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ebb
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show 186 more with this conextual meaning
  • The grip of his limbs tightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the trembling had stopped, leaving him merely weak and cold.   (source)
    ebbed = decreased
  • After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr. Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician.   (source)
    ebb and flow = recurring pattern of decrease and increase
  • The adrenaline that had first powered Edgar had ebbed, and he staggered along with Tinder in his arms.†   (source)
  • Cold and exhaustion gnawed at my bones and muscles as the anger ebbed, and I limped along.†   (source)
  • I realized that the anxiety that had held me in its grip all day was slowly ebbing away with every one of Will's comments.†   (source)
  • Or in the massed prayers of all the Jacks who have gone before us, that at our lowest ebb, we are given this.†   (source)
  • There were fish to be had on the ebb tide, too, though nowhere near as many.†   (source)
  • It was a natural will-less process, an ebbing that was more reassuring than anything else, since it seemed to mean that I could be satisfied as well as full of longing.†   (source)
  • "Good," the old man said as the tension in the common room ebbed palpably, "excellent."†   (source)
  • As he stood there, tension ebbing from his body, a giddy wave of exhaustion shuddered through his core.†   (source)
  • The creek and I. Flowing, ebbing, receding.†   (source)
  • The pain ebbs, giving me enough strength to make it to the metal bench.†   (source)
  • The colors were ebbing from her fantasy, her self-loving pleasures in movement and balance were fading, her arm was aching.†   (source)
  • It was both quieter and less rhythmic—not an ebb and flow, but instead the constant whisper of a river.†   (source)
  • As I explain our situation, his initial agitation mysteriously ebbs.†   (source)
  • One night after she'd come to sleep in my bed I woke up in the very early morning, the nighttime shadows ebbing off our walls.†   (source)
  • And suddenly I felt the disappointment ebbing away and being replaced by a real happiness.†   (source)
  • Not a wave coming in, rolling over me, but the ebb of the sea returning: a sense of something pulling away, and me with it.†   (source)
  • All the furious red had ebbed out of it.†   (source)
  • As the mix of emotions ebbed and flowed, his anger giving way to pain, a fresh wave of sorrow began to mix with his confusion.†   (source)
  • Tension ebbed out of him like air out of an overinflated balloon.†   (source)
  • As that started to ebb, I slowed.†   (source)
  • Not that it absolves me, but I was a young man, Mr. Markos, eager to take on the world, full of dreams, modest and vague as they may have been, and I pictured my youth ebbing away, my prospects increasingly truncated.†   (source)
  • The two that remained were weaving from side to side as Sophie's physical strength ebbed.†   (source)
  • Within the hotel chemical odors ebbed and flowed like an atmospheric tide.†   (source)
  • MANY HUNDREDS OF FAMILIES HAVE LOST THEIR ALL; AND ARE REDUCED FROM A STATE OF AFFLUENCE TO THE LOWEST EBB OF WANT AND WRETCHEDNESS—†   (source)
  • It glowed and ebbed and seemed to fill too much space to be a regular light source.†   (source)
  • Her mind, freed of any linear order by encroaching sleep, floated past the first year at Stovington, past the steadily worsening times that had reached low ebb when her husband had broken Danny's arm, to that morning in the breakfast nook.†   (source)
  • I missed the ebb and flow of seasons, the way things changed.†   (source)
  • Saeed and Nadia knew what the buildup to conflict felt like, and so the feeling that hung over London in those days was not new to them, and they faced it not with bravery, exactly, and not with panic either, not mostly, but instead with a resignation shot through with moments of tension, with tension ebbing and flowing, and when the tension receded there was calm, the calm that is called the calm before the storm, but is in reality the foundation of a human life, waiting there for us between the steps of our march to our mortality, when we are compelled to pause and not act but be.†   (source)
  • The ocean of people stretched farther than I could see—waves of people ebbing and flowing, shoving the sawhorses and the policemen who were trying to keep them in place.†   (source)
  • Kepler also believed that the ebb and flow of the tides— the rise and fall in sea level—must be the result of a lunar force.†   (source)
  • Somewhere her mother's chances were ebbing away, moment by moment, second by second.†   (source)
  • I've been downstairs in the living room all night, with the television on for company, fear ebbing and flowing.†   (source)
  • At night I cannot sleep, my strength has been struck down, my life is ebbing away.†   (source)
  • It seemed that the force of her astonishing fertility had finally begun to ebb.†   (source)
  • The life was ebbing out of him, and I could see this powerful super-athlete growing weaker by the second.†   (source)
  • After all, crime didn't just slowly ebb in New York as conditions gradually improved.†   (source)
  • When he returned to the bridge, the assault on the café had ebbed, but Susanne was still clearing dishes from the tables.†   (source)
  • He sobbed until his emotions ebbed and left him as dry and hollow as an old barley husk.†   (source)
  • Communication between worlds was at one of its lowest ebbs.†   (source)
  • Morale seemed to be at a low ebb for several of the expeditions at Camp Two.†   (source)
  • The world was quiet as she drove back through the familiar streets, the effects of the wine beginning to ebb.†   (source)
  • I didn't recognize the song, but I recognized David Gilmour's voice, and the ebb and flow of Pink Floyd's synthesizers.†   (source)
  • The tide goes out, the soul ebbs.†   (source)
  • But as I look at him, my anger ebbs away, like the changing of the tide.†   (source)
  • Ebb the sable flow?†   (source)
  • Ramatou was a mother of six, thirty-seven years old, and her life was ebbing away in the little hospital waiting room.†   (source)
  • Love so strong, without ebb and flow or crests and troughs, indeed lacking any sort of motion so that it had become invisible to him these seven years, part of the order of things outside his head which he had taken for granted.†   (source)
  • And suddenly, standing there in my parents' garden on a Monday afternoon, I'm plunged to the lowest ebb of my life.†   (source)
  • Her youth had ebbed away quickly under the steady pressure of the changing times, but she was existing as she always had.†   (source)
  • She looks over as he listens raptly to Long, even though he told her on the way back from the restaurant that his enthusiasm for church and the unquestioned power of faith is slowly ebbing.†   (source)
  • Outside, Pecola feels the inexplicable shame ebb.†   (source)
  • The rain had stopped at last, but the northeast wind that had kept the river free of the British fleet was blowing still, and this, with an ebb tide, was proving no less a deterrent to an American retreat.†   (source)
  • Was she annoyed by the unending ebb and flow of flattery, double entendres, off-color stories, propositions, smiles, and glances?†   (source)
  • Volition at its lowest ebb.†   (source)
  • "The thing about Ebb Tide," it continued, "is that they're really an acquired taste."†   (source)
  • The violence associated with crack began to ebb in about 1991.†   (source)
  • Morale there was ebbing rapidly, and Dunbar was under surveillance.†   (source)
  • It was after nine o'clock, but a river of yellow taxi cabs still ebbed and flowed down Broadway and Seventh Avenue, merging with a chorus of curses shouted in a dozen' languages, unheard behind the tightly closed windows.†   (source)
  • She curled closer, and he realized the heat sex had generated had ebbed, and she was cold.†   (source)
  • The faucet had a leak, and with every drip I felt my life ebbing away.†   (source)
  • Imagine this fire ebbing to a low flame, then to a trickle of smoke, and finally to a cold hearth.†   (source)
  • It was a wave that never ebbed.†   (source)
  • Nor people with their lives ebbing away.†   (source)
  • The tense discussions rose, then ebbed and waned and finally ceased, though there was so much more to say.†   (source)
  • His embrace comforts me and the fear ebbs a little.†   (source)
  • Sam was standing by the pony, sucking his teeth, and staring moodily into the gloom where the river roared stonily below; his desire for adventure was at its lowest ebb.†   (source)
  • As I made the perfect piles, my mind cleared, my body relaxed, and my irritation from the night of loud music and obnoxious, rich, sex-obsessed pigs ebbed.†   (source)
  • When Fiver's urging had penetrated his dark, ebbing stupor, he had at first actually tried not to respond.†   (source)
  • All the strength that he had possessed, of mind and of person, seemed to be ebbing, steadily.†   (source)
  • Although her relations with Atticus and Jem had reached their lowest ebb ("You're downright addled these days, Jean Louise," her father had said.†   (source)
  • He could feel his life aching and ebbing from his limbs.†   (source)
  • All of them ebbed and flowed together in the unappetizing stew that had been Boomer Johannsen's life.†   (source)
  • The black colonial-era Morris, flotsam abandoned in 'Pindi by the ebbing tide of British empire, purled quietly along still-sleeping streets.†   (source)
  • He said, "This close to the Sacred Mountain, time ebbs and flows.†   (source)
  • Two blocks further along my anger had ebbed, but I felt strangely lonely.†   (source)
  • They walked rapidly within the erratic ebb and flow of the crowds until they reached the boulevard Malesherbes ten blocks away, and another telephone booth, this with a different exchange from the first.†   (source)
  • They stand as testament that life is a constant heartbeat, pulsing everywhere at once, and we are but a small part of that eternal ebb and flow.†   (source)
  • I felt many of my established beliefs and loyalties begin to ebb away.†   (source)
  • It wasn't very far to Texas soil, not in terms of distance, but the slowly ebbing waters below had drowned the blood and tears of so many who had risked everything to cross it.†   (source)
  • He was something to watch, pouring over his horse's back, belly flat to the withers, fingers threaded through the reins, face pressed into the mane, body curving along the ebb and flow of the animal's body.†   (source)
  • Watching her ebb away, seeing her beauty diminish, witnessing the awful alteration of her face and body was too much for Jerry to bear and he sometimes fled her bedroom, ashamed of his weakness, avoiding his father.†   (source)
  • Alone in the kitchen, his courage beginning to ebb, Alessandro thought to seek out Patrizia before he was too afraid to do so.†   (source)
  • Whatever adrenaline I had had moments before ebbed away.†   (source)
  • The light was ebbing, and Eddie Willers could not distinguish the bum's face.†   (source)
  • The compulsion ebbed suddenly and faded away.†   (source)
  • However, by a chain reaction, this matter of rifle bullets and taking cover brought me to my lowest ebb at Camp Currie.†   (source)
  • No. Her voice grew thinner as she talked, as though the strength supporting her had been the secrets she kept, and as she revealed them one by one, her vitality ebbed as it had for Samson lock by lock.†   (source)
  • As I walk with Uhmma now, her hand grasped firmly in mine, I can feel the strength that was there in our childhood ebbing away.†   (source)
  • The bar had a neon sign that sputtered with each ebb and flow of the unreliable electrical supply.†   (source)
  • Someone wais playing a piano nearby, and the music drifted slowly in and out of my mind like the ebb and flow of ocean surf.†   (source)
  • Mostly he stayed seated at the water's edge, letting the surf froth up and then ebb around his soft white legs, except for when his father coaxed him into a game of paddle ball or a ride on a raft.†   (source)
  • As the steamed-up mirror began to clear and the flood started to ebb, I realized I had to get ready for work.†   (source)
  • That night the smell of the ebb tide and the smell of death seemed one.†   (source)
  • In these streams the ebb and flow of the tide is visible for miles inland—hence the name Tidewater Maryland.†   (source)
  • The tide was ebbing and within a couple of hours of low water; even so there should have been a fathom of water underneath their keel according to the chart.†   (source)
  • He went to the window, looked out, then turned off the light and stood at the window a long time, letting his pulse throb and slowly ebb.†   (source)
  • I was grateful for that if for nothing else, since my youth, I felt, was at its lowest ebb.†   (source)
  • The ship was leaving the frontiers of the Solar System: the energies that powered the Stardrive were ebbing fast, but they had done their work.†   (source)
  • The sound slowly ebbed, then boomed to a fiercer climax, closer.†   (source)
  • She felt the tension ebb slowly out of him, the trembling die gradually away.†   (source)
  • Brusilov's Eighth Army, which had been concentrated in the Carpathians ready to pour down the slopes into Hungary, was instead drawing back, caught by the ebb of the general retreat.†   (source)
  • His anger ebbs into a weary complaint.†   (source)
  • The doctor's feeling gradually ebbed away, like nausea put down.†   (source)
  • Thus by the end of the nineteenth century the Senate had come to very nearly its lowest ebb, in terms of power as well as prestige.†   (source)
  • The dull red disc jerked suddenly up over the kopjes, and the color ebbed from the sky; a lean, sun-flattened landscape stretched before her, dun-colored, brown and olive-green, and the smoke-haze was everywhere, lingering in the trees and obscuring the hills.†   (source)
  • By this time the tide was beginning to ebb, and the ship was swinging round to her anchor.   (source)
    ebb = gradually fall
  • So long as he walked four miles an hour, he pumped that blood, willy-nilly, to the surface; but now it ebbed away and sank down into the recesses of his body.   (source)
    ebbed = gradually declined
  • Harry threw himself into a chair beside Ron, his high spirits ebbing away.†   (source)
  • Little by little he was forcing his way in again; her strength was on the ebb now.†   (source)
  • I stared at him broodingly as the unreasonable grief began to ebb.†   (source)
  • But even as we listen, his energy seems to ebb.†   (source)
  • This music ebbs and flows, irregular, sad.†   (source)
  • He felt his strength ebb as Gannel's spell thwarted whoever was trying to scry him and Saphira.†   (source)
  • We smiled at each other, another degree of ebb.†   (source)
  • The answer mattered more and more, even as the power in her to find him ebbed.†   (source)
  • The anger and confusion are already ebbing.†   (source)
  • Zeitoun stood there, watching the fire ebb and flow.†   (source)
  • They understood many of us would be at a low ebb.†   (source)
  • It works a little bit, and the shivers running through me ebb away.†   (source)
  • The silver-white contents were ebbing and swirling within.†   (source)
  • After that evening, the hostility between them seemed to ebb.†   (source)
  • When the energy for that ebbs, I'll be worthless.†   (source)
  • The black void of sleep ebbs away, giving way to life again.†   (source)
  • Harry lound his attentiveness ebbing, as though his brain was slipping in and out of tune.†   (source)
  • A hand closes around my throat, holding me in place as control of my own body ebbs away.†   (source)
  • For half a heartbeat the agony started to ebb.†   (source)
  • Bleeding out, ebbing away, one heartbeat, ever slower, at a time.†   (source)
  • Somewhere in the ebb and flow of battle, Asha lost Qarl, lost Tris, lost all of them.†   (source)
  • Killing bunnies was not the point, drawing blood, watching life ebb, pulse by pulse.†   (source)
  • With the blade in her hand, her heartbeat ebbed slowly.†   (source)
  • Eragon felt his strength ebb precipitously.†   (source)
  • After a couple of beers, he was only just feeling the acidic rush of fear ebb away.†   (source)
  • But gradually, over the next couple of weeks, she felt her fears ebb.†   (source)
  • Each day, his sanity ebbed and he became more dangerous.†   (source)
  • Cold, metallic laughter ebbed from deep within D'Ablo.†   (source)
  • I watched the cat's life ebb away, and didn't know whether to feel relief, satisfaction, or remorse.†   (source)
  • He talked until the words slowed, ebbed, finally ceased.†   (source)
  • The sound of the horn ebbs away from us, taillights disappearing into the dark.†   (source)
  • He thought of Alice again, and some of his own frustration ebbed.†   (source)
  • Eragon's pulse raced as the strength ebbed from his limbs.†   (source)
  • This could be Ebb Tide Two about to come on here.†   (source)
  • Either way, my awkward, idiotic dialogue began to ebb away.†   (source)
  • He could feel his strength ebbing at an alarming rate as his magic repelled the attacks.†   (source)
  • He saw the eagerness of Mr. Thompson's face ebb slowly under a look of bewilderment.†   (source)
  • When the cheers began to ebb, she allowed to herself to sit.†   (source)
  • Cesar leaned over the railing and stared at the steel gray waters that ebbed eastward.†   (source)
  • The only thing that stirs is the ebb and flow of his breath, but even that seems to cease.†   (source)
  • They ebb and flow, ebb and flow, but never disappear.†   (source)
  • The light ebbed to a soft twinkle before flaring up again in a quick flash of white.†   (source)
  • We endured, while the sharpness dimmed, and the pressure ebbed away.†   (source)
  • The siege of the gate appeared to be ebbing, as if the spine of the mob had been broken.†   (source)
  • "Your sister," he said to me now, "is an Ebb Tide fan.†   (source)
  • Their last strength of mind and body was swiftly ebbing.†   (source)
  • The pool of blood in the round hole ebbed and did not rise again.†   (source)
  • Swifter than any tide could ebb, the water was receding from the shore.†   (source)
  • Life was ebbing from its last set of batteries.†   (source)
  • In this round well, dark blood rose and ebbed rhythmically, a small, ominous tide.†   (source)
  • Ron floated, unconscious, a few inches above the lake bottom, drifting a little in the ebb of the water.†   (source)
  • Wherever Harry went inside the tiny cottage or its garden, he could hear the constant ebb and flow of the sea, like the breathing of some great, slumbering creature.†   (source)
  • They were alone in the study hall now, perfectly between the ebb of old students and the flow of new ones.†   (source)
  • His anger was ebbing away.†   (source)
  • Every 'best-selling' writer of fiction would, he supposed, have his own personal example or examples of radical reader involvement with the make-believe worlds the writer creates ....examples of the Scheherazade complex, Paul thought now, half-dreaming as the sound of Annie's mower ebbed and flowed at some great echoing distance.†   (source)
  • Strength ebbing and flowing.†   (source)
  • He sank back into the chair trying to maintain his balance against an onslaught of images, but he could feel his control ebbing away.†   (source)
  • The blinding light was illuminating the grass around him.... The screaming had stopped, the cold was ebbing away...Something was driving the dementors back.... It was circling around him and Black and Hermione.... They were leaving.... The air was warm again.... With every ounce of strength he could muster, Harry raised his head a few inches and saw an animal amid the light, galloping away across the lake.... Eyes blurred with sweat, Harry tried to make out what it was.... It was as bright as a unicorn.... Fighting to stay conscious, Harry watched it canter to a halt as it reached the opposite shore.†   (source)
  • My fury had almost entirely ebbed, and I clenched my teeth together, panting faster as I pushed out against the elastic shield; it felt like it was getting heavier the longer I held it.†   (source)
  • It would be possible to take two hundred or more working the flood alone, Kabuo hoped, and perhaps a hundred more on the ebb if he was lucky—and luck, he knew, was what he needed.†   (source)
  • As for me, as my anxiety about Will's health began to ebb, I slowly began to suspect that I was actually in paradise.†   (source)
  • It is that the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and How of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics.†   (source)
  • Kassad followed her through the fringes of the time tides, avoiding the ebb and flow of the anti-entropic field the way children would play tag with an ocean surf on a broad beach.†   (source)
  • Her fear began to ebb and she was able to feel compassion for the others, for those they hung by their arms, for the newcomers, for the man whose shackled legs were run over by a truck.†   (source)
  • On the turn the salmon would pile up, milling on the bank by the hundreds, in schools, and some to the east would back in on the ebb so that his net would load up going both ways.†   (source)
  • Someday she'll hardly think of all the time we spent together—when she does, it will seem distant and faintly ridiculous, like the memory of a dream whose details have already started to ebb away.†   (source)
  • I could have stayed there all night, above the rest of the world, the warmth of Will's hand in mine, feeling the worst of myself slowly begin to ebb away.†   (source)
  • At points the wailing grows louder, almost to a fever pitch, and I have to cover my ears; then it ebbs away again.†   (source)
  • He strokes my face as the pain ebbs.†   (source)
  • His common sense told him that he would hsive to find a woman, and once he had made up his mind, the terrible anxiety that afflicted him began to ebb and his fury seemed to abate.†   (source)
  • As the cooling air settled into the cracks and caverns of the plateau and the warm air rushed skyward, pulling leaves, twigs, and mist upward in a vertical gale, a sound ebbed up out of the Cleft as if the continent itself was calling with the voices of stone giants, gigantic bamboo flutes, church organs the size of palaces, the clear, perfect notes ranging from the shrillest soprano to the deepest bass.†   (source)
  • They went for the boys,' said Mrs Figg, her voice stronger and more confident now, the pink flush ebbing away from her face.†   (source)
  • There are places where the changing seasons are marked by migrating birds, or the ebb and flow of tides.†   (source)
  • Then he massaged her with brandy and gunpowder, but it was all useless; Pancha's life ebbed away in an interminable case of diarrhea that destroyed her body and left her with an insatiable thirst.†   (source)
  • I close my eyes, waiting for the pain to begin ebbing away, trying to sort out words from the tangle of voices downstairs and the sounds of footsteps and muffled exclamations and the television going in the kitchen, but I can't make out any specific conversations.†   (source)
  • I supposed that in no time at all order would be restored and that once the tension of the first few days had ebbed I would get in touch with someone better placed within the military hierarchy.†   (source)
  • Just as before, the pain slowly ebbed, and I almost cried with frustration: If it was ending, I wasn't dead.†   (source)
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