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Battering-ram   Listen
noun
Battering-ram  n.  
1.
(Mil.) An engine used in ancient times to beat down the walls of besieged places. Note: It was a large beam, with a head of iron, which was sometimes made to resemble the head of a ram. It was suspended by ropes to a beam supported by posts, and so balanced as to swing backward and forward, and was impelled by men against the wall.
2.
A blacksmith's hammer, suspended, and worked horizontally.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Battering-ram" Quotes from Famous Books



... swashbuckler, who at once grappled with him and tried to throw him. But Mr. Burbery had not reckoned on the massive strength of his opponent, and when the "throw" was complete Mr. Burbery was underneath. Amid much excitement Mr. Burbery was propelled towards the door, being gently used on the way as a battering-ram against his friends who rushed to the rescue, and at the door was handed over to the police. The chairman then resumed his normal duties, with a brief "Go on" to me, and I promptly went on, finishing the lecture in peace. But outside the hall there was plenty of stone-throwing, and Mrs. ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... Providence, in a whale-boat, landed near Prescott's quarters at about midnight, secured the sentinels, entered the house, and ascended to the door of his bedroom in the second story. It was locked. A stout colored man who accompanied Barton, making a battering-ram of his head, burst open the door. The General, in affright, sprang from his bed, but was instantly seized, and without being allowed to dress himself, was conveyed to the boat, and taken quickly across the bay to Warwick. Thence he was sent, under guard, to Washington's ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... car," he told the men when he was safe inside. "Break the other end open." They took one of the rails they had removed from the track north of Big Shanty, and with it as a battering-ram knocked a hole in the forward end; then in the end of the second car. They passed the remaining ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop

... in the practice of resignation, he made many a breach in the poor cure's defences; and it was in these discussions, as he often told me in his last years, that he acquired his knowledge of philosophy. In order to make a stand against the battering-ram of natural logic, the worthy Jansenist was obliged to invoke the testimony of all the Fathers of the Church, and to oppose these, often even to corroborate them, with the teaching of all the sages and scholars of antiquity. Then Patience, his round eyes starting ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... responding, with a blow of the shoulder that was as violent as a blow from a battering-ram, he dashed open the door. Then the horror-stricken accent of the man who had been peering through the shutters was explained. The room presented such a spectacle that all the agents, and even Gevrol himself, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... table, the landlord's wife and daughter crouched in terror of their lives. The gas, turned full on, blazed high enough to blacken the ceiling, and showed the heavy bolts shot at the top and bottom of the solid door. Nothing less than a battering-ram could have burst that door in from the outer side; an hour's work with the file would have failed to break a passage through the bars over the window. "How did she get there?" the sergeant asked. "Run downstairs, and bolted herself in, while ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... with extraordinary unction. After a while Barnes asked a Roman to describe the battle of Cannae. Whereupon the Romans hurled their copies of Wayland's Moral Science at the enemy. Then the Carthaginians made a battering-ram out of a bench and jammed it among the Romans, who retaliated with a volley of books, slates and chewed paper-balls. Barnes concluded that the battle of Cannae had been sufficiently illustrated, and he tried to stop it; but the warriors considered it too good a thing ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... butt end of the mizen-mast was striking like a battering-ram against the side of the ship, with every chance of speedily making a hole in it. The main-yard, too, had fallen across the deck, still held by lifts and braces from going overboard, more dangerous ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... battering-ram here," cried he; "a close prisoner do they indeed keep my uncle when even the inner doors are bolted ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... on each side. This time, instead of flying, the thief was observed to move his body in a springy way to meet them; with two motions rapid as light and almost contemporaneous, he caught Hodges between the eyes with his fist and drove his head like a battering-ram into Fry's belly. Smack! ooff! and the two powerful men ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... after animals which they resemble in some way. A "ram" is an instrument, generally of wood, used to drive things into place by pressure. In olden days war-ships used to have a "battering-ram," or projecting beak, at their prow, with which to "ram" other vessels. The Romans called such a beak an aries, which is the Latin for "ram," a male sheep. This was probably from the habit of rams butting an enemy with their ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... thickness, could scarcely be touched by their knives and spears, nor might their united strength serve even to stir the stone bolts and bars that held them fast, and they had nothing that could be used as a battering-ram. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... relations. But on our conducting the lady downstairs, her story received the most startling and even exasperating confirmation; for the organ-grinder, an enormous man with a small head and manifestly a fellow-lunatic, had pushed his barrel organ in at the office doors like a battering-ram, and was boisterously demanding his alleged fiancee. When I myself came on the scene he was flinging his great, ape-like arms about and reciting a poem to her. But we were used to lunatics coming and reciting poems in our office, and we ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... blast of the storm that rocked the cabin like the butt of a battering-ram, and in that same moment there came from just outside the window a shrieking cry such as Philip had never heard in all his life before. And following the cry there rose above the tumult of the storm the howling ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... barred the gate on the inside, and hastily erected a barricade under an arch leading to the apartments of the abbe. Just as these preparations were complete, Esprit Seguier caught sight of a heavy beam of wood lying in a ditch; this was raised by a dozen men and used as a battering-ram to force in the gate, which soon showed a breach. Thus encouraged, the workers, cheered by the chants of their comrades, soon got the gate off the hinges, and thus the outside court was taken. The crowd then loudly demanded the release of the prisoners, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... my trousers-pocket, as if feeling for the price of a "liquor," and the man having involuntarily allowed me a little swing for this, I suddenly put up my shoulders, and ran at him as if my head were a battering-ram, and his moleskin waistcoat the wall of a beleaguered city, and then wrenching myself from his grasp, and dodging the leg he had put out to trip me, I fled ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... four months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great the science to reduce a place of such strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that it was carried to utmost perfection before the invention of gunpowder. We are only superior in the application of this great invention, especially in artillery. There can be no doubt ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... asked who was there. Boanerges answered, We are the captains and commanders of the great Shaddai, and of the blessed Emmanuel his Son, and we demand possession of your house for the use of our noble Prince. And with that the battering-ram gave the gate another shake; this made the old gentleman tremble the more, yet durst he not but open the gate. Then the King's forces marched in, namely, the three brave captains mentioned before. Now the Recorder's house was ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the people to Rome. The legions were next led thither to demolish the city. When they entered the gates, there was not indeed such a tumult or panic as usually prevails in captured cities, when, after the gates have been burst open, or the walls levelled by the battering-ram, or the citadel taken by assault, the shouts of the enemy and rush of armed men through the city throws everything into confusion with fire and sword: but gloomy silence and speechless sorrow so stupefied the minds of all, that, through fear, paying no heed ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... over and adapted it for its present purpose. The cell door, which had been of stone in Mexican times, consisted now of a thick and solid slab of teak, strongly bound with iron, and stout enough to resist the attack of a battering-ram. ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... suddenly a little stern. Stone walls had to be broken down. That was the use of being strong. One was not frightened; one just got a battering-ram, and forced a passage through. He would tell her soon, but not out here. Not ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... the triumphant confidence in God and assurance of His help in all the past, so that, like some strong tower after the most crashing blows of the battering-ram, he still 'stands.' 'His steps had wellnigh slipped,' when foe after foe stormed against him, but 'Thy mercy, O Lord, held ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... had Proposed to translate the Koran, or build a new Saint Paul's, there would have been many chances of success; for, once moved, her will, like a battering-ram, would knock down the obstacles her wits could not surmount. John believed in her most heartily, and showed it, as he answered, looking ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... gentle Jane, "I am Proud to meet a battering-ram." Then, with shyness overcome, Gentle Jane was just ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... said Stump, lifting his cap awkwardly. He went at the noisy mob like a battering-ram. "Sheer off, you black-an'- tan mongrels!" he roared at them. "Go an' ax some one to play on you with a hose-pipe. Jow, you soors! D'ye think the lady likes ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... up to his feet again the savage old bull jumped for him and drove the brow antlers into his flanks. The next moment both bulls had crashed away into the woods, one swinging off in giant strides through the crackling underbrush for his life, the other close behind, charging like a battering-ram into his enemy's rear, grunting like a huge wild boar in his rage and exultation. So the chase vanished over the ridge into the valley beyond; and silence stole back, like a Chinese ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... answered on the moment. The official whom his Worship called Nandy Daddo had made a rush into the crowd, charging it with his mace as with a battering-ram, and was in the act of clutching the man who had thrown the filth, when the phalanx of packet-men broke through and bore him down. A moment later I saw his gold-laced hat fly skimming over the heads of the throng, and his mace wrenched from him and held aloft in the hands of a ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... fair progress, when suddenly a savage snarl and a startling yell came out of the gloom in front, followed instantly by the most substantial part of Viushin's body, which struck me with the force of a battering-ram on the top of the head, and caused me, with the liveliest apprehensions of ambuscade and massacre, to back precipitately out. Viushin, with the awkward retrograde movements of a ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... her nature is so delicate that she is unfitted for exhausting toil. I ask, in the name of all past history, what toil on earth is more severe, exhausting, and tremendous than that toil of the needle to which for ages she has been subjected? The battering-ram, the sword, the carbine, the battle-axe have made no such havoc as the needle. I would that these living sepulchres in which women have for ages been buried might be opened, and that some resurrection trumpet might bring up these ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... with the force of a battering-ram, Percy shot over the brink. As he fell he described a partial somersault, landing on hands and knees half-way down the slope. His momentum carried him heels over head, and he rolled and tumbled the rest of the way, bringing up in a heap at ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... The thing was too absurd. Under cover of our animated talk the landlord must have bolted us in. The bars made the window no use. A skilled burglar might have beaten those bolts, and a battering-ram would, no doubt, have smashed the door; we had ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... further exchange of speech, the young hunter hurries back into the patio as rapidly as he had quitted it; and laying hold of a heavy beam, brings it like a battering-ram, against the ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... adaptation to artillery," he there said, "been discovered and perfected by an individual, and had its wonderful power been privately tested, indisputably proved, and reported to a Government, or to a council of military men, at the period when the battering-ram and cross-bow were chief implements in war, it is probable that the civilians would have treated the author as a wild visionary, and that the professional council, true to the esprit de corps, would have spurned the supposed insult to their superior understanding. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... forced an entrance, the governor of the city was endeavouring to take his departure. He was, however, arrested by the rovers. Meantime De la Marck and his men, lighting a huge fire at the northern gate, rigged a battering-ram, formed out of a ship's mast; and as the fire burned the wood of the gates, they commenced battering away with might and main. The gates quickly gave way; and, dashing the embers of the fire aside, the bold sailors, sword ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston

... observed) "Resurgam!" The ruins of old St. Paul's were stubborn. In trying to blow up the tower, a passer-by was killed, and Wren, with his usual ingenuity, resorted successfully to the old Roman battering-ram, which soon cleared a way. "I build for eternity," said Wren, with the true confidence of genius, as he searched for a firm foundation. Below the Norman, Saxon, and Roman graves he dug and probed till he could find the most reliable stratum. Below the loam was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... they'll give in soon. If they had any cartridges they would have had every man of us in that last rush. Let's try another dodge. Here goes for a battering-ram, Dick!' ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... locked up," explained Levi Bedford, when Artie gave a cry as he caught sight of the door. The heavy slabs of wood had been smashed in with a stout log used as a battering-ram, and a hasty search revealed the fact that the arms and ammunition, the overseer had mentioned, had ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic

... Billings, "except to me. Say, sir—that woman aft. Keep away from her. Take it from me, sir, she's a bad un. Got a punch like a battering-ram. Did you ever get the big end of a handspike jammed into your face by a big man, sir? Well, that's the kind of a ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... I knew the strength of the heavy lock—I knew the thickness of the nailed oak—I knew the hopelessness of assailing the one and the other by ordinary means. But surely there were beams still left in the dismantled cottages near the church? What if we got one, and used it as a battering-ram against the door? ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... of the poem reminds us, are those which reduced the Abbey of Quedlinburgh to submission, the Templar with his cross, the Austrian and Prussian grenadiers in full uniform, and Curtius and Dentatus with their battering-ram. We ought not to pass unnoticed the slain war- horse, who ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... said Gos. "We could not injure them, indeed, any more than we could the boy, but they did not seem to have any unusual strength, although the goat's head is harder than a battering-ram." ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... encouraging the youngster, Finn would lower himself to the ground, head well out, and, covering his eyes and muzzle with his two fore legs, would allow Jan to plunge like a little battering-ram upon the top of his head, furiously digging into the wolfhound's wiry coat in futile pursuit of flesh-hold for his teeth, and still exhausting fifty per cent. of his energies in ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... knew what she was about when she declared herself protectress of the Huguenots! She has a battering-ram in the Reformation, and she knows how to use it," said the duke, who fathomed the deep designs of the Queen of Navarre, one of the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... very improbable that Lupin would use an automobile like a battering-ram to demolish your castle. Come, Monsieur le Baron, return to your post. I am going ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... as he was, after his long inward struggle, few bore so calmly as he did the distracting news from the front in the closing days of June and the opening days of July, when Lee was driving his whole strength like a superhuman battering-ram, straight at the heart of the wavering McClellan. A visitor at the White House, in the midst of the terrible strain of the Seven Days, found Lincoln "thin and haggard, but cheerful . . . quite as placid as usual ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... motor-car. Then he stopped and looked funny. All at once he caught sight of my topee, which had fallen off and rolled away a bit, and up went his nose again, and when he reached it down went his head and into it like a battering-ram; and didn't he make the clods fly as he spiked his horns into it. The trees were not very high, and had smooth stems so far up, and then a lot of branches. If we could get up there ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... was an end of his triumph. He felt himself clutched by the collar, and whizzed backwards with the force of a battering-ram against the fireplace. Springrove, wild, red, and breathless, had sprung in at the open window, and stood once more between man ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... was grasped, those who had guns slightly raising the muzzles, while Smith took out his jack-knife to open it with his teeth, and Wriggs, to use his own words—afterwards spoken—"stood by" with the ladder, meaning to use it as a battering-ram to drive it at any ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... and was shaking the Partitions as window-panes rattle in a sudden gust. The nor'wester came howling over the dark tree-tops, fell upon the clearing about the little wooden buildings—house, stable, barn—in' squalls and-wicked whirlwinds that sought to lift the roof and smote the walls like a battering-ram, before sweeping onward to the forest in a baffled fury. The house trembled from base to chimneytop, and swayed on its foundation in such a fashion that the inmates, feeling the onslaught, hearing the roar and shriek ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... Seal is minded to use thy cousin for a battering-ram.' She was hardly minded to listen to him, and he uttered stealthily, as if he were sure of moving her: 'Thy cousin shall breach a way to the ears of the King—for thy ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... shall Abimelech and his army take this temple of Berith and the men who are there fortified? Will they do it with sword? Nay. Will they do it with spear? Nay. With battering-ram, rolled up by hundred-armed strength, crashing against the walls? Nay. Abimelech marches his men to a wood in Zalmon. With his ax he hews off a limb of a tree, and puts that limb upon his own shoulder, and then he says to his men, "You do the same." They are obedient ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... downward. Bound as he was, the victim could see below him a brick wall right across the path of his descent. He was helpless to move; it was useless to cry out. For all that, as he felt in imagination the crushing shock of his head driven like a battering-ram against this wall, he uttered a roar such as from Achilles might have roused armed nations to battle. And even as he did so, his head touched the wall, there was a crash, and Stevens lay safe on a mattress after ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... fire peeps up and crackles as it should. Now why not first slide off our backs these weary loads of wood And dip a vine-branch in the brazier till it glows, then straight Hurl it at the battering-ram against the stubborn gate? If they refuse to draw the bolts in immediate compliance, We'll set fire to the wood, and smoke will strangle ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes

... shrubs growing in the Signine channel, which will before long become big trees scarcely to be hewn down with an axe and which interfere with the purity of the water in the Aqueduct of Ravenna. Vegetation is the peaceable overturner of buildings, the battering-ram which brings them to the ground, though the trumpets never sound for siege. Now we shall have Baths again that we may look upon with pleasure; water which will cleanse not stain[1]; water after using which we shall not require to wash ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... he ran to a neighbouring pile of timber, and, with the aid of some others, returned bearing a battering-ram, which would soon have dashed in the door, if it had not been opened by Bacri himself, who had returned just in time to attempt to save his ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... thing to roll along in a carriage. Step into this noddy. That creature in the corner is evidently in a state of such nervous excitement that his body is as immovable as if he had breakfasted on the kitchen poker; every jolt of the vehicle must give him a shake like a battering-ram; do you call this coming in to give yourself a rest? Poor man, your ribs will ache for this for a month to come! But the other gentleman opposite: see how flexible he has rendered his body. Every time my venerable friend on the coach-box extends his twig with a few yards of twine at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various

... endure. This is what we understand by effeminacy, because a thing is said to be "soft" if it readily yields to the touch. Now a thing is not declared to be soft through yielding to a heavy blow, for walls yield to the battering-ram. Wherefore a man is not said to be effeminate if he yields to heavy blows. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that "it is no wonder, if a person is overcome by strong and overwhelming pleasures ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... placing himself before the great spikes with which the gate was protected against the assault of the beast, ordered the mahout to charge; and so a crushed and mangled corpse was forced into the city on the brow of the living battering-ram, in whose wake the ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... the finale came. Crack he went against the wall, rebounded off, and went at it again, and then again. They were no mock blows, but serious, heavy raps, as from a small battering-ram. But yet both Bertram and Wilkinson were able to observe that he did not strike the wall, as he would naturally have done had there been no precaution. Had he struck it with his head in motion, as was intended to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... burghers, seize upon their spouses, Burn down their houses! Is such a breach of faith to be endured? See what a lurid Light from the insolent invader's torches Shines on your porches! E'en now, with thundering battering-ram and hammer And hideous clamor; With axemen, swordsmen, pikemen, billmen, bowmen, The conquering foemen, O Sophy! beat your gate about your ears, Alas! and here's A humble company of pious men, Like muttons in a pen, Whose souls shall quickly ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the details together in summary fashion, and piles them on one another without enlarging on any. The effect produced is like that of a succession of breakers beating on some lonely rock, or of blows struck by a battering-ram on ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... July, in the minds of some persons purely political, would prove to be a moral revolution. The social class to which she belonged, not being able, during its unhoped-for triumph in the fifteen years of the Restoration to reconstruct itself, was about to go to pieces, bit by bit, under the battering-ram of the bourgeoisie. She heard the famous words of Monsieur Laine: 'Kings are departing!' This conviction, I believe was not without its influence on her conduct. She took an intellectual part in the new doctrines, which ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... to dig you out,' I said, for I was nearly beside myself with joy, as I struck the crowbar like a battering-ram into the wall. You can fancy, John, that I didn't work the worse that Kate was holding ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... wonder at this occurrence changed to consternation when it was seen that the glacier acted like a battering-ram of stupendous size, buckling the river ice in front of it as if ice were made of paper. That seven-foot armor was crushed, broken into a thousand fragments, which threatened to choke the stream. A half-mile below the bridge site the Salmon was pinched as if between two jaws; its smooth surface was ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... with better reason, do I return the wish," replied the Sub-Prior; "it is such an arm as thine that should defend the bulwarks of the Church, and it is now directing the battering-ram against them, and rendering practicable the breach through which all that is greedy, and all that is base, and all that is mutable and hot-headed in this innovating age, already hope to advance to destruction and to spoil. But since such is our ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... conquests might be ours, Had we but nobler instruments." He showed Quivering with eagerness, his first rude plan For that great quadrant,—not the wooden toy Of old Scultetus, but a kingly weapon, Huge as a Roman battering-ram, and fine In its divisions as any goldsmith's work. "It could be built," said Tycho, "but the cost Would buy a dozen culverin for your wars." Then Hainzel, fired by Tycho's burning brain, Answered, "We'll make it We've a war to wage ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... the walls of a fortress with such force as in a short time to batter them down, no matter how strong and thick they may be. But in those days gunpowder was not in use, and the principal means of breaking down a wall was by the battering-ram, which consisted of a heavy beam of wood, hung by a rope or chain from a massive frame, and then swung against the gate or wall which it was intended to break through. In the engraving you see such a ram suspended from the frame, with men at work ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... they got up to the house, but they pressed on, and, at the first blow given by the battering-ram driven by the men, the door split from top ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... the door of a large building; it was bolted and barred. "The pirates are inside here, my lads, there can be no doubt of it," shouted Mr Thorn. They soon found a spar, a brig's topmast. The heel made a capital battering-ram, and with a cheery "Yeo, ho, ho!" the seamen gave many a heavy blow against the oaken door. It cracked and cracked and groaned, and at length, with a loud bang, burst open. "Stand by, my lads, to cut down ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... of the man struck only the empty air, for Nick sidestepped in a manner that would have made Jim Corbett, in his palmiest days, green with envy; and the battering-ram flew past ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... person, use her pet phrase as a red lantern to stop better, if more halting, talk. "Mr. Black was telling me to-day about Mr. White's being appointed to —— what do you call that office?" implored the dignified matron. "Just call it anything, Mrs. Gray, a bandersnatch, or a buttonhook, or a battering-ram," impertinently suggested the glib undergraduate who had been applying these words to everybody and everything, and who continued to do so until she had found a new catchword as the main substance of her conversation. The infirmities ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... splintering wood. The door sturdy as it was would not stand much more. As a matter of fact the mob had procured a stout wooden beam from somewhere, twelve or fourteen feet long and were making it serve as a battering-ram. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... of the shovel gang!" somebody said. "It was Hemlock Jim who shot him. Where's the man with the axe to chop one of these pillars for a battering-ram? ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... from the faraway hills beyond Superior, limestone fragments from some near-by hill, and scrap of earlier burning. These, one by one, are seized by a great arm of iron, thrust out from a huge moving structure that looks like a battering-ram and is operated by a young man about whom the lightnings play as he moves; and, one by one, they are cast into the furnaces that are heated to a temperature of a thousand degrees or more. There the red earth is freed of its "devils," as the great ironmaster ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... ponderous strangers along the encumbered deck. Their stupidity or their resolution was so great, that they never went aside for any impediment. One ceased his movements altogether just before the mid-watch. At sunrise I found him butted like a battering-ram against the immovable foot of the foremast, and still striving, tooth and nail, to force the impossible passage. That these tortoises are the victims of a penal, or malignant, or perhaps a downright ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... Large cakes and masses of ice came floating down the current, which, though not very violent, hurried along at a much swifter pace than the ordinary one of our sluggish river-god. These ice-masses, when they struck the barrier of ice above mentioned, acted upon it like a battering-ram, and were themselves forced high out of the water, or sometimes carried beneath the main sheet of ice. At last, down the stream came an immense mass of ice, and, striking the barrier about at its centre, it gave way, and the whole was swept onward together, leaving the river entirely free, with ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... on, With earthquake of salutation the impossible thing is gone; Gaul, charioted and charging, great Gaul upon a gun, Tiptoe on all her thousand years, and trumpeting to the sun, As day returns, as death returns, swung backward for a span, Back on the barbarous reign returns the battering-ram of Man. ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... pursuance of this plan, Bart, who was short and light of weight, was mounted astride the brawny shoulders of Dunning, while Piper, with his burly frame, was placed in front, with a stiff cudgel in hand, to act as the battering-ram or entering wedge to the crowd of tories, who had closed up the way with their bodies, obviously to prevent Bart, or any other whig, indeed, from again entering till the ballot-box was turned. Eight or ten stout, resolute young men were then selected and formed in column to bring up the rear, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... cut down a tree which they used as a battering-ram against the gate; but the stern bars were yet unbroken. It was now pitch-dark. A thunderstorm had suddenly gathered, and the report of the distant bolt came upon the ear, mingling with the still more appalling clash of the ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... it may mean grass. Heroner is a long-winged hawk for the heron. The Hyppe is the berye of the sweet bryer or eglantine. Nowell meaneth more than Christmas. Porpherye is a peculiar marble, not marble in common. Sendale, a sylke stuffe. The trepegett is not the battering-ram, but an engine to cast stones. Wiuer or Wyvern, a serpent like unto a dragon. Autenticke meaneth a thing of auctoritye, not of antiquitye. Abandone is not liberty though Hollyband sayeth so. Of the Vernacle. Master Thynne would read Campaneus for Capaneus, and giveth reasons. Liketh ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne

... contest his landing, and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it was long past Lock-out Time. This, with much brandishing of their holly-leaves, and also a company of them carried an arrow which some boy had left in the Gardens, and this they were prepared to use as a battering-ram. ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... dashed with a bull-like roar. The wind drove us straight upon this bar. A moment of deadly peril and it had us fast, holding us for the waves to beat our life out. The boat listed, then rested, quivering through all its length. The waves pounded against its side, each watery battering-ram dissolving in foam and spray but to give place to another, and yet it held together, and yet we lived. How long it would hold we could not tell; we only knew it could not be for long. The inclination of the boat was not so great but that, with caution, we might move about. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... if entirely satisfied with his lot. He was still watching the brougham when a surface-car came gliding swiftly around a curve. There was a smash of splintering wood and breaking glass. The car had struck the brougham a battering-ram blow, crushing a rear wheel and snapping the ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... living burden. Perched in every available nook and corner were women and children of all ages, and weapons and live stock of all varieties. Now, a child—lively, mischievous, inquisitive—peered forth over the head of a battering-ram. Now, a lean, hungry sheep advanced his inquiring nostrils sadly to the open air, and displayed by the movement the head of a withered old woman pillowed on his woolly flanks. Here, appeared a young girl struggling, half entombed in shields. There, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... isle at five in the morning. He accordingly gave serious instructions to the "boots" of his hotel to rap him up at 4.30 A.M., and to show him no mercy. At six o'clock, the tourist was awakened by a noise like that of a battering-ram at his door, and a stentorian voice sternly enquiring: "Are you the gentleman that's going with the early boat?" "Yes, yes, I am," said the tourist, leaping to his feet. "Well, she's away," said the boots. (This is a story that ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... this suggestion the fist of the Samaritan shot out like a battering-ram and sent Anthony crashing down against the stone steps of the apartment-house, where he lay without movement, while the tall buildings rocked to and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... weeping queen, wrapped his mantle round his left arm as if it were a shield, and prepared to sell his life dearly. By this time the knights outside had got a bench from the hall, and using it as a battering-ram, were dashing it against the ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... room. She enters as from a catapult. She is handicapped by having long hair, which can be used as a convenient handle. Evidently aware of this natural disadvantage, she clutches it herself tightly in one hand, and punches with the other. He opens the door again, and cleverly uses her as a battering-ram against the wall of those without. You can hear the dull crash as her head enters among them, and scatters them. When the victory is complete, he comes back and resumes his seat on the bed. There is no bitterness about him; he has forgotten ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... about him. "His course was marked by a white foam a rod in width which he made with the continual thrashing of this tail." His huge head, boneless but almost as solid and as hard as the inside of a horse's hoof, most admirably designed for a battering-ram, was almost half out of the water. The mate made one desperate attempt to get out of his way. Again the helm was put up and the men ran to the braces, but the water-laden ship, already well down by the head, and more sluggish than ever, had ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... adorned with brass figures in relief, would have resisted a battering-ram. On the side of the steps leading to it lay Sphinxes of dark-green diorite. Everything connected with this building, dedicated to death, was grave and massive, suggesting by its indestructibility the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... towards his waist. Landless felt the motion and intercepted it. Then the figure, with an angry guttural sound, began to put forth its full strength. The arms encircled Landless with a slowly tightening iron band; the great dark shoulder came forward with the force of a battering-ram; the limbs twined like boa-constrictors around the limbs of the other. Locked together, the two reeled into a little fairy glade, where the short grass, pearled with dew, lay open to the moon. Here, borne backwards by the overwhelming ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... and the rattle of clamps and clogs, as of the striking off of fetters and handcuffs, an asthmatic jingle of a bell somewhere in the body of the boat, a slight slush of revolving paddle-wheels, and the great brute, as steady as a spirit-level and as powerful as a battering-ram, separates itself from the dock like the opening blade of a penknife. You recall the good old days when there were no cruelly-humane gates, and when this stage of the proceeding was marked by a wild leap of belated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... The boy's mother is one of his ideals. He believes her to be the best woman alive, and it were a sorry fact if he did not. Hence, when her good qualities are assailed his spirit explodes and commands his right arm to become a battering-ram. The kindness of the mother has caused the boy's spirit to react a thousand times, and his reaction in defending her name from calumny was but another evidence of ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... trees was cut down some years ago by a party of men, who, I think, should have been sent to prison for the deed. It took five men twenty-five days to cut it through with augers and saws, and then they were obliged to use a great wedge and a battering-ram to ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... ten-foot-thick ice, from a few yards to twenty acres square, were jolting and ducking and surging into one another, and into the yet unbroken floe, as the heavy swell took and shook and spouted between them. This battering-ram ice was, so to speak, the first army that the sea was flinging against the floe. The incessant crash and jar of these cakes almost drowned the ripping sound of sheets of pack-ice driven bodily under the floe as cards are hastily pushed under a tablecloth. ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... ordered all hands to make ready to lower the one boat we had left, and to desert the ship. We had a hard time to get this boat loose from the spanker-stay, and we lowered it with the spanker-tackle. Just while we were doing that, a tremendous wave swept the poop, with a battering-ram of logs that had returned. Luckily, the boat we were lowering escaped being smashed, or we had all ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... think this is vanity or fickleness so much as a pugnacious disposition, that must have an antagonistic power to contend with, and only finds itself at ease in systematic opposition. If it were not for this, the high towers and rotten places of the world would fall before the battering-ram of his hard-headed reasoning; but if he once found them tottering, he would apply his strength to prop them up, and disappoint the expectations of his followers. He cannot agree to anything established, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... engines against the Crusaders in the castle, and so battered it that castle and watch-tower were broken, beams and lead and stone. At Holy Easter the battering-ram was made ready, long, iron-headed, sharp, which so struck and cut that the wall was injured, and the stones began to fall out. But the besieged were not discouraged; they made a loop of cords attached ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... cast-off toggery so that it looked as good as if it had been just picked from the bargain counter. Then I waited for things to turn up. The brigands opened the ball as soon as it was dark. They'd rigged up a battering-ram and allowed they meant to smash in our front ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... he was in the arena. MacDonald was fighting three men in a space over which the spruce-tops grew thinly. The moon shone upon them as they swayed in a struggling mass, and as Aldous sprang to the combat one of the three reeled backward and fell as if struck by a battering-ram. In that same moment MacDonald went down, and Aldous struck a terrific blow with the butt of his heavy Savage. He missed, and the momentum of his blow carried him over MacDonald. He tripped and fell. By the time ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... no time to dodge or fend this onslaught, but only to brace himself. The cow's horns, unfortunately, were short and wide-spreading. She caught him full in the chest, with the force of a battering-ram, and would have hurled him backwards but that his mighty claws and forearms, at the same instant, secured a deadly clutch upon her shoulders. She bore him backward against the trunk indeed, but there he recovered himself; ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... was not in its architecture or lands, but in that part which could not be seen by the bodily eyes. For, spiritually speaking, Oneida Institute was an immense battering-ram, behind which Gerrit Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, and Rev. Beriah Green were constantly at work, pounding away to destroy the walls which slavery had built up to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... nodded assent, placed his shoulders resolutely against the massive timbers, and stood propping a defence that would have made a respectable resistance to a battering-ram, like another Atlas, upholding a world. His duty was short, however, his 'lady' soon returning with Maud, who was hastening breathlessly to ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... riddled simply for slapping his wife.... Obviously, the shack must be occupied without the shedding of blood. But what of his safety? "I'll jus' have t' chance it," he said, and hunted for something to use as a battering-ram. ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... stood helpless. Then, locating the door end of the vehicle, he drew back and massed all his muscle for a supreme effort. Shoulders first Andy posed, and then threw himself forward, battering-ram fashion. He felt he must act and that quickly, or else the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... of Jerusalem, ripe for the judgments of heaven, he heaps one upon another the black crimes of which she is guilty (22:6-12). The repetitions so remarkably characteristic of his style are those of energy, not of weakness. They are the repetitions of a battering-ram that gives blow upon blow till the wall crumbles before it. The same may be said of his amplifications, as in chaps. 1, 16, 23, 27, etc. He had a remarkable adaptation to his office; and his influence must have been very great in bringing about ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... longer, and this was more than ever impossible after Grant took command. Then Greek met Greek, and the death grapple began. At the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, and most mercilessly of all at Cold Harbor, Grant drove his colossal battering-ram against Lee's gray wall, only to find ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... and there we left the two together while we returned for Rayburn. And as we lifted the stretcher our hearts bounded, for at that instant there was a tremendous crash at the grating; whereby we knew that those without had brought to bear against it some sort of a battering-ram that they might beat ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... they had to exercise great vigilance to escape some enormous iceberg sailing down from the north with incredible swiftness, a frightful mass, which could have crushed the "Alaska" like a walnut. But a greater danger still was the submarine ice, which could injure her and act like a battering-ram. ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... that shook the very ceiling. The Brother, too, when he was in these gay humours, would devise all kinds of pranks. He would try to smash plates with his nose, and would offer to wager that he could break through the dining-room door in battering-ram fashion. He would also empty the snuff out of his box into the old servant's coffee, or would thrust a handful of pebbles down her neck. The merest trifle would give rise to these noisy outbursts of gaiety in the very midst of his wonted surliness. Some little ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... spears, Strong hopes derided, mocked at fancied fears. The Citadel's defence was all in vain, They vowed; a year should end the brief campaign; Yet year to year succeeded slow, and still The garrison held out. Strategic skill And not impetuous onset nought availed; The battering-ram and scaling-ladder failed. Brief breaches scarcely made were swift repaired, United still all deadly arms they dared, Those linked defenders who, aforetime foes, Their lately-banded ranks could firmly close Against old friends, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various

... fly over the huge city, whose distant rumbling rose up to him, similar to the roar of the sea.... Oh, he would succeed, he knew he would! And he felt within himself an increasing will of so tenacious a character that he could have swung it, so it seemed to him, like a battering-ram against the obstacle to ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... before any one had a second's warning to grasp the truth or prepare, with head down, eyes burning in the down-dropped, shaggy head, and upcurved horn-points gleaming in the afternoon sun, he charged, hurling himself, a living, reckless, furious battering-ram, straight at the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... militia to fire, and one of the peasants fell dead. Infuriated, they seized the trunk of a tree, and using it as a battering-ram, at once broke in the door. They next proceeded to force the entrance to the dungeon, in which they succeeded, and called upon the prisoners to come forth. But some of them were so crippled by the tortures to which they had been subjected, that they could not stand. At sight ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... breaks directly through the coast range at right angles, like a battering-ram. Immense glaciers were on either side. One tremendous river of ice came down on our right, presenting a face wall apparently hundreds of feet in height and some miles in width. I should have enjoyed exploring this glacier, which is said to be one ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... yell went up from the saloon, and a dozen men rushed out, firing as they came. Six others carried a heavy beam, evidently torn from the interior of the Idle Hour. It was their intention to use this as a battering-ram to smash in the door ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... and it is this mingling of feelings with which we all can sympathize that makes him, in spite of all his crimes, a human being like ourselves. But in Richard there is no human complexity. His is the fearful simplicity of the lightning, the battering-ram, the earthquake, forces whose achievements are terrible and whose inner existence a blank. Richard hammers his bloody way through life like the legendary Iron Man with his flail, awe-inspiring as a destructive agency, not ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... a respectable solicitor named Bond, who happened to be passing, and him they nearly killed. He was removed in an insensible and very dangerous condition to the George Hotel. Meanwhile, an attack was made with iron bars, used battering-ram fashion, upon the doors of many of the shops, the rioters "prodding" them with all their might. Messrs. Bourne's shop, at the corner of Moor Street, was the first to give way, and the men quickly gained admittance. A large number of loaves of sugar were piled near the windows, and these were passed ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... the stable-door he found it locked, and in the crowd and confusion the horse-keeper could not be found. There was not a moment to lose, for the roof was already on fire, so a fir pole was fetched, and used battering-ram fashion, so that the big door by a few strokes was sent off its hinges. Mr Inglis then rushed in and found the place full of smoke, and the poor horses trembling with fear. There were eight in the stable, and to cut their halters was but the work of a minute. Some of ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... trunk of a young tree, and were endeavouring to break in the door with it. The captain and the other gentlemen shot down several who were thus engaged, but still they persevered; and, as some fell, fresh assailants rushing up, seized the battering-ram, and continued the work. The door was stout, but we saw that it was giving way. It began to crack in every direction. Pieces of furniture and sand-bags were piled up against it, but with little avail. Each blow shattered a part ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... battering-ram of this," cried Higson; "here, Gordon, you and Tim lay hold of it on one side, and I'll take the other, and we'll soon knock ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... said, insulted the singer. The cry rose wild and high, "A ramming! a ramming!" The little fellow was seized and thrown down; and five men—one holding his head, and one stationed at each arm and leg—proceeded to execute on his body the stern behests of barrack-law. He was poised like an ancient battering-ram, and driven endlong against the wall of the kiln,—that important part of his person coming in violent contact with the masonry, "where," according to Butler, "a kick hurts honour" very much. After the third blow, however, he was released, and the interrupted song went on as before. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... frog with the sword, or spit you upon the rapier. I will cleave you with the axe, transfix you with the arrow, or blow you to the pit with the devil's sulphur. I will fight any of you or all of you with any weapons from a battering-ram to a toothpick—and God assist the better man. And there you have Laurence ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... pry the sweet ones up which he liked to eat. In a little while he had broken many of the big roots. Then he stood up, backed away from the tree, and rushed at it to strike it with his big head which was like a battering-ram. ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis

... half lurched to his knees, thrusting forward the muzzle of his rifle. Ainsley clutched at the revolver in his holster, but before he could free it another shell crashed, the German jerked forward as if struck by a battering-ram between the shoulders, lay with white fingers clawing and clutching at the muddy grass. A momentary darkness fell, and Ainsley just had a glimpse of a knot of struggling figures, of the knot's falling apart with a clash of steel, ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... Heppner was entitled to a little something as a memorial of the plot that failed. So, dodging the bull-like rush of McGurvin, he jumped at Heppner, and his doubled fist shot out like a battering-ram. ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish

... Street is the fine gateway of the once rich and powerful St. Augustine's Abbey; and near it, not many years ago, was a fine example of Saxon work, known as Ethelbert's Tower, which some of the intelligent busybodies of the time had removed with a battering-ram. ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... run at right angles and support the landing, so that the opening is so massive and firm that, unless pointed out, the particular floor-board could never be detected, and when secured from the inside would defy a battering-ram. ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea

... grated windows of the jail. Behind the iron bars, and tugging frantically at them, and screaming for help, stood the tramp; he seemed like a black object set against a sun, so white and intense was the light at his back. That marshal could not be found, and he had the only key. A battering-ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder of its blows upon the door had so encouraging a sound that the spectators broke into wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle won. But it was not so. The timbers were too strong; they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... for my cottage door: such a bar as might give check to an army, or resist a battering-ram; a bar that shall defy all the night-prowlers that ever prowled; a stout, solid bar, broad as my wrist, and thick as my two fingers; that, looking upon it as it lies in its sockets across the door, Charmian henceforth may ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... across a dyke afore, Maister John, and there ye go." Claverhouse, jumping on Grimond, who made a back for him, went over the Dutchman's shoulders. Then he seized the Dutchman by his arm, while Grimond acted as a battering-ram behind: so they pulled what remained of him, like a cork out of the mouth of a bottle, and Grimond followed his master. Collier, who had been covering the retreat, left his horse to its fate, and ran ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... efforts to which men could be goaded by "coaching". It was abhorrent—yet also it was fascinating, the spell of it got hold of him. He saw what these men were doing; they were learning to act in masses, to act with paralyzing and terrific force. Whatever it was they did, they did with the smash of a battering-ram. You saw the fire in their eyes, the grim, set look on their faces; you knew that they were not going to war with any ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... Thus, would I attack a city, I do it modo et forma: first, I set up my mantelets for my archers, and under cover of their swift shooting I set me up my mangonels, my trebuchets and balistae: then, pushing me up, assault the walls with cat, battering-ram and sap, and having made me a breach, would forthwith take me the place by ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... with upraised swords, standards and trumpets flung to the breeze, formed in columns by divisions, descended, by a simultaneous movement and like one man, with the precision of a brazen battering-ram which is effecting a breach, the hill of La Belle Alliance, plunged into the terrible depths in which so many men had already fallen, disappeared there in the smoke, then emerging from that shadow, reappeared on the other ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... see. Take Prescott. He's never crocked a man seriously in his life. I don't count being winded. That's absolutely an accident. Well, there you are, then. Prescott weighs thirteen-ten, and he's all muscle, and he goes like a battering-ram. You'll own that. He goes as hard as he jolly well knows how, and yet the worst he has ever done is to lay a man out for a couple of minutes while he gets his wind back. Well, compare him with this Bargee man. The Bargee ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... determined to do it; so that every one may pursue his own path, let no one be bringing any of his business in this street; for my fist is a balista, my arm is my catapulta, my shoulder a battering-ram; then against whomsoever I dart my knee, I shall bring him to the ground. I'll make all persons to be picking up their teeth [1], ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... my eyes with my hands and peered through the chinks of my fingers. Ranged directly in our path was a barricade of the cubes and upon them we were racing like a flying battering-ram. Involuntarily I closed my eyes against the annihilating impact ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... between the gate posts, grazing them, and barely escaping an upset, and then came plunging toward me. I screamed to the boys, who seemed to me directly in the path of the Thing, which in another moment I recognized as an automobile of the battering-ram variety, belonging to Harvey Somers, Gwendolen Burton's fiance, which for the past week had been the terror of father's steady old gray horses, owing to ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... who was there? Boanerges answered, 'We are the captains and commanders of the great Shaddai and of the blessed Emmanuel, his Son, and we demand possession of your house for the use of our noble Prince.' And with that the battering-ram gave the gate another shake. This made the old gentleman tremble the more, yet durst he not but open the gate: then the King's forces marched in, namely, the three brave captains mentioned before. Now, the ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... not to be so soon. The iron bars, which my father had engineered so that they sank deep into the wall on either side, still held nobly, and I heard the loud voice crying again for a battering-ram. The soldiers of the attacking party went scurrying across the yard, and presently returned, carrying between them a young tree cleared of its branches, but with the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... and dizzy," Arthur said, as he stood leaning on Adam's arm; "that blow of yours must have come against me like a battering-ram. I don't believe ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... what I've come to see the colonel about. I intend to get all the regiment together and use it as a battering-ram." ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... nerve-racking blows rained on the grille; puffing servants applied it as a lever, as a battering-ram, as a club. The house rang like ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers

... the stairs and my object was to carry her down to the lower story. The stairs were narrow, and by keeping up a good watch, I contrived to force him to give ground, using his spouse as a sort of battering-RAM—not to perpetrate a pun at the expense of the genders—which, I happened to know, had always been successful in making him give ground on all previous occasions. His habitual deference for the dame, assisted me in my ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... wooden chariots, the bellowings of the buffaloes, the cries of the camels, the neighing of the horses, the howlings of the Tartars rendered it impossible, says the annalist, to hear your own voice in the town. The Tartars assailed the Polish Gate and knocked down the walls with a battering-ram. The Kievians, supported by the brave Dmitri, a Galician boyar, defended the fallen ramparts till the end of the day, then retreated to the Church of the Dime, which they surrounded by a palisade. The last defenders ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... their peril, the nearness of the Enemy, strung Bennett's nerves taut as harp-strings. His will hardened to the flinty hardness of the ice itself. His strength of mind and of body seemed suddenly to quadruple itself. His determination was that of the battering-ram, blind, deaf, resistless. The ugly set of his face became all the more ugly, the contorted eyes flashing, the great jaw all but simian. He appeared physically larger. It was no longer a man; it was a giant, an ogre, a colossal ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... Humbug for whom I have least use is the man who assiduously damns the Rum Demon; makes tearful temperance talks; ostentatiously votes the prohibition ticket; groans like a sick calf hit by a battering-ram whenever he sees a young man come out of a barroom; then sneaks up a dirty alley, crawls thro' the side door of a second-class saloon; calls for the cheapest whiskey in the shop, runs the glass ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... not," said Gos. "We could not injure them, indeed, any more than we could the boy, but they did not seem to have any unusual strength, although the goat's head is harder than a battering-ram." ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum

... Yankee's clutches. He did not have to wait long. Two men had gone to get the horses, and as Dan stepped through the yard-gate with his captors, two figures rose out of the ground. One came with head bent like a battering-ram. He heard Snowball's head strike a stomach on one side of him, and with an astonished groan the man went down. He saw the man on his other side drop from some crashing blow, and he saw Chad trying to ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... greeted must have made the poor thing nervous, I suppose, or else it may have had an attack of stage fright; anyhow, it curled itself up in a corner and refused to budge. A sharpened pencil, which magnified on the screen looked like a battering-ram, was brought into play, and the unfortunate creature had to rouse itself. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will notice that it is quite impossible for the spider to ascend the quartz fibre—it may try, but it is bound to fail—but see how it will ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss



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