Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Cynosure   Listen
Cynosure

noun
1.
Something that provides guidance (as Polaris guides mariners).
2.
Something that strongly attracts attention and admiration.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Cynosure" Quotes from Famous Books



... guests was a young officer attached to the Sanitary Commission. He was seated near Mrs. Lincoln, and, by way of pleasantry, remarked: "Mrs. Lincoln, you should have seen the President the other day, on his triumphal entry into Richmond. He was the cynosure of all eyes. The ladies kissed their hands to him, and greeted him with the waving of handkerchiefs. He is quite a hero when surrounded by ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... when a joke was more and better than itself. A comely young wife, the "cynosure" of her circle, was in bed, apparently dying from swelling and inflammation of the throat, an inaccessible abscess stopping the way; she could swallow nothing; everything had been tried. Her friends were ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... he had seen this beautiful young person in all the eclat, pomp, and circumstance of her station, as the heiress of the opulent Templeton,—the first time he had seen her the cynosure of crowds, who, had her features been homely, would have admired the charms of her fortune in her face. And now, as radiant with youth, and the flush of excitement on her soft cheek, she met his eye, he said to himself: "And could ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... all their charms and winning qualities, but also with something grander and supreme; and from the moment her fair cheek was sealed by the gracious approbation of majesty, all the critics of the court at once recognized her as the cynosure ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... Albert left the yacht. He had exchanged his bedraggled yachting-suit for a neat gray one, and with a small satchel, his sketch-book, and a box of choice Havanas for Uncle Terry, he rowed ashore. For three hours the "Gypsy" had been the cynosure of all the Cape eyes, old or young, for a handsome two-hundred-ton yacht was a novelty in their little harbor. When she steamed slowly out, with Frank and his companions, in natty white duck suits, grouped on her stern, she was a pretty sight, and as she cleared the narrow entrance, the crew ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... figure of the growing capital of St. Louis, the new Governor was also the central figure of all social activities, the cynosure of all eyes. But the laughing belles of St. Louis at length sighed and gave him up—they loved him as Governor, since they might not as man. Wise, firm, deliberate, kind, sad—he was an old man now, though still young ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... a while since, Victorine, how should she not like his society? I can fancy no man more fit to be the cynosure of a woman's eye than Larochejaquelin. He has that beauty which women love to look on: the bold bright eye, the open forehead, the frank, easy smile, and his face is only a faithful index to his heart; he is as frank as brave, and yet as ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... became the centre of attraction, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr. Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of affectionate interest, as if ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... were papered, the pulpit platform was covered with a gay carpet, two shining brass chandeliers were suspended from the ceiling, the windows were frosted glass with a row of lurid blue and red panes around each, and behind the minister was the centre of attraction and cynosure of all eyes, ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... all seamen,—as constant in all change as its older sister has been fickle, and the second cynosure of all lovers upon the waves, and of all girls left behind them." "Amen," we cried, and then we sat in silence till the clock struck ten; then shook each other gravely by the hand, and left the South ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... through my wardrobe making incredible additions and alterations, informing me as she did so that I would be the cynosure of many searching eyes when I appeared in the drawing-rooms which she frequented. I also received many graceful hints as to what was expected of me in conversation and demeanour, and I did not need any assistance whatever to realize that I ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... superbly held and ablaze with jewels, she was a vision of fire. She looked like a single flame that had become detached from some great conflagration and was swaying and dancing through the world alone. She shone and sparkled and flickered, and was the cynosure of all eyes. Mrs. Ozanne had never been so proud of her—and so perturbed. For where had that new diamond spray of maidenhair fern come from, that shone so gloriously against the glossy bands and curls of dark hair; ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... men, women, and children crowded to the vicinity of the globe, and that our friends were the cynosure of thousands of wondering eyes will be readily believed. And the glistening sphere that gently oscillated in the breeze above the city excited the unbounded astonishment and praise of all. Newspaper ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... had done it all. She walked up the middle aisle with as much self-possession as though the chancel had belonged to her family for years; and the respectable pew-opener absolutely deserted two or three old ladies whom she was attending, to show Mrs Greenow into her seat. When seated, she was the cynosure of all eyes. Kate Vavasor became immediately aware that a great sensation had been occasioned by their entrance, and equally aware that none of it was due to her. I regret to say that this feeling continued to show itself throughout the whole service. How ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... the cynosure of all eyes. Floating to the strains of the music she presented a picture of bright girlish innocence that ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... It was a hard word, but Lesbia felt it was true. She, the reigning beauty, the cynosure of every eye, had made no conquest worth talking ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... pink of the Legitimates— Had, when, with many a pious prayer, he Bequeathed unto the Virgin Mary His marriage deeds, and cordon bleu, Bequeathed to her his State Wig too— (An offering which, at Court, 'tis thought, The Virgin values as she ought)— That Wig, the wonder of all eyes, The Cynosure of Gallia's skies, To watch and tend whose curls adored, Re-build its towering roof, when flat, And round its rumpled base, a Board Of sixty barbers daily sat, With Subs, on State-Days, to assist, Well pensioned from the Civil List:— That wondrous Wig, arrayed in which, And formed alike to awe or ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... him the credit of intuition. His frankness would have led him to disabuse every inquirer of such prejudice; but his indolent humor forbade all farther agitation of a topic whose interest to himself had long ceased. It thus happened that he found himself the cynosure of the political eyes; and the cases were not few in which attempt was made to engage his services at the Prefecture. One of the most remarkable instances was that of the murder of a young girl ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... before the breaking out of the great Indian war on the central plains, the whole tribe of Kiowas, led by him, assembled at Fort Larned. He was the cynosure of all eyes, as he was without question one of the noblest-looking savages ever seen on the plains. On that occasion he wore the full uniform of a major-general of the United States army. He was as correctly moulded as a statue ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... you, O Mistress of the Witch Stone, O Cynosure of the 'Eye of Gluskap!'" answered Desbra. "I am, indeed, so much impressed that I was taking pains to remind the Powers of the transfer I have just effected! I desire to hide me from the 'Eye of Gluskap' by taking refuge behind a certain little ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... swell the human stream. He tried to avoid observation, fearing that some one might recognize him, thinking all could read on his face that he was a sot, a self-confessed failure, one of life's incompetents. In his painful self-consciousness he believed himself the cynosure of every eye and he winced as he thought he detected on certain faces side glances of ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... wishes should let you down! Or Fate should turn, by your own mischance, Your victor's car to an ambulance, From cloudless heavens her lightnings glance! (And these things happen, even in France.) And so Miss Rose, as she trotted by, The cynosure of every eye, Saw to her horror the off mare shy, Flourish her tail so exceedingly high That, disregarding the closest tie, And without giving a reason why, She flung that tail so free and frisky Off in ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... the kirk's inclosure: All three, in the shadows dim, In a cenotaph's cynosure That waited for only him, Who sat with his fiddle tuning On the spot where his fame was won, On the empty world communing, Without a wife ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... the Fool]. Silence, you screech-owl.— Come strew flowers, fair ladies, And lead into her bower our fairest bride, The cynosure of love and beauty here, Who shrines heaven's graces in earth's ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... of the Mission to our cousins and Allies, We learn with satisfaction, but without the least surprise, That he proved the very cynosure of Transatlantic eyes. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various

... been squeezed into shape, nor her linsey woolsey flourished into flounce and farthingale. Her hair hung in bright clusters on her brow; fresh from Nature's toilet, their wild untutored elegance was singular and bewitching. Indeed, Katherine, or "Kattern," as she was more generally called, was the cynosure of this clime—a jewel, that needed not the foil of its homely setting; the envy and admiration of the whole neighbourhood—well known at church, and at Ormskirk market, where she attended weekly—at the latter place to dispose of her produce. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... there half an hour two or three people had evidently lost their hearts to him in friendship; among them, to Lady Jane's great discomfiture, the handsome and amiable Graham-Reece, the cynosure of all female eyes in Riffrath; and when Barty (after very little pressing by Miss Royce) twanged her guitar and sang little songs—French and English, funny and sentimental—he became, as he had so often become in ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... nothing to Carley had she at once forgotten it. Most unaccountably, however, she could not make herself unaware of this ruffian's attention. It did no good for her to argue that she was merely the cynosure of all eyes. This Ruff's tone and look possessed something heretofore unknown to Carley. Once she was tempted to tell Glenn. But that would only cause a fight, so she kept her counsel. She danced again, and helped Flo entertain her guests, and passed that door often; ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... the serpent. The instinct—the repugnance that made him sponge off her first kiss from his lips—was probably a true instinct. How was it possible a girl of that class should escape the sordid attentions of street swains? Even when she was in the country she was well-nigh of wooable age, the likely cynosure of neighbouring ploughboys' eyes. And what ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... some of them, the most ancient and honored names within the empire. Even one of the Kaiser's own aides-de-camp issued from it with a reputation so besmirched as to lead to his hasty retirement. More recently still the Club of Innocents (Club der Harmlosen) became the cynosure of all eyes, but unenviably so. It was not, strictly speaking, a military club, but it counted in its membership list a majority of active army officers. I will not go into details, but merely mention that one ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... who is now the cynosure of all eyes, began with any considerable stock of piety, is a question we have no means of determining; but we can quite understand how a very little would go a very long way in Africa, amid long ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... gleams of fun shine, A smile like some translucent rill That sparkles in the summer sunshine, A manly mien, and unafraid, Crisp hair, fair face, and square-set shoulders, That made him on the King's Parade The cynosure of all beholders. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various

... ease; his uneasy conscience invested the gladstone bag with a magnetic attraction for the public eye. To carry it unconcealed in his hand furnished him with a sensation as disturbing as though its worn black sides had been stenciled STOLEN! in letters of flame. He felt it rendered him a cynosure of public interest, an object of suspicion to the wide cold world, that the gaze which lit upon the bag traveled to his face only to espy thereon the brand ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... convergent, conversant, convivial, correlate, corrigible, corroborate, corrosive, cosmic, covenant, crass, credence, crescent, criterion, critique, crucial, crucible, cryptic, crystalline, culmination, culpable, cumulative, cupidity, cursive, cursory, cutaneous, cynosure. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... became aware that the episode was known throughout the court. When the Lady Priscilla Rutland made her appearance there was subdued laughter and titterings among the ladies and their gallants. Francis' shorn head was the cynosure of all eyes, but her manner was so haughty that it ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison



Words linked to "Cynosure" :   centre of attention, center of attention, guidance, counseling, centre, direction, counsel, counselling, center



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org