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Stray   Listen
verb
Stray  v. i.  (past & past part. strayed; pres. part. straying)  
1.
To wander, as from a direct course; to deviate, or go out of the way. "Thames among the wanton valleys strays."
2.
To wander from company, or from the proper limits; to rove at large; to roam; to go astray. "Now, until the break of day, Through this house each fairy stray." "A sheep doth very often stray."
3.
Figuratively, to wander from the path of duty or rectitude; to err. "We have erred and strayed from thy ways." "While meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray."
Synonyms: To deviate; err; swerve; rove; roam; wander.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stray" Quotes from Famous Books



... her green velvet toque, and let her chestnut hair stray and ramble whithersoever it would, and sat in Gowan's best high-backed mahogany chair with the brass rosettes, and tried to view with kindly indulgence his flimsy knick-knacks and shabby hangings (they came ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... were well away: For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill were over the country side For the wonderful way that he fed his sheep, and the dodges and tricks he tried. He would lose his way on a Main Stock Route, and stray to the squatters' grass; He would come to a run with the boss away, and swear he had leave to pass; And back of all and behind it all, as well the squatters knew, If he had to fight, he would fight ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... fervently. The lady mounted; the grey and portly lord followed her; Sir Lukin flourished his whip, and Emma was left to brood over her friend's last words: 'One of my holidays.' Not a hint to the detriment of her husband had passed. The stray beam balefully illuminating her marriage slipped from her involuntarily. Sir Lukin was troublesome with his ejaculations that evening, and kept speculating on the time of the arrival of the four-in-hand in London; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... bring us back to our main subject, let us quote from a stray leaf of a lost MS. Book of Duerer's, which contains the description of his ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... part (sweet mercy bless Us both i' th' sea, camp, wilderness), Can we so far Stray to become less circular Than we are now? No, no, that self-same heart, that vow Which made us one, shall ne'er undo, Or ravel so to make ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... up some size" he was required to do small tasks, but the master was not very exacting. There were the important tasks of ferreting out the nests of stray hens, turkeys, guineas and geese. These nests were robbed to prevent the fowls from hatching too far from the hen house. Quite a number of these eggs got roasted in remote corners of the plantation by the finders, who built fires and wrapped the eggs ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... from the years Of childhood's golden joys and passing tears, Were friends and playmates; and together they Across the lawn, or through the woods, would stray. While he was wont to pull the lilies fair, And weave them, with the primrose, round her hair;— Plait toys of rushes, or bedeck the thorn With daisies sparkling with the dews of morn; While she, these simple gifts would grateful take—- Love ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... o'clock on Sunday morning the shepherd brought the stray lamb into the paved yard at The Poplars, and roused the slumbering household to receive ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... a neighboring river-town to look after the shipments to the West Indies in which he was now interested in company with the Squire. But this had not forbidden a little cursory reading of a sentimental kind. There may have been a stray volume of Pelham upon his table, and a six-volume set of Byron in green and gold upon his limited book-shelf, (both of which were strongly disapproved of by Mrs. Elderkin, but tolerated by the Squire,)—besides which, there were certain Spanish ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... eulogised brother. The one result established for her was, that Deronda had acted simply as a generous benefactor, and the phrase "reading Hebrew" had fleeted unimpressively across her sense of hearing, as a stray stork might have made its peculiar flight across her landscape without rousing any surprised reflection on ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... finished and Dr. Harmen is building a snow man. We are civilized aborigines gone mad with youth out here in the frigid zone, and anything as grown up as bridge has failed to interest us. From our home on the summit of "Kewanas Crag," Silver Lake looks like a stray turquoise below and the mysterious Black Hills around us catch glimpses of gold in the sunset hour, then dye themselves purple, take a tint of glowing rose-water, then turn dull and gray; a drama of color ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... quatrains, in which the first, second and fourth lines rhyme; but very often only the second and fourth lines rhyme, and sometimes there are groups of a larger number of lines in which occasional lines are found without any rhyme at all. A few stray pieces, as old as many of those found among the Odes, have been handed down and preserved, in which the metre consists of two lines of three words followed by one line of seven words. These three lines all rhyme, but the rhyme changes with each succeeding triplet. It would be difficult to persuade ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... let him do as he would. He gave him money, provided him with a servant, and sent him forth on his travels. For more than a year Milton wandered, chiefly among the sunny cities of Italy. He meant to stray still further to Sicily and Greece, but news from home called him back, "The sad news of Civil War." "I thought it base," he said, "that while my fellow-countrymen were fighting at home for liberty, I should be traveling abroad ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... do stray The golden atoms of the day; For, in pure love, heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair. Ask me no more, whither doth haste The nightingale, when May is past; For in your sweet dividing throat She winters, and keeps ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... raised in California in those days so long ago, and cattle were counted by the thousands and sheep by tens of thousands. Then the grizzly and cinnamon, or brown, bear feasted all the time on stray calves and yearlings. Every spring and fall the cattle, which had roamed almost wild in the pastures, were "rounded up" by the cowboys, or vaqueros. After the work of picking out each ranchero's stock and branding ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... well worth reading about. The history of her times rises and lives around her. In her vivid description we see the new rugged country, over which she travelled from end to end; in her accounts of current literature we pick up stray bits of information as to new authors and new words. "Playfulness," for instance, is one which she stigmatizes as "silly in sound and significance," and declares that she does not read the new novels "with the exception of Walter ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... fame,—but my thoughts would stray To the brook that laughed across the lane; And of hopes for me,—but your hand's light play On my brow was ice to my shrinking brain; And you called me your son, your only son,— But I felt your eye on my tortured heart To and fro, like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... expression had not changed, and Domini was amazed at her indifference. The eyes of everyone in the room were fixed upon her. Even Suzanne began to be less virginal in appearance under the influence of this desert song of triumph. Domini did not let her eyes stray any more towards the stranger. For the moment indeed she had forgotten him. Her attention was fastened upon the thin, consumptive-looking creature who was staring at the two knives laid upon the table. When the great tune had been ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... Brandon view'd her,) And to her children just among 'em, In equal shares I freely give them. To Charlotte Watson and Mary Lee, If they with Lady Poulett be, Because they round the year did dwell In Twickenham house, and served full well, When Lord and Lady both did stray Over the hills and far away, The first ten pounds, the other twenty, And girls, I hope, that will content ye. In seventeen hundred and sixty-nine, This with my hand I write and sign, The sixteenth day of fair October, In merry mood, but sound and sober, Past ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various

... friends but my father's mother was very upset about the cat. She hated cats, particularly ugly old alley cats. "Elmer Elevator," she said to my father, "if you think I'm going to give that cat a saucer of milk, you're very wrong. Once you start feeding stray alley cats you might as well expect to feed every stray in town, and I am not going ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett

... organs of cattle thus infested are eaten by dogs or wolves the cystic worms are also liable to be swallowed and then develop into mature tapeworms. To prevent cattle from infection with these parasites stray dogs, wolves, and coyotes should be killed wherever found, and dogs too valuable to kill should be kept free from tapeworms. As a precaution against infection with tapeworms, the viscera of cattle, sheep, or hogs should not be fed to dogs ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... Old English life—the great event of the day—was Noon-meat, or dinner in the great hall. A little before three, the chief and all his household, with any stray guests who might have dropped in, met in the hall, which stood in the centre of its encircling bowers—the principal apartment of every Old English house. Clouds of wood smoke, rolling up from a fire which blazed in the middle of ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... enabled to co-operate with the columns previously mentioned. It is instructive to note that, upon the other side, the untrained instinct of President Lincoln was always turning in the same direction. In perusing the field of operations his finger would always stray to the eastern coast of North Carolina as the vital point, and no persuasions could induce him to give up the apparently useless foothold which we kept there for more than three years without material advantage. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... crimes; Demand no visions which arise To Rapture's eager, tearless eyes! Those who can travel far, I ween, Whose strength can reach a distant scene, And measure o'er large space of ground, Have not, like me, a deadly wound! Near home, perforce, alas, I stray, Perforce pursue my destin'd way, Through scenes where all my trouble grows, And where alone remembrance flows. Like evening swallows, still my wings Float round in low, perpetual rings; But never fold the plume for rest One moment in the tranquil nest; And have ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... Penelope grown, I feared, might have become fat and florid, might speak with a twang and wear gaudy hats and gowns. My life in New York, even though I was but a quiet observer, had made me critical of women, and when I could brood unhappily over Gladys Todd's stray wisps of hair I could have little sympathy with the type of the imaginary Penelope Blight. But this morning, when the far-borne freshness of the woods and fields was in the air, and I longed to feel the soft earth beneath my feet, to break from the enclosing walls and to stride over the open fields, ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... and bitterness, if there be any. When haying is over, which event will take place on Saturday night of this week, fair weather being vouchsafed, I shall return to my moderation. Towards the latter part of the month I shall stray away towards Providence and Newport and sit down by the sea, and in it, too, probably. So I shall pass until harvest. Where the snows will fall upon me I cannot ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... Tomo and into the higher mountains, where the outlaw might be, or else they were coming back to rest up, and their destination in such a case was always Tomo. The cabin of the trapper was just near enough to the town to escape being used as a shelter for the night by stray travelers. If they got that close, they went on ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... The pain you endure is the terrible thing. Has a local application of chloroform been ever tried? I catch at straws, perhaps, with my unlearned hands, but it's the instinct of affection. While you suffer, my dear friend, the world is applauding you. I catch sight of stray advertisements and fragmentary notices of 'Atherton,' which seems to have been received everywhere with deserved claps of hands. This will not be comfort to you, perhaps; but you will feel the satisfaction which every workman feels in successful work. I think the edition of plays and poems has ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... himself, and that I might be able to spare him something. As I always look upon the tramp with a fraternal interest, however disreputable he may appear, because my own wayfaring has helped to teach me contempt for appearances, I stopped to talk with the aged wanderer while hunting for some stray sous. His matted gray beard and sunken cheeks gave him the air of a Job of the studios; but no such luck had probably ever befallen him as to be asked to pose for thirty sous the hour. Such a sum would be more than he could gather in a day, even after selling the surplus of his begged crusts. He ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... door banged in every breeze. Lichens leered from the cracks of the porch. The yard was filled with a litter of cottonwood twigs, and over the flower garden hulked ragged weeds. In the rank grass about the slimy green lip of the well, crickets piped derisively. The barn-door was open. Stray kernels of wheat had sprouted between the spokes of a rusty binder-wheel. A rat slipped across the edge of the shattered manger. As dusk came on, gray things seemed to slither past the upper windows ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... He helped blind men across streets that ran down the whole length of the roof. He held back pressing crowds while the police were rendered speechless with admiration. He swept off his scout headgear to scores of motherly ladies in three-cornered shawls; wrapped up the sore paws of stray dogs; soothed weeping children; straightened the blankets on numbers of storm-blown horses standing humped against the bitter wind and rain; and pointed out the right road to many a ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... description of bullion gives a good remittance: "one great objection, however, to bringing out money, is the liability there is of losing, or being robbed of it." Live stock is much wanted: "dogs would be very valuable if trained to bring home the cattle, which often stray into the woods; with careless settlers, indeed, one half of the day is often spent in hunting up, and driving home the oxen." The water of the St. Lawrence is, it appears, more deleterious than our Thames: "when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... climates; when the brig had sent biscuit on shore, they seized the half of it, and a few moments after, sold it at an exorbitant price, to those from whom they had stolen it. If they met with any soldiers or sailors who had had the imprudence to stray from the main body, they stripped them entirely, and then ill treated them; it was only numbers united, which, inspiring them with fear, that did not receive any insult from them; besides, there ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard

... to help seeing, hearing, guessing this from a significant glance, a stray word, a slight hint here and there, and the quick instinct of a woman felt even before it understood the self-interest which chilled for her so many opening friendships. In her eyes love was a very sacred thing, hardly ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... patiently, laboriously, on every surface on which he could trace words and lines, ever since he has been familiar with the art of expressing his thoughts in visible signs,—and so each such surviving memorial may truly be called a stray leaf, half miraculously preserved to us, out of the great Book of the Past, which it has been the task of scholars through ages, and especially during the last eighty years, to decipher and ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... Colonel Middleton on her hands then; but her eyes would stray to that part of the room. How pretty Grace looked in that soft creamy dress, with the dainty lace ruffles that Archie had sent her! Her face generally wanted color and animation, but to-night she was quite rosy by comparison. She seemed to find Sir Harry amusing, for she looked up at him very brightly. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... keepers.] The field-driver takes stray animals to the pound, and then notifies their owner; or if he does not know who is the owner he posts a description of the animals in some such place as the village store or tavern, or has it published in ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... stream. Well they might stand in quiet contentment: a king might have envied them their surroundings. Overhead rose a dozen or more of the tallest and finest elms we had ever seen, stretching their thick branches till they met and formed a canopy so dense that only a stray sunbeam or two pierced through and fell upon the smooth green sward. Peerless among them stood an elm of mighty girth and lofty height, its widely-stretching branches as large around, where they left the trunk, as a common tree, and clothed to the farthest twig with luxuriant foliage. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... others, he succeeded. It's perhaps just as well not to split hairs, to judge him by the law and morality of a civilized country. Some way or other he drifted in with bad men. Maybe a deal that was honest somehow tied his hands. This matter of land, water, a few stray head of stock had to be decided out of court. I'm sure in his case he never realized where he was drifting. Then one thing led to another, until he was face to face with dealing that took on crooked form. To ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... rival St. John, and his scholar, Pope;[54] Though metaphysicks spread the gloom of night, By reason's star he guides our aching sight; The bounds of knowledge marks; and points the way To pathless wastes, where wilder'd sages stray; Where, like a farthing linkboy, Jennings stands, And the dim torch drops from his feeble hands. Impressive truth, in splendid fiction drest,[55] Checks the vain wish, and calms the troubled breast; O'er the dark mind a light ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay

... simple home, and an atmosphere of piety, learning, and good fellowship. What more is wanted, or can be desired? The "Boatswains" and "Cabin-boys" of Bishop Parker's fancy were in the neighbourhood, no doubt, and as stray companions for a half-holiday must have had their attractions; but it is unnecessary to attribute Andrew Marvell's style in controversy to his early acquaintance with a sea-faring population, for he is far more likely to have picked it up from his great friend and colleague, the author ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... vaguely in the twilight pink and gray, Whilst with a sound like wings, note after note Takes flight to form a pensive little lay That strays, discreet and charming, faint, remote, About the room where perfumes of Her stray. ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine

... had come, the camp was sleeping a deep, sound sleep—those who were not on watch—a dreamless sleep, for the bullocks were peaceful and ruminating, the Chinese drovers having been "excused" from duty lest other beasts should stray ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... a by-play. The others crept along under protection of the grade until they were clear of stray shots from the gang that had waylaid the engine. There they broke into a run, though Murphy complained bitterly at turning his back to a sure fight for one that might never come off. Four hundred yards from the trestle Mahon ordered them ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... way, not to be found without whispered consultation and concession, and yet a way eventually bringing them hand in hand, happy and hopeful, to the gate of Madrono Cottage. And if there was only just time for Rosey to prepare to take the boat, it was due to the deviousness of the way. If a stray curl was lying loose on Rosey's cheek, and a long hair had caught in Renshaw's button, it was owing to the roughness of the way; and if in the tones of their voices and in the glances of their eyes there was a maturer seriousness, it was due to the dim ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... dead, and is alive for evermore,' in His human nature has knowledge of all His children's failures, as well as successes, and is affected with some shadow of regret, or with some reality of delight, according as they follow or stray from the paths in which He would have them walk. If it be so with Him it may be so with them; and though it be not so with them it must be so with Him. So this strange, sweet, tender, and powerful thought is a piece of plain prose, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... cup, 'tis time of roses now; Midst roses let us break each penitential vow; With shout and antic bound we'll in the garden stray; When nightingales are heard, we'll rove where roses blow; Here in this open spot fill, fill, and quaff away; Midst roses here we stand a troop with hearts that glow; The rose our long-miss'd friend retains in full array; No fairer pearls than friends ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... these fortunate lovers Who, on this thrice blessed day, Have singed with the torch of chaste Hymen, The wings with which Cupid doth stray. And now, little volatile boy-god, You must keep yourself quiet at home— Enchained there by this happy marriage Where ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... feet from touching the water. Now they touched it in comfort, and little cool ripples washed over the toes of her stockings—she had pulled her shoes off long ago in the house. She ran up and down the edge of the water a few times, and then began picking up sticks and stray leaves to throw into it. Higher and higher her spirits rose with the sport. If it had not been for Barbara's song, Robin would surely have heard Elsy shout. But Robin was lazy in his old age, and was actually snoring. Elsy spied a pretty goose-feather, and gave it a toss. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... ten years older than you are." She leaned her cheek on her hand, she brushed back a little stray tendril of midnight hair from her dark eyes, and considered him thoughtfully. "Why, John Wesley, I've known you nearly all my life and you don't look much older now than when ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... took the sting out of the rector's speech, which was not intended to have any sting, and was only a stray gleam of insight out of a confused realisation of the state of affairs; but it was so true that it was difficult to believe it was that, and no more. The Wilberforces had come to inquire, not only for Lady Markland ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... who was watching at a window, felt a curious sensation in the soles of his feet, and, startled, looked down to find that he was standing in a tiny pool of water. With a cry of alarm he sprang to where the big copper sat. A glance confirmed his worst fears; a stray bullet had torn a great hole in the vessel near the bottom, and of their precious store of water barely ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... those who have known what the solace and gaiety of words and the beauty of sound can be. To have been born deaf is different, and I have no doubt whatever that the deaf and dumb have delectable lands of their own into which we can never stray, where wonderful flowers of silence grow. It is even possible, since all the visible world is theirs, that they ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... steps return that way, Still faithful shall she find me, And never more again I'll stray From the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... commanding went off on a tour of inspection, taking a brace of aides with him, and these were Forrest's friends and associates and the men who least liked the tutor. But while Elmendorf had ceased to spend some time each afternoon in the offices adjoining the general's sanctum, picking up all stray items of military news and haranguing such men as would listen, his was by no means an unfamiliar figure about the great building. True to his policy, he had made acquaintance among the clerks, messengers, etc., first appearing among them as ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... his rifle over, laid it within instant reach of his hand and gave a low cough in the direction of the concealed figure. Should the deer charge this way it was just as well to let the man know where he sat, or he might stop a stray bullet. Quick as the answering flash of a mirror a line of light glinted along the barrel of a rifle resting on the fallen log, its muzzle pointed ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... few things into a bag. He gripped my hand, and tears were standing in his eyes. It is odd that suppressed laughter and expressed grief should both display the same token, is it not? I stole into her room. I dared not kiss her for fear of waking her; but a stray lock of her hair—you remember how long it was—fell over the pillow, nearly reaching to the floor. I pressed my lips against it, where it trailed over the bedstead, till they bled. I have it still upon my lips, the mingling of the ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... afternoon it rained: the gloomy sky intensified his fatigue and despondence. About six o'clock, exhausted in mind and body, he had allowed his attention to stray, when the sudden clang of a street organ startled him. His eyes turned in the wonted direction—and instantly he sprang up. To clutch his hat, to rush from the room and from the house, occupied but a moment. There, walking away on the other ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... you ladies going to do with yourselves?" he said. "Will you come out and sit under the trees and look on—taking the chance of being hit by a stray nut now ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... abjure the claim altogether; and a movement on the subject was begun in 1866, when I presented a petition for the suffrage, signed by a considerable number of distinguished women. But it was as yet uncertain whether the proposal would obtain more than a few stray votes in the House: and when, after a debate in which the speaker's on the contrary side were conspicuous by their feebleness, the votes recorded in favour of the motion amounted to 73—made up by pairs and tellers to above 80—the surprise was general, and the encouragement great: the greater, ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... realized that that was what she had always vaguely reminded me of. You remember the insect, don't you, in Through the Looking-Glass? It lived on sawdust. One lesson one has every opportunity of learning on board ship is to suffer fools, if not gladly, at least with patience. The curious people who stray across one's path! One woman came on at Port Said—a globe-trotter, globe-trotting alone. Can you imagine anything more ghastly? She is very tall, dark and mysterious-looking, and last night when G. and I were in the music saloon before dinner, she sat down beside us and ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... a mile from the dead soldiers, a stray shell had killed a grey-bearded old man and a young woman. They were side by side. The woman was still in her teens and pretty. She lay upon her back. Blood was oozing from her side. A swarm of flies were buzzing in and ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... the dim groups gathered more and more round the great cauldrons, or passed, laughing and clattering, into the inner passages of that ancient house. Soon there were only some ten loiterers in the garden; soon only four. Finally the last stray merry-maker ran into the house whooping to his companions. The fire faded, and the slow, strong stars came out. And the seven strange men were left alone, like seven stone statues on their chairs of stone. Not one of them had spoken ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... feelings could rally: of course, the scoundrels rallied too, but what then? they rally in equal force round your advertisement van of "Buy cheap, sell dear." On this theme Klesmer's eloquence, gesticulatory and other, went on for a little while like stray fireworks accidentally ignited, and then sank into immovable silence. Mr. Bult was not surprised that Klesmer's opinions should be flighty, but was astonished at his command of English idiom and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... boys where there were some stray boards lying in the woods not far away, and already the shack builders had paid several visits to the pile, returning each time dragging spoils after them. These they could use to splendid advantage in their work, and when the shelter was finally completed it ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie

... cares of everyday, The tiny humdrum things, May bind my feet when they would stray, But still my heart has wings, While red geraniums are bloomed against my window-glass, And low above my green-sweet hill the gypsy ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... world," replied the cuckoo. "Autumn, winter, and spring, they're hard at work. It's only just for the three months of summer that the butterflies have any holiday, and then a few stray ones now and then wander up to the world, and people talk about 'idle butterflies'! And even then it isn't true that they are idle. They go up to take a look at the flowers, to see how their work has turned out, and many a damaged petal they repair, ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... to school there ran a succession of meadows—the path was really a footway through fields—and how not to stray into these meadows was a problem demanding the entire of one's attention. Sometimes a rabbit bolted almost from under one's feet—it flapped away through the grass, and bobbed up and down in a great hurry. Then his heart filled with envy. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... was of an intense blue that was almost purple. The blue-jays were flitting and calling. A few stray crows hovered over a distant corn-stubble—these were all the signs ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... along the wall of Herons' Holt, drew every stray cat within a radius of two miles. Beneath, each armed with a clothes-prop, toiled Mr. Fletcher and Frederick under the immediate ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... had to be taken. He plunged out of his hole—around the first corner—around the next—and thus wove in and out, working westward, till at last, on turning a corner into a lighted street, he saw possible relief in two stray taxicabs before a little East Side restaurant, one ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... Louie had by this time, at nine and eleven, advanced to the ugly, uninteresting stage, and they owed Henrietta a grudge because she had annexed the petting that used to fall to them. They had their revenge in whispering interminable secrets to one another, of which Etta could hear stray sentences. "Ellen says she knows Arthur was very naughty, because ... But we won't tell Etta." She was very susceptible to notice, and the petting ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor

... await the time of rescue. Locke saw his chance, and at once began unlocking the cell door. As the emissary heard him, he concluded that it was the guard come to release him, and sprang from his bunk just as Locke entered. He suspected nothing until a stray ray of light fell on Locke's face. But then it was too late either for him to put up much of a fight or to make an outcry. For with a swift blow Locke disposed of him and carried the fellow, unconscious, into his own cell, ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... go and play, child?" repeated her mother, "But do not stray far into the wood. And take heed that thou come at my ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... peace we knew, In the happy summers of long ago, When the rivers were bright, and the skies were blue, By the homes of Henrico: We dreamed of wars that were far away, And read, as in fable, of blood that ran, Where the James and Chickahominy stray, Through ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... the fit takes me—sometimes at night when I ought to be asleep; sometimes at meals when I ought to be handling my knife and fork; sometimes out of doors when I meet with inquisitive strangers who stare at me. As for paper, the first stray morsel of anything that I can write upon will do, provided I snatch it up in time to catch my ideas as ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... joy. Mrs. Dyer sat with folded hands, and said, "Why, Mr. Dyer!" And Mr. Dyer occasionally helped a stray donkey, whose legs were caught, or a turkey fluttering on the edge. At last a great roaring and growling was heard at the bottom of the ark. The elephant nodded his trunk to the giraffe; the camel was ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale

... hair is brown-black and generally slightly wavy or loosely curled, while in some cases it is found curled in locks. Women comb their hair straight back and plaster it with cocoanut oil, but even this does not prevent stray locks from creeping out. Both face and body hairs are scanty and are generally removed, yet occasionally a man is seen who has cultivated a few hairs into a ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... ornaments of every virtue. "You," he said, "who are the interpreters of the word of God, you must preach it unweariedly to the wise and the unwise. Preach to them Christ and Him crucified, not in loftiness of speech, but in the knowledge of the spirit, never ceasing to call into the right road all who stray, and confirm them in sound doctrine. Dispensers of the divine mysteries and of the manifold grace of God, deal it out to the faithful people, to the sick especially, in order that no help may fail them in their last struggle with the evil one. Do not refuse to the little ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... boats were all at anchor on the fishing grounds; the sea was glassy calm—a pallid blue, save for a chance streak of deeper azure where some stray ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Creek, though he fell among them during the fight. The three girls searched the field for him, but he was not there. As darkness came on, and they were returning to the house, Gertrude suddenly seized the bridle of a stray horse, sprang upon its back and rode away to the South, into the woods at the foot of Three Top Mountain. The other two girls watched for her in vain. She did not return, and we have heard ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... abroad, but Lent shall wait on thee: His scarcity may countervail thy waste. Riot may flourish, but finds want at last. Take him away that knoweth no good way, And lead him the next way to woe and want. [Exit VER. Thus in the paths of knowledge many stray, And from the means of life ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... and white muslin circled in alternate stripes, giving them the appearance of huge old-fashioned sugar-sticks. These added to the gaiety of the scene, though it cannot be supposed that they were of any actual use. The most bewildered visitor was hardly likely to stray off the red baize or miss his way to the door in front of him. Within the great entrance-hall were palms and flowering shrubs in pots or tubs. The mosaic flooring, imported from Italy, and a source of pride ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... returned to his normal and carnal expression of countenance, and disappeared to return no more till the morrow, leaving the platform vacant awaiting the nude female model who was engaged for the afternoon. The atelier was abandoned to Sophie, the femme de menage, who stirred the fires, gathered stray brushes from the floor, changed the background drapery for the afternoon model, rearranged the easels into afternoon position, and brought out glasses and plates for the ladies, who lunched in the anteroom. And then a looker-on in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... begat Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk an introduction to some other talented young gentlemen, who had so far progressed in histrionic acquirements, that from spouting themselves, they had taken to spouting their watches, and other stray articles of small value, to enable them to pay the charges of a private theatre, where, as often as they could raise the needful, they astonished and delighted their wondering friends. Among this worshipful society was Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various

... Yucatan Channel at the western end of Cuba, the passage between Cuba and Hispaniola in the east, and the Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Porto Rico. In these regions the corsairs waited to pick up stray Spanish merchantmen, and watched for the coming of the galleons or the Flota.[110] When the buccaneers returned from their cruises they generally squandered in a few days, in the taverns of the towns which they frequented, the wealth which had cost them such peril and labour. Some of these ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... stray from the Holy Church, there is no knowing what terrible evils may come upon us," said ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... one of the wedges, and the composure which she felt, or had assumed, stirred Mayo's admiration. The plump hand which she held against her forehead to shield her eyes did not tremble. From the little Dutch cap, under the edge of which stray locks peeped, down over her attire to her toes, she seemed to be still trim and trig, in spite of her experiences below in the darkness and the wet. With a sort of mild interest in her, he reflected that her up-country beau would be very properly proud of her ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... Roger anxiously. And this well might have been the case, since, though there was a lull in the fighting immediately in front of Company E, there were plenty of stray bullets, not to mention pieces of shrapnel and bits of high explosive shells, that might have reached the ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates

... unmolested, and was going unharassed through all its most gorgeous pageant. Great fronds of ivory white, of palest gold, of brownest gold, of reddest gold upreared themselves among the purple waves of the heather, wearing the stray flecks of the sunshine like jewels on their breasts. We sat down on a fallen tree round which the bracken ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... expired on Scattergood's arrival, and the group on the porch converted itself into an audience. It was an audience that got its money's worth. Not for an instant did the attention of a single member of it stray away from this Godsend come to furnish them with their first real topic of conversation since Crazy French stole a box of Paris green, mistaking it for a ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... pedagogue, his cane Might retain, But his charges all would stray Truanting in every lane - Jack with Jane - If it could ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... Dale's had done; and the clergyman, who had his own flock to attend to, did not condescend, as Parson Dale would have done, to explain what seemed obscure, and enforce what was profitable, in private talk, with that stray lamb ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... standing outside, and asked the director when the personally-conducted party was to start. Aristide, who had totally forgotten the responsibilities attached to the directorship of the Agence Pujol and, but for this reminder, would have blissfully left his sheep to err and stray over Paris by themselves, returned crestfallen to his friends and ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... Desert Rat and his Indian retainer worked through the stringers and pockets of the Baby Mine, while the man from Boston sat looking at them, or, when the spirit moved him, casting about in the adjacent sand for stray "specimens" of which he managed to secure quite a number. The next morning, as soon as it was light enough to see, the work was commenced again, and by noon the last piece of rotten honeycombed rock with its streaks and ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... rhymes,—how light they seem, Like little ghosts of love's young dream That led our boyish hearts away From lectures and from books, to stray By flowery mead ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke

... 1304, William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrew's, testified his having come into the peace of the king of England, and {406}found himself to answer for the temporalities of his bishopric to the English king. Stray discoveries are now and then made in the charter-rooms of royal burghs, as sometime ago there was found in the Town-house of Aberdeen a charter and several confirmations by King Robert Bruce. The ecclesiastical records of Scotland also suffered in our own day; the original charters of the assembly ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various

... about this time next year, anyhow. You an' me'll celebrate the birthday between ourselves with that contrac'. You needn't git oneasy Thanksgivin', or picnic-time, or Easter, or no other time 'twixt this an' nex' Christmas—less'n, of co'se, you stray off ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or conies, be suffered to be kept within any part of the city, or any swine to be or stray in the streets or lanes, but that such swine be impounded by the beadle or any other officer, and the owner punished according to Act of Common Council, and that the dogs be killed by the ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... length of twelve feet,—the alligator is a hideous and terrorizing beast; but, for all that, he knows a thing or two; and a full grown, healthy black bear of active habit is about the last creature on earth that a 'gator would care to meddle with. Pigs and calves, fawns, stray dogs, ducks and mud hens are antagonists ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... Through the long hall, lighted to pleasant dusk by real Jack-o'-lanterns, stray couples strolled, with subdued murmurs and soft laughter. In the big white and gold parlour, in the dining-room, billiard-room, and in the tropic jungle of the immense palm-garden the party had bestowed itself in congenial groups, ever intersecting and forming anew. Little ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... in their hearts. Ah, Rose of the world, dear Lily of the fields, you will return; like Spring you will come from that heaven where you are, and in every valley the flowers will run before you and the poppies will stray among the corn, and the proud gladiolus will bow its violet head; then on the hillside I shall hear again the silver laughter of the olives, and in the wide valleys I shall hear all the rivers running to the sea, and the sweet wind will wander in the villages, and in ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... interrupted by the sight of something moving at the side of the road. It looked too small for a man, yet its movements seemed too intelligent for a dog or a stray donkey. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... with some alarm of the muddled palette of the future. He couldn't get used to her interest in the arts he cared for; it seemed too good to be real—it was so unlikely an adventure to tumble into such a well of sympathy. One might stray into the desert easily—that was on the cards and that was the law of life; but it was too rare an accident to stumble on a crystal well. Yet if her aspirations seemed at one moment too extravagant to be real they struck him at the next as too intelligent to be false. They were both ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James

... these are strange times,' observed the President, 'when a doctor of divinity and an undergraduate set forth like a knight-errant and his squire, in search of a stray damsel. Methinks I am an epitome of the church militant, or a new species of polemical divinity. Pray Heaven, however, there he no encounter in store for us; for I utterly forgot to ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... other figures she really portrays her own. Certainly, in these Memoirs she is generally content to keep herself in the background, while giving us a faithful picture of the brilliant Court at which she was for long the most lustrous ornament. It is only by stray touches, a casual remark, a chance phrase, that we, as it were, gauge her temperament in all its wiliness, its egoism, its love of supremacy, and its shallow worldly wisdom. Yet it could have been no ordinary woman that held the handsome ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... him the fondest husband living; but the third would restore to him the memory of all his wrongs, and give him courage against his wife or all the world,—even to the detriment of the furniture around him, should a stray poker chance to meet his hand. All these peculiarities of his character were not, however, known to Cradell; and when our friend saw him enter the drawing-room with his wife on his ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... 4, xxvi. 1, does not occur elsewhere in the Pentateuch. It specially emphasizes the holiness of Jehovah; as has been said, in H He is the person to whom the cult is performed, while the question of how is more elaborately dealt with in P. There are stray allusions which almost seem to point to pre-exilic days; e.g. to idols, xxvi. 30, Moloch being explicitly mentioned, xviii. 21, xx. 2; and the various sanctuaries presupposed by xxvi. 31 would almost seem to carry us back to a point before the promulgation ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... miles apart, Lady Neville could send her stray sheep to service near Mrs. Gaunt; and vice versa; and so, merciful, but discriminating, they saved many a poor girl who had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... centime is not in general circulation now, being equal to but one fifth of a cent in our money. It was a great consolation to me to know that I would understand the French money perfectly, especially as I expected not to be able to speak with anybody in Paris, except, now and then, with a stray German or Englishman. Soon after entering the train at Charing Cross I met a Frenchman (Prof. P. Simond who could speak English fluently, having occupied his time in England in teaching French, and was on his way to Paris ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... were hung with old prints, and with two or three photographs of early Italian pictures; and in a low bookcase Amherst had put the books he had brought from Hanaford—the English poets, the Greek dramatists, some text-books of biology and kindred subjects, and a few stray well-worn volumes: Lecky's European Morals, Carlyle's translation of Wilhelm Meister, Seneca, Epictetus, a German grammar, ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... respectfully but firmly request you to be on your way. I'll try to forgive you,' he says, 'but at this moment your mere presence offends me. On your way out,' he says, 'kindly latch the gate behind you—the chickens might stray off. Chickens,' he says, 'is not exciting for steady company,' he says, 'but in comparison with some humans I've met lately, chickens is ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... mercy, but please control the shells o' those barbarians and send them in anither direction, and Thine shall be a' the glory." Then he saw me standing there and he yelled, "Do you think there'll be any more?" "No, that was merely a stray shell. Let's get this grub, I'm starving." "Stray shell be damned," said he, "they've seen the smoke and they'll be putting ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... us,[A] was taken up for the most part by ladies of quality. In addition to these quarters and the boxes, there were two galleries reserved for the common herd, but into which, no doubt, impecunious beaux, down in the heels and at the mouth, would frequently stray. ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... be, and an extremely pretty woman, small and dainty. No wonder the mighty prince of darkness took fire. She was much amused. So was Rotscheff, and he joked her the rest of the evening. Before he left, however, I had a word with him alone, and warned him not to let the princess stray beyond the walls of the fortress. That same night I sent a courier to General Vallejo—who, fortunately, was at Sonoma—bidding him watch Solano. And, sure enough—the day I left for Monterey the Princess Helene ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... 'airy and fairy,' and such like things; for ye'll find that the women who tell tales that would make ye blush, who lead dissolute, unthinking lives, who deceive their husbands, and smell themselves up with Lily-of-the-Valley-water when they go to the kirk, will be the hardest upon ye if ye stray from any accepted thought. They require the correctest thinking ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... was fastened in its place, the last stray bit of evergreen and rubbish swept from the doors, the church garnished and beautiful to behold. There was the noisy bustle of preparing for departure and the calling back ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... it; either they had got out at the wrong lane or the cab they had ordered to be in waiting had failed them, but there was no time for speculation and they walked on as fast as they could without the appearance of flight. The stray loiterers on the dark street stared curiously as they passed, to see a young American in gray tweeds, his cap pulled over his eyes, with a woman in the Mohammedan wrap and mantle, but no one stopped them, ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... and most capable of the local notabilities would be put forward by preference; if possible, such as were known in some advantageous way beyond the locality, that their local strength might have a chance of being fortified by stray votes from elsewhere. Constituencies would become competitors for the best candidates, and would vie with one another in selecting from among the men of local knowledge and connections those who were most distinguished ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... waiter had placed it on the table near him full of celery, but when the last piece had been taken and only a few green leaves floated like lily pads on its calm surface, he knew the proper thing to do. He just blew off the stray leaves, stretched his mouth around the prongs on the edge, got his paw under it, turned it up and enjoyed his simple highball. All our strong men come from the country. They drink and see things straight. They are more particular as to contents than ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... spot on the face of the desert. They watched the train go back the way it had come the day before, and then walked up to the end of the station yard to see the wrecked water-tank. Flocks of goats wandered about the township, picking up and eating bits of rubbish, just like stray dogs. They found that this was why the mutton they had eaten for tea and breakfast was so tough; for, because sheep cannot thrive in that part of the country, goats are ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... we reached our first balanced budget, I asked that we meet our responsibility to the next generation by maintaining our fiscal discipline. Because we refused to stray from that path, we are doing something that would have seemed unimaginable seven years ago: We are actually paying down the national debt. If we stay on this path, we can pay down the debt entirely in 13 years and make ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Cicero and the 14th legion. He was going himself to scour Brabant and East Flanders as far as the Scheldt. In seven days he promised to return, and meanwhile he gave Cicero strict directions to keep the legion within the lines, and not to allow any of the men to stray. It happened that after Caesar recrossed the Rhine two thousand German horse had followed in bravado, and were then plundering between Tongres and the river. Hearing that there was a rich booty in the camp, that Caesar was away, and only a small party had been left ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... above everything not to be considered commonplace, believed in love at first sight, was not altogether unfavourable to elopements, carefully repressed any tendency to unnecessary order, wore a loose dressing-gown all the morning, had her breakfast in bed, let her hair stray a little over her face, cultivated a habit of shaking it off and pushing it back with her fingers, and generally went as far to be thought a little "wild" as was possible for the wife of a respectable, solid, eminently British, close-fisted Borough tradesman. Nevertheless she had a ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... recognized as slaves or servants to Agno, and he knew when they fed him that the food he ate proceeded from Agno and was Agno's food. Save himself, taboo protected, all of them feared Agno, and his house was truly a house of fear in which could bloom no love for a stray puppy dog. The eleven-years' maid might have placed a bid for Jerry's affection, had she not been deterred at the start by Agno, who reprimanded her sternly for presuming to touch or fondle a dog ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... going had reached Cap'n Oliver, and he had come in to talk it over. Miss Letty's heart quieted as she saw him take her father's capacious armchair and settle on the applique cushion, so sacred to him that whenever the cat stole a nap out of it, stray hairs had to be brushed scrupulously off, lest Cap'n Oliver should appear for an ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... dreaming over old German works, and especially dreaming over Goethe, humming old German songs—for he had been a great traveller—sometimes scrawling a furious Mazzinian onslaught in a semi-Nihilist foreign print, collecting stray engravings, wandering hither ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... adventurers and outcasts, half-savage or half-blackguard, some of them sons of respectable parents thrown into the army in an angry fit, and others again, regular vagabonds picked up in beggars' haunts, mostly stray workmen and loafers, in short, "the most debauched, the most hot-brained, the most turbulent people in an ardent, turbulent and somewhat debauched community."[3258] In this way, the anti-social class was utilized for the public good. Let the reader imagine an ill-kept domain ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... negligence of her dress might be traced the abstraction of her mind. Her beautiful hair was gathered up loosely, and partially bandaged by a kerchief, whose purple color seemed to deepen the golden hue of the tresses. A stray curl escaped, and fell down the graceful neck. A loose morning robe, girded by a sash, left the breeze that came ever and anon from the sea to die upon the bust half disclosed, and the tiny slipper, that Cinderella might have worn, seemed a world too wide for the tiny foot which it ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was a boy in the logging-camps, I read in some stray newspaper an article about the influence which the pleasant countenance exercises over groups of men. The idea was that men work willingly under the control of a strong man who is strong enough to carry in his daily ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... some stray grains of snuff from the front of his faded cassock—once black, but now of a greeny brown. He was a singularly tall man, gaunt and grey, with deep lines drawn downwards from eye to chin. His mouth was large and tender, with a humorous corner ever awaiting a jest. His eyes were ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... and after a pause). I cannot say—my thoughts ne'er stray'd so far. Father, you oft the dangers have set forth Of dreaming fancies which may lead astray; Yet do you try to tempt me, by supposing that Which shakes my firmness, yet can ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... a Westbrook since his mother was a Westbrook slave, and if it lost, he would go to live with his father and take the name of his father, a Wamble slave. So until the war was over he was hid out much like a small child would bring a stray dog home and hide it somewhere for fear that if his parents discovered it, it would be ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... fragments of manuscripts. Plays, novels, poems (none finished) littered the rooms in profusion; a brilliant but isolated Scene I., stray opening chapters of novels, detached prologues ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various

... this sudden lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital in advance of the tidings ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... in all these years, Of patient faith and silent tears,— That Love's strong hand would put aside The barriers of place and pride,— Would reach the pathless darkness through, And draw me softly up to you. But that is past. If you should stray Beside my grave, some future day, Perchance the violets o'er my dust Will half betray their buried trust, And say, their blue eyes full of dew, "She loved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... pretensions. Behind this road are some smaller streets, inhabited by labouring people, Spanish Gauchos, and others. There are, perhaps, rather more than a hundred houses in the town, and between 400 and 500 inhabitants, including boatmen, stray sailors, Gauchos, and other wanderers. Several of the houses have gardens which produce a fair supply of vegetables, and beef is to be had in abundance; but as the colony produces very little else in the way of food, the inhabitants ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... reply uttered carelessly by the captain, like a stray stone, whose fall one does not even watch, Colombe began to laugh, as well as Diane, Amelotte, and Fleur-de-Lys, into whose eyes at the same time ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... stretched out in profound sleep. That one, the most beautiful of all creatures—look at her, and say if she is not!—sat bathing her lovely cheeks and stately neck in the morning dew, and brushing off the stray drops with the white lily of the lake. Her little feet were carelessly thrust into the clear stream gliding by her, beneath which they glittered like the sparkling sands washed from the mountains into the river of the Nanticokes. Her long bright hair, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... going to tell you. My master and Dick—Dick's our youngest boy, you know—was looking after a stray sheep, when they comes up to this hut, and hears a strange moaning noise. They went in at once, and there was this young gentleman in a high fever, raving, and talking all sorts of wild things, and half dead for want of water. So my master goes back at once to our ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... launch rounded the point of land at the mouth of the lagoon, and stood out into open water at full speed, a stray bullet killed ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... himself. In this, the entire assembly dares to pledge to our lords their lives and property and all that they have, wishing them also to help to punish their own sons, when they will not remain true, and act in a rebellious manner. The assembly also desire our gracious lords, when troublesome persons stray into their city or canton, and act in an unbecoming way, striving to seduce the young men, that they will drive them off by authority, to prevent greater disturbance, which might ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... Russians still holding their ground—a terrible feeling like a nightmare took possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy him occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing, might break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray cannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles he had only considered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like a dream in which a man fancies ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... Carefully at thy journey's end. And be it clear That the spirit e'er at watch within Against all sin Upon salvation's path may wend Without a fear. 20 In snares of Hell that shall waylay, Dark and awful wiles among, Thee to molest, As thou advancest on thy way Fall not nor stray, But let thy beauty join ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... the band and brushed a stray ringlet of hair back under the furs. The thrill of his touch swept her with a sudden dizzy sense of excitement. She blushed and drew her head down into the collar of ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... while it lasted," the Major said; "but we were all snug enough except against a stray bullet, such as that which hit poor young Richards. He behaved very gallantly, and none of us knew he was hit till it ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... boast of the superior physical strength and courage possessed by all classes of European Spaniards over those born in Spanish America. He had provided himself with long slips of white paper, which were to be cut, and flung on the savannah, to indicate to those who might stray behind, the direction they ought to follow. The professor had even promised the friars of his order to fire off some rockets, to announce to the whole town of Caracas that we had succeeded in an enterprise which to him appeared of the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... should be and may be the cause of an accidental mixture. The manure comes from stables, where straw and the dust from many varieties are thrown together, and consequently living kernels may become mixed with the dung. Such stray grains will easily germinate in the fields, where they find more congenial conditions than does the improved variety. If winter arrives and kills quantities of this latter, the accidental local races will find ample space to develop. Once started, they will be able to multiply so rapidly, ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... grinny, she is, if ever was. A gad-about grinny. Mucked up my mushroom bed to rights, she did, and I 'aven't forgot it. Got the feet of a centipede, she 'as—ll over everything and neither with your leave nor by your leave. Like a stray 'en in a pea patch. Cluck! cluck! Trying to laugh it off. I laughed 'er off, I did. Dratted ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... on the horse before me, and, shooting down a couple of fellows who made a rush at my reins, I dashed out again. Stray shots were fired after us. But fortunately the Sepoys were all busy looting, most of them had laid down their muskets, and no one really took up the pursuit. I turned off from the parade ground, dashed down ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... antiquities was only equalled by the passion for 'restoring' them when collected. To disinter a torso here, and a head there, and then to make a sort of forced marriage of the fragments; to graft new feet upon old legs; to dovetail stray hands upon odd arms; to reset broken limbs, and patch and piece mutilations and deficiencies, constituted the delights and the triumphs of the amateurs. In accomplishing these exploits the services of foreign workmen were extensively ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... Sanderson stood up and looked around. There was no one in sight. He mounted Streak and began to ride toward the camp, for he felt that Carter's death had resulted from an accident. One explanation was that a stray bullet had killed Carter—in the excitement of a stampede the men were apt to ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... it's true, and, as old Hutter is pretty much flint, they struck out sparks once-and-a-while; but, on the whole, they might be said to live amicable like. When they did kindle, the listeners got some such insights into their past lives, as one gets into the darker parts of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots of the trees. But Judith I shall always esteem, as it's recommend enough to one woman to be the mother of such a creatur' as her ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... did not grow up without some errours, like the Tares: nor can the most refined pieces of any of his Antagonists boast of perfection. He that goes an unknown and beaten Track in a Dubious way, though he may have good directions, yet if in the journey he chance to stray, cannot well be blamed; they have perchance plowed with his Heifer, and been beholden to those Authorities (for their Exceptions) which he first gave ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... thing about this hoss," went on the Bishop—"he's always spoony on mules. He ain't happy if he can't hang over the front gate spoonin' with every stray mule that comes along. There's old long-eared Lize that he's dead stuck on—if he c'u'd write he'd be composin' a sonnet to her ears, like poets do to their lady love's—callin' them Star Pointers of a Greater Hope, I reck'n, an' all that. Why, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore



Words linked to "Stray" :   ramble, domesticated animal, err, roll, vagabond, tramp, tell, digress, cast, isolated, lost, locomote, sporadic, go, gad, rove, wander, gallivant, domestic animal, divagate, travel, move, roam, strayer, drift



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