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Expensive   Listen
adjective
Expensive  adj.  
1.
Occasioning expense; calling for liberal outlay; costly; dear; liberal; as, expensive dress; an expensive house or family. "War is expensive, and peace desirable."
2.
Free in expending; very liberal; especially, in a bad sense: extravagant; lavish. (R.) "An active, expensive, indefatigable goodness." "The idle and expensive are dangerous."
Synonyms: Costly; dear; high-priced; lavish; extravagant.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Expensive" Quotes from Famous Books



... contrary, I found that of late her glance had a troubled, I may say, puzzled expression when it rested on me; and when occasionally I entered her room unexpectedly I saw that she hastily concealed in a drawer a small and well-worn note-book. I supposed she was calculating what this expensive rate of living might cost. If she only computed what I spent officially, so to speak—that is to say, on herself and the household—she must have made it some four hundred thousand francs. The income on her million ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... "A less expensive would do, wouldn't it, mother?" addressing himself, without once meeting Lilly's eye, to ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... except a week or two with their father . . . fine, modern, perfect schools, the kind where the children were always out of doors, Florida in winter and New England hills in summer. Those schools were horribly expensive . . . what was all her money for? . . . but they had the best class of wealthy children, carefully selected for their social position, and the teachers were so well paid that of course they did their jobs ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... instructions by hook or by crook. That was one reason why he was such a valuable man. He accomplished his ends or his employers' ends after some fashion. Therefore, when the almost completed dam was destroyed, he recognized merely a temporary, if expensive, setback. The company could afford to pay for any number of dams; but, in order to push their sales, and, as a first step toward acquiring other properties at a minimum figure, they wanted the water on their lands at once. Very well, ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... realize from the start that the declaration is the most important department of the game, and yet the most simple to master. A foolish bid may cost hundreds of points. The failure to make a sound one may lose a rubber, whereas mistakes in the play, while often expensive and irritating, are rarely attended with such ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... several kinds of treatment for it, but it doesn't seem to get better; and the pain is wearing. The doctors say his best chance is a thorough change, as well as treatment, but we can't manage it—the three babies are expensive atoms. Now there is a probability of another operation to his hand, and he has been so depressed about it, that I dragged him out to dinner in the hope of cheering him up. But I don't think I should have succeeded if we ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... New Carnival Theater and in his heart the young advertiser put away the intention of making the fact that Mr. Vandeford had sold Hawtry and "The Rosie Posie Girl" for "The Purple Slipper," his most brilliant reserve story to set all of Broadway, at least, agog for the opening of the expensive new play. ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... It was an out-and-out love match. She has expensive tastes; she is indolent and extravagant. Why, his carriage hire is a big item of itself. She couldn't walk ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... expensive suites of rooms or flats, furnished them most expensively on credit or the hire system, insured the goods against burglary, promptly burgled themselves, sold the goods, realised the insurance, and then vanished ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... I think, to give tokens of love to our dear ones," Evelyn said, "but we need not make them very expensive in order to give pleasure;—often they would prefer some simple little thing that is the work of our own hands—and so we would have something left for the poor and needy, whom the Bible teaches us we should care for and relieve to ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley

... Levant; the Florentines were manufacturers and bankers: the one town sent her sons forth on the seas to barter and exchange; the other was full of speculators, calculating rates of interest and discount, and contracting with princes for the conduct of expensive wars. The mercantile character of these Italian republics is so essential to their history that it will not be out of place to enlarge a little on the topic. We have seen that the Florentines rendered commerce a condition ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... it, moreover, found it next to impossible to gin it properly, the primitive roller gin of the time being unsuited to the task, and the work of pulling off the fibers by hand being both tedious and expensive. In 1792, the amount exported from the United States was equivalent ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous

... of Prince Fred's amourette [sent to the cesspool by us, herald of Reichenbach thither]: let his Majesty know it, by all means. What the Duchess of Kendal [lean tall female in expensive brocades, with gilt prayer-books, visible in the body to Nosti at that time], what the Duchess of Kendal says to you is perfectly just; and as the Princess Wilhelmina is very ill-looking [LAIDE,—how dare you say so, dog?], I believe she will have ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... piercing, offering to demonstrate that they are not of the same consistence quite through. Now I take all this to be the last degree of perverting Nature, one of whose eternal laws it is to put her best furniture forward. And therefore, in order to save the charges of all such expensive anatomy for the time to come, I do here think fit to inform the reader that in such conclusions as these reason is certainly in the right; and that in most corporeal beings which have fallen under my cognisance, the outside hath been infinitely preferable to the in, whereof ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift

... know what you mean; a wife and family are expensive, of course. It is a little too late now to complain ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... extraordinary exigency, and such as could not be expected in the common course of events, would amply support a large army, which, well officered, would be daily improving, instead of continuing a destructive, expensive, and disorderly mob. In my opinion, if any dependence is placed on the militia another year, Congress will be deceived. When danger is a little removed from them they will not turn out at all. When it comes home to them, the well-affected, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... F. Brossard was a very expensive private school, just twice as expensive as the most expensive of the Parisian public schools—Ste.-Barbe, Francois ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... cases of injustice and oppression are found. In the first class it is the agent that the tenants have to deal with; and whether he be humane or not matters little to them, for, whatever may be his feelings, the utmost penny must be exacted to keep up the expensive establishments of the landlord in England, to meet the cost of a new building, or the debt incurred by gambling on the turf and elsewhere. Every transaction of the kind brings a fresh demand on the agent, and even if he be not unscrupulous or cruel, he must put on the screw, and get the ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... and to let one loss stand for everything. There was a considerable cost incurred in the upkeep of machinery which was much oftener idle than engaged; and the occasional employment of the plant was, of course, on the average much more expensive than its constant use would have been. James was on the point, after two or three years of indecision, of relinquishing the working altogether, when Cousin John came home. There was a conference between the two, and following on that conference a very ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray

... and move into a house in an out-of-the-way street. By selling this, and renting a smaller one, mother hopes, with economy, to carry James through college. And I must go to Miss Higgins' school because it is less expensive than Mr. Stone's. Miss Higgins, indeed! I never could bear her! A few months ago, how I should have cried and stormed at the idea of her school. But the great sorrow swallows up ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... few pieces of silver owned by the wealthiest of their number, pewter was the most elegant and expensive of the Pilgrims' table-ware. A pewter platter said to have been "brought over in the MAY-FLOWER" is now owned by the Pilgrim Society, which also exhibits smaller pewter formerly Edward Winslow's, and bearing his ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... exceptionally strong. They were also by no means weak in their aerial power, especially in the matter of seaplanes. Besides all this, their army was very efficient, in spite of its limited numbers, and it was the most expensive in Europe. Yet when the day of trial came, all this imposing force was of no use whatever, and might as well have not existed. Their ruin could not have been more complete or more rapid if they had not possessed ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... looked at home. The education of our children—my elder son was at Harvard with a liberal allowance; my eldest daughter at Miss Dana's expensive school at Morristown; the rest of the children taught at home by a visiting governess; the girls taking music lessons—nothing could be done here. The education item was bound to increase materially as the ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... will they die like the others." 29. "God our Lord has been much offended by these deeds, and His Majesty very badly served and defrauded, for they have made him lose countries that could very well provide food for the whole of Castile, and in my opinion, it will be very difficult and expensive to recover them." 30. All these are the formal words of the said monk; and bear the signature also of the Bishop of Mexico, testifying that everything was affirmed by the said Father, Fray Marcus. 31. What this Father says he has seen, should be considered here: because this happened ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... died. It is not probable that he ever knew the amiable intentions of Mrs. Mulrady in regard to his son, who now succeeded to the paternal estate, sadly partitioned by relatives and lawsuits. The feminine Mulradys attended the funeral, in expensive mourning from Sacramento; even the gentle Alvin was forced into ready-made broadcloth, which accented his good-natured but unmistakably common presence. Mrs. Mulrady spoke openly of her "loss"; declared ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte

... afterward published a work on Mormonism. Major Gilbert was a compositor and also a dancing-master. His duties in the latter calling took him away from his "case" so frequently that Van Camp "distributed" in order to give him a chance to work the next day. The "copy" was on ruled paper—an expensive thing in those days—and the letters were so closely crowded together that words like and or the were divided at the end of the line. The copy was in Cowdery's handwriting, but it was produced from a tightly-buttoned coat every morning by Hyrum Smith. One day's supply only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... interval between his first removal by the said Warren Hastings and his reappointment; and having adduced many reasons to make it highly probable that the said Hastings was perfectly well acquainted with it, and did approve of the expensive establishments which he, the said Bristow, simply had paid, but not imposed, he did allege, besides the official assurances of his predecessor, Middleton, certain facts, as amounting to a direct proof that the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, was not averse to the ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... considerable domain. There were few residences of more importance as betokening greater wealth in the province of Poitou; but it was neither magnificent nor picturesque. The landlords of the country were not men of extensive property or expensive habits—they built no costly castles, and gave no sumptuous banquets; but they lived at home, on their incomes, and had always something to spare for the poorer of their neighbours. Farming was their business—the chase their amusement—loyalty ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... one consequence has succeeded another, until the deliberations of the inhabitants of a village are declared null when they have not been authorized by the intendant. Of course, if the community have an expensive undertaking to carry through, it must remain under the control of the sub-delegate of the intendant, and consequently follow the plan he proposes, employ his favorite workmen, pay them according to his ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... places with mud so well beaten down that the tide could not pass through it. In the middle they adjusted a flood-gate in such a way as to allow the water from the marsh to flow out at low water without permitting the water from the sea to flow in at high tide." The writer adds that the work was expensive, but the second year's crop repaid them for the outlay. This is more than can be said for present-day experience in the same ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... over the desert trails at night. He had not, strange to say, seen any machine with Silvertown cord tires in San Bonito or in Malpais, though he had given every car he saw the second glance to make sure. He knew that such tires were something new and expensive, so much so that they were not in general use in that locality. Even in El Paso they were rarely seen at that time, and only the fact that the great man who gave him his orders had happened to be using them on his machine, and had ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... such mush!—always made from yellow corn meal and cooked three hours or more. This, eaten with plenty of fresh, rich milk, furnished the supper for the children. Tea? Not to be thought of. Sugar? It was too expensive—cost fifteen to eighteen cents a pound, and at a time when it took a week's labor to earn as much money as a day's labor would earn now. Cheap molasses we had sometimes, but not often, meat not more than once a ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... acquisitions on the Continent were only a trouble; and, if any decent arrangement could be made for selling them either to France or back to Spain, why not be satisfied? War with Continental Papacy and championship of Continental Protestantism were but expensive moonshine.[1] ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... of course," says Mortimer. "And I don't mind saying that it's a deucedly expensive place for me to go, even when I can sign checks for my meals. I'm always being dragged into billiards, dollar a corner, and that sort of thing. It counts up, and I—I'm running rather close to the ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... life, because she will not consent to yield the palm in outward show to those who have three times her wealth; and, above all, because she is determined her cherished son shall be enabled to 'hold up his head with the highest gentlemen in the land.' This same son, I imagine, is a man of expensive habits, no reckless spendthrift and no abandoned sensualist, but one who likes to have 'everything handsome about him,' and to go to a certain length in youthful indulgences, not so much to gratify his own tastes as to maintain ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... restaurants, whose clothes are designed by an illustrious tailor, who declines to make a pair of trousers for less than a hundred francs? What are three louis a day to a man who hires a box for first performances at the opera, to a man who gambles and gives expensive suppers, to a man who drives out with yellow-haired demoiselles, and who owns a race-horse? Measuring his purse and his ambition, M. Wilkie discovered that he should never succeed in making both ends meet. "How do other people manage?" he wondered. A puzzling question! Every evening ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... levity was never more obtruded on the father's notice, and Norris was inexorably launched upon a backward voyage. He went abroad to study foreign languages, which he learned, at a very expensive rate; and a fresh crop of debts fell soon to be paid, with similar lamentations, which were in this case perfectly justified, and to which Norris paid no regard. He had been unfairly treated over the Oxford affair; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... one of the least exhaustive crops of the world, taking nearly all its sustenance from the air, and that it was also one of the most easily raised, requiring none of the complicated and expensive machinery necessary for wheat and other smaller grains. He knew, too, that under the thorough preparation of the soil necessary for cotton, wheat did best after it, and with clover sown on the wheat, he would soon have ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... their subjection. Adventurers and emigrants were already leaving San Domingo to its fate, attracted to different spots of the Terra Firma, to Mexico and Peru, by the reported treasures. That portion of the colony which had engaged in agriculture found Indians scarce and negroes expensive. There was no longer any object in fitting out expeditions to reinforce the colony, and repair the waste which it was beginning to suffer from desertion and disease. The war with the natives was ignominiously ended by Charles V. in 1533, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... promised and departed. She walked home very thoughtfully. Ten dollars a week! Ten dollars just to get the cooking done! She had had her eyes fixed very clearly indeed on the coveted goal to brush aside such an expensive obstacle. ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... need offer any harsh criticism about a nation coming to such a decision as that. If you have made your preparation for war—perhaps a very expensive preparation, perhaps a preparation which has involved very great commitments apart from expense—it is not reasonable to suppose that at the last moment you will consent to ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

... as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... so!" She nestled the curling tip of her tongue against her teeth, as if the recollection must also be tasted. "Splendid, enchanting, enlightening, stupendous, and wickedly expensive! Another girl and I did it ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... memory of that afternoon upon him, Peter had gone down to Fairport in the latter part of July with the expectation of resuming the part of impresario to her charm, he suffered a sharp disappointment. He found the Goodwards, not in the expensive caravansary in which he installed himself, but in a smaller tributary house set back from the main hotel though not quite disconnected with it; for quiet, Mrs. Goodward told him, though he guessed ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin

... sombre, trailing, and rather distraught: there is a way of arranging a fichu which of itself suggests that the heart beneath it is blighted. If you happen to possess a few ornaments which are not too expensive, distribute them among your girl-friends; say, in a repressed voice, that you do not care for such things any more. Let it be known that there is one day in the year which you prefer to spend in complete solitude. Have a special affection for one flower; occasionally ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... Edwards, Laurence Hutton, Joseph Jefferson, John A. Lane, James Lewis, Brander Matthews, Stephen H. Olin, A. M. Palmer, and William T. Sherman.]—Booth purchased the fine old brownstone residence at 16 Gramercy Park, and had expensive alterations made under the directions of Stanford White to adapt it for club purposes. He bore the entire cost, furnished it from garret to cellar, gave it his books and pictures, his rare collections of every sort. Laurence Hutton, writing of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... softened tone, as though this avowal had brought her nearer the level of the man whom she so much despised, she explained her motives. The life which she led was pushing her into a situation from which there was no way out. She had luxurious and expensive tastes, habits of disorder which nothing could conquer and which would bring her inevitably to poverty, both her and that good Crenmitz, who was allowing herself to be ruined without saying a word. In three years, four years at the outside, all would be over with ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... fortune; and until a sufficiency for these ends is acquired, or in due time probably will be acquired (for in human affairs probability ought to content us,) frugality and exertions of industry are duties. He is also justified in declining expensive liberality: for, to take from those who want, to give to those who want, adds nothing to the stock of public happiness. Thus far, therefore, and no farther, the plea of 'children,' of 'large families,' charity begins at home,' &c. is an excuse for parsimony, and an answer to those who ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... think this over." The Duke sat back, toying with his cup. "It is true," he mused, "that Menstal is the key to the border. And the small garrison there has proved expensive and ineffective." He tapped the cup on the table, then set it down and looked about the apartment. Finally, he looked up ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole

... "Lovely—and expensive," I answered. "I'm afraid a rectory with tennis courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will prove too grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me. However, your answering the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... best one. There was a carpet—a good one, but the pattern was obliterated by dust; a fireplace hung with cut-paper, dropping to pieces; a handsome oak-bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and modern make; but they had evidently experienced rough usage: the vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to trail upon the floor. The chairs were also damaged, many of them ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... festering sore that threatened the life of the social organism. The rich, who were relatively few, squandered princely incomes in a single night, and exhausted their imaginations devising new and expensive forms of sensuous pleasure. The profligacy of the nobles almost surpasses credibility, so that trustworthy descriptions read like works of fiction. Farrar says: "A whole population might be trembling lest they should be starved ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... late hunted from place to place all over Flanders by a Jew sent out of England to watch him. The Pretender talked very freely with Pickle of affairs, but did not seem to like the Scheme sent him out of England about the Parliament, that it would be very expensive, and that he expected no good from the Parliament; that Loch Gairy was trusted by him with most of his motions, and how to send to him; that he has been a Rambling from one place to another about Flanders, generally from near Brussells towards Sens, and on the Borders of France down ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... anything out of keeping with his class—and he knows that we lay no stress on that kind of thing." This, with another glance at the elegant Paris frock which adorned the person of Alicia—a frock, in Mrs. Fotheringham's opinion, far too expensive for the girl's circumstances. Alicia received the glance without flinching. It was one of her good points that she was never meek with the people who disliked her. She merely threw out another ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... "Too expensive for me," Dino murmured, with a pleasant light in his eyes, as Brian made preparations for their evening meal, with a skill acquired ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... and found there one of those new hotels, not very large, but very expensive. They knew me at once for what I was, and welcomed me with joy. They gave me hot rum and sugar, a fine warm bed, told me I was the first that had yet stopped there that year, and left me to sleep very deep and yet in pain, as men sleep who are stunned. But twice that ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... nature, an amusing story is told of the Earl of Hopetoun, who, when he could not induce a certain Scottish laird, named Dundas, to sell his old family residence known as "The Tower," which was on the very verge of his own beautiful pleasure grounds, tried to lead him on to a more expensive style of living than that to which he had been accustomed, thinking thereby he might run into debt, and be ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... in the house of TORTSOV, furnished with cupboards of various sorts; chests and shelves with plates and silver. Furniture: sofas, armchairs, and tables, all very expensive and crowded together. Usually this room is used as a sort of sitting-room for the mistress of the house, where she directs her household, and where she receives her guests informally. One door leads into the room where the guests are dining, ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... It is very strange. Because I remember having seen it. You didn't take it for anything, did you? We shall have to get a new one, I suppose. It is very annoying. My new shoes have also not worn well. And they ought to have. Because Robina says they were expensive. The donkey has come. And he is sweet. He eats out of my hand. And lets me kiss him. But he won't go. He goes a little when you shout at him. Very loud. Me and Robina went for a drive yesterday after tea. And Dick ran beside. And shouted. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... despotism failed to exercise the wisdom and self-restraint which only liberty can foster. For the only road to the attainment of liberty is its practice and its abuse, and the slow education which can be acquired by no theoretical teaching, but only in the hard and expensive school of experience. For the terrible birth-pangs of liberty no despotically governed people can escape, unless it chooses to remain ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... is that we had not the best china tea-things,' said Dora; 'they are very expensive ones. It does not matter much about these; we can ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring

... though Gibbon points out that this may only mean that he assumed the abstract title of a king, without applying it to any particular nation or country, yet that great historian himself calls Odoacer, King of Italy, and shows how he was determined to abolish the useless and expensive office of vicegerent of the emperor. Kingsley guesses very ingeniously, that Odoacer's assumed title, King of nations, may have been the Gothic Theode-reiks, the very name of Theodoric. As to Theodoric himself, Kingsley surely knew his real status, for he says: 'Why ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... Gibbon received the education he considered far superior to what could be had from Oxford. When he returned to England, after four years, he missed the "elegant and rational society" of Lausanne, and could not love London—"the noisy and expensive scene of crowds without company, and ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard

... frivolous character of a fashionable amusement, and consecrated to the solemnization of an intellectual institute. Dazzled by the brilliancy of this idea, the mayor announced his intention to give a ball that should include the surrounding neighbourhood, and be worthy, in all expensive respects, of the dignity of himself and the occasion. A night had been fixed for the ball,—a night that became memorable indeed to me! The entertainment was anticipated with a lively interest, in which even the Hill condescended to share. The Hill did ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... sales contributed a good deal to Mrs. Houghton's nervous heart-disease. They brought the first signs of wear and tear into the face of James Houghton. At first, of course, he merely marked down, with discretion, his less-expensive stock of prints and muslins, nuns-veilings and muslin delaines, with a few fancy braidings and trimmings in guimp or bronze to enliven the affair. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... face, but now the black stubble of beard lay over gaunt features and sunken cheeks. He looked ten years older than his scant thirty-two, and there were the beginnings of a snarl at the corners of his mouth. Clothes that had once been expensive were wrinkled and covered with grime that no amount of cleaning could remove. His tall, thin body was awkwardly curled up in a vain effort to conserve heat and one of his hands instinctively clutched at his tiny ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey

... doors and walked slowly down a richly carpeted corridor. It was elegantly furnished and decorated with large palms set at intervals, quite the equal in luxuriousness, though on a smaller scale, of any of the larger and well-known hotels. Beautifully marked marbles and expensive hangings greeted the eye at every turn. Faultlessly liveried servants solicitously waited ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... men abstained from marriage unless they could fatten on rich dowries; when utility was the spring of every action, and demoralizing pleasure was the universal pursuit; when feastings and banquets were riotous and expensive, and violence and rapine were restrained only by the strong arm of law dictated by instincts of self-preservation? Where was the ennobling influence of the gods, when nobody of any position finally believed in them? How powerless the gods, when the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... loaded in a clip of five rounds, big expensive-looking cartridges a foot long, with bottle-neck ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper

... cried Thaddeus, overcome by her benevolence, "you have judged rightly; I have many things to struggle with. I have a sick friend at home, whom misfortune hath nearly bereft of reason, and whose wants are now so complicated and expensive, that never till now did I know the complete desolation of a man without a country or a profession. For myself, Lady Tinemouth, adversity has few pangs; but for my friend, for an old man whose deranged faculties have forgotten the change in my affairs, he who leans ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... "Lake Hotel"—the French form to be retained in translation), a humorous allusion to the large hotels of the lakes of Switzerland, first-class in appointments and charges, which as a rule bear French names, while the less expensive stopping-places have such old-fashioned and unpretentious names as "The Bear Inn," "The Ox ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel

... we sat at breakfast Elsie brought in a telegram for Val. It was a somewhat unusual occurrence; for we were a good way from the office, and, porterage being expensive, we had carefully instructed our ordinary correspondents that we preferred the humbler post-card, as a rule. When a telegram did arrive, therefore, it generally presaged something of unusual importance. I saw Val's face change as he read ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... a "show," successive managers have pretty nearly exhausted the surface workings and so honeycombed the seams with their different systems of developing their resources, that it would be, perhaps, a difficult and expensive undertaking for even a substantial company to make much of ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... Aniela were she to go there, I only said: "Leave it all to me;" and then, in a lower voice, to Aniela: "I will take care of her as if she were my own mother." I saw that Pani Celina, who believes less and less in Kromitzki's millions, was afraid I might arrange things on too expensive a scale; but I have already settled it in my mind to show her a fictitious agreement, and take the greater part of the expenses upon myself. Of course, I never mentioned that I intended going there myself. I will arrange it so that the proposal shall come from my ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... dealer, "there is no paper or any kind of lining in the frame—just a simple wood backing, you see. It is unusual to back at all, but it is done now and again"—and he tapped the loose frame all round. "It is an expensive frame, well made, and with good gilding. I shouldn't be surprised if the painting underneath this daub turned out to be quite respectable; they would never put a frame like this on anything that wasn't ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... sin. If Millard had embezzled a thousand dollars of the bank's funds, could he have been more remorseful than he is now? And all for nothing but that he found himself at dinner with more cloth in the tail of his coat than there was in the coattails of his neighbors, and that he wore an expensive black cravat while all the rest of the world had on ghostly white linen ties that cost but ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... favourite Badawi dish, but too expensive unless some accident happen to the animal. Old camel is much like bull-beef, but the young meat is excellent, although not relished by Europeans because, like strange fish, it has no recognised flavour. I have noticed it in my "First Footsteps" (p. 68, etc.). ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... morsel of it would he eat, however, not even a piece of domestic fowl, which he seemed to look upon as game. Sheep he considered fine game, and would chase them every opportunity that presented itself. This was his one bad trait, an expensive one sometimes, but it was the only one, and was overbalanced many times by his lovable qualities that made him a favorite with all. Every soldier in the company loved him and was proud of him, and would have shared his dinner with the dog any day if called ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... should himself be the president of that council; if he wished to drive the Scots out of Antrim, her own troops would assist in the expulsion; if he was offended with the garrison in the cathedral, she would gladly see peace maintained in a manner less expensive to herself. To the primacy he might name the person most agreeable to himself, and with the primacy, as a matter of course, even the form of maintaining the Protestant Church would be abandoned also. In return for these concessions the Queen demanded only that Shane, to save her ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... very expensive, and a young man may make it quite ruinous. I hope the youth's friends have left him means enough of his own. I would not speak of such a matter," she added apologetically, "only the restoration of Lone seems so ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... lacking in the carbohydrates. They build up the muscular tissue, furnish heat and energy, are more stimulating and strengthening than any other food, and satisfy hunger for a greater length of time. For the most part, meats are a very expensive food. One cannot perform more labour by the use of a meat diet than on a diet of vegetable foods. Those who use large quantities of meat suffer from many disturbances of the system. Hence it should form a very small part of the diet. The cuts of meat that come from those ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... to care for it when they come to years of discretion. The reason why America is not more musical is that we men and women of to-day did not yesterday, as children, hear enough good music. Our parents probably could not afford it. It was then a luxury, implying expensive concert tickets or an elaborate musical training for someone in ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... Day commenced a New Series (which has long been in preparation), uniform in Size and Price with the Standard Library. It will comprise full and complete Editions of the great Authors of our Literature, including especially those which at present exist only in scarce or expensive Editions. Among the early Volumes will be GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, with VARIORUM NOTES, comprising not only all those given in the Original Quarto Edition, but also the Notes of Guizot, Wenck, and other Foreign Editors, as well ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various

... busily in mansion and in farm; matrons and maids, from the wife and daughters of the Commander-in-Chief to the mother of the drummer-boy, became weavers and seamstresses; and in every household of the Confederacy, although many of the necessities of life—salt, coffee and sugar—had become expensive luxuries, the needs of the army ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... pain to learn, that there is a pernicious idea prevalent among some of the States that their accounts are not to be adjusted with the continent. Such an idea cannot fail to spread listless languor over all our operations. To suppose this expensive war can be carried on without joint and strenuous efforts, is beneath the wisdom of those who are called to the high offices of legislation. Those who inculcate maxims, which tend to relax these efforts, most certainly ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... an old rag, anyway," said the showy lady, who was still showy in spite of a wart-like knot of dried mud on the end of her nose. And she glanced at her spattered but graceful and expensive white linen ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... greatly relieved. He understood vaguely that weddings were expensive affairs, and he had thirty ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... Girl's father is sending her a new red dress, and a red velvet cap from Paris. She is so fond of red. I can't bear it, it looks so common. Mother says I can get a velvet hood too. Cecily says she doesn't believe it's right to wear velvet when it's so expensive and the heathen are crying for the gospel. She got that idea from a Sunday School paper but I am going to get ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... were many of the other sex among the boarders. The first day that we sat down to dinner, I found myself by the side of a young man of pleasing manners, although with much of the coxcomb in his apparel. His dress was very gay and very expensive, and he wore a diamond-hilted sword and diamond buckles—at least so they appeared to me, as I was not sufficient connoisseur to distinguish the brilliant from the paste. He was very affable and talkative, and before dinner was over gave me the history ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... were with Mr. and Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in the box opposite us. To the Barrel Club I had sent the first row of the dress circle. It was expensive, but worth it. Hatton and Sidney Price were in the stalls. Tom Blake had preferred a free pass to the gallery. Kit and Malim were at the back of the upper circle (this was, Malim told ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... be allowed to scatter themselves too widely, and also because they considered such settlement "pernicious" and "destructive" to the peace and safety of the colony, animating the Indians to attack, and thus imbroiling the country in troublesome and expensive wars. Since winter was approaching, the inhabitants were allowed one year to remove themselves to the south side ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... afternoon. He lifted his hat and she smiled and they had a chat. The next day she cut an engagement with her lawyer and me to go motoring with the duke in my French car, and Florry's chauffeur driving, for, of course, the duke was an expensive luxury and I was trying to save a dollar wherever possible. That night the duke gave a dinner party in honor of the lady—and he gave it aboard his yacht, the Doris, formerly the Seafarer, right out ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... have double the thickness, or 24 inches, which would give more than double the resistance to penetration, in addition to giving double the stability against overturning or being driven bodily out of place. But our guns may be reasonably well protected by earthen parapets without any expensive armor by so mounting them that when fired they will recoil downward or to one side, so as to come below the parapet for loading. This method of mounting is called the disappearing principle, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... heightened their pleasures, and this young band of debauchees with the glasses in their hands, joined their songs with the music. These feasts were accompanied by ballets, for which the best dancers of both sexes were engaged. These entertainments, renewed every day, were so expensive to Abou Hassan, that he could not support the extravagance above a year: and the great sum which he had appropriated to this prodigality and the year ended together. As soon as he discontinued keeping this table, his friends forsook him; whenever ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... semifinished metal products partners: Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, Third World countries, Cuba External debt: $40 billion (end of 1991 est.) Industrial production: -8% after adjustment for inflation due to shift to more expensive products, -2% ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... individual attention, for it must be admitted that while certain difficulties are common to all students, there are individual cases that present peculiar phases and these can be served only by personal consultations. These personal consultations are expensive both in time and patience, for it frequently happens that the mental habits of a student must be thoroughly reconstructed, and this requires much time and attention, but the results well repay the effort. A valuable accessory to such individual supervision over students ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... for you?" he asked gently as the boy sat quietly down; and made irritably incisive by the tendency of near-by men and women to listen as well as watch, he emphasized his expensive order of foods and wines, repeated each item loudly to cheapen the listeners, and sent ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... dug instead of being plowed; after plowing, it might be gone over with a hoe instead of a harrow, and the soil more completely pulverized; it might be oftener or more thoroughly weeded; the implements used might be of higher finish, or more elaborate construction; a greater quantity or more expensive kinds of manure might be applied, or, when applied, they might be more carefully mixed and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... expensive apartment we looked at had a mail-chute," said my husband, thoughtfully, after a moment ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... an expensive turnpike it was necessary to levy a tax on those who made use of it, and to that end several toll-gates were established, at which passengers were compelled to halt and pay their lawful reckoning. These gates were located at ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... sir," said Lynton rather gruffly, "and I suppose you're right; but it's rather too expensive a game for me. It was experience though, and like a lesson, for I feel now as if I could navigate these waters without getting into trouble again. How do you feel about going ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... giving positions to those who applied. He was really a splendid young fellow, with a sympathetic heart and a generous hand, and it was very difficult for him to turn away anyone who could tell an artistic hard-luck story. Expensive equipment had been purchased which had far greater capacity than the needs of the business required; therefore, many machines and other fixtures had stood idle seventy-five per cent of the time, eating up money in interest charges, depreciation, space, light, heat, and ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... city, and I could not even be sure she had made use of a public conveyance. No, sir; I bethought me of another way by which I might reach this woman. You had shown me those spangles. They were portions of a very rich trimming; a trimming which has only lately come into vogue, and which is so expensive that it is worn chiefly by women of means, and sold only in shops where elaborate garnitures are to be found. I have seen and noticed dresses thus trimmed, in certain windows and on certain ladies; and before you showed me ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... butterflies, and stretch it over thin slips of the spine of the cocoa-nut leaf, then they ornament it with bits of red or blue paper, and fasten it together with a pinch of boiled rice. The string is the most expensive part, and two pennyworth lasts many kites, for they are very frail affairs, and in that land of trees do not long escape being caught, though they fly beautifully. Miss J—— had a cockatoo which amused her and the little girls during sewing-class. He was a beautiful ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... not say, but she thought it might be a long while, because she had heard that china figures of that sort were expensive, "and of course," she added, "we must get one ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton

... the drawing-room, which had been transformed into a work-room, the artist sat upon a high stool, point in hand; the light from a curtainless window, sifting through the transparent paper, made the worthy man's skull shine as he leaned over his copper plate. He worked hard all day; with an expensive house and two girls to bring up, it was necessary. In spite of his advanced opinions, he continued to engrave his Prince Louis—"A rogue who is trying to juggle us out of a Republic." At the very ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... living on dainties and riding on rail-cars and steamboats. When I first emerge from Swift Creek into the hotels and shops on Broadway of a summer, I am the most economical body that you can imagine. The fine clothes and expensive habits of the people strike me forcibly.... In a week I become used to everything, and in a month I forget my humble concern on Swift Creek and feel as much a nabob as any of them.... At home where everything ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... of tea was the Female Spectator, which declared the use of the fluid to be not only expensive, but pernicious; the utter destruction of all economy, the bane of good housewifery, and the source of all idleness. Tradesmen especially suffered from the habit. They could not serve their customers because their apprentices were absent during the busiest hours of the day drumming ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray



Words linked to "Expensive" :   high-priced, high-ticket, dear, big-ticket, pricey, dearly-won, cheap, expensiveness, valuable, pricy



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