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Descry   Listen
Descry

verb
(past & past part. descried; pres. part. descrying)
1.
Catch sight of.  Synonyms: espy, spot, spy.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books



... end. O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you,' you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Leila's chamber were peculiarly adapted to command a safe nor insufficient view of the progress of the enemy; and, with a beating heart and flushing cheek, the Jewish maiden, deaf to the voices around her, imagined she could already descry amidst the horsemen the lion port and snowy garments of Muza Ben ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Will shake With rapture remembered her heart; and her shy Tongue of the dear times dead will take To make her a living song, when sigh The soft night winds disburthened by. Hark now!"—for the upraised quivering wing, The throat exultant, I could descry,— And the tongue of the singer ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts

... not venture to guarantee the assertion), that "they will descry a fly at the distance of ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... the commonly misunderstood phrases in the language is "the Spanish Main." To the ordinary individual it suggests the Caribbean Sea. Although Shakespeare in "Othello," makes one of the gentlemen of Cyprus say that he "cannot 'twixt heaven and main descry a sail," and, therefore, with other poets, gives warrant to the application of the word to the ocean, "main" really refers to the other element. The Spanish Main was that portion of South American territory distinguished from Cuba, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... cannot descry All workings of the brain; At silent night, it gains a might Which bears a ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... windows looking, like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry, but I thought I could recognize ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... is now breaking in around them and eclipsing the glare of the smouldering embers. Up starts our hero much refreshed and invigorated, and exulting in surprising buoyancy of spirit for running the race of the new day now ushering in. He withdraws a gunshot from the camp: and what does he descry in the grey dawn but, apparently, a small skiff with a single rower crossing the river towards them, but a short distance down the stream. The advancing light of day soon confirmed his hopes. He at once started ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm- winds, Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling: Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields blissful enjoyment; But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from. Sweet 'tis too to behold, on a broad plain ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... them from the tower side, across the cleared space. He waved his kepi several times that they might see him better. Lacour trembled for him. The enemy might descry him; he was simply making a target of himself by cutting across that open space in order to reach them the sooner. . . . And he trembled still more as he came nearer. . . . ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... cutting our steps in the icy cliffs, or sinking to our thighs in the treacherous snow-beds. We could see that we were nearing the top of the great chasm, for the clouds, now entirely cleared away, left our view unobstructed. We could even descry the black Kurdish tents upon the northeast slope, and, far below, the Aras River, like a streak of silver, threading its way into the purple distance. The atmosphere about us grew colder, and we ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... swift as lightning I do fly Amidst the aery welkin soon, And, in a minute's space, descry What things are done below the moon. There's neither hag nor spirit shall wag, In any corner where I go; But Robin I, their feats will spy, And make good sport with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various

... look Athwart the sallows of a river nook To catch a glance at silver throated eels,— Or from old Skiddaw's top, when fog conceals His rugged forehead in a mantle pale, With an eye-guess towards some pleasant vale Descry a favourite hamlet ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... they wane, Freeze to the marble of their images, And, pinnacled on man's subserviency, Through the thick sacrificial haze discern Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak Through icy mists may enviously descry Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun. So they along an immortality Of endless-envistaed homage strain their gaze, If haply some rash votary, empty-urned, But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand, Break rank, fling past the people and the priest, Up the last step, on to the inmost shrine, ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton

... grimly. "I don't reckon you have, miss. Since that race he has been hard to descry. He passed from view hurriedly, so to speak, headed toward the foot-hills, and leaping from crag to crag like the hardy shamrock of the ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... myself upon my back, and dragged his head up high enough upon my breast to lift his mouth out of water, supporting him and myself by vigorous strokes with my feet. Looking round, as we rose on the crest of a sea, I could dimly descry the brig through the rapidly increasing gloom; and to my horror she appeared to be a long distance away. I had time only, however, for a momentary glance, when we sank into the trough, and I lost sight of her. A few ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... given), which he handed to me, and which, after he left the room, remained on the table by me. I gazed at it, I know not why, for some minutes, till called away by the day's duties; and you will smile incredulously when I say that I seemed to myself to begin to descry reflected in it objects and scenes which were not in the room where I was. You will not, however, be surprised that after such an experience I took the first opportunity to seclude myself in my ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James

... rhythm of fortune. The inexorable pendulum had swung the counter direction, and there was upon me an urgent need. The hogskin belt was flat as famine, nor did it longer gird my loins. From my window I could descry, at no great distance, a very ordinary mortal of a man, working industriously among his cabbages. I thought: Here am I, capable of teaching him much concerning the field wherein he labours—the nitrogenic—why ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... herds, though they be myriad, yonder glades That belt the broad lake round lie fresh and fair For ever: for the low-lying meadows take The dew, and teem with herbage honeysweet, To lend new vigour to the horned kine. Here on thy right their stalls thou canst descry By the flowing river, for all eyes to see: Here, where the platans blossom all the year, And glimmers green the olive that enshrines Rural Apollo, most august of gods. Hard by, fair mansions have ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... not sufficiently informed in such high matters, the Bishop and the Inquisitor offered her the choice of one or more of the assessors to act as her counsel." The accused, in presence of this assembly, in which she did not descry a single friendly face, mildly answered: "For what you admonish me as to my good, and concerning our faith, I thank you; as to the counsel you offer me, I have no intention to forsake the counsel ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... I say when I descry Deep in the restless ocean The myriad creatures passing by In swift ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... Where change of Fav'rites made no Change of Laws, And Senates heard before they judg'd a Cause; How wouldst thou shake at Britain's modish Tribe, Dart the quick Taunt, and edge the piercing Gibe? Attentive Truth and Nature to descry, And pierce each Scene with Philosophic Eye. To thee were solemn Toys or empty Shew, The Robes of Pleasure and the Veils of Woe: All aid the Farce, and all thy Mirth maintain, Whose Joys are causeless, or whose Griefs are vain. ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson

... now runs, and so on to the hamlet of Maghgerabane; above which, on the Skerry—a gloomy, low-browed, basaltic precipice before him—like a dark porch or portico, in the very face of the rock, halfway up, he will descry the cave in question. He should now cross the Glenwherry at the village, in its grassy gorge, and draw nearer to the portico on the hillside beyond it, keeping a steady look-out for the roots of oaks, for they are still to be discovered there, as he ascends the cliff. Three of them in ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various

... found; tempted by the goodness of the feed they had broken out from the little enclosure we had made for them and had wandered off. The stock-keeper and two of the men, having ascended the conical hill behind us to try if they could see them from it, reported on their return that they could descry a large lake or expanse of water, which bore about south ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... or had forgotten the title to which Lord Borland of the old time was heir; and now that all doubt as to the identity of the man was over, although, let her strain her vision as she might, she could not, through the deformation of years, descry the youthful visage, she felt that all action on the part of the generation in possession was none the less forestalled and precluded by the presence of one in the house who had evidently long waited his arrival, and had certainly but begun his reprisals. More would ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... does the traveller in the desert, after a day of scorching glow and a night of breathless heat, descry the distant trees which mark the longed-for well-spring in the emerald oasis, which seems to beckon with its branching palms to the converging caravans, to come and slake their fever-thirst, and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... here the West—must they be strangers and enemies forever? His capital, he declares, shall be for their entertainment as elder and younger brother. Within its walls, which he will build strong as a mountain's base, with gates of brass invulnerable, and towers to descry the clouds below the horizon, he will collect unselfishly whatever is good and beautiful, remembering he serves Allah best who serves ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... the nameless forms that haunt the dim borders of insanity, he would sit in that valley for hours, regarding the wider-spread valley below him, in which he knew every height and hollow, and, with his exceptionally keen sight, he could descry signs of life where another would have beheld but an everyway dead level. Not a live thing, it seemed almost, could spread wing or wag tail, but Steenie would become thereby aware of its presence. Kirsty, boastful ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... first day of his stay at Rabaeck Mr Wraxall found the church door open, and made these notes of the interior which I have epitomized. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... of Judah from the remnant left in the land. After suffering for years the hopelessness of converting his people, the Prophet at last saw an Israel of whom hope might be dared. It was not their distance which lent enchantment to his view for he gives proof that he can descry the dross still among them, despite the furnace through which they have passed.(493) But the banished were without doubt the best of the nation, and now they had "dreed their weird," gone through the fire, been lifted ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... the Moon, whose orb The Tuscan artist views through optic glass At evening from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains in her ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... garden where they had last seen them. Perhaps indeed they gave in consequence too little attention to the house. But the creatures were too cunning to be easily caught; nor were the watchers quick-eyed enough to descry the head, or the keen eyes in it, which, from the opening whence the stream issued, would watch them in turn, ready, the moment they should leave the lawn, ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald

... pride of Spain and dragged the humble banner of France in triumph at his stern. He was born yonder to the west, and of him there is a glorious relic in that old town; in its dark flint guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen: a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the heft of ivory and mother-of-pearl. 'Tis the sword of Cordova, won in the ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... the known. Cf. the first essay "On the Conversation of Authors": "Coleridge withholds his tribute of applause from every person, in whom any mortal but himself can descry the least glimpse of understanding. He would be thought to look farther into a millstone than any body else. He would have others see with his eyes, and take their opinions from him on trust, in spite of their senses. The more obscure and defective the indications of merit, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... for this world, nay for the mere cash-market of this world! And as a matter of profit not for this world only, but for the other world and all worlds, it outweighs the Bank of England!—Can the sagacious reader descry here, as it were the outmost inconsiderable rock-ledge of a universal rock-foundation, deep once more as the Centre of the World, emerging so, in the experience of this good Quaker, through the Stygian mud-vortexes and general Mother of Dead Dogs, whereon, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... graziers who went on the way, But unto the Cripple for passage did pay. And every brave merchant that he did descry, He emptied their purses ere they ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... Exchange gong. There rises the tall facade of the Cotton Exchange. Looking in from the sidewalk as you pass, you see its main hall, thronged but decorous, the quiet engine-room of the surrounding city's most far-reaching occupation, and at the hall's farther end you descry the "Future Room," and hear the unearthly ramping and bellowing of the bulls and bears. Up and down the street, on either hand, are the ship-brokers and insurers, and in the upper stories foreign consuls among a multitude of ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... have passed, one after one, Wearing their radiance to the darkened room,—— Surely, new-comers to Oblivion May still descry, in that all-quenching gloom, Rare faces, lovely, lifted and alight, Like tapers burning through the ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton

... shall mind of man Descry Thy dazzling throne, And pierce and find Thee out, and scan Where ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... an easie thing is to descry The gentle blood, however it be wrapt In sade misfortunes foule deformity And wretched sorrowes which have often hapt! For,—howsoever it may grow mis-shapt Like this wyld man being undisciplyned That ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... early voyagers over untried realms of waste, we have already observed the signs of land. The green twig and fresh red berry have floated by our bark; the odors of the shore fan our faces; nay, we may seem to descry the distant gleam of light, and hear from the more earnest observers, as Columbus heard, after midnight, from the mast-head of the Pinta, the joyful cry of Land! Land! and lo! a new world broke upon his early morning gaze. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... dimensions strike our sight; Millions behind, in the remoter skies, Appear but spangles to our wearied eyes; And when our wearied eyes want farther strength To pierce the void's immeasurable length Our vigorous towering thoughts still further fly, And still remoter flaming worlds descry; But even an Angel's comprehensive thought Cannot extend so far as Thou hast wrought; Our vast conceptions are by swelling, brought, Swallowed and lost ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... blessings that are without us, and are found in others. The first of these is found in those who are beneath us, that is, the dead and damned. Do you wonder what kind of blessing can be discovered in the dead and damned? But the power of the divine goodness is everywhere so great that it grants us to descry blessings in the very greatest evils. Comparing, then, these poor wretches, first of all, with ourselves, we see how unspeakable is our gain; as may be gathered from the corresponding image of evils.[58] For great as are the evils of death and hell that we see in them, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... a bitter cry of "King? King Herod!" were followed by a muttered discussion that, in the ears of one of the two who waited in the gloom below, boded little good. The two could descry figures moving to and fro before the faint red light of the smouldering matches; and presently a man on the gate kindled a torch, and held it so as to fling its light downward. The stranger's ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... braced. They were now across the equator. A few hundred miles more, and the Glory of the South Seas would lie safe inside the strong harbor of Panama. Drake ordered the thirty cannon ready for action, and in a loud voice offered the present of his own golden chain to the man who should first descry the sails of the Spanish treasure. For once his luck failed him. The wind suddenly fell. Before Drake needed to issue the order, his "brave boys" were over decks and out in the small boats rowing for ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... of which peeped out among the green trees, at a distance two inviting hills which I was to climb in the morning, and around me the green cornfields. Oh! how indescribably beautiful was this evening and this walk! At a distance among the houses I could easily descry the inn where I lodged, and where I seemed to myself at length to have found a place of refuge and a home; and I thought, if I could but stay there, I should not be very sorry if I were never ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... dispensation, it would have to be) a decade of happiness beginning now, a decade of lovers of their own choosing, men of delicacy and wisdom, that thirty years from now there would be that poise and sweetness in the world that dreamers descry in far future ages. And here and there would be a beyond-man, indeed; and here and there cosmic, instead ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... down the gardens from the gates and walls, over which in the distance he could descry them swarming, and forming a sort of semicircle around the entrance door. The vanguard were led by a drum and a violin. The expressions on the faces of the men were wild and haggard, most wore greasy bonnets ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... Mildmay opened his eyes and, rising from his exceedingly comfortable bed, walked over to the port and looked out. Everything was still wrapped in darkness below him; but upon gazing steadfastly into the gloom for a few minutes, he believed that he could descry certain darker patches here and there, at no great distance, which ought to be—and doubtless were— islands. And thereupon he slid his feet into a pair of soft slippers and betook himself to the pilot-house, where, by the ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... horse, unclenched the muscular grasp of the soldier, as if it had been a baby's clasp, slipped the staff, technically the lance, of the guidon from its socket, and stood with it in his own hand, looking suspiciously to and fro to descry if perchance he were observed. The coast clear, he turned to the wall of rock beside the road, for this was near the mountain sandstone formation, fissured, splintered, with the erosions of water and weather; ...
— The Lost Guidon - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... I stole out, and like a cat stealthily approached 'Brownie's' door. The hour was somewhat after eleven, for I had heard the Tron Kirk chap recently; the moon in her last quarter had risen, and I could dimly descry the ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... a whirlwind to sweep Their ranks from the field Where their doom had been sealed, As the storm rushes over the face of the deep; While swift on the centre our President pressed. And the foe might descry In the glance of his eye The light that once blazed upon Diomed's crest. McDowell! McDowell! weep, weep for the day. When the Southrons you meet in their battle array; To your confident hosts with its bullets and steel 'Twas worse than Culloden to luckless ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... chill autumnal night through the desert of Bloomsbury, the dead leaves rustling round the horse's hoofs as we gallop through the Squares. Ah, I shall be across the Border before these doorsteps are cleaned, before the coming of the milk-carts. Anon, I descry the cavernous open jaws of Euston. The monster swallows me, and soon I am being digested into Scotland. I sit ensconced in a corner of a compartment. The collar of my ulster is above my ears, my cap is pulled over my eyes, my feet are on a hot-water tin, and ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be shunned. It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head standers of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is not so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... gliding as I goe, With this burthen full of woe, Through still silence of the night, Guided by the Gloe-worms light, Hither am I come at last, Many a Thicket have I past Not a twig that durst deny me, Not a bush that durst descry me, To the little Bird that sleeps On the tender spray: nor creeps That hardy worm with pointed tail, But if I be under sail, Flying faster than the wind, Leaving all the clouds behind, But doth hide her tender head In some hollow tree or bed Of seeded Nettles: not a Hare Can be ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... the little cluster of old houses, and scarcely saw them in the deepening night. As she went by the mill she could just descry its ruined roof standing out like a dark pyramid against the dun sky. The snow fell faster. It was now lying thick on her cloak in front, and on the windward face of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... good old man so charm'd his guest, As they familiar grew, The stranger to his guidance bent, Tho' born of spirit high: At last the long'd-for hour was come, On what slow wings it flew! But now the dear returning group, They from the hill descry. ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley

... the toun she trotted by him; A lang half-mile she could descry him; Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, She ran wi' speed: A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... echo back in voiceless melody the brightness and the beauty around? Yet oh! how many there may be, even here, whose sun of happiness hath set on earth forever! How many whose tear-dimmed glance can descry naught in the far future but a weary waste—whose life-springs all are dried—whose up-springing hopes all withered by the blighting ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... secret; and that has no favourable aspect. The combination and spirit there seem to be universal, and is very alarming. I am the humble servant of events, and you know never meddle with prophecy. It would be difficult to descry good omens, be the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... colonnade of the courtyard, was appalled to descry in the gloom a totally naked Brinnaria, a mass of ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... and hauing searched it out with the king and inhabitants thereof, hee named it Seine, because it is very like vnto the Riuer of Seine in France. From this Riuer wee retired toward our shippes, where being arriued, we trimmed our sailes to saile further toward the North, and to descry the singularities of the coast. But wee had not sayled any great way before wee discovered another very faire Riuer, which caused vs to cast anker ouer against it, and to trimme out two Boates to goe ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... positions, felt little inclination to either hope or despair, but torn with doubts were equally distressed by confidence and fear. The battle was so nearly balanced that they suffered tortures at the sight, straining to spy out some advantage, and quivering lest they descry some setback. Their souls were filled with prayers for success and against misfortune, and with alternating strength and fear. In fact, not being able to endure it long, they leaped from their horses and joined the combat. ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio

... castle of Mina.] The 14 day we came within Saker-shot of the castle, and straightway they set forth an Almade to descry vs, and when they perceiued that we were no Portugals, they ranne within the towne againe: for there is a great towne by the Castle which is called by the Negros Dondou. Without this there lie two great rockes like ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... situation. We made our way through the trench towards the batteries at the foot of the Loos Crassier. In doing so, we had to pass under the road. I was going on ahead, and when I stooped down to pass under the bridge, to my surprise I could dimly descry in the darkness a row of silent men sitting on each side of the passage facing one another. I said, "Good-night, boys," but there was no answer. The figures in the darkness remained motionless and still. I could ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... public parks and contemplated the bringing in of families only to inhabit his city, for, oddly enough, he who never married was going to make short shift of mere bachelors in his City Beautiful. Between pen scratches, no doubt, he looked out frequently upon the river to descry if possible a boatload of ammunition or the banners of the troops ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... Comming! fill the sky? Shall it in the Evening run When our words and works are done? Or will thy all-surprizing light Break at midnight, When either sleep, or some dark pleasure Possesseth mad man without measure? Or shall these early, fragrant hours Unlock thy bowres? And with their blush of light descry Thy locks crown'd with eternitie? Indeed, it is the only time That with thy glory doth best chime; All now are stirring, ev'ry field Full hymns doth yield; The whole Creation shakes off night, And for thy ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... rigging, and looked through the smoke. Dead men he could descry through the blinding veil, rolled in heaps, laid flat; dead men and dying; but no man upon his feet. The last volley had swept the deck clear; one by one had dropped below to escape that fiery shower: and alone at the helm, grinding his teeth with ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... steer'd for the Havana, and between Portobello and Carthagena, we spied a Sail; as she clapp'd upon a Wind, as soon as she descry'd us, and we went upon One Mast, we soon met, but were as willing to shake her off, as we had been to speak to her. She proved a Forty Gun French Ship, which handled us without the least Ceremony. We ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt

... moment,' said Hugo; and he retreated to the kerb, in the expectation of being able to descry Camilla's light ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... journey lengthens: wider grows the field, further advance the seekers, and from the top of unexplored headlands, through morning mists, they descry the outlines of countries till then unknown. They must be followed to realms beyond the grave, to the silent domains of the dead, across barren moors and frozen fens, among chill rushes and briars that never blossom, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... grows older, Feeling no joy in To-day, and full of care for To-morrow. Now look down from this height, and see how beauteous before us Lies the fair rich expanse, with vineyard and gardens at bottom; There are the stables and barns, and the rest of the property likewise; There I also descry the back of our house, in the gables Of the roof may be seen the window of my small apartment. When I remember the time when I used to look out for the moon there Half through the night, or perchance at morning awaited the sunrise, When with but few hours of healthy sleep I was fully ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... eyes, the brutish-looking monks (there are still enough to point a moral), the soldiers, the mounted constables, the dirt, the dreariness, the misery, and the dark over-grown palace frowning over it all from barred window and guarded gateway—what more than all this do we dimly descry in a mental image of the dark ages? For all his desire to keep the peace with the vivid image of things if it be only vivid enough, the votary of this ideal may well occasionally turn over such values with the wonder of what one takes them as paying for. They pay sometimes for such sorry ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... steer their westward course through the middle of the Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. [14] They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... out-look, although the enterprise was what most men would have shrunk from. But by one bound from the earth, the active youth caught hold of the lower branch, and swung himself up into the tree, and in a minute more gained the top of the cliff, from which he could easily descry a human figure descending the valley. It was not that of a shepherd, or of a hunter, and scarcely any others used to traverse this deserted solitude, especially coming from the north, since the reader may remember that the brook took its rise from ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... woe, When Troy, or Argos, the dire scene affords, Or Creon's hall8 laments its guilty lords. Nor always city-pent or pent at home 50 I dwell, but when Spring calls me forth to roam Expatiate in our proud suburban shades Of branching elm that never sun pervades. Here many a virgin troop I may descry, Like stars of mildest influence, gliding by, Oh forms divine! Oh looks that might inspire E'en Jove himself, grown old, with young desire! Oft have I gazed on gem-surpassing eyes, Outsparkling every star that gilds ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... and the heron are still at their posts. An exquisite yellow butterfly, of a sort strange to my Yankee eyes, flits past, followed by a red admiral. The marsh hawk is on the wing again, and while looking at him I descry a second hawk, too far away to be made out. Now the air behind me is dark with crows,—a hundred or two, at least, circling over the low cedars. Some motive they have for all their clamor, but it passes my owlish wisdom to guess what it can be. A fourth blue heron appears, ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... two leagues from the city before every head was stuck out of window. There were outcries and astonishment. Tartarin looked in his turn, and what did he descry! the camel, reader, the inevitable camel, racing along the line behind the train, and keeping up with it! The dismayed Tartarin drew back and shut ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... the closing years of the life of Pericles, the growing jealousy between Athens and Sparta broke out in the long struggle known as the Peloponnesian War. Pericles had foreseen the coming storm: "I descry war," said he, "lowering from the Peloponnesus." His whole later policy looked toward the preparation of Athens for the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... was gone, but the beautiful twilight lingered, serene and gracious, and in that clear light we could descry the form of the Sea Queen forging slowly out to sea, and rolling as she moved on ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... came to where the canyon forked. I deliberated a moment. Not one familiar landmark could I descry, from which fact I decided we had better take to the left-hand fork. Grass and leaves appeared almost as wet as running water. Soon we were soaked to the skin. After two miles the canyon narrowed and thickened, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... that start, which discomposes 5 The drowsy waters lingering in your eye? And are you really able to descry That precipice ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... of these I could descry, Who better far deserv'd then I, Calmely I did reflect; "Old services (by rule of State) Like almanacks grow out of date, - What then can ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... oft astonish'd droop, When, o'er the watery strath, or quaggy moss, They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop. 60 Or, if in sports, or on the festive green, Their destined glance some fated youth descry, Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen, And rosy health, shall soon lamented die. For them the viewless forms of air obey; 65 Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair: They know what spirit brews the stormful day, And heartless, oft like moody madness, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... her pet; That Phoebus doom'd me, kind indulgent sire! To mount his car, and set the world on fire. Fame's steep ascent by easy flights to win, With a neat pocket volume I'll begin; And dirge, and sonnet, ode, and epigram, Shall show mankind how versatile I am. The buskin'd Muse shall next my pen descry: The boxes from their inmost rows shall sigh; The pit shall weep, the galleries deplore Such moving woes as ne'er were heard before: Enough—I'll leave them in their soft hysterics, Mount, in a brighter ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... shall be called away from guiding your feete, to descry by their fardest kenning, the vast Ocean, sparkled with ships, that continually this way trade, forth and backe, to most quarters of the world. Neerer home, they take view of all sized cocks, barges, and fisherboates, houering on ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... reason why her opinions should prevent her from corresponding with one who, whatever might or might not seem to him true, yet cared for the truth, and must treat with respect every form in which he could descry its predominating presence. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... in which the poet at first presents them even long enough to leave a distinct image, a decisive impression for better or for worse, upon the mind's eye of the most simple and open-hearted reader. They are ghosts, not men; simulacra modis pallentia miris. You cannot descry so much as the original intention of the artist's hand which began to draw and relaxed its hold of the brush before the first lines were fairly traced. And in the last, the worst and weakest scene of all, in which York pleads with ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... and Abbotsford). In Edinburgh, William Sharp's statement about Stevenson should be remembered, "One can, in a word, outline Stevenson's own country as all the region that on a clear day one may in the heart of Edinburgh descry from the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... palfrey bore the martial maid; The burnished mail her tender limbs embraced, Beneath her helm her clustering locks she placed; Poised in her hand an iron javelin gleamed, And o'er the ground its sparkling lustre streamed; Accoutred thus in manly guise, no eye However piercing could her sex descry; Now, like a lion, from the fort she bends, And 'midst the foe impetuously descends; Fearless of soul, demands with haughty tone, The bravest chief, for war-like valour known, To try the chance of fight. In shining arms, Again ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... discovered monks, baptismal fonts, and organs; or even in frozen window-panes, where our countryman Liscow, the humourist, discovered the number of the beast and the triple crown; things which he only is apt to descry, whose head is preoccupied ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... verge of woman-hood. What lay beyond it I could ill descry, though surely a vague power of undeveloped prophecy dwells in every created thing—even in the bird ere he chips ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... had their skinnes pierced thorow with them in many partes of their bodies." Yet, giddy with weakness, they dragged themselves in turn to the top of St. John's Bluff, straining their eyes across the sea to descry the anxiously ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... his shop, my dear Lucien," said Etienne, turning to his friend, "you would see an oak counter from some bankrupt wine merchant's sale, and a tallow dip, never snuffed for fear it should burn too quickly, making darkness visible. By that anomalous light you descry rows of empty shelves with some difficulty. An urchin in a blue blouse mounts guard over the emptiness, and blows his fingers, and shuffles his feet, and slaps his chest, like a cabman on the box. Just look about you! there are no more books ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... like all the babies I ever saw," replied Maria guardedly. She did not wish to descry the baby which was, after all, her sister, but she privately thought it ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... be sounded We are not called, like demigods, to gaze on The battle from the far-off mountain's crest, But in our hearts to bear our fiery blazon, An Olaf's cross upon a mailed breast,— To look afar across the fields of flight, Tho' pent within the mazes of its might,— Beyond the mirk descry one glimmer still Of glory—that's the Call ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... a loft! A loft with the rough bricks whitewashed and the heavy rafters painted red; a loft with big, plain tables and a bare floor and an only slightly partitioned-off kitchenette where the hungry could descry piles of sandwiches and many coffee cups. And there in the middle of the loft was the Samovar itself, a really splendid affair, and one actually not for decorative purposes only, but for use. I had always thought ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... ranks of that vast army I descry Michael, and I wonder what it is in him that makes me able to descry him at all. He is like thousands of other men. In what ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... as far as eye can see, Where its long reaches fade into the sky, Thy constant gaze, fair child, rests lovingly; But neither thou nor any can descry Aught but the grassy banks, the rustling sedge, And flocks of wild-fowl splashing ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... how anxiously both officers and men scanned the western horizon towards which they were steering. Each one had a pecuniary motive for wishing to be the first to descry the New Continent, King Ferdinand having promised a reward of 10,000 maravedis, or 400 pounds sterling, to the first discoverer. The latter days of the month of September were enlivened by the presence of numerous ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... a dank Scotch mist. On the shores of Staten Island the leafless trees stand out grey and gaunt against the whity-grey snow, a legacy, no doubt, from the great blizzard. Though I keep a sharp look-out, I can descry no Liberty Enlightening the World. Liberty (absit omen!) is wrapped away in grimy cotton-wool. There, however, are the "sky-scraper" buildings, looming out through the mist, like the Jotuns in Niflheim of Scandinavian mythology. They are grandiose, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... Phoebus next unclosed his wakeful eye, Up rose the sexton of that place profane, And missed the image, where it used to lie, Each where he sough in grief, in fear, in vain; Then to the king his loss he gan descry, Who sore enraged killed him for his pain; And straight conceived in his malicious wit, Some Christian bade this ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... neglected to keep a watch upon the compass, and he was now at a loss to know the precise direction in which to steer. He must certainly go to the east, but he could not tell whether he was north or south of the camp. It occurred to him that by rising to a greater height he might probably be able to descry the camp, so he planed upwards until he attained an altitude of nearly two thousand feet, Rodier searching the country seawards ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... the Magi, named Zerdusht. I mention this, because Hyde, and other learned men, have imagined this Zerdusht to have been the antient Zoroaster. They have gone so far as to suppose the two names to have been the [938]same; between which I can scarce descry any resemblance. There seem to have been many persons styled Zoroaster: so that if the name had casually retained any affinity, or if it had been literally the same, yet it would not follow, that this ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... are copies—often faint and shadowy—of That which is. Every particular thing "below" corresponds to an eternal reality "above." Even those things which appear thin and shallow possess an infinite depth, or we may just as well say an infinite height. "Didst thou ever descry," he asks, "a glorious eternity in a winged moment of Time? Didst thou ever see a bright Infinite in the narrow point of an Object? Then thou knowest what Spirit means—that spire-top whither all things ascend harmoniously, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... falling more gently, and in finer lines and more transparent network, so that one could once more descry the great trunks of the blackened oaks, with the green and gold of their leaves. Also, our own hollow had grown less dark, and there could be discerned its smoky, satin-bright walls. From those walls Kalinin picked a bit of charcoal with finger ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... Versailles—an adventure that had been a novel and delightful break in the prescribed routine of her much-chaperoned life. She crossed the waiting-room to a window and, holding aside her veil, looked out. At first she could descry only a few dim lights, and these blurred in her sight. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw a superbly built horse standing near the window. Beyond was a bare square. Or, if it was a street, it was the widest one Madeline had ever seen. The dim lights shone from low, ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... venial crimes in Love's gay spring, Prompt the youthful Female's sigh; When her roses all take wing, And Matrons sage her plight descry; ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... Marmara, which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the Propontis, amt at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of Diocletian; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... and desire. Her acting, as she replied by gesture to the question of the king, was perfect in its realization of the simplicity of Elsa. Nevertheless I, at any rate, as I searched her features through the lorgnon that Mrs. Sullivan had silently handed to me, could descry beneath the actress the girl—the spoilt and splendid child of Good Fortune, who in the very spring of youth had tasted the joy of sovereign power, that unique and terrible dominion over mankind ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... Giles demanded, trying to descry the fugitive among them. "Death and fiends! you have ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... Item, Tom Thornback, Shark, and Co. Attorneys all as keen and staunch As e'er devoured a client's haunch. And did I not their clerks invite To taste said ven'son hash'd at night? For well I knew that hopeful fry My rising merit would descry, The same litigious course pursue, And when to fish of prey they grew, By love of food and contest led, Would haunt the spot where once they fed. Thus having with due circumspection Formed my professional connexion, My desks ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... said De Vaux. "Yet would I rather than my best horse I had taken that watch myself. There is mystery in it, young man, as a plain man may descry, though he cannot see through it. Cowardice? Pshaw! No coward ever fought as I have seen thee do. Treachery? I cannot think traitors die in their treason so calmly. Thou hast been trained from thy post by some deep guile—some ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... here too, in like manner, I may be describing a school of thought in its fully developed proportions, which at present every one, to whom membership with it is imputed, will at once begin to disown, and I may be pointing to teachers whom no one will be able to descry. Still, it is not less true that I may be speaking of tendencies and elements which exist, and he may come in person at last, who comes at first to us merely in his spirit and in ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... himself meant, I do not know: what the modern Arians teach, I utterly condemn; but that the great council of Ariminum was either Arian or heretical I could never discover, or descry any essential difference between its decisions and the Nicene; though I seem to find a serious difference of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed from both. If there be a difference between the Councils of Nicea and Ariminum, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... in the morning, the whole army, in order of battle, began to descry the enemy from the rising grounds, about a mile from Naseby, and moved towards them. They were drawn up on a little ascent in a large common fallow field, in one line extended from one side of the field to the other, the field something more than a mile over, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... especially at this hour, it was void as the Sahara. After sauntering along for half an hour, now listening to the wind that blew over the sand-hills, and now watching the spiky sparkle of the wintry stars in the sea, he reached a point whence he could descry the windows of Mr Fraser's part of the college. There was no light in Kate's window. She must be in the dining-room with her uncle—or—or—on the pier—with whom? He flung himself on the sand. All the old despair of the night of thunder, of the moonlight ramble, of the last walk together, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... fleet should happen to be scattered by weather, or other mishap, then so soon as one shall descry another, to hoise both topsails twice, if the weather will serve, and to strike them twice again; but if the weather serve not, then to hoise the maintopsail twice, and forthwith to strike ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes

... no longer look out from the castle walls to descry the glitter of Southern spears. The bell-tower from which the alarm was sounded is now silent—the only bell heard within the precincts of the castle being that of the railway porter, announcing the arrival and departure of trains. The Scotch express ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... behind him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but remembering that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves upon the ground and howled out ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry O'er the garden wall; is the curtain blue Or green to a ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... each,—than all. And so delicate was each vein's soft blue, 'Twas not like blood that wandered through. Rarely upon that cheek was shed, By health or by youth, one tinge of red, And never closest look could descry, In shine or shade, the hue of her eye, But, as it were made of light, it changed With every sunbeam ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... that small loss, or rout, at LEXINGTON, Prevent our purpose and the night by-past, Have push'd intrenchments, and some flimsy works, With rude achievement, on the rocky brow, Of that tall hill. A ship-boy, with the day, From the tall mast-head, of the Admiral, Descry'd their aim, and gave the swift alarm. Our glasses mark, but one small regiment there, Yet, ev'ry hour we languish in delay, Inspires fresh hope, and fills their pig'my souls, With thoughts of holding ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge

... wind was terrible; and only by creeping forward between the gusts was it possible to pass among the sand-hills; and now the salt spray flew up from the sea like down, while the ocean foamed like a roaring cataract towards the beach. It required a practised eye to descry the vessel out in the offing. The vessel was a noble brig. The billows now lifted it over the reef, three or four cables' lengths out of the usual channel. It drove towards the land, struck against the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... west of the camp, and at length reached the summit of a pine-clad mountain considerably higher than any other near it. Its elevation was over 1000 feet above the level of the surrounding country. From it I obtained a view to all points of the compass except the west, and could descry mountains, from the north-east round by north to the north-north west, at which point a very high and pointed mount showed its top above the others in its neighbourhood, over fifty miles away. To the north ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... away clean out of sight. I marvelled at this and faring forwards found myself on a peak overlooking a valley, exceeding great and wide and deep, and bounded by vast mountains that spired high in air: none could descry their summits, for the excess of their height, nor was any able to climb up thereto. When I saw this, I blamed myself for that which I had done and said, "Would Heaven I had tarried in the island! It was better ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... man who had suddenly halted in the clearing, half-way between the woods and the crest of the bluff. The snow on the ground enabled the two to descry each other. Winwood saw the man raise a musket to ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... For FOLLY's presence spoils the attractive grace That plays around the most bewitching face. Where'er she reigns, beneath her magic sway Each charm, each envied beauty melts away. Where'er she governs, WISDOM will descry In the fair form a foul deformity. —There tottering Old Age essay'd to prance With feeble feet, and join'd th' imperfect dance. There supercilious Youth assum'd the air And reverend grace which hoary Sages wear. There I beheld full many a youthful Maid, Like colts for ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe

... stand dimly revealed as they pass; masses of viny drooping things take, by the failing light, a sanguine tone. For a little while Fafa can plainly discern the figure of the Woman before him;—then, as the path zigzags into shadow, he can descry only the white turban and the white foulard;—and then the boughs meet overhead: he can see her no more, and calls ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... myself becoming extricated from every part of my body. No sooner was I free, than he snatched me up to the firmament of heaven, through the region of lightning and thunder, and all the glowing armories of the sky, innumerable degrees higher than I had been with him before, whence I could scarcely descry the earth, which looked no wider than a croft. After permitting me to rest a short space, he again lifted me up a million of miles, until I could see the sun far below us; we rushed through the milky way and past the Pleiades, and many other exceedingly large stars, till we caught ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... who, at the beginning of a new century, stand with shaded eyes, gazing into the future, striving to descry the outlines of the shadowy figures which loom before us in the distance, nothing seems of so gracious a promise, as the outline we seem to discern of a condition of human life in which a closer union than the world has yet seen shall ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner



Words linked to "Descry" :   sight, spy, espy



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