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Awry   /ərˈaɪ/   Listen
Awry

adjective
1.
Turned or twisted toward one side.  Synonyms: askew, cockeyed, lopsided, skew-whiff, wonky.  "His wig was, as the British say, skew-whiff"
2.
Not functioning properly.  Synonyms: amiss, haywire, wrong.  "Has gone completely haywire" , "Something is wrong with the engine"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Awry" Quotes from Famous Books



... varieties of thought or feeling in the social circle around her, Lady Chillingly preserved the unmoved calm of her dignified position. A very good woman certainly, and very ladylike. No one could detect a flaw in her character, or a fold awry in her flounce. She was only, like the gods of Epicurus, too good to trouble her serene existence with the cares of us simple mortals. Not that she was without a placid satisfaction in the tribute which the world laid upon her altars; ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it originated much backache and general fatigue, and at the end I found that I had been so absorbed in the permanence rather than the appearance of the dwelling that one of the corner posts was out of the perpendicular and that consequently the building stood awry. Grace of style it cannot claim; but neither "white ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... developing a certain amount of selfishness, and Nan had already discovered that Roger was somewhat inclined to play the autocrat. As he grew accustomed to her presence in the house he settled down more or less tranquilly into the normal ways of existence, and sometimes, when things went awry, he would lose his temper pretty badly, as is the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... wide, not swiftly,—but, as fly The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight— And then swung back; nor close—but stood awry, Half letting in long shadows on the light, Which still in Juan's candlesticks burned high, For he had two, both tolerably bright, And in the doorway, darkening darkness, stood The sable ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... red lips of flesh, But the huge kiss of power? Where yesterday soft hair through my fingers fell, A shaggy mane would entwine, And no slim form work fire to my thighs, But human Life's inarticulate mass Throb the pulse of a thing Whose mountain flanks awry Beg my mastery—mine! Ah! I will ride the dizzy beast of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... Frank and Lucy stalked ahead, with shawls dragging from their arms, the former loaded down with hand-bags and the latter with India-rubbers; Aunt Melissa came next under a burden of bloated umbrellas; the nurse last, with her hat awry, and the baby a caricature of its morning trimness, in her embrace. A day's pleasure is so demoralizing, that no party can stand it, and come out neat ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... declaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings. The guests were few, but were, as one might expect at Mrs. Jellyby's, all devoted to public objects only. Besides those I have mentioned, there was an extremely dirty lady with her bonnet all awry and the ticketed price of her dress still sticking on it, whose neglected home, Caddy told me, was like a filthy wilderness, but whose church was like a fancy fair. A very contentious gentleman, who said it was his mission to be everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms of coolness with ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... confusion than ever, inextricably entangling her inquiries for Sophy with her explanations about the rheumatism which had kept grandmamma from church, and jumping up to pull down the Venetian blind, which descended awry, and went up worse. The lines got into such a hopeless complication, that Albinia came to help her, while Mr. Kendal stood dutifully by the fire, in the sentry-like manner in which he always passed that hour, bending now and then to listen and respond to some meek ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... heat of Love doth once possess the heart, There cares oppress the mind with wondrous ill, Wit runs awry, not fearing subtil smart, And fond desire doth ever master will. The belly neither cares for meat nor drink, Nor o'erwatched ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various

... confessional, and ended in a big knot greasy from handling. Again and again, with regular jumps, she hung herself upon it; and then let her whole bulky figure go with it, whirling in her petticoats, her cap awry, and her blood rushing ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... herself been a powerful queen. Perhaps you would like to know something about her personal appearance, in the latter part of her life. She is described as wearing a man's vest, a short gray petticoat, embroidered with gold and silver, and a black wig, which was thrust awry upon her head. She wore no gloves, and so seldom washed her hands that nobody could tell what had been their original color. In this strange dress, and, I suppose, without washing her hands or face, she visited the magnificent court ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... lame, the other blind; one with a raw back, the other with a galled breast; one with his neck poking down over his collar, and the other with his head dragged forward by a bit of a broken bridle, held at arm's length by a man dressed like a mad beggar, in half a hat and half a wig, both awry in opposite directions; a long tattered great-coat, tied round his waist by a hay-rope; the jagged rents in the skirts of his coat showing his bare legs marbled of many colours; while something like stockings hung loose about his ankles. The noises he made by way of threatening or encouraging ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... Lady," said the steward, "and judge not without looking around you. Lindesay, Ruthven, and your kinsman Morton, poniarded Rizzio, and yet you now see no blood on their embroidery—the Lord Semple stabbed the Lord of Sanquhar—does his bonnet sit a jot more awry on his brow? What noble lives in Scotland who has not had a share, for policy or revenge, in some such dealing?—and who imputes it to them? Be not cheated with names—a dagger or a draught work to the same end, and are little unlike—a glass ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... the truth is to be discovered, not assumed by mere convention; and men must discover it and discover it fully at their peril. Failure even after the utmost effort will not be forgiven. If the truth be found it will be a sure guide in life. If it be not found the lives of men will so far go awry. That it may be difficult to find, that we may never be sure we have ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery

... the drawing-room, and saw that it looked on to the front of the house. The room wore a forlorn aspect; no one, apparently, had taken the trouble to put it straight since the night of the tragedy. The blinds had been drawn down, but the furniture seemed awry as if chairs had been pushed back hastily, a little card table still displayed a game of patience half set out, and even the dead flowers in the glasses ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... in a big woman dressed in a faded blue-checked gown, belted around the waist in a manner that made her look like a sack tied in the middle. Her head was bare, her hair awry, her face sullen and hard; she was undeniably "fleshy" and not altogether clean. She resisted Henderson at every step and glared around her with shrewd and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... for me! And how I gaped at the houses there, finer than any I had ever dreamed of! That was my first sight of a town. And how I listened open-mouthed to the gentlemen at the tavern! One I recall had a fighting head with a lock awry, and a negro servant to wait on him, and was the principal spokesman. He, too, was talking of war. The Cherokees had risen on the western border. He was telling of the massacre of a settlement, in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Pickle was well known by almost everybody in the room, but his partner was altogether a new face and of consequence underwent the criticism of all the ladies in the assembly. One whispered, "She has a good complexion, but don't you think she is a little awry?" a second pitied her for her masculine nose; a third observed, that she was awkward for want of seeing company; a fourth distinguished something very bold in her countenance; and, in short, there was not a beauty ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... showing us what observations have been effective in similar cases; but something depends upon genius. Observation is generally guided by hypotheses: he makes the right observations who can frame the right hypotheses; whilst another overlooks things, or sees them all awry, because he is confused and perverted by wishes, prejudices or other false preconceptions; and still another gropes about blindly, noting this and docketing that to no purpose, because he has no hypothesis, or one so vague and ill-conceived ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... from darting into the hedges for grasshoppers, and the gutters for butterflies, was no easy work, but I managed to do it. As we approached Mrs. Clarkson's boarding-house I felt my hat was over one ear, and my cravat awry, but there was no opportunity to rearrange them, for I saw Alice Mayton on the piazza, and felt that she saw me. Handing the bouquet to Toddie, and promising him three sticks of candy if he would be careful and not drop it, we entered the garden. The moment ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton

... thrust stiffly at full arm's length into his trousers pockets: a rumpled silk hat was set awry on the back of his head; his shirt bosom was sadly crumpled; above the knees, to a casual glance, he presented the appearance of a man carefully attired in evening dress; below, his legs were sodden and muddied, his shoes of patent-leather, twin wrecks. Alas ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... the Bryant home, buried in debris, was a chicken coop, not a splinter awry. Within it was a goose sitting meekly upon a dozen eggs which she had ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... been sent down that grade with a brake deliberately made useless was a horrible thought which she could not put from her mind. She had thought and thought until it seemed to her that she knew exactly how and why the killer's plans had gone awry. She was certain that she and Swan had prevented him from climbing down into the canyon and making sure that her dad did not live to tell what mischance had overtaken him. He had probably been watching while ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... heavy, dirty-faced babies sat in the doorways, women talked and laughed over the low dividing fences. Gates hung awry, and baby carriages and garbage tins obstructed the bare, trampled spaces that ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... been born, and was the oldest house in the village. It was known as the "old Crane place." It had never been painted, it was shedding its flapping gray shingles like gray scales, the roof sagged in a mossy hollow before the chimney, the windows and doors were awry, and the whole house was full of undulations and wavering lines, which gave it a curiously unreal look in broad daylight. In the moonlight it was the shadowy ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... but deceives the eye; Flattery leads the ear awry; Wealth doth but enchant the wit; Want, the overthrow of it; While in Wisdom's worthy grace, Virtue sees ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various

... itching palm stuck out behind. It will be the day when we can accept, without doubt or a curl of the lip, the admonition. from the sixteen stories of steel, because we will then know, that the conscience of the man within is not itself all awry. ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood

... I do, it is because I have used nothing more than plain common sense. Don't think that I attach no importance to physical clues. They're immensely valuable; but the one weakness in a criminal is his lack of common sense. His perspective is awry, his sense of values distorted. Usually he bothers his head about a myriad minor details, and pays but scant attention to the genuinely important things. It is upon that weakness that I am banking—particularly so ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... as she turned round for his benefit. Her hair was a little awry and the lace at her neck disarranged. The natural bloom had not quite returned to her cheeks. With a look in his eyes that would have mystified Betty for many a day had she but seen it he ran his gaze over the dainty figure. Then reassuring her that she looked ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... chatter o'er their pebbles. Kenwalk's soul Partook not with the poet's. Loveliest sights, Like music brightening those it fails to charm, Roused but his mirthful mood. To each that passed He tossed his jest: he scanned the labourer's task; Reviled the luckless boor that ploughed awry, And beat the smith that marred the horse's hoof: At times his fortunes thus he moralised: 'Here walk I, crownless king, and exiled man: My Mercian brother lists his sister's tongue: Say, lark! which ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... stump, watching. Over an area of many acres the ground was a litter of broken limbs, ragged tops, crushed and bent and broken younger growth, twisted awry by the big trees in their fall. Huge stumps upthrust like beacons in a ruffled harbor, grim, massive butts. From all the ravaged wood rose a pungent smell of pitch and sap, a resinous, pleasant smell. Radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the head of the chute ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... instantly started a claim to it as his grandfather's head. "Well," replied the wife, nettled at her disappointments, "although it were your grandmother's head, you shan't get it till I am done with it." "What do you say, you limmer?" says the ghost, starting up in his awry habiliments. "What do you say, you limmer?" repeated he in a great rage. "By the great oath, you had better leave my grandfather's head." Upon matters coming this length, the wily wife of Camp-del-more thought it proper to assume a more conciliatory aspect. Telling the claimant the whole ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... grew more hateful, so it also grew more laughable. They were sure to repeat all awry what little Latin was ever whispered to them. The public found that the devils had never gone through their lower classes. The Capuchins, however, coolly said that if these demons were weak in Latin, they were marvellous ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... Christian thought much of these outside things; but she did now—at least she tried her best. There was not a lock unsmoothed in her fair hair, not a fold awry in her silks or laces, and not a trace of agitation visible in her manner or countenance when Mrs. Grey opened her door to ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... were thinking of me. Yet how vexed I felt that I could not distinguish your sweet face clearly! For there was a time when you and I could see one another without any difficulty at all. Ah me, but old age is not always a blessing, my beloved one! At this very moment everything is standing awry to my eyes, for a man needs only to work late overnight in his writing of something or other for, in the morning, his eyes to be red, and the tears to be gushing from them in a way that makes him ashamed to be seen before strangers. However, I was able to picture ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... are far worse than sneak-thieves, against whom we can guard with locks and bolts, or who, if apprehended, are treated in such a manner that they will not do the same again. But against these no one can guard, no one dare even look awry at them or accuse them of theft, so that one would ten times rather lose from his purse. For here are my neighbors, good friends, my own servants, from whom I expect good [every faithful and diligent service], who defraud me first ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... Dabbled in blood, and dripping red? Croak! croak!—a raven's curse on him, The giver of this shattered limb! Albeit young, (a hundred years, When next the forest leaved appears,) Will Duskywing behold this breast Shot-riddled, or divide my nest With wearer of so tattered vest? I see myself, with wing awry, Approaching. Duskywing will spy My altered mien, and shun my eye. With laughter bursting, through the wood The birds will scream—she's quite too good For thee. And yonder meddling jay, I hear him chatter all the day, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... He was a rather big, bloated-looking, yellow-faced man of five and fifty, with a bald head and scanty flaxen hair. He wore no beard; his right cheek was swollen, and his mouth seemed somehow twisted awry. He had a large wart on the left side of his nose; narrow eyes, and a calm, stolid, sleepy expression. He was dressed in European style, in a black coat, but had no waistcoat or tie. A rather coarse, but white ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... gulping of bubbles as in the happy days. And there between the cafe and the souk gate was the same whitewashed niche where three lads used to sit with their feet tucked under their little kashabias, their chechias awry on their shaven polls, and their lips pursed to spit after the leather legs of the infidel conquerors passing by. The Roumi, the French blasphemers, the defilers of the mosque! Spit ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... I saw him last week on his horse awry, Threaten'd loudly to turn me to stone with his sorcery, But, I think, little Dan, that in spite of what our foe says, He will find I read Ovid and his Metamorphoses, For omitting the first (where I make a comparison, With a sort of allusion to Putland or Harrison) Yet, by my description, you'll ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... roared the doctor, instantaneously repeating the blow, and down went Davy, and down went the table with dreadful din, and the incensed doctor bestrode his prostrate foe with clenched fists and flaming face, and his grand wig all awry, and he ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... spirits, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry.' As he spoke, he drew out a handkerchief he had brought with him, and, binding it over his eyes, he stretched himself out on the platform and laid ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... Mr Sidney's visit, and had hastened upstairs to exchange her coarse homespun for a gown of grey taffeta and a kirtle of the same colour; a large white cap or hood was set a little awry ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... I grant. Besides," I went on, "the pince-nez, which was a large and peculiar one, was all awry: she had half pulled it off, but it continued to stick, and she was ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... table,—bitter, acrid coffee had shocked and astonished the palate,—lint had been observed on tumblers, and the spoons had sometimes dingy streaks on the brightness of their first bridal polish,—beds were detected made shockingly awry,—and Marianne came burning with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... some stronger coil of the waters below caught the glancing white limbs. They sprawled awry from their stroke, a startled look dimmed the dancing eyes with a strain ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... what my friend the baker called la belle jeunesse, is a confirmation day,—when the bishop drives to Grande Anse over the mountains, and all the population turns out in holiday garb, and the bells are tapped like tam-tams, and triumphal arches—most awry to behold!—span the road-way, bearing in clumsiest lettering the welcome, Vive Monseigneur. On that event, the long procession of young girls to be confirmed—all in white robes, white veils, and white satin slippers—is a numerical surprise. It is a moral surprise also,—to the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... Dresden Siege gone awry).... "I am to keep the Russians from Frankfurt, to cover Glogau, and prevent a besieging of Breslau! All that forms an overwhelming problem;—which I, with my whole heart, will give up to somebody abler for it than I am." [Ib. ii. 369-371 ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... alcoholics nor for alcoholics do I write, but for our youths, for those who possess no more than the adventure-stings and the genial predispositions, the social man-impulses, which are twisted all awry by our barbarian civilisation which feeds them poison on all the corners. It is the healthy, normal boys, now born or being ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... wring from my unwilling pen A sonnet,—and all ordered thoughts pass by; Light as a swirl of mist, too soon they fly For my poor wits to capture them again. O sonnet unattained! For other men So easy to attain, but it is I Who struggle, and for me all goes awry,— My efforts fond go unrequited then. "Why, surely it is but a trifle, this," They cry amazed, in sweet unknowing bliss. A trifle, yes, for Shelley or for Blake, They had not many extra marks at stake; I toil in vain toward ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various

... and he is sick, His dwindled body's half awry, His ancles they are swoln and thick; His legs are thin and dry. When he was young he little knew 'Of husbandry or tillage; And now he's forced to work, though weak, ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... he neglects his personal appearance: he neglects it, not because he is in love, but because his nervous system is depressed. That was the cause, if you remember, with poor Major Prim. He wore his wig all awry when Susan Smart jilted him; but I set ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... of Commons. When he took his seat in the House in 1830, the London Times visited him with its constant indignation, reported his speeches awry, turned them inside out, and made nonsense of them; treated him as the New York Herald use to treat us Abolitionists twenty years ago. So one morning he rose and said, "Mr. Speaker, you know I have never opened my lips in this House, and I expended twenty ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... the outset the German plan went awry. Although the contemplated line of advance was through Liege and Namur, it was not sufficient, with Belgium openly in arms to defend her country, to reduce only these two towns. The Belgian Army could, and later did, fall back to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... palsy, and dragged one side along with extreme difficulty. His bloated cheeks and body had fallen into deep pits; and the swelling massy parts were of a black-red hue, so that the skin appeared a bag of morbid contents. His mouth was drawn awry, his speech entirely inarticulate, his eye obscured by thick rheum, and his clothes were stained by the saliva that occasionally driveled from his lips. His legs were wasted, his breast was sunk, and his protuberant paunch ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... From the same hand, and sent with equal force, His right arm pierc'd, and holding on, bereft His use of both, and pinion'd down his left. Then Numitor from his dead brother drew Th' ill-omen'd spear, and at the Trojan threw: Preventing fate directs the lance awry, Which, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... in at the rear of the procession and looked back the figure of the young Cuban, who was no longer a part of the world of Santa Clara, was asleep in the wet grass, with his motionless arms still tightly bound behind him, with the scapula twisted awry across his face and the blood from his breast sinking into the soil ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... shrivelled silk and his skin was the colour of parchment. His eyes, very small and deep-set, were surmounted by heavy brows once black, now of an iron grey. His mouth was of prodigious width, the lips thin and straight and his nose long, narrow and pointed. He wore a dirty wig which was always awry, a faded mulberry coloured coat, and a frayed velvet waistcoat reaching halfway down his thighs. His stockings were dirty and hung in bags about his ankles, his feet were cased in yellow slippers more than ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... few grimaces from me, sir, as I suppose you see," answered the youth, laughing at the very moment his countenance was a little awry with pain. "But it may be borne. I suppose Graham can spare a few minutes, soon, to look at ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... beams slip (and they will be very apt to slip in wet weather, with the king, nobles and people wriggling and shoving against each other), down will come the whole machine of state, or, to say the least, it will get so much awry as never to work as well as at first; and therefore we will have none of it. If, on the other hand, one of our agents makes a blunder and falls, why, he will only break his own neck. He will, moreover, fall ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... tour, particularly at the Descent, we undergo an optical illusion which often seems to be incredible. All the shrubs, fir trees, stables, houses, etc., seem to be bent in a slanting direction, as by an immense pressure of air. They are all standing awry, so much awry that the chalets and cottages of the peasants seem to be tumbling down. It is the consequence of the steep inclination of the line. Those who are seated in the carriage do not observe that they are doing down a declivity of twenty to twenty-five degrees ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... asking, not for a privilege, but for a necessity. You may not see the necessity, you may easily argue that women do not need to vote. Indeed, the women themselves in considerable numbers may agree with you. Nevertheless, women do need the ballot. They need it to right the balance of a world sadly awry because of its brutal neglect of the rights of women and children. With the best will and knowledge, no man can know women's wants as well as women themselves. To disfranchise women is deliberately to turn from knowledge and grope ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... beadle in vestments and a long flaxen wig ill-combed, put on all awry, making room with his staff and hitting the people if they would not leave off praying and get out of ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... the tin-peddler came on duty. He had not followed closely the story about John Wood's loan, and had got it a little awry. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various

... My feet unguided wander to and fro; In front my skin grows loose and long; behind, By bending it becomes more taut and strait; Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow: Whence false and quaint, I know, Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye; For ill can aim the gun that bends awry. Come then, Giovanni, try To succour my dead pictures and my fame, Since foul I fare and painting is ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... were set two beautiful dark eyes, which, contrasting with the golden hair, made the child a sight to see. But alas! just now the cheeks were stained with tears, and round the large dark eyes were rings almost as dark. Nor was this all. The little dress was hooked awry, on one tiny foot all drenched with dew there was no boot, and on the yellow ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... the low wall that separated the churchyard from the road. The old graces, with their tombstones leaning awry, like gapped, uneven teeth, reminded her of her errand, and soon she saw Smith. He had found himself a seat where an old tomb with railings and monument was overrun with ground ivy; he sat among the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... tell her story, careless of the indifference where her sorrows and her joys fell, her pride and maternal tenderness expressed in a tornado of feeling. And while she was thus exciting herself and struggling—distracted, her bonnet awry—at once grotesque and sublime, as are all the children of nature when brought into civilization, taking to witness the honesty of her son and the injustice of men, even the liveried servants, whose disdainful impassibility was more cruel than all, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... of Heart's Desire, so far as it could gain room. The man from Leavenworth was there, his whiskers wagging unintelligibly. McKinney was there, and Doc Tomlinson and Tom Osby, and everybody else; and, pushing through the crowd, there came the Littlest Girl from Kansas, her apron awry, her hair blown, her face flushed, her eyes moist ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... tenderly as that of our parents' kind and patient love. It often softens the heart of the hardened man and abandoned woman when all other influences are powerless. But when love degenerates into idolatry and indulgence, and those to whom the child is given as a sacred trust permit it to grow awry, and develop into moral deformity, men and women, as did Haldane, may breathe curses on the blindness and weakness that was the primal cause of their life-failure. Throughout that long and horrible night he felt only resentment toward his mother, and cherished no better purpose ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... before the force of this argument, although he was chiefly impressed by the fact that he had failed. His failures had been few, because Fortune had smiled upon him in the past; and doubtless for this reason he was the less able to treat failure philosophically. His plans at the ranch house had gone awry. He had counted on meeting Wade there in the daytime, in the open, and upon provoking him, before witnesses, into some hot-headed act which would justify a battle. The surprise attack had left the agent without this excuse for the hostilities which ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... all the qualities of a good horse had come to him except a submissive temper. Allis worked on the theory that his disposition had been set awry by injudicious handling; that unlimited patience would cause him to forget all that. He could gallop, else he had not won the race in which he beat The Dutchman. That he had needed a stimulant that day was because ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... just human beings like ourselves, but how do they get things so awry? They put such a slight upon ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... crawled to the mirror into which he had looked last night, shuddering at sight of his own face. The mere fact that he was still in his evening clothes, the white waistcoat wrinkled and the cravat awry, shocked him inexpressibly. ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... header and descend with the cataract into the basket. On emerging in the great sorting-room, somehow, we catch sight of the Bones epistle at once. There is no mistaking it. We should know its dirty appearance and awry folding—not to mention bad writing—among ten thousand. Having been turned with its stamp in the right direction at the facing-tables and passed under the stamping-machines without notice, it comes ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... whatever, but iniquity will join itself thereto. (Eph. 5:12, 13) Wicked spirits do not only tempt men to transgress the moral law, but do present themselves in heavenly things, working there, and labouring in them, to wrest the judgment, and turn the understanding and conscience awry in those high and most important things. Wherefore, I say, we must be the more watchful and careful lest we be abused in our notions and best principles, by the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... right." She smiled down at him. "He was only a bit fidgety; I believe he's frightened of the weather, Jim." She looked across at Cecil, seeing that young gentleman, wonderful to relate, with his stock folded awry, and his hair in wild confusion. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... the rest of the world put together, and there are things that even a general, yes, even a governor-general, would not be able to do without violating both divine and human laws. He suspects Boris also of setting Natacha's wits awry. We really have to consider that when they are married they will read everything they have a mind to. My husband has much more real respect for Michael Korsakoff because of his impregnable character and his granite conscience. More than once ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... had been characteristic. He had been strong enough to bide his time, clever enough to throw every one off guard. It put a new aspect on the case for me. Had Whitney intended the capture of Inez for Lockwood? Had our coming so unexpectedly into the case thrown the plans awry and was it the purpose to leave them marooned at Rockledge while we were shunted off in the city? That, too, was plausible. I wished Kennedy would ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... secret. The editors of most of these papers have selected their candidate for 1868; and, having done that, can no more help conducting their journals with a view to the success of that candidate, than the needle of a compass can help pointing awry when there is a magnet hidden in the binnacle. Here, again, we have no right to censure or complain. Yet we cannot help marvelling at the hallucination which can induce able men to prefer the brief and illusory honors of political station ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... opened and Miss Underhill sprang up to take her sister's arm and lead her to a chair. She was taller and stouter, and the little girl thought her the oldest-looking person she had ever seen. Her cap was all awry, her shawl was slipping off of one shoulder, and she had a sort of dishevelled appearance, as ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... lounge at their doors suggest neither the spirit of hustling nor the grandeur of democracy. It is, in truth, not a street, but the awkward sketch of a street, in which all the colours are blurred and the lines drawn awry. And the sense of desolation is heightened by the memory of the immediate past. You have not yet forgotten the pomp of a great steamship. The gracious harbour of New York is still shining in your mind's eye. If the sentiment ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... feats I did On the world's roof the snow amid, Ho! such an one as I— I matched the wild goat in my race, And underneath the long wise face I pulled the beard awry. ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson

... For the afternoon was well advanced, and the time-table had gone rather awry. But that did not in the least damp the ardour of the company. Refreshed by their belated meal, more toasts were honoured, more speeches made, and the future continued to assume the most roseate ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... sharp elbow and brawny shoulder our good knight forced himself a way until—surrounded by men-at-arms, his limbs fast bound, his motley torn and bloody, his battered fool's-cap all awry—he beheld Duke Jocelyn haled and dragged along by fierce hands. For a moment Sir Pertinax stood dumb with horror and amaze, then, roaring, clapped hand to sword. Now, hearing this fierce and well-known battle shout, Duke ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... clerke of the kechyn is a prest become In full trust to come to promosyon hye No thynge by vertue cunnynge nor wysdome But by couetyse, practyse and flatery The Stepyll and the chirche by this meane stand awry For some become rather prestis for couetyse. Than for the loue ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt

... father-in-law alive. I made the best of my way to Florence. But he had been dead several hours when I arrived. He had waked with a paralytic attack on him, which deprived him of the power of moving on the left side, and drawing his face awry, made speech almost impossible to him. He assured his servant—who was almost immediately with him—speaking with much difficulty, that it was nothing of any importance, and that he should soon get over it. But these were the ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... tell my readers that the machinery of our domestic life was sadly awry; neither in separate parts, nor as a whole, did it work properly or satisfactorily, the metal was harsh and the little wheels could never be got to run briskly or smoothly. How could they? I think ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... his plan, with warmth exclaiming, "How rosy was her lips' soft dye!" And much that flute the flatterer blaming, For twisting lips so sweet awry. The nymph looked down, beheld her features Reflected in the passing rill, And started, shocked—for, ah, ye creatures! Even when ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... to book, good cousin. Cousin, thou art not in clover; Many a head that's filled with smoke Thou hast twirled and well-nigh broke, Many a clever one perplexed, Many a stomach sorely vexed, Turning it completely over; Many a hat put on awry, Many a lamb chased cruelly, Made streets, houses, edges, trees, Dance around us fools with ease. Therefore thou are not in clover, Therefore thou, like other folk, Hast thy head filled full of smoke, Therefore thou, too, art perplexed, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... crossed. I must lie quiet in Hatchstead, and to lie quiet in Hatchstead was hell to me—ay, hell, unless by some miracle (whereof there was but one way) it should turn to heaven. That was not for me; I was denied youth's sovereign balm for ill-starred hopes and ambitions gone awry. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... great gray joss on a rustic shelf, Rakish and shrewd, with his collar awry, Sang impolitely, as though by himself, Drowning with his bellowing the nightingale's cry: "Back through a hundred, hundred years Hear the waves as they climb the piers, Hear the howl of the silver seas, Hear the thunder. Hear the gongs of holy China How the waves ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay

... alley— 'Twas a cold, raw Christmas eve— And the bakers' shops were open, Tempting a man to thieve: But I clenched my fists together, Holding my head awry, So I came to her empty-handed And ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... on the latticed porch, her favorite evening resort. She came in now, and Jack bolted the doors. Then, with a good-night kiss, he went to his room, and in ten minutes was asleep. Sylvie, on the other hand, girl-like, tossed and tumbled. Why was the world so queer and awry and obstinate? After all, you could do so little with it. Your plans came to nought so easily. Lizzie Wise, in her Sunday-school class, preferred going in the mill, and buying herself cheap finery, because the other girls did it. And so all through. You tried to train some one, and he ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... hunger and fatigue. A cold supper was ready upon the table, and when his needs were satisfied and his pipe alight he was ready to take that half comic and wholly philosophic view which was natural to him when his affairs were going awry. The sound of carriage wheels caused him to rise and glance out of the window. A brougham and pair of greys under the glare of a gas-lamp ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... bodice, below which she wore a coarse petticoat, her only other article of dress. The man was somewhat younger, but of a figure equally wild; his frame was long and lathy, but his arms were remarkably short, his neck was rather bent, he squinted slightly, and his mouth was much awry; his complexion was dark, but, unlike that of the woman, was more ruddy than livid; there was a deep scar on his cheek, something like the impression of a halfpenny. The dress was quite in keeping with the figure: in his hat, which ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... thing to the man who lets the breath out of his companion with a knife, and, leaving his body in the brush, straightway goes about his idleness laughing, and quite another to him who cannot get over the hideous fact that he has tied his cravat awry. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... opinion among the guests was to the effect that Mrs. Linton's arrangements had been thrown very much awry indeed. But then the guests were amused, and as it is getting more and more difficult every year to amuse one's guests, especially those forming a house-party at a season when nothing lends itself to laughter, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... neck, like the mark of a headsman's axe. We reach the end. The distraught maiden has slain her child, and now lies in prison upon her pallet of straw, awaiting death. Faust enters and tries to persuade her to fly with him. Her poor mind is all awry and occupies itself only with the scenes of her first meeting and the love-making in the garden. She turns with horror from her lover when she sees his companion, and in an agony of supplication, which ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... javelin sung, And pierced his arm, and, reddening, held its way, And from his shoulders by the sinews hung The dying hand. Then straight, the dart outwrung, His brother Numitor the barb let fly Full at AEneas. In his face he flung, But failed to smite. The weapon, turned awry, Missed the intended mark, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... the parlor door was partly of glass shaded by a silken curtain the folds of which hung a little awry. So strong was the merchant's interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the fair Polly and the gallant Feathertop that after quitting the room he could by no means refrain from peeping through the crevice of the curtain. But there was nothing very miraculous to be seen—nothing except ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... for some reason or another I felt a grudge against him for that very ability to appear effective at such a moment. Mimi stood leaning against the wall as though scarcely able to support herself. Her dress was all awry and covered with feathers, and her cap cocked to one side, while her eyes were red with weeping, her legs trembling under her, and she sobbed incessantly in a heartrending manner as ever and again she buried ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... the old man, firmly. "Russia is confused, and there is nothing steadfast in it; everything is staggering! Everybody lives awry, everybody walks on one side, there's no harmony in life. All are yelling out of tune, in different voices. And not one understands what the other is in need of! There is a mist over everything—everybody inhales that mist, ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... without reason here I raise this cry: — Read me who can, I read myself — nor so I from the beaten pathway tread awry, Nor thus the matter of my song forego. Not more to what is shown do I apply My saying, than to what I have to show. But now return we to the paladine, Who was about ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... been a heated discussion, for his father was walking up and down the room, his face flushed, his black eyes blazing with suppressed anger, his plum-colored coat unbuttoned as if to give him more breathing space, his silk scarf slightly awry. St. George Temple must have been the cause of his wrath, for the latter's voice was reverberating through the room ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... whey,—to go slap-dash into soapmaking, or the coarse Monday's washing, when all nicer cares were evaded or forbidden, when chairs were shoved back against each other into corners, table-cloths left crooked, and dragging and crumby, drawing the flies,—mantel ornaments of uncouth odds and ends pushed all awry and one side during a dusting, and left so,—carpets rough and untidy at the corners; no touch of prettiness or pleasantness, nothing but clear, necessary work anywhere. She would have made home home; then she would have ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... his eyes deep sunken like wells, and his head totally devoid of hair, although about his lean throat there was a copious fringe of iron-gray beard, untrimmed and scraggy. Down the entire side of one cheek ran a livid scar, while his nose was turned awry. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... and think and think of the days gone by, Never moving my chair for fear the dogs should cry, Making no noise at all while the flambeau burns awry. ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris

... where battered wickets and stakes awry constituted the centre of social activity after supper, some young girls were playing in partnership with young men, hatless, striped of shirt, and very, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... stones, again, enclosing the whole with a grim, protecting arm, a ragged wall, all jagged, formless, rough. The grass is long and yet sparse; here and there a few flowers cling, hardy geraniums, lychnis, and the like, but they seem strangely out of place. The stones are fallen awry, and lean toward each other as if they exchanged confidences, and speculated on the probable spiritual whereabouts of the souls whose former bodies they guard. Most of these stones are gray slate, carved with old-fashioned letters, ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards

... shrubs, but not far from them, a man was standing. It was Dion. He was alone. It was so dark that Rosamund could not see him clearly, but she noticed at once that the outline of his figure looked strange. His body seemed to be all awry as if he were standing in an unnatural position. She stopped ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... her hair would be white before the end of the term. You see, when there's a certain amount of housework you feel obliged to do, and when your studies fairly clamor for attention the rest of the time, it sets your nerves all awry to keep the tempo for clumsy fingers that go just half as fast as they should; or to teach over and over again that four times ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... moment came a timid knock on the door, and Laura opened it to admit Jessie. The appearance of the girl showed that she was much upset. Her face was tear-stained and her hair awry. ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer

... colors, unheard of in wild species, frizzles with their feathers all awry, the Polish with their deformed skulls and the sooty fowls whose skin and bones are black, are some of the remarkable characters that have sprung up and been preserved under domestication. The varieties ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... in a very strange mood last night, and while I combed her hair, which, Olaf, was as tangled as though a man had handled it," and she looked at me till I coloured to the eyes, "and undid her diadem, that was set on it all awry, she spoke ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... not imagine, at the time, what was ailing me, but I had a feeling of some impending and deadly illness. My nerves were all awry, and, from the astounding tricks they played me, my senses seemed to have run riot. Strange sounds disturbed me. At times I heard the swish-swish of grass being shoved aside, and once the patter of feet across a patch ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London



Words linked to "Awry" :   malfunctioning, nonfunctional, crooked



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