Until at last, when the silence had become alert and menacing, a lonely man dashed into the middle of the street, hurled a white flag in front of us, and then dived headlong under the porch of a house. The next instant, as though at a signal, a hundred citizens, each with a white flag in both hands, ran from cover, waving ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... husband, and soon after supper came in, and I ate moderately, and we spent the remainder of the evening, for the clock had then tolled nine, very cheerfully; for my Quaker was so rejoiced at my good fortune, as she called it, that she was very alert, and exceeding good company; and her wit, and she had no small share of it, I thought was better played off than ever I ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... respect for the marvels of Arthurian romance. And his admiration is at least as frank as his contempt. What poet has felt and avowed a deeper reverence for the great Latins? What poet has been so alert to recognize the master-spirits of his own time and his father's? De Meung and Granson among the French—Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio of the Italians—each comes in for his share of praise from Chaucer, or of the princely borrowings which are still ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... vague rustle of movement. And presently another, this time closer. Every sense in him was alert, keyed up to closest attention. He knew that some one, for some sinister purpose, had come into this apartment and been trapped ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... Pullman car with expectant eyes. Judy Kean in a black velvet suit and a big picture hat headed the delegation. Only two passengers descended from the sleeper: a middle-aged, worn-looking woman in shabby black and a young man whose alert brown eyes took in at once the crowd of college girls and Judy, resplendent in velvet ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed

... I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy, and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... fashion, and she has at all events had a fairly warm place to sleep in. When she enters her situation, she finds herself placed in a bare chill garret; she has not a scrap of carpet on the floor, and very likely she is bitterly cold at nights. She is expected to be astir and alert from six in the morning until ten or later at night; she is required to show almost preternatural activity and intelligence, and she is not supposed to have any of the ordinary human being's desire for recreation ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, till it entirely ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... mercantile attack on England were to have even a chance of success. With Austria he had employed all the diplomatic arts of Talleyrand and Andreossy to no avail: the Polish campaign had made Francis alert, that of Russia was reviving the bellicose spirit of the Austrian army. Negotiation with Frederick William had failed because based on the concept of a new Prussia eastward of the Elbe, a menace alike to Russia and Austria, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... hands in his pockets, but a very alert gleam in his usually vacuous face, stood in the windowed doorway. From behind him, two exceedingly formidable-looking men slipped into the room. There was no fight, not even a struggle. Seaman, who had never recovered from the shock of his surprise, and was now completely unnerved, was ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... men hastened to the rock—the ladder was lowered, and all was on the alert for embarkation—Lady Barclay and Lilly flew into his arms, while Wilhelmina hung on Ramsay; but they allowed but a short time for endearment—time was too precious. The luggage had all been prepared and the chests of specie were lowered, the bundles thrown down, and, in a quarter of ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... darkness were therefore the season of peril for the king. It is said that he used to pass them in constant watchfulness, prowling round his huts fully armed, peering into the blackest shadows, or himself standing silent and alert, like a sentinel on duty, in some dark corner. When at last his rival appeared, the fight would take place in grim silence, broken only by the clash of spears and shields, for it was a point of honour with the king not to call ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... crime. The first resource of the superannuated or discharged police detective is to start an agency. Of course, he may be first class in spite of these disqualifications, but the presumption in the first instance is that he is no longer alert or effective, and in the second that in one way or another he is not honest. Agencies recruited from deposed and other ex-policemen usually have all the faults of the police without any of their virtues. There ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... upon again, after the illustrations of it which have been incidentally furnished in these pages. More especially with regard to the manners and ways of women, which often, while seeming so natural to women themselves, appear so odd to male observers, Chaucer's eye was ever on the alert. But his works likewise contain passages displaying a penetrating insight into the minds of men, as well as a keen eye for their manners, together with a power of generalising, which, when kept within due bonds, lies at the root of the wise knowledge of humankind so admirable to us in our ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward



Words linked to "Alert" :   energetic, qui vive, strip alert, fire alarm, alertness, alarum, cognizant, spanking, vigilant, signaling, burglar alarm, warning signal, unalert, rattling, alerting, red flag, warning, air alert, readiness, sleepless, awake, alarm bell, snappy, preparedness, Emergency Alert System, lidless, wakeful, warn, lively, signal, zippy, wary, fly, EAS, aware, wide-awake, wake, torpedo, alarm, watchful, seizure-alert dog, open-eyed, siren, foghorn, heads-up, red alert, argus-eyed



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com