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Dainty   Listen
adjective
Dainty  adj.  (compar. daintier; superl. daintiest)  
1.
Rare; valuable; costly. (Obs.) "Full many a deynté horse had he in stable." Note: Hence the proverb "dainty maketh dearth," i. e., rarity makes a thing dear or precious.
2.
Delicious to the palate; toothsome. "Dainty bits Make rich the ribs."
3.
Nice; delicate; elegant, in form, manner, or breeding; well-formed; neat; tender. "Those dainty limbs which nature lent For gentle usage and soft delicacy." "I would be the girdle. About her dainty, dainty waist."
4.
Requiring dainties. Hence: Overnice; hard to please; fastidious; squeamish; scrupulous; ceremonious. "Thew were a fine and dainty people." "And let us not be dainty of leave-taking, But shift away."
To make dainty, to assume or affect delicacy or fastidiousness. (Obs.) "Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty, She, I'll swear, hath corns."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dainty" Quotes from Famous Books



... basis of questionnaire returns classified peculiar children as heavy, tall, short, small, strong, weak, deft, agile, clumsy, beautiful, ugly, deformed, birthmarked, keen and precocious, defective in sense, mind, and speech, nervous, clean, dainty, dirty, orderly, obedient, disobedient, disorderly, teasing, buoyant, buffoon, cruel, selfish, generous, sympathetic, inquisitive, lying, ill-tempered, silent, dignified, frank, loquacious, courageous, timid, whining, spoiled, gluttonous and ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... coarse blue blouse and heavy leggings and a leathern apron took the place of the costly clothing which he had worn in his father's dwelling. On his feet were awkward wooden sandals, and his head was covered with a wolfskin cap. The dainty bed, with its downy pillows, wherein every night his mother had been wont, with gentle care, to see him safely covered, was given up for a rude heap of straw in a corner of the smithy. And the rich food to which he had been used gave place to the coarsest and humblest fare. But ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... herself on her knees by the little pink and white bed. She had no tears—the springs of relief were dried in the flame of her heart's hell. She found Dorothy's pillow, a mass of dainty embroidery and foolish frills. She laid her hot cheek on its cool linen surface. In a passion of loss she kissed each leaf and rose ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... with the best provisions that money can buy, a diet of naught but biscuit and salt meat palls after some weeks—to say nothing of some months—of it; and this all the more in a hot climate, where the appetite weakens, and one comes to pine for dainty cakes such as our Devonshire wives ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... to visit the works, and I had to show them. Queer that, wasn't it? He offered me money when it was over. How much I know not, I would not look at it. Though to be sure, they were perhaps my own rents, eh? But I pointed to the sick box and his own dainty hand deposited ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... Dutch herrings or brought home pennyworths of pea soup or of baked potatoes and rice from a neighboring cook shop. For Festival days, if Malka had subsidized them with a half-sovereign, Esther sometimes compounded Tzimmus, a dainty blend of carrots, pudding and potatoes. She was prepared to write an essay on Tzimmus as a gastronomic ideal. There were other pleasing Polish combinations which were baked for twopence by the local bakers. Tabechas, or stuffed entrails, and liver, lights or milt were ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... him of either party. The son of a mechanic, he fought his way through difficulties to a liberal education, and was thirty years old before his very great abilities attracted general attention. A greedy gormandizer of books in many languages, he had little of the dainty scholarship so much prized at the neighboring university. But the results of his vast reading were stored in a quick and tenacious memory as ready rhetorical material wherewith to convince or astonish. Paradox was a passion with him, that was stimulated ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... had been a long while pacing up and down the deck in front of little Fleda's nest, thinking and thinking, without coming to any end. It was a most fair evening, near sunset, the sky without a cloud, except two or three little dainty strips which set off its blue. The ocean was very quiet, only broken into cheerful mites of waves that seemed to have nothing to do but sparkle. The sun's rays were almost level now, and a long path of glory across the sea led off towards ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... end of eating, the young man arose and entering the tent, brought out a handsome basin and ewer and a silken napkin, whose ends were purfled with red gold and a sprinkling-bottle full of rose-water mingled with musk. I marvelled at his dainty delicate ways and said in my mind, "Never wot I of delicacy in the desert." Then we washed our hands and talked a while, after which he went into the tent and making a partition between himself and me with a piece ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... old Colt's revolver, a 38. On the morning of the murder, after you and the coroner had gone, I found the bullet for which we had searched unsuccessfully, and from that hour to this I have known, what before I had suspected, that this dainty little weapon of Mr. Mainwaring's played no part in the shooting. Here is the bullet, you ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... there stood a young man and young woman, handsome and well-dressed, who assisted her to land. They led her into a good house and into a pretty room with concrete floor, a European bedstead, clean and dainty, with mosquito curtains and all the appointments that indicated people of taste. The man was Onoyom Iya Nya, a born statesman, the only one in the district who had not been disarmed by the Government, and the one who had been chosen President of the Native Court, and was shaping well as a wise ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... but was stopped by some one coming out. Sylvia! Never more beautiful than now! Echochee put up both arms to stop her and I noticed—for in tense moments one's eyes retain some of the most insignificant details—how incongruously her brown old bony fingers sank into the dainty folds of her lady's morning gown. But Sylvia would not be stopped. She placed a hand on the woman's shoulder and spoke a few hurried words, then raised her head and looked imperiously ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... Swedish maiden of uncertain caligraphy. Heavenly powers! I turn the sheet to the light from the galley. Surely no mortal can decipher such a farrago of alphabetical obscurity. And I do so want to know what Marianna says for herself. I love Marianna, for the mighty Norseman says she is small and dainty, and her eyes are grey, and—and—well, the resemblance doesn't end there; so when I tell my friend, he may laugh as much as he pleases. But there had been a quarrel (in German script), and the mighty Norseman had grown mightily ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... hunger, he began to grow fastidious. Chancing upon a plant which was not to his taste, he beat it over his fore leg and afterwards tossed it upwards with his trunk, as if he wanted to say, "Eat this dainty yourselves;" finally, after having appeased his hunger and thirst, he began to fan with his prodigious ears ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... "how fair he looks, with his unruffled wings, with his unhacked sword, and clad in his bright armor, and that exquisitely fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest Paradisiacal mode! What a dainty air of the first celestial society! With what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled foot on the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that virtue looks the moment after its death struggle with evil? ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of the bald eagle, though habituated to long fasting, is of the most voracious and often the most indelicate kind. Fish, when he can obtain them, are preferred to all other fare. Young lambs and pigs are dainty morsels, and made free with on all favourable occasions. Ducks, geese, gulls, and other sea fowl, are also seized with avidity. The most putrid carrion, when nothing better can be had, is acceptable; and the collected groups of gormandizing vultures, on the approach of this dignified ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various

... saw in the dim light a dainty figure, opera coat flowing away from gleaming arms and shoulders, a face with its halo of gold brown hair, with soft brown eyes ashine and eager parted lips, a vision of fluttering, bewildering loveliness bearing down upon him ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... anything that could be called food, he would, when returning, manage to secure a wild duck, perhaps, or a couple of sea magpies, or a few young gulls. Nothing came amiss to the young Coombers at any time, and just now a tough stringy gull was a dainty morsel. ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie

... pretty little Phyllis has been an inmate of my house. Marigold keeps a sort of non-commissioned parent's eye on her. To him she seems to be still the child whom he fed solicitously but unemotionally with Mrs. Marigold's cakes at tea parties years ago. She gives me a daughter's dainty affection. Thank God ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... with diverse dainty arms, A purple girdle and a coat of mail? And yet to win the maid of peerless charms For whom thou dar'st the battle ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... the pretty bar-maid, upon whom also devolved the duties of waitress, hastened to place before us a smoking dish of eggs and bacon, which we had chosen in preference to red herrings—the only other dainty the Dolphin had to offer us—Coleman observing that a "hard roe" was the only part of a herring worth eating, and we had had that already, as ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... that of the king, was seated the Lady of the Tournament, the Princess Louise, and her maids of honor, arrayed all in snowy garb, and, against the garish brilliancy of the general background, a pompous pageantry of colors, the decoration of this dainty nook shone in silvery contrast. A garland of flowers was the only crown the lady wore; no other adornment had her fair shoulders save their own argent beauty, of which the fashion of the day permitted a discernible suggestion. One arm hung languorously ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... the brideswain the following summer. The fair white sheets and pillow-cases were moved to an under-shelf. The upper half of the chest was filled to overflowing with tiny garments fashioned by Mabel's own fingers, skilful indeed at this dainty work. No more woodcarving now, but endless rows of stitchery, tiny tucks and delicate dotting, all ready to welcome the little son who arrived before the summer's close, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... Mrs. Whitney inspected the dainty note-paper and forceful handwriting through her gold lorgnette. The word of Miss Kiametia Grey was as the law of the Medes and Persians to her many friends, and Mrs. Whitney had a high regard for the wealthy spinster who cloaked her warm-hearted impulsiveness under an erratic and often ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... laughed. "I should say not!" he exclaimed. "Twice Chippy and Mrs. Chippy have built their nest in this very old apple-tree. There is no trash in their nest, I can tell you! It is just as dainty as they are, and not a bit bigger than it has to be. It is made mostly of little fine, dry roots, and it is ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... theme an idea which embodies good things. Avoid anything coarse or suggestive. Make your stories clean, wholesome, happy—a dainty love story, a romantic adventure, a deed gloriously accomplished, a lesson well learned, an act of charity repaid—anything of a dramatic nature which is as honest as daylight. Good deeds are just ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... to her mother's amazed view the picture of little Vivian. It was taken in stage costume, and represented Vivian in one of her clever acrobatic feats. Her pretty child-face wore a sweet smile, and the whole effect of the photograph was dainty and graceful. Across a corner was scrawled the word "Vivian" in ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... mainly for catching small game, such as the beautiful little gazelles (Ncheri) with dark gray skins on the upper part of the body, white underneath, and satin-like in sleekness all over. Their form is very dainty, the little legs being no thicker than a man's finger, the neck long and the head ornamented with little pointed horns and broad round ears. The nets are tied on to trees in two long lines, which converge to an acute angle, the bottom part of the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... upon the floor. An oval table, covered with a daintily embroidered cloth, stood in the center. There was a pretty lamp, with a bright Japanese shade upon it. There were also a few books in choice bindings, and a dainty work-basket filled with implements for sewing. A few pictures—some done with pen and ink, others in crayon, but all showing great talent and nicety of execution—hung, in simple frames, upon the walls. The two windows of the apartment were screened by ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... Blangy, Burgundy. She was nineteen years old, in 1823, and had held this place for more than three years, although Gregoire Rigou never kept servants for a longer period than this, however much he might and did favor them. Annette, sweet, blonde, delicate, a true masterpiece of dainty, piquant loveliness, worthy to wear a duchess' coronet, earned nevertheless only thirty francs a year. She kept company with Jean-Louis Tonsard without letting her master once suspect it; ambition had prompted ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... this is a boy's book. For the rest, the characters live. Only genius could have invented John Silver, that terribly smooth-spoken mariner. Nothing but genius could have drawn that simple yokel on the island, with his craving for cheese as a Christian dainty. The blustering Billy Bones is a little masterpiece: the blind Pew, with his tapping stick (there are three such blind tappers in Mr. Stevenson's books), strikes terror into the boldest. Then, the treasure is thoroughly satisfactory in kind, and there ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... the Cockney pleasure-seekers of both sexes rode races and made wonderful displays of horsemanship. By way of refreshment there was gingerbread (but, as a true patriot, I must pronounce it greatly interior to our native dainty), and ginger-beer, and probably stauncher liquor among the booth-keeper's hidden stores. The frequent railway-trains, as well as the numerous steamers to Greenwich, have made the vacant portions of Blackheath a play-ground ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... admiring a people against whom so odious a crime is chargeable. But this only enormity in their character is not half so horrible as it is usually described. According to the popular fictions, the crews of vessels, shipwrecked on some barbarous coast, are eaten alive like so many dainty joints by the uncivil inhabitants; and unfortunate voyagers are lured into smiling and treacherous bays; knocked on the head with outlandish war-clubs; and served up without any prelimary dressing. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... washed the feet of thirteen poor men daily. He sat in the cloister like one of the monks, studying the canon law and the Holy Scriptures. He joined their prayers in the Church and took part in their secret councils. The monks who had suffered under the heavy hand of Theobald, when their dainty foods were curtailed and their cherished privileges sharply denied them, hailed joyfully the unexpected attitude of their new master. "This is the finger of God," men said, "this, indeed, is the work of the right hand of the ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light one of the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest on its dainty cushions. ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... to Margaret and back again; looked down into her violet eyes, deep with wonder and with love, more beautiful than any jewel in all her gorgeous costume. Unheeding the presence of the others, she put her dainty hands upon his mighty shoulders and ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... This dainty little execution was hardly over when Teddy shouted from the bedroom, "Oh, the little trabs are out, and the big one's eaten 'em all up." Demi and his aunt ran to the rescue, and found Teddy dancing excitedly in a chair, while two little crabs were scuttling about ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... fortieth year. And still pretty, displaying a smiling serenity which nothing could disconcert, she purely and simply basked in self-adoration. Her gown was of pink satin, and a marvellous parure of large rubies set flamelets about her dainty neck and in her fine, fair hair. Of her five children, her son, the eldest, was travelling, and three of the girls, mere children, were still at school, so that only Celia was present, Celia in a modest gown of white muslin, fair like her mother, quite bewitching with her ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... smiled across the fire at her dainty little guest. "The best things in the world,—which fortunately isn't a desert island,—come about by cooperation," she said. "Be independent; think for yourself, of course, but get all the help you can from other people ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... found, but there is an unkempt servant in the kitchen, who probably does not see any use in making her toilet more than once a week. To this fearful creature is intrusted the dainty duty of preparing breakfast. Her indifference is equal to her lack of information, and her ability to convey information is fettered by her use of Gaelic as her native speech. But she directs us to the stable. There we find ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the meditations of its former occupant. A century of unhindered summers had taken the heat from its colours—the couches, the curtains half shading the windows, which the rain in the south- west wind just then touched so softly. That great passion of old had been also a dainty love, leaving [22] its impress everywhere in this magic apartment, on the musical instruments, the books lying where they might have fallen from the hands of the listless reader so long since, the fragrance which the lad's movement stirred around ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... Horace Walpole was "a dainty rogue in porcelain" who walked badly. In his best days, as he records in one of his letters, it was said of him that he "tripped like a pewit." "If I do not flatter myself," he wrote when he was just under sixty, "my march at present is more like a dab-chick's." ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... now in the heart of Mademoiselle, as her father went below that he might carry out his barbarous design. She was deaf to the dainty trifles which the most elegant Chevalier de Jacquelin was murmuring into her ear. She stood, a tall, queenly figure, at the balcony's parapet and watched the preparations that were ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... deck of the larger vessel, a passenger steamer passing toward the east, the man sat with another young woman, and the two idly speculated upon the identity of the dainty craft gliding so gracefully through the gentle ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... garrison to-night receives a pint of horse essence hot. I tasted it in the cauldron, straight from the horse, and found it so sustaining that I haven't eaten anything since. The dainty Kaffirs and Colonial Volunteers refuse to eat horse in any form. But the sensible British soldier takes to it like a vulture, and begs for the lumps of stewed flesh from which the soup has been made. With the joke, "Mind that stuff; it kicks!" he carries it away, and ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... large, that, when the creature is swimming on the surface, a strong side-wind will sometimes blow it over. It is a blue-fish on a big scale, or a Semmes in the sea, hungry as famine, fierce as plague, dainty as a Roman epicure, yet omnivorous as time. The seal is its South-Down mutton, the tongue of the whale its venison; for whenever its numbers are sufficient, it will attack this huge cetacean, and torture him till he submits and gives ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... his back wet to the bone. At the corner of the next hedge was the wicket gate of old Master Grocer Badge. There the magister would find at least a piece of bread, some salt and warmed mead. Judge Combers' wife was easy and bounteous: but old John Badge's daughter was a fair and dainty morsel. ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... frock to be put on, which always seemed several degrees tighter than the everyday ones. Then came breakfast, an hour later on Sundays, to distinguish it from week days. Another distinguishing mark was the absence of the usual porridge and the presence of a plate of drop scones, a favourite dainty of Marjory's which Lisbeth ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... went down into my studio. Tessie sat by the window, but as I came in she rose and put both arms around my neck for an innocent kiss. She looked so sweet and dainty that I kissed her again and then sat down ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... The young wife, daintily frilled in pink, sat at her end of the table in very apparent ill-humor—the young husband, quite unconscious of her, read the morning paper with evident interest. Below the picture there was a sharp criticism of the young man's neglect of his pretty wife and her dainty gown. Personally I sympathize with the young man and believe it would be a happier home if she were as interested in the paper as he and were reading the other half of it instead ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... worthy little man prided himself, was to place a visitor opposite to the Abbey, with his back to it, and bid him bend down and look at it between his legs. This, he said, gave an entire different aspect to the ruin. Folks admired the plan amazingly, but as to the "leddies," they were dainty on the matter, and contented themselves with looking from under their arms. As Johnny Bower piqued himself upon showing everything laid down in the poem, there was one passage that perplexed him sadly. It was the opening of one ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... bits of furniture of singular shape,—a "duchesse," a chaise-longue, a stiff little sofa,—with window-curtains of silk, like that of the furniture, lined with pink satin, and caught back with silken ropes, and a carpet of Savonnerie; in short, we find here all those elegant, rich, sumptuous, and dainty things in the midst of which the women of the eighteenth century lived and ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... above another that Mary Jane loved to do, it was to dress up in her best clothes. She loved the feel of the soft, fine materials and she liked the crisp hair ribbons and dainty shoes. She was so glad that her mother had let her bring her brand new dress that she had worn to her birthday party and the wide pink hair ribbon and sash that went with it. Grandmother said they would dress before supper ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson

... the image-maker recovered his strength; and meanwhile Phidias had filled the little shop with dainty-wrought images and graceful vases, such as had ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... "Art thou dainty, alien? Wouldst thou have flesh? Well, give me thy bow and an arrow or two, since thou art lazy- sick, and I will get thee a coney or a hare, or a quail maybe. Ah, I forgot; thou art dainty, and wilt not eat flesh as I do, blood and all together, but must needs half burn it ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... the reader to his pleasant journey to the lands of Djinns and Mantris and spells and mystic talismans. He will be entertained by the chrestomathy of Bokhari; he will be entranced by the story of the winsome and dainty Bidasari. ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... you first came hyar, I guessed that the something wrong must be different from a love-scrape. Sartint, a man stayin' at the Choctaw Chief, and sporting the cheap rig as you've got on, wan't likely to be aspirin' to sech dainty damsels as them. You'll give in, yourself, it looked a leetle queer; ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... time Fan was compelled to fare delicately, and each day in place of the simple quickly-eaten and soon-forgotten chop, there came to her table a soup with some new flavour, a bit of fish—salmon cutlets, or a couple of smelts, or dainty whitebait with lemon and brown bread-and- butter, or a red mullet in its white wrapper—and exquisitely-tasting little made dishes, and various sweets of unknown names. Nor was there wanting bright colour to relieve the monotony of white napery and please the eye—wine, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... places are field-pieces pitch'd, Bombards, whole barrels full of gunpowder, That on the sudden shall dissever it, And batter all the stones about their ears, Whence none can possibly escape alive: Now, as for Calymath and his consorts, Here have I made a dainty gallery, The floor whereof, this cable being cut, Doth fall asunder, so that it doth sink Into a deep pit past recovery. Here, hold that knife; and, when thou seest he comes, [Throws down a knife.] And with his bassoes shall be blithely ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe

... parson told him of my plans already?" thought Anna. But Lohm had not seen Manske that morning, and was only picturing this little thing to himself, this dainty little lady, used to such a different life, alone in the empty house, struggling with her small supply of German to make the two raw servants understand her ways. Anna was not a little thing at all, and she would have been half-amused and half-indignant if she had known that that ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... asked, he confessed he could "strum a little," and he seemed to see the evident wonder and admiration he awakened in the minds of many to whom such "strumming" as his was infinitely more delightful than more practiced, finished playing. Just now he seemed undecided,—he commenced a dainty little prelude of Chopin's, then broke suddenly off, and wandered into another strain, wild, pleading, pitiful, and passionate,—a melody so weird and dreamy that even the stolid Macfarlane paused in his toddy-sipping, and Duprez looked ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... temporarily invested them with a capricious effulgence. Yet these instantaneous transformations have a peculiar charm for Browning; they touch and fall in with his fundamental ideas of life; and the delicious prologue and epilogue hint these graver analogies in a dainty music which pleasantly relieves the riotous uncouthness of the tale itself. If Rene's life is suddenly lighted up, so is the moss bank with the "blue flash" of violets in spring; and the diplomatic sister through whose service Paul wins his laurels has a more spiritual comrade in the cicada, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... of joy. A ray of sunlight came through the trees, dazzling her eyes so that she had to close them for a moment. When she opened them again the frog had gone, and nothing was to be seen but the dainty rose-petals floating on the ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans

... evidently intended for food. That gentleman also says, that he has frequently found the bulb of the common blue hyacinth lying near the hole. They devour, besides all sorts of vegetables, small animals whether alive or dead, snails and worms; but their peculiar dainty consists of eggs. A partridge's nest affords them a delicious feast, particularly if ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... Administration. He had a reading lamp on his desk, and I remember noticing that the light shining through its green shade imparted a yellow parchment-like effect to the top of his old bald head. With dainty care he finished sealing the envelope, then, picking up a telephone transmitter, he snapped "Admiralty!" In about a minute he was connected, and to my astonishment I realized that he was talking to the duty captain of ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon

... to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he has tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours,—and a dainty meal for him ye ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... Markheim said huskily, "I have in some degree complied with evil. But it is so with all: the very saints, in the mere exercise of living, grow less dainty, and take on ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... cottage in a little town And well have a little mistress in a dainty gown, A little doggie, a little cat, A little doorstep with WELCOME on the mat; And we'll have a little trouble and a little strife, But none of these things matter when you've got a little wife. We shall be as happy as the angels up above With ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... Victorian revival of chivalry the Language of Flowers had some considerable vogue. The Romeo of the mutton-chop whiskers was expected to keep this delicate symbolism in view, and even to display his wit by some dainty conceits in it. An ignorance of the code was fraught with innumerable dangers. A sprig of lilac was a suggestion, a moss-rosebud pushed the matter, was indeed evidence to go to court upon; and unless Charlotte parried with white poplar—a by no means accessible flower—or ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... a grand fight with clubs, or arrows and spears. Three or four are generally killed in the onslaught, and as many of the survivors as are fortunate enough to get a bite, feast upon the fat of the victims' hearts. This fat is their richest dainty. Those who are able to form an opinion on the subject, pronounce the aborigines of this colony to be cannibals. Many of their children disappear, and it is generally supposed that they are devoured by their friends ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... lone hours with our heads in our hands, the toil, the patient study, the rough carving of the outlines, the dainty, delicate finishing touches, the growing into the soul of the being we delineate, the picture of his outward semblance, his voice, his gait, his speech, all amount to a labour of such stress and strain, of such loving anxiety and care, that they can be compared in my mind only to a mother's ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... that luve of mine, Gude faith, I freely bought A wedding sark of Holland fine, Wi' dainty ruffles wrought; And he gied me a wedding-ring, Which I received wi' joy; Nae lad nor lassie e'er could sing Like ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... &c. (beauty) 845; sunny side, bright side; sweets &c. (sugar) 396; goodness &c. 648; manna in the wilderness, land flowing with milk and honey; bittersweet; fair weather. treat; regale &c. (physical pleasure) 377; dainty; titbit[obs3], tidbit; nuts, sauce piquante[Fr]. V. cause pleasure, produce pleasure, create pleasure, give pleasure, afford pleasure, procure pleasure, offer pleasure, present pleasure, yield pleasure &c. 827. please, charm, delight, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... head,—that is, feet, tail, head, and tongue, lungs, liver, spleen, omentum, pancreas, and heart, together with the intestines. The rich man is hardly likely to choose much of this food, the tongue and sweetbreads being the only dainty bits; but there are wholesome and savory dishes to be made from every part, and the knowledge of their preparation may be of greatest value to a poorer neighbor. Both ox-tails and head make excellent soup. Tripe, the inner lining of the stomach, is, if properly prepared, ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... office. This was usually the case, but to-day Susan, realizing that the newcomer would probably be late, wished that she had the shred of an excuse to be late herself, to have an entrance, as it were. Her plain suit had been well brushed, and the coat was embellished by a fresh, dainty collar and wide cuffs of white linen. Susan had risen early to wash and press these, and they were very becoming to her fresh, unaffected beauty. But they must, of course, be hung in the closet, and Susan, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... shallow torquoise-tinted waters at anchor, rocking gently just off the snowy coral reef on which we were now camping. The youthful waitress who, for economy's sake, wore her cap, apron, collar and cuffs over her dainty print dress, was seated by the signal fire writing in her diary. Sometimes she thoughtfully touched her pencil point with the tip of her tongue; sometimes she replenished the fire from a pile of dead mangrove branches heaped up on the coral reef beside her. Whatever ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... either to her or to Mrs. Taylor; and Molly veered aside from any trend of talk she foresaw was leading toward that subject. But in those hours when no visitors came, and he was by himself in the quiet, he would lie often sombrely contemplating the girl's room, her little dainty knickknacks, her home photographs, all the delicate manifestations of what she came from and what she was. Strength was flowing back into him each day, and Judge Henry's latest messenger had brought him clothes and mail from Sunk ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... the fire blazed brightly, the lamp on the console at the side of the room threw a soft pleasant glow on the dainty table set out temptingly for "afternoon tea," which, notwithstanding their long residence in France, Auntie and her nieces were very fond of. And with the little exertion of making all as bright and pretty as they could, the girls' ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives passed in traveling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their courtly patients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... to either is to be found throughout the twelve volumes of his Diary. Not even in the simple form of the "good story" could he find pleasure, and subtler delicacies were wasted on his well-regulated mind as dainty French dishes would be on the wholesome palate of a day-laborer. The books which bore the stamp of well-established approval, the acknowledged classics of the English, Latin, and French languages he read with a mingled sense of duty and of pleasure, and evidently with cultivated appreciation, ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... training; it will require tact; and this afternoon I engaged exactly the right person. She is a gentlewoman by birth, has nursed for me before, and is well up in the special knowledge of mental things which this case requires. Also she is a pretty, dainty little thing; just the kind of elegant young woman poor Dal would have liked to have about him when he could see. He was such a fastidious chap about appearances, and such a connoisseur of good looks. I have written a descriptive account of her to Dr. Mackenzie, and he ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... changes. But one thing, which some young sparks, with a forwardness neither becoming in them nor respectful to me, have ventured to suggest, even in my presence—that we who lived in the old war time were a rougher breed and less dainty and chivalrous than the Buckinghams and Bassompierres of to-day—I roundly deny. On the contrary, I would have these to know that he who rode in the wars with Henry of Guise—or against him—had for his example not only the handsomest but the most courtly man of all times; and has nothing ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... very good tea by putting my packet of the fragrant leaves into the bushmen's kettle, and drinking it afterwards out of one of their pannikins. He tried to bribe me to this latter piece of simplicity by promising to wash the tin pannikin out for me first. Now I was not dainty or over particular; I could not have enjoyed my New Zealand life so thoroughly if I had been either; but I did not like the idea of using the bushmen's tea equipage. In the first place, the tea never tastes the same when made in their way, and allowed to boil for a moment or two after ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... bully, thoroughly cowardly, but thought by his dupes to be an amazing hero. He lodged with Cob (the water-carrier) and his wife Tib. Master Stephen was greatly struck with his "dainty oaths," such as "By the foot of Pharaoh!" "Body of Caesar!" "As I am a gentleman and a soldier!" His device to save the expense of a standing army is inimitable ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... "Away, ye dainty elves, ye have served my turn to-day, and I shall not forget." They danced to exquisite waltz music, hovering above Faust, and gradually disappeared in the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... Shakspeare says, kept the word of promise to his ear, but broken it to his hope, and, what was still worse, to his appetite. On sitting down, he found before him two excellent salt herrings to begin with; and on ringing the bell to inquire why he was provided with such a dainty, the male waiter himself, who had finished the field he had been ploughing, made his appearance, after a delay of about five minutes, very coolly wiping his mouth, for he had ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... blinded by my bashfulness, I caught my toe in a small hole in aunt's rag carpet, the result being that I very abruptly deposited both glasses of milk, bottom up, in the lap of Blue-Eyes. A feeling of horror overpowered me as I saw that exquisite toilet in ruins—those dainty ruffles, those cunning bows the color of her eyes, ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... see how she managed to overlook mine," sighed Miss Allen, laying a dainty, gloved finger upon a nose that had the tiniest possible tilt to it. "Nobody ever overlooked my nose before; it's almost worth walking ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... out of right-hand pocket.) Well, there's nothing in that one but a box of matches. How about this one? (She thrusts her hand into the lower left-hand pocket, and pulls out a letter, written on dainty writing paper.) Ah! this is what I expected to find. Perfumed note paper. (She looks at it critically.) Yes, this is the one—no need ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... to her feet, and the Teacup lifted her dainty little skirt ever so slightly. The minute the perfume from the dimples reached the Snimmy (he couldn't smell those in Sara's hand, of course, so long as she was sitting down), he sprang to his feet, quivering; but almost immediately he caught a whiff of the onions, and sank down again, ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... an improving effect upon the quality of that animal's fleece, which nowhere reaches greater perfection than in New South Wales. Cattle also thrive and increase very much in the Australian settlements, and animals of all kinds in New South Wales are exceedingly dainty: if shut up in a field of good grass they will starve themselves with fretting rather than eat it, they are so anxious to get out upon the sweet natural pastures. Although it is to be hoped and expected that, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... be victor at the Olympic games, you say. Yes, but weigh the conditions, weigh the consequences; then and then only, lay to your hand—if it be for your profit. You must live by rule, submit to diet, abstain from dainty meats, exercise your body perforce at stated hours, in heat or in cold; drink no cold water, nor, it may be, wine. In a word, you must surrender yourself wholly to your trainer, as ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... this famous repast. It began with mandarin bird's-nest soup, with plover's eggs floating about in it. This is a most delicious and dainty dish, and is invariably given to strangers on their first arrival. I had no idea how expensive the nests were—54 dollars a 'pice,' weighing something under a pound, and it takes two or three ounces to make enough soup for ten people. We had a very pleasant evening, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... crescents of a thousand minarets, now dancing with fairy feet over the rippling waters of Marmora, now dallying with the spray of the oarsmen's blades, as they pulled the gilded caique of some rich old Mussulman up the tide of the Golden Horn. The soft and dainty scented air came in light zephyrs off the shore of Asia to play upon the European coast, and altogether it was a dreamy, siesta-like hour hat reigned in ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray

... had both chosen white, Jessica a dainty flowered organdie, and Nora a pale pink dimity. Eva Allen also had selected white. Marian Barber alone refused to give her friends any satisfaction as to what she intended to wear. "Wait and see," she had answered. "I want my gown to be a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... in an alcove, stood Krishna's casket. In larger boxes, lined with sandalwood, her many-tinted silks and saris lay lovingly folded. Another casket held her jewels, and arranged on a row of shelves stood her dainty array of shoes—gold and silver and pale brocades: an intimate ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... England where bygone romance finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest of old-fashioned love stories * * * A rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... had a dainty and fantastic taste in the matter of letter-paper and envelopes. She used none but French stationery, stamped with her monogram—a curious device, wrought in two colors—and at the top of each sheet stood ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... congenial pair. Their tastes were similar; they liked the same people, the same books, the same plays. Eunice approved of Sanford's correct ways and perfect intuitions and he admired her beauty and dainty grace. ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells

... sprightly chatter would serve the poor player almost as it stands. It is not too late to think about the comedy. In the meanwhile the novel does very well, and if he had made his story a book for the play, we should have missed many dainty descriptions of scenery. Nothing is so good as his description of the Lake District in Autumn, unless it be his pictures of the surroundings ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various

... Hudsoni? Another species not often seen, but well worth culture, is A. coerulea, a kind with finely cut leaves and purplish blue flowers. Then A. coronaria, The Bride, a pure creamy white kind, with flowers 3 inches across, raised by Van Velsen, of Haarlem, is really a good addition to these dainty blossoms, and affords a vivid contrast to the fiery A. fulgens. I have received this year some roots of anemones, iris, and other hardy flowers from the site of ancient Troy, and trust that some of these, if not new, will be beautiful ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... see where your favourite authors lived, but Washington Irving's dear old Dutch house is just right. It is like a beautiful living body with his memory for its soul: yes, a charming body with all his quaintnesses and unexpectednesses and dainty mysteries. It looks at least as old as the seventeenth century, but only a nucleus of the rambling, many-windowed, creeper-clad mansion is really old. There's a romance about that part, by the way, but perhaps you know ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... own crop of corn yonder upon the flat, which I have watched since the day when it first shot up its little dainty spears of green, until now it spindles has been faithfully ploughed and fed and tilled; but how gross appliances all these, to the fine fibrous feeders that have been searching, day by day, every cranny of the soil,—to the broad leaflets that, week by week, have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various



Words linked to "Dainty" :   delicacy, savory, nutrition, overnice, treat, sustenance, jelly, marrow, ambrosia, mincing, alimentation, refined, nutriment, niminy-piminy, prissy, exquisite, fastidious, bone marrow, tidbit, squeamish, tasty, nice, twee, aliment, choice morsel, victuals, sweet, daintiness, kickshaw, titbit, prim, delicate, savoury, goody, nectar



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