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Lurch   Listen
noun
Lurch  n.  A sudden roll of a ship to one side, as in heavy weather; hence, a swaying or staggering movement to one side, as that by a drunken man. Fig.: A sudden and capricious inclination of the mind.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lurch" Quotes from Famous Books



... Braiding had issued an order, after seeing G.J., that his wife should not leave G.J.'s service. And Mrs. Braiding, too, had her sense of duty. She was very proud of G.J.'s war-work, and would have thought it disloyal to leave him in the lurch, and so possibly prejudice the war-work—especially as she was convinced that he would never get ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... not seem that the mothers cared very much for their little ones. Some, it is true, made a sort of attempt to protect their offspring if they were disturbed, but the majority simply left their young ones in the lurch. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... yourself at this moment, vulgarly speaking, left in the lurch. Your wants are many and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... At the first lurch my trunk tipped over, and all the bottles on the wash-stand bounded across to the bed, and most of them struck me on the head. It frightened me so that I shrieked, and Jimmie came running down to see ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... practicable road having been one through the country of the Wa-Kikuyu. So strong was their desire to be in immediate touch with our district that, when a part of the hired Wa-Taveta road-makers, on account of some misunderstanding, left them in the lurch, the Masai themselves took their places, and, taking turns to the number of 3,000, they carried on the work with an energy which no one could have supposed to be possible in a people who not long before had been so averse to labour. We decided ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... which was given to Jones. Highly incensed at this action, the erratic Frenchman incited the crew of the "Alliance" to open mutiny, and, taking command of the ship himself, left France and sailed for America, leaving Commodore Jones in the lurch. On his arrival at Philadelphia, Landais strove to justify his action by blackening the character of Jones, but failed in this, and was dismissed the service. His actions should be regarded with some charity, for the man was doubtless of unsound mind. His ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... calf grows, it leaves its mother's embrace, but swims close beside, following with automatic precision every twist and lurch of her body, its own helplessness and its implicit faith in the wisdom and protective influence of its parent being exemplified in ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... maybe until we get out among the big waves; when, at the first lurch of the ship, down they'll tumble ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... said anything about lurch? He owes it to her. Not that she deserves any consideration, if she's been——You don't mean to say you think he'll refuse? He'd never be such ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... swimming about the brig for some hours, and the hungry sailors were planning various projects for the capture of them: tough as a shark is, they would willingly have risked life for a few raw mouthfuls of the same. Somehow, though the sea was still and the wind light, the brig gave a sudden lurch and dipped up one of the monsters, who was quite secure in the shallow aquarium between the gunwales. He was soon despatched, and divided equally among the crew: some ate a little, and reserved the rest for another day; some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... quite natural that if you put the idea into my head, I should be uneasy about my money; but I swear to you that he has it in his own hands, and that he had meant to keep it. He is just the man to abscond with all the money and leave us in the lurch, the scoundrel! He knows quite well that I will not dishonor the name I bear by bringing him into a court of law. His position is strong and weak at the same time. If we drive him to despair, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... expect you to stand by it—indeed, I know you won't, Pa being concerned—but I wish to rouse you to a sense of duty. As to any help from me, or as to any opposition that I can offer to such a match, you shall not be left in the lurch, my love. Whatever weight I may derive from my position as a married girl not wholly devoid of attractions—used, as that position always shall be, to oppose that woman—I will bring to bear, you ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... no, I can't leave you in the lurch that way, my dear fellow. Besides it would break Agnes all up. We must do something. I think either one of those coats would go perfectly well; but if you're so particular about your personal appearance, there's only one thing left. We ...
— Evening Dress - Farce • W. D. Howells

... all the dishes on the cabin-table go sousing off against the wall in a general smash; to sit at table holding your soup-plate with one hand, and watching for a chance to put your spoon in when it comes high tide on your side of the dish; to vigilantly watch, the lurch of the heavy dishes while holding your glass and your plate and your knife and fork, and not to notice it when Brown, who sits next you, gets the whole swash of the gravy from the roast-beef dish on his light-colored pantaloons, and see the look ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... terrific lurch, Swithin's exclamation was jerked back into his throat. The horses, winded by the rise of a hill, now steadied to a trot, and finally stopped ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... orderly drew his revolver and began waving it at us, shouting at the same time that if that —————— dog came any nearer, he would shoot him down. The officer paid no attention, but rode on ahead. I started after them on foot, but they began to trot and left me in the lurch. I ran back to the motor, overtook them, and placed the car across their path. The officer motioned his orderly to go ahead, and then let me tackle him. He took the high ground that I had no reason to complain ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... our journey, I was again carried by Mr. Miller in a blanket on his back as young children are carried by Indians on long journeys. My head above the blanket folds bobbed uncomfortably at every lurch. The trail led up and down and around snow peaks, and under overhanging banks that seemed ready to ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... and recoil of traffic. The stock-still brick facade of an old church, against which the waves of people lurch and withdraw. Flare of sunshine down side-streets. Eddies of light in the windows of chemists' shops, with their blue, gold, purple jars, darting colours far into the crowd. Loud bangs and tremors, murmurings out of high windows, whirring ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... hit; I heard him carried away, Moaning at every lurch; no doubt he'll die to-day. But we can say the front-line ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon

... would," to leave it. In the confusion and tumbling about of heavy boxes Mary might have been badly hurt, had not the young gallant, quickly springing to his feet, caught her as she was thrown forward by a second lurch of the unwieldy thing, and, lifting her up, carried her out of the way of falling luggage and struggling horses to a ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... near us with that view. About nine o'clock I sought my berth, but sleep was impossible, as most of my time was spent in trying to keep within the bounds of my bed, expecting that every successive lurch would eject me; whilst the port-holes having to be closed (that greatest of all discomforts in a storm) made the cabin close ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... imagined, appallingly grand and utterly indescribable; and it no doubt contributed in no inconsiderable degree to the total destruction of the bergs, which, once started, continued to roll over and over, every lurch causing a further dismemberment until the fragments became so small as to be incapable of further division. Then ensued comparative silence, the only sounds being those of the hoarse roar of the angry surges and the grinding crash of ice-blocks ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... short work of you at any rate!" said Jost, his little eyes sparkling with rage; "For I see plainly enough now that even if our plans had succeeded, you would have left me in the lurch!" ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... lurch, and nearly fell. To save her the man put his arm round her waist. She clasped him round the neck, and together they spun round two or three times; while at the very moment a piano-organ at the opposite corner struck ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... Hat stood glaring at him. Then, muttering something about "a mistake," he started to lurch towards the police car. As the officers turned shamefacedly to follow their chief, Jonah's parade ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... it 'd be exactly square to leave them in the lurch ashore," he said. "Of course," he went on hurriedly, "I know the whole thing 's wrong; but you remember that first night, when you came running through the water for the skiff, and those fellows on the bank busy ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... not precisely an undesirable citizen—she's all right enough—but you scarcely want to meet her, I'm afraid. You see, Isabel went South and left me in the lurch, and I ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... girl who would be left to pine. There are too many Jos in the world whose hearts are prone to lurch and then thump at the feel of a soft, fluttering, incredibly small hand in their grip. One year later Emily was married to a young man whose father owned a large, pie-shaped slice of the prosperous state ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... and apparently take it from Knapp's hands, plunging into the other side of the line. All was confusion. All were mislead but Judd. He burst through his side of the line just as Gordon started forward. He saw the fake pass; saw all his team-mates lurch toward the right in a frantic effort to stop the much feared Gordon. But above all this he saw Knapp, running free, with the ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman

... silently slunk away. At length, however, Ferdinand Morris met Miss Harden, and conceived the idea of marrying her for her money. When he had once got possession of her fortune, he proposed to leave her in the lurch. ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger

... then f Then they trust to some divine interposition, some accident, to put things to rights again. The success of the English is largely built up on such accidents—on the mistakes of other people. Provi dence has favoured them so far, on the whole; but one day it may leave them in the lurch, as it did the anti-scientific Russians in their war with the Japanese. One day other people will forget to make ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... the lurch last term, Jim, dear, and I'd rather you had a taste of it this go. Do you remember when old Corker was savaging me before ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... I placed the other, still in its case, beside it. In that moment they looked identical, except for the little loop of sham stones, replaced by a plain gold band in the bishop's jewel. Carwitchet leaned across the table eagerly, the table gave a lurch, the lamp tottered, crashed over, and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... little time on the bounty of his undoers, who intended to make him one of them; but, not having sufficient address for the profession, he was dismissed and "left in the lurch;" and most of his friends discarding him, he embarked with his last guinea for England. Here he has encountered many difficulties, often been in gaol for debt, and passed through various scenes of life, as valet, footman, thief-taker, and at length, a penny-barber! ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... Morris, replied with a curt refusal. The firing began again; the "Cumberland's" men, driven from the gun-deck by the inrush of rising water, took refuge on the upper deck. Some jumped overboard and began swimming ashore. Others kept her two pivot-guns in action for a few minutes. Then with a lurch she went down. Boats from the shore saved a few of her people. Those who watched from the batteries could hardly believe their eyes as they saw the masts of the warship sticking out of the water where a few minutes ago the "Cumberland" had waited in confidence for the attack ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... sea was calm, it seemed to him that the ship gave a great dizzying lurch. But in a moment he contrived to answer coherently: "Engaged to Miss Garland! I ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... of the day are wont to avail themselves of Nature's suggestions in the art of crossing flooded waters. The name of the river has gone, but not that of the three buoyant logs lashed together with strips of cane which with sullen lurch, take the wash of the boat. The boys jerk their heads in the direction and murmur "wur-gun," and speculate on the last user. The day is young. For the time being the best the ancient river has to show—the quintessence of the season, superb October—shall be ours. The cloudless sky is richly ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... the steward, black though he was, and away I sped on my errand. Just as I reached the deck the ship gave a lurch and sent me down to leeward, when instead of, as I ought to have done, making my way up to windward, to save the distance, I ran along on the lee side of the deck. Before, however, my destination was reached I saw rising ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston

... that! You know, Gentlemen, that I have such a strange and natural Agility in turning—I shall whip about yet, and leave 'em all in the Lurch. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... all was activity. There came a lurch, a straining of ropes and a creaking of masts, and the good ship Saint Laurent swam out to sea. Suddenly the waters trembled and the air shook: the king's man-of-war had fired the admiral's salute. So the voyage began. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... stood on the rear platform, looking, looking. She was very still. All motion, all expression seemed centered in the steady gaze which dwindled away from him, became vague ... featureless ... vanished in a lurch ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... is sound; and I am not going to leave Prentice in the lurch. I telegraphed you, so that you could ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... actually attempted. Monte had only his left arm, and it was not his strongest; but back of it he felt a new power. He took Hamilton beneath the chin, and with a lurch the man fell sprawling over a table among the glasses. In the screaming confusion that followed, Monte fought his way to the door, using his shoulders and a straight arm to clear a path. In another second he had ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... to lose heart, a company of loyalists from across the Richelieu fell on their flank and completed their discomfiture. The rebels then retreated to Napierville, under the command of Hindenlang. Robert Nelson, seeing that the day was lost, left his men in the lurch and rode for the American border. The losses of the rebels were serious; they left fifty dead on the field and carried off as many wounded. Of the loyalists, one officer and five men were killed and one officer and ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles

... the rudder is lost," cried many voices, as after a sudden lurch forward the ship righted again, and as they cried out, a fresh blast struck her, and the half-furled sails were torn into ribbons, and hung useless over the ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... expedition under arms; the mob of sutlers and the captured slaves would be left in camp. Accordingly the mass of the troops set out. Neon alone remained; for it seemed best to leave that general and his men to guard the contents of the camp. But when the officers and soldiers had left them in the lurch, they were so ashamed to stop in camp while the rest marched out, that they too set out, leaving only those ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... spare room, and usually treated to warm biscuit and pie for supper. A few families were very poor, and there I was lucky to get bread and potatoes. In one house I remember the bedstead was very shaky, and in the middle of the night, as I turned over, it began to sway and lurch, and presently all went down in a heap. But I clung to the wreck till morning, and said ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... The lurch of the engine as they swung around a curve drew her attention to the track which was sweeping in upon them with dizzy continuity. Out there, ahead of the big black body of the locomotive, the funneled ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... address such as he had not dreamed was at his command. And the surprise of his onslaught proved an ally of unguessed potency. Before he himself knew it he was standing on the overhang and had shifted his hold to seize the fellow about the waist; then, lifting him clear of the deck, and aided by a lurch of the cat-boat, he cast him bodily into the dory. The man, falling, struck his head against one of the thwarts, a glancing blow that stunned him temporarily. Kirkwood himself dropped as if shot, a trailing reef-point slapping his cheek until it stung as the boom thrashed ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... for the last time; and had not proceeded more than two hundred yards from the ship, when she gave a heavy lurch on one side, recovered it, and rolled as deep on the other; then, as if endued with life and instinct, gave, a pitch, and went down, head foremost, into the fathomless deep. We had scarcely time to behold this awful scene, when the wind again ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... all control, now, was rolling furiously, neighing and snapping. The man clung to the reins, keeping his distance, but as the animal gained his feet with a lurch, his finger slipped and he, too, rolled over and over down the little slope to the gravelled path. Stanchon was after the horse before the attendant had picked himself up ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... it were nothing worse than that!" said Quennebert, pacing up and down the room: "but you need not be alarmed; it is only a money trouble. I lent a large sum, a few months ago, to a friend, but the knave has run away and left me in the lurch. It was trust money, and must be replaced within three days. But where am I ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... my arm as if he feared my turning faint again. Indeed the room around me seemed unreal, but what had happened in the street was still fearfully clear. It was cut into my mind as if it were still before my eyes, the toppling lurch of the falling body, the silk hat rolling into the gutter, and then that fine terrible gentleman that had sprung out after. The moment had stamped him as clear in my memory as years could have done. I could tell how very tall he was, how dark, how his brows made one black ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... I'm too weak. Let me alone, George!" And as he released the wrist he had seized to help her, she repeated the dismal prophecy which for days she had been matching against her hopes: "You're going to leave me—in the lurch!" ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... to have followed our example. But when the Portuguese had passed our consort and the two French ships, firing as they went along, all of these ships and our own pinnace continued to seawards, leaving us in the laps, (lurch.) We continued our course after the enemy, keeping the weather gage, that we might succour the French admiral who was to leeward of them all; and on coming up with him, all the enemies ships bore down and gave him their broadsides, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... and comin', gettin' up speed all the while, and if there hadn't been a four-foot stone wall between us I'd been lookin' for a tall tree. I thought it would turn when it came to the wall. But it don't. It gives a lurch, like a cow playin' leap-frog, and over she comes, ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... difficulty. If the venerable old nobleman should hear of it, he'd let the cat out of the bag, and leave me in the lurch, in addition to the penalty of a three hours' lecture upon honor. Everything, however, is admirably arranged quoad the marriage. We have got a special license for the purpose of meeting our peculiar case, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... John Wesley's "sulphur and supplication," and so many other cases where ministers had meddled with medicine,—sometimes well and sometimes ill, but, as a general rule, with a tremendous lurch to quackery, owing to their very loose way of admitting evidence,—that I could not ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... afterwards. The ship was really resting upon a ledge of the rock on which she had struck: there was little to be seen in the darkness except a white line of breakers and a mass of something beyond—was it land? The ship gave a sudden outward lurch. There went up a cry to Heaven—a last cry from most of the souls on board the ill-fated Arizona—and then came the end. The vessel fell over the edge of the rocky shelf into deep water and went ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... thing to move along from one part of the deck to the other, as this loose accumulation of material, at each successive lurch, would be tossed first one way and then the other. This was one thing that kept the villains at bay, but it prevented us as well as themselves from ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay

... a violent lurch as it shot vertically aloft at tremendous acceleration. Arcot reached over swiftly and snapped the switch of the microphone. There burst in upon them the familiar roaring drone of a hundred huge propellers. No slightest hum of motor, only the vast ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... what will become of the grumblers," Marion said as they rested in various stages of dishabille, and talked the exciting scenes over. "They have been shamefully left in the lurch; they were going to have this affair a demoralizing dissipation from first to last, unworthy of the spirit of Chautauqua. And if more solemn, or more searching, or more effective preaching could be crowded into an afternoon than has been done here, I should like to be shown how. What do you think ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... in a man of his age and character. She had allowed the outer world to take the business for granted. It would be a cruel wrong done to this man, if she were to draw back now and leave him in the lurch. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... foreground on the sandy beach the great-grandchildren of the crossing-sweeper and the sandwich-man sported by the waves that beat by the Southern Pole, or sang aloud for joy in the beauty of their home and the pride of their race. And then with a lurch—for the motion was still considerable—I came back from the land of dreams to reality and the hideous fact that Natal is invaded and assailed ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... continued to lurch and heave on its axis. Vivid lights crossed and criss-crossed the atomic heavens. The fissures in the ground appeared now as black canals. The lower part of the circle of boulders disappeared. Off to the right came despairing screams. White ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... Coast. Presently she made her appearance, a sprightly young woman about 26, and we all started in their canoe for their home at Skidegate, where I had been invited. En route while passing a pipe from the chief to his wife, my oar caught in the water, giving the canoe a sudden lurch which would have been quite alarming to most feminine nerves, but not to the Princess for she laughed so heartily over the mishap, that I saw a smile spread over the big face of the old chief. An hour brought us to the broad sandy beach of Skidegate, opposite ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... interesting facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning, These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader, therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these theorists. That is as follows. They all suppose the earth a created existence. They must suppose a creator then; ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Madras was a mile away, the schooner was lying, thrown up head to wind, fifty yards from the brig; and her boats were already engaged in picking up the swimmers. Suddenly the brig gave a heavy lurch. ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and creaking, Then a lurch to one side, as we hung on the bank of the canon; Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind me, The off hind wheel of the coach just loosed ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte

... of contempt, While a car at the end of the street goes by with a laugh; As by degrees The poor bells cease, and the Night is exempt, And the stars can chaff The ironic moon at their ease, while the dim old church Is peopled with shadows and sounds and ghosts that lurch In its cenotaph. ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... for his Assistance. Now finding him in danger of being ruin'd by the Gallunarian Power, and judging from former Practice in like Cases, that he might be hurry'd into a Peace, and leave them in the Lurch; they have drawn him into this Labrinth, as into a Step, which can never be receded from without the utmost Affront and Disgrace, either to the Family of the Gallunarian, or of the Lip; an Action which in its ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... how things stand. Our craft, as you see, is small, and leaky, and three-parts rotten; a single lurch, and she will capsize without more ado. And here are all you passengers, each with his luggage. If you come on board like that, I am afraid you may have cause to repent it; especially those who have ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... my intense surprise I found him to be no other than one of the ruffians—the one called "Four-Eyes" by the Captain of the company I had met on the previous evening. Not that he seemed in any way abashed at the meeting—he walked into the room with a seaman's lurch, and steadied himself only when he saw Mary. Then he rang an imaginary bell-rope on his forehead, and "hitched" himself together, as sailors say, looking for all the world like some great dog that has entered a ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... asked me, Miss Blake would hardly let me come in at all unless I could at once produce my luggage." He looked comically puzzled. "I thought at first," he continued, gazing earnestly at Philip, "the good lady was afraid I wouldn't pay her what I'd agreed, and would go away and leave her in the lurch without a penny,—which was naturally a very painful imputation. But when I offered to let her have three weeks' rent in advance, I saw that wasn't all: there was a taboo as well; she couldn't let me in without luggage, she said, because it would ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... were taken in chains to Salerno. At first the English Foreign Office seemed inclined to back up an energetic demand for restitution, but afterwards it deprecated strong measures, and left Sardinia somewhat in the lurch. Circumstances combined, therefore, to render Cavour isolated, but he understood that this was a reason to advance, not to retreat. Had Sardinia seemed to bend to the peaceable advice of her friends abroad, her ascendency in Italy would have been gone for ever. Cavour drilled ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... now turn back and ascertain what has become of our young adventurers and their rugged old companion. We left them sitting on the bow—or rather perched there in positions none too secure in case of a sudden lurch of the ship. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... my return how much easier it is to be a dyspeptic here than in Great Britain. One's appetite is keener and more ravenous, and the temptation to bolt one's food greater. The American is not so hearty an eater as the Englishman, but the forces of his body are constantly leaving his stomach in the lurch, and running off into his hands and feet and head. His eyes are bigger than his belly, but an Englishman's belly is a deal bigger than his eyes, and the number of plum puddings and the amount of Welsh rarebit he devours annually would send the best of us ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... other communities, the man who is the most anxious to secure office is very apt to be left in the lurch. Now, it happened that Fletcher was by no means a favorite in the band. He was sly and sneaking in his methods, currying favor with the captain, even at the expense of manliness and self-respect, and there ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger

... boy a sudden passion flamed in her eyes. She loosed her hold upon the pillar and a sudden lurch of the sinking ship threw her into Fenton's arms. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... time the ship was very nearly under water, and we shouted to him to hurry up, as the Niger had turned over on her side and was likely to go down at any moment. That brave Captain only just managed to jump in time, when the gunboat gave a lurch and sank on her side in eight fathoms of water. We were proud to rescue that Captain, for he ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... his head and dropped quivering in the canvas beyond him. It was the discharged tentman's knife which he had aimed at Phil, his aim having been destroyed by a lurch of the car, thus saving ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... boat's head towards the shore, but it was swept quickly round again; she redoubled her exertions, tugging frantically at her helpless oars. She only succeeded in getting the boat into the trough of the sea, where, after a lurch that threatened to capsize it, it providentially swung around on its short keel and began to drift stern on. She was almost abreast of the battery now; she could hear the fitful notes of a bugle that ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... lurch! my dear fellow, do forgive me. To tell the truth I forgot all about you until Valmai went indoors to find her uncle. I waited to see if she would come out again, but she never did. I believe she was waiting until I had gone; she's ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... Harris fell into the brawling stream below, and was fished out by Rosendo, his eyes popping, and his mouth choked with uncomplimentary opinion regarding mountain travel in the tropics. Once, seizing a slender vine to aid him in climbing, he gave a sudden lurch and swung out unexpectedly over the gorge, hundreds of feet deep. Again Rosendo, who by this time had learned to keep one eye on the ground and the other on the irresponsible Harris, rescued him from ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... and thus exactly Robert Macaire and his companion Bertrand are made to go through the world; both swindlers, but the one more accomplished than the other. Both robbing all the world, and Robert robbing his friend, and, in the event of danger, leaving him faithfully in the lurch. There is, in the two characters, some grotesque good for the spectator—a kind of "Beggars' ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... said Grushenka, and went forward to dance. The chorus broke into "Ah, my porch, my new porch!" Grushenka flung back her head, half opened her lips, smiled, waved her handkerchief, and suddenly, with a violent lurch, stood still in the middle of ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... What way a man could devise to lose so much in so little time What I said would not hold water Whatever I do give to anybody else, I shall give her Where a piece of the Cross is Which he left him in the lurch Whip this child till the blood come, if it were my child! Who continues so ill as not to be troubled with business Whom, in mirth to us, he calls Antichrist Whose red nose makes me ashamed to be seen with him Wise man's not being wise at all times Wise men do prepare to remove abroad what they ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... such he looked then, tried to raise himself, but another lurch of the Bellophron sent him on his back, and myself on my beam-ends. As soon as I recovered my former ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... whose body the ball had lodged did not seem to know it. The head was not turned, the body did not lurch or sway. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... I am. I dare say you are one of the men who ran after Alcharisi. But she married off and left you all in the lurch." ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... said Davies, 'what about him? I didn't get at much that night. It was all so sudden. The only thing I could have sworn to from the first was that he had purposely left me in the lurch that day. I pieced out the rest in the next few days, which I'll just finish with as shortly as I can. Bartels came aboard next morning, and though it was blowing hard still we managed to shift the Dulcibella to a place where she dried safely at the mid-day low water, and ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... vibration died away, and the floor beneath them gave a slight lurch. The prisoners, still silent and dazed, were formed into a long line and marched out of the auditorium. Flanked by guards, they went down a corridor which stretched on interminably. From it, 402 began to get some idea of the size ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... maid with a cheek like a peach, like a peach, That is waiting for you in the church;— But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, And you leave your lost bride in the lurch. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... as it obliged him to miss this car); they again only made a pause, during which Dick spoke to Mr. Angus, and E—- also had a few words with Mr. D. Smith, but she was too modest in urging our claims to be helped on up the incline and they went and left us in the lurch. I heard afterwards that the American part of the company were in a great hurry to get on, Mr. Angus Field having telegrams following him all along the line, but we should not have detained them, and they would only have had to drop us at Laggan, where our own ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh

... train doggedly resumed its way, encountering and surmounting fresh hindrances at frequent intervals. After a standstill of unusually long duration in a particularly deep drift the compartment in which Abbleway was sitting gave a huge jerk and a lurch, and then seemed to remain stationary; it undoubtedly was not moving, and yet he could hear the puffing of the engine and the slow rumbling and jolting of wheels. The puffing and rumbling grew fainter, as though it were dying away through ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... "Fer reasons dat I don't see an' derefore can't explain, our leaders 'pear ter hev deserted us and ter hev left dis gran' rally of non-partisan citizens in de int'rust of Reform (cheers) in de lurch. Dis is werry unforchernit, but we, as Reformers, must hump ourselves ter meet de crisis. I nomernate fer Mayor of New York de Hon. Doyle O'Meagher! Long ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... help it, Dick. I can't live with a person without trying to like them and wanting them to like me. And then, when the ungrateful things are saucy, or leave me in the lurch as they do half the time, it almost breaks my heart. But I'm thankful to say that in these hard times they won't be apt to leave a good ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... At the Eating-room door, for an hour had been station'd, Till a MAGPYE, at length, the banquet announcing, Gave the signal, long wish'd for, of clamouring and pouncing; At the well-furnish'd board all were eager to perch, But the little Miss CREEPERS were left in the lurch. ...
— The Peacock 'At Home:' - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball • Catherine Ann Dorset

... have a grudge against me, by the gods, I'll wake you up and make you explain it!" shouted Bradish. He drew back his arm and drove a quick punch squarely against the expressionless face. The blow came with a lurch of the vessel and Mayo fell flat on his back. He went down as stiffly as he had walked, with as little effort to save himself as a store dummy ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... always been my opinion, Jim, that when boys are bein' trained for the sea, they should be taught writing in a swing or an omnibus, in order to get 'em used to do it in difficult circumstances. There she goes again," he added, referring to a lurch of the vessel which caused the tail of a y to travel at least two inches out of its proper course. "Now, that job's done. I'll turn in for a spell, and advise you to ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... abdication of Victor Emanuel he became regent of Turin. But when the king Charles Felix issued a denunciation against the new government, Charles Albert succumbed to the king's threats and left his friends in the lurch. Later the Austrians marched into the country, Santa Rosa was forced to retreat from Turin, and, with his friends, he who might well have been the very patriot of the poem was obliged ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... Mr. Hoopdriver was up, and after one terrific lurch of the machine, the heathkeeper dropped out of earshot. Mr. Hoopdriver would have liked to look back at his enemy, but he usually twisted round and upset if he tried that. He had to imagine the indignant heath-keeper telling the carter all about it. He tried to infuse as much disdain aspossible ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... begin to come from beneath it, like the crunch of snow under sledge-runners; the van begins to shake and the sounds cease. Silence reigns again. But now comes the clank of buffers, the violent shock makes the van start and, as it were, give a lurch forward, and all the cattle ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Dick, slipping the loop, "wouldn't hold against a single lurch. Why, it comes undone in ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... strange thing happened. Whether due to the effort he had made in the throw, or to a lurch of the tug in the waves we left behind us, or to a stumble over some obstruction, I could not say. But we saw the man suddenly pitch forward over the low bulwarks of the tug into the waters of ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... nurse at Norfolk Island, who was brought up for a treat, was thrown completely across the cabin by one lurch, when she seemed almost settling down. It was dark. The water in the cabin, which had come through the dead-light, showed a little phosphoric glimmer. "Brother," he said to Bice, "are we ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... damned lie. I believe it's only a skame to get you to send out the rest of your escort, so they can tackle you alone. Kick him, Murphy, kick him; throt him round; don't let him get to sleep. Answer me, you scoundrel!" he fairly yelled, for Mullan's head was drooping on his breast and every lurch promised to land him on his face. Twice his knees doubled up like a foot-rule and the stout little sergeant had to jerk him ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... drawled Grace, from the tonneau, helping herself to a chocolate, upon which Betty's eye had just rested longingly. "I've been bumped around so much I can't tell whether I'm a girl or a scrambled egg. Now, look what you did!" A sudden lurch of the big car had sent the box of chocolates to the floor, where its contents rolled about aggravatingly at their feet. "Come back here, Mollie Billette, and pick them up. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope

... The Thing gave a lurch and veered toward the barn, spitting like a cageful of tiger cats. Somers was pushing the lever and gripping the brake with all his athletic might, but to no purpose. The children, who, wild with excitement, had by this time sought the safety of the open barn ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... about, to reef them. One of the topmen, Tom Hansard, was at the weather yardarm, and had hold of the earing, which isn't a bit like those gold things our sisters wear in their ears, but is a long rope which helps to reef the sails. Suddenly the ship gave a tremendous lurch, I heard a cry, I looked up, and there was Tom Hansard hanging by one hand to the earing from the yard-arm, right over the foaming ocean. I felt as if I had swallowed a bucket full of snow. I thought the poor fellow must be dropped overboard, ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... too!" Gard exclaimed to himself. His next move was to step across to the other window for the evident purpose of throwing out something. A lurch of the train caused him to stumble against the high boots. They remained motionless. He discovered that the eyes behind the paper were ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... gave a lurch that nearly sent him into the water, but Kesshoo caught him and pulled him ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... hitherto been a secret to me, namely, that the prince had, without the knowledge of his other brothers, received from his sister, the reigning ——- of ————, considerable loans, which she would gladly double if his court left him in the lurch. This sister, who, as you know, is a pious enthusiast, thinks that the large savings which she makes at a very economical court cannot be deposited in better hands than in those of a brother whose wise benevolence she well knows, and whose character she warmly honors. I have, indeed, known for ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... inspecting the cabins once more, and as soon as he had done this, in spite of the yacht beginning to heel over so that the cabin floor was a good deal higher on one side than the other, he folded his arms, frowned, set his teeth, and began the first steps of a hornpipe, but before he had gone far a lurch sent him head-first toward the port bulkhead. Here he saved himself by thrusting out his ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... to yon Flemish church, And at a Popish altar kneel? O do not leave me in the lurch,— I'll cry ye patron-saints ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... little pink image lying on the bricks, and with a lurch forward bent to examine it. Miss Terry flattened her nose against the pane eagerly. She expected to see him fall upon the Angel bodily. But no; he righted himself with ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown

... affinity Intellectual non-combatant It is so hard to prove a negative Let him be patient with an opinion he does not accept Life becomes to them as death and death as life List of things that everybody says and nobody thinks List of things that everybody thinks and nobobody says Lurch to quackery, owing to their very loose way of evidence Meddling with things that can take care of themselves Most persons have died before they expire No company of craftsmen that did not need sharp looking after Nobody talks much that does n't say unwise things Not love in word, neither in ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger

... upon which we were going, they eyed us with no slight degree of suspicion and ill-will. We had to be sure lost our Captain and our Lieutenant, but we consoled ourselves with the idea that we had got our Cornet safe; that he could not run away and leave us in the lurch; although my friend Coward had thrown out some dark hints, as we came along, by which it appeared to me that there was a hope in his mind, that something would yet turn up, to prevent us from marching at once to danger and to glory; ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... weakened by a previous swim in the Seine, he was in better form than I, and I knew that he would catch me in time. And what then? He was a large fellow, but since the struggle must come, I would better let it come ere I should be utterly exhausted. So I pretended to stagger and lurch forward, and presently came to my knees and then prone upon the ground. With a grunt of triumph, the man rushed up to me, caught me by the collar of my doublet, and raised me from the ground. Hanging limp, and apparently senseless, I put him ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... After lurch Delphine ran upstairs to see her husband for a few minutes, and then returned to me in her little sitting-room. He was tired, she said, and hoped to sleep until tea. She had not told him of my visit; he was so listless ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Mountain had left its vanguard in the lurch by refusing their signatures to the proclamation; the press had deserted: only two papers dared to publish the pronunciamento; the small traders had betrayed their Representatives: the National Guards stayed away, ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... you find anything about a savings bank that has failed and left the people in the lurch for their money, you show it to me. Savings banks don't ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock

... Prophetess of Destiny," declaimed Elfreda with dramatic intensity. "Excuse me, girls. I must conduct her to her grotto. If she is not received with respectful ceremony, she is likely to hobble off to other fields and leave us in the lurch. After all the pains I've taken to insure her presence, I should hate to disappoint you at the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... to hear him say his typesetter was bound to leave him in the lurch, and he didn't know where he'd get a man by the first of the ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie

... believe it. They come and go, by fits and starts, and it's a wonder the erratic rascals never put a paper out of business. But they don't. You never heard of a newspaper that failed to appear just because the mechanical force deserted and left it in the lurch. By hook or crook the paper must be printed—and it always is. So don't worry, mavourneen; when your sallow-faced artist and your hobo jack-of-all-trades desert you, there'll still be a way to keep the Millville Tribune going, and therefore the world will continue ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... examination, than by regarding the French bayonets and General Bonaparte, Member of the Institute, fifty years ago, running about with sabre and pigtail. Wonders he did, to be sure, and then ran away, leaving Kleber, to be murdered, in the lurch—a few hundred yards from the spot where these disquisitions are written. But what are his wonders compared to Waghorn? Nap massacred the Mamelukes at the Pyramids: Wag has conquered the Pyramids ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... omnibuses lumbered away on its journey, she followed it with her eyes, as a government clerk at Cayenne or Noumea gazes after the steamer about to return to France; she made the trip with it, knew just where it would stop, at what point it would lurch around a corner, grazing the shop-windows ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... in a second. The horse bolted straight ahead. Barney swerved the roadster to the turn. It caught the animal full in the side. There was a sickening lurch as the hind wheels slid over the embankment, and then the man shoved the girl from the running board to the road, and horse, man and roadster went ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... devoted to Alix, and at the same time she's devoted to her son. She seemed to want my advice, but of course I couldn't give her any. It's a thing she's got to work out for herself. I couldn't advise her to leave Alix in the lurch and I couldn't advise her to turn her back ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... have already held, and can guarantee a successful performance on February 16th. After the second on the 20th "Tannhauser" is to be given, and on the 26th "Lohengrin" will follow. Let me ask you once more to persuade Tichatschek not to leave us in the lurch at the latter. I have special hopes for this performance of "Lohengrin", and should not like to let it be spoiled on account of our small means. I can assure you, however, that the interest of the public in "Lohengrin" is in the ascendant; at every performance the strangers in our theatre ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... he held a crucifix to the blue lips that would never breathe a prayer to the Virgin again. The small mouth and refined features of the praying man were strangely out of keeping with his tempestuous surroundings. Unmindful, however, of wind and waves alike, he knelt and prayed audibly. Each lurch of the vessel threw him forward, so that, in order to save himself from falling, he was obliged to press heavily upon the dead man's throat and breast; but this he heeded not. His girlish blue eyes were half closed in an ecstasy of religious fervour, ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... at least in America, read by this generation as he was by the last. This faint reaction is no doubt a sign of a deeper change impending in philosophic and metaphysical speculation. An age is apt to take a lurch in a body one way or another, and those most active in it do not always perceive how largely its direction is determined by what are called mere systems of philosophy. The novelist may not know whether ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... these days to see gentlemen unsteady after dinner, yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion, who had spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her side with the most airy divagations. Sometimes he would get so close to her that she must edge away; and at others lurch clear out of the track and plough among deep heather. His courtesy and gravity meanwhile remained unaltered. He asked her how far they had to go; whether the way lay all upon the moorland, and when ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Claude gave another lurch forward in the bed. "I couldn't suffer worse than I'm suffering now, knowing I'm an infernal cad—and not seeing how to be ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... were completed in two days, and she and another vessel, that had been detained owing to her pump gear not being ready, were towed out of the harbour in the face of a strong easterly wind and a lowering glass. The portly, ruddy appearance and pronounced lurch or roll of Captain Thomas Arlington left no doubt as to his calling. He spoke with an assumed accent which resembled the amalgamation of several dialects. He was usually called Tom by his intimate friends, but mere acquaintances were not permitted to address him in any such familiar fashion. ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... am in a hurry, though," said that nameless individual, coming forward. "It's all very well for you: you put a man up to everything that's dangerous, and then you leave him in the lurch, and say it don't matter. I daresay it don't matter to you. All that you've done has been to share the profit—you've nothing to do with the danger; but I'm savage to-night, and I don't mean to stand it any more," said the stranger, his great chest expanding ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... You've got to help me with my gown. O that was a good- for-nothing baggage, leaving us in the lurch! ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... after that that there broke out in the depths of the tunnel a commotion so extraordinary that the listeners outside could make nothing at all of it, and could only lurch about in amazement and climb up and push their heads into the tunnel, and wonder what it all meant. Then, in the midst of the turmoil, there came the thunderous bellow of the gun, and after a time ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... budge. I turned, leaned past him, plucked the whip from its socket, and lashed out at the leaders. They plunged forward as a bullet sang over my head; but before they could break into a gallop the driver had wrenched them back again on their haunches. The coach gave a lurch or two and once more ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... afterwards learnt, she gave a lurch and completely disappeared beneath the turbulent waters, without even her mastheads being left standing to show where she had gone down. She had evidently torn a huge hole in her side in one of her collisions with the ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... pantry, my Lord," the steward continued, "when my back was turned, and while he was looking about him in one of the cupboards, the vessel took a lurch to port, and unshipping the cruet-stand, emptied the pepper-pot ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... the Boer is suspicious; he is likewise jealous by nature. If there happens to be rinderpest on the next farm to his, he is never contented until he gets his full share. He does not mind if the visitation plays extreme havoc among his stock so long as he is not left in the lurch. I remember some time ago hearing of a Boer who had decided to build a large dwelling-house on his farm in place of the wretched little building he and his family had hitherto occupied. This Boer had made some money, and contact with English people in the towns had resulted in more advanced ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann

... is to back her husband: if SHE leaves him in the lurch, there is little hope for him. For of ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... old chaplain left him in a lurch; The sword I forsook for the sake of the church; He risked the soul, and I ventur'd the body,— then I prov'd false to my ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... from a ship water-logged and on the brink of foundering, being in the last stage of dropsical debility; but, though suffering in body, serene in mind. So, without reversing my union-jack, I await my last lurch. Till ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... "Say what you may, it was my phenomena on which the Theosophical Society was founded. It is my phenomena by which that Society has been built up." It was a natural feeling of half resentment against the policy of the time, that had left her in the lurch, and put the Society upon a different footing. It was in connection with that terrible time, in the turmoil and whirl of conflicting opinions, that those words recorded of her Master, spoken to herself, in one of the records left to the Society, occurred, in which He said: "The Society ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... and Ned were too busy to talk much, as they were aiding in getting some hysterical girls and young women into the two sound craft. And when the last of the picnic party had been taken off, the boat with a hole in it gave a sudden lurch, there was a gurgling, bubbling sound, ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... that the prize was not yet within his reach. And then, just as the young lady with the firm-set lips said, 'Now, Robert!' and just as the gaff was cautiously extended for the third time, the salmon gave a final lurch forward, and the next instant—before Lionel could tell what had happened—the fly was dangling helplessly in the air, and ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... getting impatient about it," said Cochrane. "Perhaps I had better do what I can, Belmont, since this damned fellow has left us in the lurch." ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... merrily, when, with the suddenness of a lightning-stroke, everything grew black and began to spin around her. She looked helplessly at Dwight, whose grinning face was like that of a whirling dervish, made a little lurch forward, and would have fallen, but that watchful Mr. Malcolm caught her just in time. He at once sent a boy for the stewardess, and they soon had the half-unconscious girl safe inside her own stateroom door, where Faith looked up drowsily from ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... seeing the man's masked face at his elbow, struck it a fearful blow with his great fist. The amateur desperado sank to the floor, his big, murderous gun rattling on the iron plate of the coal-deck. Yank, the engineer, grabbed the gun, whistled off-brakes, and opened the throttle. The sudden lurch forward proved too much for a weak link, and the train parted, leaving the rest of the robbers and the train crew to fight it out. As soon as the engineer discovered that the train had parted, he ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman

... permitted him to flee from the city before they began to fight, doubtless foreseeing that otherwise he would have died of fright. He took advantage of the permission and fled to Amsterdam, leaving his fellow-citizens in the lurch. ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... Colony, but he was against any such project. This, however, was not because he disapproved of my suggestion in itself, but because he feared that the Transvaalers might say that the Free-Staters, now that their own country was in the enemy's hands, were going to leave them in the lurch. Yet in spite of his opposition, I had ultimately to carry out my own ideas, for, even if I was misunderstood, I had to act as I thought best. I can only say that each man of us who remained true to our great cause acted ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... creak and lurch, the sleigh left the grade, and took the white snow edging the shoal water that led out to the deep green of the middle ice. The watcher ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... a little sob of thanksgiving, because I hadn't failed; and a voice seemed to whisper far, far down under the renewed song of the engine, "What if this is a prophecy? What if, after Diana has left him in the lurch, it should be given to you to atone—to help or save ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... formed itself into two parties, and each was extolling the merits of its parliamentary champions for and against prerogative, nothing could operate to give a more general shock than an immediate coalition of the champions themselves. The partisans of each being thus suddenly left in the lurch, and mutually heated with disgust at the measure, felt no other relief than uniting in a common execration against both. A higher stimulus or resentment being thus excited than what the contest on prerogatives occasioned, the nation ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... famous St. Peter of Montenegrin history, was a firm and courageous ruler, who made his influence felt throughout the courts of Europe. Austria, Russia, and England did not scruple to avail themselves of his help and then, as seems to be the Montenegrin fate, left him in the lurch. He defied the armies of the great Napoleon, who came to fear him and his warlike clan insomuch that he was even offered terms of friendship. But the proud mountaineer would have none of it. He now turned his hand, under the influence ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... the Miamis, thought all further resistance useless. No doubt many of them entertained the views that Brant long afterwards openly expressed to Sir John Johnson. "In the first place," said the great Mohawk, "the Indians were engaged in a war to assist the English—then left in the lurch at the peace, to fight alone until they could make peace for themselves. After repeatedly defeating the armies of the United States, so that they sent Commissioners to endeavor to get peace, the Indians were ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce



Words linked to "Lurch" :   mess about, stagger, tilt, lurk, ship, defeat, card game, reel, keel, stumble, pitch, swag, gait, lounge, pitching, movement, mill about, motion, move, overcome, hang around, linger



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