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Force back   /fɔrs bæk/   Listen
Force back

verb
1.
Cause to move back by force or influence.  Synonyms: beat back, drive, push back, repel, repulse.  "Push back the urge to smoke" , "Beat back the invaders"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Force back" Quotes from Famous Books



... important; that's why I am afraid to intrust them to my maid. Be sure to take them to Mr. Bangs himself, and if he asks any questions——" She caught her trembling lip between her teeth and tried to force back the tears. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... carriage, bracing his courage for the emergency. He could take a cushion, jump out and attack the man with that. It was not a deadly weapon, and would require considerable force back of it to do damage. The whip might be better. He reached for the whip and turned the handle uppermost. There was no cave at hand to trap this robber in, but a toll-woman should not show more spirit than Robert Day Padgett ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... open the window and threw herself half out of it. She was just in time to see Alfred climb into a passing taxi. "Alfred!" she cried. Then automatically she flew to the 'phone. "Give me 4302 Main," she called and she tried to force back her tears. "Is this Hardy ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... makes the dog appear smaller in head and less formidable than he otherwise would be. Formerly this shortness of face was artificially obtained by the use of the "jack," an atrocious form of torture, by which an iron instrument was used to force back the face by means of thumbscrews. The nose should be rough, large, broad, and black, and this colour should extend to the lower lip; its top should be deeply set back, almost between the eyes. The ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... stay here!" cried Alessandro. "Come, my Benito, come!" and he took him by the head, and pulled him by main force back into the road, and led him along. It was terrible. Ramona's heart sank within her. She felt her arms growing numb; how much longer could she hold the baby safe? She called to Alessandro. He did not hear her; the wind had risen again; the snow was being blown in ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... tears as he grasped Kennedy's hand. "That is better than having the whole police force back of me," he said. "I ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... according to different reports, from five to fifteen hundred strong) had met the marines and sailors, four hundred strong, under the command of Captain Mervine, of the U.S. frigate Savannah, who had landed at San Pedro for the purpose of marching to Los Angeles, and had driven Captain Mervine and his force back to the ship, with the loss, in killed, of six men. That the towns of Angeles and Santa Barbara had been taken by the insurgents, and the American garrisons there had either been captured or had made their ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... her lips checked her, and she began to play nervously with the fringe of the tablecloth, trying to force back emotion. He had again seated himself opposite to her, and was observing her with a half-frowning attention, as of one in whom the brain action is physically difficult. He led her on, however, with questions, seeing how much she ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... not Jem's wrist. It was bigger and stouter; and quick as thought Don ran his hand along the arm to force back the holder of his arm, when to his horror, he found that the limb had been thrust through one of the openings of the fence, and he was a prisoner to some fierce chief who had suspected the design to escape, held in so strong a grip, that had he dared to struggle to free himself, ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... obliged to consult the literature of the subject. Therefore, when, from the top of the appointed rock, she observed a carefully composed bunch of mauve Cattleyas describe a parabola and finally join two previous clusters upon the spines of a prickly-pear patch, she divined some energizing force back of the phenomenon. That energizing force she ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... that," concluded the lad, after a tiring attempt to force back the sliding door with his hands. "I've ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... for the same reason that the Alimentive is; his stomach processes do not slow him down. But his muscles are so undeveloped that he has little inward urge toward activity and little force back of his movements. His heart and lungs are small, so that he also lacks ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... hard, cold face. She pressed her hand to her high, pale forehead, as if she would force back the madness that threatened her; she held the other hand to her heart, whose wild, feverish throbbings were almost ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... the Mainwaring carriage came rapidly up the avenue, two or three other carriages following in the rear. As it stopped, Mr. Whitney alighted, followed by an elderly gentleman of fine appearance and two officers of the special police, who immediately began to force back the crowd, while the attorney and his companion hastily entered the house and were met by the butler, who, in response to a hurried inquiry, directed ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... considerable loss to both sides. The first object of this move having failed, by reason of the very large force thrown there by the enemy, I determined to take advantage of the diversion made, by assaulting Petersburg before he could get his force back there. One division of the 2d corps was withdrawn on the night of the 28th, and moved during the night to the rear of the 18th corps, to relieve that corps in the line, that it might be foot-loose in the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... during which he was obliged more than once to pause to regain breath, sufficed to make a hole wide enough to allow a passage for his arm up to the elbow. In this way he was able to force back a ponderous bolt from its socket; and to his unspeakable joy, found that the door ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... rash, even for an army which numbered about 80,000 men. The Austrian General Weyrother had convinced the Czar that an energetic advance of his left wing, which rested on the southern spurs of the Pratzenberg, would force back Napoleon's right, which was ranged between the villages of Kobelnitz and Sokelnitz, and so roll up his long line that stretched beyond Schlapanitz. This move, if successful, would not only win the day, but decide the campaign, by cutting ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... two!" answered the other, driven headlong into speech and action by a maddening temptation to reveal the truth. "Two!" he repeated, his breath bursting from him in deep, heavy gasps, as he tried vainly to force back the horrible words. "The ghost of a man like you, drowning in the cabin! And the ghost of a man like me, turning the lock of the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... coated with ice. From indications that all observed, it seemed that the assault upon our line was near at hand. The enemy seemed to be pushing troops toward the right of Fort Saunders, and were constantly attempting to force back our pickets in that locality. The location of the several guns of Battery D at 10 P. M., on the 28th, was as follows: the second and sixth pieces were in Battery Galpin, on second creek, enfilading the creek and railroad; the third, fourth ...
— Campaign of Battery D, First Rhode Island light artillery. • Ezra Knight Parker

... circumstances from the internal concerns of European Powers—only a statement of present practice. Far less was there a pledge, as seems to have been widely supposed, that if the Holy Alliance would only refrain from aiding Spain to force back the Mexican and South American republics into Spanish colonies, the United States would refrain from extending its institutions or its control over any region in Asia or Africa or the islands of the sea. Less yet was there any such talk as has been sometimes ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... there entered the form of Philippe of Orleans, preceded by his halberdiers and followed close by a rush of humanity which the guards and the Swiss together had much pains to force back into the anteroom. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... down another corridor and walked suddenly into waist-deep water, so cold it numbed his legs. He stopped again to force back the tendrils of unreasoning horror that brushed his mind. Nothing could really harm him. He would merely wait until his mind finally reached a balance again. There might be no end; it might be a ghastly trap, but he ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse

... petitions are not counter-spells, as at first sight they may appear; nor are they properly to be treated as being themselves spells for the purpose of counteracting magic. They are in form and in fact prayers to the gods 'to undo the spell' and 'to force back the words' of the witch into her own mouth. But though in the form in which these Maklu petitions are preserved to us, they appear as prayers to the gods, and not as spells, or counter-spells; it is true, and important to notice, ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons

... General Taylor was compelled to send a considerable force back twenty-five miles for supplies. On the third of May the returning troops encountered a much larger force of Mexicans. A battle followed which continued after sundown. During the night the Mexicans retreated, but were found further on, in a ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden

... austere and monkish existence, vowed to celibacy, science and the chaste delights of figures, Hans the Irreproachable incontinently lost his head and cut himself open on the hanging-rail of his stall. They had to force back his intestines and sew up his belly. He is now rusticating miserably in a meadow outside the town. So true it is that a life cannot be judged except at its close and that we are sure of nothing ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... enough in a time of supposed peace. But the French were now on the Ohio in greater numbers than the English. At a spot known as the Great Meadows, where Washington had hastily thrown up defenses, which he called Fort Necessity, he was forced to surrender, but was allowed to lead his force back to Virginia, defeated in the first military adventure of his career. The French took the view that his killing of the young officer Jumonville was assassination, since no state of war existed, and raised a fierce clamor that Washington was a murderer—a strange contrast to his relations ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... great promptness, but the British failed to move quickly enough. Kluck extricated himself from between the blades with supreme generalship, brought his main force back against the French, borrowing a corps from Buelow and presently the French were driven back upon Paris. British slowness had wrecked the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... him," said Marie, trying to force back her tears. "He was running toward the woods with the Soulas children, and I thought it likely he had been away for some time, for he was hungry, and was eating wild plums and blackberries off the bushes. I gave him some bread from my luncheon, and he said: 'Thanks, my dear little Marie; when ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand



Words linked to "Force back" :   attract, push back, force, push



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