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Unwary   Listen
adjective
Unwary  adj.  
1.
Not vigilant against danger; not wary or cautious; unguarded; precipitate; heedless; careless.
2.
Unexpected; unforeseen; unware. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unwary" Quotes from Famous Books



... their instincts, held fast upon it [the Spanish War of Walpole's time, in Jenkins' Ear Question], and would take no denial of it, as if they had surmised and seen. For the instincts of simple, guileless persons (liable to be counted stupid by the unwary) are sometimes of prophetic nature, and spring from the deep places of this universe!'[16] If the writer of this had only thought it out to the end, and applied the conclusions thereof to history and politics, what a difference it would ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley

... of the term warm-bath, when applied to baths colder than the body, as to those of Buxton and Matlock, and to artificial baths of less than 90 degrees of heat, which ought to be termed cold ones, has contributed to mislead the unwary in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... about to suggest a closer inspection of the dome but that remark made him hesitate. If it had been one of the fortifications rimming in a forbidden ground, there was more than an even chance that unwary invaders, even this long after, might stumble into some ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... first person, those told by letters, and those in the form of a diary. Notice, I do not say that these methods are absolutely bad: they have been successfully used by masters; but they are at least questionable, and they contain so many pitfalls for the unwary that it is far better for the uninitiated to let ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... delight to listen to you after so long an absence, I have been too unwary; and you have been speaking too much for one infirm. Greatly am I to blame, not to have moderated my pleasure and your vivacity. You must rest now: to-morrow ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... time of my adventure, and for some time before, the possibilities of the place had been discovered by mine host, who had ingeniously put a partition up the entire stairway, dividing the steps from the smooth runway. At the upper part of the runway he had built a few steps, wherewith to lure the unwary far enough down to insure a fatal descent. To make sure of his game he had likewise ceiled the upper room all around, including ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... Sannah's Post, and Mostert's Hoek, De Wet showed himself to be a daring and successful partisan leader. He was instinctively drawn towards helpless or unwary detachments. He played his own hand without reference to his partner's, and seemed to be incapable of co-operating in a general scheme of strategy. Perhaps he had not much confidence in those who directed the campaign of defence. He did not act ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... place and favour by another Dash, not less amiable in demeanour and far more creditable in appearance, bearing no small resemblance to the pet spaniel of my friend Master Dinely, he who stole the bone from the magpies, and who figures as the first Dash of this volume. Let not the unwary reader opine, that in assigning the same name to three several individuals, I am acting as an humble imitator of the inimitable writer who has given immortality to the Peppers and the Mustards, on the one hand; or showing a poverty of ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... Doctor. "But do not suppose me so unwary as to adopt him out of hand. I am, I flatter myself, a finished man of the world; I have had all possibilities in view; my plan is contrived to meet them all. I take the lad as stable-boy. If he pilfer, if he grumble, if he desire to change, I shall see I was mistaken; I shall ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mystery of a spring whose waters ebb and flow, of a lake which contained floating islands, and in one letter he tells a fascinating ghost story of quite the conventional type, about a haunted house, which drove any unwary tenant crazy, and the ghost of a murdered man which walked with clanking chains. Pliny was no cut and dried philosopher. Like his master Cicero he was an eclectic, and pinned his faith to no single creed. Whatever was human interested him, and on whatever interested him he put pen to paper. ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... been and will again take place. Scattered about this plateau are lakes of every shape and size, from Taupo—called Te Moana (the sea) by the Maoris—to the tiniest lakelets and ponds. Here are found pools and springs of every degree of heat. Some are boiling cauldrons into which the unwary fall now and again to meet a death terrible, yet—if the dying words of some of them may be believed—not always agonizing, so completely does the shock of contact with the boiling water kill the nervous system. Many pools are the colour of black broth. Foul with ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... very silent; only the sea-gulls circled round and round the summit of the great rock, some of them occasionally swooping down on the unwary fishes, their keen eyes perceived in the waters beneath, then up again they soared, swaying their graceful wings and uttering at intervals that peculiar wild cry that in solitary haunts sounds so intensely mournful. Errington ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... upon the outside. Here indeed was a sorry contretemps. Turan the panthan scratched his head. "Fortune frowns upon me," he murmured; but beyond the door, Fate, in the form of a painted warrior, stood smiling. Neatly had he tricked the unwary stranger. The lighted doorway, the marching patrol—these had been planned and timed to a nicety by the third warrior who had sped ahead of Turan along another avenue, and the stranger had done precisely what the fellow had thought he would do—no ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... gaming-tables, billiard-rooms, and other places, including your races, where high play goes on; and by superior knowledge of chances, by masking their play, by means of confederates, by means of bribery, and other artifices, varying with the subject of their imposture, they rob the unwary. But here it is more elaborately done, and with a really exquisite finesse. There are people whose manners, style, conversation, are unexceptionable, living in handsome houses in the best situations, with everything about them in the most refined ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Whitefield by the devil. Numerous were the attempts made by their best officers to surprise him; but such was his own vigilance and the fidelity of his whig friends, that he seldom failed to get the first blow at them, and to take their unwary feet in the same evil net which ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... the bay from the river, a weedy channel leading through flat meadows of vivid green; only, to use an Irishism, they were not meadows at all, but stretches of swamp, in Canadian parlance a muskeg: and the unwary creature, human or animal, that set foot thereon was speedily engulfed. Very beautiful these stretches of rich green looked on a bright summer's day, and Katherine exclaimed in delight as she forced the boat through the weedy ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... with a frown. Nicholas, though a licensed jester and in especial favour, knew there was a boundary beyond which he durst not pass; he became silent, therefore, at this command. The lamentations of the unwary hostages were loud but unavailing. Nicholas prepared his manacles, and was leading them from the chamber, when the page whispered in his ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... making things easier had messed them into an enraging tangle. Life always went against him—he saw the past as governed by a malevolent fate whose business had been a continual creating of pitfalls for his unwary feet. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... you understand me? [They stare at each other.] I have heard you talk with my brother, and I know what are your ideas. You came to our civilization, and tried it, and found it a lie. Virtue and honor... justice and mercy... all these things were pretenses... snares for the unwary. There was no one you could not frighten with your gold! That is your creed, and so far it has served you... but no farther! There is one thing in the world you cannot get... one thing that is beyond the reach ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair

... be had of the waves raging round Old Harry's daughter and the submerged ruins of her parents. Care must be taken here in misty weather, the cliffs are sheer, and unexpected gaps occur where nothing could save the unwary explorer in the event of an unlucky slip. Little is gained by following the cliff top all the way to the extreme edge of the Point, and a return may be made from hereabouts or a short cut made to ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... on steadily along the rough, rudely made floor, on and on and on, the little torch showing always the few feet in front of them, to safeguard them against any pitfalls that might be laid for the unwary traveller. It seemed hours that they walked thus, and their wonder at the elaborateness of this extraordinary tunnel system grew. There were turnings every now and again, passageways branching off from the ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... knees and the hands under the thighs, the whole bound round with cords. Obviously, a man buried in such a position would rise deformed. Their dead in the cemetery on the heights slept now in long coffins of wood, their limbs at ease. But other and less premeditated interments still befell the unwary islander. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... man must pick his way carefully, sometimes wading, sometimes leaping from one landing place to another, choosing these cautiously, lest they should not sustain his weight: avoiding certain treacherous green spots on which the unwary might be tempted to set foot, and would sink, ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... and White's were the chief clubs of the young men of fashion. There was play at all, and decayed noblemen and broken-down senators fleeced the unwary there. In Selwyn's Letters we find Carlisle, Devonshire, Coventry, Queensberry, all undergoing the probation. Charles Fox, a dreadful gambler, was cheated in very late times—lost 200,000l. at play. Gibbon tells of his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the wild creatures had been unwary and confident, showing themselves everywhere. The partridge coveys had whirred up noisily in full view of the passing woodsman, and craned their necks to watch him from the near-by branches. On every shallow mere and tranquil river-reach the flocks of wild ducks had fed boldly, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... held quite a lot of informal meetings on their own. Every now and then when they were giving their leaflets away, some unwary supporter of the capitalist system would start an argument, and soon a crowd would ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... pass to this day, gheist or gas, from a belief that they were ghosts. If a labourer descended into a well and was suffocated, as if struck dead by some invisible hand; if a lamp lowered down burnt for a few moments with a lurid flame, and was then extinguished; if, in a coal mine, when the unwary workman exposed a light, on a sudden the place was filled with flashing flames and thundering explosions, tearing down the rocks and destroying every living thing in the way, often, too, without leaving ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... poetical, pert and pink; and at first glance to the unwary, she shows signs of gentleness and intelligence. Her age is anywhere from eighteen to twenty-eight. At twenty-eight she begins to evolve into something else, and her capacity for harm is largely curtailed, because by this time spirit ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... by the offender, and the lady likewise subjects herself to be sold, but it is remarked that this measure is seldom resorted to, and it sometimes happens that a handsome wife is repeatedly turned to advantage by her husband, in alluring the unwary into ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... (sub-mentum) which is itself jointed below the head. The mentum carries at its extremity a pair of lobes with sharp fangs. Thus the mask can be folded under the head when the larva lurks in its hiding place, or be suddenly darted out so as to secure any unwary small insect that may pass close enough for capture. Dragon-fly larvae walk, and also swim by movements of the abdomen or by expelling a jet of water from the hind-gut. The walls of this terminal ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter

... Booklover, Harper & Bros., New York, 1903,—a charming book that should be read by every book-fancier) discourses upon the subject more intelligently; he observes that the word uncut appears to be a stumbling-block to the unwary, and says: "The casual purchaser is sometimes deceived by it, for he thinks that it means that the leaves have not been severed by the paper-knife. I have read with much glee divers indignant letters ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper

... sail on the sea of literature. You are afloat, and your anchor is up. I think I have given adequate warning of the dangers and disappointments which await the unwary and the sanguine. The enterprise in which you are engaged is not facile, nor is it short. I think I have sufficiently predicted that you will have your hours of woe, during which you may be inclined to send ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett

... beauty was vain, and no God-fearing man would rank loveliness of face or form above the capacity for self-sacrifice and the unfailing attendance upon the sick and the afflicted in any parish. Beauty, indeed, was but too often a snare for the unwary—temptresses, he had been told, were usually ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... An indifferent judge of human nature might venture to attempt heathen games with this old gentleman, but no astute rogue would think of such a thing. A man of this stamp, however green and rural, is not gullible. This Welsh simplicity of character is very deceptive to the unwary, and many besides Ancient Pistol have eaten leeks against their will because ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... however, think it necessary to give the same warning of defiance to two enemies as he would unquestionably have afforded to one. His hand was upon his mace, and perhaps the unwary Saracen would have been paid for his Persian poetry by having his brains dashed out on the spot, without any reason assigned for it; but the Scottish Knight was spared from committing what would have been a sore blot in his shield of ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... remember, through three campaigns in the Himalayas, once against the Masudis, and once in China, he was in full possession of trained soldier senses. Darkness, he calculated instantly, was a shield to him who can use it, and a danger only to the unwary; and there are grades of wariness, just as there are ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... immediately perceived the danger, and, landing, signalled the other boats to do likewise. Unfortunately, the warning came too late for the No-Name, which was drawn into a sag, a sort of hollow lying just above the rapid, to clutch the unwary and drive them over the fall to certain destruction. Powell for a moment had given his attention to the last boat, and as he turned again and hurried along to discover the fortune of the No-Name, which was plunging down, without hope ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... she was wont to hale a reluctant boy along with her, from the mixed motives of propriety and his soul's health. Much cudgelling of brains, I suppose, had on that particular day made me torpid and unwary. Anyhow, when a victim came to be sought for, I fell an easy prey, while the others fled scatheless and whooping. Our first visit was to the Larkins. Here ceremonial might be viewed in its finest flower, and we conducted ourselves, like Queen Elizabeth ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... will find yourself free, is the sum and substance of their teaching; and in support of this they put forward a great deal of very specious argument, which is all the more likely to entangle the unwary, because it contains a recognition of many of the profoundest truths of Nature. But we must bear in mind that it is possible to have a very deep knowledge of psychological facts, and at the same time vitiate the results of our knowledge by an entirely wrong assumption in regard ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... here and there quicksands on the seashore, and the unwary traveller who wanders there is lost. At times it seems to me that my love is like one of those quicksands, and that I am dragging Aniela into it; I myself am sinking, sinking—Let it be ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... keeps," said Folsom, and Burleigh's cronies, until Folsom came to settle in Gate City, had been almost exclusively among the "sharps," gamblers, and their kindred, the projectors and prospectors ever preying on the unwary on the outer wave of progress. Within the past six months he had seen much of him, for Burleigh was full of business enterprises, had large investments everywhere, was lavish in invitation and suggestion, was profuse in offers of aid of any kind if aid were wanted. He had gone so far ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... know certainly beforehand the precise depth or importance of any one of them, nor how far it may lead. The little strengths of weak people are like jagged rocks jutting up in shifting sands and changing tide, the more dangerous to the unwary because they are few and unexpected, and no one can tell where they lie, just below the surface. Many a brave enterprise has gone to pieces upon the stupid, unforeseen obstinacy ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... fell to his old practices, taking up his lodgings at the house of one Sarah Payne, a most infamous woman who was capable of seducing unwary youths for the commission of the greatest villainies, and then ready to betray them to death, either to benefit or secure herself. By hers and Sherwood's means George Weedon was drawn in, a young man of very reputable parents, who had been brought up with the greatest ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... hast not, taking heed especially that no man comes the "artful" over thee; whereby I caution thee against one Tom Kitefly of Manchester, whose bills have returned back unto me, clothed with that unseemly garment which the notary calleth "a protest." Assuredly he is a viper in the paths of the unwary, and will bewray thee with his fair speeches; therefore, I say, take heed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... and recrossed with wires. They crept up the walls, lined the floor, made a grille of the ceiling and would catch an unwary visitor under the chin or above the ankle just when he least expected it. Yet visitors were forbidden in so crowded a room, and even his father declined to go farther than the doorway. As for Rob, he thought he knew all about the wires, ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum

... should most appeal, he went on to depreciate that work itself and its author in his finest vein of irony. Having argued that our best and highest knowledge is that of whose possession we are most ignorant, he proceeds: "Above all, let no unwary reader do me the injustice of believing in me. In that I write at all I am among ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... us a run for our money to-night, to be sure," laughed his team-mate, as in fancy he once more saw the struggling heap of boys sprawling in the aisle of the church, when they struck the rope that had been slily stretched to trip unwary feet. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... females' beady eyes from their dangling citadels look out on the alien foes who pass beneath or up above where the great hawk swims the aerial blue like a plane without bombs. The spider weaves pontoons from tree to bush and sits in his silvery fortress trying to beguile the unwary flies by his kingly demeanor. The great blue heron, like a French sentinel on duty along the muddy Meuse, awaits in silence any hostile demonstrations from those green-coated Boches among their camouflaged ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... acquired by my recent success in town, that my self-confidence was increased to an incredible degree. My apparent candour, impudence, and readiness gave a currency to the coinings of my brain which far surpassed the dull matter-of-fact of my unwary contemporaries. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... much upon statistics, and as figures may very easily mislead the unwary, it is necessary to point out that the Malthusian contention that a high birth-rate is the cause of a high death-rate is not only contrary to reason and to facts, but is also contrary to the very figures which they quote. A high birth-rate is often associated with a high death-rate, ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... horses. Storm-proof tents loomed dimly among the trees. A brisk little man whose apple cheeks and grizzled whiskers Philip instantly approved, trotted importantly about among the horses, humming a jerky melody. Johnny was fifty and looked a hundred, but those unwary ones who had felt the steely grip of his sinewy fingers were apt evermore to ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... troop and free, Who left their homes his lot to share, For Freedom sworn to live and dare, Or die—at Fate's decree; And from the covert solitude Of dark morass and thicket rude Guerilla warfare waged, On Tory band, unwary foe, And struck full many a dauntless blow, While hate ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... voice said in Lhari, "Tell me, does that sign mean what it says? Or is this one of those traps for separating the unwary spaceman from his ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... woollen skirt, from the folds of which came much distressed cheeping. "They're hungry, I think," she added, reaching for a bowl of yellow cornmeal which she mixed with water. Lifting the skirt off the little brood carefully, and giving it a cautious shake to assure herself that no unwary chick was caught in its folds, she dropped some of the mixture in the middle of the box, tapping lightly with the spoon to call the attention of the chicks to its presence. The chickens pecked hungrily, and there was a satisfied note in the twitterings ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... hollow of the ground toward the sea, a ridge of high scrubby land runs up to a forefront of bold cliff, indented with a dark and narrow bay. "Goyle Bay," as it is called, or sometimes "Basin Bay," is a lonely and rugged place, and even dangerous for unwary visitors. For at low spring tides a deep hollow is left dry, rather more than a quarter of a mile across, strewn with kelp and oozy stones, among which may often be found pretty shells, weeds richly tinted and of subtle workmanship, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... Lake George. There was no campaign that year. The two armies lay inside their respective fortifications, each keeping on the defensive; and the bold Rangers alone did active skirmishing service, as has been related, appearing at all sorts of apparently impossible points, swooping down upon an unwary hunting party or a sleeping sentinel, bringing in spoil to the fort, burning transports bound for Ticonderoga, and doing gallant irregular service which kept the garrison and the Rangers in spirits, but did little or nothing ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... little one whose face is like the night, lastly, may come you and the one with the eager face (Walter). Without noise must we go, and keep close to each other, for the river has many arms stretched out for the unwary stranger. At the island of which I spoke, you may camp in safety while we go on alone. I stop at my wigwam to die, alone, in peace and quietness with the great spirit, as becomes a chief of a long line of chiefs, but he, who will soon ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... with those women, Beauty," growled the Seraph, one day after a morning of fearful hard work consequent on having played the Foot Guards at Lord's, and, in an unwary moment, having allowed himself to be decoyed afterward to a private concert, and very nearly proposed to in consequence, during a Symphony in A; an impending terror from which he could hardly restore himself of his jeopardized ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... Fire King made a sign to the unwary Hako to attack him. Kokai now turned upon Shikuyu furiously, but he was tired and unable to fight well, and he soon received a wound in his shoulder. He now broke from the fray and tried to escape ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... who are afraid of no crime. Who comes there? It is Andrew himself. [Shouting to ANDREW, who is not yet visible.] Come on! If you are looking for me, murderer! You shall not find me defenseless and unwary as Godfrey— ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... the immortal; Many a wreck is beneath you piled, Many a brave yet unwary sailor Over these waters ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... cards in the dictionary catalog, and the arrangement of biography in a classed list are a few points, which may need dwelling upon, and which I mention as having been found in our experience to be pitfalls for the unwary. ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... "That shows how unwary you have been! Tell me: is there not a little valley just above here—an open place where your railroad and Uncle ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... harvest; and had now been carrying on his business about two years in Denmark. On every church he had affixed a chest with notice that all who would contribute to the sacred cause should receive full absolution from their sins. It certainly was a tempting offer, and one which the unwary believers in the papal authority were not slow to seize. They poured in their contributions with a lavish hand, and the legate soon amassed a princely fortune. At last, however, his goods began to be a drug upon the market, and he prepared to transfer ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... somewhat "choppy," and the road a succession of short-hills, at the bottom of which modest-looking mud-holes patiently await an opportunity to make one's acquaintance, or scraggy-looking, latitudinous washouts are awaiting their chance to commit a murder, or to make the unwary cycler who should venture to "coast," think he had wheeled over the tail of an earthquake. One never minds a hilly road where one can reach the bottom with an impetus that sends him spinning half-way up the next; but where mud-holes or washouts resolutely ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... surface at frequent intervals for air, and the ancients in the rounded heads of the mother and her offspring fancied a resemblance to human beings, who sought to lure the unwary to their mansions beneath the waves. Hence the scientific title "Sirenia" for the family to which the dugong belongs. Unpoetical people as the coastal blacks of Queensland are, yet they were among the few who had for neighbours the shy creatures upon whose existence was founded ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... acquaintance with the Desert, so dangerous to enter, so difficult, as Mahmood subsequently found, to cross, they discovered, that over and above the plain prosaic danger, this Waste of Sand laid, like a very demon, goblin snares for the unwary traveller's destruction, in the form of its Mirage. Ignorant of "optical phenomena," they gazed at this strange illusion, these phantom trees and water, these mocking semblances of cities that vanished as you reached them, with astonishment, and even awe. It struck their imagination, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... its splendid "salle a manger," and cosey nooks presided over by attractive Frenchwomen. Long tables, under crystal chandeliers, offer a choice of roads to ruin. Monte, faro, rouge et noir, roulette, rondo and every gambling device are here, to lure the unwary. Dark-eyed subtle attendants lurk, ready to "preserve order," in gambling parlance. At night, blazing with lights, the superb erotic pictures on the walls look down on a mad crowd of desperate gamesters. Paris has sent its most suggestive pictures here, to inflame the wildest of human passions. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... strained me to your heart, and swore that before a fortnight passed you would hold 'darling Minnie in your arms once more!' Did you mean it even then? No, no, already the hounds of slander were snuffing in my path, and the toils were spread for my unwary feet. Here, look back at me, my husband, with those fond peerless eyes, as on that day when I saw you last—all mine! To-night—across the gulf of separation, and of shameful wrong—we shall look into each other's faces once ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... more advertised in a week than there are failures and fires in a year. Good, staple merchandise will usually bring its value, and he who advertises an unheard of bargain has generally set a trap for the unwary. One class of goods in the window marked a certain price, an inferior class on the bargain counter at the same figure. You bargain for a piece of furniture at a surprisingly low figure; when it is delivered you ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... in his chair, permitting his eye to rove round the room in search of the unwary prey. He smiles cynically at the intense concentration of the Auction parties; winces at the renewed and unnatural efforts of those who make music; glares unamiably at the feverish book-worms, and suddenly breaks ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various

... fairness to call the attention of the unwary dabbler in statistics to a point of grave importance in dealing with German finances. The German Empire, so far as expenditure and income are concerned, is merely an office, a clearing-house so to speak, for the states which together make up ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... So, without hesitation, he descended into the utter darkness below. Feeling with a foot before taking a forward step his descent was necessarily slow, but Gahan was a Barsoomian and so knew the pitfalls that might await the unwary in such dark, forbidden portions ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... unscrupulous manure-dealers. Among the farming community the word guano soon became a name to conjure with, and under this title many spurious and worthless manures were attempted to be palmed off on the unwary farmer. Even the genuine article, there can be little doubt, was at one time largely adulterated; and as the farmer was almost invariably content to purchase the article not on any guaranteed chemical analysis, but simply on the ground of its appearance, colour, and more ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... failed, for the English lines were as unyielding as ever. Direct attack was unavailing. In the Norman character fox and lion were equally blended, as William now showed. He ventured on the daring stratagem of ordering a pretended flight, and the unwary English rushed down the slope, pursuing the fugitive with shouts of delight. The error was fatal to England. The tide was turned; the duke's object was now gained; and the main end of Harold's skilful tactics was frustrated. The English were no longer entrenched, and the battle fell into ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... who would taste your self-deluding joys, That lure the unwary to a wretched doom, That bid fair views and flattering hopes arise, Then hurl them headlong to a lasting tomb? What is the charm which leads thy victims on To persevere in paths that lead to woe? What can induce them in that route to go, In which innumerous before have gone, ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... to contract the circle of enjoyment; but if mischief crouches under the covert of any pleasure, propriety requires a notification to the unwary. Even should experience warrant the conclusion that habit enables us to use tobacco with physical impunity, (a conclusion Dr. McAllister powerfully controverts,) we must concede, that its use is disgusting to persons ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister

... for that end. The smallest offence was punished by a fine equal to the value of a slave. Crimes were also fabricated; false accusations were resorted to; and persons were sometimes employed to seduce the unwary into practices with a view to the conviction ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... of birds captured in this way, mocking-birds, blue-birds, robins, meadow larks, quail, and plover were the most numerous. They seemed to have more voracious appetites than other varieties, or else they were more unwary, and consequently more easily caught. A change of station, however, put an end to my ornithological plans, and activities of other kinds prevented me from resuming ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Being a professional outlaw, and subject at any time to arrest and imprisonment, usually he has an accomplice. Sometimes a gang work together, so that it is with perfect ease they may relieve any unwary novice of his money. They know human nature on its low, mercenary side, and soon can find their man in a crowd. But few persons have started out in life having it for their aim to get something for nothing who, sooner or later, have not been ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... the brisk, drying winds of spring. They had made the return journey at the earliest moment, before the summer movements of the glacial fields had converted river and trail into a constant danger for the unwary. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... Wood's coin, they will think we of this town have changed our minds, and intend to take those halfpence, and therefore that it will be in vain for them to stand out. So that the question comes to this, Which will be of the worst consequence, to let pass one or two expressions, at the worst only unwary, in a book written for the public service; or to leave a free open passage for Wood's brass to overrun us, by which we ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... production, and all that goes with it, there are many peculiar and unnecessary fads and tricks resorted to by those who call themselves teachers of singing. The more fantastic the theories inculcated by these people, the more the unwary students seem to believe in them. People like to be deluded, you know. But I am not able to gratify their desires in this direction; for I can't lie ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... fearsome and treacherous enough. They looked like sleek, fat wolves, and they were, indeed, but domesticated wolves. Friendly they seemed, but they were ever ready to take advantage of the helpless and unwary, and their great white fangs were not above tearing their own master into shreds should he ever be so careless as to stumble ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... easy to draw a sharp line between doctrines which everyone would admit to be egoistic, and others which seem more doubtfully to fall under that head. "Happiness," "good," "advantage," "self," all are terms which call for scrutiny, and which set pitfalls for the unwary. ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... one thing mark: before An Indian may touch sole upon Those gleaming strands of gold, he first Must navigate the bay, within Whose darkly deep and treacherous bounds The water, shamming, seems to sleep, But only lies, like cunning fox, To snare unwary passers-by And hold them ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... old black straw, rusty and battered, and torn, yet Mrs. M'Bean, a labourer's wife, who had nothing at all handsome about her, seemed to think it worth a serious risk. For she mounted on the broad wall-top, and thence made so unwary a snatch that she overbalanced herself and splashed headlong into the heaving high-tide, where she would very soon have perished beneath the cold olive-gray swell, had not the brothers Denny, fishing for bass hard by, noticed ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... and of worse portent, Did our unwary minds with fear torment, Concurring to produce the dire event. Laocoon, Neptune's priest by lot that year, With solemn pomp then sacrific'd a steer; When, dreadful to behold, from sea we spied Two serpents, rank'd abreast, the seas divide, And smoothly sweep along the swelling tide. Their flaming ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... work, there was still too much leisure time; and "apple jack" filtered its way through provost guards, and cards, the greasiest and most bethumbed, wiled many an hour for the unwary ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... distinction—there being only two others equally stylish in town—of being built of sawn plank, although, greatly to the regret of its unfortunate occupants, lack of seasoning had resulted in wide cracks in both walls and stairway. These were numerous, and occasionally proved perilous pitfalls to unwary travellers through the ill-lighted hall, while strict privacy within the chambers was long ago a mere reminiscence. However, these deficiencies were to be discovered only after entering. Without, the Miners' Home put up a good front,—which along the border is ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... sense enough to use them. The employer cannot do his share unless the worker does his, and the worker is too quick to take a chance. The apprentice is usually cautious enough, but the old hand grows unwary. Ninety-nine times he thrusts his arm in among belts whirling at lightning speed and escapes, but the hundredth time the arm is caught and mangled. And there is nothing to ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... the sea. The glaciers stand here so close together it might almost be said they are hand-in-hand; and each is a crystal palace for the Ice Maiden, whose power and will it is to seize and imprison the unwary traveller. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... the prepossessions of one's environment may often lead the unwary talker to give a totally erroneous impression of his meaning. Thus the Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford once brought an Indian army chaplain to dine at the high table of Oriel, and in the common room after dinner the Fellows courteously turned ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... there with rifles or shotguns between their knees, with their pistols on their hips, and eternal vigilance in their eyes. While listening to his sermon they kept their gaze fastened upon one another, lest an unwary moment bring upon them the alert shot ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... little pillows, and drawn-work on one towel hanging on a nail. The floor had once been tiled with square mission bricks; but many were broken, some were gone, and the empty spaces were so many traps for unwary feet. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... is a frequent occasion of apostacy. It predisposes the unhappy individual to the ruinous influence of vicious society and injurious publications. These, most fatally adapted to their purpose, soon induce the unwary to neglect, and finally to despise all religious institutions. The apostle Paul intimates that some are "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine," like clouds which, possessing no solidity, are driven in every direction through the atmosphere. Persons ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... tradesman to fall into, because men are so apt to be insensible of the danger: a ship may as well be lost in a calm smooth sea, and an easy fair gale of wind, as in a storm, if they have no pilot, or the pilot be ignorant or unwary; and disasters of that nature happen as frequently as any others, and are as fatal. When rocks are apparent, and the pilot, bold and wilful, runs directly upon them, without fear or wit, we know the fate of the ship—it must perish, and all that are in it will inevitably be lost; but in a smooth ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... from which they stared with stony and equal resignation; it had preserved their useless armor and accoutrements; it had set up their marble effigies in churches or laid them in cross-legged attitudes to trip up the unwary, until in death, as in life, they got between the congregation and the Truth that was taught there. It had allowed an Oldenhurst crusader, with a broken nose like a pugilist, on the strength of his having been twice to the Holy Land, to hide the beautifully ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... after his spree with Rayder his first act was to purchase a ranch in the San Luis valley and deed it to his wife. He then went to his assay office and drew down the blinds and sat in the shadows like a cunning old spider in hiding waiting for the unwary fly for which he had wove his web. His life had been that of the iconoclast who creates nothing to adorn the world's great gallery of gods. But he was not philosophical enough to evolve an idea that would ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... bitterness in the ranks of the contesting factions began to express itself in charges and counter-charges that were made. Speeches for and against the candidates were addressed to the ears of the unwary voter. The state was soon up in arms. There was no doubt of the attitude of the people. This was made plain in so many ways that our task was to impress this opinion upon the members of the Legislature, whose vote, in the last analysis, would be the determining ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... a large and populous city, where fashion and vice walked hand in hand, and where snares and pitfalls were spread for the simple and unwary, with scarcely a finger-mark cautioning them ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... not remember the estimated number accurately, but it is very large. They often revel in wealth, but they do not make it out of each other. It is from the unwary, the 'weak and foolish' who think they can win money by playing a fair game. They are permitted to win just enough to turn their heads, and then are robbed. Remorse, despair, and suicide too often follow. Cards are the ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... the wall, and crouched down cautiously; and hardly was I concealed, when I saw my wife approaching in company with a ghoul—one of those demons which, as your Highness is aware, wander about the country making their lairs in deserted buildings and springing out upon unwary travellers whose flesh they eat. If no live being goes their way, they then betake themselves to the cemeteries, and feed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... a position to account for his syncope by illness or the stifling atmosphere of the locality, he has none the less given rise to suspicion! He has lied incomparably, but he has counted without nature. Here is the pitfall! Again, a man off his guard, from an unwary disposition, may delight in mystifying another who suspects him, and may wantonly pretend to be the very criminal wanted by the authorities; in such a case, he will represent the person in question a little too closely, he will place his foot a little too naturally. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... all he disposes, At once to regale both your eyes and your noses. Long reign'd the great Nash, this omnipotent lord, Respected by youth, and by parents ador'd; For him not enough at a ball to preside, The unwary and beautiful nymph would he guide; Oft tell her a tale, how the credulous maid By man, by perfidious man, is betrayed: Taught Charity's hand to relieve the distrest, While tears have his tender compassion exprest; But alas! he is gone, and the city can tell How in years ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... crosses represent the position of enemy balloon barrages and their height. The position of these barrages must be known accurately, for to run into them is fatal and at night they are very apt to trap the unwary. Roughly, they are a series of balloons supporting a huge wire net or cable streamers. The balloons, anchored to the ground and carrying the nets with them, are sent up to a considerable altitude about large cities and important industrial centres. They are to the night aviators what ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece

... by the sea at high water, are crossed every day by travellers whose time or inclination leads them to choose this route rather than one more circuitous, and nearly thrice the distance, inland. Yet the sands are by no means without danger, especially to the uncautious or unwary. Scarcely a year passes without some loss of lives, generally owing to the obstinacy or foolhardiness of the victims. Guides are appointed to conduct strangers across this trackless waste, whose ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... of the Catholic mind in matters of Religion is a noted and universal fact which implies necessarily the tranquil possession of Truth. This certainly is not a blind adherence dictated by fear or fatalism as some would lead the unwary to believe; but rather, as St. Paul states, the reasonable subjugation of the mind . . . "Rationabile absequium." The universal unrest and chaotic condition of Christendom outside of the Catholic Church are in sharp contrast with the unity and tranquillity of the Catholic mind. This is not the ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... just beginning to fall in a thin, chilling drizzle, and the cold air nipped sharply any unwary toe that showed itself, as Nino played a little air full of thoughts of birds and flowers. His thin jacket was no protection, and his dark eyes looked as if a shower might drop from them; but the clouds had been over his life too long, and there ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... word spreads around the country—and such news always travels like lightning—every gambler and bunco man in Wyoming and Colorado will be seen camping on Top Notch Trail, each trying in his own way to wheedle money or gold-dust from the unwary ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... warning the unwary never to drink water in the dark or sign a paper unread. And Marcos made Juanita read everything she signed. She was quick enough, and only laughed when he protested that she had not taken in the ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... him, he was caught, tied to a bedpost, soundly whipped with a rope, and set at liberty only after nine days. As a consequence, any one who after this would still be the enemy of such a man, deserved to fall into worse repute than even the weak and unwary devils. ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... sit down on a cold oil-cloth or leather cushion, without the least knowledge of the harm or danger that they are liable to incur. They little dream of the prostatic troubles that lie in wait for the unwary sitter on cold places, ready to pounce upon him like the treacherous Indian lying in ambush,—troubles that carry in their train all the battalions of urethral, bladder, kidney disease and derangments, and subsequent blood disorganization, which often begin in a chilled ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... a great game, this "clicking"; with very nice rules. However seasoned the player may be, there are always, in certain districts, pitfalls for the unwary. The Clapham manner is sharply distinct from the Blackheath manner, as the Kilburn manner is distinct from that of Leyton. On Clapham Common, the monkeys' parade is South Side; and the game is started by strolling from "The Plough" to Nightingale Lane. As ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... Avery, "was in his young years bound apprentice unto one Master Kempton, of the Blade Boy in Watling Street: and in this time he (being young and unwary) did fall into evil company, which caused him to game with them, and he all unskilfully lost unto them not only his own money, but (every groat) thirty pounds which his master had entrusted unto him to receive for ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... his brother all Marcus had to do was to borrow from other friends. "In regard to money I am crippled. But the liberality of my brother I have repaid, in spite of his protests, by the aid of my friends, that I might not be drained quite dry myself" (ad Att. iv. 3). Two years later an unwary reader might feel some astonishment at finding that Quintus himself was now deep in debt;[143] but as he continues to read the correspondence his astonishment will vanish. With the prospect before him ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... shall fit the few facts we already know than to make one that will apply perfectly to many other facts at present unknown. A hypothesis is a great stimulus to the discovery of fresh facts. Science does not like to have unverified hypotheses lying around loose, where they may trip up the unwary. It is incumbent on any one who puts forward a hypothesis to apply it to as many special cases as possible, in order to see whether it works or not; and if the propounder of the hypothesis is so much in love with it that he fails to give it a thorough test, his scientific colleagues are sure ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... things the use of language is apt to occasion some obscurity and confusion, and create in us wrong ideas; for language being accommodated to the common notions and prejudices of men, it is scarce possible to deliver the naked and precise truth without great circumlocution, impropriety, and (to an unwary reader) seeming contradictions; I do therefore once for all desire whoever shall think it worth his while to understand what I have written concerning vision, that he would not stick in this or that phrase, or manner ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley

... considered that stratagem in war was, at all events, allowable, and he used to disguise the frigate in so wonderful a way, that even we ourselves, at a little distance, should not have known her. By this means many an unwary craft fell into our clutches. One day we lay becalmed, with our seemingly black and worn sails hanging against the masts, our ports concealed by canvas, painted to represent the weather-beaten sides of a big merchantman, our ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... the cellar where the eggs were supposed to be hatching in their nest. An unwary hound sniffing about the door got a throatful of the stinging smoke and fled yowling. Hydrochloric acid, vitriol and nitre-glycerine are kittle things to meddle with, and the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... country in May is perhaps at its highest beauty, or even a little earlier, as already the great blow of roses is nearly over; au reste there are roses all the year round, though more in December than in July. And this, by the way, is rather a source of disappointment to the unwary traveller. He arrives in December, and finds the gardens full of flowers. "If this be the case in December," says he to himself, "what will it be in May?" May comes—the roses are over, and the chief flowers in the gardens are dahlias and marigolds, our autumnal ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... what's up? Our horse, which has never refused before, has stopped dead at a wall. We stand up in the stirrups and peep over, and there below us is a narrow but deep quarry, a veritable death trap for the unwary sportsman. This is indeed a merciful escape; and how can we be too thankful that a horse—wise, sagacious animal that he is—has been endowed with an extraordinary instinct whereby he can smell danger, even though he cannot see ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... disregard of his counsels, and to the neglect of his advice. Bonaparte knows it; and that he is one of those crafty, sly, and dark conspirators, more dangerous than the bold assassin, who, by sophistry, art, and perseverance insinuate into the minds of the unwary and daring the ideas of their plots, in such an insidious manner that they take them and foster them as the production of their own genius; he is, therefore, watched by our Imperial spies, and never consulted ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... preferred any thing to honest industry. These people, though the major part of them were, during the night, locked up in the building lately occupied as a guardhouse, were ever on the watch to commit depredations on the unwary during the hours in which they were at large, and never suffered an opportunity to escape them. A female convict, who came down from Rose Hill, was robbed of her week's provisions; and as it was impossible to replace them from the public store, she was ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... expected to bear just as many fine large nuts as the other and just as soon. After losing twenty to thirty thousand dollars in delayed returns from a seedling walnut orchard, is it any wonder that I oppose the planting of more seedlings by the unwary? ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... islands, or in the forest, bordering on the water's edge; and out of hollow logs and hoary trunks of trees come forth the speckled night-hawks, cutting the air with their thin sharp wide wings, and open beak, ready to entrap the unwary moth, or moskitoe, that float so joyously upon the evening air. One after another, sweeping in wider circles, come forth these birds of prey, till the whole air seems alive with them; darting hither and thither, and uttering wild shrill screams, as they rise higher and higher in the upper ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill

... mediaveal Latin treatise by one Theobaldus, entitled "Physiologus de Naturis XII. Animalium" ("A description of the nature of twelve animals"), sirens or mermaids are described as skilled in song, and drawing unwary mariners to destruction by the sweetness of ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... of ballet dancers tripping down the stage. While the head of the ostrich is unusually small, its eyes are large and have an expression of mischief which gives warning of danger. During a visit to one of the farms, I saw a male bird pluck two hats from unwary men, and it looked wicked enough to have taken their heads as well, had they not been more securely fastened. It is sometimes sarcastically asserted that the ostrich digests with satisfaction to itself such articles as gimlets, nails, and penknives; but this is a slander. ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... such exhilarating circumstances was extreme. In one wild part of the ride we had to come down a steep hill, thickly wooded with pitch pines, to leap over the fallen timber, and steer between the dead and living trees to avoid being "snagged," or bringing down a heavy dead branch by an unwary touch. ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... for some hundreds of yards, kept carefully to the thickets and the shadows. In one place the marks of a scuffle, with a heap of speckled feathers and a pair of slim claws, showed that the intruder had captured and devoured an unwary partridge mothering her brood. At this evidence of poaching on his preserves, the big lynx's anger swelled hotly. He paused to sniff at the remnants, and then stole on with added caution. The blood of the victim was not yet dry, or even ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... a grand beauty; and if her heart was not in that prayer she put up just now, she is a grand actress also. This is a beastly trade of ours, hunting down and trapping the unwary. Sometimes I feel no better than a sleuth-hound, and that girl's eyes went through and through me a while ago ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... with Mrs. Tenbruggen to better purpose, if Eunice was in a position to recognize her in any future emergency that might occur. To my mind, this dangerous woman was doubly formidable—and for a good reason; she was the bosom friend of that innocent and unwary person, Miss Jillgall. So I amiably consented to forego my walk, yielding to the superior attraction of Mrs. Tenbruggen's company. On that day the sunshine was tempered by a delightful breeze. If we had been in the biggest and worst-governed city ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... essential to man's happiness, and that I had no sympathy with those who rejected the Bible because it rebuked their vices. I was sincere in these remarks; but my older infidel friends, I found, regarded them as intended to deceive the unwary. Many of them were grossly immoral, and hated the Bible for its hostility to ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... thine own soul, and surprise The password of the unwary elves; Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies; Unsought, they whisper ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... ship one day was gliding smoothly on, the boatswain descended to the end of the dolphin-striker, a spar which reaches from the bowsprit down almost to the water. Here he stood, ready to dart his harpoon at any unwary fish which might approach. Walter and Alice were on the forecastle watching him. They had not long to wait before a bonito came gambolling by. Quick as lightning the harpoon flew from his hand, and was buried deeply in the body of the fish. A noose was then dexterously ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... out into the crowd of revellers. Instantly several masks left the dancing, laughing, whirling main stream and approached the newcomer. 'Fair mask, come tread a measure!' 'Do you seek love or amusement here?' and many other meaningless absurdities were squeaked into her ear by some unwary ones who had not recognised the much-feared Landhofmeisterin in the tall yellow-clad figure. She shot a glance of contempt at her interlocutors and pushed past them. Of a sudden she was surrounded by a circle of red-garbed ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... countenance bore the appearance of the greatest insipidity, and her complexion was the same all over; with two little hollow eyes, adorned with white eye-lashes, as long as one's finger. With these attractions she placed herself in ambuscade to surprise unwary hearts; but she might have done so in vain, had it not been for the arrival of the Marquis de Brisacier. Heaven seemed to have made them for each other: he had in his person and manners every requisite to dazzle a creature of her character he talked eternally, without saying anything, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... country he was enabled, when pursued, to insure a retreat among the morasses, or forests, or mountains; and again collecting his dispersed associates, he unexpectedly appeared in another quarter, and surprised, and routed, and put to the sword the unwary English. Every day brought accounts of his great actions, which were received with no less favor by his countrymen than terror by the enemy: all those who thirsted after military fame were desirous to partake of his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume



Words linked to "Unwary" :   chariness, gullible, wariness, unwariness, wary



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