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Limp   Listen
noun
Limp  n.  A manner of walking in which the movement of one or both legs is noticeably abnormal, usually due to injury or disease; a halt; the act of limping.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Limp" Quotes from Famous Books



... absolutely and completely turned the tables on that vulgar Annie Day and that pushing, silly little Lucy Marsh. I never saw any two look smaller or poorer than those two when they skedaddled out of her room. Yes, that's the word— they skedaddled to the door, both of them, looking as limp as a cotton dress when it has been worn for a week, and one almost treading on the other's heels; and I do not think Prissie will be worried ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... brisk walking and the warm, sunlit air around them, their clothes were already drying; and when old Robert met them, in the dusky chasm at the foot of the Bad Step, he was far too much engaged with the fish to notice their limp and damp garments; while again, as they resumed their march, he, carrying the fish, lagged in the rear, and thus they escaped his keen eyes. Indeed, by the time they reached the Lodge, and as Miss Honnor was about to enter, Lionel said to her ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... wheel now," said Dunston Porter, quietly, and Dave slid out of the driving-seat willingly enough, for the excitement had left him somewhat limp. ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... great deal of excitement, and Aunt Selina was done on the arm. As she did not affect evening clothes this was entirely natural, but later on in the week, when the wretched things began to take, nobody dared to limp, and Leila made a terrible break by wearing a bandage on her left arm, after telling Aunt Selina that she had been vaccinated ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... it?" the Blue Wizard observed with a grin, as he put the Lord Chancellor, very white and limp, on the window-seat ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam

... lips. He was shown the chicken-yard—full of gawky, half-grown chickens shedding their down and growing their feathers—and forgot his feet in the fascination of scattering grain to them and watching their fluttering scrambles. He was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to take one of the limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in his arms, and feed a lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink mouth. He was shown the house-in-the-maple-tree, a rough floor fixed between two large branches, with ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... presently she discovered that the American required no assistance. She saw the Indian's head bending slowly forward beneath the resistless force of the other's huge muscles, she heard the crack that announced the parting of the vertebrae and saw the limp thing which had but a moment before been a man, pulsing with life and vigor, roll helplessly aside—a harmless and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... something in this vulgar degradation of intellect and power—qualities that Clarence had always boyishly worshiped—which sickened and disillusioned him. Later on a pistol shot in a crowd beyond, the rush of eager men past him, the disclosure of a limp and helpless figure against the wall, the closing of the crowd again around it, although it stirred him with a fearful curiosity, actually shocked him less hopelessly than their brutish enjoyments ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... chamber to set down my Journall of Sunday last with much pleasure, and my foot being pretty well, but yet I am forced to limp. Then by coach, set my wife down at the New Exchange, and I to White Hall to the Treasury chamber, but to little purpose. So to Mr. Burges to as little. There to the Hall and talked with Mrs. Michell, who begins ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... It's the sea-weed. It turns limp, and smells because the weather's moist and stormy. There, come on. Father must be ready now, and I want to go ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... title of "Le Rei." Nessudikira was a "blanc-bec," aged twenty or twenty-one, who till lately had been a trading lad at Boma—now he must not look upon the sea. He appeared habited in the usual guy style: a gaudy fancy helmet, a white shirt with limp Byronic collar, a broad-cloth frock coat, a purple velvet gold-fringed loin-wrap: a theatrical dagger whose handle and sheath bore cut- glass emeralds and rubies, stuck in the waist-belt; brass ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... hair, and eyes of enamel, whose fixed look sometimes frightened her. What with two years' constant dressing and undressing, the paint had got rubbed off the chin and cheeks, and the limbs, of pink leather stuffed with sawdust, had become limp and wrinkled like old linen. The doll was just now in its night attire, arrayed only in a bed-gown, with its arms twisted, one in the air and the other hanging downwards. When Jeanne realized that there was still some one with her, she ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... and journey westward later on with Mrs. Titus and Jasper, Jr., succeeded after weeks of vain endeavour in smartly nipping the calf of Hawkes' left leg, a feat of which he no doubt was proud but which sentenced my impressive butler to an everlasting dread of hydrophobia and a temporary limp. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... yet never seemed desirous of heading back to his old haunts where dinners were hard to secure, Toby had some weird-looking lop-eared rabbits; a bunch of quail from which he hoped to raise a family later on; a red fox that had a limp on account of the broken leg set by Toby after he had found the little animal apparently dying from hunger in the bitter wintry storm; and last but not least a small edition of a wildcat that never would make up with the hand that fed it, but continued ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... courtesans joined the comic vocalists, waiting to do their "turns." Lord Muchross and Lord Snowdown ordered magnums, and soon the hall was almost deserted. A girl was, however, dancing prettily on the stage, and Mike stood to watch her. Her hose were black, and in limp pink silk skirts she kicked her slim legs surprisingly to and fro. After each dance she ran into the wings, reappearing in a fresh costume, returning at length in wide sailor's trousers of blue silk, her bosom partially covered in white cambric. ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... Well, well, I am very glad you have no such scoundrels here. I won't say a single word against your people, who are as fine a lot as any in the south of England, and as obstinate as any I could wish to see. Of an obstinate man I can always make good; with a limp one I can do nothing. But bear in mind every word you have heard me say, because I came down on purpose about it; and I generally penetrate the devices of the enemy, though they lead me on a wild-goose-chase sometimes, but only when ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... him a glance as from the depths of a tomb, and raised his limp hand in a prophetic manner ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... plants of a tender kind flagged by ten o'clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and even stiff cabbages were limp by noon. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... embarrassment to him of late. It was beginning to be what is known as a false position, since Headley the butler could now look after Aylmer. Except for a limp, he ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... kindness for him, and coveted to have him for one of his great ones, to act and do in matters of the highest concern. Bunyan represents him as having been wounded in the leg, during the seige. 'Some of the prince's army certainly saw him limp, as he afterwards walked ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... just about the quantity used by the ordinary man for cooking and drinking in the cold weather at home; but in a khamsin when you are doing five or six hours' hard manual labour per diem, a gallon is easily consumed. Luckily these heat waves only last about three days, but it left us pretty limp. ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... ankle, and found Mayne Reid palled a little bit,—when I brought you Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution, as you sat in the wheel-chair, and you read away upon that for hours? Do you remember how, when you were getting well, you used to limp into my room, and I let you hook down books with the handle of your crutch, so that you read the English Parrys and Captain Back, and then got hold of my great Schoolcraft and Catlin, and finally improved your ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... white and caked with dust, the dirt lay clotted in his beard, and only the whites of his eyes, rolling and sanguinary, gave evidence of his humanity; his shirt, half torn from his body by plunging through the cat-claws, hung limp and heavy with sweat; and the look of him was that of a madman, beside himself with rage. The dirt, the sweat, the grime, were as heavy on Hardy, and his eyes rolled like a negro's beneath the mask of dust, but weariness had overcome his madness and he leaned forward upon the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... before the breaking of the storm, hatches are closed up and sails are trimmed. Omnibuses come in loaded with wounded, likewise butcher wagons with similar loads. Many of the lighter wounded soldiers limp on foot. With nightfall the entire city falls into darkness—strange, ghostlike. People creep along the walls with bowed heads. The silence of the night only intensifies the roar of the untiring guns, and they ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... herself slowly to the nearest pole, where she rested before again making the trial. This time she did not falter, but when she was picked up by the rescuers at the farthest pole toward safety she was limp from nervous ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... the face, Helen?" As he put the question Kent looked around at the silent girl in the corner; she had slipped back in her chair and, with closed eyes, lay white-lipped and limp. With a leap Kent gained her side and his ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... sitting at breakfast the very morning after this conversation had taken place at Melcombe. No less than four of his children were waiting on him; Gladys was drying his limp newspaper at a bright fire, Barbara spreading butter on his toast, little Hugh kneeling on a chair, with his elbows on the table, was reading him a choice anecdote from a child's book of natural history, and Anastasia, while he poured ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... drm. of distilled water dissolve twelve grains of ammonio-citrate of iron. Mix the two solutions in a cup or saucer, and at once brush over the surface of clean strong paper. Cover the surface thoroughly, but apply no more than the paper will take up at once; it should become limp and moist, but not wet. The above quantity of solution, two drms., will suffice to sensitize ten square feet of paper, or three sheets of the "regular" size of plain paper, 18x22. As fast as the sheets are washed over with the solution, hang them up to dry by one corner. The surplus ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various

... amid a gathering even of sensible, cheerful adults, she will probably break up the evening by dint of a well-timed fit of spasms or something similar. Dickens made Mrs. Gummidge very funny; but the Gummidge of real life is not merely a limp, "lorn" creature—she is a woman who began by being unhealthily vain, and ends by being venomously malignant. I do not think that many people have passed through life very far without meeting with a specimen of the dolorous ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... The sentry hung limp in Roger's grasp. Oswald bound his hands tightly, and twisted the rope three or four times round his body, and securely knotted it. Then he ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... quarter weren't sick—they were dead. They were bleached to a pale yellow, like boiled grass, and limp. Nothing would ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey

... with others. The fact of the matter is, Doctor Carmack, that I am constituted very like my father was; and once upon a time his temper got the better of him, so that he attacked a man who had insulted him, and seriously injured him. That man always had a limp through the remainder of his life. He and my father became good friends, but my dad could never forgive himself for what he did. He used to say that it was a mercy he had not actually killed the man in his blind passion. And after he died, my good mother, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... that they stood in the same intermediate position as they do now—the epitome of student- kind. Mr. Tatler's satire is, on the whole, good-humoured, and has not grown superannuated in ALL its limbs. His descriptions may limp at some points, but there are certain broad traits that apply equally well to session 1870-1. He shows us the DIVINITY of the period—tall, pale, and slender—his collar greasy, and his coat bare about the seams—'his white ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... boy!" said Jack, leaning over the body and lifting the shoulders from which the head hung loosely. "Neck broken and dead as his pal." Suddenly he started, and, to Demorest's astonishment, began hurriedly pulling off the glove from the boy's limp right hand. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... disturbed the stillness of the night. The leaves of the trees hung limp and lifeless, for no breeze ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... amazement, this practiced hand at delicate investigations was a brisk, plump, jolly little man, with a comfortable double chin, a pair of very bright black eyes, and a big bottle-nose of the true groggy red color. He wore a suit of black, and a limp, dingy white cravat; took snuff perpetually out of a very large box; walked with his hands crossed behind his back; and looked, upon the whole, much more like a parson of free-and-easy habits than ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... for lunch or maneuvers. For they were just coming through the Place du Marche when I reached there. Only the colonel was on horse. At the turn of the road, the captains stood out of rank to watch their companies wheel. Our soldier of the morning passed. He had forgotten his limp. The sergeant recognized me, and pointed to the soldier. His left upper eyelid came down with a wink, as if to say, "Don't ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... himself fall into a chair in the attitude of a dying hero. I saw his eyes fill with tears, and his hair—until then flamboyant and erect upon his head—fall down in limp disorder ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... glassy and protruding. His dress was green, clumsily trimmed here and there with gaudy lace. A pair of tawdry ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was nearly bare. His hat was ornamented with a cluster of peacock's feathers, limp, broken, and trailing down his back. Girded to his side was the steel hilt of an old sword, without blade or scabbard; and a few knee-ribbons completed his attire. He had a large raven named Grip, which he carried at his back in a basket, a most knowing imp, which used to cry out ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... with an exclamation that sounded as much like "Whump!" as anything else. He uttered another and less forced exclamation when he discovered in the tangle of brush that had broken his fall, another rabbit that had not survived his sudden visitation. He picked up the limp, furry shape. "Asleep at the switch," he said. "He ain't much bigger than a whisper, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... Imbros. Very hot; very limp with the prevalent disease but greatly cheered up by the news of yesterday evening's battle at Helles. The Turks must have got hold of a lot of fresh shell for, at 5.30 p.m., they began as heavy a bombardment ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... easy for Mr. Belcher to take his hand, limp and trembling with fear, and under the guise of friendliness to lead him up the steps, and take him to his room. Thede watched them until they disappeared, and then ran back to his home, and reported what had taken ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... mists of the evening, they met a temporarily insane woman, on a temporarily mad horse, swinging round the corners, with her eyes and her mouth open, and her head like the head of the Medusa. She was stopped by a man at the risk of his life, and taken out of the saddle, a limp heap, and put on the bank to explain herself. This wasted twenty minutes, and then she was sent home in a lady's 'rickshaw, still with her mouth open and her hands ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... name is Larry. He's a bald-headed fat man and is dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, a pink vest and drab breeches. A piece of his left knee is missing, having been lost years ago when he scattered himself too carelessly. That makes him limp a little, but he gets along very well with half a knee. As he is the chief personage in this town of Fuddlecumjig, he will be able to welcome you and assist you with the others. So it will be best to work on him while I'm getting ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... that if you were to take the Irish from out of me it's faded and limp as a mornin'-glory at two in the ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... because there will lack those democratic restraints which this war has shown are absolutely essential to secure a peaceful understanding among the nations. It is for this reason that Japan will fail to attain the position the art-genius and industry of her people entitle her to and must limp behind the progress of the world unless a very radical revision of the constitution is achieved. The disabilities which arise from an archaic survival are so great that they will affect China as adversely ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... casarse con alguno: To marry someone. Cesar de correr: To cease running. Cifrar su dicha en la virtud: To make one's happiness consist in virtue. Clavar a (or en) la pared: To nail on the wall. Cojear del pie derecho: To limp with the right foot. Colgar de un clavo: To hang on a nail. Colmar de mercedes: To load with benefits. Comerciar con su credito: To trade on one's credit. Comprar de (or a) una persona: To buy from someone. Comprar al fiado: To buy on credit. Comprometerse a pagar: ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... into picture, his left arm hanging limp, holding gun in right hand, prepared to use it rather than stop; reins hanging on horse's neck. He takes reins in right hand—after restoring gun ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... began to side-step and limp. "Count me out on that," said he. "The old skunk treated me just about the same way. I don't blame you; a feller sure has a right to have his postmaster make a bluff at shuffling ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... cold air, as they drove rapidly down the street, with that limp shape between them, revived the boy, and he opened his eyes, and made an effort to hold himself erect, but he could not; and when they got him into the warm room at home, he fainted again. His mother had met them at the door of her poor little house, without any demonstration ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... found to be soft and limp, and smoke generally beats downward when the East Wind presages rain. Callouses on the feet will ache painfully; spiders will be seen strengthening their webs against moisture-weight; morning-glories will close up ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... Aunty Edith the house, and she told me all about her journey, and how long it took her, and how sick Uncle Burt was then, and how much better he was now; and that though he would always walk with a limp, he wouldn't need a crutch,—which ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull

... coaxed or cajoled, for he was very grumpy indeed; and the reason was, that he had had the lawn to mow that morning, and there had been no dew, and the consequence was, the grass, instead of being easy to cut from its crispness and dampness, was very limp and wiry, so that poor Sam had a very hard and unsatisfactory job, and the effect of it all was that he was as limp and wiry as the grass had been. It was of no use to say, "Do, Sam," or "Do, please, Sam," or "That's ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... whipped off the camel's skin, and a lax, limp object, his clothes hanging on him damply, his hand clenched tightly on an almost empty bottle, stood defiantly ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... muzzle of his revolver. Then Blondy's gun flashed down and clanked on the floor. A red spot grew on the breast of Hansen's shirt; now he leaned as if to pick up something, but instead, slid forward on his face. Vic stepped to him and stirred the body with his toe; it wobbled, limp. ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... gently lifted on to the stretcher, and as they carried him away the report of a gun ran out. The onlookers dispersed and Gladwyne was walking home alone when Millicent overtook him. She was puzzled by his limp appearance and the expression of his haggard face. It was only natural that he should keenly feel his responsibility for the accident, but this did not quite seem to account for the man's condition. He looked absolutely unnerved, like ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... knocking the varnish off all one end of the car. A head appearing, he coolly batted it three times against a corner of the seat arm, after which he pulled the contestant out by the hair and threw him into a seat where he lay limp. Then it could be seen that Jimmy had clasped tight in his embrace a leg each of the other two. He hugged them close to his breast, and jammed his face down against them to protect his features. They could pound the top of his head and welcome. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... him. However, increasing apathy crept upon him as he lay there with shrunken arms and pallid features; his weakness augmented as the earth grew more ailing. At times, when the clouds were inky black, when the bending trees cracked, and the grass lay limp beneath the downpour like the hair of a drowned woman, he all but ceased to breathe, and seemed to be passing away, shattered by the hurricane. But at the first gleam of light, at the tiniest speck of blue between two clouds, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... Carse stood motionless, his face cold and graven, his slender body bent under the burden of the dead suit. He still held in his right hand, limp by his side, the sheaf of papers and their all-important figure—and the thumb and forefinger of his hand were moving, so slowly as to be hardly noticeable, in what seemed to be a ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore

... shaped like their faces, using the nose for a handle. A drunken tengu makes a funny sight, as he staggers about with his big wings drooping and flapping around him, and the feathers trailing in the mud, and his long nose limp, ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... brightness and luxury of the room G.J. had the sensation of being a poor, baffled ghost groping in the night of existence. Concepcion's left arm slipped over the edge of the day-bed and hung limp and pale, the curved ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... with the native. The English lad saw at once that the man bound to the cross was stupefied with an extremity of terror. His brown skin was a frightful ashen shade, his eyes were wide, distended with horror, and fixed on the swamp, his mouth open, his jaw hanging limp. ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... don't kill him!" Dick's shout arose above the shouts of men and the screams of dance-hall women. He had barely time to observe, in a flash, that Bill had picked the limp form of Thompson up, and heavy as it was, lifted it high above his head and thrown it violently into a vacant corner back of the table in a crumpled heap, when he was almost felled to the floor by a blow from behind, ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... ones,—and the inferior rascal succumbed at the reflection of what HE might do if he were in the other rascal's place. "See here, Wiles," he said, relaxing his dignity with the perspiration that oozed from every pore, and made the collar of his shirt a mere limp rag. "See here, WE"—this first use of the plural was equivalent to a confession—"we ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... right arm hung limp behind him; the boulder in his hand dangled a hundred feet or more in the air above the water. Slowly the greater strength of his antagonist bent him backwards. Aura's heart stood still as she saw Targo's fingers ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... the ash-shaft to Sim's side. Something cracked and his left arm hung limp. But the furies of hell had hold of him now. He rolled over, gripped his spear short, and with a swift turn struck upwards. The big man gave a sob and toppled down into ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... have pretended to die after Alzire, Mahomet, and Semiramis, and not have produced his wretched last pieces: Lord Chatham should have closed his political career with his immortal war: and how weak was Garrick, when he had quitted the stage, to limp after the tatters of fame by writing and reading pitiful poems; and even by sitting to read plays which he had acted with such fire and energy! We have another example in Mr. Anstey; who, if he had a friend upon earth, would have been obliged to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... a woman loll Like to a clot of seaweed thrown ashore; Heavy and limp as cloth soaked in black dye, She glooms the noontide dazzle where a bay Bites into vineyarded flats close-fenced by hills, Over whose tops lap forests of cork and fir And reach in places half down their rough slopes. Lower, some few ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... Herschowitz fired too, and there seemed to be shots from the second boche. My own particular duelist dropped back limp after my first shot, although I got ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... was examining the limp, dirty hands of the dead man. The fingers were covered with soil, the nails were broken. He had evidently clutched at the earth and at every tuft of grass, after his fall from ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... could go. At a sudden turn I have stepped upon starved, ignoble weeds, and reaching out my hands, I have touched a fair tree out of which a parasite had taken the life like a vampire. I have touched a pretty bird whose soft wings hung limp, whose little heart beat no more. I have wept over the feebleness and deformity of a child, lame, or born blind, or, worse still, mindless. If I had the genius of Thomson, I, too, could depict a "City of Dreadful Night" from mere touch sensations. ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... at the end of the long table, with the twins on either side of him, but he was generally limp and querulous in the morning, and more kindly disposed toward Father Ricardo than to his own flesh and blood, as Angelica pointed ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... one, he forgot the monk utterly. Had he a plank—anything in the least serviceable as a float—he would go after the master. He looked the enclosure over, and the sedan caught his eye, its door ajar. The door would suffice. He took hold of the limp body of the keeper, drew it after him, set it on the seat, and was about wrenching the door away, when he saw the poles. They were twelve or fourteen feet long and lashed together. On rafts not half so good he had in Kash-Cush crossed swollen streams, paddling with ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... water. Yes, sure enough, there they were. Far out of reach, floating serenely along, the boots nodding a graceful farewell to their former owners as the little waves bore them off on their voyage of discovery, while the stockings, less courageous, had yielded to despair, and floated limp and piteous, stretching out their scarlet length in a vain appeal ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards

... water, and succeeded in getting some between the pale lips of the girl, but to no purpose. She was limp and half senseless, though she continued to moan and talk incoherently. Then the four girls picked her up and carried her toward ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... this moment Horace Lord came in. He had not the fresh appearance which usually distinguished him; his face was stained with perspiration, his collar had become limp, the flower at his ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... backward under the passion and fury of his first embrace. Again and again his lips met hers, and she heard the incoherent outpouring of murmured words, and felt the storm that shook him as it was shaking her. Norma, after the first kiss, grew limp, let herself rest almost without movement in his arms, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... his veins meantime, went and came a vision of that limp inert figure of the man being carried into the haunted house as it stood out in the flare of the flash light, one arm hanging heavily. What did that hand and arm remind him of? Oh—h! The time when ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... naturally of a resolute disposition, acquired courage from this circumstance, to examine his monstrous guest, who gave him sufficient leisure for that purpose. He saw, as the lion approached him, that he seemed to limp upon one of his legs and that the foot was extremely swelled as if it had been wounded. Acquiring still more fortitude from the gentle demeanor of the beast, he advanced up to him and took hold of the wounded paw, as a surgeon would examine ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... the levelled rifle from his shoulder, looked grimly at the limp thing which had tumbled from the sledge into the snowy road and which sprawled there crimsoning the spotless flakes that ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... of you to come and see us," she cried, extending a limp hand. "We do so want some one to brighten us up. Darling," to old Mrs. Douglass, "why didn't you tell them to send ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... work whatever, not even swab the deck. It was only with difficulty that he could limp along, and every move caused him violent pain. He grew listless and dejected, and sat all day on the vessel's side, eagerly straining his eyes to catch any sight of land, or gazing vacantly into the weary sameness of ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... is of graceful figure, with long, floating hair, but without a face; and the young man is tall and robust, but the sleeves of his coat hang limp and empty, for ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... She is lame, and I want you to be kind and thoughtful toward her. She does not show her lameness until she commences to walk, and then you can see that one of the fat little legs is longer than the other, which makes her limp. So do not watch her as she walks. Be sure not to run against her in your plays, and don't shut her out from them because she cannot run and jump as you do, but choose, some of the time, plays in which she can take part. Remember, I make this rule: When ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... but the master caned on until he thought he had quite accomplished his duty in that particular; then he let the limp youth ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... grappled Mr. Storey, but I found him rather a large contract, for I had to favor my left arm. Then he suddenly turned limp and rolled to the floor, his head thumping noisily on a corner ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... found some long leaves, to which, from their shape, he gave the name of sword leaves. These he brought home to play with, and then, when he grew tired of them, threw them down. As they lay on the floor, Fritz took some of them in his hand, and found them so limp, that he said he could plait them, and make a whip for Frank to drive the sheep and goats with. As he split them up to do this, I could not but note their strength. This led me to try them, and I found that we had now a kind of flax plant, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... twenty seconds—even longer it seemed to Carrigan—the life of these two was expressed in a vivid and unforgettable tableau. One half of it David saw—the blue sky, the dazzling sun, the girl in between. The pistol dropped from his limp hand, and the weight of his body tottered on the crook of his under-elbow. Mentally and physically he was on the point of collapse, and yet in those few moments every detail of the picture was painted with a brush of fire in ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... buzzing of the flies about the casks on that hot midsummer's day, and without the trace of a limp, the man stepped rapidly into the office, but only to dart back again in alarm, for, all at once, there was a loud rattling noise of straps, chains, and ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... any man ever talked like that in this world. I don't believe I talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting one's conversation, one cannot help BLAIR-ing it up more or less, ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping and plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... at the inaction had she believed him. But she knew it was not laziness which had drawn certain new lines about the expeditioner's mouth and deepened the old ones on his forehead. It was not laziness which lay behind the strained look in his eyes and the sudden return of his almost vanished limp. These things are not symptoms of indolence. They are symptoms of nerves. And Desire knew something of nerves. What she did not know, in the present case, was their exciting cause. Neither could she understand this new reticence on the part of their victim nor his ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... he read that future All-England batsman in a secluded passage near the junior day-room left the latter rather limp and exceedingly meek. For the moment all the jauntiness and exuberance had been drained out of him. He was a punctured balloon. Reflection, and the distinctly discouraging replies of those experts in school law to whom he had put the question, "What d'you think he'll do?" ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... just gone down below for a moment to commune in a battened- down cabin, with a large white chart lying limp and damp upon a cold and clammy table under the light of a smoky lamp. Sprawling over that seaman's silent and trusted adviser, with one elbow upon the coast of Africa and the other planted in the neighbourhood of Cape Hatteras (it was a general track-chart of the North Atlantic), ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... sweetness on the desert stillness, music which told beyond peradventure that some cataclysm in the player's life had shaken him from his rightful niche. It proclaimed this travel-stained sheepherder in his faded overalls and peak-crowned limp-brimmed hat another of the incongruities of the far west. The sagebrush plains and mountains have held the secrets of many Mysteries locked in their silent breasts, for, since the coming of the White Man, they have been a haven for civilization's ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... Scotland, and although he had thought of Ermie, still he had given up his desires with a pang. He hated Miss Nelson to think better of him than he deserved, but he did not know how to explain himself, and he followed her in rather a limp fashion ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... it out, a delicate cluster of flaky blossoms, poised carelessly, like little white hearts, on the limp stem. She opened the accompanying envelope, and found Ward's card. On the back ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... old linen, draped a coffin in the centre of the room, and hid the conical object on the coffin's lid. On a sudden half savage impulse I lifted the covering, with a pang of fear lest the fabric should drop to pieces. But it did not. Its limp, yet heavy folds fell across my feet, as I stood looking at the wonderful thing ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Don't talk to me about your prosperity, your riches, the rarity of famine, the rapidity of the means of transport! There is more of riches, but less of force. The idea uniting heart and soul to heart and soul exists no more. All is loose, soft, limp—we are all of us limp.... Enough, gentlemen! I have done. That is not the question. No, the question is now, excellency, I believe, to sit down to the banquet you are about to ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... that "a man is known by the company he keeps." He naturally assimilates by the force of imitation, to the habits and manners of those by whom he is surrounded. We know persons who walk much with the lame, who have learned to walk with a hitch or limp like their lame friends. Vice stalks in the streets unabashed, and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... birds strayed too far on the turf that lined the highway, and would guide it back to the stones again with his staff. As for the geese, they were utterly draggle-tailed and stained with travel, and waddled, every one, with so woe-begone a limp that I had to ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... anchor. The boom, swinging rapidly from side to side, swept Simpkins' hat (a stiff-brimmed straw hat) into the sea. He made no effort to save it; but the Major, grabbing the boat-hook, got hold of it just before it floated beyond reach, and drew it, waterlogged and limp, into the boat. Simpkins expressed no gratitude. Meldon hauled the punt alongside, and asked Miss King if she would like to go ashore. She assented with a feeble smile. There was no use consulting Simpkins. His wishes were taken for granted, and he ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... door was shut, Cyril jumped out of bed to watch her go, and so occupied was he over her danger, that he forget his own hurt and did not limp at all. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner

... was dreamy, limp like wet silk. An individual called Kross, probably an insignificant, little man, felt his unimportance so deeply that he gave full licence to his penknife and carved his name in deep letters an inch high. I took a pencil out of my pocket mechanically, and I too scribbled ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... speak, but took one of the limp hands in hers, and Betty took the other. Libbie made no resistance, and allowed them to draw her toward the house. They crossed the threshold, led her upstairs, past the quivering Esther and Bob huddled on the windowseat, and into the bedroom she ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... in the objects some story they have to tell. The plaster of the garret wall where they are hanging he may show to be cracked; that tear in the coat speaks of faithful service, but the coat hangs limp and dusty now; the inscription on the canteen is almost obliterated, and the strap is broken; the sabre, which shows the marks of stern usage along its blade, is spotted with rust: the whole composition means Trusty Servants in Neglect. By the emphasis ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes

... glanced furtively out into the central well. There came a dry, tearing crackle as the bones of the arms were drawn out of their sockets, and then the shrieks ceased as merciful unconsciousness came. Gore tossed the limp body ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl

... them," said Stephen, drawing off her long, limp suede gloves and smoothing them. "I daresay she'll be looking for war whoops and tomahawks. And if it comes to that, we can furnish the former, ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... on the sensitive, suffering faces of Frenchwomen in their mourning, the wistful eyes of crippled youths, the limp forms of wounded men, the tense, bent figures of dirty poilus in their muddy trenches, I knew that through their souls and bodies was passing the ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... Then I hastened off across the intervening blocks and through the grounds of the White House, in which presently, having edged through the throng in the ante-chambers, I found myself in that inane procession of individuals who passed by in order, each to receive the limp handshake, the mechanical bow and the perfunctory smite of President Tyler—rather a tall, slender-limbed, active man, and of very decent presence, although his thin, shrunken cheeks and his cold blue-gray eye left little quality ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... in his magnificent boudoir, kneeling and sobbing by the side of his dead wife; a revolver had fallen to the floor from her limp hand. It was still smoking. The exquisite lace coverlet was even now drinking up the red stains, and the bluecoats stopped at the doorway, dropping their heads as they instinctively doffed ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... of battle of the old days of excited charges and quick results, and watch the toll pass by from hour to hour. Borne by comrades pick-a-back we saw the wounded carried along that passage too narrow for a litter. A splash of blood, a white bandage, a limp form! ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... farm, became a tyrant. During the time of the cabbage setting he drove his sons and daughters like slaves. When in the evening the moon came up, he made them go back to the fields immediately after supper and work until midnight. They went in sullen silence, the girls to limp slowly along dropping the plants out of baskets carried on their arms, and the boys to crawl after them and set the plants. In the half darkness the little group of humans went slowly up and down the long fields. Ezra hitched a horse to a ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... all these arguments in his brain. But instead of stopping to explain anything, he once more, and alone, lifted the head and shoulders of the limp man, and ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... or human warrior that was not struck with Partha's shafts. Their vision blurred by dust and darkness, thy warriors became perfectly cheerless and unable to distinguish one another. Urged on by fate and with their vital limbs cut open and mangled with shafts, they began to wander, or limp, or fall down. And some amongst them, O Bharata, became paralysed and some became deathly pale. During that terrible carnage resembling the slaughter of creatures at the end of the Yuga, in that deadly and fierce battle from which few could escape with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... old men were aweary after the ball. Miss Ann spent a sleepless night and could not drag herself from her bed in time for breakfast. When old Billy came to her room with a can of hot water for her morning ablutions, he found his mistress limp ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... of consciousness. Truesdale approached warily, and with his aid Phillips lifted the unconscious man. With their burden limp in their hands, they staggered down the corridor to one of the sleeping compartments. There, they slung him ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe

... further to the gloom. Stiff and specter-like, it moved gently in the currents of air that blew down from the bare, slanting rafters, each garment taking on a fantastic shape of its own. Near the pipe hung the stockings of the family, limp and ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... suffering of yesterday. The eyes tire of the sickening scene, and the mind turns from this revolting field of blood, and we return heartstricken to our camp. The poor crippled and deserted horses limp over the field nibbling a little bunch of grass left green in places after the day of mad galloping of horses. Everywhere we saw friends hunting friends. Relief corps had come up from Richmond and were working night and day relieving the suffering and moving the wounded away. Cars were run ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... eyes on a blurred blue form that towered above him. He felt sharp claws scratch at him and realized that cords were being passed around his limp body. They cut tightly into his legs and his arms. Then he was staring at a tube in the hand of his captor. Its end glowed with a brilliant purple light, and he felt a flood of reawakened energy warm him. His head jerked up, he strained against the taut, strong ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat

... and moths—are set in this manner, which is really "flat setting." If the braces are at any time too limp and do not seem to clip the wings properly, a little piece of cork just sufficient for the pin to slip through may be added on top ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... heel," she retorted with a little flutter of a laugh. "My French heel caught on the stair; it was torn away. No wonder I limp!" ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... shed blood and must die. Though it's not your fault that you knew not the Lord, when you coveted the pigs' food and were beaten for stealing it (which was very wrong of you, for stealing is forbidden); but you've shed blood and you must die.' And on the last day, Richard, perfectly limp, did nothing but cry and repeat every minute: 'This is my happiest day. I am going to the Lord.' 'Yes,' cry the pastors and the judges and philanthropic ladies. 'This is the happiest day of your life, for you are going to the Lord!' They all walk or drive to the scaffold in procession behind the ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... wrote these words: "I have made a great mess of it." To make a mess of one's life—one mistake after another, till what might have been at least honest, pure, and of good report, becomes a stained, limp, unsightly thing, at which men feel that they may gaze openly, and from which women turn away in scorn unutterable; and that Adelaide, my proudest of proud sisters, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... won himself a name amongst us, before he was anonymous—Dash is a sort of a kind of a spaniel; at least there is in his mongrel composition some sign of that beautiful race. Besides his ugliness, which is of the worst sort—that is to say, the shabbiest—he has a limp on one leg that gives a peculiar one-sided awkwardness to his gait; but independently of his great merit in being May's pet, he has other merits which serve to account for that phenomenon—being, beyond all comparison, the most faithful, attached, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... cross. It was curious to see him peer about irresolutely now that he had no face. Francois, staring at the black featureless horror before him, began to choke. Standing thus, with outstretched arms, the priest first let fall his hands, so that they hung limp from the wrists; his finger-nails gleamed in the moonlight. His rapier tinkled on the flagstones with the sound of shattering glass, and Philippe Sermaise slid down, all a-jumble, crumpling like a broken toy. Afterward you might have heard a long, awed sibilance ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... don't mean it? You think I would struggle? Try me." She let herself droop sideways, in an attitude limp and portable. "Try me," ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... the lift easy, instruct the patient to relax all her muscles and become perfectly limp; then turn her on her face, stand over her body with one foot at each side, face toward the patient's head. Lean forward and place your hands under her arms, then gently raise her to her knees, next slide your hands quickly ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... Jack went under, but gave no sound. Again he disappeared, and when he came up he gave a cry for help, but when he heard Chad's answering cry he fought on stroke by stroke until Chad saw old Joel reach out from the bushes and pull him in. And Chad could see that one of his hind legs hung limp. Then the raft swung around the ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... I." This equality of perception apparently satisfied her. Presently she lay more limp in his arms. She ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... oak, the scarlet oak, all splendid forest trees of the Northeast, are in the group of confusion that can be readily separated only by the timber-cruiser, who knows every tree in the forest for its economic value, or by the botanist, with his limp-bound Gray's Manual in hand. I confess to bewilderment in five minutes after the differences have been explained to me, and I enjoyed, not long ago, the confusion of a skilful nurseryman who was endeavoring to show me his young trees of red oak which the label proved ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... the first of it on a windy, gritty Saturday afternoon, when she was glad to get indoors, and to take off the hat that had been wrenching her hair about. She came running upstairs to find Virginia lying limp upon the big bed, and Mary Lou, red-eyed and pale, sitting ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... a little withered old man. He was born in our house—I know, for it chanced that mention was made of it this very day I am describing. Pons was all of sixty years. He was mostly toothless, and, despite a pronounced limp that compelled him to go slippity-hop, he was very alert and spry in all his movements. Also, he was impudently familiar. This was because he had been in my house sixty years. He had been my father's servant before ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... Bouchenton, my brother. I will not forget it. And I saw, too, your aching, useless left arm, which you had been obliged to abandon in order to have a hand to give, hanging by your side like a limp rag. ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel



Words linked to "Limp" :   hobble, continue, limpness, lax, wilted, gait, stale, proceed, walk, go forward, limper



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