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Smashing   /smˈæʃɪŋ/   Listen
Smashing

noun
1.
The act of breaking something into small pieces.  Synonym: shattering.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Smashing" Quotes from Famous Books



... into the gully. It was rough and filled with stones and boulders, some of considerable size. But Tank A made less than nothing even of the largest rocks. Some she crushed beneath her steel belts. Others she simply "walked" over, smashing them ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... confusion had startled his restive horse, and by the time he had mounted the pair were on their feet again stumbling over the boulders or smashing through the undergrowth in a desperate race, with the horse blundering behind them and the canoe ahead. They might possibly have overtaken it except for the rapid, Lawrence said, but it swept like a toboggan down that ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... the biggest and fanciest lamp in the lot that was broken—a tall one with a frosted glass shade and a row of crystal prisms dangling around the bowl of it. It toppled over on to a pair of old brass andirons, smashing into a thousand pieces. Bits of glass flew in every direction, and "Grandpa," his fur electrified by his fright until he looked twice his natural size, shot through the door as if fired from a cannon, and was seen ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... people had made." A native of moderate intelligence can quite appreciate the argument that whereas the continuous warfare between the agents of the Department of Antiquities and the illegal excavators of small graves is what might be called an honourable game, the smashing of public monuments cannot be called fair-play from whatever point of view the matter is approached. Often revenge or spite is the cause of this damage. It is sometimes necessary to act with severity to the peasants who infringe the rules of the Department, but ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... man to the ground. Carruthers came up frothing at the mouth. With grim intensity he fastened himself to the animal's free arm. The raging mammal staggered helplessly under the extra burden and dropped the girl to concentrate his fury on the man. It raised a hairy arm aloft for the smashing blow. Instinctively Carruthers released ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... horrible small talk, that grated on those anxious souls like the mockery of some infantine fiend, was cut short by ponderous blows and tremendous smashing below. It was the captain staving in water-casks: the water poured ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... of a model adopted just prior to the war, and a limited number of batteries of 4.8-inch and 6.1-inch guns and howitzers; all of them, save only the 6.1-inch Rimailho howitzer of 1904, being models twenty to forty years old. These pieces were, of course, vastly outclassed in range and smashing power by the heavy guns of the Central Powers, such as the German 420's (the famous "42's") and the Austrian 380's. Undismayed, however, the French set energetically to work to make up their deficiencies. As it takes time to manufacture guns, large ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... single-minded as themselves. Battlefield tactics do not exist; when a whole nation goes to ground there can be none of the "victories" of the old bookish days. But there is always the killing—the well-schemed smashing of a full trench, the rushing out and the mowing down of its occupants; the unsuspicious battalion far in the rear, located after two nights' extreme risk alone among rubbish of masonry, and wiped out as ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling

... reckon I'll have to uncouple you now, and let in the twilight! Hate to do it—Ugh!" The right swing went smashing out—not to the jaw, but at just the proper instant to the pit of Tusk's stomach. In another fraction of a second Brent was five feet away, wiping the perspiration from his forehead and watching ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... by a fellow prisoner as ill-tempered, malicious, destructive, but cowardly and treacherous. He seems to have done little or no work; he looked after the choir and the library, but was not above breaking up the one and smashing the other, if the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... came turbulently into the conversation and abused John Whitaker for his son's defection. Brian, it was plain, had been decoyed by bromidic tales of cub reporters and "record-smashing beats." He contrasted art and journalism and found Brian indifferent ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... overheard these thoughts, Gideon turned and smiled to her. She, too, smiled and coloured; and the double change became her so prettily that Gideon forgot to turn away his eyes, and, swinging the hammer with a will, discharged a smashing blow on his own knuckles. With admirable presence of mind he crushed down an oath and substituted the harmless comment, 'Butter fingers!' But the pain was sharp, his nerve was shaken, and after an abortive trial he found he must desist ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... tumult of that disastrous day, what would have been in calmer moments a spectacle of astonishment passed much unnoticed. The stock world was busy saving itself out of the teeth of destruction, and the smashing and slugging in Northern Consolidated attracted the ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... London. He tells us how he enjoyed his various entertainments and feastings by such dignitaries as William Pitt, the Lord Chancellor, and the Duke of Lids (Leeds). The gentlemen drank freely the whole night, and the songs, the crazy uproar, and smashing of glasses were very great. He went down to stay with the Prince of Wales (George IV.) who played on the violoncello, and charmed the composer by his kindness. "He is the handsomest man on God's earth. He has an extraordinary ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... we went out. Near the door Kearny's elbow overturned an upright glass showcase, smashing it into little bits. I paid the storekeeper the price ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... said, "there are few who would care to be in your shoes—a rich man waging a war of this sort. The chances are altogether in favor of their smashing you financially." ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... massive shoulders bowed, knees bent, craggy chin grim and firm-set, but blue eyes serene and mild as ever. A moment's silent sparring, a quick tread of feet, and Joe feints Ravenslee into an opening, swings for his chin, misses by an inch, and ducking a vicious counter, drives home a smashing body-blow and, staggering weakly, Ravenslee ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... launch moored at the pontoon in Horta. Got a better screw at a sawmill up the river—blast him! And ever since it has been the same thing. Any Scotch or Yankee vagabond that likes to call himself a mechanic out here gets eighteen pounds a month, and the next you know he's cleared out, after smashing something as likely as not. I give you my word that some of the objects I've had for engine-drivers couldn't tell the boiler from the funnel. But this fellow understands his trade, and I don't mean ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... worked along the edge of the rapid, one at a time, in and out among the boulders with three or four men clinging to them to fend them off the rocks and several more holding on to the hundred-foot hawser, so that there was no possibility of one getting loose and smashing up, or leaving us altogether. It was then noon and a camp was made for the remainder of the day on the left bank in a very comfortable spot. We had accomplished three and a half miles, with four distinct rapids run and one "let-down." I went up from the camp along a sandy stretch and was surprised ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... Teutons to evacuate Brzezany, and then captured many important positions, including terrain west and south of Halicz and strongly-defended positions northwest of Stanislau. On July 11 Halicz was taken, thus smashing the Austro-German front between Brzezany ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road, and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta including the latter city send back all my wounded and worthless, and with my effective army, move through Georgia, smashing things, to the sea. Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me. Instead of my being on the defensive, I would be on the offensive; instead of guessing at what he means to do, he would have to guess at my plans. The difference in war is full ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... It could not be that. He possessed a little vanity; if he had not, his history would not have been worth a scrawl. But he denied the possession vehemently, as men are wont to do. Strange, a man will admit smashing those ten articles of advisement known as the decalogue and yet deny the inherent quality which surrenders the admission—vanity. However you may look at it, man's vanity is a complex thing. The vanity of ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... have seen us dodging in and out that door. After supper, not discrediting the veracity of the gentleman, we set to work, and for an hour we spoiled the walls by smashing ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... dog's trick. It's following 'em on snowshoes over deep snow. I've tried that once, and I'm blamed if I'll ever try it again. It's butchery, not sport. The crust of snow will be strong enough for a man to run on, but it can't support the heavy moose. The creature'll go smashing through it and struggling out, until its slim legs are a sight to see for cuts and blood. Soon it gets blowed, and can stumble no farther. Then the hunter finishes it ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... hat as an article of armour, I have never had the slightest doubt since then. There was a great flash and rattle of canes. Then the air was full of us. In the heat of it all prudence went to the winds. We hit out right and left, on both sides, smashing hats and bruising heads and hands. The canes went down in a jiffy and then we closed with each other hip and thigh. Collars were ripped off, coats were torn, shirts were gory from the blood of noses, and in this condition the most of us were rolling and tumbling on the ground. I had flung a man, ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... British women to mere man. One of the finest things about the militant woman, one by which she scored most heavily, was her flinging off of this tradition and displaying a shining armor of indifference toward man as man. This startled the men almost as much as the window smashing, and made other women, living out their little lives under the frowns and smiles of the dominant male, think and ponder, wonder if their small rewards amounted to half as much as the untasted ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... as ever — We were both at spur and whipcord, fetching blood at every bound — And above the people's cheering and the cries of 'Ace' and 'Quiver', I could hear the trainer shouting, 'One more run for Snowy River.' Then we struck the jump together and came smashing ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... that I was clutching the heavy knife I carried in my breast pocket. I drew it forth, and as I did so, something fell to the deck at my side, and I saw it was a piece of lead. Then I saw that Andrews's bullet had jammed itself into the joint of the hilt, smashing flat on the steel and breaking up, part of it falling away as I drew it forth. The knife had saved my life; for the shot had been true, and would have been instantly ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... early summer, consists of the unripe fruit foule (that is, crushed or beaten up) with cream and milk. Similarly the French have a foule des pommes, and a foule des raisins. To "play old Gooseberry" with another man's property is conjectured to mean smashing it up, and reducing it, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... limped closer, smashing the remains of the night with an iron crutch. The half-extinguished Cafe Kloesschen, a gleaming fragment, lay still in the soundless morning. In the background sat the last customer. Kuno Kohn had let his head sink back on ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... gavel, idle until now, and banged it on the table, smashing his spectacles thoughtlessly placed in front of him a moment before. This did nothing to appease his rising choler. "Silence, madam! We have perhaps been too lenient in deference to your, um, sex. I'll remind you that this body is vested with all the dignity of the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... sound and anchor. The early darkness of those northern latitudes had been followed by moon-light bright as day. Within a mile of the east shore, {39} Steller ordered the anchor dropped, but by this time, the rollers were smashing over decks with a quaking that seemed to tear the ship asunder. The sick were hurled from their berths. Officers rushed on deck to be swept from their feet by blasts of salt spray, and just ahead, through the moonlight, could ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... conspicuous leadership, and put him in command of the newly-created Sixth army, which was to play the leading part in routing Von Kluck. And on the next day (August 28) Joffre called Foch from Lorraine to head the new Ninth army, which was to hold the center at the Battle of the Marne and deal the smashing, decisive blow. ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

... way across the room. He felt them near him, and sent a smashing blow with a knife into the empty air. Miss Gregory, always with that considered and careful swiftness that was so like deliberation, reared to her knees, her left hand still holding the youth's wrist, and ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... wood upon them than I could well afford to spare. I used up all the brickbats I could lay my hands on. I threw away something less than a ton of coal; and on two occasions came near being taken to the watch-house for smashing a window in the opposite block. All this proved of no avail. Indeed, my tormentors began at last to get used to it, to regard it ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... benches, stood there like a pair of silent actors. What I called touching, just now was the thought that here the human voice, the utterance of a great language, had been supreme. The air was full of intonations and cadences; not of the echo of smashing blows, of riven armor, of howling victims and roaring beasts. The spot is, in short, one of the sweetest legacies of the ancient world; and there seems no profanation in the fact that by day it is open to the good people of Arles, who ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... infection, we had seen the typhus dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja—whichever you prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his hospitals by smashing the windows—one had been a child again for a moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient department to which tuberculosis and diphtheria—two ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... he lay down on his stomach, balanced the telescope across a splintered notch in the rock so that he could steady it with one hand, and with the other he tilted the mirror; inadvertently tilted the telescope also, and came near smashing the mirror before he got the two balanced again. Well, she was still looking, at any rate. And now she was frowning a little, as ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... mistresses whose wardrobes cost him hundreds of dollars. One night at a resort called Cedar Point, he got into a fight and ran amuck like a wild thing. With his fist he broke a large mirror in the wash room of a hotel and later went about smashing windows and breaking chairs in dance halls for the joy of hearing the glass rattle on the floor and seeing the terror in the eyes of clerks who had come from Sandusky to spend the evening at the resort ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... your light away back, but was too busy trying to stop without smashing something to answer. Say, has the trestle caved in, or what in the name of thunder is holding ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... Russell opened his fingers wide, judging implicit obedience his greatest safety. Sandy did not move position, he hardly seemed to move wrist or finger as his guns spat fire, left and right, eight shots blending, eight bullets smashing their way through the door between the "V's" of the bully's fingers while the crowd held their breath ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... having been too far advanced in liquor to make out his way with any kind of certainty, he proceeded, still under their direction, to the cottage adjoining, which was immediately surrounded by the troopers. After knocking at the door with violence, and demanding instant admittance, under the threat of smashing it in, and burning the house as a harbor for rebellious priests, the door was immediately opened by a gray-headed old man, feeble and decrepit in appearance, but yet without any manifestation of terror either in his voice or ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... sides rose a deafening din. There was a medley of everything in this chaos of sound: shouting and whining, furious abuse and laughter, laughter above everything; the plash of oars and the cleaving of hatchets, a crash as of the smashing of doors and chests, the grating of rigging and wheels, and the neighing of horses, and the clang of the alarm bell and the clink of chains, the roar and crackle of fire, drunken songs and quick, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... was evidently nearly spent, and the broken door is just like the back entrance of your aunt's house opposite Carlton church. It went clean through this; then turned to the right through a thick wall and landed in a cupboard on a shelf, smashing the doors, but ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... such little closets was not agreeable. The pantry presented a beautiful assortment of glass and china; but every tumbler and cup had to be fastened to the wall by hooks, or, in case of rough weather, there would be fatal smashing. The castors, too, looked so droll, suspended over the table ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill

... little figure of Jeanne d'Arc before the great portal. As seen from afar, now in the full nearer view, the amazing thing was the majesty of the windowless, roofless, defaced cathedral. Acres of other buildings have crumbled utterly, but not even the German guns have succeeded in smashing the dignity out of this ancient altar of French royalty. It still stands firm and mighty, dominating its ruined city, as if too old, too deeply rooted in the soil of France to be crushed by her enemies. After a year of bombardment it still raised its mutilated face in dumb protest ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... the cramped fingers, but the fellow struggled like a demon, clutching at the miner's throat, but unable to confine his arms. Twice Westcott drove his clenched right into the shadowed face, smashing it the last time so hard the man's grip relaxed, and he went staggering back. With a leap forward, the battle-fury on him, Westcott closed before the other could regain position. Again the clenched fist struck and the fellow went down in the ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... back with flames dancing before his eyes. The soldier lunged after his toppling man with gorilla-like blows. Hot pains shot through Peter's body. His head roared like a gong. The sunlight danced about him in flashes. The air was full of black fists smashing him, and not five feet away, the bullet head of Tump Pack bobbed this way and that in the rapid shifts of his attack. A stab of pain cut off Peter's breath. He stood with his diaphragm muscles tense and paralyzed, making convulsive efforts to breathe. At that ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... turbulent, ruthless rock, all dark red—hopeless, shapeless chaos. It all looked just as if there had been a smash up yesterday. No beyond, no nothing, nothing alive, nothing dead, every step of the way almost impassable and the feeling that every minute more rock could come smashing down. On the way there Mr. Whiterill, our guide, fell over with his horse when it was impossible to keep balance. He got loose, the horse fell over backwards several times, broke its neck, slid down sheer rock and fell about 50 feet over a ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... skirmish with Cappy Ricks cheered Matt Peasley and his mate for the first two weeks out from Puget Sound; after which the creosote commenced to season their food, and then the victory began to take on the general appearance of a vacuum. However, thanks to a clean keel and fair winds, they made a smashing passage and their ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... man, screaming and blundering, scrambled beneath the desk, making frantic efforts to hide, but the secretary took a step forward and fired two shots in quick succession into his projecting legs, hitting first one ankle and then the other, and smashing them horribly. ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... hundred millions, and raise six hundred thousand soldiers, in order to protect slavery? It really does seem to me too simple for argument. I am anxiously waiting for the coming Columbus who will set this egg of ours on end by smashing in the slavery end. We shall be rolling about in every direction until that is done. I don't know that it is to be done by proclamation. Rather perhaps by facts. . . . Well, I console myself with thinking that the people—the American people, at ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... feet. Two of the gang had reached the landing and were smashing at the Adventurer. There seemed to be a swirling mob in riot there below. The Adventurer was fighting like a madman. It was hand ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... of the revolver's bullets crashing home as fast as his finger could press the trigger. At that murderously short range the smashing rain of lead should have dropped a charging gorilla. But for all the effect Gordon's shots had upon the Xoranian, his ammunition might as well have been pellets of paper. Arlok's glossy hide merely, glowed momentarily in tiny patches as the bullets ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... against him. Taney, a Catholic, was raised without objection on that score to the first judicial post in America, at a date when such an appointment would have raised a serious tumult in England. At a later date Ingersoll was able to vary the pastime of "Bible-smashing" with the profession of an active Republican wire-puller, without any of the embarrassments which that much better and honester man, Charles Bradlaugh, had to encounter. The American Republic has not escaped the difficulties and problems which ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... see how they ever manage to keep from smashing into one another," said Willie as he stood with wide eyes, watching the ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... said the professor. "He may go on as Brassfield for anodder fife years or more. He may vake up as Amidon to-morrow morning. Propoply he vill geep on intefinitely, aggumulating spondulix, and smashing hearts, unless ve ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... landed just behind the ambulance. It was a chunk of the skull of one of the horses. The horse attached to the wagon ahead of me went into a frenzy of fear and backed his wagon into my ambulance, smashing the right lamp. In the twinkling of an eye, the soldiers dispersed. Some ran into the fields. Others crouched in the wayside ditch. A cart upset. Another bomb dropped screaming in a field and burst; a cloud of smoke rolled away ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... want to get my hat and run and run until I get to another planet. But I am not made of the stuff that runs, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have stuck to my post. If sacrificing self, and knocking longings in the head, and smashing heart-aches right and left, do not pass me through the Golden Gate, then ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... his feet and horns, and bellowing in the most savage manner. A shout of joy directed our attention among the boughs of a low banksia tree, where our unfortunate friend Tom sat painfully perched, only just out of reach of danger. The animal below every now and then fell upon his knees, crushing and smashing something which we had great difficulty in ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... the post at the top. The jar shook the other, his grasp got slack, and Lister saw that for a moment the advantage was his. Using a desperate effort he pushed his antagonist back and struck him a smashing blow. Shillito vanished and a crash in the gloom indicated that he had fallen on an aloe in a tub by the path. Lister leaned against the rail and laughed, because he knew ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... later, in 1367, he came to die himself he left directions that they should be buried with their feet towards one another, that at the resurrection the first thing he should see should be Dona Inez rising from her tomb. Unfortunately the French soldiers in 1810 broke open both tombs, smashing away much fine carved work and scattering their bones.[73] The two tombs are much alike in design and differ only in detail; both rest on four lions; the sides, above a narrow border of sunk quatrefoils, are divided by tiny buttresses rising from ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... up the garden, amazed at the smashing of glass, and saw her emerge, hauling the inanimate body with red-stained hands. For a ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... Harriet Burrell uttered a sharp cry of alarm. She threw the wheel over so suddenly that a wave smashing against the side of the sloop nearly turned them turtle. Captain Billy, with quick instinct, let go the mainsail, which swung out far to leeward, thus saving the little craft from being upset. Up to this moment he did not know what the sudden shifting ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge

... logs to replenish the fire, and then stop suddenly and listen with one foot raised, standing like an old dog locating a partridge. So nervous did he become as the twilight deepened, and he began to set the table for supper, that he dropped a cup, smashing it into atoms, a thing that had not happened to him before in twenty years—one of the blue and gilt—priceless heirlooms in the family, and only used when a distinguished guest was expected. At another time he would have dropped ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... door was closed, Scully and the cowboy leaped to their feet and began to curse. They trampled to and fro, waving their arms and smashing into the air with their fists. "Oh, but that was a hard minute!" wailed Scully. "That was a hard minute! Him there leerin' and scoffin'! One bang at his nose was worth forty dollars to me that minute! How ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... the neighbouring organs, reverting to a more primary undifferentiated condition, will discharge duties for which they were not engaged, in a manner for which no one would have given them credit; and the disturbance will be less and less each time, till by and by, at the sound of the crockery smashing below, Lady Croesus will just look up ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... time when the Boche were smashing their way toward Paris. It takes more courage to face a foe when he is on the aggressive than when he is being held or driven back. Our hero's company was meeting an attack. He had previously lost a brother, victim of a Boche bullet. ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West

... 'twill do. [While the WITCH starts back full of wrath and horror.] Skeleton! Scarcecrow! Spectre! Know'st thou me, Thy lord and master? What prevents my dashing Right in among thy cursed company, Thyself and all thy monkey spirits smashing? Has the red waistcoat thy respect no more? Has the cock's-feather, too, escaped attention? Hast never seen this face before? My name, perchance, wouldst have ...
— Faust • Goethe

... is such a law . . . people must be protected while their actions remain within the law. If their opinions differ from ours, we must refrain from smashing their faces, if a certain number of people believe that they have the right to vote we may either grant their claim or turn them sadly away, but we may not roll them into the gutter; if they see fit to tell us our professions of democracy are empty, we may smile sorrowfully ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... Zealand Tom," cried Bill Blunt, referring to an old bull whale that had become famous among the men who frequented these seas for its immense size and fierceness, and for the great trouble it had given them, smashing some of their boats, and carrying away many of ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... of his lovely wife, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Burke, Walpole, the dictator of Strawberry Hill, and immortalized the hats worn by the smashing, dashing Duchess of Devonshire. One of these pictures of Her Grace comes very close to us Americans, as it was cut from the frame one dark, foggy night in London, sealed up in the false bottom of a trunk and brought to New York. Here it lay for more ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... was, he would not starve his son as well as himself. He was quite sure of his little balance, though he had never had any head for figures of that sort. It was an easy affair in his eyes to handle the differential calculus, which will do anything, metaphorically speaking, from smashing a rock as flat and thin as a postage stamp, to regulating an astronomical clock; but to understand the complication of a pass-book and a bank account was a matter of the greatest possible difficulty. Newton would have ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford

... one feels that he is flogging gentlemen, at least, while he is at work on them. No, sir, Ca Ira means neither more nor less than 'That'll Do'; and I fancy, Cuffe, they thought of their own name more than once while the old Greek was hanging on their quarter, smashing their cabin windows for them! A pretty sound it would have been had we got her and put her into our own service—His Majesty's ship 'That'll Do,' 84, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... ice and above their heads long icicles hanging from the roofing. Roger slipped and fell and came down with such a jar that a great icicle weighing at least twenty pounds came down close to his head, smashing into many pieces and scattering over ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer

... it is true—that its area diminishes in proportion to the amount of wishes gratified, and vanishes with the death of the possessor. The steady flesh-and-blood men of science treat it just as we feel certain that they would do. After smashing a hydraulic press in the attempt to compress it, and exhausting the power of chemical agents, they agree to make a joke of it. It is not so much more wonderful than some of those modern miracles, which leave us to hesitate between the two incredible alternatives ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... could distinguish human cries; and what with the constant splashing of the water as the vessel rolled heavily from side to side, and the bumping and thumping of some casks that had got loose, and were smashing against one another, and the shouting, and the roaring of wind and waves, there was enough to stun and terrify any creature, be he quadruped ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... admiring the audacity of the plan. "Your next great difficulty will be to satisfy audiences after you have got them together, as I dare say you will, by some brilliant system of advertising. I have heard—perhaps you have—of audiences breaking furniture, smashing chandeliers, and tarring and ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... the objective of smashing the militarism imposed by war lords upon their enslaved peoples the objective of liberating the subjugated Nations—the objective of establishing and securing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... dammed waters broke loose. A great spray of yellow mud splashed out from Corkscrew Gorge and a pinon-trunk was snapped high into the air; and while all the earth trembled the dam of mud burst forth, forced on by the weight of backed-up waters. Then more trees came smashing through, followed by muddy tides of driftwood, and as ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... would keep your end of the bargain, the company has invested a lot of money and started a lot of projects. We bought up practically all the stock of the Westville street car lines, when that municipal ownership talk drove the price so low, because we expected to get a new franchise through your smashing this municipal ownership fallacy. We have counted on big things from the water-works when you got hold of it for us. And we have plans on foot in several other cities of the state, and we've been counting on the failure of municipal ownership in Westville to have a big influence on those ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... cars. They announced themselves from a great distance by a low singing on the overhead wire; then with a rush and a rumble the big, lighted things dashed across the void, and rumbled on with a clatter of smashing iron as they took the switches recklessly. The noise soothed her; in the quiet intervals she was listening for sounds from upstairs. The night was still and languorous, one of the peaceful nights of large spaces ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... only chance, of course; but the foretop-gallantmast, with the royal yard attached, did hit the tiger a smashing blow on the head that ended his troubles. We could see him, just clear of the forward house, with the lion at his throat. There wasn't much of it. The lion bit in; then, satisfied that he had done the job, he left the dead tiger and came aft, still bleeding from the hole between ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... all he could do to save himself as he sank in the icy crystals that sounded around him like the smashing of scores of panes of glass. Alec, alarmed at Frank's sad plight, madly rushed to his rescue, but ere he had gone a dozen yards he too found himself, as he afterward expressed it, like a person dropping into ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... determined move in the town, had resolved to join their brethren of La Palud and Saint-Martin-de-Vaulx; the first group had left at about eleven o'clock, by the Porte de Rome, shouting the "Marseillaise" and smashing a few windows. Granoux had had one broken. He mentioned the circumstance with ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... England. At least four of our number were refugees from Johannesburg, and very anxious to return. These unfortunates retailed at intervals doleful news about well-furnished houses being rifled, Boer children smashing up porcelain ornaments and playfully cutting out the figures from costly paintings with a pair of scissors, and grand pianos being annexed to adorn the cottages of Kaffir labourers. Another member of our little society had a very fair voice and good knowledge of music, for in ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett

... the little head that lay on the window-sill during the last quiet hour when all the children went to the brook to see Emil's new ship launched. She was to have christened it, and had depended on smashing a tiny bottle of currant-wine over the prow as it was named Josephine in honor of Mrs. Bhaer. Now she had lost her chance, and Daisy wouldn't do it half so well. Tears rose to her eyes as she remembered that it was all her own fault; and she said aloud, addressing a fat bee ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... Kid's head, sailed the terrible funnel, Its tip held harmlessly aloft from contact with the ground, thundering and screaming in disappointed rage. For several seconds the "twister" remained suspended. Then two hundred yards past the ranch it dipped to earth again, and went smashing along on its mission ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker

... stairs and was near the landing and couldn't escape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his tin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good marksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my mother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was amusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the way over that high board fence and escaped for that time. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... it, for like a bull-dog in a fury he lunged at the quiet man's throat, laid hold of his collar, shoved him off to arm's length, and struck him, but the blow glanced and the man jerked away. And then amid loud cries, the over-turning of tables and the smashing of glasses, the furious youngster felt himself seized by many hands. But he was a tiger and they could not bear him to the floor. He broke loose and sprawled one man upon the saw-dust. Others rushed upon him and again he was in a tangle and a tug, but he tore himself from ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... quivering feet and five black fingers. But in a moment after, with his still unloaded gun in his hand, he sprang up like a madman, jumped over the table, and, not trying to open the door, burst through the window, smashing half ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... atmosphere; papa basked in it. He had spent his Sunday morning playing sixteen holes of golf at the Country Club, and would have easily made the full round but for slicing three new balls into the pond on the annoying seventeenth drive. This had provoked him into smashing his driver, as he had a score of only eighty-eight at that point, which was well below his personal bogey. Even mamma affected interest in her spouse's explanations of how it ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Zada would smash first. He hoped it would not be the window of the car. He hoped he could get her safely indoors before the smashing began. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... matters ripened, and after a joyous display of heavenly pyrotechnics and thunder all round the blackening, heavy sky, we were subjected to a violent downpour, accompanied by lurid lightning flashes. Tremendous hailstones came down, smashing through the few remaining flimsy blanket shelters that were still standing, so that we were left in our nakedness to bear the full fury of the storm. We felt that God's spectacular display on the mountains for Elijah's benefit had been at least emulated, but it ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... be impossible to overcome. The blow of a tiger's paw is as powerful as that of a grizzly of the same size, though I doubt if it is any quicker in delivery. The quickness with which a seemingly clumsy bear can deliver a smashing blow is astonishing. Moreover, nature has given the grizzly a coat of fur which as a protection in fighting is almost equal to chain mail. Its length, combined with its density, makes it difficult ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... is this: You can break up its cohesion by a smashing blow delivered somewhere along its line, and preferably near its centre. But if you do that, the results will never be quite complete, and may be incomplete in any degree according to the violence and ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... a smashing blow on the lock of the door. Burleigh raised his pistol, and aiming at the height of a man's chest, fired through ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... kept the railway-station from Wimblehurst, they stop on the very outskirts of the estates, but from the south, the South Eastern railway had butted its great stupid rusty iron head of Charing Cross station, that great head that came smashing down in 1905—clean across the river, between Somerset House and Whitehall. The south side had no protecting estate. Factory chimneys smoke right over against Westminster with an air of carelessly not having permission, and the whole effect of industrial ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... caution, his rectitude of conscience. He was torn far beyond the emotional possibilities of weak men. The fact that, penniless and without a home, he had nothing to offer was lost in the beat and surge of his feelings. He went with the smashing completeness of a heavy body, broken loose in an elemental turmoil. He wanted her; her fragrant spirit, the essence that was herself, Rosemary Roselle. He couldn't take it; such consummations, he realized, were beyond will and act, they responded from planes forever above human desire—there was ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... them before they were fairly round, smashing in the bulwark and sweeping everything before it, and the boys both thought that the Susan was sinking under their feet. However she recovered herself. The water poured out through the broken bulwark, and the boat rose again on the waves as they ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... Then he said something which might have been addressed to me or might merely have been a mutter to himself, but a sudden furious anger flamed up within me that such a creature should address me. For an instant I felt like wheeling about and smashing my stick over his head, but I walked on, and entering the Hamilton went to my apartment. For some time I tossed about the bed trying to get the sound of his voice out of my ears, but could not. It filled ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... fellow members began to humour and respect it. They all knew that Bob had gone up against the Sugar panic hard. No one knew how hard, but all guessed from his changed appearance and habits that it must have been a bone-smashing blow. Nothing so quickly and so deeply stirs a Stock Exchange man's feelings for his brother member as to know that "They" have ditched his El Dorado flyer—that is, if he has been a good the books ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson

... thanksgiving. He was too vain to carry his argument out to its logical end. Why did the Lord protect him, and not his fellow-travellers? Was he of more importance than any of the others? And why, if it was right to thank God for saving Thomas Cooper, would it be wrong to curse him for smashing ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... the size of an omnibus was lying up there, in a good position to go down hill, once, started. They decided it would be a glorious thing to see that great boulder go smashing down, a hundred yards or so in front of some unsuspecting and peaceful-minded church-goer. Quarrymen were getting out rock not far away, and left their picks and shovels over Sundays. The boys borrowed these, and went to work to undermine the big stone. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... here?' 'Have you come at last?' answered Christian Hennemann, in a grumbling tone; 'here I have stood the whole day, waiting for you. One pipe after another have the cursed French shot away from my mouth. Once even a blue bean (a bullet) made sad work with my head, and my fist has got a deuce of a smashing. That is the last whole pipe, and it is a good thing that the firing has ceased; otherwise, the French would have knocked this pipe to pieces, and you must have stood there with a dry mouth.' He then handed the lighted pipe to his master, who took it, and after a few eagerly-enjoyed whiffs, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... second time, a shower of enormous stones poured upon that side of the Common Dwelling-house which was turned towards the fields. A part of these projectiles broke such of the windows as had been spared by the first volley. To the sharp smashing and cracking of glass were joined the ferocious cries uttered in chorus by this formidable mob, drunk with its own excesses: ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... he found a discolored crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power smashing blows, nose-first. The screen-work broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening and flung himself between Baloo and Bagheera—an arm ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... First there was the swish and pelt of the rain, varied as the wind blew the sheets of water across the deck. But, above it all, was a deep, ominous note—a grinding, crushing noise, as of giant rocks piling one on top of the other, smashing to powder between them ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton

... General Gordon, whose opinion at the time carried great weight, had asked, "is to prevent the Mahdi's adherents gaining Mecca? Once at Mecca we may look out for squalls in Turkey," etc. He, as also Lord Wolseley, insisted on the absolute necessity of "smashing the Mahdi." We now know that these fears were exaggerated, and that the Mahdist movement was of purely local importance. Lyall had no special acquaintance with Egyptian or Soudanese affairs, but his general ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... Then something happened that made the cowmen gasp with astonishment. The slender lad lifted the big mountain boy clear of the ground, hurled him over his head, and still clinging to the wrist, brought him down with a smashing jolt, flat on his back in the middle of the village street. Phil Simms narrowly escaped being struck by the heels of the mountain boy's boots as they described a half circle in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... the Throg ship, not swinging now in serene indifference to Warlock's gravity, but whirling end over end across the sky as might a leaf tossed in a gust of wind. Its rim caught against a rust-red cliff, it rebounded and crumpled. Then it came down, smashing perhaps half a mile away from the smoking crater in which lay the mangled wreckage of the Terran ship. The disabled scout pilot must have played a last desperate game, making of his ship bait for ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... himself to his knees. Ere he could gain his feet Bert landed a smashing blow on his left cheek. Down ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... about the region of the solar plexus. He sprang back with an astonished yelp—which sounded like 'Ow—er!'—and stood gasping and rubbing his abdomen. As he recovered, he broke out into absurd and disgusting speech and began cautiously to circle round me, balancing his club in readiness for a smashing blow. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... in the cookhouse, sir, when a shell struck it, smashing everything in sight, and I lost complete control o' my nerves and started for the wagon lines wi'out knowing what I was doing or where I was going, and didna' come to mysel' until Grant ran across me ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... had been asleep all day, fits of blind rage came upon Simmonr and held him till he trembled all over, while he thought in how many different ways he would slay Losson. Sometimes he would picture himself trampling the life out of the man, with heavy ammunition-boots, and at others smashing in his face with the butt, and at others jumping on his shoulders and dragging the head back till the neckbone cracked. Then his mouth would feel hot and fevered, and he would reach out for another sup of the beer in ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... side poles were brought down on the rump of the wild mule, most of which were promptly kicked through the side of the tent. Teddy, in the meantime, had landed in a performer's trunk, smashing through the tray, being wedged in so tightly that he could not extricate himself. Added to the din was ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... tree had come straight through the big window of the apartment, crashing down on a bureau and a writing-desk, smashing both flat. Some branches of the tree rested on the side of the bed, pinning Job Haskers against the wall, ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... provide a smashing answer for those cynical men who say that a democracy cannot be honest and efficient. If you will help, this can be done. I, therefore, hope you will watch the work in every corner of this Nation. Feel free to criticize. Tell me of instances where work can be done better, or where improper ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... shouted. "Colonel Hampton and Mr. Strong have patched up their fuss, and are going to recruit a company and make me captain. We'll be smashing the Germans inside ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... night would they sometimes dream queer dreams in which wild-eyed men went around smashing everything in sight and a little cottage stood lonely and desolate and ghostlike amid a silent forest ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope

... house, and how the neighbors came again to see the wonderful paper, and how it was figured how many farms it would buy, what houses it would build and furnish, and how the boy who had been expelled from school for fighting had done it all! What a smashing of old theories it made, and how every wild boy in the neighborhood to whom the evil example of the bad Sedgwick boy had been held up as an illustration of total depravity and as proof that nothing of good ever came to a youth that would fight and ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... Bolo's smashing in of the Ust Padenga front and the subsequent memorable retreat from Shenkursk this section of field hospital men had their hands full. It was in the field hospital at Shenkursk that the gallant and beloved Lt. Ralph G. Powers of the Ambulance Corps died and ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... power of mind that stopped at nothing to attain its ends, that chose the shortest cut, the most direct means, disdainful of hesitation, holding delicacy and finessing in measureless contempt, rushing straight to its object, driving in, breaking down resistance, smashing through obstacles with a boundless, crude, blind Brobdignag power, to oppose which was to be trampled under ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... junks the fire of those on board redoubled, and was aided by that of many villagers gathered on the bank of the creek. Suddenly from a bank of rushes four cannons were fired. A ball struck the pinnace, smashing in her side. The other boats gathered hastily round and took her crew on board, and then dashed at the junks, which were but a hundred yards distant. The valor of the Chinese evaporated as they saw the boats approaching, and scores of them leaped overboard ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... left in their places. The only real destruction was caused by a barrel of powder, which some bunglers blew up by mistake. The inevitable consequence of all this French ineptitude was that the Royal Battery roared against Louisbourg the very next morning with tremendous effect, smashing the works most exposed to its fire, bringing down houses about the inhabitants' ears, and sending the terrified non-combatants ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood

... of the great awkward tanks toiling along their cumbersome way, smashing down whatever opposed them, and spitting out flame and death on every hand. But I can record nothing. Men talk about the history of this war being written some day; it never will be,—the whole thing is too tremendous, ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... ceaseless questioning, spun through the room, and again came the curious silence. Even the Oberkellner listened, his mouth ajar. The waiters paused midway in their desperate gaming with victuals, and for a moment the place was wholly given over to music. The mounting unison passage and the smashing chords at the close awakened the diners from the trance into which they had been thrown by the magnetic fluid at the tips of the pianist's fingers; the bustle began, Harry and Billy ordered more beer and drew ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... some grave disaster had overtaken him, something that when he came fully to his senses still would overwhelm him, something he could not conquer with his fists. His brain, even befuddled as it was, told him he had been caught by the heels, that he was in a trap, that smashing this boy who threatened him could not set him free. He recognized, and it was this knowledge that stirred him with alarm, that this was no ordinary officer of justice, but a personal enemy, an avenging ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis



Words linked to "Smashing" :   breaking, smash, colloquialism, break, good, breakage



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