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sever
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • Obviously, whatever thin connection we'd foolishly formed has been severed.†   (source)
  • They fix it by replacing a severed spine with the spine of an Unwind.†   (source)
  • Japanese soldiers took pictures of themselves posing alongside hacked-up bodies, severed heads, and women strapped down for rape.†   (source)
  • He wore a dashing, plumed hat on his long curly hair, and a tunic with a ruff, which concealed the fact that his neck was almost completely severed.†   (source)
  • Then I saw the severed treetops and the rough path cut through the brush.†   (source)
  • I have no wish to satisfy your lust for phials of dried blood and the severed fingers of saints.†   (source)
  • He fell like a puppet severed from its strings.†   (source)
  • The Burma Road had been severed and one of the Dionne quintuplets—Yvonne—was still recovering from an ear operation.†   (source)
  • Then, with the deftness of a much slighter man, he turned, took the Count by the collar, and severed the right wing of his moustaches with a single snip.†   (source)
  • I shouldn't have asked, but I was still drifting in my thoughts, seeing those severed bodies sprawled on marble floors.†   (source)
  • It was nearly severed at the elbow.†   (source)
  • It advised that a knife should be "inserted into the neck" to sever the arteries and veins running through it.†   (source)
  • Because it was locked, the pulley had gradually ripped the cable's steel wires-as if husking an ear of corn-until they were nearly severed.†   (source)
  • Aringarosa quickly severed the connection.†   (source)
  • Part III Into the Fire Beauty is that Medusa's head Which men go armed to seek and sever.†   (source)
  • "Charge Jorge again and I'll sever an artery."†   (source)
  • One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things-severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters.†   (source)
  • Muldoon stood up, holding the severed leg upside down so the remaining blood dripped onto the ferns.†   (source)
  • A few more slices of Grave's blade and the rope would be severed entirely.†   (source)
  • The severed arms from the vandalized statue of Mary Magdalene were oddly attached to my mother's dressmaker's dummy—formerly, as armless as she was headless.†   (source)
  • Mom had her elbows flat on the tabletop and both hands up under her chin, like she was holding her own severed head.†   (source)
  • Biology smells like formalin and old fruit; it is loaded with heavy cool jars in which float things she has only had described for her: the pale coiled ropes of rattlesnakes, the severed hands of gorillas.†   (source)
  • If you slice off part of most established plants—this mature plant can be thought of as the parent—and you nurture this severed portion, it will grow.†   (source)
  • He assured my mom that the odds were in my favor: I was young, in great physical shape, the cut had been direct rather than a ragged tear, and my calmness had kept my heartbeat slow enough to keep the severed artery from quickly draining my blood supply.†   (source)
  • She severed the sickly dependency of infancy and early childhood, and the schoolgirl eager to show off and be praised, and the elevenyear-old's silly pride in her first stories and her reliance on her mother's good opinion.†   (source)
  • The bullet had hit him in the shoulder, severing tendons and ligaments, shattering bone.†   (source)
  • She knew what it was because it was something she too had had and had severed herself from after having been injured long ago.†   (source)
  • I seem to recall there was a man who was so confused by being called repeatedly by the wrong name that he accidentally dropped a knife on her little foot and severed one of her toes.†   (source)
  • And yet, at the same time, he was strangely calm—in the moment that his marriage was effectively severed he was on solid ground with her for the first time in months.†   (source)
  • Without words, they made their mutual reproaches and thereby severed the strong tie of blood and obedience that had always bound them together, but could never be reestablished.†   (source)
  • The plane skidded for two thousand feet, severing an oil pipeline and snapping pine trees, before falling into a ravine and bursting into flames.†   (source)
  • Gregor Clegane killed the horse with a single blow of such ferocity that it half severed the animal's neck.†   (source)
  • School would have ended, we'd have gone our separate ways, and our friendship would have been severed forever.†   (source)
  • My hand stopped tingling and began to go numb, quickly, as if my nerves were suddenly severed somewhere on my lower arm.†   (source)
  • Mr. Tall returned from the stage, picked up the severed hand, and gave a loud whistle.†   (source)
  • Moore signed a consent form saying the hospital could "dispose of any severed tissue or member by cremation," and Golde removed his spleen.†   (source)
  • All that history and its importance gets detached, floats away like a severed balloon.†   (source)
  • One shelf supported the severed heads of clowns, kings, fabulous beasts, ogres, demons; another was filled with silent musical boxes, frozen figurines perched on their lids.†   (source)
  • Another, assaulted by someone wielding a machete atop the trains, arrived with the ligaments in his right hand severed.†   (source)
  • The locked door and behind it the heads, the severed beads.†   (source)
  • He severed the contact with Saphira and rolled out of bed, his body tense like a coiled spring.†   (source)
  • But as his brain swelled with internal bleeding, bone or bullet fragments that were in his eye severed his optic nerves.†   (source)
  • I walked behind him and found the severed heads of many small, bright orange orchids.†   (source)
  • Furiously I attacked it with my knife, severed it, then grabbed hold of the gondola's side as it jerked violently down.†   (source)
  • One of the transport cages tumbled by, its severed cables whipping like the tentacles of an agitated sea anemone.†   (source)
  • Pedestrians retrieved severed heads.†   (source)
  • Not for nothing did she call one of her books A Severed Head (1961), although The Unicorn (1963) would work splendidly here, with its wealth of phony gothic creepiness.†   (source)
  • She would insist that her parents sever any connection to him.†   (source)
  • Mom had tried to tape the severed portion back on with some of Dad's green mine tape, but it wouldn't take.†   (source)
  • Precipitating her way toward the sweet 'crete of the creek bottom like a black angel who has just had the shroud lines of her celestial parachute severed by the Almighty.†   (source)
  • For eight and a half hours, a worker called a "sticker" does nothing but stand in a river of blood, being drenched in blood, slitting the neck of a steer every ten seconds or so, severing its carotid artery.†   (source)
  • My students say, 'Look at the crushed bodies, the severed limbs.†   (source)
  • Severed torsos soaping themselves, arranged like dark busts on a thin, rocking, ribbon lawn.†   (source)
  • Her favorite was a statuette of the Indian goddess of destruction, Kali, brandishing a sword and a severed head as she danced with her head thrown back and her eyes slitted closed.†   (source)
  • It is worth pointing out, furthermore, that his lordship had by that time severed all links with the 'blackshirts', having witnessed the true, ugly nature of that organization.†   (source)
  • I'll go back to my maiden name, sever ties with Tom, make it hard for anyone to find me.†   (source)
  • But this poem has nothing tied to it; it's severed, neat and clean, from where it came.†   (source)
  • His expression couldn't have been more horrified if he had found me carrying a freshly severed head.†   (source)
  • The offal from the adjoining slaughterhouse was also thrown away there--severed heads, rotting viscera, animal refuse that floated, in sunshine and starshine, in a swamp of blood.†   (source)
  • She still didn't understand why they'd had to downgrade just because her father had made the unusual and mortifying decision to sever his marriage contract and move out.†   (source)
  • She felt roughness in the strap against her left arm, realized the strap had been almost severed, would snap at a sudden jerk.†   (source)
  • With the skulls already open, I prepared to sever the thin blue main vein in the back of the twins' heads that carried blood out of the brain.†   (source)
  • One severed hand lay beside a piece of the creature's granite arm.†   (source)
  • They both cut neatly in one swing, except for the final strip of bark, which I sever with the back hook of the machete.†   (source)
  • The crew and cast were staring at the severed leash in disbelief, a mix of awe and horror on their faces as though they had just witnessed some great and mysterious force of nature.†   (source)
  • …a man's head down the bridge of the nose, leaving one eye on each side, the skull cleaved into two parts; the four diagonal strokes-—from left and right, upward and downward—that would cleave a man beneath a rib or disjoin an arm deftly; the horizontal stroke swinging in from the left that could sever a man just above the hips; and, finally, the most common of kendo strokes, a horizontal thrust a right-handed man could propel with great force against the left side of his enemy's head.†   (source)
  • …their bond they each in their own way believed it required them to protect the other, and so neither talked much of drifting apart, not wanting to inflict a fear of abandonment, while also themselves quietly feeling that fear, the fear of the severing of their tie, the end of the world they had built together, a world of shared experiences in which no one else would share, and a shared intimate language that was unique to them, and a sense that what they might break was special and…†   (source)
  • Her ties with her native country had already been severed.†   (source)
  • Now Palmgren was gone, and another tie to established society had been severed.†   (source)
  • Well, that severed maternal relations for the afternoon, and I had no intention of waiting for Bore to come home.†   (source)
  • And certain sounds returned-a silver dollar rolling across a floor, boot steps on hardwood stairs, and the sounds of breathing, the gasps, the hysterical inhalations of a man with a severed windpipe.†   (source)
  • Patrick had walked away to gain his composure and found himself staring down at the man's severed head, the mouth still round with a silent scream.†   (source)
  • Chamsey was excited about severing most of her ties to Iran, and eager to return to California, but the thought of breaking off our sister like relationship saddened both of us.†   (source)
  • Does this mean I'll have a severed head in the afterlife, I wonder stupidly.†   (source)
  • Blood had matted the great thatch of fur on his head, and one ear, half severed, hung down beside his face.†   (source)
  • It will give us both time to think, so that in August we'll know better whether we want the same things, or if it's best to sever our ties and make this separation permanent.†   (source)
  • Thought I had severed my carotid artery.†   (source)
  • The lowest cut was the deepest and it had severed the outer fascia but it had not gone through into the stomach wall.†   (source)
  • Once the spinal cord is severed, there is no hope.†   (source)
  • Of course, when Ethan stopped by that perceived connection severed immediately.†   (source)
  • There is the odd panel with a severed gorgon's head, an angel in armor standing next to it, brandishing a sword dripping blood.†   (source)
  • Because of Adam's eye and severed fingers, "I figured his career as a SEAL was finished," Brad says.†   (source)
  • Then a tender boy of seven would be reciting from the Koran one day with his classmates when the floorboards would give way with a fearful crack and his arteries would be severed by this offensive and unreliable substance.†   (source)
  • He would just be getting into the juicy details of cell replication when his sister would pick up the phone and sever the connection.†   (source)
  • At last some few strands broke and it was only a moment before the entire blackness was severed.†   (source)
  • Razor's target was the smallest thing that is the sum of all things, his bullet the sword that severs the chain that bound me.†   (source)
  • In battle, these would be stained red from blood spurting from severed arteries as the corpsman wrestled one over the stump of a man's missing arm or leg.†   (source)
  • It fell and broke neatly into two pieces, stem severed from body.†   (source)
  • As Frodo left the barrow for the last time he thought he saw a severed hand wriggling still, like a wounded spider, in a heap of fallen earth.†   (source)
  • Leaping atop the cabin, he grabbed a short cutlass from a surprised crewman and began severing the lines that held down the starboard side of the sails.†   (source)
  • The sea is severed from your veins.†   (source)
  • I saw a tiny glove on the door which was phosphorescent in the shadows, and for just a moment I thought it a tiny, severed hand.†   (source)
  • Father Jose Dulce Maria waited for the boy's strong constitution to heal his severed fingers.†   (source)
  • Hungry Joe was a jumpy, emaciated wretch with a fleshless face of dingy skin and bone and twitching veins squirming subcutaneously in the blackened hollows behind his eyes like severed sections of snake.†   (source)
  • On one fold, Snow Flower wrote, We of good affection shall never sever our bond.†   (source)
  • Whatever Sarafine had done to sever the connection between us, it no longer mattered.†   (source)
  • It had been that way ever since she and Peter McGrath had severed their on-again, off-again relationship.†   (source)
  • The Stokerton council was less than pleased with this decision, of course, which isn't surprising in the least, considering the torment that you and your nephew have bestowed upon D'Ablo, who I am sad to report is still alive and recovering, but for his severed hand.†   (source)
  • The moment their connection was severed, they let out a scream so powerful it generated its own wind.†   (source)
  • When he died, it was as if a second umbilical cord had been severed.†   (source)
  • He cut again, aware that the only sound in this room was of two serrated knives cutting through meat into china, severing fibers.†   (source)
  • Sever a few connections, make a few new ones.†   (source)
  • You see, instead of severing the prefrontal lobe, a single lobe, that is, we apply pressure in the proper degrees to the major centers of nerve control-our concept is Gestalt-and the result is as complete a change of personality as you'll find in your famous fairy-tale cases of criminals transformed into amiable fellows after all that bloody business of a brain operation.†   (source)
  • In their fury the crowd hacked off the sovereign's head, severed the nose, clipped the laurels that wreathed the head, and mounted what remained of the head on a spike outside a tavern.†   (source)
  • … We recruited a man at the CIA, an analyst named DeSole who panicked and wanted to sever his relations with us.†   (source)
  • I do not rightly know, even now, what made me so headstrong in this, but it seemed good to me then to sever every tie that bound me to my old life.†   (source)
  • I never had the guts to confront Patsy and sever our ties once and for all.†   (source)
  • Today however, when the girls rode out from the trees and into the sun, all they found was the bloody, severed wing of a bird.†   (source)
  • "Broken, severed, mangled," he said, hammering himself with the hard words.†   (source)
  • If the dominant activity be severed from the rest of the body--if, for example, we cut off the head--the whole coordination collapses, and the animal dies.†   (source)
  • The attainment of independence, the severing of ties, is, at best, a bleak process for both sides; but it is necessary, even though each may grudge it and hold it against the other.†   (source)
  • The corpse swiveled its head toward Max and spoke in Rolfs own voice, as though the boy's vocal cords had not been severed by Umbra's spear.†   (source)
  • Sometimes he saw a dog trotting past with a severed head or an arm in its mouth.†   (source)
  • America had severed diplomatic relations with Havana.†   (source)
  • I don't like to think about it, but I suppose the other angel sawed through joints, severing bones away from the rest of him.†   (source)
  • The news of the continent's severed artery had now engulfed the city, men were deserting their posts, trying, in panic, to abandon New York, seeking escape where all roads were cut off and escape was no longer possible.†   (source)
  • Blood from Mr. Bakwanga, dragged home by his legs, his severed wrists smearing the trail.†   (source)
  • As long as she had it, she didn't sever the bond.†   (source)
  • A mild insecurity about language may be part of the American birthright, psychological residue from the one fiber in the colonial cord that was never quite severed.†   (source)
  • Did you think it all out before, this plan to push our world from its course and sever the cord that links us to the great origin?†   (source)
  • We had to kill him off in our memories, let the shrapnel have him, let the severing and the dying take place in our heads.†   (source)
  • I was glad to see that she had separated it from the guy's severed hand first.†   (source)
  • An older man, whom I recognized as a retired physician from the county hospital, was urging him to lie back, to hold still so he could make certain the main artery hadn't been severed, but Mr. Hickey saw me then and tried to rise, reaching out toward me, moaning, "Don't anyone touch me!†   (source)
  • Bullets were knocking against the tree trunks like woodpeckers, and severed branches fell as if a hundred foresters were in the air above them pruning the greenery.†   (source)
  • Saw much of the work I had done in the way of severed limbs, decapitated bodies, and mutilated remains of all kinds.†   (source)
  • Not even Denny was the type to disappear off the face of the earth, or sever all contact, or stop speaking—or not permanently, at least.†   (source)
  • I've showed the dangers if the knot is severed by ambition or avarice, by jealousy or misrepresentation.†   (source)
  • All about the plateau that harbored his tower were the standards of various bands of goblins; the Goblins of Twisting Spears, Slasher Orcs, the Orcs of the Severed Tongue, and many others, all come to serve the master.†   (source)
  • He saw another dead horse, a splintered wagon; the severed forefoot of a horse lay near him in gray dust.†   (source)
  • He was lying on his stomach in the ditch; his left arm lay severed two feet away.†   (source)
  • She was silent as he inched the blade under the pale pink rosebud, and in one swift motion lifted the knife, her bra severed as she lay naked and exposed.†   (source)
  • The cause, a severed jugular and the resulting loss of blood and oxygen.†   (source)
  • We conferred, agreed that it would be well not to be seen soon, and left severally, myself by a pressure door above the stage leading up to level six.†   (source)
  • Never mind the severed heads and the men on crosses, at least there was some semblance of life.†   (source)
  • It's like saving a severed limb or something."†   (source)
  • Now he could no more excise it from his brain cells than he could sever his past from his future.†   (source)
  • He was too busy healing wounds, binding up torn flesh, connecting severed nerves and straightening broken bones.†   (source)
  • I part the flaps, sever the inner tubes, yank them out and throw them hot and steaming on to the floor.†   (source)
  • Often, during the equinoctial storms, poles and trees came down and power lines were severed.†   (source)
  • After paying out a considerable length of it, I leaned down and used the pliers I had carried with me to sever the wires that held the box to the mast.†   (source)
  • In previous months he had supported the President on major foreign policy issues, including the severing of diplomatic ties with the German government.†   (source)
  • Pressing out of the vase, those roses of hers looked heavy, drunken with their own light and scent, their stems, just two minutes ago severed with Rachel's knife, vivid with pale thorns through cut-glass.†   (source)
  • And …. we've severed the connection with Rome.†   (source)
  • His leg lay in a line of flames with his severed foot wavering beyond it.†   (source)
  • One touch, and the blade will sever your soul from your body.†   (source)
  • No one could be so cruel as to sever such a deep bond.†   (source)
  • My hand jerks, the shears snap shut, severing the stem.†   (source)
  • In a desperate attempt to make them look more manly, he used a Severing Charm on the ruff and cuffs.†   (source)
  • The right rudder was completely shot, a large portion of it missing and its cables severed.†   (source)
  • The severed head had been dipped in tar to preserve it longer.†   (source)
  • I could sever the rope in one shot, didn't I do as much in the Training Center?†   (source)
  • You've got a mark; I'm sorry, I had to use a Severing Charm to get it away.†   (source)
  • — he checked Percy's letter — 'Oh yeah — "sever ties" with me, I swear I won't get violent.'†   (source)
  • "Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," she said.†   (source)
  • Once I dreamed it contained a severed head.†   (source)
  • Meg ran between her opponents, her golden blades severing a leg from each.†   (source)
  • Langdon was not looking forward to telling her about her brother's severed hand.†   (source)
  • He struggled to sever the magic's hold on him-to plug the breach through which his life streamed.†   (source)
  • I told about all the leashes he had severed and the time he peed on our neighbor's ankle.†   (source)
  • She couldn't sever their tie any more than she could cut the wire tethering him to the ship.†   (source)
  • I could see the O of the severed artery.†   (source)
  • No, too long, impossible to sever without tools.†   (source)
  • For some reason they reminded Jack of tiny severed heads.†   (source)
  • It will be tricky, because once they realize we're severing the alliance, we'll be instant targets.†   (source)
  • The holly and phoenix wand was nearly severed in two.†   (source)
  • Louie took a bomb-arming wire and spliced the severed rudder and elevator cables together.†   (source)
  • His world began to spin as he realized he was looking at the severed right hand of Peter Solomon.†   (source)
  • He'd gone ten paces before the unbearable injustice of it all made him unravel like a severed rope.†   (source)
  • Then the severed end snakes up to our feet.†   (source)
  • He desisted only when his partially severed neck seemed about to give way completely.†   (source)
  • The boar's severed right tusk fell at my feet, while the disoriented animal charged into the sea.†   (source)
  • The severed arm was wriggling out of its torn sleeve, a pale snake with a black five-fingered head.†   (source)
  • He was feeling ill again and tried not to look down at his friend's severed hand.†   (source)
  • The hydraulic lines, which controlled the doors, had been severed.†   (source)
  • Langdon looked down at the symbols on his friend's severed hand.†   (source)
  • Usually she wanted to leave her mother, to sever ties entirely.†   (source)
  • He could still remember each blow, severing flesh and bone.†   (source)
  • You can see it's a clean break, his finger traced along the picture of my severed bone.†   (source)
  • One touch, and the blade will sever your soul from your body.†   (source)
  • And Branna would do anything to sever whatever link he might have with you, so you'd be free of it.†   (source)
  • I pace among the severed arms and hollow feet, drinking blackness.†   (source)
  • The severed ends of the grating glowed white-hot, lighting the area with their soft radiance.†   (source)
  • He brought his sword up with his body, severing the Scab's arm at the shoulder.†   (source)
  • For a time she severed relations with her family.†   (source)
  • His large head jerked left to right, and I thought it might sever from his body.†   (source)
  • His other hand was missing, severed at the wrist, the stump bound up in leather.†   (source)
  • He was taken aback to see how easily she had severed all connection with her family.†   (source)
  • It was a standard Guard weapon, well balanced and heavy enough to sever a head with one swipe.†   (source)
  • Horst was already by his son's side, fending off the soldier who had severed Baldor's hand.†   (source)
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