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Fawn   Listen
noun
Fawn  n.  A servile cringe or bow; mean flattery; sycophancy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fawn" Quotes from Famous Books



... 1865, Mueller in 1893, estimated his albedo at 0.62 and 0.75 respectively, that of fresh-fallen snow being 0.78, and of white paper 0.70.[1048] But the disc of Jupiter is by no means purely white. The general ground is tinged with ochre; the polar zones are leaden or fawn coloured; large spaces are at times stained or suffused with chocolate-browns and rosy hues. It is occasionally seen ruled from pole to pole with dusky bars, and is never wholly free from obscure markings. The reflection, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... universal—which adopts us from the cradle—which distinguishes our birth by our tears, hallows the sentiment of grief to us from the beginning, and maintains the fountains which supply its sorrows to the end. The lamb skips, the calf leaps, the fawn bounds, the bird chirps, the young colt frisks; all things but man enjoy life from its very dawn. He alone is feeble, suffering. His superior pangs and sorrows are the first proofs of his ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place. Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More bent to raise the ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... off before the smoke had cleared sufficiently for me to see him. From what I had heard, I was disappointed at not seeing more game. The other party had not killed anything, although they caught a little fawn, having frightened away ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... says there's nothing but fawn-color, and that won't do. So we're all to wear white, with lots of frills. And we're to have feathers on our heads instead of ribbon bows, and we're to carry feather fans. I wish I was in ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... the office, humming lightly. He seemed to be annoyed by the people he found there. He glared at Bulger, at old Metzeger, at the other clerks, and especially at Tully. Tully looked uncomfortable. He wasn't a gazelle after all. He was a startled fawn. ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... drunkard, a swearer, a strumpet, a thief, nay, a dog, than with an honest-hearted Christian? If you say no, what means your sour carriage to the people of God? Why do you look on them as if you would eat them up? Yet at the very same time if you can but meet your dog, or a drunken companion, you can fawn upon them, take acquaintance with them, to the tavern or ale house with them, if it be two or three times in a week. But if the saints of God meet together, pray together, and labour to edify one another, you will stay till doomsday before you will look into the house ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... a scarlet coat, with long skirts, buttoned across, with a red silk sash, grey pantaloons, and a grey military great coat, and a seal-skin cap, I think it was a seal-skin cap, on his head, of a fawn colour. ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... it is hard for one so long parted from him to tell thee what thou hast asked. It is now twenty years since I saw Odysseus. He wore a purple mantle that was fastened with a brooch. And this brooch had on it the image of a hound holding a fawn between its fore-paws. All the people marvelled at this brooch, for it was of gold, and the fawn and the hound were done to the life. And I remember that there was a henchman with Odysseus—he was a man ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum

... though Carovius used every available opportunity from then on to flatter the young nobleman in his cunning, crafty way, he failed. The most he could do was to inspire Eberhard to lift his thrush-bearded chin in the air and make some sarcastic remark. Fawn as he might, Carovius ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... third "close-up" the actor registered the deepness of his love by thrusting his chin forward and staring unblinkingly over John's head. It was an effective piece of facial expression, John thought, as the actor's eyes were as soft as a fawn's. Photographs of Richard Barthelmess and John Barrymore in similar poses ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... Dixie. And in the hour of triumph where will the pro-slavery traitors be then? Where? Where they always strive to be—on the winning side. They will 'back water' as they have done on progressive measure which they once opposed, since the war begun; they will eat their words and fawn and wheedle those in power until the opportunity again occurs for building up on some sham principle a party of rum and faro-banks, low demagogue-ism, ignorance, reaction, and vulgarity. Then from his present toad-like swelling and whispering, we shall hear the full-expanded fiend ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... at once what sort of men and women you are. If you are worshippers of pleasure, the champions of the pleasure-world will be your idols and kings. If you are rooted and grounded in the love of lucre, the successful millionaire is the man that you will fawn upon or worship from afar. If your main delight is in intellectual things, the great thinkers and writers will be the men to whom you look up with reverence. And if you are good men, with a passionate love for ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... white dawn first Through the rough fir-planks Of my hut, by the chestnuts, Up at the valley-head, Came breaking, Goddess! I sprang up, I threw round me My dappled fawn-skin; Passing out, from the wet turf, Where they lay, by the hut door, I snatch'd up my vine-crown, my fir-staff, All drench'd in dew— Came swift down to join The rout early gather'd In the town, round the temple, Iacchus' white ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... happened thus. As he was walking along in the forest he heard, but a short distance ahead of him, a pitiful cry of a creature in distress. Quickly he hurried on, and was just in time to see the convulsive gasp of a beautiful young fawn that had been seized and was being mangled by a great, fierce wolf, which had found it where it had been hidden away by the mother deer before she had gone into the beaver ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... functions of hope and aspiration. Man is governed from above and within; while rocks, birds, beasts are governed from below and without. Gravity holds the bowlder in its place. The channel saith to the river: "Thus far and no farther." The fawn that is struck, the lion that strikes, the eagle dwelling above both, are controlled by fear. The charioteer drives his steeds from behind and controls by rein and scourge. But man is controlled from within and in front. God does not scourge his children forward ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... not so, when your vile daggers Hackt one another in the sides of Caesar: You shew'd your teethes like Apes, And fawn'd like Hounds, And bow'd like Bondmen, kissing Caesars feete; Whil'st damned Caska, like a Curre, behinde Strooke Caesar on the necke. O ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... dinner. He directed us to ride down into the valley and tarry there, so that we might not startle the timid animals, while he continued part way up the hill and halted in position to get a good shot at the first one that came over the knoll. A fawn presently bounded into view, and Will brought his rifle to his shoulder; but much to our surprise, instead of firing, dropped the weapon to his side. Another fawn passed him before he fired, and as the little creature fell we rode up to ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... his Soul would not be gay, But moaned within him; like a fawn 605 Moaning within a cave, it lay Wounded and wasting, day by day, Till all its life ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... sons of dogs, and a hireling will turn our Princes from the gate lest the soles of our shoes should defile their sacred places. And are they not right, Huzoor?" he asked cunningly. "Since we submit to it, since we cringe at their indignities and fawn upon them for their insults, ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... about the size of a partridge, with a crane-like bill, a slender neck, and shorter legs than ordinary waders, though a wader it was. The plumage was shaded curiously in bands and lines with brown, fawn-colour, red, grey, and black, which Ellen said reminded her of a superb moth she had seen. It was the caurale, or sun-bird (Scolopax Helios), our books told us, found also in Demerara. Less attractive in appearance were the gallinazos, ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... successful. To have made such a woman really in love would have been a mistake. Her husband she likes best,—because he is, or was, her own. But there is no man so foul, so wicked, so unattractive, but that she can fawn over him for money and jewels. There are women to whom nothing is nasty, either in person, language, scenes, actions, or principle,—and Becky is one of them; and yet she is herself attractive. A most wonderful sketch, for the perpetration of which all Thackeray's power of combined ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... rocky dells filled with copsewood, among which jessamine, lilies, and exquisite flowers were peeping up, and the coney, the fawn, and other animals, made Leonillo prick his ears and wistfully seek from his master's eye permission to dash off in pursuit. Or the "oaks of Carmel," with many a dark- leaved evergreen, towered in impenetrable thicket, and at an opening glade might be beheld ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... form to bend thy haughty will. In heart and manner thou art still a Jew. They should be glad that they can here remain To practice sacrilege, and cheat, and fawn. I marvel we can be ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... surgeon, the wind, and a puff of snow came in together. Jeannette looked up, smiling and blushing; the falling hair gave a new softness to her face, and her eyes were as shy as the eyes of a wild fawn. ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... stretched up into the higher spurs. Ever the same flowers, ever the same amazing look of centuries of cultivation, and the feeling that it would be natural to come of a sudden on a gentleman's seat or basking cows, rather than upon the scared doe and dappled fawn which fled through the coverts near us. We had seen many of these parks, but none like this one, nor any sight of plain and tree and flowers so utterly satisfying in its complete beauty. It wanted but a contrast, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... murmur, inaudible, and a swift, infinitely alluring gesture, the woman swept the veil away from her face, and looked him squarely in the eyes. She moved toward him slowly, swaying, as graceful as a fawn, more beautiful than any woman he had ever known. His breath caught in his throat, for sheer ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... this your discipline and faith ingag'd, Your military obedience, to dissolve Allegeance to th' acknowledg'd Power supream? And thou sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem Patron of liberty, who more then thou Once fawn'd, and cring'd, and servilly ador'd Heav'ns awful Monarch? wherefore but in hope 960 To dispossess him, and thy self to reigne? But mark what I arreede thee now, avant; Flie thither whence thou fledst: if from this houre Within these hallowd limits thou appeer, Back to th' infernal ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... the dance, as if for the first time observing the presence of strangers. As she faced them, shy as a frightened fawn, poised upon one foot as if to fly the next instant, Dorothy was astonished to see tears flowing from her violet eyes and trickling down her lovely rose-hued cheeks. That the dainty maiden should dance and weep at the same time was indeed surprising; so Dorothy asked in ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... gazed at his closed eyelids And involuntarily stooping, With her lips—But who interprets All the strange mysterious actions Of a first sweet loving passion? Well-nigh can my song conjecture That she really wished to kiss him; But she did not; startled sighing, Turned abruptly—like a timid Fawn she hurried from ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... imagining that they are naturally more ravenous or blood-thirsty than those on whom they fall with so much violence and fury; but they are hungry, and hunger must be satisfied; and these savages, when their bellies are full, will fawn on ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... everybody who does not believe as those nations believe which have the most cannon; when we all live in real concord,—perhaps the gentle-hearted deer will be respected, and will find that men are not more savage to the weak than are the cougars and panthers. If the little spotted fawn can think, it must seem to her a queer world in which the advent of innocence is hailed by the baying of fierce hounds and the "ping" ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... graceful agility and captivating address. Some of these are armed with fans, and are fanning reviving breezes toward the over-heated brows of the alabaster ladies; others watch with eager eye, and with fawn-like step anticipate and supply wants before they are sufficiently formed to be announced ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... silence instantly prevailed. All eyes were turned upon the destined victim, whose destruction seemed inevitable. But the pity of the multitude was soon converted into astonishment, when they beheld the lion, instead of destroying its defenceless enemy, crouch submissively at his feet, fawn upon him as a faithful dog would do upon his master, and rejoice over him as a mother that unexpectedly recovers her offspring. The governor of the town, who was present, then called out with a loud ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... Cornblade, in a sonnet addressed to "H.M.," compared this action to that of a startled fawn; but the public wondered whether Helen's father could possibly be excused in like manner, and whether the comparison could, with propriety, be extended so as to include the three hired men, who, curiously enough, were ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... Friends, good hearts and true; But alien as the mountains of the moon, More unrelated than the Polander, Are Englishmen to us. They are a race, A selfish, brawling family of hounds, Holding a secret contract on each fang, 'For us,' 'for us,' 'for us.' They'll fawn about; But when the prey's divided;—Keep away! I have some beef about me and bear up Against an insolence as basely set As mine own infamy; yet I have been Edged to the outer cliff. I have been weak, And played ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman

... power, and not very scrupulous as to the manner in which they obtain it. She was hardhearted, and capable of pursuing an object without much regard to the injury she might do. She would not flatter wealth or fawn before a title, but she was not above any artifice by which she might ingratiate herself with those whom it suited her purpose to conciliate. She thought evil rather than good. She was herself untrue in action, if not absolutely in word. I do not say that she would ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... was a girl of about twenty-one or two years of age—tall, but slenderly built, with a sweet oval face, bright brown hair, and the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my life. She was dressed in some dark green material, wore a fawn jacket, and, because the afternoon was cold, had a boa of marten fur round her neck. I can remember also that her hat was of some flimsy make, with lace and glittering spear points in it, and that the whole ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... White Fawn, their mother, was baking corn bread on the coals of the wigwam fire. The angry voices reached her ears. She stepped ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers

... her. She was like a little wild fawn with her fresh young body and sparkling eyes, always so ready to bewitch. His own weary eyes involuntarily saddened for a moment; then he said cheerily, in a ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... all about it; and I am so glad you are a good boy!" exclaimed she, panting like a pretty fawn which had gamboled ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... moved on with heavy steps toward the tower situated near the gate. Meanwhile the dogs which were playing near the stone wall came running up and began to fawn upon him. In one of them Zygfried recognized the bulldog which was so much attached to Diedrich that it was said in the castle that it served him ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... thoroughly sound. The diplomats of the great powers, representing various complicated interests, are the more confused, they have so many things to consider. The diplomatic tail, the smallest, insignificant, fawn to all, and turn as whirlwinds around ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... grassy spot; at last it trotted out of the shade of the bushes directly opposite to us into the moonlight, and showed itself to be a beautiful little antelope of the long-horned kind, with a little fawn by its side. The two looked timidly round for a few seconds, and snuffed the air as if they feared concealed enemies, and then, trotting into the water, slaked their thirst together. I felt as great pleasure ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... here, you know, watching him as one would a tramp in one's orchard.' He cast a candid glance over his shoulder. 'First he looks round, like a prying servant. Then he comes cautiously on—a kind of grizzled, fawn-coloured face, middle-size, with big hands; and then just like some quiet, groping, nocturnal creature, he begins his precious search—shelves, drawers that are not here, cupboards gone years ago, questing and nosing no end, and quite methodically too, until he reaches ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... 'I'd scorn to fawn on any one, Howel,' says Netta indignantly; 'I never did in my life. I always gave Miss Rice Rice as big a stare as she ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... next room, and whenever it began to sound, Lucy dropped her work into her lap and listened. At such time she had an alert, startled look. She resembled a fawn when it hears a stick snap in ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... front, a herd we find Of beasts, the fiercest of the savage kind. Our trembling steps with blandishments they meet And fawn, unlike their ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... they are made is of the closest texture, and as the hair has never been dressed or dyed it retains all its natural oil and original colour, the latter varying from a very pretty yellow fawn to a pale cream-colour. The majority of the ponchos worn here are, however, made at Manchester, of a cheap and inferior material. They look exactly like the real thing at first sight, but are neither so light nor so warm, nor ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... be in the neighbourhood of this city. He is about the middle height, or rather under, of a pleasing appearance and highly genteel address. When last heard of he wore a fashionable suit of pearl-grey, and boots with fawn-coloured tops. He is accompanied by a servant about sixteen years of age, speaks English without any accent, and passed under the alias of Ramornie. A reward is offered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... lies; he might have sent and had the horse: I owe him little duty, and less love; And take foul scorn to fawn on him ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... lunch. In the first place he hadn't been getting the attention that he had expected. He was used to being treated with a certain deference, an abject humility was as fitting to a man of wealth and position. These northern people, however, didn't seem to know how to fawn. They were courteous enough, gave good service, but were inclined to speak to him as man to man,—an inference of equality that he regarded with great displeasure. His nephew's penniless fiancee, instead ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... the end of March, and Good Friday found Jean working very early in the morning on fawn-colored rabbits with yellow ears. She worked in her bedroom because it was warmed by a feeble wood fire, and Teddy came up ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... would sell my soul for drink, why wasn't I a thief, swindler, housebreaker, area sneak, robber of pence out of the trays of blind men's dogs, rather than your drudge and packhorse? If my every word was a lie, why wasn't I a pet and favourite of yours? Lie! When did I ever cringe and fawn to you. Tell me that! I served you faithfully. I did more work, because I was poor, and took more hard words from you because I despised you and them, than any man you could have got from the parish workhouse. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... commerce, or any thing else that a parcel of giggling girls may chuse to act in it,—my statues are converted—Diabolus is made to hold a spermaceti candle, while the Medicean nymph, my Apollo Belvidere, and my dancing fawn, being too bulky to move, are adorned with aprons of green silk, because forsooth Betty says they are vastly undecent with nothing on them, and my wife is quite certain "that no one will visit us, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... wool varies from white to a very dark brown black, with all shades of fawn, grey and brown in between. The natural colours are not absolutely fast to light but tend to bleach slightly with ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet

... variable, or rather individual, in their markings, and even in their size. The Crow rarely uses the same nest twice, although he frequently repairs to the same locality from year to year. He is remarkable for his attachment to his mate and young, surpassing the Fawn and Turtle Dove ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... genius of the scene; The river, bending in unbroken grace, The stately thickets, with their pathways green, Fair, lonely trees, each in its fittest place; Those thickets haunted by the deer and fawn; Those cloudlike flights of birds across the lawn! The gentlest breezes here delight to blow, And sun and shower and star are emulous ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... her fawn-coloured head mournfully. "Ma always keeps the pantry locked, for fear Judy Pineau will ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... much harder upon him than was Barrington Erle. "I never liked him from the first, and always knew he would not run straight. No Irishman ever does." This was said to Viscount Fawn, a distinguished member of the Liberal party, who had but lately been married, and was known to have very strict notions as to the bonds of matrimony. He had been heard to say that any man who had interfered with the happiness ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... wort aint hit de nail right on de head! To be sure it mus' a been chloe-fawn! And 'pears to me I has a faint membry as how I was dreaming o' de same sweet scents and silver bells and rosy lights as I had 'sperienced once afore. To be sure it mus' a been chloe-fawn! And as for de rest, Marse Ishmael, it is all true as gospel! Sure 'nough, dey did fetch ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... no religion, he toasted Church and Queen as boldly as the stupid Sacheverel, whom he used and laughed at; and to serve his turn, and to overthrow his enemy, he could intrigue, coax, bully, wheedle, fawn on the Court favorite and creep up the back-stair as silently as Oxford, who supplanted Marlborough, and whom he himself supplanted. The crash of my Lord Oxford happened at this very time whereat my history is now arrived. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... said Runnion, looking after Necia as her figure diminished up the street. "By Heaven! She's as graceful as a fawn; she's white, too. Nobody would ever know she ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... returned; she shook herself angrily with petulant self-scorn; she swore a little, and felt that the fierce, familiar words did her good like brandy poured down her throat; she tossed her head like a colt that rebels against the gall of the curb; then, fleet as a fawn, she dashed down the moonlit road at topmost speed. "She can't do what ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... cylindrical bundles, long and straight, and the flexible stem of the plant is bound round the bundles, so as to entirely cover them. Its fibres are very long, cylindrical, wrinkled longitudinally, and furnished with some lateral fibrils. Its color is of a fawn brown, or sometimes of a dark grey, approaching to black. The color internally is nearly white. Besides this species there are others indigenous, such as S. officinalis, which grows in the province of Mina; S. syphilitica, which grows in the northern regions, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... give me the keenest pleasure. When I am received on entering a friend’s room with a chorus of yelps and attacked in dark corners by snarling little hypocrites who fawn on me in their master’s presence, I humbly pray that some such Nemesis may be in store for these faux bonhommes before they leave this world, as apparently no provision has been made for ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... home there was little change. Abraham Bradbury had insisted on sending his favorite grandson, Joel, a youth of twenty-two, to take De Courcy's place for a few months. He was a shy quiet creature, with large brown eyes like a fawn's, and young Henry Donnelly and he became friends at once. It was believed that he would inherit the farm at his grandfather's death; but he was as subservient to Friend Donnelly's wishes in regard ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... face, as thou earnest on thine errand of mercy—who that saw thee as thou ministered to the necessities of those poor desolate children, would not have loved thee—who that had seen thee in the first blush of thy beauty, when thy foot was as elastic as the fawn's, and thy countenance radiant with joy and life's young morning hope—who, who could dream that there existed one who had seen all this, who had known the tie that bound thee to earth and its promised happiness, the innocent love that abounded in thy heart—yet ruthlessly snapped that tie asunder, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite

... secret hope that impelled Mary, for away she bounded, like a young fawn, running to meet the old fisherman at the door. No sooner did her eyes fall on the superscription, than the large package was pressed to her heart, and she seemed, for an instant, lost in thanksgiving. That no one might unnecessarily ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... and her dilated eyes were eloquent of fear and distrust. It minded me of the panic of a fawn run down by the hunter, so that I found myself trembling in sympathy. A startled moment she gazed; then ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... daring to speak the truth to those in high places; but in these days it rather shows itself in not daring to speak the truth to those in low places. Now that "the masses" [146] exercise political power, there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, to flatter them, and to speak nothing but smooth words to them. They are credited with virtues which they themselves know they do not possess. The public enunciation of wholesome because disagreeable ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs 15 drum up the dawn, The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn. The dun he fell at a watercourse—in a woeful heap fell he, And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the 20 ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... eagerly above the jar where the strange, slender, gray-and-brown hawk-moth lay dying. Its recoiling proboscis and its slim, fawn-coloured legs quivered. The ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... first dawn of day, his ears were assailed by the tremulous bleating of the fawn, the hoarse gobbling of the turkey, and the peculiar sounds of other wild animals. Familiar with the deceptive artifices, practised to allure game to the hunter, he was quickly alive to the fact, that ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... too," said Camilla, smiling. She spoke less timidly now, but her fawn-like eyes still kept their curious expression, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... taken with the appearance of a beautiful fawn bitch, which lay on the seat in the room which is used by the most shady men in the district. Her owner was a tall, thin man, with sly grey eyes, set very near together, and a lean, resolute face. Doggy men are freemasons, ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... was akin rather to death than life. He rode alone far into the shining countryside, and found, in the middle of wide fields with softly swelling outlines, where the dry ploughlands were dappled with faint fawn-coloured tints, a little wood, in the centre of which was a reed-fringed pool. The new rushes were beginning to fringe the edges of the tiny lake, but the winter sedge stood pale and sere, and filled the air with a dry rustling. The water was as clear as a translucent gem, and Hugh ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... fugitive, being subsequently captured, was doomed to fight with a lion in the Roman arena, and it so happened that the very same lion was let out against him; it instantly recognized its benefactor, and began to fawn upon him with every token of gratitude and joy. The story being told of this strange behavior, Androclus ...
— 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.

... City-Gluttons, with good Cheer, good Wine, and Rebellion in abundance, gormandizing all Comers and Goers, of all Sexes, Sorts, Opinions and Religions, young half-witted Fops, hot-headed Fools, and Malecontents: You guttle and fawn on all, and all in hopes of debauching the King's Liege-people into Commonwealthsmen; and rather than lose a Convert, you'll pimp for him. These are your nightly Debauches—Nay, rather than you shall want it, I'll cuckold you my self ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... disagreement between the man and the car. Sir Richmond directed and assisted Dr. Martineau's man to adjust the luggage at the back, and Dr. Martineau watched the proceedings from his dignified front door. He was wearing a suit of fawn tweeds, a fawn Homburg hat and a light Burberry, with just that effect of special preparation for a holiday which betrays the habitually busy man. Sir Richmond's brown gauntness was, he noted, greatly set off by his suit of grey. There had certainly been some sort of quarrel. Sir Richmond ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... is a whistle, made from an eagle's bone. It is generally fancifully carved, and, when sounded, makes a noise that perfectly resembles that made by a young one in calling its mother. So perfect is the imitation of the bleating of a fawn, that, when properly sounded, you will sometimes see half a dozen does, running to see if ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... adventurer who had stormed Parnassus while the gods nodded. The hundreds of thousands read him and acclaimed him with the same brute non-understanding with which they had flung themselves on Brissenden's "Ephemera" and torn it to pieces—a wolf-rabble that fawned on him instead of fanging him. Fawn or fang, it was all a matter of chance. One thing he knew with absolute certitude: "Ephemera" was infinitely greater than anything he had done. It was infinitely greater than anything he had in him. It was a poem of centuries. Then the tribute the mob ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... change came over her. The cold indifference melted to a rose hue of interest, a pliant softness stole over her figure, a certain buoyant tenderness diffused itself in her tone, her dusky eyes came to have a startled softness like a shy, frightened fawn. The old brilliant color returned to cheek and lip, yet toned with the tremulous throbbing of a new inward life, so exquisitely attuned that she could but listen to ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... with lemon-peel, trembled as though in sympathy with the agitated bosoms of their delicate concocters—custards freckled with nutmeg clustered the crystal handles of their cups together—sarcophagi of pound cakes frowned, as it were, upon the sweetness which surrounded them—whilst fawn-coloured elephants (from the confectionary menagerie of the celebrated Simpson of the Strand) stood ready to be slaughtered. Huge stratified pies courted the inquiries of appetite. Chickens boiled and roast reposed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... before, she had been longing to speak to Alec, longing to see Kate nearer: perhaps the beautiful lady would let her love her. She guessed where they were going, and across the fields she bounded like a fawn, straight as the crows flew home to the precincts of that "ancient rest," and reached it before them. She did not need to fetch the key, for she knew a hole on the level of the grass, wide enough to let her creep through the two yards of wall. So she crept in ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... faculty of observation will discern a hundred differences worthy of scrupulous expression. The old foresters had different names for a buck during each successive year of its life, distinguishing the fawn from the pricket, the pricket from the sore, and so forth, as its age increased. Thus it is also in that illimitable but not trackless forest of moral distinctions. Language halts far behind the truth of things, and only a drowsy perception can ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... also darkness of the face withdrawn, And the long waiting for the little light, So long in life so little. Like a fawn It fled with tempest breathing hard ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... whose swelling dugs do ake, Hasting to find her fawn hid in some brake." Shakspeare's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various

... dawn, The crimson cloud, blue main, and mountain grey, And lake, dim-gleaming on the smoky lawn; Far to the west the long, long vale withdrawn, Where twilight loves to linger for a while; And now he faintly kens the bounding fawn, And villager abroad at early toil. But, lo! the sun appears! ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... of those who fawn and lie, and cringe like spaniels to those a little higher, and take revenge by tyranny on ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... humble maid who holds all her happiness from thee! My gracious lord thou art great, and thou art mighty, thou art kind and just. Have mercy on me, for my whole heart is brimming over with loyalty for thee! I am free, and am happy in my freedom; the men who fawn round me, coveting my fortune, fill me with disgust. I could not honour one of them, my lord! I could not give one of them my love. Thou who art so great, must know how I feel. I implore thee leave me my freedom, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... ever disturbed them. David then killed one deer, the only one killed by any of our family. He went out shortly after sundown at the time of full moon to one of our wheat-fields, carrying a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. After lying in wait an hour or so, he saw a doe and her fawn jump the fence and come cautiously into the wheat. After they were within sixty or seventy yards of him, he was surprised when he tried to take aim that about half of the moon's disc was mysteriously darkened as if covered by ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... Every Scotch or Irish vagabond who has made his native country too hot to hold him, come to them and pretend that they are martyrs to their loyalty to the Stuarts; and the worst of it is their story is believed. They flatter and fawn, they say just what they are wanted to say, and have no opinion of their own, and the consequence is that the Chevalier looks upon these fellows as his friends, and often turns his back upon Scottish gentlemen who ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... demanded all the attention that the most alert, the brightest, the very most bewitching gray eyes in the whole wide world could bestow upon anything whatsoever. Christmas Eve, you see: Day done. Something of soft fawn-skin engaged her, it seemed, with white patches matched and arranged with marvellous exactitude: something made for warmth in the wind—something of small fashion, but long and indubitably capacious—something ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan

... sunrise—for no man can ever tell tother from which in a picture, except it has the filmy morning mist breathing itself up from the water). And there is such a grave analytical profundity in the faces of "The Connoisseurs;" and such pathos in the picture of the fawn suckling its dead mother, on a snowy waste, with only the blood in the footprints to hint that she is not asleep. And the way he makes animals absolute flesh and blood—insomuch that if the room were darkened ever so little ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the edge of the jungle; the atmosphere grew suddenly sticky and sultry. Almost within a moment the brilliant sunshine was blotted out, and a gray twilight settled over the lake. Frightened birds, squawking and screaming, hurried by; a fawn, drinking at the water's edge, darted off through the jungle. A slight frown rippled across the water; the breeze chilled Piang. Trees in the distance seemed to bend nearly double with no apparent cause, but the rush of wind finally swept the whole valley, and the jungle shuddered and swayed ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... on his steps in Leicester Square. Nicholls' grandfather then said, 'Well, Mr. Alderman, it can very easily come into the Shakspeare if Sir Joshua will kindly place him upon a mushroom, give him fawn's ears, and make a Puck of him.' Sir Joshua liked the notion, and painted the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... Milly's bringing-up. It seemed to her as if she had never known the real Milly, and knew her now for the first time. What would the other mothers think? What would all Hillport think secretly, and say openly behind the backs of the Stanways? The girl was as innocent as a fawn, she had the free grace of extreme youth; no one could utter a word against her. But she was rouged, her lips were painted, several times she had shown her knees, and she seemed incapable of shyness. She was at home on the stage, she faced a thousand people with a pert, a brazen ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... see I have ta'en deliberated Malice to thee, and will be revenged on one Whore for the Sins of another; I will smile and deceive thee, flatter thee, and beat thee, kiss and swear, and lye to thee, imbrace thee and rob thee, as she did me, fawn on thee, and strip thee stark naked, then hang thee out at my Window by the Heels, with a Paper of scurvey Verses fasten'd to thy Breast, in praise of damnable ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... space for them, are Phoenician characters, which are read as {...}, or l'Beka—i.e. "(the seal) of Beka."[7102] No. 2, which has been set in a ring, is one of the many scarabs brought by General Di Cesnola from Cyprus.[7103] It contains the figure of a hind, suckling her fawn, and is very delicately carved. The hind, however, is in an impossible attitude, the forelegs being thrown forwards, probably in order to prevent them from interfering with the figure of the fawn. Above ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... off and away herself before Mabel had time to scramble to her feet. Her running was swift as a fawn's—in an instant she had reached her brother—threw herself panting with laughter and joy against him, and flung ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... his hearers were prepared to follow him into those spheres which the ancients imagined to be entered only through a gate of ivory, to be surrounded by pilasters of diamond, and surmounted by a dome arched with fawn-colored crystal, upon which played the various dyes of the prism; spheres, like the Mexican opal, whose kaleidoscopical foci are dimmed by olive-colored mists veiling and unveiling the inner glories; spheres, in which all is magical and supernatural, reminding ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... idolatry certainly is the first-born of folly, the great and leading paradox, nay, the very abridgment and sum total of all absurdities. For is it not strange that a rational man should worship an ox, nay, the image of an ox? That he should fawn upon his dog? Bow himself before a cat? Adore leeks and garlic, and shed penitential tears at the smell of a deified onion? Yet so did the Egyptians, once the famed masters of all arts and learning. And to go a little further, we have yet a stronger instance in Isaiah, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... a long room with lofty windows on each side, and also at the end opposite to the door through which she had been led in. In the centre, on a raised dais, was a long table covered with a cloth of alternate blue and fawn coloured stripes; and at the end opposite to where Amine was brought in, was raised an enormous crucifix, with a carved image of our Saviour. The jailor pointed to a small bench, and intimated to Amine that she ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... you make the bet, That sum might cross your tailor's debt. When you the pilfering rattle shake, Is not your honour too at stake? 40 Must you not by mean lies evade To-morrow's duns from every trade? By promises so often paid, Is yet your tailor's bill defrayed? Must you not pitifully fawn, To have your butcher's writ withdrawn? This must be done. In debts of play Your honour suffers no delay: And not this year's and next year's rent The sons of rapine can content. 50 Look round. The wrecks ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... watched from the Huron tents, till the first star shook in the air. The sweet pine scented her fawn-skins, and breathed from her braided hair. Her crown was of milk-white blood-root, because of the tryst she would keep, Beyond the river of beauty That drifted away in the darkness Drawing the sunset thro' lilies, with eyes ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes

... them; and then they will severally withdraw to the side opposite and mount guard, each over her own offspring. The huntsman, who has seen it all, (11) will loose the dogs, and with javelins in hand himself advance towards the nearest fawn in the direction of where he saw it laid to rest; carefully noting the lie of the land, (12) for fear of making some mistake; since the place itself will present a very different aspect on approach from what it looked like at ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... Just as a fawn, in forest shade, Trembling to meet th' admiring eye, I've seen thee try to hide, sweet maid! Thy charms behind ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... to carry this animal, we therefore skinned it, and upon opening the stomach we found the sections of a fawn antelope; these when placed in position showed the entire animal, which she must have eaten a few hours previously. This was so fresh that my natives immediately made a fire and roasted the meat, which they ate with great enjoyment as a feast ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... the house, and then Oliver turned and met the eyes of Lesley's waiting-maid. And at the same moment he was aware—as one is sometimes aware of what goes on behind one's back—that Ethel, in her pretty autumn dress of fawn-color and deep brown, had come out upon the balcony of her house ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Jupiter is banished, I hear, and his cockatrice Juno lock'd up. 'Heart, an all the poetry in Parnassus get me to be a player again, I'll sell 'em my share for a sesterce. But this is Humours, Horace, that goat-footed envious slave; he's turn'd fawn now; an informer, the rogue! 'tis he has betray'd us all. Did you not see ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... his dam. I have, on several occasions, by hard riding, pressed a doe to dire extremity, and it has only been when hope had entirely forsaken her, or when her capture was inevitable, that she has reluctantly thrown out the fawn. Their method of warfare has often reminded me of the style of two practiced pugilists, the aim of each being to firmly gripe his opponent by the shoulder, upon accomplishing which, the long hind leg, with its horny ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... you have the blood of the martyrs in you. It takes courage to put one's self into the hands of a cold-blooded scientist like Miller. Even Garland, here, has no pity. He's like a hound on the trail of a fawn. It's all 'material' for him. Now, I am nothing but a mild-mannered editor. I have all the facts I require concerning the spirit world. I am busied with trying to make people happy here on this earth. But these scientific 'sharps' are avid for any fact ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... modesty and virginity. Cesii executed his orders to the best of his ability, and procured for the bloated and lascivious Agha a Russian girl called Sciabas, as fair as a houri, and apparently as timid as a fawn. Unfortunately, notwithstanding her innocent demeanour, it only too soon became apparent that her virtue was not unimpeachable, and that ere long she would add yet another member to the household of her ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... wide sheet of blue water, they built their fire, and had their lunch, and afterward spent a long hour in the water. Quail called through the woods, and rabbits flashed out of sight at the sound of human voices, and once, in a silence, a doe, with a bright-eyed fawn clinking after her on the stones, came down to the farther shore for ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... like a frightened fawn and valiantly essayed the steep embankment. Therein she erred. She would have succeeded in evading her pursuer had she leaped down to the open strip of turf close to the water, dodging him before he realized what was happening. As ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... of Heaven, Yet at heart wast only a child! And for thee the wild things of Nature Sot aside their nature wild:— The brown-eyed fawn of the forest Came silently glancing upon thee; The squirrel slipp'd down from the fir, And nestled his ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... What fine ribbons! How call you the color, Count de Guiche? 'Kiss me, my darling,' or 'Timid Fawn?' ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... The vultures to the conqueror's banner true, Who feed where desolation first has fed, And whose wings rain contagion,—how they fled, 5 When like Apollo, from his golden bow, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped, And smiled!—The spoilers tempt no second blow, They fawn on the proud feet that ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... to the great surprise of Hector, broke into a lively French air, the words and tune of which were perfectly familiar to his ear. The dog also seemed to recognize it; he started on his feet, listened attentively, and then, with a joyful bark, sprang towards the Indian, and began to fawn around him and lick his hands, with every demonstration ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... coaching dresses of bright orange silks and white satins, pink trimmed with lace, and so on, the English woman wears a plain colored dress, with a black mantilla or wrap, and carries a dark parasol. No brighter dress than a fawn-colored foulard appears on a coach in the great London ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... Animation? Yes, and more. Interest in the life about her? Assuredly, to a very marked degree. Wildness? That was it!—a wildness, subtly blended with refinement, that found expression in every quick look; as if someone had put a fawn there from the forest and it was trying, half humorously, half confidently, to keep itself from running away in fright. It was this glory of wildness that she typified which made my ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... she had cleared up the scandal of her talk with Dyckman. He remembered that he had seen Mrs. Noxon at another table, standing. He felt like a dog and he wanted to fawn at the heels he had prepared to bite. He felt unworthy to be the associate of his sainted wife in her good ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... from time to time longer staples are to be found. The fleeces are sorted for colour and quality by skilled native women. The colour of the greater proportion of alpaca imported into the United Kingdom is black and brown, but there is also a fair proportion of white, grey and fawn. It is customary to mix these colours together, thus producing a curious ginger-coloured yarn, which upon being dyed black in the piece takes a fuller and deeper shade than can be obtained by piece-dyeing a solid-coloured wool. In physical structure alpaca is somewhat akin to hair, being very ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... thaw'd from the true quality With that which melteth fools; I mean, sweet words, Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel-fawning. Thy brother by decree is banished: If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him, I spurn thee like a cur out of ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... the unbinding of a Dog, replenisht with adventitious blood, he will know and fawn upon his Master; and do the like customary things as before? And whether he will do such things better or worse at some time ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... Chapel of the Forest. The peal went forth as if to redeem and consecrate the heathen wilderness. The wolf growled at the sound, as he prowled stealthily through the underbrush; the grim bear turned his back, and stalked sullenly away; the startled doe leaped up, and led her fawn into a deeper solitude. The red men wondered what awful voice was speaking amid the wind that roared through the tree-tops; and, following reverentially its summons, the dark-robed fathers blessed them, as they drew near the cross-crowned chapel. In a little time, there was a crucifix on every ...
— A Bell's Biography - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm Of mute, ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... work was taken up—more especially ‘The Roman Widow,’ bearing the alternative title of ‘Dîs Manibus,’ which was in an advanced stage by the month of May, and was completed in June or July. It was finished with little or no glazing. The Roman widow is a lady still youthful, in a grey fawn-tinted drapery, with a musical instrument in each hand; she is in the sepulchral chamber of her husband, whose stone urn appears in the background. I possess the antique urn which my brother procured, ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... But it was HER voice. He ran eagerly forward in that direction, and called again; the response was nearer this time, and then the tall ferns parted, and her lithe, graceful figure came running, stumbling, and limping towards him like a wounded fawn. Her face was pale and agitated, the tendrils of her light hair were straying over her shoulder, and one of the sleeves of her school-gown was stained with blood and dust. He caught the white and trembling hands that were ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte



Words linked to "Fawn" :   flex, light brown, kotow, court favor, fawn lily, kowtow, young mammal, fawner, crawl, truckle, birth, bend, greyish brown, cringe, curry favour, have, cower



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