Careful Words

fiend (n.)

Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on,

And turns no more his head,

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): The Ancient Mariner. Part vi.

Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 2.

I pull in resolution, and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend

That lies like truth: "Fear not, till Birnam wood

Do come to Dunsinane."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.

Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind

Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 531.

  We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman,—scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang.

Colley Cibber (1671-1757): Love's Last Shift. Act iv.

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act i. Sc. 4.

Man-like is it to fall into sin,

Fiend-like is it to dwell therein;

Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,

God-like is it all sin to leave.

John Sirmond (1589(?)-1649): Sin. (Sinngedichte.)