Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Pastel   /pæstˈɛl/   Listen
Pastel

adjective
1.
Lacking in body or vigor.
2.
Delicate and pale in color.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Pastel" Quotes from Famous Books



... scope: it asked nothing of her that she couldn't splendidly give. As from time to time in our delicate communion she turned her face to me with the parody of a look I lost none of the signs of its strange new glory. The expression of the eyes was a bit of pastel put in by a master's thumb; the whole head, stamped with a sort of showy suffering, had gained a fineness from what she had passed through. Yes, Flora was settled for life—nothing could hurt her further. I foresaw the particular ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... French school of her time painted a portrait of Madame de Pompadour: we have one by Boucher, and another by Drouais which Grimm preferred to all others; but the most admirable of all is certainly La Tour's pastel owned by the Louvre. To this we go in order to see la marquise before we allow ourselves to judge of her, or to form the least idea of ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... rapid, delicate pastel study of Honor Desmond, presenting her, as Michael had said, "to the life." The broad brow, the short straight nose, the strength and tenderness of the mouth and chin, the smile that hovered like a light in her serious eyes; every detail was faultlessly rendered. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... the dawn was breaking, and he saw, as he swept down, its pearly pastel shades blending weirdly with that ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich

... discriminating pleasure in the gift, observed with his grave smile: "I didn't suppose I should find any one here who would feel about these things as I do." On another occasion he asked her acceptance of a half-effaced eighteenth century pastel which he had surprisingly picked up in a New York auction-room. "I know no one but you who would really ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... rhythm, color, appreciation of the beautiful: Inhibitions melted away in the amber light that enfolded him. Lovely things he had read or seen or thought and kept to himself for lack of expression formed themselves into words of exquisite simplicity that were to his ear as pastel shades to the eye. He could sing then, as he never sang at other times. Music that was felt, rather than heard, swayed him, and his feet, his hands, his whole body longed to dance and interpret ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... instead of washing them; who decks them out in imitation lace collars, and cheap jewelry, with bows on their hair, but holes in their stockings; who dazzles their eyes with bright lights and commercial signs, and fills their ears with blatant music, until their eyes are too dull to see the pastel beauty of common things, and their ears are holden to the still small voices of God; who lures her children on with many glittering promises of ease and wealth, which she never intends to keep, and all the time whispers to ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... a very short time the colors of that pastel will have disappeared. The portrait will only survive in your memory. Where you will still see the face that is dear to you, others will see nothing at all. Will you allow me to reproduce the likeness on canvas? It will be more permanently recorded then than on that sheet of paper. ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac

... were hanging there—one that of a young man of the good old times, smiling with red lips and brown eyes, a pastel in an oval frame. Another medallion held the portrait of his wife, gay, piquante, in a bodice with ribbons fluttering, and with a bird perched on her finger. It was the old aunt in her youth, and further search discovered her ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... than L'Art Moderne. The Croquis Parisiens, which, in its first edition, was illustrated by etchings of Forain and Raffaelli, is simply the attempt to do in words what those artists have done in aquafortis or in pastel. There are the same Parisian types—the omnibus-conductor, the washerwoman, the man who sells hot chestnuts—the same impressions of a sick and sorry landscape, La Bievre, for preference, in all its desolate and lamentable ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... you?" asked Mary coolly. "Isn't that just what is the matter? The sex-imagination often outlives the withering of the sex-glands. Come now, admit it. Forget that you are a pastel-tinted remnant of the old order and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... hung various drawings of hands, of hearts, and of heads, and over the plain mantelpiece was a really fine pastel portrait of a man, in eighteenth century dress and ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... "let old rose come near you, if you've got freckles or sandy hair. Don't you notice, Anne, how I cling to all the soft pastel nondescript tones? That's because my eldest sister is an artist, and we all have to live up to it more or less now. When Jean wants a new dress she slips away and communes with nature, until she's hit ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... the slight pause young Nicholas was heard saying gently that Violet (his fourth) was taking lessons in pastel, he didn't know ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... statesman—who happens to be an en disponibilite for the moment—but you spend not a little of your time in besmearing canvas with bright-coloured pigments. The idea of representation fascinates you, but in your case it's representation in oils—or do you practise water-colours and pastel too? You even go much further than I, for I study my art of predilection only in the works of others. I don't aspire to leave works of my own. You're a painter, possibly a great one; but I'm not an actor." Nick Dormer declared he would certainly become one—he was so well on the way to it; ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... looked different. It was suddenly a mixture of muddled colors, instead of the carefully blended pastel shades he had selected. The lines of wall, floor and ceiling were strangely off proportion, ...
— Warm • Robert Sheckley

... of them," she answered languidly. "Do you remember that pastel? Ah, surely you do—from ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... in his room for years," sobbed Lady Kingsmead, forgetting her complexion. "Did you see the pastel of me on the wall between the windows? And I gave him the clock, too, for his thirty-fifth birthday. Oh, Brigit! He loved me insanely, poor Gerald, perfectly madly, and so did I." She broke off, to her ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... "The little pastel? It is a sketch of my daughter Matilda. I did it myself when she was here last Christmas. Poor child, she can only come for the holidays; there is no chance of a respectable education o this island. But I can run over to see her every now ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... says Mame as she tacks and worms her way through this accumulation of things, all covered with a downy layer of dust like the corners of pastel pictures. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... Nioche looked over his spectacles with tearful eyes and nodded several times with a world of sadness. "She has had an education—tres-superieure! Nothing was spared. Lessons in pastel at ten francs the lesson, lessons in oil at twelve francs. I didn't look at the francs then. She's an ...
— The American • Henry James

... stand out clearest in my memory, but there wuz everything else there admirable and choice in art, paintings in oil, wax; on canvas, wood, enamel, metal, fresco paintings on walls and ceilings. Water colors, chalk, pastel, ivory, pyrography. Engravings, etchings, figgers in marble, metal, plaster. Carvings in ivory, stone, wood, etc. Architectural designs of all kinds; mosaics; art work in glass, earthen ware, leather, metal; artistic book binding and etc., ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... medicated or flavored tablet; tablet containing aromatic substances burned to fumigate or deodorize the air; pastel paste ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... rich and yellow on the fields, and almost perceptibly the pale green of the wheat is absorbing the golden hue of the air. The painted cup has faded from rosy pink to a dull, ashy color, and the few wild roses which are still to be seen in the shaded places have paled to a pastel shade. The purple and yellow of goldenrod, wild sage, gallardia, and coxcomb are to be seen everywhere—the strong, bold colors of ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... orchid, were as elusive as the subtle scent of this tropical bloom. The whole diffusing into something so indescribable that even the spontaneous girls failed for once to rally immediately to a sense of reality. It seemed like a dream, like a picture book, or even a wonderful pastel! ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... on the hilltop o'erlooking this wondrous city and by his magic power, being filled with music, with color-music, he cast a spell and behold a pastel city by the sea - such an one as only those who dream could think of; a city glowing with warmth of color, with a softness and mystical charm such as only the brain of Jules ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James

... world of silken rustles and cool soprano laughter and scents of many slain but living flowers. The Minnies and Pearls and jewels and jennies would gather round her like courtiers, bearing wispy frailties of Georgette crepe, delicate chiffon to echo her cheeks in faint pastel, milky lace to rest in pale disarray against her neck—damask was used but to cover priests and divans in these days, and cloth of Samarand was remembered only by the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... Jacob Desmalter manufactured by the gross in 1806, covering them with a silken green stuff bearing a design of white geometric circles. Above this piece of furniture hung a portrait of Bridau, done in pastel by the hand of an amateur, which at once attracted the eye. Though art might have something to say against it, no one could fail to recognize the firmness of the noble and obscure citizen upon that brow. The serenity of the eyes, gentle, yet proud, was well given; the sagacious ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... leaned forward, took her hand with the silver tablespoon in it, and kissed it gently. He admired her as he would admire some charming soft pastel hung in ...
— Mrs. Dud's Sister • Josephine Daskam

... the corridor of the battleship Shane, holding the flashlight in one hand and using the other hand and his good leg to guide and propel himself by. The beam of the torch reflected queerly from the pastel green walls of the corridor, giving him the uneasy sensation that he was swimming underwater instead of moving through the blasted hulk of a battleship, ...
— The Measure of a Man • Randall Garrett

... They often spent the evening with Kosciuszko, and on their farewell visit Kosciuszko gave the younger prince a pair of fur boots. But the man with whom Kosciuszko was on the closest and warmest terms of intimacy was Thomas Jefferson. The pastel portrait that Kosciuszko painted of this dear friend is preserved among Poland's national relics. "He," wrote Jefferson to Gates, "is the purest son of liberty among you all that I have ever known, the kind of liberty which extends to ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... for the main impression is derived from light, and the colours are therefore far more glowing than they could ever be reproduced on canvas. Nor can the changing effects be reproduced on a stationary medium. The nearest approach to the glory of a Tibet sunset which I have seen is a picture in pastel by Simon de Bussy a sunset in the Alps. But all pictures—even Turner's;—can only draw attention to the glory and show us what to look for. They cannot reproduce the impression in full. The medium through which the artist has to work—the paints and the canvas—are inadequate ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband

... flowered gown, with powdered ringlets sweeping her naked shoulders, that had an inexpressible charm in their spare outlines suggestive of the bitter-sweet taste of an unripe fruit. She reminded him in this attire of some old-time pastel of gallant ladies such as the bookbinder's son had pored over in the dealers' shops on the Quai Voltaire. Anon she would be crowned with a hawk's crest, girdled with plaques of gold on which were traced magic symbols in clustered rubies, clad in the barbaric splendour ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... a highly poetic pastel that displays the soul of man surprised in the first post-mortem ambuscades. There a figure, beautiful or revolting, cries at him: "I am thyself, the image of ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus



Words linked to "Pastel" :   spectral color, chromatic color, spectral colour, chromatic colour, light-colored, light, delicate



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com