Meaning of devil-ridden | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Plagued or dominated by the devil or devils.
2. Possessed by a devil or devils.
3. Suffering from mental anguish.
   figuratively
4. Wild, crazed.
   figuratively

Examples

“To VVrangle the Devil, out of the Country, vvill be truly a Nevv Experiment⟳! Alas, vve are not Avvare of the Devil, if vve do not think⟳, that he aims at Enflaming us one againſt another; & ſhall vve ſuffer our ſelves to be Devil-Ridden? or, by any Vnadviſableneſs, contribute⟳ unto the VVidening of our Breaches?”

“"We are devil-ridden, Mr. Holmes! My poor parish is devil-ridden!" he cried. "Satan himself is loose in it! We are given over into his hands!"”

“The faithful Zoroastrian has never had anything to do with Ahriman but to fight⟳ him and destroy⟳ his creation. It was a veritable emancipation for devil-ridden souls, ever cringing with fear before powers of darkness possessing vague but intensely real capacity for mischief.”

“[…] he plunges into the struggles of the multitude below, and frees the devil-ridden boy from the demon that possessed him.”

“I look⟳ across the long grass, lush with disintegrating corpses, and imagine⟳ that Prussia may have⟳ laid hold⟳ of you for other pursuits than philology. Perhaps it is you whose machine-gun taps every night like⟳ a devil-ridden typewriter against this particular area of our parapet?”

“1948, William Thomas Walsh, New York: Macmillan, Chapter 12, p. 100, He exorcised the fierce demoniac in the land⟳ of the Gerasens, whom no man had been able to tame or even to keep⟳ chained among the tombs; and Peter saw⟳ the fearful spectacle of the thousand devil-ridden swine thundering down a rocky declivity to perish in the churning waters, like⟳ damned souls plunging into hell.”

“1878, William Morris, letter cited in John William Mackail, The Life of William Morris, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899, Volume I, Chapter 11, p. 370, I am still plaguy lame, a very limpet, but not so devil-ridden as I was. I think⟳ that came of that infernal furnace-heat we were in, the last⟳ few days of Italy […]”

“He was so gifted, so lovable, but so great an extremist, they said; he overdrove himself always one way or another; and when he married the wrong woman, the mistake⟳ tortured him more than it might have⟳ done other men. “He’s devil-ridden with that temperament of his,” Bricksham said once to his wife.”

“1938, R. Thurston Hopkins, “The Tower of the Forty Companions” in Ghosts and Goblins, London: The World’s Work⟳,[1938], p. 88, This, of course, was merely the semi-delirious notions of a man devil ridden by fever and nerves […]”

“In the picture Return⟳ of Rusty […] the little refugee boy, Loddy, is still devil-ridden with his memories of the war.”

“[…] Grandmaster Werner […] had lain down in Marienburg one afternoon of this year 1330, to take⟳ his siesta, and was dreaming peaceably after a moderate repast, when a certain devil-ridden mortal, Johann von Endorf, one of his Ritters, long grumbling about severity, want⟳ of promotion and the like⟳, rushed in upon the good old man; ran him through, dead for a ducat […]”

“Ten minutes later in his room under the eaves his last⟳ thoughts were of the young trader at the wheel of the Seal Pup driving his craft recklessly through the night waters, his devil-ridden eyes fixed on—what?”

“I belong⟳ to what I suspect⟳ is the majority: those who don’t give⟳ a monkeys about goal and appearance records anyway. […] They are just a form⟳ of player stats, after all, and we all know⟳ what right-minded football fans think⟳ of that devil-ridden number-crunchery.”

CEFR level