Word Finder - ferocity

definition

The condition of being ferocious.

The signs at the zoo made visitors aware of the ferocity of the caged animals.

Many natives, even if armed, refuse, however, to molest an adult male gorilla, on account of its ferocity when wounded.

From the difficult nature of its habitat, and from the ferocity with which it charges an enemy, the pursuit of the bison is no less dangerous and no less exciting than that of the tiger or the elephant.

From the earliest times, owing to its great strength, speed, and ferocity when at bay, the boar has been one of the favourite beasts of the chase.

That barrage had yet to unfold in its full ferocity.

The ferocity of the illness took my father by surprise and he barely made it to the hospital in time to receive treatment.

Nobody in attendance was expecting the extreme ferocity of the debate, so it made many people feel uncomfortable.

Old males are remarkable for the ferocity of their disposition, as well as for other disagreeable qualities; but when young they can easily be tamed.

Tigers, which symbolize beauty, passion and ferocity.

Of so dissolute a life that, although married, he had children by several mistresses at the same time, he gave vent to all his passions with a ferocity that was bestial rather than human.

Their ferocious appearance, and not infrequently the habits of their owners, have given this breed a reputation for ferocity and low intelligence.

In confinement it evinces great ferocity, opening its mouth and erecting its fangs, from which the poison is seen to flow in drops.

In habits the leopard resembles the other large cat-like animals, yielding to none in the ferocity of its disposition.

He hurried back to Italy, and repressed the movement with his usual ferocity, but died in 1197.

For several months the Chouans continued their petty warfare, which was disgraced by many acts of ferocity and rapine; in August 1795 they dispersed; but they were guilty of several conspiracies up to 1815.

It was said to exceed all other American mammals in ferocity of disposition and muscular strength.

In 1246 a number of his own barons and officials of the mainland conspired against his rule, but were crushed with great ferocity, and even his faithful secretary, Pietro della Vigna, fell a victim to the emperor's suspicions.

His attempts to attack the English in Sicily ended disastrously, but he succeeded in crushing brigandage in Calabria by means of General Manhes, who, however, had to resort to methods of ferocity in order to do so.

He is much less of a mere mocker than Lucian, and he is entirely destitute, even when he deals with monks or pedants, of the ferocity of Swift.

During the war, which was marked by extraordinary ferocity throughout, the Danes were generally victorious on land owing to the genius of Daniel Rantzau, but at sea the Swedes were almost uniformly triumphant.

He used the occasion of Charles Dickens's first visit to America to urge international copyright, and was one of the few editors to avoid alike the flunkeyism with which Dickens was first received, and the ferocity with which he was assailed after the publication of his American Notes.

By the 13th century the Aztecs by their ferocity had banded their neighbours together against them; some were driven to take refuge on the reedy lake shore at Acoculco, while others were taken as captives into Culhuacan.

Astute in small matters, he had no breadth of view or foresight; his policy was continually warped by his passions or caprices; he flaunted vices of the most sordid kind with a cynical indifference to public opinion, and shocked an age which was far from tenderhearted by his ferocity to vanquished enemies.

The first two names he earned by the ferocity with which he repressed the disorder of the nobles after a long minority; the third by his victory over the last formidable African invasion of Spain in 1340.

Sir Alexander Stewart, earl of Buchan, fourth son of Robert II., who earned by his ferocity the title of the "Wolf of Badenoch," inherited by his wife the earldom of Ross, but died without legitimate issue, although from his illegitimate offspring were descended the Stewarts of Belladrum, of Athole, of Garth, of Urrard and of St Fort.

In these particulars, as well as in size and shortness of leg, the dog resembles the weasel; and since there are good reasons for believing that the latter is protected alike by ferocity and stink-glands, it is quite possible that the dog, of unusual coloration and form for the Canidae, is protected from the attacks of pumas, jaguars and ocelots by his likeness to the tayra.

When free, he revenged himself with a ferocity which disgusted his allies.

Their natural ferocity and powerful armature are sometimes turned upon one another; combats, often mortal, occur among male lions under the influence of jealousy; and Andersson relates an instance of a quarrel between a hungry lion and lioness over the carcase of an antelope which they had just killed, and which did not seem sufficient for the appetite of both, ending in the lion not only killing, but devouring his mate.

Owing to the ferocity and brutality of the attacks upon Justinian, the authenticity of the Anecdota has often been called in question, but the claims of Procopius to the authorship are now generally recognized.

These troops had been sent for by KhorshId in order to strengthen himself against the Albanians; and the events of this portion of the history afford sad proof of their ferocity and brutal enormities, in which they far exceeded the ordinary Turkish soldiers and even the Albanians.

Pursuing his victory, Wallace ravaged Cumberland, most English writers say with savage ferocity; but Hemingburgh represents Wallace as courteous on one occasion, and as confessing that his men were out of hand.

Despite the ferocity of partisans in " the Douglas wars," an English envoy reported that the power of the country gentry and the boroughs had increased, while that of the great wavering nobles, Hamilton, Huntly and others, was diminishing.

D' Arcos came to terms with Masaniello; but in spite of this, and of the assassination of Masaniello, whose arrogance and ferocity had made him unpopular, the disturbances continued, and again the viceroy had to retire to Castelnuovo and make concessions.

His writings divide themselves into dissertations upon such topics as the "Liberality of Princes" or "Ferocity," composed in the rhetorical style of the day, and poems. He was distinguished for energy of Latin style, for vigorous intellectual powers, and for the faculty, rare among his contemporaries, of expressing the facts of modern life, the actualities of personal emotion, in language suffPciently classical yet always characteristic of the man.

There was then a short lull in the persecution; but on the death of Gaiseric (477) and the accession of Hunneric it broke out again with greater violence than ever, the ferocity of Hunneric being more thoroughly stupid and brutal than the calculating cruelty of his father.

An incident showing his strength and ferocity in single combat is used by Sir Walter Scott in The Lady of the Lake (canto v.).

Except in a few fortified places, such as Ticinum or Pavia, the Italians did not venture to encounter the new invaders; and, though Alboin was not without generosity, the Lombards, wherever resisted, justified the opinion of their ferocity by the savage cruelty of the invasion.

Variously estimated at from 30,000 to 60,000 men, well armed and organized, they had entrenched themselves at every step behind formidable barricades, and were ready to avail themselves of every advantage that ferocity and despair could suggest to them.

The father of this Vlad had himself been notorious for his ferocity, but his son, during his Turkish sojourn, had improved on his father's example.

The fanaticism of the Meccan is an affair of the purse; the mongrel population (for the town is by no means purely Arab) has exchanged the virtues of the Bedouin for the worst corruptions of Eastern town life, without casting off the ferocity of the desert, and it is hardly possible to find a worse certificate of character than the three parallel gashes on each cheek, called Tashrit, which are the customary mark of birth in the holy city.

William could be pitiless when provoked; to punish the men of the North for persistent rebellion and the destruction of his garrison at York, he harried the whple countryside from the Aire to the Tees with such remorseless ferocity that it did not recover its ancient prosperity for centuries.

The kingdom was in the desperate state described in the last melancholy pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, when life and property were nowhere safe from the objectless ferocity of feudal tyrants when every shire was full of castles and every castle filled with devils and evil men, and the people murmured that Christ and his saints slept.

Innocent surpassed his predecessors in the ferocity and unscrupulousness of his attacks on the emperor (see Innocent IV).

About 1504 an attack of unusual ferocity on some Frankfort traders aroused the elector's wrath, and during the next few years the execution of many lawbreakers and other stern measures restored some degree of order.

The track's bright red and orange color scheme emphasizes its ferocity and ties into the legend - they are the very colors that enrage fighting bulls.

Parents and pundits reacted to the hidden content with ferocity, and the ESRB failed to react quickly to protect the very consumers it was founded to guard.

I, on the ground with my mech, was taking out the little guys with ferocity.

It's the largest planet in our solar system, is consider one of the "gas giants" and has storms so strong that scientists can only marvel at their ferocity.

The rival forces met at Sievershausen on the 9th of July 1553, and after a combat of unusual ferocity Albert was put to flight.

He was called Le Gros on account of his great bulk and Lupus on account of his ferocity.