toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

talon
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • More troubling still, Mary was holding one hand high above the head of infant John and making a decidedly threatening gesture—her fingers looking like eagle's talons, gripping an invisible head.†   (source)
  • Bod stopped beside a grave that looked the way he felt: it was beneath an oak that had once been struck by lightning, and now was just a black trunk, like a sharp talon coming out of the hill; the grave itself was waterstained and cracked, and above it was a memorial stone on which a headless angel hung, its robes looking like a huge and ugly tree-fungus.†   (source)
  • Her fingers stretched, turning into talons.†   (source)
  • I could hear him scrape the perch with his talons and mutter to himself.†   (source)
  • Most of them had wings, and the ones that didn't were carried in the talons of others.†   (source)
  • The jersey has a black number 5 on the back and a round black patch over the heart, hand sewn, that shows a ferocious-looking eagle with arrows in its talons.†   (source)
  • They peer into taxidermists' drawers full of feathers and talons and glass eyeballs; they flip through two-hundred-year-old herbarium sheets bedecked with orchids and daisies and herbs.†   (source)
  • But as he flew home his long talon pierced the leaves and the rain fell as it had never fallen before.†   (source)
  • The seeker circled, was coming in for the kill with its talons drawn when someone kicked Dodge's sword back to him.†   (source)
  • Dina points a long pink talon at her.†   (source)
  • I showed him the talon marks on the dresser and a feather that had landed on the floor.†   (source)
  • The wind tugged at his blanket with gusts sharp as talons.†   (source)
  • Give me curved talons?†   (source)
  • Very scarred, very nicked, and the top's in two pieces—but—look at those swept-back, weight-bearing talons on that ball-and-claw! the feet don't come out well in the photo, but you can really see the pressure of the claws digging in.†   (source)
  • A well-fingered ID booklet embossed with an eagle clutching a swastika in its talons.†   (source)
  • The troll rounded on him, all ten talons sliding out to their full extent.†   (source)
  • He saw her land heavily and then crouch, clenching the ground with her talons.†   (source)
  • Then the burning figure writhed and arched, still pinned by steel thorns and a score of scalpeled talons, and a cry went up which to this day I cannot believe emanated from the human half of that death-embraced pair.†   (source)
  • And then velocity-wings and engines-a smiling stewardess-but it was more than a plane, it was a real bird, a big sleek silver bird with feathers and talons and high screeching.†   (source)
  • Words about the night from one of her favorite books slipped into Meggie's mind: "This is the hour of pride and power, talon and claw.†   (source)
  • Eagle vacuum flasks had Vacuum Eagles on them, with their wings spread, and a globe in their talons.†   (source)
  • Jesus paused to watch an osprey dive into the lake not fifty feet from them and slowly take flight again, talons gripping a large lake trout still struggling to escape.†   (source)
  • One night when he stopped his reading earlier than usual and was walking, distracted, toward the toilets, a door opened as he passed through the dining room, and a hand like the talon of a hawk seized him by the shirt sleeve and pulled him into a cabin.†   (source)
  • There came a thin screech, a flapping of wings, and a ghostly gray bird lifted away across the basin with a small, dark shadow in its talons.†   (source)
  • Both officers studied her curiously and exchanged glances, the one in back still alert, his hand stiff on his holster and thumb cocked like a talon over the gun hammer.†   (source)
  • Spire vultures are massive birds with five-inch talons and wingspans that clear twenty feet.†   (source)
  • At the same moment the kestrel, all beak and talons, hit the loose earth immediately outside like a missile thrown from the tree above.†   (source)
  • Talon, an older Yellow with his hair woven into intricate dreadlocks, appeared first, followed by a wide-eyed Chubs.†   (source)
  • It landed on the dweller's head and roosted, talons firmly twined in the wild thatch of hair.†   (source)
  • Snarling like a wild animal, she grabbed a football-playing sheep, lifted it, and in one practiced motion slashed its throat with her abnormally strong, talonlike fingernails, burying her face in the animal's bleeding throat.†   (source)
  • It hurled itself on Tenorio, and the sharp talons gouged out one eye from the face of the evil man.†   (source)
  • Tom could hear the scraping of its talons along aged planks, the whisper of its huge wings, as it slowly ascended the bridge.†   (source)
  • As was remarked at the time, the speech bore a strong resemblance to the American eagle, an olive branch in one talon, and in the other the "emblems of defense."†   (source)
  • I thought, as I lay there in my dull pain, that this is how an owl must look to a mouse in that last second before the talons sink into the flesh.†   (source)
  • The hawk struck, sank one set of talons into the sleeve of Joe's coat, through the corduroy, piercing the skin of his forearm, planting the other set of talons in Nina's blond hair, wings drumming as it pecked her scalp, pecked, angry because her face was concealed.†   (source)
  • It ran, its pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight.†   (source)
  • The plane was one of three MC-130E Combat Talon I aircraft used in Operation Eagle Claw.†   (source)
  • He raised up the taloned paw and pointed at me.†   (source)
  • Suddenly, something enormous plummeted from the sky to seize one of the distant cows in its talons.†   (source)
  • The school counselors shared a waiting room that held uncomfortable chairs, overloaded bulletin boards, a secretary named Gerta with blood-red talons, and a coffeepot that looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the turn of the century.†   (source)
  • The few talons she could see looked lethal.†   (source)
  • I land on my back, trying desperately to catch my breath through the talons of pain gripping my lungs and face.†   (source)
  • Talons and beaks etched sharp against the sky.†   (source)
  • As lovely a woman as I have ever seen, bred and nurtured like a gardenia, she has always seemed somehow odorless and sexless to me. yet viscerally seductive in the manner of Southern women, that taloned species who speak with restrained and self-effacing drawls, fill a room with elegance and vulnerability, move with the grace of wind-tilted cane, and rule their families with a secret pact of steel.†   (source)
  • I wished for him, and he came, and he flashed out with his talons.†   (source)
  • Wings and talons, a sideways stripe across the wall.†   (source)
  • A woman in skintight, unadorned black burst in like a comet, perfect teeth bared, lethal red nails curled into talons.†   (source)
  • Seeing his talons were buried in its fur, the hawk was being whipped through that juniper bush for fair.†   (source)
  • " She was staring right at us--we felt like bunnies in her fierce talons--and my mother was giving me the eye that said she'd just as soon put me on restriction as breathe.†   (source)
  • Then Mark walked slowly down the center aisle toward the hand-carved altar and the great, carved, golden eagle which was the lectern, its talons close together, its head turned so that it looked most smugly down its beak, its wings slightly parted to hold the Bible.†   (source)
  • Every mode of violent death available to Renaissance man, including a lye pit, land mines, a trained falcon with envenom'd talons, is employed.†   (source)
  • Slowly, I extended a cold-blooded member and clicked my talons against a couple of numbers.†   (source)
  • Hedwig gave a very loud hoot and took off so suddenly that her talons cut into his shoulder.†   (source)
  • The talons on their front legs were half a foot long and deadly looking.†   (source)
  • He lowered his gaze first to his feet, which were tattooed with the scales and talons of a hawk.†   (source)
  • Tell them to give me the Cup," Abbadon snarled, talons hovering just above Jace's skin.†   (source)
  • If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my face.†   (source)
  • With their long red-painted nails, her fingers looked more like talons.†   (source)
  • She struck the room, tall and straight and sudden-white, a talon of lightning in the midnight sky.†   (source)
  • The owl flopped about pathetically, its talons scratching the door, bashing its head in a panic.†   (source)
  • Talon-clipping by charms…. treating scale-rot….†   (source)
  • With her jaws and talons, Saphira tore through an Urgal.†   (source)
  • The beast squatted low, tilting the girl's chin with one yellowed talon.†   (source)
  • He was at least seven feet tall and scarecrow thin, with bird talons for feet.†   (source)
  • If he doesn' bow, then get away from him sharpish, 'cause those talons hurt.†   (source)
  • "I've seen them flying west with the fish in their talons."†   (source)
  • Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.†   (source)
  • Jace went down, a circle of talons at his throat.†   (source)
  • She tried to sweep the spears away with her talons, but the Urgals jumped back and evaded her.†   (source)
  • It turned the talon sideways, so that the edge pressed against soft human flesh.†   (source)
  • The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons.†   (source)
  • The troll staggered backwards, talons flailing wildly.†   (source)
  • "It cut him with its talons," Jace said.†   (source)
  • With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear.†   (source)
  • The monsters had glowing red eyes, sharp beaks, and vicious talons.†   (source)
  • Blue-grey feathers filled his eyes, as sharp talons buried themselves in his face.†   (source)
  • But no, that was nonsense; the flesh Saphira tore at with her talons was real enough.†   (source)
  • He could still feel the talons, the pain.†   (source)
  • Olive laughed, clapping as the bird shredded a pig knuckle with her talons.†   (source)
  • Kelli's fingernails grew into long black talons.†   (source)
  • The toes were gnarled and leathery, with overgrown nails like a bird's talons.†   (source)
  • Saphira followed him, the soft earth squishing between her talons.†   (source)
  • I watched the bird disappear down the hall—a raven, with a notepad and a pen in its talons.†   (source)
  • Their heads bobbed and their talons clacked as more birds arrived to join them.†   (source)
  • Rows of stubby wings lined their bodies, each wing tipped with a dagger-sharp talon.†   (source)
  • His head ached, and the back of his neck where the talons had burned through him.†   (source)
  • The raven caught Malachi with the tip of a talon, raking a bloody groove across his face.†   (source)
  • She lifted her arm so those wicked talons clutched on her leather glove.†   (source)
  • "The vulture of Blackmont grasps a baby in its talons," said Pod.†   (source)
  • A single talon swiped at his back and cut to his spine.†   (source)
  • But all he had to do was hang on, and drive his talons into the heart or lungs.†   (source)
  • I command from Talon, Tattersalt second on Blackbird, Ser Glendon holds Eastwatch.†   (source)
  • His hands were human, but with talons like an eagle's.†   (source)
  • David had hooked one talon into Cort's right ear.†   (source)
  • Its talons were enormous, and these had raked the smuggler's legs cruelly.†   (source)
  • He swung a paw at her, talons extended, and she hopped backward, half spreading her wings.†   (source)
  • Tyson came running across the forum, Ella fluttering behind him with a scroll in her talons.†   (source)
  • Saphira slid to a stop before his tent, furrowing the packed earth with her talons.†   (source)
  • Saphira's talons clicked on the stone as she landed.†   (source)
  • Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kelli lunge, raking her talons across Annabeth's arm.†   (source)
  • She pointed a talon at the ulu, who had been dozing throughout the day and refused to eat.†   (source)
  • The vyes hesitated, talons twitching as they squinted and balked at this unexpected turn.†   (source)
  • Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water.†   (source)
  • I could tell that rabbit was dead, the way it hung all loose in the talons of that old redtail.†   (source)
  • It advanced on Isabelle, its two mouths gaping, talons slashing toward her face.†   (source)
  • The god of the pit flexed his fingers, examining his own polished black talons.†   (source)
  • He began to delicately stroke Tom's face with the tip of his talon.†   (source)
  • The monster's front talons were wrapped around his arms like steel bands.†   (source)
  • The Lord of Light has fiery talons, Jon Snow.†   (source)
  • The third held the remains of a bullfrog between its ebony talons.†   (source)
  • Hawks dove, talons slicing at the wolf's back.†   (source)
  • A hand snatched at Max's face, its talons snagging in his hair.†   (source)
  • A gryphon soared overhead, almost decapitating him with its talons.†   (source)
  • Yunkai's harpy grasped a whip and iron collar in her talons instead of a length of chain.†   (source)
  • The large beast made no effort to hide his talons, which tapped impatiently on the wood bridge.†   (source)
  • The monsters' talons looked plenty dangerous.†   (source)
  • He fell to the ground, smothered by a dozen bats, who sank their talons into his soft flesh.†   (source)
  • Talons swiped like sickles; fangs gnashed ravenously in anticipation of meat.†   (source)
  • Black bats with talons that look like they could pop a head off in short order.†   (source)
  • Talons extended from his feet and dug into the wood.†   (source)
  • He retracted his talons and allowed a gentle smile to form on his snout.†   (source)
  • His talons were dripping something that was not blood and a wide burn lay across his chest.†   (source)
  • The shadow-birds turn their beady eyes on him and swarm in a tornado of wings and talons, pecking at his skin.†   (source)
  • The scarlet paint on her twoinch talons was chipped and there were a couple of false jewels missing from her winged glasses.†   (source)
  • Five of them were fluttering over the top of the dunes-plump little hags with pinched faces and talons and feathery wings too small for their bodies.†   (source)
  • Piper looked at the bronze dragon wings shining against the sky, and those talons that could've shredded her to pieces.†   (source)
  • Animal blood— Just because you can't get human, or the Shadowhunters will burn you alive— "Maia," he said, and her name in his mouth was half fury and half a plea; he took a step toward her and her hand whipped out, nails shooting out like talons, suddenly impossibly long.†   (source)
  • Creatures with the heads and breasts of women and the talons of eagles will swoop down on him, and he'll open his arms to them, and that will be the end.†   (source)
  • Alec retreated, reaching for another weapon, just as the demon's talon whipped around, knocking him to the deck.†   (source)
  • He glared at the limp mountain of sand-colored fur between us, and his hands — mangled, broken hands — curled into talons.†   (source)
  • Imagine a flock of vultures the size of people-with dirty black plumage, gray talons, and wrinkled pink necks.†   (source)
  • I am doing that right now" She turned her eyes directly on me, exposed her talons, and ripped through my dream.†   (source)
  • Between each finger was a blade, the points of twisted swords fanning out like talons from arms of the throne.†   (source)
  • His feet were the talons of a hawk.†   (source)
  • It had a sleek head feathered in gray and talons that clacked on the wooden dresser as it sidled back and forth along the edge, as if to get a better look at me.†   (source)
  • The metal talons slide under me.†   (source)
  • Easily five times the size of any other demon on the ship, it had an armored body, many-limbed, each appendage ending in a spiked chitinous talon.†   (source)
  • Her hand turned into a claw and she spun Rachel around, holding her tight with her talons at Rachel's neck.†   (source)
  • It happened in a flash of steely talons; Malfoy let out a highpitched scream and next moment, Hagrid was wrestling Buckbeak back into his collar as he strained to get at Malfoy, who lay curled in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes.†   (source)
  • He swooped to a halt in midair, wings beating and talons bared, and made a rumbling sound in his throat that Leo recognized.†   (source)
  • They ended up having lunch with Hagrid, though they didn't eat much — Hagrid had made what he said was a beef casserole, but after Hermione unearthed a large talon in hers, she, Harry, and Ron rather lost their appetites.†   (source)
  • He tried to pull away, but her hand was like an iron talon around his anklehe could not break her tenacious hold.†   (source)
  • She had a wrinkled face with black hair tied in a hairnet, arms like a human plus wings like a chicken, and a fat, feathered body with talons for feet.†   (source)
  • CHAPTER SIX TALONS AND TEA LEAVES When Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the Great Hall for breakfast the next day, the first thing they saw was Draco Malfoy, who seemed to be entertaining a large group of Slytherins with a very funny story.†   (source)
  • It glistened in the morning sun like a living penny sculpture —different shades of copper and bronze—a sixty-foot-long serpent with steel talons and drill-bit teeth and glowing ruby eyes.†   (source)
  • With a snarl it struck again, bone-talons catching Alec a vicious blow that lifted him off his feet and hurled him against the far wall.†   (source)
  • She gripped the edge of the opening with her powerful talons and ripped off another large section of the ceiling.†   (source)
  • As soon as his feet touched the ground, Saphira swept his legs out from under him with her tail and pinned him with her talons.†   (source)
  • My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.†   (source)
  • The Fury I'd hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a pinata.†   (source)
  • He spread his arms with hands that reached out like talons and recited thus: "The sands of time cannot be stopped.†   (source)
  • Her talons slashed with blinding speed.†   (source)
  • I felt like someone-something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.†   (source)
  • She grasped a mid-sized boulder with her strong talons while Eragon scooped up several fist-sized rocks.†   (source)
  • I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.†   (source)
  • She caught a Kull between her talons and carried the screaming creature aloft, tearing at him with her fangs.†   (source)
  • She lunged at me with her talons.†   (source)
  • The wings were several times longer than its body and ribbed with thin fingers of bone that extended from the wing's front edge, forming a line of widely spaced talons.†   (source)
  • Reaching past Eragon with one scaly leg, she hooked her talons through the packs' shoulder straps, then took off over their heads.†   (source)
  • During the wars between Winterfell and the Vale, it was besieged by Osgood Arryn, the Old Falcon, and burned by his son, the one remembered as the Talon.†   (source)
  • Her feet had sharp talons, and in her brass-clawed hands she held a flaming whip and a paisley handbag.†   (source)
  • "Information regarding Old Tom is to be distributed on a need-to-know basis," said the hag, examining her talons.†   (source)
  • Talons and hooks.†   (source)
  • Storm Crow and Talon were faster, Cotter Pyke told Maester Aemon back at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, but they were fighting ships, lean, swift birds of prey where the rowers sat on open decks.†   (source)
  • But the fingers—the fingers were twisted into claws, as black as burned bone, tipped with sharp little talons.†   (source)
  • He clenched his hand around it, and its talons tore at the cuff of his coat sleeve now, tore at his wrist, wings beating against his face, and it bobbed its head, the wicked beak darting at him, but he held it off, the hooked yellow point snapping an inch short of a blinding wound, the beady eyes glaring fiercely and blood-red with reflections of fire.†   (source)
  • I was close to rushing over and breaking it up myself, but the birds were a blur of talons and beaks, and no one could get close enough to separate them.†   (source)
  • TALON!†   (source)
  • She had seen demons, quantities of them, and yet as the flood poured in from both sides—spider-creatures with fat, poisonous bodies; skinless humanoid monsters dripping blood; things with talons and teeth and claws, massive praying mantises with jaws that dropped open as if unhinged—her skin felt as if it wanted to crawl away from her body.†   (source)
  • Just as Ari, ignoring the latch in his murderous rage, finally succeeded in ripping it open, he was divebombed by a hawk with razor-sharp talons and a huge grudge against wolves.†   (source)
  • "—borrow that pen?" he asked Talon.†   (source)
  • He lifted a wrinkled paw with man-length talons for nails and held it over my head as if to crush me with it, but he merely brought it down lightly, once, twice, three times, patting my head.†   (source)
  • "There's hedgehog and porcupine quills," he says furtively, "the dried wing of a nightjar, a talon from some bird of prey, and a handful of roots and bark chips I couldn't make out by the torch light.†   (source)
  • Max stretched his neck away from the searching talons and focused on his uninjured right hand; he felt searing blue flame ignite and writhe around it.†   (source)
  • Sadie's giant kite flew at Menshikov, its talons poised to strike, but Menshikov flicked his hand like he was shooing away a fly.†   (source)
  • Before she could get her fingers around it, though, Miss Peregrine severed the leash with a quick slash of her talons, clamped down with her beak on one of the pigeon's twiggy legs, and bounded away, the pigeon screeching and flailing.†   (source)
  • Talon nodded.†   (source)
  • Then Glaedr brought out his offering: a slab of red oak that he had carved with the point of one talon into a likeness of Ellesmera as seen from high above.†   (source)
  • A gargantuan albatross had snatched up the remains of the balloon and ropes in its talons and was breaking their fall.†   (source)
  • TALON!†   (source)
  • The talons had torn a bloody path through fur and flesh, but the bird had not been able to snap his neck.†   (source)
  • And still the talon clutched.†   (source)
  • She extended a single talon and punched two holes in the top of the barrel, which released the sweet smell of apple-honey mead.†   (source)
  • The youngest man in the party had three ravens on his chest, each clutching a blood-red heart in its talons.†   (source)
  • She flew off into the night and returned with a black stone thrice the size of a large man clutched in her talons.†   (source)
  • That Talon kid?†   (source)
  • Nasuada could see Saphira's underside, and her talons white against the lapped scales of her belly, but nothing of whoever might be riding her.†   (source)
  • Given some distance, the archers soon loosed another volley but immediately had to take cover as Stygian crows swept down upon them in screeching sorties of razor beaks and talons.†   (source)
  • They rose shrieking, howling, and snarling, a boiling mass of claws and talons and teeth and burning eyes.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)