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Toy   Listen
noun
Toy  n.  
1.
A plaything for children; a bawble.
2.
A thing for amusement, but of no real value; an article of trade of little value; a trifle. "They exchange for knives, glasses, and such toys, great abundance of gold and pearl."
3.
A wild fancy; an odd conceit; idle sport; folly; trifling opinion. "To fly about playing their wanton toys." "What if a toy take 'em in the heels now, and they all run away." "Nor light and idle toys my lines may vainly swell."
4.
Amorous dalliance; play; sport; pastime. "To dally thus with death is no fit toy."
5.
An old story; a silly tale.
6.
A headdress of linen or woolen, that hangs down over the shoulders, worn by old women of the lower classes; called also toy mutch. (Scot.) "Having, moreover, put on her clean toy, rokelay, and scarlet plaid."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Toy" Quotes from Famous Books



... line-of-battle ship; made too of beef bones, obtained from the cook. They were built up precisely like a large vessel; human hair twisted into ropes of suitable sizes being employed for rigging. When completed, they made a beautiful toy. Desks, work-boxes, etc., were also made here; violins, some of which were of excellent tone, were likewise constructed. But it would be useless to enumerate the endless variety of queer things made ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... have I to think that any woman will suit me? or what chance is there that any woman will make me happy? Is it not all leather and prunella? She is pretty and clever, soft and feminine. Where shall I find a nicer toy to play with? You forget, Arthur, that I have had my day-dreams, and been roused from them somewhat roughly. With you, the pleasure is ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... the butler, was one of tension. Other people, confronted for the first time with Beach, had felt the same. He had that strained air of being on the very point of bursting that one sees in bullfrogs and toy balloons. Nervous and imaginative men, meeting Beach, braced themselves involuntarily, stiffening their muscles for the explosion. Those who had the pleasure of more intimate acquaintance with him soon passed this stage, just as people whose homes are on the slopes ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... the surprises of Elizabeth's new world. Elizabeth fingered the nickled knobs, exclaimed over the reservoir for hot water at its back and the warming closet below, and investigated all its secret places as if it had been a toy. John Hunter gave his mother an approving nod behind the girl's back, and the visit was a success. Elizabeth forgot that she was to share the honours of the home with "Mother Hunter," as she had secretly called her a few times, and in the end overstayed ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... could have walked upon the shoulders. Many of the people carried blazing torches, which they waved in the air, dropping the burning resin upon their companions; others threw their hats skywards; here were boys beating drums, and grown men blowing upon toy trumpets; and all were shouting and cheering with a deafening enthusiasm. The news of the Princess's arrival had spread like wildfire through the town. Wogan's spirits rose at a bound. Here was a welcome ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... to have had a great deal of business to talk over these last few days, you and Mr. Trent and Sir Roger. Would it be indiscreet to ask, dear child, if there has been any hitch about the purchase of your new toy? Oh, ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson

... often needlessly blind as the result of an unwise and harmful selection of toys, such as scissors, forks, toy pistols, air rifles and bows and arrows. The observance of a sane Fourth of July has lessened the number of accidents to the eyes ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... Unable to grant her petition, unable to free his son, the old man when left alone could only rave till his heart broke. Signor Ronconi's Doge is not to be forgotten by those who do not regard art as a toy, or the singer's art as something entirely distinct from ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... there were two. Two Christmas presents, promising fun, Bobbles took the picture book, then there was one. One Christmas present—and now the list is done; Bobbinet took the sled, and then there were none. And the same happy child received every toy, So many ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... to worry your brother," he answered, smiling, "but I am going to take you down to Portsmouth, if I may. We shall be there long before you could get there by train, and—well, what do you think of my new toy?" ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to herself. "To think of this network of treachery spreading through and through us, lying in wait for us, leading us on, buoying us up with false strength, sham elasticity—and then collapsing like a toy balloon, leaving nothing but a rag, a tatter of humanity. Oh, it is shameful! it is disgraceful! Look at me! what business have ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... him, by-and-bye, with no small measure of the same gifts, his collaborator and friend. A friendship that was begun in very early days when the two told each other stories and issued romances from a toy printing-press, and when the junior received that delightful dedication of Treasure Island in which he is described as 'a young American gentleman' to whose taste the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... Ranch over on Pipe Stone—a good, clean boy that'll have the ranch to himself as soon as old Dave dies of meanness, and that can't be long now. It was then she come out delirious about not being the pampered toy of any male—male, mind you! It seems when these hussies want to knock man nowadays they call him a male. And she rippled on about the freedom of her soul and her downtrod sisters and this ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... She looked up at him in bewildered surprise, as a child might do who sets a light to a whole box of matches in play. What a naughty, naughty toy to burn so quickly ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... parties to most amazing exaggerations. Each one did what could be done to engage the affections of the little girl; each one was willing to pay any price for the most trifling caress. At five years Dionysia had every toy that had ever been invented. At ten she was dressed like the first lady of the land, and ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... the toy and candy store they went, and while four of the six little Bunkers got sweets, Russ and Laddie each bought a five-cent balloon, that would float high in the air. They had lots of fun playing with them, and Rose and Violet kept their words about giving their brothers some candy in ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope

... to Washington Street, Gypsy was in an ecstasy. She kept calling to Joy to see that poor little beggar girl, or that funny old woman, or that negro boy who was trying to stand on his head, or the handsome feather on that lady's bonnet, and stopped every other minute to see some beautiful toy or picture in a shop-window, till Joy ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... order of nature, and the ordinances of the gods. Some hidden influence within the sphere directs the various courses of the stars and actuates the lifelike mass with definite motions. A false zodiac runs through a year of its own and a toy moon waxes and wanes month by month. Now bold invention rejoices to make its own heaven revolve and sets the stars [planets?] in motion by ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price

... were fed from mine, whose pulses are but a throb from my heart, my baby! My own baby, who, when I snatch her in my arms, smiles at me with his wonderful eyes of blue; and wellnigh maddens me with the very echo of a voice whose wily sweetness won my love, to make an hour's pastime, a cheap toy, soon worn out, worthless and trodden under foot after three weeks' sport! Stooping over my baby, when she stretched her little hands and coaxed me to lift her on my lap, I have started back from the sight of her innocent face, as ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the article with as much pride and pleasure as a boy receives a new toy; "I didn't shed her blood, and so shan't trouble myself about this little spot that is on the case. It's as pretty as a mahogany coffin, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... a seat beside Lady Tranmore. She had been trying to make him take notice of a new toy. But the child looked at her with blank and glassy eyes, and the toy fell ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... it up, kissed it gallantly and looked in her alarmed face with wonder, and a scorn which he was too polite to show. "Bon Dieu!" thought the old negotiator, "the boy has actually talked the woman round, and she'd get him a wife as she would a toy if Master cried for it. Why are there no such things as lettres-de-cachet—and a Bastille for young fellows of family?" The Major lived in such good company that he might be excused for feeling like an Earl.—He ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... I am sure that no such movement could be attained on English ground. The elasticity of this noble lord was such, that when once put in motion, he continued to spring up and down in the manner of the Chinese figures, which are hawked by the Italian toy-venders. Had I been told that the head of the house of Newry was a dancing-master, who had not yet learned the present modes, I should certainly have believed the story without scruple, if I had met him anywhere ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various

... wafted the bead-eyed toy a kiss, then slapped him sharply sidewise, toppling him in a heap, and her easy laughter ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... those appearances which she is accustomed to see whenever she sees life, and she will fall as easy a prey to the power which association exercises over all that lives as the kitten itself. Show her a toy-mouse that can run a few yards after being wound up; the form, colour, and action of a mouse being here, there is no good cat which will not conclude that so many of the appearances of mousehood could not be present at the same time without the presence also of the remainder. ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... to a perfection challenging admiration and exciting astonishment. They are trained to the horse and the use of the lasso (riata, as it is here called) from their infancy. The first act of a child, when he is able to stand alone, is to throw his toy lasso around the neck of a kitten; his next feat is performed on the dog; his next upon a goat or calf; and so on, until he mounts the horse, and demonstrates his skill upon horses and cattle. The ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... bigotry above all else. I inherited traditions as well as you. My fathers have committed homicide on the field of honor and put woman on a pedestal. They made of her a being, half-angel and half-toy, but I refuse to be bound by their ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... Dutch people dressed up like quaint dolls, with their gay little homes and their little canals, which cut up their bright green fields into many sections, live in a country which is like a charming, attractive toy, it is so clean, so tidy and so bright, and it seems a natural thing that the gorgeous tulip should be their favourite flower. And that brings us back to the old town of Haarlem in whose roads we were wandering on an ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... admitted. The eyes of the philosopher flashed with anger. Most noble prince, cried he, I am come to inform you, that you must immediately break with the beautiful Wilhelmina. Theodore stared, but made no answer. The vices of your highness, said Bertram, awake my indignation. While you toy away your hours in the lap of a w——e, the vast principality of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen hastens to its fall. Reflect, my lord; three villages, seven hamlets, and near eleven grange houses and cottages, depend upon ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... valleys in the hearts of mountains makes it none the less welcome. The picturesqueness of thatched houses and a dilapidation of masonry which only age makes beautiful marks the difference between this valley and the Alpine ones with their trim, clean toy houses, or the Transatlantic ones with their square, solid, black log huts and huge well-sweeps; otherwise the fresh greenery, the purple mountain-shadows, the subdued sounds, no one knows whence, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... will tell all what happened, my lady, from when she first entered the house, asking pardon for my length. It began when I was showing the toy water-mill on our mantel-shelf, which your ladyship saw with Miss Grahame. I noticed she was very agitated, but did not put it down to the sight of this toy till she said how ever could it have been my grandfather's mill, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... real empress Eugenie. The doll's face was even modelled into some likeness to the beauty she was named after; a diadem sat gracefully on her head, and her robes were a miniature imitation of royalty, but very exquisitely fashioned. Everybody exclaimed at the perfection of the beautiful toy, except Daisy herself, who stood quite still and quiet looking at it. Mrs. Gary had not done yet. The empress had a wardrobe; and such variety and elegance and finish of attire of all sorts rarely falls to the lot of ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... friends. Who will lend me a dagger? This toy that I wear is too short and not sharp. You may forget me, Pertinax. My slaves will bury me. But play you the ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... day he dragged his toy cannon to his grotto, and made believe he was a Corsican patriot, intrenched in his fortifications, and holding the whole French army at bay; for though Corsica was a French possession, the people were still smarting under their wrongs, and hated their ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa

... steamer, coiled over us in a lazy flux.... Sometimes we passed single habitations on the water side. Ephemeral huts of palm-leaves were forced down by the forest, which overhung them, to wade on frail stilts. A canoe would be tied to a toy jetty, and on the jetty a sad woman and several naked children would stand, with no show of emotion, to watch us go by. Behind them was the impenetrable foliage. I thought of the precarious tenure on earth of these brown folk with some sadness, ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... dealing with souls. My lessons on those lines have thus far been dearly purchased; for I have ignorantly, zealously, made many mistakes, thus for the time being, hindered, more than aided their spiritual progress. To illustrate: A janitor's child has a toy broom. Papa has just swept one part of the hall and is about to remove the accumulated dust. "Papa, let me help you," and forthwith the child sweeps a large portion of the dust over the already cleaned floor. Papa sighs, sadly smiles, says nothing, but patiently ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... bodies to-day, you will find that you each have better joints than any dolls that can be bought at a toy shop. ...
— Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes • Jane Andrews

... made the toy dishes, and she placed the doll in the seat of honor on the bench opposite the door, with the dishes full of food ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss

... the skirmish is ended. The fort having captured the most flags gains the victory and each soldier should be awarded a suitable prize. The fort having the least number of flags may be given a booby prize in the shape of small toy drums for the ladies and toy fife or horn for the gentlemen. The "General" may then order the soldiers of this fort ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... became one of the occupants of the place, and here wrote his Comedy called 'Refusal; or the Ladies' Philosophy.' The spot was so greatly admired that Talbot, Bishop of Durham, lived eight years in it, and the Marquis of Carnarvon succeeded him as a tenant: next came Mrs. Chenevix, a famous toy-woman. She was probably a French woman, for Father Courayer—he who vainly endeavoured to effect an union between the English and the Gallican churches—lodged here some time. Horace Walpole bought up Mrs. Chenevix's lease, and afterwards the fee-simple; and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... to make him see my refusal was for his good. He was as a favourite child pleading for a dangerous toy. I desired to gratify him, but the awful responsibility of the after-effects loomed up ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... not yet supp'd to-night. Will Summer's ghost I should be, come to present you with "Summer's Last Will and Testament." Be it so; if my cousin Ned will lend me his chain and his fiddle. Other stately-pac'd Prologues use to attire themselves within: I that have a toy in my head more than ordinary, and use to go without money, without garters, without girdle, without hat-band, without points to my hose, without a knife to my dinner, and make so much use of this word without in everything, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... a direction diverging obliquely with the coast. She was, in fact, almost over the line of empty transports that looked little bigger than a fleet of toy boats. Farther away could be discerned the Capella and her consorts, moving with apparent slowness upon a perfectly calm sea, for at that altitude the waves were merged into a flat surface. Small splashes of white—the spray thrown up by falling ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... kind, stupid face. But how ragged he is, as if he had come out of a hundred frays. Tinkle, friend, the way you used to tinkle. What, you can't? Only one bell left, you say? Well, I'll throw you on the floor. (Throws down the toy) ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... prohibited weapon," observed the fat man, smiling, "but it is very beautiful. Poor Christian, if he finds it between his ribs! He would soon be cold. It is a consolation at night to have such a toy." ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... man seemed to have conspired to make this place vividly unreal, as a toy village comes painted from the shop. There were no half-tones, no poverty—in sight, at least; no litter. On the streets and roads, at the casino attached to the swimming-pool and at the golf club were to be seen bewildering arrays of well-dressed, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... be as interesting as the other little affairs you speak of!" he laughed. Through the fine, white linen of his shirt could be discerned the superb swell and molding of the muscles, as he now, with the gleaming toy in hand, ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... woman meant was the workhouse master, and the packet was opened in his presence, and found to contain a child's linen under-garment plainly marked—"Max Vanburgh, 12," and a child's highly-coloured toy picture-book, frayed and torn, and further disfigured by having been doubled in half and then doubled again, so that it would easily go in a ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... the world forsake, And every earthly toy; The Lord of all thy portion make, And in ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... skirts of the ballet, conducted at arm's-length by a gloomy person with hair in rolls and a cadaverous countenance divided by a dead black moustache. It is Dea! Dea, the folly of the hour, the fashionable toy, accompanied by her instructor, Valere, the ballet-master at the opera. Roxelane was taken first this evening; and the girl, warm from her triumphant performance, had come to give her dance again for the benefit of the Duchess's Imperial guest. ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat. I am seventeen, and am smitten with a violent passion for the eldest Miss Larkins, who is about thirty. She amuses herself with me as with a new toy, wears my ring for a season, and then announces her engagement to a Mr. Chestle. I am terribly dejected for a week or two, then I rally, become a boy once more, fight the butcher again, gloriously defeat him, and feel better,—and ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... an reckonin' lost, A toy for wind an wave; Mid blindin' fog an snow an frost, Aw've thowt noa power could save; But ivver in the darkest day, Wi muscles strong as brass, To some safe port shoo's led the ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... journey from five in the morning to eleven, and by so doing got an hour for the Minster, where I witnessed a scene which must have far surpassed, by all accounts, the celebrated commemoration in Westminster Abbey. York Minster baffles all conception. Westminster Abbey is a toy to it. I think it is impossible to conceive of what Gothic architecture is susceptible until you see York. I speak with cathedrals of the Netherlands and the Rhine fresh in my memory. I witnessed in York another splendid sight—the pouring in of all the nobility and gentry of ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... magic seeds of Fancy, which produce A Poet's feeling, and a Painter's eye. ——with lenient smiles to deign to cheer, At this sad hour, my desolated soul. For deem not ye that I resume the lyre To court the world's applause; my years mature Have learn'd to slight the toy. No, 'tis to soothe That agony of heart, which they alone, Who best have lov'd, who best have been belov'd, Can feel, or pity: sympathy severe! Which she too felt, when on her pallid lip The last farewell hung trembling, and bespoke ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... and papa were begging him to be quiet. The cook had run up with a pie, and the nurse with a toy, but Florimond only opened his mouth and screamed the louder, because the rain was coming down, when he wanted to play out ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay

... escape Tapkins's eagle eye. Forewarned is forearmed. Now see here, partner, can you blow this whistle?" Thornly took a small golden watch charm from his fob. It seemed a toy, but when Janet placed it to her lips and blew, it emitted a shrill, ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... feet removed from the hideous clatter of the traffic. And she speculated on the appearance of Mrs. Thompson with all the hairs in her eyebrows that nature meant them to have. And then she thought upon Claybrook's boyishness in wanting her to help him go pick out a new toy. He was without guile, entirely without guile. Suddenly she laughed aloud and then she switched off the light and went ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... a few of the fast fellows excel, is that of imitating upon a key-bugle various animals, in an especial manner the braying of an ass: when the fast fellows drive down to the Trafalgar at Greenwich, the Toy at Hampton Court, or the Swan at Henley upon Thames, the bugle-player mounts aloft, the rest of the fast fellows keeping a lookout for donkeys; when one is seen, a hideous imitative bray is set up by the man of music, and his quadrupedal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... women, and children, the extremely simple architecture of the dwelling-houses, the vegetation, the extraordinary salutations between the common people who met each other upon the streets, the trading booths or bazars, and the queer, toy-like articles which filled them, children flying kites in the shape of hideous yellow monsters, each subject became a fresh study. Men propelling vehicles like horses between the shafts, and trotting off at a six-mile pony gait while drawing after them one or two ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... a cathedral from the parapet on the roof. Here we linger to take a last look of the objects at the foot of the hill, for ere we resume the ascent we shall lose sight of them. Already Fort William looks like a collection of rabbit-houses. The steam-boat on the lake is like a boy's Christmas toy. The waters have assumed that hard burnished metallic appearance which they convey to the eye raised far above them in a hot summer day. The far-stretching moss, with one or two ghastly white stones standing erect out ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... questioningly away from their mouths and their eyes fixed wonderingly, half resentfully, upon the intruder. But what caught and held Satherwaite's gaze was a tiny Christmas tree, scarcely three feet high, which adorned the center of the desk. Its branches held toy candles, as yet unlighted, and were festooned with strings of crimson cranberries and colored popcorn, while here and there a small ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour

... joyeth Moll less than me, I being pleased to see he is still of the same, stout disposition to live an active life. In the evening he gives Moll a very beautiful ring for a troth token, which transports her with joy, so that she cannot enough caress her lover or this toy, but falls first to kissing one and then t'other in a rapture. In return, she gives him a ring from her finger. "'Tis too small for my finger, love," says he; "but I will wear it against my heart as long as it beats." After that he finds another case and puts it in Moll's hand, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... from them. It is, therefore, if not a misreading of Aristotle,[4] at any rate a perversion of reason, to maintain that the drama lives by action, rather than by character. Action ought to exist for the sake of character: when the relation is reversed, the play may be an ingenious toy, but scarcely a ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... of Queen Signy's youngest-born children threw a golden toy hither and thither in the feast-hall, and at last it rolled away among the wine-casks till it lay at Sigmund's feet. So the children followed it, and coming face to face with those lurkers, they fled back to the feast-hall. And Sigmund and his foster-son ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... equally diaphanous rose, with a line of white fur about her neck. Her beautiful arms were bare. Her tiny Chinese slippers were embroidered so richly that they resembled the painted porcelain of old vases. She looked like a sultan's youngest, newest bride; a beautiful little toy-woman, sitting at one end of the long room which composed about her,—which, in the soft light, seemed happily arranged for her. There were flowers everywhere: rose-trees; camellia-bushes, red and white; the first forced hyacinths of the ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... hunted by that cold eye of intense inner-consciousness, the clearest soul becomes a cunning fox, if it have not courage to stand and do battle. Strength indicates a boundless nature—like the Maker. Strength is a God to you—Purity a toy. A pretty one, and you seem to be fond of playing with it," he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... man would ever deign to use such an insignificant-looking ax, and so we must suppose it to have been a toy hatchet for some little fellow that chopped away at saplings, or, perhaps, knocked over some poor squirrel or rabbit; for our good old Moravian friend, the missionary, also tells us that "the boys learn to climb trees when very young, both ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... your will with me to toy? I'll not mate with man or boy: Like the Phoenix, to enjoy Single life shall be ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... you got there, my boys?' he asked. They showed him their treasures, which proved to be bunches of small desk and cabinet keys, that had been picked up from the wrecks—a melancholy kind of toy, he could not help thinking. By-and-bye the good wife spread the hospitable board, at which he was invited to take his seat. He looked with surprise at the plates which she placed upon the deal table. They ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell

... set together, Mary with a basket in her hand, which was replenished at the toy-shop in Minster Street with two china-faced dolls, and, a little farther on, parted with a couple of rolls, interspersed with strata of cold beef and butter, to a household of convalescents in the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... astonishment when he learned in reply that his correspondent was a casual dock labourer, and had but scanty hours of leisure in which to read and think and seek into the recesses of nature, while his means of observation consisted of a toy microscope bought for a shilling at a fair. Casting about for some means of lending the man a helping hand, he bethought him of the Science and Art Department, and wrote on December 30 to Sir ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... smoke from the funnels of a hundred hostile vessels of war, all converging upon the helpless, undefended Golden Gate. And not all undefended, for out through the Golden Gate moved the Energon, a tiny toy of white, rolling like a straw in the stiff sea on the bar where a strong ebb-tide ran in the teeth of the summer sea-breeze. But the Japanese were cautious. Their thirty- and forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a dozen miles offshore and manoeuvred in ponderous evolutions, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... have every earthly wisdom, yet to burn unsatisfied for the deeper and forbidden draught; to gather up all wealth and power and let them slip again, like children weary of a painted toy; to sweep the harp of fame, and, maddened by its jangling music, to stamp it small beneath our feet; to snatch at pleasure's goblet and find its wine is sand, and at length, outworn, to cast us down and pray the pitiless gods with whose stolen garment ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... any claim to purity; her self-respect is lost; she sinks lower and lower; society shuns her, and she is to-day a brothel inmate, the toy and plaything ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner

... the river vessels which from our height looked like the toy craft on the lake in Central Park were whistling a shrill salute that, toned down by the distance, was really ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... two dolls and a trunk full of dresses for them, a toy kitchen, and a writing desk in ...
— Boy Blue and His Friends • Etta Austin Blaisdell and Mary Frances Blaisdell

... earlier rain and hint of winter in the air had clothed all ranks in dark gray great-coats and brown leggings. Hence, to the untrained glance, they were singularly alike. Officers, sergeants, privates and bandsmen might have been cast in molds, after the style of toy soldiers. There were exceptions, of course, just as the fat man achieved distinction among the unemployed. The crimson sashes of the officers, the drum-major, with his twirling staff, the white apron of the big ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... destroyed by some awful visitation of Nature; of redeeming to liberty a horde of captives; and of doing these great acts in secret; for, void of all self-love, public approbation was worthless to him; but the individual never touched him. Woman was to him a toy, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... girl our gloomy palace at Salzburg saw much of the ghosts of decaying royalty. The Dukes of Modena and Parma, the King of Hanover, the Kurfurst of Hesse, the King of Naples and other monarchs and toy-monarchs that were handed their walking papers by sovereigns mightier than themselves, visited us off and on, filling the air with lamentations and cursing ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... I met Cap. in every section of the country, and handling various propositions. In San Francisco I caught him in the act of selling toy balloons on a street corner; in Chicago he was disposing of old line life insurance with considerable effect; at a county fair, somewhere in Iowa, I ran across him as ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... begun, and a certain sympathetic curiosity with her each and every effort to advance. To realize her progress, I have only to glance up at my ancestor with the mended eye and consider what a doll and a toy she was to him. Then I look at my wife, who was brought up on the old system, and say to myself that, unless indeed, man is to be utterly snuffed out and extinguished, there are certain feminine characteristics in the preservation of which ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... he couldn't be left with the servants—somehow he doesn't like the colored people. He always growls at them, and they're afraid of him. And my mother dislikes dogs intensely—she's afraid of them, except those horrible little toy-things that aren't dogs any more." The scorn of the real dog-lover was in her voice. "Kerry's used to the Parish House. He loves the Padre, he'll soon love you, and he likes to play with Pitache, so Madame wouldn't mind his being ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... on—probably the latter. If both Ah Sing and his tong approve of you and the situation, he will stay with you for many years. Our present man once remained but two days at a place. The situation is an easy one; Toy did his work well; the relations were absolutely friendly. After we had become intimate with Toy, he confided to ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... constructed almost entirely of glass. Upon this the men commented with a grave fluency. The windows rattled with shrapnel bursting 600 yards away. The house was jarred through and through by the concussion of a heavy battery firing over our heads. The room was like a toy-shop with a lot of small children sounding all the musical toys. The vibrators and the buzzers were like ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... be the scene, for any father and any son are the dramatis personae. We could pick them up in Mayfair, in Tooting, on the Veldt, in rectories or in grocers' back parlours, dump them down on our toy stage and tell them to begin. It is a great gathering to choose from, but our needs are small. Let the company shake hands, and all go ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... balustrade, crowded young and old Egyptian men with dark faces and wonderful eyes or no eyes at all, struggling to sell painted post-cards, strings of blue-gray mummy beads; necklaces of cornelian and great lumps of amber; fans, perfumes, sample sticks of smoking incense, toy camels cleverly made of jute; fly whisks from the Sudan with handles of beads and dangling shells; scarab rings and brooches; cheap, gay jewellery, scarfs from Asiut, white, black, pale green and purple, glittering like miniature cataracts of silver, as brown ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... was necessary to speak of the affair that brought them there. Yet how was it possible without offense to introduce any topic of business in that bower of beauty, to that indolent Venus, whose only occupation was to toy with her fan; whose only conversation was of sunshine, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... street, he wondered what he should buy. Should he buy candy? He hardly knew how it tasted. Should he buy a pretty toy? If he had been the only child in the family, things might have been different. But there were fourteen boys and girls older than he, and two little ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin

... and San Juan, you will bring back fragrant memories that will last you many years, or else you will send for your household gods and not come back at all. And, if you don't ride a bicycle, you will be able to get just as much pleasure from the toy railroad or wee horses when you travel about from place to place, while the expense in either case ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman

... great friendship between him and 'Uncle Percy'; they took walks together, fed the ducks in St. James's Park, had many interesting conversations on Brogden affairs, and Johnnie had been several times at the rooms over the toy-shop, and was on intimate terms with old Puss. Violet knew that he would be safe, and was willing to think it right he should be made more of ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not many yards to lead her. The regions of thoughtless gaiety were scarcely separated from the regions of undisguised evil, and Raymond, on his way back from his friend, had fallen on a horrible row, in which a toy-selling woman had been set upon, thrown down and trodden on, and then dragged out by the police, bleeding and senseless. When he brought Rosamond to the spot, she was lying propped against a bundle, moaning a little, and guarded by a young policeman, who looked ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with a kind of joy in her voice and in her eyes, "that matters not. Ysolinde of Plassenburg is as a child that must have its toy or die. Worthiness has no more to do with love than creeds and dogmas. Love me—Hugo—love me even a little. Put me not away. I will be so true, so willing. I will run your errands, wait on you, stand behind you in battle, in council lead you ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... Some scholars, as Ewald, Kneucker, Davidson, Rothstein and Koenig, believe that the whole book was originally written in Hebrew; (2) Fritzsche, Hilgenfeld, Reuss, Gifford, Schuerer, and Toy advocate a Hebrew original of i.-iii. 8 and a Greek original of the rest; (3) Marshall argues that i.-iii. 8 is translated from a Hebrew original, iii. 9-iv. 4 from an Aramaic, and the rest from the Greek; (4) and lastly, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... in the garden, we become restive in our deck-chairs and remember the telephone or the daily paper or a letter that has to be written. And reality weighs on us, like a hand laid on a top, making an end of the spinning, making an end of the music. The world is no longer a toy dancing round and round. It is a problem, a run-down machine, a stuffy room full of little stabbing creatures that make an ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... of our little toy woods at home, just at that moment," stammered Simpson, coming back to what really dominated his mind, and startled by the question, "and comparing them to—to all this," and he swept his arm ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood

... the girls rolled down the ladder one at a time, clothes in hand, to dress by the toy stove while Ida Mary and I started the wheels of industry rolling. When breakfast was ready we called in our ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... ribbon!" says another of 'em. "Why, when I was a puppy I used to eat 'em, and if that judge could ever learn to know a toy from a mastiff, ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis

... is covered with dust, But sturdy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket moulds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was passing fair; And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue Kissed them ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... delay there kept us. There, mine eyes "In that long period much beheld; mine ears "Much heard. This with the rest, in private told "To me, by one of four most-favor'd nymphs "Who aided in her spells: while Circe toy'd "In private with our leader, she me shew'd "A youthful statue carv'd in whitest stone, "Bearing a feather'd pecker upon his head; "Plac'd in a sacred shrine, with numerous wreaths "Encircled. Unto my enquiring words, "And wish to know who this could be, and why "There worshipp'd in the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... Hungry at home? Have you a son afield? Or do you mourn? Alas, I cannot wield The sword you lack, nor bow nor spear afford To serve...." He said, "Nay, you can sheathe the sword, Slack bowstring, and make spear a hunter's toy. Lady, I come to end this war of Troy In your good pleasure." With her steady eyes Unwinking fixt, "Let you and me devise," Said she, "this happy end of bow and spear, So shall we serve the land. You have my ear; Speak then." "But ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... I to haue such foolish thoughts! Foolish is loue, a toy, O sacred loue, If there be any heauen in earth, tis loue: Especially in women of your yeares. Blush blush for shame, why shouldst thou thinke of loue? A graue, and not a louer fits thy age: A graue, why? I may liue a hundred ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe

... Louise before Carl could reply, "they had to do it, indeed, indeed they did! It was hurt; some boys shot it with a toy pistol, and it was dreadful; so we bought some chloroform and Ikey killed it because he knew how, and now they are sitting on the box to ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... she might have answered it had it been allowed to her, as to any girl that was free, to toy with his love, knowing that she meant to accept it. It was easier so, than in any other way. But her heart within her was sad, and could she have stopped his further speech by any word rough and somewhat rude, she would have ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... was. After a minute he said absently: "Bed-time, eh? Good-night. Good-night, my dear." Sometimes when he was a little less absorbed he put a sixpence or a shilling into her hand as he kissed her, and added: "There's something to spend at the toy-shop." ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton

... him and shook his hand again. On the way out, Ramsey played for a moment or two with the twins, who were rolling a couple of toy spaceships marked hyper-one and hyper-two across the floor and making anachronistic machine-gun noises with their lips. Sally Englander, a plump, young-home-maker type, beamed at Ramsey from the kitchen. Then he went out ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance

... as an element for the general education of the children. This is not a toy, but an Educator for the home. Contains Sixteen Lessons on heavy cardboard: Writing, Drawing, Marking-letters, Music, Animal Forms, etc. Frame made of oak, 4 feet high and 2 feet wide. The Board is reversible and can be used on both sides. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous

... Canal, which is in reality a short cut across the field. It is nine miles long and not much wider than a good-sized ditch, but it saves more than a hundred miles of travel around an island. We was on a sort of a toy steamboat which went its way through the fields and bushes and grass so close we could touch them; and as there was eleven locks where the boat had to stop, we got out two or three times and walked along the banks to the next lock. That being the kind of a ride Jone likes, he blessed Buxton. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton

... chair-back I unfastened my box and got out my necklace. Then I waited for Elsa's next look. It seemed entirely in keeping with the occasion that I, as well as Bederhof, should have my present for her, my ornament, my toy. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... priestess, and of the enthroned Demeter, are of more than the size of life; the figure of Persephone is but seventeen inches high, a daintily handled toy of Parian marble, the miniature copy perhaps of a much larger work, which might well be reproduced on a magnified scale. The conception of Demeter is throughout chiefly human, and even domestic, though never without a hieratic interest, because she is not ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... all that we've done to our dogs,—but we carry our hairy past with us wherever we go. The wise St. Bernards and the selfish toy lap-dogs are brothers, and some things are possible for them and others are not. So with us. There are definite limits to simian civilizations, due in part to some primitive traits that help keep us alive, and in part to the mere fact that every being has to be something, ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... thing," agreed Mr. Patterson, consulting his watch and jumping up from the table. "Here! can't you all join me in the Boston House to-day at twelve-thirty to select a gift for 'Lop? I want the noisiest mechanical toy ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin

... suggested that the best way to please the father was to give something to the son. "Something for Jedidiah!" exclaimed Mr. Jones. "The next time I go to New York, I'll go to a toy-shop; ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale

... a side apartment. She was presently followed by my guide, after he had silently motioned me to a seat; and their place was supplied by an elderly woman, in a grey stuff gown, with a check apron and toy, obviously a menial, though neater in her dress than is usual in her apparent rank—an advantage which was counterbalanced by a very forbidding aspect. But the most singular part of her attire, in this very Protestant country, was a rosary, in which the smaller beads were ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... said Winn, with misleading calm. He moved forward as he spoke, seized Mr. Roper by the back of his coat as if he were some kind of boneless mechanical toy, and deposited him in the ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... known as Gruff and Tackleton—for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature, according to its Dictionary meaning, in the business—Tackleton the Toy-merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians. If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had the full ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... Albert Smith line," and he similarly refused to write for "Gavarni in London," of which Smith was editor. "Pigmy as Jerrold physically was, Albert Smith quailed before him;" for Jerrold's stinging attacks and repartees were merciless. So Smith bought a toy-whip, which he playfully produced to his friends with the explanation that he intended to apply it to "Master Jerrold;" but he was never known to bring it out in his tormentor's presence. Jerrold's "skull" witticism has ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... unscrupulous tyrant, s. father and mother. His first appearance caused heaven at home, and an idiotic father. Education: At home. Career: A series of adventures. Was frequently ill, a poor sleeper, toy demolisher, throat exerciser, nurse distractor, and a general nuisance. Despite his shortcomings he ruled Home with an iron hand—a tear caused a doctor—a smile meant a gold mine. Diet: Principally liquid. Ambition: The moon. Recreation: ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous

... darling he is!" His coat was of white satin embroidered with flowers, his long waistcoat was embroidered with gold, and his knee-breeches were of cherry-colored silk. Lace clustered round his chin, and delicate wrists. A sword, a mere toy with a great rose-red knot, rattled ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola



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