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Wariness   Listen
noun
Wariness  n.  The quality or state of being wary; care to foresee and guard against evil; cautiousness. "An almost reptile wariness." "To determine what are little things in religion, great wariness is to be used."
Synonyms: Caution; watchfulness; circumspection; foresight; care; vigilance; scrupulousness.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wariness" Quotes from Famous Books



... of arms, physical endurance tested by centuries of exertion and hardship, make every nomad a soldier. Cavalry and camel corps add to the swiftness and vigor of their onslaught, make their military strategy that of sudden attack and swifter retreat, to be met only by wariness and extreme mobility. The ancient Scythians of the lower Danubian steppes were all horse archers, like the Parthians. "If the Scythians were united, there is no nation which could compare with them or would be capable of resisting them; I do not say in Europe, but even in Asia," said Thucydides.[1091] ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... Life is to them a wonderful, passionate, pathetic, terrible thing that the gods of love and of death shape for them. They do not see that coolness and craft, and the tact to seize accident, and the wariness to obtain advantage, do in reality far more in hewing out a successful future than all the gods of Greek or Gentile. They are very unwise. It is of no use to break their hearts for the world; they will ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... heart beat so fast that I could almost hear it. The night was very dark. A thin mist-like drizzle was falling; in fact the weather conditions were absolutely perfect for my purpose. With utmost wariness I allowed myself to drop from the window-ledge on to the ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... indignation were now laid aside. His tone and looks betokened the deepest distress. All the firmness, reluctance, and wariness of my temper vanished in a moment. My heart was seized with an agony of compunction. I came close to him, and, taking his hand involuntarily, said, "Dear brother, ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... seeing him, cried in derision to Gillespic to see "Mackenzie's impudent madness, daring thus to face him at such disadvantage." Gillespic, being a more experienced leader than the youthful and impetuous Alexander, said that "such extraordinary boldness should be met by more extraordinary wariness in us, lest we fall into unexpected inconvenience." Macdonald, in a towering passion, replied to this wise counsel - "Go you also and join with them, and it will not need our care nor move the least fear in my followers; both ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... 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 ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... the power of managing and directing men's minds and passions, he was the first man in the House of Commons; that the germs of great improvements are to be found in his speeches; that, when he was overborne by the almost absolute power of the Court, his apparent sycophancy was merely the wariness of a wise statesman; that Queen Elizabeth eventually acknowledged his services to the country, and, far from neglecting him, repeatedly extended to him most substantial marks of her favor. This portion of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... these plains, both when travelling up-stream and again the following year when they were returning. The antelopes were sometimes quite shy; so were the bighorn; though on occasions both kinds seemed to lose their wariness, and in one instance the journal specifies the fact that, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, the deer were somewhat shy, while the antelope, like the elk and buffalo, paid no heed to the men whatever. Ordinarily all the kinds of game were very tame. Sometimes ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... Their constant watchings and struggles against the slow encroachments or sudden inroads of an enemy more inveterate even than the Danes,—namely, the sea,—had imparted to them from the earliest times somewhat of that wariness and perseverance which we perceive in the national character of the Dutch and the Venetians. But the fresh breezes of the German Ocean and the Baltic kept their nerves well braced and their hearts buoyant; and for muscular development the arms of these sturdy ploughers of the sea and the land can ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... one side as I passed through them, the little orthopi evincing the greatest wariness and galloping to safest distances. All the animals stopped feeding as I approached, and after moving to what they considered a safe distance stood contemplating me with serious eyes and up-cocked ears. Once one of the old bull antelopes of the striped species lowered his head and bellowed ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... had finished reading, she went through some moments of such mental anguish as she had never known, but—just as when Betty first told her of the stealing—her wits and wariness came quickly back. Had he been drinking when he wrote that letter? She could almost fancy that she smelled brandy, but it was so easy to fancy what one wanted to. She read it through again—this time, she felt almost ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Conquest of England, certainly not later than 1095. To the twelfth he assigns (and it may be observed that, enthusiastic as M. Gautier is on the literary side, he shows on all questions of age, &c., a wariness not always exhibited by scholars more exclusively philological) Acquin, Aliscans, Amis et Amiles, Antioche Aspremont, Auberi le Bourgoing, Aye d'Avignon, the Bataille Loquifer, the oldest (now only known in Italian) form of Berte aus grans Pies, Beuves d'Hanstone (with another ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... after him a greater lion, the Emperor of Russia. The King of Saxony came as an honest friend and sightseer, entering heartily into the obligations of the latter. There was more doubt as to the motives of the Czar of all the Russias, and considerable wariness was needed in dealing with the northern eagle, whose real object might be, if not to use his beak and claws on the English nation, to employ them on some other nation after he had got an assurance that England would not interfere with his game. Indeed, jealousy ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... omnibuses has been subdued in recent years by the introduction of electric trams which sweep round the corners with a terrifying speed, for after a long sojourn in the country and quiet little towns one loses the agility and wariness ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... makes itself quickly popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and genuinely liking most men with whom he came in contact. There was always much joking in the air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a certain wariness, for every second man was a professed "fire-eater," given to feeling insulted on the slightest grounds, and flying to the duel ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... his side also he entered upon the duel with all caution and wariness. From his rage I had hoped for a wild, angry rush that should afford me an easy opportunity of gaining my ends with him. Not so, however. Now that he came with steel to defend his life and to seek mine, he appeared to have realized the importance of having keen wits ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... dawn was in the sky he awoke in the fresh morning, and sat up and hearkened, for even as he woke he had heard something, since wariness had made him wakeful. Now he hears the sound of horse-hoofs on the hard road, and riseth to his feet and goeth to the very edge of the copse; looking thence he saw a rider who was just come to the very crossing of the ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... view the difference between living against a background of foreignness and one of intimacy means the difference between a general habit of wariness and one of trust. One might call it a social difference, for after all, the common socius of us all is the great universe whose children we are. If materialistic, we must be suspicious of this socius, cautious, tense, on guard. If spiritualistic, we may give way, embrace, ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... skilfully covering the heart of the land from attack, but steadily refusing a pitched battle. In the following year Spinola with two armies attempted to force the lines of the Waal and the Yssel, but, though thwarted in this aim by the wariness of the stadholder and by a very wet season, he succeeded in taking the important fortresses of Groll and Rheinberg. Maurice made no serious effort to relieve them, and his inactivity caused much discontent and adverse comment. His military reputation ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... broad, moist nose was evidence of it to all who are judges of such things. Added to this, his frame was of unusual power and endurance, and last, he had early learned a deep distrust of everything strange, and, call it what we will, shyness, wariness or suspicion, it was worth more to him than all his cleverness. It was this as much as his physical powers that made a success of his life. Might is right in wolf-land, and Duskymane and his mother had been driven out of Sentinel Butte. But it was ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... not a joint-stock company answer the purpose better, and carry more weight?" she asked, listening with a sort of intent wariness. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... impulsive drooping of her mouth, an evasion and keen wariness in her eyes. "I can't see that that has anything to do with the robbery," she answered ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... instant Fatia Negra was taken aback by his antagonist's unexpected wariness and courage, but the next moment his drawn yataghan flashed in his hand and the second flash was the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... not survived four years of bodily and spiritual disaster without an irreparable destruction of the sanguine, if more or less nebulous assurance that God was in his heaven and all was well with the world. He had been stricken with a wariness concerning life, a reluctant distrust of much that in his old easy-going philosophy seemed solid as the hills. He was disposed to a critical and sometimes pessimistic examination of his own feelings and of other ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... life save with their husbands and potential husbands; the business of marriage is their dominant concern from adolescence to senility. When they step outside their habitual circle they show the same alert and eager wariness that they exhibit within it. A man who has dealings with them must keep his wits about him, and even when he is most cautious he is often flabbergasted by their sudden and unconscionable forays. Whenever woman goes into trade she quickly ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... He was not exactly quarrelsome, but boisterous and peremptory, like one accustomed to tyrannize on a quarter-deck; and there was a dare-devil[1] air about everything he said and did that inspired wariness in all bystanders. Even the half-pay officer, so long the hero of the club, was soon silenced by him, and the quiet burghers stared with wonder at seeing their inflammable man of war ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... not understand it, and she felt as if she had been inconsistent with her constant professions of wariness ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... it, your Majesty, the wariness That marks your usual far-eye policy, To openly announce your tactics thus Some twelve hours ere ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... was fought by the "United States" with singular wariness, not to say caution. Her change to the starboard tack, when still some three miles distant, seems to indicate a desire to get the weather gage, as the "Macedonian" was then steering free. It was so interpreted ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... safety. Outside pastures may be pleasant to the eye; but who knows what ravening wolves may not be lurking there in the disguise of harmless sheep? The devil himself can appear in the guise of an angel of light; therefore it behoves us to walk with all wariness, and to commit ourselves into the keeping of those whom God has set over ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... several horrid massacres. Husbandmen, toiling to secure the product of the summer's labor, for their sustenance another season, were frequently attacked, and murdered.—Hunters, engaged in procuring meat for immediate and pressing use, were obliged to practise the utmost wariness to evade the ambushed Indian, and make sure their return to the fort. Springs and other watering places, and the paths leading to them, were constantly guarded by the savages; who would lie near them day and night, until forced to leave their covert, in quest of food to satisfy ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... wife is a world of wealth, where just cause of content makes a kingdom in conceit. She is the eye of wariness, the tongue of silence, the hand of labour, and the heart of love; a companion of kindness, a mistress of passion, an exercise of patience, and an example of experience. She is the kitchen physician, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... evening Quentin and Savage found themselves in the rooms occupied by the prince, the former experiencing a distinct sense of wariness and caution. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... with his back against an angle of the walls, while facing him in a semi-circle a half-dozen huge monsters crouched waiting for an opening. Their blood-streaked heads and shoulders testified to the cause of their wariness as well as to the swordsmanship of the green warrior whose glossy hide bore the same mute but eloquent witness to the ferocity of the attacks that ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... British government. Seemingly Sir Wilfrid thus accepted, despite his repeated claim that Canada was a nation, a subordinate relation to Great Britain in the field of foreign relations which is the real test of nationhood. In fact, however, this was the crowning manifestation of his wariness and far-sightedness. He realized in 1911 what is only now beginning to be understood by public men who succeeded to his high office, that a method of consultation obviously defective and carrying with it in reality no suspensory or veto power, involves ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe

... and growled. In a moment Ambrose heard the sound of a horse approaching at a walk above. Thinking of Colina, his heart leaped—but she would never come at a walk! An instinct of wariness bade ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... proposed searching the island for further traces, but advised wariness in so doing. They saw, however, no smoke nor canoes. The Indians had departed while they were searching the ravines and flats round Mount Ararat, and the lake told no tales, The following day they ventured to land on Long Island, and on going to the north side saw evident traces of ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... ready for lowering when the matches were fired, and this occupied us the best part of two hours. When all was ready I fired the first match, and we lowered the barrel smartly to the scope of line we had settled upon; so with the others. You may reckon we worked with all imaginable wariness, for the stuff we handled was mighty deadly, and if a barrel should fall and burst with the match alight, we might be blown in an instant into rags, it being impossible to tell how deep the ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... dangerous than to proceed; for in a very short time I should be in the territory of another government, until when I promised faithfully to wrap myself up in the folds of my own counsel; and to continue my road with all the wariness of one who is surrounded by ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... the baying dogs saw Odysseus, and they ran at him yelping, but Odysseus in his wariness sat him down, and let the staff fall from his hand. There by his own homestead would he have suffered foul hurt, but the swineherd with quick feet hasted after them, and sped through the outer door, and let the skin fall from his hand. And the hounds he chid and drave them this way and that, with ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... nation than to adorn a court. In the highest parts of statesmanship, he had no equal among his contemporaries. He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Two countries, the seats of civil liberty and of the Reformed Faith, had been preserved by his wisdom and courage from extreme perils. Holland he had delivered from foreign, and England from domestic foes. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... turned and marched towards the monster. But possibly the palpable wariness of his companions had an effect upon him that weighed more than his previous experience, for suddenly, when near to the monster, he halted dubiously. But his playmates immediately uttered a derisive shout, and it seemed to ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... when just out of range, appeared to become suspicious and turned toward Ned. Slowly she walked, darting her quick-moving head in every direction as she searched trees and bushes for hidden enemies. The younger turkeys put much faith in the wariness of the old lady and stalked fearlessly behind her. Ned waited for a chance which he thought couldn't be missed and, avoiding the mother turkey, shot down one of her brood. Instantly the flock was in the air, ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... life of Tadeusz Kosciuszko had now arrived. His fiery and enthusiastic soul leapt to its call; but with none of the headlong precipitance that would have been its ruin. Kosciuszko was too great a patriot to disdain wariness and cool calculation. He never stirred without seeing each step clearly mapped out before him. He took his counsels with Potocki and his other Polish intimates in Saxony; then formulated his plan of the Rising. Each district of Poland and Lithuania was to be ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... experience. A mere whipt-syllabub knowledge this, Jack, that always fails the person who trusts to it, when it should hold to do her service. For such young ladies have so much dependence upon their own understanding and wariness, are so much above the cautions that the less opinionative may be benefited by, that their presumption is generally their overthrow, when attempted by a man of experience, who knows how to flatter their vanity, and to magnify their wisdom, in order ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... serely,[101] ere we may have full knowing of them all, or else can deem sufficiently of them all. And when we use us busily in these feelings and beholdings before said, oft times we fall and oft times we rise. Then, by our oft falling, may we learn how much wariness us behoveth have in the getting and keeping of these virtues. And thus sometime, by long use, a soul is led into full discretion, and then it may joy in the birth of Joseph. And before this virtue be conceived in a man's soul, all that these other virtues do, it is without ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... and monstrous fancies then prevalent. The details of her statement cover nearly the whole ground of them. While indicating, in most respects, a mind at the lowest level of general intelligence, they give evidence of cunning and wariness in the highest degree. This document is also valuable, as it affords information about particulars, incidentally mentioned and thus rescued from oblivion, which serve to bring back the life of the past. Tituba describes the dresses of some of the witches: "A black silk hood, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... of her surroundings hitherto presented in these pages has been one which rouses rather a reluctant admiration for a combination of good fortune and dexterity than a moral enthusiasm. Statesmen, in fact, had to pick their way with such extreme wariness through such a labyrinth of intrigues that little play was permitted to their more generous instincts; and it is undeniable that Elizabeth herself loved intricate methods, and made it quite unnecessarily difficult for her ministers to ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... in the rivers. It buries itself in the mud when cold weather comes. It may lie on a floating log ready to slip into the water at a moment's notice; it may bask on a sunny bank or in the warm shallows. Great wariness is shown in choosing times and places for egg-laying. The mother tramps the earth down upon the buried eggs. All is effective. Similar statements might be made in regard to scores of other reptiles; but what we see is almost wholly of the nature of instinctive routine, ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... lower tier of caves there should be a sentry. His knowledge of his people and their customs told him, however, that in all probability the sentry was asleep. In this he was not mistaken, yet he did not in any way abate his wariness. Smoothly and swiftly he ascended toward the cave of Pan-at-lee while from below Tarzan ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... has done his best to murder him; on the other, Laertes, whose father and sister he has sent to their graves, and of whose behaviour and probable attitude he must surely be informed by Horatio. What is required of him, therefore, if he is not to perish with his duty undone, is the utmost wariness and the swiftest resolution. Yet it is not too much to say that, except when Horatio forces the matter on his attention, he shows no consciousness of this position. He muses in the graveyard on the nothingness of life and fame, and the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... thwarted: then to me This company of spearmen did they grant, That honoured I might walk, nor unaware Die by some secret thrust and on this land Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not. Such boons they gave me: it behoves me pay A deeper reverence from a soul sincere. Ye, to the many words of wariness Spoken by me your father, add this word, That, tried by time, our unknown company Be held for honest: over-swift are tongues To slander strangers, over-light is speech To bring pollution on a stranger's ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... Charles had by this time been made aware of Sir Richard's long course of treachery, and had privately informed Mordaunt of the extraordinary discovery, the fact had been too little divulged to destroy the effects of Sir Richard's counsels of wariness and delay, agreeable as these naturally were to men fearing for their lives and estates and remembering the failure of all previous insurrections. In short, whatever was the cause, August 1, which had been the day fixed ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... middle-class girls not fairly out of their teens, and committed to their own discretion in the huge motley world of London, had been solemnly charged to behave with the greatest wariness. She was to treat every man or woman she encountered well-nigh as a dangerous enemy in disguise till her suspicions were proved to be misplaced, and the stranger shown to Rose's satisfaction and that of her seniors and guardians ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... persistent refusal of a better place also profited him in that it brought to Ensign Sand and the other "officers" the divination that he was one of those shyly anxious souls who have to be enticed into the Kingdom of Heaven with wariness, and they made a great pretence of not noticing him, going on with the exercises just as if he were not there, a consideration which he was able richly to enhance when the plate came round. After his ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... the brothers looked at each other with great love, but there was in it a sense of wariness; and Harry was inclined to bluff what he knew his brother would regard ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... in Peter junior and his red-cheeked sisters. Jock, however, seemed to have been endowed with imbecility instead of a cast. Apart from him, they were all good-looking, despite the family defect; and they were all very reticent this morning. I seemed indeed to trace the father's wariness as well as the cast in each pair of eyes that ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... locality in which Costal and Clara were at that exact moment, he could do nothing more than hope that they might perceive the horsemen first, and conceal themselves while the latter were passing. From Costal's habitual wariness, Don Cornelio felt confident, that the ex-tiger-hunter would be able to keep himself ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... sat in a coffee shop and regarded each other with a certain wariness. "It's like this, at least from where I sit," King said. "About ten years ago a small-town judge named ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... say I enjoy almost anything I get involved in." Barney, still smiling, felt a touch of wariness. He'd been expecting questions from McAllen, but ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz

... her own conclusions, not from the words, but from the wariness, and proceeded: "It is not in appearance only that that she is peculiar, then. She astonished us all last night, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... particularly liked in an audible manner, and perspire upon his forehead. He was a studiously moderate drinker—except when the spirit of some public banquet or some great occasion caught him and bore him beyond his wariness—there he would, as it were, drink inadvertently and become flushed and talkative—about everything but ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... evil smile upon Diggle's face became fixed as he saw that Desmond was no match for him in swordsmanship. But it changed when he found that though his young opponent's science was at fault, his strength and dexterity, his wariness in avoiding a close attack, served him in good stead. Impatient to finish the fight, he took a step forward, and lunged so rapidly that Desmond could hardly have escaped his blade but for an accident. There was a choking sob to his right, and just as Diggle's sword was flashing ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... on rising by the drink he had taken the night before, and by the congested brain which the heaviness of such sleep produced, he could not at first believe that Cutts had altogether abandoned the enterprise—rather thought that, with his habitual wariness, that Ulysses of the Profession had gone forth to collect further information in the neighbourhood of the proposed scene of action. He was not fully undeceived in this belief till somewhat late in the day, when, strolling into the stable-yard, the ostler, concluding from the gentleman's ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... shouted, "Come in!" the door slowly opened about eighteen inches, and a shock head of hair entered the room, from which one lively little gimlet eye went glancing about into every corner. The other eye was closed, but as a perpetual wink to indicate the unsleeping wariness of the owner, or because that hero had really lost the power of using it in some of his numerous encounters with men and beasts, no one, so far as ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... had glimpsed the young man and made out that they had the room to themselves he came out of the chest as lightly and noiselessly as he had enveloped himself in it. But his smile was gone now and in its place there was the wariness of the hunted animal. Still covering Gladwin and surveying the room he ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... that, but it had seemed an insignificant threat against the excitement arising from the grandiose impudence of the plan, the perhaps rather small-boyish delight at being able to put something over, profitably, on the greatest power of all. Even now it might have been only a natural wariness that brought the threat up for a final moment of reflection. He didn't, of course, want to incur Earth government's disapproval. But why believe that he might? On all Roye there would be only three who knew—Wayne Jackson, ...
— Watch the Sky • James H. Schmitz

... fringed chaps, in the fine workmanship of the saddle and bit. The man's finery was overdone, carried with it the suggestion of being on exhibition. But one look at the man himself, sleek and graceful, black-haired and white-toothed, exuding an effect of cold wariness in spite of the masked smiling face, would have been enough to give the lie to any charge of weakness. His fopperies could not conceal the silken strength of him. One meeting with the chill, deep-set eyes was ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... up startled. It was the first time that Sylvia had ever spoken of him to her. A wariness come into ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... (for Germany as well as for England) of preserving their main fighting fleets, may explain the wariness with which they were employed. Instead of risking them desperately, both sides turned to commerce warfare—the Western Powers resorting to blockade and the Germans to submarines. Each of these forms of warfare played a highly ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... began another evening and night and morning of fever, subterfuge, wariness, aching. A round of half-ecstatic torment, out of which he seemed no more able to break than a man can break through the walls of a cell. . ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... and the five moving faster were now ahead of the main force some hundred yards. They swung in a little toward the river. The banks here were highland off to the left was a large swamp. The five now checked speed and moved with great wariness. They saw nothing, and they heard nothing, either, until they went forty or fifty yards farther. Then a low droning sound came to their ears. It was the voice of one yet far away, but they knew it. It was the terrible chant of Queen Esther, in this moment the most ruthless ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... they look behind them carefully enough. The situation was one of stringent torment to a professional and natural spy. Luigi lost count of minutes in his irritation at the mystery, which he took as a personal offence. Some suspicion or wariness existed in the lighted room, for the maestro threw up a window, and inspected the street to right and left. Apparently satisfied he withdrew his head, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... (I never am, and others tell me the same of themselves, confidentially,) for somebody to appear, or start up out of the earth, or from behind some tree or rock? Is it a lingering, inherited remains of man's primitive wariness, from the wild animals? or from his savage ancestry far back? It is not at all nervousness or fear. Seems as if something unknown were possibly lurking in those bushes, or solitary places. Nay, it is quite certain ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... with backstairs packthreads, or in some way compesce the Russian delirium for him. And England, his sole Ally in the world, still tender of Austria, and unable to believe what the full intentions of Austria are; England demands much wariness in his procedures towards Austria; reiterating always, "Wait, your Majesty! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle

... he that holdeth the fisherman's seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an accident it was ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... urged with great persistence as an indispensable condition of friendly relations. The envoys temporized and pointed out that their Government would have to be consulted on the matter of the loan. The wariness of the envoys made Talleyrand's agents the more insistent about getting the "douceur." At one of the interviews Hottinguer exclaimed:— "Gentlemen, you do not speak to the point; it is money; it is ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... bright above me; but there was no brightness in the men and women that trailed out of a small circular hole in the ground. Drab as dock-rats, and pasty pale of countenance as hospital inmates, and with bent backs and dirty, tattered clothes and a mouse-like nosing manner, they emerged with the wariness of hunted refugees; and they flung up their hands with low cries to shield them from the brilliance of the sun, to which they were evidently unaccustomed. From the packs on their backs and the bundles in their hands, I knew that they were emerging from their subterranean ...
— Flight Through Tomorrow • Stanton Arthur Coblentz

... of puzzled wariness surging over him. For an instant the girl hesitated. Then she went on in ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... stupidity and infatuation of the buffalo seems the more remarkable from the contrast it offers to their wildness and wariness at other times. Henry knew all their peculiarities; he had studied them as a scholar studies his books, and he derived quite as much pleasure from the occupation. The buffalo were a kind of companions to him, and as he said, he never felt alone when they were about him. He took great pride in his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... cautiously turned, scanned his back trail with that slow-stirrng wariness of a woodsman who never moves abruptly or without good reason; then he went back a little way, making no sound on the ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... clearly one could read that it was not a little dog that had passed there! There was something furtive in the track; it shied off away from the house and around it, as if eyeing it suspiciously; and then it had the caution and deliberation of the fox,—bold, bold, but not too bold; wariness was in every footprint. If it had been a little dog that had chanced to wander that way, when he crossed my path he would have followed it up to the barn and have gone smelling around for a bone; but this sharp, cautious ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... Balue's own invention. Louis repudiated the treaty of Peronne, under the advice of a body of Notables, all of whom he had nominated and summoned. A new league was organized against him; but the king by his wariness, and by his promptitude in attacking Brittany, gained advantages, so that a truce was concluded with the Burgundian duke in 1472. Philip de Commines, at that time a companion and counselor of Charles, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... then it can be taken as the proper type and likeness of many. Just as in man, there is a universal prudence with respect to all the acts of the virtues; which can be taken as the proper type and likeness of that prudence which in the lion leads to acts of magnanimity, and in the fox to acts of wariness; and so on of the rest. The Divine essence, on account of Its eminence, is in like fashion taken as the proper type of each thing contained therein: hence each one is likened to It according to its proper type. The same applies to the universal form which is in the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... Sicily or in Siam. His spirit, daring even to rashness, self- confident even to negligence, and proud even to insolent ferocity, was awed for the first and for the last time, awed, not into meanness or cowardice, but into wariness and sobriety. For once he ran no risks; he left no crevice unguarded; he wantoned in no paradoxes; above all, he returned no railing for the railing of his enemies. In almost everything that he has written we can discover proofs of genius and learning. But it is only here that his genius and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... eyes of Fontelles and the sullen enraged glance of Carford recalled her to wariness. Yet the avowal (O, that it had pleased God I should hear it!) must have its price and its penalty. A burning flush spread over her face and even to the border of the gown on her neck. But she was proud in her shame, and her eyes met theirs ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... she replied, with obvious difficulty, hesitation. "I'll not thank you. It is terribly difficult for me. I'd like to answer you as you wish, I mean reply to—to your request. But the other, the child, dragged about; there was such a distrust, a wariness, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... a gentle, unsuspicious animal, curious and confiding rather than shy; now it is noted in many regions for its alertness, wariness, and ability to take ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... man of swift decisions and resource, and he knew this was no time to lose his head, nor even to play a waiting game. And he must tread warily. Impulsive as he was by nature he could be as wary as a Red Indian when wariness would serve his purpose. He called up Mr. Dinwiddie on the telephone and asked if he might see him at once. It was only half past nine and Mr. Dinwiddie was just finishing his breakfast in bed, but he told his favorite cordially to ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... appraising eyes on the cow-puncher and then turned them away. They pointedly returned to their own affairs as though to say that, however strange, the advent of this girl accompanied by the lean rider, was none of their business. Again spoke experience and the wariness born of it. ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... hand, the Signoria and the Operai, as who should say the working committee, and who made a hundred difficulties and shook their wise heads, and considered one foolish and futile plan after another with true burgher hesitation and wariness. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... I was she than knew me to be so. My name was public among them indeed, but how to find me out they knew not, nor so much as how to guess at my quarters, whether they were at the east end of the town or the west; and this wariness was my ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... I entered into the thick wood, (my man Friday following me close behind) when with all possible wariness and silence, I marched till I came close to the skirt of it, on that side which was the nearest to them; for only one end of the wood interposed between me and them. Upon which I called very softly to Friday, and shewing him ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... the door, Mr. Carter," said Miss Phyllis, with obvious wariness. "Oh, and it was ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope

... attitude of the Quakers, made vigorous defence impossible. Rewards were offered for prisoners and scalps, so bountiful that the hunting of men would have been a profitable vocation, but for the extreme wariness and agility of the game.[444] Some of the forts were well built stockades; others were almost worthless; but the enemy rarely molested even the feeblest of them, preferring to ravage the lonely and unprotected farms. There were two or three exceptions. A Virginian fort was attacked ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... and stared at them. "I can't quite define that," he answered, word by careful word. "Perhaps I've simply gone spacedizzy. But when we called on Admiral Hulse, and later when he called on us, didn't you get the impression of, well, wariness? Didn't he seem to be watching and probing, ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson

... different affair in the mocking-bird family, as is certainly natural, after the persecution it has endured. No special fear of me was the cause,—it is a marked peculiarity of the bird; and I think, with a little study, one could learn to know exactly the moment the eggs hatch by the sudden silence and wariness of both birds. Poor little creatures! a sympathetic friend hates to add to the anxiety they suffer, and he cannot help a feeling of reproach when the brave little head of the family alights on the fence, and looks him straight in the eye, as if to demand ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... is this, in the mind of a man succeeding in everything he does!' cried Diana, curious despite her wariness. 'Is there to be the revelation of a hairshirt ultimately?—a Journal of Confessions? You succeeded in everything you aimed at, and broke your heart over one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was snoring. The burro had come down to the stream for its morning drink. The mule was awake and browsing. McTeague stood irresolutely by the cold ashes of the camp-fire, looking from side to side with all the suspicion and wariness of a tracked stag. Stronger and stronger grew the strange impulse. It seemed to him that on the next instant he MUST perforce wheel sharply eastward and rush away headlong in a clumsy, lumbering gallop. He fought against it with all the ferocious obstinacy ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... a slice of leg of mutton by informing that it had come from the plate of the Emperor himself; and this slice of mutton, eaten with no little pride, had been a soothing consolation to Mademoiselle Saget's vanity. The wariness of her approach to the stall was, moreover, solely caused by her desire to keep well with the neighbouring shop people, whose premises she was eternally haunting without ever buying anything. Her usual tactics were to quarrel with them as soon as she ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... in this curious world managed to turn his body so that his legs hung over the side of the vaulter's mattress; he faced his audience, a sudden wariness in his eyes. Before venturing a word of explanation, he allowed his gaze to sweep the entire group. They mistook his deliberateness ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... together, and the Boer is a solitary being who meets his fellows solely for the purposes of religion or some festive gathering. Yet ignorant and slow-witted as they are, inborn ability and resolution are not wanting. They have indeed a double measure of wariness and wiliness in their intercourse with strangers, because their habitual suspicion makes them seek in craft the defence for their ignorance of affairs; while their native doggedness is confirmed by their belief in the continued ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... gained a great reputation for wariness; he would not by his good-will engage in any fight which had much uncertainty or hazard; he did not envy the glory of generals whose rash adventures fortune favored with brilliant success, however they were admired by others; ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... highest. Forgiveness is beyond it. Forgive, or ye shall not be forgiven. This ye may do every day; for if ye find not offences, ye feign them; and surely ye may remove your own work, if ye may re-remove another's. To rescue requires more thought and wariness; learn, then, the easier lesson first. Afterward, when ye rescue any from another's violence, or from his own (which oftentimes is more dangerous, as the enemies are within not only the penetrals of ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor



Words linked to "Wariness" :   caution, circumspection, wary, chariness



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