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Poky   Listen
adjective
Poky  adj.  
1.
Confined; cramped. (Prov. Eng.)
2.
Dull; tedious; uninteresting. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Poky" Quotes from Famous Books



... what is the use of reading this poky old book?" urged Molly. "'T isn't doing any of us the least bit of good. I've listened just as hard as I could, and I'm sure I haven't any idea what it's all about, it's told in ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... last date from Cobham, "New York" succeeding it without any; for Mr Arnold had the reprehensible and, in official persons, rare habit of very constantly omitting dates, though not places. The St Nicholas Club, "a delightful, poky, dark, exclusive little old club of the Dutch families," is the only place in which he finds peace. For, as one expected, the interviewers made life terrible. These American letters are interesting reading enough, but naturally tend to be little more than a replica of similar ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... anyhow; I think Mrs. Peyton might have let her stay all night. It's horribly poky, with Uncle John and the boys and everybody away. Why, Margaret, there isn't a single man about the place, is there? Bannan drove them over, and then he was going to the cattle-show, and so was Michael. Suppose there ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... jolly is the gale, And a joker is the whale, A' flourishin' his tail,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... to send a cable to his father, telling of his own safety, for he had no means of knowing whether or not his father might be worrying over him also. He worked until midnight learning the principles of the typewriter and, in a poky sort of way, trying to hammer out the guide sentences given him in the Instruction Book. Next day found him again ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... luncheon. Then you adjourn to the parish church, where an old gentleman of feeble eyesight reads a long and tedious account of all the persons whose monuments are or are not to be found upon the walls of that poky little building. Nobody listens to him; but everybody carries away a vague impression that some one or other, temp. Henry the Second, married Adeliza, daughter and heiress of Sir Ralph de Thingumbob, and had issue thirteen stalwart sons and twenty-seven ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... much where the Indian Uncle lived, because we had not been told. And we thought when the cab began to go up the hill towards the Heath that perhaps the Uncle lived in one of the poky little houses up at the top of Greenwich. But the cab went right over the Heath and in at some big gates, and through a shrubbery all white with frost like a fairy forest, because it was Christmas time. And at ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit

... song from Hippolytus, 'O take me to the Mountains, O.' It was rather surprising, but when he invited me to go with him to his home, which is next door, it was more surprising still. Instead of finding another small villa like Hillview with a breakneck stair and poky little rooms, I found a real old cottage. The room I was taken into was about the nicest I ever saw. I think it would have fulfilled all your conditions as to the proper furnishing of a room; indeed, now that I think of it, it was quite ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... Marse's niggers. One day Uncle Dave start to town and a Kluxer ask him where am he pass. Dat Kluxer clout him but Uncle Dave outrun him in de cane. Marse grab de hoss and go 'rest dat man and Marse a jedge and he make dat man pay de fine for hittin' Uncle Dave. After dey hears of dat, dem old poky faces sho' scairt of old Marse and dey git out from Opelousas and stays out. When me and my husband, John, come to Texas de folks say dat Louisiana masters de meanes' in de world and I say right back at 'em dat dey is good and mean in every spot of de earth. What more, de Louisiana masters free ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... like you," chorused the children. "You've never grown up and got dull and stiff and poky ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... We've seen something of that already. Well, I'm not going back to London, John. I'm simply not going back. You can't expect me to go from this house where I'm happy to that little poky flat in Hampstead and sit there night after night while ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel-bushes ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... loveliest little spots upon earth, I acted one night 'by command, and in the presence of his Majesty Kamehameha V., King of the Sandwich Islands' (not 'Hoky Poky Wonky Fong,' as erroneously reported), and a memorable night it was. On my way to the quaint little Hawaiian Theatre, situated in a rural lane, in the midst of a pretty garden, glowing with gaudy tropical ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... slow! They've a poky little house in Brompton somewhere, and there was no dancing, only boshy games and a conjurer, without any presents. And, oh! I say, at supper there was a big cake on the table, and no one was allowed to cut it, because it was hired. They're so poor, you know. Skidmore's ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... you a bit of unpleasant news. Mother, without consulting me, has invited a poor and poky cousin of ours to spend the holidays with us also. He is from the West, green as a gooseberry, and, what's far worse, he's studying for the ministry, and no doubt will want to preach at us all the time. I don't know ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... sat terrified and alone in the poky room, during which her pains gradually increased. They were still bearable, and not the least comparable to the mental tortures which continually threatened her, owing to the dreariness of her surroundings ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... seen you for more than a year, and I've been to Europe since, and am a traveled young man. Don't you see marks of foreign culture in me?" and he laughed mischievously, for he knew his aunt would comprehend his meaning. "Then, too," he continued, "I'm an Andover chap now, but find it awful poky. I almost wish I had gone to Easthampton. Such fun as the boys have there! Sent a whole car-load of gates down to Springfield one night! I'd like to have seen the Easthamptonites when they found their gates gone, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... poky I know I shall just die of homesickness for Greensboro," confessed Janice. "How could the early settlers of these 'New Hampshire Grants' ever dare give such a ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... apparently being intended more for the convenience of enormous bales, sacks, and fruit-baskets than that of its passengers, who were stuffed in anyhow among the cargo. Lady MacNairne was furious, because it was too cold for Tibe on deck, and he wasn't allowed below in the tiny, poky cabin. She argued with the captain, or somebody in authority and velvet slippers; but he being particularly Dutch, and very old, even her fascination had no power. (It is strange, but when Lady MacNairne gets excited she talks more like an ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... anything to what it will be later," said the girl; "it keeps on getting hotter and dustier all the time. I don't believe there's such a stupid, poky, little old place anywhere else in the world. You ought to be mighty glad ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... with glee, "ain't those poky places the limit? I just know that two hours at Cranberry Corners would give me the horrors now. Well, I'm awful glad to have seen you, Mr. Summers. Guess I'll bustle around to the hotel now and get ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... would be no worse off, and of course he could get something else to do as well by way of ordinary work. If only he could bring in L100 a year to the meagre family store! What little luxuries might it not procure for his mother! What a difference it might make in that dreary, poky Dull Street parlour, where she sat all day! Or if they decided not to spend it, but save it up, think of a pound a week ready against a rainy day! Reginald used to have loose enough ideas of the value of money; but the last few ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... passed drearily. The twins had lost all relish for their well-planned tricks, and the others, down-stairs, found the usually wild and hilarious day almost unbearably poky. Prudence's voice was gentle as she called them down to dinner, and the twins, determined not to show the white feather, went down at once and took their places. They bore their trouble bravely, ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... in the past, how he had often lied so circumstantially that she had believed his words to be the truth. Once, indeed, he had openly declared to her that one of his maxims was never to tell the truth unless obliged. After dinner, a simple meal served in the poky little dining-room, she made an excuse to go to her room, and there sat for a long time, deeply reflecting. Should she write to Walter? Would it be judicious to explain Flockart's visit, and how he had urged their reconciliation? If she wrote, would it lower her dignity in her lover's eyes? ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... Marcia, "that's exactly it, only I never could have found quite the right words. Do you think J.W. will find it too poky and preachy?" ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... My friend, Private Mulvaney, who went home in the Serapis, time-expired, not very long ago, has come back to India as a civilian! It was all Dinah Shadd's fault. She could not stand the poky little lodgings, and she missed her servant Abdullah more than words could tell. The fact was that the Mulvaneys had been out here too long, and had lost touch ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... a whimper out of you to-morrow! Not a shadow of a shade of disappointment on your fair young brow? Only happy smiles and pleasant words, and just MAKE yourself enjoy the prospect of those poky, gloomy, horrid ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... I expect we all do in Old Ireland. Bless her! she's a dear old country, and I'm as sorry as anybody to say good-by to her. But, all the same, I am glad to see England (poky, stiff sort of place it seems). Say now, Alice, do you like my dress? It was made in Dublin; it's the height of ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... hers, and we both smiled. Then the rector introduced me to her, and we mutually voted the bazaar close and hot, and went out to watch the tennis players in the garden. We had a jolly time. I have not laughed so much since I came to this slow, poky corner ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... him better t'other way," said Hughie. "Things is livelier. I'd sooner be diggin' dots than dronin' along so poky." ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... she said. "What a frowst I Fancy sitting in that poky little carriage with both windows shut. Get up and put away your silly old papers. If you come along at once we'll just be in ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham

... fairly gone, Longclawse, the eldest, said, 'Seems to me, brothers, we have stood this long enough. All the other cubs in the wood can run about as they please, and why should we be kept in this poky old cave? Suppose we try to get away the big log before the door?' for this was what Grumpy-growly put up ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow

... natives, We had a friend all round. Mine was Poky, a handsome youth, who never could do enough for me. Every morning at sunrise, his canoe came alongside loaded with fruits of all kinds; upon being emptied, it was secured by a line to the bowsprit, under which it lay all day long, ready at any time to ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... to London in vile weather. At the best of times Jaffery grew impatient of the narrow conditions of town; yet there he was week after week, staying in a poky set of furnished chambers in Victoria Street, and doing nothing in particular, as far as I could make out, save riding on the tops of ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... turned the young man into Florent's determined enemy by begging him and Augustine to defer their marriage till her cousin should vacate the little bedroom at the top of the house, as she did not want to give that poky dressing-room on the first floor to the new shop girl whom she would have to engage. From that time forward Auguste was anxious that the "convict" should be arrested. He had found such a pork shop as he had long dreamed of, not at Plaisance certainly, but at Montrouge, a little farther away. And ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... it would be to marry him, instead of some slow, poky farmer, and have a beautiful house, and servants, and lovely clothes. I kept thinking, every night, he would ask me to; but he didn't. And finally, one time, just before we got home after a dance, he said—he was going ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... Alf up a little bit,' she said. 'He's entirely too poky. Carrie, that man is the slowest stick that ever lived. I wish some pretty, dashin' gal like Dixie Hart would flirt with him good and hard. If you wasn't so old I'd git you to do it. My first husband was different; he was a great ladies' man. ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... are not the right words," said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, "I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh, ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it: if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... goin' ter say that I kin git there by two different roads, an' I'd go the way ye'd like best ter go ef ye knew which that was," he said. "I only know I want the ride, and this road is stupid and poky. Go the way that has the most houses on it," Patricia answered, and the boy turned into another avenue, and soon they were passing houses enough, ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks

... fancy Mrs. Frank, and spoke despitefully of her among themselves, were not slow to come in "for just a minute," as they said, as the evenings wore on, and to stay and chat with various visitors—it was so lonesome and poky over home with the children asleep and nothing to do. Women there were who never darkened Mrs. Garrison's door after the first formal calls; but they were of those who deeply felt the separation from all they held most dear, and who, forbidden themselves, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... horns of the little ones rose on the balmy air next morning. No one would doubt it was Christmas Day, even if doors and windows were open wide to let in cool air. Why, there was Christmas even in the very look of the mules on the poky cars; there was Christmas noise in the streets, and Christmas toys and Christmas odours, savoury ones that made the nose wrinkle approvingly, issuing from the kitchen. Michel and Madame Laurent smiled greetings across the ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... poky living room, which smelt of meals, and had tea, and the sort of barren talk that the presence of the third person necessitated. Mary seemed purposely to avoid a TETE-A-TETE. When Miss Goldsworthy went to fetch the baby, Ruby was kept at her step-mother's side. Only when the black-eyed ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... to get a hoky-poky at the corner," replied the girl. "I don't care to mind yer brother any more anyway," she added, and darted out of sight into ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill

... London is a poky place, but we adore it. St. James's Street is about the length of a good big ship, yet we don't feel we have lived till we get back to it! And as for Piccadilly and St. Paul's, well, we see ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... oddly-shaped little house it was, full of unexpected angles and doors, and having a garden and orchard which straggled up the lower slope of one of the Downs. It had a stable, too, of a modest sort, and rather poky, but the coach-house was admirable, light, airy, facing south-east, and having a new concrete floor, which the Master helped to lay with his own hands. The back half of this coach-house consisted of a slightly raised wooden dais; a very pleasant ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... with them as soon as they begin going to school," mused Faith. "I hope the girls are nice. I don't like most of the girls round here. Even the nice ones are poky. But the Blythe twins look jolly. I thought twins always looked alike, but they don't. I think the red-haired one is ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... believe I'm a good speculationer," she sighed, at last, looking crestfallen. "Well, I don't care much. I didn't want to keep store any more anyway. It's too poky. Can we be excused, grandma? I must have a ride on Mopsie, ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow

... have lived in a poky little house," she said, "and you would have been to sea three-quarters of the time, leaving me to eat my heart out as mother did for father—and it would have been a horrible, ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... affairs. "We've got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio says they're the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter, if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great deal nicer than I thought; I thought it would be fearfully quiet; I was sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure we should be going round all the time with one of those dreadful old men that explain about the pictures and things. But we only had about a week of that, and now I'm enjoying myself. I know ever so many people, and they are all so charming. The society's extremely ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James

... back to be seized by Conrade and Francis, and walked off to the pony inspection, the two boys, on either side of him, communicating to him the great grievance of living in a poky place like this, where nobody had ever been in the army, nor had a bit of sense, and Aunt Rachel was always bothering, and trying to make mamma think that ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... mademoiselle, impossible! How you Americans do love to jest.' But it was no joke. You can't imagine how stupid it is to be with nobody but grown people all the time. I'm fairly aching for a good old game of hi spy or prisoner's base with you. There is nothing at all to do, but to take poky walks. ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston

... colleges, business enterprises, periodicals, agriculture, manufacturing, and shipping of the world, we find everywhere one story—growth, impetus, courage, resources, vigorous and bounding life. Beside these things the average church services to-day are both stupid and poky. The forces of religion are neither guided nor wielded well. There is in most churches, however we may dislike to own the fact, a decrease of interest and proportionate membership, a waning prestige, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... pokers and leather harness, all the women and girls with bonnets and long petticoats and shawls and flounces and comfortable poky straw bonnets, and boys so nicely dressed, and urns and small panes (no glasses and no clocks), trays, good bread, and everybody with clean and fresh and pretty faces. We have been walking this evening by the sea, and all the English look very odd; they all look hangy and loose, so ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... cheap gentility and Brummagem pretensions; sick to death of hearing that nothing I have been used to is "proper." If my world is a second rate one, show me a better. Why don't you introduce me to your own, if it is so vastly superior? Have you done it? Not you! You bury me in this poky little hole and deliberately insult the only friends I have who take the trouble to come ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... their first lessons by riding with papa, who is either absorbed in other business, or himself a novice in the art of horsemanship, get into poky habits, which it is extremely difficult to eradicate when they reach the age when every real woman ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... for the nonce. Moreover, I for one was only too glad to seek fresh fields and pastures new—a phrase which I determined to interpret literally in my choice of fresh surroundings. I was tired of our submerged life in the poky little flat, especially now that we had money enough for better things. I myself of late had dark dealings with the receivers, with the result that poor Lord Ernest Belville's successes were now indeed ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... was very communicative about her ill health. It was the reason, she told Rosalie, why, alone of all the mistresses, she had a room to herself instead of sharing one. The Sultana had granted her that privilege, provided she would use this remote and rather poky attic, because it was so essential she should ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... slightly higher at the croup than at the shoulder, which gives it a poky look, lighter beneath and whitish inside the limbs and in the middle of the belly; fore-legs, muzzle, and edge of ears dark; fetlocks dark, sometimes ringed with lighter colour. The colouring varies a good deal. The horns are situated as I have before described; ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... to Eunice, as they wolfed hot chocolate, lumps of nougat, and an assortment of glace nuts, in the mosaic splendor of the Royal Drug Store, "it gets me why Dad doesn't just pass out from being so poky. Every evening he sits there, about half-asleep, and if Rone or I say, 'Oh, come on, let's do something,' he doesn't even take the trouble to think about it. He just yawns and says, 'Naw, this suits me right here.' He doesn't know there's ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... better for us both. Who in the whole of the parish—I ask you—and you must have the sense left to see that—who will believe that a respectable man, a gentleman, a Churchman, would deliberately go out to seek an afternoon's amusement in a poky little country churchyard? Why, apart from everything else, THAT was absolutely mad to start with. Can you really wonder ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... instinct. If the ship is sinking, the rats are the first to leave it. Holy Russia is a country of wood, of poverty... and of danger, the country of ambitious beggars in its upper classes, while the immense majority live in poky little huts. She will be glad of any way of escape; you have only to present it to her. It's only the government that still means to resist, but it brandishes its cudgel in the dark and hits its own men. Everything ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... extraordinary a change; and he walked to and fro in the freshened air, thinking that Nora's health might not have withstood the strain of trudging from street to street, teaching the piano at two shillings an hour, returning home late at night to a poky little lodging, eating any food a landlady might choose to give her. As a music teacher she would have had great difficulty in supporting herself and her baby, and it pleased him to imagine the child as very like her mother; and returning ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... can't stay here,' said Bridget sharply. 'It's too expensive, though it is such a poky hole. We can find a lodging, I suppose, and feed ourselves. Unless of course we went back to Westmorland. Why can't you? They ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Kennicott believed in it; demanded that she say patriotic things about the White Way and the new factory. He snorted, "By golly, I've done all I could, and now I expect you to play the game. Here you been complaining for years about us being so poky, and now when Blausser comes along and does stir up excitement and beautify the town like you've always wanted somebody to, why, you say he's a roughneck, and you won't jump ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... be heartily welcome, young sirs, and though such accommodation as we can give you will not be equal to that which you are accustomed to, I warrant me that you will find it a pleasant change after that poky little cabin on board the Susan. I know it well, for I supply her with stores, and have often wondered how men could accustom themselves to pass their lives in places where there is scarce room to turn, to say nothing of the smell of fish that ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... and it is as pretty and quiet as the railway Woking is noisy and tiresome. It stands with its old church on the banks of the Wey two miles away, a huddle of tiled roofs and old shops and poky little corners, as out-of-the-way and sleepy and ill-served by rail as anyone could wish. I found it first on a day in October, and walked out from the grinding machinery of the station by a field-path running through broad acres of purple-brown loam, over which plough-horses tramped and turned. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... think you do like it. I've met hundreds of fellows who feel just the same as you. I'm different, as I told you. But I can understand the other point of view. Perhaps I should kick if I had to go back to a poky office, instead of a free, open-air life. After all, we're creatures ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... cheaply up the river; one is not expected to make much of a show. [She turns to her husband.] Your poor cousin Emily used to work off quite half her list that way—relations and Americans, and those sort of people, you know—at that little place of theirs at Goring. You remember it—a poky hole I always thought it, but it had a lot of green stuff over the door—looked very pretty from the other side of the river. She always used to have cold meat and pickles for lunch—called it a picnic. People said it ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... think Phil and Gerald are ever so much more fun, anyhow!" said Jean, saucily. "Hugh is poky!" ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... about the Annas, and after all there were parts of the building in which Mrs. Bilton wasn't. There was his bedroom, for instance. Thank God for bedrooms, thought Mr. Twist. He grew to love his. What a haven that poky and silent place was; what a blessing the conventions were, and the proprieties. Supposing civilization were so far advanced that people could no longer see the harm there is in a bedroom, what would have become of him? Mr. Twist could perfectly account for Bruce ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... people on the next seat turned to look at her with smiles of admiring interest. Everyone was "so nice and kind." It was a pleasure to see them. Clearwater was a dear, sweet place, but, after all, it was only a poky little village. Delightful to get away and see something ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... a nice place like this to be sick in. It must be very poky in those little rooms," said Jack, as his eye roved round the large chamber where he lay so cosey, warm, and pleasant, with the gay chintz curtains draping doors and windows, the rosy carpet, comfortable chairs, and a fire ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... possibly been kindly lent by the Convent for the occasion—in a vacuous row at the back of the scene. Fancy Manrico has forgotten to give them the usual initial brooches, and they feel the wedding is a poky affair, and take no interest in it. Leonora herself is in low spirits—seems to miss the confidant, and to be oppressed with a misgiving that the wedding is not destined to come off. Misgivings on the stage are never thrown away—the wedding is interrupted immediately ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various

... growing poky. I tell you what we'll do," she continued in a playful manner. Her lips smiled, and her eyes watched as she knelt beside him, her head tilted, her fingers straying over the rough surface of his coat. He ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... had told me, when I was Miss Beresford, and one of the belles of the county, that a child of mine would have to stand half a day, in a little poky kitchen, working away like any servant, that we might prepare properly for the reception of a tradesman, and that this tradesman should be the only'—'Oh, mamma!' said Margaret, lifting herself up, 'don't punish me so for a careless speech. I don't mind ironing, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... had suddenly begun to feel more confidential with her grandfather, "why, then, do you and Grandma want us children to be so sedate and poky and quiet and good? At home we're awfully noisy, and here if we make a breath ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... to be smarter than other folks," said Evelina, putting a conscious hand to her hair, "but I guess Mr. Herman Ramy wouldn't be sorry to pass an evening here, 'stead of spending it all alone in that poky little ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton

... if I should be as happy if I were poor—not real poor, you know, but as we were at Langley before I was born. I went there with him a few weeks ago for the first time; and oh, my goodness gracious! such a poky little house, with the stairs going right up in the room, and such a tiny, stuffy bedroom! I tried to fancy mamma's scent bottles, and brushes, and combs, and the box for polishing her nails, transported to that room, and her in there with Rosalie dressing ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... was the fact that he was an Indian that first attracted me to him. As the years passed we became great friends, and I loved nothing better in an idle hour than to smoke a pipe with the General in his poky little office at Police Headquarters. That was about all there was to it, too, for he rarely opened his mouth except to grunt approval of something I was saying. When, once in a while, it would happen that some of his people came down from the Reservation ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... cared for me, same as the hero did in 'The Unequal Marriage.' I saw last night it was you he was talking about when he said there was somebody he wanted to marry who wouldn't have him. My heart is broken; but I mean to have some enjoyment, which I couldn't, if I stayed here with you and that poky Miss Standish. I think it was real mean of Mr. Flint to ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... man about in 'is own 'ouse? An' 'ow can you want your poor father to open 'is eyes an' look upon the ruins o' 'is beautiful mansion? It's downright indecent o' you to be so glad that you've got to live in a poky little 'ouse; but, at least, you sha'n't drag your father an' me to live there, to be reminded o' the beautiful past,' said ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... people; if you ask him to do something for you, he does it as exactly, as punctually, as faithfully as if his own reputation depended upon it. He is now a middle-aged man with hundreds of friends and a small income. He lives in a poky house in a suburb, and works harder than anyone I know. If one meets him he has always the same beautiful, tired smile; and he has fifty things to ask one, all about oneself. I can't describe what good it does one to meet him. The other day I met a cousin of his, a prosperous man of business. "Yes," ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Jess, with a nod of her dark head, "that poky old Harding and his crowd won't have a word to say ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... fifteen; and the world was a fascinating place. There were people who found Cherryvale a dull, poky little town to live in, but not Melissa. Not even in winter, when school and lessons took up so much time that it almost shut out reading and the wonderful dreams which reading is bound to bring you. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... tone, of course," was Irene's response; "but honest, now, Gerty, don't you think it a little poky? I do not want to go anywhere for a whole summer: I like the fun of all. Agatha is to spend a month at Long Branch, and I am going down just for a little dazzle and to give my gowns ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... of a large party always prevailed over personal feelings, and Lily saw no change in her hostess's manner. Nevertheless, she was soon aware that the experiment of coming to Bellomont was destined not to be successful. The party was made up of what Mrs. Trenor called "poky people"—her generic name for persons who did not play bridge—and, it being her habit to group all such obstructionists in one class, she usually invited them together, regardless of their other characteristics. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... acquaintance to her own particular set, there was nothing formidable or even imposing in her appearance. She was the widow of a Colonel Elmslie, and apparently left with only moderate means, judging from the almost poky house on the farther side of the Common, which she shared with an unmarried female cousin ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... so poky,' still he mused; 'It must be finer far To play I Spy across the sky, And skip from star ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... her Poky Pry because she is always poking her inquisitive nose into places where she has no business. I was afraid they might not want her here, but she frisked her way into favor at once. Her usual place for a morning nap is in Aunt Clara's work basket. We found her once ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... Mortlake road. She had been a former housemaid of ours; she was a strong sturdy woman, with a deep voice like a man, and when I arrived there ill—I was often ill in those days—she used to hug and kiss me and even cry over me; and the happiest days I spent at school were in that poky little house, reading in Louisa's little parlour, while she prepared some special dish as a treat for my supper; or sitting hour by hour at the window of my room upstairs, watching a grocer opposite set out his window. I certainly did ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... all. Goes mad with joy. What for? Because she's going to leave a decent house, to live in a poky hole in the East End of London, and keep ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... circuit. Judge and lawyers moved from town to town, "rode the circuit" in company,—sometimes on horseback, sometimes in their own vehicles, sometimes by stage. Among the reminiscences of Lincoln on the circuit, are his "poky" old horse and his "ramshackle" old buggy. Many and many a mile, round and round the Eighth Judicial Circuit, he traveled in that humble style. What thoughts he brooded on in his lonely drives, he seldom told. During this period the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... anywhere," said Wilbur, "but even so, you're not standing on one spot like a sailor in a crow's nest, waiting for something to happen; you're in the saddle, riding from point to point all day long, sometimes when there is a trail and sometimes when there isn't, out in the real woods, not in poky, stuffy city streets. You know, Fred, I can't stand the city; I always feel as ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... did! What's lots of fun for two is awful poky for one. Come on, I'll race you to ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... tedious "exercises," and she was glad for her mother to see how poky it was to drum at them for an hour. As a rule, Marjorie did her practising patiently enough, but sometimes she revolted, and it made her chuckle to see Mrs. Maynard carefully picking ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... asked. But my nurse and your maid seem to have made friends. Of course my nurse has plenty of time for dressmaking with only one child of four to look after, and—and—one really gets no new ideas in a poky place like this. But I would not have taken a liberty ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of pins when Roxy is along. And let me tell you the bug-doctor is about to burst out into the cold world from his aprons. I know old Doug makes enough to rag the family, but Roxy is just behindhand getting rabbit skins to wrap the buntings in. Lots of girls are poky ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... its yellow haze, and is burning to brightest gold the reddish tinge in the girl's hair as she moves with dallying steps through the green fields. She is dressed in a white gown, decked with ribbons of sombre tint, and wears upon her head a huge poky bonnet, from which her face peeps out, half earnest, half ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... sign of Hicks, but without result. Then Bevans got under way and moved along at the same poky gait as before. When he had gone some distance we took to the hollow. Twenty minutes jogging brought us into a stretch of rough country, a series of knobs and ridges cut by innumerable coulees. Here it became necessary ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... bride," said Mr. Dutton, admiringly, "you are so indifferent to discomfort and danger. I can't fancy you shut up in a poky school-room, taking regular walks, and teaching Dr. Watts to ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... "They're poky. I want real money. Now! It isn't enough to be just well-to-do in these days. It needs money. I want to be rich! Not just prosperous, but rich! So rich that I can let the bath soap float around in the water without any pricks of conscience. So successful that they'll say, 'And ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... the boys were off in a little open buggy behind poky Old Ben; a cold, drizzling rain was coming down, which wet and chilled them through and through, yet the boys journeyed with light hearts, for so buoyant are the spirits of youth that they can rise above the most unfavorable circumstances. They laughed and sang as the old ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale



Words linked to "Poky" :   hoosgow, pokey, poke, provincial, slow, hoosegow, bastille, correctional institution, gaol, lockup, jailhouse, jail, laggard, dilatory, jerkwater, slammer, clink, workhouse, one-horse, holding cell



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