He crunches, swallows, stiffens, seems to grapple With the all-powerful poppy ... then a snore, A crash; the beast blocks up the corridor With monstrous hairy carcase, red and dun Too late!

The flesh of animals slaughtered whilst under considerable depression of vital energy (as from previous bleeding) has a diminished tendency to stiffen after death, the feebleness of this tendency being in proportion to the degree of depression.

She felt his arm stiffen as from head to foot he grew rigid.

" And having achieved this speech, Miss Lavinia stiffens again into imposing dignity, sails away into the house, and disappears, leaving Verty overwhelmed with surprise.

Stretched on the ground she lies, A mangled corse; in her dim glaring eyes Cold death exults, and stiffens every limb.

"It is fear and not armour that stiffens your legs."

V. render hard &c adj.; harden, stiffen, indurate, petrify, temper, ossify, vitrify; accrust^. Adj.

To those who are in love with Mr. W.J. LOCKE'S incurable romanticism or who have a taste for heroines that "stiffen in a sudden stroke of passion looking for the instant electrically beautiful," let me commend The Red Planet (LANE).

I am quite sure it is a mistake; it tends to tire and stiffen the hand.

"The fat inside him stiffens, and he lies there dead.

Hume and Wolff conclude the two lines of development: under the former, empiricism disintegrates into skepticism; under the latter, rationalism stiffens into a scholastic dogmatism, soon to run out into a popular eclecticism of common sense.

Extreme cold is not favorable to them; it braces, but stiffens; and the bars and ropes become slippery and even dangerous.

But Mother stiffens her back and makes everything in the house go on just as usual, very quiet, very calm.

And no wonder; for a very slight proportion of tannic acid in the water corrugates and stiffens the thin, smooth skin of the anemone, like the tanning of leather.

Finger-deep the rich embroidery stiffens.

I have heard that a man struck by lightning stiffens, but does not fall down at once.

The brother knew the tone, had known it from childhood, and the girl, glancing back on him, was pleased to see him stiffen.

He would lag and then stiffen back his shoulders and draw in his chin and force a trifle more energy into his steps.

The heart of the dethroned queen bled from a thousand wounds, but she did not allow these wounds to stiffen into callousness, nor her heart to harden under the broad scars of sorrow that had ceased to bleed.

But when the south wind stirs the pools And struggles in the lanes, Her heart misgives her for her vow, And she pours soft refrains Into the lap of adamant, And spices, and the dew, That stiffens quietly to quartz, Upon her amber shoe. XXIX.

He seemed to stiffen, and all he could do was to hold out his hand and whisper: "Thank you very much, papa!"

She became, in a sense, the symbolic deity of indestructible lust, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, of accursed Beauty, distinguished from all others by the catalepsy which stiffens her flesh and hardens her muscles; the monstrous Beast, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, baneful, like the Helen of antiquity, fatal to all who approach her, all who behold her, all whom she touches.

The man who does not care and ceases to grow, becomes torpid, stiffens, is in a sense dead; but he who has been growing all the time need never stop; and where growth is, there is always capability of change: growth itself is a succession of slow, melodious, ascending changes.

The wind came; we could hear the sails snap and stiffen as it overhauled the fleet behind us.

"I fear thy wound stiffens, and that the night air has added to the pain?" observed the latter, speaking in a kind and considerate tone.