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Waning   Listen
noun
Waning  n.  The act or process of waning, or decreasing. "This earthly moon, the Church, hath fulls and wanings, and sometimes her eclipses."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Waning" Quotes from Famous Books



... formidable slugger O'Leary, the home-run maker, how those Harmony rooters did scream. Some of the more irresponsible took to dancing like idiots, clasped in each other's arms. In fact, every known device for "rattling" a pitcher was resorted to, of course legitimately, in order to further their waning cause. ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... had left him, made what he could of Julia's sudden passion for the banks of the Serpentine, forsaken and foggy now, inasmuch as the afternoon had come on grey and the light was waning. She usually hated the Park and hated a closed carriage. He had a gruesome vision of her, shrunken into a corner of her brougham and veiled as if in consequence of tears, revolving round the solitude of the Drive. She ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... uttered, the dark eye of the speaker flashed and his lip quivered. The silver clock on the mantel, beside which the conspirators stood, struck the first quarter after two. The night was waning, but the festivity seemed rather to increase than diminish within the salons of the magnificent mansion, while the storm howled even more drearily without, and the rain, at intervals, in heavy blasts, beat even more fiercely ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... wrapped about the head of the swathed figure. I shall never forget the face of the woman as I saw it then. The uncertain flicker of the flames and sparks from our beacon (which, though itself invisible, darkened and lightened like sheet lightning), the dismal umbery glimmer of the waning moon, and the pale approach of day over the mountains to the east, made the face appear almost ghastly. But I was quite unprepared for the effect which the sight produced ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... deny it," said the Rev. Poltimore, "like the Belgians do with regrettable occurrences in the Congo. But I would go further than that. I would stimulate the waning enthusiasm for Christianity in this country by labelling it as the exclusive possession of a privileged few. If one could induce the Duchess of Pelm, for instance, to assert that the Kingdom of Heaven, as far as the British Isles are concerned, is strictly limited to herself, ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... whirl-pools. It is an object of terror to all creatures. Moved by the winds blowing from its shores and heaving high, agitated and disturbed, it seems to dance everywhere with uplifted hands represented by its surges. Full of swelling billows caused by the waxing and waning of the moon the parent of Vasudeva's great conch called Panchajanya, the great mine of gems, its waters were formerly disturbed in consequence of the agitation caused within them by the Lord Govinda of immeasurable prowess when he had assumed the form of a wild boar for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... of lost comeliness could be effected in a day or two? The utmost thing of practical value she could do was to buy a new, gay dressing-gown and a pair of high-heeled slippers. And Andrew, conscious of waning beauty, overlooked it in the light of her new and unsuspected coquetry. Where once the slattern lolled about the little salon, now moved an attractively garbed and tidy woman. Instead of the sloven, he found a housewife who made up in zeal for ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... forest of paper-trees spread knotty, alien branches, trying to catch the rays of the winter-waning sun. Whenever Wang thought of his grandfather's remarks about his ancestors, he always wondered, as a corollary, what those same ancestors would have thought about a forest growing up here, where no forest like this one had ever ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... his boasting, that the courage of Shoreditch was waning fast, and he at last proposed to his leader that they should return as soon as the rain abated. But the duke indignantly ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... playing to the rattle of the forks; And your after-opera dinner you may think superbly fine, But that can't compare, I'm certain, to the joy that's always mine When I reach my little dwelling—source, of all sincere delight— And I prowl around the pantry in the waning hours of night. ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest

... knives in their own primitive way when Hardy rode up the slope. As he came into camp the Chihuahuanos dropped their plates, reached for their guns, and stood in awkward postures of defence, some wagging their big heads in a braggartly defiance, others, their courage waning, grinning in the natural shame of the peasant. In Hardy they recognized a gentleman of categoria—and he never so much as glanced at them as he reined in his spirited horse. His eyes were fixed upon the lone white man, their commander, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... and finally the smiles and compliments of the King. Then going home in the carriage in the early morning, swathed in furs over her thin white silk, with the Baron, in his decorations worn diagonally over his white breast, and through the glass the waning moon, the silent ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... and set Shining foot on temple roof: Now again she flies aloof, Coasting mountain clouds and kiss't By the evening's amethyst. In wet wood and miry lane, Still we pant and pound in vain; Still with leaden foot we chase Waning pinion, fainting face; Still with grey hair we stumble on, Till, behold, the vision gone! Where hath fleeting beauty led? To the doorway of the dead. Life is over, life was gay: We have come ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Moon we should remember that its waxing and its waning are the signs of the truth that the culmination of all things is likewise the beginning ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... slopes and unbroken reaches of colossal promontory, the great mountains secede into supremacy through rosy depths of burning air, and the crescents of snow gleam over their dim summits as—if there could be Mourning, as once there was War, in Heaven—a line of waning moons might be set for lamps along the sides of some sepulchral chamber in ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... the winter was waning that Mr. Roger Dale occupied a different place in my thoughts from half-a-dozen others, although he had been polite to me from the time of my first ball at his mother's house. It would be difficult to say exactly what distinguished him ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... 130 The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow Frowned o'er the silver sea. Far, far below the chariot's stormy path, Calm as a slumbering babe, Tremendous ocean lay. 135 Its broad and silent mirror gave to view The pale and waning stars, The chariot's fiery track, And the grey light of morn Tingeing those fleecy clouds 140 That cradled in their folds the infant dawn. The chariot seemed to fly Through the abyss of an immense concave, Radiant with million ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... at the window looking out at the waning light of the November afternoon. She was handsomely dressed in dark-green velvet, with a heavy old-fashioned gold chain round her neck; every now and then she looked at her watch, and a frown passed over her brow. The old man was bending over ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... as I was, I was not gloomy. We entered the city by the Flaminian Gate, of course, and, in the waning light, walked boldly the whole length of the Via Lata, diagonally across from the Forum of Trajan, under his Triumphal Arch, through the Forum of Augustus, and across, the Forum of Nerva past the Temple of Minerva and so to the Subura. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... explained Fabian's words at the bridge of Salto de Agua, Don Estevan lost his air of contempt. A sudden presentiment seemed to warn him that his fortunes were waning, and he cast around him an anxious glance. The high rocks, which on one side shut in the valley, might protect him from the fire of his enemies; a short space only separated him from their foot, and prudence counselled him to fly there, but ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... already passed since Loveday had been the excitement of society, and that this conversation between the eccentric Mr. Constantine and the charming Miss Le Pettit was almost the last flickering of interest in her fate. The life of one moon had been enough to see the waxing and waning of what Mr. Constantine had surprisingly called ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse

... boyhood, or youth, and mean nothing at all, a mere harvest of barren blossom without fragrance or fruit. Or, again, the concern about letters may come suddenly, when a youth that cared for none of those things is waning, it may come when a man suddenly finds that he has something which he really must tell. Then he probably fumbles about for a style, and his first fresh impulses are more or less marred by his inexperience of an art ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang

... the same time parliamentary majorities, like the government, fall into ever greater dependence on the powers of high finance." (Possibly events of the past year or two mark the beginning of the waning of the powers of monopolists, and of the partial transfer of those powers to a capitalistic middle class; but exploitation of the working class continues under such new masters no ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... day waxed—and waned. For the waning life, there was no interval of waxing. Slowly, steadily, by infinitesimal degrees, Leo Frazer was sinking down into the Valley of the Shadow. Once the head surgeon had stepped behind the screens and bent over the bed. Only Ethel had seen the brief contraction of his brows; but no one ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... read the brief message in the waning light of the winter day. Then she swayed and ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... ink on the check for it scarce dry. He was going on to say that he had the race for the crossing as good as won and had just waved mockingly at the engineer of the defeated train who was pretending to feel indifferent about it—but I hung up on him. My strength was waning. Was he here this minute I make no doubt I'd go to the mat with him, unequal as we are in prowess.' He dribbled off into vicious mutterings of what he'd say to the boy if he was to come ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... the wind shifted more to the westward, and I thought a change was coming. It was very dark overhead until the waning moon rose. ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler

... Enough that in those Baltic regions, there are for the time (Year 600, and till long after Charlemagne is out) Sclaves in place of Suevi or of Holstein Saxons and Angli; that it is now shaggy Wends who have the task of taming the jungles, and keeping down the otters and wolves. Wends latterly in a waning condition, much beaten upon by Charlemagne and others; but never yet beaten out. And so it has to last, century after century; Wends, wolves, wild swine, all alike dumb to us. Dumb, or sounding only one huge unutterable message (seemingly of tragic import), like the voice of their old Forests, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... and needed frequent halts and long rests. Food he could not eat; and tea, water, and even brandy he rejected. Again and again the old philosopher, enfeebled by excessive exertion and illness, would collapse in a heap on the ground, an almost comical picture of despair, while we stood and waited the waning of the day, and peered forward in vain for any sign of an open country. At every brook we encountered, we suggested a halt for the night, while it was still light enough to select a camping-place, but the plucky old man wouldn't hear of it: the trail might ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... rested on her lamp, and a smile lit up the dark countenance of the prisoner. She threw herself on her bed: slowly the hours rolled—midnight came at last. She rose and listened—no stir, no sound of life reached her: she glanced at her lamp, now dim—the light was waning, and softly stepping across the room, she drew from a basket several bundles of paper. These she tore in pieces, and placing them beside the door, drew the lamp near. Inez carefully twisted up her long black hair, and placed on her head a broad sombrero, ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... she stirred her head in the slightest possible way, so that a single tress of silken hair slipped from its companions, and lay across her face. It was a faint sign that the trance was waning; the slight pressure disturbed her nerves, and her lips trembled once or twice, as if to relieve themselves of the soft annoyance. Hope watched her in a vague, distant way, took note of the minutest ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... a root nak, expressive of perishing or destruction. We have it in nak, night; Latin nox, Greek nux, meaning originally the waning, the disappearing, the death of day. We have the same root in composition, as, for instance, jva-nak, life-destroying; and by means of suffixes Greek has formed from it nek-ros, adead body, nek-us, dead, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... that laid thee moons ago, who knows In what Dead Yesterday her shades repose; To some election turn thy waning span And rain thy rottenness on ...
— Reginald • Saki

... the waning light warned them that they were still upon the earth, they might never have tired of looking into one another's eyes, and telling each to each the experiences of that lifetime they had lived since their separation, ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... commanders turned toward one another. Warren was about to go back to his ship and give the final orders for bringing the fleet into action at once; for the lengthening shadows gave warning that the day was waning, and that it was time for plan and speech to ripen into action. With a word of parting, they clasped hands briefly, and the Commodore had already turned to enter his boat, when, with his face toward the city, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... light shot upwards, and the log was reduced to a mass of glowing ashes and half-burnt embers. At this critical moment the stranger deliberately approached the hearth. He threw a whole flagon of liquor wilfully upon the waning faggots, and in a moment fiz, splutter, and smoke proclaimed that the warfare of the elements, like many others, had ended in the destruction of both the contending belligerents. The yule-log was extinguished. There was a general rush, and a consternation of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... a report like a revolver shot. But it didn't frighten me now. I knew it meant a collapsed tyre, not a concealed murderer; but there couldn't have been a much worse place for "jacking up." Nevertheless, it's an ill tyre that blows up for its own good alone, and the forty minutes out of a waning afternoon made the chauffeur's cold hands hot and ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... described Mylapore as being an Indian city surrounded by its own mud wall. Mylapore was thus in effect the Black Town of San Thome; but in later days the two towns were combined. When the English came to Fort St. George, the power of the Portuguese was already waning; and the development of the influence of the English at Madras meant a further lessening of the influence of the Portuguese at San Thome; and it was a natural consequence that San Thome, including Mylapore, became a prey ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... and told them a little of its contents. I shall require a few days more at Bangweolo than I at first intended. The moon being in its last stage of waning I cannot observe till it is of ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... watches, and put them back again without remark to resume the interrupted contemplation of Fifth Avenue in the waning light of a drab, drizzly day. A man in a shiny "slicker" was pushing a sweep and shovel in the centre of the thoroughfare. They wondered how long it would be ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... Peristyle now burning almost alone. They made the circuit slowly, Sommers leading his frightened animal among the refuse of the grounds. Mrs. Preston walked tranquilly by his side, her face still illuminated by the fading glow. The prairie lay in gloomy vastness, lighted but a little way by the waning fire. Along the avenue forms of men and women—mere mites—were running to and fro. The figures were those of gnomes toiling under a gloomy, uncertain firmament, or of animals furtively peeping out of the gloom of dusk in a mountain valley. Helpless shapes doomed to wander ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... reached England late. By the time that the impulse was at its height with Spenser and Shakespeare, it had died out in Italy, and in France to which in its turn Italy had passed the torch, it was already a waning fire. When it came to England it came in a special form shaped by political and social conditions, and by the accidents of temperament and inclination in the men who began the movement. But the essence of the inspiration remained ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... now rapidly waning away, and already the cold damp air of an autumnal morning was beginning to make itself felt. More than half an hour had elapsed since the departure of Ponteac and his companion, and yet Oucanasta ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe

... in the canvas and peered out into the sunlight of the waning day. The stranger had come up beside Mrs. Braddock, talking to her as they crossed the lot in the direction of the street. She apparently paid no heed to his remarks. Braddock made no effort to keep up with them, but loafed behind, simulating interest in ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... Volodarsky, shouting harshly that the Tsay-ee-kah, on the eve of the Congress, had no right to assume the functions of the Congress. The Tsay-ee-kah was practically dead, he said, and the resolution was simply a trick to bolster up its waning power.... ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... twig cracked again. This time he could see plainly a man come from behind a tree and stand in the outskirts of the wood. For a minute they stood looking at each other. The man, so far as he could discern in the waning light, wore the native skin coat and cap, and seemed to hold in his hands ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston

... that I actually peeped over her shoulder. With mingled surprise and dismay I found that the dim page over which she bent was that of an old account-book. Ancient household records, in rusty ink, held up to the glimpses of the waning moon, which shone through the parting in the curtains, their entries of shillings and pence!—Of pounds there was not one. No doubt pounds and farthings are much the same in the world of thought—the true spirit-world; ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... What flute shrills out as moonlight strikes the floor? . . What violin so faintly cries Seeing how strangely in the moon he lies? . . . The room grows dark once more, The crack of white light narrows around the door, And all is silent, except a slow complaining Of flutes and violins, like music waning. ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken

... with the scent of blossoms, descended. Sanine sat at a table near the window, striving to read in the waning light a favourite tale of his. It described the lonely, tragic death of an old bishop, who, clad in his sacerdotal vestments and holding a jewelled cross, expired amid the ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... the recluse more deeply than I acknowledged to myself, I found my steps insensibly leading me homeward by the more circuitous road which wound first by the holy well. I did not resist the impulse, but walked musingly onward by the waning twilight, for the day was now over, until I came to the well. As I emerged from the wood, I started involuntarily and drew back. A figure, robed from head to foot in a long sable robe, sat upon the rude seat beside the well; sat so still, so motionless, that coming upon it abruptly in ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... remains of the old conflict; and wore away such legendary traces of it as the neighbouring people carried in their minds, until they dwindled into old wives' tales, dimly remembered round the winter fire, and waning every year. Where the wild flowers and berries had so long remained upon the stem untouched, gardens arose, and houses were built, and children played at battles on the turf. The wounded trees had long ago made Christmas logs, and blazed and roared away. The deep green patches were no greener ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)—a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or in one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to it, but, long as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning life, and patient as he seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that these stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men and affairs, were troublesome accidents that did not really belong to him. He possibly ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... cleared space in front of the wall several soldiers were standing and near them were two hussars. The hussars rode forward, as if they would prevent the flight of the horse, but John urged on his waning spirit and he dashed over the moat and through the wall into the inner precincts of the castle yard, where the animal stopped dead beat ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... reproof the Colonel walked out, leaving Betty completely bewildered. The words "too late," "never forgive," and "a great pity" rang through her head. What did he mean? She tore the letter open with trembling hands and holding it up to the now fast-waning ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... content with so very little?" exclaimed the professor, hardly as precise of speech as under ordinary conditions. "No, no, my lads! Yonder lies the greatest discovery of the nineteenth century, and we are—Get a hustle on, boys! The day is waning, and with so much to see, to study, ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... an assembly. Nor was Wolsey more fortunate in another plan for bringing about the same end by inducing Clement to delegate to him his full powers westward of the Alps. Henry's trust in him was fast waning before these failures and the steady pressure of his rivals at court, and the coldness of the king on his return in September was an omen of his minister's fall. Henry was in fact resolved to take ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... to see beautiful things in their due order and rank, when he comes toward the end of his discipline, will suddenly catch sight of a wondrous thing, beautiful with the absolute Beauty ... he will see a Beauty eternal, not growing or decaying, not waxing or waning, nor will it be fair here and foul there ... as if fair to some and foul to others ... but Beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting; which lending of its virtue to all beautiful things that we see born to decay, itself suffers neither increase ...
— Progress and History • Various

... the King?" I suggested, though with waning hope. "Or get him on the telephone. Tell him how much the pictures would do to acquaint the American public with the attractions of his country; explain to him that they would bring here hundreds of visitors who otherwise would never know ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... she prayed, with her face upturned to the waning stars, "make me worthy of his love. Make me worthy to be ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... Who is not strangely moved by that profound and brooding peace into which Nature then gathers up the multitudinous strivings, the myriad activities of her life? Who does not love to lie, in those slow-waning days upon the sands which hold within their golden cup the murmuring and dreaming sea? The very amplitude of the natural world, its far-flung grace and loveliness, spread out in rolling moor and winding stream and stately forest marching up the mountain-side, subdues and ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... was unlighted save by the waning sun, and I could see but little of its long vista, without neglecting a very imperious appetite. The lattice was covered, I thought, with vine-leaves, and I felt sure, too, that some orange boughs, reaching across the patio wall, mingled with the foliage above my head. But ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... for four days and nights. We kept going as hard as our waning strength would permit and we were cautious in the extreme. Even at that ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... in the waning afternoon of life, when her smooth brown hair was as yet unstreaked with grey and her cheeks had still a splash of colour in them, she fell ill of some mysterious malady—mysterious, at least, to the sympathetic villagers—and one dreary day in the ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce

... fitness of things, related a somber episode of those dark and bitter days, in which he had acted a conspicuous part and always formed a central figure. Nor was the Doctor happier in his selection, when he told the old, ever new and curious story of the waning of a woman's love, seeking strange, new channels, only to return to its legitimate source after days of fierce unrest. It was one of the many little human documents which had been unfolded to him during his long career as a physician. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... Caesar, like Cicero, had believed that the war had ended at Pharsalia. He found that the heads of the Hydra had sprouted again, and were vomiting the old fire and fury. Little interest could it give Caesar to match his waning years against the blinded hatred of his countrymen. Ended the strife must be, however, before order could be restored in Italy, and wretched men take up again the quiet round of industry. Heavy work had to be done in Rome. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... how or what they eat; of necessity they abandon the refinements of civilisation as needless and cumbrous. To-day, however, partly to protract his stay and so give Spurling time, partly to assert his waning gentility, the memory of which in its heyday Strangeways shared, he attempted to be lavish, to set a table, and to entertain. For cloth he spread a dress-length of gaudy muslin, such as Indians purchase for their squaws. He opened some ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... my eyes reverted to that exquisite face. She sat silent, her eyes fixed on the waning flecks of ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... waning interest for civilian and soldier alike. The French freight cars are about half the size of our American cars. The box cars were filled with horses and men. The horses were led up a gangplank to the door ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West

... cold got to the very heart of him. His muscles grew numb, he felt his strength waning, and he had to bring the whole force of his will to bear to keep from turning ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... First Ancestor, because the conception of a Creator occurs where ancestor-worship does not occur; and again, because, supposing that the idea of a Creator came first, and that ancestor-worship later grew more popular, the popular idea of Ancestor might be transferred to the waning idea of Creator. The Creator might be recognised as the ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... but the hopes of Holland fell with her admiral, Tromp, who received a mortal wound at a moment when he had succeeded in forcing the English line; and the skill and energy of his successor, De Ruyter, struggled in vain to restore her waning fortunes. She was saved by the expulsion of the Long Parliament, which had persisted in its demand for a political union of the two countries; and the new policy of Cromwell was seen in the conclusion of peace. The peace indeed was dearly bought. Not only ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... evidences. Where Xenophon and Herodotus absolutely differ he tells what each asserts. With consummate skill also he arranges his recital like a series of dissolving views, showing how epochs overlap, and how as Babylon is fading Assyria is rising, and as the latter in turn is waning Media is looming into sight. We are, in this third instalment of Maspero's monumental work, brought to understand how the decline of one mighty Asiatic empire after another, culminating in the overthrow of the Persian dominion by ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... which ensued, caused by the numerous animals assembled, may be imagined. A perfect calm then succeeded the bustle: the inhabitants retired to their tents—the travellers, enveloped in their cloaks, lying down with their camels by the side of the waning fires; the cattle, closely packed together, remained immovable till morning,—and, notwithstanding the number collected, not a sound was heard ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... know where the captain is to-night!" again he muttered as his weary eyes gazed over the jagged hillside below him. The Indian fires were waning again and the gleams of light on rock and tree were growing fainter and fainter. The sounds of savage revelry, too, were more subdued, though a hoarse, monotonous chant came up from below. As has been said, Pike's watch-tower and fortress was ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King

... the hills was waning when a landslide was started by a single sentence from Lou-Jane. She had ridden again with Jim to Fort Ryan. Her horse had cleared a jump that his had shied at. Mrs. Waller had said to her across the table, half in fun and meaning ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... solitary sail of any description had come within sight of the islands during the whole of those twelve months. It was an astounding, incomprehensible fact; I had never really anticipated such a possibility. With the passage of each day, each week, each month, I had said to myself—with gradually waning assurance certainly—"It cannot be long now before a craft of some sort comes along to take us off," until the moment when it suddenly dawned upon me that if we were ever to escape, it must be through our own efforts—my own especially. This conviction now came upon me ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... make complaint, But pray'd each day might bring A beauty to her waning eyes— The ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... Here was the dove which sobbed on Virginia's shoulder, when during the night she sought in vain to calm the fires of her love in the spring underneath a cocoanut-palm. And here too was the dove to which the heavy-hearted maiden at the waning of summer, in the orchard among the ripening peaches, confides passionate messages that it may bear them along in its flight ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... sieges,) formed the main artillery of forts. These orders given, he planted Sexwolf and most of his band to keep watch round the trenches; and shading his eye with his hand, and looking towards the moon, all waning and dimmed in the watchfires, he said, calmly, "Now patience fights for us. Ere the moon reaches yon hill-top, the troops of Aber and Caer-hen will be on the slopes of Penmaen, and cut off the retreat of the Walloons. Advance my flag to the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in resources of all kinds, she succeeded immediately, and gained for her nephew the cardinal's hat. In 1717 was born to her the afterward famous d'Alembert, whom she left upon the steps of the church Saint-Jean-le-Rond; afterward, when he had become eminent and her power was waning, she unsuccessfully used every means at her command to gain his favor and recognition; the father of that child was ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... bi-sexual. But when the two great lights of heaven, the Sun and the Moon, were associated with each other, as was often and naturally the ease, the Sun was considered to be more especially a personification of the Male Principle, and the waxing and waning moon, as represented by the Crescent, a personification of the Female Principle. Hence the worship of the God associated with the radiate sun, as of that of the Goddess associated with the crescent moon and called the Sun-God's ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons

... her neighbour's house in the light of the waning day - A shower of rice on the steps, and the shreds of a bride's bouquet. And then she drew the shade, to shut out the growing gloom, But she shut it into her heart instead. (Was that a voice ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... cities which have come into being and perished during this period? And has not every place had endless forms of government, and been sometimes rising, and at other times falling, and again improving or waning?' ...
— Cratylus • Plato

... unjust to Halidome, forgetting how impossible it was for him to believe that a woman could not stand him. He reached his rooms, and, the more freely to enjoy the clear lamplight, the soft, gusty breeze, and waning turmoil of the streets, waited ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... course a natural sequence that the decadence of an entire country must follow the waning powers of the individual citizens. Although that seems very much to hint, it cannot be too much when we consider even briefly the results that have already come to us through this very misuse of our own ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... Flashing and waning, the lights upon the screen formed fleeting, shifting, nebulous images of a relay station upon distant Earth; but the utmost power of the transmitting fields could neither steady the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... of it, remained a secret with the two men. When Mr. Carr accepted the hospitality of the old cabin again, it was understood that he had sacrificed the new house and its furniture to some of the more pressing debts of the mine, and the act went far to restore his waning popularity. But a more genuine feeling of relief was experienced by Devil's Ford when it was rumored that Fairfax Munroe had asked for the hand of Jessie Carr, and that some promise contingent upon the equitable adjustment ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... every evening Aemmarik's fair hand Must quench the waning light; Then over all the weary, waiting land ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... A waning moon broke, sickly pale, Through the muddy fog's disguising; And over the breadth of the ghastly vale The battle-wake like a steamer's trail, And a heaving as of waves in a gale, Rising and ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn

... more, and some lay down to snatch a few hours' rest, while others sat together talking and asking one another questions about the attack they foresaw would most probably take place that day, for the night was waning, and they knew that before long the dawn would be showing in the east, and that it would be morn; while, in spite of plenty of sturdy courage and indifference to danger, there were men there who could not refrain from asking themselves whether ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... recompense, love her guerdon. And never in camp, or in cave, or in home, Rose voice of mother or mate complaining. And never the foot of her sought to roam, Till love in the heart of the man seemed waning. ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the "Wanderer" chiefly because it is the only one of our Butterflies that migrates like the birds. In the late summer it gathers in great swarms when the bright days are waning, and flies away to warmer lands. I have often seen it going, yet I do not remember that I ever saw it come back in the springtime; but it comes, though not in great flocks ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... rills Were torrents peopled with sodden forms; The sky grew black with the threat of storms, And rocks leaped out and they bruised my feet, And faint I grew in the fever heat. (But ever on led the path that lay As grey as dust in the waning day.) My back was bent, and my heart was sore, And the cloak of pride that I grandly wore Was rent and patched and not fair to see— Ambition, talent, seemed naught to me.... But I struggled on 'till I reached the top, FOR ONLY THEN DID I ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster

... hasten over this history of disappointments and separation. I might tell of waxings and waning of love between us, but the whole was waning. Sometimes she would do things for me, make me a tie or a pair of slippers, and fill me with none the less gratitude because the things were absurd. She ran our home and our one servant with a hard, bright efficiency. She was ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... a vetturino, who was to leave next morning, we made a contract with him for the remainder of the journey, for the rain, which fell in torrents, forbade all thought of pedestrianism. At five o'clock we rattled out of the gate, and drove by the waning moon and morning starlight, down the vale of the Clitumnus. As the dawn stole on, I watched eagerly the features of the scene. Instead of a narrow glen, as my fancy had pictured, we were in a valley, several miles ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... clime, In manhood's ripening sense and nature's prime. Oh! had the fiend been vanquished ere he came, The gen'rous youth had spread my country's fame. Had known that honour dwells among the brave, And England had not prov'd the stranger's grave: Then, ere his waning sand of life had run, Poor ABBA THULE might hare seen his son! [A] [Footnote A: Lee Boo, second son of the King of the Pelew Islands, was brought to England by Capt. Wilson, and died of the Small-pox at Rotherhithe, ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield

... and Sieyes among them, who proposed that they should adjourn to Paris. But a home was found in the empty Tennis Court hard by. There, with a view to baffle dangerous designs, and also to retrieve his own waning influence, Mounier assumed the lead. He moved that they should bind themselves by oath never to separate until they had given a Constitution to France; and all the deputies immediately swore it, save one, who added "Dissentient" to his name, and who was hustled out by a backdoor, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... us, for the spring-tides at this season reach their height a little after night-fall, and it is on an already slackening flood that we cast off our moorings and head up the river with our backs to the waning sunset. Since we tow a dinghy astern and are ourselves towed by the silent yachtsman, you may call it a procession. She has been stripped, during the last two days, of sails, rigging, and all spars but the mainmast. Now we bring her alongside the town quay and beneath the shears—the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... that, one afternoon, while the spring of the year was young and new she met all in her own way his frankest betrayal of these alarms. He had gone in late to see her, but evening hadn't settled and she was presented to him in that long fresh light of waning April days which affects us often with a sadness sharper than the greyest hours of autumn. The week had been warm, the spring was supposed to have begun early, and May Bartram sat, for the first time in the year, without ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James

... forests with prophetic fire. And what could painter's skill compared to these? What palette ever held the flaming tints That on these leafy hieroglyphs foretell How set the ebbing currents of the year? What poet's page was ever like to this, Or told the lesson of life's waning days More forcibly, with more of natural truth, Than yon red maples, or these poplars, white As the pale shroud that wraps some human corse? And then, again, the spirit of a King, Clothed with that majesty most monarchs lack, ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster

... dwindle and the shadows to encroach with a dominion of somberness over the room. It seemed to the figure in the bed as he struggled against rising tides of torpor and exhaustion that his own resolution was waning with the firelight and that the murk of death approached ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... With the waning of Sir Kenelm Digby's philosophic reputation his name has not become obscure. It stands, vaguely perhaps, but permanently, for something versatile and brilliant and romantic. He remains a perpetual type ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... Isabella and Mortimer to restore the waning fortunes of England at home and abroad. We shall see that it was only by an almost complete surrender that they procured peace with France and a partial restoration of Gascony. In Scotland they were ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... signifying the number of years which will elapse before marriage. All these superstitions are suggestive of that which Tylor calls 'one of the most instructive astrological doctrines'—namely, that of the 'sympathy of growing and declining nature with the waxing and waning moon.' Tylor says that a classical precept was to set eggs under the hen at new moon, and that a Lithuanian precept was to wean boys on a waxing and girls on a waning moon—in order to make the boys strong and the girls delicate. ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... was waning when he gazed again into the deep, sombrous rift of Greenstream: from where Gordon stood, on the heights, in the flooding sun, it appeared to be already evening below. As he descended the mountainside the cool shadows rose about him, enveloping him in ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... something that had developed in connection with it. He asked inane questions, complimented Dick on his looks, began to tease him about some girl. And poor Dick—his nervousness, his despair almost, the sense of the waning of his opportunity! It was cruel. He was becoming more and more restless, looking about more and more wearily and anxiously and wishing to go or for us to go. He was horribly unhappy. Finally, after ten or fifteen minutes had gone and various ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... Windham, who had lain awake since midnight, pondered upon this and other things. Events had succeeded each other with such riotous activity of late that life seemed more like a dream than a reality. His turbulent months at the mines, his high preliminary hopes of fortune, their gradual waning to a slow despair; the advent of James Burthen and his daughter; then love, his partner's murder and the girl's abduction; his pursuit and illness. Alice's rescue and their marriage; his return ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... paling, the night was waning, the door of safety was slowly, imperceptibly closing—soon, soon the decision of Pollux, if made, would be made too late! When once the course of duty is clear to the mind, perilous is every minute of delay: while we hesitate, the enemy ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... of autumn, which is the sweetest season in Japan. A warm bright sun had been shining on the sumptuous colours of the waning year, on the brilliant reds and yellows which clothed the neighbouring hills, on the broad brown plain with its tesselated design of bare rice-fields, on the brown villas and cottages huddled in their fences of ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... gained everything by the revolution of July, but they themselves nothing. Louis Philippe did his best to gratify and amuse the people by sending for the remains of Napoleon, and giving him a magnificent funeral and splendid monument among his old soldiers—the Invalides; but his popularity was waning. In 1842 his eldest son, the Duke of Orleans, a favourite with the people, was killed by a fall from his carriage, and this was another shock to his throne. Two young grandsons were left; and the king had also several sons, one of whom, the Duke of Montpensier, he gave in marriage to ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... waning daylight, she cantered over the scented grass without a thought of the danger which Wanaha had hinted to her. She was defenceless, unarmed, yet utterly fearless. Her spirit was of the plains, fresh, bright, strong. Life to her was as the rosy light of dawn, full of promise and hope. ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... he sat wondering on the edge of his cot—the light from a waning moon streaking across the cabin floor. He tried to go to sleep, in the hope that his dream might continue, but he dreamed of horses breaking through the ice. He wakened again at the first glimmer of dawn—dressed and went out in the crisp air for ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... elapsed, and a waning moon was clearing the topmost crags of Pacific Peak when he came out on the high embankment opposite the Rosemary, having traversed the entire length of the lateral loop and inspected the trestle at the gulch head by the light of ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... came open suddenly, and Heemskirk staggered out. His hair was rumpled, his eyes bloodshot, his unshaven face looked very dark. He gazed wildly about, saw his cap on a table, snatched it up, and made for the stairs quietly, but with a strange, tottering gait, like the last effort of waning strength. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... people were crowded around the station when the boys got there, as the summer season was fast waning, so that Bert and Freddie had hard work to get a place near the platform for ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... suppressed, and, outside the Presidency towns, the actual work done has been badly performed. This is of less moment, perhaps—it only sends up the local death-rates—than the fact that the public interest in municipal elections, never very strong, has waned, and is waning, in spite of careful nursing on ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... nourishment; and she would grow better and better and better, until for a few days she was splendidly well. When well, she was always merriest out in the moonlight; but even when near her worst, she seemed better when, in warm summer nights, they carried her cradle out into the light of the waning moon. Then in her sleep she would smile the ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... what bitter toil an' straining— But truce with peevish, poor complaining! Is fortune's fickle Luna waning? E'en let her gang! Beneath what light she has remaining, Let's sing ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... at heart. She felt an anger which she did not wish to show; for, if by any manifestations of temper or resentment she lessened or broke the waning thread of attachment which bound him to her daughter, she felt she should never forgive herself. She kept inwardly saying, "Patience, patience! he may be true and love her yet;" but her indignant convictions ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... by great throngs who were pouring into the place to see Lazarus, and to renew their allegiance to the Master whom they had so basely forsaken. Time-servers ever, the latest miracles had revived their fading interest and waning faith, and they flocked around the Master as noisy, enthusiastic and as full of fulsome praise as ever. And yesterday they had damned Him, and tomorrow they would cry "Crucify Him!" For such is the nature of the multitude ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... declines or is diverted into wrong channels; thereupon the physical forms, social, industrial, political, slip a degree or two lower out of sympathy with the failing energy, and these in their turn exert a degrading influence on the waning spiritual force, which declines still further only to be pulled lower still by the material agencies which continue their progressive declension. Theories, no matter how high-minded and altruistic, cannot ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... is that in many senses we are still in mid-Renaissance. The evolution has not been completed. The new life is our own and is progressive. As in the transformation scene of some pantomime, so here the waning and the waxing shapes are mingled; the new forms, at first shadowy and filmy, gain upon the old; and now both blend; and now the old scene fades into the background; still, who shall say whether the new scene be finally ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... one night in the waning light by the Yukon's oily flow, I smoked and sat as I marvelled at the sky's port-winey glow; Till it paled away to an absinthe gray, and the river seemed to shrink, All wobbly flakes and wriggling ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... of mingled joy and sorrow they passed along through the familiar jungle, and as the afternoon was waning there came faintly to the ears of the ape-man the murmuring cadence ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... man looked down on them from the summit of the knoll, which he had climbed on its westward side; a tradesman to all appearance, clad in a dusty, ill-fitting suit. So far as they could judge—for he stood with the waning light at his back—he was not ill-featured; but, by his manner of mopping his brow, he was most ungracefully hot, and Molly declared ever afterwards that his thick worsted stockings, seen against the ball of the sun, gave his calves a hideous ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... saw that the sword in the hand of his enemy was broken and worn with the guard that the Sword of Light had put against it. And now he made a strong attack. As the light was leaving the sky and as the darkness was coming down he saw that the strength was waning in the King of the Land of Mist. The sword in his hand was more worn and more broken. At last the blade was only a span from the hilt. As he drew back to the gate of the fourth courtyard the King of Ireland's Son ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... are sweetly dawning, Oh, the glory looms in sight! For the cloudy day is waning, And the ev'ning shall ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole

... report which had circulated of a nephew of old Gradelle being transported to Cayenne for murdering six gendarmes at a barricade. She had even seen this nephew on one occasion in the Rue Pirouette. The pretended cousin was undoubtedly the same man. Then she began to bemoan her waning powers. Her memory was quite going, she said; she would soon be unable to remember anything. And she bewailed her perishing memory as bitterly as any learned man might bewail the loss of his notes representing the work of a life-time, on seeing ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... quite gone from the ravines, but still lingered on the snow-powdered peaks above, when the carriage climbed the last steep zigzag and drew up before the "Hut," whose upper windows glinted with the waning light. Rose looked about her and drew a long breath ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... period the warm moist climate of most of the Carboniferous period was replaced by severe conditions, culminating in an Ice Age which spread from the Southern Hemisphere throughout the world. With this was associated a waning of the Carboniferous flora, and the appearance of a new one, consisting of ferns, conifers, ginkgos, and cycads, which persisted until near the end of the Mesozoic era. The Permian Ice Age lasted for millions of years, and was most severe in the Far South. ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson



Words linked to "Waning" :   drop-off, decrease, waxing, lessening



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