Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Unwonted   Listen
Unwonted

adjective
1.
Out of the ordinary.






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 |





"Unwonted" Quotes from Famous Books



... so few generations, the negro race has come to exhibit. I was a busy lad at that meal; a speechless one, consequently, and for some minutes so engrossed in the business of my jaws that I did not heed the unwonted silence of the rest. Then suddenly it came upon me as something embarrassing and painful that Mr. and Mrs. Faringfield, who usually conversed at meals, had nothing to say, and that Philip Winwood sat gloomy and taciturn, merely going through a hollow ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... at my unusual accost; and I think there must have been somewhat unwonted about me, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... is she?' he whispered, hoarse, as I came near him. I, too, could not speak, but I pointed to the quivering of the muscles round her mouth. Just then cousin Holman, attracted by some unwonted sound, came down. I remember I was surprised at the time at her presence of mind, she seemed to know so much better what to do than the minister, in the midst of the sick affright which blanched her countenance, and made her tremble all over. I think now that it was the recollection ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the echoes repeated the receding harmony, until at last they died away. A solemn silence succeeded. A languor like that of the lotus-eaters crept over the face of nature and softened the heart to unwonted tenderness. It was the hour of gentle thoughts, of low spoken confidences, and love between young and sympathizing souls, who alone with themselves and God confess their mutual love and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... the agreeable presence of the young noble which relaxed the Benedictine's austerity, or else the fact that Sebert had left half his wine in his cup. The holy man answered with unwonted readiness. ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... the crowded streets to his club, where his appearance in such unwonted garb was hailed with a storm of applause and a good deal of chaff. He held his own as usual, lighted his pipe, and played a game of pool. But all the same he was not quite himself. There was the old restlessness hot in his blood, and a ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... hurried to M. Vandenhuten's bureau, pushed the document under his nose, and when he had perused it, took both his hands, and thanked him with unrestrained vivacity. My vivid words and emphatic gesture moved his Dutch calm to unwonted sensation. He said he was happy—glad to have served me; but he had done nothing meriting such thanks. He had not laid out a centime—only scratched a few words on a ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... put forth all its force, and its leader, Fergus O'Connor, assumed unwonted boldness, both in and out of parliament. Meetings were held in various parts of the country, in which the government was denounced for not employing the people; and the virtue (as it appeared to these assemblages) of appropriating the property of the landholders and manufacturers, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Phoebus fayrest childe, That did presume his father's fiery wayne, And flaming mouths of steeds unwonted wilde, Thro' highest heaven with weaker hand to rayne; ... He leaves the welkin way most beaten playne, And, wrapt with whirling wheels, inflamed the skyen With fire not made to burne, but ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... sacred duty; but still more by the wailings and entreaties of the wounded, who clung around their knees, and implored not to be abandoned to certain destruction. Amid this scene of universal woe and dejection, a fresh and unwonted spirit of energy and heroism seemed to be infused into Nicias. Though suffering under an incurable complaint, he was everywhere seen marshalling his troops and encouraging them by his exhortations. The march was directed towards the territory of the Sicels in the interior of ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... many minutes. His father's unwonted emotion had touched him keenly. Of course he would have been very sorry to have his mother die, yet how often he had wished for another mother. The thought shocked him now; and yet he could see so many places where it would be delightful to have her different. Careful ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... warm June night, the yellow moonlight on the quiet water, the wide-spanned bridge, the long straggling street of irregular gabled houses so kindly and so sheltering with their overhanging eaves, the dear familiar charm of it all seemed to grip Reggie by the throat and caused an unwonted smarting in his eyes. ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... table, swung round on his chair again. He looked at the girl's slender little figure lying with the unconsciously graceful attitude of a child against the heaped-up cushions, her face bent over the dog's rough, grey head, and he felt an unwonted emotion stirring in him. The quick sympathy that she had aroused from the first moment of seeing her had given place to a deeper feeling that moved him profoundly, and with it a chivalrous desire to protect, a longing to stand between her and the ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... that moment there was a slight unwonted stir on the Place d'Armes. It began at the farther corner of the square, hard by the Principal, and spread so quickly through the groups near about, that in a minute the entire company were quietly made aware of something going ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... swung around by the way of Mackay Lake, a detour that required two weeks' time and added immeasurably to the discomfort of the journey. Day by day, upon lake, river, and portage, Old Elk and Wee Johnnie Tamarack wondered much at his silence and the unwonted hardness of his features. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... next stride they would transfix him. He led them on, the earth shaking beneath their tread, till another fifty feet would have brought them out upon the skirts of the meadow. But at this point, wearied by such an unwonted burst of effort, the King halted sulkily. He had not had an eye put out. He wanted to give it up. But his mate came right on, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... by mists," Trelawney writes, "it was oppressively sultry. There was not a breath of air in the harbor. The heaviness of the atmosphere and an unwonted stillness benumbed my senses. I went down into the cabin and sank into a slumber. I was roused up by a noise overhead, and went on deck. The men were getting up another chain-cable to let go another anchor. There was a general stir amongst ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... spring and playtime of the year, That calls th' unwonted villager abroad, With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prink ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... dress, of pure white satin, was singularly becoming; pearls were interwoven in the heavy braids of her raven hair; the fleecy folds of the rich veil, which fell like a cloud around her, swept the floor. In her eye there was an unusual sparkle and on her cheek an unwonted bloom. ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... a chaperon, and took great satisfaction in this unwonted luxury. It had been intimated to her that Lady Willow was a sort of society St. Peter, who held keys that would open the gates of the social heaven, if she were sufficiently recompensed. Of all the ancient landmarks of England, none ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... in a conversation very different from the one upon our lips. A sombre glow surrounded us, drew us together; an unwonted shyness kept us apart. She roused herself, after an instant's pause, to ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... Irish or German or English priests, monks white and brown, tall girls who wore their black veils with an evident delight in the new setting thus given to their fair hair and brilliant skins, beside older women to whom, on the contrary, the dress had given a kind of unwonted repose and quietness of look, as though for once they dared to be themselves in it, and gave up ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... pleasant nod, and passed out into the streets, now emptying fast. He walked slowly back to his rooms. Already the sense of unwonted excitement was passing. Sabatini's strong, calm personality was like a wonderful antidote. After all, it was not his affair. It was possible, after all, that the man was an ordinary burglar. And yet, if so, what was Isaac doing with him? He glanced in front of him to where the ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and let the bondwoman go free. Seeing the matter thus seriously taken up, Mr. Wood became at length alarmed,—not relishing, it appears, the idea of having the case publicly discussed in the House of Commons; and to avert this result he submitted to temporize—assumed a demeanour of unwonted civility, and even hinted to Mr. Manning (as I was given to understand) that if he was not driven to utter hostility by the threatened exposure, he would probably meet our wishes "in his own time and way." Having gained time by these manoeuvres, ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... not either, or else the excitement paralysed him, for he only remained like Bart, staring stupidly at the unwonted scene before them as a second bear followed the first, which, in spite of Sam's efforts to get into safety, had overtaken him, crept right upon him, and throwing its forepaws round him and the branches as well, hugged him fast, while the second came close up and stood ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... 10th of November, the eve of the fete. The pueblo of San Diego is stirred by an incredible activity; in the houses, the streets, the church, the gallera, all is unwonted movement. From windows flags and rugs are hanging; the air, resounding with bombs and music, seems saturated with gayety. Inside on little tables covered with bordered cloths the dalaga arranges in jars of tinted crystal the confitures made from ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... another opportunity. The memory of Berkeley is dear to every member of this University; and therefore I hope you will permit me to say one word, in defence of his character, against Dugald Stewart's charge of having been "provoked," by Lord Shaftesbury's Characteristics, "to a harshness equally unwonted ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various

... stones of an unclothed earth, and there is no sign of daily bread. The people, albeit unused to travellers, yet know by instinct what to do, and beg without the delay of a moment as soon as they see your unwonted figure. Let it be taken for granted that you give all you can; some form of refusal becomes necessary at last, and the gentlest—it is worth while to remember—is the most effectual. An indignant tourist, one who to the ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... morning he felt like a laborer whose factory has closed. Every day would be Sunday hereafter until he got another job. In this unwonted sloth he dawdled over his porridge, his weak tea, and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... ecstasy, and approached the flames; then in the circle of light which lay upon the carpet I began to walk around and around and to turn. Ever faster and faster I went, until suddenly I felt an unwonted elasticity run through my limbs, and in a twinkling I invented a new and amusing style of motion; it was to push my feet very hard against the floor, and then to lift them up together suddenly for a half second. ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... hard work, too, every nerve on a tingle and one's heart thumping with the unwonted exercise at that altitude; but oh, the glorious air, the joy of life and motion that was quite unknown to my reception and theatre-going self in the ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... might be a sure manner. A tall, spare old man, his hat laid aside, and his few scattered gray locks fluttering in the gentle breeze, was the only reaper. His shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbows showed his meagre, bony arms. His thin neck and breast were bare, as he suffered from heat from his unwonted labour. The scythe moved slowly, and the old man stopped often to draw a long breath. Near him stood a fair-haired, sturdy little girl, who held up her apron full of corn flowers, as blue as the eyes that looked so approvingly upon ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker

... came over him. He caught Rudolf's hand and spoke to him again in a low, broken voice, an unwonted ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... wound, And eke impatient of unwonted paine, He lowdly brayd with beastly yelling sound, That all the fields rebellowed againe; As great a noyse, as when in Cymbrian plaine[*] 95 An heard of Bulles, whom kindly rage[*] doth sting, Do for the milkie mothers want complaine, And fill the fields with troublous bellowing, ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... aside the last sheet of my journal hastily was occasioned by the unwonted sound of a violin, in the farmyard beneath my windows. It will not appear surprising to those who have made music their study, that, after listening to a few notes, I became at once assured that the musician was no other than the itinerant, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... succour. I knelt to an ecclesiastic. I did a ludicrous and a shameful thing, knowing it in advance to be a barren farce. I obeyed his wish. The tale will be laughable. I obeyed him. I would not have it on my conscience that the commission of any deed ennomic, however unwonted, was refused by me to serve Alvan. You are my witness, Tresten, that for a young woman of common honesty I was ready to pack and march. Qualities of mind-mind! They were out of the question. He had a taste for a wife. If he had hit on a girl commonly honest, she might not have harmed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was allowed, as an indulgence, to keep rabbits. His room having rather a close smell in consequence, they called to him at the door to come out into the passage. He complied of course, and stood shading his haggard face in the unwonted sunlight of the great window, looking as wan and unearthly as if he had been summoned from the grave. He had a white rabbit in his breast; and when the little creature, getting down upon the ground, stole back into the cell, and he, being dismissed, crept timidly ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... receive with coldness those so cordially lavished on her by her new friend, whom she valued as a truly good man, and not for a polished exterior, in which Mr Budge was deficient. Nay, so cordial was their intimacy, and so much had Miss Marion regained health and cheerfulness, that with unwonted sportiveness, on more than one occasion she actually hid the ponderous brown snuff-box, usually reposing in Mr Budge's capacious pocket, and only produced it when his distress became real; whereupon he chuckled and laughed, as if she had performed a mighty clever ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... their love affairs, even when the King was at hand; and on his return, after he had been absent for a day or two, there was generally the very devil to pay. Perhaps, on this occasion, the extreme heat had something to do with it, and made hot blood surge through young veins with unwonted fury, for things went even worse than usual, and, after a week of flagrant and extraordinary ill-doing, Tungku Indut, one of the King's sons, put the finishing touch to it all, by eloping with no less than four of ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... Her approbation of his views, and the unwonted dissipation of a prolonged and indolent breakfast, together with the pleasant excitement of shortly taking the political field, had ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... impulse. It is not uncommon for the call of duty, or opportunity, to come once in a lifetime to the heart of a man with over-mastering power, so that his purposes and powers are roused to an unwonted and transforming degree of activity. It is the flight of the eaglet, the awakening of the lion, the transfiguration of the human spirit. To Lincoln this call now came. He was the same man, but he had reached another stage of development, entered a new ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... were inseparable. They were in the same class in school and in Sunday- school, they had the same friends, and read the same books, and had a share in the same mischief. They even carried this trait so far as to both come down with mumps on the same day, when their unwonted absence from school was the source of much speculation among their friends, who fondly pictured them as indulging in some frolic, until the ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... with sugar, the most unsophisticated punch I ever drank from tumblers. The frugal people of Davos, who live on bread and cheese and dried meat all the year, indulge themselves but once with these unwonted dainties in the winter. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... Bingle, crimping his toes on the cold carpet and bending over to kiss his companion's cheek. She responded with unwonted vigour, proving that she had been wide ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... outraged hospitality, even to a haughty intruder. When, in The Argonauts, Jason comes to recover the Fleece, Medea, still an Amazon and an enchantress, is determined with all her arts to aid her father in repulsing the invaders. But the sight of the handsome stranger soon touches her with an unwonted feeling. Against her will she saves the life and furthers the enterprise of Jason; they become partners in the theft of the Fleece; whereupon Jason, fascinated by the dark-eyed barbarian and gratified with the sense of subjugating an Amazon, assures her of his love ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... beat down with a fierce glare and the dust rose in clouds as I passed. Presently I came to a great Moorish gateway, a dark mass of stone, battlemented, with a lofty horseshoe arch. People were gathered about it in many-coloured groups, I found it was a holiday in Carmona, and the animation was unwonted; in a corner stood the hut of the Consumo, and the men advanced to examine my saddle-bags. I passed through, into the town, looking right and left for a parador, an hostelry whereat to leave my horse. I bargained for the price of food and saw Aguador ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... coulee was an unwonted atmosphere of activity; heretofore the place had been animated chiefly by young Densons engaged in the pursuit of pleasure, but now a covered buggy, evidently just arrived, bore mute witness to the new order of things. There ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... the approbation of which approaches the nearest to that of an approving conscience, was looked upon as the representative of all his brother-heroes; and could tell such tales as made the tear glisten on the cheek of his wife, and lit up his boy's eyes with an unwonted sparkling eagerness. Or, if he fell in the fight, and his place by the fireside and at the table at home was thereafter vacant, that place was sacred; and he was often talked of there in the long winter ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... part of an hour he kept his watch, and saw no living thing—heard no unwonted sound. "I will freeze here no longer," he muttered, ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman

... Aurelia was gone. Her father was ill at ease and therefore testy, Betty too sore at heart to endure as cheerfully as usual his unwonted ill-humour. Harriet was petulant, and Eugene troublesome, and the two were constantly jarring against one another, since the one missed her companion, the other his playmate; and they were all more sensible than ever how precious and charming ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in a silence that was only broken by the soft squeaking of the mice under the heat-grating; and the night-noises of the city—the rumble of the electric trams, the shouts of night-wanderers—all these unwonted sounds that pierced the darkness so startlingly, had filled, his sleep with feverish dreams and caused a series of ugly, deformed visions to pass ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... quick and entire a manner. See a lovely passage on the subject of bathing in Sir Philip Sydney's "Arcadia," where "Philoclea, blushing, and withal smiling, makeing shamefastnesse pleasant, and pleasure shamefast, tenderly moved her feet, unwonted to feel the naked ground, until the touch of the cold water made a pretty kind of shrugging come over her body; like the twinkling of the fairest among ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various

... her delicate nose and ears, and on her slender fingers and parted toes, for was she not on the eve of her marriage, this little maid? Who, finding herself upon this unwonted night, alone for the first time in her life, had broken purdah, with her senses strung by days and nights of never-ceasing preparation for her marriage; during which she had been massaged by skilful, cunning hands; bathed and perfumed, forced to dance, forced to ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... really must now take care not to overwork yourself. You are looking pale yourself. You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit, that you do!" As she spoke, Lucy turned crimson, though it was only momentarily, for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long an unwonted drain to the head. The reaction came in excessive pallor as she turned imploring eyes on me. I smiled and nodded, and laid my finger on my lips. With a sigh, she sank back ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... came to "Full-back, Ernest T. Seeley." But he pulled his thoughts away from the eleven and began to jot down notes of the passing incidents which might serve to weave into the fabric of his description. The unwonted stimulus aroused his talent as if it were not dead but dormant. The scene appealed to him with almost as much freshness and color as if he were observing it for ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... a look of questioning appeal into the expressive, sympathetic face of Sir Donald Randolph. He seemed struggling with some unwonted emotional impediment to proper speech. Rising, he extended his hand, took that of this interesting young woman, and bowing low, in a ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... stream, and made the best of our way out of it, and back to our quarters. My father and M. Bourdinave were standing at the door, conversing with my uncle, and when they saw us they smiled, and my father said, with unwonted softness in his tone, "Well, children, are you come back? Have you enjoyed yourselves?" and looked earnestly at Madeleine, ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning

... missive to the end of the porch and, breaking the seal, read it. When he had finished, his mobile face showed the conflicting emotions within. A flush of anger reddened his dark features, his lips were pressed close together, his eyes flashed with unwonted fire, and his hands involuntarily became clenched until the finger nails indented the palms. Soon his look softened, the fire left his eyes, and they appeared as gentle as twin lakes in lovely Switzerland. The proud lines in his lips gave place to a curve like a Cupid's ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... wrote to Helen, was very, very happy, and never more so, perhaps, than while they were at Alnwick, where, as if he had something for which to atone, he was unusually kind and indulgent, caressing her with unwonted tenderness, and making her ask him once if he loved her a great deal more now than ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... at length she left the church, her way was by no means clear of all obstacles, but the trouble which had come upon her with unwonted force was much simplified. It was plain to her that she could give herself to Ackroyd, and that to give him the two hundred and fifty pounds would be a very substantial pleasure. Growing accustomed to the thought of her wealth, she derived ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... for home to-morrow;" and they made their arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... arrested?" asked Mrs. Peaslee, sharply. She wanted no sentiment over her unwonted generosity; but, truth to tell, when she had seen Solomon depart that morning, and realized that he might be going to arrest, possibly to trial, perhaps to conviction and to jail, she had felt a sudden fright, a sudden sympathy for her husband, and she had bought half a pint of oysters ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... or invisible, but also in the highest perfection of bodies in the round, with the point of his chisel. And from a plant so beautiful and so fruitful, through his labours, there have already spread branches so many and so noble, that, besides having filled the world in such unwonted profusion with the most luscious fruits, they have also given the final form to these three most noble arts. And so great and so marvellous is his perfection, that it may be safely and surely said that his statues are in all their parts much more ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... as though trying to loosen it for his greater comfort; and his hair had been plastered flat on his head with plenty of cold water. His red and scratched chin further indicated that he had taken considerable pains with a razor to improve his personal appearance in keeping with his unwonted part of a respectable witness in a place which knew a more sinister side of him. As he stood in the witness-box, awkwardly avoiding the significant glances that the Scotland Yard men and the police cast at him, he appeared to be more nervous and anxious than he usually was when in the ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... despatched a messenger, bidding him come quick to his house, and his Grace would hear and see marvels. How the young girls gathered round him when he entered, all telling him together about Sidonia. And when at last he made out the story, his Grace fell into an unwonted rage (for he was generally mild and good-tempered) that a poacher should get into his preserves. So he runs to Sidonia's door and tries to open it, but the bolts are drawn. Then he threatened to send for Master Hansen if she did not instantly admit him, at which all the girls laughed ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... captain, speaking with unwonted gravity; "it may be hard to write, and to write lies at that; and God knows it is; but it's the square thing. It don't cost anything to say you're well and happy, and sorry you can't make a remittance this mail; and if you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... much cold one can support when the sky is bright and the sun shining; certainly ten or fifteen degrees more by Reaumur's thermometer, than when the day is dark and gloomy. And the effect is the same on all. On one of these fine frosty days there is unwonted cheerfulness in the look, unwonted energy in the movements of everyone you meet. If there were the slightest wind with so keen a temperature, you would feel, every time it grazed your face, as if you were being shaved with a blunt razor,—for to be cut with ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... took him up in a moment, and added of her own devilry a trumpet and banner. She set out from Charing Cross bravely enough, and a trumpeter being an unwonted spectacle, the eyes of all the town were clapped upon her. Yet none knew her until she reached Bishopsgate, where an orange-wench set up the cry, 'Moll Cutpurse on horseback!' Instantly the cavalier was surrounded by a noisy mob. Some would ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... rendered the newly-discovered drink, its method of preparation and the unwonted spices employed prevented its ready adoption abroad, although the Spaniards and Portuguese took to it more kindly than some of the northern races. Joseph Acosta, writing of Mexico and ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head

... insurgent cavalry returned from the pursuit, jaded and worn out with their unwonted efforts, and the infantry assembled on the ground which they had won, fatigued with toil and hunger. Their success, however, was a cordial to every bosom, and seemed even to serve in the stead of food and refreshment. It was, indeed, much more brilliant ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... from the parlor window, had any one cared to look that way, patiently waiting with them in the pleasant shade of an apple-tree. The fiery white charger soon began to paw the ground, impatient at his master's unwonted tardiness; but no rider came. Bishop Braddock shifted his place once, twice, thrice, to keep himself and horses in the shade of the apple-tree; but still his master lingered: and the ivory grin that settled by degrees on his ebony mug showed that he had a sly suspicion of what was going ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with unwonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... serenity and philosophic boldness for a time, but in his heart he had already taken fright. For a few days he went about in public, showing himself ostentatiously, with all the manner of a man who is happy in his unwonted ease, and is only anxious for relaxation and amusement. He professed to be rejoiced by his release from office, and those of his friends who wished to please him offered him their formal congratulations on his promotion to a retirement ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... certainly some curious quality in the air of this country which affects the nerves: maybe it is the elevation at which one lives—certain it is that many people complain of unwonted irritability and susceptibility to petty annoyances. And, while travelling in Kashmir is easy and comfortable enough along beaten tracks, yet the petty worries connected with all matters of transport and supply are ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... The unwonted act almost startled the little face. She looked up at Eleanor questioningly. "Y's, mam, waal-thy," she said. "Faather sez when we're waal-thy, he'll be a gen'leman an' Oil be ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... Rankin "took up arms" in Ohio there arose a fiercer champion of their cause in the East, where distance from the scene, lack of intimate knowledge of "the system," and a strong popular dislike of the South gave unwonted strength to the new evangelism. William Lloyd Garrison, son of a Massachusetts sea captain, was in a humor to reform a world which "sat in darkness." He declared negro slavery the one great evil of his generation, and the Federal Constitution, which protected it, "an agreement with ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... by prophet sooth and old, Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold, I 'll lightly front each high emprise For one kind glance of those bright eyes. Permit me first the task to guide Your fairy frigate o'er the tide.' The maid, with smile suppressed and sly, The toil unwonted saw him try; For seldom, sure, if e'er before, His noble hand had grasped an oar: Yet with main strength his strokes he drew, And o'er the lake the shallop flew; With heads erect and whimpering cry, The hounds behind ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... instance of hopeless love he had certainly misread all the songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his mind and went on regarding her in the light of it with a pondering smile, turning it over and finding a lively pleasure in his curious acumen in such an unwonted direction. It was a very flower of emotional naivete, though a moment later he cast it from him as a weed, grown in idleness; and indeed it might have abashed him to say what concern it had in the mind of the Order of St. Barnabas. It was ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... a look of pity shew, Say, will you listen to a tale of woe? A tale in no unwonted horrors drest; But sweet is pity to an agd breast. This voice did falter with old age before; 5 Sad recollections make it falter more. Beside the torrent and beneath a wood, High in these Alps my summer cottage stood; One daughter still ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... mangrove-tree, digesting his morning meal of fresh fish, and is clearly unwilling to stir until the imminence of the danger compels him at last to spread his great wings for flight. The glossy ibis, acute of ear to a remarkable degree, hears from afar the unwonted sound of the paddles, and, springing from the mud where his family has been quietly feasting, is off, screaming out his loud, harsh, and defiant Ha! ha! ha! long ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... to treat separately those cases in which there is an increased number of buds either leaf-buds or flower-buds, as the case may be, as happens in what is termed prolification. This formation of buds occurring, as it does, often in unwonted situations is treated of under the head of alterations of arrangement, the mere increase in number being considered of subordinate importance as contrasted with the altered disposition (see ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... such unwonted severity as this that Hendry called upon Jamie to follow him to church; but the boy went off, and did not return till dusk, defiant and miserable. Jess had been so terrified that she forgave him everything for sight of his face, and Hendry prayed for him at ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... about her few patched and darned belongings; also very exact in the adjustment of her bits of ribbon, her collars of crocheted thread, her adored coral pendants, and her pile of neat cotton handkerchiefs, hem-stitched by her own hands. Waitstill, accordingly, with an exclamation at her own unwonted carelessness, darted into her sister's room to replace in perfect order the articles she had disarranged in her haste. She knew them all, these poor little trinkets,—humble, pathetic evidences of Patty's feminine vanity ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... along the obedient surges, Cheerly on her onward way, Her course the gallant vessel urges Across thy stormy gulf, Biscay. In the sun the bright waves glisten; Rising slow with solemn swell, Hark, hark, what sound unwonted? ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... were coming, Philip," she said, flattered at the unwonted notice her brother-in-law was ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... it without a smile. He took occasion to have it read out before the two boys, who listened very demurely, as to ordinary newspaper incident; only when the report particularized the garments damaged, and the unwonted distressing position Farmer Blaize was reduced to in his bed, indecorous fit of sneezing laid hold of Master Ripton Thompson, and Richard bit his lip and burst into loud laughter, Ripton ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the Duchesse de Tarascon's was a brilliant event. The summer was far advanced; many of the Parisian holiday-makers had returned to the capital, but the season had not commenced, and a ball at that time of year was a very unwonted event. But there was a special occasion for this fete,—a marriage between a niece of the Duchesse and the son of a great official in high favour at the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... more than I can hazard a guess on. He is not the only one known to me," Peppino added, "There was Ercole Fortemani, a great, dirty, blustering ruffian whom I never saw in aught but rags, riding at their heads in garments of most unwonted wholeness; and there was Romeo Gonzaga, whom I never knew to stir by night save to an assignation. Strange things must be ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... the locality, a negro quarter, yet clean and neat in appearance. I saw the poor girl shudder slightly as we stopped at the door of a low, two-story frame house, from which the unwonted spectacle of a carriage brought a crowd of half-naked children and a comely, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... her kindly, Jane; speak to her kindly," said Joe. "Think of her dead mother, and the loneliness, the pain, the sorrow that must be on all her coming life." The softness of his heart gave unwonted eloquence to ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... you this one freely," she says, with unwonted sweetness, knowing that she is gaining more than she is giving; and thus persuaded, he presses his lips to the warm tender ones so near his own, while for one mad ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... her brown eyes flashing with unwonted brilliancy, and the rich color mantling her cheek. "You surely are not taking me to Saratoga on such a ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... truth was, Marble felt so much at this unlooked-for appeal to his gentler feelings, that one of his stern nature did not know how to answer it on the emergency; and the obstinacy of his temperament rather induced him to resist, than to yield to such unwonted sentiments, I could see he was satisfied with his mother, while he was scarcely satisfied with himself; and, with a view to place both parties in truer positions, I desired Moses to walk down and look at the boat, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... out, but the windmiller forbore reply. He was not altogether ill-pleased by it, for the woman's unwonted peevishness broke down in new tears over the child, whom she bore away to bed, pouring forth over it half inarticulate indignation against ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... withdrawn: the night, which had been born in suffocating heat, suddenly changed to piercing cold, and great zigzags of white lightning, clutching at the heavens like the claws of some gigantic dragon, heralded a tempest of unwonted fury. And presently it came preceded by a blinding sandstorm, which told how much the burnt surface of the prairie yearned for moisture. That night it drank its fill, for when the flood-gates burst asunder a very deluge ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... method; and for the first time, perhaps, in his life, the man has something to live for. The blind affinity that like a magnet draws all the faculties around it, in so uniting them, suffuses them with an unwonted spiritual light. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... a mist unwonted rises, And for a moment clear Some sweet home face his foolish thought surprises, ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... half a mile, without coming upon any soldiers, when at the brow of a hill slightly higher than the rest, they became aware of unwonted activity. A trench had been dug along the ridge, with great pits here and there to serve as bomb-proof shelters. Every time a head projected above the ridge, a storm of bullets showed that the enemy was well within rifle range. In fact, it was to dislodge the Germans that ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... up with many unwonted expressions of affection for the old leader, and many requests that he should "think again" over the step he contemplated. But every one knew that he had set his heart on an impossible enterprise, and every one felt that behind it lay ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... The unwonted self-control which for the last few days she had imposed upon herself now told upon her in the violence of the reaction which had set in. When once she had allowed the barriers to be broken down, all else gave way to the onset of passion; and the presence and remonstrances of the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... lull in the hot race Wherein he doth for ever chase That flying and elusive shadow, rest. An air of coolness plays upon his face, And an unwonted calm pervades his breast. And then he thinks he knows The hills where his life rose, And ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... incident passed unnoticed. With his usual, brisk decision Mr. Traill turned the backs of a couple of chairs over against the nearest table, to signify that the corner was reserved, and he went about his duties with unwonted silence. As the crowd thinned he returned to the inglenook to find Bobby asleep, not curled up in a tousled ball, as such a little dog should be, but stretched on his side and ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... greatcoat, and bearing the rest of his wardrobe under his arm, followed by several of the townspeople, all in a singular state of undress, and with the liveliest alarm depicted on their countenances. The worthy mayor was so much out of breath by his unwonted exertions that some seconds elapsed before he could utter a word, and in the meantime we continued ringing as though our lives depended upon it. At length he contrived to gasp out a hurried inquiry (hardly ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... inappreciable, as if not existing at all. A wash is poured over it, and the whole scene comes out in all its perfection of detail. In those supreme moments when death stares a man suddenly in the face the rush of unwonted emotion floods the undeveloped pictures of vanished years, stored away in the memory, the vast panorama of a lifetime, and in one swift instant the past comes out as vividly as if it were again the present. So it was at this moment with the ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the project seemed to him delusive, and his sense of dignity rose against it—Harvey had begun with unwonted decision, but he was soon uncomfortably self-conscious and self-critical; he spoke with effort, vainly struggling against that peculiar force of Alma's personality which had long ago subdued him. When he looked at her, saw her distant smile, ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... to a law of nature, he was already inclined to react from his unwonted depression into reckless hilarity. Impulse and inclination were his controlling forces, and he was accustomed to give himself up to them without much effort at self-restraint. And yet he sought to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... of strength between us and our enemies. Until Tryphaena and Doris were awake and out of bed, our flight remained undiscovered, for we paid them the homage of a daily attendance at the morning toilette. When our unwonted absence was noted, Lycas sent out runners to comb the sea-shore, for he suspected that we had been to the wreck, but he was still unaware of the robbery, which was yet unknown because the stern of the wreck was lying away from the beach, and ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... the southernmost limits of the city, the rapid boat overtook and passed low-riding, slowly moving stone-barges laden with quarry slaves. The unwieldy craft progressed heavily, nearer and within the darkening shadow of the Arabian hills. Kenkenes watched them as long as they were in sight, an unwonted pity making itself felt in his heart. For even in the dusk he distinguished many women and the immature figures of children; and none knew the quarry life better than he, who ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... their dimness, and vaster than they did in the daytime. "Hark!" said I; "what's that?" as we heard a rustling and flutter of wings in the ivy branches over our heads. Only a couple of rooks, whose antiquarian slumbers were disturbed by the unwonted noise there at midnight, and who rose and flew away, rattling down some fragments of the ruin as they went. It was somewhat odd, but I could not help fancying, what if these strange, goblin rooks were the spirits of old monks ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... have wakened it. And the dream-body possesses all the sense perceptions and all the energies of the waking body and even more, for it can not only see, feel, hear, taste and smell, but also think very clearly and discern more delicate subtleties of mood. Yes! this last it does with such unwonted subtlety and acuteness that one cannot compare it to any sense perception of day and might with good reason speak of a new sense. And it can soar and fly. It feels light and free - though the waking body is wrapped in the deep sleep ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... Earl, glad to speak, for the silence of all the listening things who watched him made his heart beat with unwonted quickness, and he knew they were so many silent judges reading the evil of his soul. "Get thee gone," quoth the Black Earl. "Darest thou ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson

... resurrection of the forms of youth, to be met by the cold welcome of a change in him. The heart did quicken over its recognition of the stability of things, but with no robust urge such as it knew in other years; indeed it fluttered rather pathetically, as if it begged him to put no unwonted strain upon it now, as in that time foregone, when every beat cried out, "Heave the weight! charge up the hill! We're equal to it. If we're not, we'll die submerged in our own red fount." He was not taking age with any sense ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown



Words linked to "Unwonted" :   uncommon



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org