Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Sprig   Listen
verb
Sprig  v. t.  (past & past part. sprigged; pres. part. sprigging)  To mark or adorn with the representation of small branches; to work with sprigs; as, to sprig muslin.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Sprig" Quotes from Famous Books



... amantium irae, though she rejected the folly of the verse. And she gazed over dear homely country through her windows now. Happy the lady of the place, if happy she can be in her choice! Clara Middleton envied her the double-blossom wild cherry-tree, nothing else. One sprig of it, if it had not faded and gone to dust-colour like crusty Alpine snow in the lower hollows, and then she could depart, bearing away a memory of the best here! Her fiction of the headache pained her no longer. She changed her muslin dress ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... minute or two longer, requiring no answer, and every now and then having his roving eye caught by some new marvel. He fingered a sprig of yew that was twisted into a crucifix hung over the bed. ("Expect it's one of those old relics," he said, "some lie or other.") He humorously dressed up the statue of the saint in a pocket-handkerchief, and said: "Let us ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... rich cream to make it delicious, and chocolate for them that preferred it. A big glass bowl of roses and carnations wuz in the centre, and the table wuz spread with a snowy linen cloth, and sot with beautiful china, white with a gold and pink sprig on it, part of a big quantity sent by his rich folks, who wuz delighted to have him marry such a sweet girl and settle down, and the heavy shinin' silver marked "W. W. W.," lookin' some like a runnin' vine, and the glossy linen tablecloths and napkins looking ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... test tube, provided with a foot, with fresh drinking water. In this place a sprig of one of the following water plants,—Elodea Canadensis, Myriophyllum spicatum, M. verticillatum, or any leafy Myriophyllum (in fact, any small- leaved water plant with rather crowded foliage). ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell

... a light green cashmere, with a white embroidered guimpe, which was one of her favorite frocks. Her hair was tied with big white bows, and a sprig of holly was tucked in ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... packet, and you know you must; but I will explain it all as fast as I can. You know I fainted, but you do not know why? I will tell you exactly how it all happened:—you recollect my coming into the library after I was dressed, before you went up-stairs, and giving you a sprig ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... convey a delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic animals—cats—when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies than ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... that he needed to strengthen the chain of arguments by which his action must be supported—against himself. Within his own heart there was something that pleaded against the breaking off of this tender sprig of the true olive to graft it on the wild, in addition to which the attitude of the Jarrott family disconcerted him. It was one thing to push his rights against a world ready to deny them, but it was quite another to take advantage of a trusting affection that came more than half-way ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... attributed by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 1279, Virgin and Child and Donor, Pandolfo Malatesta. 1422 bis, is by Pisanello: Portrait of a Princess of the House of Este, identified by Mr G.F. Hill, from the sprig of juniper in her dress, as Ginevra d'Este, married to Sigismondo Malatesta in 1435. R. of 1291 is 1319, the Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas by Benozzo Gozzoli, described by Vasari. On opposite wall, 1272, formerly assigned to Masaccio: portraits of Giotto, the artist himself Paolo ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... hunger and thirst, forced marches, and all kinds of privation. Tartarin meant to act like they did, and from that day forward he lived upon water broth alone. The water broth of Tarascon is a few slices of bread drowned in hot water, with a clove of garlic, a pinch of thyme, and a sprig of laurel. Strict diet, at which you may believe poor Sancho ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... called me one side this afternoon and asked me, in a whisper, to buy for them a skillet and a pair of green belluses, with a sprig of flowers painted on them, and a brass nose. Who'd thought of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... an interruption to his work which somehow seemed endless to-day; he put aside his implements, stroked back the black hair that had fallen over his face, and removing the reed-pen from behind his ear, stuck in a sprig of dark blue larkspur. Then he tripped to the door, opened it, looked at the girl with the cool impudence of a connoisseur in beauty, bowed slightly, and pointing the way ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... among the currant bushes, Watched the moon slowly dip from twig to twig. If Theodore should chance to come, and blushes Streamed over her. He would not care a fig, He'd only laugh. She pushed aside a sprig Of sharp-edged leaves and peered, then she uprose Amid her bushes. "Sir," said she, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... in one day when Lionel was sitting on the sofa, having propped the cushion up at the back of his head. Decima was winding some silk, and Lucy was holding the skein for her. Lucy wore a summer dress of white muslin, a blue sprig raised upon it in tambour-stitch, with blue and white ribbons at its waist and neck. Very pretty, very simple it looked, but wonderfully according with Lucy Tempest. Jan looked round, saw a tolerably strong table, and took ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... apparently enjoyed the fun as much as any one, and was perfectly charmed when, as the two-seater glided past Sir Philip's Rolls-Royce, he flung an exquisite spray of crimson roses into her lap, with a sprig ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... up in a pine-tree; whereupon the ape threw down one of the fir-apples from the tree upon the man's pate, which made such a terrible bump that the poor fellow set up a loud cry. Cianna hearing the noise went out, and taking pity on his disaster, she quickly plucked a sprig of rosemary from a tuft which grew upon the ogre's grave; then she made him a plaster of it with boiled bread and salt, and after giving the man some breakfast ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... the girls were quite sentimental over them. Cissie Gardiner had a pansy picked from Wordsworth's garden at Grasmere, and a sprig of rosemary that she said came from the grave of Keats. Her aunt brought it to her from Rome, where he's buried. She pasted it on to a piece of paper, and wrote underneath: 'Here's rosemary, that's for ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... chocolate-covered things that might have been anything from a monkey to a mouse. Mrs. Louderer cut up her big plum pudding and put it into a dozen small bags. These Gavotte carefully covered with green paper. Then we tore up the holly wreath that Aunt Mary sent me, and put a sprig in the top of each green bag of pudding. I never had so much fun in my life as I ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... her dreams of home, of warmth and comfort. Something sharp, cold, and fragrant was scratching her eyes. She opened them. Glenn stood over her, pushing a sprig of cedar ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... a thousand subjects in mere gaiety of heart, their delight still flows from one idea, namely, themselves. Open the book in what page you will, there is a frontispiece of themselves staring you in the face. They are a sort of Jacks o' the Green, with a sprig of laurel, a little tinsel, and a little smut, but still playing antics and keeping in incessant motion, to attract attention and extort your pittance of approbation. Whether they talk of the town ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... me.' Dat's all he said. Well sir, the nex' mornin' by times over comes Mr. Harris wid six plows an' eight hoe han's an' they give me a whole day's work an' when they finished that evenin' they want a sprig of grass in my crop; it wuz clean as this floor, an' I'se tellin' yer the truth. Dat's the way peoples use ter do, but not no mo'—everybody too selfish now, an' they think ain't nobody got responsibilits (responsibilities) ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... by accident. For a moment they were afraid of each other. After a little hesitation Polly picked a sprig of lilac. He could see a tremble in her hand as she gave it to him, and he felt ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... Randolph Churchill's diminutiveness, and exaggerated those complacent smiles and oily rippling chins of Sir William Harcourt, continuing them long after the time when Sir William could boast the local portliness no more. However, it is certain that the sprig of straw, which really referred only to his pure devotion to the Turf, from 1815 onwards, was first used in 1851, just after the whimsical "Judicious Bottle-Holder" declaration, and, as a matter of fact, added not a little to Palmerston's popularity, as not only representing the Turf, but a Sam ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... keeping, being copies of the brocades of that day. There were portraits in miniature of the courtiers and the ladies of the Great Reign on the very ewers and basins. On the flounced dressing-table, with its antique glass and a diminutive patch-box, now the receptacle of Lubin's powder, a sprig of the lovely Rose The was exhaling a faint, far-away century perfume. It was surely a stage set for a real comedy; some of these high-coiffed ladies, who knows? perhaps Madame de Sevigne herself would come to life, and give to the room the only thing it lacked—the living presence of that ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... Uncle Jeb that he was starting for home. He was greatly relieved that the old man did not ask any questions about his companion. Uncle Jeb was much preoccupied now with the ever-growing multitude of scouts and their multifarious needs, and gave slight thought to that little sprig of a camp up on ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... The little sprig of Mistletoe shot through the air, pierced the heart of Balder, and in a moment the beautiful god lay dead upon the field. A shadow rose out of the deep beyond the worlds and spread itself over heaven and earth, for the light of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... times prompted it to attack the eagle), was observed to direct its flight towards the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst a crowd of other birds were seen to hang upon its flight in close pursuit. What might be the object of the chase, whether the little king himself, or a sprig of laurel which he bore in his mouth, could not be determined. The whole train, pursuers and pursued, continued their flight towards Pompey's hall. Flight and pursuit were there alike arrested; the little king was overtaken by his enemies, who fell upon him as so many conspirators, and tore him ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... the heel; the thigh of Adonis is pierced by the boar's tusk, while Odysseus escapes with an ugly scar, which afterwards secures his recognition by his old servant, the dawn-nymph Eurykleia; Sigurd is slain by a thorn, and Balder by a sharp sprig of mistletoe; and in the myth of the Sleeping Beauty, the earth-goddess sinks into her long winter sleep when pricked by the point of the spindle. In her cosmic palace, all is locked in icy repose, naught thriving save the ivy which defies the cold, until ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... to a favourite daughter, or by a lover to his mistress; it is also used to distinguish the bride and the bridegroom, as 'hanna-yomie,' 'hanna-moko.' Floral love-tokens (although they only consist of a single sprig) are as much prized among the Japanese as among ourselves; and are, ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver

... Huldy planted marigolds and larkspurs, pinks and carnations, all up and down the path to the front door, and trained up mornin' glories and scarlet-runners round the windows. And she was always a gettin' a root here, and a sprig there, and a seed from somebody else: for Huldy was one o' them that has the gift, so that ef you jist give 'em the leastest sprig of any thing they make a great bush out of it right away; so that in six months Huldy had roses and geraniums and ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... disappearance of the light of an individual, which did not seem to be the result of will, but produced by situation. During the time the insect crawled along the ground, or upon the fine grass, the glow was hidden; but on its mounting any little blade, or sprig of moss, it turned round and presented the luminous caudal spot, which, on its falling or regaining its level, was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various

... is thus described in an old chap-book. When you go to bed, place under your pillow a prayer-book open at the part of the matrimonial service 'with this ring I thee wed'; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards:—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross your hands, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... locks, and thus you have the "bar-keeper of the boat." His nether man need not be described. That is the unseen portion of his person, which is below the level of the bar. No cringing, smirking, obsequious counter-jumper he, but a dashing sprig, who, perhaps, owns his bar and all its contents, and who holds his head as high as either ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... tablespoons of butter one onion and one sprig of parsley (cut fine) for five minutes. Add one cup of chopped corn and a cup of hot water in which has been dissolved one half teaspoon of Armour's Extract of Beef. Cook fifteen minutes. Add salt, pepper, one cup of milk, and bind with two tablespoons of flour and ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... need not have been ashamed of him; the regulation coat, waistcoat and trousers were there, a little worn, but still in fashion; the white tie was there, the stiff collar and cuffs, the patent leather pumps, even a white silk handkerchief tucked inside the waistcoat, and some kind of sprig in the buttonhole. He paused, carefully shutting the door behind him, and stood while Pauline finished her song; at its conclusion he walked up through the rows of village people—shanty and mill hands, habitants and farmers—and presented the artist with a handsome ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... room, put a white coverlet on the bed, placed a little table at the bedside, and covered it with a cloth; she put two candlesticks on the table and lit the candles, and an earthenware bowl wherein a sprig of box swam in ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... indefinable atmosphere of goodness about her; I felt as if I were breathing sincerity and frank innocence. It was refreshing to my lungs. Poor innocent child, she had faith in something; there was a crucifix and a sprig or two of green box above her poor little painted wooden bedstead; I felt touched, or somewhat inclined that way. I felt ready to offer to charge no more than twelve per cent, and so give something towards establishing her in a good way ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac

... "and we'll tie a red ribbon round his neck with a sprig of holly, and I'll see to it that there's a present on ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells

... of Vulcan, the poppy of Morpheus, the winged foot of Mercury, the trident of Neptune, the cerberus of Pluto, the peacock of Hera, the owl of Athena, the dove of Venus, the crescent of Diana, and the sprig of wheat that represented Mother Ceres. The Myrmidons grinned in expectation of the good times coming; a Dionysian festival was always something special, and competition for ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... discharging a monstrous arrow. Then close by they draw, without any attempt at perspective, a square enclosure, in which they set down higgledy-piggledy a variety of animals, some of them sufficiently like nature to allow their species to be guessed at. In one corner, perhaps, is a sprig of something intended for a tree, and intimating that all this is supposed to take place in a wood. This hieroglyphical or algebraical method of 'taking off' the occurrences of human life is applied with almost unvarying uniformity. Such was high art among the Egyptians; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... place before the fire. He talked about "my carridge," "my currier," "my servant;" and he did wright. I've always found through life, that if you wish to be respected by English people, you must be insalent to them, especially if you are a sprig of nobiliaty. We LIKE being insulted by noblemen,—it shows they're familiar with us. Law bless us! I've known many and many a genlmn about town who'd rather be kicked by a lord than not be noticed by him; ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the gravy. Cook has put the dish for the meat and the plates where they will get hot, for little girls cannot see after everything. In this small saucepan is a little stock made by stewing two or three bones and scraps (with no fat whatever), a sprig of parsley, a few rings of onion, which have been fried till brown, an inch of celery, and five or six peppercorns in water. I do not know whether you noticed that this stock has been stewing by the side of the fire ever ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... shoulder proclaimed his profession, while his scarred brigandine of chain-mail and his dinted steel cap showed that he was no holiday soldier, but one who was even now fresh from the wars. A white surcoat with the lion of St. George in red upon the centre covered his broad breast, while a sprig of new-plucked broom at the side of his head-gear gave a touch of gayety and grace ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... plate away, and, rising from the table, walked across the room to where the old man stood looking at a little sprig ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens

... to Congress we had a glorious reception at our house in the country, and among others that came to it was a Mr. Sterling, the son of my father's college chum, and a promising young sprig of the law, father said. He came to stay a day or two in the house as a visitor before the reception, and was to leave the morning after it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... take a little nosegay to meeting sometimes: a pink or two (pinks were pink then, not red, nor white, nor even double) and a sprig of camomile; and their blended perfume still seems to be a part of the June Sabbath ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... and up and down certain very useless stairs, through cupboards and hatchways, and so forth, to a species of sanctum sanctorum, where Joceline Joliffe was ministering to the good Doctor a solemn breakfast of wild-fowl, with a cup of small beer stirred with a sprig of rosemary, which Dr. Rochecliffe preferred to all strong potations. Beside him sat Bevis on his tail, slobbering and looking amiable, moved by the rare smell of the breakfast, which had quite overcome his ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... obtain some holy water, but no one had any, and it was again Nana who was sent to the church to bring some back in a bottle. In practically no time the tiny room presented quite another appearance; on a little table a candle was burning beside a glass full of holy water into which a sprig of boxwood was dipped. Now, if anyone came, it would at least look decent. And they arranged the chairs in a circle in the shop for ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... Christopher followed him, and found himself in the bedroom, furnished with the same simplicity as the other; but with an iron bedstead in the corner, a kneeling stool beside it, with a little French silver image of St. Mary over it, and a sprig of dried yew tucked in behind. A thin leather-bound copy of the Little Office of Our Lady lay on the sloping desk, with another book or two on the upper slab. Dom Anthony went to the window and threw ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... a party, she became acquainted with a young sprig of the medical profession, who was captivated by her beauty. The fellow was loquacious, prepossessing, and bold, with an air of high life and fashion about him to which Sabrina had not been accustomed. But though unsteady, insincere, and wholly unworthy of her, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... man's sanctuary, here were his precious relics, and here he offered up his devotions, half Christian, half pagan, with never-failing ardor. From the long narrow box which the fort soldiers had noticed came an old sabre, a worn and faded uniform of the French grenadiers, a little dried sprig, its two withered leaves tied in their places with thread, and a coarse woodcut of the great Napoleon; for Jacques was a soldier of the Empire. The uniform hung on the wall, carefully arranged on pegs as a man would wear it, and the sabre was brandished from the empty sleeve ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... together; for, with the exception of a few circling acres forming a rim around the harbor, high, broken, and frowning battlements of rock, ungainly and sterile, look down upon you as far as the eye can reach. No sprig, or tree, or blade of grass takes root in its parched soil or stony bed, or survives the blasting heat. Scattered and dotted on crag, hilltop or slope, in glaring white, are the many offices and residence buildings of the camp. While in hidden crevices and forbidden ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... by themselves to drag the heavy mass that comes after. Their assistant, the anal finger, is remarkably strong. With no support, the larva turns over, head downwards, and remains suspended when shifting from one sprig to another. This Jack-in-the-bowl is a rope-dancer, a consummate acrobat, performing its evolutions amid the slender sprigs without ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... sometimes the best kind of evidence," answered the sprig of the law, taking out some little ivory tablets and making a charge against Uncle ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... the pot will go sharp spices, To flavour your English meats: Cayenne and thyme, and sage and salt, A sprig of parsley for garnish, And some delicate bamboo shoots. But the sweetest spice will not be seen, It will leap from my heart to the pot as I stir it. I am going to gather it on the way to the market From my own sweet thoughts and ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke

... Barons to swear that they would recognise as his successor, his daughter Matilda, whom, as she was now a widow, he married to the eldest son of the Count of Anjou, GEOFFREY, surnamed PLANTAGENET, from a custom he had of wearing a sprig of flowering broom (called Genet in French) in his cap for a feather. As one false man usually makes many, and as a false King, in particular, is pretty certain to make a false Court, the Barons took the oath about the succession of Matilda (and her children after her), twice ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... forget," he said, "and I think I can understand; but neither must you forget that I offered to take you back there. So that's a sprig ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... him a definite offer—he must have bewitched me, I am sure—I offered him no less than L5000 and a share in the business for the sprig of almond-blossom the ridiculous young pagan carried ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... to the garden, and the pot was put in its place, again. And a week or two after, as grandmother was just going to make room in the earth for a new plant, she saw growing there a little green sprig, which was not a weed. She listened a moment, and heard ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... wayside here, but they were the same that I had been seeing for many a league, and they reminded me too forcibly of the rapid flight of the summer days by their haste—their unnecessary haste, as I thought—in passing from the flower to the seed. A sprig of lithosperm stood like a little tree laden with Dead Sea fruit, for the naked seeds clung hard and flinty where the flowers had been. The glaucium, although still blooming, had put forth horns nine inches long, and the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... demand certified copies of all entries and receipts of this office covering the trunk in question," announced the young sprig ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... of each half with 1 cream peppermint, broken in pieces, and chill. Bring the two strips of skin together above the grapefruit and tie together with Narrow ribbon, for the handle. Insert in the knot a sprig of Flowers, berries or mint, and place on doily on individual ...
— For Luncheon and Supper Guests • Alice Bradley

... hills and vales were dotted with booths of green. Inside the gates the city seemed to have burst into springtime bloom, and the populace looked like a walking garden, for every Jew carried an armful of green boughs, and in his hand a sprig of willow to be placed on the great altar. Many pious ones had witnessed the early morning service when a priest, entering from the water gate, brought a gold pitcher full of water from the Pool of Siloam. At the sacred altar it was mixed with wine and ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... replied her little maid, Susan, half-frightened by the strange agitation of her mistress. "I plucked the sprig in our landlady's garden; for I remembered that you loved hawthorn-blossoms, and used often to buy them in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... sermon," said a young sprig of divinity, "in half an hour, and preached it at once, and thought nothing of it." "In that," said an older minister, "your hearers are at one with you, for they ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... advantages in shopping; if he was slow himself, he was quite willing that others should be so too, and to stand in unmoved calm while Mrs Jones fingered a material to test its quality, or Mrs Wilson made up her mind between a spot and a sprig. It was therefore a splendid place for a bit of talk, for he was so long in serving, and his customers were so long in choosing, that there was an agreeable absence of pressure, and time to drink a cup of gossip down to its last ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... the mornin', roustin' the hands off to the field. He got them all lined up and then come back to the house for breakfas'. The rows was a mile long and no matter how much grass was in them, if you leaves one sprig on your row they beats you nearly to death. Lots of times they weighed cotton by candlelight. All the hands took dinner to the field in buckets and the overseer give them fifteen minutes to git dinner. He'd start cuffin' some of them over the head ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... it is, not far off fifty years,' answered he. 'He was a hard-headed codger, he was; but you see the sprig of shillelagh was too hard for him—ha, ha, ha!' and he gave the skull a smart knock with his walking-cane, as he grinned at it and wagged ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... became silent at the mention of that dreadful time. Neither willingly spoke of it, and any reference to the affair was casual. Peggy stooped and picked a sprig of tender grass, and began to ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... small dice a carrot, an onion, one head of celery and a few parsley roots, and to these add a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, a little minionette pepper and two ounces of butter. Put these ingredients into a stewpan and fry them ten minutes, then throw in the crawfish and pour on them half a bottle of French white wine. Allow this to boil and then add a quart of strong ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords

... laughing. "Imagine him," he cried,—"imagine Methuselah in his eight or nine hundredth year, dressed in his customary bridal suit, with a sprig of ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... happy homes the brown oak-bough Vies with the red-gemmed holly now; And here and there, like pearls, there show The berries of the mistletoe. A sprig upon the chandelier Says to the maidens, "Come not here!" Even the pauper of the earth Some kindly gift ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... humming an air from the Nozze. M. and Mme. Renault, who were not accustomed to going to bed after midnight, were still asleep. On going into the laboratory, he saw that the triple box of the Colonel was closed. Gothon had placed a little wooden cross and a sprig of consecrated box on the cover. "We may as well begin masses for his soul," he murmured between his teeth, with a smile that might have been a little sceptical. At the same time he noticed that Clementine, in her agitation, had forgotten the presents ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... with embroidered yoke and full sleeves, a rich mantle draped over one shoulder, necklace, earrings, and bracelets of pearls. Her expression is more serious here than usual, though very happy, as if she was thinking of her lover; and in her hand she carries a sprig of rosemary, which in Holland is the symbol of betrothal, holding ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... juniper close by, and she felt under its sharp branches. "Do you like honeysuckle?" She held up a fresh sprig fragrant with its pale horns, which she had tracked to covert by its scent. Lawrence was not given to wearing buttonholes, but he understood the friendly and apologetic intention and inclined his broad shoulder for Miss Stafford ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... But it would appear that the puddings were arranged regularly, as I have shown them in the illustration, and that to strike out a pudding was to indicate that it had been duly tasted. You have simply to put the point of your pencil on the pudding in the top corner, bearing a sprig of holly, and strike out all the sixty-four puddings through their centres in twenty-one straight strokes. You can go up or down or horizontally, but not diagonally or obliquely; and you must never strike out a pudding twice, as that would imply a second and unnecessary ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... COL. STARBOTTLE exhibiting extravagant gratitude in dumb show. Business prolonged through MISS MARY's speech.) If I am not wrong, colonel, the gentleman to whom you so kindly pointed out the road this morning was not a stranger to you. Ah! I am right. There, one moment,—a sprig of green, a single leaf, would set off the pink nicely. Here he is known only as "Sandy": you know the absurd habits of this camp. Of course he has another name. There! (releasing the colonel) it is ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... the same breath, she said, "O, see that beautiful yellow,"—directing my attention to a sprig of acacia in a bunch of flowers; all showing that her religious feelings were not raptures, but flowed along upon a level with her natural delight at beautiful objects. To illustrate this, I have mentioned several of ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... the din of clashing shears, And all the needles that do wound the spirit, For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, Lays bare her shady bosom; I can feel With all around me;—I can hail the flowers That sprig earth's mantle,—and yon quiet bird, That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, Where Nature stows away her loveliness. But this unnatural posture of my legs Cramps my extended calves, and I must go Where ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... well known as growing abundantly on open places in our rural districts. The prefix "cytisus" is derived from the name of a Greek island where Broom abounded. It formerly bore the name of Planta Genista, and gave rise to the historic title, "Plantagenet." A sprig of its golden blossom was borne by Geoffrey of Anjou in his bonnet when going into battle, making him conspicuous throughout the strife. In the Ingoldsby Legends it is said of our second King ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... all the flowers were gone. One had been taken by a carter, another by a donkey-driver, another by a muleteer, another by a man on a camel, and finally the last little sprig was eaten by a chicken. The servant was soundly berated each time and cautioned to be more careful, which she always promised but never performed, and was finally dismissed in disgrace without either a recommendation, or the wages she ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland

... in need of NOTHING, of absolutely NOTHING, as well as that I shall never be in a position to recompense you for all the kindly acts with which you have loaded me? Why, for instance, have you sent me geraniums? A little sprig of balsam would not have mattered so much— but geraniums! Only have I to let fall an unguarded word—for example, about geraniums—and at once you buy me some! How much they must have cost you! Yet what a charm there is in them, with their ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Scotty bent and plucked a sprig of mint from the patch next to the house and chewed it absently. "But we'll be able to show motive and method once they're in jail and Tyler can talk. And with Captain Killian's evidence, that will clear Tyler anyway. Why should we worry whether the Kelsos get caught ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... bouquet, or fagot, of sweet herbs, so often called for in foreign cooking, is made as follows: wash three or four sprigs of parsley, lay in their midst one sprig of thyme, and two bay leaves; fold the parsley over the thyme and bay leaves, tie it in a cork-shaped roll, about three inches long and one inch thick. The bouquet is used for seasoning soups, sauces, stews, and savory dishes ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson

... end of each Sprout are generally four sprigs, two at the Extremity, and one on each side, just under it. At the first sprouting of these from the Branch to the Sprig where the leaves grow, they are full of little short white hairs, which wear off as the leaves grow, and then they ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... my vanity thus disburthened, I left the divine man, and hastened to Bruton-street, to defend subscription with ten fold vigor. My young laurels were ripening apace: they were already in bud, and were suddenly to bloom. Every new sprig of success burst forth in new arguments, new tropes, and new denunciations. My margin was loaded with the names of High Church heroes, and my manuscript began to swell ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... one young Quaker sprig to another youth of his age, "that Ruth Bolton is really going to be a saw-bones, attends lectures, cuts up bodies, and all that. She's cool enough for a surgeon, anyway." He spoke feelingly, for he had very likely been weighed in Ruth's ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... fair. Young women, in black bodices and white sleeves, welcomed the visitors at the little inns or served them in the shops. Everywhere were young men in Tyrolese holiday attire—green coats, black slouch hats, with a feather or sprig of Edelweiss in the hat-band, and with trousers, like those of the Scottish Highlanders, which end hopelessly beyond the reach of either shoes or stockings. Besides the rustics and the tourists, one ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... mother, ye children, for shame, Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, She calls you to feast from her ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... for two, and made notes of anything I thought would interest Etienne. One day I came across the same name as his own, borne by a certain young soldier, a sprig of the French noblesse who had followed in the train of Bigot, the dissolute and rapacious Governor of New France. I meditated long over this. The name was identical—Guy Chezy D'Alencourt. In the case of my friend the mill-hand there was simply the addition of ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... bower of green holly and red-berried mistletoe that decked the room. General Washington was loaded with it. The old clock, actually striking in a cheerier voice the hour of nine, had its full share. The dresser hid in festoons of it. Even David's chair had its sprig. But what was that on the floor? An opened trunk, like a cloven pomegranate, displaying within rich trinkets that many a lady ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... creation of a huge white calico flag, on which were painted roughly the figure of a sailor and an Eskimo sitting on an iceberg, with a kettle of soup between them. On one side were a pair of hands clasped together; on the other a sprig of heath, the only shrub that could be seen on ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... murder of the money-changer Joseph. A bouquet was sent from La Force to a woman's prison, Saint Lazare or the Madelonnettes. In this bouquet was a sprig of white lilac which one ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to pidling Tibalds: Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critic some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. ...
— English Satires • Various

... walking about cheek by jowl with that muff, young May, who couldn't be civil, I think, if he were to try. What is the meaning of it? I suppose you're just as much startled to see me. I'm with a coach; clever, and a good scholar and a good family, and all that; father to that young sprig: so there ain't any mystery about me. What's ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... Rose hastily, adding, with charming incoherence, while she twisted a sprig of honeysuckle in her restless fingers, 'Some cousins ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... for office against her father as something prodigiously strange. Certainly it was a bold and daring piece of youthful audacity for him to be guilty of. He, a young sprig of the law, with his brown mustache not yet grown, setting himself up to beat Colonel Mobley Sommerton! Phyllis blushed whenever she thought of it; but the Colonel had never once mentioned Tom's ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... gentleman, of whom I have spoken as sitting opposite to me, is no exception to the rule. She brought down some mignonette one morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She gave a sprig to her little neighbor, and one to the landlady, and sent another by the hand of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... sprays of dead bloom that shall be, in the dim and mysterious future, mementoes of the walks, the frolics, the joys that have belonged to this staid New England home. From the very parsonage door she has brought away a sprig of a rampant sweet-brier that has grown there this many a year, and its delicate leaflets are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... a sprig of a rose of Jericho and lit his pipe with it, while Idris began, according to the Arabian habit, to ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... enlarged, Plate 28, Page 118. You see a man, evidently Bacon, giving his writing to a Spearman who is dressed in actor's boots (see Stothard's painting of Falstaff in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" wearing similar actor's boots, Plate 32, Page 127). Note that the Spearman has a sprig of bay in the hat which he holds in his hand. This man is a Shake-Spear, nay he really is a correct portrait of the Stratford householder, which you will readily perceive if you turn to Dugdale's engraving of the Shakespeare ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence

... rules on p. 356, but you may put a lump of sugar between the bars now and then, or a sprig of groundsel or water-cress. Do not give them cake; it ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... plucking a sprig of holly from the bush which grew beside the door, he placed it in ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... I kiss'd the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. 160 Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to pidling Tibalds: Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each Word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Ev'n such small Critics some regard may claim, 165 Preserv'd in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Gen 22, 18. It is inconsistent for a Christian to curse even his most bitter enemy and an evil-doer; for he is commanded to bear upon his lips the Gospel. The dove did not bring to Noah in the ark a poisonous branch or a thistle sprig; she brought an olive-leaf in her mouth. Gen 8, 11. The Gospel likewise is simply a gracious, blessed, glad and healing word. It brings only blessing and grace to the whole world. No curse, but pure blessing, goes with the Gospel. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther



Words linked to "Sprig" :   wand, ornamentation, branch, ornament, branchlet, brier, sprig tail



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org