"Ninny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a ninny—I have no doubt of it—if I would listen to your wretched jabber! Enough! if you talk any more I'll go home again. A fine state of things, truly—that I am to have my mind dissipated when I'm in working trim by the nonsense ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... bear witness thereof, that do and can I; for, now that I am old, I recognize without avail, but not without very sore and bitter remorse of mind, the time that I let slip, and albeit I lost it not altogether (for that I would not have thee deem me a ninny), still I did not what I might have done; whereof whenas I remember me, seeing myself fashioned as thou seest me at this present, so that thou wouldst find none to give me fire to my tinder,[286] God knoweth what chagrin I feel. With ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... to believe it of him even yet. I try to think of Walter as a murderer of little children, and it is not possible. Why, it seems but yesterday that I stood plaguing him on the stone doorstep at Guy Park—calling him Walter Ninny and Walter Noodle to vex him. You remember, Euan, that his full name is Walter N. Butler, and that he never would tell us what the N. stands for, but we guessed it stood for Nellis, in honour of Nellis ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... continue the tail? If Mr. Dawkins had been the least bit wiser, it would have taken him six months befoar he lost his money; as it was, he was such a confunded ninny, that it took him a very short time to part ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and down the curbs, Jerry was not so sure that starting a charge account had been such a good idea after all. He had a feeling that in a way he might have played sort of an April Fool joke on himself. But it was too late now to undo what he had done. He would feel like a ninny going back and telling Mr. Bartlett that he had decided to pay cash, that he had changed his mind about opening a charge account for the ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... must have acted like a ninny," she concluded. "But isn't he just splendid!" and as Cousin Will's handsome face, with its daring, kind eyes, came to her vision she felt comforted. "I don't believe but what he'll make every allowance for how excited I was," said she. "He seems to understand those things, ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... White Mountains this summer, just look out for them. They are dreadful creatures at home in the cities, but doubly dreadful at these resorts. You are young, simple, unsophisticated. I was at your age. But I soon got over such weaknesses. You must very soon, or be a ninny. "Simple," "artless," "unsophisticated," and such terms mean simply softness. Whatever else you are, or are not, don't be soft. The mistake of my fruitless life has been that I believed, in other ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... the house; the Newcome Sentinel, old county paper, moderate conservative, in which our worthy townsman and member is praised, his benefactions are recorded, and his speeches given at full length; the Newcome Independent, in which our precious member is weekly described as a ninny, and informed almost every Thursday morning that he is a bloated aristocrat, as he munches his dry toast. Heaps of letters, county papers, Times and Morning Herald for Sir Brian Newcome; little heaps of letters (dinner and soiree cards most of these) and Morning ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... think ey'd put up wi' sich powsement os he! Neaw; when Bess Whitaker, the lonleydey o' Goldshey, weds, it shan be to a mon, and nah to a ninny-hommer." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... The farmer took a long pull and handed it to his nephew who drank so well that he completely emptied it, and afterwards said: "We ought to lie in wait for their arrival and attack the ninny." ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... Alec, you are laughing at me again, and I don't like it; laugh some other time, but for the present give me your full attention, and don't be a ninny. It is no joking matter, but one upon which I am very serious and anxious, as I believe there is something attached to this quest which is really worth a ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... girl would know if anyone did. I went to her, told her how you'n me had been pals, an' she give me the idee you was goin' up to the river's end. I resigned from the Betty M., that night. Told her, though, that she was a ninny if she thought you'd go up there. Made her believe the note was ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... I do? I won't go back. I'll jump overboard first. And you do nothing but stand there like a ninny." ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... "You poor ninny!" burst out I. Tapp. "You've got about as much idea of women as you have of business. And where ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... a tree that he sells in the round, He assumes, as a rule, that the body is sound, And measures, forgetting to bark it! He may be a ninny, but still the old dog Can plug to perfection the pipe of a log And palm it away on ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... blackness, "commend me to you, Roy Prescott. If you'd thought it over before you started—looked before you leaped—this would never have happened. Anybody but a chump could have seen that, on the face of it, the whole thing was a scheme to entice you away. Oh, you bonehead! You ninny!" ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... stopped for that, weddings would have gone out of fashion long ago. And it's well for women's peace of mind that they don't have to know the worst about the men they marry. I'm ashamed of you, Thomas! To think you've got no more gumption than to stand around like a ninny and let that city man walk off with ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... thought, and with reason, "ever to hint that I was coming, as I did, in that foolish letter when we sent Miss Crawley the guinea-fowls. I ought to have gone without a word to the poor dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a femme de chambre. Oh! Bute, Bute, why did you ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his usual tokens of kindness consisted in a little rap on the head or a slight pinch of the ear. In his most friendly conversations with those whom he admitted into his intimacy he would say, "You are a fool"—"a simpleton"—"a ninny"—"a blockhead." These, and a few other words of like import, enabled him to vary his catalogue of compliments; but he never employed them angrily, and the tone in which they were uttered sufficiently indicated that they were meant ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... DEMOSTHENES. Without question. Go, ninny, blow yourself out with water; do you dare to accuse wine of clouding the reason? Quote me more marvellous effects than those of wine. Look! when a man drinks, he is rich, everything he touches succeeds, he gains lawsuits, is happy and helps his friends. Come, bring hither ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... let the lad bide?" he said; "ye'll not rest till ye make him a greater ninny nor he is by natur. He might as well ha' bin a gell, an better, for all the good he'll ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... on him as a ninny, and they persuaded him to prove to them that his whip was a real whip by letting Tom Bryan do the whipping for him. Tom Bryan was a rough fellow, who ought to have been driving a plough; a ploughman's life was too peaceful an occupation for him—a drover's life would have ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... arrived at Melanie's, I found the bird had flown. That great ninny of a Ferussac, whom I never had suspected, and had introduced to her myself, had turned her head by making capital out of her love for the stage. As he was about to leave for Belgium, he persuaded her to go there and dethrone Mademoiselle ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... penury,' replied Louis, unmoved. 'Come, I have begun the campaign by inviting Bishop Helmsdale, and I'll take the responsibility of carrying it on. All I ask of you is not to make a ninny of yourself. Come, give me ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... the cigars to Jack Emory and sent them off at once. "I do believe I came very close to making a fool of myself," she thought. "What on earth made me want to give those cigars to Senator North?—to give him anything? What a little ninny he would have thought me!" She puzzled long over this deflection from her usual imperious course with men, but concluding that women having so many silly twists in their brains, it was useless to try to understand them all, dismissed the ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... dullard, dolt, numskull, witling, blockhead, coot, lackbrain, ninny, oaf, nincompoop, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... say, that Signior Bononcini Compared to Handel's a mere ninny; Others aver, that to him Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a candle: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... the servant, who had brought him the letter, Rodin gave him the note he had just written to Ninny Moulin, and said to him: "Let this letter be taken instantly to its address, and let the bearer ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... have been a gull and a ninny and a soft Tommy long enough. Time it was done. Here is a good lesson to have nothing to do with that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man in the beginning, and will be so to the end. God knows I was happy enough before ever I saw her; God knows I can be happy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are deliberately leaving us here to spoon," she declared indignantly. "I know perfectly well that dinner was announced ages ago!" And, raising her voice: "Scott, you silly ninny! Where in ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... exquisite penmanship. He had not given up society because one girl had proved false and deceitful. He made a point of bowing distantly to Mrs. Williamson, and flushed even now at the thought of having been such a ninny! ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... you sweet ninny! If the boss grabber is on this ship, we should draw a new nibble from him." He appraised the green dress in the mirror again. His expression grew absent. It might be best, Trigger suspected, a trifle uneasily, to keep Major Quillan's thoughts ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... cause, but they saw now he was like all the rest of the men—his head had been turned by one smile on a pretty face. Instead of attending to his work, he was following that Baskerville creature about, gazing at her yearningly, like a moon-calf, making a ninny of himself before the whole room. And he with a wife and three babies at home, waiting for him and thinking he was hustling for the cause. When the meeting adjourned, and the Baskerville creature accepted the invitation of Comrade Gerrity to escort her home, the dismay of Comrade Higgins was ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... satisfied. Shatov's appearance and conversation made it as clear as daylight that this man "was going in for being a father and was a ninny." She ran home on purpose to tell Virginsky about it, though it was shorter and more direct to go to ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "You ninny!" she thought. "You said that once!" And she hastened to add, "And isn't it perfectly silly for men to try to ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... as life. He rolls his eyes, walks with his head on one side, and his toes turned in; but, when the piece is played out, he slips away to the balls of which he is so fond. The girls christened him Ninny Moulin. Add, that he drinks like a fish, and you have the photo of the cove. All this doesn't prevent his writing for the religious newspapers; and the saints, whom he lets in even oftener than himself, are ready to swear by him. You should see his articles and his tracts—only see, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... acquaintance began much to doubt him: For his skin, "like a lady's loose gown," hung about him. He sent for a Doctor; and cried, like a ninny, "I have lost many pounds—make me well—there's ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... I wish to get, You've plenty stored, and never wanted yet; You surely know my meaning?—Yes, she cried; I'll turn it in my mind, and we'll decide How best to act. Away she quickly flew, And Blase informed, what Ninny had in view. Zounds! said the cobbler, we must see, my dear, To hook this little sum:—the way is clear; No risk I'm confident; for prithee run And tell him I've a journey just begun; That he may hither come and have his will; ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... declared that he was exhausted, and sinking. "Want any of that bunch to give you a hand? I'd see myself asking favors of Brad Morton or his crowd. We'll get you ashore, all right, never fear. Hi! there, Whitey, this way, and you too, Oscar. Give this ninny a helpin' hand and tow ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... of both prevailed; at any rate I heard that my friend and all his family went to Portsmouth, to see the Royal sight, and get a squint at Blucher's whiskers and mustachios. My friend and his family swelled the number of those who suffered at Portsmouth—"ninny nanny, one fool makes many!" It was now all glory, all joy, and all seeming prosperity with John Gull, every thing was military! As a proof that it could not well be otherwise, let us look to a return, which was presented to the House of Commons, of the number of officers ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... for a little while, of course, like a ninny between them; and I wasn't the more comfortable because I thought Knowles looked like a bigger fool than I did. Bella's presence seemed to excite him to a kind of exaltation; he had a dark flush on his face and his eyes were large ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... when he came of age just ran amok, drank, fought with the colliers on his own estate, and then enlisted in an irregular corps and went to fight the Spaniards in Cuba, just to prove to himself that he wasn't the ninny his father had tried to make him. He shocked his neighbours thoroughly, but he's a man today, listened to when he speaks and just adored by the miners on his estate.... I want to make good, and though Mrs. Grundy would chatter if she knew that I had deliberately chosen to remain and nurse a sick ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... then at Morin and smiled. She smiled like a happy woman, with an engaging and bright look, and Morin trembled. Certainly that smile was intended for him, it was a discreet invitation, the signal which he was waiting for. That smile meant to say: "How stupid, what a ninny, what a dolt, what a donkey you are, to have sat there on your seat like ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Motor-men don't know much about the hunting field, as a rule, but I wasn't such a ninny that I supposed ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... snapped, striding toward the door. "I never thought you'd do a thing like that. You are no more like the old Badger than a calf is like a mountain-lion. You had some fire in you once, but you have become as soft as a ninny. The whole ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... The mother was dashed, stricken, a little humiliated. But as she arranged the folds of her beautiful dress in the hansom which was carrying her away from Lamb's Conduit Street towards South Kensington, she said to herself firmly, 'I am not a ninny, after all, and I know that Rose will be ill soon. And there are things in that hospital ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Jacques; I am your confessor, and have come to get you off. Do not be such a ninny as to know me; and speak as if you were making a confession." He spoke with the utmost rapidity. "This young fellow is very much depressed; he is afraid to die, he will confess everything," said ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... becoming impressive), Newman is a flimsy mystic; he has no foundation, but he builds logically enough—at least as far as I see—on his fancies and other people's fancies. This is to be a simple ninny. But Mr. Rogers fancies he believes a mystical religion, and doesn't; and fancies he is very logical, and isn't. This is to be a ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... me what lists!" mimicked Sir Peter. "Why don't you court her? The match is suitable and desirable. You ninny, do you suppose it was by accident that Elsin Grey became our guest? Why, lad, we're set on it—and, damme! but I'm as crafty a matchmaker as my wife, planning the pretty game together in the secret ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... for an Irish ninny. Do you think the captain would board a devil! The fellow's a Tuscarora, and is as well known here as the owner of the Hut himself. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... tilling, and reaping for their livelihood, and deserve, therefore, not to go in want of the very bread they have sown." Few people at the court, and in La Bruyere's day, would have thought about the sufferings of the country folks, and conceived the idea of contrasting them with the sketch of a court-ninny. "Gold glitters," say you, "upon the clothes of Philemon; it glitters as well as the tradesman's. He is dressed in the finest stuffs; are they a whit the less so when displayed in the shops and by the piece? Nay; but the embroidery and the ornaments add magnificence thereto; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... could not say, but from this moment the Prefect of Police was condemned. Guy's arrest, which was an act of brutal aggression, was tantamount to a dismissal signed by the Prefect himself. And Marianne! she then made a sport of Sulpice and took him for a child or a ninny! ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... there, Ninny. It is not everybody who could be up to such a dodge; and I feel sure the governor could make a shrewd guess who did ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... home there was mamma, looking grieved and surprised,—the dear mamma she hadn't seen for three weeks. And there was "Ninny," her sweet sister Julia, who had come and found out about her actions, and ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... patience, and she whispered across Comfort Pease. "You act like a ninny," said she to Rosy, with a fierce pucker of her red lips and a ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... as the rest of them, forgetting the doses of jalap in store for me when I was got back to the Tickle, I would now have my ninny (as they called it). Had the bar-maids left off kissing me—but they would not; no, they would kiss me upon every coming, and if I had nothing to order 'twas a kiss for my virtue, and if I drank 'twas a smack for my engaging manliness; and my only ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... bed-time get under the weather, there is no telling how—so one may wake up wise, and slow of assent, very wise and very slow, I assure you, and for all that, before night, by like trick in the atmosphere, be left in the lurch a ninny. Health and wisdom equally precious, and equally little as unfluctuating possessions to be ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... so gay and eccentric as Figaro, and so dashing and reckless as the unscrupulous Don Giovanni. That milksop, Germont Junior, known as Alfredo, was adequately played by Signor GIANNINI, whose name, were it spelt GIA-"NINNY," would partly describe the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... Nelly, I shall lose my labour,' he muttered to me. 'Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton!—Do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation? I'd have loved the lad had he been some one else. But I think he's safe from her love. I'll pit him against that paltry ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Nicotine nikotino. Niece nevino. Niggard avarulo. Nigh proksima. Nigh (time) baldauxa. Night nokto. Nightly nokta. Night, by nokte. Nightingale najtingalo. Night-watch nokta patrolo. Nightmare terursongxo. Nimble vigla. Nimbus glorkrono. Nine naux. Ninny simplanimulo. Nip pincxi. Nippers prenileto. Nitre salpetro. Nobility nobelaro. Noble nobla. Nobleman nobelo. Nobleness nobleco. Nobody neniu. Nocturnal nokta. Nocuous pereiga. Nod (beckon) signodoni. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... shoulders, and said: "Because the man said that I was a thief." Then looking at Roland with an indefinable expression of raillery and affection, he added: "Ninny!" Then suddenly he burst out: "Oh! by the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... I've marveled times enow To see an Englishman, the ninny, Give people for their services a guinea, Which Frenchmen have ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... bays, a player might hide from a seeker!... Somewhere in this street, John remembered, Dr. Johnson had lived, and he tried to imagine the scene that took place on the night of misery when Oliver Goldsmith went to the Doctor and wept over the failure of The Good Natured Man, and was called a ninny for his pains. But he could not make the scene come alive because of the noise and confusion in the street. The air of immediacy which enveloped him made quiet imagination impossible. His head began to ache with ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... father what he had done and suffered for her. Then they sent to invite her parents, the King and Queen of Long Field; and they celebrated the wedding with wonderful festivity, making great sport of the great ninny of a fox, and concluding at the last of the ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... palace gardens tomorrow at eleven," answered Melita, "and you will be convinced that I am not half-horse, even if my husband is a ninny." ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... laughing. "What a ninny you are!" he exclaimed. "You are as easily frightened as a bird with a pop-gun. And now, I suppose, you will go with this nice little story to some good friend and make something interesting and romantic ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... plum of two hundred thousand francs. And you, who talk of the Marechal de Richelieu, the prototype of Lovelace, you could be taken in by such a stale trick as that! I could get hundreds of thousands of francs out of you any day, if I chose, you old ninny!—Keep your money! If you have more than you know what to do with, it is mine. If you give two sous to that 'respectable' woman, who is pious forsooth, because she is fifty-six years of age, we shall never meet again, and you may take her ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... "That's just it, you ninny!" interrupted his wiser wife; "I gave William credit for more sense. Put it fairly, indeed! If he'd said nothin', but just caught her in his arms, an' clipped an' kissed her, she couldn't ha' stood out. But he's lost his chance, an' now ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... poppy and began blowing out all my illumination, feeling dreadfully guilty, and then he helped me off my chair with such an air of politeness that I could have struck him with pleasure, but I soon gathered my wits again. And, vexed with myself for being a ninny, I just dropped him a little curtsey and said, 'I've been examining my mad cousin.' 'Well, and what do you think of him?' he asked me, smiling (his abominable smile!). But I can keep my thoughts to myself ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... A plucky plunger, than a canny crone Who's old enough to ken she doesn't ken. You're right: for doubting is a kind of dotage: Experience ages and decays; while folk Who never doubt themselves die young—at ninety. Age never yet brought gumption to a ninny: And you cannot reckon up a stranger's wits By counting his bare patches and grey hairs: It's seldom sense that makes a bald head shine: And I'm not partial to Methuselahs. Keep your cocksureness, while you can: too soon, Time plucks the feathers off ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... very great lady, sufficiently high in station to allow herself such compromising caprices,—but even so, she would scarcely have cared to play the role of a coquette in a vaudeville where he himself played the part of ninny,—or she was some noted adventuress who was in the pay of this du Portail and the agent of his singular matrimonial designs. Evil life or evil heart, these were the only two verdicts to be pronounced on this dangerous ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... may think, Sir," cried she, "but who's fool then? no, no, you needn't trouble yourself to make a ninny of me neither, for I'm not so easily taken ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... voluble admiration of Dandy. To use his Blue Grass vernacular, he "didn't take any stock (he called it stawk) in that sort of gush." He knew that there was only one four-legged domestic animal of which Mrs. Turner was more desperately afraid, and that was a cow. She made a ninny of herself when she went out to drive, and the mere pricking up of the horses' ears was to her mind premonitory symptom of a runaway, and excuse for immediate demand to be set down on the open prairie and allowed to walk home. As for riding, she couldn't be induced to try. To her a horse was ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... ninny, stay where you are. Is that chattering girl gone? Didn't I tell you we would have a practice of our dance? they are all ready on the lawn. Mark me; I represent the Count, and you the Baron. [Exit, with affected dignity. ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... never to be no end to this?" the giant had growled. "Will you spend your days moping and swilling 'cause a white-faced ninny in Port Royal'll have none o' ye? 'Sblood and 'ounds! If ye wants the wench, why the plague doesn't ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the patient quaff'd a frothy bowl Of asinine new milk, Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal Which got proportionably spare and skinny— Meanwhile the neighbors cried "Poor Mary Ann! She can't get over it! she never can!" When lo! to prove each prophet was a ninny The one that died was the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... on Louie. We must just hold together. It won't do for the thing to leak out. I was a ninny to propose such a thing." They kissed each other and walked down stairs together. Most of the girls were in the school room discussing the newspaper account. The town was clean and in excellent shape, there were no fears of an epidemic and even now Dr. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... no use. Mrs. Willard was not fond of little girls, and Mrs. Gray would not take Flaxie; she must stay at home with her sister Ninny. ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... "The poor ninny!" ejaculated Mother Atterson. "He doesn't know what he wants. Sister only poured it out of the teakettle, and he had to wait for it to cool, anyway, before he ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... obvious that he called his mother's attention to her and asked who she was. Helen felt that an introduction was imminent. She was glad of it. At that moment she would have chatted gayly with even a greater ninny than George de ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... in the house, and Deacon Weight is at Conference, and won't be back till the last of the week. That will do, Direxia; you mean well, but you are a ninny-hammer. This way! This is my grandson's room—he died ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... good stammering ninny, I think I have set your Redcap's heels a-running, would your pianot-chattering humour could as sa-safely se-set me fr-from the searchers' walks. Yonder comes some one. 'Hem! Skink, to your tricks this titty titty. Ah, the tongue, I believe, will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... of them," said the court "If you were to roar at every one you meet you'd never have time for anything else. Life would degenerate into one long roar. Everybody knows that Professor Titcombe is a ninny and an idiot, but the decencies of intercourse require you to say, 'How nice!' or 'How ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... a fool; the young one a rascal; the girl a ninny," was Miss Smith's succinct and acid classification of the county's first family; adding, as she rose, "but they own us body and soul." She hurried out of the dining-room without further remark. Miss Smith was more patient with black folk than ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... melodramatic nonsense is so amusing that I cannot forbear quoting it. This time the despairing lover is Sir Abraham Ninny, who quotes Kyd to his companions, and they with the cry of "Ha God-a-mercy, old Hieromino!" begin the game of parody, which must have been keenly enjoyed by the audience. Field improves on the original by putting the alternate lines of despair into the ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... shook the dice, she smote the board, And filled all pockets from her hoard. A counter, in a miser's hand, Grew twenty guineas at command; She bade a rake to grasp them, fain— They turned a counter back again. The transmutations of a guinea Made every one stare like a ninny; But fair was false, and false was fair, By which Vice ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... and implores The weak and incurable ninny, So kicks him at last out of doors, And Georgy soon spends his last guinea. His uncle, whose generous purse Had often relieved him, as I know, Now finding him grow worse and worse, Refused to come down with the rhino. Rum ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... learned, more scientific, more eloquent, more offensive to a fellow's vanity, than I ever saw, or even read of—a woman of genius, starving, like a genius and a ninny, with a ring on her finger worth thirty guineas. But my learned goose would not raise money on that, because it was her ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... forests, and the path was, in many places, quite drifted over. The white cloud-masses were whirled past by the wind, continually enveloping me and shutting out every view. During the winter the path had become, in ninny places, the bed of a mountain torrent, so that I was obliged sometimes to wade kneedeep in snow, and sometimes to walk over the wet, spongy moss, crawling under the long, dripping branches of the stunted pines. After a long time ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... came he took in the situation at a glance. Half a dozen words of explanation set him right. 'Never mind.' he said. 'Tell him we didn't mean to have dinner so early, but we flew around and got them a bite—then let's do it.' 'But what will the bite be?' I asked, and I stood looking up at him like a ninny who had never gotten a meal in her life. 'Why, bread, and butter, and coffee, and a dish of sauce, and a pickle, or something of that sort;' and the things really sounded appetizing as he told them off. 'Come,' he said, 'I'll grind the coffee, and make it; I used to be a dabster at that dish ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... say, compar'd to Buononcini, That Mynheer Handel's but a Ninny; Others aver, that he to Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a Candle; Strange all this Difference should be, 'Twixt ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... dear old ninny. Viola is a mighty bright girl suffering from a well-developed case of hysteria ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... roared Ames. "Cable Wenceslas at once to see that those fellows remain permanently in Colombia. He has ways of accomplishing that. Humph! Fools! Judge Harris, eh? Ninny! I guess Wenceslas can ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... "Ninny-moosh," said the Indian girl, indifferently. It was the first word she had spoken since her talk with the ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... suggestions of his suspicious brain, it took me fully three months to descend in his bearish estimation from a highwayman to a ninny. There was an incredibility in my apparent lack of motive that puzzled him. His dubious cordiality was doled out under protest. As an exhibitor would clutch a vicious ape, he grabbed at every show of feeling, and almost throttled ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... Christian martyr thrown to the wild beasts, just as it pleased your fancy. I've even played dolls with you week at a time, but I swear I draw the line at this. I'll do anything in reason to help entertain your chum,—ride or dance or skate or get up private theatricals,—but I'll not make a ninny of myself trying to be flowery and get off complimentary speeches. It comes natural to some people, but I'm not built that way. I'd be as awkward at it as a fish out ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred cheese of life? It is preposterous. If this old ninny-woman, Fate, cannot do better than this, she should be deprived of the management of men's fortunes. She is an old hen who knows not her intention. If she has decided to drown me, why did she not do ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... sixpence for your suit." So much for Mr. Vincent. Now Miss —-'s turn comes to swallow the black bolus, called a friend's advice. Say to her: "Is the man a fool? is he a knave? a humbug, a hypocrite, a ninny, a noodle? If he is any or all of these, of course there is no sense in trifling with him. Cut him short at once—blast his hopes with lightning rapidity and keenness. Is he something better than this? has he at least common sense, a good disposition, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... call her? aw think Ninny wod be a name to suit her better. Aw nivver saw her befoor i' mi life, but shoo's noa gooid, aw saw that as sooin as aw clapt mi een on her. Aw hooap tha'll mind what tha'rt dooin an ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... safe and well," thought Sir Norman, emphatically, "nothing short of an earthquake or dying of the plague will ever induce me to leave her again, until she is Lady Kingsley, and in the old manor of Devonshire. What a fool, idiot, and ninny I must have been, to have left her as I did, knowing those two sleuth-hounds were in full chase! What are all the Mirandas and midnight queens to ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a ninny, but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He's gone out there again, Evie Wilcox ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... "Ninny! What did we know about Father, except when he was around the house? But where is the girl? She said something about having tea with us. I want to know more about her. I wonder if she has any idea how oddly beautiful ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... "What a ninny I am!" she said aloud as she looked at herself, her tongue chiding her apprehensive eyes, her laugh contemptuously adding its comment on her tremulousness. "It was a real nightmare—a waking nightmare, that's what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Why, you stupid ninny! you forget you were dead; and he could not help loving her. How could he? Well, but you see she refused him. And why? because he came without a forged letter from YOU. Do you doubt her ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Parody, made by a ninny On some little song with a popular tune, Not worth a halfpenny, sold for a guinea, And sung in the Strand by the light of the moon. I'd never sigh for the sense of a Pliny, (Who cares for sense at St. James's in June?) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... be, and was told that it was the eight o'clock from Dover, which had broken down, put into Calais for some slight necessary repairs, and was arriving at its destination nearly four hours late. Her mercurial spirits rose again. A minute ago she was regarding herself as no better than a ninny engaged in a wild-goose chase. Now she felt that after all she had been very sagacious and cunning. She was morally sure that she would find the Zerlinski woman on this second steamer, and she took all the credit to herself in ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... moons to wait upon him!" It is true, he at first appreciated his snug quarters, for he cried, "Hereupon such gladness possessed me that I forgot the sorrows of the world one and all, and said, 'This is indeed life!'" Then the ninny must needs go and open that fatal fortieth door! The story of Nur al-Din Ali and his son Badr al-Din Hasan has the distinction of being the most rollicking and the most humorous in the Nights. What stupendous events result from a tiff! The lines repeated by Nur al-Din ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright |
