"Foppish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told Sommers. He was tall and fair, with reddish hair that massed itself above his forehead in a shiny curl, and was supplemented by a waving auburn mustache. His scrupulous dress, in the fashion of the foppish clerk, gave an air of distinction to the circle on the steps. Most of this circle were so average as scarcely to make an impression at first sight,—a few young women who earned their livelihood in business offices, a few decayed, middle-aged bachelors, a group of widows whose incomes ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... "We protest against those foppish airs and affectations by which Mr. Whistler impresses on us his contempt of public opinion. In landscape he contributes what he persists in calling a Nocturne in 'Blue and Silver,' and a Nocturne in 'Black and Gold' which is a mere insult to the intelligence ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... her senior, but both were young—she, very young. He was swarthy of complexion, and his smoothly-shaven, square-set jaw and full red lips were bluish with the subcutaneous blackness of his beard. His dress was so distinctly late in style as to seem almost foppish; but there was nothing of the exquisite in his erect and athletic form, or in his ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... rather expected to see a heavy, domineering man. Instead, a slender, stealthy man in the uniform of a General rose from behind a tapestry topped table, revealing, as he did, a slight stoop in his back, perhaps a trifle foppish. He ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... association with thoughts of him and his love. Whereas, my Alfred's adoring platitudes would disgust me with the sunset, with the world, and with myself, for permitting him to haunt my presence and hang upon my smile—foppish barnacle that he is! If you knew how I ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Cecil's gestures as he tilted his lofty stature forward and back, marking his commas and semicolons with flapping of his elbows, and all but doubling his body at his periods. Mr. Romfrey had enough of it half-way down the column; his head went sharply to left and right. Cecil's peculiar foppish slicing down of his hand pictured him protesting that there was more and finer of the inimitable stuff to follow. The end of the scene exhibited the paper on the turf, and Colonel Halkett's hand on Cecil's shoulder, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a man 's so foppish that he will have them made tight enough to display the goodness of his thighs," rejoined Gibbs, who, being dry, was enjoying the plight of the rest. "Make yourselves smart, gentlemen, there are ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... benefited the flow of temporary population; some were farmer's taverns, —cheap, homely, and comfortable; others were magnificent hotels, with negro waiters, gentlemanly landlords in black broad-cloth, and foppish bar-keepers in Broadway coats, with chased gold watches in their waistcoat-pockets. I caught one of these fellows quizzing me through an eye-glass. The porters were lumbering up the steps with baggage from ...
— Sketches From Memory - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... all—in short, better behaved. Up to this time I had been, perhaps, careless in dress and rather affected it. Great heavy boots, loose collar, and general roughness of attire were then peculiar to the West and in our circle considered manly. Anything that could be labeled foppish was looked upon with contempt. I remember the first gentleman I ever saw in the service of the railway company who wore kid gloves. He was the object of derision among us who aspired to be manly men. I was a great deal the better in all these respects ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... had figured among the Kentucky horse-traders, or made stump speeches in Arkansas. His dress was inclined to the gaudy. He wore a flashy brown-colored frock-coat with the collar laid very far back, a foppish white vest exposing his shirt-bosom nearly down to the waistbands of his pants, which were of gray stripes. But the more fanciful portions of his dress were a large and costly fob-chain, which hung very low and supported an immense seal containing a glistening stone, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... it is not suggested that social progress will, or ought to, expel machinery from most of the industries it controls, or to prevent its application to industries which it has not yet reached. The luxury and foppish refinement of a small section of "fashionable" society, unnaturally relieved of the wholesome necessity of work, cannot be taken as an indication of the ways in which individuality or quality of consumption may or will assert itself, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... course, as he had given twenty years before, and prided himself upon having all his work done at home. His workrooms, as I have said, were no elysiums; but still, as good, alas! as those of three tailors out of four. He was proud, luxurious, foppish; but he was honest and kindly enough, and did many a generous thing by men who had been long in his employ. At all events, his journeymen could live on what ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... frightened, I would not disturb myself about a risk; but you've kept an invitation all this time under my tongue, not in my pockets, I assure you;" and Polly elaborately emptied them, the foppish breast pocket, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... other words accented on the last syllable, when they end with a single consonant, preceded by a single vowel, or by a vowel after qu, double their final letter before a suffix beginning with a vowel: as, rob ed robbed; fop ish foppish; squat er squatter; prefer' ing ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... country said, "he did not see anything he had learnt but to take his broth twice." Nay, in our own remembrance, the use of a carving knife was considered as a novelty; and a gentleman of ancient family and good literature used to rate his son, a friend of mine, for introducing such a foppish superfluity.'—London ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Captain, halting his company and riding forward. He was a thin and foppish young gentleman in a flaxen wig, and spoke with a high sense of authority, having but recently sacrificed the pleasures of his coffee-house and a fine view of St. James's Park to seek even in the cannon's mouth a bubble reputation that promised ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rage, speech seemed denied to Robert as he glared at the many-colored crowd before him—the fair ladies of honor, butterfly bright; the slim, Italianate youths, fantastically foppish; the smooth, eager priesthood; the soldiers weary of ceremonial but indifferent to fatigue; the sturdy bulk, blue eyes, and yellow hair of the Northern Guards. They paid no heed to Robert, standing there below them; their glances were all for the open portal ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... his pocket. Then he sauntered to the telegrapher's station in the corner of the hotel office and wrote upon a blank with swift decision a telegram which seemed a trifle at variance with the almost foppish elegance of ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... hands and feet, they will, if their vanity be a ruling motive, eagerly swallow the most atrocious and fulsome praises. Look for the extremely short upper lip, for an excess of jewelry, a tendency to over-dress and extreme foppish methods of arranging the hair. Where you find one or more of these indications, you find the easiest road to favorable attention through the appetite of the individual for praise. If he is of the intellectual type, praise him for his smartness. If he is a fat man, praise ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... their guilt; for if princes, who living are above control, should think that no censure is to attend them when dead, it would be new encouragement to them to play the fool and act the tyrant. When they are so kind as to specify their crimes under their own hands, it would be foppish delicacy indeed to suppress them. I hope you will proceed, Sir, and with the same impartiality. It was justice due to Charles to publish the extravagancies of his enemies too. The comparison can never be fairly made, but when ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... and Allen Washburn and Percy Falconer to come along on a trip or two," said Mollie, with a wink at her chums as she mentioned Percy's name. The latter was a foppish young man about town, who tried to be friendly with Betty; but she would ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... air, Of solemn aspect, filled the chair; And, with the port of human race, Wore wisdom written on his face. He from the flippant world retired, And in a barn himself admired; And, like an ancient sage, concealed The follies foppish life revealed. He pondered o'er black-lettered pages Of old philosophers and sages— Of Xenophon, and of the feat Of the ten thousand in retreat; Pondered o'er Plutarch and o'er Plato, On Scipio, Socrates, and Cato. But what most roused the bird's conceit, Was ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... wandering attention—give proofs of a want of punctuality—show disrespect for age—sneer at things sacred, or absent himself from regular attendance at divine service—or evince an inclination to expensive pleasures beyond his means, or to low and vulgar amusements; should he be foppish, eccentric, or very slovenly in his dress; or display a frivolity of mind, and an absence of well-directed energy in his worldly pursuits; let the young lady, we say, while there is yet time, eschew that gentleman's acquaintance, and allow it gently to drop. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... pretty fellow, wears corsets to diminish his bulk, uses cosmetics, as he told Mrs. Gore, to smooth and soften a skin growing somewhat wrinkled and rigid with age, dresses in a style which would be thought foppish in a much younger man. You must imagine such a man standing before the gravest tribunal in the land, and engaged in causes of the deepest moment; but still apparently thinking how he can declaim like a practised rhetorician in the ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... put on all his good clothes, even to his gray spats. I had to argue a long time to get them on him. He said they looked foppish, but I just got the button-hook and put them on him while he was arguing, and asked him who thought of this picnic anyway! and he just laughed and said he guessed he had to pass ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... habitually loud and his accent somewhat foppish, having a little of the "Guardsman" affectation of ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... to Confess and Acknowledge the true God, and subject themselves to a King, whom they never saw, or heard mention'd before; and whose Messengers behav'd themselves toward them with such Inhumanity and Cruelty as they had done hitherto. Which is certainly a most foppish and absurd way of Proceeding, and merits nothing but Scandal, Derision, nay Hell itself. Now suppose this Notorious and Profligate Governour had bin impower'd to see the Execution of these Edicts perform'd, for of themselves they were repugnant ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... By these enactments, foppish modes of dressing the hair was discountenanced or forbidden, not less than the use of gaudy clothes and bright arms. Some of these regulations have a quaint air to readers of this generation; and as indications of manners in past times, they ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... court of Vienna, on the other hand, fashion ran to just the other extreme. It was fashionable to despise fashion. It was etiquette to pay no regard to etiquette. The haughty Austrian noble prided himself in dressing as he pleased, and looked with contempt upon the studied attitudes and foppish attire of the French. The Parisian courtier, on the other hand, rejoicing in his ruffles, and ribbons, and practiced movements, despised the boorish manners, as he ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... striking figure of a youthful horseman flashed before the grille. It was Clarence Brant! Mary Rogers had always seen him, in the loyalty of friendship, with Susy's prepossessed eyes, yet she fancied that morning that he had never looked so handsome before. Even the foppish fripperies of his riding-dress and silver trappings seemed as much the natural expression of conquering youth as the invincible morning sunshine. Perhaps it might have been a reaction against Susy's caprice ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... plunging into the crowd, in the wake of her mother, the maids, and the porters. Ashton hastened after, in a vain attempt to overtake her. Crowds part easier before a pretty, smiling, fashionably dressed girl than before a foppish young man ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... partner, meanwhile, had drawn near the apparatus, and was studying it with a most intense concentration. Plain to see, beneath this man's foppish exterior and affected cynicism, dwelt powerful ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... he had displayed in consequence of having been educated at the free-school in the village of ——, one of the few public schools in this kingdom which has not frustrated the legitimate views of its pious founder, by converting that into a foppish and expensive establishment which was at once designed as an asylum for the poor and an academy to teach wisdom and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... instance, his Osric, in Hamlet, with Fastidius Brisk, in Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour: both are portraitures of the insipid affectation of a courtier of the day; but Osric, although he speaks his own peculiar language, will remain to the end of time an exact and intelligible image of foppish folly, whereas Fastidius is merely a portrait in a dress no longer in fashion, and nothing more. However, Jonson has not always fallen into this error; his Captain Bobadil, for example, in Every Man in his Humour, a beggarly ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... a slender, foppish man, iron-grey. Weldon sprang to his feet, pulling his right arm from behind him, wide, wide awake now. He ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... however, the two presented. The man next the aisle was well past sixty, rotund of abdomen, rubicund of countenance, beetle-browed. He was elaborately well-groomed, almost foppish in attire, and wore the obvious stamp of worldly success, the air of one accustomed to giving orders and seeing them ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... Decidedly, he ought to have sold himself to the reactionary party. Pondering in this fashion, he eyed the washstand, feeling a strong inclination to go and wash his hands with a certain powder soap which he saw in a glass jar. Like all lazy fellows who live upon their wives or children, he had foppish tastes. Although he wore patched trousers, he liked to inundate himself with aromatic oil. He spent hours with his barber, who talked politics, and brushed his hair for him between their discussions. So, at last, the temptation became too ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... materials: why do not you oftener make use of copper? I could wish your superiority in the art you profess to be preserved in stuff more durable than canvas." Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of procuring a plate large enough for historical subjects. "What foppish obstacles are these!" exclaims on a sudden Dr. Johnson. "Here is Thrale has a thousand tun of copper; you may paint it all round if you will, I suppose; it will serve him to brew in afterwards. Will it not, Sir?" ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... down. His eyes had been attracted by the fancy buckle shoes of Herr Carovius. He was repelled by the man's foppish socks with the yellow stripes which were made more conspicuous by the fact that his trousers were too high. He had a feeling of unmitigated mental nausea, too, when he noticed how Carovius lifted ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... natty and jaunty and gay, Who says his best things in so foppish a way, With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o'erlaying 'em, That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying 'em; Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose, Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... caution steered him wide of the moral women in his employ, but the other kind, and especially the innocent or the inexperienced, had cause to know and to fear him. In appearance he was slender and foppish; he affected a pronounced waist-line in his coats, his eyes were large and dark and brilliant, his mouth was sensual. He never raised his voice, he never appeared to see plain women; such girls as accepted his attentions were ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... maintain that the sort of education the colored people of the South stand most in need of is elementary and industrial. They should be instructed for the work to be done. Many a colored farmer boy or mechanic has been spoiled to make a foppish gambler or loafer, a swaggering pedagogue or a cranky homiletician. Men may be spoiled by education, even as they are spoiled by illiteracy. Education is the preparation for a future work; hence men should be educated with ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... Falconer?" asked Mollie mischievously, referring to a certain foppish lad, who seemed to have a great fondness for ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... it when my husband unquestioningly gave in to all his demands. I could bear the waste of money; but it vexed me to think that he was imposing on my husband, taking advantage of friendship. His bearing was not that of an ascetic, nor even of a person of moderate means, but foppish all over. Love of comfort seemed to ... any number of such reflections come back to me today, but ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... can by any possibility be construed as mincing, foppish or effeminate are not recommended; but a gentleman who says "Good morning" to his employees and who invariably treats all women as "ladies," does not half so much flatter their vanity as win their respect ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... true friends of men. The Spartan, surely, would not think that he received only his body from his mother. The sage, had he lived in that community, could not have thought the souls of "vain and foppish men will be degraded after death to the forms of women; and, if they do not then make great efforts to retrieve themselves, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Thaddeus watching her. After a quaint little chorus ("Silence, silence, the Lady Moon") sung by the gypsies, they depart in quest of plunder, headed by Devilshoof, and soon find their victim in the person of the foppish and half-drunken Florestein, who is returning from a revel. He is speedily relieved of his jewelry, among which is a medallion, which is carried off by Devilshoof. As the gypsies disappear, Arline wakes and relates her dream to Thaddeus in ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... he to a foppish-looking fellow, lying at length on a rosewood sofa, intent on the pages of a yellow-covered volume which he held above his perfumed head; "come, have done with 'Ten Thousand a Year,' and let us have a last game of cards. We shall be in New Orleans to-morrow, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... whiskers, red vest, and foppish manners, was replaced by a sinister-looking individual, whose very appearance was enough to scare ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... heard of young solicitors, of foppish solicitors, of short solicitors; but on the stage they are always very thin and very old. The youngest stage solicitor we ever remember to have seen looked about sixty—the oldest about a hundred ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... mine is too much of a dandy," Jolly remarked to his wife one day. "I'm going to pay him a visit this afternoon. And I shall speak to him about that waistcoat he's so fond of wearing. It's well enough for city birds to dress in such finery. But it's a foppish thing for anybody to wear way up ...
— The Tale of Jolly Robin • Arthur Scott Bailey
... punishment was not ended even then. Other twitchings took him on other parts of the body, and he tore off his armour and his foppish clothes, and always where the bare flesh showed, there had the horrid plague written its white mark; and in the end, being able to endure no more, the man fell to the pavement ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne |
