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Ravenous   Listen
adjective
Ravenous  adj.  
1.
Devouring with rapacious eagerness; furiously voracious; hungry even to rage; as, a ravenous wolf or vulture.
2.
Eager for prey or gratification; as, a ravenous appetite or desire.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ravenous" Quotes from Famous Books



... won't give us something to eat, or sell it," replied Jack, who was ravenous, clutching his pistol, "I shall take it—I consider it no robbery. The fruits of the earth were made for us all, and it never was intended that one man should have a superfluity and another starve. The ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... must make our way some three miles farther, where we can find not only daylight, but plenty of wood and water, and as I am getting ravenous, we must ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... illness, the voyager, of course, has a ravenous appetite; such being the case, what can be more exasperating than having to grapple with a sort of dioramic dinner, where the dishes represent a series of dissolving views—mutton and beef of mature age, leaping about ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... should have seen them; men just ravenous to hear from their families; a clerk carelessly shuffling through a pile of letters. 'Beachwood, did you say? Nope, nothing for you.' 'Hold on there! what's that in your hand? Surely I know my wife's writing.' ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... confidences," said Holmes, when I reported to him what had occurred. He had spent the whole afternoon at the Manor House in consultation with his two colleagues, and returned about five with a ravenous appetite for a high tea which I had ordered for him. "No confidences, Watson; for they are mighty awkward if it comes to an arrest ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... carefully to a dried pine branch, watching, with a serious face, as the flame licked the rosin from the crossed sticks. Then he placed a quart pot full of water on the coals, and turned to meet Dan's eyes, which had grown ravenous as he caught ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... curs or outcasts as miserable as myself for the protection of some sheltering ash-bin or doorway. I was too proud in all my misery to beg. I do not believe I ever did. But I remember well a basement window at the downtown Delmonico's, the silent appearance of my ravenous face at which, at a certain hour in the evening, always evoked a generous supply of meat-bones and rolls from a white-capped cook who spoke French. That was the saving clause. I accepted his rolls as installment of the debt ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

... A man who stands between two ravenous fish.—Explan. The tongue, as being placed between the teeth of the ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... will make, in that case, a manageable young lady." Later he talks of her as "flourishing like a pomegranate blossom." In March, 1820, we have another reference. "Allegra is prettier, I think, but as obstinate as a mule, and as ravenous as a vulture; health good, to judge by the complexion, temper tolerable, but for vanity and pertinacity. She thinks herself handsome, and will do as she pleases." In May he refers to having received a letter from her mother, but gives no details. In the following ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... disfranchisement of the members of the East India Company; all the several articles of whose effects were transferred by violence to strangers. Imagination was at a loss to guess at the most insignificant trifle that had escaped the harpy jaws of a ravenous coalition. The power was pretended, indeed, to be given in trust for the benefit of the proprietors; but, in case of the grossest abuses of trust, to whom was the appeal? To the proprietors? No; to the majority of either house of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... of almost every wave I stood up and gazed about me—especially ahead. Behind were only the ravenous waves seeking to overtake and swamp me. Ahead I hoped to see the vapor of some steamer, or, at least, the bare poles of a sailing vessel that could rescue me from ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... cholera-averting thunderstorms, the close streets and the odour of the Thames were becoming insufferable. Mr. Parsons arranged a series of breathing times for his clerical staff, but could make Robert Fulmort accept none. He was strong and healthy, ravenous of work, impervious to disgusts, and rejected holidays as burdensome and hateful. Where should he go? What could he do? What would become of his wild scholars without him, and who would ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was already making a ravenous attack on the bread and cold meat contained in the basket. "You couldn't have brought me anything that I should have liked better, or that would have done me more good, and I am ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... worlds of subterraneous night; From fiery realms of lurid light; From the ore's unfathomed bed; From the lava's whirlpools red,— Spirits, come! On Chili's foes rush with vindictive sway, And sweep them from the light of living day! Heard ye not the ravenous brood, That flap their wings, and scream for blood? 20 On Peru's devoted shore Their murderous beaks are red with gore; Yet here, impatient for new prey, The insatiate vultures track their way. Let them perish! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... all the appearance of justice, whilst he was filching off inches at once! Two small carcases cost us about a mahboub. Wataitee pretends that these hunters never carry provisions with them, but must catch wadan and oxen or die. I made a tremendous supper of wadan, being as ravenous as a wolf for a little meat and soup. The meat is so strong and nourishing, that it threatened to produce injurious effects. It is necessary to be cautious about indulging in unaccustomed food. Still this meat is far ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... their buzzing wings made an ever-present music for, the insects being of various kinds and sizes, the note contributed by each species was of a different pitch. Near the ground the din was maddening, and the bites of the ravenous creatures ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... other. The beautiful swallow on the wing devours the equally beautiful gnat. The graceful flying-fish, like a fair white bird, goes glancing above the blue magnificence of the tropical seas. His flight is one of terror; he is pursued by the ravenous dolphin. The ichneumon-fly lays its eggs under the skin of the caterpillar. The eggs are hatched by the warmth of the caterpillar's blood. They produce a brood of larvae which devour the caterpillar alive. A pretty child dances on the village green. Her ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... means of boarding, and had only the suggestion of a spring. No privacy was possible, but everything was clean and well-kept. In a few days Tom got to like it. The weather was beautiful, the country was lovely, and the air was pure. Tom had a good appetite in Lancashire, now he felt ravenous. The work was hard, harder than he had had in Lancashire, but he enjoyed it; on the whole, too, he could not help noticing that many of the men seemed of a better type than those which made up his own battalion With the exception of Penrose, nearly all his company were drafted from coal ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking

... penetrate even into the back-slums, and may be seen unfolded in the paper-patched windows of eighteen-penny milliners in the lowest quarters of our metropolis, find a never-failing succession of ravenous readers, but that newspapers—Sunday newspapers, forsooth—devoted to smutty epigrams, low abuse, vile insinuations, and openly indecent allusion to the connexions, habits of life, and even personal appearance, of fashionable and pseudo-fashionable people, receive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... equivocally "all monstrous, all prodigious things," cuckoo-like, adulterously lay their eggs, and brood over, and hatch them in the nest of every neighboring state. These obscene harpies, who deck themselves in I know not what divine attributes, but who in reality are foul and ravenous birds of prey, (both mothers and daughters,) flutter over our heads, and souse down upon our tables, and leave nothing unrent, unrifled, unravaged, or unpolluted with the slime of their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... about the skerries that skirt Boston Light if you will. There are cunners big and ravenous at the base of Shag Rocks or along Boston or Martin's ledges. I dare say there are flounders skimming the sand to the east of Hull, but you will hardly care for these if you have Neptune aboard. His spirit will bid you jibe your sail to that ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... his arm in a way that would have won an Michorite, she added with a dainty blending of mischief and meaning, "I, too, am an ostrich to-night,—that is, in my appetite. I am ravenous for supper." ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... "Ravenous, sir!" said she, with a little upward motion of the eyes that I thought very engaging. "I have eaten nothing since I ran ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... writer, in full impetuosity of passion, may speak wisely and truly of "raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame";[62] but it is only the basest writer who cannot speak of the sea without talking of "raging waves," "remorseless floods," "ravenous billows," etc.; and it is one of the signs of the highest power in a writer to check all such habits of thought, and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the pure fact, out of which if any feeling conies to him or his reader, he knows it must be a ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... deep creek, up which Cherry turned her dogs. Emerson leaped from the sled, and, running forward, seized the leader, guiding it into a clump of spruce, among the boles of which he tangled the harness, for this team was like a pack of wolves, ravenous for travel and intolerant ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... brought dinner, among whom of course were Guy and his sisters, made arrangements with the landlord for that meal, urging him to bring out everything his larder contained, in view of the fact that a party of ravenous ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd

... gone by since we came to anchor, the healthful toil of fishing in the salt sea produced its natural result,—a ravenous appetite for food and drink; and a common consent to partake of refreshments now began to develop itself. The wives had much to do with this, as they detailed themselves along the railings, influencing their husbands with hints about the hamper and flask. For ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... with him he succeeded in killing two or three of the dogs; but was afterwards shot. He had declared, that he never would be taken alive. The people rejoiced at the death of the slave, but lamented the death of the dogs, they were such ravenous hunters. Poor fellow, he fought for life and liberty like a hero; but the bullets brought him down. A negro can hardly walk unmolested at the south.—Every colored stranger that walks the streets is suspected of being a runaway slave, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... handkerchief, and took from it a broad shining louis d'or. She placed it in the hand of La Corriveau, whose long fingers clutched it like the talons of a harpy. Of all the evil passions of this woman, the greed for money was the most ravenous. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... host ate in a constrained silence. Nicky, though ravenous, behaved politely, and only accepted a fifth ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... sought after is the 'lola.' He is a ravenous fellow, in appearance between a trout and a carp, having the habits of the former, but the clumsy shoulders of the latter. He averages about three pounds, although he is often caught of nine or ten pounds weight. Delighting in the shallows, he lies among the weeds at the bottom, to which he always ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... molested; but if by chance some unusually big or ferocious specimen of these fearsome fishes does bite an animal—taking off part of an ear, or perhaps of a teat from the udder of a cow—the blood brings up every member of the ravenous throng which is anywhere near, and unless the attacked animal can immediately make its escape from the water it is devoured alive. Here on the Paraguay the natives hold them in much respect, whereas the caymans are ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... suddenly upon it and worry it to death, while thus disabled from resistance. Their most common prey is the deer, which they hunt regularly; but all defenceless animals are alike acceptable to their ravenous appetites. When tempted by hunger, they approach the farm-houses in the night, and snatch their prey from under the very eye of the farmer; and when the latter is absent with his dogs, the wolf is sometimes seen by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... Thyrsis would work until he was faint and exhausted, and then he would come over, and find there was nothing ready to eat. By the time that he and Corydon had cooked a meal, they would both of them be ravenous, and they would sit and devour their food like a couple of savages. Then, because they had over-eaten, they would have to rest before they cleared things away; and like as not Thyrsis would get to thinking about his work, and go off and leave everything—and the dishes and the food might stay up ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... away, but because I would see Thrasileon fight with the Dogs, I lay behinde the gate to behold him. And although I might perceive that he was well nigh dead, yet remembred he his owne faithfulnes and ours, and valiantly resisted the gaping and ravenous mouths of the hell hounds, so tooke hee in gree the pagiant which willingly he tooke in hand himself, and with much adoe tumbled at length out of the house: but when hee was at liberty abroad yet could he not save himself, for all the dogs of the Streete joyned ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just knowledge of our rights, a scorn of vain and deluding names; and that the revellers of Whitehall shall surely find. The sun is darkened; but it is only for a moment: it is but an eclipse; though all birds of evil omen have begun to scream, and all ravenous beasts have gone forth to prey, thinking it to be midnight. Woe to them if they be abroad when ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... as young as Ashurst, pity is not a violent emotion. And, back in the Hallidays' sitting-room, eating a ravenous tea, he felt much like a man recovered from fever. Everything seemed new and clear; the tea, the buttered toast and jam tasted absurdly good; tobacco had never smelt so nice. And walking up and down the empty room, he stopped here and there to touch or look. He took up Stella's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... had hardly launched out on its long and tedious tramp, when an accident occurred which came very near proving serious in its results. For several days the men had been greatly annoyed by wolves who appeared more than usually ravenous ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... says, "some important change"; that cannot mean, surely, that he wants a sufficiently showy scapegoat to feed the ravenous critics—or does it? Perhaps, he's got to gain time; breathing space wherein to resume the scheme which was sidetracked by the offensive in France and smashed by the diversion to Salonika. Given time, our scheme may yet be resumed. The Turks are in the depths. ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... authorities for our expected accumulations and arrears of correspondence. This resulted in the production of twenty-seven epistles and eleven papers, which we carried home triumphantly in our boat, and proceeded forthwith to devour in that ravenous fashion only known and appreciated by such as have ever undergone a similar ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... an unforeseen circumstance befriended the prisoner. It seems that piece of water swarms with enormous pike and other ravenous fish. These had so horribly mutilated the deceased, that neither form nor feature remained to swear by; and, as the law wisely and humanely demands that in these cases a body shall be identified beyond doubt, justice bade fair to be baffled again. But lo! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... effectual shade from the sun. Later we experienced a few weeks of torment with the mosquitoes, when out of doors, though the house was kept free from the pests. There were days when my poor horses, though coal black, appeared gray, so thickly were they covered with those ravenous mosquitoes. ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... Grahame's body being thus mangled. He had, say they, refused his own dog any food on the morning of the battle, affirming, with an oath, that he should have no breakfast but upon the flesh of the Whigs. The ravenous animal, it is said, flew at his master as soon as he fell, and lacerated his ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... forests and feed upon them; eagles and buzzards and wood-ibises are there, too, to claim their share of the feast; and, if they are fortunate enough to escape all these, there are many large and ravenous fishes ready to seize them in the stream. It seems a marvel ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... savages, the strongest despoiled the weakest; they rushed round the dying, and frequently waited not for their last breath. When a horse fell, you might have fancied you saw a famished pack of hounds; they surrounded him, they tore him to pieces, for which they quarrelled among themselves like ravenous dogs. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... moon, had settled over the foothills when the boy returned with another young man. The stranger ate a ravenous supper, but was not too occupied to assay conversation with Irene. Indeed, from their meeting at the doorway his eyes scarcely left her. He ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... for bread. I used to save all the money I could—alas that I could not save more!—and telling a kawwass and man to accompany me with trays, I used to order a couple of sovereigns' worth of bread and distribute it in the most destitute part of our suburb. I never saw anything like the ravenous, hungry people. They would tear the trays down, and drag the bread from one another's mouths. I have sat by crying because I felt it mockery to bring so little; yet had I sold everything we possessed, I could ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... soon as I saw that ravenous look of his I almost died for fear he'd make a rush at me— Lord, how he did scare me, how he kept grinding his teeth! In he came and tugged down the meat, rack and all—grabbed a knife and lopped the choice bits off three necks of pork—and smashed every ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... screaming like a screech-owl when anything displeased her. Then there was her brother, a "medicine-man," or magician, equally gaunt and sinewy with herself. His mouth spread from ear to ear, and his appetite, as we had full occasion to learn, was ravenous in proportion. The other inmates of the lodge were a young bride and bridegroom; the latter one of those idle, good-for nothing fellows who infest an Indian village as well as more civilized communities. He was fit neither for hunting nor for war; ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... the gentlemen of the law; dossiers which stank of absinthe, white cravats speckled with drink and coffee stains. He was embroiled with ushers, solicitors, and business agents, all the locusts of officialdom, thin and ravenous, who strip the colonist down to his boots and leave him shorn leaf by leaf like a stalk ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... we are at liberty to depart, thou shalt depart likewise; but during this festival, which is held in honour of our noble ancestor, who remained fourteen days in this forest till he had subdued a ravenous race of tigers, no man that has entered here may stir hence till the fires be extinguished: for by the fire did our ancestor drive away and destroy the tigers and beasts of the forest, and by fire do we commemorate his mighty deeds. Neither," continued the chief, "may we reveal ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... blowing upon it with easy grace, and swallowing it at a tremendous rate, though Lemuel, after following his example, still found it so hot that it brought the tears into his eyes. It was delicious, and he was ravenous from his twenty-four hours' fast, but his companion was scraping the bottom of his bowl before Lemuel had got half-way down, and he finished his second ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... beamed less brightly as he recounted tales of German prowess. He came to exhibit a sort of indignant pity for the Fatherland, into whose way so many obstacles were being inopportunely thrown. He compared Germany to a wounded deer that ravenous dogs were seeking to bring down, but his predictions of her ultimate victory were not less confident. Minna Vielhaber wept back of the bar at Herman's affecting picture of the stricken deer with the arrow in her flank, and would be comforted only when he ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... in paper parcels. I did not have all I wanted, and I am sure that no man there had all he wanted, or half of what he wanted or needed. I gave part of my bread to the tramp royal who was waiting for Buffalo Bill, and he was as ravenous at the end as he was in the beginning. This is the breakfast: two slices of bread, one small piece of bread with raisins in it and called "cake," a wafer of cheese, and a mug of "water bewitched." Numbers of the men had been waiting ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... His manners had never been courtly. They now became almost savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and alamode beefshops, was far from delicate. Whenever ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... themselves. Frederick William, Frederick the Great, William the First—the Hohenzollerns were all there. The glittering eyes, the withered arm, the features that gave signs of frightful periodical pain, the immense energy, the gigantic egotism, the ravenous vanity, the fanaticism amounting to frenzy, the dominating power, the dictatorial temper, the indifference to suffering (whether his own or other people's), the overbearing suppression of opposing opinions, the determination to control ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... over-spreading the whole sky, there were flying clouds of singular shape,—clouds tossed up into the momentary similitude of Titanesque human figures with threatening arms outstretched,—anon, to the filmly outlines of fabulous birds swooping downwards with jagged wings and ravenous beaks,—or twisting into columns and pyramids of vapour as though the showers of foam flung up by the waves had been caught in mid-air and suddenly frozen. Several sea-gulls were flying inland; two or ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... left old Jean's hut, with nothing between him and the ravenous wolves, except the angle of a wall, he took a long, gliding step, his body swinging gracefully with the motion, and was off like the wind, under a broad avenue of trees. But he had not gone far before one of the straps loosened and his foot slipped. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... descriptions of death as a female figure in dark robes, with black wings, with ravenous teeth, hovering everywhere, darting here and there, eager for prey. Such a view is a personification of the mysteriousness, suddenness, inevitableness, and fearfulness, connected with the subject of death in men's minds, rather than of death itself. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... woods and on the banks of rivers in pursuit of game and fish, the first men, beset with dangers, assailed by enemies, tormented by hunger, by reptiles, by ravenous beasts, felt their own individual weakness; and, urged by a common need of safety, and a reciprocal sentiment of like evils, they united their resources and their strength; and when one incurred a danger, many aided and ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... a flag of some kind, which they fastened at half mast, as a signal of distress. It was about midday when they ran on the bar, and Bridges saw them, and realized their danger at once; and their cries for help at times rose above the roar of the ravenous seas. With the help of his wife he launched a light boat, but long before he got into the sweep of the heavier breakers, he saw that she could never live on the bar, and it was with great difficulty ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... and cheese, and drinking huge mugsful of hot tea. Truly there are few quieters of the savage human breast equal to food! Probably all the people there were hungry; many of them had been starving, and were ravenous. There was scarcely any sound except of moving jaws, when, accompanied by a few chords from a harmonium, a sweet, mellow, female voice told of the love of Jesus Christ to poor, ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne

... triumphant attitude. In the local paragraphs, we note several indicating a strong feeling of animosity between the Scotch and English borderers. We observe also that the Newcastle dogs—to this day a very numerous fraternity—were at times quite unmanageable, and caused, either by their ravenous exploits, or their downright madness, no small uneasiness to the town and neighbourhood. It must be confessed, that in its marriage-notices, at least, the Chronicle was far superior to anything that journalism can now exhibit in Newcastle or in Great Britain. These interesting ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... campaigns of Frederick of Prussia, a boor was brought before him of an appetite so incredibly ravenous, that he offered to devour a hog barbacued. A general officer present ob-served, that the fellow ought to be burnt as a wizard.—"May it please your Majesty," said the gormand, "to order that old gentleman to take off his spurs, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... they stopped at the inn, for one of their horses, which they had purchased by the way, had broken down so completely that they could not well proceed, and they were about to enter a dark and dangerous forest, full of ravenous bears and wolves, which had already cast its shade ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... approached within range the party opened fire on them, and shot several; all that were either killed or wounded were quickly torn to pieces and devoured by their companions, but the blood with which the ravenous beasts had now glutted themselves only served to make them more savage than before, and, in spite of the fire kept up by the party, they advanced close to the sledge, apparently determined on making an instant attack. To preserve the party, therefore, the pig was thrown to the wolves, which ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... Luna's coy and inefficient beams; and after the performance, the old gentleman promises to send me round a dish of pillau. In due time the promised pillau comes round, an ample dish, sufficient to satisfy even my present ravenous appetite, and after this he sends round tea, lump sugar, and a samovar. The moujik turns to and gets up steam in the samovar, and over tiny glasses of the cheering but non-intoxicating beverage, he sings a Russian regimental song, and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... another, that he was gone in quest of a mighty city in the heart of the negro country; another, that in swimming a stream he had been devoured by an alligator. Now, these two last reports were bad enough; the idea of their flesh and blood being bit asunder by a ravenous fish, was sad enough to my poor parents; and not very comfortable was the thought of his sweltering over the hot sands in quest of the negro city; but the idea of their son, their eldest child, serving Mumbo Jumbo as swash-buckler, was worst of all, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... and several choices of pie. Here the Country Mouse became again efficient; and to witness his liberal mastery of ordering and imagine his pocket and its wealth, which they had heard and partly seen, renewed in the guests a transient awe. As they dined, however, and found the host as frankly ravenous as themselves, this reticence evaporated, and they all grew fluent with oaths and opinions. At one or two words, indeed, Mr. McLean stared and had a slight sense ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... voyagers, who had never seen any ruin more imposing than that of a cow house, and, of course, were ravenous for old towers, were now quite wide awake, but were disappointed to learn that these were only custom house rendezvous. Here is the county of Cork. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... great fury from the mountains towards the sea; whether it was the male pursuing the female, or whether they were in sport or in rage, we could not tell, any more than we could tell whether it was usual or strange, but I believe it was the latter; because, in the first place, those ravenous creatures seldom appear but in the night; and in the second place, we found the people terribly frighted, especially the women. The man that had the lance or dart did not fly from them, but the rest did; however, as the two creatures ran directly into the water, they did not seem to offer to fall ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... seen, however, that the boys were more or less excited over the prospect of some of the wild beasts from the menagerie still being at large. Indeed, who could blame them, when there was a prospect of running across a hungry tiger, a ravenous wolf, or perhaps a man-eating lion at any time in their saunterings through the aisles of ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... promised not horror but quiet rest, and the Infinite dwelt there as a fond mistress, a compassionate sister, a mother. And ever stronger grew its gentle embrace, until he felt, as it were, the breath of a mouth hungry for kisses... Then it seemed as if iron bones protruded in a ravenous grip, and closed upon him in an iron band; and cold nails touched his heart, and slowly, slowly sank ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... streets, sat, if allowed, upon his lap, and responded with a cry of delight to every sound of his voice. Even to other animals the goose has been known to show strong affection. There was once a goose who had been saved by a dog from the ravenous jaws of a fox. She seemed from that time to centre all her affection on her preserver, left the poultry yard for his side, tried to bite any one at whom she heard him bark, and, if driven away into the field, would sit all day at the ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")

... sacrifice, both in the Northern armies and among their folks at home, while on the other he could find a wholly different kind of life flaunting its most shameless features in his face. The theaters were crowded. Profiteers abounded, taking their pleasures with ravenous greed; for the best of their blood-money would end with the war. Everywhere there was the same fundamental difference between the patriots who carried on the war and the parasites who hindered them. Of course the two-thirds who made ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... under Keppell's directions, and, as may be supposed, as we had little or nothing else, pork was our principal dish. In fact, we had pig at the top, pig at the bottom, pig in the centre, and pig at the sides. A Jew would have made but a sorry repast, but we, emancipated Christians, made a most ravenous one, defying Moses and all his Deuteronomy. We had plenty of wine and segars, and soon found ourselves very comfortably seated on the sand, still warm from the rays of the burning mid-day sun. Towards the end of a long repast we felt a little chilly, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... above numerous other miraculous powers imputed to the Pontiffs as spiritual potentates, there was ascribed to them one special privilege of a secular nature: that of healing with a touch the bites of the ravenous sharks, swarming throughout the lagoon. With these they were supposed to be upon the most friendly terms; according to popular accounts, sociably bathing with them in the sea; permitting them to rub their noses against their ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... their hands above their heads like great gaunt ghosts with saucer eyes. They were in such a state that surrender brought to them no pangs of remorse. They welcomed it as a means to live, and their ravenous supplication for food was not the least pathetic setting to the scene. They are a strange paradox these people. One could not help admiring the patriotism—or is it magnetic power of their leaders?—which kept in the field, in spite of all its dismal ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... company with the land, in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. One no longer feels like the bored mortal who has all winter turned the millstone of work and pleasure, but seems to have transmigrated into a new body, endowed with a ravenous ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... selfish. But moments such as these were rare. That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as they sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase with gratification. The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more ravenous ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde

... then, on his telling me he had been for two days and nights in the tunnel with scarcely a bit of food, I remembered a packet of sandwiches that had been provided for my journey, and offered them to him. It made me shudder to hear the ravenous manner in which they were consumed. When this was done there was another silence, broken by his saying, with evident hesitation, that the one hope he had was in disguising himself in some way, and thus eluding those who were watching for ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... direction, and Dickenson went on, forgetting the incident and wondering how Lennox was getting on; then about what the colonel would say to his ill-success; and lastly, the needs of his being filled up all his thoughts, making him wonder what he should get from the mess in order to satisfy the ravenous hunger that troubled him ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... on—"put up with her," as she expressed it—in spite of her faults of temper and tongue. But Rosie's heart was not in her work. She was romantic and ambitious, and her shallow little brain was filled with a thousand dreams of wonderful things to be. She was a constant and ravenous reader of Bow Bells, the London Journal, and one or two penny weeklies besides; and not satisfied with the half-hundred columns of microscopical letterpress they afforded her, she laid her busy hands on all the light literature ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... body was eight feet. Amongst the vast quantity of substances contained in the stomach was a tolerably large seal, bitten in two, and swallowed with half of the spear sticking in it with which it had probably been killed by the natives. The stench of this ravenous monster was great even before it was dead; and when the stomach was ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... present at all the interrogations of the accused. The law allows it—and as he is ravenous for publicity, he would tell the newspapers just what he pleased, and if my proceedings didn't suit him, I'd be vilified in the ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... or father would give thanks for as a son; a man whom any woman would be happy to know as her husband, and a man whom any boy or girl would rejoice to call father. Once he passes under the baleful influence of "The Machine," however, he becomes a relentless, ravenous creature, pitiless as a shark, knowing no law of God or man in the execution of his purpose. Between him and coveted dollars may come no kindly, humane influences—all are thrust aside, their claims disregarded, in ministering to this strange, cannibalistic money-hunger, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... proved her statement that she was hungry. Rarely had Gabriel seen anybody eat with such ravenous appetite. He watched her with satisfaction, and when she could consume no more, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... 134, vol. 10. He renders it, "lurking lions, which are lusty, strong-toothed, fierce, roaring, and ravenous. And hereby," says he, "may be meant the rich and mighty of the world, whom God often bringeth to misery." "They that are ravenous, and prey on all about them, shall want, but the meek shall inherit the earth; they shall not want who, with quiet obedience, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... and perch upon the heads and hands of the family. After a while it would venture upon an oak and carry on a very voluble conversation with its fellows who also patronised the tree. It soon grew as impudent and pugnacious and ravenous as most sparrows. It was always hungry and talkative. Though it had the freedom of the neighbourhood, it came down daily before sunset and roosted on a perch in its cage, the door of which was left open for ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... that he would kill both her and her young, if she would not throw one of them down to him, to answer him roundly,—"If you could have flown or climbed up the tree, you would not have been so often contented with one of my eggs, or of my young; but would, long since, according to your ravenous and blood-thirsty nature, have devoured both me and them." In short, the next time the Fox came, and threatened her as before, she replied as the Raven had ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... and too ravenous to worry so much over the possibility of being arrested for complicity in a murder. He collided violently with the porter who came down the aisle announcing luncheon. He raced back through two chair cars and a tourist sleeper, and he entered ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... yields a delicate and wholesome Gum, and the stone Aetites, by us called the stone Aquilina. In this Province there is excellent hunting of divers creatures, as wild Hoggs, Staggs, Goats, Hares, Foxes, Porcupines, Marmosets. There are also ravenous beasts, as Wolves, Bears, Luzards, which are quick-sighted, and have the hinder parts spotted with divers colours. This kind of Beast was brought from France to Rome in the sports of Pompey the great, and Hunters affirm this Beast to be of so frail a memory, that although he eateth ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... ready hospitality of the poor, which passed over the heads of Tom and me as we ate bread and onions and potatoes with a ravenous hunger. It must have been about two o'clock in the afternoon when we bade good-bye to our preserver and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... scrofula a ravenous appetite is often manifested. This is a morbid symptom. It arises from exhaustion of the stomach and intestines, for no increase of bodily weight accompanies it. The greater part of the nourishment taken passes out of the system without being digested. Such persons, whether adults or children, ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... whatsoever you like. If nothing can be done with them, believe me I shall be very glad of that result. But if you can so much as oblige any honest Bookseller of your or my acquaintance by the gift of them, let it be done; let Pirates and ravenous Bipeds of Prey be excluded from participating: that of itself will be a comfortable and a proper thing!—You are hereby authorized to promulgate in any way you please, That the Second Edition will be augmented, corrected, as aforesaid; and that Mr. (Any ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... all over India; it is frugivorous exclusively, though some of this sub-order are insectivorous. Blyth says he kept some for several weeks; they would take no notice of the buzz of an insect held to them, but are ravenous eaters of fruit, each devouring its own weight at a meal, voiding its food but little changed whilst slowly munching away; of guava it swallows the juice only. Blyth's prisoners were females, and after a time they attracted a male which hovered about them for some days, roosting near ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... of things for the minister. Strange suggestions and unsafe speculations began to mingle with his dreams and reveries. The thought once admitted that another's life is becoming superfluous and a burden, feeds like a ravenous vulture on the soul. Woe to the man or woman whose days are passed in watching the hour-glass through which the sands run too slowly for longings that are like a skulking procession of bloodless murders! Without ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... my girl. Wilt thou not stoop? Now cursed be the time Of thy nativity! I would the milk Thy mother gave thee when thou suck'dst her breast, Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake! Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs a-field, I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee! Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab? O, burn her, burn her! hanging is ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... proclivity to find an employ in the management of others influenced her decision; though trembling in every fibre, she crossed the interval of water, and made her way up the slope. But when she reached the fateful tree it was she who spoke first. He cast so ravenous a glance at the basket on her arm that all his story of want and woe was revealed. Starvation had induced his ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... crept in; but I contrived to get out my knife and saw their noses across whenever they touched me, otherwise I should have been eaten up in a very short time. There were so many of them, and they were so ravenous, that they soon got through the bear's thick skin, and were tearing away at the flesh. Now I was not so much afraid of their eating me, as I thought that if I jumped up and discovered myself they ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Skipper Ed when the three, panting for breath, were safe in the cabin, a moment later, with the good stout door between them and the ravenous pack, which presently came snapping and snarling around the cabin. "I never saw such a pack of wolves before. I never knew that they gathered in such numbers in these days. There must be at least thirty ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... Fred had never ridden so far at one stretch, and when they reclined on their blankets to watch Hank start the fire they were thoroughly tired out; but it seemed to them their hunger was more ravenous than ever. Each forbore to speak of it, but the deliberation of their friend in preparing the meal ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... Mr. Fenton remarked, nodding his approval of the girl's idea. "It set Hiram to thinking; and once a wavering man does that, the good in him gets a chance. But come, this doesn't look like supper. I didn't think I was one bit hungry; but now I'm fairly ravenous." ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... to be feared I might be able to seduce them into the woody and mountainous parts of the country, and bring them in troops by night to destroy the Houyhnhnms' cattle, as being naturally of the ravenous kind, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... features seen, My voice unheard, beyond the sacred screen.[14] How often have I listened with amaze, To thy great deeds, enamoured of thy praise; How oft from every tongue I've heard the strain, And thought of thee—and sighed, and sighed again. The ravenous eagle, hovering o'er his prey, Starts at thy gleaming sword and flies away: Thou art the slayer of the Demon brood, And the fierce monsters of the echoing wood. Where'er thy mace is seen, shrink back the bold, Thy javelin's flash all tremble to behold. Enchanted with the stories of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... third followed the second. Never had her will power been so weak. She was hungry; she must have it ... all ... all. Her only excuse was that the pieces were so tiny. When all four were put together, the whole only weighed a half a pound. And a whole pound would not have been enough for her in her ravenous condition. The day before she had only had a little cup of soup that Carp had given her. She devoured ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... that feast had blessed, No solemn prayer was said; But with ravenous hands, unthankfully, They ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... comradeship of the little group of Northern exiles did not count for so much in this work. The pace of the ship was the average pace of the whole crew. They became too weary to think or feel, too ravenous to disdain the most unwholesome rations. Nicholas found himself mysteriously aware of the moods of those about him, as men are when herded together in silent multitudes. In the free world one feels this only now and then—in an army, a mob, a church. Among slaves the dog-like instinct ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... eat dry bread and drink cold water as if he were a gentleman," his father had said long ago. "And it is easy to form careless habits. Even if one is hungry enough to feel ravenous, a man who has been well bred will not allow himself to look so. A dog may, a man may not. Just as a dog may howl when he is angry or in pain ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... conscious when he declared that every woman was at heart a rake. And so it comes to pass that very black sheep indeed are admitted into society, till at last anxious fathers and more anxious mothers begin to be aware that their young ones are turned out to graze among ravenous wolves. This, however, must be admitted, that lambs when so treated acquire a courage which tends to enable them to hold their own, even amidst ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope

... water up to his arm-pits, hoping to stop the raft. I shouted to him to go back; for at that moment I saw close to me the fin of a monster shark. The savage fish darted on towards him, and he was barely in time to escape his ravenous jaws by springing into shallow water. Had he caught hold of the raft, I saw that he would be lifted off his legs, and carried away with me. Still I hoped to get within his reach where he stood. But vain was the wish: I drifted ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... child!—lodge and board a great, positive, hungry child! Why, sir, many and many a time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ''Tis a mercy we have no children. We could never live in this style if we had children—never make both ends meet.' Child—the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... on the field of battle, Where the dying and wounded lie; And it brings the last groan they uttered, And the ravenous vulture's cry. It has been where the icebergs were meeting, And closed with a fearful crash; On shores where no foot has wandered, It has heard the waters dash. Hark to the voice ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... fast gaining upon Roger, and he and they were as yet quite out of range of the missiles with which the men were ready to pelt the ravenous monsters. But Harry had meanwhile reached the ship and been hauled in and deposited on deck, where he immediately ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... of all sailors lay nigh to them, restless and ravenous, drumming against the cliffs ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... the teacher let a flood of light into the dark room, in accordance with Pierre's code. More, he proceeded to give his hungry pupils a little—only a little—food, enough, in fact, to make them ravenous for more. Then he plunged the little room in sudden darkness again by shutting out the light. Thus Jerry gradually educated the birds into connecting the idea of food and light with the sound of his ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... Joe answered, hoarsely. "I'm hungry." These were the first words he had uttered; they met with astonishment; nevertheless he was led to the nearest restaurant. Surrounded by a silent, curious group, he crouched over the board counter and wolfed a ravenous meal. When he had finished he rose, turned, and stared questioningly at the circle of hostile faces; his eyes still glittered with that basilisk glare of hatred and defiance. There was something huge, disconcerting, about the man. Not once had he appealed ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... let's!" he exclaimed. "I've had no breakfast. I'm ravenous. Do they still have that ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... see all the truth now—could see himself, through the whole long course of events, the victim of ravenous vultures that had torn into his vitals and devoured him; of fiends that had racked and tortured him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. Ah, God, the horror of it, the monstrous, hideous, demoniacal wickedness of it! He and his family, helpless women and children, struggling ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... Archdeacon. It was just the kind of wisdom by which he guides his life. I was taken aback when he replied that Miss Petti-grew, so far from being a sleeping dog, was a roaring lion. A moment later he called her a ravenous evening wolf; so I gave up my proverb as useless. I then reminded him that Lalage was evidently quite unaffected by the teaching which she received, had in fact described modern science as a lot of rot. The Archdeacon replied that, though Lalage escaped, others ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... shirt descending below the rest of the clothes—and he remembered how, in the fall, after the harvest, the clothes-lines used to be tied to the plum-trees, and the ends decorated with branches still bearing the blue, juicy fruit, and then his hunger became so ravenous that he buckled his belt tighter round his waist and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... became my turn to be astonished. Instead of seeing the hungry oldster fall-to, like a ravenous dog, he broke off a small corner from the bread, ate it, and was in the act of retiring, when I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... long and fatiguing ride, he arrived, about two in the afternoon, in a very ravenous state, at a convent or parsonage. On ascending the stairs of the convento, the first thing which met the eyes of the hungry traveller was a table neatly arranged for the padre's dinner, who, he was informed by the servants, would be back in about an hour to dine. An hour still—why ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... meant all important business—and by the favours of various sorts that were certain to reward devotion to the cause. Beside the steadily growing swarm of native parasites, profiteers, jobbers and adventurers who throve on the spoils of the public, marched a less numerous, but not less ravenous, host of foreign financiers, concession and contract hunters, to whom the interests of the State were freely bartered for support to the party in ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... part; an incessant combat was kept up; no sooner was one troop of brigands satisfied, than another succeeded; and soon all that remained of the poor buffalo was the bones. I noticed amongst these ravenous birds the royal vulture, an elegant bird, remarkable for a brilliant collar of down. We could easily have killed some of these robbers, but I thought it useless to destroy for mere curiosity, and I preferred ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... then,—were there not dangers, terrible dangers,—dangers specially terrible to one so friendless as her child? Had not she herself been wrecked among the rocks, trusting herself to one who had been utterly unworthy,—loving one who had been utterly unlovely? Men so often are as ravenous wolves, merciless, rapacious, without hearts, full of greed, full of lust, looking on female beauty as prey, regarding the love of woman and her very life as a toy! Were she higher in the world there might be safety. Were she lower there might be safety. But how ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... wondered even now if he could pay. He was a growing, hungry boy, no longer ailing in wind or limb. Distress of mind was his one remaining ill; the rest was sham; and distress of mind did not prevent him from feeling ravenous after fasting ten or eleven hours. Here was food still within his reach, even at his side; but he felt committed to his declaration that he could not eat. If the tray were still untouched in the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... inflated. They were then tied upon poles of maguey, and set upright over the carcasses, so as to dangle and dance about in the wind. Cunning as is the Andes wolf this 'scare' is sufficient to keep him off, as well as his ravenous associate, the condor. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... they rambled in the woods and succeeded in gathering a store of berries and wild fruit. Upon these Nelly made her breakfast, but Harold's appetite was sufficiently ravenous to enable him to fall to upon the fish, which, he declared, were not so bad, after all. Then they took their places in the canoe again and paddled on for nearly ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... blood, and by a strange example to satisfy their cruel and unnatural hearts, first cut off his hands, next his feet, and last his head, and having cast the same in a "peitpott," exposed and laid out his carcase to be a prey for dogs and ravenous beasts: Tending by such kind of dealing to undo as many of the said complainant's friends and servants as they can apprehend, and to lay waste their lands, "rowmes," and possessions to the said complainant's ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... deaf to the beauties of softer melody. The language with which he concludes his remarks is as unjust as it is uncalled for, and such as none but an illiberal and narrow-minded observer would, choose to apply to so beautiful a creature.[4] Even the cat[5] (the most ravenous domestic animal we have,) has been known, when confined, to permit mice to pass unmolested through the cage in which it was imprisoned; then why should he expect that an animal which (as he asserts) can live upwards of thirty days without food, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various

... called their lord Actaeon to the game: He shook his head in answer to the name; He heard, but wished he had indeed been gone, Or only to have stood a looker-on. But, to his grief, he finds himself too near, And feels his ravenous dogs with fury tear Their wretched master, panting ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... for a time, and then his sleep was broken by dreams. Mostly he was fleeing from formless terrors down an interminable passage in an airship—a passage paved at first with ravenous trap-doors, and then with openwork canvas ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... observed that the same tradition exists among the Six Nations. Cusick tells us that about 1250 years before Columbus discovered America a powerful tribe called Otne-yar-heh, that is, Stone Giants, who were ravenous cannibals, overran the country, and nearly exterminated the inhabitants. These Stone Giants practiced, themselves in rolling on the sand; by this means their bodies became hard. Then Tas-enyawa-gen, the Holder of the Heavens, came to earth as a ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... feeling was almost that of a paganism, of an earth-smell and an earth-worship, of a giant awakening from torpor, ravenous with hunger. It was all the grand savagery, the terrible strength of Mother Earth, the Great Protector, from whose loins I had sprung, but who is unspeakably awesome until you see her face in the rising sun. Then the nightmare of the darkness which empalls her with ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... reconciled to his offended Maker. To borrow the fine imagery of one who had himself been thus tried, he emerges from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, from the dark land of gins and snares, of quagmires and precipices, of evil spirits and ravenous beasts. The sunshine is on his path. He ascends the Delectable Mountains, and catches from their summit a distant view of the shining city which is the end of his pilgrimage. Then arises in his mind a natural and surely ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... They had looked for the trouble to back generations and in psychology books,—everywhere but at the boy's face, in his mouth, and in his nose. After the operation, which took less than two minutes, the appetite was ravenous, the eyes cleared, and the spirit rebounded to its old buoyancy ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... the horde simply dropped out of sight. They left the caves in the morning, and they never came back. They disappeared—into the ravenous maws of the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... which are very noisy and ravenous, and tear in pieces the birds on which they prey; the thorn on which they do this was said to ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... tore at the eaves and lashed the roof with broadsides of rain and hail, which fell in constantly increasing force, raising the roar of the storm in key, till it crackled viciously. The tempest had the voice of a ravenous beast, cheated and angry. Outside the water lay in sheets. The whole land was a river, and the shanty was like a boat beached on a bar ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland

... disappeared around their rude homes, and in the place of the gloomy forest, fields of waving grain appeared on every side to cheer and encourage the industrious woodsman. The forests abounded in the most ravenous animals, such as bears, panthers and wolves, while along the river and creek bottoms the ground was at places almost literally covered with poisonous reptiles. The climate was severe, and the country remote from the frontier, yet ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell



Words linked to "Ravenous" :   rapacious, esurient, famished, voracious, wolfish, ravening, ravenousness, starved



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