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Winsome   Listen
adjective
Winsome  adj.  (compar. winsomer; superl. winsomest)  
1.
Cheerful; merry; gay; light-hearted. "Misled by ill example, and a winsome nature."
2.
Causing joy or pleasure; gladsome; pleasant. "Still plotting how their hungry ear That winsome voice again might hear."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Winsome" Quotes from Famous Books



... Nature had begun, Blennerhasset finished; and we cannot wonder when we read of the best families in the neighboring country going often thirty and forty miles to partake of the generous hospitality here offered them. Mrs. Blennerhasset, endowed by nature with beauty and winsome manners, was always a charming and attractive hostess, as well as a ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... end of the hall, sipping whiskey with a fine air of indifference, but glancing apprehensively toward the crowd of women in the opposite corner that surround the bride, a pale little shop-girl with a pleading, winsome face. From somewhere unexpectedly appears a big man in an ill-fitting coat and skullcap, flanked on either side by a fiddler, who scrapes away and away, accompanying the improvisator in a plaintive minor key as he halts ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... mention of the desert and its secret hoard had stirred him strangely. It seemed to touch unknown springs in his being. He felt the call of the far-flung solitude, and his heart was glad that fortune had bound up his lot with that of the winsome woman who smiled on him so graciously when they parted ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... all things heard, Hand of harper, tone of bird, Sound of woods at sundawn stirr'd, Welling water's winsome ward, Wind ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... And when all the company were assembled, for great numbers flocked to see the match, the damsel first came forth in a strait jerkin of sammet; and then came forth the young bachelor in a jerkin of sendal; and a winsome sight they were to see. When both had taken post in the middle of the hall they grappled each other by the arms and wrestled this way and that, but for a long time neither could get the better of the other. At last, however, it ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... early history of the country, to the pioneer times, to the South and the West, and was, on the whole, one of the most winsome, interesting, and picturesque characters that have ever ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs

... the winsome eyes, When my beer you bring to me; I can see through your disguise! I my goddess recognize— Hebe, young ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... winsome face when her hair was loose. He loved her to grumble at him in this manner. He looked at her again, and went, without any sort of leave-taking. He never took more than two slices of bread and butter ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... lovely Molly!—such a naughty unrepentant, winsome Molly, with the daintiest and widest of straw hats, twined with wild flowers, thrown somewhat recklessly toward the ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... be no greater than mine; but, Warrenia, to leave the most winsome of subjects for the most hateful, you will be safer at Zalapata with Major Jack, but neither of you will be secure until you are on the yacht and beyond reach of General Bambos, as well as of General Yozarro. I could almost advise you to wait here, and ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... this belief all over the world; from the ancient Hindu metaphysics whose fundamental postulate is that the necessary life of God is one constant process of radiation and resorption, "letting out and drawing in," to that modern English poetry which apostrophizes the glad and winsome ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the sad experiences of the past night she was a pleasant spectacle, her eyes bright with excitement, her cheeks flushed under the morning sun which flecked her dark, disordered hair with odd color. Hers was a winsome face, with smiling lips, and frank good nature in its contour. He was surprised to note how fresh ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... very grave. He smiled at me then, one of his bright, winsome smiles that the child Daisy used to get. It made my heart sore with longing for him, ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the hardy highland wight, "I'll go, my chief, I'm ready: It is not for your silver bright, But for your winsome lady:— ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... kend what was what fu' brawlie: There was ae winsome wench and wawlie, That night enlisted in the core, Lang after kend on Carrick shore (For monie a beast to dead she shot, An' perished monie a bonie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bear, And kept the country-side in fear). Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn, That while a lassie she ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... were the only words that I could understand Listening to the priest's sonorous incantation reverberating through the building that morning, one little dreamt that within less than two years' time the winsome princess—her photograph was to be seen everywhere in the Petrograd streets and she seemed to be especially popular—whose day we were engaged in celebrating, would have been foully done to death by miscreants in some remote ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... to be handled; though pleasing and irresistibly winsome, she was not in the least affectionate, and always maintained a dignified, ladylike reserve. But with the appearance of spring she showed signs of lonesomeness. With none of her kind to love, she turned to Rex and on him lavished all of her affection. When Rex was admitted to the house ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... Helen Chambers as told in a special dispatch from Kansas City, Missouri, to the Republican of Joliet, Illinois, and published in that newspaper August 5, 1909. Drink, drugs and debauchery hurried this winsome and respected girl to her coffin before nineteen years had passed over her head. She is one of thousands who perish similarly every year in this beautiful land of ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... already at the dessert? Then I am late," she exclaimed, with a winsome naivete. "Where have I been, you ask? Why, at my dress-maker's. The hats are just lovely this season! I suppose I forgot to note the time, and so am a ...
— In the Year 2889 • Jules Verne and Michel Verne

... us a grace * We own before thy winsome face: And wert thou absent ne'er an one * Could stand in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... But if Georgiana, before her guest arrived, had thought the old house shabby, she felt it now to be positively shambling. She struggled mightily against this attitude of mind, knowing that it was unworthy of her, but, as she led this wonderful, winsome creature, whom she knew to be accustomed only to the softnesses of life, up over the worn stair carpeting to the room she had prepared for her, she was wondering how she herself had ever conceived the preposterous idea of ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... question of the Bernardini was never made; and Marco Cornaro—Marco is a delighted magnifico. Ebbene—San Marco might see many of us wise, old fools choosing a king for a son-in-law, if one came our way to beg the favor. And Messer Andrea hath it that King Janus is full winsome. One should not be hard upon Marco Cornaro—it is not the first alliance that his noble house hath made with royalty. May happy fortune befall the maid—who is verily charming and of ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... is, That you are like maidens, as maidens should be, Winsome with freshness, and wholesome to see, Gifted with beauty, and joy to the eye, Head lifted daintily—yet not too high— Sweet with humility, radiant with love, Generous too as the sunshine above, Swaying with sympathy, ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... confidential statement as to the legality of the thing proposed. Mary gratified her eager mind by careful studies in this chosen line of nefariousness. After a few perfectly legal breach-of-promise suits, due to Aggie's winsome innocence of demeanor, had been settled advantageously out of court, Mary devised a scheme of greater elaborateness, with the legal acumen of the lawyer to endorse it in the ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... me," Miss Ashton thought with much self-gratulation, "for she is not only a winsome, merry girl, but a fine scholar, and already her ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... fared at the fated moment, sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God. Then they bore him over to ocean's billow, loving clansmen, as late he charged them, while wielded words the winsome Scyld, the leader beloved who long had ruled.... In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel, ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge: there laid they down their darling lord on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, {0b} by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure fetched from ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous

... the pawnshop window and made out the figure of a woman standing within among the shadows. He adjusted his hat to his head and a winsome smile to his countenance, ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... the almond trees are in bloom, that one growing in an area spreads its Japanese decoration fan-like upon the wall. The hedges in the time-worn streets of Fitzroy Square light up—how the green runs along? The spring is more winsome here than in the country. One must be in London to see the spring. One can see the spring from afar dancing in St. John's wood, haze and sun playing together like a lad and a lass. The sweet air, how tempting! How exciting! It melts on ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... Sherriff had uttered concerning Peter, he found his doubts increasing. Peter might, as the Press-agent had stated, be a great scout, but was his little Garden of Eden on the fifth floor of the Cosmopolis Hotel likely to be improved by the advent of even the most amiable and winsome of serpents? However— ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... them in most beautiful poetry. And after that the Abbess had him instructed, and he left the life in the world for the religious life. We are told by St Bede that he made much beautiful verse, being taught much holy lore and making songs so winsome to hear that his teachers ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... have not known him long time. And I love better those who talk of higher things than games and songs and pastimes. But the men of books and earnest thought are devoted so oft to the church. And those who are left—one cannot tell. They are brave and winsome and gay; but more than that is wanted in a husband, Freda. Ah, it is hard ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... "and the winsome laird o' Harden shall boast less vauntingly, and rue that he had broke his jeers upon an auld man. Touch me, sir, but ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... Lester to hear Tom Burke sing at the Hippodrome. His voice is better than it's ever been and he sang exceedingly good stuff. Poor John MacCormack with his winsome Irish ballads. ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... passport seem faint and pale. The real Charlotte had a wealth of chestnut hair which fell about her face and neck in glorious abundance. Her great gray eyes spoke eloquently of truth and courage. Her mouth was firm yet winsome, and her form combined both strength and grace. Such is the girl who, on reaching Paris, wrote to Marat ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... one fair May morning in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four. Thomas was thirty-nine, tall and swarthy, strong; with set mouth and three wrinkles on his forehead that told of care and dyspepsia. Jeannie was younger; her face winsome, just a trifle anxious, with luminous, gentle eyes, suggestive of patience, truth and loyalty. They looked like country folks, did these two. They examined the surroundings, consulted together—sixty pounds rent a year seemed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... 'Jewel,' 'Angel,'" jested Mary, thrilling at the echo of a certain low, fluttered voice, that had sounded in her own ears and would wilfully repeat, "Winsome Mary," "Little ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... "Lavengro" is a delightful writer, and one who is more sure than most authors of his time to win that little span of life which writing men call "immortality." But if there is need for the world to be told further that George Borrow was a good man, that he was a most winsome and a most charming companion, that he was an English gentleman, straightforward, honest, and brave as the very best exemplars of that fine old type, the world is now told so—told so by two of the few living men who can speak of him with authority, the writer of the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... Portrait," and "The Cloak," show to a high degree that mingling of Fantasy with Reality that is so characteristic of this author. The obsolete old pair of lovers in "Old-fashioned Farmers" is one of the most charming and winsome things that Gogol wrote at this period: it came straight from the depths of his immeasurable tenderness. It appealed to that Pity which, as every one has noticed, is a fundamental attribute of the national Russian character. ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... instructed Moses to take care of the horses, and side by side with the winsome maiden walked from the landing to the house, followed by ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... under twenty, with a smart little figure, a winsome smile, and a gold stripe on your sleeve. The women willingly compare you to the Queen's pages, or Napoleon's handsome hussars. That may be all very well in a salon, or in the drawings you see in 'La Vie Parisienne,' but it takes something more than that to be a true officer. He's got to ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... the mountains, but they seem to me to be continually pirouetting with each other,—exchanging or entirely losing their identity. You are in the Alpine Valley. Around you stand Mount Hayes, so named in honor of a worthy housekeeper; the Imp, sobriquet of a winsome and roguish little girl, who once made the house gay; the Pilot range,—because they pilot the Androscoggin down to the sea, says one to whom I never appeal in vain for facts or reasons; Mount Madison, lifting his shining head beyond an opening niched ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... poetry, we peep over the wild mask of revolutionary metaphysics, and we see the winsome face of the child. Perhaps none of his poems is more purely and typically Shelleian than The Cloud, and it is interesting to note how essentially it springs from the faculty of make-believe. The same thing is conspicuous, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... heart grief which had made him the strange, eccentric being he was. Thoughts of the dead were with him, too, to-night, and with his face buried in his broad, rough hands, he thought of, her, whose winsome smile and gentle ways had woven around his heart a mighty and undying love, such as few men ever felt. Of Dora, too, he thought—Dora, whom he had never seen—and his heart yearned towards her with a deep tenderness, because his ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... TROWBRIDGE has always a purpose in his writings, and this time he has undertaken to show how very near an innocent boy can come to the guilty edge and yet be able by fortunate circumstances to rid himself of all suspicion of evil. There is something winsome about the hero; but he has a singular way of falling into bad luck, although the careful reader will never feel the least disposed to doubt his honesty.... It is the pain and perplexity which impart to the ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... slaves of your children on Sunday. Don't place them in long, straight rows, like fence-posts, and "Sh! children, it's Sunday!" when by chance you hear a sound or rustle. Let winsome Johnny have light and air, and let him grow beautiful; let him laugh until his little sides ache, if he feels like it; let him pinch the cat's tail until the house is in an uproar with his yells—let him do anything that will make him happy. When I was a little boy, children went to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... view that had so charmed Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster: they spent their time struggling to keep Miss Amberson's face turned toward them. She turned it most often, observers said, toward two: one excelling in the general struggle by his sparkle, and the other by that winning if not winsome old trait, persistence. The sparkling gentleman "led germans" with her, and sent sonnets to her with his bouquets—sonnets lacking neither music nor wit. He was generous, poor, well-dressed, and his amazing persuasiveness was one reason why he was ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... error it is mine. I should have known from the way you played up to the Seebrook girl that you were far too susceptible to be trusted with women. The error is mine; not yours, Archie; I don't blame you a particle. Indeed the incident warms my heart to you. Sally is a winsome lass; she has a way ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... the gloomy ranges, at the foot of an ironbark, The bonnie, winsome laddie was lying stiff and stark; For the Reckless mare had smashed him against a leaning limb, And his comely face was battered, and ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... there one afternoon. There is no special sanctity attached to a place of business in the West, and nobody who knew Alton would have been astonished to find plates of fruit upon the papers which littered his table, and a spirit lamp burning on the big empty stove. A very winsome young lady also sat in a lounge-chair, and Forel close by glanced at her with a most unbusinesslike twinkle in his eyes. Seaforth had been married recently, and his wife had called in to see, so she told Alton, that he was not working ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... their adopted town that they had become persons of note there till Philemon's health began to fail, when Agatha quit all outside work and devoted herself exclusively to him. Of her character and winsome personality we can gather some idea from the various conversations carried on that day from Portchester Green to ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... a face which, though not absolutely pretty, was intensely winsome in consequence of an air of quiet womanly tenderness which surrounded it as with a halo. She was barely eighteen, but her soft eyes possessed a look of sorrow and suffering which, if not natural to them, had, ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... woman that a rarer young man would have been attracted by; indeed the delicacy of a young man may be tested by the sympathy he may feel for women when age has drawn a veil over, and put sexual promptings aside. Her bright teeth and eyes, the winsome little face, so glad, would have at once charmed and led any young man not so brutally young as Frank Escott. It would have pleased another to watch her, to wait on her, to listen to her rambling ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... lovely youth whose face excels * Sunlight, and passes moon when clearest clear: The fawn, that sees his glance, is fain to cry * 'I am his thrall' and own himself no peer: Beauty hath written, on his winsome cheek, * Rare lines of pregnant sense for every seer; Who sights the light of love his soul is saved; * Who strays is Infidel to Hell anear: An thou in mercy show his sight, O rare![FN69] * Thou shalt have every wish, the dearest dear, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... or indicated reserve-cajoleries. Neither ignorantly nor advisedly did she play on these or other bewitching strings of her sex, after the fashion of the stamped innocents, who are the boast of Englishmen and matrons, and thrill societies with their winsome ingenuousness; and who sometimes when unguarded meet an artful serenader, that is a cloaked bandit, and is provoked by their performances, and knows anthropologically the nature behind the devious show; a sciential rascal; as little to be excluded from our modern circles ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and rest a while after this long ride," said Miss Dolly with winsome cordiality. "The rain last evening was delightful, but the day is warm. We are all living out-of-doors, as you see. And this, I suppose, is your little sister? Drive up and help the girls out, and then go round to the barn. You will find some ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... a winsome country lass, So William on a brief vacation, The time more pleasantly to pass, Essayed flirtation. And while they strolled in twilight dim, As near the time for parting drew, Asked if she would have from him A "billet-doux." Now this simple maid of French knew naught, But doubting not 'twas something ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various

... perceiving that hitherto she had known only half the value of her sister her sweet sister. It would be worse than ever now, when left with the others, all so much less sympathizing, all saying sharp things of Philip, none to cling to her with those winsome ways that had been unnoted till the time when they were no more to console her, and she felt them to have been the only charm that had ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... His grandfather was Amos Eaton, noted botanist and author. Studied botany under his friend, Prof. Asa Gray, who had studied with Prof. John Torrey, who in turn was a pupil of Amos Eaton. Daniel C. was professor of botany in Yale College, for more than thirty years. A man of graceful and winsome personality, an authority on ferns, and widely known by his writings. His masterpiece was "The Ferns of North America" in two large, quarto volumes, beautifully illustrated. He died ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton

... healing. He provides an environment in which others can see God. Goodness creates an atmosphere for other souls to be good. It is a priestly garment that has virtue even for the finger that touches it. The earth has its salt, and the world has its light, in the sweet souls, and winsome lives, and Christ-like characters to be found in it. The choice of friends is therefore one of the most serious affairs in life, just because a man becomes moulden into the likeness of what he ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... The bees give their honey and sweet-smelling wax to the man who attends them; but more precious gift still is their summoning him to the gladness of June, to the joy of the beautiful months; for events in which bees take part happen only when skies are pure, at the winsome hours of the year when flowers keep holiday. They are the soul of the summer, the clock whose dial records the moments of plenty; they are the untiring wing on which delicate perfumes float; the guide of the ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... was in a state of confusion which Sanchia was quick to mark, while Howard saw nothing of it. He saw only Helen looking a far-off princess, cold and unapproachable. And only a few minutes ago she had been just a winsome girl who leaned toward him, whom he dared to hope he could ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... out-of-the-way parts of Paris. One evening, as I returned home to the Rue des Cordiers from the Place de l'Estrapade, I saw a girl of fourteen playing with a battledore at the corner of the Rue de Cluny, her winsome ways and laughter amused the neighbors. September was not yet over; it was warm and fine, so that women sat chatting before their doors as if it were a fete-day in some country town. At first I watched the charming expression of the girl's face and her graceful attitudes, her pose fit for ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... outline and phosphorescent glow, she had quite the normal aspect of a human being of our own world. She was beautiful, according to our own standards of beauty; her long braided hair a glowing black, her face, delicate of feature and winsome in expression. Her lips were a deep red, although I felt rather than saw ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... me, my heart's desire!" said the first. "By St. George! our life is short, and we should be merry while we may. May I never see Chester Bridge again, if she is not a right winsome lass!" ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... not sit and see her soul come out at her frightened eyes, and not a Martian moved a finger to her rescue; the red shine gleamed on empty faces, tier above tier, and flung its broad flush over the endless rank of open-mouthed spectators, then back I looked to Heru—that winsome little lady for whom, you will remember, I had already more than a passing fancy—and saw with a thrill of emotion that while she still kept her eyes on the flaming globe like one in a horrible dream her hands were slowly, very slowly, rising in supplication to ME! It was not vanity. There was no ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... I am not built on the same lines as the Princess. Princess Winsome is one of our names for Lloyd. And he says it is ridiculous for me to try to do things the way she does. He is always quoting Epictetus to me: 'Were I a nightingale I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.' He says that trying to copy her is ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... an occasion to rouse an older brother and the head of his house to some dramatic pronouncement. He should have taken a stand, they said, though just what stand one should take, when one's sister has run off with another man and left a wholly admirable husband and a winsome baby daughter behind, may not, perhaps, have been wholly clear to the minds of the remaining impeccable sisters. They demanded he should confiscate her share of their father's estate as punishment; this should now be Phil's; they wanted this understood and they took care that their friends ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... half-amused way, as of a venture which he had made, and, having failed, found it pleasant to look back upon as an experience not altogether to be regretted. We none of us knew until much later that it was more than a mere fancy for a woman who was altogether so sweet and winsome that no man needed an excuse for loving her. When by and by I also came to love a good woman, I used to try myself by the measure of this man's lack of self-love, and wonder how he could have seen with good-will the woman he cared for come to like another man better. This utter sweetness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... Ruthven had obliterated all such thoughts till now, when Lucy herself had brought them back again with her winsome ways, and her evident intention to begin just where they ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... fullest sense, and that, most unwittingly, you have affronted a woman in a way the meekest Christian of her sex will find it hard to forgive; she will never forget it. Mrs. Stannard's smile was sweetness itself; her eyes smiled quite as much as her mouth, and her very soul seemed to beam through the winsome, winning beauty of her face. All the young officers looked up to her with something akin to worship; all the elders spoke of Mrs. Stannard as the perfection of an army wife; even her closest friends and acquaintances ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... so full and winsome in the best modern literature that I was no doubt greatly influenced by it. I was early drawn to Wordsworth and to our own Emerson and Thoreau, and to the nature articles in the "Atlantic Monthly," and my natural-history tastes were stimulated ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... round Toyland that "Winsome Winnie" was Usher's girl. The male "assistants" did no worse than call her by her Christian name (they must have caught it from Sadie), and that was no cause of offence to girl from man in a department store. Every girl in a department shared by men was "Kitty" or "Winny," "Sadie" or "Sweetie," ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... the warm, even light, its pinnacles, tower-roofs, domes, and roof-tiles flashing and sparkling in the late sunshine, all of it radiant with the magical glow of an Italian afternoon, to see Rome so vast, so grandiose, so majestic, so winsome, so lovely; to know that one owns one's share in Rome, that one is part of Rome; that, I conceive, confers the keenest joy of which the ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... must see her. It was impossible to wait another day. When was it he had seen her last? Patty, dark-eyed, elfish, winsome, merry! Oh, yes, he must see her at once, this very afternoon. He could no longer repress the tide of his love, which surged at the flood-gates of his heart with ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... taught. The home morality must have the flavor of kindliness and sweet reasonableness. Morality, to be true to its essence, does not require that it be made disagreeable. Goodness is beauty expressed in human conduct and, therefore, deserves freedom to disclose its winsome charm as well as ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves

... Aregwedd {66} she, of winsome smile, Who broke the strength of Britain's Isle, And gave the Samson of our land Delilah-like ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... spoke, and very winsome was the glad abandonment of this young lover, half boy, half man, possessing the simplicity of the one, the fervor of the other. Pauline looked and listened with a soothing sense of consolation in the knowledge ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... way everywhere, springing from the hands of woman. When the dwelling is cramped, the purse limited, the table modest, a woman who has the gift finds a way to make order and puts care and art into everything in her house, puts a soul into the inanimate, and gives those subtle and winsome touches to which the most brutish of human beings is sensible. But in China woman does nothing of this. Her life is unaesthetic to the last degree. No happy improvisations or touches of the stamp of personality enter her home; one cannot trace ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... Than the finest fleeces Baetis shows, Than the dormouse with her golden hue: Lips more fragrant than the Paestan rose, Than the Attic bees' first honey-dew, Or an amber ball, new-pressed and warm; Paled the peacock's sheen in your compare; E'en the winsome squirrel lost his charm, And the Phoenix seemed no longer rare. Scarce Erotion's ashes yet are cold; Greedily grim fate ordained to smite E'er her sixth brief winter had grown old— Little love, my bliss, my heart's delight. ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... Argus-eyed fan, clattering his quill castanets and screaming challenges to his rivals! He will even fight bloody battles with invading suitors; and, after all, failure may be the result. Imagine the feelings of two superb birds fighting over a winsome browny, to see her—as I have done—walk off with a ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... winsome lass, I want no tricky wine, But amber nectar bring to me, Whose rich bouquet will cling to me, Whose spirit voice will sing to me From out the mug divine So, here's your toll—a kiss—away, You Hebe of the Rhine! No goblet's gold means cheer to me, Let no cut glass get near to me— Go, Gretchen, ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... given of the pioneer settlement and its people; while the heroine, Daffodil, is a winsome lass who develops ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... big silent rooms above, Whitney Barnes was utterly at a loss how to occupy himself. The thundering stillness got on his nerves and he found himself thinking of a dozen different things at once. But as idea pursued idea the image of the shy and winsome Sadie persisted ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... Lincoln that indescribable melancholy which seemed to shadow his whole life. The Rutledges from whom Anne was descended were an eminent family of the Carolinas. She was about nineteen years old when Lincoln knew her first. It was shortly after the Black Hawk War. She was a winsome girl, with fair hair and blue eyes, and Lincoln's heart was captivated by her sweet face and gentle manners. So attractive a girl was not, of course, without suitors, and Anne had been wooed by one James McNeill, a young man who had come to New Salem soon after the founding ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... daughters of Louis d'Amours were married at Port Royal while very young. Perhaps they possessed their mother's winsome manners, perhaps, also the scarcity of marriageable girls in Acadia may have had something to do with the matter; at any rate Charlotte d'Amours was but seventeen years of age when she married the young baron, Anselm de St. Castin. Their wedding took ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... of a winsome maid That yester eve across my pathway strayed. That I was shy I can't deny; But if it will not weary you to hear, I'll try and tell you what I found so dear, When o'er a stream As in a dream I helped Virginia to the further ...
— The Last West and Paolo's Virginia • G. B. Warren

... corner, overhung by a great Louis XV mirror with a gilt frame of rich, voluptuous curves. On the mantel lay a scarf of old-rose velvet smelling decidedly musty. Alone, apart, upon this mantel, as an altar, stood a colored plaster bust of Jeanne d'Arc, showing her in the beauty of her winsome youth. The pale, girlish face dominated the shadowy room with its ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... Phil returns,—blithe, hopeful, winsome as ever. He is puzzled, however, by the grave manner of the Squire, when he takes him aside, after the first hearty greetings, and says, "Phil, my lad, how fares it with the love matter? Have things ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... Tam kenned what was what fu' brawlie: "There was ae winsome wench and walie,"[95] That night inlisted in the core (Lang after kenned on Carrick shore! For mony a beast to dead she shot, And perished mony a bonnie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bear,[96] And kept the country-side ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... Reverend Dr. Brown, Uprose the doctor's "winsome marrow;" The lady laid her knitting down, Her husband clasp'd his pond'rous Barrow: What'er the stranger's cast or creed, Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner, He found a stable for his steed, And welcome for himself, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various

... our poets see largely through the medium of English literature and invest with borrowed charms, is the violet. The violet is a much more winsome and poetic flower in England than it is in this country, for the reason that it comes very early and is sweet-scented; our common violet is not among the earliest flowers, and it is odorless. It affects sunny slopes, like the English flower; ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... portrait of Rossetti in Aylwin showing him to be the creature of varying moods, gay and even frolicsome at one moment, profoundly meditative at the next, deeply dejected at the next, but always the most winsome of men, is true to the life. It is more than hinted in the story that D'Arcy's melancholy was the result of the loss of one he deeply loved. From such a loss it was that Rossetti's melancholy moods resulted. ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... in silence then speaks jeeringly. DIONYSUS remains gentle and unafraid.] Marry, a fair shape for a woman's eye, Sir stranger! And thou seek'st no more, I ween! Long curls, withal! That shows thou ne'er hast been A wrestler!—down both cheeks so softly tossed And winsome! And a white skin! It hath cost Thee pains, to please thy damsels with this white And red of cheeks that never face the light! [DIONYSUS is silent.] Speak, sirrah; tell me first thy name ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... give you a place on the NEWS," said Norman with his keen look softened by a smile that made it winsome. "I want reporters who won't work Sundays. And what is more, I am making plans for a special kind of reporting which I believe you can develop because you are in sympathy with ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon

... had that been the object of this strange attack. I think, My Lord, that presently we shall hear from some bold adventurer who holds the little Prince for ransom. God give that such may be the case, for of all the winsome and affectionate little fellows I have ever seen, not even excepting mine own dear son, the little Richard was the most to be beloved. Would that I might get my hands upon the foul devil who has done ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... shoulder lies a jetty braid; Her slender form, most delicately made, Her deep, black eyes and winsome features miss Naught of proportion. What a conquest this! To such an enemy who would not bow? Truly our warrior is a captive now! Vainly she gazes—turns and disappears, His beating heart our youthful hero hears! Rashly he thinks to follow and surprise This charming stranger—carry ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... March 16.—The WINSOME WINSTON, sauntering in from behind SPEAKER'S Chair when Questions had advanced some way, startled by strident cheer from Ministerialists and Irish Nationalists. Opposition angrily replied. FIRST LORD, faintly blushing, found ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various

... winsome face, and turning to Brereton, held out his hand. "You have secured an able pleader," he said, "and I cannot find it in my heart to give her nay at any such time. Indeed," he added, as Jack eagerly took the proffered peace-offering, "'t is to be feared, my boy, that had ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... the last day of February, 1920, the coast-guard cutter Negros, 150 tons and 150 feet over all—with a crew of sixty men, Captain A. B. Galvez commanding, and having on board the Lovely Lady, who accompanies me on all my travels; the Winsome Widow, who joined us in Seattle; the Doctor, who is an officer of the United States Health Service stationed at Manila; John L. Hawkinson, the efficient and imperturbable man behind the camera; three ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... eyes. When he was first taken into the sitting-room, the picture of the smiling girl over the fireplace instantly attracted his gaze, and, putting out his arms, he cooed to it. This completed the conquest of Miss Ludington, whose womanly heart had gone out to the winsome child at first sight. ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy

... and expressive Indian names of Minnehaha and Wenonah had been given to the two bright, winsome little girls in the household, while the wee brother was called by the old Scottish name ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... and her answer awed me by its conciseness and its confidence. "Oh, no," she said. "Our Admiralty has arranged a path for us between the mines." That was a sublime faith, but I should choose a more winsome path—bordered with marigolds, ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... first impressed him was the frankness of a winsome personality. He listened with keen attention to her voice. There was no simper, no affectation, no posing. She was just herself. He found himself analyzing her character. Refined—yes. Intelligent—beyond a doubt. She talked with her father in a quiet, authoritative ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... his feet. He understood the hint implied and for an instant appeared to waver. There was something very winsome about Roger Ransom; some attribute or expression ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... spectres of so many buried joys, had been painted expressly for Olympia Mancini. It represented his first declaration of love to her, and had been sent as a souvenir of "the brightest hour of his life." He had barely reached his thirty-seventh year, and yet this winsome youth had been transformed into a demure devotee, who, despising the vanities of the world, had turned his heart toward heaven, and spent his life doing penance for the sins of his ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... other people more than their rights; we owe them love. To some of them it is not hard to pay this debt. They are lovable and winsome. They are thoroughly respectable. They are congenial spirits, giving us in return quite as much as we can give them. It is natural to love these and be very kindly and gentle to them. But we have no liberty of selection in this broad duty of loving other people. We may not choose ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller

... lady, whereby all people alike in Florence were moved to compassion. And this is no marvel, seeing that with all earthly beauty and courtesy she was adorned as, before her day, no other under heaven could have been. Among her other excellent parts, she had a carriage so sweet and winsome that whosoever should have any commerce or friendly dealing with her, straightway fell to believe himself enamoured of her. Ladies also, and all youth of her degree, not only suffered no harbourage to unkindly thought upon this ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... a winsome lass, a bonny lass was she, As ever climbed the mountain-side, or tripped aboon the lea; She wore nae gold, nae jewels bright, nor silk nor satin rare, But just the plaidie that a queen might ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... comply with all these demands; they were made in a spirit so sweet and winsome, and they were so obviously simple and just, that he rose to the call with grateful response, but with that strange something in reserve that Cynthia could not then understand or classify. It was as though Sandy had ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... about her shoulders and the fairy-like feet were inclosed in thick, warm shoes and stockings. The dress of a dull brown color and thick texture, fitted her tiny frame perfectly and she formed a most winsome picture of ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... Ursula, winsome child, I would that I Had never had thee if thou wert to die So early. For with lasting grief I pay, Now thou hast left me, for thy sweet, brief stay. Thou didst delude me like a dream by night ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski

... packet boats was the last man in the world to be heroically accurate when his sympathies were appealed to by a winsome young woman in evident distress; and while he would cheerfully have sworn that it was eleven o'clock or one o'clock when John Gavitt came aboard, if he had known certainly which statement would relieve her, her query left him no hint to ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... what my sowl may be in the eyes o' my Maker, I hae ill tellin'," she said, "but dinna ye threip upo' me 'at it's o' the same vailue i' your eyes as the sowl o' sic a fine bonny, winsome leddy as yon. In trouth," she added, and shook her head mournfully, "I haena had sae mony preevileeges; an' maybe it'll be seen till, an' me passed ower a wheen ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... family life, the God whose manifestations attract in every phase of His Self-revelation; He is human to the very core; born in humanity, as He has said, He acts as a man. As a child, He is a real child, full of playfulness, of fun, of winsome grace. Growing up into boyhood, into manhood, He exercises the same human fascination over the hearts of men, of women, and of children; the God in whose presence there is always joy, the God in whose presence there is continual laughter and music. When we think ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant

... with a merciless catechism as to what he had done to vex her. Then, perhaps, just when he had nerved himself almost to the point of asking her what was the trouble, there would come another change, bringing back to him the old Billy, joyous, winsome, and devoted, plainly caring nothing for anybody or anything but himself. Scarcely, however, would he become sure that it was his Billy back again before she was off once more, quite beyond his reach, ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... matter of fact no sound came from his moving lips. His mind was in such a state that he derived no pleasure even from Anne Garland's presence, though he held a corner of the same book with her, and was treated in a winsome way which it was not her usual practice to indulge in. She saw that his mind was clouded, and, far from guessing the reason why, was doing ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... would approach the wigwams of the women, and by her winsome smiles, her hearty laughter and gayety soon won their confidence. She spoke the language of the Indians fluently, and sang many of the Puritan hymns in their tongue, so that they were "much entertained," as the ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller

... maiden, forgetful even of the adulation in the eyes of the little five-year-old girl now licking the syrup off her slab of soldier bread and gazing adoringly up into the shrinking donor's face. Miss Minneconjou had caught sight of her own winsome face in a mirror that hung in a stained-wood frame opposite Mira's seat, and with no little shy giggling was revelling in the study of her charms even while busily munching the big biscuit in her slender brown hand. Here was a trait that formed a bond of sympathy, and Mira took courage. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... thought. He was tall and slight, with wavy hair, light brown, almost golden, in the sunlight. His eyes were gray, a lovely shade, though those who hated him swore 'twas green. A clever supple swordsman, and to the fore in all the rough games that men delight in. His face was very winsome, yet often swept by varying moods. I have seen it hard and stern, and again alight with the keenest appreciation of one of my Lord Kenneth's witticisms. And, too, I have seen it tender, pleading, and melancholy ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... of care and nursing began. The Union colonel had left a good supply of coffee, sugar, and coarse rations for the wounded men, and Suwanee did her best to supplement these, accomplishing even more by her kindness, cheerfulness, and winsome ways than by any other means. She became, in many respects, a hospital nurse, and visited the wounded men, carrying delicacies to all alike. She wrote letters for the Confederates and read the Bible to those willing to listen. Soon all were willing, ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... her brother. They arranged for a tour to the Great Lakes, and I was chosen to go with them in command of the boatmen. It appeared as if a great chance had come to me, and so said the factor at Lachine on the morning we set forth. The girl was as winsome as you can think; not of such wonderful beauty, but with a face that would be finer old than young; and a dainty trick of humour had she as well. The governor was a testy man; he could not bear to be crossed in a matter; yet, in spite of all, I did not think he had a wilful ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... infinitely more interesting to my beautiful Lady of the Shipyards than any grandfather gondolier or staid old painter who ever lived. This young gentleman is twenty-one; has a head like the Hermes, a body like the fauns, and winsome, languishing eyes with a light in their depths which have set the heart of every girl along his native Giudecca pitapatting morning, noon, and night. He enjoys the distinguished name of Vittorio Borodini, and is the descendant of a family of gondoliers—of the guild ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith



Words linked to "Winsome" :   winsomeness



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