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Pretty   /prˈɪti/   Listen
Pretty

adjective
(compar. prettier; superl. prettiest)
1.
Pleasing by delicacy or grace; not imposing.  "Pretty song" , "Pretty room"
2.
(used ironically) unexpectedly bad.  "A pretty kettle of fish"



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"Pretty" Quotes from Famous Books



... dead. And the common people having no other meat to feed on, little regarding any curiosity, would come forth and fill their bellies with the flesh of the beares. Then by and by Babulus and I devised a pretty sport, wee drew one of the greatest of the Beares to our lodging, as though wee would prepare to eat thereof, where wee flayed of his skinne, and kept his ungles whole, but we medled not with the head, but cut it off by the necke, and so let it hang ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... wallet, or a small pocket-book. I suppose now, that it would have been better to have put it in some other pocket; because that was pretty full. So in that, I suppose, I did wrong. Then James and I came home, only we did not walk along directly; we played about a little from one side of the road to the other, and then we went under the great hemlock-tree, to see if we ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott

... fingers faltered in their pretty labour, and, bowing her head upon her hand, she sat, her face hid from me, until I, not doubting that she wept, grew uneasy ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... are quite different. Theirs is a drawing-room attack, and at this sort of thing the ordinary Britisher cuts but a sorry figure. Hence the field was also pretty clear for them, and they made full use of their opportunities. With a judicious word over a cup of tea an editor who refuses a bribe finds his or her talents a glut on the market. A joke around a samovar reduces the rank of a ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... those marks which he had read of in the master miner's book. This absurdity sorted well with his strange dreamy character; for he was perpetually poring over books of magic and alchemical treatises, had a laboratory in his room, and would often boast in pretty intelligible hints that he had found the philosopher's stone. When Edward bethought himself of his singular conversation with his old master, and of the sentiments he had given vent to during that ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... the proportions were in fact very much the same as those previously existing in land engines. About 1832, the benefits of lap upon the valve, which had been employed by Boulton and Watt more than twenty years before, were beginning to be pretty generally apprehended; and, in the following year, this expedient of economy was applied to the steamer Manchester, in the Clyde, and to some other vessels, with very marked success. Shortly after this time, lap began to be applied to the ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... while they were at luncheon that day, not long after the accident, "I am so sorry for that poor policeman. It seems such a dreadful thing to have actually jumped upon him! and oh! you should have heard his poor head hit the pavement, and seen his pretty helmet go spinning along like a boy's top, ever so far. I wonder it didn't kill him. I'm ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... with their limbs twisted like old cripples, with bark gnarled and knotted, and all stained with lichen-growth. There were also smooth pear trees, that shot up mast-like with long slender spars. And there were rosy-blossomed peach-trees that won a place amid this teeming growth as pretty maids do amidst a human crowd by dint of bright smiles and gentle persistence. Some had been formerly trained as espaliers, but they had broken down the low walls which had once supported them, and now spread abroad in wild confusion, freed from the trammels ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... extremely pretty place, and still very populous, though much less so than formerly, when it enjoyed the consequence of a CITY, guarded by the only fortress in the island to which the inhabitants could fly for refuge in the moment of invasion: ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon

... "We came home pretty sharp. I thought it best not to shock her Grace by too great a stretch into the night. As it is you will have time to go to bed for an hour or two before you dress. That's what I do when I am in time. You'll be right ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... wanted to defend his son from such a mother; still less could he make clear to her that Eleanor had not "ragged it out of him," but that, to his famished passion for truth, confession had been the Bread of Life. He looked at her once or twice as she talked; pretty, yet; kindly, coarse, honest—and Eleanor had supposed that he would marry her! Then, sharply, his mind pictured that scene: his wife, his poor, frightened old Eleanor, pleading for the gift of Jacky! And Lily—young, arrogant, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... that life again. I looked around me—but I couldn't! However, I conquered my repulsion. 'Fiddlesticks!' I said. 'I won't let my feelings get the better of me. I'll stay here. I won't get your bread for you; but I'll cook you a pretty mess, I will.' I carry within me the wrongs of my people and hatred of the oppressor. I feel these wrongs like a knife constantly cutting ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... fond and proud of him his mother has been and what high expectations she has always had for him. Felix had got him into the way of gambling and the boy had developed a passion for it which he could not restrain. Ever since Felix has had money he has played a good deal, and for pretty high stakes, because of the pleasure he got out of it. But he knew when to stop, just as he did with ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly

... step it then. But you may be sure I took some pretty long strides about that time; for just as I stepped over the fallen tree near the top, I saw something move on the big body near the roots. The thing was coming right towards me. In an instant I realized that it ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... a chance to prove that California women are just as glad as California men to be nice to strangers," she went on. "Your home isn't ready yet, so you've nothing to tie you down. Won't you come and see my home? It's very pretty, if I do say so myself; and it might give you one or two ideas. Try and help me persuade her, Nick. You see, Mrs. May, I feel almost as if I knew you. They could talk of nobody else at Rushing River Camp! And meeting you in this wonderful forest makes me ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... pretty creatures stand, Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling: One justly weeps; the other takes in hand No cause, but company, of her drops spilling: Their gentle sex to weep are often willing: Grieving themselves to guess at others' smarts, And then they ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... constitution. Thus the Kaiser, as the King of Prussia, sends seventeen delegates, while the King of Bavaria sends six. The total number of delegates is fifty-eight, so right in the beginning the Kaiser has a pretty ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... standing by, looking on with a smiling happiness lighting his face. But he was not observing. Observation at such a moment was impossible to him. He was feasting his happy eyes on the girl's pretty face under the brown fur cap which had been tilted from her forehead. He was looking for her approval of Uncle Steve, and her smiling blue eyes seemed to him ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... nothing which he swallowed would continue in his stomach many minutes, I concluded that the bowel was mortified; he died on the next day. It is usual for patients sinking under the small-pox with mortified pustules, and with purple spots intermixed, to complain of no pain, but to say they are pretty well to the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... sunny day and then—are they not (taking a hint from facts) to fight a duel with rifles? I see Dick lying, with a bullet in his brow, on the side of a corrie; his blood crimsons the snow, an eagle stoops from the sky. That makes a pretty picturesque conclusion to the ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... furrowed (these furrows having a great tendency to develop into cracks), and presents much the appearance in miniature of a very roughly ploughed field. With cordite, on the contrary, the surface appears to be pretty smoothly swept away, while the length of the surface ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... you think mother would say to see you coming back with me? How it would distress her! Indeed you must stay, and try to be contented. I think it looks like a pleasant place here. This is a very pretty yard, and yonder is a large garden; I dare say Mr. Martin will let you have a ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous

... so I was compelled to ride my own. At the last moment Lee had been disappointed in getting a mustang he particularly wanted for me, and so it had fallen about that my horse was the poorest in the outfit, which to put it mildly was pretty poor. I had made the best of the matter so far, and ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... written from Sauerbrunn, in Austria, is dated 12th August 1884. After enquiring concerning "the supererogatory three vols." he says, "We left Marienbad last of last month, and came to this place (a very pretty little spa utterly clear of Britishers), where we shall stay till the end of the month and then again for Trieste to make plans for the winter. Will you kindly let me have the remaining volumes, and when you have a spare quarter of an hour I want a little assistance ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... Inlet, I saw him looking very hard at you, and I believe he recognised you, for he spoke to another man beside him, and tapped his own pocket. The other fellow then looked at you, as though to make sure of recognising you again, and nodded to Alvarez as they both went down the side. Yes, I am pretty sure that Alvarez recognised you, and I think it not unlikely that he may have some idea that you saw him looking for something in that cabin, and that when you were rescued you took with you those papers that he ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... gloves. Not a speck of white or a spot of color about her dress anywhere. Her rich golden hair was drawn, with scarcely a ripple, into a shining, smooth knot low on her neck. Her face was plain rather than pretty, but it was now illuminated and made almost beautiful by her large gray eyes that gazed above the houses across the street into the sky with an expression of the most ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... Jerdon says of this pretty little mouse that "it is most abundant in the south of India, where it frequents trees, and very commonly palm-trees, on which it is said to make its nest generally. It, however, occasionally places its nest in the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... ii.), leads to the notion that the antiquated form beest is not indicative, but conjunctive. Such, however, is not the case: byst in Anglo-Saxon is indicative, the conjunctive form being be['o]. And every thing that pretty bin (Cymbeline).—Here the word bin is the conjunctive plural, in Anglo-Saxon be['o]n; so that the words every thing are to be considered equivalent to the plural form all things. The phrase in Latin would stand ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham

... She was now plain rather than pretty. Her cheeks had sunk, her lip was drawn up, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... "O my pretty pink frock, Puff-sleeved and accordion-pleated! He might have passed in July, And not ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... let me tell you something more. There was a time when I thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well; and when I saw a great man standing by a little one, I fancied that one was taller than the other by a head; or one horse would appear to be greater than another horse: and still more clearly did I seem to perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato

... selection pretty slow—so he told Mother—and thought he would knock about a bit. He went to the store and bought a supply of ammunition, which he booked to Dad, and started shooting. He stood at the door and put twenty bullets into the barn; then he shot two bears near the stock-yard ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... she had no matches, and this was probably the last fire she would have until somebody came to her rescue or she got somewhere by herself. What was she to do? Stay right where she was or start out on foot? And should she go backward or forward? Surely, surely the Brownleighs would miss her pretty soon and send out a search-party for her. How could it be that they trusted an Indian who had done such a cruel thing as to leave a woman unprotected in the desert? And yet, perhaps, they did not ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... boys had partaken of this bounty to their full satisfaction, they thanked the pretty waitresses for the excellent dinner. The daughters followed them from the dining room begging them to never pass this way without coming in to see them, and promising to have a feast prepared for them. They departed, the girls returning ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... bucket full. Now, if you have any bowels of compassion for your intestinal canal, you will abstain from so doing;—for to people not accustomed to it, the lime that forms a considerable constituent part of the water of this country, acts pretty much in the same manner as would a solution of Glauber's salts, and often generates dysentery and diarrhoea; and though I have an unbounded veneration for the principles of the Temperance societies, I would, with all deference, recommend, that the pure fluid be drank ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... was not weak enough to resign the whole for the half! There was once a voice said to me: 'This is a pretty good spring. There is not much chance of your finding the other. Why not take this?' But something—your voice from ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... have been a much simpler and more businesslike proceeding to have taken, instead of borrowing, a much larger proportion of the war's cost during the war; but it is too late now to rub in this platitude which is now pretty generally admitted. Mr Hoare showed in last month's Journal that the creation of the War Debt has caused a huge addition to what he has called Rente—the gross income of the propertied classes; and there is much ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... him deliberately, but when he came you flaunted your sex in his face and teased him just to see him suffer. You were flattered, of course, and your vanity swelled to see him dogging your heels. There's a pretty expressive word for you and your type, and you know it as well as I ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... each other—there was the new fact. One does not, if one is a poor little teacher living in Mme. Clopin's Pension Suisse at Passy, and if one has pretty brown hair and eyes that reach out trustfully to other eyes—one does not, under these common but defenseless conditions, arrive at the age of twenty-five without being now and then kissed,—waylaid once by a noisy student between two doors, surprised once by one's ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... time. He was a fool, a crazy fool. But he did all he knew, and the way he knew it. His duty was the law and order of a wide enough territory around Athabasca, which is just one hell of a piece of country from here. When you've thought of that you want to think of a real good woman, all pretty, and bright, with blue eyes and fair hair, and her baby girl the same. You want to reckon she was just about your ages, and was plumb full of life, and ready for all the play going. When you've got that you want to think of her man being away from their home months and months, winter ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... makin' up time when they heard th' fight goin' on in th' pass. Kitchell headed back here to fill canteens. Th' Mex was goin' to guide 'em south by another trail—one he knows. He's layin' it out for th' Old Man now. It's a pretty rough one; they'd have to take it slow. Could be we could catch up before Kitchell makes it—'specially since he don't have this Mex ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... thought that the aforesaid graven image on the cut-water of his old ship, far excelled the Venus de Medici in beauty of feature and form. 'She must be almighty beautiful; and then, my son, she is as rich as the Rajah of Rangoon, who owns a diamond as big as our viol-block. Did you fall in love pretty bad, Ben?' ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... right. He had watched Jenkins pretty closely all winter. Reedy had endeavoured to convince all his creditors, and succeeded in convincing some, that he had not brought the cotton across the line because there was no market yet for it. "It ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... example, in the most typical flowers of this great group, there are three green outer calyx-pieces, three bright-coloured petals, three long outer stamens, three short inner stamens, three valves to the capsule, and three seeds or three rows of seeds in each fruit. Many palms still keep pretty well to this primitive arrangement, but a few of them which have specially protected or highly developed fruits or nuts have lost in their later stages the threefold disposition in the fruit, and possess only one seed, often a very large ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... in these," he answered. "I've read all that—so I'm pretty well posted up, mister. I've just read this morning's—bought it in the town when I went to fetch some bread. Queer affair altogether, I ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... He fund you last night," said Dan, pointing. "Manuel rows Portugoosey; ye can't mistake him. East o' him—he's a heap better'n he rows—is Pennsylvania. Loaded with saleratus, by the looks of him. East o' him—see how pretty they string out all along—with the humpy shoulders, is Long Jack. He's a Galway man inhabitin' South Boston, where they all live mostly, an' mostly them Galway men are good in a boat. North, away yonder—you'll hear him tune up in a minute is Tom Platt. Man-o'-war's man he was on the old Ohio ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... "What a precious pretty colony you'll make, my hearties!" exclaimed one of the mutineers, jeeringly, as he helped to land a cask, and some other packages, that they had brought with them. "It's a thousand pities you ain't got no female associates, that you might ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... butterflies among the flowers—the boy was quite a Cupid, though not an alfresco one; for he wore a Tartan cloak, whose sundry extras fluttered in the breeze as he ran to obey the summons, and gave occasion to his grandfather to present him to me as "Major Waddell;" [1] the pretty little fairy-looking girl he next introduced as "Whipperstowrie," and then (aware of my love for fairy lore) he related the tale, in his own inimitable manner, as he walked slowly and stopped frequently in our approach to ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... line of pretty pages Our attention close engages; The Chinese Giant in the rear Making them like ...
— The Circus Procession • Unknown

... turn, is at once charming, absurd, immoral, edifying, and touching: "Celestinus reigned in the City of Rome. He was exceedingly prudent, and had a pretty daughter."[276] A knight fell in love with her, but, being also very prudent after a fashion, he argued thus: "Never will the emperor consent to give me his daughter to wife, I am not worthy; but if I could ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... thinking to pay it back before he was caught, I suppose. Then the crash came,—some other man, you know,—and Brian skipped, which, of course, put us next to his stealing. I don't know what has become of the woman. The last Ross knew of her she was living in St. Louis, and running with a pretty wild bunch,—glad to get rid of Brian, I expect. She couldn't have really cared so ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... a moment we may give that name to an unorganised collection of volunteers—is entirely democratic. The men are nominally under field cornets, commanders, and the General. But they openly boast that on the field the authority and direction of officers do not count for much, and they go pretty much as they please. The camp, though not in the least disorderly, was confused and irregular—stores, firewood, horses, cattle, and tents strewn about the enormous veldt, almost haphazard, though the districts were kept fairly well separate. Provisions were plenty, but the cooking ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... Pretty soon Rose began to think of something more substantial than bird-songs, sunbeams and flowers. There were very nice raspberries, red and ripe, over beyond the currant-bushes, and her mamma allowed her to pick them in that part of the garden, for she knew how delightful it is for little ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... tell what shrieks and cries, What angry pishes, and what fies, What pretty oaths, then newly born, The list'ning bridegroom heard there sworn: While froward she Most peevishly Did yielding fight, To keep o'er night, What she'd have proffer'd you ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... "This is a pretty considerable water and, as it is said to have no fall in it, may, I conceive, be improved into ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... some small favor from the captain of a little coaster, which ran between Cape May and Philadelphia. He declined to receive any remuneration for his trifling services. Mrs. Franklin, learning that he had a pretty daughter, sent her a new-fashioned Philadelphia cap or bonnet. Three years after, the captain called again at the house of Mr. Franklin. A very plain but intelligent farmer accompanied him. The captain expressed his thanks to ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... too, for she was evidently in no hurry and walked slowly, stopping from time to time to admire the basin and its figures. Suddenly he was instinctively aware that she was looking towards him and even changing her position, moving her pretty head and shading her eyes with her hand as if for a better view. He remained motionless, scarcely daring to breathe. Yet there was something so innocently frank and undisturbed in her observation, that he knew as instinctively ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... passport, pretty one?" he answered, amused at the woman's wiles. "All this subterfuge of words for that! There; rest in peace. Thy friend hath a path to ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... me to be serious, and accuse me not of comic-opera philosophy, my dear Valentine! I feel none of that proud disdain for importunate fortune that we read of in novels; nor do I regret "my pretty boat," nor "my cottage by the sea;" here, in this beautiful drawing-room of the Hotel de Langeac, writing to you, I do not sigh for my gloomy garret in the Marais, where my labors day and night were most tiresome, because a mere parody of the noblest arts, an undignified labor making ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... a man and a woman have told each other their love, there is little more to say. They probably say it again, and repeat it in different keys and with different modulations. I can imagine that a man in love might find many pretty expressions, but the gist of the thing is the same. Model conversation as follows, in fugue form, for ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... his sister put upon the personal pronoun was unmistakable, but Peter ignored it, and so apparently did she, as she said the next moment in a different voice, "She's very pretty, don't ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... redskin if he had been my long lost brother. I kept him away from other folks, an' by an' by I tipped him into the waterin' trough, kinder accident-like. The water sorter sobered him up a little an' pretty soon he began to want to hit the trail for home. I helped him out of town an' started him back for camp, where, I reckon, his old lady was waitin' to give him fits for forgettin' the calico and beads." The captain paused as if ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Desdemona does not accidentally drop the handkerchief; it is stolen from her by Iago's little child, an infant of three years old, whom he trains and bribes to the theft. The love of Desdemona for this child, her little playfellow—the pretty description of her taking it in her arms and caressing it, while it profits by its situation to steal the handkerchief from her bosom, are well imagined, and beautifully told; and the circumstance of Iago employing his own innocent child as the instrument of his infernal villany, adds ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... started to say something, but Mrs. Tate was ahead of her—"And no one in the world would ever have imagined Mary would do things like that. But that's Mary. From childhood no one ever knew what she'd be doing next. She certainly is looking pretty, but she isn't the beauty her mother was. I'm like Miss Gibbie in one thing. I believe in a sure-enough hell. They say real smart people don't any more except preachers who have to and women who want to. Miss Gibbie says she wouldn't believe in it if it hadn't been for the war, but I believe ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... been pretty well drilled," said Mrs. Dillingham, "and told just what he may and must not say to ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... my manuscript Journal of Isaaco, a slim, alluring folio that now glitters in red-and-gold upon my study shelves. It would be a pity if Time, the All-Merciless, were allowed to throw the dust of oblivion over these pretty pages, for they possess in good measure that trait of "pleasant atrocity" which wins ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... creases in his round, red cheeks above his white linen jacket. "Pretty shy of headlines," he chuckled. "Nothing but ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good, honest judgment upon the great king! In 30 years more: 1. The invincible had been beaten a vast number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old woman, who was the puppet of more artful priests. 3. The conqueror had quite forgotten his early knack ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... glad we had to mend but one," said Tom. He felt pretty dirty from the job, but he was not going to tell ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer

... "Maybe. And then when Dick made his run, pretty Dora Stanhope just put out her arms as if she wanted to ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield

... to see every thing round him elegant and classic," replied Edith; "he has the most fastidious taste in the world. I am so glad, Gabriella, that you are pretty, that you are really classically beautiful, for he will think so much more of you for being so. He ought not, perhaps; but one cannot help having a fine taste. He cannot abide any thing ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... cried Mrs. McAravey, satirically, "but I think ma mon and mysel' knows our duties, and can teach the wains, too, wi'out any parson comin' to help us. A pretty thing to tell us we knows nothing o' the Saviour! I can tell you, mon, I've walked more miles o' the Sawbath to my place o' worship than some folks as I know walks ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare

... ports, containing either ships of the line or gunboats, of which Napoleon was collecting vast numbers for the invasion of England. In a short time that war, which was to last ten years, commenced in earnest. The French gunboats were, however, kept pretty close prisoners by the English cruisers, and whenever any of them ventured out from under the protection of their batteries, they were attacked, captured, driven on shore, or compelled to seek shelter ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... study," he went on, "than that of acclimatisation. None which requires a nicer union of artistic daring with artistic judgment, patience, with decision.... I propose to go in for it pretty extensively on Inniscaw." ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... pretty much the gist of Chichikov's reflections as he stood watching the company I will not attempt to deny. And of those reflections the upshot was that he decided to join himself to the stouter section of the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... be amiss, in treating of the affection we bear our acquaintance and relations, to observe some pretty curious phaenomena, which attend it. It is easy to remark in common life, that children esteem their relation to their mother to be weakened, in a great measure, by her second marriage, and no longer ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... pretty good reason for it in the back of your head. But what about this ghost? I may never hear the sequel. At least give me some food for thought during my travels in ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... fancy, I am mute Henceforth to all discourses, but shall be Suiting to your sweet thoughts and modestie. Indeed I will not ask a kiss of you, No not to wring your fingers, nor to sue To those blest pair of fixed stars for smiles, All a young lovers cunning, all his wiles, And pretty wanton dyings, shall to me Be strangers; only to your chastitie ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... creditable to me than those provocations which I had left half unnoticed. One day Degelow came up to Schroter and me in a wine-bar that we often frequented, and in quite a friendly manner confessed to us confidentially his liking for a young and very pretty actress whose talent Schroter disputed. Degelow rejoined that this was as it might be, but that, for his part, he regarded the young lady as the most respectable woman in the theatre. I at once asked him if he considered my sister's reputation was not as good. According to students' notions ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... by which Mr. A. C. Benson, one of our more discerning critics, himself master of no mean style, should have been chosen as commentator of Pater. Among the plutarchracy of the present day a not very pretty habit prevails of holding a sort of inquest on deceased writers—a reaction against misplaced eulogy—tearing them and their works to pieces, and leaving nothing for reviewers or posterity to dissipate. From the author of the Upton Letters we expect sympathy and critical acumen. It is needless ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... depth of water, from two to five fathoms, and 60 or 70 fathoms wide. As we advanced, we found the river to contract very fast in its breadth, and the channel became shoaler; from these circumstances, we had reason to believe that we were not far from its source: the ebb tides were pretty strong, but the floods were only perceptible by the swolling of ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... She appealed in pretty perplexity to the student to help her out of the difficulty into which she had fallen by her rash attempt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... long-hoarded treasures. Many of these people could remember the silversmith's prodigal son; but none among them were aware of that gentleman's return. They wondered a good deal as to whether he was still living, and whether the money had been left to him or to that pretty young woman who had appeared in the last days of the old man's life, no one knowing whence she had come. There was nothing to be gained from questioning Luke Tulliver, the court knew of old experience. The most ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... sighing; "I wish I could help it! Is not it leaving a pretty state of things behind us, though? not that we are any great good to the ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... his wishes might be at last fulfilled. These wishes were, by the way, of a rather unpretending character. "If I could only live here quietly, at Paris," he once remarked to his friend Bourrienne, "and rent that pretty little house yonder, opposite to my friends, and keep a carriage besides, I should be ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... of the church, on the other is a very different and quite as singular an exhibition. Around one of the antique columns of this basilica—which once beheld the splendors and crimes of the Caesars' palace—a staging is erected, from which little maidens are reciting, with every kind of pretty gesticulation, sermons, dialogues, and speechifications, in explanation of the Presepio opposite. Sometimes two of them are engaged in alternate question and answer about the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Sometimes the recitation is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... great hand at yarns. He loves to hear himself talk, and, in truth, he can tell a tale in first-class dramatic fashion. O'Gaygun and Dandy Jack are both given to the same thing a good deal. They run Old Colonial pretty close in all respects save one, and that is when he gets into a peculiarly Maori vein. There they cannot follow him, for neither has achieved his command over the intricacies of Maori rhetoric, nor has that intimate experience of the natives, which enables Old Colonial to ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... he thought he could not describe it very well. It is a garment peculiar to the Scotch. It consists of a sort of sack or jacket, with a skirt attached to it below, which comes down just below the knees. The skirt is plaited upon the lower edge of the jacket, and hangs pretty full. ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott

... a woman of forty-five summers, which, according to her arithmetic, are equivalent to thirty-two springs. In her youth she had been very pretty, but, enraptured in her own contemplation, she had looked with the utmost disdain on her numerous Filipino adorers, even scorning the vows of love once murmured in her ears or chanted under her balcony by Captain Tiago. Her aspirations bore her ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... James S. Pike: "Massachusetts was right in Weed's hands, contrary to all reasonable expectation. It was all we could do to hold Vermont by the most desperate exertions; and I at some times despaired of it. The rest of New England was pretty sound, but part of New Jersey was somehow inclined to sin against the light and knowledge. If you had seen the Pennsylvania delegation, and known how much money Weed had in hand, you would not have believed we could do so well as we did. Give Curtin thanks for that. Ohio looked very bad, yet ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... years and the ghastly phantom of death, in a dismal prison, in the dearly loved land of his birth, spreads a pall over what might have been to his unfortunate country, a career full of honour. Alas! brave, noble Edward! Poor, pretty little Pamela, alas! ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... Vanilla belongs to the orchid family, and is the only member which possesses any economical value. It is a graceful climber and has a pretty ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... had been, as has been said, one of convenience; and, though she bore him many children and did her duty faithfully, she never loved him. Towards the end of his life he had made her jealous by very marked attentions to the pretty and sentimental Sophy Streatfield, which once caused a scene at his table; and during the last two years his mind had been weakened, and his conduct had caused her anxiety and discomfort. It is not surprising ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... said yesterday, that we haven't maimed him at all. He had his own reasons for going into his hole, and he never would have come out again if you hadn't goaded him. Now he's out, and we'll have to step around pretty lively, I can tell you, or ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... held the papers before thee, a pretty wench, eh?" Monmouth glanced suspiciously at Buckingham, who stood ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... production on a large scale of goods to sell in distant places,—cloth, clocks, shoes, beads, dishes, hats, buttons, and what not. Many of these articles were still manufactured under the regulations of the old craft gilds. For although the gild system was pretty well broken up in England, it still maintained its hold on the Continent. In France the division of crafts had become so complicated that innumerable bickerings arose between cobblers' gilds and shoemakers' gilds, between watch-makers and clock-makers. In ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... temporary place of negro worship. A negro girl, decked with ribbons, called across the street to a young colored delinquent: "You no goes to de shoutings, Sam! Why fur? You neber hears me shout, honey, and dey do say I shouts so pretty. Cum 'long wid ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... a semivowel and a liquid, has usually, at the beginning of a word, or before a vowel, a rough or pretty strong sound; as in roll, rose, roam, proudly, prorogue. "In other positions," it is said by many to be "smooth" or "soft;" "as in hard, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... more fireflies, no more dreaming repose on burning hot evenings. Push out the churches, push in the boulevards. Here I am, sitting alone at this moment, in an hotel near the Tuileries, where we have taken an apartment for a week, a pretty salon, with the complement of velvet sofas, and arm-chairs, and looking-glasses, and bedrooms to correspond, with clocks at distances of three yards, as if the time was in desperate danger of forgetting itself—which it is, of course. Paris looks more splendid than ever, and we ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... perhaps roused in us two of the strongest passions of childhood—the love of imitation and the love of flowers. We are determined to have a May-bush round the nursery-window, duly gathered before sunrise. "Pretty Bessy," our nursemaid, can do anything with flowers, from a cowslip ball to a growing forget-me-not garland. The girls are apt pupils, and pride themselves on their birthday wreaths. The boys are admirably adapted for May sweeps. Clatter is melodious in their ears. They would rather be black than ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... called Olsen, and left the group to lay a hand on the horse and to speak low. "What you said struck me deep. It applies pretty hard to us of the Bend. We've always been farmers, with no thought of country. An' that's because we left our native country to come here. I'm not German an' I've never been for Germany. But many of my neighbors ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... it may be necessary or desirable for people under social order to live in common, we may differ pretty much according to our tendencies toward social life. For my part I can't see why we should think it a hardship to eat with the people we work with; I am sure that as to many things, such as valuable books, pictures, and splendor of surroundings, we shall find it better to club our means together; ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... sentimental. Most all of my life as a public official has been spent here in this building. For 38 years—since I worked on that gallery as a doorkeeper in the House of Representatives—I have known these halls, and I have known most of the men pretty well who walked them. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... you imagine that the many would differ about the nature of wood and stone? are they not agreed if you ask them what they are? and do they not run to fetch the same thing, when they want a piece of wood or a stone? And so in similar cases, which I suspect to be pretty nearly all that ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato

... to this good star which has let me live many years pretty uprightly, "as if I were immortal," as you put it, behold me now since the end of September in last year entirely out of the circle of concerts—and it does not seem likely that I shall soon return ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... "and a pretty lot they were. I tried several of them with a piece that I had brought with me in a little paper bag, and not one of ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow

... Pretty to see OLD MORALITY's firm attitude, in face of this demonstration. Had capitulated to Irish at first sound of TIM's low voice; quite a different thing with inconsiderable people like the Scotch or Welsh. Almost haughtily protested against possibility ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various

... at once to examine the wound, which he did with great care and in silence. He found, as Holden had said, that the charge had only grazed the surface, tearing the flesh from the side up to the shoulder, pretty deeply, indeed, but making an ugly, rather than a dangerous wound. After the task was completed, and lint and fresh bandages were applied, the doctor sunk with a sigh, as of relief, upon a chair, and assured the young man that he only needed rest for the present, and in ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... tells us,[1b] "In fact, some German patents are drawn up for the purpose of discouraging investigation by more practical methods; thus, any one who attempted to repeat the method for manufacturing a dyestuff protected by Salzman & Kruger in the German patent No. 12,096 would be pretty certain to kill himself during ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... all to have her," she says, "and if it was, I shouldn't care; she is so good and still, and talks so pretty! It's as good bein' with her ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... every day and to have the whole piece covered so as to be as it was gay. The last time that there was the whole big piece was the time when the green and the blue and there was some red too was the time when it was all largely covering what was not too pretty to be lost. It was then sold and everybody was satisfied. Some said that to pay for it then meant that that was not the only way to keep it a long time. A half of all that was said was said when the rest of what was paid was paid. ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... beautiful, fantastic, roughly drawn designs. To the right are two lofty windows, eight panes in each, with the darkness of night glooming through them. Two poor beds, two chairs, and a bare table, on which stands a half-broken pitcher of water and a pretty bunch of flowers. ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... call a "tight wad," if you let him shed his money normally, when he feels the loosening coming on, but you try to work him by bowing and cringing, and his American spirit gets the better of him, and he looks upon the servant as pretty low down. I have told him that the tipping habit is just as bad in America as in France, but he says in America the servant acts as though he never had such a thought as getting a tip, and when you give him a quarter or other tip he looks puzzled, as though he did not just recall what ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... many lively passages, adds new touches to the portraiture of the Treasurer. On November 19, 1663, he is summoned to the Lord Treasurer's house, and finds him "a very ready man and certainly a brave subject to the King." Pepys is troubled only with the "long nails, which he lets grow upon a pretty short white hand." On September 9, 1665, he recounts the story of one of his gossips—how "the Lord Treasurer minds his ease, and lets things go how they will; if he can have his 8000 per annum, and a game at l'ombre, he is well." When the end comes, Pepys—while he ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... of. Fully to show this to the ladies, and save them unnecessary trouble, I forced him to leap in at one of the open windows of the tea-room, walked round several times, pace, trot, and gallop, and at last made him mount the tea-table, there to repeat his lessons in a pretty style of miniature which was exceedingly pleasing to the ladies, for he performed them amazingly well, and did not break either cup or saucer. It placed me so high in their opinion, and so well in that of the noble lord, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... painters in the latter half of the fifteenth century. But progress being one of the essential characteristics of the art at this period, as in all others, it is not surprising that the order of their fame coincides (inversely) pretty nearly with that of their date. First, ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO; second, SANDRO BOTTICELLI; ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... much greater handiness and resource in the small ways of life, and an even more complete endurance and contempt of illness than already characterised the British workman, if that be possible. On the whole I think that, physically, the scales will balance pretty evenly. ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... lying about, and loose pieces of turf, and a trunk or two. And I looked about among them, but could find nothing, and at last the cry stopped. So I was for giving it up, and I went on about my business. But when I came back the same way pretty nigh an hour after, I couldn't help laying down my stakes to have another look. And just as I was stooping and laying down the stakes, I saw something odd and round and whitish lying on the ground under a nut-bush by the side of me. And I stooped down on hands and knees to pick ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... pour out the tea. It made a pleasant little noise falling into the cup. The sun was wonderfully bright in the pretty room, almost Italian in its golden warmth. Lady Holme's black Pomeranian, Pixie, stood on its hind legs to greet him. He came up to the sofa, still looking undecided, but with a wavering light of dawning satisfaction ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... about among the trees, now swinging on this branch, now leaping far out to that one, Mrs. Squirrel sometimes wondered how he could keep dashing about so madly. Though the old lady was pretty spry, herself, she was content to sit still some of the time. But Frisky Squirrel was almost never still except when he was asleep. There was so much to do! Frisky wished that the days were longer, for though he tried his hardest, he couldn't ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey

... atmosphere engendered by the dominant ecclesiasticism, and the almost total neglect of natural knowledge, might well have stifled it. And, finally, it should be remembered that scholasticism really did thresh out pretty effectually certain problems which have presented themselves to mankind ever since they began to think, and which, I suppose, will present themselves so long as they continue to think. Consider, for example, the controversy of the Realists ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... it on, because I thought Mr. Fenwick wanted something pretty to paint. And as he clearly don't see anything in me!'—she looked over her shoulder at the picture, with a shrug of mock humility concealing a very evident annoyance—'I thought anyway he might like my ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... stationary clouds as distinguished from passing ones, some blockheads wrote to the papers to say that clouds never were stationary. Those foolish letters were so far useful in causing a friend to write me the pretty one I am about to read to you, quoting a passage about clouds in Homer which I had myself never noticed, though perhaps the most beautiful of its kind in the Iliad. In the fifth book, after the truce ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin

... audience. "Well," she said, "you're right there, Nap Errol, but I shan't part with my last dollar to you, so don't you worry any about that. Yes, I've been to the Manor. I've had tea with Anne Carfax. And I've talked to the squire as straight as a mother. He was pretty mad at first, I can assure you, but I kept on hammering it into him till even he began to get tired. And after that I made my points. Oh, I was mighty kind on the whole. But I guess he isn't under any misapprehension as to what I think of him. And ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... was carried out the next day with all the customary formalities, and the evening was given up to bonfires and fireworks, not to mention also a considerable amount of tippling. Even Pepys himself was obliged to confess that he got to his bed only "pretty well." There was but one accident worth mentioning during the entire day. Sergeant Glyn, who had formerly been the City's Recorder, and had afterwards been raised to the Bench, was nearly killed by his horse ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... saw the flash of a man in a checked Mackinaw running up through the open wood and away from the right of way. He could not be sure of Andy O'Malley's figure at that distance; but he could be pretty confident of Koku's identification. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... cordially upheld her, and gave her courage to persist against all arguments. Both of them cared little for poverty—Phebe because she knew it, Felicita because she did not know it. Felicita had never known a time when money had to be considered; it had come to her pretty much in the same way as the air she breathed and the food she ate, without any care or prevision of her own. Phebe, on the other hand, knew that she could earn her own living at any time by the work of her strong young arms, and her wants were so few that ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... the "King's-gift." This was all kept quiet. The scabbard was never found again. Kjartan always treasured the sword less hereafter than heretofore. This affair Kjartan took much to heart, and would not let the matter rest there. Olaf said, "Do not let it pain you; true, they have done a nowise pretty trick, but you have got no harm from it. We shall not let people have this to laugh at, that we make a quarrel about such a thing, these being but friends and kinsmen on the other side." And through these reasonings ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... and M. deliciosa, from which it differs in having the cap longer than it is wide, and more pointed, so that it is conical or oblong-conical. The plant, as a general thing, grows to be larger than the other species. It is, however, pretty hard to distinguish these three species. The Conical Morel is quite abundant about Chillicothe. I have found Morels especially plentiful about the reservoirs in Mercer County, and in Auglaize, Allen, Harden, Hancock, Wood and Henry Counties. I have known lovers of Morels to go on camping tours ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard

... to be done. As reproduction was a failure one would try to give an impression of the same thing. Impressionism proved even worse than accuracy. It was neither one thing nor the other. It merged into "making a picture of it"—a crime that is without parallel in the staging of a play. To make a pretty picture at the expense of drama is merely to pander to the voracity of ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... for morning, I am sure," Mark replied, turning a little more to the right the lily and noticing as he did so how very white and pretty was the neck and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... "Things seem pretty much as they were six months ago," I remarked. "There is no definite cause for alarm, ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... them. I took off my boots, and ventured out on the desperate way. I looked down once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of the awful depth would not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes away from it. I know pretty well the direction and distance of the Count's window, and made for it as well as I could, having regard to the opportunities available. I did not feel dizzy, I suppose I was too excited, and the time seemed ridiculously short till I found myself standing ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... they ends well, one can't deny that; and they have to be in pretty good condition too. So they aren't none of 'em what ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... husbands by violent deaths in the Company's service, and, now that she was unprotected, the Company was trying to wring from her the little money she had brought away from Anjengo, while she herself had large claims against the Company. This was quite enough for Matthews. Here was a young and pretty woman with a good sum of money, shamefully persecuted by the Company, to which he felt nothing but hostility. At one stroke he could gratify his dislike of the Company and succour a badly treated young woman, whose hard fate ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... the same man kept along in search of new adventures, until he came to a British ship totally dismasted and otherwise badly damaged. She was commanded by a captain of rigidly devout piety. "Well, Jemmy," hailed the Irishman, "you are pretty well mauled; but never mind, Jemmy, whom ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan



Words linked to "Pretty" :   beautiful, irony, bad, prettiness, unreasonably, immoderately



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