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Undress   /əndrˈɛs/   Listen
Undress

noun
1.
Partial or complete nakedness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Undress" Quotes from Famous Books



... water; Of sov'reign pow'r to make men wise; 555 For drop'd in blear thick-sighted eyes, They'd make them see in darkest night Like owls, tho' purblind in the light. By help of these (as he profess'd) He had First Matter seen undress'd: 560 He took her naked all alone, Before one rag of form was on. The Chaos too he had descry'd, And seen quite thro', or else he ly'd: Not that of paste-board which men shew 565 For groats, at fair of Barthol'mew; But its ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... flannel shirt belted at the waist over a blue skirt, with the collar knotted by a sailor's black handkerchief, and turned back over a pretty though sunburnt throat. She saw a rather undersized young fellow in a jaunty undress uniform, scant of gold braid, and bearing only the single gold shoulder-bars of his rank, but scrupulously neat and well fitting. Light-colored hair cropped close, the smallest of light moustaches, clear and penetrating blue eyes, and ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... not answer, but placed the two lunch-rolls at the head of the cot and began to undress. She took off the dusty coat, and the 'kerchief from her curling ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... back to his quarters, meaning to snatch a few hours' sleep before daybreak. But having lit his candle, he found that he could not undress. The narrow room stifled him. He flung the sword on his bed, and went down to the ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... when they were in their room and she could hardly undress before falling into a sleep so relaxed, so profound, that it made him a little uneasy. It seemed to him the exhaustion of a child worn out with the excitement of a spectacle. And her failure to go into ecstasies ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... the water too muddy for bathing purposes; but he would undress, construct a raft of the plentiful rails that had lodged along the banks of the creek, and seating Alfred on the raft, he would swim, pushing the raft across ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... speak to my father about it this evening when he comes home from work. You are quite sure that I shall not have to undress at all?" ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... daylight lasted. But the night drew near at last, an early night, for it was the first day in November, and London fogs grow thick then; and Meg kindled the fire again, and sat down by it, unwilling to undress the children before he came. So she sat watching and waiting, until the baby fell into a broken, sobbing slumber on her lap, and Robin lay upon the ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton

... of Mr Toots to carry him to the top of the house so tenderly; and Paul told him that it was. But Mr Toots said he would do a great deal more than that, if he could; and indeed he did more as it was: for he helped Paul to undress, and helped him to bed, in the kindest manner possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled very much; while Mr Feeder, B.A., leaning over the bottom of the bedstead, set all the little bristles on his head ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... could undress myself, and get into bed; where, after I had lain shaking with increasing violence I know not how long, my agueish sensations left me; and were changed into all the soreness, pains, and burning, that denote a ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... detection, though it is daily practised in London. The term Buffer takes its derivation from a custom which at one time prevailed of carrying Bandanas, sarsnets, French stockings, and silk of various kinds, next the shirts of the sellers; so that upon making a sale, they were obliged to undress in order to come at the goods, or in other words, to strip to the skin, or buff it; by which means they obtained the title of Buffers. This trade (if it may be so termed) is carried on in a genteel ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... disposed to pay any other: and, whether agreeable or not, the inquirer was obliged to be satisfied with it. Whenever any one asked him, "How do you intend to dress yourself this evening?" he replied, "I shall undress myself;" at which the ladies all laughed, and a few of them blushed. But after a couple of days passed in this manner, the musketeer, perceiving that nothing serious was likely to arise which would concern him, and that the king had completely, or, at least, appeared to have completely ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... tolerably evident that the General had kicked them. The western sun poured hotly in; the atmosphere was of wine, tobacco, and boots; dirty packs of cards were scattered on the table among bottles and glasses, pipes and cigars. General Ratoneau lay stretched on a large sofa in undress uniform, with a red face and a cigar in his mouth. Herve de Sainfoy's letter, torn across, lay on ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... a separate series of Senior's Journals, we have the best, latest, and wisest, of De Tocqueville's thoughts; none the less valuable, and to English readers all the more intelligible and impressive, that we have them in undress; put into the terse, pithy, concentrated style of summarized oral conversation by the recorder, instead of being elaborately tricked out in all the formal grace of French literary diction by one of the most fastidious of French writers. Senior, who habitually ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... fear—you shall be the ass; and thus Philip of Macedon begins to fill the pannier." And he tossed his purse into the hands of the valet, whose face seemed to lose its anxious embarrassment at the touch of the gold. Lilburne glanced at him with a quiet sneer: "Go!—I will give you my orders when I undress." ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... elastic from the level counter, Leaving the petty grievances of earth, The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, And all the needles that do wound the spirit, For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, Lays bare her shady bosom;—I can feel With all around me;—I can hail the flowers That sprig earth's mantle,—and yon quiet bird, That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, Where Nature stows away her loveliness. But this unnatural ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... about which one would not speak willingly even to his physician. Often the bath-basin is not fenced off in any way, except that it is protected from rain and sunshine by a roof resting on four posts. In such cases the bathers dress and undress in ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... covering of a sheet, his arms thrust out bare from the short-sleeved hospital shirt, his unshaven flushed face contrasting with the pallid and puffy flesh of neck and arms, he gave an impression of sensuality emphasized by undress. The head was massive and well formed, and beneath the bloat of fever and dissipation there showed traces of refinement. The soft hands and neat finger-nails, the carefully trimmed hair, were sufficient indications of a kind of luxury. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... weep long. She had now to sit all day in the corner of a room to sew. She was expected to do everything well from the first; and if she did not, she was kept without food or cruelly punished. Morning and evening she had to help Mdlle. Dufour to dress and undress her mistress. But Constantia, although she looked with hauteur on everybody beneath her, and expected to be slavishly obeyed, was tolerably kind to the poor orphan. Her true torment began, when, on laving her young lady's room, she had to ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various

... 1. At what hour do you go to bed? When do you get up? How many hours' sleep does this give you? Is this enough? Why do you need so much sleep? 2. As you undress, what do you do with the clothes you take off? Why should you air your clothes every night? How can you take an air bath? Is this as good as a wash? 3. How do you care for your hair at night? 4. Do you ever go to bed without brushing ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson

... decided that his best method would be to shadow Billy Getz from sundown each day, until he caught him un-burgling another house, or found something to connect him with the un-burglaries. So he went home. It was eleven when he began to undress. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... pudding with sauce d'Enfer, as the lighted brandy was called! But we are all going to bed, not ivres I'm glad to tell you. This going up by night and down by day is much the least tiring way, as we can undress and have a ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... leaving you,' said the captain, when dinner was over; 'but I must go and take measures for our safety. I would advise you not to undress, M. Louet, for we may have to make a sudden move, and it is well ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... good landlady at Golden Traum, if I were to say, that her beds were either clean or comfortable. In fact, we did not venture to undress; and we were up punctual to the moment which over-night we had fixed upon as convenient for starting. Again, however, the linen which we had committed to the care of the washerwoman, was to seek, and our journey, much to our chagrin, was delayed till past seven. Meanwhile, we got from ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... understandingly, and which so infallibly betrays vulgarity under other circumstances, while her attire had rather more than its customary finish, though it was impossible not to perceive, at a glance, that she was in an undress. The Parisian skill of Annette, on which Mr. Bragg based so many of his hopes of future fortune, had cut and fitted the robe to her faultlessly beautiful person, with a tact, or it might be truer to say a contact, so ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... A number were painted with red ochre, and some were in full war costume, with feathered crowns and head dresses, armlets and anklets of feathers, and having alternate stripes of red and white upon the upper portions of their bodies; the majority of course were in undress uniform. I knew as soon as I arrived in this region that it must be well if not densely populated, for it is next to impossible in Australia for an explorer to discover excellent and well-watered regions without coming into deadly conflict with the aboriginal ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... answered the woman, a stout half-breed with a kindly face. "Come now, my little one, and I will undress you." ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... of mind she turned from the window, struck a light, and prepared to undress, when her attention was arrested by a letter lying upon her dressing table. She instantly recognised the hand, and hastily breaking the seal, read with no small ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... appositely remarks, "Look here upon this picture and on this." Which I joyfully accepted, being head-over-heels in love with Art, and the possessor of two magnificent coloured photo-lithographs, representing a steeplechase in the act of jumping a trench, and a water-nymph in the very decollete undress of "puris naturalibus," weltering on ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... "My master went up to his bedroom, and remained there four or five minutes. Then he came down, ate a piece of a pie, and drank a glass of wine. Then he lit a cigar, and told me to go to bed, adding that he would take a little walk, and undress without my help." ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... we are carried down to the beach, which is extremely deep and sandy, in an omnibus, by batches of a dozen at a time. There are two little stationary bathing-huts for the use of the whole population; and you dress, undress, dry yourself, and do all you have to do, in the closest proximity to persons you never saw in your life before.... This admitting absolute strangers to the intimacy of one's most private toilet operations is quite intolerable, and nothing but the benefit which I believe ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... For when I came to myself, my host, Conrad Seep, was standing over me, holding a funnel between my teeth, through which he ladled some warm beer down my throat, and I never felt more wretched in all my life; insomuch that Master Seep had to undress me like a little child, and ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... is great difference in the beholders. There is nothing so wonderful in any particular landscape, as the necessity of being beautiful under which every landscape lies. Nature cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... you like to rip these clothes off, and have me show you how to make some new ones, so you can dress and undress Clara ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... the academic model. All these academic positions, affected, constrained, artificial, as they are; all these actions coldly and awkwardly expressed by some poor devil, and always the same poor devil, hired to come three times a week, to undress himself, and to play the puppet in the hands of the professor—what have these in common with the positions and actions of nature? What is there in common between the man who draws water from the well in your courtyard, and the man who pretends ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... they had only one small piece. I gave the tea. My dear husband spent the Sacrament, communion and baptism in the evening in the hope we would be able to go further the next day, for we could not stay any longer here if we would not starve. We had a poor resting place. It was not possible to undress ourselves. The whole time we felt the snow on our faces and the wind through the many gaps. We froze very much although the fire was kept on during the night. Not very far from us Mr. and Mrs. Tacque were resting, and we heard how the ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... bring the candles, and to run out and buy a night-light. Then Mary helped her to undress and to get to bed; and she slept dreamlessly. The feeling after all was one of unutterable relief. Mr. Barradine was! Never again would her flesh shrink at the sight of him; never again could those ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... to Tom's recovered self-complacency to find a smart two-wheel dog-cart awaiting him, drawn by a remarkably well-shaped and well-groomed black horse. The coachman was to match. Middle-aged, clean-shaven, his Napoleonic face set as a mask, his undress livery of pepper-and-salt mixture soberly immaculate. He touched his hat when our young gentleman appeared and mounted beside him; the horse, meanwhile, shivering a little and showing the red of its nostrils as the train, with strident whistlings, drew ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... had been spent in the Hercegovina, where he fought as an outlaw for many years against the Austrians. He still possesses two mementoes of his adventures in that land, one in the form of an officer's undress jacket, technically called a "blouse," and the other of a more permanent character, namely, a maimed hand. He and his band were surprised one night by gendarmes, and a fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued, during which an Austrian aimed a cut at Marko with his sword. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... Laundress Became a Lady; the works of Marie Corelli; Factory Fanny, the Forger's Daughter, and any other unwholesome book you may want from the House of Correction Library. Playtime will begin at seven every morning and you will be compelled to dress and undress dolls until one, when your caramel will be given to you, after which you will skip the rope and read fairy stories until six. You must drink five glasses of soda-water every day and will not be allowed to go to bed before eleven o'clock at night. Hurry now, and ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs

... himself had not come in just then, and asked what was the matter. I heard some of the answers; they were very odd, mamma. One was, 'A storm of umbrellas and of untimely confessions;' and another was, 'Truth in undress.'" ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was as before: he was undrest, Saving his night-gown, which is an undress; Completely sans culotte, and without vest; In short, he hardly could be clothed with less: But apprehensive of his spectral guest, He sate with feelings awkward to express (By those who have not had such visitations), Expectant of the Ghost's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... by the fire again. Her exhaustion was evident, and she made no attempt to help her mother. Mrs. Marvell let down the chair-bed, drew it near the fire, and found some bed-clothes. Then she produced night-things of her own, and helped Gertrude undress. When her daughter was in bed, she made some tea, and dry toast, and Gertrude let them be forced on her. When she had finished, the mother suddenly ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... arrangement or design. The living rooms were generally of goodly size, with low ceilings, but the sleeping rooms were invariably small, with barely room enough for a large high-posted bedstead, and a space to undress in. The exterior was void of any architectural embellishment, with a steep roof pierced by dormer windows. The kitchen, which always seemed to me like an after-thought, was a much lower part of the structure, ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight

... and I went up and slammed my door upon her, blew out my candle, and lay down at once upon my bed, lay there a long time before I got up to undress. ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... was considered a sign of health, because the plague-spots appear first on these parts of the body. On the same day, the women were led into a large room, where a great female dragoon was waiting for us to put us through a similar ceremony. Neither men nor women are, however, required to undress. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... voice made him tremble and he began to look about him. He felt very nervous. He drank still another glass of water, then commenced to undress, preparatory to retiring. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... happened," suggested Bob, going to the door. His companions followed him, and, from various berths the passengers began emerging, in different stages of undress. They ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... enter now by a small door in the rear, and traverse a corridor where five hundred lamps were found—a striking proof that the Pompeians passed at least a portion of the night at the baths. This corridor conducts you to the apodyteres or spoliatorium, the place where the bathers undress. At first blush you are rather startled at the idea of taking off your clothes in an apartment with six doors, but the ancients, who were better seasoned than we are, were not afraid of currents of air. While a slave takes your clothing and your sandals, ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... getting permission from Master and go where the woman of your choice had prepared the bed, undress and flat-footed jump a broom-stick together ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... perplexity; and resolved that to be as safe as she could, she would read with locked doors for the future. And as doors must not be locked at times when her mother might be coming and going, Daisy chose early morning and late evening for her Bible-reading. She used to let June undress her, and finish all her duties of dressing-maid; then she sent her away and locked her doors, and read in comfort. This lasted a little while; then one unlucky night Daisy forgot to unlock her doors. The morning came, ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... clothes: the resident trader, Mr. Regler, and the native chief, Taipi-Kikino. 'Captain, is it permitted to come on board?' were the first words we heard among the islands. Canoe followed canoe till the ship swarmed with stalwart, six-foot men in every stage of undress; some in a shirt, some in a loin-cloth, one in a handkerchief imperfectly adjusted; some, and these the more considerable, tattooed from head to foot in awful patterns; some barbarous and knived; one, who sticks in my memory ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... me undress you. I have often helped Aunt Raby to go to bed when she was very tired. Come, Rose, don't turn away from me. Why ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... We undress in a room leading directly from the entry, and furnished only with benches around the walls. There is no screen or other protection against the drafts rushing in every time the door is opened. When we enter the bathing-room we are confused by a babel of sounds—shrill voices of women, hoarse ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... distrust do we feel, only a mighty, overpowering passion that no undress of intimacy ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... "Now," she said, "undress yourself, and put all your clothes and hat and shoes in a bundle in the corner—they are shocking to look at, and must be taken away—and give yourself a hot bath. See, I am turning on the water for you. That will be enough. And stay in as long as you like, or can, and try not only to ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... the candle, Matilda, if you please, dear," said Fanny, in her sweet, gentle voice—"and leave me, for I shall not need your assistance to undress me." ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... than ever before in recovering her balance. She had expected to undress, go to bed, and so to sleep. Perhaps it was the sight of Monte pacing up and down there alone that prolonged her mood. Yet, not to see him, all that was necessary was to close her eyes or to turn the other way. It should have been easy to do this. Only it was not. She ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... thought it wouldn't do to go through the streets this way.' Sure enough, there were the sleeves of that garment dangling below the skirts of his broadcloth frock-coat! I went at once to his assistance, and helped to undress and re-dress him all right, and out he went with a hearty laugh at the absurdity ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... my equipment was, with an undress jacket flying loosely open, and a bare head, away I went. The gate which the groom spoke of was a strongly-barred one of oak timber, nearly five feet high,—its difficulty as a leap only consisted ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... at the hotel his powers failed him. All spun and mingled in his head: the departure from Tarascon, the harbour of Marseilles, the voyage, the Montenegrin prince, the corsairs. They had to help him up into a room and disarm and undress him. They began to talk of sending for a medical adviser; but hardly was our hero's head upon the pillow than he set to snoring, so loudly and so heartily that the landlord judged the succour of science useless, ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... from the window so that she could not hear any more, and in the darkness of her room she began to pace to and fro, beginning to undress for bed, shaking in some kind of a frenzy, scarcely knowing what she was about, until sundry knocks from furniture and the falling over a chair awakened her to the fact that she ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... the ceremony of laying aside these memorials of the weakness of Eve, our general mother, there is a prayer to be offered "whilst you undress yourself;" and the ladies are strictly enjoined, before they "get into bed, to take holy water." The writer concludes this part of his instructions by saying, "when you are in bed, write the name of Jesus on your forehead ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various

... the faint heaving of its body, and the soft, warm odor that clung to it; he watched its awakenings—the opening of its eyes, and the sucking movements that it made perpetually with its lips. They had dressed it up now, and hid some of its strangeness; but each morning the nurse would undress it, and give it a bath; and then he marvelled at the short crooked legs, and the tiny red hands that clutched incessantly at the air, and the strange prehensile feet, that carried one back to distant ages, hinting at the secrets of Nature's workshop. Sometimes they would permit him to hold this ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... too, to see a grand gentleman undress. "I'll have things like that some day," thought Peer, watching each new wonder that came out of the bag. There was a silver-backed brush, that he brushed his hair and beard with, walking up and down in his underclothes and humming to himself. And then there was another ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... own, is true," said Hulot; "we are older than we were. But, my dear fellow, how is one to do without these pretty creatures—seeing them undress, twist up their hair, smile cunningly through their fingers as they screw up their curl-papers, put on all their airs and graces, tell all their lies, declare that we don't love them when we are worried with business; and they cheer us in spite ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... most attractive time of life, when the boy is just rising into the man. He had no arms upon him, and scarcely clothes; he had just anointed himself at home, when upon the alarm, without further waiting, in that undress, he snatched a spear in one hand, and a sword in the other, and broke his way through the combatants to the enemies, striking at all he met. He received no wound, whether it were that a special divine care rewarded his valor with an extraordinary ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... there were also several large holes in the ceiling through which the sun shone, we found President Petion, the black Washington, sitting on a very old ragged sofa, amidst a confused mass of papers, dressed in a blue military undress frock, white trowsers, and the everlasting Madras handkerchief bound round his brows. He was much darker than I expected to have seen him, darker than one usually sees a mulatto, or the direct cross between the negro and the white, yet his features were in no way akin to ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... it was to undress and dress without a lady's maid! Perhaps that was the moment when she began to take a dislike to him. When he said: "Do you want me to help you?" she could have killed him. Certainly there were not many men as awkward as he was, or as uninteresting. Certainly, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... at that moment asleep against the wall was her husband. The reunion moved her to no enthusiasm; she simply opened the bedroom door, and then walked away. The cabman and the student took him in, and laid him on the bed. They did not trouble to undress him, they were feeling tired! They did not see the lady of the house again, ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... accompanied the general to the cavalry barracks, situate a mile north-west of Brighton. Shortly after his arrival at the barracks, Sir Harry and Colonel M'Dowall, went into the barrack yard, where the regiment was drawn up for an undress parade. As soon as the general made his appearance the band struck up, 'See, the conquering hero comes.' The regiment was drawn up in squadrons by Lieutenant-colonel Smithe, who so gallantly led it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... From a manual of French conversation, written at the end of the fourteenth century for the use of Englishmen, it appears that cleanliness was not always to be found in these inns. "William," one traveller is supposed to say to another, "undress and wash your legs, and rub them well for the love of the fleas, that they may not leap on your legs; for there is a peck of them lying in the dust under the rushes.... Hi! the fleas bite me so, and do me great harm, for I have scratched my ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... which she had to make with regard to a very advanced sum, and sat down at a distant table, and forgot for the time being even little Agnes. Agnes, therefore, went up to bed alone. There was no Miss Frost to help her to undress, there was no one to take any notice of her, and there were the fearful stories that Lucy kept hinting at ringing in her ears. Yes, Irene had done dreadful things. Yes, she had. But Irene to her was perfect. She had no fear with her; ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... undress myself by thy bright Glass, And then resume th' Inclosure, as I was. Now I am Earth, and now a Star, and then A Spirit: now a ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... took him up-stairs to bed, Dr. Lavendar's directions came back to her with a slight shock—she must hear him say his prayers. How was she to introduce the subject? The embarrassed color burned in her cheeks as she helped him undress and tried to decide on the proper moment to speak of—prayers. But David took the matter into his own hands. As he stepped into his little night-clothes, buttoning them around his waist with ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... the sunbirds are still in undress plumage; a few have not yet come into song, these give vent only to harsh scolding notes. From the thicket emanate sharp sounds—tick-tick, chee-chee, chuck-chuck, chiff-chaff; these are the calls of the various warblers ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... slept on the other side of the house, he mechanically went to the room that he and his wife had occupied when he first became a tenant of Old-Grove Place, which since his differences with Sue had been hers exclusively. He entered, and unconsciously began to undress. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... himself pretty well, and very soon not be looked upon as a stranger. This is the real utility of traveling, when, by contracting a familiarity at any place, you get into the inside of it, and see it in its undress. That is the only way of knowing the customs, the manners, and all the little characteristical peculiarities that distinguish one place from another; but then this familiarity is not to be brought about by cold, formal visits of half an hour: no; you must show a willingness, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... was already paddling from the hamlet. It contained two men: one white, one brown and tattooed across the face with bands of blue, both immaculate with white European clothes.... Canoe followed canoe till the ship swarmed with stalwart, six foot men in every stage of undress ... the more considerable tattooed from head to foot in awful patterns ... all talking and we could not understand one word; all trying to trade with us who had no thought of trading, or offering us island curios ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... think; her pulse is stronger. Here is a small injury; nothing worse than a sprain, I think. She was run down on the ice. Our town goes crazy over a trifle now. The wrist is bruised and sprained. Patty, if you are the owner of so useful a name, undress the child, but I think ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... popularity prescribed for the modern novel, which must work out minute details with the greatest possible resemblance to actual life and circumstance. Upon this ground, indeed, the ablest professors of fiction might despair of competing with those who exhibit a mighty man of valour in undress, who lead us where we may hear him talk, watch him eat or shave, and study his conjugal relations. It is to be feared that if the multiplication of such Reminiscences continues, they will seriously trench ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... knees before the Queen, and besought her at least to grant her time to take the clothes from off her back. Whereupon the Queen, not so much out of pity for the unhappy girl, as to get possession of her dress, which was embroidered all over with gold and pearls, said to her, "Undress yourself—I allow you." Then Talia began to undress, and as she took off each garment she uttered an exclamation of grief; and when she had stripped off her cloak, her gown, and her jacket, and was proceeding to take off her petticoat, they seized her and were dragging her away. At that moment ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... resumed, "'it is well to keep one's self as presentable as possible, especially during the night, when according to statistics the majority of wrecks occur. Consequently the experienced lady traveller will not undress entirely, but merely removing a few of her outer garments, and keeping her shoes within easy reach, she will don a comfortable dressing-gown, and compose herself for sleep. Some people prefer to have the berth made up feet first, but it is always better ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... consider it bad manners, and the novels would certainly bear traces of the exploit). But you can hardly do it while, as a famous caricature represents the scene, persons of that same sex, in various dress or undress, are frolicking about your chair and bestowing on you their obliging caresses. Nor are corricolos and speronares, though they may be good things to write on in one sense, good in another to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... up with a confused sense of wasted time and began to undress mechanically, trying to concentrate her thoughts the while on the problem that faced her. But they wandered back to her first night in the fine house, when a separate bedroom was a new experience and she was afraid to sleep alone, though turned fifteen. But ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... "Meanwhile I shall undress," said Hirst. When naked of all but his shirt, and bent over the basin, Mr. Hirst no longer impressed one with the majesty of his intellect, but with the pathos of his young yet ugly body, for he stooped, and he ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... his room, and after depositing the ring in a casket filled with brilliants of every sort, for the cardinal was a connoisseur in precious stones, he called to Bernouin to undress him, regardless of the noises of gun-fire that, though it was now near midnight, continued to ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... that owing to a mistake the wine has been conveyed to another part of the forest, proposes that he, Gunther, and Hagen should race to a neighboring spring, undertaking to perform the feat in full armor while his companions run in light undress. Although handicapped, Siegfried arrives first, but courteously steps aside to allow Gunther to take a drink, pretending he wishes to remove his armor before quenching his thirst. But, when he, in his turn, stoops over the fountain, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... his pistol down on the turf, and also proceeded to undress, until the two men stood ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of a moment to undress and leap into bed. But before he did so Rollo knelt for a moment and asked ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell

... equal numbers of society. They live in each other's presence like a set of players; congregate in courts like the former in the green room; and break their unpremeditated jests, in the intervals of business, with that sort of undress freedom that contrasts amusingly with the solemn and even tragic seriousness with which they appear in turn upon the boards. They have one face for the public, rife with the saws and learned gravity of the profession, and another ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... of the nose, and the left glass did duty over the corresponding eye, while the other was unseen as relieved against the shade. So much for the facial appearance and adornments of this hero, and his other claims to notice were not less extraordinary. Sartorially, he wore an undress military cap, with the "U.S." on the front, and a dingy blue uniform with the shoulder-straps of a Captain of infantry. Physically he seemed nearly as much out of order as facially. He carried a heavy cane in his right hand, and the right foot was enclosed in a sort of moccasin or spatterdash ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... fall into two main classes: those which we have often repeated before by means of a regular series of subordinate actions beginning and ending at a certain tolerably well-defined point—as when Herr Joachim plays a sonata in public, or when we dress or undress ourselves; and actions the details of which are indeed guided by memory, but which in their general scope and purpose are new—as when we are being ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... with her, striving to persuade her to undress and try to swim ashore. With a dignified gesture she repelled him. Then a prodigious mountain of water swept towards the vessel. The sailor sprang off, and was carried ashore. Virginia vanished from ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... and then, without warning, in the very act of making up Farll's couch, he had abandoned the struggle, and, since his own bed was not ready, he had taken to his master's. He always did the natural thing naturally. And Farll had been forced to help him to undress! ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... girls had gone away to their own rooms the clock was set for a quarter of twelve, but Betty and Bobby decided that they might as well stay awake till midnight. They would lie down on their beds—Betty insisted that Bobby should undress and go to bed "right"—and wait for the time to come. Within twenty minutes ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... machine comes it looks so well, it inspires unbounded confidence, but the first time it is seen in undress, with the carriage part off, the machinery laid bare, the heart sinks, and one's confidence ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... drizzly fountains, with the water dripping over the rock-work, of which the English are so fond; and the buildings for the animals and other purposes had a flimsy, pasteboard aspect of pretension. The garden was in its undress; few visitors, I suppose, coming hither at this time of day,—only here and there a lady and children, a young man and girl, or a couple of citizens, loitering about. I take pains to remember these small items, because they suggest the day-life or torpidity of what ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... features and manners, but carried with him a countenance with a very sinister expression upon it, and an eye that spoke of crime and a guilty soul; but when Dick gave the warning, he was doubly confirmed in his first impressions, and resolved to profit by the advice so singularly volunteered. He did not undress, but before extinguishing his light examined his pistols, a brace of which he had procured for defense, to see that they were in proper order for immediate use. After making all needful preparations, he put out ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... He began to undress rapidly. The eyes of the "old lady" in the picture seemed to follow him around the room. The thought of her haunted him. Desperately, ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... to blow it out," she warned him. "I'm terrible afraid o' fire, these winter nights. I won't put out the big lamp yet. I can see to undress by it, an' then ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... tendency to fly from himself, besetting at times the most self-controlled—might have caused this change in his appearance. Ah! better twist and untwist the rings of little Leslie's fair hair, and dress and undress her as she had done her doll; better examine the shell cracked by the yellow-hammer, and count the spots on the broad, brown leaf of the plane, than perplex herself with so uncongenial a difficulty. But the difficulty pursued her ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... instantly despatched for the physician, who resided at a town more distant than Southport; the very town, by-the-bye, where Morgana, the gipsy, was arrested. They contrived, with the aid of Pauncefort, to undress Venetia, and place her in her bed, for hitherto they had refrained from this exertion. At this moment the withered leaves of a white rose fell from Venetia's dress. A sofa-bed was then made for Lady Annabel, of which, however, she did not avail herself. The whole night she sat by her daughter's ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli



Words linked to "Undress" :   nudity, dress, nudeness, disinvest, take away, take off, take, withdraw, remove, peel, nakedness



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