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Iron-gray   Listen
adjective
Iron-gray  adj.  Of a gray color, somewhat resembling that of iron freshly broken.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Iron-gray" Quotes from Famous Books



... as the President got up to introduce the speaker of the evening whom all had come to hear. "The man who was just talking with me says he is really worth hearing. If he grows tiresome we will slip out. I wonder which one he is? He must be that man with the iron-gray hair over there." ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... more startling than any eyes could have been. He was dressed in a long surtout, which he wore closely buttoned, high dickey, and high black-silk stock, which covered his throat to his chin. His iron-gray hair was brushed somewhat pompously backward over his forehead, and his whole effect was that of a gentleman of the generation which wore bell-crowned hats and carried enormous canes with tassels. But what attracted Mr. Bixby's particular attention were the wrinkles of his face. These were in all ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various

... young man rose up with the wrench in his hand, and looked for the first time into the gray-blue eyes under the bushy iron-gray brows. "The country is the same as it is on this side. The people ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... was a man of middle age—his three hundredth birthday was only a decade or so off—and he had begun to acquire a double chin and a bulge at his waistline. His hair, once black, had turned a uniform iron-gray and was beginning ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper

... under a reading lamp, sat a man whose iron-gray hair was patched with cowlicks. Combs and brushes produced no results, so the owner had had it clipped to a short pompadour. It was the skull of a fighting man, for all that frontally it was marked by a high intellectuality. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... cried, "A horse, a horse!—my kingdom for a horse!" for the feeling was in his heart, and he ran up to the stately animal without a fear. Duke put back his ears and swished his tail as if displeased for a moment; but Ben looked straight in his eyes, gave a scientific stroke to the iron-gray nose, and uttered a chirrup which made the ears prick up as if recognizing ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... eyebrows were iron-gray, and she had lost a front tooth, or she would still have been eminently handsome. She was tall and straight as a dart, and her noble port betrayed none of the weakness of age, only it was to be seen ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... velvet and gold is sipping chocolate at one of the tables, in earnest converse with a friend whose suit is likewise embroidered, but stained by time, or wine mayhap, or wear. A little deformed gentleman in iron-gray is reading the Morning Chronicle newspaper by the fire, while a divine, with a broad brogue and a shovel hat and cassock, is talking freely with a gentleman, whose star and ribbon, as well as the unmistakable beauty of his Phidian countenance, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... after some hesitation, the old gentleman with a queer expression took his seat in the "chair," and had his iron-gray head adjusted to the round black disks of the head-rest. Gram arranged his front lock with her comb, and said, "Now keep your eye on the little sock, Joseph, and look smilin';"—a superfluous piece of advice, as it proved, for he had ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... filled with plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. Browning's retreat,—and, dearest of all, the large drawing-room, where she always sat. It opens upon a balcony filled with plants, and looks out upon the old iron-gray church of Santa Felice. There was something about this room that seemed to make it a proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark shadows and subdued light gave it a dreamy look, which was enhanced by the tapestry-covered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... to be a good-natured man on the near side of fifty. His close-cropped hair was an iron-gray, and his stubby beard and mustache a fierce red, the ferocity of which was tempered by the mildness of deep-set, small blue eyes. His general appearance would, I thought, have been more in accord with the driver of a beer-truck than anything so comparatively genteel as ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... Ambigu to see him play Feuillantin in Le Portier du Numero 15. The part is that of an old man, and the actor played it "in his habit as he lived," without artificial make-up or wig. His own long iron-gray hair floated on the air; the wrinkles in his old face were painted there by the hand of Time; his voice was cracked and broken, and his gait that of advanced age. I had formed the impression, beforehand, that Lemaitre was simply a tottering old wreck, a painful and pitiable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... hunting-shirt and leggings were of deer skin, well grimed and greasy, with leather fringes at the seams of leg and sleeve. For all the summer heat, he wore a cap fashioned of raccoon-skin with the fur on; and for this great cap his iron-gray hair, matted and unkempt, served as a fringe to keep the other tasselings in countenance. The hunting-shirt was belted at the waist, and in the belt was thrust a sheathless knife huge enough to serve a butcher's purpose. From two leather ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... turned it for the King of Portugal, and he now keeps his Chamber while it is scouring for the Emperor. [2] He is a good Oeconomist in his Extravagance, and makes only a fresh black Button upon his Iron-gray Suit for any Potentate of small Territories; he indeed adds his Crape Hatband for a Prince whose Exploits he has admired in the Gazette. But whatever Compliments may be made on these Occasions, the true Mourners are the Mercers, Silkmen, Lacemen and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... which would have been insignificant had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest of the frame. But there was nothing insignificant about the high and massive forehead, crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the small and pale but piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or the thin lipped mouth, depressed at the corners into a curve indicative of iron will, and set between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... I presume, who was with him as I passed the library door: a bent, gray man, with a square head and a yellow face. A third man was between them; a tall, dry, cold fellow with iron-gray beard and no mustache—a face in the old New England tradition. This man was, of course, their lawyer, and I judge that he gave them little comfort. I felt him as chill and slow, as enjoying the tying and untying of legalities ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... had meant him to be a wheel-horse. He had never had any hope of being chief of staff. Hawk-eyed, with a great beak nose and iron-gray hair, intensely and solemnly serious, lacking a sense of humor, he would have looked at home with his big, bony hands gripping a broadsword hilt and his lank body clothed in chain armor. He had a mastiff's devotion to its master for ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... and the long iron-gray hair of Judge Maxwell; only a little while ago Joe had given him some apples which he had stopped to admire as he drove past Isom's orchard in his sagging, mud-splashed, old buggy. He was a good man; the uprightness of his life spoke from his face. Judge ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... station, and in a way was a sort of father confessor to everybody in the place. A clean-shaven jolly old face with deep laughter wrinkles about the blue eyes, which twinkled through steel-bowed spectacles, bushy iron-gray hair and bristling eyebrows—that was about all one saw through the bars of the narrow delivery window. But so much kindly sympathy and neighborly interest and good advice and real concern were handed out with ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... six feet in height, strong and muscular. In spite of his seventy summers his carriage was erect and there was a jaunty suppleness about his gait that made him seem much younger. In fact, no one would have believed that he had lived over his threescore and ten, were it not for the iron-gray hair that fluffed out all around under the close- fitting black cap, and the bronzed complexion—sun-kissed by wind and weather—which formed a trinity of opposites that made people turn ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... all right: Bernard J. Megrue, one of our biggest Western customers, president of a couple of railroads, and director in a lot of companies that's more or less close to the Corrugated Trust. He's a husk, Barney Megrue is—big and breezy, with crisp iron-gray hair, lively black eyes, and all the gentle ways of ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... himself made his appearance. I knew him at once, by the likenesses that had been {p.182} published of him. He came limping up the gravel walk, aiding himself by a stout walking staff, but moving rapidly and with vigor. By his side jogged along a large iron-gray staghound, of most grave demeanor, who took no part in the clamor of the canine rabble, but seemed to consider himself bound, for the dignity of the house, to give ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... He is generally soft, and can stand but little hardship. I refer particularly to those that have a white skin. Next to the white and cream, we have the iron-grey mule. This color generally indicates a hardy mule. We have now twelve teams of iron-gray mules in the park, which have been doing hard work every day since July, 1865; it is now January, 1866. Only one of these mules has become unfit for service, and that one was injured by being kicked by his mate. ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... meal. Miss McDonald's critical eyes surveyed the unsavory-looking food, her lips slightly curving, and then glanced inquiringly toward the men. The one directly opposite was large and burly, with iron-gray hair and beard, about sixty years of age, but with red cheeks and bright eyes, and a face expressive of hearty good nature. His clothing was roughly serviceable, but he looked clean and wholesome. The other was an army lieutenant, ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... came out two people who were becoming almost familiar figures to me. The man was one of those whose nationality was not so easily surmised. He was tall and thin, with iron-gray hair, complexion so sallow as to be almost yellow, black moustache and imperial, handsome in his way, distinguished, indescribable. By his side was a girl who had the air of wearing her first long skirt, whose hair was arranged in somewhat juvenile fashion, ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... happened, just as they struck the fence, a brisk, elderly gentleman, with iron-gray hair, and spectacles, and a queer twinkle in his eye as he glanced up at the mass of clouds piling up in the mountains, walked hurriedly down a narrow sheep-path through the leafless woods, and entered the sugar-camp. It was dark in there,—dark as Erebus; only ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... and where should have been the faithless Ignacio, a grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an elderly hidalgo, dressed in mourning, with mustaches of iron-gray carefully waxed and twisted round a pair of lantern-jaws. The monstrous hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated trunk-hose, contrasted with a frame shriveled and wizened, all belonged to a century previous. Yet ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... person of fifty or fifty-five, slightly bald, and closely shaven with the exception of a heavy iron-gray mustache, who rose from the chair and stepped forward to meet Lynde as he entered. Lynde's name was familiar to Mr. Denham, it having figured rather prominently in his wife's correspondence during the latter part of the sojourn ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... appeared to be a man of fifty, inclined to corpulency, of medium height, with iron-gray hair; and, like all hard workers, ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... was for a moment speechless. He was a tall, lean man, having a bald head but a thick, iron-gray beard, and his black eyes sparkled brightly from behind a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. After attentively regarding the boy for a time ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum

... to see Obed Chute. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, square-headed man, with iron-gray hair, and a face—well, it was one of those faces that make you feel that the owner can do any thing he chooses. On entering his private office I introduced myself, and began a long explanation. He interrupted me by shaking hands ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... shining aluminum goggles almost completely masking his face. She gave a low, breathless scream, hurled the door-bar crashing to the floor and stared at him like a wild, hunted animal at bay, her thin hands trembling, the iron-gray hair tumbling ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... as a kindly, iron-gray haired gentleman. He was stern with the discipline of his children; but he loved them, and was indulgent in a thousand ways. They loved him; and I, an orphan, began looking upon him almost as a father. I was interested in chemistry. He knew it, and did his best ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... man stepped into the light, Harley saw that he was over six feet high, and with a width according. His broad face was covered with short, iron-gray beard, and his head was thatched with hair equally thick and of the same gray shade. In years he might have been fifty, and it was Harley's first impression at this moment that the big man was Miss Morgan's father—it came to him with a rather queer feeling that it had never occurred to him to ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... at all," I returned, indignantly; for, in spite of his iron-gray hair, Mr. Lucas could hardly be forty, and was still a ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Moussorgsky is not entirely iron-gray. Just as, in the midst of "Boris," there occurs the gentle scene between the Czar and his children, so scattered through this stern body of music there are light and gay colors, brilliant and joyous ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... and troubles, Thomas Roch's physical health, thanks to his vigorous constitution, was not particularly affected. A man of medium height, with a large head, high, wide forehead, strongly-cut features, iron-gray hair and moustache, eyes generally haggard, but which became piercing and imperious when illuminated by his dominant idea, thin lips closely compressed, as though to prevent the escape of a word that could betray his secret—such was the inventor confined in one ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... every mile of it a great many times. He made nothing of walking five miles to a meeting on a December evening, with the thermometer below zero, or of climbing the hills in a driving snow-storm to visit a sick parishioner. He was a tall, spare man, healthy and vigorous, with iron-gray hair, a strong kind face, and a smile in his brown eyes that made every baby in Hilltown stretch out its arms to him ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... picturesque:—you cross the Roxelane, the Rivire des Pres, the Rivire Sche (whose bed is now occupied only by a motionless torrent of rocks);—passing first by the suburb of Fond-Corr, with its cocoa groves, and broad beach of iron-gray sand,—a bathing resort;—then Pointe Prince, and the Fond de Canonville, somnolent villages that occupy wrinkles in the hem of Pele's lava robe. The drive ultimately rises and lowers over the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... and quarrelsome. He was burly and tough, iron-gray but vigorous, "good" for the rest of the night. There was a dispute—about nothing that matters—and the five-fingered words were passed—the words that represent the glove cast into the lists. Merriam played the role ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... Chief, and, in his youth, a noted hunter of Rabisca (Chipewyan), whence he came to Lesser Slave Lake. Her own Cree name, unmusical for a wonder, was Ochenaskumagan— "Having passed many Birthdays." Her hair was gray and black rather than iron-gray, her eyes sunken but bright, her nose well formed, her mouth unshrunken but rather projecting, her cheeks and brow a mass of wrinkles, and her hands, strange to say, not shrivelled, but soft and delicate as a girl's. The body, however, was nothing ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... side, and her cheeks flushed as the tears crept into her eyes; but her hand stole through the thick mane of hair, fast turning from iron-gray ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... Mallowe station, he was one of the first persons who got out. Two of Lady Maria's men were waiting on the platform. Emily recognised their liveries. One met the tall man, touching his hat, and followed him to a high cart, in the shafts of which a splendid iron-gray mare was fretting and dancing. In a few moments the arrival was on the high seat, the footman behind, and the mare speeding up the road. Miss Fox-Seton found herself following the second footman and the mother and daughter, who ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... buhl on the stone mantel chimed musically its story of the hour, and Sir Jasper Kingsland lifted his gloomy eyes for a moment at the sound. A tall, spare middle-aged man, handsome once—handsome still, some people said—with iron-gray hair and ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... quiet form at his feet. The little German was lying on his face, his iron-gray head resting on his arm. His blue overalls and faded red sweater were covered with a light sifting of dust. His pack lay beside ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... Pelle!" she exclaimed vehemently, passing her trembling fingers through his iron-gray hair. "I can feel by your poor head how badly they've treated you. And I wasn't even with you! If I could only do something really nice to make you ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... you require here?" said Mr. Arithmetic, a man dressed in iron-gray clothes, with a face which looked dry and hard as one of his own kettles, above which was a shock of iron-gray hair, which gave him rather ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker

... a man of middle age, thick set, with rounded shoulders, deep chest, heavy neck, iron-gray hair close cut, gray whiskers cropped so as to show his strong jaw, blue eyes that expressed at once resolution ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... family, that Randolph Byrd Culpeper who had been only ten years old when Providence intervened, was now a fine-looking, heavily built man of sixty-five, with prominent dark eyes under sleepy lids, abundant iron-gray hair which was brushed until it shone, and a drooping moustache that was still as brown as it had been in his youth. He had an impressive though stolid bearing, an amiable expression, an engaging smile, and the manner ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... Belville crouched in its glare with one Indian club held by the end, like a footman with a stolen bottle. A good-looking, well-built, iron-gray, iron-jawed man; but a fool and a weakling at that moment, if he had ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... in the middle of the room, both having their eyes fixed on the door, when the door opened and Mr. Ayrton appeared, having by his side a man with iron-gray hair and a ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... seat next to an oldish man with iron-gray hair through which the speed of their flight whipped and pulled. Hilary was bursting for real human conversation again; he grinned to himself at the excited astonishment of this impassive stranger if he should announce himself. How should he do it? Should he remark casually without ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... busy crowd, blowings of whistles, electric bells, gold pieces piled up till they fall over; it savours of miracle. I need to look at myself in the glass before I can believe it, to see in the mirror my iron-gray coat, trimmed with silver, my white tie, my usher's chain like the one I used to wear at the Faculty on the days when there were sittings. And to think that to work this transformation, to bring back to our brows gaiety, the mother of concord, to restore to our scrip ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... leaned far back in his chair; He ran his hands through his iron-gray hair, And stole ten minutes from work to write A valentine to his wife ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall

... was Lindsley the last time I saw him. I remember how he took me all over his claim and showed me the beauties of Lindsleyville, as he called it. His long iron-gray hair fluttered in the wind, and his face seemed like a wizard's, penetrating but unearthly. That was long before the great tide of immigrants had begun to find their way into this paradise through the highway of the Sauk Valley. Lindsleyville ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... the Cabinet, chief orator of the Liberal party, and understudy for the part of Premier, who, although a Scotchman by birth, was a typical Canadian—free, unaffected, honest and sincere. His bushy iron-gray hair, his keen gray eyes, his healthy florid color, and the well-trimmed black moustache, which gave his face an unusually youthful appearance for a man of his age, went with a fine stalwart physique and a general ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... instantly and once more apply her knuckles to the wood. Before he had conjured up something worth saying the door was partially opened, and a rounded dumpling of a woman, having rosy cheeks, her hair iron-gray, her blue eyes half smiling in uncertain welcome, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... standing by his desk to receive his new young officers. He was a large man, tall, with broad shoulders and somewhat inclined to portliness. His hair was iron-gray, his face rather highly colored. But he looked the picture both of courtesy and heartiness as he held ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock

... was a very stormy one; there was an iron-gray sky above a black tumbling sea; and the rain, driven by a mad wind, smote the face like a blow from a passionate hand. The boats were all at anchor, with no prospect of a fishing that day; and the fishermen, gathered in little groups, ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... woman was coming up the lane. She was a stately, severe person, with iron-gray hair and a stern gray eye, behind which a kindly twinkle hid itself carefully from view. She had a commanding way, which, combined with the fact that she had taught the Elmbrook school for twenty years, and was the only woman in the village who neither feared ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... says I. "The one with the twinklin' eyes and the curly iron-gray hair, who always bows so polite and shoots that bon-shure ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... the most singular of them all. I managed to see him on a plausible pretext, but I seemed to read in his dark, deepset, brooding eyes that he was perfectly aware of my true business. He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-gray hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of an emperor—a fierce, masterful man, with a red-hot spirit behind his parchment face. He is either a foreigner or has lived long in the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whipcord. His friend and secretary, ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle

... veranda pauses a tall, muscular man of fifty, with the usual smooth face and an iron-gray queue. That is Colonel Agamemnon Brahmin de Grandissime, purveyor to the family's military pride, conservator of its military glory, and, after Honore, the most admired of the name. Achille Grandissime, he who took Agricola away from Frowenfeld's shop in the carriage, essays to engage Agamemnon ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... A good man has gone away—and yet remains. In the comparatively short time I have been here I never came to know him well personally, though I saw him often in the country roads, a ruddy old gentleman with thick, coarse, iron-gray hair, somewhat stern of countenance, somewhat shabby of attire, sitting as erect as a trooper in his open buggy, one muscular hand resting on his knee, the other holding the reins of his familiar old white ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... taken a newspaper out of his pocket, and was searching for something. The gas light fell on his clean-shaven face, revealing a sweet-tempered mouth, keen blue eyes, a broad German forehead, and closely cropped iron-gray hair. Erica thought him scarcely altered since their last meeting. He threw down his newspaper ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... a toy house. It is all given up to the mighty affairs of the Eastridge Banner. In front there is a piazza, and on this piazza sat Ned Temple. Changed? Well, yes, poor fellow! He is thin. I am so glad he is thin instead of fat; thinness is not nearly so disillusioning. His hair is iron-gray, but he is, after all, distinguished-looking, and his manners are entirely sophisticated. He shows at a glance, at a word, that he is a brilliant man, although he is stranded upon such a petty little editorial island. And—and ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... straight, and handsome, with his iron-gray hair and his cheeks pink as a girl's, did step by next morning on his way to the post-office. It was whispered that in his youth Father Fitzpatrick had been an actor, and that he had deserted the footlights for the altar lights because ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... of its name, is fragrant as the neighbouring Larangieros, or Valley of the Oranges; and the green Gloria Hill, surmounted by the belfries of the queenly Church of Nossa Senora de Gloria; and the iron-gray Benedictine convent near by; and the fine drive and promenade, Passeo Publico; and the massive arch-over-arch aqueduct, Arcos de Carico; and the Emperor's Palace; and the Empress's Gardens; and the fine Church de Candelaria; ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... men on board, with a large crew of Kalashes and two Malay petty officers. The Captain stared hard as if wondering what ailed me. But he was a sailor, and he, too, had been young at one time. Presently a smile came to lurk under his thick iron-gray moustache, and he observed that, of course, if I felt I must go he couldn't keep me by main force. And it was arranged that I should be paid off the next morning. As I was going out of his cabin he added suddenly, in a peculiar wistful tone, that ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... Perona. Nareda's Minister of Internal Affairs. Spawn had mentioned him to me. A South American. A man in his fifties. Thin and darkly saturnine, with iron-gray hair, carefully plastered to cover his half-bald head. He sat listening to the President's harangue, twirling the upturned waxen ends of his artificially black mustache. A wave of perfume enveloped him. A ladies' courtier, this Perona by the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... moments, his cloak, grasped with both hands, folded over his abdomen, his eyes fixed on the ground, his gold-rimmed spectacles slipping gently toward the point of his nose, his under-lip moist and projecting, and his iron-gray eyebrows gathered in a slight frown. He was a pious and holy man, of uncommon learning and of irreproachable clerical habits, a little past his sixtieth year, affable in his manners, courteous and kind, and greatly addicted to giving advice and counsel to both men and women. ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... heightened color and a rapidly beating heart, followed Etta down into the parlor, and there, still seated on the edge of his chair, twirling an old felt hat rapidly round between two big, red hands, she saw a tall, lean man in a suit of coarse gray clothes. He had grizzly, iron-gray hair, stubby white whiskers, a pale-blue eye, a brown face ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... paleness, and rendered his countenance more terrific by the contrast. Tall, powerful, and motionless, he appeared to the crowd, glaring at the girl like a tiger anxious to join his offspring, yet stunned with the shock of the bullet which has touched a vital part. His iron-gray hair, as it fell in thick masses about his neck, was moved slightly by the blast, and a lock which fell over his temple was blown back with a motion rendered more distinct by his ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... And the iron-gray one, himself an inveterate sentimentalist, passed on, chuckling over his time-worn device for quickening romance in the heart of the young by the judicious interposition of obstacles. He strolled over to the center of attraction, ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... were down in the little cabin, reading by the dull light of a coal-oil lamp. When the vessel began to toss so furiously, the elder man rose and paced fussily to and fro, rubbing his fingers through his iron-gray hair. His companion was too much engrossed by his paper to heed him. He had a small, elegantly shaped figure,—the famous surgeon,—a dark face, drawn by a few heavy lines; looking at it, you felt, that, in spite of his womanish delicacies of habit, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... and now, almost penniless, he had resolved on a bold stroke, by which to replenish his purse, and furnish means whereby to indulge his consuming and all absorbing love of gaming. After entering the street, he glanced cautiously around, and then advancing to the iron-gray charger that was tied with a stout bridle to the horse-shoe at the doorpost, adjusted the accoutrements, leaped to the saddle, and rode hurriedly along the road leading to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... beginning of dinner, the party being small and the room still, these motes from the mass of a magistrate's mind fell too noticeably. She wondered how a man like Mr. Casaubon would support such triviality. His manners, she thought, were very dignified; the set of his iron-gray hair and his deep eye-sockets made him resemble the portrait of Locke. He had the spare form and the pale complexion which became a student; as different as possible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered type represented ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... us more impatient for further developments. These were never to come. Bradford pined away an Belle Isle, and grew weaker, but no less reserved, each day. At length, one bitter cold night ended it all. He was found in the morning stone dead, with his iron-gray hair frozen fast to the ground, upon which he lay. Our mystery had to remain unsolved. There was nothing about his person to give any hint as ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... stockings showed a well-turned calf in no whit shrunken with age, and his silver shoe-buckles glittered with brilliants. His hair, iron-gray and curly, was tied in a short queue with a black satin ribbon, and beneath a rather narrow and high brow beamed two as kindly blue eyes as it had ever been my ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... and veins of the long, lean, vulture-like neck resembled a bundle of cords. The head, covered with an old, black, filthy nightcap, from beneath which strayed a few thin, gray hairs, rested upon a dirty pillow; for Rodin would not allow them to change his linen. His iron-gray beard had not been shaved for some time, and stood out like the hairs of a brush. Under his shirt he wore an old flannel waistcoat full of holes. He had one of his arms out of bed, and his bony hairy hand, with its bluish nails, held fast a cotton ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... his ancient colleague did not pray; Under the weight of his fourscore years He stood apart with the iron-gray Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears; And a fair-faced woman of doubtful fame, Linking her own with his honored name, Subtle as sin, at his side withstood The ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... The iron-gray hair caught his eyes first. Then, as the solidly built figure turned, he grunted. It was Captain Murdoch—now dressed in the uniform of a regular beat cop, without even a corporal's stripes. And the face was filled with lines of strain that hadn't ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey

... been made on a flat plateau among steep, foreboding mountains which seemed to float through briefly cleared air. In the distance a sharp rock formation stood revealed like an etching: a castle of iron-gray stone whose form had been carved by alien winds and eroded by acid tears ...
— General Max Shorter • Kris Ottman Neville

... delighted with Major Cavalcanti, had offered him a seat in his carriage. Andrea Cavalcanti found his tilbury waiting at the door; the groom, in every respect a caricature of the English fashion, was standing on tiptoe to hold a large iron-gray horse. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... lady happened to be nearer to me now than on either of the former occasions on which I had seen her. There was something in the expression of her eyes which seemed to be familiar to me. But the effort of my memory was not helped by what I observed in the other parts of her face. The iron-gray hair, the baggy lower eyelids, the fat cheeks, the coarse complexion, and the double chin, were features, and very disagreeable features, too, which I had never ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... entered the store. It was a dreary day of a dull season, and with comparatively little trouble she found herself in a quiet office on the third floor of the building. Its occupant, a tall, thin man with iron-gray hair, looked up at her approach, and a slight expression of wonder came into his eyes as they rested on ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... a huge gaunt man clad in shirt and jeans arose and confronted us. Our first impression was of a vast framework stiffened and shrunken into the peculiar petrifaction of age; our second, of a Jove-like wealth of iron-gray beard and hair; our third, of eyes, wide, clear, and tired with looking out on a century of the world's time. His movements, as he laid one side his axe and passed a great, gnarled hand across his forehead, were angular and slow. We knew instinctively the quality of his work—a deliberate ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... when M. Madeleine was passing along a street, calm, affectionate, surrounded by the blessings of all, a man of lofty stature, clad in an iron-gray frock-coat, armed with a heavy cane, and wearing a battered hat, turned round abruptly behind him, and followed him with his eyes until he disappeared, with folded arms and a slow shake of the head, and his upper lip raised in company with his lower to his nose, a sort of significant ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... to the court-house. To Phil nothing was funnier than Alec Waterman in the throes of oratory. Waterman was big and burly, with a thunderous voice; and when he addressed a jury he roared and shook his iron-gray mane in a manner truly terrifying. In warm weather when the windows were open, he could be plainly heard in any part of the court-house square. When Phil reached the circuit court-room Judge Walters, with his ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... of Deacon Gurrey the dealer in hay and grain, was a pointed-nosed, simpering woman with iron-gray hair drawn so tight that it resembled a soiled handkerchief covering her head. But she was unexpectedly cheerful, and her dining-room, with its thin tablecloth on a long pine table, had ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... O'Halloran sat there, and sometimes listened, and sometimes chimed in. An uncommonly fine-looking old fellow he was, too. Although about sixty, his form was as erect as that of a young man, and his sinewy limbs gave signs of great strength. He sat in an easy-chair —his iron-gray hair clustering over his broad brow; his eyes keen, penetrating, but full of fun; his nose slightly curved, and his lips quivering into smiles; small whiskers of a vanished fashion on either cheek; and small hands—a right royal, good fellow—witty, intellectual, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... between fifty and sixty, of a strong muscular frame, and at least six feet high, with a physiognomy as grave as a lion's, and set off with short, curling, iron-gray locks. His shirt-collar was turned down, and displayed a neck covered with the same short, curling, gray hair; and he wore a coloured silk neckcloth, tied very loosely, and tucked in at the bosom, with a green paste brooch on the ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... the battle-ax; this line of cut runs to above and somewhat back of the ear, the hair of the scalp below it being cut close to the head. When the men age, a few gray hairs appear, and some old men have heads of uniform iron-gray color. I have never seen a white-haired Igorot. A few of the old men have their hair thinning on the crown, but a tendency to baldness is by no ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... didn't get the first shot, Mr. Moore," said Sir Hugh, who was a short, thick-set man, with a fresh-colored face, iron-gray hair, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... that crept along the road that cheery May morning. It was tall and gaunt, and had been for thirty years or more. The long head, bald on top, covered behind with iron-gray hair, and in front with a short tangled growth that curled and kinked in every direction, was surmounted by an old-fashioned stove-pipe hat, worn and stained, but eminently impressive. An old-fashioned Henry Clay cloth coat, stained and threadbare, divided itself impartially over ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... Foorgian divests himself of everything but his hat, and carries the bicycle across the stream, while I am taken up behind the mirza. As the mirza's iron-gray gingerly enters the water, an interesting and instructive spectacle is afforded by a hundred or more Foorgians following the shining example of the classic figure carrying the bicycle, for the purpose of being on hand to see me start across the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... bear to account for his terror. He raced to the verandah and fell down, the blood spurting from his nose and his face iron-gray. Then he gurgled:—"I have seen the Memsahib! ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... of the subject of fistula in its most frequent habitat,—but I never saw him do more than look as if he wanted to cut a good dollop out of a patient he was examining. The short, square, substantial man with iron-gray hair, ruddy face, and white apron is Baron Larrey, Napoleon's favorite surgeon, the most honest man he ever saw,—it is reputed that he called him. To go round the Hotel des Invalides with Larrey was to live over the campaigns of Napoleon, to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... then. His long, flowing beard was snow-white, and the shock that covered his Jove-like head was iron-gray. His form was that of an Apollo who had arrived at years of discretion. He weighed an even two hundred pounds and was just six feet high. His plain, check, cotton shirt was open at the throat to the breast; and he had an independence, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... every well-to-do gentleman ought to marry, and "the excellent man" referring to the fact that ever since the children had been brought to him, fourteen years before, two helpless little babies, he had given them more than a father's care. He was nearly fifty years of age, a tall, "iron-gray" gentleman, with the courtliest of manners and the warmest of hearts; yet he was, as Liddy described him to her cousins, the Crumps, "an unexpected kind o' person, Mr. G. was. Just when you made up your mind he was very stiff and dignified, his face would light up into such a beautiful glow! ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... their uniforms looking spick and span, despite their long journey by train, now brought their right hands smartly up to their cap visors as the man with iron-gray hair stepped close. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... chewing his food uncomfortably, with much working of the muscles of his face; some teeth were missing now, and some replaced with unmanageable artificial ones. The thin, oily hair was iron-gray, and his moustache, which had stayed black so much longer, was iron-gray, too, and stained yellow from the tobacco of his cigars. His eyes were set in bags of wrinkles; it was a discontented face, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... don't you recognize the products of your talented son, dad?" he cried, as he took the object down and clapped it over his father's iron-gray head. "That's my new wireless telephone headpiece, and right underneath it here is the mahogany cabinet containing the sending and receiving instruments. You see, these two wires run from the plug up to the receivers, there being one receiver in each side of the helmet, right over ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... behind his desk, a big man in a brown suit, natural iron-gray hair, a calm and administrative face, he began to realize that for the next twenty-four hours, at least, he would be in the spotlight. Well, he'd give a good account of himself. Demonstrate that he had an executive ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... our Meeting that even I, a lad then of only eight years, recognised the imitation. Indeed, she was wonderful at this trick of mimicry, a thing most odious to Friends. As I smiled, hearing her, I was aware of my father in the open doorway of the sitting-room, tall, strong, with much iron-gray hair. Within I saw several Friends, large rosy men in drab, with horn buttons and straight collars, their stout legs clad in dark silk hose, without the paste or silver buckles then in use. All wore broad-brimmed, low beavers, and their gold-headed canes rested between ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... as a small, robust, iron-gray woman—sharp-tongued, warm-hearted, terrifically observant. Though childless, she had always struck him as almost savagely maternal. He dreaded the interview, for he had had some vague idea that she ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... very verge of ugliness. She was dressed plainly if not commonly in black, but there was a general air of decency about her that seemed to place her beyond the sphere of servitude. She wore spectacles set in tortoise-shell frames, and she wore her iron-gray hair straight back behind small, funnel-shaped ears, and gathered into the tightest knot behind. Her head was flat and narrow at the summit, though broad at and above the base of the brain. Her forehead, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... lady, quite frail, with neat bands of iron-gray hair curling over well-shaped ears. Her voice was soft and low,—the kind of voice which her generation described as "ladylike." But Milly knew what lay beneath its gentle surface. Milly did not love her grandmother. Milly's ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... sort of netted film, of some kind of blue. The eyes had a glaze over them, but were bright and searching. The nose was a salient feature, having about it a strong predatory suggestion. The forehead was low, surmounted by exquisitely smooth iron-gray hair. Mr. Wheeler was scrupulously fine in dress, and used a single eye-glass. He gave me hearty welcome, and I prefer to think that the apparent chilling of his attitude to me after he had learned of my financial circumstances ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... which the old gentleman, with characteristic caution, had removed to his own side of the table before admitting his caller. He was a burly old man, with massive shoulders and a great head thickly covered with iron-gray hair. ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... megaphonic demand for water to thin his ink. His impatience for this overcame his obvious aversion to exertion, and he came into the hall to take it from her hand as we descended the stairs. She introduced him to us, and he bowed gravely and with considerable dignity. He had a massive head, with iron-gray, curling hair, and near-sighted eyes, which peered at us vaguely through large, steel-rimmed spectacles. He surveyed us, not unpleasantly, but wholly without interest, nodded again, partly to himself and partly to us, as if our appearance ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... a military-looking man, above the ordinary height, dressed plainly, but with great neatness; dignified and grave—I had almost said stern, but always courteous and affable; with keen, searching eyes, iron-gray hair standing stiffly up from an expansive forehead; a face somewhat furrowed by care and time, and expressive of deep thought and active intellect, and you have before you the General Jackson who has lived in my memory from my childhood. ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve

... manager, sat in his private office in the works of the International Machine Company, chewing upon an unlighted cigar and occasionally running his fingers through his iron-gray hair as he compared and recompared two statements which lay upon the desk ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the Thames, and I remember that the river was, that morning, unusually beautiful. It is graceful, as in an outline, even when leaden with November mists, or iron-gray in the drizzle of December, but under the golden sunlight of June it is lovely. It becomes every year, with gay boating parties in semi-fancy dresses, more of a carnival, in which the carnivalers and their carnivalentines assume a more decided character. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... waiting for him on the top step with both hands outstretched in welcome; a man of fifty, smooth-shaven, with iron-gray hair, a thin, straight mouth and a jaw as square as ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... fine, and every evening this man and woman walked together. The woman envied by all the women; the man by all the men. Yet they walked side by side like the ghosts of lovers. And, since he was her betrothed, one or two iron-gray hairs in the man's head had turned white, and lines deepened in his face. The victim ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... many new animals since leaving the land of the Yellowstone; he had known moose and goats in British Columbia, caribou on the barrens and the iron-gray sheep at the head of the Nelson. Now there were strange shaggy beasts with hair that hung nearly to the ground, and they came out of the north in small droves, the white wolves traveling on the flanks of the ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... much experience, as yet," Ellen replied, looking into the handsome, middle-aged face before her, and thinking that the smile under the close-clipped, iron-gray moustache was one which could be cynical more easily than it could be sympathetic. "But, so far, I find the waiting, in such weather, very endurable. I often bring a book, and then it never matters, ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... but succeeded only in creating a vast confusion of wrinkles. His attitude was that of a man for the moment amazed beyond utterance: his head was thrown back, so that of his face nothing was to be seen but a short, ragged growth of iron-gray beard and a ridge of bushy eyebrow; his hands were plunged deep in his trousers pockets, which the fists distended; his legs, the left deformed (being bent inward at the knee), were spread wide. In the shadows beyond lurked a huge dog—a ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... the room, but Ben maintained his place. He took particular notice of the gentleman who had been pointed out to him. He was a tall, slender man, with iron-gray hair, and a stern, unpleasant look. Ben judged that her guardian had not seen Miss Sinclair, for he seemed wholly intent ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger

... light ministerial fires, in the midst of a busy throng, with whistles, electric bells, piles of gold pieces so high that they topple over—it borders on the miraculous. To convince myself that it is all true, I have to look at myself in the glass, to gaze at my iron-gray coat trimmed with silver, my white cravat, my usher's chain such as I used to wear at the Faculty on council days. And to think that, to effect this transformation, to bring back to our brows the gayety that is the mother of concord, to restore to our paper ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... head when the City of Liege was taken by storm, and after seeing him you could never picture von Emmich bringing up the rear in a motor car, after the manner that more prudent Generals use. He has iron-gray hair and a bristly, close-cropped mustache to match, and a very florid complexion, and looks absolutely unlike the sleek individual whose photograph was published with his obituary notice in the London press while the forts of Liege ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... rim, where we could look down upon a long rugged iron-gray ridge of mountain, our guide using the glass, found two big stags. We all had our fill of looking. I could see them plainly with ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... fearful get-up, and, involuntarily, I looked about me expecting to see people stopping, a crowd forming. But no one appeared to notice the little old woman except myself, and as she drew near I discovered that she wore spectacles and a fringe of iron-gray hair around her face. Her eyes were piercingly bright and on her lips was etched a sardonic smile. Not quite knowing how to explain my rude stare, I was preparing to turn in another direction, when the stranger accosted me, and in the voice of a man: "Perhaps you ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... parlor mantelpiece, I see the face of a hard, determined-looking woman with cold gray eyes and rigidly set mouth, in a funny-looking black dress, neither high-necked nor low-necked, having a starchy white ruffle round the edge, in vivid white contrast to the yellow skin; with grizzly, iron-gray curls peeping out from under a cap that is fearfully and wonderfully made, with a huge ruffled border radiating in a circumference of several feet, while its two black-and-white gauze ribbon strings lie in rigid exactness over ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... Lois Murchison brought us together in the tea-room of the Palliser. In more ways than one he reminds me of Peter. But Captain Goodhue is a much older man, and is English, coming from a very excellent family in Sussex. He's one of those iron-gray ex-Army men who still believe in a monocle and can be loyal to a queen even though she wears a basque with darts in it. And he doesn't talk to a woman with that ragging air of condescension which seems to be peculiar to western American civilization. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... it rose the mountains. They were green to their tops in summer, and in winter white through their serried pines and drifting mists, but at every season serious and beautiful, furrowed with hollow shadows, and taking the light on masses and stretches of iron-gray crag. The river swam through the plain in long curves, and slipped away at last through an unseen pass to the southward, tracing a score of miles in its course over a space that measured but three or four. The ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... heaped in front. Stepping softly, they peered around the pile of rocks and saw, lying in the mouth of the chasm, a man with a revolver gripped in his right hand. Blood stained his clothing and ran out over the rocks and sand. He was a tall man with a short, bushy, iron-gray beard covering his face. Tuttle and Ellhorn covered him with their revolvers and walked to his side. He put up a feeble, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... man with a heavy iron-gray beard smoked a pipe, puffing out great mouthfuls of smoke with a sort of deliberate energy; another whittled a stick, cutting a bull with horns, and shaping his work with the nicest care; and still another traced letters ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... large iron-gray widow of sixty, insatiably greedy of such fleshly comforts as had ever come within her knowledge—soft cushions, heavily sweetened dishes, finer clothing than her neighbors. She had cold eyes, and nature had formed her mouth and jaw like the little silver-striped adder ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... taller even than Myles's father. He had a thin face, deep-set bushy eyebrows, and a hawk nose. His upper lip was clean shaven, but from his chin a flowing beard of iron-gray hung nearly to his waist. He was clad in a riding-gown of black velvet that hung a little lower than the knee, trimmed with otter fur and embroidered with silver goshawks—the crest ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... been invalided as the result of wounds or exposure in the trenches and, though unfit for active service, could still serve as aide to the Commander-in-Chief. At the appointed minute of the hour, in keeping with military punctuality, whether of generals or of curtains of fire, a man with iron-gray hair, clear, kindly eyes, and an unmistakably strong chin, came out of his office and welcomed the guests with simple informality. He seemed to have left business entirely behind when he left his desk. You knew him at once for the type of well-preserved ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... men dressed in black passed near the window. One of them was tall, stately, and smiling; the other, slightly stooping, had iron-gray hair and a wrinkled brow. They were Morejne Calman and Abraham Ezofowich. Evidently they had not crossed the square, but passed along the back streets almost stealthily, as if to avoid being seen. Both disappeared in the entrance ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... daughter, interrupting him gently by a change of tactics. She came to him and sat upon the arm of his chair, and rested her cheek lightly upon the top of his thick, iron-gray locks.—"Let's drop all this for the present. Let's not discuss it. I want you to do me a particular favour before we say another word about it. Come with me down to see the house. It's only three hours ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond

... defeated, and expecting death with more or less of agony as it was more or less near, John Brown was the finest specimen of a man that I ever saw. His great, gaunt form, his noble head and face, his iron-gray hair and patriarchal beard, with the patient endurance of his own suffering, and his painful anxiety for the fate of his sons and the welfare of his men, his reticence when jeered at, his readiness to turn away wrath with a kind answer, his whole appearance and manner, what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... joints, and bow knees gave tokens of prodigious strength. His face was dark and weather-beaten; a deep scar, as if from the slash of a cutlass, had almost divided his nose, and made a gash in his upper lip, through which his teeth shone like a bulldog's. A mop of iron-gray hair gave a grisly finish to this hard-favored visage. His dress was of an amphibious character. He wore an old hat edged with tarnished lace, and cocked in martial style on one side of his head; ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... travel for miles and miles over the rich vale. They now left the main road and struck into a green track over the common marked lightly with wheel and horse-shoe, which led down into the dingle and stopped at the rough gate of Farmer Ives. Here they found the farmer, an iron-gray old man, with a bushy eyebrow and strong aquiline nose, busied in one of his vocations. He was a horse and cow doctor, and was tending a sick beast which had been sent up to be cured. Benjy hailed him as an old friend, and he returned the greeting cordially enough, looking however hard ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... was the most perfectly modest man I ever saw, ever imagined, but he had a gentle dignity which I do not believe any one, the coarsest, the obtusest, could trespass upon. In the years when I began to know him, his long hair and the beautiful beard which mixed with it were of one iron-gray, which I saw blanch to a perfect silver, while that pearly tone of his complexion, which Appleton so admired, lost itself in the wanness of age and pain. When he walked, he had a kind of spring in his gait, as if now and again a buoyant thought lifted him from the ground. It was fine to meet ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... N. gray &c adj.; neutral tint, silver, pepper and salt, chiaroscuro, grisaille [Fr.]. [Pigments] Payne's gray; black &c 431. Adj. gray, grey; iron-gray, dun, drab, dingy, leaden, livid, somber, sad, pearly, russet, roan; calcareous, limy, favillous^; silver, silvery, silvered; ashen, ashy; cinereous^, cineritious^; grizzly, grizzled; slate-colored, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... the remarkable woman. Sturdy and prominent old character, obviously. Forty-seven years old, or thereabouts; lots of curling iron-gray hair twisted about her round forehead; a few wrinkles, and not all of the newest. Round face, round and earnest eyes, short, self-confident nose, chin sticking out in search of its own way, mouth trembling with unuttered ideas. Good ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... quite desperate, she rushed through the house and out of the front-door, actually in search of a man! Just down the street she saw one. Had she been composed, she might have noticed the threadbare cleanliness of his dress, the odd cap that crowned his iron-gray locks, and the peculiar manner of his walk; for our little old maid had stumbled upon no less a person than Monsieur Jean Leclerc, the dancing-master of Dalton. Not that this accomplishment was much in vogue ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... iron-gray hair he had a broad forehead, high cheekbones, a pointed prominent chin, a mouth both sweet and humorous, like that of some enchanting woman; but its sweetness was contradicted by a hawk nose. Had it not been for that nose he ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... fifty-three—a little man of a reddened, weather-worn skin and a meditative, almost saddened, aspect. He had blue eyes, but his scanty iron-gray hair showed raven black in its shadows. The width and prominence of his cheek-bones dominated all one's recollections of his face. The long vertical upper-lip and irregular teeth made, in repose, an unshapely mouth; its smile, though, sweetened the whole countenance. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... yawnings; Madame de Morlaine, between two young women whom she was training in the elegances of the mind; Madame Meillan, resting assured on thirty years of sovereign beauty; Madame Berthier d'Eyzelles, erect under iron-gray hair sparkling with diamonds. The bloom of her cheeks heightened the austere dignity of her attitude. She was attracting much notice. It had been learned in the morning that, after the failure of Garain's latest combination, M. Berthier-d'Eyzelles ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... in his turn, Monsieur Lacombe, his iron-gray hair disordered, his hands rubbing together nervously, and his eyes flashing—as was afterwards remarked upon—with a malicious fire, stepped forward and along to the organ-seat, and for a ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... nothing of it. The boy did not understand, but in the blue eyes of the Celt, peering from under the mop of iron-gray hair, there was no mistaking ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... enters the 'Turk's Head' at the corner of Regent Street, a noble coach and four drives up. It is the Duke of Chandos, who is inquiring for Mr. Pope. Presently a deformed little man, in an iron-gray suit, and with a face as keen as a razor, hobbles out, makes a low bow to the burly Handel, who, helping him into the chariot, gets in after him, and they drive off together to Cannons, the duke's mansion at Edge-ware. There they ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... a dashing lawyer, with iron-gray hair, and separated from his wife. His guardianly attention to Carol Lester set village and town gossip to talking.—Charlotte Dunning, Upon ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... unless perchance you are the ghost of a mediaeval porker," Hankinson said, his calmness returning now that he had succeeded in plastering his iron-gray lock across the top of his otherwise bald head. "Of course, if you are a spook of that kind you want the earth, and maybe you'll ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... shout and in a moment, from every part of the ship, men came pouring, wide-eyed and unbelieving that they had crossed the Sea of Darkness at last. In their midst came a quiet man; a tall man with iron-gray hair and a firm mouth, who at first spoke no word, only gazed dumbly at the fulfillment of his dreams, stretching before him in ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... diversion for her. About the middle of the afternoon two gentlemen called for her father. One was quite as old, with a handsome white beard and iron-gray hair, very stylishly dressed. He wore a high-standing collar with points, and what was called a neckcloth of black silk with dark-blue brocaded figures running over it, and a handsome brocaded-velvet vest, double-breasted, the fashion of ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... into it at once, so that I had no time to take notice of anything except that he talked without an accent, was probably French only in name and that he wore clothes which were superfine. I never saw such a dresser for a man with iron-gray hair and fifty-five years to contend against in the youth-preserving business, which I calculated was one of his pleasures in life, if not his vocation. Nothing I figured on coming up-town happened except that I found my man. A sixty-year ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... was a tall, solidly-built man with a kindly expression. He wore gray flannel trousers and a brown tweed jacket, which made an interesting color contrast with his iron-gray hair. His teeth were clenched so firmly on the bit of a calabash pipe with a meerschaum bowl that Malone wondered if he could ever get loose. Malone shut the door behind him, and Sir Lewis rose ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... me, Claude," she cried, casting as she did so a frightened glance at the back of her husband's head. "I'm your mother. I shall stand by you, whoever fails." Her words terrified her so utterly that before she dared to cross the floor to her son she looked again beseechingly at the iron-gray top of her husband's head as it appeared above the back of the arm-chair. Nevertheless, she stole swiftly to her boy and put her hands on his shoulders. "I'm your mother, dear," she sobbed, tremblingly; "and if she's a good girl, and loves ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... a study of a face so unfamiliar that at first he had scarcely known it for his own. It was far leaner than of old; it was no longer richly tanned; and the mouth called louder than ever for a mustache. The hair, what there was of it, seemed iron-gray. It had certainly receded at the temples. What a pity, while it ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... as she spoke handed a cup of tea to a tall gentleman, Louis Manvers by name, the possessor of a long, tanned countenance; of thin iron-gray hair, descending toward the shoulders; of a drooping moustache, and eyes that mostly studied the carpet or the knees of their owner. A shy, laconic person at first sight, with the manner of one to whom conversation, of the drawing-room kind, was little more than a series of ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... bull-necked, bullet-headed sort of person, with the self-satisfied air of monetary success, but with that ominous hardness about the corners of the mouth which constantly betrays the lucky man of business. His abundant long hair was iron-gray and wiry—Erasmus Walker had seldom time to waste in getting it cut—his eyes were small and shrewd; his hand was firm, and gripped the pen in its grasp like a ponderous crowbar. His writing, Tyrrel could see, was thick, black, and ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... Chattanooga of which I was the bearer, chosen by Grant himself because of the reputation of my mare. What riding that was! We started, ten riders of us in all, each with the same message. I parted company the first hour out with all save one, an iron-gray stallion of Messenger blood. Jack Murdock rode him, who learned his horsemanship from buffalo and Indian hunting on the plains—not a bad school to graduate from. Ten miles out of Knoxville the gray, his flanks dripping ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray

... for her heart was breaking, but turned and went into her room. Burrell had an irresistible desire to tell Gale that he wanted his daughter for his wife; it would be an unwonted pleasure to startle this iron-gray old man and the shawled and shambling mummy of red, with the unwinking eyes that always reminded him of two ox-heart cherries; but he had given Necia his promise. So he descended to the exchange of ordinary topics, and inquired for news ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... while that of his fellow-traveller was long, and delicate, and pale. The forehead of the latter was broad, and his chest filled out a waistcoat of cashmere pattern. As Oscar admired the tight-fitting iron-gray trousers and the overcoat with its frogs and olives clasping the waist, it seemed to him that this romantic-looking stranger, gifted with such advantages, insulted him by his superiority, just as an ugly woman feels injured by the mere sight of a pretty one. The click of the stranger's boot-heels ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... themselves. The next instant, two men came up to us, making their way from the neighborhood of the door. The one was a keen-faced, elderly man, with iron-gray whiskers and clean-shaved chin; the other was my first acquaintance in the neighborhood, the young bricklayer. The elder addressed my husband, while the other listened ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... texture which at one time were so very apparent, disturbing credibility and destroying illusion. And the decline of hair in colour and quantity has often been imitated in the theatre with very happy ingenuity. Heads in an iron-gray or partially bald state—varying from the first slight thinning of the locks to the time when they come to be combed over with a kind of "cat's cradle" or trellis-work look, to veil absolute calvity—are now represented by the actors with a completeness of a most artistic kind. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... interest. What could be more important than the men who were going to try him? The process was too swift for accurate judgment, but he received a faint impression of middle-class men. One man in particular, however, an old man of sixty-five, with iron-gray hair and beard, shaggy eyebrows, sallow complexion, and stooped shoulders, struck him as having that kindness of temperament and breadth of experience which might under certain circumstances be argumentatively swayed in his favor. Another, a small, sharp-nosed, sharp-chinned commercial man of ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... into the soft earth. Though not tall, he gave the impression of being enormously strong. He was thick, solid, firm—thick through the body, thick through the thighs; and his shoulders—what shoulders they were!—round like a maple log; and his great head with its thatching of coarse iron-gray hair, though thrust slightly forward, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... Whitey from the bed and, half pulling him behind her, groped her way to the side door of the ranch house and into the blackness of the night. Tied to a bush, by a hackamore, was an iron-gray colt, the fastest on the ranch. After that night's work he was known to be the fastest in that part of ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... foot upon the step, one hand grasping the ironwork of the seat, staring at the driver, suddenly disarmed. The man on the seat was a grizzled, malformed creature of about fifty, with a deeply-wrinkled small face, burnt a dark tan, and almost covered with a tangle of short, crisp, iron-gray whiskers. The suggestion of a rough-haired terrier was so strong that Done expected the brute to bark at him. The small eyes in the protecting shade of tufted brows, like miniature overhanging horns, were keen and shrewd This extraordinary ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... time to confront, or be confronted by, an austere lady in stiff satin or brocade and with bristling iron-gray hair! He noticed, however, that unlike the maid, she had a very prominent ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... short, thick-set man of enormous strength and round, youngish face, eased himself into a half-sitting position. But before he could answer another man, with iron-gray hair, sat up alertly and eyed their ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum



Words linked to "Iron-gray" :   gray, grey, neutral, greyness, iron-grey, achromatic, grayness



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