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Trying on   /trˈaɪɪŋ ɑn/   Listen
Trying on

noun
1.
Putting clothes on to see whether they fit.  Synonyms: fitting, try-on.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Trying on" Quotes from Famous Books



... also at this hour. A tailor from Casterbridge was with him, assisting him in the operation of trying on a new coat that had just been ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... reason to reproach himself for his want of care, the situation was none the less difficult or trying on that account. But there was one compensating advantage: as he passed through the narrow outlet of the lake, the broad surface of the Chetemache was before him. It was forty miles long by ten miles wide, and afforded him abundant ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... that; but only think of trying on a diver's suit, and being supplied with air from above, through a tube into ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... content to go on all day trying on different jewels and looking at herself in the little silver-framed mirror that the Princess took from one of the shelves, but the boys were soon weary ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... silent in the room, waiting for the lad whom they both loved even better than a brother. The past days had been trying on all of them—on every one in Elmwood Hall—from the most lordly Senior, or calm post-graduate, to the "fuzziest" Freshman, who thought he bore the weight of the whole school ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... certainly seem for the members of a supreme court, like the General Assembly, to be baffled by those of a subordinate court: but still, since each party must be regarded as representing far larger interests than any personal to themselves, trying on either side, not the energies of their separate wits, but the available resources of law in one of its obscurer chapters, there really seemed no more room for humiliation to the one party, or for triumph to the other, than there is amongst reasonable men in the result from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... the Paragon chestnuts died that were not watered. My Pomeroy walnuts are having a struggle to keep good form but I think that I will have a few hardy ones selected from them, as these last two winters have been the most trying on young trees we have ever had, of which fact I am glad. Here at Battle Creek are a dozen of Mr. W. C. Reed's grafted pecans; all are alive and growing strong as are mine in Toronto. I wrote you ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various

... cried Doctor Wood, "although his mother does spoil him so cruelly. Look you, Madam Cat: did you not hear what he said about Beinkleider and the clothes? Tommy will just wait on the Count with his Lordship's breeches. A man may learn a deal of news in the trying on of ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a clear gay voice made answer, and the merriest face that Scott had ever seen made a sudden appearance at an open window. "Darling Billy, do keep your hair on for just two minutes longer! Yvonne has been trying on my fancy dress, but ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... this, Beauty did not forget her father. One day she felt a strong desire to know how he was, and what he was doing; at that instant she cast her eyes on a mirror and saw her father lying on a sick-bed, in the greatest pain, whilst her sisters were trying on some fine dresses in another room. At this sad sight poor ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... owed you an answer, and a most grateful one, for some time past, for your kindness in writing me so long a letter as your last; but when I assure you that, what with leave-taking, trying on dresses, making purchases, etc., etc., and all the preparations for our summer tour, this is the first moment in which I have been able to draw a long breath for the last month, I am sure you will forgive me, and believe, notwithstanding my long silence, that I was made very happy ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... until the last moment. At about six o'clock she usually came pussy-footing to my door in the tennis shoes she always wore, to tell me that there wasn't a potato in the house, or any butter. Not so bad in Pasadena, with a man to send to the store, but very trying on a smiling hill-top, one mile from town, with me the only thing dimly suggestive of a chauffeur on the place. At 3 A.M. I resolved to bounce her, heavenly disposition and all. I did, and engaged a cateress for what I should call a comfortable salary, ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... many minutes the efficacy of Raven's methods of barter began to be apparent. The Indians lost their grave and dignified demeanour. They became curious, eager, garrulous, and demonstrative. With childish glee they began examining more closely Raven's supply of goods, trying on the rings, draping themselves in the gaudy calicoes and flannels. At length Raven rolled up his articles of barter and ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... Old MORALITY who spoke. We were in his room at House; just torn ourselves away from Committee on Irish Land Bill, where, at the moment, oddly enough SEXTON chanced to be speaking. Old MORALITY has been made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and is trying on his uniform. Rather piratical arrangement; blue cloth coat with large brass buttons, red sash round his waist, with holster thrust in it, containing the horse-pistol with which PITT armed himself when he sat at the window of Walmer Castle, looking across ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various

... got the order yesterday at noon; and there's three girls beside the mother; and what with trying on and matching the stuff (for there was not enough in the piece they chose first), I'm above a bit behindhand. I've the skirts all to make. I kept that work till candlelight; and the sleeves, to say nothing of little ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... me, please, Harriet," Mollie entreated. "I really can't buy it." Mollie felt deeply embarrassed, and was sorry she had allowed herself to be persuaded into trying on the gown. ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... the General storms; All round one sees and hears The trying on of uniforms, The clank of ...
— The Animals' Rebellion • Clifton Bingham

... dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on the Rostovs, and Natasha, very glad of this diversion, having shut herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying on the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds of her father's voice and another's—a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... Josie hurried and flopped herself down by a young woman who was busily engaged in trying on several styles of bargain pumps. Her slender, high-arched foot was just the kind for the shoes advertised as greatly reduced. It was the woman of the morning, but she, too, was much changed—so much so that Josie herself might not have recognized her had ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... delighted with the genteelness of the thought and execution. The child, you may imagine, was less transported with the poetry than the present. Her attention, however, was hurried backwards and forwards from the ring to a new coat, that she had been trying on when sent for down; impatient to revisit her coat, and to show the ring to her maid, she whisked upstairs; when she came down again, she found a letter sealed, and lying on the floor—new exclamations! Lady Suffolk bade her open it: here ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... sensation that you perceive there must not be the least discrepancy; otherwise you would be just dreaming. This adjustment you can only obtain by an effort of the memory and an effort of the perception, just as the tailor who is trying on a new coat pulls together the pieces of cloth that he adjusts to the shape of your body in order to pin them. You exert, then, continually, every moment of the day, an enormous effort. Your life in a waking state is a life of labor, even when you think you are doing ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson

... the way to Yuma by a band of Mexican robbers, as it was supposed we carried a great amount of treasure, and the fatigue of the journey by day and standing guard all night was trying on the strongest constitution in the hot summer month ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear. There is a fitting a dismay, A fitting a despair. 'Tis harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here. The trying on the utmost, The morning it is new, Is terribler than wearing it A ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... upon Mr. Polly. Everyone, he noticed, took sherry with a solemn avidity, and a small portion even was administered sacramentally to the Punt boy. There followed a distribution of black kid gloves, and much trying on and humouring of fingers. "Good gloves," said one of Mrs. Johnson's friends. "There's a little pair there for Willie," said Mrs. Johnson triumphantly. Everyone seemed gravely content with the amazing procedure of the occasion. Presently Mr. Podger ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... said the Major smiling, "your enthusiasm is gratifying in the extreme. But flying, especially in high latitudes, is very trying on the nerves—even such nerves as yours. Remember that in the Arctic, where anything at all is liable to happen at a moment's notice, we must always be at our best. So get some relaxation. What will you do ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... seven years were numerous, and the old woman had them to look after as well as the babies. This was indeed a task, and might well have taxed the strength of a younger woman. They were always from eight to a dozen infants in the cabin. The summer season was trying on the babies and young children. Often they would drink too much liquor from cabbage, or too much buttermilk, and would be taken with a severe colic. I was always called on these occasions to go with Boss to administer ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes

... anxious and would far rather have yielded her part to another; still, she was curious about the new dresses. The tailor begged her to allow her maid to dress her; his assistant would help her because the dresses which were only slightly stitched together for trying on, were cut, not in the Greek but in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... her eyes the trappings of woe, and substituted ribbons of rose-colour and blue of every shade and variety: trying on these, so diverted Papillette's melancholy, that the poor drowned prince was soon forgotten. Her tears indeed were vain; he had ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... sure if she'd been mad at noon she'd just be hopping mad over that last, but the next morning she came up to me in the vestibule and smiled at me, the funniest little wavery smile, as though she were trying on a brand-new expression. It made her look almost pretty. 'Good morning, Mr. Harrison,' she said in that soft, singsong tone English women have, 'here is your loan back again. I hope I have the sum you paid for my lunch correct—and ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... mystery at the dinner-table, and is apparently abstracted trying on her new emotions. Floyd is wondering if all this has not been very dull for Violet. If there only was some one to take a vital interest in her. They have begun to make neighborhood calls, and cards are left for Mrs. Floyd Grandon, invitations ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... feel the touch of her fingers, Ellen at last could stand it no longer, but threw herself out of the bed, weak as she was, and went to see what was going on. Nancy was seated quietly on the floor, examining, with much seeming interest, the contents of the work-box; trying on the thimble, cutting bits of thread with the scissors, and marking the ends of the spools with whatever like pieces of mischief her restless spirit could devise; but when Ellen opened the door, she put the box from ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, were bare, his big toes were broad, and pricked like the ears of a watchful dog. In a leisurely manner—he did everything in a leisurely manner—he was contemplating trying on a pair of boots. They were the soundest boots he had come across for a long time, but too large for him; whereas the ones he had were, in dry weather, a very comfortable fit, but too thin-soled for damp. Mr. Thomas Marvel hated roomy shoes, but then he hated damp. He had never properly thought ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... Vicar's magnanimity, his daughters were allowed to use his bedroom twice in every two years, in the spring and in the autumn, for the purpose of trying on their new gowns; but this year they were wearing out last winter's gowns, and Ally had no business in the Vicar's bedroom at ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... the best part of two hours trying on the new things. The long mirror in his bedroom did its best, but it wasn't good enough for Jim. He groaned as he saw this stranger staring at him from the mirror. He wasn't built for that sort of garb. The hard ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... and everybody tumbling over Jip's pagoda, which is much too big for the establishment. Another happy evening, quite as unreal as all the rest of it, and I steal into the usual room before going away. Dora is not there. I suppose they have not done trying on yet. Miss Lavinia peeps in, and tells me mysteriously that she will not be long. She is rather long, notwithstanding; but by and by I hear a rustling at the door, and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Just returned from trying on the dress clo'. Lord, you should see the coat! It stands out at the waist like a bustle, the flaps cross in front, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... point made. But GRANDOLPH busy down by the Docks, picking up his outfit. Secret of the sudden and surprising growth of the beard out now. GRANDOLPH off to the gold-diggings, and beard usually worn there. Hardly knew him when I looked in the other day at Connaught Place; trying on his new things; pair of rough unpolished boots coming over his knees; belt round his waist holding up his trousers and conveniently suspending jackknife, tin pannikin, and water-bottle. "For use on the voyage," he explains. Then a flannel shirt open at the neck; a wide-awake cocked on one side ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various

... am now—simply desperate with weariness and failure. And I should have seen; I did see. I just—didn't care. I was busy trying on a box of new frocks from a French dressmaker, frocks of silk and lace—of silk and lace, Jordan King, while she hadn't clothes enough to keep her warm! And I couldn't spare the time to look at the girl's book! Well, ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... it was in her case. When the queen went to her with silks and taffetas and fine cloths, to consult about the trousseau, although the theme was one which would interest almost any woman, she would have none of it, and when Catherine insisted upon her trying on a certain gown, she called her a blackamoor, tore the garment to pieces, and ordered her to ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... than ever. He had paid so many bills to great dress-makers, great milliners, and great jewellers! He had been present at so many conferences on the cut of such a dress or the arrangement of such a costume, at so many scenes of trying on and draping! And as he drew easily, he willingly threw his ideas on paper, as he said, neatly. He had even designed the costumes of a little piece—played in I do not know what little theatre—which was revolutionary, anarchistic, symbolistic, ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy

... got up and began trying on the boots in silence. Desiring to help him, Fyodor went down on one knee and pulled off his old, boot, but at once jumped up and staggered towards the door in horror. The customer had not a foot, but a hoof ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... had seemed to speak with passion, but, before he could notice the transition, he found her only trying on ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... resolved at once to help out by teaching in Union Village, New York. In May 1838, she wrote in her diary, "On last evening ... I again left my home to mingle with strangers which seems to be my sad lot. Separation was rendered more trying on account of the embarrassing condition of our business affairs, an inventory was expected to be taken today of our furniture by assignees.... Spent this day in school, found it small and quite disorderly. O, may my patience hold out to ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... certain uniformity in conditions. It is very trying on them, and often fatal to success, to have them snug and warm one night and pinched in a temperature only a few degrees above freezing the next. Some plants will live in spite of it, but they cannot be expected to prosper. Those whose rooms are heated with steam, hot water, or hot air ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... "I wish there was more Japanese bric-a-brac here, or any kind of old pots and pans to talk about. A little art would be good for her. What a strange place this is, and how people do stand on their heads in it! Nobody thinks like anyone else. Victoria Dare says she is trying on principle not to be good, because she wants to keep some new excitements for the next world. I'm sure she practices as she preaches. Did you see her at Mrs. Clinton's last night. She behaved more outrageously than ever. She sat on the stairs all through supper, looking like a demure yellow cat ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... but Barbara occupied herself with trying on Anne's tennis shoes. Eleanor sat down upon the grass and soon had on Polly's ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... supped, as she had so often done, at her brother-in-law's house. At the table she sat between Elly and Richard. Mention was made of her approaching journey to Vienna as though it was really nothing more than a matter of paying a visit to her cousin, trying on the new costume at the dressmaker's, and executing a few commissions in the way of household necessities, which she had promised to undertake for her sister-in-law. Towards the end of supper, her brother-in-law smoked his pipe, Richard read the paper to him, her sister-in-law knitted, and ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... across a lady friend in Bond Street, "a War Toiler enormously interested in the War" (see the current number of Social Snaps). She had been at Yvonne's trying on her gauze for the Boccaccio Tableaux in aid of the Armenians and needed some relaxation. So she engaged the Babe for the play, to be followed by supper with herself and her civilian husband. The play (a War-drama) gave the Babe a fine hunger, but the Commissionaire (apparently ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various

... member from Georgia stated yesterday, more distinctly than I have before learned it, what that experiment is which the government is now trying on the revenues and the currency, and, I may add, on the commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of this country. If I rightly apprehend him, this experiment is an attempt to return to an exclusive specie currency, first, by employing the State banks ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... if to forcibly silence her, but Sahwah held her back and Gladys proceeded for the edification of the boys. "You see," said Gladys, "she was in there trying on hats all by herself because the saleswomen were busy with other people. She had put on a mink hat and was roaming around looking for a handglass to see how it looked from the back, when she suddenly got an idea for a story she was to write for that ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... hurried to one of the big drygoods stores and bought the two waists and an inexpensive straw hat that would harmonize with the suit; a hat small enough to stick, in the wind, with brim enough to shade her eyes. In about two hours she was back with Katy and they were in her room trying on the new clothing. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... to me that it must have been trying on my nerves, and that I might be tired, and also that I need not teach that ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... constant in England than inconstancy of attire. So much cost upon the body, so little upon souls; how many suits of apparel hath the one, or how little furniture hath the other!" "And how men and women worry the poor tailors, with endless fittings and sending back of garments, and trying on!" "Then must the long seams of our hose be set with a plumb line, then we puff, then we blow, and finally sweat till we drop, that our clothes may ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... he heard that Mrs. Challoner was too indisposed to receive him. In spite of his polite expressions of regret, he had found the poor lady terribly trying on the previous evening. She was a bad manager, and had muddled her affairs, and she did not seem to understand half of what he told her; and her tears and lamentations when she had realized the truth had been too much for the soft hearted old bachelor, though ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... was a long time before it went out that night, but even then I tried to salve my conscience—to make myself believe that it was not all vanity, for I said that the things wanted trying on, and the buttons and buttonholes were stiff. But at last everything was neatly folded up again and put away, and I lay down to sleep and dream of my new career. Somehow I only saw one side of a soldier's life just then. Perhaps if I could have ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... ovens were attached to the mine, and most of the coal taken out was made into coke. Work on the ovens was so hard and so trying on account of the great heat, that they used this as a punishment for anything that was done wrong in the mines. This is what the German who could speak English told us. The morning we were put on, he lined us up and read this to us, "If you Englaenders does not do your work right ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien

... you couldn't understand the words, no harm was done. Say, fellows, how do I look in the valet's togs?" asked Holmes turning around as if he was in a tailor shop trying on a new suit. ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... after the ladies had left the dining-room, the pianoforte was heard playing quadrilles in the drawing-room. David fidgeted on his seat a little, and presently rose and went for his violin, and joined Lucy in the drawing-room alone. Mrs. B. was trying on a dress. Between the tunes Lucy chatted with him as freely and kindly as ever. David was in heaven. When the gentlemen came up from the dining-room, his joy was interrupted, but not for long. The two musicians ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... odd child," said Sophia. "I did not tell you, mamma, what I found her doing the other day. She was trying on the white frock she had this spring when she was confirmed. It's unlike her to do a thing like that for no reason; and when I teased her she began to cry, and then began speaking to me about religion. She has been puzzled by the views your housekeeper ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... is nothing to show that one cannot keep respectable even under such disquieting circumstances. The elder Loveday had clung obstinately to her self-respect under circumstances which her neighbours had tried to render nearly as trying on earth. She had died, as she had lived, impenitent and only crying for the foreigner who had seduced her, while he was then lying, had she but known it, in the lap of his first mistress, the sea, who, perhaps from jealousy at his straying, had taken him forcibly ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse

... was, after the fashion of his predecessors (and his successors), always waiting for the right moment to sweep down upon Constantinople. England had become only a land of shopkeepers, France was absorbed with her new Empire, and with trying on her fresh imperial trappings. The time seemed favorable for a move. The pious soul of Nicholas was suddenly stirred by certain restrictions laid by the Sultan upon the Christians in Palestine. He demanded that he be made the Protector of Christianity in ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... deserved oblivion. From many a door that will hereafter gladly open for him, he must be content to be presently turned away. Many a scanty meal, many a lonely and unfriended evening, in this vast wilderness, must he pass in trying on his armour, and preparing himself for the fight that he still believes will come, and in which his spirit, strong within him, tells him he must conquer. While the night yet shrouds him he must labour, and with patient, and happily for him, if, with religious hope, he watch the first faint glimmerings ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... August, September and October were marked with much moving about with various spells of that sort of uneventful trench warfare which is perhaps in some respects more trying on the nerves and strength of a unit than actual operations. On August 23rd they were in the Hulluch Section. In this Section there was a good deal of mining going on and there were two big craters which required special watching, but the Battalion soon set to and ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various

... Susan Meynell's marriage—and, in point of fact—the actual state of the case—they might try to get hold of my friend, Gustave Lenoble. They could not get hold of him, mind you, Dashwood, but they would try it on, and I don't want trying on of that kind." ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... he was snoring on the dirty deck; Tchelkache sitting beside him, was trying on an old boot that he found lying there. He softly whistled, animated both by sorrow and anger. Then he lay down beside Gavrilo, without removing the boot from his foot, and putting his hands under the back of his neck he carefully examined the deck, ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky

... Mateus, what are you doing?" I say. "In Eternity, I am polishing the floor," says he; "we are going to have a big dance here to-night." "Is the squire up yet?" "He is up, but the tailor is with him; he is trying on a Crakovian costume. My lady is going to be a gipsy." "I want him to sell me that field," I say. Mateus says: "Don't be a fool! how can the squire think of your field, when he is amusing himself making up as a Crakovian." So I go away from ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... more watch, I should say; but be sure and get a large chain. If the watch gets to be trying on his nerves, he can use the chain to put an end ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... dear!" cried Kathleen, "it isn't me you'll see at school again to-day. It's gloating and fussing over my clothes I will be—portioning out those I mean to give to others, and trying on the ones that will suit me. You can go to your horrid, stupid lessons if you like, but it won't be Kathleen O'Hara who will accompany you. Perhaps the poor tired one would like to have a pleasant afternoon in ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... charge, in the right direction, were painful to witness. First he threaded corridors, then he was in the carpet gallery, and now he was in the splendid, the palatial shawl-hall, where elegant ladies were trying on shawls of costly fabric, with that grace and quiet for ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... three centuries before; I remember the dark stain on the floor of the dark room in which one of her lovers was slain; I can see the gray towers of Warwick rising above the green trees and reflected in the still water; and, entering the keep of the castle, I behold myself again trying on the ponderous helmet of the gigantic Guy, and climbing into his monstrous porridge-pot. But vain would be the attempt to marshal before my mind's eye the glorious pageantry of the Trosachs, though, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... "the best that I can say is not much. We must lay to, if you please, and keep a bright lookout. It's trying on a man, I know. It would be pleasanter to come to blows. But there's no help for it till we know our men. Lay to and whistle for ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Abe said. "A king of England is a very busy man, Mawruss, which I bet yer right now he is dated up as far ahead as Purim, 1921, laying corner-stones, opening exhibitions, making the speech of the afternoon or the evening, as the case may be, at assorted luncheons, teas, and dinners; trying on uniforms; signing warrants at a fee of two guineas and sixpence—not including three cents war tax—for the appointment of tea, coffee, or cocoa manufacturers as purveyors of tea, coffee, or cocoa to the royal household, y'understand, and doing all the other things which a king does in ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass

... complimented Gamelin on his talents and asked him if he would be willing to design a card for a protegee of hers, a fashionable milliner. He would, of course, choose an appropriate motif,—a woman trying on a scarf before a cheval glass, for instance, or a young workwoman carrying a band-box ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... subjects are shop-girls, ballet-girls, and washerwomen, but the qualities that endow them with immortality are precisely those which eternalise the virgins and saints of Leonardo da Vinci in the minds of men. You see the fat, vulgar woman in the long cloak trying on a hat in front of the pier-glass. So marvellously well are the lines of her face observed and rendered that you can tell exactly what her position in life is; you know what the furniture of her rooms is like; you know what she would say to you if she were to speak. She is as typical of ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... had all the apparatus assembled. He was just trying on the plastic suit, with all its accompanying paraphernalia, when Chow made ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... want to tell you something, Mr. Garfunkel. That lady what you see trying on them Empires was Mawruss' girl what works by his wife, and while she ain't no Lillian Russell nor nothing like that, y'understand, if you think you should get out of taking them goods by calling her ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass

... merely amused itself. His blackguardly Christianity was only meant to serve until some other hobby came along to take its place—no matter what: brute force, imperialism, "laughing lions."—Mannheim was always playing a part, playing with his whole heart: he was trying on all the feelings that he did not possess before becoming a good Jew like the rest and with all the spirit of his race. He was very sympathetic, and extremely irritating. For some time Christophe was one of his hobbies. Mannheim swore by him. He blew his trumpet ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... take all this as fiction. I am sure no one will annoy me by trying on any of the caps I have displayed on the counter of my shop. What I do fear is that the picture of some of my duties which I have given may have made a wrong impression of the Department's work upon the reader's mind. He may have come to the conclusion that, contrary to all the principles laid ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... so much to tell Mother at lunch that he almost forgot to inform her of the loss of his hat. Seeing her trying on a new hat before the hall mirror after lunch ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White

... She was sitting alone on the divan in her atelier, trying on a pair of old Pompadour shoes, with large faded rosettes and pink heels, which she had that moment routed out of a broker's shop in the Rue de Seine, on her way back from the Luxembourg with David. They made her feet look enchantingly small, and she was holding back her skirts ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... people have read till they are crazed of learned blacksmiths who at the forge conquered thirty languages, and of shoemakers who, pounding sole-leather, got to be philosophers, and of milliners who, while their customers were at the glass trying on their spring hats, wrote a volume of first-rate poems. The fact is no blacksmith ought to be troubled with more than five languages; and instead of shoemakers becoming philosophers, we would like to turn our surplus of philosophers into shoemakers; and the supply of poetry is so much greater ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... all interesting to Kitty in the room, so she could not while away the lagging hours with a novel. As a rule the arranging of her wardrobe, the trying on of her many dresses, gave her pleasant occupation; but she was in no humor to make herself ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... not like to stain her hands with the nasty hemlock more than some other folks," she had said, when, after the trying on of the bridal dress, Lucy had remonstrated with her for some duty neglected, and then bidden her to go to the church and help if she ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... trying on her furs," whispered Jim, in a rapture. "See Amanda with her coat. They have found the money. See Joe heft the turkey." Suddenly he caught Hayward's arm, and the two crept away. Out on the road, Jim fairly sobbed with pure delight. "Oh, Edward," he said, "I am so thankful they took ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... chuckle born of sheer good-will. "I know the very way," she murmured, half aloud. "If only the girls will see it, too. But they must! It's a splendid plan, and if it doesn't work it won't be from lack of trying on ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... Fay entirely absorbed in trying on a succession of new summer hats, sent for from London in preparation for Wentworth's return, she asked herself for the twentieth time whether Fay had entirely forgotten her previous attraction for Michael, or that there might be some awkwardness in meeting her faithful lover and servant again, ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... approached, turned from a mirror, at which she was trying on a diamond crescent. Her face clouded at sight of Count O'Halloran and Lord Colambre, and grew dark as hatred when she saw Sir James Brooke. She walked away to the farther end of the shop, and asked one of the ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... two were coming home from the dressmaker's, where Ina had been trying on gowns for an hour. It was late in the afternoon and nearly ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... suppers of evening receptions; the drain of charity-doing and play-going; the slavery of amateur art study, and parlour readings, and musicales; the writing of invitations and acceptances and refusals; the trying on of dresses; the calls made and received. She let her talk on, and tried to figure, as well as she could from her talk, the form and magnitude of the task laid upon her by Mr. Brandreth, of reconciling Old Hatboro' to South Hatboro', and uniting them ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... "That's what they all say. Old Man Wisner was crazy when he heard something about it—he was going to get out a injunction. I hope he'll try it; for he can't. Seems like most of the things he's been trying on ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough

... Such a trying on of dresses, and mantles and hats. Such endless speculations about the ultimate crisis of the whole affair, and how it would all come off. What the papers would say, and what people would think. Such an arranging of after-sports, travels, and elaborate ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... of Edinburgh in the Galatea in 1867, in honour of whom the Settlement is called Edinburgh. They remember well his having dinner in this room, and how while he was having it, all unknown to him they vied with one another in trying on his hat. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... unusually amiable during the long hours of trailing about from shop to shop, which were beginning to be a severe tax on her patience. Mrs Moffatt never seemed to make a purchase outright, but preferred to pay half a dozen visits to a shop, trying on garment or ornament, as the case might be, haggling over the price, and throwing small sops to the vendor, in the shape of the ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the Duc d'Angouleme figure respectively as a Spanish Mule and a French Jackass; A French Hilt on a Spanish Rapier, is likewise dedicated to the Duc d'Angouleme; another shows us Old Bumblehead the 18th trying on Napoleon's Boots; a fifth is entitled, A Hint to the Blind and Foolish, or the Bourbon Dynasty in Danger; while a sixth shows us Louis the Fat troubled with Nightmare and Dreams of Terror. In all these caricatures, the figure of Napoleon, already sleeping ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... for the first time in her life, out of spirits. Gilbert was always upon her mind; and the daily walk to meet him was a burthen, consuming a great deal of time, and becoming trying on hot summer afternoons, the more so as she seldom ventured to rest after it, lest dulness should drive Gilbert into mischief, or, if nothing worse, into quarrelling with Sophia. If she could not send him safely out fishing, she must be ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... before. The screen vanishes: and a dainty room with a bed, a wardrobe, and a dressing-table with a mirror and a switch on it, appears. Seated at it a handsome negress is trying on a brilliant head scarf. Her dressing-gown is thrown back from her shoulders to her chair. She is in corset, knickers, and ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... eleven that night he drove up to the entrance of the Paris Hotel. He went noisily upstairs and knocked at the door of Groholsky's apartments. He was admitted. Groholsky was packing his things in a portmanteau, Liza was sitting at the table trying on bracelets. They were both frightened when Bugrov went in to them. They fancied that he had come for Liza and had brought back the money which he had taken in haste without reflection. But Bugrov had not come for Liza. ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... better," answered Peter Ogle. "I never does feel comfortable like when one of those Monsieurs is in sight, till I gets up alongside him and overhauls him one way or the other. You mind how they used to give us the slip in the West Ingies. They'll be trying on the same ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... unusually long period had passed since we had received any money. We were in great distress because of lack of funds, and the nervous strain was tremendous. It is difficult for me to think of any situation that is more trying on the nerves than that of conducting a large institution, with heavy obligations to meet, without knowing where the money is to come from to meet these obligations ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington

... you would convince her that this was wrong. Her own heart would soon tell her so. You must not expect her to do better all at once; but no doubt, with a little patience on your part, and a little trying on hers, she will find her happiness much increased by being kind to those beneath her, and in time she will feel that in this country all are equals, though for one night she ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... horseflesh, and would like to give his nags a try, having a high-flyer himself at home that the old gentleman would not hear of his bringing along. His actions denoted an admiration of me. He looked over the book I was reading or rummaged my workbox, trying on my thimble with an air of tenderness, and peeping into my needlebook. He told Alice that he thought I was a whole team and a horse to let, but he felt rather balky when he came near me, I had such ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... thought an awful lot of each other. It made me feel young again to see 'em. Anne wasn't a mossel vain, but nights she expected Gil she'd prink for hours afore her glass, fixing her hair this way and that, and trying on all her good clothes to see which become her most. I used to love her for it. And I used to love to see the way Gil's face would light up when she came into a room or place where he was. Amanda Perkins, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... unessential resources for sleepless moments. Often she wrote vague comments on matters with which she was not familiar, in an exercise-book, always eventually mislaid. She would awake from dear and unspeakable dreams full of hope, and tell herself stories about herself, trying on various lives and deaths like clothes. The result was never likely enough even to ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson



Words linked to "Trying on" :   run, trial, test, try-on



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