"Diminutive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hummocky bench land where the pink of fragile nopal petals brightens the graves in Spring and the mesquite showers them with its golden pods in Summer; where the sweet scent of the juajilla loads the air, and the sun ever shines down out of a bright and cloudless sky; where a diminutive forest of crosses of wood and stone symbolize the faith he in life refused to accept—now, perhaps, Pat Garrett has learned how ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... the history of the name,' said Albinia; 'it sounds like nothing but the diminutive of ewer. I hope she will not be the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on a stool, placed in a corner, a little girl, some nine or ten years old, with a basket of flowers on her knee. The child was very diminutive, even for her age, and her smallness was increased by personal deformity, occasioned by contraction of the chest, and spinal curvature, which raised her back above her shoulders; but her features were sharp and cunning, indeed almost ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... me to have been built upon a design of Palladio, and might be converted into an elegant place of worship; but it is indifferently contrived for that sort of idolatry which is performed in it at present: the grandeur of the fane gives a diminutive effect to the little painted divinities that are adorned in it, and the company, on a ball-night, must look like an assembly of fantastic fairies, revelling by moonlight among the columns ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Kshatriyas and the Vaisyas also, O monarch, follow practices contrary to those that are proper for their own orders. And men become short-lived, weak in strength, energy, and prowess; and endued with small might and diminutive bodies, they become scarcely truthful in speech. And the human population dwindles away over large tracts of country, and the regions of the earth, North and South, and East and West, become crowded with animals and beasts of prey. And during this period, they also that utter Brahma, do ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... system could have been nearly as successful amongst a pagan people circumstanced as the Irish were? The community system alone afforded the necessary mutual encouragement and protection to the missionaries. Each monastic station became a base of operations. The numerous diminutive dioceses, quasi-dioceses, or tribal churches, were little more than extensive parishes and the missionary bishops were little more in jurisdiction than glorified parish priests. The bishop's 'muintir,' that is the members of his household, ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... had been aimed a trifle too high. It went directly over the lads on the diminutive deck. Instinctively they all ducked their heads as the missile screamed wickedly in ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... To complete the picture, it is proper to state that Thor, Odin, and Frigga, were frightful idols, as represented in the Upsala temple, and the small statues carried by the Scandinavian sailors on their expeditions and set in the place of honor on board their ships, were but diminutive copies of the hideous originals. It is known, moreover, that Odin had existed as a leader of some of their migrations, so that their idolatry ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... truly concerned your honour: no, Sir; I would be as delicate in such, as you yourself: more delicate, I will venture to say, because more uniformly so. How vain, how contemptible, is that pride, which shows itself in standing upon diminutive observances; and gives up, and makes a jest ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... addressed to the more diminutive class of midshipmen—those under five feet high, and under seven stone ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... liberties and the interests of the two nations forever,—could he see the fountain of British liberty itself in servitude to France? Could he see with patience a Prince of Orange expelled, as a sort of diminutive despot, with every kind of contumely, from the country which that family of deliverers had so often rescued from slavery, and obliged to live in exile in another country, which owes its liberty ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the stems, sucking the juices through their little beaks, just as the aphids moor themselves to the tender rose-twigs, might be mistaken for thorns during one of their protective masquerades. Again they look like diminutive flocks of fowl, their heads ever pointing in one direction, no matter how the vine may twist and turn - always toward the top of the branch, that they may the better siphon the sap down their tiny throats. Toward the end of summer the females, which have a sharp instrument at the rear ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a visible and important object in the military history of the Roman empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were shrunk to a very diminutive size; and when seven legions, with some auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the Persians, the total garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes, and the peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the number of twenty thousand persons. [131] From ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... water, with not even the leaf of a creeper to soften its menacing walls, although above them appeared the full-foliaged tops of trees planted in the barrack-yard. It looked as though the grim walls belted a secret orchard. What with the frowning battlements, the very few windows diminutive and closely barred, the sullen entrance and the absence of any gracious greenery, Gartley Fort resembled the Castle of Giant Despair. On the hither side, but invisible to the lovers, great cannons scowled on the river they protected, ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... India vary in size and importance from powerful principalities like the Nizam's State of Hyderabad, with an area of 82,000 miles—nearly equal to that of England and Wales and Scotland—- and a population of over 11 millions, down to diminutive chiefships, smaller than the holdings of a great English landlord. Distributed throughout the whole length and breadth of the peninsula, they display the same extraordinary variety of races and creeds and castes and languages and customs and traditions as the provinces under the immediate ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... is said to have been first inhabited by some persons forced to quit Sweden by religious differences. The union of this canton to those of Uri and Unterwald, first suggested that more extended confederacy, so essential to the existence of these diminutive states. ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... in Our Town," another of Ned's parts, his efforts were so absurd and so utterly unlike what the tableau was expected to be, that it was decided to make it "I Had a Little Husband, no Bigger than my Thumb." Roland certainly looked diminutive enough to fit into a pint pot, and also seemed qualified to do as he might ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... the parliament, if this diminutive assembly deserve that honorable name, retain not the least appearance of law, equity, or freedom. They instantly reversed the former vote, and declared the king's concessions unsatisfactory. They determined that no member absent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... the door of my room into the hall, I found a small sedan-chair, of highly ornamental make, awaiting my convenience, carried upon the shoulders of two diminutive boys, who were as black, and shone as lustrously, as a bit of highly polished ebony. I had never seen their like before, save in an occasional bit of statuary in Italy, wherein marbles of differing hue and shade had been ingeniously used by the sculptor to ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... was waiting for her in the little drawing-room of the flat. The neat white room with its miniature overmantel, pink walls, and brass fire-irons like toys, resembled more than ever an elaborate doll's house. The frail white chairs seemed too slender to be sat on. Could one ever write at that diminutive white writing-desk? The flat might have been made, and furnished by Waring, for midgets. Everything was still in fair and dainty repair, except that the ceiling, which was painted in imitation of a blue sky, was beginning to look cloudy. Hyacinth sat on a tiny blue sofa from where she could see her ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... nuzzling her and looking up to us with plaintive whines. The next instant I swung out of my saddle, and, bending down, raised the unfortunate creature in my arms, when I saw, to my amazement, that she was evidently a full-grown woman, but of very diminutive stature, being only about four feet six inches in height. Moreover she was in a most shockingly emaciated condition, and on her back was a close network of scarcely healed scars, which looked as though ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... himself in the battle of Queenstown Heights. His courage was manifested by the most extraordinary daring throughout the entire and unequal contest; but his small force was compelled to surrender with the honors of war. The whole affair reflected credit upon his diminutive force, and upon the young hero who led them. His imprisonment was not without dangers that afforded opportunities of displaying his lofty ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... owl-eyes, the enormous size of her protruding nose, and the great dark cavern of her mouth. Finally, her dress, like that of a young woman of Avapies—the new little cotton handkerchief which she wore on her head, tied under her chin, and a diminutive fan which she carried open in her hand, and with which, in affected modesty, she was covering ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... satisfaction we put the poker in the fire and made it red hot, then bored a hole with it through the head, and tightened the shaft with wedges until the club was complete. With this primitive driver we could get what was for our diminutive limbs a really long ball, or a long taw as one should say. In these later days a patent has been taken out for drivers with the shaft let into the head, which are to all intents and purposes the same in principle as those which we used to ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... These diminutive observations seem to take away something from the dignity of writing, and therefore are never communicated but with hesitation, and a little fear of abasement and contempt. But it must be remembered, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... although their elegance is often too elaborate and their thoughts and feelings too artificial. Besides these, Ariosto, Tasso, Machiavelli, and Michael Angelo, whose genius was practiced in more ambitious tasks, did not disdain to shape and polish such diminutive gems as the canzone, the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... we had turned from the terrace and were nearing the Mazet—which diminutive of the Provencal word mas, meaning farm-house, is applied to the farm establishment at Vielmur partly in friendliness and partly in indication of its dependence upon the great house, the Chateau. ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... not to be endured," said Don Felix de Castro, an old noble, whose sharp features and diminutive stature proclaimed the purity of his blood and the antiquity ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bettered by many signs of recent refitting. An impression of paint, varnish, and carpentry was in the air; a gaudy new burgee fluttered aloft; there seemed to be a new rope or two, especially round the diminutive mizzen-mast, which itself looked altogether new. But all this only emphasized the general plainness, reminding one of a respectable woman of the working-classes trying to dress above her station, and soon likely ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... fatigued, and as they depended on them for escape in case of need, that they should seek repose upon the friendly side of the river, and cross the Arkansas in the morning. Their horses were accordingly tethered, a diminutive fire lighted in a deep dell or hole, and every other needful preparation made to pass the night. A frugal repast was consumed, and then each warrior leaned against a tree, and, smoking his pipe, gravely conversed upon the best mode of acquiring distinction and renown. Many opinions were given: but ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... an elfish creature, nine years old, diminutive and pale. Her long, silky brown hair, which was as straight as an Indian's, like mother's, and which she tore out when angry, usually covered her face, and her wild eyes looked wilder still peeping through it. She was too strange-looking for ordinary people to call her pretty, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... drove over our heads above the rush of the water, and the sky appeared of a blue more than usually brilliant. The rocks on each side, which, joining with the side of this cave, formed the vista of the brook, were chequered with three diminutive waterfalls, or rather courses of water. Each of these was a miniature of all that summer and winter can produce of delicate beauty. The rock in the centre of the falls, where the water was most abundant, a deep black, the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... constant and settled analogy, like diminutive adjectives in ish, as greenish, bluish; adverbs in ly, as dully, openly; substantives in ness, as vileness, faultiness; were less diligently sought, and sometimes have been omitted, when I had no authority that invited me to insert them; not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... side of Mons Gaurus. For the flowering shrubs in the tiny pleasaunce itself are far too precious to be stripped of their blossoms in so lavish a manner, and perhaps if Vettius be anything of an amateur gardener, he may comment to his visitors upon the rare plants that fill his diminutive flower-beds. Careful and reverent hands have restored the little garden as near as possible to its pristine plan and appearance. There are still standing the two bronze statues of urchins holding in their chubby arms ducks from whose ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Theuderich with the aid of the Saxons. See Felix Dahn, "Urgeschichte", iii, 73-79. He, too, comes from the Low German tradition. (9) "Bloedel" is Bleda, the brother of Attila, with whom he reigned conjointly from A.D. 433 to 445. In our poem the name appears frequently with the diminutive ending, as "Bloedelin". (10) "Werbel and Swemmel", who doubtless owe their introduction to some minstrel, enjoy special favor and are intrusted with the important mission of inviting the Burgundians to Etzel's court, an honor that would hardly be accorded to persons of their ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... loftiest period of his life. The old feeling, smothered as it was under resentment and a new passion, stirred in him. He strained her to his breast and called her the pet names he used to call her. The diminutive being upon his knee heard them without response. When ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... spaciousness the familiar forms seem incredibly diminutive. That little speck moving across one of the brown carpets is a ploughman and his team. That white stream that looks like milk flowing over the green carpet is a flock of sheep running before the sheep-dog to another pasture. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... mother made the togs fer Jim," he asserted with great independence, as he rammed his hands into the diminutive pockets in ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... attracting the notice of everyone whose talents might contribute to her entertainment, or whose attention might gratify her vanity. And, really, when one recollected Lady Bel-lair's long career, and witnessed at the same time her diminutive form and her unrivalled vitality, he might almost be tempted to believe, that if not absolutely immortal, it was at least her strange destiny not so much vulgarly to die, as to grow like the heroine of the fairy tale, each year ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... not I dream that the good captain would bring pink silk stockings? and are they not my own this minute?" And she thrust a diminutive foot from beneath the hem of her gown, regarding it with admiration. "And did not I dream that Tomaso and Liseta would marry? What was ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... people to go to, if they would wash their faces and be decent. Now I can't stay here any longer, so good-by for the present." She took up a little basket containing an old pair of gloves, large scissors, and a ball of twine, and walked briskly away to attend to the plants in her diminutive conservatory. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... mother-pride prevailed. Mrs. Maynard rustled up-stairs, and presently returned holding in her hands a delicate silver frame in filigree-work, a quaint foreign affair, and enclosed therein was a cabinet photograph en vignette,—the head, neck, and shoulders of a beautiful girl; and the dainty, diminutive, what-there-was-of-it waist of the old-fashioned gown, sashed almost immediately under the exquisite bust, revealed quite materially the cause of Alice Renwick's blushes. But a more beautiful portrait was never photographed. The women fairly gasped with ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... expected. The gallant frigate, seen from the impending rocks, looked like a light merchantman, in all but her symmetry and warlike guise; nature being moulded on so grand a scale all along that coast, as to render objects of human art unusually diminutive to the eye. On the other hand, the country-houses, churches, hermitages, convents, and villages, clustered all along the mountain-sides, presented equally delusive forms, though they gave an affluence to the views that left the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "Tanner" alone; Harry Smith, being a swarthy, dark-haired fellow, was "Blacksmith;" and I, Nathaniel Herrick, was dubbed the first day "Poet"—I, who had never made a line in my life— and later on, as I was rather diminutive, ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... met an expatriated German baron, an unfortunate who had failed utterly in the rough life of the frontier. He was living in a squalid little hut, almost unfurnished, but studded around with the diminutive horns of the European roebuck. These were the only treasures he had taken with him to remind him of his former life, and he was never tired of describing what fun it was to shoot roebucks when driven by the little ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... illuminated by some lively emotion, they beamed upon the beholder like stars. The hands of Fayaway were as soft and delicate as those of any countess; for an entire exemption from rude labour marks the girlhood and even prime of a Typee woman's life. Her feet, though wholly exposed, were as diminutive and fairly shaped as those which peep from beneath the skirts of a Lima lady's dress. The skin of this young creature, from continual ablutions and the use of mollifying ointments, was ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... he was a small gas-bag of diminutive size, beneath which was suspended a little car, the most ridiculous little travesty of an airship I have ever seen. He was nosing along at about 800 feet ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... Mr. Syme, writer to the signet. Those, who are desirous of more information, may consult Craig de Feudis, Lib. II. dig. 9. sec. 24. It is hoped the reader will excuse this digression, though somewhat professional; especially as there can be little doubt, that this diminutive republic must soon share the fate of mightier states; for, in consequence of the increase of commerce, lands possessed under this singular tenure, being now often brought to sale, and purchased by the neighbouring proprietors, will, in process of time, be included in their investitures, and ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... in the center of the clearing watching the plane shrinking to diminutive toy-like proportions in the eastern sky. He had breathed a sigh of relief as he saw it rise safely with the British flier and Fraulein Bertha Kircher. For weeks he had felt the hampering responsibility of their welfare in this savage wilderness where their utter helplessness would have rendered ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... epigram of his fourteenth book is a mere play on words, concerning a little volume containing the works of Virgil, and which had his portrait prefixed to it. The volume and the characters must have been very diminutive. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... couvre pieds because I know all women love exquisite things, and surely nothing could be more delicious than my couvre-pieds. Literally, it is a "cover for the feet," a sort of glorified and diminutive coverlet, made of the palest of pink silk, lined with the soft long-haired white fur known as mountain tibet, and interlined with down. The coverlet is bordered with a puffing of French lace, and the top of it is encrusted with little flowers made ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... to bathe in a modest-sized pond in the orchard, and thither one afternoon Groby had bent his steps, attracted by loud imprecations of anger mingled with the shriller chattering of monkey-language. He beheld his plump diminutive servitor, clad only in a waistcoat and a pair of socks, storming ineffectually at the monkey which was seated on a low branch of an apple tree, abstractedly fingering the remainder of the boy's outfit, which he had removed ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... was born at Corbie, in Picardy, in 1380. Her parents, out of devotion to St. Nicholas, gave her the name of Colette, the diminutive of Nicholas. She was brought up in the love of humiliations and austerities. Her desire to preserve her purity without the least blemish made her avoid as much as possible all company, even of persons of her own sex, unless it was sometimes to draw them from the love of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... astonish me: some of them seem to surpass even men in memory and sagacity. I could tell you singular instances of that kind. What then is this instinct which we so debase, and of which we are taught to entertain so diminutive an idea? My bees, above any other tenants of my farm, attract my attention and respect; I am astonished to see that nothing exists but what has its enemy, one species pursue and live upon the other: unfortunately our kingbirds ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... red, entirely dwarfed by an ungainly chimney of rough stone. The little hut was built against a huge boulder, which towered above the chimney itself, and looked as though it had stood there since the foundation of the earth. There was a rustic veranda along the front of this diminutive dwelling, which stood on a slight eminence; and, as Sir Bryan stepped upon the veranda, he drew a long breath of amazement and delight. Looking down over the broad, oak-clad slope of the mountain, he beheld the vast sea of the prairie, stretching for leagues upon leagues away to ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... bed and forgot back alleys. He selected tidbits with the air of one who knew not garbage cans, but he redeemed all shortcomings by his faithful love to her who had rescued him. The melting brown eyes found their highest joy in Patricia's approval, and a harsh word from her brought his diminutive tail between his ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... traveled sharply around her in all directions. It was still light enough to see fairly well, and she might at some future time find the bearings she took now to be of inestimable worth. Not that there was much to remark! They crossed a diminutive and disgustingly dirty backyard, whose sole reason for existence seemed to be that of a receptacle for old tin cans, and were confronted by the rear of what appeared to be a four-story tenement. There was a back door here, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... a rear leg as she leaped back, wild to rollick, tucking her under one arm, administering three diminutive punishments ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... his pocket a diminutive vial, the smallest I had ever seen, in which were a number of little white granules, about the size of the head of a pin. A printed label was wound around the vial, and it bore the word "Arsenicum." It passed from hand to hand, and all ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... he say?" asked Danny Griswold, who had been prancing the deck like a diminutive admiral, stopping now and blowing a cloud of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... or tourneys, were military exercises—play wars—to fill out the tiresome periods which occasionally intervened between real wars.[72] They were, in fact, diminutive battles in which whole troops of hostile nobles sometimes took part. These rough plays called down the condemnation of the popes and councils, and even of the kings. The latter, however, were too fond ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... Rajput chieftains in Western India. Probably a diminutive of Rao, the Marathi form of Raj or Raja. A section of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... likes to pay. Many of these costumes testify to the exquisite taste of the females by whom they are made; for the combination of silk, wool, and thread, and the beautiful lace-work, the effect of which is heightened by diminutive spangles of gilt and silver, cannot fail to challenge admiration. These costumes are, however, better adapted for young girls than for ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... was unpromising. At birth he was puny and diminutive in a remarkable degree. Weems, in his peculiar fashion, writes, "I have it from good authority, that this great soldier, at his birth, was not larger than a New England lobster, and might easily enough ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... more often specifically applied to two limited manifestations of the volition. It was the commonest of synonyms alike for 'self will' or 'stubbornness'—in which sense it still survives in 'wilful'—and for 'lust,' or 'sensual passion.' It also did occasional duty for its own diminutive 'wish,' for 'caprice,' for 'good-will,' and for 'free consent' (as nowadays ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... sole, or even the principal, is a subordinate, reason of our Lord's action. But it is also to be considered in the light of the woman's quick-witted retort, which drew out of it an inference which we cannot suppose that Christ did not intend. He uses a diminutive for 'dogs,' which shows that He is not thinking of the fierce, unclean animals, masterless and starving, that still haunt Eastern cities, and deserve their bad character, but of domestic pets, who live with the household, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... no bounds: "Ah I that must be another sun; not the same as the one we see here," said an old man; and in spite of all my arguments to the contrary, the others adopted this opinion. I wound up the night's conversation by an account of the diminutive Laplanders, clothed in skins of the seal instead of kangaroo; and amidst the shouts of applause that this account excited I laid down to rest. I this night observed a circumstance which had often before struck me, namely, that savages care but little for narratives concerning civilized man, ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... (English gentleman) to a crowd of natives. Suddenly I heard the word kuda. Fortunately kuda (horse) was one of the words I knew: and I at once ordered the kuda to be brought. Half a dozen natives set off to find it. It turned out to be a very diminutive pony, but I was not ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... right," Phil cried, and in less than three minutes, powdered, oiled and combed, Morris climbed out of the chair. His coat was in waiting, held by a diminutive Italian brushboy, but Morris waved ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... all the nonsense that hath been vented by metaphysicians, mystagogues, and theologians."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 297. "As to those animals whose use is less common, or who on account of the places which they inhabit, fall less under our observation, as fishes and birds, or whom their diminutive size removes still further from our observation, we generally, in English, employ a single Noun to designate both Genders, Masculine and Feminine."—Fosdick's De Sacy, p. 67. "Adjectives may always be distinguished by their being the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... you say or do," said a thin meagre figure of a man, whose diminutive person seemed still more reduced in size, and more assimilated to a shadow, by his efforts to assume an extreme degree of humility, and make himself, to suit his argument, look meaner yet, and yet more insignificant, than ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the article in No. 16., "on Pet Names," had not been Scottish, I should have been less surprised at the author's passing over the name of Jock, universally used in Scotland for John. The termination ick or ck is often employed, as marking a diminutive object, or object of endearment. May not the English term Jack, if not directly borrowed from the Scottish Jock, have been formed through the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... encumbered with decayed vegetation—and they spurred their animals to the top of their speed. It was a noble sight to see the majestic white steed flying toward the mound with the velocity of the wind, while the diminutive pony miraculously followed in the wake like an inseparable shadow. The careering flames were not far behind, and, when the horses gained the summit and Glenn looked back, the ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... his attention was drawn to a very smart-looking trap, half dog and half training cart, which for the past fifteen minutes had been driven up and down by the most diminutive of grooms. Slowly he took in every detail, the high-actioned hackney, the handsome harness, the livery of the groom, even the wicker basket under the seat with its padlock hanging on the hasp. Lazily he attempted ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... Madame Bordier approached, leading a donkey from the stable-yard, a diminutive donkey of suspicious eye ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... or Berrebbers of the south of Barbary, differ in several respects from their brethren in the north. They are rather diminutive in person, and besides the want of beard already noticed, have in general an effeminate tone of voice. They are, however, active and enterprising. They possess rather more of the social qualities than ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Bucephalus himself. His youthful companions, who attended on either hand like equerries, could scarcely suppress a smile at the completely adjusted and systematic posture of the rider, contrasted with the wild and diminutive appearance of the pony, with its shaggy coat, and long tail and mane, and its keen eyes sparkling like red coals from amongst the mass of hair which fell over its small countenance. If the reader has the Duke of Newcastle's book on horsemanship, (splendida moles!) he may have some idea ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... been shrewdly observed that Foote must have meant a diminutive, or POCKET edition.] I mentioned my doubts to Dr Johnson, who said, he would go two miles out of his way to see Lord Monboddo. I therefore sent Joseph forward, with the ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... German tales the dwarfs are described as deformed and diminutive, coarsely clad and of dusky hue: "a little black man," "a little gray man." They are sometimes of the height of a child of four years, sometimes as two spans high, a thumb high (hence, Tom Thumb). The old Danish ballad of Eline of ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... day there came a letter of a bulk, volume, pith, judgment and knowledge, fit to have been the product of a giant. You may laugh as much and as wickedly as you please, but the fact is, there is a quiet constancy about this, my diminutive and red-haired friend, which adds a foot to his stature, turns his sandy locks dark, and altogether dignifies him a good deal in my estimation." This is all she says by way of appreciation. She says later, "His manners and his personal appearance scarcely pleased me more than at the ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... the wet season, a diminutive orchid, the roots, tuber, leaf, and flower of which may be easily covered by the glass of a lady's watch, springs upon exposed shoulders of the hills. So far it has not been recorded for any other part of Australia, or, indeed, the world. Science has bestowed ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... growing tired of his own company in the guest-room, accepted Sir Charles' invitation with alacrity; and they walked down from the Abbey to the village of Malford, which was situated at the confluence of the Mall and the Nodder, two diminutive tributaries of the Wey, which itself is ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... discovery that of the said product of nature there remained little beyond the tail, while Sobakevitch, with an air as though at least HE had not eaten it, was engaged in plunging his fork into a much more diminutive piece of fish which happened to be resting on an adjacent platter. After his divorce from the sturgeon, Sobakevitch ate and drank no more, but sat frowning and ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... [4]Nastia—the diminutive of Anastasia; Nastenka, the same. Russian caressing names generally end in sia, sha, ousha, or oushka—as Vasia, (for Ivan;) Andriousha, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... diminutive of no'vus); adj. something new, out of the usual course; n., literally, a story new and out of the usual course; nov'elist; nov'elty; nov'ice, a beginner; novi'tiate, time ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... perhaps, smaller seeds, but the plants which sprung from them were not so great; and there were greater plants, but the seeds from which they sprung were not so small." Edersheim (i, p. 593) states that the diminutive size of the mustard seed was commonly used in comparison by the rabbis, "to indicate the smallest amount such as the least drop of blood, the least defilement, etc." The same author continues, in speaking of the grown plant: "Indeed, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... an excellent pasture plant for stock, they do not relish it so highly as some other pasture plants; when forming seed, it is least valuable for horses, owing to the extent to which it salivates them. Its diminutive habit of growth unfits it for making meadows, unless in conjunction with other hay plants. In nutritive properties, it is placed ahead of medium red clover. Some growers have spoken highly of it as ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... luncheon parties in the Authors' Club, or at Mrs. Foster-Dugdale's not less famous garden parties in Greville Place, would have supposed off-hand that the pair had a single point in common. Dapper little Maltby—blond, bland, diminutive Maltby, with his monocle and his gardenia; big black Braxton, with his lanky hair and his square blue jaw and his square sallow forehead. Canary and crow. Maltby had a perpetual chirrup of amusing small-talk. Braxton was usually silent, but very well worth listening to whenever he ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... and readily adopted by foreigners. In Sweden it is called the smoergas, or "butter-goose" but the American term (if we had the custom) would be "the whetter." On a side-table there are various plates of anchovies, cheese, chopped onions, raw salt herring, and bread, all in diminutive slices, while glasses of corresponding size surround a bottle of kuemmel, or cordial of caraway-seed. This, at least, was the zakouski on board the Valamo, and to which our valiant captain addressed himself, after first bowing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... an affecting Interview between Mr. Samuel Weller and a Family Party. Mr. Pickwick makes a Tour of the diminutive World he inhabits, and resolves to mix with it, in ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... long cords attached, the effects were beautiful and marvellous. Little wheels of colored fire rapidly revolved, miniature rockets appeared to rise a few feet and to explode in the air, and while all the ordinary forms of fireworks were produced on a diminutive scale, there were some effects that were entirely novel to the audience. As the light was turned successively upon one and another of the clusters of glass, sometimes it would flash along the whole line so rapidly that all the various ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... The proprietor of this bifurcated establishment, a man with red hair, a low forehead, a broad chin, and brawny shoulders, a long lip and long arms, rejoiced in the name of Nicholas Crimins, though by most of his customers he was irreverently called by a diminutive of that name. The principal part of his business undoubtedly came from the side of the establishment with the short name; but it was known to the stable-fraternity that on occasion "Old Nick" would make an ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... his hat with a fantastic politeness. For me, my astonishment grew as I regarded him more closely. A mass of lanky, white hair drooped on either side of a face pale, pinched, and extraordinarily wrinkled; the clothes that wrapped his diminutive body were threadbare, greasy, and patched in all directions. Fifty years' wear could not have worsened them; and, indeed, from the whole aspect of the man, you might guess him a century old, were it not for the nimbleness of his ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... at the farther end, and we found our way down to a low door in the side of the passage. This brought us into a small square room which gave the impression of being sunk below the level of the street. There were diminutive windows in the outer wall, but they were close to the low ceiling and though the glorious light from without tried hard to come in, it was successfully obstructed by little rush blinds of red and green. The rushes were placed vertically ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... growth dyed black, and gummed (the cheek at the same time having been faintly tinged with rouge, the locks parted, perfumed, and curled, the waist duly compressed, a slight addition, if necessary, made to the breadth of the hips, and the feet confined by the most taper and diminutive chausserie imaginable), will just serve to give to the tout ensemble that one touch of the masculine character which, perhaps, it may be well ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 'Sept.' 4, 1820.—A very diminutive terrier, weighing not 5 lbs. was sent to my hospital in order to lie in. She was already restless and panting. About eight o'clock at night the labour pains commenced; but until eleven scarcely any progress ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... procession was formed. As for Rory, he had some little trouble in starting, for his dogs, in their joy at seeing him, gave expression to it in their own peculiar way. A big Muskymote knocked down a little Corbeau and straightway began to worry it, while a Chocolat did the same with a diminutive tete-noire. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... will drink this sort of stuff I suppose you must, but don't blame me for the consequences"), I settled Mr. Bellingham in Barnard's favourite lop-sided easy chair—the depressed seat of which suggested its customary use by an elephant of sedentary habits—and opened the diminutive piano. ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... old stones having, so far as one can judge, been allowed to sink into the earth, nor, as is too often the case, to heel over, to be then broken up, carted away, or put to pave the church and churchyard. There is quite a collection of primitive and diminutive headstones, carefully ranged against the south wall of Hatfield Church, dating from 1687 to 1700; and the specimens of carving in the older parts of the churchyard are of great number and many designs. The one which appears ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... cheek-protectors; cf. Beit. xii. 26. "A bronze disk found at land in Sweden represents two warriors in helmets with boars as their crests, and cheek-guards under; these are the hler-bergan."—E. Cf. hauberk, with its diminutive habergeon, < A.-S. heals, neck beorgan, to cover or protect; and harbor, < A.-S. here, army beorgan, id.—Zachers Zeitschr. xii. 123. Cf. cinberge, Hunt's ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... in time grown to mortal height. Whether fairies be the decayed poor relations of more successful deities, gods whose cult has been forgotten and neglected (as the Irish Sidhe, or fairy-folk), or diminutive animistic spirits, originating in the belief that every object, small or great, possessed a personality, it is noticeable that Celtic fairies are of human height, while those of the Teutonic peoples ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... uncultivated, and as the knowledge they have of their own existence has no very remote date. After having studied with attention the Mexican monuments anterior to the discovery of the New World; after having penetrated into the forests of the Orinoco, and observed the diminutive size of the European establishments, their solitude, and the state of the tribes that have remained independent; we cannot allow ourselves to attribute the analogies just cited to the influence exercised by the missionaries, and by ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... is thus composed: k is the sign of the second person, and signifies "thou" or "thy"; uli is a part of the word wulit, which signifies "beautiful," "pretty"; gat is another fragment, of the word wichgat, which means "paw"; and, lastly, schis is a diminutive giving the idea of smallness. Thus in one word the Indian woman has expressed "Thy pretty little paw." Take another example of the felicity with which the savages of America have composed their words. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... studies. I saw in the Crawford market this afternoon fresh fish, and dried and unfresh, and the vendors thereof. There were many kinds of so-called fresh fish, but the most were dried, to mere skin and bone, sharks and sprats, piled in baskets or hanging in bundles. Diminutive wrinkled women sat on little bits of wet mat in rows, and chopped the "fresh" fish into little morsels with little choppers by the light of little cruisie oil lamps, that flickered and smoked beside them, and lit up their puckered ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... 1596, nearly three hundred years ago, of a noble family in Touraine, Rene Descartes grew up into a sickly and diminutive child, whose keen wit soon gained him that title of "the Philosopher," which, in the mouths of his noble kinsmen, was more than, half a reproach. The best schoolmasters of the day, the Jesuits, educated him as ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... held nothing else to be ill fortune than resting inactive. Accordingly, as a result of this policy those men, who had been at the start very few and possessed at first a city than which none was more diminutive, conquered the Latins, conquered the Sabines, mastered the Etruscans, Volsci, Opici, Leucanians and Samnites, in one word subjugated the whole land bounded by the Alps and repulsed all the alien tribes ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... absence from civilisation the diminutive engine and carriages of the narrow-gauge railway looked quite imposing, and it seemed to the girl strange to be out of the jungle when the toy train slid from the forest into open country, through the rice-fields and by the trim palm-thatched ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... architecture that one might imagine a London citizen would have coveted for a summer-house. The brilliant contrast between its vermilion pilasters and its pale yellow wall, the delicate moulding of its slender bricks and the elaborate elegance of its decoration, not to omit its pleasing, though diminutive proportions, arising from the wild green turf of this melancholy region, can scarcely fail of affecting with at least a spark of fancy, the flattest spirit of this work-day world. For my own part, I should be much less disposed to pronounce ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... It was probably at first one of the ancient gates in a line of fortifications uniting the Capitol with the Palatine; and afterwards comprised, besides a passage-way through which a great part of the traffic of Rome passed, a diminutive bronze temple containing a bronze statue of the venerable deity of the Sabines, whose one face looked to the east, and the other to the west. The bronze gates of the temple were closed by Augustus ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... remedy for our ailments, there is something that bespeaks ingratitude hardly to be described. In a REGISTER that I wrote from Long Island, I said, that amongst all the things of which I had been bereft, I regretted no one so much as a very diminutive mare, on which my children had all, in succession, learned to ride. She was become useless for them, and, indeed, for any other purpose; but the recollection of her was so entwined with so many past circumstances, which, at that distance, my mind conjured up, that I really was very uneasy, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... was a shrug. Ruan is a small town that faces Troy across the diminutive harbour, or perhaps I should say that Troy looks down upon it at this slight distance. When a Trojan speaks of it he says, "Across the water," with as much implied contempt as though he meant Botany Bay. There is no cogent reason for this, except that the poorer class at Ruan earns ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... diminutive in size, there was in his bearing, as with hands clasped behind him he paced up and down before his lonely fireside, a distinct dignity that was not only essentially manly—it ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... who loves, obeys, and enjoys. Nothing is gained by attributing to nature vicegerent forces. Is it not preferable to say that she responds to intelligent, loving Omnipotence? Our finiteness is illustrated by our initiation into organized being. Emerging from a rayless atom, too diminutive for the sight, we gradually develop and advance to the maturity of those conscious powers, the exercise of which furnishes indubitable evidence of our immortality. We are pervaded with invisible influences, which, like the needle of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Narrative,' and forthwith wrote the worst description of the capital and the 'Pike' of Tenerife that any traveller has ever written of any place. He confesses to having kept a meagre diary, not intending to publish a mere book of travels, and drew his picture probably from recollection and diminutive note-books. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... seen a clerk riding a horse in a glen. Rider and horse are a few inches high, and because of this the already enormous landscape becomes frightfully big. I saw the picture as a student, and even now I can describe all its details. Without the diminutive clerk it would have ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... on this Naomi would sport with her little ones. She would be swinging in the midst of them, with one tiny black maiden on the seat beside her, and one little black man with high stomach and shaven poll holding on to the rope behind her, and another mighty Moor in a diminutive white jellab pushing at their feet in front, and all laughing together, or the children singing as the swing rose, and she herself listening with head aslant and all her fair hair rip-rip-rippling down her back and ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... He was a diminutive wisp of humanity, a starved, slender elf with a freckled face, wizened and peaked, which at times looked a thousand years old. It reminded you of the face of one of those preternaturally aged monkeys that ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... with men, women, and children, each anxiously waiting for the Sunday dinner. Look at the group of children who surround that working man who has just emerged from the baker's shop at the corner of the street, with the reeking dish, in which a diminutive joint of mutton simmers above a vast heap of half-browned potatoes. How the young rogues clap their hands, and dance round their father, for very joy at the prospect of the feast: and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest of the lot, ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... of the Rhone, Bouveret and Villeneuve; and I should have that overlooking the spit of land behind and the little drawbridge, shore cliffs, and elmwood which comes down to the shore, giving at one point a glimpse of the diminutive hamlet of Chillon; and, that decided, I took her hand in mine, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... of the Irish advocate Curran is recalled. At the close of his celebrated encounter with one of the most overbearing of English judges, the latter insultingly remarked to the somewhat diminutive advocate: "I could put you in my pocket, sir." To which, with the quickness of a lightning flash, Curran retorted: "If you did, Your Lordship would have more law in your pocket than you ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... owing to a certain stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life, not as we ascend other eminences; for the laudable curiosity of viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... inspection was ordered and performed by Venage and Lita, physicians, Lombard and Delon, surgeons. They reported as follows: "We find the string of the foreskin shorter than it should be for giving the nut free scope to extend itself when turgid:—that the body of the left testicle is very diminutive and decayed, its tunicle separated, the spermatic vessels very much disordered by crooked swollen veins—that the right testicle is not of a due thickness, though thicker than the other: that it is somewhat withered and the spermatic vessels disordered by crooked swollen veins. On ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... world that she intended to be up and doing. A crowd of phlegmatic-faced revelers stood upon the bank and watched her with absorbed indifference, while a smaller number pushed aboard and prepared for true joy by laying in a store of cracker-jack and peanuts at a diminutive counter. ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... Here the doctor was for a moment diverted by some objective impression; and without a word of excuse to the little man, he swung himself into his buggy, which stood waiting, and drove rapidly away; whilst the diminutive man, after a moment of weak indecision, shuffled off down the street. I later learned that these talks of Doctor Castleton's were, as regards the element of verity, thrown off as writers of fiction throw ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... served secondarily as a very partial shelter for the men and primarily as a stable for an extraordinary water-wagon, composed of a wooden barrel on two wheels with shafts which would not possibly accommodate anything larger than a diminutive donkey (but in which I myself was to walk not infrequently, as it proved); parallel to the second stone wall, but at a safe distance from it, stretched a couple of iron girders serving as a barbarously cold seat for any unfortunate who could not remain on his feet the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... the harmless, friendly voyage from Point Levis to Quebec. The boy on the ferry-boat, who cajoles us into buying a copy of Le Moniteur containing last month's news, has the address of a true though diminutive Frenchman. The landlord of the quiet little inn on the outskirts of the town welcomes us with Gallic effusion as well-known guests, and rubs his hands genially before us, while he escorts us to our ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... she rose and fell; and it was not an easy thing for even a sailor to get about on her deck. Life-lines had been extended wherever they were needed, and all the ship's company were used to the erratic ways of the diminutive craft. After all, she was larger than some of the vessels used by the early voyagers to America, some of whose craft were not even ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... about there,—pull he, pull I, and a kick together!—till the Watch would look down the skylight upon us, grinning, and chuckle hoarsely that old Belzey, as they called their commander (being a diminutive for Beelzebub), and his young Imp were having a tussle. Thus it came about that among these unthinking Seamen I grew to be called Pug (who, I have heard, is the Lesser Fiend), or Little Brimstone, or young Pitchladle. And then I, in my Impish way, would offer to fight them ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... near us, soliloquized, "Respectful way of addressing a judge of the Supreme Court!" and, being interrogated, the voice informed us that "Rosey" was the vulgate for Judge Rosecranz; whereupon Halicarnassus over the rampant democracy by remarking that the diminutive was probably a term of endearment rather than familiarity; whereupon the manly voice—if I might say it—snickered audibly in the darkness, and we all relapsed into silence. But could anything be more characteristic of a certain phase of the manners of our great ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the interior, which received no light except from the wide doorways in the walls, an immovable and silent crowd of figures in stone, with features and garments made more striking by the employment of paint, surrounded, as with a perpetual worship, the mystic cone. Stone lamps, shaped like diminutive temples, illumined in the corners the grinning ex-votos which hung upon the walls, and the curious pictures with which they were accompanied. Grotesque bas-reliefs adorned the circuit of the edifice, where the slanting light was reflected from the white and polished pavement-stones."[638] ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... the nausea that the thought of food inspired in me, was hunger. I commenced to be sensible of a shameless appetite again; a ravenous lust of food, which grew steadily worse and worse. It gnawed unmercifully in my breast; carrying on a silent, mysterious work in there. It was as if a score of diminutive gnome-like insects set their heads on one side and gnawed for a little, then laid their heads on the other side and gnawed a little more, then lay quite still for a moment's space, and then began afresh, boring noiselessly in, and without any haste, and left empty spaces everywhere ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... playing a single at dinner as long as possible by calling on a month-old bride whom I had known as a girl. With glee I accepted the offer of an automobile to take me for the visit, and repented later. Two small chauffeurs and a diminutive footman raced me through the narrow, crowded streets, scattering the populace to any shelter it could find. The only reason we didn't take the fronts out of the shops is that Japanese shops are frontless. I looked back to ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... the United States the number is upwards of forty. The difference consists in size, color, period of maturation, and hardness and weight of grain. Of size there exists a considerable variety, from Zea Curagua of Chili, and the Egyptian or chicken corn, both extremely diminutive, to the large white flint, and ground seed corn of the United States. The differences in color are the red, yellow, and white. The period of maturation varies, apparently, very considerably; but it is questionable whether this variation is ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... difficulty surmounted the obstacles which impeded him in the road to fame. If he owed much to the bounty of nature and fortune, he had suffered still more from their spite. His features were frightfully harsh, his stature was diminutive; a huge and pointed hump rose on his back. His constitution was feeble and sickly. Cruel imputations had been thrown on his morals. He had been accused of trafficking with sorcerers and with vendors of poison, had languished long in a dungeon, and had at length regained his liberty without entirely ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the parents the child was never addressed as "Bob" or "Bobby," or by any other diminutive. In their practical opinion a child's name was his name, and ought not to be mauled or dismembered on the pretext of fondness. Similarly, the child had not been baptized after his father, or after any male member of either ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... the progress of luxury, even there, that down to about 1815 such a thing was not known, the drinking-vessels at dinner being capacious pewter mugs, each table being furnished with two. We were at one time a good deal incommoded by the diminutive size of the milk-pitchers, which were all the while empty and gone for more. A waiter mentioned, for our patience, that, when these were used up, a larger size would be provided. 'O, if that's the case, the remedy is easy.' Accordingly the hint was passed through the room, the offending ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... indeed. Another rod and he found himself in front of a gate, on the high post of which was perched a diminutive, bare-legged girl in a soiled, damp frock, superintending the drying of three pair of mud-covered shoes arranged in a row on the picket fence, while she issued orders to the two sisters sitting in the middle of the gravel walk busily ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... letters "a-e-ugh." Everybody shouts it, mule-driver, "coachee," or cattle-driver; and even I, a passenger, fancied I could do it to disagreeable perfection after a time. Out of this throng in the streets I like to select the meek, patient, diminutive little donkeys, with enormous panniers that almost hide them. One would have a woman seated on top, with a child in one pannier and cabbages in the other; another, with an immense stock of market-greens on his back, or big baskets of oranges, or with a row of wine-casks and a man seated ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were about things and people out of the sphere of his younger auditors, I remember only the way of the telling, not what was told. I recalled, later, his anecdotes of Kit North, who was a friend of his, on account of the contrast between the stalwart proportions of that old worthy and the diminutive physique of the novelist; they must have looked, together, like a bear and a monkey. Warren was born in Wales, though whether of Welsh ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... are almost universally well made, showing great activity without great muscular development; but their stature is diminutive, as will be seen by the following measurements, taken at random among them, and confirmed ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... The diminutive Duc de Fronsac never failed, when he came to pay his respects to the Queen at her toilet, to turn the conversation upon Trianon, in order to make some ironical remarks on my father-in-law, of whom, from the time of his appointment, he always spoke as "my ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... clergymen, others in that of ill-clad peasants, and nearly one-third-of them in the garb of mendicants, who, from their careworn faces, appeared to have suffered severely from the persecution of the times. In a few minutes, however, about half a dozen diminutive beings made their appearance, busied, as far as he could guess, in employments, which his amazement at the whole spectacle, unprepared as he was for it, prevented him from understanding. If he had been a man of weak or superstitious ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... incorporeal, as well as of the mind and of God. The mind is merely a (for the senses too) refined body, or, as it is stated in another place, a movement in certain parts of the organic body. All events, even internal events, the feelings and passions, are movements of material parts. "Endeavor" is a diminutive motion, as the atom is the smallest of bodies; sensation and representation are changes in the perceiving body. Space is the idea of an existing thing as such, i. e., merely as existing outside the perceiving subject; time, the idea of motion. All phenomena ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... down on a large rock, about twelve feet square, slightly elevated above the ground, and entirely overgrown with moss. A small fir tree, not ten inches high, grew in its centre, and the symmetry of its diminutive trunk, rendered more beautiful by the regularity with which its little branches sprung forth and drooped around first attracted our notice to the spot as one ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross |
