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Sturdy   /stˈərdi/   Listen
Sturdy

adjective
(compar. sturdier; superl. sturdiest)
1.
Having rugged physical strength; inured to fatigue or hardships.  Synonyms: hardy, stalwart, stout.  "Proud of her tall stalwart son" , "Stout seamen" , "Sturdy young athletes"
2.
Not making concessions.  Synonyms: inflexible, uncompromising.  "Uncompromising honesty"
3.
Substantially made or constructed.  Synonym: tough.  "Sturdy canvas" , "A tough all-weather fabric" , "Some plastics are as tough as metal"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sturdy" Quotes from Famous Books



... And waving the beautiful prize anon, The dusky warriors cheer them on. And often the limits are almost passed, As the swift ball flies and returns. At last It leaps the line at a single bound From the fair Wiwaste's sturdy arm Like a fawn that flies from the baying hound. The wild cheers broke like a thunder storm On the beetling bluffs and the hills profound, An echoing, jubilant sea of sound. Wakawa, the chief, and the loud acclaim Announced the end of the hard-won ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... the Dominicans are robust and sturdy. All the Dominican presidents of late years have been men of commanding physique, fitting representatives of their people. As far as industry is concerned the average Dominican is little more laborious than absolutely necessary to support himself ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... great hospitals, second only to those of Ancon, the "white" wards built out over the sea, and behind them the "black" where the negroes must be content with second-hand breezes. Some of the costs of the canal are here,—sturdy black men in a sort of bed-tick pajamas sitting on the verandas or in wheel chairs, some with one leg gone, some with both. One could not but wonder how it feels to be hopelessly ruined in body early in life for helping ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... the harbor were fringed with a luxurious growth of forest trees. On one side, lofty pines reared their gray trunks, forming a natural palisade along the shore. On the other, massive oaks alone were to be seen, lifting their sturdy branches to the skies, gathered into clumps or stretching out into long lines, as if a landscape gardener had planted them to please the eye and gratify the taste. An exploration revealed the whole surrounding region clothed in a similar wild and ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... and sturdy Baxmore, and facetious Joe Corney, with his comrades Moxey, Williams, and Mason, and Sam Forest, those heroes continued to go on the even tenor of their way, fighting more battles with the flames in six months than were fought ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... anxiety. Lord only knew what the girl'd try to do once she got out of their sight! But where the intellectual and argumentative Smythe had failed, what could be expected of these simple mountain folk, who for all their sturdy independence were not a little awed by the superior poise and distinction of their visitor? Moreover, Marion was at this moment entirely honest in her assurance that she intended to go no farther than timber line. If the idea ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... smote his hands together over his head when he saw the mischief which the imps had wrought. 'March in!' thundered he, and the little ones, with drooping wings, crept through the gate into Heaven. Then St. Peter called a few sturdy angels. They collected the imps and took them where ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... Washington to dance with Lafayette," Patricia confided to Roger as they stood under the rose vine in the moonlight at the late hour of ten-thirty that evening after she had helped him transplant a lot of sturdy tomato vines. ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... personage present, in the shape of a sturdy, muscular-looking man, whose swarthy face was sheltered by a wide-brimmed soft felt hat, very much turned up at the sides, and in whose broad band was stuck a tuft of the pale grey, starry-looking, downy plant known as the Edelweiss. His jacket ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... the two sturdy Maryland farmers came up on either side of the man, and, each taking a firm grip of his arms, with gentle strength, released the half-swooning bride, who immediately dropped upon the ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... with the double enjoyment stimulating her both before and behind, showered upon me. I soon found that any further efforts on my part were quite unnecessary. Maddened by the novel excitement, Laura heaved and thrust alternately, displacing and replacing the sturdy instruments above and below, and declaring she really knew not which of them afforded her the greatest delight. I, therefore, confined myself to favouring her movements so as to give them the greatest possible effect, ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous

... in 1832, he inherited the traditions of the service which he was to render still more illustrious. His frame, short and slight, seemed scarcely to fit him for warlike pursuits; and in ages when great stature and sturdy sinews were alone held in repute, he might have been relegated to civil life; but the careers of William III., Luxemburg, Nelson, and Roberts show that wiriness is more essential to a commander than animal ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... haven, that a ship loaden with merchandise stayed there for a short space. In the meantime many of the soldiers and mariners went to shore, to provide fresh victuals; among which number a certain Englishman, being a sturdy young fellow, went to a woman's house, a little way out of the city, and not far from the sea-side, to see whether she had any eggs to sell. Who, perceiving him to be a lusty young fellow, a stranger, and far from his country (so as, upon the loss of him, there ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... Black Bruin, and, from a fuzzy mite, whining for his saucer of milk, he grew into a sturdy cub, strong and self-reliant, able to forage ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... height, with knees as high as his chin and the points of his shoulders higher than his head. In this situation he prespired very freely. We were not kept long in a state of suspense. Rutherford and three sturdy fellows, armed, entered the house, all half-drunk. They took no notice of us, but eyed our baggage, which was heaped on the floor. They drank freely of whisky, and appeared in fine spirits. As ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason

... estates covered many a square mile of Berkshire, and fifty sturdy yeomen dismounted before Furness Hall at the hour named by Sir Henry. A number of grooms and serving men were in attendance, and took the horses as they rode up, while the major-domo conducted them to the ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... and accommodating in his ways, a loyal citizen, and a true-hearted man. He died in February, 1868, and was lamented by every resident of the town. A typical farmer was Captain Barrett, thoroughly human, loving life and all there is good in it, hard-headed, practical, of sturdy common-sense, faithful to every obligation as he understands it, of a kindly nature, enjoying the doing of good in a plain, simple way, caring little for the supernatural, and yet having a very sturdy ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... the incorrigible habit of years, and the infant Damocles grew and developed into a remarkably sturdy, healthy, intelligent boy, as cheerful, fearless, impudent, and irrepressible as the heart of the Major could desire—and with a much larger vocabulary than any one could desire, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... possessed of the highest integrity. His was indeed an integrity that could know no temptation. Faithful to every obligation, he was incapable of an ignoble act. He was eminently a just man, possessing in a marked degree the sturdy characteristics of his Scotch-Irish ancestors. ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... tradition is based upon the casting off of a Germanic monarchy; it is its cardinal idea. These sturdy Republicans did not fling out the Hanoverians and their Hessian troops to prepare the path of glory for Potsdam. But except for the gash caused by the Teutonic monarchy, there runs round the whole world a north temperate and sub-arctic zone of peoples, generally similar in complexion, ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... put into two-inch or "thumb" pots. Some of the larger growing geraniums or very sturdy plants require two-and-one-half inch pots, but the smaller size ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... at the window in the dining room and peering through the dusk at Collins' sturdy figure as it swung past him down the drive, bit his lip a moment, and made as if ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... across the bed. On the outside of the wire screen clung a number of house-flies, early-hatched for the season and numb with the night's cold. As Forrest ate he watched the hunting of the meat-eating yellow- jackets. Sturdy, more frost-resistant than bees, they were already on the wing and preying on the benumbed flies. Despite the rowdy noise of their flight, these yellow hunters of the air, with rarely ever a miss, pounced on their helpless victims and sailed away with them. The last fly was gone ere Forrest had ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... day. It was a healthy revelry, by the way, like the boisterous hilarity of a robust boy. Dyea was just that—an overgrown, hilarious boy. There was nothing querulous or sickly about this child; it was strong, it was sturdy, it was rough; it romped with everybody and it grew out of its clothes overnight. Every house, every tent, in the town was crowded; ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... escaping many infantile diseases; the whole outlook for health—and even life itself—is greatly improved in the case of the nursing babe, as compared with the prospect of the bottle-fed child. Maternal nursing lays the foundation for sturdy manhood and womanhood. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... and a thunder-storm angrily rising over the Pittsburg hills, to get out of this grimy pool, flanked about with iron and coal yards, chimney stacks, and a forest of shipping, and to quickly seek the open country lower down on the Ohio. The lock-keepers appreciated our situation. Two or three sturdy, courteous men helped us carry our cargo, by an intricate official route, over coils of rope and chains, over lines of shafting, and along dizzy walks overhanging the yawning basin; while the Doctor, directed to a certain chute in midstream, took unladen Pilgrim ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... possession of plenty of cash, became licensee of a small tavern called the Admiral Parker, in a back street in Devonport. It was a fully-licensed house, and much frequented by seamen. Noah Quick was a thick-set, sturdy, middle-aged man, reserved, taciturn, very strict in his attention to business; a steady, sober man, keen on money matters. He was a bachelor, keeping an elderly woman as housekeeper, a couple of stout women servants, a barmaid, and a potman. His house was particularly well-conducted; ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... the young people had been of the frankest and pleasantest character, but, in spite of the sturdy respectability of the family and the new principles of equality born of the revolution, young Marteau realized—and if he had failed to do so his father had enlightened him—that there was no more chance of his becoming a suitor, a welcome suitor, that is, for the hand ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... rock which is the groundwork of this seemingly inert race: its originality and stern individuality are what are dear to it. One day Russia will display in other spheres the originality and patient, sturdy energy which these religious struggles have called forth. That a considerable portion of the people have revolted against the liturgic reform shows that it is not the stupid, sluggish herd Europe has so long imagined. On one ground ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... Heaven hushed the waves. My comrades, rising, furled the sail, stowed it on board the hollow ship, then sitting at their oars whitened the water with the polished blades. But I with my sharp sword cut a great cake of wax into small bits, which I then kneaded in my sturdy hands. Soon the wax warmed, forced by the powerful pressure and by the rays of the exalted sun, the lord of all. Then one by one I stopped the ears of all my crew; and on the deck they bound me hand and foot, upright upon the mast-block, round which they wound the ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... gentleman "drumming around" our suburb, I had the curiosity to stop and inspect his live freight. In doing so I lighted upon Dicky Chips, as I subsequently christened him: a sturdy little bullfinch, who looked somewhat out of place, and lonesome, amongst his screaming companions from foreign lands. I purchased him for a trifle, and have never since regretted the bargain, for, he was a dear, bright little fellow; ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... of all his subscriptions, and his coaxing of the various orders of Newcomites, Sir Barnes Newcome was not popular among them; and while he had enemies on all sides, had sturdy friends not even on his own. Scarce a man but felt Barnes was laughing at him; Bulders in his pulpit, Holder who seconded him in his election, the Newcome society; and the ladies, even more than the men, were uneasy under ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the banqueting pack, he was suddenly conscious of a movement in the branches of a fir a little beyond them. Then his quick eye, keener in discrimination than that of any wolf, detected the sturdy figure of a large wolverene making its way from tree to tree at a safe distance above the snow, intent upon the wolves. What one carcajou—"Glutton," he called it—could hope, for all its cunning, to accomplish against five big timber-wolves, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... dozen sturdy arms made the transfer, by means of a hammock, from the canoe to the yacht, and Simeon, alive but quite unconscious, was laid on the deck. He had probably been subjected by the removal to more pain than in ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... training for that silly little heart, and the prospect of her new duties brought on her a sobering sense of responsibility. She would always be tender and clinging, but the fragrant woodbine would be trained round a sound, sturdy oak, and her modesty, gentleness, and sincerity, gave every promise of her being ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... boys were strong and sturdy, and the girls had promised to hold on tightly and carefully, Mr. Maynard let them play this game, though he had always thought it a ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... the Elean palm doth lift To heaven, for winged steed, Or sturdy arm decreed, Giving, than hundred statues nobler gift, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by those lines and angles which disfigure ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... that is, don't you? Helping to sort out and assimilate the flotsam and jetsam of the foreign element, and imbue it with sturdy American ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... skee-staves, laboring like plough-horses, panting, snorting, perspiring. Ralph turned his head once more. The poacher was gaining upon them; there could be no doubt of it. He was within the range of Ralph's rifle; and a sturdy fellow he was, who seemed good for a couple of miles yet. Should Ralph send a bullet over his head to frighten him? No; that might give the poacher an excuse for sending back a bullet with a less innocent purpose. Poor Biceps, he was panting and ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... Far as the life which warms the breast! The sturdy savage midst his clan, The rudest portraiture of man, In trackless woods and boundless plains, Where everlasting wildness reigns, Owns the still throb—the secret start— The hidden impulse ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis

... playing, became louder and louder, and the whole party burst at last into the room. "Mamma, Mamma," they cried, scarcely able to speak, "guess where Roderick has been." "I cannot." "Oh, but do, dear Mamma!" cried a little thing with fairy curls, "do guess." "I cannot." "I'll tell Mamma," cried a stout sturdy fellow, a little older; "Mamma! he's been up the winding staircase of one turret, and all along the leads and down the winding staircase of the other turret, and he has done it three times, and he has seen to do it ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty

... is a good description of the siege of a revolted town by the army of the Duke of Burgundy. Arrows whiz, catapults hurl their ponderous stones, wooden towers are built, secret mines are exploded. The sturdy citizens, led by a tall knight who seems to bear a charmed life, baffle every device of the besiegers. At length the citizens capture the brother of the duke's general, and the besiegers capture the tall knight, who turns out ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... with his uncles, one a mighty hunter and the other a noted scientist, Don Sturdy travels far and wide, gaining much useful knowledge and ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... the combined strength of all the brawny arms in the neighborhood when the barn was raised,—timbers strong enough and heavy enough for docks and quays, and that have absorbed the odors of the hay and grain until they look ripe and mellow and full of the pleasing sentiment of the great, sturdy, bountiful interior! The "big beam" has become smooth and polished from the hay that has been pitched over it, and the sweaty, sturdy forms that have crossed it. One feels that he would like a piece ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs

... years at Foston were happily and profitably spent. He was in the fulness of his physical and intellectual vigour. He said of himself, "I am a rough writer of Sermons," but his energy in delivering them awoke the admiration of his sturdy flock.— ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... brother is beating ever, Steadfast and sturdy kept By One Who forgetteth never,— Who wound ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier

... landmark. Before her lay the boggy place where she came in all warm seasons of the year for one thing or another: the wild marsh-marigold,—good for greens,—thoroughwort, and the root of the sweet-flag. P'ison flag grew here, too, the sturdy, delicate iris that made ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... some modification of the charge, without being supposed to have no other motive than a frantic zeal for being thus double-taxed to another set of landholders and another set of priests? Have men no self-interest, no avarice, no repugnance to public imposts? Have they no sturdy and restive minds, no undisciplined habits? Is there nothing in the whole mob of irregular passions, which might precipitate some of the common people, in some places, to quarrel with a legal, because they feel ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... said to himself; "cowardice was not wont to be his fault—at least he was bold enough in the Park.—Perhaps yonder churl may not have carried my message? But no—he is a sturdy knave— one of those would prize their master's honour above their life.—Look to the palfrey, Lutin, and see thou let him not loose, and cast thy falcon glance down every avenue to mark if any one comes.—Buckingham has undergone my challenge, but the proud minion pleads the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... her part of the task." Sophia is a lovely creature, just what she should be. We are not quite sure of Mr Burchell: possibly he may look too young; he was a character, and must have borne about him some little acquired oddity, sturdy, and not undignified. In the illustration he is too prettily genteel; but we do not wish to see any but Sophia—delightful, loving, lovable Sophia. In the background, Moses lies on the ground with his book, and the vicar has rather too suspicious a look; but we can forgive him that, and, for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... This sturdy Protestant's version, which does not accuse the Regent of breaking troth, is corroborated by a Catholic contemporary, Lesley, Bishop of Ross. He says that Erskine of Dun was sent to beg the Regent not ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... latticed gallery of that floor. Wings of that sort were once very common in New Orleans in the residences of the rich; they were the house's slave quarters. But certainly some of the features you see here never were common—locks seven inches across; several windows without sashes, but with sturdy iron gratings and solid iron shutters. On the fourth floor the doorway communicating with the main house is entirely closed twice over, by two pairs of full length batten shutters held in on the side of the main house by iron hooks eighteen inches long, two to each shutter. And yet it was through ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... the Castle walls at the Uttermost Marches, and a kind woman therein, big, sandy-haired, and freckled, and a lad that was white-haired and sturdy, somewhat bigger than I. And I mind me standing up against the door-post of the cot and seeing men-at-arms riding by in white armour, and one of them throwing an apple to me, and I raised my arm to throw it ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris

... definite plan which he hoped to carry out. Coquenil felt for cigarettes in his coat pocket and his hand touched the friendly barrel of a revolver. Then he glanced back and saw the big automobile, which had been waiting for hours, trailing discreetly behind with Tignol (no longer a priest) and two sturdy fellows, making four men with the chauffeur, all ready to rush up for attack or defense at the lift of his hand. There must be some miraculous interposition if this man beside him, this baby-faced wood carver, was to get away now as he ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... except the Bible, had never seen more than a half-dozen pictures in his life. From these and from the conversation of backwoodsmen and, more recently, of pirates, he had been forced to form all his conceptions of the world outside of his own experience. It is a tribute to his clean traditions and sturdy self-reliance that he sat unabashed, pleased with the color, the gayety, the richness, but able still to distinguish the fine things from the sham, the honest things from those which only appeared honest—to ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... face wore a puzzled expression. He looked down at the sturdy face with its steady eyes, tightly gripped mouth, and chin which had ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... were again very hospitably entertained. On the 1st of May they resumed their slow and laborious voyage, and reached the Arkansas Indians about the 15th of the month. On the 16th La Salle took two light canoes, propelled by sturdy Indian rowers, and pushed on in advance of the rest of the party. He gave directions for the other canoes to follow as fast as they could. But he was taken ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... pretty. But sturdy, no! Do you think you can make a working man out of a chit with shoulders like his? He's a city child and there's no place ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot

... "Of its sturdy defenders, Thy lady alone Saw the cross-blazoned banner Float over St. John." "Let the dastard look to it!" Cried fiery Estienne, "Were D'Aulnay King Louis, I'd free ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... dressed and radiant with joy, a dainty miss who looked to be fourteen but was said to be twelve, curtsied to Flanders, who bowed low, his roving eye unwilling to relax its interest in the flushed face of the governess. Then came Frederick, a sturdy youngster; Marie Louise, a solemn-eyed ten-year-old; Wilberforce, Reginald, Henrietta, Guinevere, Harold, Rosemary, Rutherford, and last of all ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... back in doubt and alarm. Sir Frederick himself stepped forward towards the Recluse, as if to lay hands on his person, when his progress was suddenly stopped by the glittering point of a partisan, which the sturdy hand of Hobbie Elliot ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... sided!" declared Slim Degnan to Bud, Nort and Dick, as the three boys managed to get their ponies on a line with the sturdy beast of the foreman. "There's two sets ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... started across the street. Now, while Amzi Montgomery had been seen of all men in all years and at all seasons, standing on the steps of his bank in the old straw hat, with his seersucker coat buttoned tightly round his sturdy figure, he had never before been known to descend into Main Street in that garb. The crowd immediately began closing in upon him and Fred detached a squad of his brawniest men to act as the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... infallible token and symbol of a perfect and completely well-cemented reconciliation, sign of a sound and sincere amity and proper mark of a new joy and gladness to follow thereupon,—Ut not. per (Doct.) ff. de peric. et com. rei vend. l. 1. He had a son, whose name was Tenot Dandin, a lusty, young, sturdy, frisking roister, so help me God! who likewise, in imitation of his peace-making father, would have undertaken and meddled with the making up of variances and deciding of controversies betwixt disagreeing and contentious party-pleaders; ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... the flag fluttered back in silken, shuddering waves as if it were a reluctant thing. Occasionally a giant spring of a charger would rear the firm and sturdy figure of a soldier suddenly head and shoulders above his comrades. Over the noise of the scudding hoofs could be heard the creaking of leather trappings, the jingle and clank of steel, and the tense, low-toned commands or appeals of the men to their horses. And the horses were mad ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... Pontresina and see what it had grown into since he was there six years ago. It used to be a delightful place then, as different from St. Moritz as anything could well be. Only students and artists and an occasional sturdy English climber used to go to Pontresina, while all Europe congregated at St. Moritz half a dozen miles away. He would go there as he went everywhere, with a knapsack and a thick stick and a few guldens in his pocket, and be happy, if so be that he had any capacity ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... show himself a fop than by wearing stockings of different colours.[A] In a word, though they have had a full barn for many days together, our itinerants are still so wretchedly poor, that without you can prevail to send us the furniture you forbid at the playhouse, the heroes appear only like sturdy beggars, and the heroines gypsies. We have had but one part which was performed and dressed with propriety, and that was Justice Clodpate. This was so well done, that it offended Mr. Justice Overdo, who, in the midst of our whole audience, was (like Quixote in the puppet show) so highly provoked, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... estate, to which his royal patron added the lands of Derryvolgie, thus making him lord of nearly 70,000 statute acres of the broad lands of Down and Antrim. The Conways brought over a number of English and Welsh families, who settled on the estate, and intermarrying with the natives, a race of sturdy yeomen soon sprang up. The Conways were good landlords, and greatly beloved by the people. With the addition made to the property the king conferred upon the fortunate recipient of his bounty the title of Baron. At the close ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... breeched yet, but his spirit is beyond his years and there's no more rollicking blade than he. While he grips his sister's pinafore with one hand, for fear of tumbling, he shakes his whip in the other like a sturdy lad. His father's head stableman can hardly crack his any better when he meets his sweetheart, bringing home the horses from watering at the river. Little Jean is lulled by no soft reveries. He never heeds ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France

... the greatly delighted little Elsa to the seat on the bay, he mounted his own sturdy animal and immediately started for the canyon below, leaving Beth and her maid to ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... with the first darting ray That pierces thro' the window of his cot, And quits his easy bed; then o'er the field, With lengthen'd swinging strides, betakes his way, Bearing his spade and hoe across his moulder, Seen from afar clear glancing in the sun, And with good will begins his daily work. The sturdy sun-burnt boy drives forth the cattle, And vain of power, bawls to the lagging kine, Who fain would stay to crop the tender shoots Of the green tempting hedges as they pass; Or beats the glist'ning ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... proclaimed its birth, standing in a window of the Hotel de Ville in 1870; he gave it a baptism of some glory in the fiery, though hopeless, resistance he opposed to the German invasion; and he kept it standing at a time when it needed the support of a sturdy, vigilant champion. To the end it must be believed that he would, as far as in him lay, have preserved it from harm. Not long before his death, during a lull in his pain, which for a moment roused a hope of his recovery, he said to his doctor: "I have made many mistakes, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... Boy Scouts, sturdy with an enormous sense of uniform and valor, marched through the asphalt alleys of the park with trained, small-footed, regimental precision—small boys with clean, lifted faces. A fife and drum came ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... was seen with as much distinctness as if he were only a few rods distant. When looking at him the Shawanoe, for the first time in his life, saw a dwarf belonging to his own race. The man had broad shoulders and body and sturdy legs, but his height could not have been more than four and a half feet. Moreover he was very bow-legged, was a hunchback, had a broad mouth, a flat nose and small twinkling eyes. His long black hair dangled loosely about his shoulders, he was clad in a hunting dress similar to that ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... men" that every rebellion could count for support; their mere existence was an encouragement to civil war; while in peace their presence was felt in the insecurity of life and property, in bands of marauders which held whole counties in terror, and in "sturdy beggars" who stripped travellers on the road. Under Elizabeth as under her predecessors the terrible measures of repression, whose uselessness More had in vain pointed out, went pitilessly on. We find the magistrates of Somersetshire capturing a gang of a hundred at ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... agrees, though he warns his father that he will rue his act. The Just and Unjust arguments come out of the academy to plead before the Chorus. The former draws a picture of the old-fashioned times when a sturdy race of men was reared on discipline, obedience and morality—a broad-chested vigorous type. In utter contempt the latter brands such teaching as prehistoric. Pleasure, self-indulgence, a lax code of morality and ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... known the result of my impulse to say a few words to a lonely boy! For he did fall in love with me, and in such sturdy mountaineer fashion that I very nearly had nervous prostration—and he too—in trying to get away from his strenuous wooing. For he started out to win me in the same style that he would have used toward one of the cow-girls in his native Alps. He waylaid me and followed me around everywhere, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... of Nancy Ellen's death, which again saddened all of them. Then came cooler September weather, and the usual rush of preparation for winter. Kate was everywhere and enjoying her work immensely. On sturdy, tumbly legs Little Poll trotted after her or rode in state on her shoulder, when distances were too far. If Kate took her to the fields, as she did every day, she carried along the half of an old pink and white quilt, which she spread in a shaded ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... her first long restoration to civilization since their marriage ten years before; happy in the pride and joy of his father and mother in having once more under their roof the soldier son who had won an honored name in his profession, and in their delight in the exuberant health and antics of two sturdy, plains-bred little Cranstons. The visit proved one continuous round of home pleasures and social gayeties, for Margaret Cranston had been a stanch favorite in the days of her girl- and bellehood, and all her old friends, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... stopped writing," said Glory Goldie, with a little laugh. There was something strong and sturdy about the girl then, as formerly. She was not one of those who torture themselves with remorse and self-condemnation. "Don't think any more of that, mother," she added, as Katrina did not speak. "I've been doing real well lately. ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... black bow twitched and a queer sound burst from the shoulder where her head was buried. Jeff's thick black lashes went down for a moment; Celia shook two bright drops from brimming eyes and patted Just's sturdy shoulder. Mr. Birch shook the hand vigorously without speaking, and only Lansing found words to express ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... a second spanking cracker on the spectacles-seat: neat indeed; and, poor payment for the compliment, he managed to dig a drive at the ribs. As much of that game as may suit you, sturdy Ben! But hear ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the Capitol Square where men blocked the paths or, on the grass beneath the trees, recounted, disputed, and prophesied. When he reached the building, it was with much difficulty that he effected an entrance, and with more that he at last edged himself into the Hall of the House of Delegates. Sturdy perseverance and an acquaintance with a doorkeeper, however, can accomplish much, and these finally placed Mocket where, by dint of balancing himself upon an advantageous ledge of masonry, he had a fair view of both ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... practiced, as in the growing of the plants in little nursery beds, either in hotbeds, cold frames or in the garden border, the plants should be "pricked out," that is, transplanted while very small to a second nursery bed, in order to make them "stocky" or sturdy and better able to take care of themselves when removed to final quarters. If this be done there should be no need of clipping back the tops to balance an excessive loss of roots, a necessity in case the plants ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains

... its own meaning. An old writer calls it a "fayre, long, and spacious street;" and adds, "upon that side of the town was formerly a large and sumptuous building belonging to the Fryers Minors or Gray Fryers, but now [1682] only reserved for the reforming of vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and petty larcenary thieves, and other people wanting good behaviour; it is now the country prison . . . and it is cal'd the House of Correction." This building was approached by Friargate, and was erected for the benefit of begging friars, under the patronage ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... horrible state of suspense no longer. He felt that he must fight for his life, and that after all the odds were fair. His enemy was a full-grown, sturdy savage, doubtless well armed, while he was only a boy, but he had the help of one of civilised man's most deadly ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... surrender, which the authorities refused. Parts of the suburbs were then burned, and next morning a bombardment began, red-hot balls and heavy stones being plentifully thrown into the place, knocking the houses into sad havoc, but in no wise damping the sturdy courage of the defenders. They replied bravely with their cannon and made repeated sorties, which inflicted serious damage upon the besiegers. After over three weeks of this sport, the Royalists shot an arrow into the town, September 3, with a message ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... angry, and then the sturdy little fellow stopped short and stood wiping his eyes with the ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... will not be so civil to be killed that way? He is a sturdy fellow, I know you stout, and do not question your valour; but I would make sure work, and not endanger ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... race represented to us monumentally of a stronger or more muscular type than the ancient Assyrian. The great brawny limbs are too large for beauty; but they indicate a physical power which we may well believe to have belonged to this nation—the Romans of Asia—the resolute and sturdy people which succeeded in imposing its yoke upon all its neighbors. [PLATE XXXIV., ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... sturdy, curly-haired lad, with big brown eyes and a lamentably noticeable scratch on his nose—acquired in less stately but more profitable pursuits. (It seems that he had peeled his nose while sliding to second base in a certain American game that he was teaching the juvenile aristocracy how ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... the people of the nation at large and by the world he was known and will live in grateful annals as a gentleman of noble heart, an affectionate husband, a sturdy friend, and a faithful ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... The sap of life swelled up again in him with new vigor. His grief, his regrets, his chaste and ardent love, his baffled desires, heightened the fever that was in him. In spite of his sorrow, his heart beat in lively, sturdy rhythm: wild songs leaped forth in mad, intoxicated strains: everything in him hymned life and even sadness took on a festival shape. Christophe was too frank to persist in self-deception: and he despised himself. But life swept him headlong: and in his sadness, with death in his heart, and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... shouted a sturdy auxiliary; and with considerable manual exertion and remarkable agility, he gave the unfortunate Adolphus a peculiar twist that at once deposited him behind the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various

... the colleges where the sciences and the classics are studied with the same energy as in the ancient monastic schools; and in Maynooth College, which is the foremost ecclesiastical college in the world. And if there are now new universities, the National and the Queen's, sturdy and vigorous in their youth, this does not imply that Trinity College suffers from the decreptitude of age. For among those whom she sent forth in recent times are Dowden and Mahaffy and Lecky, to name but three, and these would do credit ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... to Virginia in the early settlement of that colony. But the very pride played its part in making us what we were proud of being, and whether descendants of the aforesaid "deboshed," of simple English yeomen, of plain Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, a sturdy stock, of Huguenots of various ranks of life, we all held to the same standard, and showed, as was thought, undue exclusiveness on this subject. But this prisoner was the embodiment of the best type of Northern youth, with a spirit as high, as resolute, ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... privation and suffering. All the herdsmen and farmers had been retainers of the abbot. The poor monks looked wistfully at their former habitation, but replied not except by a gentle bowing of the head to the cruel scoffs and taunts with which they were greeted by the passing soldiers; but the sturdy rustics did not bear these outrages so tamely, and more than one brawl ensued, in which blood flowed, while a ruffianly arquebussier would have been drowned in the Calder but for the exertions to save him of a monk ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... number of hauling tackles hanging against the wall, and led forth his horse—a sturdy old grey, by name Jubilee. Casting the tackle carelessly on the animal's back, he handed Mr. Mortimer the headstall rope, and left him, to return two minutes later with the saucepan he ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... boyish yet manly figure in a new suit of gray home-made linsey, the pantaloons thrust into the tops of his sturdy russet boots, and the jacket ending underneath a broad leather belt that carried a heavy revolver in its holster at one hip. A Campeachy hat shaded his face and shoulders, and a pair of Mexican spurs tinkled their little steel bells against their huge five-spiked ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... culture and racial characteristics! Or the Dutch, so well-based and broad-seated both in body and mind, with their ample bowels of compassion and their well-equipped brains, so full of tenderness and of sturdy commonsense, what a gift has been theirs to Europe, what a legacy of artistic treasure and of heroic record! Or the Spanish with their beautiful and dignified women, or the French with their fine logical and artistic sense, or the Hungarians, ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... which the tribes of Northern Siberia harness to their sledges—a sturdy animal, nearly of the size, form, and hairy coat of the wolf—followed closely in the steps of the leader of this little caravan, never quitting, as it is commonly said, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... October greenness there risen out of the earth a low, sturdy weed. Upon the top of this weed small white blossoms open as still as stars of frost. Upon these blossoms lies a fragrance so pure and wholesome that the searching sense is never cloyed, never satisfied. Years after the blossoms are dried and yellow and the leaves withered and ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen

... hoist, entered the cage, and felt the sinking sensation as they were dropped, rather than lowered, to the six-hundred-foot level. The celerity of the descent almost robbed him of breath, but he thought of sturdy old Bells' boast, that he had "never run a cage into the sheaves, nor dropped it to the sump, in forty ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... J. PAUL, President of the Transvaal Republic, born at Rastenburg; became member of the Executive Council in 1872; in 1882 was chosen President, and has been three times elected to the same office since; a man of sturdy, stubborn principles, a champion of the rights of the Boers, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... her a little. She did look at herself with a sort of compunction when she realized the fact that she might have to go to work in the shop some time. School-teaching was different, but could she earn enough school-teaching? There was a sturdy vein in the girl. All the time she ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... eleven and ten years respectively. Jack was eleven, Andrew ten. They were very sturdy, healthy, fine little fellows. At present they went to a good day-school in the neighborhood, but were to be sent to a boarding-school about the same time as their sisters were to begin their education at ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade

... and my fathers—the silver heads of yore That trooped to the council, the children that ran to the open door Crying with innocent voices and clasping a father's knees! And mine, my wife—my daughter—my sturdy climber of trees Ah, never to ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson

... these New England villages have long been drained of their best. In many cases only the maim, the halt, and the blind are left and these stand no more chance against the modern pioneer than they would against one of their own sturdy forefathers. ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... is the hall of their island home two years later. This sturdy log-house is no mere extension of the hut we have seen in process of erection, but has been built a mile or less to the west of it, on higher ground and near a stream. When the master chose this site, the ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie

... in sturdy democratic fashion, had to be endured. It died hard, but did come to an end, piecemeal. Tom Breeks then retired from the front, and became a unit once more. There were flourishes that indicated a termination of the proceedings, when another fellow was propelled in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Regulas, with his sturdy independence of spirit, would most likely have declined this favor had not the girl's beseeching face and voice persuaded ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Radegonde, sometime wife of Clotaire I., who had fled in all haste from a throne, to bury herself at Poitiers, in the convent she had founded there. To compensate, Brunehaut was detested by the majority of the Austrasian chiefs, those Leudes, landowners and warriors, whose sturdy and turbulent independence she was continually fighting against. She supported against them, with indomitable courage, the royal officers, the servants of the palace, her agents, and frequently her favorites. One of these, Lupus, a Roman by origin, and Duke of Champagne, "was being constantly ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... for several moments. He paced up and down the room, his hands behind his back, his eyebrows contracted into a heavy frown. For him it was a bitter moment. He was only a half-educated, illiterate man, possessed of sturdy common sense and a wonderful tenacity of purpose. He had permitted himself to indulge in a little silent but none the less absolute hero-worship, and Mannering had been ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... this window, under a sculptured arch of marble, lies a full-length marble figure of John a' Combe, clad in what I take to be a robe of municipal dignity, and holding its hands devoutly clasped. It is a sturdy English figure, with coarse features, a type of ordinary man whom we smile to see immortalized in the sculpturesque material of poets and heroes; but the prayerful attitude encourages us to believe that the old ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... he often found a path running a short way and turning into some ravine—the trail of cattle and sheep and the pathway between one little valley settlement and another. He must have made ten miles and more by noon—for he was a sturdy walker and as tireless almost as Jack—and ten miles is a long way in the mountains, even now. So, already, Chad was far enough away to have no fear of pursuit, even if old Nathan wanted him back, which was doubtful. On the top of the next point, Jack treed ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... and there could be no lessons done, for even Miss Grey was in the hay-field. Then the excited children, with flushed faces, worked as hard as though the whole matter depended on them alone, and even Dickie, with tiny rake and sturdy legs planted wide apart, did brave service. Then the maids, with sun-bonnets tilted well forward on their foreheads, came out to toss a little hay, and giggle a great deal, and say how hot it was; then the surly Andrew threw sour looks of scorn at them, and the vicar, casting aside ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton

... he was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly attaching himself to all who were good to him: to the pony, to Lord Southdown, who gave him the horse; to the groom who had charge of the pony; to Molly the cook, who crammed ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... a burial party worked round Thiepval. Lieutenant Clark was in charge of it, a sturdy little Scot. During the month or so they worked there, they dug up, identified and re-buried thousands of bodies. Some could not be identified, and what was found on these in the way of money, knives, etc., was considered fair spoil for ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen

... and the other obstructions of the shore. This manoeuvre which, in the language of the course, would have been called "taking the track," had the additional advantage of throwing upon those who followed some trifling impediment from the back-water. The sturdy and practised Bartolomeo of the Lido, as his companions usually called him, came next, occupying the space on his leader's quarter, where he suffered least from the reaction caused by the stroke of his ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... much of my material that I was in the very act of preparing for another visit to the wreck to obtain more when poor Billy fell sick of some sort of a fever. Within three hours of his seizure he became delirious and was so extremely violent that—he being by this time a strong sturdy boy—I was obliged to at once drop everything else to look after him and see that he did not injure himself during the more severe paroxysms. Of course I had long ago taken the precaution to secure possession of the ship's medicine-chest, with its accompanying book of instructions; but ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... walled. The teacher—a lay teacher, and a very quiet, sensible man—who lives in the school-building with his wife, told me he preferred to keep it thus, and the boys liked it better. They were at their lessons when I visited the school, and a very sturdy, comely lot of lads they were. Some of them were en penitence, having slighted their lessons, as the teacher slily intimated, by reason of the great Church festival. This I thought not unlikely, and he did not appear to regard it as an absolutely unpardonable ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... Monarque gave him his first appointment as gentleman page in waiting when he was a mere lad, barely twelve years of age, to the moment—some ten years ago now—when Nature's relentless hand struck him down in the midst of his pleasures, withered him in a flash as she does a sturdy old oak, and nailed him— a cripple, almost a dotard—to the invalid chair which he would only quit for his last ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... the farm-bailiff, the constable, the cowherd, and several supernumeraries, had so far proved quite vain. The country folk were most anxious to assist, especially by word of mouth. Except a small but sturdy number who had seen nothing, they had all seen "tramps," but unluckily no two could be got together whose accounts of the tramps themselves, of the hour at which they were seen, or of the direction in which they went, would ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... here a hundred years ago; the gracious young mistress of the new mansion, the ringlets and pantalettes, the Revloutionary[sic] War still well remembered, and the last George on the throne. And now the house was cold and dead, and strange little boys, in sandals and sturdy galatea, were shouting ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... chieftain brave, 45 When every shrieking maid her bosom beat, And strew'd with choicest herbs his scented grave! Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel,[42] Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms; When at the bugle's call, with fire and steel, 50 The sturdy clans pour'd forth their brawny swarms, And hostile brothers met, to ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... Johnson's sturdy self-respect led him to invent the Bookseller as a substitute for the Patron. My relations with you have enabled me to discover how pleasantly the Friend may replace the Bookseller. Let me record my sense of many thoughtful services ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell



Words linked to "Sturdy" :   sturdiness, hard-line, compromising, robust, hardline, rugged



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