Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Hem   Listen
noun
Hem  n.  An utterance or sound of the voice, hem or hm, often indicative of hesitation or doubt, sometimes used to call attention. "His morning hems."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Hem" Quotes from Famous Books



... I answered promptly. Cecil had always been my favorite name for a man; it figured quite frequently in the blank book. As for the Fenwick part of it, I had a bit of newspaper in my hand, measuring a hem, with "Try Fenwick's Porous Plasters" printed across it, and I simply joined the two in ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Laura, who warmly persuades his homage, but coldly repels his ardor. We think of Abelard and Heloise in pensive converse, hand in hand, eye to eye, living over the past with tender regrets. But we see Dante kneeling before Beatrice, in profound humility and intellectual entrancement, touching the hem of her robe, while she points upward to the supernal Glory, whose light is ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... did eat and drink with him, after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead." And is that all? No, But "to him give all the prophets witness, (to hem, even Jesus of Nazareth whom the Jews crucified on the tree) that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission ( or forgiveness) of sins." Now mark. And "while Peter yet spake these word, the Holy Ghost fell ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... had visited the coast,—the squaws would display a bit of colored cloth in their costumes; a few of the men carried ancient guns, and occasionally one was decorated with a ruinous old hat or the remains of a sailor's pea-jacket. These poor people had touched the hem of the garment of civilization, and had felt some of its meaner virtue pass into them. They showed daily less and less of barbaric manliness; they were becoming from day to day more vicious, thievish, and beggarly. The whites had as yet given them nothing ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton

... difficult, in a military point of view, to ascribe to the leaders on either side any just motive for the engagement which followed. On the one hand, it could not have been very important to the Americans to attempt to hem the British within the town, by advancing one single post a quarter of a mile; while, on the other hand, if the British found it essential to dislodge the American troops, they had it in their power at no expense of life. By moving up their ships and batteries, they ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... at our perseverance in following, and still more so at the loss of so many of the convoy—on the morning of the 4th, gave chase to the flagship with the whole squadron, endeavouring to hem her in, and at one time we were pursued so closely inshore, that there was some danger of getting embayed, but the handling and superior sailing qualities of the Pedro Primiero enabled her to out-manoeuvre ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... hat pulled low, Jimmy Jinks crept cautiously into the room. When he at length ceased to glance over his shoulder and came to a full stop, Aggie perceived a bit of white flannel hanging beneath the hem ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... high buildings on any side, no people passing to and fro, no motor-cars flashing by. And the grass underfoot was not the grass of a lawn, evenly cut and flowerless; it was tall, so that it brushed the hem ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... relieved of one half of his apprehensions, by learning that his daughter lived, and might possibly be ransomed, threw himself at the feet of the generous Outlaw, and, rubbing his beard against his buskins, sought to kiss the hem of his green cassock. The Captain drew himself back, and extricated himself from the Jew's grasp, not without some ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... Nature you are dealing with things at first hand, and you get a rule, a standard, that serves you through life. You are dealing with primal sanities, primal honesties, primal attraction; you are touching at least the hem of the garment with which the infinite is clothed, and virtue goes out from it to you. It must be added that you are dealing with primal cruelty, primal blindness, primal wastefulness, also. Nature works with reference to no measure ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... Jeff-Jack's way to come back; he'll wire to her to come to him at once. Reckon I'll decide now to go on that Washington express this evening. I can't afford to let my movements depend on F-Fannie's—hem! Heaven knows I've taxed the company's patience ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... one flimsy riband of Its web Have we here watched in weaving—web Enorm, Whose furthest hem and selvage may extend To where the roars and plashings of the flames Of earth-invisible suns swell noisily, And onwards into ghastly gulfs of sky, Where hideous presences churn through the dark— Monsters of magnitude without a shape, Hanging ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... was as beautiful as an angel. And to think of her distributing those damned woman's rights pamphlets! She left one on my desk," he added, sticking out his lower lip like a crying child, and wiping his bloodshot eyes on the hem of his silk handkerchief. "I tell you if she'd had a husband this would never ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... all this talk about woman we have not yet touched the hem of her garment," Graham said, winning a grateful look from ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... above Abused be, or split in profane wise, But let the issue correspondent prove To good beginnings of each enterprise; The gentle season might our courage move, Now every passage plain and open lies: What lets us then the great Jerusalem With valiant squadrons round about to hem? ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... out into a thousand extravagances. When we entered the court yard, we were surrounded by a vast number, who crowded together so closely to see us that several were in danger of being squeezed to death; those who were near Don Rodrigo fell upon their knees, and kissed his hand, or the hem of his garment, praying aloud for long life and prosperity to him; others approached Narcissa and me in the same manner; while the rest clapped their hands at a distance, and invoked heaven to shower its choicest blessings on our heads! In short, the whole scene, though ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... first sewing lessons under Pauline's instructions, and frankly declaring that she didn't at all like them, dropped the hem she was turning. "They're coming to New York with me; and in the between-times we'll have such fun that they'll never want to ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs

... child;" called the landlady to Fritz, "you cannot go among the stylish people of Frankfort with the hem of your shirt showing. I will mend it as well as I can, and when you get there, your aunt can mend it better. Now see what trouble your dog has ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon;—he flowed Right for the polar star, past Orgunje, Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... flattering mirror with great spontaneity to my mind and heart—that was probably why I liked you so much. But I don't want people here to reflect me or anyone else. The whole point of my scheme is independence, with just enough discipline to keep things together, like the hem on a handkerchief. ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... furnished and decorated (as you informed us) by yourself, and on a scale which would be prodigal in a millionaire. You have a suite of retainers which (except for their nationality and imperfect discipline) a prince might envy. You provide a banquet of—hem!—delicacies which must have cost you infinite trouble and unlimited expense—this, after I had expressly stipulated for a quiet family dinner! Not content with that, you procure for our diversion Arab music and dancing of a—of a highly recondite character. I should be unworthy of the name of father, ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... pride of manhood and returned not. "They will be avenged for the warriors who fell in the fight with the whites," he added, "and though they will respect us while guests of Minawanda, they will hem us round so we cannot escape, at last falling into their hands, if the blood of the two prisoners do not satisfy the bereaved friends of their ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... ability, who afterward took a prominent part in the proceedings of the Senate. Then there was Senator Plumb, of Kansas, earnest and straightforward, of whom it was said that he was "Western from the hem of his short pantaloons to the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... of colour—neither red nor yellow—but it looks all right by night. She said Mr. Wilson didn't like to see her in it. Of course, she's bigger than you, but they wear things so short and loose nowadays that I dare say if I hem the bottom up it will be all right. My word, I am glad I thought of it. I hate keeping ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose

... friends. During his absence, Flora and her friend were not idle. The mornings were devoted to making purchases, and the evenings to convert them into articles for domestic use. There were so many towels to hem, sheets to make, and handkerchiefs and stockings to mark, that Flora saw no end to the work, although assisted by kind sisters, and the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... Highest, humblest, weakest, all, For her time of need, and then 370 Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her dower! 375 How could poet ever tower, If his passions, hopes, and fears, If his triumphs and his tears, Kept not measure with his people? Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... the joy of that. You are so wayward and capricious, so coy, that I began to fear that I never could get your car long enough to tell you what I felt you must have long known. You didn't say that you loved me; but, dear Olympia, neither did you say that you did not. The rose has fallen on the hem of your robe. When its fragrance steals into your senses, you will stoop and put the blossom in your bosom. It is the war that divides us, you say. It will soon pass. And who knows what may happen to make you glad that, since there must be strife, I am one ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... her Duke," being then only sixteen, poor young soul, and on her marriage-journey, "'WAS WILL DAS GESCHMEISS (Why does that rabble bore us)!'" This is probably the main foundation. That "her Ladies, on approaching her, had always to kiss the hem of her gown," lay in the nature of the case, being then the rule to people of her rank. Beautiful Unfortunate, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... and fallen, pierced by a hundred wounds, in the successful defence of the Convent, he was carried in, and laid on a sofa, and nobody could recognise him, along of all the blood, until She came, with her white little feet peeping from the hem of a snowy nightgown, and her unbraided pigtail swamping the white with gold, and knew that it was her lover, and knelt by the hero's side. Soft music from the Orchestra, please! as with his final breath W. Keyse implores a last, first kiss. Even as William No. 1 thrilled ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... to the farm at which she lives. The yard is a large one, the trees that hem it in are old and planted close together. One can hardly see the straggling, thatched buildings from the road; and I walked round the place without being able to satisfy my curiosity. She lives there, ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... that full fast, To mountains hich for all his micht; For he and his war all agast, And ran till they war out of sicht; And sae of Ross he lost his richt, Thocht mony men with hem he brocht; Towards the yles fled day and nicht, And all he wan ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... frock is dreadfully short; even now that Emily has let down the hem," Deleah said, looking anxiously toward her extremities. "It shows ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... of feasting upon a body with the half of it hanging out of her mouth. Upon this she declared that she would no longer devour those whom the Thugs slaughtered; but she agreed to present them with one of her teeth for a pickaxe, a rib for a knife and the hem of her lower garment for a noose, and ordered them for the future to cut about and bury the bodies of those whom they destroyed. As there seems reason to suppose that the goddess Kali represents the deified tiger, on which she rides, she was eminently appropriate as the patroness ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... it not, and onwards she went until the very hem of her garment touched the face of Sir ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... ear with the multiplicity of their short, dry coughs? They are seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the service of master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now it is almost time for each to hem the borders of her own shroud. Consumption points their place in the procession. With their sad sisterhood are intermingled many youthful maidens who have sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for whose aid science ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... ''Hem!' said Mr Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder, 'have the goodness to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wished to speak to ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... died. And now we know that not for any dream He died, but for the truth: and whensoe'er The Prophet of that Son of God who died Sinless for sinners, standeth in this place, I, Bacrach, oldest Druid in this Isle, Will rise the first, and kiss his vesture's hem." ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... it, and still be the saint to the end, And she never will know what she missed; but my friend Has the right to speak first. God! how can he delay? I marvel at men who are fashioned that way. He has worshiped her since first she put up her tresses, And let down the hem of her school-girlish dresses And now she is full twenty-two; were I he A brood of her children should climb on my knee By this time! What a sin against love to postpone The day that might make her forever his own. The man who can wait ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... had said as much to the great cardinal—hem! my dear Baisemeaux, and if his order had ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Capitol are there. As when he stood upon the marble stair And said those words so tender, true and just, A royal psalm that took mankind on trust— Those words that will endure and he in them, While May wears flowers upon her broidered hem, And all that marble snows and drifts to dust: "Fondly do we hope, fervently we pray That this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away: With charity for all, with malice toward none, With firmness ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... a basin of cold water. This is a fairy charm that prevents your wanting to get back into bed again. Then she dressed, and folded up her nightgown. She did not tumble it together by the sleeves, but folded it by the seams from the hem, and that will show you the kind of ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... was the voice of the princess. "I feel that we shall not be lost, I say." And as she spoke Branasko crept toward her and raised the hem of her gown to his white lips. Something dark came between them and the far-off ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben

... last day break, and the last shadow flee away; until then, she "shall not return." Her hands are laid on her breast—not praying—she has no need to pray now. She wears her dress of every day, clasped at her throat, girdled at her waist, the hem of it drooping over her feet. No disturbance of its folds by pain of sickness, no binding, no shrouding of her sweet form, in death more than in life. As a soft, low wave of summer sea, her breast rises; no more: the rippled gathering of its close mantle ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... Madero induced his former fellow rebel, Ambrosio Figueroa, now Commander-in-Chief of Mexico's rural guards, to cooperate with General Huerta by bringing a mounted force of three thousand rurales from Guerrero into Morelos from the south so as to hem in the Zapatistas between himself and Huerta at Cuernavaca. Figueroa's men, though they had to cover three times the distance, struck the main body of the rebels first and got badly mussed up in the battle that followed. General Huerta's column ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... press his brow against the hem of the Emperor's garment, and great seemed his anxiety to find such words as might intimate his dissent from his sovereign, yet save him from the informality of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... Church.[428] But the gulf which separated them from that Church did not thereby become narrower. That gulf was caused by the social and political separation of these Jewish Christians, whatever mental attitude, hostile or friendly, they might take up to the great Church. This Church stalked over hem with iron feet, as over a structure which in her opinion was full of contradictions throughout ("Semi-christiani"), and was disconcerted neither by the gospel of these Jewish Christians nor by anything else about them.[429] But as the Synagogue also vigorously condemned them, their ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... and resolved to abide a siege. The stronghold was impregnable, so far as any one could know, for it had never been stormed in war or riot, and on its possession had depended the long impunity of Theodora's race. The Emperor might lay siege to it, encamp before it, and hem it in for months; in the end he must be called away by the more urgent wars of the Empire in the north, and Crescenzio, secure in his stronghold, would hold the power still. But when the Roman people knew that Otto ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... Tavia. "The rips are all in one piece. That rent near the hem is positively artistic—looks ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... only stars for light, he came in the gray of dawn to an upright timber, colored red and hung with scalps, that had been cut from white men's heads at the massacre of Wyoming. The place they still call Painted Post. Without drawing rein he sped along the hills that hem Lake Seneca, then, striking deeper into the wilds, he reached a smaller lake, and almost fell from his saddle before a rude tent near the shore. A new grave had been dug close by, and he shuddered to think that perhaps ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... we seem standing in a cul-de-sac of Nature's grandest labyrinth. Look where we will, impregnable battlements hem us in. We gaze at the sky from the bottom of a savage granite barathrum, whence there is no escape but return through the chinks and over the crags of an Old-World convulsion. We are at the end of the stupendous series of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... pushed off to flutter about both cruisers until they came to anchor. From one of the quays signal guns were fired, and the brazen and inordinate bangings of his Royal salute echoed and re-echoed in uncanny fashion among the hills that hem the town, so that when the warships joined in, the whole cup of the harbour was filled with the hammerings of explosions overlapping explosions, until the air ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... relationship is even now a perfect godsend to me. You have confused my ideas; I cannot remember the things that I meant to say to you. I know no one else here in Paris.... Ah! if I could only ask you to counsel me, ask you to look upon me as a poor child who would fain cling to the hem of your dress, who would lay ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... right again, and we've found a pretty fair local Judas—amateur. We couldn't possibly put it on without Mr. Bradley. He takes the part of"—Hilda glanced at the hem of the listening priestly robe—"of the chief character, ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... Sir Richard said, "ha-a-hem," having nothing more lucid to remark on such an amazing financial problem as was here set ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... as one descends seaward, the mud begins to open out fan-wise and form a delta. The narrow mountain ranges no longer hem it in. It has room to expand and spread itself freely over the surrounding country, won by degrees from the Mediterranean. At the mouths the mud pours out into the sea and forms fresh deposits constantly on the bottom, which are gradually silting up still ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... good fellow, Mark," replied the cavalier; "and for thy sake I will do much—but remember to cough, and cry hem! when thou seest me like to break bounds. And now, tell me whither we are ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... flaming comets here. Their wanton flesh in silks and purple shrouds, And fancy wraps me in a robe of clouds. There some delicious beauty they may woo, And I have Nature for my mistress too. But these are mean; the archetype I can see, And humbly touch the hem of majesty. The power of my soul is such, I can Expire, and so analyze all that's man. First my dull clay I give unto the Earth, Our common mother, which gives all their birth. My growing faculties I send as soon, Whence first I took them, to the humid moon. All subtleties and every cunning ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... a moment's pause, with the silver-broidered hem of the pall in my hands, I suddenly swept off that mantle of black cloth, setting up such a gust of wind as all but quenched the tapers. I caught up the bench on which I had been sitting, and, dragging it forward, I mounted it and stood now with my breast on a ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... "Hem!" said Kaku glancing nervously over his shoulder. Then, seeing that there was no one near, he added, "you had better be careful what you say, my dear. The royal Abi does not like to hear the colour of his late mother defined so closely. ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... Captain Rayburn. "You may hem steadily for two hours on flannel petticoats. If that won't make it up to you I don't know ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... to bed; but I've got to let the hem of my tailored linen down two inches, so it will brush against those rhododendrons as a lady's should, and sew up the opening in the neck of my chiffon blouse an inch and a half, so I won't spill any of Mrs. Farraday's ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... second time with Fan, turned towards the other ladies and included them both in a bow, when Constance stood up and held out her hand to him. As he advanced to her Mary also rose to her feet, as if anxious to keep the hem of her dress out of his way, and stood with averted face. From Constance, after he had shaken hands with her, he glanced at the other's face, still averted, which had grown so strangely white and still, and for a moment longer hesitated. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... face of this young woman, recalling the idea of her mistress, roused his heart to strong emotions, and stimulated his mind to the immediate achievement he had already planned. As for Mr. Crabshaw, he was not the last to signify his satisfaction at his master's return. After having kissed the hem of his garment, he retired to the stable, where he communicated these tidings to his friend Gilbert, whom he saddled and bridled; the same office he performed for Bronzomarte; then putting on his squire-like attire and accoutrements, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... in ioye and in felycite For eche of hem had other lefe and dere." Chaucer, Monks Tale, fol. ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... feeling was greatly increased by that exalted worship which the poet paid, as to all shapes and symbols of beauty, so to that highest type, the female form. Even to come near a beautiful woman made him tremble, and the touch of so much as the hem of her garment sent his blood coursing through his veins. Thus, though he knew no other enjoyment than the communion with beauty, his very worship of its splendours kept him away from it. At the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... brazen-faced hussies, with their hair in nets and their hands in the pockets of their paletots, who strolled humming about the room. But soon she aroused hostile attention, even on her bench. Her hat—only about a dozen women at the ball wore hats—her flounced skirt, the white hem of which could be seen under her dress, the gold brooch that secured her shawl awakened malevolent curiosity all about her. Glances and smiles were bestowed upon her that boded her no good. All the women seemed to be asking one another where ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... 'cold hearted,' ... 'arrogant,' ... yes, 'arrogant, as women always are when men grow humble' ... there's a charge against all possible and probable petticoats beyond mine and through it! Not that either they or mine deserve the charge—we do not; to the lowest hem of us! for I don't pass to the other extreme, mind, and adopt besetting sins 'over the way' and in antithesis. It's an undeserved charge, and unprovoked! and in fact, the very flower of self-love self-tormented ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... also," said the dwarf, who was toiling to keep up with the longer strides of his companions, and therefore spoke in a very phthisical tone.—"I also will cudgel the plebeian knaves beyond measure—he!—hem!" ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... sighed deeply; Pompadour burst out laughing; Malezieux tried to calm the duchess; and Brigaud bent his head, and went on writing as if he had heard nothing. As to D'Harmental, he would have kissed the hem of her dress, so superior was this woman, in his eyes, to the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... a fetching robe of state in all the world, and no altar cloth or priestly robe could possess excelling beauty and not owe a debt to Spain. Someone has said that women are compounds of plain-sewing and make-believe, daughters of Sham and Hem, and, without questioning the truth of the statement, the same remark might be applied to both the clergy and the women of this period at least, if "fine-sewing" be substituted for "plain-sewing" in the epigram. Isabella herself, in spite of her well-known serious ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... recognized shibboleth of a section. Miss Sally rose and shut down the piano. Then leaning over it on her elbows, her rounded little chin slightly elevated with languid impertinence, and one saucy foot kicked backwards beyond the hem of her white cotton frock, she said: "And let me tell you, Mister Chester Brooks, that it's just such God-forsaken, infant phenomenons as you who want to run the whole country that make all this fuss, when ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... was enjoying herself, she was triumphant and happy as the darting needle danced ecstatically down a hem, drawing the stuff along under its vivid stabbing, irresistibly. She made the machine hum. She stopped it imperiously, her fingers were deft and swift ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... the table-cloth; another balanced her spoon on the tea-cup; a third told backwards and forwards the rings on her fingers, as duly as a friar tells his beads. As such actions sometimes are the symptoms of mental occupation, I began to anticipate the brilliant results of so much thinking. I cried, hem! in hopes to rouse them to expression—and not quite unsuccessfully: for one remarked, it was a wretched day; another wished it was fine; and a third hoped it shortly would be so. Meantime, the ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady

... bulk of sparry blue, That, rolling near us, heaves the swaying prow High on its shoulders, to descend again Ploughing a thousand cascades, and around Spreading the frothy foam. These watery gulfs, With storm, and winds far-sweeping, hem us in, Alone upon ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... faltered Bessie, blushing prettily and fingering the hem of her apron in which she ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... Am lwys am diffwys dywarchen Trihuc baruaut dreis dili plec hen Atguuc emorem ae guiau hem Hancai ureuer uragdenn At gwyr a gwydyl a phrydein At gu kelein rein rud guen ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin

... brother, and he has given me, his friend, this happy chance. Now I make my supplication to you, to whom I would be that, and more. All this week have I vainly sought for speech with you alone. But now these blessed trees hem us round; there is none to spy or listen—and here is a mossy bank, fit throne for a faery queen. Will you ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... Never was happier. So come, let us wind up for the night. I've a memorandum or two for you in my pocket-book," and he placed it on the table, and began to turn over divers papers, as he continued—"Hem! ha! Yes. Those two. You'd better take them, my good sir. They'll admit William and Stephen to Christ Church—what they call the ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... moved from her shining hair to the hem of her elaborate white gown. Then he smiled ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... smaller roll for the arms, which she sewed on to the body in proper position. She marked the features of the face with a black lead pencil, and then dressed it in a strip of the towel, leaving the red border as a trimming around the hem of the dress, and a narrow strip of the same gay border for a sash, which was tied in a fine bow at the back. On the head, to conceal the raw edges of the cotton, she made a tiny hood of another piece of the red border, and though ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... observed by never a soul, slipped beneath the dais, and posted himself right under the spot where the judge's feet rested, while the other two men took their stand on either side of the judge, each laying hold of the hem of his robe. Then:—"Sir, sir, I pray you for God's sake," began Maso, "that, before the pilfering rascal that is there beside you can make off, you constrain him to give me back a pair of jack boots that he has stolen from me, which theft he still denies, though 'tis not a month since I saw ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... gud-day. Et vobis, my masters. It were but reason that you should restore to us our bells; for we have great need of them. Hem, hem, aihfuhash. We have oftentimes heretofore refused good money for them of those of London in Cahors, yea and those of Bourdeaux in Brie, who would have bought them for the substantific quality of the elementary complexion, which is intronificated in the terrestreity of their ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... was not stout. His frame was not even fairly well covered. From the apron hem in front, the two legs that led down to the floor were scarcely larger than lead piping. From the raveling ends of his short sleeves were thrust out arms that matched the legs—bony, skinny arms, pallid as to color, and with ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... symbol into fringe. I would paint the butterflies red, yellow and blue, which are the colors that represent Work, Health and Love. You could also produce the colors by sewing beads over the design. So much for your symbol. Now in the middle of the hem in the front of your dress you may put the Winnebago symbol—the sign of your tribe. You will find it on the banner before the tents and over the fireplace in the shack, as well as on all the girls' costumes. It is the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... aventure yfalle In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle, That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde; The chambres and the shelter weren wyde, And wel we weren esed atte beste And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste, So hadde I spoken with hem everichon, That I was of hir felawshipe anon And made forward erly for to ryse, To take our wey, there as ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton

... her," he said. "I don't claim not to be a fool. I love her yet. There in the dusk in the spring evening I crawled along the black ground to her feet and groveled before her. I kissed her shoes and the ankles above her shoes. When the hem of her garment touched my face I trembled. When after two years of that life I found she had managed to acquire three other lovers who came regularly to our house when I was away at work, I didn't want to touch them or her. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... burning incense. Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin found himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short priest was wearing a crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow material; the hem of the robe ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Nowadays folks don't have to sew unless they want to, but when I was a child there warn't any sewin'-machines, and it was about as needful for folks to know how to sew as it was for 'em to know how to eat; and every child that was well raised could hem and run and backstitch and gether and overhand by the time she was nine years old. Why, I'd pieced four quilts by the time I was nineteen years old, and when me and Abram set up housekeepin' I had bedclothes enough for ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... attempt to influence her one way or the other. I have no right; but if I had the right,—if she were my sister,—that man should never so much as touch the hem of her garment!" ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... dresses were ill-fitting, the hats absurd. Tims was prominent among the bridesmaids, looking particularly ugly. The other photograph might have seemed pretty to a less prejudiced eye. It was that of a slight, innocent-looking girl in a white satin gown, "ungirt from throat to hem," and holding a sheaf of lilies in her hand. Her hair was loose upon her shoulders, crowned with a fragile garland and covered with a veil ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... "Hem! well, I suppose it's the truth; though, of course, all moneylenders are rogues—and you're only a moneylender, you know." He looked up for a moment to laugh at the logical joke. "Who backs his paper? Lord Standon. Oh, my lord is pretty deep in our books already, isn't ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... Hebrews were overcome with grief they tore their clothes, that all might see how sorrowful they were; and Judah was the first to seize his tunic and tear it down the front from neck to hem, and the others did the same. In a mournful procession they followed the Egyptian's chariot back to the city; and the people gazed at them as they ...
— Children of the Old Testament • Anonymous

... 'Hem! Apaecides,' said Arbaces, recognizing the priest at a glance; 'when last we met, you were my foe. I have wished since then to see you, for I would have you still my ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... hour later Mr. Macrae, heralding his arrival with a sonorous hem! entered the saloon. Smiling, he embraced his daughter, who hid her head on his ample shoulder, while with his right hand the father ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... so? Hem! Well, it is not generally considered that a woman who is going to marry and settle down to family ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz

... her sleeves and washed the dishes. She tried to sing a little at her work, because she knew that Prosper liked it, but the notes seemed to stick in her throat. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron, and went upstairs, bare-armed, to ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... a good boy,—by the Lord, so they call me;—and, when I am King of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dying scarlet; and, when you breathe in your watering, they cry hem! and bid you play it off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour, that thou wert not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned,—to sweeten which ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... I see a wan and wasted woman pressing through the crowd. She seems to have a very urgent errand. I can see from her countenance that she has been a great sufferer. She comes close enough to put her finger on the hem of Christ's garment, and the very moment she puts her finger on that garment, Jesus ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... which forms the brawn and muscle and sinew of the disturbance? The workmen and workwomen in whom discontent has bred the disease of riot, the abnormality, the abortion known as Anarchy, Socialism. The hem of the uprising is composed of idlers and loungers, indeed, but it is the labourer's head upon which the red cap of protest is seen above ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... Take 3/4 yard of white flannel and make a bias bag; this is done by taking the flannel on the bias, sewing the bottom and side together to a point; cut it even on top and hem; then sew a string on each end of hem. In using the bag lay a broom with one end on the back of a chair and the other end on a table; tie the bag onto the broom, in the center, so that it hangs between the table and chair; set a bowl underneath the bag; then pour in the ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke

... us out worse than we are. It is a libel on mankind to say that a man who truly loves a woman is usually false to her, and, above all, a libel that he should be false in the vile fashion which aroused good Tom Newcome's indignation. Tom Jones was no more fit to touch the hem of Sophia's dress than Captain Booth was to be the mate of Amelia. Never once has Fielding drawn a gentleman, save perhaps Squire Alworthy. A lusty, brawling, good-hearted, material creature was the best that he could fashion. Where, in his heroes, is there one touch of ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... beauty is much less, but she more lovely. Do I not love he? more than when that beauty Beamed out like starlight, radiating beyond The confines of her wondrous face and form, And animated with a present power Her garment's folds, even to the very hem! ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... of the early works of Chopin, in which he has by no means attained his full powers. Of another quite early work, the second concerto, he writes that it is a composition "which none of us can approach except it be with the lips to kiss the hem;" and later on, the Preludes, the most inspired of his works, led Schumann to exclaim that Chopin "is and remains the boldest and noblest artistic ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... as the lad beside her was uncouth in his man-size overalls, her short corduroy skirt belted about with a broad leather clasped with a gleaming silver buckle, the tops of her tall laced boots lost beneath its hem. Her gray flannel waist was laced at the bosom like a cowboy's shirt, adorned at the collar with a flaming scarlet necktie done in a bow as broad as a band. Her brown sombrero was tilted, perhaps unintentionally, a little ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... her," commented Madame, taking up a dainty lavender silk stocking that had "run down" from the hem. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... shock when you are old. I'm glad the cashmere has worn well— aye, that I am, Prissie. But don't put it on in the morning, my love, for it's a sin to wear through beautiful fine stuff like that. And, even if the color is gone a bit round the hem, the stuff itself isn't worn, and looks don't signify. You'll have to make up your mind to wear the cashmere for best again next term, Prissie, for, though I'm not pinched in any way, I'm not overflush either, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... signal—at these words, the conspirators rushed into the room with such haste that they overturned the table. Then David Rizzio, seeing that it was he alone they wanted, threw himself on his knees behind the queen, seizing the hem of her robe and crying in Italian, "Giustizia! giustizia!" Indeed, the queen, true to her character, not allowing herself to be intimidated by this terrible irruption, placed herself in front of Rizzio and sheltered him behind her Majesty. But she counted ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... cumbrous garment, it became customary in later times to wear it only on state occasions. The poor wore only the tunic, others wore, in place of the toga, the LACERNA, which was an open cloak, fastened to the right shoulder by a buckle. Boys, until about sixteen, wore a toga with a purple hem. ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... summer airs th' o'ershadowing branches bow'd, The while, with humble state, In all the pomp of tribute sweets she sate, Wrapt in the roseate cloud! Now clustering blossoms deck her vesture's hem, Now her bright tresses gem,— (In that all-blissful day, Like burnish'd gold with orient pearls inwrought,) Some strew the turf—some on the waters float! Some, fluttering, seem to say In wanton circlets toss'd, "Here Love ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... ye afeard of a man afore," she said to herself. "No, nur so tickled 'bout one, nother. Well, he air as accommodatin' a feller as I ever see, ef he air a furriner. But he was a fool to swop his gun fer hem." ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.

... a man (do you mark, sir?), being sick of the plague (do you see, sir?), had a, a, a—hem, hem (this cold troubles me; it makes me cough sometimes extremely)—had a French crown, sir, (you understand me?) lying by him, and (come hither, come hither), and would not bestow twopence (do you hear?) to buy an urinal ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... of them. They don't come right down and say, "Something's the matter with me; what would you do for it?" No, sir! They hem and haw, and laugh off the symptoms, until you come right out and tell them just how they feel and explain the cause; then they will do anything you say. Miles hemmed and hawed a little, but soon came out and showed his symptoms—he asked ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... smock, or kamis—of dark linen, open in front from belt to hem, disclosing a kilt or shenti of clouded enamel. His head-dress was the kerchief of linen, bound tightly across the forehead and falling with free-flowing skirts to the shoulders. The sleeves left off at the elbow and ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... raised the hem of Miss Mary's skirts to her lips. She would have buried her hot face in its virgin folds, but she dared not. She rose to ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... young girl rose to her feet, pulling the close-fitting jersey down over her hips and, stooping, dusted particles of sand off the hem of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... apostrophizes the "empire of the sun," bordering like a silver hem the dazzling Rhone, the "poetic empire of Provence, that with its name alone doth charm the world," and he calls to mind the empire of the Bosonides, the memory of which survives in the speech of the boatmen; they call the east shore ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer



Words linked to "Hem" :   utter, hem and haw, emit, sew together, let out, utterance, let loose, vocalization, sew, run up, material, cloth, stitch, hem in, ahem, fabric



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com