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Nodding   Listen
adjective
Nodding  adj.  Curved so that the apex hangs down; having the top bent downward.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nodding" Quotes from Famous Books



... stared down at the sprawling carcass, musing. "Tam the powney," he said twice, nodding his head each time he said it; "Tam the powney," and ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... calm companion said, "From the crowd yonder! These yearn not for bed As rest from leaden labour." The night may be far spent, the Sabbath dawns, But here no dull brain-palsied drowser yawns At his half-nodding neighbour. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... nodding significantly; and forthwith, upon the wings of rapturous anticipation, he flew to ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... fancying that they would very soon again return. In spite of this consciousness I felt most terribly sleepy. I would have given anything to be able to take half-an-hour's sleep in safety. Now, I knew if I fell asleep that I should fall into the claws of the bears. I was nodding. I heard another low growl. I could endure it no longer, but, seizing my rifle in one hand, tucking a bundle of torches under the same arm, and holding a lighted torch in the other, I rushed from the ruins into the wood opposite. I did not reflect ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... hoped and expected you to marry her?" said Mr. Bayliss, nodding his head, sagaciously—"Yes—I am aware that such was his dearest wish. In fact he led me to believe that the matter was as good ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... you, my man," remarked Sir Cresswell, nodding benevolently at Spurge when the story was over. "You're in a fair way to find yourself well rewarded. Now gentlemen!" he continued, sitting down at the table, and engaging the attention of the others, "I think we had better have a council of war. Petherton has just gone ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... post-horn made itself heard in the distance; we hurried down, our hearts beating with the fear of possible disappointment. It was all right, however, there were no passengers, and nodding adieu to our old friend, we joyfully mounted into our places, and were bowled ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... small tree. The first glance showed a tree and nothing more. The next showed a score of angels, all clad in softest outlines, their heads nodding with feathery plumes above all beauty, and their wings slowly waving with borders of violet and pearl. The whole forest was suddenly transformed into a paradise of radiant glory, in which moved celestial beings of every order, all instinct ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... dim suspicions clashed suddenly together into fact. I looked sharply at my father. He was nodding, with some faint suspicion ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... Conyngham, together with the Earl of Albemarle, the Master of the Horse, and Sir Henry Halford, the late King's physician, started from Windsor for Kensington. All through the rest of the summer night these solemn and stately gentlemen drove, nodding with fatigue, hailing the early dawn, speaking at intervals to pronounce sentence on the past reign and utter prognostications, of the reign which was to come. Shortly before five, when the birds were already in full chorus in Kensington Gardens, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... me. It's all humbug coming over to look at Ireland. You may pick up a little brogue, but it's all you'll pick up for your journey.' After this, for him, unusually long speech, he finished his glass, lighted his bedroom candle, and nodding a ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... The man who spoke was Denny Hogan. Beside him was an Italian, who said, "He's burned something most awful. He got it saving des feller here," nodding ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... by nodding assent, seemed to adhere; but he added: "Earthquakes are generally dreaded as destructive; but such a convulsion of nature as would swallow up the British Islands, with all their inhabitants, would be the greatest blessing Providence ever conferred ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... up and bow low before her,' whispered the mother to her children, nodding her head in the direction of the old lady, 'and keep your legs well apart, as you see me do. No well-bred duckling turns in its toes. It is a ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... out just before you came," said Marcia, nodding toward the gate. She sat listening to Mrs, Halleck's talk about Ben; Mrs. Halleck took herself to task from time to time, but only to go on talking about him again. Sometimes Marcia commented on his characteristics, and compared them with ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... most was the nature of the music. As he rode closer to the trees it grew clearer. It was unlike any song he had ever heard. It was a strange improvisation with a touch of both melancholy and savage exultation running through it. Calder found himself nodding in sympathy ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... of the joyous company was likewise the bearer of a toy balloon—red, yellow, blue, green or purple, as the case might be. Over the line of heads the taut rubbery globes rode on their tethers, nodding and twisting like so many big iridescent bubbles; and half a block away, at the edge of the lot, a balloon vender, whose entire stock had been disposed of in one splendid transaction, now stood, empty-handed but full-pocketed, marvelling ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... you, dear readers, is as bad a sleeper as I am, you will understand how thoughts swarm at midnight. Busy, bustling, stinging bees, they forbid the needed rest, and, thronging the idle brain, compel attention. Here in the silent hours the ghosts called characters walk slowly, smiling, bowing, nodding, pirouetting, going like marionettes through all their paces. At night, I have had my gayest thoughts; at night, my saddest. All things seem open ...
— How I write my novels • Mrs. Hungerford

... ticking clock had counted her out several years of grace beyond what a mother may expect. When Sylvia finished and looked up, the dulled look of resignation swept from her face by the light of adventurous change, her mother achieved the final feat of nodding her ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... Sol! Do!" he sang in staccato notes, nodding the sparse gray foretop jerkily with each note as bass, alto, tenor, soprano took up their pitch. Thereupon he seized the pointer, a long switch kept conveniently near in the corner, and indicated the first ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... the age, Who charm'd us with his golden strain, Is not the shadow of the Dean: He only breathes Boeotian air— "O! what a falling off was there!" Hibernia's Helicon is dry, Invention, Wit, and Humour die; And what remains against the storm Of Malice but an empty form? The nodding ruins of a pile, That stood the bulwark of this isle? In which the sisterhood was fix'd Of candid Honour, Truth unmix'd, Imperial Reason, Thought profound, And Charity, diffusing round In cheerful rivulets to flow Of Fortune to the sons of woe? Such one, my ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... to the reclining attitude which had been suggested to him, and preferred to sit upon the flat bottom with the desire to keep erect; and he did sit thus for awhile, like a porcelain mandarin with nodding head, for, although the hardy pony went slowly, the jolting of the cart on the rough, frozen road was greater than it is easy for one accustomed ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... this he had laid the instrument and the bow when he came in. He arose now and proffered them to Christopher. Christopher took them from his outstretched hand and played. The other listened, nursing his leg again, and nodding at the fire, in time to ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... me," said Mrs. Fay, nodding her head. "I see just how it is with you two. You can't hide it, you know, so you needn't ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... Bully No-Tail, the frog boy, was hopping along through the woods, and he felt so very fine, and it was such a nice day, that, when he came to a place where some flowers grew up near an old stump, nodding their pretty heads in the wind, the frog boy sang ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... two men in undress uniform. For half an hour we literally danced across the sea; everything was fresh and sparkling, and I was so glad to be alive and free, that I just sang for joy. Miss Leasing joined in and the boatmen kept time, smiling and nodding their approval. ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... Smith replied. Then she hesitated. That would buy the land, to be sure; but money was needed to develop and run it; to install tenants; and then, too, for new teachers. But she said nothing more, and, nodding to his polite bow, departed. Colonel Cresswell had noticed her hesitation, and thought of it as he ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... at the foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... impulse to confide in her as a brother, a desire of telling her all about herself, his past, his present work, his hopes, as if she were a room-mate. She listened to him, looking at him with her brown eyes that seemed to smile at him, nodding assent, often without having heard what he said, receiving like a caress the exuberance of that nature which seemed to overflow in waves of fire. He was different from all the ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Prince, and began a whispered conversation with him. The Prince listened, nodding ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... in the fragrant night I half forget how truant years have flown Since I looked up to see her chamber-light, Or catch, perchance, her slender shadow thrown Upon the casement; but the nodding leaves Sweep lazily across the unlit pane, And to and fro beneath the shadowy eaves, Like restless birds, the breath of coming rain Creeps, lilac-laden, up the village street When all is still, as if the very trees Were listening for the coming of her feet That come no more; ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae

... no, sir," said the captain, in a remonstrant tone; "as clean and smart, p'raps; but there isn't the show. Look here, though," he continued, nodding to one of the brothers and taking the other by the edge of his coat, "things happen rum sometimes, ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... nodding his head. "I remember Julia very well, as a girl. She used to put on a lot of airs, and jaw father because he wouldn't have the old top-buggy painted every spring. Same ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne

... time when the daffodils blow in this garden," said Anne rapturously. "Nobody may see me, but I'll be here. If anybody is in the garden at the time—I THINK I'll come on an evening just like this, but it MIGHT be just at dawn—a lovely, pale-pinky spring dawn—they'll just see the daffodils nodding wildly as if an extra gust of wind had blown past them, but it ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... palm trees. They waited and waited watching that dim light which shone through the stem port. And then at last there came the dull thud of a gun, and an instant later the shattering crash of an explosion. The long, sleek, black barque, the sweep of white sand, and the fringe of nodding feathery palm trees sprang into dazzling light and back into darkness again. Voices screamed and called upon ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Uncle Alec swinging his hat like a boy, with Phebe smiling and nodding on one side and Rose kissing both hands delightedly on the other as she recognized familiar faces and heard familiar voices ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... black braids over her shoulder, clasped her knee with her hands, and rocking backwards and forwards, sublimely unconscious of the apparition of a slim ankle and half-dropped-off slipper from under her shortened gown, continued, "It mightn't please HIM," she said slyly, nodding towards Hale. ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... Nodding her head and shaking her finger, Lady Scrope vanished down the stairs upon Reuben's arm; and Gertrude, moved beyond her powers of self restraint by all she had gone through, flung herself into her father's arms, and the two mingled together their ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... February pours Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach! The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps, And the broad arching portals of the grove Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray, Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven, Is studded with its trembling water-drops, That glimmer with an amethystine light. But round the parent-stem the long low boughs Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbors hide The glassy floor. Oh! you might ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... same state in which he has been for the last three months or so. He is quite incapable of work, and very weak. He can walk but a few yards at a time, and spends the day in reading for profit and entertainment, and in occasionally nodding and sleeping. He is perfectly tranquil in mind. His imagination does not soar much in vivid anticipations of glory; and it never disquiets him with restless misgivings respecting his inheritance in God. To him it is everything that the gospel is ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... piped the old man, nodding, 'a very pleasant state, and a fine race, both pines and people. We reckon ourselves part Grunewalders here, lying so near the borders; and the river there is all good Grunewald water, every drop of it. Yes, sir, a fine state. A ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... greatly pleased at the hint of any festivities, no matter how distant, and the smiles began to run all over her wrinkled face again. "I wonder now," she said, "if they don't want my receet for Cousin Mirandy's weddin' cake; it's in th' Bible there"—nodding over to ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... ashes and smoke in all directions, for a moment obscuring everything. When the firelight again illuminated the room there was seen, sitting gingerly on the edge of a stool by the hearthside, a swarthy little man of prepossessing appearance and dressed with faultless taste, nodding to the old man with a friendly and engaging smile. "From San Francisco, evidently," thought Mr. Beeson, who having somewhat recovered from his fright was groping his way to a solution of the ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... "Croaker," said he, drawing the ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and nodding suggestively to the bartender, "look out there in the street. See that banner stretched from house to house. It reads: 'Liberty and Equality! Labor Must Have the Fruits of Labor!' Now what infernal lies those are! There's no liberty here; and as for equality, that cop ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... and a pang of apprehension had caught him when the water covered his face, to the effect that he must forfeit the natural artistic sequence of speech and conduct which disguised him so perfectly. Away he drove, nodding and waving his hand. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... nodding violently, big-eyed, her mouth pursed up small. The delight of revelation, and the bliss of possessing a secret, run each other very close. But the latter generally ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... exclaimed the old lady, nodding her head briskly over the knitting needles. "So be I goin' ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... "Here is she!" Seems written everywhere Unto me. But to friends and nodding neighbours, Fellow-wights in lot and labours, Who descry the times as I, No such lucid ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... I had but a pottle of sack, like a sharp prickle, To knock my nose against when I am nodding, I should sing like a nightingale."—Fletcher, The Lover's Progress, Act III. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various

... wild, the conjunctiva considerably inflamed, and he panted quickly and violently. There was a considerable flow of saliva from the corners of his mouth. He was extremely restless and did not remain in one position half a minute. There was an occasional convulsive nodding motion of the head. The eyes were wandering, and evidently following some imaginary object; but he was quickly recalled from his delirium by my voice or that of his master. In a few moments, however, he was wandering again. He had previously been under my care, and immediately recognised ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... and bowing and nodding as gayly as we could; and were presently rewarded by seeing faint reflections of our grins on their dusky faces, which rapidly deepened into as broad a smile as I ever beheld. They had very tolerably wide ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... pause: "I can see where you are right, John. Business is business. You got to consider that." He looked into the street below and saw General Hendricks come shuddering into the cold wind. "How's he getting on?" asked Culpepper, nodding towards Hendricks, who ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... Tom, nodding toward a newcomer. "Shoot in over here, Swipes!" he called to a tall lad, whose progress through the room was marked by friendly calls on many sides. He was a general favorite, Harry Morton by ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes

... alive, and as the Padrone talked, waving his hands and striking postures like those of a military dictator, she saw the dead Empress, with her fan before her face, nodding her head to the jig of "Funiculi, funicula," while she watched the red cloud from Vesuvius rising into the starry sky; she saw Sarah Bernhardt taking the Greek cat upon her knee; the newly made Czar reading the telegram with his glass of punch beside ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... themselves in the thick braids of her hair. Her eyes dilated—and suddenly understanding flashed upon him. She was telling him what he already knew—that Bram Johnson was mad, and he repeated after her the "Tossi-tossi," tapping his forehead suggestively, and nodding at Bram. Yes, that was it. He could see it in the quick intake of her breath and the sudden expression of relief that swept over her face. She had been afraid he would attack the wolf-man. And now she was glad that he understood he was ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... nodding his head absently. "What was it he said about them statements?" he inquired ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... now, and he was quiet and speechless—for once. Below, a few Senators lounged upon the sofas set apart for visitors, and talked with idle Congressmen. A dreary member was speaking; the presiding officer was nodding; here and there little knots of members stood in the aisles, whispering together; all about the House others sat in all the various attitudes that express weariness; some, tilted back, had one or more legs disposed upon their desks; some sharpened pencils indolently; some scribbled aimlessly; ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... in moonlight, under an almost clear sky. Down there on the silvery floor, little hillocks were scattered about under quilts and shawls; family units, presumably,—male, female, and young. Here and there a black shawl sat alone, nodding. They crouched submissively under the moonlight as if it were a spell. In one of those hillocks a baby was crying, but the sound was faint and thin, a slender protest which aroused no response. Everything was so still that I could hear ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... for a moment, nodding her head up and down, to emphasize the importance of what she had said, and to raise the expectations of Mrs Antrobus to the highest pitch, as ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... said, nodding with assurance and finality; "and we know what that is—a start, a shock, a fall, a strain, and pht! off the poor thing goes. Yes, heart disease, and sometimes with such awful pain. But so; and yesterday she told me she had only a hundred dollars left. 'Enough to last me through,' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... plausible arguments; when the same thing was called hot and cold by different persons, there was no refuting one more than the other, however well one knew that it could not be hot and cold at once. I was just like a man dropping off to sleep, with his head first nodding forward, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... aunt were gone out for a walk; his great-grandmother and the nurse were nodding one on each side of the fire. It was only three o'clock, and yet they had dined, and they were never known to rouse themselves up for at least half an hour at that ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... speak to me?" inquired Mrs. Waul, who had been nodding over her worsted work, and was aroused by the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... nodding in her hat, a wide-brimmed fine straw hat that threw soft shadows over her blue eyes and turned them dark as the clear water underneath Redmarley Bridge. And he would see her ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... body, here in the cafe, moves brightly in and out. Green satin, and a dance, white wine and gleaming laughter, with two nodding earrings—these are Lotus. And in the painted eyes cold steel, and on the lips a vulgar jest; Hands that fly ever to the coat lapels, familiar to the wrists and to the hair of men. These too are ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens

... And, nodding pleasantly to Marechal, Mademoiselle Herzog joined her father, who was gleaning details about the house of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the woman. The blooming, rosy, graceful girl stood at the side of the pale, tear-eyed woman, and was quietly saying something to her; the latter was nodding her head and crooning unnecessary, belated words. Trirodov turned quietly ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... poetry! (See page 166, &c.) Have we not yet enough? Must eternal changes be rung on uplands and lowlands, and nodding forests, and brooding clouds, and cells, and dells, and dingles? Yes; more, and yet ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... eyes from her, and garden, trees, and fields disappeared before me, as she stood there tall and slender, so wondrously illuminated by the torch-light, now speaking with such grace to the young officer, and now nodding down kindly to the musicians. The people below were beside themselves with delight, and at last I too could restrain myself no longer, and joined in the cheers with all ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... fair Virginia's fields, through ranks of nodding grain, With shout and song they sweep along, a gay and gallant train. Oh, ne'er, I ween, had those broad plains beheld a fairer sight, And clear and glad those skies of June shed forth their glorious light. Onwards, yea, ever onwards, that mighty host hath passed, And ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... his shoulders and walked on. But Bolderwood strode after him. "What's going on?" he asked, anxiously. "Who's that out yonder?" nodding again toward the creek. ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... not pass, and the tickets were passed to him from hand to hand. To-night all were more worn out, and that did not mend their dispositions. They could not help falling asleep and colliding with someone's nodding head, which called out angry mutterings and growls. Some fell off their seats and caused a great commotion by rolling over on the sleepers on the floor, and, in spite of my own sleepiness and weariness, I had many ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin

... said Buck, nodding his head. "He's a half-caste. Says his father was a British officer, and prides himself on talking Number ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... nodding her head and smiling as she read each fresh invitation, turned the slate over, and, with some little triumph at showing that she could write too, began slowly to trace some large text letters in extremely crooked lines. It took her a long time—especially ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... came a scurry of tears that ran in panic among the folds of his cheeks. He shook them off and smiled, nodding and still patting ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... little. So glad I met you.' And they edged into a little nook of the lobby, where they had a few minutes' confidential talk, during which the major looked grave and consequential, and carried his head high, nodding now and then with ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... nodding plume and banner Faded from her straining sight, And the mists from o'er the mountains Crept like ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford

... be a great feesh,' said the old man, returning to his oars; and nothing more could I get out of him, but strange glances and an ominous nodding of the head. In spite of myself, I was infected with a measure of uneasiness; I turned also, and studied the wake. The water was still and transparent, but, out here in the middle of the bay, exceeding ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Phillips's chair with her fat arms round his neck, nodding her approval and encouragement; while Joan, seated opposite, would strain every nerve to keep her brain fixed upon the argument, never daring to look at poor Phillips's wretched face, with its pleading, apologetic eyes, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... tone which proved that she admired the event itself. She was evidently carried away by the triumph of her penetration. " I knew it all along," she added, nodding. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... Zossimov, nodding towards him. Then he gave a prolonged yawn, opening his mouth as wide as possible. Then he lazily put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge gold watch in a round hunter's case, opened ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the man," he said, nodding his head until his elf-locks danced around his face. "Of course you're not the man. I know it—ho, ho! you can wager that I know it! A little ruse of mine, Captain Plum. Pardonable—excusable, eh? I wanted to know if you ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... Doctor, nodding, went into the hall for his coat and driving-gloves, and, going out, disappeared about ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... on his feet, and they all crowded around the boys, as though they had never seen any of their race until that moment. They continually talked in their guttural, grunting fashion, smiling and nodding their heads. Two of them pinched the limbs of the boys as though testing their muscle. So far from showing any alarm, Jack Carleton clenched his fist and elevated his arm, swaying the hand back and forth as if proud to display the development ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... of them had three quizzes, one quiz pendent from the string that sewed up her mouth, and another quiz in either hand. When she wished to express her negative, she darted and recoiled the quizzes in her right and left hand; and when she desired to express her affirmative, she, nodding, made the quiz pendent from her mouth flow down and recoil again. The trial proceeded in this manner for a long time, to the admiration of the whole empire, when at length I thought proper to send to my old friend ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... inn-keeper, is ready and willing to do almost anything but he is so terribly stout that the slightest physical effort causes him to turn purple and gasp for breath. He therefore remains seated, nodding like a big Buddha, half dozing over the harangues of his friend Chavignon, the tailor, whose first name, by the way, is Pacifique. But in order to belie this little war-like appellation, Chavignon spends most of the time he owes to the trade ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... that had forgotten to grow up with the rest of her. At those moments the essence of all that was characteristic and delicious about her seemed to have run to her mouth; so that to kiss Grizel on her crooked smile would have been to kiss the whole of her at once. She had a quaint way of nodding her head at you when she was talking. It made you forget what she was saying, though it was really meant to have precisely the opposite effect. Her voice was rich, with many inflections. When she had much to say it gurgled like a stream in a hurry; but its cooing note was best worth remembering ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... I did not speak, but watched the roses nodding and moving. Then I said: "May I say that I shall miss ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... him to take his medicine. Then Carroll, mask under his arm, rolling his big hand in his mitt, sauntered down to the pitcher's box. The sharp order of the umpire in no wise disconcerted him. He said something to Dalgren, vehemently nodding his head the while. Players and audience alike supposed he was trying to put a little heart into Dalgren, and liked him the better, notwithstanding the ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... refreshed after their hearty repast but they were still very tired and sleepy. They strove to converse together and keep awake but the fatigue of the day, the heavy meal, and the warmth of the fire proved too much for them and every now and then one would catch the other nodding. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... sparks from a glowing brand, 'Mid the tender green of the feathery fern And nodding sedge, by the light gale fanned, The Indian pinks in the sunlight burn; And the wide, cool cups of the corn flower brim With the sapphire's splendor of heaven's own blue, In sylvan hollows and dingles dim, Still sweet with a ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... said the stranger, grasping the hand of the head hall-porter, and nodding to the ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... nodding, gave consent; And peals of thunder shook the firmament. Henceforth a series of new time began, The mighty years in long procession ran: Once more the god-like David was restored, 1030 And willing nations knew their ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... nodding his head emphatically, while Mr Cupples, in tones of the most awful solemnity, and with a look that cannot be described, vowed ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... He was nodding. Propped on sticks, his moccasins steamed unheeded and unturned. The dogs, curled in furry balls, slept in the snow. The crackle of an ember accentuated the profound of silence that reigned. He awoke with a start and gazed at Daw, who nodded and ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... would nod his head, and pat one hand upon the other, and say, "Yes, yes," without the slightest sign of impatience. It seemed as though he had no other care before him than that of listening to Linda's story. When she experienced the encouragement which came from the nodding of his head and the patting of his hand, she went on boldly. She told how Peter Steinmarc had come to the house, and how her aunt was a woman peculiar from the strength of her religious convictions. "Yes, my dear, yes; we know that,—we know that," said Herr ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... he cried, nodding his head approvingly. "That beats them all! My wife, she used to sing that song, and I liked it fine, ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... to bed at one, and dreamed of shattered locomotives, human beings lying still with blankets over them, rows of cells, and banks of beautiful flowers nodding their heads to the tunes of the brass band in the gallery. He decided when he awoke the next morning that he had entered upon a picturesque and exciting career, and as one day followed another, he ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... mummy," she went on, nodding toward the gilded case, "the shell from which my soul fled three thousand years ago. Since then it has been upon its wanderings, living in birds and beasts, that the will of Osiris ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... said, softly, laying a finger on her lips and nodding toward the raging battle. "Come with me. Both of ye. The day goes badly with me, and I would undo much that I have done toward ye. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... breeze through the branches of the mountain pines; the waters pouring adown from the stupendous peaks created an everlasting song of love and constancy; bees and humming-birds drank delicious draughts from the blushing lips of a million nodding flowers; the sun was more hazy and drowsy-looking; everything had an appearance ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... was a velvet bonnet, black with plumes, only too suggestive of a hearse. They watched these nodding ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... day long, suited it exactly, and seemed to lull it to rest. With its overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were nodding in its sleep. Indeed, it needed no very great stretch of fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. The bricks of which it was built had originally been a deep dark red, but had grown yellow and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... door of the gallery Mrs. Snowdon paused and beckoned Annon back. They were alone now, and, standing before the fire which had so nearly made that Christmas Eve a tragical one, she turned to him with a face full of interest and sympathy as she said, nodding toward the blackened shreds of Octavia's dress, and the scorched tiger skin which still lay at their feet, "That was both a fortunate and an unfortunate little affair, but I fear Maurice's gain will be your loss. Pardon my frankness for Octavia's sake; she is a fine creature, ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... had crawled to the rear of the tent, where he sat leaning against the closed flap, nodding drowsily. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... servants is in there," she said, and sat down again, nodding in the direction of a gardener. "There's ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... philological knowledge is noteworthy: "If they found themselves provided by nature with a mind corresponding to that of the ancients, or if they were capable of adapting themselves to other points of view and other circumstances of life, then, with even a nodding acquaintance with the best writers, they certainly acquired more from those vigorous natures, those splendid examples of thinking and acting, than most of those did who during their whole life merely offered themselves ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... we owe all our Palladiuncula, and all our speaking, nodding, winking, sweating, bleeding statues, to these poor abused heathens; the Athenian statues all sweated before the battle of Chaeronea, so did the Roman statues during Tully's consulship, viz., the statue of Victory at Capua, of Mars at ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... spring, I told him things looked hopeful, bade him be ready for a good long rest as soon as the hospitable doors were open, and left him nodding cheerfully. ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... likes, child," said Aunt Kate nodding. "'Tis a good trait. But I'd like to lay that Marg'ret Llewellen across ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... Mr. Isaacs: "it's hot and thirsty work sitting, nodding here; I likes my ease on a warm day; so just you reckon that I see the Squire, and go a hundred dollars more as long as ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... a good man," said the shiftless one nodding in the direction of the priest, "but don't you think, Paul, he's undertook a mighty big job, ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to the village all the people were at their doors. One woman, the blacksmith Thomas Spence's wife, had a nursing baby in her arms, and he leapt up and crowed with joy at the strange sight, the crowding horsemen, the coaches, and the nodding plumes of the hearse. This was my brother William, then nine months old, and Margaret Spence was his foster-mother. Those with me were overcome at this sight; he of all the world whose, in some ways, was ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... And Ilium from its old foundations rent; Rent like a mountain ash, which dar'd the winds, And stood the sturdy strokes of lab'ring hinds. About the roots the cruel ax resounds; The stumps are pierc'd with oft-repeated wounds: The war is felt on high; the nodding crown Now threats a fall, and throws the leafy honors down. To their united force it yields, tho' late, And mourns with mortal groans th' approaching fate: The roots no more their upper load sustain; But down she falls, and spreads ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... of pleasure. Then I saw a vision of snowy arms, voluptuous forms, and light fantastic slippered feet, all whirling and floating in the mazes of the misty dance. The flying fingers now tripped upon the trembling strings like fairy-feet dancing on the nodding violets, and the music glided into a still sweeter strain. The violin told a story of human life. Two lovers strayed beneath the elms and oaks, and down by the river side, where daffodils and pansies ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... Her pink-tipped forefinger rested a moment on her curved lip. "Yes," she said, nodding her head. "Yes, stay, Mr. Calhoun. You may be a help. Are you any good at getting theatre ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... in the fact that he has been able to stand by, with little interference, and see the disease run its normal course. I once watched a famous surgeon just after he had done a life-saving operation by dim candle-light. He stood smiling as the child's breath came back, and kept nodding his head with pleasant sense of his own competence. He was most like a Newfoundland dog I once had the luck to see pull out a small child from the water and on to a raft. When we came up, the dog ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... "but there is a queer sort of garden room Logan has built which he calls his workshop, and part of it is partitioned off as a bedroom. It is a bit airy in the winter, he says, but simply perfect in the summer. You can sleep with your window wide open, and great tea-roses nodding in at you, and now and then a night-jar or a black-winged bat flitting between you and ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... seen, I think," said Abraham, nodding, as he went out of the room. Waymark followed, and was glad to get into the ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... blue, looked frowningly down upon, her. The child sat without moving, her eyes taking in the whole scene, and all around was a great stillness, only broken by soft, light puffs of wind that swayed the light bells of the blue flowers, and the shining gold heads of the cistus, and set them nodding merrily on their slender stems. Peter had fallen asleep after his fatigue and the goats were climbing about among the bushes overhead. Heidi had never felt so happy in her life before. She drank in the golden sunlight, ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... it, Peter. It was a mean trick, Peter. I done you wrong." He stood nodding his head and rubbing his flattened nose in an impersonal manner. "Yes, I done you wrong, Peter," he acknowledged loudly, and looked frankly ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... suppose?" said the scout leader, nodding his head approvingly. "Making a little fireplace where he can perch his kettle, and have the hottest part of his fire under it. Note also that the opening is in the direction of the breeze. That allows the flame to be fanned. Wallace will never have to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... should ask Saduko there who Mameena is," he added with a broad grin, lifting his head from the gun, which he was examining gingerly, as though he thought it might go off again while unloaded, and nodding towards ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... this Loki replied in musing voice, nodding his head as he spoke: "Yea, thou art right, great Mother of ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... nodding and pointing downward. The old man picked up his end of the speaking-tube, but Dick ignored the gesture. He signaled to his flight to rise, and zoomed up, circling, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... me for another year. He was a great gambler. He kept me up five nights together, without sleep night or day, to wait on the gambling table. I was standing in the corner of the room, nodding for want of sleep, when he took up the shovel and beat me with it; he dislocated my shoulder, and sprained my wrist, and broke the shovel over me. I ran away, and got another ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy

... of us, and the other man has gone off that way," answered the captive, nodding his head toward an indefinite point of ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various

... then, an' intervene the young lady my own self," she mused, as she walked home from the post-office. "This tryin' to settle Dorothy Parkman's affairs without Dorothy Parkman is like havin' omelet with omelet left out," she finished, nodding to herself all in the dark, as she turned ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter

... he, after indulging in one of the last mentioned performances with so much energy as to arouse him from his abstraction, at the same time nodding his head at Rust's office, 'his cake being dough, our bargain's up; and here am I, Edward Kornicker, Esquire, attorney and counsellor at law, a man of profound experience, severe knowledge of the world, of great capacity in various ways, though of small means—I ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... down the brae together in the full view of his rivals. "I hope they liked it!" he thought, and he nodded several times at the town beneath his feet, with a slow up-and-down motion of the head, like a man nodding grimly to his beaten enemy. It was as if he said, "See what I have ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... soberly nodding his red cap.] Tiri-para! sings the small sedge-warbler to the reeds. Incontrovertibly from the Greek. Para, along, and the word water ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... your brother—I saw your brother," he said, nodding his head, as Archer lagged past him, trailing his spade, and scowling at the old gentleman ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... nodding and smiling, "I thought that mebbe, long 's you got the int'rist of that investment we ben talkin' about, you'd let me keep what's left of the princ'pal. Would ye like to ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... corner of the tent Adolf was bending his cat-like moustaches over a kettle. He left it at once to draw the cork of a pint-bottle of champagne. Swithin smiled, and, nodding at Bosinney, said: "Why, you're quite a Monte Cristo!" This celebrated novel—one of the half-dozen he had read—had produced an ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... was her, laughing like she always laughed—it reminded him of pines nodding in a canyon and looking wise and whispering things they'd seen and heard before you were born, and of water falling over rocks, somehow. Queer, maybe—but it did. He wondered if Dick Brown had been trying to say something funny. He didn't see, for the life of him, ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... no opportunity for anti-climax; nodding his cocked hat (a piece of antiquity to which he clung) and repeating "Distinctly" with raised eyebrows, he took his departure, and left Archie speechless in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... would," said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners expressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... deck, when we were under way again, amid a group reading and nodding in the sunshine, we found a pretty girl with a companion and a gentleman, whom we knew by intuition as the "pa" of the pretty girl and of our night of anguish. The pa might have been a clergyman in a small ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the pretty Fanny that she and Rose passed quite close to them unobserved. It was recalled more unpleasantly still, by the obliging care of Mrs Gridley, who was one of their first visitors after their return. The Grove carriage passed as she sat with them, and, nodding ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... likely,' assented the Minister, nodding his head sympathetically, and drawing deep ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... charms, some Moorish doctors add manipulation, as the fourth sovereign remedy. Early, we reached Sahel (Salhin?). These cultivated lands are a continuation of Zeiten; but Sahel is in a much higher state of cultivation. The golden harvest is nodding over Afric's sunny plains. Fields of ripe barley are waving in the wind, overshadowed with splendid palms of young and vigorous growth. Besides there are most beautiful olive plantations all around us. Essnousee, who now became a little more familiar, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... began to devour him from head to foot with his eyes, turning him this way and that, and stepping briskly around him and about him to prove him from all points of view; whilst the returned prodigal, all aglow with gladness, smiled, laughed, and kept nodding his head and saying— ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... miniature cliffs of the aquarium, a wondrous transformation takes place. The bag gradually expands, a mouth appears in the centre, and from it unfold a multitude of petals of a variety of colors—pale scarlet, blood-red, orange, and white—which wave gently back and forth like a graceful nodding flower. Now drop a small earth-worm or tiny fish in the water. The instant it touches the least of these petal-like tentacles the whole flower is in commotion, all the arms reaching toward the struggling victim, and holding ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... but obstinate and about to insist, when the doors opened and there entered a bevy of staff officers, all green and gold and blue and silver, clustered about a huge man in the full regalia of a general, his crimson plumes nodding above his golden helmet, his crimson cloak dangling about his golden cuirass, his gilt kilt-straps gleaming over his crimson tunic-skirt. There was no mistaking that incredible expanse of face, seemingly as big as the body of an ordinary ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... a malodorous cab, the overwhelming emotion, and the nausea of disgust, the fear, the desire of waking the coachman who was nodding on the box, of giving him her address, and telling him to drive her home. But she remained with her face against the window, mechanically looking at the dark passage, that was illuminated by a gas lamp, at the "actors' entrance," through which ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... he remarked, nodding with approval as Blunt's boat hauled the great anchor dripping between his boat and Rolfe's, where the mate's crew made it fast, swinging on both gunwales by a baulk of timber laid across, ready to be either let go again, or taken under ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... been nobody; and then she began to coax "Mistress Annie," as she always called her, and draw the soft hair down her hands, and whisper into the little ears. Meanwhile, dear mother was falling asleep, having been troubled so much about me; and Watch, my father's pet dog, was nodding closer and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... nodding her head two or three times; "Mr. Van Brunt is a good farmer very good there's ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... things go better. That's him, I'm thinking, just got ashore from brig without breaking his legs," nodding towards the wooden landing-stage on the other side of the gulf. For landing at Port Gorey was at times a matter requiring both nerve ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... looked at the sign, and, nodding when he found that the sign was there all right, he started on for the little collection ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout

... opposite side ran up in gentle slopes to a rocky knell, from which the eye had a noble prospect of the plains. All down the glen were little copses, half moons of green edging some silvery shore of the burn, or delicate clusters of tall trees nodding on the hill brow. The place so satisfied the eye that for the sheer wonder of its perfection we stopped and stared in silence ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... him. "He does very well, Miss Pond," he said robustly. "Much better than he thinks. Between ourselves," dropping his voice and nodding at her with intention, "a most remarkable case. Very remarkable indeed. And now, if I can find a porter, we ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... H. zeocriton, with erect short ears about 2-1/2 in. long, broad at the base and narrow at the tip, suggesting an open fan or peacock's tail; (b) erect-eared barleys (var. erectum) with erect broad ears and closely-packed plump grains; (c) nodding barleys (var. nutans). The ripe ears of the last hang so as to become almost parallel with the stem; they are narrower and longer than in (b), owing to the grains being placed farther apart on the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... had he passed there before 1914 that across at the rooms the attendants and croupiers knew him as an habitue, and he was always granted the carte blanche—the white card of the professional gambler. With nearly half the people he met he had a nodding acquaintance, for friendships are easily formed over the tapis vert—and ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... first just a little glimmer of gold, or flaxen, or black, or brown as the case may be, above the soil. Then the snowy foreheads appear, and the blue eyes, and black eyes, and, later on, all those enchanting little heads are out of the ground, and are nodding and winking and smiling to each other the whole extent of the field; with their pinky cheeks and sparkling eyes and curly hair there is nothing so pretty as these little wax doll heads peeping out of the earth. Gradually, more and more of them come to light, and finally by Christmas they ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... without passing his abandoned home. Phil liked living on Main Street. Her devotion to that thoroughfare had been a source of great pain to her aunts. Even as her Uncle Amzi absorbed local color from the steps of his bank, Phil was an alert agent in the field, on nodding terms with the motormen of the interurban cars, and with the jehus, who, cigarette in mouth and hat tipped on one side, drove the village hacks. Captain Joshua Wilson, who had been recorder of his county continuously since he lost a leg at Missionary ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson



Words linked to "Nodding" :   nodding thistle, cernuous, biological science, pendulous, unerect, biology, drooping, nodding onion



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