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Windfall   Listen
noun
Windfall  n.  
1.
Anything blown down or off by the wind, as fruit from a tree, or the tree itself, or a portion of a forest prostrated by a violent wind, etc. "They became a windfall upon the sudden."
2.
An unexpected legacy, or other gain. "He had a mighty windfall out of doubt."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Windfall" Quotes from Famous Books



... her father's death had given up rent-receiving, now resumed it; undertook the management of her brother Lovell's affairs, which she conducted with consummate skill and perseverance, and weathered the storm that swamped so many in this financial crisis.' We also hear of an opportune windfall in the shape of some valuable diamonds, which an old lady, a distant relation, left in her will to Miss Edgeworth, who sold them and built a market-house for Edgeworthtown ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... around the edge of a great windfall. A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were pelting them from above. Again and again David caught the swift, ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... and opposite Taiwan, where foreign investment helped spur output of both domestic and export goods. On the darker side, the leadership has often experienced in its hybrid system the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy, lassitude, corruption) and of capitalism (windfall gains and stepped-up inflation). Beijing thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. In late 1993 China's leadership approved additional long-term reforms aimed at giving still more play to market-oriented institutions ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... was extraordinarily propitious. Every thing favored my enterprise. The number of slaves would exactly fit my schooner. Such a windfall could not be neglected; and, on the fourth day, I was entering the Rio Nunez under the Portuguese flag, which I unfurled by virtue of a pass from Sierra Leone to the Cape ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... of his journalistic prospects. Whether there was any special reason for hopefulness, Piers could not discover; it seemed probable that here also the windfall of fifty pounds had changed the aspect of the world. To hear him, one might have supposed that the struggling casual contributor had suddenly been offered some brilliant appointment on a great journal; but he discoursed with magnificent vagueness, and could not be brought to answer direct ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... found what I sought in the brownstone slab covering the tomb of, I know now, an old pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, who died full of wisdom and grace. I am afraid that I was not overburdened with either, or I might have gone to bed with a full stomach too, instead of chewing the last of the windfall apples that had been my diet on my two days' trip; but if he slept as peacefully under the slab as I slept on it, he was doing well. I had for once a dry bed, and brownstone keeps warm long after the sun has set. The night ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... first book ever printed in England, from a stall in Holland, for about two groschen, or twopence of our money. He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds, and as many books as came to twenty pounds more. Osborne resold this inimitable windfall to Dr. Askew for sixty guineas. At Dr. Askew's sale," continued the old gentleman, kindling as he spoke, "this inestimable treasure blazed forth in its full value, and was purchased by Royalty itself ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... inheriting a soft snap, son. The ranger's job was a man's job in the old days when it was a mere matter of patrolling; but it's worse and more of it to-day. A ranger must be ready and willing to build bridges, fight fire, scale logs, chop a hole through a windfall, use a pick in a ditch, build his own house, cook, launder, and do any other old trick that comes along. But you'll know more about all this at the end of ten days than I can tell ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... An unexpected windfall from an almost forgotten uncle and his own investments had placed him in a position of modest comfort, and just before Miss Nugent reached her twentieth birthday he resolved to spend his declining days ashore and give her those ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... unexpectedly fallen to my friend Transit, who, quite unprepared for such an overwhelming increase of good fortune, was pondering on the best means of applying this sudden acquisition of capital, when I accidentally paid him a visit in Half-moon Street. "Give me joy, Bernard," said Bob; "here's a windfall;" thrusting the official notice into my hand; "five hundred pounds from an old female miser, who during her lifetime was never known to dispense five farthings for any generous or charitable purpose; but being about to slip her wind and make a wind-up ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... receive impressions, but withal tenacious. He clearly inherits father's medical instinct of preserving life, and the very thought of suffering on the part of man or beast arouses him to action. When he was only a little over three years old, I found him carefully mending some windfall robins' eggs, cracked by their tumble, with bits of rubber sticking-plaster, then putting them hopefully back into the nest, with an admonition to the anxious parents to "sit very still and don't stwatch." ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... Dilks and his cronies may have been abroad on the preceding night, hovering around in hopes of a windfall; and Jim was eager to learn whether such a ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster

... now in a mantle so thick that it covered their shoulders in the space of two hundred yards. When the timber thinned out Kaskisoon picked his way with the caution of a lynx. At the edge of the clearing they crouched side by side behind a low windfall, and peered over ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... posting-house. It did not arrive. Probably it was asleep, like most other things on that warm day. It was too far off to invite investigation, and sallying forth after breakfast to hire an izvostchik, I became a blessed windfall to a couple of bored policemen, who waked up a cabman for me and took a kindly interest in the inevitable bargaining which ensued. While this was in progress, up came two dusty and tattered "pilgrims,"—"religious tramps" will designate their character with ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... John Cardigan sat down on a small sugar-pine windfall, his head held slightly to one side while he listened to that which in the redwoods is not sound but rather the absence of it. And as he listened, he absorbed a subtle comfort from those huge brown trees, so emblematic of immortality; in the thought he grew closer to ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... moved uneasily in his chair, cleared his throat huskily, and showed other signs of restlessness, all of which were hailed by Ezra Girdlestone as unmistakable proofs of the correctness of his judgment and of the not unnatural eagerness of the veteran on hearing of the windfall which chance ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... him like betraying a trust, since it had been set aside as a provision for his nephew. Just before the testimonial concert, he was at times absolutely without funds, his housekeeper being occasionally required to advance money from her savings to tide him over until a windfall should happen. The proceeds from the seven subscriptions to the Mass in D, amounting to three hundred and fifty ducats (about eight hundred dollars) helped him out to some extent, and something must have been coming in all the while from his previous publications. ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... mind—in Corona, and doubt if the bloom of it will survive the rough contact of a public elementary school? . . . Come, I've thought of that, as a godfather should. You're aware that, a couple of years ago, a small legacy dropped in upon me—a trifling windfall of ten guineas a year. Well, I've been wasting it on luxuries—a few books I don't read, a more expensive brand of tobacco, which really is no better than the old shag, some extra changes of body-linen. Now since the Education Act of 1902 the fees in the public secondary ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... wife lay awake for long hours that night, in a flutter of excitement, discussing Milly's marvellous windfall. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... money. Money is power, and to save up power is thrift. On thrift civilization is builded. The root of all evil is the desire to get money without earning it. To get something for nothing demoralizes all effort. The man who gets a windfall spends his days watching the wind. The man who wins in a lottery buys more lottery tickets. Whoever receives bad money, soon throws good money after bad. He will throw that of others when his own is gone. No firm or corporation is rich enough to afford to ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... of his lost money seemed to Herbert quite a lucky windfall. He went at once to a trunk store, and, for five dollars, purchased a good, durable trunk, which he ordered sent home to his lodgings. Fifteen dollars more he invested in necessary underclothing, and ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger

... couldn't. Something inside is green and untrained. It shied before real man-talk.... Bedient came into a fortune recently, the result of saving a captain during a long-ago typhoon. His property is down in Equatoria, where he has been for some months. So he has had a windfall that would be unmanning to most, yet he comes up here, just as unspoiled ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... explained. He crossed the frozen creek, taking care not to touch the log. On the opposite side the tracks spread out over a windfall of trees. "Whole family mink live here," continued Mukoki. "T'ree—mebby four—mebby five. Build trap-house ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... I am," he asserted stoutly. "Such a windfall of wealth ought to bring happiness, I think; and it seemed to, to Mrs. Hattie, though, of course, she'll learn better, as time goes on how to spend her money. But Mrs. Jane—And, by the way, how is Miss Flora ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter

... and notices everything, and can tell the price of a gown to a sixpence; he has wonderful taste, and is very particular. You must let me have fifty or sixty to begin with—it's not much out of three hundred pounds. What a windfall!" ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... no postmark, and the address prevented Monsieur de Maulincour from following the beggar and returning it; for there are few passions that will not fail in rectitude in the long run. The baron had a presentiment of the opportunity afforded by this windfall. He determined to keep the letter, which would give him the right to enter the mysterious house to return it to the strange man, not doubting that he lived there. Suspicions, vague as the first faint gleams of daylight, made him fancy relations between this man and Madame Jules. A jealous ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... and he was upon the point of returning to Crosset with a request to double the loan when his common sense asserted itself. Poverty was odious, but not shameful, he reflected; ostentation, on the other hand, was vulgar. Would it not be in bad taste to squander this happy windfall upon jewelry when ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... items which made up provincial town life in his younger days. "A life," he says, "it was without progress or profit, or anything that tended to moral elevation." For such dull companies to get a spirit like Burns among them, to enliven them with his wit and eloquence, what a windfall it must have been! But for him to put his time and his powers at their disposal, how great the degradation! During the day, no doubt, he was employed busily enough in doing his duty as an Exciseman. This could now be done ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... windfall myself, which I never expected," the latter continued his tale. "The servants are well provided for, and there are odd sums for a lot of English relatives—I suppose they are—and a good bit for charities. But yours is the biggest individual ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... commanders of the regiments in his division soon took up our seventeen horses, which produced the sum of 85 louis. This was handed over to my detachment, who, not having had any pay for six months, were delighted with this windfall, for which they gave ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... certainly now never be proved. M. Gaston Paris failed to do it; and it is exceedingly unlikely that, where he failed, any one else will succeed, unless the thrice and thirty times sifted libraries of Europe yield some quite unexpected windfall. In the works commonly attributed to Chrestien, all of which are well known to the present writer, there is no sign of his having been able to conceive this, though he is a delightful romancer. Robert is a ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... from hunger. Still it was not ten o'clock, and the night was long before us, when one of the party produced an old pack of Spanish cards from his monkey-jacket pocket, which we hailed as a great windfall; and, keeping a dim, flickering light by our fagots, we played game after game, till one or two o'clock, when, becoming really tired, we went to our logs again, one sitting up at a time, in turn, to keep watch over the fire. Toward morning the rain ceased, and the air became sensibly colder, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... glorious excitation in the swift, smooth flight and a grim assurance of soon seeing the old lion. But I hoped we would not rout him too soon from under a windfall, or a thicket where he had dragged a deer, because the race was too splendid a thing to cut short. Through my mind whirled with inconceivable rapidity the great lion chases on which we had ridden the year ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... getting back anything of all I have put in here. No, it is not possible. There is urgent need on the contrary that I should remain, that I should be on the watch, always at hand, ready to profit by any windfall, if one should come. Oh, for example, I swear it upon my ribbon, upon my thirty years of academical service, if ever an affair like this of the Nabob allow me to recover my disbursements, I shall not wait another single minute. I shall quickly be off to look after my pretty vineyard ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... chose to take advantage of such poor privileges as the position gave her. Within the last few years a considerable fortune had fallen into her hands, some twenty-five thousand pounds, which had come to her unexpectedly,—a wonderful windfall. And now she was the only one of her family who had money at command. She lived in a small house by herself, in one of the smallest streets of May Fair, and walked about sturdily by herself, and spoke her mind about everything. She was greatly ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... he came to consider matters, was he not in perfect health, more sound and fit than many a man but half his age? And were not his fortunes just now at a specially happy turn, his sister, Mrs. Dreydel, having lately been blessed with a windfall, in the shape of yearly income, which—did he so choose—relieved him of much expenditure on her account. Her eldest son had received his commission. The three younger boys had done well as to scholarships thereby materially reducing the cost of their education. Never had he, Carteret, been ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... the interest of the King, and Hyde thought that the most convenient way of doing so was that he should become the purchaser of the land, which adjoined his own property in Wiltshire. Relying on the Irish windfall, he consented to do so, and thus became bound for a sum largely in excess of anything he received. Instead of a double payment of 12,600, he never received more than 6000 of the first instalment. Orrery's promises were more lavish than his ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... the Jobber ultimately from the tangle into which he has twisted himself. It is the least original part of the comedy; but was suggested, like the rest of the play, by Balzac's own circumstances. Was he not always expecting a windfall; and was not Eve a kind of rich—relative? To add one more detail concerning Mercadet, it was revived at the Comedie Francaise in 1879, and again in 1890, there being as many as 107 performances. Its indisputable ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... Why, if nothing to speak of does come to me from old Verner, this money of John's would be a perfect windfall. I must not lose the chance of it—and lose it I should, unless I go out and see after it. No, it would never do. I'll go. It's hard to say how much he has left, poor fellow. Thousands—if one may judge by his letters—besides ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... Chess, 1474, the first book ever printed in England, from a stall in Holland, for about two groschen, or twopence of our money. He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds, and as many books as came to twenty pounds more. Osborne resold this inimitable windfall to Dr Askew for sixty guineas. At Dr Askew's sale,' continued the old gentleman, kindling as he spoke, 'this inestimable treasure blazed forth in its full value, and was purchased by royalty itself ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... the first to tap the wealth of the gorgeous East, into her lap fell the stream of gold from that quarter. The secret of her windfall was the small bulk and enormous value of her cargoes. From Malabar she fetched pepper and ginger, from Ceylon cinnamon and pearls, from Bengal opium, the only known conqueror of pain, and with ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... the developments of the projects of these men was a kind of unearned windfall for both Baker and Fenwick because most of the work had already been done in garages and basements. But no one objected that it gave both Clearwater and NBSD a substantial ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... said the little old woman, and glanced up at the windows the lady had praised. The little old woman's initial sternness wrinkled and softened as the skin of a windfall does after a day or so upon the ground. She half turned in the doorway and made a sudden vergerlike gesture. "We enter," she said, "by the 'all.... Them's Mr. Brumley's 'ats and sticks. Every 'at or cap 'as a stick, and every stick 'as a 'at or cap, and on the ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... linger,—he wished to give me no chance to change my mind and fly his net. I was soon alone, staring dazedly at my windfall and wondering if fortune would ever give me anything without attaching to it that which would make me doubt whether my gift had more of bitter or more of sweet ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... then shows you a small case, in which is a large ring, seemingly of the finest gold, with a little label attached to it, on which is marked 2 pounds 15s. "Now, sir," he continues, "I said we were fortunate, because as we were close to each other, I consider you as much entitled to gain by this windfall as myself. I'll tell you how it shall be: the price of the ring, which was probably dropped by some goldsmith's man, is, as you see, two pound fifteen; however, as I am in a hurry, you shall only give me a quid, a pound, and then the valuable shall ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of, but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an' years—give a Chris'mas—an' we've done it. The money'll go some way an' ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... a shanty down at my shore and went into a sort of mackerel partnership with Snuffy Curtis—Snuffy supplying the experience and this young fellow the cash, I reckon. Snuffy's as poor as Job's turkey; it was a windfall for him. And ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... replied Jerry. "There's a windfall under the roots of that dead pine tree. It's only half-a-dozen yards ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... solicitor-general (1607), in the fourth year of the reign of James, one year after his marriage with Alice Barnham, an alderman's daughter, "a handsome maiden," and "to his liking." Besides this office, which brought him L1000 a year, he about this time had a windfall as clerk of the Star Chamber, which added L2000 to his income, at that time from all sources about L4500 a year,—a very large sum for those times, and making him really a rich man. Six years afterward he was made attorney-general, and in the year 1617 he was made Lord Keeper, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... a long time. Such things happen only once a year or more around dull old Stanhope. To-night we meet to see how many have the money earned for the suits; and I'm glad to say I can cover my needs. You're doubly supplied now, with this windfall." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... friend Suarez. I have no doubt it will be a good thing; and for you who are married and have a family to support, this five hundred dollars would be a windfall. I am single, and don't require it. I am therefore willing to surrender my chance to you, and you can look ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... while walking was easy and we made pretty good time; then we had a rocky hill to get over. We had to use care when we got into the timber; there were marshy places which tried us sorely, and windfall so thick that we could hardly get through. We were obliged to pick our way carefully to avoid noise, and we were all together, not having come to a place where it seemed better to separate. We had about resolved to go to our horses when we ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... le bon Dieu was paying for Madame Choucrou,—it was an instantaneous dread of the "Princess's" quixotic code of honour. La Valiere was capable of flying in the face of Providence, of taking the windfall to a bureau de police. As if the inspector wouldn't stick to it himself! A purse—yes. But a five-franc piece, one of a flock ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... It was the windfall for which the youth had been waiting to enable him to gratify his first love. In his childhood, his father and one M. Foucher, head of a War Office Department, had jokingly betrothed a son of the one to a daughter ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... and so, he says, "the interlude, which cost me five or six weeks of work, produced nearly as much money as Emilius afterwards did, which had cost me twenty years of meditation and three years of composition."[206] Before the arrival of this windfall, M. Francueil, who was receiver-general, offered him the post of cashier in that important department, and Rousseau attended for some weeks to receive the necessary instructions. His progress was tardy as usual, and the complexities of accounts ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... Larry, "I'm not so sure of that. You see, Eliphalet Duncan was half Scotch and half Yankee, and he had two eyes to the main chance. He held his tongue about his windfall of luck until he could find out whether the Scotch estates were enough to keep up the Scotch title. He soon discovered that they were not, and that the late Lord Duncan, having married money, kept up ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... akin to awe she approached the windfall where a cyclone years before had levelled a wide swath through the heavy growth. Giant trunks and branches, resisting decay, littered the floor of the lane and formed a barrier impenetrable to those inhabitants of the jungle confined to a life on the ground. Second growth sprouts ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... his own purse, the very one that had been stolen from him at the Golden Rule Hotel, and the loss of which had started all of his misfortunes. He paid for the ticket and then in a secluded spot he counted the contents of the purse, which proved to be a windfall to the penniless lad, as it ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... else," interpolated Stephen. "It would be a perfect windfall to Anania, for she'd get talk out of it for nine times nine days. But would ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... still young, as every man of forty-three will agree, but he was getting older. A few years ago a windfall of three hundred and forty-one pounds would not have been followed by morbid self-analysis; it would have been followed by unreasoning, instinctive elation, which elation would have endured at least ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... consideration of the right of his own career and his family to the full profit of this windfall, he looked up a reporter and through him a group of reporters and promised them a peep ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... exile mounted the fallen tree, dug his claws deep into the bark, stretched himself again and again, yawned prodigiously, and ended the exercise with a big, rasping miaow. At the sound there was a sudden rustling in the bushes behind the windfall. Instantly the catamount sprang, taking the risk of catching a porcupine or a skunk. But whatever it was that made the noise, it had vanished in time; and the rash hunter returned to his perch with ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... fast was in some measure atoned for, the burden of the table-talk fell upon Bainbridge, who lifted and carried it generously on the strength of his windfall. But no topic can be immortal; and when the vacation under pay had been threshed out in all its anticipatory details it occurred to the host that his guest was less than usually responsive; a fault not to be lightly condoned under the joyous ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... Dick Hewitt brought-to his prize, as he reckoned her; and when he came aboard and sized up the cargo and the Unity's luck, as he reckoned it, his boastfulness was neither to hold nor to bind. No such windfall had been picked up for the Pride of the West during the four years he'd been in the company's service. He scarce stayed to give a glance at the Van der Werf's papers, though Captain Cornelisz was ready for him with the wrong set. "I guess," says ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... billet, was not a little surprised to find a bank-note for fifty pounds, enclosed in a blank sheet of paper; and, having exercised his memory and penetration on the subject of this unexpected windfall, had just concluded, that it could come from no other hand than the lady who had so kindly visited him a few days before, when his ears were suddenly invaded by the well-known sound of that whistle which always hung about the neck of Pipes, as a memorial of his former occupation. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... a windfall pure and simple. The years of petty pickering suddenly seemed more horrid to her in retrospect than she had ever realized they were in the living. It was hateful to have reckoned in car fares and to so often have appeared to do the niggardly thing before the unspoken ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... an hotel-keeper in the neighbouring town of Hanbridge. Six months after the wedding—in other words, at the most dangerous period of the connubial career—Mrs. Malpas's father died, and Mrs. Malpas became the absolute mistress of eight thousand pounds. Lemuel[1] had carefully foreseen this windfall, and wished to use the money in enterprises of the earthenware trade. Mrs. Malpas, pretty and vivacious, with a self-conceit hardened by the adulation of saloon-bars, very decidedly thought otherwise. Her motto ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... the betting was ten to one against your succeeding. However, as it turned out, it was a fortunate business, altogether. I don't say that you might not have made your way down to Rangoon, unaided; but the odds would have been very heavily against it. However, these rubies were a windfall, indeed." ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty

... young American kinematograph photographer, who, with his wife, followed the whole scene with eager eyes, turning the handle of his camera with the most evident pleasure as he recorded the unexpected incident on his films. It was obviously quite a windfall for him to have been on board at such a time. But neither the film nor those who exposed it reached the other side, and the record of the accident from the Titanic's deck has never been thrown on ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... it, Rose," said Hester. "It would not take much time, and if your work satisfied the great tradesman who has given such an impetus to this kind of art, it might be a perfect windfall to art students wishing to keep themselves. You need not despise it in the light of house-painting. If you read your Ruskin, you will find him as good as calling Titian and Veronese house-painters, though to be sure frescoes are rather ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... of the child inaugurated a season of comparative prosperity in the home of Timothy Crump. To persons accustomed to live in their frugal way, three hundred dollars seemed a fortune. Nor, as might have happened in some cases, did this unexpected windfall tempt the cooper ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger

... set out for France in his fifteenth year, with the exception of a short sojourn in Willoughby seven or eight years after, he lived by his wits and by the strong hand. His purse was now and then replenished by a lucky windfall, which enabled him to extend his travels and seek more adventures. This is the impression that his own story makes upon the reader in a narrative that is characterized by the boastfulness and exaggeration of the times, and not fuller of the marvelous ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... crossed that of other black bears, the tracks showed that all stopped to play, romping much as children romp and showing a sociable disposition. It was usually late in November before the black bear denned up for the winter, commonly adapting the shelter beneath some windfall to make a winter home by enlarging and improving it and perhaps by raking in ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... hidden glory shall redeem, 20 For what chance clod the soul may wait To stumble on its nobler fate, Or why, to his unwarned abode, Still by surprises comes the God? Some moment, nailed on sorrow's cross, May meditate a whole youth's loss, Some windfall joy, we know not whence, Redeem a lifetime's rash expense, And, suddenly wise, the soul may mark, 29 Stripped of their simulated dark, Mountains of gold that pierce the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... Moreover, I, who gave 1,600,000 sesterces our of my own money to my native place, am not the man to refuse it a little more than a third part of 400,000 sesterces which have come to me by a lucky windfall. I know that you too will not refuse to fall in with my views, as your affection for the same community is that of a thoroughly loyal citizen. I shall be glad, therefore, if at the next meeting of the decurions, ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... her. "Too late now. I wish to God we had thought alike; for then, instead of looking at my money as I'd look at a pile of road scrapings, I should see it with very different eyes. My windfall would have been poured out here in such a fashion that the people would have wondered. This place is my life, in a manner of speaking. My earthly life, I mean; which you may say is ended now. I was, in my own opinion, as much a part of 'The Seven Stars,' as the beer engine. And when ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... Admiral and the fleet, and then, leaving for a long cruise up the Indian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which, in those days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall. Among them, as the Devil would order, was the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which they had all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I think it could not have been published long. Well, nobody thought there could ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... trifle severe. Nevertheless it was a pretty clear statement of fact. Bland certainly seemed above working either for money or to secure a reasonable degree of comfort for himself and his wife. He sat waiting for a windfall to restore his past splendor of existence, which he sometimes indirectly admitted meant cricket, a country home, horses and dogs, a whirl among the right sort of people in London now and then. That sort of thing and that sort of man was what Myra had fallen in love with. Hollister ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... one night for wood to make a fire, one of our men found a large basket, made of bark, and filled with fine bears'-grease, which had been hid by some Indians. This was considered a great windfall; and ere two days were passed the whole of it was eaten by the men, who buttered their ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... she said. "I am one who believes that where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise." Mrs. Evringham had regained a quite light-hearted appearance in the interest of expending a portion of her windfall on her own and Eloise's ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... only person about Paimpol, and even in the world, for whom I would have missed a windfall; truly, for nobody else would I have come back from my fishing, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara's estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... man, living in a woodland cabin down in the Pennyrile region of Kentucky, with a wife he adored and two or three small children, he was so carried away by an unexpected windfall that he lingered overlong in the nearby village, dispensing a royal hospitality; in point of fact, he "got on a spree." Two or three days passed before he regained possession of himself. When at last he reached home, he found his wife ill in bed and the children nearly starved for lack of food. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... obtained most of his notions of the proprieties of the table. One or two slices were obtained in the usual manner, or by means of the regular service; and, then, like one who had laid the foundation of a fortune, by some lucky windfall in the commencement of his career, he began to make accessions, right and left, as opportunity offered. Sundry entremets, or light dishes that had a peculiarly tempting appearance, came first under his grasp. Of these he soon accumulated all within ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... Farmer," spoke up Old Zeb out of the awed silence that followed, "for doubtless I may be thick o' hearin', but did I, or did I not, catch 'ee alludin' to a windfall ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... been only a little more than three-quarters of a mile away from home that Saturday morning when the storm came on so suddenly. A "windfall" had come down with terrible force from the mountains into the Sound, and had capsized the boat, which was not ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie

... effectually than the single-handed capture of so notorious a desperado as Stingaree. The dashing officer was not unnaturally actuated by the sum of three hundred pounds now set upon the outlaw's person, alive or dead. That would be a little windfall for one man, but not much to divide among five or six; on the other hand, and with all his faults, Sub-Inspector Kilbride had courage enough to furnish forth a squadron. He was a black-bearded, high-cheeked Irish-Australian, keen and over-eager to ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... Gethin Castle was not, however, very full of guests. It had been wet for a few days, and rain spoils the harvest of the inn-keeper even more than that of the farmer. One night, when it was pouring heavily, and such a windfall as a new tourist was not to have been expected by the most sanguine Boniface, a lady arrived, alone, and took up her quarters in the very room that Richard had vacated. Trevethick himself was at the door when she had driven up and asked with some apparent anxiety whether she could be accommodated. ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... the ready money. To have the cash in his own hands he would have given in David himself over and above the bargain, and so much the more willingly since that this nuisance of a son could claim one-half of the unexpected windfall. Taking this fact into consideration, therefore, the generous parent consented to abandon his share of the business but not the business premises; and the rental was still maintained at the famous sum of twelve hundred francs ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... myself on the charity of an old chum of mine, Eugene Marie d'Ardeche, who had forsaken Boston a year or more ago on receiving word of the death of an aunt who had left him such property as she possessed. I fancy this windfall surprised him not a little, for the relations between the aunt and nephew had never been cordial, judging from Eugene's remarks touching the lady, who was, it seems, a more or less wicked and witch-like old person, with a penchant for black magic, at least such was ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram

... His income would scarcely have kept her in flowers, and to supply her with jewels and dinners and a hundred other luxuries, as well as to repay money lost at cards, he had plunged deeper into the books of Benjamin and Company, hoping each time that some windfall would stave off disaster. Disregarding the advice of a few sincere friends, he had continued his mad course of dissipation. And now the blow had fallen—sooner than he had reason to expect. A bill for a large amount was due that very day, and Benjamin and Company ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... and merchandise on credit, and selling them at a lower price for ready money. Victims of this treatment began to press him seriously for their money or their goods. Desperately he continued to fence them off with the long expected windfall ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... of the noble family of that name. He passed his youth in contracted circumstances, which gave him early those parsimonious habits which in after-life never forsook him; so that, with one windfall or another, about the time I knew him he was master of four or five hundred thousand pounds; nor did he look, or walk, worth a moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite the pump in Serjeant's-inn, Fleet-street. J., the counsel, is doing ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... Bradlaugh's perorations immensely, as well as his bold defence of Freethought. He made out a will in Mr. Bradlaugh's favor, but he subsequently made another will, and died in circumstances that necessitated an inquest. By agreement, however, Mr. Bradlaugh obtained L2,500 from the estate, and the windfall came opportunely, for his struggles and litigations had involved him in considerable debt. I know he often had to borrow money on heavy interest. One day, at Turner-street, he told me that a creditor of this species ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote

... that alone. She remembered her grandfather used to say that luck was a powerful ingredient in the successful career of every man, but that the man was on the spot to take the luck, knew when to take it, and how to use it. "The lucky man is the man that sits up watching for the windfall while other men are sleeping"—that was the way he had put it. So Rudyard Byng, if lucky, had also been of those who had grown haggard with watching, working and waiting; but not a hair of his head had whitened, and if he looked older than he was, still he was young enough to marry ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... moment after the decision was made; he even blamed himself for having waited so long. From the "higher regions" there had come a windfall in the shape of two railroad-passes; and a couple of days later they stepped out upon the depot-platform of a little town upon the shore ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... left landed property yielding an annual income of Rs. 1,200, besides Rs. 10,000 deposited in a Calcutta bank, and a substantial house. His estate was worth not less than Rs. 40,000—a lucky windfall for the penniless brothers. It is needless to add that the testator's sradh was celebrated with great pomp, which over, Samarendra applied for and obtained probate of the will. A sudden change from dependence ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... for Southey's "Joan" of A. Dom. 1796 (Cottle, Bristol), tells the doctors, amongst other secrets, that she never in her life attended—1st, Mass; nor 2d, the Sacramental table; nor 3d, Confession. Here's a precious windfall for the doctors; they, by snaky tortuosities, had hoped, through the aid of a corkscrew, (which every D. D. or S.T.P. is said to carry in his pocket,) for the happiness of ultimately extracting from Joanna a few grains of heretical ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... one time or other most men of this kind see the chance of their lives in a poultry-farm. They cherish the idea that somehow the poultry do all the work. And without troubling himself about the details, Jake devoted an unexpected windfall to the purchase of a dozen Turkeys for his latest scheme. The Turkeys were duly housed in one end of Jake's shanty, so as to be well guarded, and for a couple of days were the object of absorbing interest, and had the best of care—too much, really. But Jake's ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... but Saratoga. Once or twice our monotony was broken up by short halts before country inns. At one an excitement was going on. "Had a casualty here this afternoon," remarked a fresh passenger, as soon as he was fairly seated. A casualty is a windfall to a country village. It is really worth while to have a head broken occasionally, for the wholesome stirring-up it gives to the heads that are not broken. On the whole, I question whether collisions and collusions ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... drowning insects. It was a difficult bit; and the column was decimated before it had passed. I expected to see the return journey made by another road, which would wind round and avoid the fatal cliff. Not at all. The nymph-laden band resumed the parlous path and the Goldfish received a double windfall: the Ants and their prizes. Rather than alter its track, the column was ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... have no small fruiting trees at all, and if left such are likely to be knocked down in logging. To leave 20 per cent of the large trees standing would sometimes tie up 20,000 feet to the acre, worth $40 or $50. Age and windfall may cause loss equal to stumpage increase; moreover, they can never be utilized without the same expense for roads and machinery that is necessary in the original logging. The second crop will not be allowed to reach a size requiring such equipment. In considering ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen

... the astounding discovery, that there was nothing after us, and we both paused to take breath, and, so far as I was concerned, to ascertain, if possible, what had occasioned the race. I learned that my friend, after I left him, had gone into the windfall, and was standing upon the long trunk of a fallen tree, picking berries, when he saw, a few rods from him towards the other end of the log on which he was standing, a great black hand reach up and bend down a tall blackberry-bush that was loaded with berries. This alarmed him somewhat, for whoever ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... Wilson, after a silence of some minutes; "if he had not assisted me when I was appointed to a ship, I should not have gained my promotion—nor three thousand pounds I have made in prize-money—the command of a fine frigate—and now four thousand pounds in a windfall." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... at each other in mutual congratulation, he rejoicing in the unexpected windfall, she exulting in the part her boys had ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... had to take him. Besides, what is Dierich Brower to me? I'll see him hanged ere I'll tell him. But I wish you'd tell me where the parchments are! There are a hundred crowns offered for them. That would be a good windfall for my Joan ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... take this candle and goe light a fire, You shall haue leaues and windfall bowes enow Neere to these woods, to rost your meate withall: Ascanius, goe and drie thy drenched lims, Whiles I with my Achates roaue abroad, To know what coast the winde hath driuen vs on, Or whether men ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe

... because on the morning when my husband nearly killed me my friend cried because he hadn't the money to get me away. He told me afterwards he'd come into a windfall. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the tragic culmination, had taken place in the life and family of William Gerhardt, a glass-blower by trade. Having suffered the reverses so common in the lower walks of life, this man was forced to see his wife, his six children, and himself dependent for the necessaries of life upon whatever windfall of fortune the morning of each recurring day might bring. He himself was sick in bed. His oldest boy, Sebastian, or "Bass," as his associates transformed it, worked as an apprentice to a local freight-car builder, but received ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... windfall to the parliamentary party. Pym hies to the citizens and apprises them, in one breath, at once of their danger and their signal deliverance. The Commons draw up a vow and covenant, expressing their detestation of all such ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... said Fleda, shaking her head comically;—"I am told 'The wind's voices' have blown it here, but privately I am afraid it is a windfall of another kind." ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... events was a wonderful windfall for the Irish Nationalists, beyond what the most sanguine of them can ever have hoped for. The rejection of a money Bill by the House of Lords raised a democratic blizzard, the full force of which was directed against the ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... about four o'clock in the afternoon when, pressing through brush and windfall, we came suddenly out into a sunny road. Beside the road ran a stream clattering down-hill over its stony bed—a clear, noisy stream, with swirling brown trout-pools and rapids, rushing between ledges, foaming around boulders, a joyous, rolicking, dashing, headlong stream, that seemed ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... new, now, and Tom's low condition was a windfall to her. She had him out at daylight every morning, stood him up in the woodshed and drowned him with a deluge of cold water; then she scrubbed him down with a towel like a file, and so brought him to; then she rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him away under blankets till she sweated ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... output of both domestic and export goods. The leadership, however, often has experienced - as a result of its hybrid system - the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (windfall gains and growing income disparities). China thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. The government has struggled to (a) collect revenues due from provinces, businesses, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... much in the open air, his skin would look white enough under the canopy of a bed. The glance, keen as a needle, which the lady threw him, appeared to him more animated than that with which she would have honoured her prayer-book. Upon it he built the hope of a windfall of love, and resolved to push the adventure to the very edge of the petticoat, risking to go still further, not only his lips, which he held of little count, but his two ears and something else besides. He followed into the town the lady, who returned by the Rue des Trois-Pucelles, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... lodges of Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas, where they were feasted almost to death by the Iroquois Confederacy.[11] Then they marched to the vast wilderness of snow-padded forests and heaped windfall between ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... understand till long afterwards, when I had watched the fawns many times, how important is this latter suggestion. One who follows a frightened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off at breakneck pace over loose rocks and broken trees and tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break an ankle,—finds himself asking with unanswered ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... and was appointed organist to Westminster Abbey when only two-and-twenty, a place he very nearly lost by refusing to give up to the Dean and Chapter the proceeds of letting the seats in the organ-loft to view the coronation of James II., a windfall he considered as a perquisite. He is buried beneath the great organ, which had so often throbbed out his emotions in the sounds in which he had clothed them. On leaving Tufton Street he went to Marsham Street, where he ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... children were like to get nothing at all. And then just when I was trying to comfort myself with thinking how glad I should be that Joey was well, and that we all had our health even if we did lack a turkey and the fixings, along comes this windfall. Why, it is as if the heavens opened and dropped it straight down at our door. It does you good to know there are kind hearts ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... foolish beast. 'I wish me with my former lord,' he said; 'For then, whene'er he turn'd his head, If on the watch, I caught A cabbage-leaf, which cost me nought. But, in this horrid place, I find No chance or windfall of the kind:— Or if, indeed, I do, The cruel blows I rue.' Anon it came to pass He was a collier's ass. Still more complaint. 'What now?' said Fate, Quite out of patience. 'If on this jackass I must wait, What will become of kings and nations? Has none but he aught here to tease him? Have ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... cat sold a picture? — or more likely had a windfall? Or for God's sake, what's broke loose? Have you a bee-hive in your head? A little more of this from you will not be easy hearing. Do you know that? Understand it, if you do; for if you won't. . . . What the devil are you saying! ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson



Words linked to "Windfall" :   godsend, windfall profit, boom, occurrent, natural event, bonanza, edible fruit, gravy, happening, gold rush, occurrence, bunce



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