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Warble   /wˈɔrbəl/   Listen
Warble

verb
(past & past part. warbled; pres. part. warbling)
1.
Sing or play with trills, alternating with the half note above or below.  Synonyms: quaver, trill.
2.
Sing by changing register; sing by yodeling.  Synonyms: descant, yodel.



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"Warble" Quotes from Famous Books



... decked wi' flow'rs, Mony tinted, fresh an' gay, An' the birdies warble blythely, For my Faether made them sae; But these sights an' these soun's Will as naething be to me, When I hear the angels singin' ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... these sad strains to lighter sounds give place! Bid thy brisk viol warble measures gay! For see! recall'd by thy resistless lay, Once more the Brownie shews his honest face. Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much lov'd sprite! Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail! Tell, in what realms thou sport'st thy merry night, Trail'st ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... perfume of aloes-wood and pastilles came from the open windows and mingled with the scent of the rose-water which steamed up from the hot pavement. Within the palace he heard some music, as of many instruments cunningly played, and the melodious warble of nightingales and other birds, and by this, and the appetizing smell of many dainty dishes of which he presently became aware, he judged that feasting and merry-making were going on. He wondered who lived in this magnificent house ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous

... like thine! Look you, Sweet!—I bring with me here a stranger from far-off lands,—one to whom Sah-luma's name is as a star in the desert!—I must needs have thy voice in all its full lusciousness of tune to warble for his pleasure those heart-entangling ditties of mine which thou hast learned to render with such matchless tenderness! ... Thanks, Gisenya," ... this as another maiden advanced, and, gently removing the myrtle-wreath he wore, placed one just freshly woven on ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... look for the bluebird also. His soft, sweet warble is one of the most welcome of the springtime sounds. See him looking at the box in which last year he had a nest! Probably he is planning ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... Cambridge, puppies, full of the nonsense which they have imbibed from Platitude professors; and this nonsense they retail at home, where it fails not to make some impression, whilst the daughters scream—I beg their pardons—warble about Scotland's Montrose, and Bonny Dundee, and all the Jacobs; so we have no doubt that their papas' zeal about the propagation of such a vulgar book as the Bible will in a very little time be terribly diminished. Old Rome will win, so you had ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... on, making sweet music in its winding course, ever murmuring a sweet requiem to the dead. Birds warble their matin songs in the branches, and the night dew water the graves with their tears, while the winds sigh over the grassy mounds; and all on earth must make their bed with them, and every step we take in the journey of life, ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... and beer, whereof I imbibed my full share. After the second song I was called on to play, and lifted my poor old flute in air with tumultuous, beating heart; for I had no confidence in that or in myself. But, 'du Himmel!' Thou shouldst have heard mine old love warble herself forth. To my utter astonishment, I was perfect master of the instrument. Is not this most strange? Thou knowest I had never learned it; and thou rememberest what a poor muddle I made at Marietta in playing difficult passages; ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... awoke, arrows of gold were shooting through the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent whistle and the warble, the cackle and the pompous crow, were ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips

... birds has grown enthusiastic on the subject, and Bradford Torrey alone among them does it scant justice, when he says this Vireo "is admirably named; there is no one of our birds that can more properly be said to warble. He keeps further from the ground than the others, and shows a strong preference for the elms of village streets, out of which his delicious music drops upon the ears of all passers underneath. How ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various

... make love in Do-di-pettos. You have seen the blonde young Gretchen, beauteous and pure at her spinning-wheel, gay and frolicsome before that box looking-glass and that kitchen table,—have heard her tender vows of affection and her passionate outbursts of despair. You have heard the timid Siebel warble out his adolescent longings for the gentle maid in the very scantiest of tunics, as becomes the fair proportions of the stage girl-boy. You have seen the respectable old Martha faint at the news ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... the moment seized upon and rejoiced in, but at which my mind had to conceal a smile and turn its consciousness quickly elsewhere, to prevent an obtrusive reality from dimming this last addition to the picture. The gentle, unmistakable, velvet warble of a bluebird came over the hillside, again and again; and so completely absorbed and lulled was I by the gradual obsession of being in the midst of a northern scene, that the sound caused not the slightest ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... guinea is paid for their admission, or even more if they be installed. Two Londoners would buy their tickets during the day, and thus pay but 17s. Another party are dying to hear Braham sing, or Paton warble her nightingale notes among the canvass groves and hollyhock gardens of Drury Lane and Covent Garden; or to sup on the frowning woes of tragedy, the intrigues of an interlude dished up as an entremet, or a melodrama for a ragout; or the wit and waggery of a farce, sweet and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various

... in his travels or found in the neighborhood of his new home in the Lancashire lakes, with sketches of regions, including the characteristics of the soil, in which he had been reared, and talks of the note and habit of all birds that were wont to warble over him their morning song. "The Pleasures of England," the "Harbours of England," and the "Art of England" further treat of his loved native land, the first of these being talks on the pleasures of learning, of faith, and of deed, illustrated by examples drawn ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... re-inspire The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well-touched, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of these delights can judge, and spare To interpose them ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... recompense thee, O Priapus, and thee, father Sylvanus, guardian of his boundaries! Sometimes he delights to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with many a dog, into the intercepting toils; or spreads his thin nets with ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... their neighbors, the house-dwellers, they built their nests, the grosbeaks in a tree near one side of the porch, the tanagers in one near the opposite side. They became so friendly that sometimes when the boy came out upon the porch and played softly on a mouth organ, the grosbeak's silvery warble and the tanager's loud, clear voice ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock

... warble-fly. They deposit their eggs on the legs of cattle during the fall. The animal, licking the parts, takes the eggs into its mouth. These eggs gradually migrate into the gullet, where they hatch and burrow through the tissues, and in the early spring will be found ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... Steve, "but they're down there in the Square now stackin' up drive impedimenta and such, red banners, and so forth, tuning up to warble the hymn to free Russia. Hurry if you want to join ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... uncoloured sky, Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers, Rising or falling still advance his praise. His praise, ye Winds, that from four quarters blow, Breathe soft or loud; and, wave your tops, ye Pines, With every plant, in sign of worship wave. Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. Join voices, all ye living Souls: Ye Birds, That singing up to Heaven-gate ascend, Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise. Ye that in waters ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... scarecrow of an Herb-merchant, with his ass and early greens, toilsomely plodding, seems the only creature we meet. But right ahead the great North-East sends up evermore his gray brindled dawn: from dewy branch, birds here and there, with short deep warble, salute the coming Sun. Stars fade out, and Galaxies; Street-lamps of the City of God. The Universe, O my brothers, is flinging wide its portals for the Levee of the GREAT HIGH KING. Thou, poor King Louis, farest nevertheless, as mortals do, towards Orient lands of Hope; and the Tuileries ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... song of the "Krasneya Sarafan," which Sarsha began at once to warble. The characteristic of Russian gypsy-girl voices is a peculiarly delicate metallic tone,—like that of the two silver bells of the Tower of Ivan Velikoi when heard from afar,—yet always marked with fineness and strength. This is sometimes startling in the wilder effects, but it is ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... Castle, or "The Groves," there is many a sweet, dewy, flowery spot, where the grass, moss, and ivy, are green as green can be, and no sound is heard in the deep shade but the gurgle of water and the warble of birds. Here are some rude steps made in the rock, called "The Witches' Staircase," and a cave, in which it was said a fair Princess remained enchanted for many years. Legends say that the last Earl of Clancarty sunk all his valuable plate in the lake, ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear The warble was low, and full, and clear; And floating about the under-sky, Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear; But anon her awful jubilant voice, With a music strange and manifold, Flow'd ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... indulged in its muleism and donkeyism; the little donkey would shoot its head straight forward, stick its ears out sidewise, at right angles, and commence its song of greeting, which sounded exactly like a man sawing wood, and the mule would warble its well-known lyric of sweetness,—"Hee-Haw! Hee-Haw! Hee-Haw!" keeping time with the flapping of its ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... fool," said Tristram, "but 'tis eating dry To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to." Then he twangled on his harp, And while he twangled little Dagonet stood, Quiet as any water-sodden log Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook; But when the twangling ended, skipt again; Then being ask'd, "Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?" Made answer, "I had liefer twenty years Skip to the broken music of my brains Than any broken music ye can make." Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come, "Good now, ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... a lively dark-brown horse, and drank tea there with a nice, old, white-haired Countess Stroganoff. The lilac, I must tell you, has flowered here as beautifully as in Frankfort, and the laburnum, too; and the nightingales warble so happily that it is hard to find a spot on the islands where one does not hear them. In the city, during these days, we had such unremitting heat as we almost never have at home. The captain of the Eagle ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... humid, like the depth on depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning

... Warble me now for joy of lilac-time (returning in reminiscence), Sort me, O tongue and lips for Nature's sake, souvenirs of earliest summer, Gather the welcome signs (as children with pebbles or stringing shells), Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air, Bees, butterflies, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... unseen, are showers of violets found; The redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... ear, it continues to haunt your memory, and you try again and again to reproduce it, but in vain. It has a kind of gurgling quality, as if the bird were pressing his notes through an aqueous lyre, if such a conception is possible. Besides, I have, on more than one occasion, heard a jay warble a soft, reserved little lay that was continued for many minutes. It sounded very like the song of the brown thrasher, much modulated and partly uttered under its breath—a sort of flowing, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... and this time or the next perchance see this bird sitting on a stake in the fence lifting his wing as he calls cheerily to his mate. Its notes now become daily more frequent; the birds multiply, and, flitting from point to point, call and warble more confidently and gleefully. Their boldness increases till one sees them hovering with a saucy, inquiring air about barns and out-buildings, peeping into dove-cotes and stable windows, inspecting knotholes and pump-trees, intent only on a place to nest. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... but you had another argument For staying; how the lovely dale for you Was mountain air and winged warble too. ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... while the bird wi' oben bill Did warble on, her vaice wer still; An' as she stood avore me, bound In stillness to the flow'ry mound, "The bird's a jay to zome," I thought, "but when he's dum, Her vaice will ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... classed with singing birds, and is not, I think, usually credited with being musical. But Thoreau speaks of his song, and others mention it. John Burroughs tells of a shrike singing in his vicinity in winter, "a crude broken warble,"—"saluting the sun as a robin might have done." Winter, indeed, seems to be his chosen time for singing, and an ornithologist in St. Albans says that in that season he sings by the hour in ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... Luxury's enchanting smile Shall lure my steps to some romantic dale, Where Mirth's light freaks the unheeded hours beguile, And airs of rapture warble in ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... rose and lily Showering the furrows green, Childish songs that lift and warble Where the sleepers lie serene (Soft they slumber) Tell how true our hearts ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... better than yours, isn't she? 'cause she can walk and talk and sing and dance, and yours can't do anything, can she?" asked Jamie with pride, as he regarded his Pokey, who just then had been moved to execute a funny little jig and warble the well-known couplet, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... a conference called by the War Office it has been decided to wage a war of annihilation against the warble-fly. It is hoped that by means of concerted action through the country this pestilent insect, so injurious to the hides of horses and cattle, may be ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various

... may enter her list of knights. But I intend to warble about the beauty of another lady! and the mad fool who would bring her misfortune. I confess to thee, Madonna, that I'm afraid! What shall I do? Give me your advice. Shall I go ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni

... this feat in less than ten minutes), received the count on his entrance. The songs of the birds were heard in an aviary hard by, and the branches of laburnums and rose acacias formed an exquisite framework to the blue velvet curtains. Everything in this charming retreat, from the warble of the birds to the smile of the mistress, breathed tranquillity and repose. The count had felt the influence of this happiness from the moment he entered the house, and he remained silent and pensive, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the party wore costumes perilously suggestive of Opera Bouffe models. Their fingers were richly begemmed; their watch-chains were laden with seals and charms. Any one of the costumes was such as might have been chosen by a tenor in which to warble effectively to a soubrette on the boards of a provincial theatre; and it was worn by these fops of the Jockey Club with the air of its being the last word in nautical fashions. Better than their costumes were their voices; for what speech from human lips pearls itself off with such crispness ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... from the dog-star, in valley retired, Shalt thou sing that old song thou canst warble so well, Which tells how one passion Penelope fired, And charmed fickle Circe herself ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... admirable glee-singers, and many a time they partook of brandy-and-water at our expense. One of us gave his call dinner at Hoskins's, and a merry time we had of it. Where are you, O Hoskins, bird of the night? Do you warble your songs by Acheron, or troll your choruses by the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... change my manners, Simon Renard, Because these islanders are brutal beasts? Or would you have me turn a sonneteer, And warble those ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... Nightingales warble about it All night under blossom and star; The wild swan is dying without it, And the eagle crieth afar; The sun, he doth mount but to find it, Searching the green earth o'er; But more doth a man's heart mind it— O more, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... the early lark and thrush Shall hail the rising day, Nor warble on their native bush, Nor charm me ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... pause and oft reverted eye I climb the Coomb's ascent: sweet songsters near Warble in shade their wild-wood melody: Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock 5 That on green plots o'er precipices browze: From the deep fissures of the naked rock The Yew-tree bursts! Beneath its dark green boughs (Mid which ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... sunrise in summer After the May-flowers have faded away, Warble to show unto every new-comer How to hush stars, yet to waken the Day: Singing first, lullabies, then, jubilates, Watching the blue sky where every bird's heart is; Then, as lamenting the day's fading light, Down through the twilight, when wearied ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... and the indifferent routinists. She learned, therefore, in a way to surprise the experienced instructors. Her somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's touch. Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest melodies, after a little training began to show its force and sweetness and flexibility in the airs that enchant drawing-room audiences. She caught with great readiness the manner of the easiest girls, unconsciously, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... and all nature seemed rejoicing at the advent of spring. Flowers strewed the wayside, and the warble of the blue bird, and the lively song of the sparrow, were heard in the ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... mission. Had your wife maintained those feelings of unmixed generosity and kindness which have heretofore marked her conduct, the ransom would have been complete. When the leaves began to bud, and the birds to sing their sweet songs of love, and to warble their gentle burdens of gratitude for the return of their beloved spring, our mission would have been successfully terminated. The deceased husband and wife would then have been each returned to the arms of his or her rejoicing partner, the maiden to the arms of her tender ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... Through the stifling room Floats strange perfume; Through the crumbling thatch The angels watch, Over the rotting roof-tree. They warble, and flutter, and hover, and glide, Wafting old sounds to my dreary bedside, Snatches of songs which I used to know When I slept by my nurse, and the swallows Called me at day-dawn from under the eaves. Hark to them! Hark to them now— Fluting like woodlarks, tender ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... finding jobs faster than invention can take them away—is not defeatism. To warble easy platitudes that if we would only go back to ways that have failed, everything would be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... winter's crust of rime Milder spring can soften; Ere to greet the blither time Robins warble often; O'er the undulating wild, Rising like a hardy child, There the Mayflower sweet, unseen, Spreads its leaves ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... forward, her face alight. There was nothing visible; but a low, continuous warble, interspersed with a sort of liquid rattle, struck the ear. Taking a bunch of millet stalks from her basket, she directed Thor while he tied them to the bough of a birch that trailed its lower branches to the snow. When they ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... mantle blythe Nature arrays, And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, [hillsides] While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw; [wooded dell] But to me it's ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird, So soft, so sweet, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... thicket of lilac bushes, a wood-dove greeted her with its first morning warble ... and where she vanished, the milk-white sky ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... smoothly flow; Ye vernal airs that softly blow; Ye plains, by blooming spring arrayed; Ye birds that warble ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... warble at all," announced Hippy. "I am a man of few words, but when I say I must have food for my services as a soloist, I mean it. There must be no uncertainty. Do I feed or ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... poetic genius. In spite of the war between playwright and precisian, a Puritan youth could still in Milton's days avow his love of the stage, "if Jonson's learned sock be on, or sweetest Shakspere, Fancy's child, warble his native woodnotes wild," and gather from the "masques and antique pageantry" of the court-revel hints for his own "Comus" and "Arcades." Nor does any shadow of the coming struggle with the Church disturb the young scholar's reverie, as he wanders beneath "the high embowed roof, with antique pillars ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... such as for immemorial times have spired from the sod; the boughs publish their annual book of many a verdant scroll without apprehension of having become commonplace at last; the bobolink pours his warble in cheery sureness of acceptance, unmindful that it is the same warble with which the throats of other bobolinks were throbbing before there was a man to listen and smile; and night after night forever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... to loan Secured by names responsible and known, Explained to younger folk, or learned from old, How wealth might be increased, expense controlled. Now our good town has taken a new fit: Each man you meet by poetry is bit; Pert boys, prim fathers dine in, wreaths of bay, And 'twixt the courses warble out their lay. E'en I, who vow I never write a verse, Am found as false as Parthia, maybe worse; Before the dawn I rouse myself, and call For pens and parchment, writing-desk and all. None dares be pilot who ne'er steered a craft; No untrained nurse administers a draught; ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... with the paper at his left hand. Then he folded it very small, sealed it with a wafer, and, returning to the serang, said a few words. Whereupon Hossain made a trumpet of his hands, and, looking toward the left bank, sounded a few notes in imitation of a bird's warble. The shore was fringed here with low bushes. As if in answer to the call a small boat darted out from the shelter of a bush; a few strokes brought it alongside of the petala; and the serang, bending over, handed the folded paper to the boatman, and whispered a few words in his ear. The man pushed ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... voice improving, and when she sang to herself the old songs she was no longer satisfied with the old degree of accuracy. A world of which she had had no suspicion was opening to her; music began to mean something quite different from the bird-warble which was all that she had known. Moreover, she began to have an inkling of the value of her voice. Mrs. Ormonde had scarcely with a word commended her singing, and had spoken of the lessons as something that might be useful, with no more emphasis. The master, of course, had only praise or blame ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... which a laughing mew wandered. From the time that any one came in till he went out, this bird made the vocal explosions to which it owes its name; and the good professor was certain, without ever being mistaken, that somebody was coming to his laboratory. He was notified. My Jaco in Paris has a warble that answers the ringing of the bell. If we have not heard the bell, we are notified by Jaco of its ringing, and, going to the door, find some one there. I have been told of a parrot belonging to the steward of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... honey-suckers were out of sight and torpid, and the bloom itself could no longer look "unprofitably gay," as the poet says it does. "Not even a wheatear!" I said, for I had counted on that bird in the intervals between the storms, although I knew I should not hear his wild delightful warble in such weather. ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... could be seen but confusedly; the dark bank of Brierley Park with its giant trees rose up against the sky, there was no gleam on the little river, the outlines of nearer trees and bushes were merged and indistinct; but what a hum and stir and warble and chitter of happy creatures! how many creatures to be happy! and what a warm breath of incense told of the blessings of the summer day in store for them! For them, and not for Dolly? It smote her hard, the question and the answer. It was for her too; it ought to be for her; the ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... had, of course, enjoyed all the advantages to be derived from Parisian masters. Whilst she was singing, we all observed that a nightingale perched upon one of the neighbouring trees continued silent; the moment she stopped, he began to warble forth his 'wood-notes wild.' This occurred not once, but repeatedly. He was far, however, from showing the same attention to the chevalier. Apparently not entertaining an equally good opinion of the old man's musical ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... Warble not so, thou nightingale, Upon thy blooming spray, Thy sweetness now will burst my heart, ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... me—hidden, breathing everywhere, Shaken out in mystic odors, caught unseen in the mid-air. Life is waking, palpitating; souls of flowers are drawing nigh; Flitting birds with fluted warble weave between the earth and sky; And a soft excitement welling from the inmost heart of things Such a sense of exaltation, such a call to rapture brings, That my heart—all tremulous with a virgin wonderment— Waits and yearns and sings in carols of the rain and sunshine blent, Knowing more ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... reached home, she placed the cage in the garden, and the Bird no sooner began to warble than he was surrounded by nightingales, chaffinches, larks, linnets, goldfinches, and every species of birds of the country. The branch of the Singing Tree was no sooner set in the midst of the parterre, a little distance ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... not understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird,[155] So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear, That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard;[bq] The sort of sound we echo with a tear, Without knowing why—an overpowering tone, Whence Melody descends as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... matter: he fills a very peculiar niche, he is a lodestar to enthusiastic undergraduates; he is the joy of sober common-rooms. I wish with all my heart that the convenances of life permitted Egeria herself to stray into those book-lined rooms, dim with tobacco-smoke, to warble and sing to the accompaniment of Perry's cracked piano, to take her place among the casual company. But as Egeria cannot go to Perry, and as Perry will not go to Egeria, they must respect each other from a distance, and ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... must sing to you. Well, it will be better than the love-making." Then in a very sweet voice she began to warble amorous Moorish ditties that she accompanied upon the lute, whilst Peter, who was weary in body and disturbed in mind, played a lover's part to the best of his ability, and ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... patches, cultivated to the very top; but for the most part they are clothed in restful green. Overhead, in the summer haze, turkey-buzzards wheel gracefully, occasionally chased by audacious hawks; and in the woods, we hear the warble of song-birds. Shadowy, idle scenes, these rustic reaches of the lower Ohio, through which man may dream in Nature's lap, all ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... gesture. girar revolve, hover, whirl. giro m. turn, motion, roll, circling. gloria f. glory, fame, pleasure, bliss, honor, heaven. glorioso -a glorious. goce m. joy. golpe m. stroke, blow, knock, striking, clash, throw, cast. golpear(se) strike, hit, beat. gorjear warble, trill. gtico, -a Gothic. gozar rejoice, take delight, enjoy; —— de enjoy; —se rejoice. gozo m. joy, pleasure, delight. grabar engrave. gracia f. grace, charm, gracefulness; ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... amusements. With boxing, broadsword, and single-stick play, drill and skylarking, the hours of daylight were whiled away; and by night the men off duty would gather about the forecastle lantern to play with greasy, well-thumbed cards, or warble tender ditties to black-eyed Susans far across the Atlantic. Patriotic melodies formed no small part of Jack's musical repertoire. Of these, this one, written by a landsman, was for a long time popular among the tuneful souls of the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... nightingale That crowds and hurries and precipitates With fast, thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... it powerful quick if we don't grab it while it's passin'; it's a good long name, and what if it does make a chap sling the muscles of his jaw to warble it? All the better; it'll make him think well of his town, which I prophesy is going to be the emporium ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble here, And little footsteps lightly ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... could not help saying to the gentlemen beside him: "I have heard you young fellows talk about the nightingale, and have even known some of you spend hours in the moonlit grove, listening to their music, but my bird from foggy Scotland can out-warble a wood full of them." And no one felt ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... warble, swallows scream, Or hens will cackle clear. In robin's song, the whip-poor-will Pours forth ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... very moist eyelid! How gladly the white smoke arises once more, spirally, from the large chimneys, after having been so long depressed by the heavy atmosphere! and how the massive ivy that covers the gable end, responds to the songs of the birds that warble their evening gladness amongst its gleaming leaves! The face of the dwelling is as cheerful as are the sun, river, mountains and meads, that it looks down upon from its slight elevation. Every leaf of the vine and pyrus-japonica that covers its front, is bedecked with a diamond; and the roses, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... the already cracked head of the diplomatist Not so! It was only to offer wine to his pretty neighbour, who did not hear him, being absorbed by a semi-whispered conversation in a soft and lively foreign warble with two young men seated next to her. She bent to them, and grew animated. Little frizzles of hair were seen shining in the light against a dainty, transparent, rosy ear... Polish, Russian, Norwegian?.. from the North certainly; and a pretty song of those distant ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... sing, and he forgot all about himself in admiration of her. It took everyone by surprise, for two years of foreign training added to several at home had worked wonders, and the beautiful voice that used to warble cheerily over pots and kettles now rang out melodiously or melted to a mellow music that woke a sympathetic thrill in those who listened. Rose glowed with pride as she accompanied her friend, for Phebe was in ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... most popular operas are Guy Mannering and The Kniqht of Snowdon] happens to find the notes, or some lark teaches Stephens [Catherine (1794-1882): a vocalist and actress who created Susanna in the Marriage of Figaro, and various parts in adaptation of Scott.] to warble the air—we will risk our credit, and the taste of the Lady of the Lute, by preserving the verses, simple and even ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... brought a new and exquisite scent to him, and through the myrtle bushes he could hear the streams singing their way down to the lake; and when he came to the lake's edge he heard the warble that came into his ear when he was a little child, which it retained always. He heard it in Egypt, under the Pyramids, and the cataracts of the Nile were not able to silence it in his ears. But suddenly from among the myrtle bushes a ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... young, miss, and it would not do to strain your voice, which is well-nigh perfect in itself; but, of course, your execution is defective,—just as a young nightingale cannot warble all its strains before it is full-feathered. If you study faithfully, in one year, or certainly one and a half, you will be ready for your engagement at Della Scala. Hist! see if you can ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... critic. How Hartmann von Aue hits the meaning of a story! how loud and clear rings the crystal of his words! Did not Heinrich von Veldeke "imp the first shoot on Teutish tongues" (graft French on German poetry)? With what a lofty voice does the nightingale of the Bird-Meadow (Walther) warble across the heath! Nor is it unpleasant to come shortly afterwards to our old friends Apollo and the Camoenae, the nine "Sirens of the ears"—a slightly mixed reminiscence, but characteristic of the union of classical and romantic material which communicates to the Middle Ages ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... No longer now warble on the oak, no longer sing, O blackbird, sitting on the topmost spray; this tree is thine enemy; hasten where the vine rises in clustering shade of silvered leaves; on her bough rest the sole of thy foot, ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... takes Hugo aside to tell him something, and Hagar changes the cups for two others which are harmless. Ferdinando, the 'minion', carries them away, and Hagar puts back the cup which holds the poison meant for Roderigo. Hugo, getting thirsty after a long warble, drinks it, loses his wits, and after a good deal of clutching and stamping, falls flat and dies, while Hagar informs him what she has done in a song of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... me taste. Lave us be merry about it an' jovial an' affectionate. Lave us laugh an' sing th' octopus out iv existence. Betther blue but smilin' lips anny time thin a full coal scuttle an' a sour heart. As Hogan says, a happy peasanthry is th' hope iv th' state. So lave us warble ti-lire-a-lay—' Jus' thin Euclid Aristophanes Madden on th' quarther deck iv th' throlley car give a twisht to his brake an' th' chief ixicutive iv th' nation wint up in th' air with th' song on his lips. He wint up forty, some say, fifty feet. Sicrety Cortilloo says three ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne

... trifle with this frugal fare, dear friend? My heart is so happy that I should love to warble a few ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers

... branches began at the tops of the other trees. Its top in summer-time was a famous resort for the bluejay and his bride. Here, far beyond the reach of shot, in warm spring days the jay would sing and dance before his mate, spread his bright blue plumes and warble the sweetest fairyland music, so sweet and soft that few hear it but the one for whom it is meant, and books know nothing at all ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... but slightly; hardly ever did any one hear her voice. But a rumour was in circulation to the effect that it was very beautiful, and that, locking herself in her chamber, early in the morning, while everything in the city was still sleeping, she loved to warble ancient ballads to the strains of a lute, upon which she herself played. Despite the pallor of her face, Valeria was in blooming health; and even the old people, as they looked on her, could not refrain from thinking:—"Oh, how happy will be that young ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... back at her over her shoulder to warble, "Why, if you would, Mrs. Atwell," and kept ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... So sings the lorn and lonely nightingale, Sighing in sombre thicket all day long, Weaving its throbbing heartstrings into song For absent mate, with sorrowing unavail. And every warble seems to say—"Alone!" While every pause brings musical reply: Sad Philomel! Each sweet responsive sigh Is but the dreamy ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... sharp, and impending peaks on the other side form a stately gateway for a stream which enters from another and broader valley; but it is but one among many small cascades, which round the arc of the falls flash out in foam among the dark foliage, and contribute their tiny warble to the diapason of the waterfall. It rewards one well for penetrating the deep gash which has been made into the earth. It seemed so very far away from all buzzing, frivolous, or vexing things, in the cool, dark ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... edge of the camp, he quickened his pace and where the shadows permitted ran swiftly up the slope to the grade. There he paused to recover his breath. In response to his warble Tressa opened the door. Conrad looked beyond her to her ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... of thy transport O'erpowers each dying tone! Thou canst not warble a measure That is not all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various



Words linked to "Warble" :   animal disease, yodel, sing



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