Sentence Examples:
Forester, by means of his paddle, had steered the boat up to a log which lay in the edge of the water, and Marco, at first fending off from the log, to keep the boat from striking hard, and then holding on to it with his hook, got it into a good position for landing, and held it securely.
It was no easy thing to fend off the cruel birds when in sight of their prey, but, running and capturing the poor lamb, Ralph snatched it up in his arms at the peril of his own eyes, and swung a staff about his head to beat off the birds as they darted and plunged and shrieked about him.
Now, Guinevere at the moment was combing her long, fair locks; but she saw the stone come hurtling through the air, and, with remarkable presence of mind and dexterity, with her comb she fended off the missile, so that it fell between them, doing no harm.
Bubbling with excitement, he shook hands with this one and that; and both hands being engaged at once in this hearty mode of salutation, he would have been able to enjoy little of the good fare provided had not one of the group begun to fend off the enthusiastic visitors.
He kept her away from him, fending off her caresses with a pretense of slight indisposition until suddenly panic-stricken over insistence, he told her he was going to bed, bolted into the room, locked the door behind him, and sat long in the darkness and the heat, filling the room with a profane appreciation of himself as a double-dyed fool who could not even lie intelligently.
Ochoa closed with him, and with his drawn sword gave him a cut over the head, but did not hurt him much, as the sentinel fended off the blow with his sword; and the Master of the Camp, coming up at that moment, gave him a thrust, from which he fell backward, making a loud outcry.
Both hands were occupied for the moment in fending off the clutching fingers that sought to seize him and drag his throat within reach of his foe's formidable fangs and now the tail was seeking its deadly hold with a formidable persistence that would not be denied.
There had been an effort on the part of all to keep up a cheerful tone; but as the time of the inevitable separation drew near, the conversation had been more and more left to the minister and his sister, who, with observations sometimes a little forced, continued to fend off silence and the demoralization it would be likely to bring to their young friends.
We got the dinghy alongside, and Davies jumped in (nearly sinking it for good), balanced himself, fended off, and, whenever he got a chance, attached the pigs one by one on to a bight of rope, secured to the peak halyards, on which I hoisted from the deck.
Suddenly, as she threaded her way along, scarcely using her paddles now except to fend off the boats which, lying peaceably at their moorings, seemed to crowd around with intent to impede her, a schooner's masts and spars loomed up before her high against the inky night.
As Rob shook his bleeding finger at his side, and half raised his left arm to fend off the rush of two or three angry wild birds, he suddenly slipped with one foot at the edge of the narrow shelf on which he stood, and before he could catch his balance or do more than tightly grasp the free end of the rope which passed under his belt, over and down he went.
Each drive was attended by its own crew, who guarded the logs on either bank, launching those that shoaled on the numerous sandbars or in the shallows, keeping them from piling up in coves and in the mouths of estuaries, or creeks, some going ahead at the bends to fend off and break up any formation of the drifting timbers that promised to become a jam.
And she told Ellen's friend's mother apropos of Ellen's friend's engagement that she wanted all her daughters to marry for love, she didn't care what the man had so long as they loved each other, and meanwhile she took the utmost care that Isaac had undisputed access to the girl, was watchfully ready to fend off anyone else, made her take everything he offered and praised him quietly and steadily to her.
As the sun rose above the hills the air became oppressively hot, and Pierre Roche appealed many times to have his hands liberated, if only that he might wipe the perspiration from his forehead and fend off the midges and mosquitoes; but all that the police sergeant would do for his comfort was to give him a drink of water whenever they came to a creek, and, at midday, to let him dismount for a rest and to feed him with a share of the remaining contents of his haversack.
To find the reporters hammering at their doors, so to speak, and fended off only for a time by a proposal that they should call again; to see their incredible secret glaringly in print, did indeed for a moment seem a hopeless exposure to both the Buntings and the Sea Lady.
However, this did not trouble us at the moment, since we had so much to do and to think about, what with getting our food, and preparing our house, and fending off the dogs, which were very troublesome, keeping at a distance, indeed, by day, but prowling around our hut at night, and scratching at the walls so that they often disturbed our sleep.
Ochoa closed with him, and with his drawn sword gave him a cut over the head, but did not hurt him much, as the sentinel fended off the blow with his sword; and the Master of the Camp coming up at this moment, gave him a thrust, from which he fell backwards, making a loud outcry.
What with the heavy unwholesomeness of the atmosphere, and the monotonous swing of the bottle, and the lethargic impassivity of his companions, he fell at last into a condition of dull stupidity, which might have ended in sleep but for the necessity of alternately hanging on to and fending off the table, as the roll of the ship flung him away from it or at it.
All the boy wanted was just a few winks of an eye, in order to get that rifle in readiness for action; but as long as he was compelled to use every atom of his strength in fending off these constant attacks, his ambition did not seem likely to be gratified.
We must throw a sheltering screen of social environment around the young individual which will fend off wrong forms of incitement and chances for harmful expression, and we must provide proper stimuli and afford opportunity for development of proper modes of expression.
George did not know whether to laugh or to feel frightened when two big fellows tried to pull him off his donkey, but he held on to Teddy Pasha for dear life, and the Pasha helped him fend off the fellows by backing his ears and kicking out with his heels.
It could sense my question, select an uncontroversial answer from my mind and feed it back to me, without really understanding how it warded me off as a menace to it, any more than a dog understands why lowering its ears and hanging its head as it whines can fend off the wrath of its master.
And the soil of Belgium, a gridiron of railways, stuffed with industry, a place where one short walk takes you from a town to a town anywhere throughout the little State, is still remarkable for the way in which its battlefields seem to fend off the presence of man.
I dived through the mouth of this weird exhibit, bruising myself heedlessly; rounded heaps of faked stone, scraped skin off my knuckles as I fended off obstacles that seemed to hurl themselves at me in the murk, at last came to the back of the cave and turned and squatted there on my hams, fingertips trailing against the cool hardness of the sham rock floor.