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descry
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  • There it seemed to Frodo that he descried far off, floating as it were on a shadowy sea, the high dim tops and broken pinnacles of old towers forlorn and dark.†   (source)
  • Later as the sun was setting, and the Company was stirring and getting ready to start again, he descried a dark spot against the fading light: a great bird high and far off, now wheeling, now flying on slowly southwards.†   (source)
  • Upon the fourth day from the Cross-roads and the sixth from Minas Tirith they came at last to the end of the living lands, and began to pass into the desolation that lay before the gates of the Pass of Cirith Gorgor; and they could descry the marshes and the desert that stretched north and west to the Emyn Muil.†   (source)
  • In the flat smear of houses, he descried, or thought he did, the edge of his own on Ninth.†   (source)
  • Then, in the gray shaded light of the room, he descried Bessie Gant, the nurse, and the long yellow skull's-head of Coker, smiling wearily at him, with big stained teeth, over a long chewed cigar.†   (source)
  • Sometimes King Pellinore could be descried galloping over the purlieus after the Beast, or with the Beast after him if they happened to have got muddled up.†   (source)
  • Next she descried boot tracks the shape of which was so well-remembered that it shook her heart.†   (source)
  • At first she could descry only a few dim lights, and these blurred in her sight.†   (source)
  • Much before he had expected, judging from sound, to his amazement he descried horsemen near at hand.†   (source)
  • But no, he soon descried several horsemen.†   (source)
  • Suddenly Venters descried a frog-like shape clinging to Wrangle's neck.†   (source)
  • Madeline descried a gray, disheveled mass of humanity packed inside the car.†   (source)
  • Presently gray forms could be descried just at the edge of the circle of light.†   (source)
  • Reward for his vigilance came when he descried three more mounted men, far over to the north.†   (source)
  • He easily descried Wrangle through the gloom, but the others were not in sight.†   (source)
  • Presently he descried two mounted men riding toward him.†   (source)
  • Then Venters's eye descried a very thin, very long green snake coiled round a sapling.†   (source)
  • On one side, the rotting roofs and unpaved enclosure of the Cour des Miracles could be descried.†   (source)
  • I then descried Mr. and Mrs. Hubble; the last-named in a decent speechless paroxysm in a corner.†   (source)
  • A man riding in hot haste was now dimly descried at the top of a distant hill.†   (source)
  • The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried from the ship.†   (source)
  • Following it out to blissful results, he had descried, without self-commendation, a fitness in it.†   (source)
  • Close beside it one descried the quadrilateral enclosure of the fair of Saint—†   (source)
  • Beyond the heavy, rusty iron bars, a sort of dark and vaulted corridor could be descried.†   (source)
  • At intervals, truth, that daylight of the human soul, can be descried shining there.†   (source)
  • So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed—"That's he!†   (source)
  • There could be descried piles of guns, moving bayonets, and troops bivouacking.†   (source)
  • Enjolras descried a luminous uplifting beneath the gloomy skirts of the future.†   (source)
  • In the dark interior he dimly descried a high counter, a stairway, a pile of bags of flour, blankets, and silver-ornamented objects, but the persons he had heard were not in that part of the house.†   (source)
  • Helen's scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny depressions in the pine-needles, dark in color and sharply defined.†   (source)
  • And then, descrying as many as a half dozen people in the water in the distance, at once turning and retreating in the direction of the others in order to give the necessary signal.†   (source)
  • The nineteenth was the first century of human sympathy,—the age when half wonderingly we began to descry in others that transfigured spark of divinity which we call Myself; when clodhoppers and peasants, and tramps and thieves, and millionaires and—sometimes—Negroes, became throbbing souls whose warm pulsing life touched us so nearly that we half gasped with surprise, crying, "Thou too!†   (source)
  • Suddenly Hare's fugitive glance descried a dark object; he watched intently as it moved and rose from behind the summit of the ridge to make a bold black figure silhouetted against the cold clearness of sky.†   (source)
  • When she sat on the porch during the afternoon or at sunset Stewart could always be descried at some point near.†   (source)
  • Once Dale, halting his horse, pointed with long arm, and Helen, following the direction, descried several gray deer standing in a glade, motionless, with long ears up.†   (source)
  • She saw streaks and clouds of dust, running horses, and a band of horses grazing; and she descried horsemen standing still like sentinels, and others in action.†   (source)
  • Mr. George then descries, in the procession, the venerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his granddaughter Judy as body-guard.†   (source)
  • It was fixed accordingly, that Mrs Clay should be of the party in the carriage; and they had just reached this point, when Anne, as she sat near the window, descried, most decidedly and distinctly, Captain Wentworth walking down the street.†   (source)
  • From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt.†   (source)
  • Across this, however, in a corner, he presently descried the figure of M. Nioche, stirring the contents of a deep glass, with a lady seated in front of him.†   (source)
  • But the grass was high in the meadow, and there was no descrying her, if she were there, except by a close search that would be a trespass on Mr. Osgood's crop.†   (source)
  • There was a back-garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter; and out of this, Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends.†   (source)
  • Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and being descried from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter under the branches and lingering leaves of an oak just beyond their premises, was forced, though not without some modest reluctance on her part, to come in.†   (source)
  • In this situation she was descried by her discreet matronly cousin, who lost no time in coming up, having just given the baby into her husband's charge.†   (source)
  • I never saw him afterwards, but I sometimes imagine that I descry a faint reflection of him in John Browdie.†   (source)
  • After a while the Doctor descried a footpath which, leading through a transverse valley, would bring them out, as he justly supposed, at a much higher point of the ascent.†   (source)
  • I shall perceive each object less distinctly, but I shall descry the principal facts with more certainty.†   (source)
  • In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist, some wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably was, for something could be descried.†   (source)
  • Mr. Tulliver's return into the yard was descried by several young Mosses, who immediately ran in with the exciting news to their mother, so that Mrs. Moss was again on the door-step when her brother rode up.†   (source)
  • Ham Peggotty, who went to the national school, and was a very dragon at his catechism, and who may therefore be regarded as a credible witness, reported next day, that happening to peep in at the parlour-door an hour after this, he was instantly descried by Miss Betsey, then walking to and fro in a state of agitation, and pounced upon before he could make his escape.†   (source)
  • In the midst of their perplexity, and while the pitchers were passing among the soldiers, a man was descried coming down the road from Sepphoris.†   (source)
  • Descrying thus much of force of character in Mr Flintwinch, perhaps Mrs Clennam had deemed alliance with him worth her while.†   (source)
  • There, too, she descried Stiva, and there she saw the exquisite figure and head of Anna in a black velvet gown.†   (source)
  • He never looked back until he had almost gained the shelter of the forest; then he turned and descried two figures in the distance.†   (source)
  • The desert became wider and more hideous; yet from time to time we seemed to descry a human figure that fled at our approach, sometimes a sharp turn would bring us suddenly within a short distance of one of these spectres, and I was filled with loathing at the sight of a huge deformed head, the skin shining and hairless, and repulsive sores visible through the gaps in the poor creature's wretched rags.†   (source)
  • Shortly afterwards Miss Bates, passing near the window, descried Mr. Knightley on horse-back not far off.†   (source)
  • In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall.†   (source)
  • The Emperor had been the first, as early as mid-day, to descry with his field-glass, on the extreme horizon, something which had attracted his attention.†   (source)
  • As early as six o'clock in the morning, sallow faces peeping through its barred windows had descried other faces within, bending over measures of wine.†   (source)
  • Following the sound, Mr. Bumble raised his head and descried a man looking out of a door, breast-high, on the second story.†   (source)
  • Porpoises and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually descried.†   (source)
  • Chapter XLVII The Last Moment IT was a sight that some people remembered better even than their own sorrows—the sight in that grey clear morning, when the fatal cart with the two young women in it was descried by the waiting watching multitude, cleaving its way towards the hideous symbol of a deliberately inflicted sudden death.†   (source)
  • If, as he folds the handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted power to bring before him the place where she found it and the night-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, would he descry her there?†   (source)
  • Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light one of the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest on its dainty cushions.†   (source)
  • As the fleet, in order, rowed in towards the mountain shores of the island, a galley was descried coming from the north.†   (source)
  • Nowhere could he see the battlefield he had expected to find, but only fields, meadows, troops, woods, the smoke of campfires, villages, mounds, and streams; and try as he would he could descry no military "position" in this place which teemed with life, nor could he even distinguish our troops from the enemy's.†   (source)
  • The noise of soft voices in conversation, and of merry laughter, fell upon his ears ere he had advanced many paces; and raising his eyes higher than was his humble wont, he descried, at no great distance, the five sisters seated on the grass, with Alice in the centre: all busily plying their customary task of embroidering.†   (source)
  • When we gradually fell into keeping late hours and late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a desponding eye at breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more hopefully about mid-day; that he drooped when he came into dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but realized Capital towards midnight; and that at about two o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make his fortune.†   (source)
  • Upon the left bank of the stream the population is rare; from time to time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half-desert fields; the primaeval forest recurs at every turn; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone offers a scene of activity and of life.†   (source)
  • As he retraces his way to the point from which he descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the soiled walls—which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid—and furtively thrusting a hand before it.†   (source)
  • Mr. Wopsle in a comprehensive black cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike, the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly way, "Look out!†   (source)
  • Arthur continuing to lie very ill in the Marshalsea, and Mr Rugg descrying no break in the legal sky affording a hope of his enlargement, Mr Pancks suffered desperately from self-reproaches.†   (source)
  • He weighs anchor in the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and by day he spreads his sheets to the wind; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when he at last approaches the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he already descried a port.†   (source)
  • At the fleches Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the Shevardino Redoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before and where several horsemen could be descried.†   (source)
  • To my surprise, I heard no more about it for some two or three weeks, though I was sufficiently interested in the result of his endeavours; descrying a strange gleam of good sense — I say nothing of good feeling, for that he always exhibited — in the conclusion to which he had come.†   (source)
  • A large figure of Christ might be vaguely descried above the judges, and everywhere there were pikes and halberds, upon whose points the reflection of the candles placed tips of fire.†   (source)
  • But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be shunned.†   (source)
  • Nevertheless, as they wound down the rugged way while the convent was yet in sight, she more than once looked round, and descried Mr Blandois, backed by the convent smoke which rose straight and high from the chimneys in a golden film, always standing on one jutting point looking down after them.†   (source)
  • At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard by.†   (source)
  • There was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka flew furiously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh in which the figures of the Emperor and Volkonski could already be descried.†   (source)
  • But however this may be, there are certain epochs at which the changes that take place in the social and political constitution of nations are so slow and so insensible that men imagine their present condition to be a final state; and the human mind, believing itself to be firmly based upon certain foundations, does not extend its researches beyond the horizon which it descries.†   (source)
  • Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest.†   (source)
  • He also descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding towards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no stock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword and dumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light shirt-sleeves.†   (source)
  • One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on being "most awful dull," that I had given him up for the day, I lay on the earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, descrying traces of Miss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the water, until at last I resolved to mention a thought concerning them that had been much in my head.†   (source)
  • Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men.†   (source)
  • But my aunt, suddenly descrying among them the young malefactor who was the donkey's guardian, and who was one of the most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in his teens, rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured him, dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the constables and justices, that he might be taken, tried, and executed on the spot, held him at bay there.†   (source)
  • I was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that I felt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise, hurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming slowly towards us.†   (source)
  • What with these ghostly apprehensions and her singular dreams, Mrs Flintwinch fell that evening into a haunted state of mind, from which it may be long before this present narrative descries any trace of her recovery.†   (source)
  • The perfect formation of that accomplished lady's surface rendered it difficult to displace an atom of its genteel glaze, but Little Dorrit thought she descried a slight thaw of triumph in a corner of her frosty eye.†   (source)
  • There one could descry four dormer-windows, guarded with bars; they were the windows of the Fine-Air.†   (source)
  • On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals.†   (source)
  • Then she opened the window and cast her eyes around her in every direction, hoping to descry some bit of the street, an angle of the house, an edge of pavement, so that she might be able to watch for Marius there.†   (source)
  • But though the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was descried.†   (source)
  • A few years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh the beach.†   (source)
  • Overhead, at the small window in the third story Marius descried a sort of spectator who appeared to him to be singularly attentive.†   (source)
  • The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably misnamed the Delight, was descried.†   (source)
  • Near the table, upon which Marius descried a pen, ink, and paper, sat a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a cunning, cruel, and uneasy air; a hideous scoundrel.†   (source)
  • Her skin was visible here and there and everywhere black and blue spots could be descried, which marked the places where the Thenardier woman had touched her.†   (source)
  • at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been.†   (source)
  • His feline eye had just descried, in the recess of a carriage door, what is called in painting, an ensemble, that is to say, a person and a thing; the thing was a hand-cart, the person was a man from Auvergene who was sleeping therein.†   (source)
  • But calm, snow-white, and unvarying; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried.†   (source)
  • Instead of the open air, the broad daylight, the clear horizon, those vast sounds, those free clouds whence rains life, instead of those barks descried in the distance, of that hope under all sorts of forms, of probable passers-by, of succor possible up to the very last moment,—instead of all this, deafness, blindness, a black vault, the inside of a tomb already prepared, death in the mire beneath a cover!†   (source)
  • Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship's mast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene; and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!†   (source)
  • Fedallah first descried this jet.†   (source)
  • Battered felt hats, tarpaulin caps, hideous woollen nightcaps, and, side by side with a short blouse, a black coat broken at the elbow; many wore women's headgear, others had baskets on their heads; hairy breasts were visible, and through the rent in their garments tattooed designs could be descried; temples of Love, flaming hearts, Cupids; eruptions and unhealthy red blotches could also be seen.†   (source)
  • Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the spot where the chase had last been descried.†   (source)
  • But at last, some three points off the weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it.†   (source)
  • It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from the shore.†   (source)
  • —Under this head I reckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks.†   (source)
  • Making so long a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene.†   (source)
  • For there and then, for several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically descried, lingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of the Zodiac.†   (source)
  • As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at, and safely landed them on her decks.†   (source)
  • Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick.†   (source)
  • Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.†   (source)
  • Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time, he i†   (source)
  • But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharks—a matter sometimes well known to affect them,—however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.†   (source)
  • For such is the wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket commanders; that from the simple observation of a whale when last descried, they will, under certain given circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both the direction in which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of sight, as well as his probable rate of progression during that period.†   (source)
  • in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and stopping for a moment to interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting down for a while and resting in concert: then, how much more natural that upon the illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling vessels descrying each other at the ends of the earth—off lone Fanning's Island, or the far away King's Mills; how much more natural, I say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only interchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and sociable contact.†   (source)
  • This critique, the justness of which was unfortunately lost on poor Catherine, brought them to the door of Mrs. Thorpe's lodgings, and the feelings of the discerning and unprejudiced reader of Camilla gave way to the feelings of the dutiful and affectionate son, as they met Mrs. Thorpe, who had descried them from above, in the passage.†   (source)
  •   We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,
      But the true ground of all these piteous woes
      We cannot without circumstance descry.   (source)
    descry = understand (catch sight of)
  • —you must retire yourself Into some covert; take your sweetheart's hat And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face, Dismantle you; and, as you can, disliken The truth of your own seeming; that you may,— For I do fear eyes over,—to shipboard Get undescried.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in undescried means not and reverses the meaning of descried. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • Near and on speedy foot; the main descry Stands on the hourly thought.†   (source)
  • From this the trembling king had oft descried The Grecian camp, and saw their navy ride.†   (source)
  • At length they descried the coast of France.†   (source)
  • — Who hath descried the number of the traitors?†   (source)
  • Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood; I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main, Descry a sail.†   (source)
  • The news is true, my lord: he is descried; Caesar has taken Toryne.†   (source)
  • We are descried: they'll mock us now downright.†   (source)
  • And now their way to Earth they had descried,
    To Paradise first tending; when, behold!†   (source)
  • She look'd to seaward; but the sea was void, And scarce in ken the sailing ships descried.†   (source)
  • Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life, Puts my apparel and my count'nance on, And I for my escape have put on his; For in a quarrel since I came ashore I kill'd a man, and fear I was descried.†   (source)
  • The broad circumference
    Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
    Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
    At evening, from the top of Fesole,
    Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
    Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.†   (source)
  • But that thou mayest know who thus seconds thee against the Sienese, so sharpen thine eye toward me that my face may answer well to thee, so shalt thou see that I am the shade of Capocchio, who falsified the metals by alchemy; and thou shouldst recollect, if I descry thee aright, how I was a good ape of nature.†   (source)
  • Scarcely had Don Quixote descried them when the fancy possessed him that this must be some new adventure; and to help him to imitate as far as he could those passages he had read of in his books, here seemed to come one made on purpose, which he resolved to attempt.†   (source)
  • I discovered nothing all that day; but upon the next, about three in the afternoon, when I had by my computation made twenty-four leagues from Blefuscu, I descried a sail steering to the southeast; my course was due east.†   (source)
  • Having passed the vale where my bower stood, I came within view of the sea lying to the west when it being a clear day, I fairly descried land, extending from the W. to the S.W. about ten or fifteen leagues, as I concluded; but could not say whether it was an island or a continent.†   (source)
  • of the golden Pactolus, the Numidians, faithless in their promises, the Persians renowned in archery, the Parthians and the Medes that fight as they fly, the Arabs that ever shift their dwellings, the Scythians as cruel as they are fair, the Ethiopians with pierced lips, and an infinity of other nations whose features I recognise and descry, though I cannot recall their names.†   (source)
  • And when Fortune turned downward the all-daring loftiness of the Trojans, so that together with the kingdom the king was undone, Hecuba, sad, wretched, and captive, when she saw Polyxena dead, and woeful descried her Polydorus on the sea-bank, frantic, barked like a dog,—to such degree had grief distraught her mind.†   (source)
  • This obliged them to send another boat ashore, with ten men armed, whose faces the Captain plainly descried, the boatswain being the chief officer; but he said there were three honest lads among them, who were forced into the conspiracy.†   (source)
  • Having thus prepared all things as well as I was able, I set sail on the twenty-fourth day of September 1701, at six in the morning; and when I had gone about four-leagues to the northward, the wind being at south-east, at six in the evening I descried a small island, about half a league to the north-west.†   (source)
  • It was great ignorance, Gloster's eyes being out, To let him live: where he arrives he moves All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone, In pity of his misery, to despatch His nighted life; moreover, to descry The strength o' the enemy.†   (source)
  • My father, looking thro' the shades, with fear, Cried out: 'Haste, haste, my son, the foes are nigh; Their swords and shining armor I descry.'†   (source)
  • He had his face covered with a transparent black veil, through which might be descried a very long beard as white as snow.†   (source)
  • Now when fair morn orient in Heaven appeared,
    Up rose the victor-Angels, and to arms
    The matin trumpet sung: In arms they stood
    Of golden panoply, refulgent host,
    Soon banded; others from the dawning hills
    Look round, and scouts each coast light-armed scour,
    Each quarter to descry the distant foe,
    Where lodged, or whither fled, or if for fight,
    In motion or in halt: Him soon they met
    Under spread ensigns moving nigh, in slow
    But firm battalion; back with speediest sail
    Zophiel, of Cherubim the swiftest wing,
    Came flying, and in mid air aloud thus cried.†   (source)
  • PANIAGUADO, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA, IN LAUDEM DULCINEAE DEL TOBOSO SONNET She, whose full features may be here descried, High-bosomed, with a bearing of disdain, Is Dulcinea, she for whom in vain The great Don Quixote of La Mancha sighed.†   (source)
  • And now the rising morn with rosy light Adorns the skies, and puts the stars to flight; When we from far, like bluish mists, descry The hills, and then the plains, of Italy.†   (source)
  • reciprocal, if land be there,
    Fields and inhabitants: Her spots thou seest
    As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce
    Fruits in her softened soil for some to eat
    Allotted there; and other suns perhaps,
    With their attendant moons, thou wilt descry,
    Communicating male and female light;
    Which two great sexes animate the world,
    Stored in each orb perhaps with some that live.†   (source)
  • Too late his blazing buckler they descry, And sparkling fires that shot from either eye, His mighty members, and his ample breast, His rattling armor, and his crimson crest.†   (source)
  • Full of these thoughts and anxieties, they ascended a rising ground wherefrom they descried their own village, at the sight of which Sancho fell on his knees exclaiming, "Open thine eyes, longed-for home, and see how thy son Sancho Panza comes back to thee, if not very rich, very well whipped!†   (source)
  • Eve, now expect great tidings, which perhaps
    Of us will soon determine, or impose
    New laws to be observed; for I descry,
    From yonder blazing cloud that veils the hill,
    One of the heavenly host; and, by his gait,
    None of the meanest; some great Potentate
    Or of the Thrones above; such majesty
    Invests him coming!†   (source)
  • With these, and other discussions of the same sort, they passed that night and the following day, without anything worth mention happening to them, whereat Don Quixote was not a little dejected; but at length the next day, at daybreak, they descried the great city of El Toboso, at the sight of which Don Quixote's spirits rose and Sancho's fell, for he did not know Dulcinea's house, nor in all his life had he ever seen her, any more than his master; so that they were both uneasy, the one to see her, the other at not having seen her, and Sancho was at a loss to know what he was to do when his master sent him to El Toboso.†   (source)
  • When satan, who late fled before the threats
    Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd
    In meditated fraud and malice, bent
    On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap
    Of heavier on himself, fearless returned
    By night he fled, and at midnight returned
    From compassing the earth; cautious of day,
    Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
    His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim
    That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
    The space of seven continued nights he rode
    With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
    He circled; four times crossed the car of night
    From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
    On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse
    Fro†   (source)
  • This son of Dolon bore his grandsire's name, But emulated more his father's fame; His guileful father, sent a nightly spy, The Grecian camp and order to descry: Hard enterprise!†   (source)
  • The scouts with flying speed Return, and thro' the frighted city spread Th' unpleasing news, the Trojans are descried, In battle marching by the river side, And bending to the town.†   (source)
  • All this dark globe the Fiend found as he passed,
    And long he wandered, till at last a gleam
    Of dawning light turned thither-ward in haste
    His travelled steps: far distant he descries
    Ascending by degrees magnificent
    Up to the wall of Heaven a structure high;
    At top whereof, but far more rich, appeared
    The work as of a kingly palace-gate,
    With frontispiece of diamond and gold
    Embellished; thick with sparkling orient gems
    The portal shone, inimitable on earth
    By model, or by shading pencil, drawn.†   (source)
  • They reached the spot where Claudia met him, but found nothing there save freshly spilt blood; looking all round, however, they descried some people on the slope of a hill above them, and concluded, as indeed it proved to be, that it was Don Vicente, whom either dead or alive his servants were removing to attend to his wounds or to bury him.†   (source)
  • As when far off at sea a fleet descried
    Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
    Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles
    Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring
    Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood,
    Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape,
    Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: so seemed
    Far off the flying Fiend.†   (source)
  • Then Venus, who her hidden fraud descried, Which would the scepter of the world misguide To Libyan shores, thus artfully replied: "Who, but a fool, would wars with Juno choose, And such alliance and such gifts refuse, If Fortune with our joint desires comply?†   (source)
  • Astonish'd at their voices and their sight, (Nor were they dreams, but visions of the night; I saw, I knew their faces, and descried, In perfect view, their hair with fillets tied;) I started from my couch; a clammy sweat On all my limbs and shiv'ring body sate.†   (source)
  • Fierce Volscens foams with rage, and, gazing round, Descried not him who gave the fatal wound, Nor knew to fix revenge: "But thou," he cries, "Shalt pay for both," and at the pris'ner flies With his drawn sword.†   (source)
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