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Sigh   /saɪ/   Listen
Sigh

verb
(past & past part. sighed; pres. part. sighing)
1.
Heave or utter a sigh; breathe deeply and heavily.  Synonym: suspire.
2.
Utter with a sigh.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sigh" Quotes from Famous Books



... with a sigh, We wondered... Our minds evolved grim hordes of huns, Our bruised hearts sank beneath the guns, On our very souls they thundered. Can you wonder?—Can you wonder, That we wondered, As we heard the huns' guns thunder? That we looked in one another's ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham

... in this trial which may be worth observing. A letter between Mary and Babington was read, in which mention was made of the earl of Arundel and his brothers: on hearing their names, she broke into a sigh. "Alas," said she, "what has the noble house of the Howards suffered for my sake!" She affirmed, with regard to the same letter, that it was easy to forge the handwriting and cipher of another; she was afraid that this was too familiar a practice with Walsingham, who, she also heard, had frequently ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... presented a sight which would have appealed strongly to their distant friends in the east had they been able to see it. Seldom did any figure stir and the weird silence was unbroken save by an occasional sigh of the wind as it swept past the dwarfed trees ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... great, deep sigh of thankfulness, and leaned limply back in the carriage. "Oh, papa," she exclaimed, "you can't imagine what a relief it is to hear that! I felt so much to blame, that now it seems as if a great weight had been lifted ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston

... discontent which leaves no possible margin for hope for the morrow. If one could only make a virtue of the resignation which is thrust upon one by an undaunted destiny," she concluded with a long-drawn sigh, "one might be the better ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... I am not the only one, nearly all the stage-coaches in France have been deported like me; we were found too old fashioned and now here we all are, leading a life of slavery." Here the old coach gave a long sigh, then she went on: "I can't tell you monsieur Tartarin how much I miss my lovely Tarascon. These were good times for me, the time of my youth. You should have seen me leaving in the morning, freshly washed and polished, with new varnish on my ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... always so in life," he continued, with a sigh, "we must not be discontented because the best we can get is not the best we can imagine. I am still young, but not too young to have kn—- Let us not talk about that. What did you think of the play ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones

... unhappy Timocles," he said; and heaving a deep sigh, he resumed his pious pilgrimage through ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... upon the taffrail, and putting a speaking-trumpet to his lips, shouted, "What ship is that?" A dead silence followed. Those on the "President" listened intently for the answer; but no sound was heard save the sigh of the wind through the cordage, the creaking of the spars, and the rush of the water alongside. Rodgers hailed again; and, before the sound of his words had died away, a quick flash of fire leaped from the stern-ports of the chase, and a shot whizzed through ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... exploding. Sometimes those puffs were perilously close to it; at such times our hearts were in our mouths. Everybody in the trench craned his neck to see. When our aeroplane man[oe]uvered clear you could hear a sigh of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... sigh, the vain parade of woe, No real anguish to the soul impart; And oft, alas! the tear that friends bestow Belies the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... sigh like a faint moan. But Max was silent. He could spare her nothing. She must go on to the end—if the end were death. For there was somebody else, somewhere, who had to be put in his place—the place ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... murmured Dan, leaning back, with a contented sigh, after the meal was over; "there are worse things than ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock

... yielding of inclination, the capricious festoons of fantasy; the sadness of sickly joys born dying, flowers of mourning like the black roses, the very perfume of whose gloomy leaves is depressing, and whose petals are so frail that the faintest sigh is sufficient to detach them from the fragile stem; sudden flames without thought, like the false shining of that decayed and dead wood which only glitters in obscurity and crumbles at the touch; pleasures without past ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... on the curb was bubbling over with merry discords, and was flanked by garrulous Italians with push-carts, lighted by flaring torches. Men were returning from work, children were quarreling, women were in doorways, and a policeman was gossiping with the footman in a knot of watching idlers. With a sigh that was like a groan, Mrs. Hastings sank back on the cushions of ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... lived a Tsar named Kartaus, who had twelve knights, and the Tsar had a chief over these knights, Prince Lasar Lasarevich. Prince Lasar and his wife, the Princess Epistimia, lived for seventy years and had no child; and they began, with tears, to sigh for one to cheer their old age, and to pray ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various

... he was prepared to pay; and he gave the saint little time to picture her fascinations. Nor did Sidi Mohammed talk of the girl, or of her relationship to one placed near him; and his face (which he unmasked with a sigh of relief when he and his friend were alone) did not change as he listened, or asked questions about the services Maieddine would render the Cause. At first he seemed to doubt the possibility of keeping such promises, some of which depended upon the Agha; but Maieddine's enthusiasm ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... thinking of one who has loved you long, with such devotion, with such self-abnegation, with such an ardent desire to become worthy of you, that I could not but sigh over his disappointment. But this sudden affection of yours may ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... Delilah, with a sigh, "I should think you had far rather be editor of the Post, for example, ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... priest, who was in a terrible fright. Escudero and Cermeno were hanged; Umbria had his feet cut off, and each of the sailors received 200 lashes. When Cortes signed the ratification of this sentence, he exclaimed with a sigh: "Happy is he who cannot write, that he may not have occasion to sign the death-warrants of other men." In my opinion, this sentiment is often affected by judges, in imitation of Nero, at the time he counterfeited the appearance of clemency. As soon as the sentence was put in execution, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... has lost a battle," he said, with a sigh. "This is a twofold calamity for us. You know that we could not come sooner. We arrived even at an earlier hour than I had promised. You will see that the whole blame for the loss of the battle will be laid at our door, and we shall be charged with ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... excited to listen to the advice. He continued to dance around. Bang! went another ball and entered the cabin of the steam yacht. Bang! came the final one and that too disappeared into the interior of the craft. Then the Roman candle went out, and Hans breathed a sigh of relief. ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer

... they worked quietly, they were both very industrious; and at last one day, late in October, when the first snow was beginning to fall, Brother Stephen finished the last page of the beautiful book. He gave a sigh as he laid down his paintbrush; not because he was tired, but because in his heart he was really sorry to finish his work, for he knew that then it would soon be taken away, and he hated to part ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein

... did," said Rachel, with a significant sigh; but her cousin had no time to attend, for they were turning in a pepper-box lodge. The boys were told that they were arrived, and they were at the door of a sort of overgrown Swiss cottage, where Mrs. Curtis and Grace ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... impossible to take offence at his assiduities, and she even began to like him in spite of former prejudices. Though it was evident that the freedom of her hand had renewed his former hopes, still no words of his ever betrayed their revival; only sometimes a suppressed sigh, the trembling of his hand as it touched hers, gave evidence ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... wearily on the doorstep of Aun' Jinkey's cabin where the reader first made her acquaintance. She drew a long sigh. "Oh, I must rest and get my breath. So ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... With a sigh of relief Julia Cloud shut the door and went back to her window and the dreary landscape. It was time for a sunset, but the sky was leaden. There Would be nothing but grayness to look at, grayness in front of her, grayness behind in the dim, silent room. It was like her life, her long, gray life, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... people! It is sometimes carried to the houses of the sick, being supposed to possess miraculous healing properties. After duly displaying this treasure, the monk carefully replaced it, locking it up with a profound sigh. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... limp lettuce to his fevered brow, took his temperature with my theodolite, and pressing a copy of Home Chat into his unresisting hand, passed on with a sigh. I think I should have stayed with him but for the abnormal obtusity ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas

... Richard took the mug in his hands and purred over it possessively. With a sigh of absolute content he raised it to his lips. Then a scream broke from him—harsh, strident, savage. There were no soft spots in the walls of Hugo Van Diest's fortress. The water ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... down upon me. Eighteen came to-day." Such is the burdened sigh of one of our earnest, self-denying missionaries, who is upon the mission field that she may relieve the suffering, teach the ignorant and save souls, and for whom the days are all too short ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various

... to the meal, however, and filled in so thoroughly that his round little pod of a stomach was a burden to carry. He therefore dropped himself down on the floor, breathed out a sigh of contentment, and ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... the heavy packing-cases, and the bitterly cold nights when one lay at the mouth of the tomb under the stars, dragged on for many a week; and when at last the long train of boxes was carried down to the Nile en route for the Cairo Museum, it was with a sigh of relief that the official ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... the knight took it up; He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, With a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye. He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar; "Now tread we a ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... holy Mother of God!" she gasped in a long-drawn, quivering sigh as she bent a dishevelled head over the little one, and, between intervals of silence, fell to uttering soft, abrupt exclamations. Then, opening her ineffably beautiful blue eyes, the hallowed eyes of a mother, she raised ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... and Wetherell heard the question with different emotions. Mr. Parkinson did not seem astonished at the miracle which had put Jethro in possession of this information, but heaved a long sigh of relief, as a man will when the worst ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Tim turn in at the Lodge gates than he became the same sweet, docile little creature that had trotted out, and as Mrs. Raeburn watched him come down the avenue she gave a sigh of relief. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... finished, Nell came to where Douglas was sitting and took a chair by his side. A slight sigh of relief escaped her lips, which Douglas was ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... at once a keen poetic insight, fine composition, and an unusual mastery of technical details. The obedient fellow had bowed to what he deemed my better judgment, and turned away, with something of a sigh, from his dear love and ambition. Now, however, this love came suddenly back, and with tenfold intensity, as is always the case, and, though I dreaded its unhealthiness, I could no longer thwart him. Indeed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... steal. Their language is entirely uttered through their throats, and they cluck with their tongues in so strange a manner, that, in seven weeks which we remained here, the sharpest wit among us could not learn one word of their language, yet the natives soon understood every sigh we made them. While we staid at this bay, we had such royal refreshing that all our men recovered their health and strength, except four or five. Including these, and before we came in, we lost out of all our ships 105 men; yet, on leaving this bay,[103] we reckoned ourselves stronger ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... with a sigh of resignation; "you must do as you please. I suppose your reason is a good one, though you don't ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... child, that I have not been without misfortune in this life. When I lost your dear mother my heart was for a long time like a dry and barren garden, whose soil, burned by the sun, cracks open, and seems to sigh for rain. In this way I languished, thirsting for consolation, and at last I found it in the Lord. Oh, my dear daughter, there will be days in your life when your heart also will be like dry and barren ground; but let it not dishearten you. As the thirsty ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid

... not given Maude anything of value of late. Decidedly, this was of value; Mr. Garner named the price glibly; if Mrs. Paret didn't care for it, it might be brought back or exchanged. I took it, with a sigh of relief. Leaving the store, I paused on the edge of the rushing stream of humanity, with the problem of the children's gifts still to be solved. I thought of my own childhood, when at Christmastide I had walked with my mother up ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... with hurried words and accents wild; Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. No trembling word the mother's joy revealed, One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed; Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, But kept their words to ponder ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... but, just at that moment, thanks to our having lightened the ship, and also to the tide, which fortunately began to rise, the Hercule swayed for a few minutes on her sandy bed, and then began to float. A sigh of relief broke from every breast, especially from those of the captain and the unlucky officer of the watch, whose carelessness had been the original cause ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... pleased the cardinal much, for the wily Italian saw he would soon get his abbey back again. The Touranian, heeding not the brewing storm avoided it by walking out silently with his ears down, like a wet dog being kicked out of a Church. Madame drew a sigh from her heart. She must have had her own ideas of humanity for the little value she held in it. The fire which possessed her had mounted to her head, and scintillated in rays about her, and there was good reason for it, for this was the first time that she had been humbugged ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... started at this discourse. He turned his eyes on the surgeon with a fixed regard; his countenance changed; a torrent of tears gushed down his cheeks; his head sunk upon his bosom; he heaved a profound sigh, and remained in silence with all the external marks of unutterable sorrow. The company were, in some measure, infected by his despondence, concerning the cause of which, however, they would not ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... away Ned ran back to the buttonwood tree, and watched the blurred shape of the boat as it came down the channel. He breathed a sigh of relief when it passed out from the islands and continued on through the gloom, for his first thought had been that some danger menaced ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... standing upon the threshold shading his eyes as longingly he gazes along the road which climbs the distant hill. A world of trouble is in his eyes. "Yonder young fool who has wandered away is not worth a single sigh of this grand old man," we say. "He is reaping as he has sown," we moralise. Time was when this youth went brightly to and fro in the homestead, when innocence sat throned upon his forehead, when truth shone brightly from his ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... drop with a sigh of relief, she shook hands with Dove, and Dove—to Madeleine's diversion and Maurice's intense disgust—introduced Maurice to her as his friend. She looked full at the latter, and held out her hand; but before he could take it, she ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... set off early,' I said, 'so as not to have to go too fast and be tired when we get there. I don't mind for coming back about being tired; there'll be nothing to do then but go to bed, it'll all be over!' and I gave a little sigh, 'but I don't want to think about ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... answer but a sigh. What was the good of saying that, in my present state of mind, health was a matter of ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... and characteristic. He sank down now in despair. He asked himself how she could have been so cruel. A sudden fear got him on his feet again and into the passage, where stood a cupboard in which he kept his clothes. He opened it and gave a sigh of relief. She had apparently forgotten it and none of his things ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... sigh old Gid stepped back, and sadly he looked upon the young men as they took their places. "Yes, I'm getting old, John, but you needn't keep telling me ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... once inserted an angry note in one of his poems against Garrick, who had, as he imagined, used him ill; but going afterwards to see the great actor in King Lear, he listened to the first three acts without saying a word, and after a fine passage in the fourth, heaved a deep sigh, and turning to his companion said, "I wish that note was out of my book." Had he foreseen the noise his several friends continued to make, even after his death, about this purely imaginary offence on the part of Adam Smith, the ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... How could she stay away from the friends who were gathering at the college? How could she live without her piano? How could she keep a smile so that the dear ones at home would not see how unhappy she was becoming? The house seemed so big and bare; the trees in the yard seemed to sigh instead of sing; the way ahead seemed full of blackness. She longed for all that had gone; she longed for her friends, especially the one who had been her ideal during her college days; she longed to run back to him ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston

... a craft to carry us away is gone," observed the first lieutenant, with a sigh. "Well, we must bear our lot patiently, and maybe some friendly craft may heave in sight. And if a friend does not come, why, perhaps an enemy will; and if so, we must capture her, and change places with ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... have been sweeter to him than her sympathy, except happiness itself. "Yes," he admitted, with a great sigh, "I am very unhappy, but you understand me, and that is a little comfort. If you should marry Bob Clinton—Grace, tell me you'll ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... heaved a sigh of relief. Wag sat down on a book and looked reproachfully upon me. Neither said a word. I was very much ashamed, and begged their pardon as nicely as I knew how. Luckily Wag was soon convinced that I was not in earnest, and he recovered ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James

... four years. Other people stop him for four years. Then with a long happy sigh, at the end of his term, he slips back into real life ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... to be enough," he said with a sigh after his lively exertion. "You don't know how I'll appreciate your ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... never had noticed before; she threw her long legs round me and with her equally long arms tried to feel my balls from behind. Then a certain feeling of constriction in her cunt seemed to hurt, but it brought me to the crisis just as with a last wriggle and sigh her limbs relaxed, and she became quiet. I laid for some time in her, but although gradually reducing, my prick did not come out. I attempted to withdraw it, and it seemed sore and as if something caught the knob and kept it back. At length out ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... She forced a sigh as of a self-effacing resignation, but upon her face there lurked, in spite of her, a little smirk of satisfaction—of snobbery which had been gratified, at last, after many disappointments. Her manner had changed utterly. Her tones were honeyed, now; her glance was ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... reached the eminent deadly pinnacle of disgrace," Barney said, with a sigh, as a group of Company K watched the considerable number taken out of McDowell's small army, "but this sight makes me feel like the man on trial for murder who escapes with a ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... to do it, after what he did for me," mused the colonel with a sigh. "But business is business from now on. I'm officially in the case, and I ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele

... sigh. Dejectedly, his head fell forward until his chin rested upon his chest. Much to the relief of the president, it appeared evident that Lieutenant Hardy was about to accede to ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... a deep sigh. The parting with an only son, and with thirty thousand dollars, at one and the same time, affected him deeply. He might have borne the loss of the son; but the loss of so much money rent his small, black soul into fragments. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... strawberry jam an' angel cake an' water cress, fer tea—fer your visitors," said Mrs. Trapes, with a patient sigh. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... the bird had disappeared. Then he breathed a deep sigh of relief, and examined his wounds. His hands were bleeding, and such clothes as he had were literally torn into shreds. He was so weak that he could hardly stand, and he sank down ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... last glimpse. Ah! it never used to shine like that when you could see it from those windows every day; you almost wish your departure had been put off till the morrow; you think if you were back again, the walks would not be so very melancholy, the rooms no longer so dull and gloomy. You sigh because you are leaving it, and wonder at yourself for doing so. It is the same thing with friends, and more especially with those who would fain assume a tenderer title: we never know their value but ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... But Lord Evelyn's did not. Lord Evelyn, very tall and thin, and swaying to and fro on his heels, looked at Peter, turning redder than before; and Peter turned red too, and gave a little apprehensive, unhappy sigh, because he knew that the fat was at last ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... fault," said Joan. "You would hurry it. Directly I said, 'When we get our camera we shall be able to take photographs of the shorthorns,' you heaved a silly great sigh and said, 'It takes such a long time to save up with only a shilling a week pocket-money,' and of course what could he say but that when he was our ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... the main point was that Katharine Hilbery would do; she would do for weeks, perhaps for months. In taking her he had provided himself with something the lack of which had left a bare place in his mind for a considerable time. He gave a sigh of satisfaction; his consciousness of his actual position somewhere in the neighborhood of Knightsbridge returned to him, and he was soon speeding ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... scene comported with the whole tenor of his life. Although in extreme pain, not a sigh, not a groan escaped him; and with undisturbed serenity he closed his well-spent life. Such was the man America has lost; such was the man for ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... is an old man, and he was my lord's best-loved servant. He would have died for my lord, and joyfully; and now he is turned adrift, to die to no purpose. Ah, well." He heaved a deep sigh and fell silent, whilst I—the pent-up anguish in me suddenly released to hear my thoughts thus ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... A tremulous sigh warned him. He shut his eyes, feigned sleep. He felt rather than saw Betty sit up with a start, release his hand. Then very gently she moved that arm back under the blanket, reached across him and patted the covers close about his body, ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... Johnny, with a sigh of relief, as he wiped from his brow the perspiration that had been forced out by his mental exertions, and he began to realize that a knowledge of the multiplication table was very useful to a person in any line ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis

... love may be That cometh to all but not to me. It cannot be kind as they'd imply, Or why do these gentle ladies sigh? It cannot be joy and rapture deep, Or why do these gentle ladies weep? It cannot be blissful, as 'tis said, Or why are ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... night. The play is rotten, the acting poor, but N. has to praise. He writes briefly: "The play and the leading actress had an enormous success. Particulars to-morrow." As he wrote the last two words, he gave a sigh of relief. Next day he goes to X.; she opens the door, allows him to kiss and embrace her, and in a cutting ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

... nets, and danced off. Following her quickly, Mrs. Wright shut and barricaded the door. More than that. With Estelle's assistance, she drew the chest of drawers across it. The window was too high for danger to threaten from that quarter. With a sigh of relief she sat down, after a glance into one of the drawers. Jack's pistols were there, safe enough, in case they should be wanted. She would load them as soon as the child was asleep. She left the two ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... pitiful production of Regulus in the Forum, like a Cheap Jack, pitching your voice high, as Demosthenes says, shouting with delight, and straining every muscle in your throat. For it is so absurd that it will make you laugh rather than sigh, and you would think it was written not about a boy but ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... "Don't sigh, Patsy, old girl. It really isn't worth it, you know. How is the supply of choc's ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... With a sigh, Maya pushed the hat off her face and stared with exotically slanted black eyes at the shining blur of the dome hundreds of feet above her. She sat up, hugging ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... attention of readers who, according to their various tempers, feel either inclined to laugh at or sigh over the follies ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... doubt which seemeth to be resident in the minds of men one for the other. By my troth, we can seldom point with certainty in these days to one of our fellow creatures, and say truly, I know him to be good and free from treason. It would, I swear," he continued, with a sigh, "little surprise me, to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury had been seen to hold his crosier for a pretty wench to leap across, that he might the better gaze upon her ankles. Thou art a man grown; therefore, I can but counsel. But this I know: love for one below thy station, though ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... weep. She felt as if she were stifling. She covered her face with her hands and turned toward the wall. A sharp, nervous trembling shook her from head to foot. An occasional sobbing sigh or, rather, gasp escaped from her lips, while she pressed her clenched hands more tightly on her eyes, as if to increase the darkness of the abyss in which she felt herself ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... cut off and Wicks, with a sigh of boredom, settled back in his chair once more and gave ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... an' looked out o' the window a minute an' fetched a sigh an' struck out, lookin' like Deacon Bristow the day he give ten dollars to the church. She told about the cities an' the folks an' the weather in that queer, English ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller

... read. As he read his face lightened, and he fetched such a sigh of relief, that Mrs. Bolton ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... said, with a sigh of relief. "I've known him for the past year or two, and he'll settle all ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... we moved him on to the stretcher, with a little sigh he fainted again. He had a bad stomach-wound. Before picking up the stretcher, the Feldscher wiped his ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... all day to rain on the roof, or wind in pine trees; to sit all day by a waterfall reading exquisite, artificial, monotonous Persian poems about an oasis-garden where it is always spring—where roses bloom and lovers sigh, and nightingales lament without ceasing, and white-robed figures sit in groups by the running water and discuss all day, and day after day, ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... dutiful nature agreed, the result in her of an unconquerable old Adam which had never yet felt the transforming touch of grace. When his tall, powerful figure had disappeared beyond the rise at the end of the lot, she gave a great willful sigh, as if she depended on it to ease her heart, put her apron to her eyes, and held it there, pressing ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... continued, with a sigh, "and then he would go on to say, that 'if it was wrong to go to the right, of course it must be right to go the other way.' At first I used to be a good deal puzzled, and said, 'But suppose my mind, when I receive a sum of money, should suggest ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... last it was farewell to the gallant old Indianian and her ornate, dignified prestige. With a sigh the London Times confessed: "We must run a race with our gigantic and unshackled rival. We must set our long-practised skill, our steady industry, and our dogged determination against his youth, ingenuity, and ardor. Let our shipbuilders and employers take warning in time. There will always be ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... Chambered Nautilus" strikes the chord of noble sentiment sounded in the last stanza of "Thanatopsis" and it will continue to sing in our hearts "As the swift seasons roll." There is in his poems the smile and the sigh of the well-loved stanza, ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... sigh of ecstasy at his unobstructed view. "It's Still Jim Manning. His father just got killed. He's boss ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... other men," he returned, with a sigh. "My affections are not given indiscriminately; but ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... apparently did not, for she was backing against the little friend, and very much endangering his position on the table. But, on this hint, she turned to admire his classical and intellectual lineaments, and turning again to Mr Dombey, said, with a sigh, that she ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... to apply her remedies; and soon a faint color came back to the cheek, and with a long sigh, the great blue eyes opened once more, and the little ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... pendulum-like high above the floor, watching with a small frown of curiosity growing upon her forehead, while he stooped without a word of explanation and dragged a bulky package from the table and placed it beside her. Then she sighed aloud, an audible sigh of sheer surprise after he had broken the string and drawn ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... only when we place God at the End, not at the Beginning, that the Universe falls into order. God is an Unutterable Sigh in the Human Heart, said the old German mystic. And therewith said ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... the good day, there was the organ in the sitting-room, and upon my first entering the room, and seeing the instrument I had drawn a deep sigh of inward delight. To find an organ, yes, two of them, for there was also one standing in the schoolroom, or little church, was to feel sure of many bright and happy hours during the coming winter, and I felt more than ever that for strangers in the Arctic ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... sigh of relief, and then burst out laughing at the thought of the gentleman with the fair moustachios. On the seat opposite to her somebody had thoughtfully placed a number of the day's papers. She took up the first that came to hand and glanced at it idly ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard

... again with a meaningless whisper; her lids closed after a moment, her breast rose with a light sigh, and she fell into a deep sleep, for which the physician had been waiting, and after which she would return to health, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... marriage Prince Camaralzaman dreamt one night that he saw his father Schahzaman on his death-bed, and heard him speak thus to his attendants: 'My son, my son, whom I so tenderly loved, has abandoned me.' He awoke with a great sigh, which aroused the princess, who asked him the cause of it. Next morning the princess went to her own father, and finding him alone kissed his hand and thus addressed herself to him: 'Sir, I have a ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... gathered from the tree The apple, cause of all our woe, Christ ne'er inspired so fair a she. A graceful form, not high nor low, A model of just symmetry, A skin whose purity and glow The rarest amethyst surpass; So fair is she for whom I sigh. But vain are all my sighs, alas! She heeds ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... by the injustice of men, and his marriage with Miss Milbank had undermined his peace and happiness. How, then, could he escape the occasional pangs of grief, and not betray outwardly the pain which devoured him inwardly. In such moments it was a relief to him to heave a sigh, or take up a pen to vent his grief in rhyme. His misanthropy was quite foreign to his nature. All those who knew him can bear testimony to the falseness ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... were none in him: and lamenting their own woful condition to live without him. Thus for three or four mornings they do rise early, and lament in this manner, also on evenings. Mean while the men stand still and sigh. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... the sky, And darkens on the dewy slopes; Chill airs on rustling wings flit by, Sad as the sigh o'er buried hopes: I tread the cloistered walk alone, Between the shadow and the light, While from the church tower thronging down Pale phantoms greet ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... lost paradise, or some one who was only then seen to have acted as a friend. But we live through our days of happiness without noticing them; it is only when evil comes upon us that we wish them back. A thousand gay and pleasant hours are wasted in ill-humor; we let them slip by unenjoyed, and sigh for them in vain when the sky is overcast. Those present moments that are bearable, be they never so trite and common,—passed by in indifference, or, it may be, impatiently pushed away,—those are the ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... he used to talk of the joint engagements they would get by-and-by—"not in snide shows like this, but in first-class halls"—and of how tremendously happy they were going to be. And then Clairette would stifle a sigh and say, "Oh, yes, of course!" and try to persuade herself that she ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... Positivist had at command. David was captured by it, by the flight of the scientific imagination through time and space, amid suns, planets and nebulae, the beginnings and the wrecks of worlds. When he laid it down with a sigh of pleasure, Ancrum, who was sitting opposite, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the Table, "Now, you know we are not able: How foolishly you talk, When you know we cannot walk!" Said the Table with a sigh, "It can do no harm to try. I've as many legs as you: Why can't ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor

... sigh. "I'm so glad," she said. Her breath fanned my cheek. It was aromatic, intoxicating. Her lips ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... a chair for her, and laid down the deed which he had been examining, with a little sigh of relief. It really was very hard work ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the page to the light, replaced it on the table, stood up and looked at it, and finally sat down again, her elbows on the paper, and her tapering fingers in the little brown curls at the sides of her head. Presently she raised her head, with a sigh. "It is of no use," she said. "I must go and ask him what this means; that is, if he ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... page story crowded this one of the main headlines. With a sigh of relief, I glanced at the new thriller, found it had something to do with the Navy Department, and that it came from as far away as Washington. There was no reason now why others could not carry on the graft story, and I left, not unwillingly. My special work just now was ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... courage and support; and when he thinks how speedily it will become almost as big as his body, how high it will rank on the list of double relishes, and with what ecstasies it will be eaten by the fanciers "des Foies gras," he submits to his destiny without a sigh. The famous Strasburg pies are made with livers thus prepared, and sell for an ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... end of the car came adventuring along the aisle after the swaying, clutching manner of tired, fretty children on trains. Hesitating a moment, she stared up utterly unsmilingly into the Salesman's beaming face, ignored the Youngish Girl's inviting hand, and with a sudden little chuckling sigh of contentment, climbed up clumsily into the empty place beside the Young Electrician, rummaged bustlingly around with its hands and feet for an instant, in a petulant effort to make a comfortable nest for itself, and then snuggled down at last, lolling half-way across the Young Electrician's ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... of the half-hour we dropped our packs. Dick had manifested no impatience—not once had he even asked how nearly time was up—but now he breathed a deep sigh of relief. ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... picking out its descriptive expressions; then suddenly wings flashing open and the imagination in the firmament, where it is always at home. Follow the pitiful inventory of insignificances of the forlorn being he describes with a pathetic humor more likely to bring a sigh than a smile, and then mark the grand hyperbole of the last two lines. The passage is from the ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... to sigh again, and Lady Alicia, with a boldness that surprised herself, and a perspicacity that would have surprised her friends, asked, "How could they—I ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... and seemed to lend an ear. There was not a murmur, sigh, rustle, splash, or footfall. No whispers, no tremors, not a sound of any kind. They might have been alone on board the Emma, abandoned even by the ghost of Captain Jorgenson departed to rejoin the Barque ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... that was like a guarded sigh. "But you've touched an idea that HAS been mine. It's what I've wanted." Then she added: "It was what ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... beautiful such or such a place was. For example, she is standing one night at her window, looking out on the Maeler lake. 'I wrapped my mantilla shiveringly around me, stepped back from the window, shut it, and said with a slight sigh: In Venice the moonlight nights were very different.' Really this would be hardly credible, did any other than a countess ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... went down; then the Chamber of Commerce melted away; shortly after the court-house was assailed. Dr. Lively gave up his trunks and bundles as lost, and as too insignificant, in that wild havoc, to be worth a sigh. He did feel a desire, however, for a clean shirt in which to face the heavens. Then, too, he wanted to bring something through the fire—to preserve something which would serve as a memento of his ante-igneous life. The best thing in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... everywhere displayed, impressed both the senses and the imagination of a people never distinguished for art or science. And not only so, but Fergusson says: "The whole Mohammedan world look to it as the foundation of all architectural knowledge, and the Jews still recall its glories, and sigh over their loss with a constant tenacity unmatched by that of any other people to any other building of the ancient world." Whether or not we are able to explain the architecture of the Temple, or are in error respecting its size, or the amount of gold ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... returned, stood in the entrance and patiently watched her. She dropped her head, with her nose to the ground and directed toward a point near to her closely bunched feet, and around this point she circled several times; then, with a tired sigh that was almost a grunt, she curled her body in, relaxed her legs, and dropped down, her head toward the entrance. One Eye, with pointed, interested ears, laughed at her, and beyond, outlined against ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... was thy mother, nor Dardanus founder of thy line, traitor! but rough Caucasus bore thee on his iron crags, and Hyrcanian tigresses gave thee suck. For why do I conceal it? For what further outrage do I wait? [369-400]Hath our weeping cost him a sigh, or a lowered glance? Hath he broken into tears, or had pity on his lover? Where, where shall I begin? Now neither doth Queen Juno nor our Saturnian lord regard us with righteous eyes. Nowhere is trust safe. Cast ashore and destitute I welcomed him, and madly gave him place and portion ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... governments: all have fallen into it more or less. The once mighty state which was nearest to us locally, nearest to us in every way, and whose ruins threaten to fall upon our heads, is a strong instance of this error. I can never quote France without a foreboding sigh,—[Greek: ESSETAI HMAP] Scipio said it to his recording Greek friend amidst the flames of the great rival of his country. That state has fallen by the hands of the parricides of their country, called the Revolutionists and Constitutionalists of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... said Dorothy, as they trudged along. Button-Bright gave a deep sigh and said he was hungry. Indeed, all were hungry, and thirsty, too; for they had eaten nothing but the apples since breakfast; so their steps lagged and they grew silent and weary. At last they slowly ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... with this allusion, read it over two or three times, thought it more entertaining than Talbot's conversation, at first heartily laughed at it, but soon after, with a tender air, "Poor little David!" said she, with a deep sigh, and turning her head on one side during this short reverie, she shed a few tears, which assuredly did not flow for the defeat of the giant. This stung Talbot to the quick; and, seeing himself so ridiculously deceived in his hopes, he went abruptly out ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... the train climb the hill, Morse drew a deep sigh and said: "Gee! but Flo is keen! I thought one while she was going to get my goat. I wonder what made her change her mind all ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... room; a fire burned in the grate, and a supper was ready in the sitting-room. I saw with satisfaction that it was laid for one only, and yet when Gertrude said, 'Well, mademoiselle, you see the count keeps his promises.'—'Alas! yes,' replied I with a sigh, for I should have preferred that by breaking his word he should have given me an excuse to break mine. After supper, we examined the house, but found no one in it. The next day Gertrude went out, and from her I learned that we were at the end of the Rue St. ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... Ministers recommended in that immortal work. Indeed, its teachings really explain the puzzle of Indian loyalty to the British Government. According to Western ideas, no amount of pax Britannica would compensate the conquered for foreign rule. The Poles still sigh for the bad old days of independence and misrule, and are in no way comforted by the efficiency of German administration. But the Indian's allegiance to his native kings was, as the Mahabharata, lays down, released by their weakness, and he readily transferred his loyalty ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... The emissary dealt him a blow with a blunt instrument that stunned him and, as he reeled back and grasped at a table, the other thugs rushed from the hall and rained blow after blow on his venerable head and beat him to the floor. A convulsive shudder—a long-drawn-out sigh—and ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... A low, half-repressed sigh from his companion reminded the Prior that he was touching a sore place. One of the Prince's bitterest griefs was his childlessness. [He has told us so himself.] The Prior tacked about, and came ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... at her at last, recalled to her. She thought he stifled a sigh. But he put aside his account with God for another day: ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... would stick in his throat or sound queer and strange. He watched himself; he was embarrassed, and embarrassed them. He knew it. He knew that to them he was a stranger and suspect, that none of them was in sympathy with him, and then, when he was gone, everybody would sigh with relief: "Ouf!" As he passed among them he would notice hard, icy glances, such hostile glances as the working-classes, embittered by poverty, cast at any comfortable burgess. Perhaps Christophe came in for some of it too: but ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... that leaned against a microscope contained black and white studies of some of his illustrious visitors, which caught happily their essential features without detail. The few other wall-pictures were engravings by other hands. Spinoza sat down on his truckle-bed with a great sigh ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the 4th verse of the 9th chapter, says: "And the Lord said unto him, 'Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark the letter TAU upon the foreheads of those that sigh and mourn for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." So the Latin Vulgate, and the probably most ancient copies of the Septuagint translate the passage. This Tau was in the form of the cross of this Degree, and it was the emblem of life and salvation. The Samaritan Tau ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... beasts which we saw peopling the Necropolis in the evening had now withdrawn into their lurking places; only man defied the heat of the summer day. Undisturbed he accomplished his daily work, and only laid his tools aside for a moment, with a sigh, when a cooling breath blew across the overflowing stream and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... unheeded in one rapid and instructive course. At the end of a year Dantes was a new man. Dantes observed, however, that Faria, in spite of the relief his society afforded, daily grew sadder; one thought seemed incessantly to harass and distract his mind. Sometimes he would fall into long reveries, sigh heavily and involuntarily, then suddenly rise, and, with folded arms, begin pacing the confined space of his dungeon. One day he stopped all at once, and exclaimed, "Ah, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... forward in the way of the gun. He was dragged unceremoniously out of it by the legs, and the men cheered as they hauled it aft. I ran to help poor Mr Downton. I lifted him up. He gave a look so full of pain and woe in my face that I would gladly have shut it out, and then with a deep sigh breathed his last. I never felt so sad before. He was a good kind officer, and I liked him very much. I now, I own, began to think that we were getting the worst of it, and should have to strike our colours, or go down with them flying. Just then the gun, double shotted, was run ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... in and was very merry with the Adjutant, who is always trying to get himself reported sick, in order that he may return to Tripoli. The Adjutant observed to me, whilst he drew himself up, made a wry face, and heaved a deep sigh, as if his last, to persuade the Doctor he was greatly suffering, "I would not go to Bornou if you were to give me 100,000 dollars." But why should he? With what sort of feeling could he go there? The spirit of discovery, which once stirred up the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... Whittenden and I wish to carouse till all hours. When I need you, Mr. Whittenden will come to wake you, and you can appear in your pajamas, if you choose. Isn't that all right, Whittenden? Good night, Ramsdell." Then, as Ramsdell vanished, Reed settled himself with a little sigh. "It's a fearsome responsibility, Whittenden," he said; "to win this sort of sheep-dog devotion. Ramsdell, on my grilly days, would like nothing better than to stand and let me shy things at his head. It is beautiful; but it gets a trifle ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... vision of a restored and happy people, which gathered above the couch of your dying captain, filling his heart with grace, touching his lips with praise and glorifying his path to the grave; will she make this vision on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a benediction, a cheat and a delusion? If she does, the South, never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity its refusal; but if she does not; if she ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... and with a deep sigh; "he pleads for you: he informed me of your love; he besought me not—not ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton



Words linked to "Sigh" :   breathe, let out, emit, utter, suspire, sound, let loose, take a breath, utterance, vocalization, respire



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