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Upsetting   Listen
adjective
Upsetting  adj.  
1.
Conceited; assuming; as, an upsetting fellow. (Scot.)
2.
Such as to disturb the self-possession of; unnerving; causing mental distress; as, the sight was an upsetting experience.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Upsetting" Quotes from Famous Books



... hardly uttered the words when an Arab, who had attracted my notice by the attention he had paid to my tricks, jumped over four rows of seats, and disdaining the use of the "practicable," crossed the orchestra, upsetting flutes, clarionets, and violins, escaladed the stage, while burning himself at the footlights, and then said, ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... front of the buggy. My wife quickly took the lines: I hooked the traces up, jumped in, grabbed for the lines and waved my last farewell from the road afar off. Even at that they got away from us once or twice and came very near upsetting and wrecking the buggy; but nothing serious ever happened during the winter. I had to have horses like that, for I needed their speed and their staying power, as the reader will see if he cares to follow me ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... hard travelling on account of incessant low kihams to be passed, or banks of small stones over which the prahus had to be dragged. The Penyahbongs had not yet learned to be good boatmen, often nearly upsetting the prahu when getting in or out. Occasionally long quiet pools occurred, and the scenery here was grand and thrilling. Graceful trees of infinite variety bent over the water, bearing orchids of various colours, while creepers hung down everywhere, all reflected in a calm surface which seldom ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... the Cerberus was aground the tide fell six feet, and at one time she was in the greatest danger of upsetting; the topmasts were immediately struck, and the vessel shored up by the lower yards and spare spars. While heeling over more than forty-five degrees, the bottom of the ship was exposed to the shot ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... elaborately, thinking no evil of nature, when a current, a quiet devil of a thing, comes round from behind a point of the bank and catches the nose of our canoe; wringing it well, it sends us scuttling right across the river in spite of our ferocious swoops at the water, upsetting us among a lot of rocks with the water boiling over them; this lot of rocks being however of the table-top kind, and not those precious, close-set pinnacles rising up sheer out of profound depths, between which you ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... get rid of me! Then she must be coming back!" The thought darted through Isaacson's brain, upsetting a previously formed conviction which, to a certain extent, had guided ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... anxiety to the sailor-boy and his gentle companion. Noddy had carefully examined them through the spy-glass a great many times; and once he had seen a large canoe, under sail, with a ponderous "out-rigger" to keep it from upsetting; but it did not come near the home of the exiles. This proved that the other islands were inhabited, and he was in constant dread of a visit from the savages. He put all the pistols he had found in the cabin in readiness for use, and practised firing at a mark, that he might be able to defend ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... that Robin dressed in frantic haste, paying careful regard to her stockings, however, and tumbled down the stairs, almost upsetting Harkness and a tray ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... Dockyard Authorities at Portsmouth, your newly-designed Self-sinking and Propelling Submarine Electric Gun Brig, your vessel, owing, as you say, "to some trifling, though quite unforeseen, hitch in the machinery," should have immediately turned over on its side, upsetting a quantity of red-hot coal from the stoke-hole, and projecting a stifling rush of steam among the four foreign captains, and the two scientific experts whom you had induced to accompany you in your ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various

... tried to represent to myself exactly what elements there were in Frank that had such an effect upon this wise and positive old man. He had been a very upsetting visitor in many ways. He had distracted his benefactor from a very important mouse that had died of leprosy; he had interfered sadly with working hours; he had turned the house, comparatively speaking, upside down. Worse than all, he had—I will not say modified the doctor's ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... ever took from the High Churchmen—which he had made for himself, and which he and Catherine knew by heart. In some ways he was not a bigot at all. He would have had the Church make peace with the Dissenters; he was all for upsetting tests so far as Nonconformity was concerned. But he drew the most rigid line between belief and unbelief. He would not have dined at the same table with a Unitarian if he could have helped it. I remember a furious article of his in the Record against ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... its trials and anxieties. My grandmother's special tribulations, during the sugaring season, were the upsetting and gnawing of holes in her birch-bark pans. The transgressors were the rabbit and squirrel tribes, and we little boys for once became useful, in shooting them with our bows and arrows. We hunted ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... saw by Elfric's bloodshot eyes and unsteady gait, as he rose, upsetting his seat, that his companion was something less master of himself than usual; he felt, it need hardly be said, no remorse, but rather regarded the whole thing as what might now be termed ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... had arrived twenty-four hours ahead of John, and the daughter of the house had already installed herself as temporary mistress by thoughtlessly upsetting, reversing, and turning inside out all the good Huldah's most cherished arrangements. All the plans for the annual festival that wise and practical Huldah had entertained were vetoed, without a thought that this young girl had been for a year and a half in actual authority in ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... though," said Owen, half-maliciously, "or she'll be thinking about her best boy all day instead of working. Of course that's a bit better than militancy, less upsetting; but women are so incomprehensible when they're in what they are pleased to call love that it's rather difficult to know ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... to find as it was to the Huguenots in the case of Conde. Chatelherault and Arran, native princes, next heirs to the crown while Mary was childless, could be produced as legitimate "Authority." But to do this implied a change of "Authority," an upsetting of "Authority," which was plain rebellion in the opinion of the Genevan doctors. Knox was thus obliged, in sermons and in the pamphlet (Book II. of his "History"), to maintain that nothing more than freedom of conscience and religion was contemplated, while, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... were not sent off to a third place of meeting. When the time at length arrived, an eunuch appeared, followed by Albanian soldiers armed with staves, carrying a bag of money, which he threw by handfuls right into the midst of the assembly. Then began a terrible uproar. The women rushed to catch it, upsetting each other, quarreling, fighting, and uttering cries of terror and pain, while the Albanians, pretending to enforce order, pushed into the crowd, striking right and left with their batons. The pacha meanwhile sat at a window enjoying the spectacle, and impartially ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... married life she had never known him to show such stubborn force. He was like granite, and the unbelievable change in him, upsetting all her preconceived notions of the man, appalled her. There had been times in the past when they had clashed, but he had never really matched his will with hers, and she had judged him weak and spiritless. Now, therefore, failing to dominate him as usual, she was filled with a strange ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... the Kaiser's come: he'll be in Cologne by night; but first he must see the Baron, and I'm post with the order. That's to show you how high he stands in the Kaiser's grace. Don't be thinking of upsetting Werner yet, any of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Isaac Newton's papers, by his little dog 'Diamond' upsetting a lighted taper upon his desk, by which the elaborate calculations of many years were in a moment destroyed, is a well-known anecdote, and need not be repeated: it is said that the loss caused the philosopher such profound grief that it seriously injured his health, and impaired his ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... between her and the door. She ran round the room, upsetting everything, for she thought he would kill her in his drunken rage. Don't you remember, Mr. Denzil, how disorderly the room was? Well, Clear got Rhoda into a corner, and was going to strike her; she had the stiletto still in her hand, and held it point ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... do b'lieve I was forgettin'," cried the Wild Man, springing up in his own violent, impulsive way, upsetting his chair (as a matter of course, being unused to such delicacies), dashing through the lake of cream to the all but annihilation of the kitten, opening the door, and giving vent ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... man could not get promoted—three or even four times, in as many weeks—over the heads of hundreds of others, without causing an immense amount of jealousy; without, in fact, upsetting the whole traditions of ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... with it, but to a young and ardent spirit there is apt to be something a trifle upsetting in being, compelled to watch a man play quite so slowly as you do. Come now, Alexander, as one friend to another, is it necessary to take ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... Think of a people in bondage because of its numbers, its sturdiness and its wisdom. Thou who art in rebellion against ancient law dost feel somewhat of Israel's hurt. Behold, am I not also oppressed because I may think to the upsetting of idolatry and the overthrow of mine oppressors? Thou and I are fellows in bondage; but mark me! I am nearer freedom than thou. The Pharaohs began too late. Ye may not dam the Nile ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... connection may not be obvious; but that is because of the strangely unhealthy condition of modern thought. I am against cruel vivisection as I am against a cruel anti-Christmas asceticism, because they both involve the upsetting of existing fellowships and the shocking of normal good feelings for the sake of something that is intellectual, fanciful, and remote. It is not a human thing, it is not a humane thing, when you see a poor woman ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... resumed, "happened to the Counts of Laurencin and Dampierre, when they ascended at Lyons, on the 15th of January, 1784. A young merchant, named Fontaine, scaled the railing, at the risk of upsetting the equipage. He accomplished the voyage, and nobody ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne

... she preferred to all, though the latter was sister to the secretary who had betrayed her. But here arose a fresh difficulty, the earls saying that this permission did not extend to women, women not being used to be present at such sights, and when they were, usually upsetting everyone with cries and lamentations, and, as soon as the decapitation was over, rushing to the scaffold to staunch the blood with their ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... before, this poor Irish lad, who was but thirteen years of age, had lost both his parents through the upsetting of a boat in Sydney Harbour. His father was a sergeant in the 77th Regiment, and had only arrived in the colony a few months previous to the accident, and the boy was left without a relative in the world. But the captain of his father's company and the other officers of the regiment ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... flesh," said he; "all is not right here." Then he pried into every corner, and searched, but could not find anything. His grandmother scolded him. "It has just been swept," said she, "and everything put in order, and now you are upsetting it again; you have always got man's flesh in your nose. Sit ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... Melissa's nerves. She very frequently said so, and sometimes to his face, although she never neglected him for an instant. In truth, she shared with Mrs. Bingle the day nursing, and seldom slept well of nights, knowing that the night-nurse was upsetting everything in the kitchen and pantry in her most ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... "I had a dispute with my singers in May, which ended in their leaving the church, and we now sing en masse,"[43] and in June still, "My singers are quite mute."[44] At St. Mary's, Mr. Bennett, who was killed on his way to Worcester Festival by the upsetting of a coach,[45] and after him Mr. Elvey, elder brother of Sir George Elvey, sometime organist at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, were Mr. Newman's organists. "I shall never forget," writes a hearer, "the charm it was to hear Elvey play the ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis

... replied Jamie; "it blows him too hard." And, glad to be out of the gale, which took his breath away, the little fellow seated himself contentedly in the shelter of the dike. Just then there was a clatter of wheels and a crash. Bill had whirled sharply about in the narrow road, upsetting and ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... noise of upsetting plates, bottles, and glasses, of a man's feet rapping up against the bottom of a table and his head thumping down against the floor. There was the sight of an agile youth leaping across an overturned table and alighting with one foot at each side of the prostrate form of an astonished ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... one called Jess, with our Azurian consul in Paris—all scoundrels—hatched a swindle to sell, through forged state authority and a farcical secret diplomacy, a portion of Azuria to France. This, you may remember, came near upsetting the Balkans in 1903. Their crafty scheme lay ready to be sprung when Efaw Kotee—we will call him that—had to kidnap the princess in self-defense. From that time but fragmentary facts came dribbling in from secret agents, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... of the grayp dish, and sent it sliding down the table to De l'Orge; upsetting, in his way, fruit-plates, glasses, dickanters, and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... known by the name of Fussioldfuri, and lived in a miserable cavern when she was not travelling about—had great delight in spoiling any one's innocent amusement or upsetting his or her plans; she even started children quarrelling and disputing; indeed, she found this one of her particular pastimes when she was not engaged ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... her prattle and watched his shop during his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the parrot that she flew about from shelf to shelf, upsetting several jars and spilling their contents. When her master returned and saw the havoc made among his goods he fetched the parrot a blow that knocked out all her head feathers, and from that day she sulked on her perch. The oilman, missing the prattle of his favourite, began to shower his alms on ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... that to them, Mr. Harnish. And I repeat, they are gamblers, and they will deserve all that befalls them. They clog and cumber all legitimate enterprise. You have no idea of the trouble they cause men like us—sometimes, by their gambling tactics, upsetting the soundest plans, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... not shaken hands either at meeting or parting. Queer thing it was—the kind of enmity a man could feel for another when he was upset by a woman. It was amusing enough that it should be she who was upsetting him after all these years—impudent little Betty, with the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... ye, but she is not now, and I have scruples of coming alone, as she has no pleasant friend to sit with her in my absence. We are lonely. I fear the visits must be mostly from you. By the way omnibuses are 1's/3'd and coach insides sunk to l/6—a hint. Without disturbance to yourselves, or upsetting the economy of the dear new mistress of a family, come and see us as often as ever you can. We are so out of the world, that a letter from either of you now and then, detailing any thing, Book or Town news, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... every moment. Already the hull of the flying launch began to show up in the misty radiance. Her steersman sent her shooting in wide curves, and so succeeded in upsetting the aim of the Turkish gunners. But it was only putting off the inevitable end, and that was clear ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... good of that, Miss Sarah, upsetting of Mr Clay for nothing, let alone that I never told no story? You asked me what I came for—at least, so I understood it—and I answered you, "Dinner," and that's what I am here for. Oh, do make haste, ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... so hard—because it was upsetting things he'd taken for granted as being facts all his life, like those astronomers who were going nuts in droves all over the world. I didn't realize how upset Doc really was, though, till he woke me ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee

... in killing several of them, the latter usually withdraw discouraged, and may for the time give up the attempt. If the defending party should come upon the enemy struggling against a rapid, and especially if the enemy is in difficulties through the upsetting of some of their boats, or in any other way, they may fall upon them in the open bed of the river, and then ensues the comparatively rare event, a stand-up fight in the open. This resolves itself in the main into hand-to-hand duels between pairs of combatants, ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... which was increased by my jumping out of bed and falling head-first over a chair, upsetting the latter, the hardened old cuss slept on. When I yelled again, and shook him by the shoulder, he half opened his ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... we are in the hands of God; and (short-sighted as we are) in running away from danger, as often run into it. What we call an accident, the fall of a brick or a stone, the upsetting of a vehicle, any thing trivial or seemingly improbable, may summon us away when we least expect it: 'In the midst of life we are in death,' and that death I may meet by staying in this country, which I might have avoided by going on this expedition. Difficulties may arise, ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... of anger giving way to one of genuine embarrassment, "he was upsetting business, Mrs. Cartwright. I hated to—to git mad that way, but he was running my trade away, and that's a thing I won't let no man do right under my eyes. Set down an' rest, Mrs. Cartwright; you don't ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... subsequent chieftainship descent has been traced, but I could learn nothing of the circumstances under which this had occurred. Also it has happened that, when a chief has been weak, and has not asserted his position, a sub-chief has more or less usurped his power and influence, without actually upsetting his chieftainship or supplanting him in ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... in any way involved. That was not generally understood. Many employers thought we were just making the announcement because we were prosperous and wanted advertising and they condemned us because we were upsetting standards—violating the custom of paying a man the smallest amount he would take. There is nothing to such standards and customs. They have to be wiped out. Some day they will be. Otherwise, we cannot abolish poverty. We made the change not merely because ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... out! The stone has sunk into its place! We are locked in!" he screamed, and, wild with fear, he plunged headlong into the cell, upsetting me in his career before I could check him. I sprang back to the door as it was closing. I was too late. Before I could reach it, it had shut with a loud clang in ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... and their new guide, and they seemed to need a few signs only to express their meaning. A good many whispers, however, were necessary in order to make Isidore crouch down in the middle of the largest canoe without upsetting the frail craft, but as soon as he had done so his companions stepped lightly in, one at each end, and the next moment they were silently paddling out into ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... Lois cared for him and would respond to his love. But just when he might have spoken Pedro plunged into the ditch, and it took all of his master's attention to get him back on the road without upsetting ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... he began, bending his knees in the direction of the floor, and upsetting the table as he went down with a thud, "will you ship aboard this here old craft as fust mate with a rough ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... two others had deposited a very considerable amount of treasure on a key that he described very minutely, and which he now bestowed on Daggett as some compensation for his present unmerited sufferings, his companions having both been drowned by the upsetting of their boat on the return from the key in question. Subsequently, this pirate had been executed, and Daggett liberated. He was not able to get to the key without making friends and confidants on whom he could rely, and he was actually making the best ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... John, under the first of King George the First, statute two—I forget what chapter—by the Act commonly called the Riot Act, it is enacted that if a dozen or more go about reforming of religion or otherwise upsetting the public peace and refuse to go about their business within the space of one hour after I tell 'em to, the same becomes felony without benefit ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... by the buzzing noise, did not at first understand what was upsetting him. But after a time the child's harassing phrase fell ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... thought of for he cast the rod away and turned to the canoe. Joe was already there. With an expert twirl, he righted the canoe with but little water in it. In another moment he was in the back seat, giving Pud directions how to climb in without upsetting the canoe. Three different times Pud upset the canoe before he got in. As they started to row back to the camp Pud felt something sticking him in the back. He felt and it was the fly which ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... was a useful man, Hendrik. Besides, who would believe that it was a murder? Two men were escorting an Englishman to the river; they became involved in a quarrel; the Englishman shot them, and they shot the Englishman and his companion. Then the horses plunged into the Vaal upsetting the cart, and there was an end of it. He could see now how well things had gone for him. Events had placed him ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... cert'nly," continues the guard. "Werry free with their cash is the young genl'm'n. But, Lor' bless you, we gets into such rows all 'long the road, what wi' their pea-shooters, and long whips, and hollering, and upsetting every one as comes by, I'd a sight sooner carry one or two on 'em, sir, as I may be a-carryin' of you now, than ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... The only escape poor Parson Frank had from accepting the doom was in disbelieving that a thing like a trumpet could really reveal the condition of the chest. Moreover, Mrs. Fordyce had had a brother who had, under the famous cowhouse cure, recovered enough to return home, and be killed by the upsetting of a stage coach. ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that that plan wouldn't do at all. But he turned Timothy over, just for fun, upsetting him neatly by lifting him on the stick—for Timothy had not sense enough to let go of it in ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey

... disliked the Bill. His irrepressible friend, Gilchrist, wrote giving a picture of its probable dire social results, upsetting all domestic relations between the two races. The Bill, says Gilchrist, "is the most pernicious [that] could have been devised. Judge of the Fetes now that the fools have got the sanction of the British Parliament to their beggaring principles. It is not clear that your Protestant servants ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... strange object excites his curiosity, and he will, if possible, look behind it; the slightest noise arouses his attention, and he wants to investigate its cause. There is no end to his liveliness, but he moves about with almost catlike agility without upsetting any objects in a room, and when he hops he has a curious way of catching up his hind legs. The Schipperke's disposition is most affectionate, tinged with a good deal of jealousy, and even when made one of the household he generally attaches himself more particularly to one person, whom ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... Marcel. An unseen log had lurched against the pirogue, upsetting it and throwing its occupant into the water. He sank, but rose in a flash and reached out, swimming, after pirogue ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... true is the old Roman saying, 'Surgit amari aliquid'. Our pleasures are never perfect. There is always something. In the programme which I had hastily mapped out, the upsetting of Mr MacGinnis was but a small item, a mere preliminary. There were a number of things which I had wished to do to him, once upset. But it was not to be. Even as I reached for his throat I perceived that the light of the window was undergoing an eclipse. A compact form ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... of us are indulging in a constitutional. We rush up and down the long flush decks like mad; we take fiendish delight in upsetting the pious dignity of the evangelist; we flutter the smokers in the smoking-room—because, forsooth, we are chasing the girls from one end of the ship to the other; and consequently the denizens of the masculine ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... I can beat you!" Laddie shouted. And he would have done so, too, only he guided wrong, and his sled went into a bank of snow, upsetting and tumbling ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope

... a mile, and the road remained narrow, so that there was danger of upsetting in the ditch if they tried to turn. "What do you wish me to do?" Mr. Harrison asked with a smile. "The more we go on the longer it will take us if we are to go back, and I may miss my train; is your prejudice against Hilltown ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... were upsetting to the tranquil mind. Eulalie wanted—not possession of the earth, but to be the earth, and to be duly revolved around by friends, relatives and countless planetary lovers. Elvira's days grew turbid and her nights devoid ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... moment until I fetch it," and he went hurriedly through a small door at the back of the shop, leaving the fisherman standing near the window, from which he could see the crowd outside. Suddenly the man uttered an exclamation, and made a dash for the door, nearly upsetting ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... last he gave me my chance. He half tripped over a little table and his face stuck forward. I got him on the point of the chin, and put every ounce of weight I possessed behind the blow. He crumpled up in a heap and rolled over, upsetting a lamp and knocking a big china jar in two. His head, I remember, lay under the escritoire from which he had ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... single sheet of bark, with one end a little narrower than the other and pointing upwards. This end is paddled first; the bottom is nearly flat, and the canoe is so firm, that a person can take hold of one side, and climb into it from the water without upsetting it. It is paddled along with the long pine-spear moo-aroo, described as being used in fishing at night by firelight. In propelling it the native stands near the centre, pushing his moo-aroo against the water, first on one side and then on the other; in shallow water one end of the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... fifty-four feet in half a mile. We locked ourselves through here with much ado, surmounting the successive watery steps of this river's staircase in the midst of a crowd of villagers, jumping into the canal to their amusement, to save our boat from upsetting, and consuming much river-water in our service. Amoskeag, or Namaskeak, is said to mean "great fishing-place." It was hereabouts that the Sachem Wannalancet resided. Tradition says that his tribe, when at war with the Mohawks, concealed their provisions in the cavities of the ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... said Dickie slowly, "a sort of joke. I don't want to go upsetting of people. If you'll lift me down and give me me crutch I'll ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... or to me, or to the family. You must see yourself that sort of thing isn't right. She's a very good girl—our champion spinner Best says; and if you go distracting her and taking her out of her station, you are doing her a very cruel turn and upsetting her peace of mind. And the others will be jealous, of course, and so it will go on. It isn't playing the game—it really isn't. That's all. I know you're a sportsman and all that; so I do beg you'll be a sportsman in business too, and take a proper ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... a flying leap to the desk, upsetting a bottle of ink in his course and landed on the bed, where he rolled over and over on the white vest and other clothes so carefully ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... corner, and up some more steps, where I reach first a small ante-room and then my bedroom. Like the other rooms, it is whitewashed and has a very high ceiling. Some confiding sparrows have built a nest in a hole in the wall, and—and this is really upsetting—there are ten different ways of entering the room, doors and windows, and half of them I can't lock or bar or fasten up in any way. What I should do if a Mutiny occurred I can't think! My bed with its mosquito-curtains stands like a little island in a vast sea of matting, ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... made her bed and swept out underneath it, departed abruptly from the scene. Somehow the sight of bugs being killed was upsetting to her just now. She wandered down toward the river, listening pensively to the sweet piping notes of Noel Sanderson's whistle, coming from somewhere along the shore; then she turned and walked toward Mateka, planning to put in some time working on the design for her paddle before Craft Hour ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... Two of these prowlers, outward-bound from their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little boat, and the children derived no small amusement from watching their motions in the pellucid water,—the boy occasionally almost upsetting the boat by valorous plunges at them with his stick. It was the most exhilarating and piquant entertainment he had found for many a day; and little Mara laughed in chorus at every lunge that ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... was attended by numerous dangers. In spite of all their efforts, canoes were sometimes carried over the falls and wrecked, and on June 3d, Frank Pocock, the last of Stanley's white companions, was drowned in the Congo by the upsetting of a boat. Pocock was a brave, faithful, and devoted follower of Stanley, who has paid a touching tribute to the manliness, affection, and courage of the young Englishman who lies buried in the savage ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... her keen eyes. 'Well, if you were coming, it was a pity you were not sooner. She has pined away ever since she came here; and to such a worn-down condition as hers, poor child, I doubt joy's kinder more upsetting than trouble, when one is used to it. There; I'll fix the things, and go up and sit with Avy. She'll be less likely to work herself into a flight again if she sees ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... certainly the most worthless, trifling, half-asleep combination of Senegambian stupidity and poor white trash indolence and awkwardness that I ever saw. He brought in everything except what I wanted, and then wound up by upsetting the little cream pitcher in my lap. He did not charge for the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... bones and muscles might be miraculous, but they were explicable and everybody understood them. Talk of the FCC investigation had died aborning, but talk like that was enough to upset anybody. Everything had been upsetting recently, even though the up-curve on ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond

... ignorant of what was coming as their horses, and drove up to the road as near as they could get, only looking for the best position to get a view of the train. As it approached a the horses took fright and wheeled, upsetting buggies, carriages, and wagons, and leaving for parts unknown to the passengers if not to their owners, and it is not now positively known if some of them have stopped yet. Such is a hasty sketch of my recollection of my ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody

... windows, as were also many fine productions of art, but mingled with the gaudiest and coarsest in a way which struck me with astonishment. I was also much surprised by the fact that the traffic, which was never stilled for a moment, seemed to have no sort of regulation. Some carriages dashed along, upsetting the smaller vehicles in their way, without the least restraint or order, either, as it seemed, from their own good sense or from the laws and customs of the place. When an accident happened, there was a great shouting, and sometimes a furious encounter; but nobody seemed to interfere. ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... and walked ashore. But it was childish to give way to foolish regrets; so I lay perfectly quiet, and yelled. Presently I thought of my jack-knife. By this time the ship was so water-logged as to be a little more stable. This enabled me to get the knife from my pocket without upsetting more than six or eight times, and inspired hope. Taking the whittle between my teeth, I turned over upon my stomach, and cut a hole through the bottom near the bow. Turning back again, I awaited the result. Most men ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... and took quite an intelligent interest in Joseph's pas seul. Indeed, one young man (the episode escaped me at the dress rehearsal, but I have it in the guide-book)—one young man, "sobbing, buries his head in his hands, upsetting thereby a dish of fruit." As for Potiphar, it failed to stir the sombre depths of his abysmal boredom, but his wife, whose ennui had hitherto been of the most profound, began to sit up and take notice, and at the end of the dance she sent for Joseph and supplemented his rather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various

... afraid a strike might aggravate uncles. It's no use upsetting the goose that lays the silver eggs, so I thought it better to write to you, pointing out that there was one luxury still at pre-war prices and that uncles should never miss a chance of indulging in it, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various

... doesn't call it that; of course not. But he's concerned about some garbled story getting to Terra about our upsetting the ecological balance and causing droughts. Fact is, ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... I'm mistress here. I won't be put upon. What did you want to come here for, upsetting everybody? Till you came, I never had a word with Ed. Oh, I hate you, I hate you!" she finished in ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... staggered. Was Arthur crafty as well as able? With the human conscience ever eager to prove that what is personally advantageous is also right, how easy for a man in his circumstances to convince himself that any course would be justifiable in upsetting the "injustice" of ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... holds Jack. The crowds watch eagerly as we start out; the water splashes our feet. First one horse, then another, floundering badly, almost goes down, the buggy whirls round and comes within an ace of upsetting, the little dog's excited yaps sound above the uproar. Then one mighty lurch and we are up the bank. Four times more we repeat the performance, and at last we find ourselves with only a strip of meadow between us and Mai-ma-chin, the Chinese ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... favourite dog that, by upsetting a lamp, set fire to MSS. containing notes of experiments made over a course of years, an ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... bear it. As her mother left the room she started up abruptly, upsetting her cup and saucer, and, heedless of Miss Tasker's warning voice, rushed out into the garden blinded ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton

... expletives, and a loading of wagons, and a driving of patient oxen back and forth with me generally on the top of the load, steadying a basket of eggs with one foot, keeping a tin can of something from upsetting with the other, and both arms stretched around a very big and very square picture-frame that knocks against my nose or my chin every time the cart goes over a stone or drops into a rut, and the wind threatening to blow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Day of the Ten Martyrs of Crete, when the storm lasted for a whole day and night—do you remember?—the marshal's clerk was lost, and turned up here, the hound.... Tfoo! To be tempted by the clerk! It was worth upsetting God's weather for him! A drivelling scribbler, not a foot from the ground, pimples all over his mug and his neck awry! If he were good-looking, anyway—but he, tfoo! he is ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... things, and against him we all fight in vain, however noble our courage may be; for unfortunately all things are in this slavery of leathern custom, and only fright and trouble of all kinds can turn the Philistine into a man by thoroughly upsetting him. Pending an entirely new order of things, we must, dearest friend, be satisfied with ourselves and with those who, like ourselves, know but one enemy—the Philistine. Let us show each other what we can do, and let us feel highly rewarded if we can give joy to each other. "A ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... advanced by my relative in trying to give a reason for the faith that was in him, until he was completely cornered. "Well," said he at last, "the good Lord has not taken me into His confidence, and I don't know what His plans for upsetting slavery are, but He will be ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... profoundly in return for another bow. "How do you do, sir? Oh, he is beautiful, isn't he?" half-aside to Willingham, who was swallowing as much as he could of the butt of his whip. Poor Mr Plympton looked aghast at the compliment. Branling fairly turned his back, and burst from the room, nearly upsetting Hanmer and myself; who, having waited below some time for our party to join us, had made our way upstairs to ascertain the cause of the unusual noises which reached us from the open door of the drawing-room. Dawson was shaking with reckless disregard of the safety of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... tould you, Dick was ever after her, although her father and mother would rather see her under boord* than joined to any of that connection; and as for herself, she couldn't bear the sight of him, he was sich an upsetting, conceited puppy, that thought himself too good for every girl. At any rate, he tried often and often, in fair and market, to get striking up with her; and both coming from and going to mass, 'twas the same way, for ever after and about her, till the state he was in spread over ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... throwing up medicine. It was a vocation that had fitted him as coursing fits a hound, or house-wifery a woman. The only excuse he could find for his apostasy was that he had been caught in an epidemic of unrest, which had swept through the country, upsetting the balance of men's reason. He had since wondered if the Great Exhibition of '51 had not had something to do with it, by unduly whetting people's imaginations; so that but a single cry of "Gold!" was needed, to loose the ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... tree, and stretching out his hands for something to take hold of, he seized the Rakshas' two great ears and pinched them very hard. This frightened the Rakshas, who lost his balance and fell down to the ground, upsetting the other six of his friends; the Blind Man all the while pinching harder than ever, and the Deaf Man crying out from the top of the tree—"You're all right, brother, hold on tight, I'm coming down to help you"—though he really didn't mean to do anything of the kind. Well, ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce

... of four and six, while the band played the most admired fairy opera airs. But before the banquet was through, I am sadly afraid some of the gay young fellows forgot they were in the presence of ladies, they laughed so loud, and talked so much nonsense, and one of them came very near upsetting the table at which he sat, spilling his buttercup of dew all over the new gossamer dress of Lilliebelle, ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... creaked and a hollow appeared in the pillow. Kathleen put out the gas and got into bed; all this magic had been rather upsetting, and she was just the least bit frightened, but in the dark she found it was not so bad. Mabel's arms went round her neck the moment she got into bed, and the two little girls kissed in the kind darkness, where the visible and the invisible could ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... Aunt Hannah. I wanted to make sure you hurried, that's all. You see, I don't want Billy to suspect just how much she's upsetting us. I've asked Kate to take her over to her house for the day, while Bertram is moving down-stairs, and while we're getting you settled. I—I think you'll like it there, Aunt Hannah," added William, anxiously. "Of course Billy's got ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... foot upon Peter, who jumped out of a window, upsetting three plants. The window was too small for Mr. McGregor, and he was tired of running after Peter. He went ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter

... acutely to be alone. It was upsetting to have to carry on a conversation. That often throws you off of what's ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... jugglers set a top to whirling, placed the point on the end of a stick, and balanced it on his nose. So far it was no new thing; but one of the spectators was asked to say stop at any time he pleased. Captain Ringgold gave this command; and when he did so, the top ceased to whirl, though, upsetting the bicycle theory, it kept its place on the stick. "Go!" added the commander, prompted by Sir Modava; and the plaything began to whirl again, as though its gyrations had not been interrupted. It was stopped and started again several times, till ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... better to Miss Ogilvie than to Janet, with whom she kept up a perpetual petty warfare, sometimes, Mary thought, with the pertinacity of a spiteful elf, making a noise when Janet wanted quiet, losing no opportunity of upsetting her books or papers, and laughing boisterously at any little mishap that befell her. The only reason she ever gave when pushed hard, was that "Janet was so ugly, she could not help it," a reason so utterly ridiculous, that there was no going ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... think that respect for the rights of a neighbouring people [Spain] obliges us to allow an alien Power [Prussia], by placing one of its princes on the throne of Charles V., to succeed in upsetting to our disadvantage the present equilibrium of forces in Europe, and imperil the interests and honour of France. We have the firm hope that this eventuality will not be realised. To hinder it, we count both on the wisdom of the German people and on the friendship of the Spanish people. If ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... I wants to hear it now. I do 'clare, mamma, you've put in my best coat." And before she could stop him, he had pounced upon it and pulled it out, upsetting a superstratum ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... accompanying drawings, of the vertical dies, b b, for cutting off and carrying the cut-off length of rod, and for shaping the head of the rivet or bolt, with the horizontal punch or die, m, for shaping the shank of the rivet or bolt, and upsetting the end of the rivet or bolt into a head in ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... a reasonable space.' Lydiat had often seen her lost in daydreams such as it would have seemed to him almost a sacrilege to disturb, 'though it is probable that the only notion he would have been guilty of upsetting had reference to the shape of an imaginary ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... in watching the Sommers house, and Starr was about to leave his post when he saw the dingy, high-powered roadster of the sheriff come careening up the trail. He came near upsetting his machine in getting around Apodaca's big car, but he negotiated the passing with some skill and came on to where he met Elfigo himself sweating down the trail with his full ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... Holiday was not an easily daunted person. With one flying leap he landed in the canoe, all but upsetting the craft in his sudden ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... after fifty-four days' fighting. It was taken literally from house to house, the French engineers sapping and mining the Germans out of every stronghold, destroying every single house, incidentally forever upsetting my own one-time idea that the French are a frivolous people. So determined were they to retake this town that they fought in the streets with artillery at a distance of twenty-one feet, probably the shortest range artillery duel in the history of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... shrugged his shoulders as she remained motionless. "You'll pardon me, then, if I sit down myself." He appropriated the chair, and faced them, his revolver dangling with ominous carelessness in his hand. "I've had a rather upsetting experience this evening, and I am afraid I am still a little the worse for it—as ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... "goat," biscuits were "sinkers," meat was "corpse," and there were several other terms and phrases peculiar to camp life. He had to learn all over the ways of decency and reasonable table refinement. There is no plausible reason why this should be so in a boys' camp. Grabbing of food, yelling for food, upsetting of liquids, and table "rough-house" will be largely prevented by the system of seating and of serving. The most satisfactory way is to seat by tent groups. Have as many tables as you have tents. Let each tent leader preside at ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... ball-room to take a little fresh air on the stairs, where every step has its own separate flirtation party; there, a riotous old gentleman, with a boarding-school girl for his partner, has plunged smack into a party at loo, upsetting cards and counters, and drawing down curses innumerable. Here are a merry knot round the refreshments, and well they may be; for the negus is strong punch, and the biscuit is tipsy cake,—and all this with a running fire of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... worthy successors to the "Roaring Boys" or Bonaventors of past centuries, and their favourite pastime was, after spending the night in revelry and play, to start forth towards dawn and scour the streets, upsetting the baskets or carts of the early market folks bringing their wares into the town, scattering the merchandise in the gutter, kissing the women, cuffing the men, wrenching off knockers from house doors, and getting up fights ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... was driving our car (with Vedder by his side, tooting a musical horn), took off his cap as beautifully as Mr. Norman did, without upsetting the steering, though there seemed to be a hundred things and creatures of all descriptions in front of the motor's big bright nose at that particular moment. I'd never realized until then what a crowded, busy place Carlisle is; because it seems that you have a different set of emotions and impressions ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... place behind it they were swimming about. Several were in the channel, and our canoe-men were afraid to venture down among them, because, as they affirm, there is commonly an ill-natured one in a herd, which takes a malignant pleasure in upsetting canoes. Two or three boys on the rocks opposite amused themselves by throwing stones at the frightened animals, and hit several on the head. It would have been no difficult matter to have shot the whole herd. We fired a few shots to drive them off; the balls ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... Mrs. Hankey. Wills seem to me to have been invented by the devil for the special upsetting of the corpse's memory. Why, some of the peaceablest folks as I've ever known—folks as wouldn't have scared a lady-cow in their lifetime—have left wills as have sent all their relations to the right-about, ready to bite one another's noses off. Bateson often says ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... oil-stoves at $6.50 each might be used in place of the second large stove. In this case extra provision must be made for storing the stoves when not in use, as the cabinet shown does not provide space for more than one large stove. Care should be taken in using the one-burner stove to avoid upsetting it while it is in use. The equipment given above is generous, and reductions may be made if necessary. In any case it is not advisable that the whole equipment should be purchased at once; only sufficient to make a beginning should be secured, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... and upsetting the petted Persian, which had been reposing in her lap, and which now skulked off resentfully, with a swollen tail, to hide its indignation under a chair, 'you are as bad as an oracle. I have yards and yards of frilling to sew on before ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... miles to the Point by the road, and only half that distance by water, when the wind permitted the passage in a straight line. He did not like the idea of walking so far, choosing rather to incur the danger of being drowned by the upsetting of ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... scarcely heard the cook. Thrusting her aside, she rushed headlong into the doctor's house. Running through some dark and stuffy rooms, upsetting two or three chairs, she at last reached the doctor's bedroom. Stepan Lukitch was lying on his bed, dressed, but without his coat, and with pouting lips was breathing into his open hand. A little night-light glimmered faintly beside him. Without ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Luther had at his command a well-developed method ... impossible to any earlier reformer.... The world also had become familiar with independent investigation, and with the proclamation of new views and the upsetting of old ones. By no means the least of the great services of Erasmus to civilization had been to hold up before all the world so conspicuous an example of the scholar following, as his inalienable right, the truth as he found it and wherever it ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... seen in the morning took to swimming, and on being wounded with a spear turned on the nearest canoe, upsetting the hunters into the water, where a desperate encounter took place; but he was eventually dispatched by a blow from an ax—not, however, before he had clawed some of his ...
— True Stories of Wonderful Deeds - Pictures and Stories for Little Folk • Anonymous

... "mucking out" stables at five-thirty on a chilly morning—doing horrible work, horribly clad, feeling horribly sick. Wheeling away intentionally and maliciously over-piled barrows to the muck-pits, upsetting them, and ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... thus tranquil, thus resigned, thus all but happy, came this tremendous letter, upsetting her peace of mind, and throwing her into a new maze ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... real experience of the joy of helping others, and they hardly knew where to begin or end. They romped and played in the stuff like children in sand or snow—diving, smothering themselves, plunging, choking, turning somersaults, upsetting each other's carefully reared loads, and leaping over little pyramids of gold. Then, in a flash, their laughter turned the destroyed heaps into wonderful new patterns again; and once more they turned sober and began ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... them, as you have a great many times since I have been in the habit of speaking face to face with you, these things are found, after all, to be only hobgoblins; you have learned, after all, that they are perfectly harmless; and when you thought we were doing you harm, and upsetting the Constitution, you have found that, after all, we were doing you good, and that the Constitution was rather stronger than it was before. Let me point out for a moment some of these changes that were found at the time to be of great difficulty, but have been found ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... upon Val d'Arno like the upsetting of a Tuscan Scaldino, and Ralph Flare regretfully took his departure northward. All the world was going to Paris—why not he? Was he afraid? Certainly not; it had been a great victory over temptation to stay away ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... true!" cried Herr Athanas, and rushed up to his own apartments, not without upsetting a few of ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... hatred of this odious horde. Intriguers of this kind found it better to unsettle the Nicene decisions, on behalf of conservatism forsooth, than to maintain them in the name of truth. There were many ways of upsetting them, and each might lead to gain; only one of defending them, ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... revolution. "Evolution is a gradual change; revolution is a sudden change." "Evolution is natural development; revolution is sudden upheaval." "Evolution means an unfolding or development; revolution means a complete upsetting of everything." "Evolution is the gradual development of a country or government; revolution is a quick change of government." "Evolution takes place by natural force; a revolution is caused by an outside force." "Evolution is growth; revolution is a quick change from existing conditions." ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... clean or decent; but my mother got the floor raised, and the green pool in front drained, and a parcel of roses and honey-suckles planted there instead. The neighbors' wives used to say, 'twas all pride and upsetting folly, to keep the kitchen-floor swept clean, and to put the potatoes on a dish, instead of emptying them out of the pot into the middle of the table; and, besides, 'twas a cruel, unnatural thing, they said, to take away the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... but with a difference, and a new sin. To his other iniquities Black Sheep had now added a phenomenal clumsiness—was as unfit to trust in action as he was in word. He himself could not account for spilling everything he touched, upsetting glasses as he put his hand out, and bumping his head against doors that were manifestly shut. There was a gray haze upon all his world, and it narrowed month by month, until at last it left Black Sheep almost alone with the flapping curtains that were so like ghosts, and the nameless ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... when returning to his house in Mayo from Ballyhaunis, on a dark night, my son Maurice found a wall built, about eighteen inches high, across the road, for the express purpose of upsetting him. It was only by the grace of God—as they say in Kerry—and his own careful ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... fraudulent boilermaker. In your paper in December last you copied a short article on "Conscience in Boilermaking," in which the writer, after speaking of the tricks of the boilermaker in using thinner iron for the center sheets than for the others, and in "upsetting" the edges of the plates to make them appear thicker, goes on to say: "We call attention to this, because the discovery of such practice has made serious trouble between the boilermaker and the steam user. We would not believe that there were men so blind to the duties and obligations ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... grandfather sprang up, nearly upsetting the pan in his fright, Duke rolled backward on ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... expect sympathy for the disagreeable circumstances that persisted in upsetting the Hitchcock plans. But Sommers paid no attention to this social demand, and they walked on briskly. Finally Miss Hitchcock ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... "Bridget, you don't know how to milk. Let me try." I sat down by the cow, tried the full force of dynamics, but just at the moment when my success was about to be demonstrated, a sudden thought took her somewhere between the horns, and she started for the vendue, with one stroke of her back foot upsetting the small treasure I had accumulated, and leaving me a mere wreck ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... example of the coleoptera, his Arabian friend,— these things were as microbes which, acting on a system already predisposed for their reception, produced high fever; I was in a fever,—of unrest. Brain in a whirl!—Marjorie, Paul, Isis, beetle, mesmerism, in delirious jumble. Love's upsetting!—in itself a sufficiently severe disease; but when complications intervene, suggestive of mystery and novelties, so that you do not know if you are moving in an atmosphere of dreams or of frozen facts,—if, then, your temperature does not rise, like that rocket of M. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... Storming through the hall, Pounding floors, upsetting chairs, Do you think your father cares For ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess

... the house. Without asking permission, he tore through yet a third door leading to a kitchen and scullery, nearly upsetting a tiny maid who had her ear or eye to the key-hole, and raced into the garden in which the postmaster ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... supremacy. While the rising cotton industry was giving the blacks in the South new value as slaves, Northern spokesmen were frankly stating an antipathy of their people toward negroes in any capacity whatever.[25] The succession of disasters in San Domingo, meanwhile, gave warning against the upsetting of racial adjustments in the black belts, and the Gabriel revolt of 1800 in Virginia drove the lesson home. On slavery questions for a period of several decades the policy of each of the two sections was merely to prevent itself from being overreached. The conservative trend, however, could ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... to flush. You might have struck Silas Grangerson without upsetting his balance, but the slightest suspicion of a sneer raised all the devil in him. Had Phyl been a man he would have knocked him off the log. He cast the stump of his cigarette on the ground and pounded ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole



Words linked to "Upsetting" :   disconcerting



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