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Dainty   Listen
noun
Dainty  n.  (pl. dainties)  
1.
Value; estimation; the gratification or pleasure taken in anything. (Obs.) "I ne told no deyntee of her love."
2.
That which is delicious or delicate; a delicacy. "That precious nectar may the taste renew Of Eden's dainties, by our parents lost."
3.
A term of fondness. (Poetic)
Synonyms: Dainty, Delicacy. These words are here compared as denoting articles of food. The term delicacy as applied to a nice article of any kind, and hence to articles of food which are particularly attractive. Dainty is stronger, and denotes some exquisite article of cookery. A hotel may be provided with all the delicacies of the season, and its table richly covered with dainties. "These delicacies I mean of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits, and flowers, Walks and the melody of birds." "(A table) furnished plenteously with bread, And dainties, remnants of the last regale."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dainty" Quotes from Famous Books



... not often seen, but well worth culture, is A. coerulea, a kind with finely cut leaves and purplish blue flowers. Then A. coronaria, The Bride, a pure creamy white kind, with flowers 3 inches across, raised by Van Velsen, of Haarlem, is really a good addition to these dainty blossoms, and affords a vivid contrast to the fiery A. fulgens. I have received this year some roots of anemones, iris, and other hardy flowers from the site of ancient Troy, and trust that some of these, if not new, will be beautiful additions to our gardens. The true A. vitifolia from northern ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... in these years of change, when she must go to the public school, she continues to represent all that is delightful in Japanese girlhood; for her special home-training keeps her reverent, innocent, dainty in all her little ways, and worthy to remain the pet of ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... modest little gate and walked steadily up the gravel path, to the long low square building that stood before him. There were even rows of small windows, tastily but simply decked in muslin screens and showing dainty bows of spotless ribbons; a few pots of blooming plants standing outside on the broad flat sills lent a charm to the quiet beauty of the shining panes and the muslin screens. Neat beds in the front of the house were covered with the richest flowers, and well trimmed ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... into a room—and, in despite of himself, he sighed with pleasure at the sight of it. The prettiest and most charming of rooms it seemed to him to be—spacious and quaintly rambling in shape, with a delicately-figured chintz repeating the dainty effects of the walls upon the curtains and carpet and bed-hangings and chair-covers, and with a bright fire in the grate throwing its warm, cozy glow over everything. He looked at the pictures on the walls, at the photographs and little ornaments ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... sent the too communicative Sarah to her place and called the divided house of Gonorowsky to her desk for instant judgment. And as she held forth she was delighted to see that her words were falling upon good ground, for the dark and dainty features of her hearers expressed a flattering degree of conviction and of humility. She was admiring the wonderful lashes lying damp and dark on Eva's smooth cheek when the beautiful eyes unclosed, gazed straight across ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... up to the Sun And the burning track of his car In the broad serene above her: "O King Sun, be thou my lover, For my beauty is just begun. I am fresh and fair as a star; Come, lie where the lilies are: Behold, I am fair and dainty and white all over, And I waste in ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... wears a huge rosary, sometimes so large as to be uncomfortable. I saw several that were so unwieldy that they went over the shoulders and formed a huge line, larger indeed than a string of sleigh bells. These are ornamental rosaries and are not used for prayer. The praying rosary is as small and dainty as those used by fashionable women in our own Roman Catholic churches. Besides the fan and the rosary every woman was provided with a neat and often handsomely-bound prayer book and a huge lighted cigar ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... all the children in review, and the pleasure she felt in seeing those living dolls, decked out in their dainty ribbons, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... which were sure to be found at the edges of the cleared ground; perhaps a lynx, staring with pale, savage eyes upon the cabin, hating the man who occupied it, yet fearing his power. Again it might be an antlered deer who paused a moment, one dainty hoof uplifted, brown eyes, wholly curious, fixed upon the silent dwelling. Only the smaller woodfolk such as rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, porcupines, and now and then a fox, dared make a closer investigation of ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... in this mystic land of mine What dainty maids there be, Whose faces shine with love divine, Like sunlight on the sea. The boasted fair of other climes That live in songs and tales Will never be more fair to me Than those of ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... noise like the Tilling pig, and slouched away in front of her down the passage leading to the garden, sniffing. There they were, with the two bridge-tables set out in a shady corner of the lawn, and a buffet vulgarly heaped with all sorts of dainty confections which made Miss Mapp's mouth water, obliging her to swallow rapidly once or twice before she could manage a ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... Mr. Whitney's hands, "is an old Colt's revolver, a 38. On the morning of the murder, after you and the coroner had gone, I found the bullet for which we had searched unsuccessfully, and from that hour to this I have known, what before I had suspected, that this dainty little weapon of Mr. Mainwaring's played no part in the shooting. Here is the bullet, you ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... down went the satin bow dragging with it Alexia's spool of silk and the dainty scissors. "Don't—don't—I didn't mean anything; but you really know that Mr. King will never let you be a music-teacher in all this world. Never; you know it, Polly. Oh! don't look like that; ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... very attractive wardrobes that were really right for fifteen-year-old girls. Afternoon dresses of voile or thin silk, and one pretty party dress for each of dainty chiffon and lace. Morning frocks of linen and a tailored street suit seemed to be ample in ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells

... life. Thus was he making vows to God and breaking them, repenting and promising to do better next time; so, to use his own homely phrase, he was 'feeding God with chapters, and prayers, and promises, and vows, and a great many more such dainty dishes, and thinks that he serveth God as well as any man in England can, while he has only got into a cleaner way to hell than the rest of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... heard a most melodious sound Of all that mote delight a dainty ear; Such as at once might not on living ground, Save in this Paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard it was for wight which did it hear, To tell what manner musicke that mote be; For all that pleasing is to living care Was there ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... did the poor fox go, With hungry longings and a heart of woe. Thought he, 'It's very plain that dainty food I cannot find to-day; still, something good May yet turn up. But stay! what's that I see Hanging asleep ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... Ten thousand voices shouting, "This Is heaven indeed for perfect bliss." With garlands decked they idly strayed, And danced and laughed and sang and played. At length as every soldier eyed, With food like Amrit satisfied, Each dainty cate and tempting meat, No longer had he care to eat. Thus soldier, servant, dame, and slave Received whate'er the wish might crave. As each in new-wrought clothes arrayed Enjoyed the feast before him laid. Each man was seen in white attire Unstained by ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... beautify her home with such means as she could command, to embroider and fashion clothing by hand for her children; but her great gift was conceded by all to be the making of things to grow. At that she was wonderful. She started dainty little vines and climbing plants from tiny seeds she found in rice and coffee. Rooted things she soaked in water, rolled in fine sand, planted according to habit, and they almost never failed to justify her ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... behind, but a prim, sharp outlook, from shyly downcast eyes, upon all the world ahead. A staid, slim little maid, with softly fashioned shoulders, carried sedately, her small head drooping with shy grace, like a flower upon its slender stalk, seeming as she went her dainty way to perceive neither scene nor incident of the passage, but yet observing all in swift, sly ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... Wind were greedy and selfish. They enjoyed the great feast that had been prepared for them, without a thought of saving any of it to take home to their mother-but the gentle Moon did not forget her. Of every dainty dish that was brought round, she placed a small portion under one of her beautiful long fingernails, that Star might also have a ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... Examination.' So did the good man proclaim himself to a suburb of a city in the West of England. It was one of those pretty, clean, fresh-coloured suburbs only to be found in the west; a few dainty little shops, everything about them bright or glistening, scattered among pleasant little houses with gardens eternally green and all but perennially in bloom; every vista ending in foliage, and in one direction a far glimpse of the Cathedral towers, sending forth their music to fall dreamily ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... very handsome affairs, and in each was hidden some dainty trifle, handkerchief, fan ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... Mrs John Harmon come and see her house? And a dainty house it was, and a tastefully beautiful; and they went through it in procession; the Inexhaustible on Mrs Boffin's bosom (still staring) occupying the middle station, and Mr Boffin bringing up the rear. And on Bella's exquisite toilette table was ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... merchandise in process of transfer to and from the railroad cars; and bustle everywhere; while hundreds of pleasure-boats and small crafts, of every conceivable variety, may be seen as far as the eye can reach. There we saw the trim and dainty shell, with its arrow-like prow, darting through the quiet coves; the saucy catamaran shooting, half submerged, out before the wind; the cozy little steam-launches, all ready to take their passengers to some suburban pleasure-ground; ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... touch of old Cibber is extant to perpetuate their glory. The hand that sketched Elizabeth Barry so as to make her live forever in a few brief lines, the hand that drew the fascinating and memorable portrait of Susanna Mountfort ("Down goes her dainty diving body to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions")—what might it not have done to preserve for the knowledge of future generations the queens of the theatre who are crowned and regnant to-day! Cibber could ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... the orange alleys, and of the acres of flowers, was heavy on the air; there was the sound of music borne down the low southerly wind; here and there through the boughs was the dainty glisten of gliding silks:—it was such a scene as once belonged to the terraces ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... pie was open'd, The birds began to sing; Was not that a dainty dish, To set before ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... opened the narrow door, the entire framework of it was filled by the broad, magnificent figure of a man in heavy caped coat and high leather boots, with dainty frills of lace at throat and wrist, and elegant chapeau-bras held ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... to hold in fee. The Rich Man's Son inherits cares: The bank may break—the factory burn; A breath may burst his bubble shares; And soft white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn. The Rich Man's Son inherits wants: His stomach craves for dainty fare; With sated heart, he hears the pants Of toiling hinds, with brown arms bare— And wearies in ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... have an ill Effect upon the Strength or Spirits of Men in Health and Vigour, that there is not One in Fifty, whom it will not render more brisk and lively in the next Day. I speak of People that are not in Want, and who, of dainty or courser Fate, eat as much much every Day as their Appetite requires. As for Humiliation, it is a Word of Course. Fast-Days, bar the Abstinence already mention'd, are kept no otherwise, than ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville

... visitors of home life in England. All this is in danger of becoming a shell-fretted wilderness now. "Long Tom" once having turned his attention in this direction continued to pound away until two shots struck the house itself, and, bursting inside, shattered the dainty contents of several ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... frescoes in the Villa Lemmi, outside Firenze, the dainty grace of his forms, the charming color, else thou wouldst understand that it was not spiritual beauty ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... tyrannize over the greatest of tyrants; for what is it but too great a smatch of wisdom that makes men so tawny and thick-skinned, so rough and prickly-bearded, like an emblem of winter or old age, while women have such dainty, smooth cheeks, such a low, gentle voice, and so pure a complexion, as if Nature had drawn them for a standing pattern of all symmetry and comeliness? Besides, what greater or juster aim and ambition have they than ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... honest veterans themselves may be seen wandering in the road. The air is heavy with associations and memories. You can actually smell the fragrance of the new-made Chelsea buns, fresh from the oven, just as you would a hundred years ago. You may sit with dainty damsels, all hoops and furbelows, eating custards at the Bun-house; you may wander among the rare plants of the Botanic Gardens. The old great houses rise, shadowy and magnificent, above the modern terraces; Don Saltero's Coffee-House yet opens its hospitable doors; Sir Thomas ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... the sky's a pale blue cup Over the laughing land, My love goes lightly, holding up Her dress with dainty hand. ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce

... also divers mechanical arts, which you have not; and stuffs made by them, as papers, linen, silks, tissues, dainty works of feathers of wonderful lustre, excellent dyes, and many others, and shops likewise as well for such as are not brought into vulgar use amongst us, as for those that are. For you must know, that of the things before recited, many of them ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... these pretty dainty toys are the Roman peasant women. America follows closely in their footsteps, Great Britain's turn comes next, then Germany puts in a modest claim, while the worst customers of all are the Scandinavians, to whose deep, earnest, thoughtful nature the glittering ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... leather belt about his waist, from which was suspended a holster containing a heavy revolver. His moccasins, of white deerskin, were gaily decorated with an intricate design in beads and coloured silks and little bits of looking-glass. They were so dainty, it seemed almost that their wearer wanted to draw special attention to his feet. Rube, however, stared inquisitively into the stranger's ruddy brown face, noticing how closely together his piercing black eyes were set and how ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... also other like Epigrammes that were sent vsually for new yeares giftes or to be Printed or put vpon their banketting dishes of suger plate, or of march paines, & such other dainty meates as by the curtesie & custome euery gest might carry from a common feast home with him to his owne house, & were made for the nonce, they were called Nenia or apophoreta, and neuer contained aboue ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... essence of loving-kindness towards the poor fellows upon whose pale faces and ghastly wounds they looked with "round-eyed wonder" and pity. After a while they would gain courage to approach some soldier whom they found "sort o' favored" their own, to whom they ventured to offer some dainty, would stroke the wasted hand, smooth the hair, or hold to the fevered lips a drink of buttermilk or a piece of delicious fruit. Ah, how many times I have watched such scenes! To the warmly-expressed thanks of the ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... in the direction indicated. The girl, in a cerise costume with a big black hat, short skirt, and dainty bag, was sitting in a chair halfway on to them and leaning over the table before her. As he watched, she threw her head back and laughed softly. He caught the gleam of a white throat ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... of tender interest among them, now that he was ailing, suffering, in danger of his life, away from friends,—poor fellow! Little tokens of their regard had reached his sick-chamber; bunches of flowers with dainty little notes, some of them pinkish, some three-cornered, some of them with brief messages, others "criss-crossed," were growing more frequent as it was understood that the patient was likely to be convalescent before many days ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme beauty. Her eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, and her cheeks, though considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom of the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the sulphur rose. Admiration was, I repeat, the first impression. But the second was criticism. There was something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness of expression, some hardness, perhaps, ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... into, with delightful effect, by a wrennish chatter. For fluency, smoothness, and ease, and especially for purity and sweetness of tone, I have never heard any bird-song that seemed to me more nearly perfect. If the dainty creature would bear confinement,—on which point I know nothing,—he would make an ideal parlor songster; for his voice, while round and full,—in contrast with the goldfinch's, for example,—is ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... furniture of singular shape,—a "duchesse," a chaise-longue, a stiff little sofa,—with window-curtains of silk, like that of the furniture, lined with pink satin, and caught back with silken ropes, and a carpet of Savonnerie; in short, we find here all those elegant, rich, sumptuous, and dainty things in the midst of which the women of the eighteenth century lived ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... was the exception, and rich with such profusion as Jenny Cadine or Madame Schontz might have displayed. There were lace curtains, cashmere hangings, brocade portieres, a set of chimney ornaments modeled by Stidmann, a glass cabinet filled with dainty nicknacks. Hulot could not bear to see his Valerie in a bower of inferior magnificence to the dunghill of gold and pearls owned by a Josepha. The drawing-room was furnished with red damask, and the dining-room had carved oak panels. But the Baron, carried away by his wish to have ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... a dainty breakfast, she found them standing before the fire, their arms around each other's shoulders, and she thought them very loving sisters, though their looks betrayed ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... her to live alone in a smart down-town apartment with her old negro mammy, but her affections demanded that she take refuge at all times under the sheltering wings of Mrs. Buchanan, who kept a dainty nest ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... with its due reward: and as love merits in the long run rather joy than suffering, far gladlier obey I the queen's than I did the king's behest, and address myself to our present theme. You are to know then, dainty ladies, that not far from Sicily there is an islet called Lipari, in which, no great while ago, there dwelt a damsel, Gostanza by name, fair as fair could be, and of one of the most honourable families in the island. And one Martuccio Gomito, who ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... kindly a nature, in whom the instinct, or nerve, or organ of love for children was even of average natural strength and sensibility"; so difficult was it for him to believe in "the dread and repulsion felt by a forsaken wife and tortured mother for the very beauty and dainty sweetness of her only new-born child, as recalling the cruel, sleek charm of the human tiger that had begotten it". And so he crowns her with all crowns but that of "love for children". He is still tender to her, seeing in her that one monstrous lack; he ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... Poems" Mr. Linton quotes freely from the song-books of Byrd and Dowland, but gives only one lyric of Dr. Thomas Campion. As Mr. Linton is an excellent judge of poetry, I can only suppose that he had no wide acquaintance with Campion's writings, when he put together his dainty Anthology. There is clear evidence[1] that Campion wrote not only the music but the words for his songs—that he was at once an eminent composer and a lyric poet of the first rank. He published a volume of Latin verse, which displays ease and fluency (though the prosody is occasionally erratic); ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... this was the brightest and the most beautiful. The walls were covered with a pink-flowered Lucca damask, patterned with birds and dotted with dainty blossoms of silver; the furniture was of massive silver, festooned with florid wreaths, and swinging Cupids; in front of the two large fire-places stood great screens broidered with parrots and peacocks, and the floor, which was of sea-green ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... of Porto Bello are not particularly dainty. I am sure I should starve there, for I could not consent to eat their food. What do you think of shovel-nosed sharks being sold in the markets, and guanas—which you know are lizards—being considered a special treat? and then, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... though I were going to be married," observed Bessie, as she surveyed the fresh, dainty dresses. "I never had more than one new gown at a time. Now they are finished, and you are tired, Hatty, and you must go and lie ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... cold became so intense, that we could venture out into the air for a very short time only, long enough merely to collect what fuel we needed, and to set the traps which we had placed round the hut to catch foxes, which I assure you were considered quite a dainty by us poor wretches, greedy as we were after fresh meat. On the 4th of November, the sun was no longer visible, and a long and dreary night set in. All the light we had came from the moon, aurora borealis, and the lamps which we hung around our hut, and fed with bear's fat. The only consolation ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... returned to the other apartment they found the table already laid, and in a short time a dainty repast was served. To this Guy sat down with them, for except when there were guests, when his place was behind his lord's chair, he had always been treated as one of the family, and as the son of Sir Aylmer rather than as ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... as it is useful, and a few sprays of this dropped on a meat platter or on salad dishes adds much to the attractiveness of the table. There are florists who grow this profitably as a greenery for cut flowers, and when grown in partial shade is quite dainty and pretty enough for this purpose. The Curled Lettuce is best for this purpose, but if kept damp is almost sure to ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

... discussions of the art of poetry by Gascoigne and Sidney, by Puttenham, Campion and Daniel. The very titles of the collections of lyrics which followed the famous Tottel's Miscellany of 1557 flash with the spirit of the epoch: A Paradise of Dainty Devices, A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, A Handfull of Pleasant Delights, The Phoenix Nest, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... which he himself excelled. He took into his service a number of skilled dancers of the no, and treated them as hereditary vassals, setting aside the chamber of the Paulownia for their use. These performers, whatever their origin, received the treatment of samurai, and their dainty posturing in the dance became a model for the lords of the Bakufu Court, so that the simple demeanour of military canons was replaced by a mincing and meretricious mien. Another favourite dance in Yedo Castle was the furyu. A book of the period describes the latter performance in these ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... to his heels and ran as fast as he could, as though he had received an imperial command. Ileane, left alone in the kitchen, filled her jug with food, emptied all the dainty dishes that were on the fire upon the floor, ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various

... there was something almost comical in her despondency. But she had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, the American tone. Whatever her tone was, however, it had a fascination; there was something dainty about it, and ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James

... her share of girlish vanity. She had put on a plain tailor-made skirt of fine dark green cloth, short enough to show the dainty little brown buckled shoes that she specially affected, and a thin white silk shirt and knitted croquet-jacket of white wool. A scarlet leather belt girt her slender waist, and a silver chatelaine jingled a gay tune at her side, and about her ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... should cost ten thousand ses-tertia, or three hundred thousand dollars. This he would not believe, and laid her a wager that she would fail in her promise. When the day came the dinner was as grand and dainty as those of the former days; but when Antony called upon her to count up the cost of the meats and wines, she said that she did not reckon them, but that she should herself soon eat and drink the ten thousand sestertia. She wore in her ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... developed at the inquest. He had provided himself with a good photograph of the dead girl, and a minute, carefully written description of her apparel, from the lace scarf which had been wound round her head to the dainty little French boots on her feet. The first examination had produced no result. Railway officials and hotel-keepers, supplied with the photographs, could not say that they had ever seen the original in life. Even the coffin, a cheap, ready-made affair, could be traced to ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... basket-work. Their nets are, however, the finest I have ever seen. These are made mainly for catching small game, such as the beautiful little gazelles (Ncheri) with dark gray skins on the upper part of the body, white underneath, and satin-like in sleekness all over. Their form is very dainty, the little legs being no thicker than a man's finger, the neck long and the head ornamented with little pointed horns and broad round ears. The nets are tied on to trees in two long lines, which converge to an acute angle, the bottom ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... a foul-feeder, grew dainty: how he longed for Mangoes, Spices, and Indian Birds' Nests, etc., and could not sleep but ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... cushions, richly embroidered in dainty Eastern colouring, lay Mabel de Hundberg, with dry lips half opened and panting, too weary to move, yet listening ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... it; Harold Gwynne told me, saying that Mrs. Rothesay had told him. Was she, then, so sweet and dainty a creature—your mother? Once Angus spoke to me of her—little Sybilla Hyde. She was his wife then, though we did not know it. Poor Angus, we loved him very much—better than he ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... paper to absorb any fat which may remain. This amount of batter should make about forty wafers. On these wafers may be served creamed oysters, vegetables, chicken or fruit. When using the wafers as a foundation on which to serve fruit, whipped cream is a dainty adjunct. One teaspoonful of sugar should then be added to the wafer batter. These wafers may be kept several weeks, when by simply placing them in a hot oven a minute before serving they will be almost as good as when freshly cooked. Or the wafers may be served as a fritter by sifting over them ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... a dainty lace-covered parasol fell over the edge, and, striking the platform where Claudius was lying, went straight to the bottom of the ruin, some ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... Kangaroo spoke, one of the Native Companions caught sight of her, and leaving the dance, opened her wings, and still making dainty steps with her long legs, half danced and half flew to where the Kangaroo ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... even Mrs. Mucklewrath, who had begun to recover from her hysterics, whimpered forth, 'She wadna say naething against what the minister proposed; he was e'en ower gude for his trade, and she hoped to see him wi' a dainty decent bishop's gown on his back; a comelier sight than your Geneva cloaks and bands, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... it come at all? Were we not wasting strength and a great deal of emotion on a dread which had no foundation in fact? What were we two sensible and, as a rule, practical men thinking of, that we should ascribe to either of these dainty belles of a conventional and shallow society the wish to commit a deed calling for the vigour and daring of some wilful child of nature? It was not to be thought of in this sober, reasoning hour. We had given ourselves over to a ghastly ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... housewife who is so dainty and refined that, though her husband's income is strained almost to the breaking point, she must have everything in the house so dainty and fragile that no ordinary servant can be trusted to care for the furniture, wash the dishes, polish the floors, ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... with broken vows, and faithless hearts, and blighted lives; just the sort of song that Tommy loves to warble after a good meal in the evening. It conjured to the Subaltern's eyes the picture of the dainty little star who had sung it on the boards of the Coliseum. And to conclude, Madame's voice, French, and sonorously metallic, was heard in the dining-room striking up the "Marseillaise." Tommy did not know a word of it, but he yelled "March on" (a very good translation of "Marchons") and ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... sea-alcove, from what mermaid's milliner's shop, hast thou emerged, Selvagee! with that dainty waist and languid cheek? What heartless step-dame drove thee forth, to waste thy ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... late, Now hers alone to grant, the mistress of his fate. She speaks assurance kind with witching smile, "No ill from sickness felt so little while!" Yet nought the knight believes; a kiss, I ween, Fell from her dainty lips, and ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... solemn hunting is in hand; There will the lovely Roman ladies troop: The forest walks are wide and spacious; And many unfrequented plots there are Fitted by kind for rape and villainy: Single you thither, then, this dainty doe, And strike her home by force if not by words: This way, or not at all, stand you in hope. Come, come, our empress, with her sacred wit To villainy and vengeance consecrate, Will we acquaint with all what we intend; And she shall ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... gazed upon this heaven-sent flower before he was seized with the fever of love. He fell into a state of melancholy, frequented no bad places, and only with regret now and then did he take a bite at his royal and dainty German morsel Isabella. He became passionate, and swore either by sorcery, by force, by trickery, or with her consent, to enjoy the flavours of this gentle lady, who, by the sight of her sweet body, forced him to the last extremity, during his now long and weary nights. At first, he pursued ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... the bright curtainings that Annie had brought, and putting up shelves for a few pieces of china. She had two or three pictures, also, which had come from her room in her old home, and some of those useless dainty things with which some women like ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie

... moment as they stood there talking of him, Mrs. Stannard's door opened and he came forth, the three ladies following. He did look well,—more than well, as he turned with extended hand to say good-by. "Dandy," his lithe-limbed sorrel, pricked up his dainty, pointed ears and whinnied eagerly as he heard his step on the piazza, giving himself a shake that threatened the dislocation of his burden of blankets, canteen, and saddle-bags. The ladies surrounded him at the gate. Mrs. Stannard's kind blue eyes were moistening. How often had she ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... eating this really tasty course. It is the covering from just above the breast bone and is called in Mongolian tarach or "arrow." When a sheep is skinned, this small section is cut out and placed on the hot coals, where it is broiled very slowly. Thus prepared it is considered the most dainty bit of the whole animal and is always presented to the guest of honor. It is not permissible to divide it, such is the strength of the custom ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... y'are entered; see the coddled cook Runs from his torrid zone to pry and look And bless his dainty mistress: see The aged point out, "This is she Who now must sway The house (love shield her) with her yea and nay": And the smirk butler thinks it Sin in's napery not to express his wit; Each striving to devise Some gin wherewith ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... class, situated in a small lot of land, and with other houses very near on either side. There was a great clump of hydrangeas on the small smooth lawn in front, and on the piazza stood a small table, covered with a dainty white cloth trimmed with lace, on which were laid, in ostentatious neatness, the evening paper and a couple of magazines. There were chairs, and palms in jardinieres stood on either side of the flight ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... the door opened and two little girls appeared, all in a flutter of dainty blue ruffles. Each carried a cushion, and one had what looked like an atlas under ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... the truth and right and heaven itself. All duties have become as shadows: all rules and restraints have snapped their bonds. O love, my love, I could set fire to all the world outside this land on which you have set your dainty feet, and dance in mad revel over the ashes ... These are mild men. These are good men. They would do good to all—as if this all were a reality! No, no! There is no reality in the world save this one real love of mine. I do you reverence. My devotion ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... evening, the family was sitting on the front steps, after a refreshing shower of rain, when Whiskie saw a cat in the street, picking its dainty way among the little puddles of water. With a muttered curse he dashed after the cat without discovering, until within a few feet of it, that it was the cat who belonged to him. He tried to stop himself ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton

... her. I let her have a fire in her bedroom, and half her meals in bed. I let her have chocolate with tablespoonfuls of cream floating on the top: she loved it. She was never really happy except when eating. I let her order her own meals. I took a fiendish delight watching the dainty limbs turning to shapeless fat, the pink-and-white complexion growing blotchy. It is flesh that man loves; brain and mind and heart and soul! he never thinks of them. This little pink-and-white sow could have cut me out with Solomon himself. Why should such creatures have the ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... the bird for perhaps half an hour, admiring his handsome blue wings as now and then he spread them, his dainty manner of lifting his long legs, and the occasional flashing stroke of his beak. My range was short (for a field-glass, I mean), and, all in all, I voted it "a ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... Mr. Trumbull, 'you have been ower far ben with us for that; but Job will take you to a place where you may sleep rough till he calls you. I will bring you what little baggage you can need—for those who go on such errands must not be dainty. I will myself see after your horse, for a merciful man is merciful to his beast—a matter too often forgotten in ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... into a cart by gendarmes in the sight of the multitude. A man sat awaiting them in the cart, curled, powdered, dressed; and perfumed with foppish elegance, and his every motion made with a dainty sense of distinction. He was the people's hero—the public executioner. He took in his hands the ends of the rope which hung from the necks of his victims. Another figure mounted the cart behind them. It was a priest, who knelt, bent his head, and ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... Jerrine[1] but much smaller. She had such an elusive beauty that I cannot describe it. One not acquainted with her story might have thought her dress out of taste out among the sand dunes and sage-brush in the hot sun, but I knew, and I felt the thrill of sheer blue silk, dainty patent-leather slippers, and big blue hat just loaded ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... before I came away—a breakfast room in blue and yellow. The ceiling was a light blue, the cabinet-work and the furniture were of a yellow wood, the curtains at the windows were white and worked in yellow, and when the table was set for breakfast with dainty blue china nothing can be conceived at once ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... likely to become a man in the next or any subsequent incarnation. There are Bostonian persons of the female kind who could with readiness be conceived as turning into men without any sea-change or especially startling biological transmutation. But Isabel was not one of them. Small and dainty, she was of the gold-and-white, essentially feminine type. She lived alone with her parents in the solid old-fashioned house on the north side of the Common, almost under the shadow of the State House dome. It made very little difference to Isabel ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... screwed up her hair into a tight knot, put one small piece of it into a curling pin, which she then pinned far back on her head (as if afraid that the effect on the forehead would be too becoming), took off her dainty green shoes, put on an enormous pair of grotesque slippers, carpet slippers (also a relic), and went into Hyacinth's room. Anne made it a rule every evening to go in for a few minutes to see Hyacinth and talk against everyone they had seen during the day. She seemed to regard it ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... melodramas, with a wicked squire, and poachers, and an attorney, and a virtuous young man with a genius for mechanics, who should love, and protect, and ultimately marry the girl in the crimson room. Baudelaire has a few dainty sentences on the fancies that we are inspired with when we look through a window into other people's lives; and I think Dickens has somewhat enlarged on the same text. The subject, at least, is one that I am seldom weary of entertaining. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it—a poem in which I most happily and delicately celebrated that sweet girl's charms, without mentioning her name, but any one could see who was meant; for the bare title—"The Rose of Orleans"—would reveal that, as it seemed to me. It pictured this pure and dainty white rose as growing up out of the rude soil of war and looking abroad out of its tender eyes upon the horrid machinery of death, and then—note this conceit—it blushes for the sinful nature of man, and turns red in a single night. Becomes a red rose, you see—a rose that was white before. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... dimensions and of such delicate tints that it required sometimes a great strain of eyesight to see them at all. Some were really most beautiful. I spent a good deal of time and patience in collecting, pressing, and classifying those dainty little sand-plants, and I was beginning to flatter myself that I had ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... by a more charming little waitress?—was she really charming, I wonder, or did she merely seem so faute de mieux? Where could you find a nicer place to meet your friends from other regiments, to drink coffee, to eat quantities of dainty French cakes? It is not surprising that the shop at Poperinghe was always crowded by four in the afternoon in those old days before ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett

... sure where he is. I heard he had gone to Montreal." And when she had said it she became as white as the dainty ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... heart she thought Bessie's favorite gray gown very dowdy and Quakerish. "But we must try to enliven you with a few flowers. You are going to wear a gray hat. Wait a moment." And Edna darted out of the room, and returned a moment afterward with a dainty cream lace fichu. "Look, this lace is lovely! Mamma gave it to me, but I never wear it now, and it will just suit you. Now let me fasten in a few of those creamy roses. Well, you do look nice after all, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... morocco-bound pocketbook which he seemed to know so well where to find. A single glance at its contents satisfied him that the papers he desired were still there. He quickly pocketed his prize and then paused to look around for the last time at the dainty ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... cheer; diet, dietary; regimen; belly timber, staff of life; bread, bread and cheese. comestibles, eatables, victuals, edibles, ingesta; grub, grubstake, prog^, meat; bread, bread stuffs; cerealia^; cereals; viands, cates^, delicacy, dainty, creature comforts, contents of the larder, fleshpots; festal board; ambrosia; good cheer, good living. beef, bisquit^, bun; cornstarch [U.S.]; cookie, cooky [U.S.]; cracker, doughnut; fatling^; hardtack, hoecake [U.S.], hominy [U.S.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... said Mr. Meadow Mouse, making a wry face as he spoke—for he was rather a dainty person. And then he whispered something to ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey

... entrance of Grandmagnificolowsky, and three or four more of the pages, with the princess's supper, put an end to the conversation. A fine gold dish, containing several dainty morsels, which the princess had carved with her own royal hands, was put down upon the velvet cushion, and Glumdalkin ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin

... upon him with an air of dainty scorn. "Since when hath father left his wits to thee, Gregory Goole? I know his likes as well as thou—and it likes him not to let this poor boy starve, I'll warrant. Go, fetch the pasty and the cake that are in the buttery, with ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... not thinking about you or myself," I went on. "She's so dainty and sweet! She looks like a child who has never known an hour of rough usage in her life. They wouldn't leave her much of ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... handed the Colonel a dainty little three-cornered note. It was addressed to "My dear friend," and the writer was so sorry he was going away so very soon, and had hoped he would stay ever so much longer, and then signed herself cordially his, Susan Burleigh Braxton. At the bottom was a postscript—"I will expect ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... Tales, how the monk was saved through the mistake of Sieur Tristan. The monk was at this time a man whose qualities had grown rapidly, so much so that his wit had communicated a jovial hue to his face. He was a great favourite with the ladies, who crammed him with wine, confectioneries, and dainty dishes at the dinners, suppers, and merry-makings, to which they invited him, because every host likes those cheerful guests of God with nimble jaws, who say as many words as they put away tit-bits. This abbot was a pernicious ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... bundle. In it were a beautiful Spanish bit, richly silvered and with headstall and reins of cunningly plaited rawhide, and a pair of dainty spurs which winked gaily in the sunshine. Helen's eyes sparkled as she put out her hand for them. Her rush of thanks he turned aside by ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... fringes of cats and hawks in carnelian. Her hair was brilliant black and unbraided. Her complexion was transparent, and the underlying red showed deeply in the small, full-lipped mouth; like a stain in the cheeks; like a flush on the brow, and even faintly on the dainty chin. Her eyes were large and black, with the amorous lid, and lined with kohl beneath the lower lash. Her profile showed the exquisite aquiline of the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... dependence of the Art Club below-stairs: day or night nurse—every student in the place knows the touch of her hand when his head splits with fever or his bones ache with cold; provider of buttons, suspender loops and buckles; go-between in most secret and confidential affairs; mail-carrier—the dainty note wrapped up in her handkerchief so as not to "spile it!"—no, she wouldn't treat a dog that way, nor anything else that lives and breathes or has feeling, ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... with what she chose to consider her exclusive work. Among other things, she reserved to herself the right of peeling the potatoes for dinner; but as she was growing blind, she often left in those black specks, which we in the North call the "eyes" of the potato. Miss Bronte was too dainty a housekeeper to put up with this; yet she could not bear to hurt the faithful old servant, by bidding the younger maiden go over the potatoes again, and so reminding Tabby that her work was less effectual than formerly. Accordingly she would steal into the kitchen, and ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... a chair to the still silent Ephraim, said laughingly: "Indeed, I must be in a dangerous plight, if the birds of prey are already settling around me. Do you already scent my death, Herr Ephraim? By Heaven! that would be a dainty morsel ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... took out the thimble. What a dainty little thing it was! She tried it on each of her hard, bony fingers, and laughed to see the poor grimy things ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... home at once upon the door of the pulpit, with the cushion under the drooping head. With her own little hands she cut off, as tenderly as a pear is peeled, the bridal-dress, so steeped and stained, and then with her dainty transparent fingers (no larger than a pencil) she probed the vile wound in the side, and fetched the reeking bullet forth; and then with the coldest water stanched the flowing of the life-blood. All this while my darling lay insensible, and white as death; and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... the skin, made trial of the stratagem of laying the noose of a rope in the snow, and placing a piece of meat within it. A bear ranging the neighbouring ice was soon enticed to the spot by the smell of the dainty morsel. He perceived the bait, approached, and seized it in his mouth; but his foot at the same time, by a jerk of the rope, being entangled in the noose, he pushed it off with his paw, and deliberately ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... care French women have for the insides of their masters! At times it is pathetic. Before now, I have thrown dainty morsels which I could not eat into the fire, so as to ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... this intelligence, Sir John held a council with Captains Norton, Downton, and Abraham Cocke, commanding three ships of the Earl of Cumberland, Mr Thomson of Harwich, captain of the Dainty, belonging to Sir John Hawkins, one of Sir Walter Raleighs fleet, Captain Christopher Newton of the Golden Dragon, newly come from the West Indies, and others. To these he communicated the intelligence he had just got from the foresaid ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... are shouts and cries, and mirth and revel rout, And dainty tables spread, and all ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... and ragged leather. Under her head she had two white down pillows taken from her bed. She was lying stretched out motionless on her back with her hands behind her head. She was dressed as though expecting some one, in a black silk dress, with a dainty lace fichu on her head, which was very becoming. Over her shoulders was thrown a lace shawl pinned with a massive gold brooch. She certainly was expecting some one. She lay as though impatient and weary, her face rather pale and her lips and eyes hot, restlessly ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Picking up her dainty feet as though she walked upon hot stones, tossing her proud little head, with big, gentle eyes, spreading nostrils and fine small ears almost touching at the tips, mane flowing, tail set high and spread, came the snow-white ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... good-for-nothing young spendthrift taken at the last moment "because he wrote a good hand," and a mixed crew, Hudson crossed the wide Atlantic for the last time. He sailed by way of Iceland, where "fresh fish and dainty fowl, partridges, curlew, plover, teale, and goose" much refreshed the already discontented crews, and the hot baths of Iceland delighted them. The men wanted to return to the pleasant land discovered in the last expedition, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... Quaint, dainty little Dorris! What would not I—I, your great-granddaughter, in this degenerate year of 1885—give to see you just as you looked then, thinking over this and that in a manner not so very unlike the maidens of this generation! Ah, well! I must perforce content myself ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various

... but very fatiguing tour of inspection, that occupied four hours, they were invited to rest in the house of one of the professors, where they were refreshed with a dainty lunch, after which they ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... walks dimly echoed whispering words; the lawn was studded with dazzling groups; on the terrace by the river a dainty multitude beheld those celebrated waters which furnish flounders to ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... I have only a box with four-and-twenty others. This is no place for her! But I must make her acquaintance.' Then he stretched himself out behind a snuff-box that lay on the table; from thence he could watch the dainty little lady, who continued to stand on one leg without losing ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang

... there, she took me into the great hall, and made a very dainty and impudent bow, mocking me. And so made me known to another lady, who sat there, upon her task of embroidering, which she did very demure, and as that she had also a dainty Mischief ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... Garbed in pretty dainty frocks, and carrying gorgeously brilliant sweaters, the trio, with Jennie as chaperon, raced off to the lake directly after dinner. The evening was delightfully clear and cool after the shower, and the promise of a row out through the willow-bound water was sufficient ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... spoke, either to her or to Mrs. Taylor; and Molly veered aside from any trend of talk she foresaw was leading toward that subject. But in those hours when no visitors came, and he was by himself in the quiet, he would lie often sombrely contemplating the girl's room, her little dainty knickknacks, her home photographs, all the delicate manifestations of what she came from and what she was. Strength was flowing back into him each day, and Judge Henry's latest messenger had brought him clothes and mail from Sunk Creek and many inquiries of kindness, and returned taking ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... promiscuously frivolous students, dapper shop clerks, sober citizens, and frisky, flirtatious little ouvrieres, these last being all hatless, as is characteristic of the workgirl class, but singularly attractive in their neat black dresses and dainty low-cut shoes. There was also much in evidence another type of female whose extravagance of costume and boldness of manner loudly proclaimed ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein



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