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Impregnable   Listen
adjective
Impregnable  adj.  (Biol.) Capable of being impregnated, as the egg of an animal, or the ovule of a plant.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Impregnable" Quotes from Famous Books



... Joseph was in the nature of a strong fort. Its walls were of stone and cement, fourteen feet high and loopholed. At each corner there was a protecting bastion, and the entire structure was surrounded by a deep moat. It was practically impregnable against Indian attack, for it could not be undermined, set on fire, or taken by assault. A handful of men could hold it ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... be stated, was a pile of rocks about one hundred feet in diameter, with half that height. On one side a narrow path led upward at an angle of forty-five degrees, and, as it permitted only one to pass at a time, the place, with a few defenders, was impregnable against almost any force. This path upward was filled with loose, rattling stones, which sometimes made one's foothold treacherous, and it also made several curious turns, so that, after ascending a rod or so, one was shut out ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... the long years that they were fighting intermittently for their lives and property with the lawless bands of so-called English, who had turned so many rocks into fastnesses, and who issued from their fortified caverns, that they made almost impregnable, to prey upon the unfortunate people who strove to live by husbandry. These hardened ruffians and freebooters had no respect for treaties, and inasmuch as peace never lasted long, and the English kings of that epoch always liked to feel that they were ready for anything ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... nearly in the centre of the island, in the heart of the elevated plateau described in the preceding chapter, and surrounded by lofty mountains, the passes of which admit of being easily defended, with a bold insulated rock for the base of its almost impregnable fortress, the houses of the town clustering round it, and, beneath, a valley of exuberant fertility, watered by two rivers, having their confluence just above, it seems formed to be the capital of an island-kingdom, of a nation of mountaineers. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... last year was, of course, the successful breach on June 6, 1944, of the German "impregnable" seawall of Europe and the victorious sweep of the Allied forces through France and Belgium and Luxembourg—almost to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... his reason, but finding that impregnable, he pulled out his scanty purse to guarantee his sincerity with an offer of pledgemoney. The waggoner waved it aside. He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Raleigh is the flag-ship; I saw also some other vessels of the Royal Navy at anchor in the bay. The fortifications which are now in progress for the protection of this important point in our chain of defences will, when completed, render the place practically impregnable from sea attack. ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young

... letter about "Gladstone, Gore, and Co." turned out to be prophetic as well as retrospective. Mr. Gladstone published this autumn in "Good Words" his "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture," containing an attack upon Huxley's position as taken up in their previous controversy ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... the King got there first and intrenched himself so strongly that there was no ousting him. Wallenstein followed suit and for eleven weeks the enemies eyed one another from their "lagers," neither willing to risk an attack. In the end Gustav Adolf tried, but even his Finns could not take the impregnable heights the enemy held. At last he went away with colors flying and bands playing, right under the enemy's walls, in the hope of tempting him ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... Zbabblo were expected. Their delay caused us not a little discomfort, because, though we had taken the four English ships, we knew that Sir Byam Martin's iron-cased squadron, with the "Warrior," the "Impregnable," the "Sanconiathon," and the "Berosus," were cruising in the neighborhood, and might prove too much ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... passed along the eastern border of the campus and glanced up at St. George's Hall, it no longer appeared the impregnable fortress of privilege he had once thought it. Yet, in reality, the towers of the college had never looked more formidable. Rising magnificently at the crest of a bleak expanse of snow, the embrasured battlements, silhouetted against the sunset sky, might well have suggested to a beholder ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... of each day's march Anderssen saw to the erection of a comfortable shelter for Jane and the child. Her tent was always pitched in the most favourable location. The thorn boma round it was the strongest and most impregnable ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... of the war, we could have rendered this position impregnable in one night, but at this time we did not do it, and it may be it is well we did not. From about the 1st of April we were conscious that the rebel cavalry in our front was getting bolder and more saucy; and on Friday, the 4th of April, it dashed down and carried off ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... the Fourth Division of the Sixteenth Corps had gained the Gap. The enemy appeared the next morning. This opened the way through Snake Creek Gap, planting us in the rear of Johnston's Army, and forcing him to abandon his impregnable position at Dalton. ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge

... memories; they avoided Rasgrad, Schumla, and the Black Sea fortresses; Sophia, Philippopolis, and Adrianople made no resistance. The earthworks of Plevna, vicious as they were in many characteristics, they found impregnable. I think Suvaroff would have carried them; I am sure Skobeleff would if he ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... Divine Revelation, his volume is an absolute blank. Bampton Lecturers and distinguished apologetic writers have frankly admitted that the Christian argument must be reconstructed. They have felt the positions, formerly considered to be impregnable, crumbling away under their feet, but nothing could more forcibly expose the feebleness of the apologetic case than this volume of Dr Lightfoot's Essays. The substantial correctness of the main conclusions of Supernatural Religion is ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels

... by the Marechal de la Meilleraie, began to batter a breach, but slowly, because the artillerymen felt that they had been directed to attack two impregnable points; and because, with their experience, and above all with the common sense and quick perception of French soldiers, any one of them could at once have indicated the point against which the attack should have been ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... to rush over her like a flood, and sent her flying along the street to her one haven. As she ran she had felt a touching faith in the security of her room, if she could reach it. Out there, in the open street, it had seemed impregnable, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... towards atheism (by toleration) Peace seemed only a process for arriving at war Peace founded on the only secure basis, equality of strength Peace was unattainable, war was impossible, truce was inevitable Philip of Macedon, who considered no city impregnable Prisoners were immediately hanged Privileged to beg, because ashamed to work Proclaiming the virginity of the Virgin's mother Readiness at any moment to defend dearly won liberties Religious persecution ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Queen of Heaven glorified by the nine Choirs of Angels, the Mother of Predilection, the Treasure of the Lord. All the vivid imagery of her cult unrolled itself before him comparing to her an earthly paradise of virgin soil, with beds of flowering virtues, green meadows of hope, impregnable towers of strength, and smiling dwellings of confidence. Again she was a fountain sealed by the Holy Ghost, a shrine and dwelling-place of the Holy Trinity, the Throne of God, the City of God, the Altar of God, the Temple of God, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... occasional assaults which, being made with less spirit than the earlier ones, were easily repulsed. The blockade was not more successful. Haco had provided ample stores for the small garrison which he had considered sufficient to protect the promontory of Lihou, naturally almost impregnable; and the force defending the Vale, camped chiefly on Lancresse Common, was only nominally blockaded. The sallies, made from time to time, were ordered more with a view of keeping up the martial spirit of the men than with ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... assaulted with success. These were when the position had been but recently occupied and the fortifications were very slight. After several days' occupation, as at the points attacked by Thomas and McPherson, the lines became impregnable. Frequent efforts were made, and by none more earnestly than by General Sherman, to press the troops to a vigorous assault of the enemy's position under the favorable circumstances above referred to. But the general feeling of the army, including not only privates, but officers of nearly all grades, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... the reasoning of Mayor Morse is perfectly sound, and that the position taken by him is absolutely impregnable. The prevention of the publication of suicides in the newspapers of a State would require a special legislative act, but it would probably do more to lessen the suicidal tendency than any other single measure that could be taken. In the winter of 1902, Representative Jenkins introduced in the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... be wrecked by a single ill-considered treaty, dated from St James's or the Court of France. He thought that the islands should be seized as a general rendezvous for folk of that way of life. With a little trouble the harbour could be made impregnable. The land was good, and suited for the growing of maize or tobacco—the two products most in demand among them. The islands were near the Main, being only thirty-five leagues from the Chagres River, the stream from which the golden harvest floated from the cities of the south. They were close to ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... hundred years ago it was bombarded by the British fleet and taken. It was then supposed to be impregnable. It lies at the head of a loch some fifteen miles long, and in some parts but a few hundred yards wide, in a trough between mountains. From Cattaro, at the head of the loch, a zig-zag road leads up the mountain side over the ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell

... containing within its walls an immense cistern as a water supply, besides armories, storehouses, foundry, and every appliance of a large citadel. A considerable portion of the far-reaching walls is still extant. Under good generalship, and properly manned, the place must have been nearly impregnable to attack with such arms as were in use at the period. For a long time after the expulsion of the Moors, the Castilian monarchs made it their royal residence, and revelled within its splendid walls; but they finally deserted it. The place was next infested by a lawless community of smugglers ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... wild with rage, but the door was shut and the great castle was dark and impregnable. Then the icy teeth of the blast bit into him, and he turned and went away ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... and his friends. The exile till then had only thought of pleasure, of wine, women, and song, the "sweet meat which cost him the sour sauce ye have heard," on the approach of danger, had fled on board the ships he had prepared to "certain impregnable isles in the ocean," and if these impregnable islands may be identified with Zipangu or Japan, the conquerors pursued him even here. There is nothing more interesting in Polo's book than his story of the Mongol failure in the Eastern islands, fifteen hundred miles from ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... Sharduris was unable to protect his frontier or hamper the progress of the advancing army, which penetrated to his capital. Dhuspas was soon captured, but Sharduris took refuge in his rocky citadel which he and his predecessors had laboured to render impregnable. There he was able to defy the might of Assyria, for the fortress could be approached on the western side alone by a narrow path between high walls and towers, so that only a small force could find room to ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... his strongest and most experienced soldiers. This was the narrowest part of the formation, and Olaf knew that if he could but break through the wall of shields at this point the whole mass of men, now so compact and impregnable, would ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... provinces upon the south and east coast, which had been under Carthaginian and now acknowledged Roman dominion. Beyond these the Keltiberian tribes in the center formed a sort of confederation, and consented to certain alliances with the Romans; while beyond them, intrenched in their own impregnable mountain fastnesses, were brave, warlike, independent tribes, which had never known anything but freedom, whose names even, Rome had not yet heard. The stern virtue and nobility of Scipio proved a delusive promise. Rome had not an easy task, and other and brutal methods were ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele

... questions, and following the bomb—which acted as a great stone cast in the water—these ripple-rings of thought were still widening and emanating until they took in such supposedly remote and impregnable quarters as editorial offices, banks and financial institutions generally, and the haunts of political dignitaries and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... decided to make its stand at a spot called by the Indians Tohopeka, by the whites Horseshoe Bend, on the Tallapoosa. Here a thousand warriors, with many women and children, took refuge behind breastworks which they believed impregnable, and here, in late March, Jackson attacked with a force of three thousand men. No quarter was asked and none given, on either side, and the battle quickly became a butchery. Driven by fire from a thicket of dry brush in which they took refuge, the Creek warriors ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... reasons that have been given, the safest, though not the most effective, disposition of an inferior "fleet in being" is to lock it up in an impregnable port or ports, imposing upon the enemy the intense and continuous strain of watchfulness against escape. This it was that Torrington, the author of the phrase, proposed for the time to do. Thus it was that Napoleon, to some extent before Trafalgar, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... proof of the vast solidity of the masonry. Each tower is about 200 feet high, and the walls which enclose them are double, and enormously thick, being constructed of immense blocks of stone; but since the invention of gunpowder they are no longer considered impregnable. This edifice, after being first used as a barrack for the janissaries, was converted into a prison, in which, contrary to the law of nations and every principle of justice, the minister of any power against whom the Sultan happened to declare war, ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... an overjoyed gasp found herself in her mother's arms. She pressed closer while the three laughed, and when the other two ceased she still mirthfully clung in that impregnable sanctuary. Suddenly she hearkened, tossed her curls, and stood very straight. Two male voices were ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... regarding the site as impregnable and therefore highly desirable, resolved to raise a castle upon the lofty eminence, But the more he considered the plan the more numerous appeared the difficulties in the way ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... interest or an enemy is entrenched in a position rendered impregnable against an expected mode of attack, there is but one remedy, to shift the ground and follow lines against which no preparation has been made. Fortunately for us, the special interests, with a blindness which naturally follows from their wholly commercialized point ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot

... came our fellows, with the Gordons, were ordered to occupy the surrounding heights. All night long, and well on into the day, we held them until we learned that the enemy had decided not to attack us. Had they done so they would have paid bitterly for their rashness, for the place is practically impregnable. A thousand resolute and skilful men, who knew how to use both rifle and bayonet, could hold the place against 20,000 of the finest troops in the world, providing the defenders were not hopelessly crushed by ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... to enter in, a ready access for poor shipwrecked and broken men, who have no other refuge. This is our rock, on which the church is builded, Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. x. 4.; Matt. xvi. 18. Were God inaccessible in himself, an impregnable rock, how would sinners overcome him, and enter in to him to be saved from wrath? Nay but Jesus Christ hath made a plain way and path, out of the waves of sin and misery, into this rock higher than we; and so the poor soul that is lost in its own eyes, and sees no refuge, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... really had endangered the church with a mob and the organ with demolishment, was the cause of the first despatch. Colonel Von Gelhorn, who had routed General Edgar and driven him and his forces at the point of the bayonet from an "impregnable position," was in the secret ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... A despatch rider arrived from the Transvaal; the situation there urgently demanded the encouragement of Steyn's presence. To leave this impregnable stronghold and venture across the open plains below needed all the boldness of De Wet, all the steadfast courage of Steyn. These leaders had never been known to falter; they did not falter now. Everything was arranged in the utmost ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar

... Kafirs had been hunted by our troops into the most impregnable of their woody fortresses, and fairly brought to bay, that the chiefs sent messengers to solicit peace. It was granted. A treaty of peace was entered into, by which the Kafirs gave up all right to the country ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... and long before the German Revolution and the conclusion of the Peace, England was secure in the possession of that permanent organization of home defence which, humanly speaking, has made these shores positively impregnable, by converting Great Britain, the metropolis and centre of the Empire, into a nation in arms. There is no need for me to enlarge now upon the other benefits, the mental, moral, and physical advancement ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... hold their advanced position before Plevna, but to give material assistance elsewhere in turning the siege into an investment. On November 21 they captured Rahova, on the Danube, which greatly facilitated operations against the doomed fortress and aided to make the works of the allies impregnable. In the closing incidents of the investment of Plevna the Roumanians took little or no part in consequence of the position which they occupied. On the morning of December 10, Osman Pasha made his brave but unsuccessful attempt to break through ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... bookkeeping of Z. Snow and Company, he had seen, not the ruled page of the day book, but the parental countenance of the Honorable Fletcher Fosdick. And, to his mind's eye, that countenance was as rugged and stern as the rock-bound coast upon which the Pilgrims landed, and about as unyielding and impregnable as the door of the office safe. So, when his grandfather called him, he descended from the tall desk stool and crossed the threshold of the inner room, a trifle pale, a little shaky at the knees, but with the set chin and erect head of one who, facing almost hopeless odds, intends fighting ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... opinion that the French proposed to make their stand before this impregnable fortress, and fight there desperately for victory. But, finding less resistance than he expected, he concluded, on the 15th, that Bazaine, in fear of being cooped up within the fortress, meant to march towards Verdun, there to join his forces with those of MacMahon and give ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... men from this vantage could have rendered either street or barricade untenable, or as support to a barricade in the Place du Pantheon have made such a barricade impregnable to exposed troops. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... are my nobles who have at all times distinguished themselves by their valor and great bravery. Let us banish gloom, and let our hearts overflow with mirth! We may well congratulate ourselves on the perfect safety of Babylon. Our walls are impregnable and our possessions are abundant. We laugh to scorn the silly movements of the Persians that parade before the city. Dark predictions there are, I know, in regard to the future of Chaldea, but these Hebrew delusions have well-nigh ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones

... British successes had been in the vicinity of Vimy Ridge, which position, believed by the Germans to be impregnable, had been carried by Canadian troops in a single attack. German counter-assaults in this sector had failed to dislodge them, and there ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes

... only excepted which joins it to the city) a frightful and inaccessible precipice. The castle is situated on a high rock, and strongly fortified with a great number of towers, so that it is looked upon as impregnable. In the great church they have a set of bells, which are not rung out as in England, (for that way of ringing is not now known in this country,) but are played on by the hand with keys, like a harpsichord, the person playing having great leather covers for his fists, which enables him ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... escape the necessity of concerning itself with personality and particular circumstances in questions of truth and error, Intellectualism appeals to Logic, which it conceives as a purely formal science and its impregnable citadel. This appeal, however, rests on a number of questionable assumptions, and most ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray

... she said, 'you want a throne; this is a rude one, yet accept it. You require warriors, the Ansarey are invincible. My castle is not like those palaces of Antioch of which we have often talked, and which were worthy of you, but Gindarics is impregnable, and will serve you for your headquarters until you conquer that world which you are ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... the necessary military fortifications for the protection of the islands, but I can not too strongly emphasize the need of appropriations for these purposes of such an amount as will within the shortest possible time make those islands practically impregnable. It is useless to develop the industrial conditions of the islands and establish there bases of supply for our naval and merchant fleets unless we insure, as far as human ingenuity can, their safety ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... front the Italian commander, General Cadorna, launched a great offensive while the British were active in Flanders and by August 23 had broken through the whole Austrian line, capturing the town of Selo, which was the pivot of the Austrian defense, and considered impregnable, and inflicting upon the enemy, in this eleventh battle of the Isonzo, the greatest losses he had sustained since the capture of Goritz. More than 13,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners were captured during the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... the force under Lord Howe, cowed and demoralized, refuse to again advance into the jaws of death. The idea is gaining ground that the rebel position is impregnable, and that a wise policy demands that no more blood shall be shed in a vain endeavor to reduce it. The impetuous Sir Henry Clinton refuses to take this view of the situation, and his counsels are heeded. Every military resource at the command of General Gage is now brought into requisition. ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... Cherisy was impregnable. In view of the fact that the place has since been captured by the British it is felt that Sir DOUGLAS HAIG could not have read the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various

... could starve his people into submission, or lay waste the land in time of foreign invasion. I have seen in an impregnable position the traces of an ancient fort, evidently erected to defend the pass to the main water-course from ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... of the Seven Days' Battle around Richmond. Day after day he fell back through swamp and forest, battling with Lee's victorious troops. But there was no further disaster. Under the most adverse and dispiriting circumstances the Army of the Potomac fairly held their own until {15} they reached the impregnable position of Malvern Hill. There McClellan turned at bay and repulsed with heavy slaughter the disjointed attacks of the Army of Northern Virginia. He had withdrawn his army intact and had effected a change of base, unknown to the Confederate General Staff, from the York River to the ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... machine pure and simple which would make him the most complicated of mechanisms, a marvel of intricate parts, but would deprive him of his essence as self-conscious unique in the universe. Man, thinking man, at any rate, dreads to lose the cherished impregnable conviction that he is something apart, inherently, and therefore infinitely different from every other phenomenon in ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... indifference. The student of human nature can always discover some hobby, some accessible weakness and sensitive spot in their heart. Chaboisseau might have entrenched himself in antiquity as in an impregnable camp. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... made a desperate effort to throw off the yoke of the Trusts. They had failed and been made to feel the lash of their victors. Eight years have passed, during which the Trusts have become impregnable, ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... Gentleman; and Credit, which must be supported by every Tradesman. These Possessions in Fame are dearer than Life to these Characters of Men, or rather are the Life of those Characters. Glory, while the Hero pursues great and noble Enterprizes, is impregnable; and all the Assailants of his Renown do but shew their Pain and Impatience of its Brightness, without throwing the least Shade upon it. If the Foundation of an high Name be Virtue and Service, all that is offered against it is but Rumour, which is too short-liv'd ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... us lies an adventure unprecedented in modern war. Together with our comrades of the fleet we are about to force a landing upon an open beach in face of positions which have been vaunted by our enemies as impregnable. The landing will be made good, by the help of God and the Navy, the positions will be stormed, and the war brought one step nearer to a ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... not yet advanced a step with our Princess Natalie," said Stephano, shrugging his shoulders; "that, it seems, is an impregnable fortress!" ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... Drake's strength was coming out from Spain to attack him in the rear. Nor was this all, for Baskerville and his soldiers, who had landed at Nombre de Dios and started overland, were in full retreat along the road from Panama, having found an impregnable Spanish position on the way. It was a sad beginning for 1596, the centennial year of England's ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... credited with power as a leader, and it was certainly little less than marvellous that he could maintain his leadership after his business failure in Ohio, and the utter break-down of his revealed promises concerning a Zion in Missouri. The explanation of this success is to be found in the logically impregnable position of his character as a prophet, so long as the church itself retained its organization, and in the kind of people who were gathered into his fold. If it was not true that HE received the golden plates from an angel; if it was not true that HE translated them ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... one mile off the shore of Vera Cruz, stands the grim old fortress of San Juan d'Ulloa, a most conspicuous object with its blackened and crumbling walls. It has often been declared to be impregnable, and yet, curious to say, it has never been attacked by a foe without being compelled to surrender. Here Cortez landed on Mexican soil, April 21, 1519. He disembarked on a Friday, a day which the Romish church has set apart for the adoration of the cross; he therefore called the ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... observer. Although we counter-attacked vigorously, taking 142 prisoners, the enemy held the summit. General Van Kuderzen, in a report dated July 3, said that after a careful inspection of the German works and trenches he finally believed that the hill had been transformed into an impregnable fortress, and that its capture ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... beholding her delight, threw himself in an ecstasy on the mound and clasped it in his arms. I can hardly doubt that he regarded it as representing his own grave, to which in his happier moods he certainly looked forward as a place of final and impregnable refuge. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... ourselves could not discover, has been proved by our enemies not to be impassable to men, and it would be disgraceful for us after having begun so well to leave our enterprise incomplete, and to give up the place as impregnable after the enemy themselves have shown us how it may be taken. Where it is easy for one man to climb, it cannot be hard for many to climb one by one, as their numbers will give them confidence and mutual ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... were outside the castle, of course. It was against etiquette to bring them inside, especially when the Duke was present. But there were plenty of them. Possibly he should fight his way out of here now. Once in his hilltop castle, he would be impregnable. And his raiding parties could keep the barony in supplies. Or possibly it ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole

... fought out. After all, foreign powers had no connection with the States, and knew only the Union with which and with which alone they made treaties, and the reality of sovereignty in each province was as ridiculous as in theory it was impregnable. But Barneveld, under the modest title of Advocate of one province, had been in reality president and prime minister of the whole commonwealth. He had himself been the union and the sovereignty. It was not wonderful that so imperious a nature objected to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the firm did not have an impregnable fortune to throw into the breach, even though it carried on such a far-reaching business and although its transactions were enormous. And who had even heard of such a crazily hazardous speculation as Tidemand's fatal plunge in rye! Everybody could see that now, and everybody pitied or ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun

... after nightfall. The next movement was a turning one, taking the position of Theriso on the flank, by Lakus, a strong position, but at which no defenses had been prepared. The insurgents moved their depot and hospital across the valley to Zurba, a village high on the mountain-side and impregnable to direct attack, but which Mustapha proceeded to bombard with mountain guns for two days. I could hear every gun-fire, Zurba being only nine miles in a direct line from my house, and I counted fifteen shots a minute during a part of ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... was said on all sides that Nidderdale was doing very well for himself. The absolute money was not perhaps so great as had been at first asked; but then, at that time, Melmotte was not the strong rock, the impregnable tower of commerce, the very navel of the commercial enterprise of the world,—as all men now regarded him. Nidderdale's father, and Nidderdale himself, were, in the present condition of things, content with a very much less stringent bargain than that which ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... wanted. Our Captain said twelve good ones were all he wanted; these were immediately furnished him and we started. On our way down we built breastworks of cordwood along the bulwarks of the boat. These were impregnable to rifle bullets. When within six miles of Fort Erie two volunteers were called for to go ashore without arms and proceed cautiously down the lake and gather what information they could. All offered, but young Murdy and Edie were the chosen ones, ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... she left him than it was when he opened his office door to her. She now knew, said Pratt, with what a strong and resourceful man she had to deal: she would respect him, and have a better idea of him, now that she was aware of his impregnable position. ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... morning I noticed British flags waving beside French flags on several balconies and shops. England's declaration of war against Germany arouses tremendous enthusiasm. The heroic defense made by the Belgians against three German army corps advancing on the almost impregnable fortress of Lige—a second Port Arthur—is a magnificent encouragement for the French. At some of the houses in Paris one now sees occasionally assembled the flags of France, Russia, Great ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... hundred and fifty in width. Surrounded by a stockade fence twelve feet high, with a yard wide walk running around the inside, and with bastions at each corner large enough to contain six defenders, the fort presented an almost impregnable defense. The blockhouse was two stories in height, the second story projecting out several feet over the first. The thick white oak walls bristled with portholes. Besides the blockhouse, there were a number of cabins located within the stockade. Wells had been sunk inside the inclosure, so ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... "The place is impregnable—sheer cliffs upon all sides—the causeway two hundred meters long. I could pick them off one by one from the top of the keep. With the drawbridge up, we are as safe as though we were ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... Impregnable I held myself, secure Against intrusion. Who can measure Man? How should I guess his mortal will outran Defeat so far that danger could allure For its own sake? — that he would all endure, All sacrifice, all suffer, rather than Forego the ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... a lofty rock is so strongly grounded, bounded, and founded, that by force of man it can never be confounded; the foundation and walls are unpenetrable, the rampiers impregnable, the bulwarks invincible, no way but one it is or can be possible to be made passable. In a word, I have seen many straits and fortresses, in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and England, but they must all give place to this unconquered Castle, both for ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor

... confess, Sir, that in one respect some impression has been made on my opinions lately. Mr. Madison's publication has put the power in a very strong light. He has placed it, I must acknowledge, upon grounds of construction and argument which seem impregnable. But even if the power were doubtful, on the face of the Constitution itself, it had been assumed and asserted in the first revenue law ever passed under that same Constitution and on this ground, as a matter ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... a vault-like door, leading to the subterranean steel chambers where Herzog eventually counted on storing some hundreds of thousands of tons of liquid oxygen—the reserve-chambers, impregnable to lightning, fire, frost or storm, to man's attacks or nature's—the chambers blasted from the living rock, deep as the Falls themselves, vacuum-lined, wondrous achievement of the highest engineering skill ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... impregnable or so vulgar, but a summer's grass will attempt it. It will try to persuade the yellow brick, to win the purple slate, to reconcile stucco. Outside the authority of the suburbs it has put a luminous touch everywhere. The thatch of cottages has ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell

... threw himself against the ancient door. But here he stopped. The mighty bars upon the other side were proof even against such muscles as his. It needed but a moment's effort to convince him of the futility of endeavoring to force that impregnable barrier. There was but one other way, and that led back through the long tunnels to the bowlder a mile beyond the city's walls, and then back across the open as he had come to the ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... one of the most famous and interesting episodes in Irish history. The castle was deemed almost impregnable from its situation; and every argument was used with Sir George Carew to induce him to desist from attacking it. It ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... the gate, as we said, was impregnable, unless with stronger implements, they had sent to a smith's forge in the neighborhood, from whence they obtained two or three sledge-hammers. By the aid of these they soon shivered the gate to pieces, and, having ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... young noblemen of the first families of Rome, to vie with one another in their addresses, who should gain her in marriage.[3] Agnes answered them all, that she had consecrated her virginity to a heavenly spouse, who could not be beheld by mortal eyes. Her suitors finding her resolution impregnable to all their arts and importunities, accused her to the governor as a Christian; not doubting but threats and torments would overcome her tender mind, on which allurements could make no impression. The judge at first employed the mildest expressions and most inviting promises; to which Agnes ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... before taking a final vote on its adoption their proceedings were suddenly brought to a stand by the alarming news, loudly proclaimed by a herald, who appeared on his foam-covered horse before their open door, that Ticonderoga, the supposed impregnable barrier of frontier defence, had fallen, and our scattered troops were flying in every direction before a formidable British army, that was sweeping, unopposed, along the western border of the state, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... of the Big Rock had its good points and its defects. Impregnable to assault, two men could hold it against ten thousand. Also, it guarded the passage to open sea. The two schooners, Raoul Van Asveld, and his cutthroat following were bottled up. Grief, with the ton of dynamite, which he had removed higher up the ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London

... his grave, for the improvisation called into play every pipe on the whole instrument. However, I could see that this constant pelting at the hands of an unkind fate through the medium of his most cherished possession was having its effect upon Carson's hitherto impregnable philosophy. When he spoke of the organ it was with a tone of suppressed irritation which boded ill, and finally I was not surprised to hear that he had offered to give the ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... together with some caves underneath it, known by the name of the Paradise of Thieves. It is my principal stronghold on these hills; for (as you have doubtless noticed) the eyrie is invisible both from the road above and from the valley below. It is something better than impregnable; it is unnoticeable. Here I mostly live, and here I shall certainly die, if the gendarmes ever track me here. I am not the kind of criminal that 'reserves his defence,' but the better kind that reserves his ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... Jimmy's campaign broke down. He was at a loss to know what to do next. He ebbed away from the Duke's front door like an army that has made an unsuccessful frontal attack on an impregnable fortress. He could hardly force his way in and ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... so obscured the top of Lookout all day as to hide whatever was going on from the view of those below, settled down and made it so dark where Hooker was as to stop operations for the time. At four o'clock Hooker reported his position as impregnable. By a little after five direct communication was established, and a brigade of troops was sent from Chattanooga to reinforce him. These troops had to cross Chattanooga Creek and met with some opposition, but soon overcame it, and by night the commander, General Carlin, reported to Hooker and was ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Ambrose E. Burnside, who had won some successes early in the war, but who had protested his unfitness for a great command, and who was soon to prove it. He led the army after Lee, found him entrenched on the heights back of Fredericksburg, and hurled division after division against an impregnable position, until twelve thousand men lay dead and wounded on the field. Burnside, half-crazed with anguish at his fatal mistake, offered his resignation, which was at ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... so much truth in what L'Isle said, that Cranfield was obliged to yield up his impregnable fortress as a very fine thing in itself, but ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... and so kept still. But to-day such a warm well-spring of joy rises in my heart when I think that to-morrow the house will be bright again, and that in place of the empty wall opposite me at table I shall see your kindly and forbearing face, I know that the heart I had thought impregnable has begun to yield, and that daily gentleness, and a boundless consideration from one who had excuse for bitter thoughts and recrimination, are doing what all of us thought impossible a ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... inorganic matter. Some such silicate construction was to be found in the sponge, of Earth. Could this be a gigantic relative of that lowly creature? He did not know, and couldn't guess. He wasn't a zoologist. All he knew was that the thing appeared to be formed of living, impregnable stone. He knew, also, that this fabulous creature ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst

... all the sentiment or law against this one fruit of the tree, if the tree itself is left to stand. The tree—the prolific cause of so many and so great evils in Utah, the greatest curse of the territory, the strength of Mormonism, and its impregnable wall of defence against Christianity and civilization, is that arbitrary, despotic, and absolute hierarchy known ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... some miles above its mouth. The waters were high so that the bottoms were generally overflowed, leaving only narrow causeways of dry land between points of debarkation and the high bluffs. These were fortified and defended at all points. The rebel position was impregnable against any force that could be brought against its front. Sherman could not use one-fourth of his force. His efforts to capture the city, or the high ground north of it, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... "If our number is small," he said, "our hearts are great," and so he assailed the third city and place of arms which Spain then possessed in the West Indies. The entrance of the harbour was protected by two strong castles, judged as "almost impregnable," while Morgan had no artillery of any avail against fortresses. Morgan had the luck to capture a Spanish soldier, whom he compelled to parley with the garrison of the castle. This he stormed and blew ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... powers, Dr. Manning is in ecstasies. The "very exalted person" becomes "a righteous judge, a learned judge, a Daniel come to judgment—yea, a Daniel." These shouts of joy ought to be enough to show men where the real danger lies. Our present position is impregnable. But if we abandon it for the new one proposed to us by the Rationalist party, how shall we be able to stand? How could a national religious Establishment which should seek to rest its foundations—not on God's Word; on the ancient Creeds; ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... city were defended in the same way. Antwerp could never have been taken by assault, but with modern artillery it would have been quite easy to destroy it over the heads of its defenders. The Germans have probably by now rendered it impregnable, for though in modern war it is impossible to defend one's own cities, the same does not apply to the enemy. In future, forts will presumably be placed at points of strategic importance only, and as far as ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... make acquaintance with a young lady in Paradise Row. But now, when he came to look at it, he found that Marion Fay was environed with fortifications and a chevaux-de-frise of difficulties which were apparently impregnable. He could not call at No. 17, and simply ask for Miss Fay. To do so he must be a proficient in that impudence, the lack of which created so many difficulties for him. He thought of finding out the Quaker chapel in the City, and there sitting out the whole proceeding,—unless ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... seized it before; for the great castle Marisco, built upon the extreme verge of the cliffs, commanding the bay and the landing-place, and overlooking in a wide sweep all the southern coast of the island, was already built in the eleventh century. From this impregnable fortress, with its massive walls nine feet in thickness, its squat, strong Norman turrets, its encircling fosse, and the perpendicular cliffs by which its seaward wall was made unscalable, Sir Jordan de Marisco used to sally with his retainers, making war on all alike, levying toll—blackmail, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... of trundling a wheel-barrow. Mr. Evelyn probably alludes to this in the following passage, wherein he asks, "Is there, under the heavens, a more glorious and refreshing object, of the kind, than an impregnable hedge, of about four hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five in diameter, which I can still show in my ruined garden at Saye's Court (thanks to the Tzar of Muscovy), at any time of the year, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various

... the American Consul we obtained a special permit to visit the fortifications, particularly of that portion which forms the lofty and impregnable citadel. It is difficult to decide in this most remarkable fortress whether nature or art has done the most to render it what it seems absolutely to be, impregnable,—the strongest citadel in the world. The improvements in modern gunnery have lately caused important additions ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... my most interesting excursions, however, was that to Fantaua and the Diadem. The former is a spot which the Indians considered impregnable; but where, nevertheless, they were well beaten by the French during the last war. Monsieur Bruat, the governor, was kind enough to lend me his horses, and to allow me the escort of a non- commissioned officer, who could point out to me each position of ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... high in influence and station, civil and military, are renouncing their allegiance to the flag they have sworn to support, it is an inexpressible source of consolation and pride to us to know that the general in chief of the army remains like an impregnable fortress at the post of duty and glory, and that he will continue to the last to uphold that flag, and defend it, if necessary, with his sword, even if his native ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... fortress. The vast pile, reared of stone, was situated thirty-six miles from Moscow, and was encompassed with deep ditches, and massive ramparts bristling with cannon. The monks were in possession of the whole country for a space of twelve miles around this almost impregnable citadel. From this safe retreat Sophia opened communications with the rebel chief. She succeeded in alluring him to come half way to meet her in conference. A powerful band of soldiers, placed in ambush, seized him. He was immediately beheaded, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... entered the inclosure made by the Major, they were surprised at the state of defence in which he had put it. His hedge of thorns upon rocks piled up was impregnable, and the waggons were in the centre, drawn up in a square; the entrance would only admit one person at a time, and was protected by ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... was soon after removed, under an escort of dragoons, to the fortress of Nantes. From this place he almost miraculously escaped to his own territory of Retz, where he was regarded as sovereign, and where he was surrounded by retainers who, in impregnable castles, would fight to the death for their lord. These scenes took place early in the summer ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... gross to sense that the Creator has never held direct communication with the creature, and you have but stripped religion of its tattered vestments—have not laid the weight of your hand upon the impregnable citadel, the universal Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. You have never yet talked to the real question. You reject religion because Moses and Mahomet, Luther and Calvin entertained crude ideas of the plans and attributes ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... Energy returned. The energy of breeding fever merely, yet to him it appeared that of refreshment, of renewed and abounding health. He was conscious, too, of a will outside himself, acting upon his will—a will self-secure, impregnable, working with triumphant daring towards a single end. It certainly was unmaimed—in its present manifestation in any case. It told, and with assurance, of completion, of attainment. Yielding himself ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... the river with no less than three hundred men, with directions to construct houses and fortifications. The settlers, working with new life and vigor in the more wholesome air of the upper James, soon rendered the place almost impregnable to attack from the Indians. They cut a ditch across the narrow neck of the peninsula, and fortified it with high palisades. To prevent a sudden raid by the savages in canoes from the other shore, five strong block houses were built at ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... couldn't have lived in the tumult long and kept my wits; but we heard of an employe who, when some tooth or nail in the enormous monster smote him, could not bear to stop away long enough to complete his cure, because he was unable to bear the "awful stillness" of the hospital. Persons of impregnable nerve-power let us deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, showing us the dragon's brood, and his terrible wife whose business it is not only to print the newspaper, but to cut its sheets, and eventually to lay them like eggs, at the rate ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... somewhat retarded by the individualistic influence of the English Common Law. When the Socialistic autocracy is once completely in power, with its professed policy of taking away human ambition and initiative, its position will be almost impregnable and become more and more secure as the average citizen becomes more and more servile, lazy and unambitious. Socialism is politically decadent and contains within itself the germ of self-destruction. ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers

... in a tolerably direct line to the capital, ten miles distant. But near sunset the wind increased again, and compelled us to take refuge in a sheltered nook within a mile or two of Srenuggur, the fort standing above us on the summit of a hill—imposing from its apparently impregnable position—and there ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster

... attack the fort of Vellore, which was regarded as impregnable. The town lay at the foot of some very steep and rugged hills, which were surmounted by three detached forts. The rajah, encouraged by the French, had renounced his allegiance to Muhammud Ali, and had declared himself independent. ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... those starving peasants may well have stood before the high impregnable walls in the broad daylight of despair. Even their nightmares during the night, of unearthly necromancers looking down at them from the battlements and with signs and spells paralysing all their potential toils, may well have ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... my pet superstition about the place. Having resolved it into its constituent elements I arranged them in convenient troops and squadrons, and collecting all the forces of my logic bore down upon them from impregnable premises with the thunder of irresistible conclusions and a great noise of chariots and general intellectual shouting. Then, when my big mental guns had overturned all opposition, and were growling almost inaudibly away on the horizon of ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... consultation with Joyce, and then he set seriously about the preparations necessary for a light defence. By a little management, and some persona, risk, the bullet-proof shutters of the north wing of the Hut were all closed, rendering the rear of the buildings virtually impregnable. When this was done, and the gates of the area were surely shut, the place was like a ship in a gale, under short canvass and hove-to. The enemy within the palisades were powerless, to all appearance, the walls of stone preventing anything like an application ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... A wood, like that enchanted grove In which with fiends Rinaldo strove, Where every silent tree possessed A spirit prisoned in its breast, Which the first stroke of coming strife Would startle into hideous life; So dense, so still, the Austrians stood, A living wall, a human wood! Impregnable their front appears, All horrent with projected spears, Whose polished points before them shine, From flank to flank, one brilliant line, Bright as the breakers' splendors run Along the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... with spears eighteen feet long, the squadrons of Burgundy rode in vain. Their lines were impregnable. Their enemies fell in numbers. In the end the whole Burgundian army, seized with panic, broke and fled, "like smoke before the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... his Majesty, after receiving the homage of the Venetian authorities, repaired to the arsenal. This is an immense building, fortified so carefully that it was practically impregnable. The appearance of the interior is singular on account of several small islands which it incloses, joined together by bridges. The magazines and numerous buildings of the fortress thus appear to be floating on the surface ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... not some very near about the King, who, favouring the party of Maud, had credit enough to prevail with him not to venture time and reputation against an impregnable fortress, but rather, by withdrawing his forces, permit her to retire to some less fortified place, where she might more easily fall into his hands. This advice the King took against his own opinion; the Empress fled out of Arundel by night; and, after frequent shifting her stages through ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... the election of Mr. Lincoln in November, 1860, the sole issue between the North and the South, between Republicans on the one hand and Democrats and Compromisers on the other, had related to slavery. Logically, the position of the Republicans was impregnable. Their platforms and their leaders agreed that the party intended strictly to respect the Constitution, and not to interfere at all with slavery in the States within which it now lawfully existed. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... widely dispersed than those of any other nation, I entertain a strong opinion that if Great Britain continues to maintain her present policy of Free Trade—as I trust will be the case—her means of defence should, within the limits of human foresight, be such as to render her empire impregnable; and, further, that should that policy unfortunately be reversed, it will be a wise precaution that those means of defence should, if possible, be still further strengthened. But I also entertain an equally strong opinion that an imperial nation should seek to fortify its position ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... drew to a close the building was far advanced, and the bulwarks were sufficiently high and massive to render this residence impregnable. In short, when it wanted but three days to summer the only part that remained to be finished was the gateway. Then sat the gods on their seats of justice and entered into consultation, inquiring of one another who ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... amid a thousand doubts? It seemed to have found, and filled to overflowing, the soul of one amiable little child who had a kind of genius for tranquillity, and on his first coming hither had led Gaston to what he held to be the [43] choicest, pleasantest places, as being impregnable by noise. In his small stock of knowledge, he knew, like all around him, that he was going to die, and took kindly to the thought of a small grave in the little green close, as to a natural sleeping-place, in which he would be at home beforehand. ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... of the 17th, there being nothing further to detain us in Hamoaze, steam was got up, and ere long we were leaving, for a few years, the old and familiar "Cambridge" and "Impregnable," the one-time homes of so many amongst us; and bidding king "Billy" and his royal consort a long good bye! until Devil's Point hides from us a picture many of us were ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... besiegers. In regard to the enemy he found that Gibbet Hill was still occupied by Sir John Norris, "the best soldier, in his opinion, that they had," who had entrenched himself very strongly, and was supposed to have thirty-five hundred men under his command. His position seemed quite impregnable. The rest of the English were on the other side of the river, and Alexander observed, with satisfaction, that they had abandoned a small redoubt, near the leper-house, outside the Loor-Gate, through which the reinforcements must enter the city. The Prince ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... well as with hypnotism, telepathy and suggestion, his aim being to organise and direct a crusade against medicine as practised by the faculty. He gathered together materials for a declaration of war against the medicos, attacking them in their, apparently, most impregnable positions, and showing up, often through their own observations, the fatal inanity—in his eyes—of their therapeutics. At the same time he managed to acquire experience of commerce, finance and administration, and, ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot

... hairbreadth escape to another with the calmness of an angel who knows his life is not of earth, and on the fourth day there came the awful battle, the struggle for a position that had been held by the enemy for four years, and that had been declared impregnable from the ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... contrast, the Arena, one of the best-preserved specimens of Roman work, rises seemingly from amongst the houses. Pola is full of Roman remains. All is so green and peaceful, in spite of the countless fortifications which render the harbour well-nigh, if not quite, impregnable, that Nature and War seem for ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... and d'Alenon rode from St. Denis to the gates of Paris, to observe the best places for an attack. And still Charles dallied and delayed, still the main army did not come up. Thus the delay of the king gave the English time to make Paris almost impregnable and to frighten the people who, had Charles marched straight from Reims, would have yielded as Reims did. D'Alenon kept going to Senlis urging Charles to come up with the main army. He went on September 1—the king promised to start next day. D'Alenon returned to the Maid, the king still ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... predilection for pushing one's way through a perpendicular jungle or crawling over jagged and sunbaked rock, the only way to ascend the hill is from the south-western side, from the upper portion of which still frown the outworks and bastioned walls which once rendered the fortress impregnable. The road from the town of Junnar is in tolerable repair and leads you across a stream, past the ruined mud walls of an old fortified enclosure, and past the camping-ground of the Twelve Wells, until you reach a group of trees overshadowing the ruined tombs of ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... the usual. One had been blackmailed by an actress after an affair and railroaded her off the Earth. Another had a habit of taking bribes to advance favorite sons in civil and military service. And so on. The Republic could not suffer at their hands; the Republic and the dynasty were impregnable. You simply spied on everybody—including the spies—and ordered summary executions often enough to show that you meant it, and kept the public ignorant: deaf-dumb-blind ignorant. The spy system was simplicity itself; you had only to let things get as tangled and confused as possible ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth

... held by the 6th and 7th Manchesters of the 42nd Division. These Eski Lines were first held about the 7th or 8th May and have since been worked up, mainly by the energy of de Lisle, into fortifications, humanly speaking, impregnable. General Douglas, Commander of the Division, came round with me. He reminds me greatly of his brother, the late Chief of the Imperial General Staff; excellent at detail; a conscientious, very hard worker. When I had seen my Manchester friends I passed on into ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... the first conquest, it should also be guarded by one of the most trusty barons which the King has, bearing the title of deputy, with a force of five hundred of the best soldiers, besides a troop of fifty horsemen. It is considered by everyone as an impregnable fortress, on account of the inundation with which it may be surrounded, although there are persons skilled in the art of fortification who doubt that it would prove so if put to the test. For the same reason Guines is also reckoned impregnable, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... as strong as a wall, for the root which is more then halfe cut in sunder, putting forth new branches which runne and entangle themselves amongst the old stockes, doe so thicken and fortifie the Hedge that it is against the force of beasts impregnable" (ed. 1635, pp. 68-9). ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... first floor. The massive stone walls here were unadorned with ivy, nor were there any of those elaborate decorations in stonework which might have afforded a hold for the foot of the climber. The bare stone wall frowned down upon Thomas Milsom, impregnable as the walls ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... she might be impregnable, but the old fellow affirmed that no woman was this; that no fortress was too strong to be carried; that it all depended on the assailant and the vehemence of the assault; and if one did not succeed, another would. The young man brightened. ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page

... impregnable, inasmuch as it is quite impossible to prove the contrary. If a man choose to maintain that a fossil oyster shell, in spite of its correspondence, down to every minutest particular, with that of an oyster fresh taken out of the sea, ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... for a week after you have seen it. Nowhere in all Europe did I see a place which impressed its wonder and its history of horror upon me as did the cathedral dungeon of Mont St. Michel. Its situation was so impregnable, its capacity so vast, its silence and isolation from the ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... compute the expense of every company of soldiers and squadron of ships; it is only necessary to assert, what will, I hope, not be very readily denied, even by those whom daily practice of absurd apologies has rendered impregnable by the force of truth, that such expenses as have neither contributed to our own defence, nor to the disadvantage of the Spaniards, have ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... 10 deg. north latitude, fourteen leagues from the gulf of Darien, and eight westwards from the port called Nombre de Dios. It is judged the strongest place the king of Spain possesses in all the West Indies, except Havanna and Carthagena. Here are two castles almost impregnable, that defend the city, situate at the entry of the port, so that no ship or boat can pass without permission. The garrison consists of three hundred soldiers, and the town is inhabited by four hundred families. ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... those who heard tell of these doings but of the prisoners themselves. And whenever he brought over a city to his side, he set the citizens free from the harsher service of a bondsman to his lord, imposing the gentler obedience of a freeman to his ruler. Indeed, there were fortresses impregnable to assault which he brought under his power by the subtler force ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon

... seems to us that God no longer possesses any means of saving us, and we are tempted to provide for our own affairs as if nothing more were to be expected from Him. On the contrary, His providence, as He unfolds it, ought to be regarded by us as an impregnable fortress. Let us labor, then, to learn the full import of the expression, that our bodies are in the hands of Him who created them. For this reason He has sometimes delivered His people in a miraculous manner, and beyond all human expectation, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various



Words linked to "Impregnable" :   strong, inexpugnable, impregnability, fertile, unassailable, conceptive, secure, unattackable, inviolable, unconquerable, invulnerable



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