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Polish   Listen
verb
Polish  v. t.  (past & past part. polished; pres. part. polishing)  
1.
To make smooth and glossy, usually by friction; to burnish; to overspread with luster; as, to polish glass, marble, metals, etc.
2.
Hence, to refine; to wear off the rudeness, coarseness, or rusticity of; to make elegant and polite; as, to polish life or manners.
To polish off, to finish completely, as an adversary. (Slang)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Polish" Quotes from Famous Books



... efforts to stamp out the Polish language and Polish national feelings, the Germans are now sorrowing over the alleged attempts of the Walloons to suffocate the Flemish dialect. German war books breathe hate and contempt for the Walloons, but bestow ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... service once more, and that Lasalle understood how incomplete my squadron would be without me. It is true that it came at an inconvenient moment, for the keeper of the post-house had a daughter—one of those ivory-skinned, black-haired Polish girls—with whom I had hoped to have some further talk. Still, it is not for the pawn to argue when the fingers of the player move him from the square; so down I went, saddled my big black charger, Rataplan, and set off instantly ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... painter and engraver, of Polish descent, was born at Dantzic in 1726. For some years he was so popular an artist that few books were published in Prussia without plates or vignettes by him. The catalogue of his works is said to ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... the many girls who had summer homes near the Parker cottage. They were a new type to him, boarding-school products, sure of themselves, "finished" with a high polish that glittered effectively, daringly frank both in their speech and their actions, beautiful dancers, good swimmers, full of "dirt," as they called gossip, and as offhand with men as they were with each other. Within a week Hugh got over ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... The little Franco-Polish woman was there in Bolton Street, of course—for Lady Ongar had not dared to refuse her. A little, dry, bright woman she was, with quick eyes, and thin lips, and small nose, and mean forehead, and scanty hair drawn back quite tightly from her face and head; very dry, but still almost pretty ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... in these rude and artless songs of mine I never take the file in hand, nor try With curious care and nice, fastidious eye To deck and polish each uncultured line, 'T is that it makes small merit of my name To ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... perversion never paralysed or obscured his intellectual powers, though it might lower their aims. With regard to the plan and style of his works, he showed strong good sense and clear judgment. The man who indulged such narrowing egotism, such irrational scorn, would prime and polish without mercy the stanzas in which he uttered them." (Wonderful! that an egotist and a misanthrope should have been kept from defacing his own verses. Then follows our terrible bye-blow.) "And this bewildered idealist was a very bigot in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... craft to what I had expected to find myself on board of. I had read about the white decks and snowy canvas, the bright polish and the active, obedient crew of a man-of-war; and such I had pictured the vessel I had hoped to sail in. The Naiad was certainly a contrast to this; but I kept to my resolve not to flinch from whatever turned up. When I was told to pull and haul away at the ropes, I did so with might and main; ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... was aware that first impressions are everything, and that one young man should appear smart and clever before another if he wished to carry any effect with him; so he took his brush and comb in his pocket, and a pot of grease with which he was wont to polish his long side-locks, and he hurriedly grasped up his pins, and his rings, and the satin stock which Fanny in her kinder mood had folded for him; and then, during his long journey to Hap House, he did perform a toilet which may, perhaps, be fairly ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... eccentric than the late Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly, of the First Foot Guards, who was the vainest man I ever encountered. He was a thin, emaciated-looking dandy, but had all the bearing of a gentleman. He was haughty in the extreme, and very fond of dress; his boots were so well varnished that the polish now in use could not surpass Kelly's blacking in brilliancy; his pantaloons were made of the finest leather, and his coats were inimitable; in short, his dress ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... on there were, however, to be no peaceful intervals in the career of Captain D'Hubert. He saw the fields of Eylau and Friedland, marched and countermarched in the snow, the mud, and the dust of Polish plains, picking up distinction and advancement on all the roads of northeastern Europe. Meantime, Captain Feraud, despatched southward with his regiment, made unsatisfactory war in Spain. It was only when the preparations for the ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad

... be frank if I did not admit concern about many situations—the Greek and Polish for example. But those situations are not as easy or as simple to deal with as some spokesmen, whose sincerity I do not question, would have us believe. We have obligations, not necessarily legal, to the exiled Governments, to the underground leaders, and to our major ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... fixed for the night. We give it a little extra polish. It may be needed soon. There is no outward show of nervousness. No man speaks to his neighbor of his immediate thoughts. We begin to smoke a little more rapidly, perhaps. We might have had a cigarette an hour during the heavy shelling of the day. During the ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat

... district, and speak to him who opened it in his native tongue, would have to pass five years of his life between the Baltic and the Black Sea, the Carpathians and the Caucasus. Galician, Ruthenian, Polish, Magyar would be required as a linguistic basis, while variations of the same added to Russian and German for those who have served in one army or another, would ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... were guests of Mr. and Mrs. Mackey, of the Mackey House, and received from them such kindness as we could scarce expect from old friends. Just here let me say that I had heard so many sneering allusions to the character of the "Canucks," that I was quite unprepared for the universal polish, elegance, cordiality and kindness ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... of the status of women; and this was followed by numerous works and articles, such as Margaret Fuller's, The Great Lawsuit, or Man vs. Woman: Woman vs. Man, and Eliza Farnham's Woman and her Era. Various women lectured; such as Ernestine L. Rose—a Polish woman, banished for asserting her liberty. The question of women's rights received a powerful impetus at this period from the vast number of women who were engaged in the anti-slavery agitation. Any research into the validity of slavery perforce led the investigators ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... course, grind, scratch, and polish each other; and in like wise grind, scratch, and polish the rock over which they pass, under the enormous weight of ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... glorious son, Vowing to Phoebus, Lycia's guardian God, The Archer-King, to pay of firstling lambs An ample hecatomb, when home return'd In safety to Zeleia's sacred town." Thus she; and, fool, he listen'd to her words. Straight he uncas'd his polish'd bow, his spoil Won from a mountain ibex, which himself, In ambush lurking, through the breast had shot, True to his aim, as from behind a crag He came in sight; prone on the rock he fell; With horns of sixteen palms his head was crown'd; These deftly wrought ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... of company. When she come in and say, 'Mandy, shine up de knife and fork and put de polish on de pianny, I allus happy, 'cause I lub to see folks come. Us hab chicken and all kinds of good things. De preacher, he was big, jolly man, he come to de house 'bout one Sunday in every month. Sometime dey brung lil' white chillen to dinner. Den ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... well and truly done. Not that they showed any disposition to shirk. On the contrary, a keener crew was never shipped, but there was something in their knowledge that the skipper's word was law, that there was no arguing about orders, which must have given a certain polish to their work. Warington, of course, was no petty tyrant, lording it over young brothers, and swaggering in the undisputed character of his sway. Like the rest he is a humourist, and when a gale was not blowing or the yacht was not contesting a race, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... said, "but a thing that's worth doing is worth doing well. I'm not a marvel, but I might be the metal polish in those gold letters of your's if ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... the hall at the "Astoria" I saw a strange man—a paintable person—and I asked the Security Officers to get him to sit to me. He was a Polish messenger. He came along the next morning, sat down and smoked his silver pipe. I said: "Can you understand any (p. 112) English?" "Yes," said he, in a strong Irish accent, "I can a bit." "But," I said, "you talk it very well. Have you lived in Ireland?" "No," said he, "but I went ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen

... is furnished by Poland. If in the former the government counted for almost everything, in the latter it counted for next to nothing. The theater of Polish history is the vast plain extending from the Carpathians to the Duena, and from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. This region, lacking natural frontiers on several sides, was inhabited by a variety of races: Poles in the west, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... friends," said Sir James. "It's Grayson's whim, of course, and really, my dear, this seems to be a decent sort of boy. Very rough, of course, but Eddy will give him polish. This class of boy is very quick at picking up things; and if, after a few weeks, Grayson is disappointed and finds out his mistake, why, then, we have behaved in a neighbourly way to him and Helen, and there's an ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... ended her song, all who were in the assembly wept for the daintiness of her delivery and the sweetness of her speech and Al-Abbas said to her, "Brava, O Marziyah! Indeed, thou bewilderest the wits with the beauty of thy verse and the polish of thy speech."[FN412] All this while Shafikah abode gazing about her, and when she beheld the slave-girls of Al-Abbas and considered the charms of their clothing and the subtlety of their senses and the delicacy of their ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... that your little alarm clock rings its little bell. It is not necessary to fret about everything; it is quite enough if the devil gets your mind rasped with one little worry, one little thought which destroys your perfect peace. It is like the polish on a mirror, or an exquisite toilet table, one scratch will destroy it; and the finer it is the smaller the scratch that will deface it. And so your rest can be destroyed by a very little thing. Perhaps you have trusted in God about your future salvation; but have you about your present business ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... good examples from which to profit. Crammed as he is with Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, and Church history, he knows all that they teach in colleges, being totally ignorant of all that can only be learnt at the Court of a king. He has no distinction of manner, no polish or refinement of address; he laughs in loud guffaws, and even raises his voice in the presence of his father. Having been born at Court, his way of bowing is not altogether awkward; but what a difference between his salute and ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... noblest and best on earth; and accordingly, he has a source of pleasure in comparison with which all others are small. From his surroundings he asks nothing but leisure for the free enjoyment of what he has got, time, as it were, to polish his diamond. All other pleasures that are not of the intellect are of a lower kind; for they are, one and all, movements of will—desires, hopes, fears and ambitions, no matter to what directed: they are always satisfied at the cost of pain, and in the case of ambition, generally with more ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer

... that Herschel undertakes to polish a mirror (of a telescope), he condemns himself to ten, or twelve, or even fourteen hours' constant work. He does not quit his workshop for a minute, not even to eat, but receives from the hands of his sister that nourishment without which one could not undergo such prolonged ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... some of the forzados made light of it, bandying jests with the street passengers, who did not find it safe to go too near them. A scoopful of the inky liquid could be flung so as to spoil the polish on boots, or sent its splashes over apparel still higher. Even the vigilance of the sentries could not prevent this, or rather they cared not to exercise it. The victims of such practical jokes were ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... professional and grimy, it was the face no less than the gloves and boots that told Ben Tillson this was no needy seeker after a job. The boots were new and fine, laced daintily up the front, and showed their style even through the lack of polish and the coating of dust and ashes. The gauntlets also, though worn and old, were innocent of grease. This was no cub fireman, said Ben, resentfully, as he revolved in mind a scheme or two that should take the stuffing ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... the same time as many other investigators, Professor Curie and his Polish wife took up the search. They decided to find out whether the emission came from the uranium itself or from something associated with it, and for this purpose they made a chemical analysis of great quantities of minerals. They found a certain kind of pitchblende which was very active, ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... societe,"—which, however, shall never content me. I see multitudes of examples of persons of genius, utterly deficient in grace and the power of pleasurable excitement. I wish to combine both. I know the obstacles in my way. I am wanting in that intuitive tact and polish, which nature has bestowed upon some, but which I must acquire. And, on the other hand, my powers of intellect, though sufficient, I suppose, are not well disciplined. Yet all such hindrances may be overcome by an ardent spirit. If I fail, my consolation ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... the more earnest philosophers of a previous age, gave to Athenian youth a severe intellectual training. Rhetoric, mathematics and natural history supplanted speculation, led to the practice of eloquence as an art, and gave to society polish and culture. The Sophists can not indeed be compared with those great men who preceded or succeeded them in philosophical wisdom, but their influence in educating the Grecian mind, and creating polished men of society, can not be disproved. Politics became a profession in the democratic ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... not surprising that his facial type was distinctly Roumanian; he came, that is, if race means anything at all, of a Graeco-Latin stock, and his hatred of Russia, which seemed to be the beginning and the end of his programme of "Polish nationalism," was the result of a few years of neglected education. Half the conflicting "Nationalisms" of Europe are programmes of artificial hatred, the propagandists of which may actually be of the same blood as their opponents; a single generation suffices for the manufacture of the racial ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... probably the first person to whom she had spoken in such a manner, and that not even to me would she have so spoken unless some strong feeling had prompted her to it. This made me still more uneasy. She held so fast by the fine polish of the outside of the cup and platter. Very likely the world in general supposed that she and Sir Peter were a ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... again;—the rather, as Friedrich, knowing his man, has ceased latterly to urge him on the subject. Peace with George the Purseholder, does not that mean Peace with all the others? Friedrich knows the high Queen's indignation; but he little guesses, at this time, the humor of Bruhl and the Polish Majesty. He has never yet sent the Old Dessauer in upon them; always only keeps him on the slip, at Magdeburg; still hoping actualities may not be needed. He hopes too, in spite of her indignation, the Hungarian Majesty, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... said Dolly, cheerily, "and you can't help the sore throat, you know. You are a great deal of use to me sometimes. See how you save my hands from being spoiled; they would n't be as white as they are if I had to polish the grates and build the fires. Never mind, you will be better in a day or so. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... It was evident that under the shadow of the Cathedral that overhung this wing no sunshine ever dried the walls, of which the skirting boards were rotting into powder like brown sugar, crumbling slowly, on the icy cold polish of ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... a manicure set presented to you! When filling it with the necessary manicure preparations, include the —— Nail Polish, which all chemists keep; it keeps them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... have to face, harder even than that of food. The inclement weather and the harsh laws are mainly responsible for this, while the men themselves ascribe their homelessness to foreign immigration, especially of Polish and Russian Jews, who take their places at lower wages ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... is a mighty poor radiator. Homely example: Try waiting for your coffee to cool if it's in a polished silver pot. Then try it in a tungsten-beryllium pot. No matter how you polish that tungsten-beryllium, the stuff WILL radiate heat. That's why an IP ship is always so blamed cold. You know the passenger ships use polished aluminum outer walls. The big help is, that the tungsten-beryllium will throw off the energy pretty fast, and in a big ship, with a whale of a lot of matter ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell

... decision, becomes a time of subdued excitement. For fear we shall forget to pack them, things are set out early. Stringers hang from chandeliers, quirts from doorknobs. Shoe-polish and disgorgers and adhesive plaster litter the dressing-tables. Rows of boots line the walls. And, in the evenings, those of us who are at home pore over ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... battlefield. We passed through a narrow lane, bordered on each side by groups of stunted willows and birch trees, under the sparse shadow of which nestled a few cottages painted in blue, pink, or yellow, in true Polish fashion. Suddenly our progress was arrested by terrifying screams proceeding from one of these hovels. Several of us were out of our saddles in an instant and rushed in at the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... idea! Germans! Not Germans, but Asiatics. They are just the same as Jews, but still not Jews. Polish, yet Asiatics. Curls ... or, Curdlys is their name.... I've forgotten what it is![8] We called the girl Sshka. She was a fine girl, Sshka was! There now, I've forgotten everything I used to know! But that girl—the deuce take her—seems to be before my eyes now! Out of all ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... scintillated in the sunlight, yonder, on the Arabian bank, it appeared as if it were the region of death. Only in proportion as the sun, descending, became ruddier and ruddier did the sands begin to assume that lily hue which the heath in Polish forests ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... and the ruffled shirt worked a spell peculiarly their own. They carried with them an air of polish and authority. Hamilton, though of obscure birth and small stature, is represented by those who knew him to have been dignity and grace personified; and old Ben Franklin, even in woolen hose, and none too courtier-like, was the delight of the great nobles and fine ladies, in whose company he made ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... "Cinderella Thinks," "Orange Peels," and "Flowers in the Cellar." Used to write stories for the leading Russian magazines. "I think America taught me how to write better fiction, for the art of short story writing is more highly developed here. At first I wrote in Polish, then in Russian. I changed to English because yours is the richest language in the world. I try reverently to learn it well." Lives in New ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... when I succeeded in getting the shoes of passengers which had been given to me to polish, badly mixed up. The shoes of a portly red faced man whose berth was in the forward end of the car, I placed by the berth of a tall and slim western yankee at the other end of the car, while a number 7 and a number 9 shoe were placed decorously by the berth of a sour ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... to a point where her testimony can have further value. Now a verbal quarrel will hurt the case. This is a matter of ancient experience, for whoever quarrels with women is, as Brne says, in the condition of a man who must unceasingly polish lights.[1] ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... hair, and dark gray eyes; he has a noble face and brilliant countenance; he has teeth standing straight, and square and separate, and though they never were brushed, they glisten with the cleanest and smoothest ivory polish; he has a good-sized mouth, not too compressed, like a skin-flint's, nor too open or lax like a fool's. He has a chin, throat, and chest, showing energy of soul and body combined; and if twenty years older, he would do fine honors ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... delighting in the perfect toys which he created, but the intricate details and slow process of manufacture were brain-racking. For not only would he draw the engine in all its parts, but he would buy the raw material and cast and drill and polish each ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... took part in the dancing, but Aaroe did not dance. There was something about him which she thought specially charming; a reserved air of distinction, a polish in his address, a deference of that quiet kind which alone could have appealed to her. His walk gave the impression that he kept half his strength in reserve, and this was the same in everything. He was tall, but not broad-shouldered; the small, somewhat narrow head, set on a rather long neck. ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... from two or three female figures, well-rounded shoulders enveloped in petrified lace, hair reproduced in marble with the soft touch that gives the impression of a powdered head-dress, and a few profiles of children with simple lines, in which the polish of the stone seems like the moisture of life, there were nothing but wrinkles, furrows, contortions and grimaces, our excess of toil and activity, our nervous paroxysms and our fevers contrasted with that art of repose ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... soothing sweet it is Beside our Cot to sit, our Cot o'ergrown With white-flowr'd Jasmine and the blossom'd myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) 5 And watch the Clouds, that late were rich with light, Slow-sad'ning round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant, like thy polish'd Sense, Shine opposite! What snatches of perfume The noiseless gale from yonder bean-field wafts! 10 The stilly murmur of the far-off Sea Tells us of Silence! and behold, my love! In the half-closed window we will ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... had made it straight, and renewed the oil wrapping paper until the staff was perfectly saturated, we then rubbed it well with a woollen cloth, containing a little black-lead and grease, to give it a polish. This was the last process, except that if we thought it too light at the top, we used to bore a hole in the lower end with a red-hot iron spindle, into which we poured melted lead, for the purpose of giving it ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... while he munched his bread and sausage, read a newspaper which did not rank him or even define his politics; there was a want of fashion in the cut of the young men's clothes and of freshness in the polish of their tan shoes which defied conjecture. When they left the train without the formalities of leave-taking which had hitherto distinguished our Spanish fellow-travelers, we willingly abandoned them to a sort of middling obscurity; ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... detail of that service of plate. It was soft, wasn't it? You could bite into a plate and leave a dent? The handles of the knives, now, were they gold, too? All the knife was made from one piece of gold, was it? And the forks the same? The interior of the trunk was quilted, of course? Did Maria ever polish the plates herself? When the company ate off this service, it must have made a fine noise—these gold knives and forks clinking together upon these ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... with a style that was always homely, plain, and pedestrian. John Gower, in Kent, and John Barbour, in Scotland, are also noteworthy poets in this century. The English language reached a high state of polish, power, and freedom in this period; and the sweetness and music of Chaucer's verse are still unsurpassed by modern poets. The sentences of the prose-writers of this century are long, clumsy, and somewhat helpless; but the sweet homely English rhythm exists ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... remembered, is beyond all doubt a very juvenile performance. Turning over some old numbers of a magazine, I found a reviewer of Mr. Tennyson's Princess complaining "that we could have borne rather more polish!" How the fledgling poet of the Maydes Metamorphosis would have fared at the reviewer's hands I tremble to think. But though his rhymes are occasionally slipshod, and the general texture is undeniably thin, still there is something attractive in the young writer's shy tentativeness. ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... Jersey, where I found little boys of ten working in front of glowing furnaces until they dropped of exhaustion and sometimes had their eyes burned out. While she and her husband were guests of the German Emperor, I was playing the part of a Polish working-woman, penetrating the carefully guarded secrets of the sugar-trust's domain in Brooklyn, where human lives are snuffed out almost every day ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... a very slight southern accent caught from his mother, who originally came from Provence. As for his name, it was useless to assume another, for Paris is full of Parisians of foreign descent, whose names are English, German, Polish and Italian; and in a really great city no one takes the least notice of a man unless he does something to attract attention. Besides, Lushington had no idea of disappearing from his own world, or of cutting himself off ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... to 'em straight, though. Architectin' was what Cliffy was aimin' at. He'd been studying that sort of thing out in Michigan, and now he was makin' a tour to see how it was done in other places, meanin' to polish off with a few months abroad. Then, after he'd got himself well soaked in ideas, maybe he'd go back to Bubble Creek, rent an office over the bank, and begin drawin' front elevations of iron foundries and ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... up a little, and when he came close up to me, so as nearly to lay his hand upon me, I squatted right whap down, all short, and he pitched over me near about a rod or so, I guess, on his head, and ploughed up the ground with his nose, the matter of a foot or two. If he didn't polish up the coulter, and both mould boards of his face, it's a pity. 'Now,' says I, 'you had better lay where you be and let me go, for I am proper tired; I blow like a horse that's got the heaves; and besides,' says I, 'I guess you had better wash your face, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... passionate love for a young woman he had given up the work to which he felt drawn of God, and had become both joyless and prayerless: another young man, with far more to draw him worldward, had, for the sake of a self-denying service among despised Polish Jews, resigned all the pleasures and treasures of the world. Hermann Ball was acting and choosing as Moses did in the crisis of his history, while he, George Muller, was acting and choosing more like that profane person Esau, when for ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... long, low, one story building, with a flight of steps leading up into an entrance hall, furnished with several gaudy sofas, and half—a—dozen chairs with a plain wooden floor, on which a slight approach to the usual West India polish had been attempted, but mightily behind the elegant domiciles of my Kingston friends in this respect. In the centre of this room stood three young officers, fair mulattoes, with their plumed cocked—hats in their hands, and dressed very handsomely in French uniforms; ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... the long arm of coincidence (making a greater stretch than I should have expected under Mrs. Steel's direction) brought Marrion to the bedside of her parent in a hospital tent, and converted her into a Polish princess, I lost a little of my whole-hearted belief in her actuality. There are really two parts to the tale—the Scotch courtship, with its intrigues, frustrated elopements, et hoc genus omne; and the scenes, very graphically ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various

... carried off the reigning beauty among the opera-dancers of the day from all competitors; a great French cook had composed a great French dish, and christened it by his name; he was understood to be the "unknown friend," to whom a literary Polish countess had dedicated her "Letters against the restraint of the Marriage Tie;" a female German metaphysician, sixty years old, had fallen (Platonically) in love with him, and had taken to writing erotic romances in her old age. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... quench the dim perceptions of a feeble adversary, and parry cunningly the home thrusts of a strong one,—to invent blanknesses in speech for breathing time, and slipperinesses in speech for hiding time,—to polish malice to the deadliest edge, shape profession to the seemliest shadow, and mask self-interest under the fairest pretext,—all these skills we teach definitely, as the main arts of business and life. There ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... months she was at times seen laughing. This gradually passed into a state of total disinterestedness and inaccessibility. She could finally be made to polish the floor in an automatic fashion, but never spoke, and five years after admission she was transferred to another hospital, where she died (eleven years after admission to the ward of the Institute) without any change in her mental condition ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch

... kept back from the word Pomerania. But the magister knew right well—as many others, though they would not tell the Duke—that the Lord God had spelled the word correctly; for the name in the Wendisch and Polish tongues is Pomorswa, spelt with but one m, and means a land lying by the sea, and therefore many of the old people still wrote Pomern for Pommern. Had the Duke, however, as well as his princely brothers, heard of the awful appearances which ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... obvious. The horn is hard, and when cut by the farrier's tools gives the impression of being baked hard and stony, the natural polish of the external layer is wanting, and there is present, usually, a tendency to contracted heels. With the dryness is a liability to fracture, especially at points where the shoe is attached by the nails. As a consequence, the shoes are easily cast, leading to splits ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... important truth from flattery. It is indeed not only consistent with a firm mind, but it necessarily requires a manly spirit, and a fixed principle, in order to give it any real value. Upon this solid ground only, the polish of gentleness can with ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... lot about him, that's the worst—Polish counts, disreputable artists and poets, any one who has a spurious sort of fame, and knows how to flatter him. Edmund ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had turned pale. His hair (of which he was especially careful at other times) was in disorder. The superficial polish of his manner was gone; the undisguised man, sullen, distrustful, irritated to the last degree of endurance, showed through. He looked at her with a watchfully suspicious eye; he spoke to her, without preface or apology, in a ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... of these holes had been worn right through, and only the side next the rock remained; while the sides of the groove of the flood-channel were polished as smooth as if they had gone through the granite-mills of Aberdeen. The pressure of the water must be enormous to produce this polish. It had wedged round pebbles into chinks and crannies of the rocks so firmly that, though they looked quite loose, they could not be moved except with a hammer. The mighty power of the water here seen gave us an idea of what is going ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... one; and now, seriously interested for Ludovico, he was himself going to strike upon the door with the instrument, when he observed its singular beauty, and with-held the blow. It appeared, on the first glance, to be of ebony, so dark and close was its grain and so high its polish; but it proved to be only of larch wood, of the growth of Provence, then famous for its forests of larch. The beauty of its polished hue and of its delicate carvings determined the Count to spare this door, and he returned to that ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... compositions on friendship, mother, and home; daub a little in water-paints; receive a diploma, and then set up for matrimony. This is female Education—without an object, without ambition, without point or force, without strength, depth, or breadth. It is simply a little outside polish. It does not teach how to think; it does not develop mind; it does not confer power; it does not form character; it does not fix the will, direct the life, establish opinion, deepen sentiment, or do any thing to make a ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... of 1831, two Russian and two Polish regiments of cavalry charged each other. They went with the same dash to meet one another. When close enough to recognize faces, these cavalrymen slackened their gait and both turned their backs. The Russians and Poles, at this terrible moment, recognized ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... turning over the leaves, examining the bindings: it is something to see the care with which he opens them, with his big, stubby hands, and blows between the pages: then they seem perfectly new again. I have worn out all of mine. It is a festival for him to polish off every new book that he buys, to put it in its place, and to pick it up again to take another look at it from all sides, and to brood over it as a treasure. He showed me nothing else for a whole hour. His eyes were troubling him, because he had read too much. At a certain time ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... to steep for a time, then he seats himself on the ice again, and, arranging a plank of wood in a sloping position, holds it fast with his toes, rubs it well with a piece of bath brick, and commences to polish with all the energy which he has saved by the neglect of other duties. Hour after hour the squeaky, squeaky, squeaky sound of that board plays upon your nerves, not the nerves of the ear, but the nerves of the mind, ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... visited Philadelphia. There he met the famous Polish patriot Kosciusko. They had many talks. Kosciusko presented him with a fine pair of pistols ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... by a Polish chemist, named Bronislaus Radziszewski, who followed it up with a long series of experiments on the phosphorescence of organic compounds, by which he was able to determine the conditions under which that ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... pretension to beauty, unless it were Grace, though he was obliged to confess on his last visit to Leeds that Isabel was certainly passable-looking. He tried to take a proper amount of interest in them and be serenely unconscious of their want of grace and polish; but the effort was too manifest, and neither Clara nor Susie nor Laura regarded their grave elder brother with any lively degree of affection. Mrs. Drummond was a somewhat stern and exacting mother, but ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... myself, I generally have all my wits about me, such as they are. If you show yourself bold and cautious, and follow our advice, you need not fear being a stone image yet awhile. But, first of all, you must polish your shield till you can see your face in it as ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... of young Napoleon: one in the dress of a Polish lancer, and the other with long curly flowing ringlets: they both represented a fair, strong, chubby boy, with features very much resembling those of his father. That of his mother, a very fair woman, with good features, but by ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... (includes Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish) 55%, mixed white and black 38%, black 6%, other (includes Japanese, ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... funds for printing my edition of the text and commentary of the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans had been granted, and Bunsen was the first to announce to me the happy result of his literary diplomacy. 'Now,' he said, 'you have got a work for life—a large block that will take years to plane and polish.' 'But mind,' he added, 'let us have from time to time some chips from ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... are merely school-boys now, their business is to construe Virgil. Poor Virgil! whose verses, which he took so much pains to polish, have been misscanned, and misparsed, and misinterpreted by so many generations of idle school-boys. There, sit down, ye Latinists. Two or three of you, I fear, are doomed to feel ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in the field without shoes when it was so cold until the skin cracked and the blood flowed from these wounds. He also told how he used to save his shoes by placing them under his arm and walking barefooted when he had a long distance to go. In order to polish these shoes a mixture of soot and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... I knew the widow of Walewska, the natural son of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Polish countess he picked up in Warsaw, who followed him to Paris; and thereby hangs a tale which may not ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... turned and galloped as hard as they could go, the Arabs who were otherwise disengaged racing after them—five pursuing six; for the man who had been ridden down had got a broken thigh, the second was killed, and the third was now dismounting in order to polish off Harry comfortably as he lay ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... linen and an old dressing-gown, and from his closet brought forth a pair of old tan riding-boots, still in an excellent state of repair. From his army-kit he produced a boot-brush and a can of tan polish, and fell to work, finding in the accustomed task some slight ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... impertinent. And, what do you think?—he hooks Mrs. Winscombe into her stays! Mother says that that isn't anything, really; Mrs. Winscombe is a lady of the court, and the most extraordinary happenings go on there. You see, mother knows a lot about her family, and it's very good; she's part Polish and part English, and her name's Ludowika. She's ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Inspectors, Officers, Attendants, Guests, a Boy in attendance on Prince Shuisky, a Catholic Priest, a Polish Noble, a Poet, an Idiot, a Beggar, Gentlemen, Peasants, Guards, Russian, Polish, and German Soldiers, a Russian Prisoner of War, Boys, ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin

... intimate almost; above all, the clutch upon his protective arm. . . . He felt sorry for 'Bias. Under the rosy influence of Mrs Bosenna's wine he felt genuinely sorry for 'Bias, while enjoying the humorous aspect of 'Bias's delusion. 'Bias—for whose lack of polish he had from the first made Excuse—'Bias laying down the law on what ladies liked ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... between us," he said, "of Venetian republics or of Polish kings. We have but one king—the daughter of the ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... young man, probably a chief's son. He carried a long bright spear, wore a short sword thrust through a girdle, had his hair done in three wrapped queues, one over each temple and one behind, and was generally brought to a high state of polish by means of red earth and oil. About his knee he wore a little bell that jingled pleasingly at every step. From one shoulder hung a goat-skin cloak embroidered with steel beads. A small package ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... of the sturdy, wholesome sort, in which the action is never allowed to drag, best describes this popular novel. "The Shadow of the Czar" is a stirring story of the romantic attachment of a dashing English officer for Princess Barbara, of the old Polish Principality of Czernova, and the conspiracy of the Duke of Bora, aided by Russia, to dispossess the princess of ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... and languid though at games. Some raise the painted pavement, some on wheels Draw slow its laminous length, some intersperse Salt waters through the sordid heaps, and seize The flowers and figures starting fresh to view. Others rub hard large masses, and essay To polish into white what they misdeem The growing green of many trackless years. Far off at intervals the axe resounds With regular strong stroke, and nearer home Dull falls the mallet with long labour fringed. Here arches are discovered, there huge beams Resist the hatchet, ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor

... and lonely, for thirty-two years: I have been rich, and lonely, for ten. My millions have been made honestly enough; but poverty and wretchedness had left their mark on me, and you will find very few men with a good word to say for Harrison Crockstead. I have no polish, or culture, or tastes. Art wearies me, ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro

... evidently having decided to finish the fight as quickly as possible. His expression showed that he had no doubt of his ability to polish off the Englishman and of his superiority ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... What would he have been, if a patrician? We should have had more polish—less force—just as much verse, but no immortality—a divorce and a duel or two, the which had he survived, as his potations must have been less spirituous, he might have lived as long as Sheridan, and outlived as much as poor Brinsley. What a wreck is that man! and all from ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron



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