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Tiptoe   /tˈɪptˌoʊ/   Listen
Tiptoe

verb
(past & past part. tiptoed; pres. part. tiptoeing)
1.
Walk on one's toes.  Synonyms: tip, tippytoe.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tiptoe" Quotes from Famous Books



... felt transported, as in his childhood, toward that soft refuge which was his mother; he went up, on tiptoe, to see her, even asleep, and to remain there, near her bed, while ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... smoking-room. The door was half open and she entered noiselessly. John was sitting at the table; his arms were outspread on it, and his face buried in his hands. Thinking he was asleep she approached on tiptoe and leant over his shoulder. As she did so her eyes fell on a sheet of note-paper; it was clutched in John's right hand, and the encircling grasp covered it, save at the top. The top was visible, and Mary, before she knew what ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... not alone now, nor did the little girl steal near on tiptoe, fearful of being heard. She was seated by his side, and his arm was round her, and she looked up into his face, and smiled as she whispered: "The first evening of our lives we were ever together was passed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... comical dance in which they all joined—that is all the dancers—was one in which they stood on tiptoe, with knees bent and shaking together as if with fear, then giving forth a sort of hissing noise, through fiercely clenched teeth, they quickly advanced in three or four lines and retired trotting backwards. This ended with a prolonged ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... nature that is in them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter. It is the commonest fault in the world (as I have constant occasion to observe here), but it is a very great one. Just as you couldn't bear to have an epergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure always on tiptoe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and more solid properties. Airiness and good ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... suddenly in front of us, spreading her arms out, then slowly backwards, and so motioning us to halt under the shadow of the wall. Obeying, we saw her tiptoe forwards, till, coming to the door which had just been closed, she crept close and tapped on it softly, yet in a way that struck me as being deliberate. Afterwards, thinking it over, I felt pretty sure that ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... suddenly called away. The moment his eyes fell upon the open desk, a thought flashed into his mind that set every nerve tingling. As though the old desk exerted some strange and subtle fascination, he drew near it; slowly, hesitatingly, almost on tiptoe, yet steadily. His heart beat like a trip-hammer, and his ears were straining to catch the slightest sound of any one's approach. The house was wonderfully quiet. He seemed to be quite alone in it; and presently he found himself ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... this command to the letter. When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment. It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... window, under my window, In the blue Midsummer weather, Stealing slow, on a hushed tiptoe, I catch them all together:— Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen, And Maud with her mantle of silver-green, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... nor water entered my mouth for seven days." Tsze-sze answered, "In ordering their rules of propriety, it was the design of the ancient kings that those who would go beyond them should stoop and keep by them, and that those who could hardly reach them should stand on tiptoe to do so. Thus it is that the superior man, in mourning for his parents, when he has been three days without water or congee, takes a staff to enable himself to rise [2]."' While he thus condemned the ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... have the nerve to tow Veronica into the next room, stretchin' on tiptoe to talk in her ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... at heart, to pull him back; but Chester stoutly stood his ground. In the few seconds more that they remained they saw his arms more closely enfold her. They saw her turn at the brink, and, in an utter abandonment of rapturous, passionate love, throw her arms again about his neck and stand on tiptoe to reach his face with her warm lips. They could not fail to hear the caressing tone of her every word, or to mark his receptive but gloomy silence. They could not mistake the voice,—the form, shadowy though it was. The girl was Nina Beaubien, and the man, beyond question, Howard Jerrold. ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... could hear in it quick, angry words, a voice that discontentedly muttered abusive epithets to itself. Then when the rhythm of this voice changed, Billy held her breath with agitation. "Now he is walking on tiptoe," she thought, "now he is approaching the door." Boris cautiously reentered the room and stood still at the foot of the bed. She heard distinctly the faint clink of the charm on his watch-chain, then came utter stillness. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... make the better," he breathed, stepping out of the boat on tiptoe and signing to the others to do the same. With scarcely a sound, they landed and stood at length on the grassy carpet sloping ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering

... New York Stephen found that when his head actually touched the pillow sleep was not long in coming and he awoke the next morning refreshed by a heavy and dreamless slumber. He was even dressed and ready for breakfast before his father and a-tiptoe to attack whatever program the ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... cow-persons is desp'rate. If you stay here and run that race next Saturday, she'll tiptoe up on Sunday and put a rose in your hand, sure. I can see her now, all in black. Take it from me, Wally, we ain't goin' to have ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... him, Peppe instinctively drew back into the shadows of the porch, his eyes discerning the suspicious furtiveness of the courtier's movements, and watching them with a grim eagerness. He saw Romeo look carefully about him, and then descend the steps on tiptoe, evidently so that no echo of his footfalls should reach those within the chapel. Then, never suspecting the presence of Peppe, he sped briskly across the yard and vanished through the archway that led to the outer court. And the fool, assured that some knowledge of the courtier's purpose ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... chin. He liked that chin. There was courage there and strength, softened at once by the curve of the throat, flowing to where it joined the fine deep breast. Yesterday she had seemed like a boy. To-day she was a woman grown, feminine in every graceful conformation, on tiptoe at the very ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... out of his deep sleep, and as soon as he stirred, the little Alice came on tiptoe across the floor to him, and said, "Hush, father! my mother is asleep ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... the ingle, froth the beer, Tiptoe on till chanticleer, Loose the laugh, dry the tear,— Crack ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... Standing on tiptoe, we peeped quietly over the tops of the bushes, now laden with the green cranberries. Off some seventeen or eighteen rods, something was slowly moving. We could see it plainly—something which, at first sight, looked like the roots of an old dry ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... crossed to a boat—his own—and chose his own harpoon. He twisted off the wooden sheath that covered the point, and flung it across the deck; and he poised the heavy iron in his hands, and started slowly toward Mark, moving on tiptoe, ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams

... unlighted, and he hoped, therefore, to pass unobserved through the shadows. The warm, red light that streamed from an uncurtained French window on the ground floor only deepened the uncertainty of everything. The man stepped warily, closing the gate behind him with stealthy care, and crept forward on tiptoe to lessen the sound of the crunching gravel beneath his heavy shoes. It was an undignified entry for an officer of the law who carried his authorization in his hand; but courage was not this man's strong point. His fear was lest he should meet ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... was coming through the woods we happened to stop a minute. Then we see this Frenchy sneaking through the woods. We wondered what was up. Then he vanished. We looked about, some quiet-like, and on tiptoe, and then we saw this shipmate o' your'n pry apart some bushes and head in this way. It looked queer ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... them, which looked also upon the ricks. There was a back stair to the kitchen, and in the kitchen a door to the farm-yard. She stole down the stair, and opened the door with absolute noiselessness. In a moment more she had stolen on tiptoe round the corner, and was creeping like a ghost among the ricks. Not even a rustle betrayed her as she came up to Tom from behind. He still knelt where she had left him, looking up to her window, which gleamed like a dead eye in the moonlight. She stood for a moment, afraid to move, lest she should ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... know," replied the small policeman—here he came close up to his father, and, getting on tiptoe, said in a very audible whisper, "he's under de table, but don' tell 'im I ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... more belched forth a cloud of flame and smoke, and Marcy stood on tiptoe and held his breath in suspense while he waited for the result. He felt the cold chills creep along his spine when, after an interval that seemed very short for the distance the shot had to travel, he saw it strike the ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate's bedroom to the vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of Musa immediately. A ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... in the room with me had a headache, or any kind of nervous irritability, which made it particularly necessary for others to be quiet, and if I was in an especial desire unto the same, I was sure, while stepping around on tiptoe, to fall headlong over a chair, which would give an introductory push to the shovel, which would fall upon the tongs, which would animate the poker, and all together would set in action two or three sticks of wood, and down they would come together, with just that hearty, sociable sort of racket, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... on tiptoe, with his eyes all the time on the Count Chateau Blassernare, or the man he mistook for him—his dress was not what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the northern gates of an ancient church, as, with his flushed face smeared with wax-smoke and oil, and his light blue eyes gleaming in a cold, unearthly smile, and a frame clad in a red smock reaching to below his knees, and the soles of his feet showing black (always he walked on tiptoe), and his thin calves, as straight and white as the calves of a woman, covered with golden down, he ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... tiptoe she soon discovered a seat, when what was her surprise to find Alizon asleep within it. She was sure it was Alizon—for she had touched her hair and face, and she felt surprised that the contact had not awakened her. Still more surprised did she feel that the young girl had not ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... round the court were wide open—always open—in some cases, because of there being no doors; in other cases, because the tenements to which they led belonged to a variety of families, largely composed of children who could not, even on tiptoe, reach or manipulate door-handles. Nursing mothers of two feet high were numerous, staggering about with nurslings of a foot and a half long. A few of the nurslings, temporarily abandoned by the premature mothers, lay sprawling—in some cases squalling—on ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... was done—prostrate and speechless. Prayer was beyond her power. She was dumb. God had done it and she deserved it. She heard nothing John said to her. All that long, long day she sat by her dead child, until in the darkening twilight some men came into the room on tiptoe. They had a small white coffin in their care, and placed it on a table near the bed. Then Jane stood up and if an unhappy soul had risen from the grave, it could not have shocked them more. She stood erect and looked at them. Her tall form, in its crushed white gown, her deathly ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... The two other girls got behind the first girl, all three still giggling, Heaven knows what about, and pushed her towards me. They pushed her close up to me, and then, before I knew what was happening, she put her hands on my shoulders, stood up on tiptoe, and kissed me. After which, burying her face in her apron, she ran off, followed by the second girl. The third girl opened the door for me, and so evidently expected me to go, that in my confusion I went, leaving my twenty marks ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... took away his breath. She spoke the epilogue, and, as the curtain fell, she lifted her eyes, he thought, to his box, and made him a distinct, queen-like courtesy; his heart fluttered to his mouth, and he walked home on wings and tiptoe. In short— ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... up, thought better of it and lay back again with eyes closed, while Markham moved on tiptoe around the room putting things to rights, all the while swearing silently. What in the name of all that was unpleasant did this philandering little idiot mean by trying to destroy herself on the front lawn of his holiday ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... to get well out of a bear's reach, for it must be remembered that although some bears climb trees easily, the grizzly bear cannot climb at all. There was a branch on the lower part of the tree which seemed quite beyond the reach of the tallest bear even on tiptoe. ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... along into the warehouse I was only a few feet behind the milk maid!" began Jimmie. "I at once crept in on tiptoe, because I reasoned that he would be slugging along, making considerable noise. I didn't know that there were ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... dusky mantle covers The skies (and the more duskily the better), The Time less liked by husbands than by lovers Begins, and Prudery flings aside her fetter; And Gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers, Giggling with all the gallants who beset her; And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, Guitars, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... every eye was strained, to the uttermost as the anxious onlookers stood on tiptoe to follow ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... shutting the door with great precaution, and then coming on tiptoe close to my bedside; "for the love of God, speak softly, and make no stir to awake them that's asleep near and too near you. It's unknown to all that I come up; for may be, when them people are awake and about, I might not get the opportunity ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in Heathcliff's ear. He laughed; Hareton darkened: I perceived he was very sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his inferiority. But his master or guardian chased ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... and no Dame Hilda could I see—only Margery, and she was easy enough with us for little things; so I crept out on tiptoe into the long gallery, and looked through the great oriel, which I could well reach by climbing on the window-seat. I remember what a sweet, peaceful scene lay before me,—the fields and cottages lighted ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... peaceful trail, came trotting up beside his giant comrade, standing on tiptoe to link arms with him, his solemn owl-like eyes roaming from Elsin Grey ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... weight of care —his hump appeared, with a slow half revolution as he turned to shut the door behind him. Taking off his hat, he walked up to Mr Graham, who, busy with his astronomy, had not perceived his entrance, touched him on the arm, and, standing on tiptoe, whispered softly in his ear, as if it were a painful secret that must be respected, "I dinna ken whaur I cam frae. I want to come ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... got some bounce in me, certainly," agreed Diana. "But I thought perhaps if I went about on tiptoe and whispered, and"—hopefully—"I could keep my ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... live with the wise and remain a greenhorn? Trust me." And placing his arm about his spouse's waist, Simon stood on tiptoe and kissed her gently on the cheek in token of reconciliation, for Meg had a nasty memory in quarrels. Then he skipped away towards the door as fast as his ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... nursery door, stayed a moment until the sweet low voice had reached the end of the verse, then, turning the handle very gently, entered the room on tiptoe. ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... was still very ill, Biron and his wife made bold to enter his room on tiptoe, and kept behind his curtains, out of sight, as they thought; but he perceived them by means of the glass on the chimney- piece. Lauzun liked Biron tolerably well, but Madame Biron not at all; she ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... kingdom, but of a personal King, and not only of a King, but a sufferer. All the sacrifices, almost all the institutions, the priesthood and the monarchy included, had this onward-looking aspect, and Israel as a whole, in the proportion in which it was true to the spirit of its calling, stood a-tiptoe, as it were, looking down the ages for the coming of the Hope of the Covenant that had been promised to the fathers. The prophets, I might say, were like an advance-guard sent before some great monarch in his progress towards his capital, who rode through the slumbering villages and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... first visit with the child. Silas had quaint ways with the young, and it was with very real pleasure that she dragged herself to the door and admitted him the first week she was out of bed. Elizabeth led the old man to the lounge on tiptoe. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... the hall, but almost at once Ford, whose ears were alert for any sound, heard him returning, approaching stealthily on tiptoe. If by this maneuver the Jew had hoped to discover his patient in some indiscretion, he was unsuccessful, for he found Ford standing just where he had left him, with his back turned to the door, and gazing with apparent interest at a picture ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis

... trace but her black bag; but while I was dressing a tremendous cackling among my bantams caused me to look out, when I beheld them scurrying right and left at sight of the kangaroo leaping after the three strangers, and my cat on the top of the garden wall on tiptoe, with arched back, bristling tail, and glassy eyes, viewing the beast as the vengeful apotheosis of all the rats and mice she had ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... up in Heath. After all that had happened that night he felt as if he could not go to bed without accomplishing some decisive action. Powers were on tiptoe within him surely ready for ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... termination of the Crusades, the destruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, the tragedies caused or suffered by the house of Anjou, and by the Emperor—these were full of a more permanent significance. But, since then, the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing, as it were on tiptoe, at Crecy, for flight from earth: that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable spectacle of a double Pope—so that no man, except ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... darling's bedside, while in an adjoining room Mr. Lloyd, and Mary, and Dr. Chrystal, and Frank sat together, praying and waiting, and striving to comfort one another. The long hours of agonising uncertainty dragged slowly by. Every few minutes some one would steal on tiptoe to the sick chamber, and on their return met fond faces full of eager questioning awaiting them, only to answer with a sad shake of the head that meant no ray ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... grimace at Roy; but both boys entered the house, and crept into a cool half-darkened drawing-room on tiptoe, with hushed voices and sober demeanor. A stern looking old lady sat upright in her easy chair, knitting busily. She greeted the boys ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre

... Sunday dress. It was a blue muslin with tiny white dots, and the neck and sleeves were edged with tiny white ruffles. It had been Rebecca's best dress for several summers, until she outgrew it, and it was made over for the younger girl, but Anna was very proud of it, and stood on tiptoe to see herself reflected in the narrow mirror between the windows of the sitting-room. Her mother had made a sunbonnet of the same material as the dress, and Anna put this on with satisfaction. Always before this she had despised a sunbonnet, ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis

... his side. Some sense of her presence must have communicated itself to him, for he began to mutter in his sleep, now in English, now in Arabic. She became intensely interested; as her every movement showed. Then rising suddenly she glided across the room on tiptoe to look at me. Seeing her coming I feigned to be asleep, and so ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... on tiptoe, straining their ears; even the skylarking gamins who had occupied the stage top behind them, and the driver, who had reappeared, drunk, and resumed his reins and seat, stood up ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... as she chose, Alicia could not avoid passing Lindsay's room, for her own lay beyond it. In the seven o'clock half light of a February evening, in the middle of the week, she went along the matted upper hall on tiptoe, and stumbled over a veiled form squatted in the native way, near his door, profoundly asleep. "Ayah!" she exclaimed, but the face that looked confusedly up at her was white, whiter than common, Captain Filbert's face. Alicia drew her hand away and made an imperceptible movement ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... exclaimed in a high whisper. "What are you doing here?" He hardly remembers what he said. The doctor straightened up and came on tiptoe to his ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... later, her hair crisply dried by the fire and curling blithely from its recent bath, herself sweet with the soap-and-water and clean-clothes freshness which is the only fragrance worth cultivating, Sally stole on tiptoe to the top of the stairs and peeped down. She beheld Jarvis pacing up and down the hall, and as she looked saw him take his watch out and scan its face as if he had an appointment to keep. She stood still, her pulses beating rather quickly. This was not exactly the sort of ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... Dorothea drew the curtains aside and looked up and down the street. Presently she blew softly upon the pane and with her finger made on it four large letters, then rubbed them out and went back to the mantel, before whose mirror, on tiptoe, she surveyed the bow on her hair and ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher

... like himself. All three stooped down without saying a word, and examined the man all over; then they rapidly conversed together in a low voice. They had uncovered Coupeau from his thighs to his shoulders, and by standing on tiptoe Gervaise could see the naked trunk spread out. Well! it was complete. The trembling had descended from the arms and ascended from the legs, and now the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... with blue windows, and the rain seemed to come from them rather than from the clouds. Into the rain rose the heads of the mountains, each clothed in its surplice of thin mist; they seemed rising on tiptoe heavenward, eager to drink of the high-born comfort; for the rain comes down, not upon the mown grass only, but upon the solitary and desert places also, where grass will never be—"the playgrounds of the young ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... she bounded to the top of her mistress's chair. Dandy barked defiance, all the children shouted or screamed and danced about, and the old woman gasped and shook more. Lizzie alone was almost equal to the occasion. She flew at the cat who was standing on tiptoe on the tall back of the chair, with huge tail and eyes like green lamps, swearing, hissing, and spitting, and, regardless of scratches, caught him up by the scruff of his neck and disposed of him behind the staircase door; while Dora at the same moment secured ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 'andkerchief, and while she was busy with it Bill Flurry got up and went out on tiptoe. Young Alf got up a second or two arterwards to see where he'd gone; and the last Joe Morgan and his missis see of the happy couple they was sitting on one chair, and George Hatchard was making desprit and 'artrending attempts ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... there," he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland

... having finished his business with the key, at once began with the bludgeon. The bludgeon was produced, and was handed up to the bench, and inspected by the Chief Justice. The instrument excited great interest. Men rose on tiptoe to look at it even from a distance, and the Prime Minister was envied because for a moment it was placed in his hands. As the large-eyed little boy who had found it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... crept on tiptoe along the passage. At the end were two large chests, strengthened with iron bands. A lighted lantern stood upon them. Bob peered round the corner into the hall. No one was to be seen, but ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... and stood on tiptoe to make herself look taller. Suddenly she caught the eye of Miriam Nesbit, who was lingering in the doorway, watching the scene with an expression that the circumstances and holiday surroundings hardly seemed ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... season has come and gone and now we settle down to the real life of the winter. Plans innumerable are under way for winter activities, and the children are on tiptoe over the prospect of approaching Christmastide. Their jubilations fill the house, and writing is ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... was to be the bonne bouche and piece de resistance of the evening, consisting of a rumpus in twenty rounds between Misters TOM TRACY of Australia, and TOMMY WILLIAMS, from the same hemisphere, at which I was on the tiptoe ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... is always applicable to a revolutionary generation; whether or not it also comes under the class of a superstitious one, 'seeking after a sign from heaven,' only half believing its own creed, and, therefore, on tiptoe for miraculous confirmations of it, at the same time that it fiercely persecutes any one who, by attempting innovation or reform, seems about to snatch from weak faith the last plank which keeps it from sinking into the abyss. In describing such an age, the historian lies under ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... Benedictines, whose little chapel stood open night and day for the prayers of those in trouble or in sadness, habited only by one of the elder brothers, who gave, if it were needed, advice, encouragement, or spiritual comfort. Removing his hat, the Prince entered into the silence on tiptoe, and kneeling before the altar, prayed devoutly for direction, asking the Almighty to turn the thoughts of His servant, Mayence, into channels that flowed towards peace and the relief ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... all down de line, Den mek yo' manners an' tiptoe fine, Go lightly, gal, go lightly! Oh, hit's whu'll yo' pardners roun' an' roun', Twel you hyst dey feet clean off de groun', Go lightly, gal, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... left there to serve as pillows for the prisoners. Having satisfied himself that the chimney was so small that it was utterly impossible to pass even his head up it, he drew the two blocks of wood over to the window, and was able, by placing one above the other and standing on tiptoe on the highest, to reach the bars which guarded it. Drawing himself up, and fixing one toe in an inequality of the wall, he managed to look out on to the courtyard which they had just quitted. The carriage and De Vivonne ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... flows between the Symplegades, there is a certain hollow cave,[43] broken by the frequent lashing of the waves, a retreat for those who hunt for the purple fish. Here some herdsman among us beheld two youths, and he retired back, piloting his step on tiptoe, and said: See ye not? these who sit here are some divine powers. And one of us, being religiously given, uplifted his hand, and addressed them, as he beheld: O son of Leucothea, guardian of ships, Palaemon our lord, be ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... by the solemn change upon our days, came drifting up the hill from my father's wharves; and, ay, indeed, all the world of sea and land was warm and wakeful and light of heart, just as it used to be. But within, where were the shadow and the mystery, we walked on tiptoe and spoke in whispers, lest we offend the spirit ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... Federal lines, as these were the bane of the country people. They sauntered along by twos and threes, rambling into all the fields and green-apple orchards, intruding their noses into old cabins, prying into smoke-houses, and cellars, looking at the stock in the stables, and peeping on tiptoe into the windows of dwellings. These stragglers were true exponents of Yankee character,—always wanting to know,—averse to discipline, eccentric in their orbits, entertaining profound contempt for everything that was not up to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... rose quickly, and advanced on tiptoe to the door, where she saw the parrot picking at some buttons on the sofa, which she had often been forbidden to touch. Much amused at the sight, she listened to an imitation of her own voice, ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie

... closer," whispered Samway; and they approached on tiptoe. There was no disbelieving the report any longer. Troy's face was almost close to the pane, and he was looking in. Not only was he looking in, but he appeared to have been arrested by a conversation which was in progress in the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... work hard to keep things together. I have found a dealer in the Montagne de la Cour, who is willing to take my sketches at a decent price. Look here, Clary, how do you like this little bit of genre? 'Forbidden Fruit'—a chubby six-year-old girl, on tiptoe, trying to filch a peach growing high on the wall; flimsy child, and pre-Raphaelite wall. Peach, carnation velvet; child's cheek to match the peach. Rather a nice thing, isn't it?" ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... [to Augustus]. Here she is. [To the lady.] May I offer you a chair, lady? [He places a chair at the writing-table opposite Augustus, and steals out on tiptoe.] ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw

... in the shadows, nudged Cap'n Sproul beside him, and wagged his head toward the open door. They went out on tiptoe. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... STRIZHIN, the nephew of Madame Ivanov, the colonel's widow—the man whose new goloshes were stolen last year,—came home from a christening party at two o'clock in the morning. To avoid waking the household he took off his things in the lobby, made his way on tiptoe to his room, holding his breath, and began getting ready for bed without lighting ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... are lost to us absolutely. We make matters as gloomy as possible. Yet we are slowly improving. Not so very long ago when anybody died those present stopped the ticking of the clock, drew down the window curtains, moved about on tiptoe, and acted generally in a way calculated to add as much as possible to the awe and the gloom. We still wear somber and depressing black and add all we can ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers

... bent towards his niece. She rose on tiptoe, and just touched his rough cheek. There was no natural childish effusiveness in the action. For the seven years since she left her father, Louie had quite ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of brick, and smoke, and shipping, Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amidst the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown On a fool's head—and there is ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... she got home. But she went on tiptoe to her room and locked the door. Then she undid the parcel and read that printed column again, sitting on the edge of her bed, her hands and feet icy cold and her face burning. When she had read all there was, she drew a long, ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit

... the griffins was not exactly a cheerful place. Rosalind found herself stealing about on tiptoe lest she disturb the silence of the spacious rooms. She hardly ventured to more than peep into the drawing-room, where Miss Herbert's liking for twilight effects had full sway. There was a pier table here, supported by griffins, the counterpart ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard

... and a few moments later the two boys were standing in the dark and deserted playground. Jack made a circuit of the buildings on tiptoe, and then returned ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... watched him with breathless anxiety on shore saw little of all this as they paid out the line or perched themselves on tiptoe on the few boulders that here ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... to know what kind of a defence can be made by a gambler, even so polished as Mr. Freeman, for a vice fitly characterized by Mr. Green as "fifty per cent. worse than stealing." Expectation is on tiptoe. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... tiptoe. Says in a very hushed voice "Major Armstrong has called, Miss Fraser. He came to ask about Lady Fraser. I said if anything she was a bit better and had had a good sleep. He then asked if ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... the others where Rose Mignon was standing on the threshold of the greenroom. Rose had witnessed the scene, and she marched straight up to the journalist, as though she had failed to notice her husband and, standing on tiptoe, bare-armed and in baby costume, she held her face up to him with a ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... won't even have to tiptoe over the hill to find adventures with him around! He's ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... of darkness! ye phantoms of the night! if while lingering within my home after the crowing of the cock, you saw me stealing about on tiptoe in the City of Books, you certainly never cried out, as Madame Trepof did at Naples, "That old man has a good-natured round back!" I entered the library; Hannibal, with his tail perpendicularly erected, came to rub himself against my legs and ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... slow, because the engraving is in metal; but the structural importance of incision, as the means of effect, never lost sight of. Finally, here are two actual examples of the work in marble of the two great schools of the world; one, a little Fortune, standing tiptoe on the globe of the Earth, its surface traced with lines in hexagons; not chaotic under Fortune's feet; Greek, this, and by a trained workman;—dug up in the temple of Neptune at Corfu;—and here, a Florentine portrait-marble, found in the recent ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... waking the first words of each were to ask for the other. Thurstane put on his scarcely dried uniform and hurried to the girl's room. She received him at the door, for she had heard his step although it was on tiptoe, and she knew his knock although as light as the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... saw Black Andy behind the stove. "Well, Andy, have you been here ever since?" she asked, and, as he came forward, she suddenly caught him by both arms, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. "Last time I saw you, you were behind the stove at Lumley's. Nothing's ever too warm for you," she added. "You'd be shivering on the equator. You were always ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker



Words linked to "Tiptoe" :   walk, tip, toe, tippytoe, quiet



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