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Ironsides   Listen
noun
Ironsides  n.  A cuirassier or cuirassiers; also, hardy veteran soldiers; applied specifically to Cromwell's cavalry.
Old Ironsides. (U. S. Hist.) A nickname for the U.S.S. Constitution, a sailing ship which fought in the American Revolutionary war, and now functions as a floating museum in Boston harbor. It was given its nickname because cannonballs bounced off its hard wooden sides.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ironsides" Quotes from Famous Books



... a price as ever. "I remember," he said, "gentlemen, though I was then but a 'prentice, the demand for weapons in the years forty-one and forty-two; sword blades were more in request than toothpicks, and Old Ironsides, my master, took more for rascally Provant rapiers, than I dare ask nowadays for a Toledo. But, to be sure, a man's life then rested on the blade he carried; the Cavaliers and Roundheads fought every day at the gates ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the Garrisonian movement. But it was a strange irony of fate that had made the fiery-hearted Whittier a friend. His poems against slavery and disunion have the martial ring of a Tyrtaeus or a Koerner, added to the stern religious zeal of Cromwell's Ironsides. They are like the sound of the trumpet blown before the walls of Jericho, or the psalms of David denouncing woe upon the enemies of God's chosen people. If there is any purely Puritan strain in American poetry it is in the war-hymns of the Quaker "Hermit of Amesbury." ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... afflicted, whose woes are voiced in the earlier psalms of the Psalter (Section XLVII:v). They were also the forerunners of the party of the Pharisees, which was one of the products of the Maccabean struggle. In them faith and patriotism were so blended that, like Cromwell's Ironsides, they were daunted by no odds. At first they depended upon the guerilla type of warfare, to which the hills of Judea were especially adapted. By enforcing the law of circumcision, by punishing the apostates, and by attacking straggling Syrian bands, they encouraged ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... mentions the missing "Pavoise," engraved in Bolton, or the scabbard of the sword which yet remains, the sword itself having been taken away, according to report, by Oliver Cromwell. Did that unscrupulous Protector(?) take away the "Pavoise" at the same time, or order his Ironsides to "remove that bauble?"—and how came he to spare the helmet, jupon, gauntlets, shield, and scabbard? I have strong doubts of his being the purloiner of the sword. The late Mr. Stothard, who mentions the report, does not quote his authority. I will add another query, on a similar ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various

... the men susceptible to these inducements are enlisted, and we have to draw on the solid, sceptical, sensible residuum who know the value of their lives and services and liberties, and will not give them except on substantial and honourable conditions. These Ironsides know that it is one thing to fight for your country, and quite another to let your wife and children starve to save our rich idlers from a rise in the supertax. They also know that it is one thing to wipe out the ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... Cromwell; and Cromwell played with Calais and Dunkirk as with two shuttlecocks on a battledore. The Continent had been taught to tremble, peace had been dictated, war declared, the British Ensign raised on every pinnacle. By itself the Protector's regiment of Ironsides weighed in the fears of Europe against an army. Cromwell used to say, "I wish the Republic of England to be respected, as was respected the Republic of Rome." No longer were delusions held sacred; speech was free, the press was free. In the public street men said what ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... fully to recognise the grandeur beneath the grotesque outside of the Puritan. But Macaulay tells us most distinctly why Englishmen warm at the name of the great Protector. We, like the banished Cavaliers, 'glow with an emotion of national pride' at his animated picture of the unconquerable Ironsides. One phrase may be sufficiently illustrative. After quoting Clarendon's story of the Scotch nobleman who forced Charles to leave the field of Naseby by seizing his horse's bridle, 'no man,' says Macaulay, 'who had much value ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... were Stewart and his men feasted and honored. The old frigate had won for herself a name ever to be remembered by the people of the nation, in whose service she had received and dealt so many hard knocks. "Old Ironsides," they called her; and even to-day, when a later war has given to the navy vessels whose sides are literally iron, the "Constitution" still holds her place in the hearts of the American people, who think of her lovingly by the well-won ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... yards to rearward, lies the Dust of men slain in the Battle of Naseby, 14 June 1645. Hereabouts appears to have been the crisis of the struggle, hereabouts the final charge of Oliver Cromwell and his Ironsides, that day. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... Sir Oliver Cromwell, who had to lead an army in England against the king, who was ill-treating the people, had a body of soldiers under him who were Christians, and they were such good soldiers and so hard to defeat that they were called "Cromwell's Ironsides." Sometimes just before battle these soldiers used to sing hymns and then pray on the battlefields. And because they were Christians it made better and braver soldiers ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley

... snub-nosed Hollander, the oily Portuguese half-caste—thrust or wormed their way through the crowd to look. I seemed to smell corruption in the air. Here were the creatures who had fattened on the spoils. There in the field were the heroes who won them. Tammany Hall was defended by the Ironsides. ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... aim to attract. Old Noll knew what he was about when he said that it was of no use to try to fight the gentlemen of England with tapsters and serving-men. It is quite as hopeless to fight Christianity with scurrility. We want a regiment of Ironsides. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... great things last summer was conscribed from the people to an extent that has no parallel since the French Republic formed its armies; and it broke down the aristocratical force of Austria as effectively as Cromwell's Ironsides,—who were enlisted and disciplined yeomen,—broke through, cut down, and rode over the high-born Cavaliers of England. Now what Austria's army encountered when it met the French and Prussian armies, the Austrian government has to encounter in the management of affairs. In the old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... his nature, our historians must set him down as a humorist and name the "One-Hoss Shay" as his most typical work. Yet his best poems are as pathetic as "The Last Leaf," as sentimental as "The Voiceless," as patriotic as "Old Ironsides," as worshipful as the "Hymn of Trust," as nobly didactic as "The Chambered Nautilus"; his novels are studies of the obscure problems of heredity, and his most characteristic prose work, The Autocrat of the Breakfast ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... record to live up to," commented Jack as he recalled the feats of the famous little Ironsides that had saved ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... propensity of our illustrious race, though I will only trouble you with a few more ancient ones; they not only nicknamed Regner, but his sons also, who were all kings, and distinguished men: one, whose name was Biorn, they nicknamed Ironsides; another, Sigurd, Snake in the Eye; another, White Sark, or White Shirt—I wonder they did not call him Dirty Shirt; and Ivarr, another, who was king of Northumberland, they called Bienlausi, or the Legless, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... things that were mighty, and soon the wirepullers behind the scenes (whoever they were) had me smiting him hip and thigh. I 'began in weakness, but ended in power.' At first a few muttered remonstrances, but finally whole Ironsides broadsides, with the result above named. The words of my antagonist, during this encounter, rang through my brain with awful distinctness. For a day or two I had been communicating partly with the pencil, and partly by clairaudience, eked out by writing ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... Old Ironsides at anchor lay, In the harbor of Mahon; A dead calm rested on the bay— The waves to sleep had gone; When little Jack, the captain's son, With gallant hardihood, Climbed shroud and spar—and then upon ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... most popular ship of the navy; a place which she held until the stirring events of the war with England pushed the "Constitution" so far to the front, that even now, when she lies dismantled and rotting at the Brooklyn navy-yard, Americans still think of "Old Ironsides" as the typical ship of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... in lands of adventure, under the green light of a virgin forest, or on some illimitable prairie; he should have sailed with the vikings or fought with Cromwell's Ironsides; or, better still, he should have run, half-naked, splendidly pagan, bearing ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... H. Miles Down in Australia Gerald Massey Australia Speaks Gerald Massey An Imperial Reply Gerald Massey The Boys' Return Gerald Massey "Sound the Assembly!" Clement Scott The Absent-Minded Beggar Rudyard Kipling For the Empire F. Harald Williams Wanted—a Cromwell F. Harald Williams England's Ironsides F. Harald Williams The Three Cherry-Stones Anonymous The Midshipman's Funeral Darley Dale Ladysmith F. Harald Williams The Six-inch Gun "The Bombshell" St. Patrick's Day F. Harald Williams The Hero of ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... condemning the Puritans. The book speedily became famous and was the source of all Royalist arguments against the Commonwealth. In 1649 appeared Milton's Eikonoklastes (Image Breaker), which demolished the flimsy arguments of the Eikon Basilike as a charge of Cromwell's Ironsides had overwhelmed the king's followers. After the execution of the king appeared another famous attack upon the Puritans, Defensio Regia pro Carlo I, instigated by Charles II, who was then living in exile. It was written in Latin ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... during the war is that the army has changed in the essential spirit of its organisation. It is no longer built on the aristocratic principle like the army of Louis XIV. It has been democratised and is approximating to the type of Napoleon's armies or Cromwell's Ironsides. The shell of the old organisation is there still. The life within the ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... side there was also plenty of fanatical fury, but it was accompanied by practical sense. The grandfathers of Cromwell's Ironsides had already learned, if they had not yet formulated, the maxim, "Fear God and keep your powder dry." Some of the ships in the English navy had religious names, but many were called by more secular appellations: The Bull, The Tiger, The Dreadnought, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... hill lies one of the most complete and extensive navy-yards in the States. At the period of my visit its dry dock was occupied by a pet ship of the American navy, "the Constitution," or, as this fine frigate is familiarly called, "Old Ironsides." She was stripped down to her kelson outside and in, for the purpose of undergoing a repair that will make her, to all intents, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... describes the art in four stages, viz., the Pastoral or Bucolic, the Martial, the Epic, and the Dramatic. In illustration of his views, he furnished exemplars from his own prolific muse, and his striking poem of "Old Ironsides" was printed for the first time, and sprang at a bound into national esteem. And in this first book, there was included that little poem, "The Last Leaf," better work than which Holmes has never done. It is in a vein which he has developed ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... observe—and Mr. Grady would freely concede it—was before there was much mingling anywhere of the Puritan and the Cavalier blood, save as it ran together between Cromwell's Ironsides and Rupert's troopers. I would observe also that the propagation eastward inaugurated in that early day has never ceased. The immigration of populations hither from Europe, great a factor as it has been in shaping the history of this continent, has not been so great a factor as the emigration ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... seventeenth-century Puritanism. To speak of Naseby and Marston Moor as merely English victories would be as absurd as to restrict the significance of Gettysburg to the state of Pennsylvania. If ever there were men who laid down their lives in the cause of all mankind, it was those grim old Ironsides whose watchwords were texts from Holy Writ, whose battle-cries were hymns of praise. [Sidenote: Influence of Puritanism upon ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... is not Prince Perfect? I once read a very sensible little poem which described the heroine waiting year after year for Prince Perfect. He came at last, but unfortunately "he sought perfection too," so nothing came of it! Cromwell's rule in choosing his Ironsides is the safest in choosing a husband: "Give me a man that hath principle—I know where to have him." If he comes to you disguised as one of these somewhat commonplace Ironsides, and recommended by your mother, consider how very much the fairy Prince of your dreams would ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... prudent move that, Tony. I've heard that old Ironsides has no less than five rich livings in his gift. Now, by Jove! I'd turn parson to-morrow, if I thought my uncle would be dutiful enough to bestow one or two of them upon me. How would the 'Rev. Godfrey Hurdlestone' look upon a ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... only smiled at Old Ironsides, the rooster, and ran her rag hand through her yarn hair for she did ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle

... he was received with an enthusiastic welcome by his countrymen. The Constitution became an object of national pride, and because of the little damage it sustained in the numerous encounters in which it engaged, received the popular name of "Old Ironsides." ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart

... romantic strain, and something more! In the remote parts of his being there was the capacity for the phenomenal, the strange. Once again, as in the church, he saw the field of Naseby, King Charles, Ireton's men, Cromwell and his Ironsides, Prince Rupert and the swarming rush of cavalry, and the end of it all! Had it been a tale of his father's at camp-fire? Had he read it somewhere? He felt his blood thump in his veins. Another half-hour, wherein he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... That branch of the Nevilles became remarkable for high principle and good sense; and this they owe to Mercy Vint, and to Sir George's courage in marrying her. This Mercy was granddaughter to one of Cromwell's ironsides, and brought her rare personal merit into their house, and also the best blood of the old Puritans, than which there is no blood in Europe more rich in male courage, female chastity, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... the descendants of Ethelred for ever, and recognise Canute as their King; he, on the other hand, promised to fulfil the duties of a King truly, in both spiritual and temporal relations.[8] Yet once more, Ethelred's eldest son, Edmund Ironsides, who was himself half a Dane by birth, roused himself to a vigorous resistance: London and a part of the nobility took his side; he gained through force of arms a settlement by which, though indeed he lost the best part of the land and the capital itself, he maintained ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke



Words linked to "Ironsides" :   Old Ironsides, Oliver Cromwell, general, solon



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