faint

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faint

a sudden spontaneous loss of consciousness, usually momentary, caused by an insufficient supply of blood to the brain
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Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.
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With that the noises grew fainter and fainter, till at last they ceased altogether.
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My first knowledge that I was on the wrong trail came when I heard the yells of the pursuing savages suddenly grow fainter and fainter far off to my left.
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He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer.
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A chorus from Olivette, sung in her clear contralto, grew fainter and fainter until it ended in the slam of a distant door.
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But my hopes have grown fainter and fainter, as the years have gone on.
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Now it grew louder, fainter now, and now it altogether died away.
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I drag this poor woman from the bosom of her family at a minute's notice, and she goes on getting fainter and fainter before my eyes.
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The blows of the basement hammer every day grew more and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the last; the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows fell; the forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother dived down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her thither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a vagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to flaxen curls!
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His struggles grew fainter. I knelt upon his chest, and clasped his brawny throat firmly with both hands.
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I came later but not with fainter zest to the "Aminta" of Tasso, without which, perhaps, the "Pastor Fido" would not have been, and I revelled in the pretty impossibilities of both these charming effects of the liberated imagination.
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Bonacieux called a long time; but as such cries, on account of their frequency, brought nobody in the Rue des Fossoyeurs, and as lately the mercer's house had a bad name, finding that nobody came, he went out continuing to call, his voice being heard fainter and fainter as he went in the direction of the Rue du Bac.
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