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Trill   /trɪl/   Listen
Trill

noun
1.
A note that alternates rapidly with another note a semitone above it.  Synonym: shake.
2.
The articulation of a consonant (especially the consonant 'r') with a rapid flutter of the tongue against the palate or uvula.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Trill" Quotes from Famous Books



... with a personal hostility to Napoleon, or, as he calls him, Bonaparty, and a passion for nightingales. He always keeps five or six of the latter in his room; in early spring he will sit for whole days together by the cage, waiting for the first trill, and when he hears it, he covers his face with his hands, and moans, 'Oh, piteous, piteous!' and sheds tears in floods. Policarp has, to help him, his grandson Vasya, a curly-headed, sharp-eyed boy of twelve; ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... the last syllable a wonderfully executed trill, in a very low tone, as if to depict the overflowing affection of her heart by a poetic expression. The old man, suddenly arrested by some memory, remained on the threshold of that secret retreat. In the profound silence we heard the sigh that ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac

... tread, As of one musing sadly on the dead— 'Twas Julio; it was his wont to be Often alone within the sanctuary; But now, not so—another: it was she! Kneeling in all her beauty, like a saint Before a crucifix; but sad and faint The tone of her devotion, as the trill Of a ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... lark, with a lark's spontaneous delight in singing; with an ease and self-abandonment which charmed eye almost as much as ear. Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of the spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh—the pure spirit, not released from the human clay without a fierce struggle. At that ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... have spoken without laughing! That little meaningless trill at the end of everything made Diana nearly wild. She could find no answer to the last speech, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... a bird's evening song which awakened them both. The bird alighted on the branch of a tree near them and her trill was rippling clear and sweet. The evening air had freshened and was fragrant with hillside scents. When Marco first rolled over and opened his eyes, he thought the most delicious thing on earth was to waken from sleep on a hillside at evening and ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... young fellow, whom we shall call Cri-Cri, like other frisky and gay young people, carried the day quite over the head of the solemn old philosopher under the calla-leaves. At night, when all was still, he would trill a joyous little note in his throat, while old Unke would answer only with a cracked guttural more singular than agreeable; and to all outward appearance the two were as good friends as their different ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... far at sea Cunning fingers fashioned me. There on palace walls I hung While that Consuelo sung; But I heard, though I listened well, Never a note, never a trill, Never a beat of the chiming bell. There I hung and looked, and there In my grey face, faces fair Shone from under shining hair. Well I saw the poising head, But the lips moved and nothing said; And when lights were in the hall, Silent moved ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... so untiringly. Certainly not to entertain us, nor to distract the pining lover[1]—it must have some personal purpose of its own. But, sadly enough, that purpose never seems to get fulfilled. Yet it is not down-hearted, and its Coo-oo! Coo-oo! keeps going, with now and then an ultra-fervent trill. ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... signs, a skip of a third and back came to be noted [Crenellation], and if the note came down on a second instead of the original note it became [Podium] [G: g' b' a']. The quilisma ([Upper Mordent]) indicated a repetition of two notes, one above the other, and we still use much the same sign for our trill. Also the two forms of the circumflex, [Over-slur] [Under-slur], were joined ([Turn]) and thus we have the modern turn, ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... bodily carried up from the first story to the roof; a professional musician playing the while on the piano—not the old-fashioned thing our grandmothers used, but a huge instrument capable of giving forth all sounds of harmony from the trill of a nightingale to the thunders of an orchestra. And when you reach the roof of the hotel you find yourself in a glass-covered tropical forest, filled with the perfume of many flowers, and bright with the scintillating plumage of darting birds; all sounds of sweetness fill ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... a peacock had but the nightingale's trill It would make all prima donnas feel ill. If the nightingale had but the peacock's tail It would merit a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various

... from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off—and they are ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... a young rising moon Hung in the west as you leaned on the bar And spun a thread of some sweet April tune, And wished a wish and named the falling star. We heard a brook trill in the fields afar; The air wrapped round us that entrancing fold Of vanishing sweet stuff that mortal hold Can never grasp—the mist of dreams—as down The street we went in that fair ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... and say, Alas! how many friends of youth are dead; How many visions of fair hope have fled, Since first, my Muse, we met.—So speeds away Life, and its shadows; yet we sit and sing, Stretched in the noontide bower, as if the day Declined not, and we yet might trill our lay Beneath the pleasant morning's purple wing That fans us; while aloft the gay clouds shine! Oh, ere the coming of the long cold night, Religion, may we bless thy purer light, That still shall warm us, when the tints decline O'er earth's dim hemisphere; and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... softness; when hovering over his food he gave a spiteful chuckle; when pleased to see an old friend he seemed to say: "How do you do?" with a plaintive cooing. In battle his scream was wild and commanding, a succession of five or six notes with a startling trill that was inspiring to the soldiers. Strangers could not approach or touch him with safety, though members of the regiment who treated him with kindness were cordially recognized by him. Old Abe had his particular ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... In practicing the trill or staccato tones the pressure of the breath must be felt even before the sound is heard. The beautiful, clear, bell-like tones that die away into a soft piano are tones struck on the apoggio and controlled by the steady soft pressure of the breath emitted through a perfectly ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini

... rustle of silks and a hum of voices, and now and then a silvery laugh would ring out above these like the trill of a bird in a breezy grove. Later, light airy music floated through the rooms, followed by the rhythmic cadence of feet. A thinly clad shivering little match-girl stopped on her weary tramp to ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... speeches are brisk.... A rattling conversation is in progress about a well-known songstress. The people are lauding her as divine, immortal.... Oh, how finely she had executed her last trill ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... blithely from this melancholy contemplation and call for a lamp and his bottle. While I was about this business (our maid-servant would not handle the bottle lest she be damned for it), my uncle would stump the floor, making gallant efforts to whistle and trill: by this exhorting himself to a cheerful mood, so that when I had moved his great chair to the table, with the lamp near and turned high, and had placed a stool for his wooden leg, and had set his bottle and glass and little brown jug of cold water ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... He put his arm upon the broad, handsome, young shoulder. "But you'll try to be a good boy, won't you—" he repeated. "Just try hard to be a good boy, Tom—that's all any of us can do," and turning away he whistled into the house and a girlish trill ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... wife sits sad in her fireside chair, And thinks of the husband so brave to dare, And dreams once more That the war is o'er; While the South-birds trill Near the picket-camp still, And the picket lies dead on the hill. For men must fight for the sleeping Right, And God stands ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of the sun—full-throated choir; And sky-ward fling your sobbing psalmody— A sunrise offering to the coming day. On—on: still higher! Still rolls the torrent down, Bearing the soul up in a cloud of sprays, The world seems deluged with a golden shower: Myriads of larks trill out their morning psalm, As though the stars were changed to silver bells Timbrelling forth their sweet melodious bursts In joyous ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... retire—not just yet. Instead, on a pretext, any pretext, I knock out the ashes from my old pipe, fill it afresh, and wait. I wait patiently, because, inevitable as Fate, inevitable as that call from out the dark void of the sky, I know there will come a trill of the telephone on the desk at my elbow; my own Polly—whose name happens to be Mary—is watching as I take down the receiver ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... be distinguished the harmonious notes of some not altogether unknown to them, the trill of the lark on high, the whistle of the blackbird in the hidden covert, the "pretty Dick" of the thrush, and the "chink, chink!" of the robin and coo of the dove, mingled with the sweet but subdued ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... may help thee to win thy wish." Now the Persian bore the Prince a grudge because he willed not he should have his sister; so he showed him the pin of ascent on the right side of the horse and saying to him, "Trill this," left him. Thereupon the Prince trilled the pin and lo! the horse forthwith soared with him high in ether, as it were a bird, and gave not overflying till it disappeared from men's espying, whereat the King was troubled and perplexed about ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... grass, Shed forth your richest perfumes 'neath her feet! And gallant robin, when thou seest her pass, Trill out thy merriest lay her ears to greet; And elm-tree branches, drooping low above her, Whisper to her that I came ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... cocked up his bright black eye, As if to say, "Little mistress, it will do you no harm to try." Then taking some slight refreshments, and polishing off his bill, Broke into a rapture of singing that ended off with a trill; And Maud, with her head bent forward, sat listening to his lay, And fast as he sang, she whistled, ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... fife will trill, And the wood-piper beat his drum; And out of their tents on the hill The ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various

... (in the first quotation) would automatically preserve its essential trill, the intruder churning is the more obnoxious; and unless the R can be trilled it would seem better for poets to use only the inflected forms of these words, and prefer ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English

... group of steel-clad knights had come clanking through the doorway, and a bearded and beruffed old figure had handed in a stately dame, rustling in gorgeous robes of a long-forgotten fashion, unveiling a face of beauty somewhat tarnished in the mouldy tomb, yet stepping majestically to the trill of harp and viol from the minstrels' gallery, while the rusty armor responded with a hollow ringing sound beneath,—why, I should have felt that these shadows, once so familiar with the spot, had a better right in St. Mary's Hall than I, a stranger from a far country which has no Past. But ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... all strong, likely, braw fellows, who can push their own way in the world and fend for themselves. Not like—" he glanced over to the group on the grass, and stopped. Yet at that moment a hearty trill of thoroughly childish laughter seemed to rebuke the regrets of ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... divine harmonies and profound emotions it is capable when played upon by any adequate power. To expect to maintain this exaltation with our present nature is like requiring of the athlete that he never relax his muscles, or of the prima donna that she never cease the exquisite trill which is but the momentary proof of what her present organization is capable. And yet it would appear that many, like poor Haldane, are tempted on one hand to entertain no Christian hope because they cannot produce these deep and happy emotions; or, on the other hand, to give up Christian ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... her cigarette away, and ran her fingers through his hair, then made a gesture, almost as if pushing something away, Peter thought, and laughed her old ringing trill of laughter. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... would I also sing, My dear little hillside neighbor! A tender carol of peace to bring To the sunburnt fields of labor, Is better than making a loud ado. Trill on, amid clover and yarrow: There's a heart-beat echoing you, And ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... to be sure that this was not indeed a trap. Better to retreat now than to be taken like fish in a net. He crept out of his place, gave the chittering signal call of the fluff-ball, and heard Jil-Lee's answer in a cleverly mimicked trill of a night insect. ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... a little trill of derisive laughter from the other side of the room, where Lord Robert had put the spray down noisily and turned to look out into the street. Then John Storm drew himself up and said in a ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... newsboys' voices in the cries of birds. Sometimes the gold-splashed distance of a country lane seems to gleam at sunset with the posters of the evening papers; I dream at dawn of dinner-invitations, when, like a telephone-call, I hear the Greenfinch trill his electric bell. ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... strengthen and develop his or her infirmity. If this is done, the chances are many to one that, as times goes on, the parties will grow more and more alike—the strong becoming more docile and the weaker one more robust. Take time, love each other, court and be courted, and only the best results trill come of it all. ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long

... brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by all the good spirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their station in his breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh trill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the staircase: 'Now, Judah, what are ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... inland fanning districts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about Easter Day, proclaiming her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle, or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, as an artistic ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... knuckles fell like lead against Mrs. Whately's door, and mechanically I gave the low signal whistle I had been wont to give to Marjie. Like a mockery came the clear trill from within. But there was no mockery in the quick opening of the casement above me, where a dim light now gleamed, nor in the flinging up of the curtain, and it was not a spirit but a real face with a crown of curly hair that was outlined in the ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... went out, for the fire-flies fled in every direction; but in the darkness Twinkle thought she could still hear the drone of the big bass fiddle and the flute-like trill of the ladybugs. ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

... the colour of clay, they trod cautiously the trench, until opposite a wood whose trees blackened the slow dawn. Then, without a word, they ran across the road, and, in a few minutes, were lost in the thick underbrush of the little forest. It was past four o'clock and the dawn began to trill over the rim of night; the east burst into stinging sun rays, while the moving air awoke the birds and sent scurrying around the smooth green park a ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... with that wonderful power of accurate mimicry which is so strong in all natural human beings, began to trill out at once, with a very good Parisian accent, a few lines from a well-known song in "La ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... let him take his journey tomorrow; but he began to be pretty well, and after dinner my wife and Barker fell to singing, which pleased me pretty well, my wife taking mighty pains and proud that she shall come to trill, and indeed I think she will. So to the office, and there all the afternoon late doing business, and then home, and find my brother pretty well. So to write a letter to my Lady Sandwich for him to carry, I having not writ to her a great while. Then ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... under their crimson patches of paint, beating her fan restlessly on the empty air, and breathing rapid and audible breath. And now, at this last word of Israel, though so sadly spoken, and so solemn in its note of suffering, she broke into a trill of laughter, and said lightly, "Ah! I thought your love of the poor was young. Not yet cut its teeth, poor thing! A babe in swaddling clothes, eh? When was ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... the edge of the ditch was in bloom. All the weeds that grew in among the stones were brown and shiny. The beech-woods in the distance seemed to swell and grow thicker with every second. The skies were high—and a clear blue. The cottage door stood ajar, and the lark's trill could be heard in the room. The hens and geese pattered about in the yard, and the cows, who felt the spring air away in their stalls, lowed their approval ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... friends had refused to tell them what the act was like. Suddenly the first piping notes of a canary bird's song were heard, rising so clear and lifelike that even the boys themselves were deluded at first into thinking that they were listening to an actual bird. The canary song ended with a sustained trill, and then, soft and melodious, came the limpid notes of the mocking bird's song. By this time the audience had comprehended that this was in reality a clever human imitation of bird notes, and they ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... harp, nor longer leave it Sighing on the willow tree; Pass thy gentle fingers o'er it, And awake its melody; The streams tho' icy chains may bind them, Still will murmur back thy trill, And the roses wild, though blasted, On thy cheeks are ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... up in G. He diminuendoed, struck a cantable movement, slid up over a crescendo, tackled a second ending by mistake—but it went—caught his second wind on a moderato, signified his desire for a raise in salary on a trill, did some brilliant work on a maestoso, reached high C with ease, went down into the bass clef and climbed out again, quavered and held, did sixteen notes by the handful—payable on demand—waltzed along ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... nasty old man," said Carlotta. "Women cry because they feel very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason that men don't cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but Hamdi!—" she broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, "You would as soon see a goose going with boots and stockings, like the Puss in the shoes—the fairy ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... Jack, and the swift trill of rifle-cracks rang out on the soft evening silence. As swiftly as they could press finger on trigger, the three comrades emptied their magazines completely into the fringe of forest three hundred yards away. This storm of tiny, whirling ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... pledge thee, if we fast or dine, We yet shall loosen, line by line, Old ballads, and the blither trill Of our-time singers—for there will Be with us all the Muses nine ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley

... with a trill of a laugh,—it was so evident that he had been going to say "carriage." "Thank you, with the greatest of pleasure. Indeed, it is rather a relief to me, for they generally keep me waiting. And ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... forgotten to float softly among the valleys; and evening skies fling out their pink and purple banner; and stars throb, and glow, and flash, with a radiant life that is not of the earth;—where great rivers have not yet put on the majesty of manhood, but trill over pebbles, curl around rocks, ripple against banks, waltz little eddies, spread dainty pools for gay little trout, dash up saucy spray into the eyes of bending ferns, mock the frantic struggles of lost flowers and twigs, tantalizing them ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... and little Emily exclaimed, at the same moment. And a mocking-bird, flying by, stopped a moment to trill a sweet strain, as if he, too, was glad to welcome back this lovely ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 15, April 12, 1914 • Various

... here, though delightfully Arcadian and quite idyllic (hayricks are so romantic, and I always adored cows—in pictures), is dreadfully quiet, and I freely confess that I generally prefer a man to a hop-pole (though I do wear a wig), and the voice of a man to the babble of brooks, or the trill of a skylark,—though I protest, I wouldn't be without them (I mean the larks) for the world,—they make me ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... indeed: and when the best of the other lyrics—aubades, debats, and what not—are joined to them, they supply the materials of an anthology of hardly surpassed interest, as well for the bubbling music of their refrains and the trill of their metre, as for the fresh mirth and joy of living in their matter. The "German paste in our composition," as another Arnold had it, and not only that, may make us prefer the German examples; but it must never be forgotten that but for these it is at least not ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... Miss Apsley' (which ended with a crow) he stuffed his red pocket handkerchief into his mouth and escaped. At the sound of the names, Merton had turned towards the inner door, open behind him, whence came a clear and piercing trill of feminine laughter from Miss Blossom. Merton angrily marched to the inner door, and shut his typewriter in with a bang. His heart burned within him. Nothing could be so insulting to clients; nothing ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... voice of Spring, The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, Like some poor bird with prisoned wing That sits and sings, but ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the trill of mating larks! But sweeter, sweeter, I aver, That soft appeal—"For your remarks," That gentle ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various

... the clear trill of a canary singing blithely in its cage. Within the tidy, homely little room a pale-faced girl and a youth of slender frame listened intently while the bird sang its song. The girl was the first ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert

... Sahibs' mercy." So they lay still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree, and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches in the roof—one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees, and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide! Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... healthy Muse, Did wisely one sweet instrument to choose— The native reed; which, tutored with rare skill, Brought other Muses[1] down to aid its trill! A cheerful song that sometimes quaintly masked The fancy, as the affections sweetly tasked; And won from England's proud and foreign[2] court, For native England's tongue, a sweet report— And sympathy—till in due time it grew A permanent voice that proved itself the true, And rescued ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... reward. The noise of it reaches august ears. An act of gracious condescension follows. Her Ladyship has the supreme delight of leading a scion of Royalty to a chair of state in her drawing-room, to hear Sir Raucisonous bleat and Miss Quaver trill. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... are the records, and rotten The meshes of memory's net; When the grace that forgives has forgotten The things that are good to forget; When the trill of my juvenile trumpet Is dead and its echoes are dead; Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet And crown of ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman

... flicked down out of the cypress tree and perched on the gate top, looked up at Cleek with bright, sharp eyes, flung out a wee little trill, ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... Time-trenched on cheek and brow, Whom I once heard as a maid From Keinton Mandeville Of matchless scope and skill Sing, with smile and swell and trill, "Should he upbraid!" ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... trill happily to the audience as she poised on one toe. "What-ta you tryin' to do—shake me off'n the bar?" she would mutter under ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... ploughed through the gray mists—a strange and terrible sight for the Nascopees lurking in the underbrush along the shore. And while the men smoked and sang "Die Wacht am Rhein," listening to the trill of the ripples against the bows, ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train

... with common will, And sought the parlor, cool and dim. "Sing, love!" he said. "The birds grow still, And wait with me to hear your hymn." She swept a low, preluding trill...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... the voyage was turned into a pleasure excursion. Animation of spring clothed the landscape on all sides in its greatest beauty; and our northern forest the voyagers found upon their return was not less charming than "tropic shade" of foreign climes. And the robin sang even a sweeter trill than ever before heard by the crew, for they listened to it now in the ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... came in her hardened face— She had not wept for years; But the robin's trill, as some sounds will, Jarred open the door of tears. She thought of the old home far away; She heard the whr-r-r of the mill; She heard the turtle's wild, sweet call, And the wail of ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... furiously to annex and drill into submission the alien and distracting mass of food that you have taken on board. They are like stevedores, stowing the cargo for portability. A little later, however, when this excellent work is accomplished, the bosun may trill his whistle, and the deck hands can be summoned back to the navigating bridge. The mind casts off its corporeal hawsers and puts out to sea. You begin once more to live as a rational composition of reason, emotion, and will. The heavy ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... enraptured looks Of hoary marquises and stripling dukes: Let high-born lechers eye the lively Presle Twirl her light limbs that spurn the needless veil; Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow, Wave the white arm and point the pliant toe; Collini trill her love-inspiring song, Strain her fair neck ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... County Guy, the hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea, The orange-flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea. The lark, his lay who trill'd all day, Sits hush'd his partner nigh; Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour, But ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... not pine for forest wilds Within the "blue Canary isles," As exiles from their native home, For in a foreign domicile They first essayed their gamut-trill Beneath a cage's gilded dome; But maybe some sad throbbing Betimes their spirits stirs, Who love as we Dear liberty, That they, admired and petted, ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... pair, With Mahaud musing in the regal chair. The sound of separate leaf we do not note— And so their babble seemed to idly float, And leave no thought behind. Now and again Joss his guitar made trill with plaintive strain Or Tyrolean air; and lively tales they told Mingled with mirth all free, and frank, and bold. Said Mahaud: "Do you know how fortunate You are?" "Yes, we are young at any rate— Lovers half crazy—this is truth at least." "And more, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... short, you are told that you must be good, and that if you are not there will be the deuce to pay. Then the captain will turn to 'Scully' and say, 'Pipe down,' whereupon 'Scully' and the other bosun's mates will blow a trill on their pipes, and all hands will ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... Rosetti too; Trill on, ye two, the song of future years, Move, Palgrave, move, with bosom rent anew, An audience multitudinous to tears; Scratch on with quill unwearied and no fears, The world shall fling thee thy resplendent bays, For Popular Opinion safely steers His barque upon the river of thy praise. The stars ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... In blue mustachios still? Does Emma tell the swallows How she will pipe and trill, When, some fine day, she follows Those birds to ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... Cyclopaedia, fresh from the study of Audubon, says the Hermit's song consists of a single plaintive note, and that the Veery's resembles that of the Wood-Thrush! These observations deserve to be preserved with that of the author of "Out-door Papers," who tells us the trill of the Hair-Bird (Fringilla socialis) is produced by the bird fluttering its wings upon its sides! The Hermit-Thrush may be easily identified by his color; his back being a clear olive-brown, becoming rufous on his rump and tail. A quill from his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... of the woods. "I don't see how he got loose. I used the running bow-line, and a couple of clove hitches. Our old knots came in useful, but they didn't hold evidently. Hark! Wasn't that a whistle! Sounded like Margaret's trill." ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis

... flying-machine, or dofunny, as we scientists would term it, in 1600 and something, whereby he could sail down from the woodshed and not break his neck. He could not rise from the ground like a lark and trill a few notes as he skimmed through the sky, but he could fall off an ordinary hay stack like a setting hen, with the aid of his ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... lie, Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited By dreams—ah me!—for in the place of sleep Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal. And if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep, I medicine my soul with melody Of trill or song—anon to tears I turn, Wailing the woe that broods upon this home, Not now by honour guided ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... cedar-tree in front of my window. He has a lady-love somewhere, and he must be desperately in love, for he sings his little heart out on his skylarking tours to attract her attention. I try hard (naive that I am) to imitate his song, especially the trill and the long, sad note. I wonder if either of them is deceived: whether she thinks that she has two lovers (one worse than the other), or, if he thinks he has a poor rival who can't hold a ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... and emotionless. It sounded almost as if she were talking in her sleep. And strangely it was that that shocked Scott even more than her appearance. Dinah's voice had always held countless inflections, little notes gay or sad like the trill of a robin. This was the voice of a woman in whom the very last spark ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... enough. The bride rides a mare, led by one of Shaheen's brothers, and as we pass the fountain, the people pour water under the mare's feet as a libation, and Handumeh throws down a few little copper coins to the children. The women in the company set up the zilagheet, a high piercing trill of the voice, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. When we reach the house of Shaheen, he keeps out of sight, not even offering to help his bride dismount from her horse. That would never do. He will stay among the men, and she in a separate room among the women, until ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... is full of radiant warmth, and the air of a half-articulate murmur and awakening. How still the morning is! It is at such times that we discover what music there is in the souls of the little slate- colored snowbirds. How they squeal, and chatter, and chirp, and trill, always in scattered troops of fifty or a hundred, filling the air with a fine sibilant chorus! That joyous and childlike "chew," "chew," "chew" is very expressive. Through this medley of finer songs and calls, there is shot, from time to time, the clear, strong note ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... he could hear was the trill and chirp of the insects of the woods. The pursuit, which had lasted only a few minutes, was over. But it might be resumed at any moment. Tom was not safe yet, he thought, and he ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton

... in gleeful joy, In songbirds trill, in flowerlets coy, Shall we, also, voices raise, Sing ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... into the wall of the wigwam, and with head alert—and eyes wide open—watched his companion attentively. Not a movement of the Willow escaped him. She was radiant—and happy. Her laugh, sweet and wild as a bird's trill, set Baree's heart throbbing with a desire to jump about with ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... hives beneath the eaves of the house. Great bronze butterflies fluttered in the sunshine, brilliant humming-birds plunged deep into the long trumpet-flowers; from the topmost bough of a locust, heavy with bloom, came the liquid trill of a mock-bird. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... is so well described by Nuttall, but is apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the most common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call it "yorrick," from the sound of its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the traveller through the underwood. The cowbird's egg is occasionally found in its nest, as mentioned ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... of the grove, little birds live at ease, I wish not to wander from you; I'll still dwell beneath the deep roar of your trees, For I know that my Joe will be true. The trill of the robin, the coo of the dove, Are charms that I'll never forego; But resting through life on the bosom of love, Will remember the ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield

... enthralled by the music. It was not only the novelty and bird-like sweetness of the instrument itself that charmed, but also the fine taste and wonderful touch of the sailor. The warbling notes seemed to trill, rise and fall, and float about on the atmosphere, as it were, like fairy music, filling the air with melody and ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... snowy breast was bare to greedy spoil Of hungry eyes which n'ote therewith be fill'd. And yet through languor of her late sweet toil Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill'd, That like pure Orient perles adown it trill'd; And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight Moisten'd their fiery beams, with which she thrill'd Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light, Which sparkling on the silent waves ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... moon, the woods aboon, looks laughing down on lake and lea; Weird o'er the waters shrills the loon; the high stars twinkle in the sea. From bank and hill the whippowil sends piping forth his flute-like notes, And clear and shrill the answers trill from leafy isles and silver throats. The twinkling light on cape and height; the hum of voices on the shores; The merry laughter on the night; the dip and plash of frolic oars,— These tell the tale. On hill and dale the cities pour their gay and fair; Along the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... the less, from Song's excess, Sings the blackbird late and early: Nor the bobolink's trill the less Laughs for very happiness, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... to the wilderness and its spirit, this sudden voice out of the ominous silence was full of meaning. He started at the first trill. It was not a vain and idle song. A strange shiver ran down his spine, and the hair on ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... a friend Trill forth harmonious ditty: Strange things I'll tell, which late befell In ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... she would usually have been the first to arrive. A short walk brought her to Harmon's, and here bringing to a hurried conclusion the Wedding March from "Lohengrin,"—an excellent tune to march by,—she changed her flutelike notes for a well-known piercing trill. At the second shrill summons Mrs. Harmon came to ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... the faeries light their firefly lamps, Elusive foxfire flames from marish damps; Hastes to the morris-dance an elfin brood; A far bell chimes, the cricket cheerly shrills, The droning beetle sounds his hoarse bassoon And hylas trill; eftsoon the rising moon The ambient air to ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner

... with a long breath. "My sister Solly is married." Smiles broke all over her little face. She hid it in Sally's skirts, and a little peal of laughter like a bird-trill came from the soft ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... despairing humanity; weeping men and laughing women, wrestlers and ball players, dancing couples and grape pickers. The pause appealed to her as a man who climbs naked from a deep subterranean shaft, carrying a burning torch in his hand; the trill seemed like a bird that anxiously ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... in the midst of the forest trees, And heard the sweet sigh of the wandering breeze, And this with the tinkle of heifer bells, As they trill on the ear from the dewy dells, Are the sounds in ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... moon poured its full splendor upon the quiet city. Through the haze the convent on La Popa sparkled like an enchanted castle, with a pavement of soft moonbeams leading up to its doors. The trill of a distant nightingale rippled the scented air; and from the llanos were borne on the warm land breeze low feral sounds, broken now and then by the plaintive piping of a lonely toucan. The cocoa ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... A low trill came from the throat of Carolyn June. The two horses stopped feeding and looked around toward the gate. The bird-like call was repeated. The Ramblin' Kid was astonished to see Captain Jack and ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman

... adored her native ballads Mr. Cameron, on his part, had a good stock of Scottish songs, and would trill them out in a fine baritone voice, the audience joining with enthusiasm in the choruses of such favorites as "Bonny Dundee," "Charlie is my Darling," and "Over the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... a common ancient practice; the very words "thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots "thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. Cic. 26; and Juv. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... opposed to the negative of this proposition. But when a canary bird warbles till it stuns us, or a nightingale sings in the shadows on the fine nights of June, can we follow and discover the significance of those modulations—now sharply cadenced, now slowly drawn out, and ending with a trill long and accurate enough to challenge the most ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... sun sifted through the dusty attic window on her yellow head. Somewhere near the window a robin began to trill his vesper song. Over and over he sang it until at last Lydia heard and raised her ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... was suddenly broken by the sharp trill of the telephone. Slavin arose lethargically from the mess-table and ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... the frogs all day and night Dream without thought of pain or heed of ill, Watching the long warm silent hours take flight, And ever with soft throats that pulse and thrill, From the pale-weeded shallows trill and trill, Tremulous sweet voices, flute-like, answering One to another glorying ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman

... canaries suddenly broke into a rich trill of song, as if to add his personal expression ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various

... flute, The melancholy lute, Were night-owl's hoot To my low-whispered coo - Were I thy bride! The skylark's trill Were but discordance shrill To the soft thrill Of wooing as I'd woo - Were ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... arrive at perfection. Serious and lasting results are obtained only by constant practice. It is a curious fact that many people more than usually gifted arrive only at mediocrity. Certain things, such as the trill or scales, come naturally easy to them. This being the case, they neglect to perfect their agilita, which remains defective. Others, although but moderately endowed, have arrived at eminence by sheer persistence ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... sat and listened still, I could not have my fill. 'How comes,' I said, 'such music to his bill? Tell me for whom he sings so beautiful a trill.' ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... Mellicent gasped with amazement, while Rosalind gave a trill of laughter, and threw up her ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... rose as the sun threw its first beams over the earth. Birds of all kinds vied with each other, as they sang their joy on that beautiful morning. The priest stood listening. Suddenly, off at one side, he heard a trill that rose higher and clearer than all the rest. He moved toward the place whence the song came, that he might see what manner of bird it was that could send farther than all the others its happy, laughing notes. As he came near, he beheld a tiny brown bird with open bill, the feathers on its ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher

... of winter's rain The dripping forests welter, The shepherd opes his door amain, And gives me food and shelter. I touch my chords, I trill my lay, The firelight glances o'er us, And wind and rain, in stormy play, Join in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... impossible for him ever to look at Charlotte in just that fashion. He thought with a thrill of indignant pride that there was a maiden who would have the best of love as her right. Then sitting there he heard a quick tread and a trill of whistle as meaningless as that of a robin, and young Eastman himself came alongside. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... ever hear of the ship-fever?" said Potts, in a low voice which sent a sharp trill through every fibre of Brandon's being. He could ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... in the heart of England—summer in wooded Warwickshire,—a summer brilliant, warm, radiant with flowers, melodious with the songs of the heaven—aspiring larks, and the sweet, low trill of the forest-hidden nightingales. Wonderful and divine it is to hear the wild chorus of nightingales that sing beside Como in the hot languorous nights of an Italian July—wonderful to hear them maddening ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... are tempted to do anything wrong, remember the text, "Thou, God, seest me."' When wasn't I tempted to do wrong? and I had for a long time the uncomfortable feeling that two great eyes were always staring at me. But this isn't sleigh-riding chit-chat," and she broke into a merry little trill from a ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... the coloratura music, and the beautiful bel canto singing; do nothing to strain your voice; preserve its velvety quality.' Patti's voice went to C sharp, in later years; mine has several tones higher. In the great aria in Lucia, she used to substitute a trill at the end instead of the top notes; but she said to me—'Luisa, you can sing ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... noticed the churn of yeasty blackness blotting out the Valley and felt the hushed heat of the air. A jack rabbit went whipping past at long bounds. The last rasp of a jay's scold jangled out from the trees. Then, she heard from the hushed Valley, the low flute trill of a blue bird's love song. Ever afterwards, either of those bird notes, the scurl of the jay or the golden melody of the blue warbler, brought her joyous, terrible thoughts, too keen to the very quick of being for ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... The shepherdess, as soon as she found herself disengaged and alone, revolved with the utmost displeasure her present situation. "How happy," cried she, "are the virgins of the vale! To them every hour is winged with tranquility and pleasure. They laugh at sorrow; they trill the wild, unfettered lay, or wander, chearful and happy, with the faithful swain beneath the woodland shade. They fear no coming mischief; they know not the very meaning of an enemy. Innocent themselves, they apprehend not guilt and treachery in those around them. Nor have they ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... enjoyment. As for Reuben's honest phiz, it was a sight to behold in its perfect satisfaction. Even the negro driver of the heavy wagon let his horses take their time as he raised his ear to catch some very delicate trill in a bird's song, or turned his head to inhale the perfume from some bank ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... a bit. She looked at him oddly, an inscrutable little light flickering in her eyes. All at once she broke out with a merry trill of laughter. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... make each highest one a triumph of expression purely, and not a physical marvel. The gradual growth and sostenuto of her tones; the light and shade, the rhythmic undulation and balance of her passages; the bird-like ecstacy of her trill; the faultless precision and fluency of her chromatic scales; above all, the sure reservation of such volume of voice as to crown each protracted climax with glory, not needing a new effort to raise force for the final blow; and indeed all the points one looks ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... the midst of a winning game, I still watched eagerly and ungratefully for manatees. Kiskadees splashed rather than flew through the drenched air, an invisible black witch bubbled somewhere to herself, and a wren sang three notes and a trill which died out in a liquid gurgle. Then came another crocodile, and finally the manatees. Not only did they rise and splash and roll and indolently flick themselves with their great flippers, but they ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... only wring All the sweetness to the lees Of all the kisses clustering In juicy Used-to-bes, To dip his rhymes therein and sing The blossoms on the trees—, "O Blossoms on the Trees," He would twitter, trill, and coo, "However sweet, such songs as these Are not as sweet as you—: For you are blooming melodies The eyes may ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley

... . . . only the sounds of nature invaded the quiet of the place: the drowsy hum of diligent bees, the cattle browsing in a field near by, the ecstatic trill of a bird. The world of bustle and flurry with its seething vats of evil and corruption, its sordid discontent and petulance, its ways of pain and darkness, seemed far removed from that place of peace and calm solitude. Phoebe could not bear to ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... the East; but it has an individuality of its own, and is not merely a copy. I stumbled upon it while pursuing my explorations near Peabody, far out on the level prairie, where the species was abundant during the season of migration. As I was sauntering along a road, a peculiar croaking little trill greeted me from the hedge, sounding very much like the rasping call of certain kinds of grasshoppers when they are suddenly startled and take to wing. But no insect had ever emitted quite such a sound in my hearing. This could not be an insect. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... speaking there came a trill at the front-door bell, followed a minute later by a masculine knock ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... pointed, rarely finch-like. The yellow-breasted chat has the greatest variety of vocal expressions. The ground warblers are compensated for their sober, thrush-like plumage by their exquisite voices, while the great majority of the family that are gaily dressed have notes that either resemble the trill of mid-summer insects or, by their limited range and feeble utterance, sadly belie the family name. Bay-breasted Warbler. Blackburnian Warbler. Blackpoll Warbler. Black-throated Blue Warbler. Black-throated ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... gleams of lustre tremble through the grove, And sacred airs of minstrelsy divine Are harp'd around, and flutt'ring pinions move. Ah, hark! a voice, to which the vocal rill, The lark's extatic harmony is rude; Distant it swells with many a holy trill, Now breaks wide warbling ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... Tucker." Oh, I put vim into it, I can tell you! And bad as my playing was, I had from the start an absorption of attention from my audience that Paderewski himself might have envied. I wound up with a lively trill in the high notes and took my whistle from my lips with a hearty laugh, for the whole thing had been downright good fun, the playing itself, the make-believe which went with it, the surprise and interest in the children's faces, the slow-breaking ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... fail, Rusty sang his dawn song right under Farmer Green's window. His musical trill, sounding very much like the brook that rippled its way down the side of Blue Mountain, always made Farmer Green feel glad that another day ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey

... horn until the echoes answered merrily, merrily; now she would trill her songs, until the ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor

... stone dead!" While she did speak, The hunter breathless fell to earth, stone dead, As falls a tree-trunk blasted by the bolt. That ravisher destroyed, the lotus-eyed Fared forward, threading still the fearful wood, Lonely and dim, with trill of jhillikas[22] Resounding, and fierce noise of many beasts Laired in its shade, lions and leopards, deer, Close-hiding tigers, sullen bisons, wolves, And shaggy bears. Also the glades of it Were filled with fowl which ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear: Late, gazing down the steepy linn, That hems our little garden in, Low in its dark and narrow glen, 5 You scarce the rivulet might ken, So thick the tangled greenwood grew, So feeble trill'd the streamlet through: Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen Through bush and brier, no longer green, 10 An angry brook, it sweeps the glade, Brawls over rock and wild cascade, And, foaming brown with double speed, Hurries its waters ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... laughing in great glee, when a mockingbird, perched on the topmost bough of a small tree opposite the nursery window, burst suddenly into song, with many a trill and quaver. Clara, with the child in her arms, sprang to the ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... any one of the friends, they all rejoiced. When the maiden-pink and the bell-flower budded, the hazel-bush offered his congratulations, the linnet struck his longest trill and the blades of grass appointed a deputation and bowed respectfully to the ground and each shed a dewy tear of emotion. When the little linnets crept out of the egg, all the friends were as happy as if they themselves ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald

... tea-table, and his wife, as he drew near, could be seen bending above a kettle that was just about to boil. So vividly did the whole scene suggest the painted bliss of a stage setting, that it would have been hardly surprising to see her step forward among the flowers and trill out her virtuous happiness from ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton

... astonishment; but from the edge of the sheep-pasture floated a shrill, kite-like trill. A child tending cattle had picked it up from a brother or sister on the far side of the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... thrush, Pipe not from the bough or bush; Come to me with thy lustrous eye, Azure-melting westerly, The raptures of thy face unfold, And welcome in thy robes of gold! Tho' the nightingale broods—'sweet-chuck-sweet' - And the ouzel flutes so chill, Tho' the throstle gives but one shrilly trill To the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... soaring into the air and descending in loops and spirals. The scarlet tyrant I saw in the orchards and gardens. The male is a fascinating little bird, coal- black above, while his crested head and the body beneath are brilliant scarlet. He utters his rapid, low-voiced musical trill in the air, rising with fluttering wings to a height of a hundred feet, hovering while he sings, and then falling back to earth. The color of the bird and the character of his performance attract the attention of every observer, bird, beast, or man, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... planet knows And to his joy replies; To the lark's trill unfolds the rose, Clouds flush ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... a clarionet, And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, And utter its ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... to play a noisy Strauss waltz, which started with such a mighty and rapid trill as made even Gedeonovsky start; in the very middle of the waltz, she abruptly changed into a mournful motif, and wound up with the aria from "Lucia": "Fra poco."... She had reflected that merry music was not compatible with her situation. The aria from "Lucia," ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... which had fallen there crept also those minors that seemed to belong rather to an exaggerated quiet than to sound: the trill of a bird, voicing an overflow of joy and the humming of bees among the vines of the church yard, where slanting headstones bore quaintly archaic names and life dates of sailors home from the sea. A wandering butterfly had ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... the wild bird, called again with a mellow, warbling trill, and then struck up the quaint old madrigal with the bird's song running through it. Carew leaped to his feet, with a flash in his dark eyes. "My soul! my soul!" he exclaimed in an excited undertone. "It is not—nay, it cannot be—why, 'tis—it is the boy! Upon ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... to me of the country green and cool— Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool; It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill, And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning trill; So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know Where the sassafras and ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... uncertainty the natural physical hesitancy had resulted in Barbee's gaining a lead of a dozen steps. Hence when a white figure flitted out from the shadows to the boy's side, Longstreet was not near enough to hear the whispered words; the soft trill of a laugh he caught, to be sure, and immediately recognized as Mrs. Murray's. Then she had drawn away from Barbee, called good night and passed on to the hotel, so close to Longstreet that her skirts brushed him. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... first cousin which lives in the trees and loves its tree home so much, like the sensible little fellow it is, that it sings 'Tr-e-e-e, tr-e-e-e,' as fast as it can trill all summer long. But it is very harmful to the tree, because when egg-laying time comes it cuts a long slit in the trees in which to lay its eggs. Just a minute!" The old man shifted the position ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody

... and it was over. A second, and the revel was on. The earth was not silent now. There was no warning trill of prairie owl. As dropped the figures from above there broke forth the Sioux war-cry: long drawn out, demoniac, indescribable. Blood curdling, more savage infinitely than the cry of any wild beast, the others took it up, augmented it by a score, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... had followed her into the house. It was a homelike room; a canary's trill greeted them, and a glimpse of old-fashioned plants in the bay-window wakened memories of English homes. How different it was from his ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... fair calm eve on wood and wold Shone down with softest ray, Beneath the sycamore's red leaf The mavis trill'd her lay, Murmur'd the Tweed afar, as if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various



Words linked to "Trill" :   musical note, enunciate, enounce, sound out, note, articulate, say, tone, articulation, pronounce, sing



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