all-grasping

But why, why, my dear, this pining solicitude continued after a reconciliation with relations as unworthy as implacable; whose wills are governed by an all-grasping brother, who finds his account in keeping the breach open?

Clarissa Harlowe 2006

France had placed at her head the most impetuous, subtle, ferocious, and all-grasping, of the monarchs of mankind.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 Various

I trust there are not many such fiends in human shape even in the ranks of the jealous and all-grasping French.

French and English A Story of the Struggle in America Evelyn Everett-Green 1894

State that their "reasonable and firm stand against the all-grasping hand of power in the case of duties had saved the United States!"

The United States of America, Part 1 Edwin Erle Sparks 1892

Even Madame de Polignac, whom the queen specially honored with the title of her friend, exhibited an all-grasping covetousness, of which, with all her efforts to shut her eyes to it,

The Life of Marie Antoinette Yonge, Charles Duke, 1812-1891 1876

From all these, and from the growing richness and abundance of contemporary literature, his all-gifted and all-grasping mind no doubt greedily took in and quickly digested whatever was adapted to please his taste, or enrich his intellect, or assist his art.

Shakespeare His Life Art And Characters Hudson, H N 1872

Articles of a lesser moment nor a thousandth part so useful, did not escape the all-grasping hands of the soldiery.

Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present 1868

The march of improvement led to the need of a railroad through Beanville, and the Partingtonian mansion became a sacrifice to the ruthless spirit of progress, that, all-grasping, stops not at anything in its path, whether it be a homestead or a hemisphere.

Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others of the family 1854

Undoubtedly it is scarcely possible to overstate the all-grasping despotism of Henry VIII., and if a precedent for anything reckless of all separate rights and independence should be wanted, it would never be sought in vain if looked for in the policy and legislation of that reign.

Occasional Papers Selected from the Guardian, the Times, and the Saturday Review, 1846-1890 1852

'Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, inter-meddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those same coffins?

Moby-Dick, or, The Whale 1851