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Frolic   Listen
verb
Frolic  v. i.  (past & past part. frolicked; pres. part. frolicking)  To play wild pranks; to play tricks of levity, mirth, and gayety; to indulge in frolicsome play; to sport. "Hither, come hither, and frolic and play."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Frolic" Quotes from Famous Books



... couldn't drink, some ringing the bells till they pulled them down, others beating them with pokers till they beat them into fragments: more men still—more, more, more—swarming on like insects: noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans, plunder, fear, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... to meet in those days, especially where they were strictly brought up, as I was; for father and mother were both very pious, and at that time church-members thought it was sinful to join in the profane amusements of the world. So when an invitation came for me to a husking-frolic, or a paring-bee, or a dance, I was not allowed to go. I was shy, as I told you, but I had a girl's natural longing for company; and many were the bitter tears I shed up in my garret because I could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... for this purpose, and not meeting with much success among the prisoners who happened to be on deck, he descended below to repeat his offers. He was a remarkably tall man, and was obliged to stoop as he passed along between decks. The prisoners were disposed for a frolic, and kept the officer in their company for some time, flattering him with expectations, till he discovered their insincerity, and left them in no very pleasant humor. As he passed along, bending his body ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... in 1692 of injury received during a drunken frolic. Disappointed of a fellowship at Cambridge, he turned actor; failed upon the stage, but prospered as a writer for it. His career as a dramatist began with 'Nero', in 1675, and he wrote in all eleven plays. His most successful play was the 'Rival Queens', or the Death of Alexander the Great, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... heard but yesterday of your return, and some of your miraculous adventures. Your recklessness has caused us many a trying day, Richard, and I believe killed your grandfather. You have paid dearly, and have made us pay dearly, for your mad frolic of fighting cut-throats ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... with playful hand, The shaggy dog of Newfoundland, Whose uncouth frolic spilled Their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... like magic upon Black Boy, who recognised it directly as his master's call, and having had his frolic, he trotted slowly towards where Bart cantered on, suffered himself to be caught, and the party returned in triumph, none the worse, save ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... were apparelled in their best costume, and many of them in that equivocal description of it which could scarcely be termed costume at all. Bareheaded and barefooted multitudes of both sexes were present, regardless of appearances, half mad with delight, and exhibiting many a frolic and gambol considerably at variance with the etiquette of fashionable life, although we question whether the most fashionable fete, of them all ever produced half so much happiness. Farmers had come from a distance ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... in our hotel, and that night we never ceased conjunctions in every variety, with pauses for refreshment, purification, pleasant bawdy talk, fun, and frolic. For a month longer this delicious existence lasted, and then it was time for us to proceed southward. We parted from the Grandvits with much regret, but promised to return in the spring and visit them at their country house. I may here add that we did so, and enjoyed our visit to ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... we wanted Goya, and more and more Goya, who is as Spanish and as unlike Velasquez as can very well be. There was not enough Goya abovestairs to satisfy us, but in the Goya room in the basement there was a series of scenes from Spanish life, mostly frolic campestral things, which he did as patterns for tapestries and which came near being enough in their way: the way of that reality which is so far from the reality of Velasquez. There, striving with their strangeness, we found a young American husband ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... that his own eyes would presently see again. "Who, remembering the first kind glance of her whom he loves, can fail to believe in magic?" It is very likely that having met Olivia at all seemed at that moment so wonderful to St. George that any of the "frolic things" of science were ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... no one believed that she would keep faith with any man, much less with such a ridiculous scrap as Garfias. Her flirtations were more calmly audacious than ever, her dancing more spirited; in every frolic she was the leader. ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... Play and frolic in the snow! Now you see me! Now you don't! Think you'll catch me, but you won't! Tippy-toppy-tippy-toe, Oh, such fun ...
— The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess

... of living workmen, Swift advance to time eternal, In the fast increasing graveyard. In this year the game of Base-ball, Occupied the young athletics, Occupied maturer players, Gave the city's "men of muscle," Daily rounds of fun and frolic. And the ball and bat and score-book, Answered oft a neighbor's challenge, Won the palm in match and test games, Won the ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... quick," he began, at last. "Things air changin'. I seed it over thar in Breathitt. The soldiers 'n' that scar-faced Jellico preacher hev broke up the fightin' over thar, 'n' ef we don't watch out, they'll be a-doin' it hyeh, when we start our leetle frolic. We hain't got no time to fool. Old Jas knows this as well as me, 'n' thar's goin' to be mighty leetle chance fer 'em to layway 'n' pick us off from the bresh. Thar's goin' to be fa'r fightin' fer once, thank the Lord. They bushwhacked us dunn' ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.

... all yet unspoil'd and clear; The many-buttress'd bridge that stems the tide; Black-timber'd wharves; arcaded walls, that rear Long, golden-crested roofs of civic pride:— While flaunting galliots by the gardens glide, And on Spring's frolic air the May-song swells, Mix'd with the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... S—— is in town this winter. He is a most surprising old fellow. I am told he is some years past sixty; and yet he has all the vivacity and frolic, and whim of the sprightliest youth. He continues to rank all mankind under the general denomination of Gilbert. He patrols the streets at midnight as much as ever, and beats with as much vigour the town-guard drum; nor is his affection for the company of blind fiddlers, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... Tempe's vale her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound, And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours from ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... of nature, or of art! If all the diamonds and other precious stones which have been collected from the decomposed rocks (for hard as they once were, like all sublunary matter, they too yield to Time), why, if all were remaining on the earth, the frolic gambols of the May-day sweep would shake about those gems, which now are to be found in profusion only where rank and beauty pay homage to the thrones of kings.—Arts and manufactures consume a large proportion of the treasures ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... oak-wood, Took some bark-strings from the willow, Wherewithal to bind the moose-deer, Bind him to his oaken hurdle. To the moose he spake as follows: "Here remain, thou moose of Juutas Skip about, my bounding courser, In my hurdle jump and frolic, Captive from the fields of Piru, From the Hisi glens and mountains." Then he stroked the captured wild-moose, Patted him upon his forehead, Spake again in measured accents: "I would like awhile to linger, I would love to rest a moment ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... studio in Florence as a colour boy, and electrified the painter and his scholars, by brownie like freaks of painting at their unfinished work, in their absence, better than any of his masters, and by the dexterity with which he perpetrated the frolic of putting the facsimile of a fly on one of the faces on the easels. His end was a tragic conclusion to such light comedy. At the age of twenty-six, he quitted Florence for Rome so suddenly that ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... very honest, decent people, too—attributed those inexplicable emerald circles to supernatural agency; if, indeed, anything connected with the "good folks" or "men of peace" could properly be called supernatural in times when a belief in fairies and every sort of fairy freak and frolic was deemed the most correct and natural thing in the world. Did not these circles, it was argued, appear in the course of a single night? In the sequestered woodland glade, nor herd nor milkmaid could see anything odd or unusual as the sun went down, and lo! next morning, ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... enthusiasm in things of life, a call to do things because we love them, to love things because we do them, to keep the eyes open, the heart warm and the pulses swift, as we move across the field of life. "To take the old world by the hand and frolic with it;" this is Stevenson's recipe for joyousness. Old as the world is, let it be always new to us as we are new to it. Let it be every morning made afresh by Him who "instantly and constantly reneweth the work of creation." ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan

... not like to be flattered, and cannot bear to be caricatured; and they feel that Dibdin has—unconsciously—been guilty of both towards them. According to his songs, sailors lead a life of unalloyed fun and frolic. He tells us nothing about their slavery when afloat, nothing about the tyranny they are frequently subjected to; and in his days, a man-o'-war was too often literally a floating pandemonium. He makes landsmen believe that Jack is the happiest, most enviable ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various

... rivers which, being navigable, do serious work in the world the Rhone is the most devil-may-care and light-hearted. In its five hundred mile dash down hill from the Lake of Geneva to the Mediterraenean its only purpose—other than that of doing all the mischief possible—seems to be frolic fun. And yet for more than two thousand years this apparently frivolous, and frequently malevolent, river has been very usefully employed in the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... instantly Jezebel was at hand to catch it up in her diminutive paws; toss it from her; steal up and fall upon it again; and dragging it between her feet, roll over and over with it in a mad orgy of delight. A shadow, a string, a flicker of metal was the signal for a frolic. Let one's mood be austere as a monk's, with a single twist of her absurdly tiny body this small creature shattered its gravity to atoms. There was no such thing as dignity in Jezebel's presence. Already three times Bob Morton had lifted the mite off the table and three times back she had come, ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... the glass is a beautiful thing to see. So is water, the morning after. That is the fault with frolic; there is always an inescapable rebound. The most violent love drops into humdrum tolerance. A pessimist is only a poor devil who has anticipated the inevitable; he has his headache at the start. Mental champagnes have their aftermaths even as ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... impatiently. "How provoking you are! Haven't thought of it, and here I have been talking and coaxing all the morning. Father thinks it is a wild scheme, of course, and sees no sense in spending so much money; but I'm going for all that. I don't have a frolic once in an age, and I have set my heart on this. Just think of living in the woods for two whole weeks! camping out, and doing all sorts of wild ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... had looked a bit peaked, and even haggard, when they first issued from the tents, this had long since vanished. The frolic in the cool water, and now this feast in the open, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... Betterton was a youthful frolic. I love dearly to exercise my invention. I do assure you, Joseph, that I have ever had more pleasure in my contrivances, than in the end of them. I am no sensual man: but a man of spirit—one woman is like another—you understand me, Joseph.—In coursing, all the sport ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... past of any of the Trapper's guests had been sorrowful, the unhappiness of it for the moment was forgotten. Stories crisp as snow-crust and edged with aptness, happy memories and reminiscences of frolic and fun, sly hits and keen retorts, jokes and laughter, rollicked around the table and shook it with mirthful explosions. The merriment was at its height when a loud summons sounded upon the door. It was so imperious as well as so unexpected ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... feeling very busy and important. Polly came, and very soon the room looked like another place. The four latticed windows were set wide open, so the sunshine came dancing through the vines that grew outside, and curious roses peeped in to see what frolic was afoot. The walls shone white again, for not a spider dared to stay; the wide seat which encircled the room was dustless now,—the floor as nice as willing hands could make it; and the south wind blew away all musty odors ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... position was like the son of a royal house; the boy who swept out his office or drove his delivery wagon might frolic with the jolly country girls, but he himself must sit all evening in a plush parlor where conversation dragged so perceptibly that the father often came in and made blundering efforts to warm up the atmosphere. On his way home ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... his way to the drawing-room, he discovered her asleep from very weariness, with her head laid down on her spindle-legged work-table, and the white moonbeams trying to steal under her long eyelashes. He would tread softly, and stand, and gaze, but he never stooped and kissed her cheek in merry frolic, never ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... was like, and the velvety green meadows seemed paradise to their surprised and happy eyes after the long habit of seeing nothing but dirty lanes and streets. It was a wonder to them—those spacious reaches of open country to run and dance and tumble and frolic in, after their dull and joyless captivity; so they scampered far and wide over the fair regions on both sides of the river, and came back at eventide weary, but laden with flowers and flushed with new health drawn from the fresh country air and the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... actors!—Once more, attaching to the HUMAN DRAMA, slight, as though it were structured of cloud, of air, the same light and radiant MACHINERY! Once more, only that They, whom you lately saw tranquil, earnest even to pathos—"now are frolic"—enough and to spare!—Once ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... it up as it fell, and swept it in long sheets through the streets; and as the two men battled their way along, it seemed actually to hiss around them, like the long lash of a whip. The tempest had a rare frolic that night, and right merrily did it howl over the house-tops, and through the narrow streets; and fast and furiously did the water bubble and boil, as it dashed on like mad to the deep river, to take refuge in her bosom from its tormentor ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... slate pebbles, with here and there a fall, just forcible enough to serve as a douche bath for a well-grown sheep. The victims were panting in their heavy fleeces, and their hoarse, plaintive tremolo mingled with the ripple of the water and the sound of young voices in a frolic. Dorothy had divided her forces for the washing to the best advantage. The two elder boys stood in the stream to receive the sheep, which she, with the help of little Jimmy, caught and dragged ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... melancholy pleasure, when far away from friends and home, in thinking over happy days gone by, and dwelling on the scenes and pleasures that have passed away, perhaps for ever. So I thought and felt as I recalled to mind the fun and frolic of the Stornoway ball, and the graver mirth of the Gravesend dinner, until memory traced my course backward, step by step, to the peaceful time when I dwelt in Scotland, surrounded by the gentle inmates of my happy home. We had left the shores and the green water behind us, and were now ploughing ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... come, thou Goddess fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, And by men heart-easing Mirth; Whom lovely Venus, at a birth, With two sister Graces more, To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore: Or whether (as some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying, There, on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... when the men are employed in the vintage, comes the chestnut season; and then the women, who are not busy in the vineyard, and who regard it as a frolic, go for miles up in the mountains, collecting the nuts, large as our horse chestnuts. They form no small part of the winter stock of food for the mountaineers, while the refuse nuts are used to fatten the pet pig. We can have but small conception of the primeval look these chestnut woods wear, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... doing. From some distant region, the laugh of a child, the song of a canary-bird, reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do they love plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider, crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled room says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans fresh from the upholsterer's, a Brussels carpet, a centre-table with four gilt Books of Beauty on it, a mantel-clock ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... night. They go out into the cage to play. The cage is formed of slender iron posts and railing, so that the people standing outside can see the monkeys at their sports and gambols. They play with each other in every possible way, and frolic just as if they were in their native woods. They climb up the smooth iron posts, pursuing one another; and then, leaping across through the air, they catch upon a rope, from which they swing themselves across to the ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott

... lad, ye little ken about it! For Britain's guid! guid faith, I doubt it! Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him, An' saying, aye or no's they bid him, At operas an' plays parading, Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading; Or may be, in a frolic daft, To Hague or Calais takes a waft, To mak a tour, an' tak' a whirl, To learn bon ton, an' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... standing on their heads or on their heels, or whether they were running on their hands or on their feet. No sooner was their game ended than they pelted each other with their playthings, then in a mad frolic lifted handfuls of gold dust and flung it each in ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... my memories bloom with all thy flowers, Thy kindness sighs to me from every tree: Farewell I I thank thee for the frolic hours, I bid thee, whilst ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... returning;[55] and Vibilia, if they wandered, was so kind as to put them in the right way; Fessonia refreshed the weary and fatigued; and Meditrina healed the sickly;[56] Vitula was the goddess of mirth and frolic;[57] Volupia the goddess who bestowed pleasure;[58] Orbona was addressed, that parents might not love their offspring; Pellonia averted mischief and danger; and Numeria taught people to cast and keep accounts; Angerona cured the anguish or sorrow of the mind;[59] ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... from our own home, the English teacher, an orthodox clergyman of high repute, who cultivated a few acres of land at the place where he lived on the outskirts of the town, invited a few of the pupils, myself in the number, to assist him in making hay, one play-afternoon. The boys had a good frolic, and, after work was ended, our master treated us to milk-punch, a highly agreeable, but rather exhilarating beverage. Our uncle's house was of the old-fashioned New England description, pleasantly facing the south, with a high-peaked roof, which descended, ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... much as they liked, none of the outfit were ever able to induce Mat to pursue his education as a cowboy beyond the details incident to work and frolic on the open range. Old past-masters in the classics of cowboy town deportment, expert light shooters, monte players, dance-hall beaux, elbow-crookers, and red-eye riot-starters labored faithfully with Mat, but, all to no purpose. To town with them he went, but with them in their ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... doctor-men to dig into me. After that I was playing a pretty dark game, and had to get down and out of decent society. But, holy Mike! I'm a new man. I used to do my work with a sick heart and a taste in my mouth like a graveyard, and now I can eat and drink what I like and frolic round like a colt. I wake up every morning whistling and thank the good God that I'm alive, It was a bad day for Kaiser when I got on ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... BELLOWS,—Such a frolic breeze has not fallen upon these inland waters this good while. Complain of heat! Why, it is as good as champagne to you. Well, I shan't hesitate to write to you, for fear of adding to your overwhelming burdens. A pretty ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... original thing in the way of pure rhetoric. Tom Lennard was by inheritance a merchant, by choice a philanthropist; he was naturally religious, but he could not help regarding his philanthropic work as a great frolic, and he often scandalized reformers of a more serious disposition. The excellent Joseph Naylor, who was never seen to smile, and who was popularly supposed to sleep in his black frock-coat and high stock, ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... invited Frank to go with her to call upon her dearest girl friend. Just why she did this we will leave to any young lady to answer, if she will. The next day Albert invited a little party, and that evening they all met at the old mill pond and had a skating frolic. Secluded as it was, between wooded banks, it was just the place for that kind of fun, and the young men added romance to the scene by lighting a bonfire! When Sunday morning came they of course attended church, and Frank, as promised, found himself slyly stared at ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... a whir that gives a delightful excitement to sluggish temperaments, and is, perhaps, the natural relief of highly nervous organizations. The tyrant Will is dethroned, and the sceptre snatched by his frolic sister Whim. This state of things, if continued, must become either insanity or imposture. But who can say precisely where consciousness ceases and a kind of automatic movement begins, the result of over-excitement? ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... with fire and fury! Hark! the whistle shrilly shrieks! Speed—but mark! we don't insure ye 'Gainst the boiler's frolic freaks. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... telegram to the farm, and then tore it up; he could not have explained why. From Brixham they drove in a very little wagonette. There, squeezed between Sabina and Freda, with his knees touching Stella's, they played "Up, Jenkins "; and the gloom he was feeling gave way to frolic. In this one day more to think it over, he did not want to think! They ran races, wrestled, paddled—for to-day nobody wanted to bathe—they sang catches, played games, and ate all they had brought. The little girls fell asleep ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... island and the vistas it commanded naturally drew folks out of doors. Finer weather could not be imagined. The distance from the lawn to the wharf, by way of the winding road, measured not less than a quarter of a mile. The boys raced ahead in the frolic fashion of human colts, yelling, leaping and throwing stones. Slowly the matron and her escort followed, far in the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... not retarded him by jerking the rudder ropes in a most unseamanlike way, and just as she got right again her hat blew off. That put an end to the race, and while they were still fishing for the hat the other boat came alongside, with all the oars in the air, and the jolly young tars ready for a frolic. ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... frolic gives a new turn of saucy gait. In the jovial answer, chorussed in simple song, seems a revel of all the spirits of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... was not high enough to keep out a little sunbeam that stole down the steps and made a bright spot upon our floor. I saw it, and sat down under it, held it on my lap, passed my hand up and down in its brightness, and found that I could break its ray in two. In fact, we had quite a frolic. I fancied that it moved when I did, for it warmed the top of my head, kissed first one cheek and then the other, and seemed to run up and down my arm. Finally I gathered up a piece of it in my apron and ran to my mother. Great was my surprise when I carefully opened the folds and found that ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... obliged to call a second time, for, at the first ring of his voice, the obedient armor bearer emerged from one of the lower entrances into the court. He also, as well as his master, had been convivially celebrating his return, and now bore the evidences of his frolic in a sad combination of inflamed features, tangled hair, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... Ben! Say how or when Shall we, thy guests, Meet at those lyric feasts, Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun; Where we such clusters had, As made us nobly wild, not mad? And yet each verse of thine Out-did the meat, out-did the frolic wine. ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... Goldfinch," shows Mary seated with the Child Jesus at her knee and the young John presenting him with a finch, which he caresses gently. The Madonna has the drooping eyes, the exquisitely rounded face that always charm us, and the boys are real live children ready for a frolic. Another, called "The Madonna of the Meadow," represents the Virgin in the foreground of a gently broken landscape with the two children playing beside her. We must not forget, either, as belonging to this time, the very beautiful "La Belle Jardiniere," or the "Madonna of the Garden" ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor

... went into the bedroom for a nap on Pappy Jack's bed. He spent the afternoon developing movie film, while Gerd and Ruth wrote up the notes they had made the day before and collaborated on an account of the adoption. By late afternoon, when they were finished, the Fuzzies came out for a frolic ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... of danger. Four alert eyes, four steady hands kept them from being sucked under—then came the triumph of meeting the first wave that left the steamboat, and the extatic rocking motion of the skiff as she rode the other waves in the wake—but to catch the first was the point in the frolic! Connor was known to many of the pilots as an adept in "catching the first wave." Sometimes he was "tipped" by an unlooked for motion of the machinery, but was as certain as an india-rubber ball to rise ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... on the Monday before Ash-Wednesday, when butcher-boys attain to the second grade of their apprenticeship by dressing themselves in long robes trimmed with calves' tails, and springing into the old fountain in the Marien-Platz in the face of an admiring crowd, is held in commemoration of a similar frolic contrived several hundred years ago by lads of the same trade during the prevalence of a horrible epidemic, for the purpose of tempting the frightened citizens out of their gloomy houses into fresh air and merriment, which these sensible youths had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... people. She was born in a wigwam." She did not know that failing health was really the cause of this lapse of self- confidence, this growing self-depreciation, this languor for which she could not account. She found that she could not toss the child and frolic with it as she had done; she was conscious that within a month there had stolen upon her the desire to be much alone, to avoid noises and bustle—it irritated her. She found herself thinking more and more of her father, her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... proceeded to talk very coolly, however, saying he knew that I supposed him intoxicated, but that he was never more sober in his life. He was only tired, he added, of lying in bed on such a fine night like a dog, and was determined to get up and dress, and go out on a frolic with the boat. I can hardly tell what possessed me, but the words were no sooner out of his mouth than I felt a thrill of the greatest excitement and pleasure, and thought his mad idea one of the most delightful and most reasonable things in the world. It was blowing almost a gale, and the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... childhood is all mirth: We frolic to and fro As free and blithe, as if on earth Were no ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... Adjidaumo, In and out among the branches, Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree, Laughed, and said between his laughing, "Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!" And the rabbit from his pathway Leaped aside, and at a distance Sat erect upon his haunches, Half in fear and half in frolic, Saying to the little hunter, "Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!" But he heeded not, nor heard them, For his thoughts were with the red deer; On their tracks his eyes were fastened, Leading downward to the river, To the ford across the river, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... best, but good enough to excite expectation,—an expectation surely not to be disappointed by the immortal agony (dashed with one stroke of magnificent wrath) of 'Helen of Kirkconnell,' the bustle, frolic, and battle-joy of the Border pieces proper, the solemn notes of 'The Lyke-Wake Dirge,' the eeriness of 'Clerk Saunders' and 'The Wife ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... never Kissed enough her rosy cheeks yet. Oft I rush, like thee, a dreamer, Wildly past old sober Basel, Get quite tired of the tedious Old town-councillors, and ruin Now and then a wall in passing. And they think, it was in anger, What was only done in frolic. Yes, I love her. Many other Charming women much pursue me; None, however,—e'en the stately, Richly vine-clad, blue-eyed Mosel— Ever from my heart can banish Thee, the Feldberg's lovely daughter. When I through the sands of Holland Weary drag my sluggish waters, And ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... may snatch something from you, or scatters your sheep or your oxen, that another may steal them, like the man in the old books, who waved a red cloth to frighten a herd. If the same thing were done as a frolic, without the intention of assisting a theft, the proper action is not theft, but on the case. Where, however, Titius commits theft with the aid of Maevius, both are liable to an action on theft. A man, too, is held to have aided and abetted a theft who places a ladder under a window, ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... and HIS family, when the little 'Furrys' and 'Buffys' could not be kept in order, but would go peeping into bungholes, and tumbling nearly through, and having to be picked out by Carlo, drabbled and chilled, but ready for a fresh frolic five minutes after! ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... pretty as Roselands," said her father. "Travilla and I have known each other from boyhood, and I spent many a happy day at Ion, and we had many a boyish frolic together, before I ever ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... of it in that shed, my seven brothers and I! It was a sort of palace of rubbish, a mansion of odds and ends, where rats might frolic and gambol, and play at hide-and-seek, to their hearts' content. We had nibbled a nice little way into the warehouse above mentioned; and there, every night, we feasted at our ease, growing as sleek and plump as any rats in ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... including Blossom the infant daughter of one of the women, comprised the Spring Garden squad. Nearly all of these were twenty or twenty-one years old. The men included Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Burke, Fox, Milton, Spencer, Hume and Sheridan; the women Spring, Summer, July, Bashfull, Virtue, Frolic, Gamesome, Lady, Madame, Dutchess, Mirtle and Cowslip. Seventeen of this distinguished company died ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... "I don't know if I'd better go or not. They've all got hang-overs, and they're liable to bu'st out any minute if you don't watch them. They ain't vicious, understand; they just like to frolic around." ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... ill, Mutter'd some words, withheld her arm, And kindly stopp'd the unfinish'd charm. But though not changed to owl or bat, Or something more indelicate; Yet, as your tongue has run too fast, Your boasted beauty must not last. No more shall frolic Cupid lie In ambuscade in either eye, From thence to aim his keenest dart To captivate each youthful heart: No more shall envious misses pine At charms now flown, that once were thine No more, since you so ill behave, Shall ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... says he is likely to recover, but it will leave an ugly mark it is thought, as long as he lives. We have not been able to learn, whether the party was on the look out for them, or whether they were rowdies out on a Hallow-eve frolic; but be it which it may, I presume they will be more cautious here how they trifle with such. Desiring thee prosperity and happiness, I remain ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... on the part of Fate in providing her with Henry for a brother, Francesca could well set the plaguy malice of the destiny that had given her Comus for a son. The boy was one of those untameable young lords of misrule that frolic and chafe themselves through nursery and preparatory and public-school days with the utmost allowance of storm and dust and dislocation and the least possible amount of collar-work, and come somehow with a laugh through a series of catastrophes that has reduced ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... evening. After the babies came in from their outing they were washed, undressed, and a nice warm wrapper put over their nightgown, and then fed. Afterward laid in their crib. They didn't go to sleep at once but kicked and laughed and chatted in a regular frolic. Phlegmatic babies can be easily trained. Then Marilla came down and waited on the table as Bridget sent various things up on the lift. She was a really ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas

... incarnation of fearlessness, fight and frolic—dangerous frolic it was sometimes to any he did not like. Of low stature, slight frame, active as a cat, the expression of a bull-terrier, and as, quick to an, encounter, Mulligan was not a man to pick a quarrel with—the other party invariably second best. He had served under Colonel Jack Hays ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara

... Sinfi nor I was in the mood for frolic. My living-waggon, which still went about wherever the Lovells went, had been carefully prepared for me by Rhona, and I at once went into it, not with the idea of getting much sleep, but in order to be alone with my thoughts. ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... still another beautiful perversity of their chance, included Portland Place without including to anything like the same extent Eaton Square. The latter residence, at the same time, it must promptly be added, did, on occasion, wake up to opportunity and, as giving itself a frolic shake, send out a score of invitations—one of which fitful flights, precisely, had, before Easter, the effect of disturbing a little our young man's measure of his margin. Maggie, with a proper spirit, held that her father ought from time ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... schools! Well, and art thou proficient in the rules? Art thou a pupil? Is it thy design To make our names contemptible as thine? 'Old Nick, a novel!' oh! 'tis mighty well - A fool has courage when he laughs at hell; 'Frolic and Fun;' the Humours of Tim Grin;' Why, John, thou grow'st facetious in thy sin; And what?—'The Archdeacon's Charge!'—'tis mighty well - If Satan publish'd, thou wouldst doubtless sell: Jests, novels, dances, and this precious stuff To crown thy folly—we have seen enough; We find thee ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... and days yet," answered Dick. "I guess we'll be able to find plenty of fun before our camping frolic is over." ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... politeness has been the dominant note of her attitude to-day, a sober restraint of manner such as she would adopt when rather tired towards an ordinary acquaintance. Has she reconciled herself to the inevitable and taken this Empire frolic as a graceful method of showing it? I should like to believe so, but the course is scarcely consistent with that motor of illogic which she is pleased to call her ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... afternoons unless boss give time off to work our own little patches or do some other work we had to do. But some would frolic then and wash up for Sunday, or set around. On Sunday we went to church and talked to neighbors. On Christmas we celebrated by having a big dinner which the master give us. We had three days holiday or sometimes a week. We had New Year's Day as a special day ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... the golden-colored pumpkins which had been planted between the rows, that no land might be wasted, even left to ripen alone amid the withering corn-stalks. The neighbors from far and near had visited each other's houses in turn, for the "Husking frolic," when all joined to strip from the ear the long leaves in which it was wrapped, and which were to be stacked as fodder for the sheep and cattle. The apples had been sliced and dried in the sun, and then strung and suspended in festoons from the kitchen ceiling, the pumpkins had at last been gathered ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick

... is her aim as Heaven above, And wide as either her good-will; And, like the lowly reed, her love Can drink its nurture from the scantiest rill; Insight as keen as frosty star Is to her charity no bar, Nor interrupts her frolic graces. ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... hard-working youth of eighteen, who go every morning, four miles by street-car, to my office, and the same back at night, often so weary and faint as to be hardly able to sit, not to say stand, be obliged to give up my seat to any flighty, flashy girl who has come down-town to shop, or frolic, or do nothing? Isn't she as able to "swing corners" holding on to a strap as I? and to hold her own perpendicular in ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... couple of musicians engaged for the occasion. They came from an adjacent town where they formed part of a colored orchestra of more than local fame, which was in great demand for miles around. Consequently, the girls would have good music for their frolic and as Mrs. Bonnell looked to the refreshments, everything was satisfactory excepting Miss Woodhull's veto upon "the absurd practices of Hallowe'en:" meaning the love tests of fate and fortune usually made that night. Those were debarred, though many a one was indulged in in ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... just have a kissing frolic, you two young 'uns, and be over with it, while I shake hands with aunt Hannah and uncle Nat," exclaimed Salina, pushing Isabel into Mary's outstretched arms. "There, now, no sobbing, nothing of that sort. Human critters weren't ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... little; and they certainly never wanted for merries, nay, a merry pudding had been their dinner this very day, with savage-looking purple juice and scalding hot stones. If Harold went it was for the frolic, not for want of the dainty; and wrong as it was, his mother was grieving more at the thought of his casting away the restraint of his old habits than for the one action. One son going away into the unseen world, the other being led ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

... so will drizzle; while the moon by her heat (8)—especially a full moon—will dull its edge; in fact the trail is rarest—most irregular (9)—at such times, for the hares in their joy at the light with frolic and gambol (10) literally throw themselves high into the air and set long intervals between one footfall and another. Or again, the trail will become confused and misleading when crossed by ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... early years of the sisters of an Emperor-to-be—Elisa Bonaparte, future Grand Duchess of Tuscany; Pauline, embryo Princess Borghese; and Caroline, who was to wear a crown as Queen of Naples—high-spirited, beautiful girls, brimful of frolic and fun, laughing at their poverty, decking themselves out in cheap, home-made finery, and flirting outrageously with every good-looking young man who was willing to pay homage to their beaux yeux. If Marseilles deigned to notice these pretty young ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... these dinners the next morning at their simple breakfast with Gervaise. Naturally people cannot frolic and work, too, and since Lantier had become a member of his household Coupeau had never lifted a tool. He knew every drinking shop for miles around and would sit and guzzle deep into the night, not always pleased to find himself deserted ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... upon the slab a little while, Then drew a jewelled pencil from her zone, Scribbled a something with a frolic smile, Folded, inscribed, and niched it ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... the back settlers is rather business than sport. When they are inclined for a frolic of the latter sort, they meet in large parties to shoot the gray squirrel: the devastation made on these occasions is incredible; the following is from the Kentucky Gazette; and I have no doubt, that it is ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest



Words linked to "Frolic" :   teasing, flirtation, play, lark, run around, flirt, foolery, rollick, sport, game, skylark, indulgence, craziness, lunacy, horseplay, coquetry



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