Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Tinsel   /tˈɪnsəl/   Listen
Tinsel

verb
(past & past part. tinseled or tinselled; pres. part. tinseling or tinselling)
1.
Impart a cheap brightness to.
2.
Adorn with tinsel.
3.
Interweave with tinsel.



Related search:



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 |





"Tinsel" Quotes from Famous Books



... bargemen. By the help of these gifts and accomplishments, he had not failed to find favour, while his money lasted, with the young aristocracy of the "Gentle Mother." And, though the very reverse of an ambitious or calculating man, he had certainly nourished the belief that some one of the "hats" or "tinsel gowns"—i.e., young lords or fellow-commoners, with whom he was on such excellent terms, and who supped with him so often, would do something for him in the way of a living. But it so happened that when Mr. Caleb Price had, with a little difficulty, scrambled through his degree, and found himself ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... have some gold and silver money, besides a lot of beads, trinkets, and gaudy tinsel things, such as earthly savages have been willing ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... room, an antiquated Abigail, dressed in her lady's cast-clothes; whom he (I suppose) mistook for some countess just arrived at the Bath. The ball was opened by a Scotch lord, with a mulatto heiress from St Christopher's; and the gay colonel Tinsel danced all the evening with the daughter of an eminent tinman from the borough of Southwark. Yesterday morning, at the Pump-room, I saw a broken-winded Wapping landlady squeeze through a circle of peers, to salute her brandy-merchant, who stood by the window, propped ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... heels. Men of his own squadron took him. He demanded at first to be treated as befitted his rank; but none of his self-importance went with his black captors. "We'll brigidiale-gene'al yer, yer black scound'al," they remarked cheerfully, as they stripped off his tinsel stars. "Yer oughter ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... hast thou seen. How darest thou thus judge and measure the human race? Hast thou seen men? Where, and how? Thou hast merely seen their shadows, which thou adornest with the tinsel of thy crazed imagination, and givest them out as the true forms. Tell me what kind of human beings thou hast seen. Were they not sectaries, fanatics, visionaries, the very offscourings of human nature? Were they not vain devotees, young wives who have cold ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... horses at Hof, a handfulof houses on the brow of a breezy hill, the church and tavern standing opposite to each other, and nothing between them but the dusty road, and the churchyard, with its iron crosses, and the fluttering tinsel of the funeral garlands. In the churchyard and at the tavern-door, were groups of peasants, waiting for divine service to begin. They were clothed in their holiday dresses. The men wore breeches and long boots, and frock-coats with large metal ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... out of his element, but Florence shows him the spirit in which to accept the tinsel and the rude fun-making. He soon comes to like it—and to think very well of the naively "different" ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... knew all the arts belonging to his trade. He would have succeeded anywhere, if by "succeeding" is meant the attainment of position and power. But after all, such men are splendid failures. They give themselves and others a great deal of trouble—they wear the tinsel crown of temporary success and then fade from public view. They astonish the pit, they gain the applause of the galleries, but when the curtain falls there is nothing left to benefit mankind. Beaconsfield held convictions somewhat in contempt. He had the imagination ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... Chesterfield, as a man who had no friend. JOHNSON. 'There were more materials to make friendship in Garrick, had he not been so diffused.' BOSWELL. 'Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf. Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.' JOHNSON. 'Garrick was a very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age;[1175] a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... her hands again, and stood towering over her, intoxicated with his own tinsel phrases; almost sincere; a splendid physical presence, save for the slight thickening of face and form, the looseness of the lips, the absence of all freshness in ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... made up the wreaths and the ropes of green, and fashioned ornaments for the tree. There was to be a bigger tree at the school for the children, but this was to be a family affair and was to be free from tawdry tinsel and colored glass. Nancy liked straight little candles and silver stars. "It shall be an old-fashioned tree," she said, "such as I used to have when ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... of tinsel for a poor little woman to carry around! How it must have shocked you to find me so commonplace! None of us escape the common fates. It is always a surprise to me to discover how simple the men of great literary fame are. A friend of mine once spent a whole evening with a great novelist without ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... at that moment, whether for mispayment or tinsel. I had my duty to do, and I did it. If the news were true, the Queen was little like to snyb [blame] me when she found it so: and if no, well, I had but done as I should. And I knew that Dame Tiffany, which tended her like a hen with one chicken, should hear ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... condition had it not been for Pocahontas. She was resolved that her beloved white chief should want for nothing, and now every four or five days she came to the fort laden with provisions. Smith also took Captain Newport to visit the Powhatan, and great barter was made of blue beads and tinsel ornaments for grain ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... pitiful scoundrel is here to make all this bustle about! But women and fools always will be fools; there is no help for that! Those that set them on have most to answer for; and most of all, Mr. Clare. He is a man that ought to know something of the world, and past being duped by gewgaws and tinsel. He seemed, too, to have some notion of things: I should not have suspected him of hallooing to a cry of mongrels without honesty or reason. But the world is all alike. Those that seem better than their neighbours, are only more artful. They mean the same thing, though ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... such a society as that of Rome in the first century A.D., hardly any training could be more mischievous. Puffed up with presumed merits and the applause of the lecture-room and the salon, he became a shallow rhetorician, devoted to phrase-making and tinsel ornament, and ready to write and declaim on any subject in verse or prose at the shortest notice.' —Heitland. Silenced by Nero, in an enforced retirement—probably in the stately gardens spoken of by Juvenal vii. 79-80 contentus fama iaceat Lucanus in hortis ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... Cockney, who had the most miraculous faculty of telling lies—not only palpable lies, but lies absolutely impossible: yet they were so sublimely told often, and he contrived to lug into them such a quantity of gorgeous tinsel ornament, as, in his happier efforts, decidedly to carry the day against his opponent. The London hand had seen life too, of which, with respect to what is called the world, his competitor was as ignorant as a child. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... make-believe about him now, no mockery. He was naked man, stripped of his tinsel, and laid bare to the soul by the inexorable Master, Pain. Across his chin, as though to mock him, lay ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... the face of which he had seen so imperfectly once before by the flash of his own pistol in the darkness. Upon this occasion, however, the whole figure was stamped out with intense sharpness against the darkness, and Barnaby beheld, as clear as day, a great burly man, clad in a tawdry tinsel coat, with a cocked hat with gold braid upon his head. His legs, with petticoat breeches and cased in great leathern sea-boots pulled up to his knees, stood planted wide apart as though to brace against the slant of the ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... clouded seriousness of her blue eyes cleared, and the smile began to glimmer again. "That is your revenge; you recommit me to my commonplace self; you restore me to my tinsel career, practically a dolt. Shame on you, Stephen Siward, to treat a poor girl so! ... But it's just as well. Blunted perceptions, according to our needs, you know; and so life is tempered for us all, else we might not endure it long. ... A pleasantly morbid suggestion for ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... light of my wretched provision on the fact that now it was I who possessed at least all but the personal part of my brother's advantages? Our sweet illusions are half of them conscious illusions, like effects of colour that we know to be made up of tinsel, broken glass, ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot

... Norwich, re what happened there at Christ-tide 1440. "John Hadman,[72] a wealthy citizen, made disport with his neighbours and friends, and was crowned King of Christmas. He rode in state through the City, dressed forth in silks and tinsel, and preceded by twelve persons habited as the twelve months of the year. After King Christmas followed Lent, clothed in white garments, trimmed with herring skins, on horseback, the horse being decorated with trappings of oyster ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... the chattering and capering monkeyism of the Parisian exquisite—there are fops every where. As Mr Catlin will tell you, one of his lanky Ojibbeway, or Ioway, or Cutaway, or Anyotherkindo'way Indians varies the feathers in his head-dress, and sticks new tinsel on his buffalo-mantle, whenever he can get them; spending as much time in be-painting his cheeks on a summer morning, as Beau Brummell, of departed memory, ever wasted in tying his cravat. And so it has ever been—so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... In one the core is made from a double strand of strong lock stitch twine, over which is placed a linen braid. Then the tip conductor, which is of stranded copper tinsel, is braided on. This is then covered with two layers of tussah silk, laid in reverse wrappings, then there is a heavy cotton braid, and over the latter a linen braid. The sleeve conductor, which is also of copper tinsel, is then braided over the structure ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... flat and, oh yes, indeed, our casual income. I remember, too, that when it was finally bought I put it on my shoulder with a proud feeling, and we drifted farther, picking up the trimmings—the tinsel and gay ornaments, the small gifts for the one very small person who had so recently come to live with us, discussing each purchase with due deliberation, going home at last with rather more than we could afford, I fear, for I recall further that we did ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... well-disposed, it is not necessary to propitiate him. But his devil is ugly, and must be won over by offering and petition. Once a year, wherever collected in any number, he builds a flimsy sort of temple, decorates it with ornaments of tinsel, lays piles of fruit, meats and sugared delicacies on an altar, keeps up night and day a steady crash of gongs, and installs therein some great, uncouth wooden idols. When this period of worship is over the "josh-house" disappears, and the idols are unceremoniously ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... could scarcely understand how a boy could so dislike circus life as to really want to run away from even Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie. There was a glitter and tinsel to the circus that ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill

... carried his object as regards the young. He has struck them with astonishment and aroused in their imagination ideas of a world more glorious, more rich, more witty, more enterprising, than their own. But the glory has been the glory of pasteboard, and the wealth has been a wealth of tinsel. The wit has been the wit of hairdressers, and the enterprise has been the enterprise of mountebanks. An audacious conjurer has generally been his hero,—some youth who, by wonderful cleverness, can obtain success by every intrigue that comes to ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... rubber doll on a distant limb Stretched with a sleepy word; A little lead soldier answered him, And a big stuffed elephant stirred. A quiver flickered the pop-corn strings, Fluttered the tinsel angel's wings, Tinkled the silver balls and things, Till ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... It was filled with the dainty oddments which a woman of means and taste collects in the course of years; trimmings and laces, and scraps of fine brocades; belts and buckles, and buttons of silver and paste; glittering ends of tinsel, ends of silk and ribbons that were really too pretty to throw away, and cunning little motifs which had the magic quality of disguising deficiencies and making both ends meet. Claire gave with a lavish hand, and Cecil's gratitude ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... debris. Most people would curse at it—it's real and rather common, sort of plain boiled-dinner variety. It gives me an excuse to take time off from the eternal frolic. I'm glad when there's a strike or a row and I dig out of town to stay in a commercial hotel. I have to get away from the whole tinsel show. And yet it was what I wanted, was willing to play modern Faust ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly) Voglio e non. You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... little taste will enable any smart young lady to make up these dresses. They are mostly loose, and the embroidery may be of tinsel—while cheap velveteen looks as well as the best ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... of old romance. The deep incisions into character are "skinned and filmed over"—the details are lost or shaped into flimsy and insipid decorum; and the truth of feeling and of circumstance is translated into a tinkling sound, a tinsel common-place. It must be owned, there is a power in true poetry that lifts the mind from the ground of reality to a higher sphere, that penetrates the inert, scattered, incoherent materials presented to it, and by a force and inspiration of ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... a change of prospects! What a revulsion in circumstances! I left here as a proud follower of Mars, clothed in scarlet and fine linen like the Kings of Babylon, and blowing up the tinsel'd bubble of military glory, amid the beating of drums, the blowing of trumpets, and the cheers of an excited populace. But alas! I returned in silence, as a simple man of experience, covered in sackcloth, exhausted in body, disappointed in mind, without friends, without a home, and with comparatively ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon

... man who is fond of office, and has his eye upon reelection, will be courting favor and popularity at the expense of his duty.... There is a barbarism crept in among us that extremely shocks me: I mean those tinsel epithets with which (I come in for my share) we are so beplastered,—'his excellency,' and 'his honor,' 'the honorable president of the honorable congress,' or 'the honorable convention.' This fulsome, nauseating ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... came the farmer by whom he was raised, and M. Roland, the butcher of the carnival, followed by a hundred of the same craft, dressed as cavaliers of the different ages of France. They made a very showy appearance, although the faded velvet and soiled tinsel of their mantles were ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... though we cannot boast of equal force, Yet, at some weapons, men have still the worse. Why should not then we women act alone? Or whence are men so necessary grown? Our's are so old, they are as good as none. Some who have tried them, if you'll take their oaths, Swear they're as arrant tinsel as their clothes. Imagine us but what we represent, And we could e'en give you as good content. Our faces, shapes,—all's better then you see, And for the rest, they want as much as we. Oh, would the higher powers behind to us, And grant us to set up a ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... it is not astonishing that Ninon should discard the more distasteful fruits to be painfully harvested by following her mother's tuition, and accept the easily gathered luscious golden fruit offered her by her father. Like all children and many adults, the glitter and the tinsel of the present enjoyment were too powerful and seductive to be resisted, or to be postponed for a ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... men in the group embarking appeared to be a chief. He had sandals on his feet, and was bedizened with gold lace tatters and a tinsel waistcoat, shining under his cloak like the belly of a fish. Another pulled down over his face a huge piece of felt, cut like a sombrero; this felt had no hole for a pipe, thus indicating the wearer to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... Neptune's mace, And Tethys grave majestick pace, By hoary Nereus wrincled look, And the Carpathian wisards hook, By scaly Tritons winding shell, And old sooth-saying Glaucus spell, By Leucothea's lovely hands, And her son that rules the strands, By Thetis tinsel-slipper'd feet, And the Songs of Sirens sweet, By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, And fair Ligea's golden comb, Wherwith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks, By all the Nymphs that nightly dance Upon thy streams with wily ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... up my mind, Philip. It is no use. The other things are fascinating and splendid in their way, but they don't count, they don't last. They're tinsel, dear, and I don't want tinsel—I want the gold. We'll face this bravely, wherever it leads, however far, however deep down, ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a crown Wrought of gilded thistle-down, And a scarf of velvet vapor, And a ravelled-rainbow gown; And his tinsel-tangled hair, Tossed and lost upon the air, Was glossier and ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley

... true, but that I suspected it would live longer than Childe Harold. 'Ah but' (said she). 'I would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for three years than an IMMORTALITY of Don Juan!' The truth is that it is TOO TRUE, and the women hate many things which strip off the tinsel of sentiment; and they are right, as it would rob them of their weapons. I never knew a woman who did not hate De Grammont's Memoirs for the same reason: even Lady * * used ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... throngs to applaud them. Each alone, Without the heat of conflict laboured on, Consuming brain and nerve; for throngs applaud Only the flash and tinsel of their day, Never the quiet runners with the torch. Night after night they laboured. Line on line Of intricate figures, moving all in law, They marshalled. Their long columns formed and marched From battle to battle, and no sound was heard Of victory or defeat. They ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... through the city by the brilliancy of their rose-and-violet-faced uniforms, and by the display of their graceful and accurate military movements. Now they were to have an opportunity to show whether their warlike spirit was expressed chiefly in ruffles and tinsel trimmings, or whether they could win ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow

... They are designed for the comfort and convenience of the traveling public to whom the expenditure of a dollar more or less is a matter of moment, and who cannot afford or do not care for the small extra show and tinsel of the Pullman sleeping car, but whose only desire is to make their journey pleasant, comfortable and safe. This they can do as well in the tourist as in the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... self-constituted subjects, were ready to bend their necks to the yoke. Some erect and manly spirits still remained, pillars of state; but the word republic had grown stale to the vulgar ear; and many—the event would prove whether it was a majority— pined for the tinsel and show of royalty. Ryland was roused to resistance; he asserted that his sufferance alone had permitted the encrease of this party; but the time for indulgence was passed, and with one motion of his arm he would sweep away the cobwebs that blinded ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... gold and silver; men have dreamed at night of fame; In the heat of youth they've struggled for achievement's honored name; But the selfish crowns are tinsel, and their shining jewels paste, And the wine of pomp and glory soon grows bitter to the taste. For there's never any laughter, howsoever far you roam, Like the laughter of the loved ones ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest

... conversation, without any relief from a new comer, or any power of starting into gay digressions, or destroying argument by a jest, he soon discovered that poverty of ideas which had been hitherto concealed under the tinsel of politeness. The first day he entertained me with the novelties and wonders with which I should be astonished at my entrance into London, and cautioned me with apparent admiration of his own wisdom ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... in Arabic means 'a star'. Steingass (Persian Dictionary) defines Kaukaba as 'a polished steel ball suspended to a long pole, and carried as an ensign before the king; a star of gold, silver, or tinsel, worn as ornament or sign of rank; a concourse of people; a royal train, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... deserted that I have no other comfort but in my wife and daughter and dear little Cicero. For those ambitious friendships with great people are all show and tinsel, and contain nothing that satisfies inwardly. Every morning my house swarms with visitors; I go down to the Forum attended by troops of friends; but in the whole crowd there is no one with whom I can freely jest, or whom ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... own hands, and he proceeded to issue a number of sumptuary laws which were far from mild. Food was regulated, minstrels were not allowed to sit at the same table with ladies and gentlemen, most rigid rules were formulated against the abuse of gold, silver, and tinsel trimmings on the dresses of the women, and of the men as well, and the use of ermine and of all fine and Costly furs was carefully restricted. In Castile the same movement was taking place, and Alfonso X., who followed Fernando, issued similar laws, wherein women were forbidden to wear ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... it; and much peace of mind it gave him!' answered Lancelot. 'I have grown sick lately of such dreary tinsel abstractions. When you look through the glitter of the words, your "spirit of beauty" simply means certain shapes and colours which please you in beautiful things ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... Though Superstition and her wolfish brood Bay his mild radiance, impotent and fell; Calm in his halls of brightness he shall dwell! 5 For lo! RELIGION at his strong behest Starts with mild anger from the Papal spell, And flings to Earth her tinsel-glittering vest, Her mitred State and cumbrous Pomp unholy; And JUSTICE wakes to bid th' Oppressor wail 10 Insulting aye the wrongs of patient Folly; And from her dark retreat by Wisdom won Meek NATURE slowly lifts her matron veil To smile ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... knocked, and was sent away. On the mantel was discovered a square lavender box, bearing a blazoned name well known in another city. Fresh flowers from Canning, these were; and Carlisle, removing the purple tinsel from the bound stems, carefully disposed the blossoms in a bowl of water. Once in her goings and comings, she encountered her reflection in the mirror, and then she quickly averted her eyes. One glance of recognition between herself ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... fashion; at the peak of the foremast floated the banner of Spain; on either side of the helm the flags of the governor and the bishop fluttered gaily—fraternal strips of emblazoned silk. It was a fair sight and a fair day, and there were proud eyes watching it; but, as is too often the case, the tinsel and show of human vain-glory enshrouded ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... had come to assume a vastly different aspect from what it had displayed in times past. Heretofore it had been a plaything which like a juggler's tinsel ball might be tossed from hand to hand at will. Now it was no plaything—no glittering bauble. It was something big and serious and splendid—because Billy lived in it; something that demanded all his powers to do, and be—because Billy was watching; something that might be ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... right for a young man to lead the life of a recluse of seventy. Here we are in the height of the London season, and I am sure you haven't been into ten houses, when a hundred of the very best are open to you—" I loathe the term "best houses." The tinsel ineptitude of them! For entertainment I really would sooner attend a mothers' meeting or listen to the serious British Drama—Have I read so and so's novel? Am I going to Mrs. Chose's dance? Do I ride in the Park? Do I know young Thingummy of the Guards, who ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... satin and muslin frocks, and a very singular figure as large as life, supposed to represent the deposition in the holy sepulchre, which was covered by a shroud of worsted gauze, studded over with enormous artificial flowers and tinsel like a ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... at your meaning. She has no doubt a mind as fair as her face, but none of the tinsel which we so often take for gold. Is it ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... the 'Sorrows of Werther.' But Napoleon's range of reading was very extensive. It included Homer, Virgil, Tasso; novels of all countries; histories of all times; mathematics, legislation, and theology. He detested what he called "the bombast and tinsel" of Voltaire. The praises of Homer and Ossian he was never wearied of sounding. "Read again," he said to an officer on board the BELLEROPHO—"read again the poet of Achilles; devour Ossian. Those are the poets who lift up the soul, and give to man ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... aviators of one side flew over the enemy's territory diligently mapping out his trenches, observing the movements of his troops, or indicating, by dropping bunches of tinsel for the sun to shine upon or breaking smoke bombs, the position of his hidden battery, the foe thus menaced sought to drive them away with anti-aircraft guns. These proved to be ineffective and it may be said here that throughout the war the swift airplanes proved ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... small table at the side of the dining room. It was lighted by means of the storage battery and the strings of tiny electric lights that had been used for the Christmas Ship at the Glen Point orphanage. There were all sorts of balls and tinsel wreaths and tiny, glistening cords. It glowed merrily while the supper went on, Dicky, at intervals of five minutes, calling everybody's attention to its beauties. There were favors at each plate, each a joke of some sort on the person who received it. Every ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... hills, and forests, and rocks, and streams, and strange, new races of men;—these are incidents in which the authentic history of the discovery of our Continent excels the specious wonders of romance, as much as gold excels tinsel, or the sun in the heavens outshines the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... and defence of the point in question. The entire room became attentive. Then, as he paused, the strident voice of a noted and irascible man proclaimed, "That's not democracy and not Jefferson—that doctrine, Mr. Rand. Veil her as you please in gauze and tinsel, you've got conquest by the hand. You may not think it, but you're preaching—what's ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... great Oceanus. By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace, And Tethys' grave majestic pace; By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look, And the Carpathian wizard's hook; By scaly Triton's winding shell, And old soothsaying Glaucus' spell; By Leucothea's lovely hands, And her son that rules the strands; By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet, And the songs of Sirens sweet; By dead Parthenope's dear tomb, And fair Ligea's golden comb, Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks; By all the Nymphs that nightly ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... in which she reincarnated before their eyes a very flower of the old Southern chivalry with dash, finish, and lucidity, he felt as if he had done his best and now had a right to be allowed to depart in peace from the world of tinsel and illusion. As Lindsey and Height held the audience spell-bound while the tempted wife dueled with her might against the tender and desperate lover, placing, with a combined art that was as great as any he had ever witnessed, the "big scene" of "The Purple Slipper" among ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... aristocracy of nature, of the born leaders of men. It might be that he had some claim to a humble position in that spiritual hierarchy, and perhaps the one manifest way to make proof of it was by flinging aside his tinsel privilege—an example, a precedent, to ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... speech (reported verbatim to best of my ability) I did shake my head sorrowfully, and reply that I greatly feared that JESSIMINA'S devotion to this unlucky self was too severe to be diverted, or even checked, like a cow that is infuriated or non compos mentis, by the mere relinquishment of such tinsel and gewgaw wraps as a title or worldly belongings, having frequently (and that, too, prior to our engagement) protested her preference for very dark-complexioned individuals, and her vehement curiosity ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... tempted the crowds with vulgar indecencies, and the booths that had sheltered the petty games of chance where loud-voiced criers had persuaded the multitude with the hope of winning a worthless bauble or a tinsel toy, were being cleared away from the borders of the plaza, the beauty of which their presence had marred. In the plaza itself—which is the heart of the town, and is usually kept with much pride and care—the bronze statue of the vigorous Rough Rider Bucky O'Neil and his spirited ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... was a special significance. I am not present on an occasion when you are about to scatter on various errands. You are all going on the same errand, and I like to feel bound with you in one common organization for the glory of America. And her glory goes deeper than all the tinsel, goes deeper than the sound of guns and the clash of sabers; it goes down to the very foundations of those things that have made the spirit of men free and happy ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... on hamely fare we dine, Wear hodden gray, and a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine— A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, and a' that, Their tinsel show, and a' that; The honest man, though e'er sae poor, Is king of ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... with some of the commonplace facts concerning the lives of theatrical people, and show her the frayed tinsel and worn faces by daylight. This will do more for her than all your sermons on the dangers of ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... returned upon us, she stood by, efficient, deft, and gallant, though still imperious, until the day when she clashed her lath-and-tinsel sword of theory against the tempered steel of the Little Red Doctor's experience. Said the Little Red Doctor (who was pressed for time at the moment): "Take orders. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... little boat, "Ay, a very good evening to you, Signor Antonio." By the reflection cast by the illuminations of the Square, he recognised that it was merry Pietro, one of his former comrades. He was standing in the boat, his new cap adorned with feathers and tinsel, and his new striped jacket gaily decorated with ribbons, whilst he held in his hand a large and beautiful nosegay of sweet-scented flowers. "Good evening, Pietro," shouted Antonio back, "what grand folks are you going to row to-night that you are decked off so fine?" ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... find it difficult to display any thing but tinsel," said Cranfield. "It is two years since the golden crucifix, the silver candlestick, and the saintly jewelry, mounted on ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... in her own sphere among her own people. She tried to picture Louis there, too, and realized horribly that he would never fit into the picture. Against Wullie and the doctor and her aunt he would look so vulgar, so pretentious, so tinsel-coloured. And how they would laugh at a man who could not master himself, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... all of whom, of course, came arrayed in their best. They were received by Mrs. Roosevelt, who had a hand-shake and a kind word for each, and then some of the Cabinet ladies, who were assisting, gave to each visitor a button, set in ribbon and tinsel and inscribed "Merry Christmas ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer

... fear of discovery. The chief of the butchers, on his arrival, was next ushered up stairs, and his present received, then made to undress and put on a blue vest with a scarlet cap, ornamented with sea shells and bits of tinsel; but he had scarce time to finish, when a fourth loud rap was heard at the door, the scene of alarm was renewed, and the frightened gallant hurried into the room to keep company with his rivals. Now appeared ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... power, and all of them in the felicitous wedding of elevated thought or vigorous argument to noble diction. By the side of his serried yet persuasive periods the efforts of Fox seemed ragged, those of Burke philosophic essays, those of Sheridan rhetorical tinsel. And this harmony was not the effect of long and painful training. His maiden speech of 26th February 1781 displayed the grace and forcefulness which marked his classic utterance at the Lord Mayor's banquet ten ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... constructed of adobes; the church was open, and, entering the interior, I found the walls hung with coarse paintings and engravings of the saints, etc., etc. The chancel decorated with numerous images, and symbolical ornaments used by the priests in their worship. Gold-paper, and tinsel, in barbaric taste, are plastered without stint upon nearly every object that meets the eye, so that, when on festive occasions the church is lighted, it must present a ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... of the Augustan city stand out in high relief, above the varied crowd that fills the streets, with all the dignity that centuries of power can lend. To the tawdry is opposed the splendid, the Roman general in his chiselled corselet and dyed mantle faces the Greek actor in his tinsel; the band of painted, half-clad, bedizened dancing-girls falls back cowering in awestruck silence as the noble Vestal passes by, high-browed, white-robed, untainted, the incarnation of purity in an age of vice. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... like a sun in the centre of this dark, smoky room. The old tools were arranged in the same lines as they had been for centuries—the punches, the awls, the mallets, and the hammers; on the work-frame the little donkey waste-basket and the tinsel, the thimbles and the needles, moved up and down as usual, while in the different corners, where they ended by growing rusty, the diligent, the hand spinning-wheel, and the reel for winding, seemed to sleep in the peaceful quiet which entered ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... propriety, no sign of opium about him anywhere. One element that they introduced was Colour. Our modern Fairs are not very strong in the element of Colour. It is true that one of the roundabouts was ablaze with gilt and tinsel, and in the centre of it, whence comes the music, there were women with brazen faces and bosoms of gold. It is true also that outside the Circus and the Fat Sisters and Battling Edwardes there were flaming pictures with reds and yellows thrown about like temperance tracts, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... he said, "which troubled me little at the time, but which just lately have been on my mind. The first is that I am nearly fifty, and Lady Angela is twenty-one. The second is that I came home with all the tinsel and glamour of a popular hero. Heaven knows I loathed it, but the fact remains. The King's reception, the V.C., and all that sort of thing, I suppose, accounted for it. Anyhow, I am troubled with this reflection. Lady Angela was very young, and I fear that her ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... say of her, in lieu of what she might say for herself. We hear of her conquests, her social triumphs, we listen to panegyrics, but are seldom admitted behind the scenes to judge for ourselves of what is gold and what is tinsel. We, moreover, seek in vain for those unconscious revelations so precious in divining character. The few letters of Madame Recamier that are published have little or no significance. She was not fond of writing, still she corresponded regularly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... last epoch and the barrenness of the present one. The age of Tiberius forms an interval of silence during which the dead are buried, and the new generation prepares itself to appear. Under Nero it will have started forth in all its panoply of tinsel armour; at present the seeds that will produce it are being sown by the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... joyfully clasping to her breast a satin-striped box, in which beneath paper lace and tinsel was the most delicious candy; a whole box full all but a few bites, as Alene had said; while the latter leaned over the wall calling more good-byes, and Prince kept up a continuous barking that said so plainly, once you ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole from the make-believe forest in my typewriter, and every glitter of tinsel, smudge of toy candle, crackle of wrapping paper, that my particular brand of brain and ink can conjure up on a single keyboard! And very large-sized dogs shall romp through every page! And the mercury shiver perpetually in the vicinity of zero! And every foot ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... such men as Jamie must there be, to hold the fabric together and make possible the daring spins of you, my lords Lovelace, and you, Launcelots and Tristrams, and Miss Vivien here; who weave your paradoxical cross-purposes of tinsel evil in the sober ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... erect, but alas! he had only one leg! His uniform was red and blue and very splendid. He carried his musket across his shoulder as a marching soldier should, kept his eyes straight to the front, and stood very firmly upon his one foot. In the fire he lost the tinsel and the color from his uniform, and when the Dancer joined him he melted into ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... most powerful debater of France since Mirabeau—figured among the chief ornaments of the salons of De Stael. Roland, and the showy and witty Theresa Cabarrus, and even the flutter of La Fayette, the most tinsel of heroes, and the sullen sententiousness of Robespierre, then known only as a provincial deputy, furnished a background which increased the prominence of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... verbose and flaccid Latin, analyse them with difficulty, and when at last we come to the central thought enshrouded in them, we too often find that it is the merest and most obvious commonplace, a piece of tinsel wrapped in endless folds of tissue paper. Perhaps from one point of view the study of the style of Cassiodorus might prove useful to a writer of English, as indicating the faults which he has in this age most ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... was as good as his word. As soon as luncheon was over, he mounted his horse and rode away, humming a tune. Kate stood on the steps, with the pale November sunlight gilding the delicate rose-bloom cheeks, and making an aureole round the tinsel hair watching him out of sight. Eeny was clinging round her as usual, and Grace stopped to speak to her on her way across ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... rubies? With all the wealth of Croesus before me I felt melancholy; and would have paid cheerfully its weight in carats for a good honest round of boiled beef. Wealth, wealth, what art thou? What is gold?—Soft metal. What are diamonds?—Shining tinsel. The great wealth-winners, the only fame-achievers, the sole objects worthy of a soldier's consideration, are beefsteaks, gunpowder, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... whitewashed. Generally they are under the shade of a tree, either planted at the time of burial or growing there already. On the anniversary of the day of death faithful Mohammedans will often cover the tomb with a kind of coarse muslin, edged with gold or yellow tinsel, and decorate it with flowers. That these tombs are numerous, and that they are often found in remote country districts, is accounted for, firstly, by the fact that this kind of asceticism was formerly much more popular than is the case now; and, secondly, that as ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... us be real," suggested Nellie. "Everybody will be all make-believe. I saw lots of people getting ready, and I'm sure they will all look like Christmas-tree things, tinsel and paper ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... acceptable looking chaperon, due to their own handiwork. Susan, or Mrs. Hastings, as they called her, looked the picture of a kindly, dignified matron. Her grey hair was done in a simple, becoming fashion, and ornamented with a spray of silver tinsel leaves. The grey satin gown of Mrs. Allen's, which Patty had appropriated without compunction, fitted fairly well, and a fichu of old lace, prettily draped, concealed any deficiencies. Though possessing no elegance of manner, ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... snuff-box. Most of the richer churches contain some beautiful pictures, or other embellishments of great price, almost universally set, side by side, with sprawling effigies of maudlin monks, and the veriest trash and tinsel ever seen. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... for the sake of whose beauty one might give up all things. Young, elegant, serpentine; clad in a single garment, a light cinnamon gown clasped at the waist; no stockings, her legs bare and brown; on her head a Persian scarf embroidered with red and gold tinsel; her face white, with a delicate pink flush over it; hair and eyes black as night, but also with a glitter of stars. Wherever she walked she was a picture, and whether she was working about the house, or idling ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... opera-house in her stage dress, rushed into the country, and passed the night weeping by the wayside. (Ah! how they have calumniated the love of Louis XV.'s time!) She was so unused to see the sunrise, that she hailed it with one of her finest songs. Her attitude, quite as much as her tinsel, drew the peasants about her; amazed at her gestures, her voice, her beauty, they took her for an angel, and dropped on their knees around her. If Voltaire had not existed we might have thought it a new miracle. I don't know if God gave her much credit for ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... apart from the man, just as the doctrine ascribed to Jesus and its effects are to be considered quite irrespectively of his personal history. And—as I hope I have shown—the actual doings and sayings of every founder of a Faith or a school of philosophy must be sought for under a heap of tinsel and rubbish contributed by successive ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott

... were assembled pell-mell. They had just been given a hearty meal, but they did not look grateful. Almost naked, save for a white cloak of the meagrest dimensions, comically indecent, covered with tinsel and decorated with laurels, they stood shivering, awaiting the command to "Go!" to run the gauntlet of all this sinister crowd, overwelling with long-repressed venom, seething with taunts and lewdness. At last a mounted officer gave the word, and, amid a colossal shout ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... cased their feet, and their brawny, sunburned necks were bare. A scarlet belt encircled the waist of each; and while some wore hats with gaudy feathers, others had their heads adorned with caps and bonnets, surrounded with gold and silver tinsel hat-cords. A few, however, despising coats, travelled in blue and white striped shirts, and trusted to their thickly-matted hair to guard them from the rain and sun. They were truly a wild yet handsome set of men; and no one, when gazing on their happy faces as they lay or stood in careless attitudes ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... their arrangement, the folding doors communicating with another parlor were suddenly thrown open, disclosing the grand achievement of the afternoon—the beautiful Christmas tree—tall, wide-spreading, glittering with lights and tinsel ornaments, gorgeous with gay colors, and every ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... the city and distributed the most costly presents to the crowd. Engines were erected in all the squares which cast forth showers of confectionery among the people, while the artisans in chariots[185] adorned with tinsel and flying streamers exhibited the badges of their respective trades through the streets. Such brilliant displays of life and pageantry among the palaces and domes and gilded minarets of Lahore made the city altogether like a place of enchantment;—particularly ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... of pleasure and vice, after the Restoration, the actors, long starved and crestfallen, brushed up their plumes and burnished their tinsel. Killigrew, that clever buffoon of the Court, opened a new theatre in Drury Lane in 1663, with a play of Beaumont and Fletcher's; and Davenant (supposed to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son) opened the little theatre, long disused, in Salisbury Court, the rebuilding ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... tinsel I her silke soft sheets, Her rose-crownd cheekes eclipse my daze led sight, O glasse with too much ioy my thoughts thou greets, And yet thou shewst me day but by twielight Ile kisse thee for the kindnesse I hauefelt, Her lips one kisse ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... though they grew tightly there, and more than a hundred little red, blue, and white tapers were stuck fast into the branches. Dolls that looked for all the world like men—the Tree had never seen such things before—fluttered among the leaves, and at the very top a large star of gold tinsel was fixed. It was really splendid—splendid ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... marriage procession would strike into the Grand Trunk with music and shoutings, and a smell of marigold and jasmine stronger even than the reek of the dust. One could see the bride's litter, a blur of red and tinsel, staggering through the haze, while the bridegroom's bewreathed pony turned aside to snatch a mouthful from a passing fodder-cart. Then Kim would join the Kentish-fire of good wishes and bad jokes, wishing ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... the tinsel and the glare That lit his forbears' lives, His tweed-clad shoulders amply bear The burden that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various

... I am grown to more, Now the doing of right hath moved Me to love of right, and proved If one doth it, he shall be Twice the man he was before. Verily and verily, Thou fair woman, thou didst well; I look back and scarce may tell Those false days of tinsel sheen, Flattery, feasting, that have been. Shows of life that were but shows, How they held me; being I ween Like sand-pictures thin, that rose Quivering, when our thirsty bands Marched i' the hot Egyptian lands; Shade of ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... frenzy of ecstasy there is in every hour! and the worshipper is pressing out and drinking the essence of the hours: he lives in the life of Brahma. I speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life; I am now attached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away. Kabr says: "Thus is the worshipper set free from fear; thus have all errors of life and of death ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... the reader a description of the arms and equipments of every noted warrior, I will bestow a word upon the dress of this redoubtable commander. It comported with his character, being so crossed and slashed, and embroidered with lace and tinsel, that he seemed to have as much brass without as nature had stored away within. He was swathed too in a crimson sash, of the size and texture of a fishing-net; doubtless to keep his swelling heart from bursting through his ribs. His face glowed with furnace heat from between ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... together, near equal to the Greek". No one has done more than Milton to justify this praise, or to make manifest what may be effected by this marriage of words. Many of his compound epithets, as 'golden-tressed', 'tinsel-slippered', 'coral-paven', 'flowry-kirtled', 'violet-embroidered', 'vermeil-tinctured', are themselves poems in miniature. Not unworthy to be set beside these are Sylvester's "opal-coloured morn", Drayton's "silver-sanded shore", and perhaps ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... out costumes to the supers. He was so convinced on this point that he felt sure it was only the stupid yokel at the back of the gallery who could look with any admiration on a human being merely because he struts about the stage in purple and gold tinsel. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... old man, whose appearance argued prosperity, was en grande tenue, the State costume of Tuckey's, not of Merolla's day. The crown was the usual "berretta" (night-cap) of open work; the sceptre, a drum-major's staff; the robes, a "parochial" beadle's coat of scarlet cloth, edged with tinsel gold lace. His neck was adorned with hair circlets of elephants' tails, strung with coral and beads; the effect, to compare black with white, was that of Beau Brummell's far-famed waterfall tie, and the head seemed supported as if on a narrow-rimmed "charger." The only other ornament was a broad ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... worst enemy music has ever had in this country, did not disdain to prepare "a performing edition," and to improve Mozart's improvements on Handel. One wonders whether Mozart, when he overlaid the "Messiah" with his gay tinsel-work, dreamed that some Costa, encouraged by Mozart's own example, and without brains enough to guess that he had nothing like Mozart's brains, would in like manner desecrate "Don Giovanni." Like "Don Giovanni," there the "Messiah" lies, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... write no article just now; I am pioching, like a madman, at my stories, and can make nothing of them; my simplicity is tame and dull—my passion tinsel, boyish, hysterical. Never mind—ten years hence, if I live, I shall have learned, so help me God. I know one must work, in the meantime (so says Balzac) comme le mineur enfoui sous ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Melbourne is never likely to hide itself under a bushel; external adornment is the mot d'ordre. Ribbons and laces, or anything that helps to improve the look of a dress, the colonial lady will indulge in freely and even extravagantly; but you must not penetrate her tinsel armour. ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... country of her exile. Natives gave her 'the creeps.' Useless to argue. Her retort was unvarying and unanswerable. "East is East—and I'm not. It's a country of horrors, under a thin layer of tinsel. Don't talk to me——!" Lance Desmond had achieved fame among the subalterns by christening her the Banter-Wrangle; but he liked her well enough, on the whole, to hope she would never find ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... Helvetia Exchange," with the white cross and plumed hat of Switzerland. One street is all Chinese, with shiny-haired women, and little mandarins with long cues of braided red silk. The babies seem to be dressed in imitation of the idol in the temple; their tight caps have the same tinsel and trimmings, and the resemblance their little dry faces bear to it is ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... she answered, and taking a piece of swan's-down, a lock of golden hair, and a pair of silver-tinsel tights from her portmanteau she handed them over ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs

... answered, stolidly. "Mrs. Handsell has begun to talk to you now about London, of the theatres, the dressmakers, Hurlingham, Ranelagh, race meetings, society, and all that sort of rot. She talks of them very cleverly. She knows how to make the tinsel sparkle ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... are discovered the airman drops a smoke ball directly over it or lets fall some strips of tinsel, which glitter in the sun as they slowly descend to the earth. The range to the target is apparently ascertained by those near the guns by a large telemeter, or other range finder, which is kept trained on the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... on these occasions his room is richly ornamented, and a statue of the ten-armed goddess Durga placed in it. This statue is formed of clay or wood, painted with the most glaring colours, and loaded with gold and silver tinsel, flowers, ribbons, and often with even real jewellery. Hundreds of lights and lamps, placed between vases and garlands of flowers, glitter in the room, the court-yard, and outside the house. A number of different animals are offered up as sacrifices; they are not slain, however, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... own. Do you know that when you have one of them in your hand, you may be holding what has come thousands of miles over sea and land from the hands of other children in distant countries? Whole families make a living by manufacturing these toys. The material—wood, paper, tinsel, wire, or what not—is given out at the factory, and the worker takes it home. There every one is busy; one cutting out pieces of paper of a given shape, one whittling pieces of wood to fit together, one gumming up the various parts, till the whole toy is finished ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... by-the-bye, are frequently found much more worthy of admiration than the real beasts themselves; listening to the jokes of the merry-andrews from the platforms in front of the temporary theatres, or admiring the splendid tinsel dresses of the performers who thronged the stages in the intervals of the entertainments; and in this manner, occasionally gazing and occasionally listening, I passed through the town till I came in front of a large edifice looking full upon the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Sir Marmaduke. No man can hold his own in print, now-a-days, unless he can see the difference between tinsel and gold." ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... tinsel, Mrs. Bread," said Newman. "If you stay there a while it will all peel off of itself." And he gave ...
— The American • Henry James

... song be roughly set? Parnassus' self is rough! Give thou the thought, The golden ore, the gems that few forget; In time the tinsel jewel will be wrought.... Stand thou alone and fixed as destiny; An imaged god that lifts above all hate, Stand thou serene and satisfied with fate. Stand thou as stands that lightning-riven tree That lords the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... the executrix and son-in-law, whom that great genius deceased, my well-beloved cousin in folly, King Corny, chose for himself. As to that thing, half mud, half tinsel, half Irish, half French, Miss, or Mademoiselle, O'Faley, that jointed doll, is—all but the eyes, which move of themselves in a very extraordinary way—a mere puppet, pulled by wires in the hands ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... shoot their tinsel beams and vanities, Threading with those false fires their way; But as you stay And see them stray, You lose the flaming track, and subtly they Languish away, And ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... the sand. So when the Princess saw she was saved, she was so glad that she scarce knew what to do, and she jumped and danced for joy. 'Come, lie down, and sleep a little in my lap', she said to Shortshanks, and as he slept she threw over him a tinsel robe. ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent



Words linked to "Tinsel" :   lend, beautify, decorate, impart, yarn, add, grace, ornament, decoration, interweave, tinselly, embellish, weave, thread, ornamentation, bring, adorn, contribute, bestow



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org