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Waft   Listen
verb
Waft  v. t.  (past & past part. wafted; pres. part. wafting)  
1.
To give notice to by waving something; to wave the hand to; to beckon. (Obs.) "But soft: who wafts us yonder?"
2.
To cause to move or go in a wavy manner, or by the impulse of waves, as of water or air; to bear along on a buoyant medium; as, a balloon was wafted over the channel. "A gentle wafting to immortal life." "Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole."
3.
To cause to float; to keep from sinking; to buoy. (Obs.) Note: This verb is regular; but waft was formerly sometimes used, as by Shakespeare, instead of wafted.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Waft" Quotes from Famous Books



... Rank'd in due Order, by their Teacher's Care, The Sight of all Beholders gratify, Sweet to the Soul, and pleasing to the Eye But when their Voices found in Songs, of Praise, When they to God's high Throne their Anthems raise, By these harmonious Sounds, such Rapture's giv'n, Their loud Hosannas waft the Soul to Heav'n: The fourfold Parts in one bright Center meet, To form the blessed Harmony complete. Lov'd by the Good, esteemed by the Wise, To gracious Heav'n, a pleasing sacrifice. Each Note, each Part, each Voice, each Word conspire T' ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... Redeem from this reproach my wand'ring ghost; Or with your navy seek the Velin coast, And in a peaceful grave my corpse compose; Or, if a nearer way your mother shows, Without whose aid you durst not undertake This frightful passage o'er the Stygian lake, Lend to this wretch your hand, and waft him o'er To the sweet banks of yon forbidden shore." Scarce had he said, the prophetess began: "What hopes delude thee, miserable man? Think'st thou, thus unintomb'd, to cross the floods, To view the Furies and infernal gods, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... be—"is supposed to have elapsed since the last act." This is a very commonly used expression in play-bills, and there seems no just cause or impediment why a story-teller should not avail himself of the same device to waft the patient reader over an uneventful period, during which the hero or heroine has been granted a "breathing space" between the ebb and flow of ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... tender-hearted This hermit waft to yonder shore, From which for sordid gold he parted Ten weary years and one before. Ho! there's the pier where last he left her, That dear, loved one, to weep alone, And for that love of gold bereft her Of all the pleasures ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... cried Roland. 'And now my little Renee has no more shore-qualms; she is smoothly chaperoned, and madame will present us tea on board. All the etcaeteras of life are there, and a mariner's eye in me spies a breeze at sunset to waft us out ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... have a shade of the same hue now before they become brown. As it withers, the many-pointed leaf of the white bryony and the bine as it shrivels, in like manner, do their part. The white thistle-down, which stays on the bursting thistles because there is no wind to waft it away, reflects it; the white is pushed aside by the colour that the stained ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... find that wings refused in any circumstances to waft them to the realms of ether, they set about inventing aerial machines in which to ascend through the clouds and ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne

... I went on board the shallop of Richard Faulder, of Allanbay; and, committing ourselves to the waters, we allowed a gentle wind from the east to waft us at its pleasure toward the Scottish coast. We passed the sharp promontory of Siddick; and skirting the land within a stone-cast, glided along the shore till we came within sight of the ruined Abbey of Sweetheart. The green mountain of Criffell ascended beside us; ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... now?" he said to himself in a low voice. "Why does not Death kiss my lips at this glorious hour of my triumph? Oh, come, Death! waft me blissfully into the other world, for in this world I am useless henceforth; my strength is gone, and my head has no more ideas. I live only ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... their archways the bronze and marble statues breaking the horizon. But there is one at an upper window, seeing all this through her tears, to whom the beautiful noon, with its wealth of zephyrs and sweets, can waft no gratulation. The father of her children, the confidant of her affection and ambition, has passed from life into immortality, and lies below, dumb, cold murdered. The feeling of sympathy for Mrs. Lincoln is as wide-spread as the regret ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... "Bobby" was not at his post. Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby's mistress—the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odors surged from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to their ribs, so was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell joined in their lives, joined in their deaths; so closely joined, that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare.' The humour of the piece is delightful, and it matters not a whit for the enjoyment of it, that the wrong ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... filled, and fair the light winds blew As glad to waft him from his native home; And fast the white rocks faded from his view, And soon were lost in circumambient foam; And then, it may be, of his wish to roam Repented he, but in his bosom slept The silent thought, nor from his lips did come One word ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... after week went by, and not a speck of cloud was seen in the sky above, and not a ripple on the glassy face of the deep. All the ships had been put in order, new vessels had been built, the warriors had burnished their armor and overhauled their arms a thousand times; and yet no breeze arose to waft them across the sea. And they began to murmur, and to talk bitterly against Agamemnon and ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... fly with me, my little bark is waiting 'neath the steep, And the midnight breeze is fresh to waft thee o'er the stilly deep; Though tempests blow they should not raise thy fears, nor scathe thy form, For love would hover o'er thee still, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various

... each year at this annual occasion when friend and foe get together and lay down the battle-ax and let the waves of good-fellowship waft them up the flowery slopes of amity, it behooves us, standing together eye to eye and shoulder to shoulder as fellow-citizens of the best city in the world, to consider where we are both as regards ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... continued flight exerted by birds of passage, the idea of its being only a small effort is greatly corroborated. To apply the power of the first mover to the greatest advantage in producing this effect is a very material point. The mode universally adopted by Nature is the oblique waft of the wing. We have only to choose between the direct beat overtaking the velocity of the current, like the oar of a boat, or one applied like the wing, in some assigned degree of obliquity to it. Suppose 35 feet per second to be the velocity of an aerial vehicle, the oar ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... though my surprised blushes did their best to warm it. Her dish, when opened, contained nothing but flowers, waxy white, but emitting a delicately sweet perfume. She held them toward my face, and presently breathed gently across them, as if to waft their perfume to me. Then scattering them about my cushion, she pressed her left cheek to mine, arose and tripped down the steps again. There was a modest self-possession about her which enchanted me, and I hoped she would soon ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... only goddesses," said the voice, "who waft about them as they move the musk of the rose-gardens of Araby. When you come to reign over us in town, Madam, there will be no perfume in the mode but that of rose-leaves, and in all drawing-rooms we shall breathe ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... but when St. Catherine of Siena was a little child, and went to be a hermit in the woods, and got terribly frightened, and lost her way, and sat down to cry, the Angels, you know, did really and truly waft her up on their wings and carried her to the valley of Fontebranda, which was very near home. And when she was quite a little thing and used to say her prayers going up to bed, the Angels would come to her and just "whip" her right up the ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... nature of flight had been accomplished. It is exceedingly hard to arrive at actual fact, but it seems pretty clear that more than one individual, by starting from some eminence, could let himself fall into space and waft himself away for some distance with fair success and safety, It is stated that an English Monk, Elmerus, flew the space of a furlong from a tower in Spain, a feat of the same kind having been accomplished by another adventurer from the top of St. ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... to the immortality of either, who shall say? And is even that the question? No: the question is—did both men wish to waft the white sail of good and beauty on its way? Assuredly. . . . And so she cries at the last: "Your nature too is kingly"; and this is for her the sole source of ardour—she "trusts truth's inherent kingliness"; and the poets are of ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... resources. Were they, this pair, of the "great world"?—and was he himself, for the moment and thus related to them by his observation, IN it? Then there was something in the great world covertly tigerish, which came to him across the lawn and in the charming air as a waft from the jungle. Yet it made him admire most of the two, made him envy, the glossy male tiger, magnificently marked. These absurdities of the stirred sense, fruits of suggestion ripening on the instant, were all reflected in his next words to little Bilham. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... I am overpowered with melancholy forebodings. Scarcely are you out of my sight, before I dread, that I shall never see you more, or that some fatality should deprive me of your love. When shall the sails of love waft us from this dangerous shore? Oh! when shall I dare to call you mine? Heavens! how many things may intervene...! Let nothing detain you from Richmond this evening; but come not at all—come no more, unless to reassure my trembling heart, and to convince me that ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... the Pine Island that lay at the entrance of Clear Lake, and Velvet-paw leaped ashore, and sat down on a mossy stone to dry her fur, and watch for her brother and sister: they, too, found a large piece of birch-bark which the winds had blown into the water, and as a little breeze had sprung up to waft them along, they were not very long before they landed on the island. They were all very glad when they met again, after the perils and fatigues of the voyage. The first thing to be done was to look for something to eat, for their early ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill

... that glide o'er the steep, Oh, would ye but waft me across the wild deep! There fearless I'd mix in the battle's loud roar, I'd die with my Connel, and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... perchance Has guided in the noonday to these doors, Tumultuous, naked, and unsightly throng, With mutilated limbs and squalid faces, In litters and on crutches, from afar Comfort yourselves, and with expanded nostrils Drink in the nectar of the feast divine That favorable zephyrs waft to you; But do not dare besiege these noble precincts, Importunately offering her that reigns Within your loathsome spectacle of woe! —And now, sir, 'tis your office to prepare The tiny cup that then shall minister, Slow sipped, its liquor to thy lady's lips; And now bethink thee ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... thought? "Warm water will not so much make the limbs soft by soaking," to quote Pindar,[728] as glory and honour and power make "labour sweet, and toil to be no toil."[729] Or has any bad luck or contumely fallen on you in consequence of some calumny or from envy? The breeze is favourable that will waft you to the Muses and the Academy, as it did Plato when his friendship with Dionysius came to an end. It does indeed greatly conduce to contentedness of mind to see how famous men have borne the same troubles with an unruffled mind. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... Now trembling on the brink, with fear she sees This unknown clime, nor dares to trust the breeze. But here, no unfledg'd wing was ever crush'd; Be each rude blast within its cavern hush'd. Soft swelling gales may waft her on her way, Till, eagle-like, she eyes the fount of day: She then may dauntless soar, her tuneful voice May please each ear ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... out strong for the West India: to impeach him, and to ranconter his force he appointed this fleet; although looking for the arriuall of his East Indian caraks, he first ordained those ships to waft them from the Acores. But perswading himselfe, that if the fleet of sir Walter Ralegh did go for the West India, then the Ilands should haue none to infest them but some small men of warre, which the caraks of themselues would be well able to match; his order was to Don Alonso ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... have been gambling for me," said Lucien; he was quite touched by the letter. A waft of the breeze from an unhealthy country, from the land where one has suffered most, may seem to bring the odors of Paradise; and in a dull life there is an indefinable sweetness in memories of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... the sun, "I am extremely flattered by your proposal, but you do me too much honor; there is some one greater than I; it is the cloud. Look, if you do not believe."... And at that moment the cloud arrived, and with one waft of his folds extinguished the sun with ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... coarser types of men. He craved Reputation and would have it, Milly assured him confidently. She was immediately convinced of his high talent. Alas! She sighed when she said it, for she knew that his gifts would quickly waft him beyond her reach on his upward way. Chicago could not hold one like him long: he was for other, beautifuller ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... guest, our games and pageant share! Smile on the flowing cup, and hail With us the Genius of this natal day! From whose anointed, rose-entwisted hair, Arabian odors waft away. If thou the festal bless, I will not fail To burn sweet incense unto him and thee, And offerings of Arcadian ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... fierce dragons' spleens, Have sold their fortunes at their native homes, Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs, To make a hazard of new fortunes here. In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er Did never float upon ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... think they might be about somewhere, for they were sorry for his heavy feet, and always greeted him kindly. Not that they ever spoke to him, he said, but they always made a friendly gesture—nodding a stately head, waving a strong hand, or sending him a waft of cool air as they went by, a waft that would come to him through the fiercest hurricane as well as through the ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... give to the double the attributes of a man? Did you not make his wife come to bid him good night, bend down to kiss him, waft him a characteristic farewell?" ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... WAFT [said to be from the Anglo-Saxon weft], more correctly written wheft. It is any flag or ensign, stopped together at the head and middle portions, slightly rolled up lengthwise, and hoisted at different positions at the after-part of a ship. Thus, at the ensign-staff, it signifies that ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... his head at her and said, "You all-knowing imp! isn't even Shakespeare hidden from you?" But now the voice didn't sound sweet to me at all, because I wanted to get away. We rose at the same minute, Mr. Dane and I, and Lorraine seemed to waft us from the house on a kind little wind. At the foot of the steps we stopped for fear the gravel should crunch, and while we waited for Aunt Elizabeth to go in the other way I looked at Mr. Dane to see if he wanted to laugh as much as I. He did. His eyes were full of fun and pleasure, and ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... hangs by the grave; Sits on the grave green-grassed, On the roll of the heaved grave-mound. By Death, as by Life, are we fed: The two are one spring; our bond With the numbers; with whom to unite Here feathers wings for beyond: Only they can waft us in flight. For they are Reality's flower. Of them, and the contact with them, Issues Earth's dearest daughter, the firm In footing, the stately of stem; Unshaken though elements lour; A warrior ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... you from toil and labor flee, Oh float ye out on this wonderful sea, From islands of spice the zephyrs blow, Swaying the galleys to and fro; Silken sails and a balmy breeze Shall waft you ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley

... so think I. And there is but one wind in the halls of heaven that can waft the fruit to ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... now in our grasp has never yet been equalled on earth. On the one side, we can half-stifle every non-subscriber to our service, or wholly stifle every rebel against us. On the other, we can simply saturate every subscriber with health and energy, or even—if they want it—waft them to paradise on the wings of ozone. The old Roman idea of 'bread and circus' to rule the mob, was child's play compared to this! Science has delivered the whole world into our hands. Power, man, power! Absolute, infinite power over ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... haze. The upper windows were then opened, and huge blinds of grey canvas were drawn beneath the burning sky. Nevertheless, a fiery rain seemed to be pouring down, heating the market as though it were a big stove, and there was not a breath of air to waft away the noxious emanations from the fish. A visible steam went ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... bounds of logic and of reason. After having established in his own mind what he should NOT have done, the next question was, what he should do, then. Would it be impossible to retrace his steps? Were there not currents higher up that would waft him to less arid regions? Well informed with regard to the countries over which he had passed, he was utterly ignorant of those to come, and thus his conscience speaking aloud to him, he resolved, in his turn, to speak frankly to his two companions. ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... appeared and gave unmistakable signs of stopping at Tarrytown. Moved by an inexplicable impulse, he darted behind a pile of trunks. His dearest hope had been that Phoebe might be on the lookout for him as the cars whizzed through, and that she would waft a final kiss to him. But it was going to stop! He hadn't counted on that. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon

... he could not understand a problem in Euclid. To do so would be to treat the creatures by a law not germane to their nature. It is, indeed, a radical vice in Calvinistic reasoning that, because God is omnipotent, He can as easily therefore create virtue in a free being as He can waft the down of the thistle on the breeze. It is quite true that "whatsoever the Lord pleased that did He in heaven and in earth" (Ps. cxxxv. 6). But the question is—What is His pleasure in regard to the production ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace

... and think, and forge the required key to this lock with three wards—Life, Labor, Capital. And, when forged, the Philanthropic Society shall pay you a good price for it. Meantime, don't dream of leaving Hillsborough, or I shall give you a stirrup-cup that will waft you much further than London; for it shall be 'of prussic acid all composed,' or 'juice of cursed Hebenon in a vial.' ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... flower from that bright bower Some nymph would waft to me— For in my eyes a dearer prize Than glitt'ring gem 'twould be— For its changeless blue seems emblem true Of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various

... it seems, saw me, by the help of their perspective glasses, and that it was some European boat, which, they supposed, must belong to some ship that was lost; so they shortened sail, to let me come up. I was encouraged with this, and as I had my patron's ensign on board, I made a waft of it to them, for a signal of distress, and fired a gun, both which they saw; for they told me they saw the smoke, though they did not hear the gun. Upon these signals, they very kindly brought to, and lay by for me; and in about three hours' time ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... wife the procurator-general, think how different the history of the world would have been! The worst of it is he mightn't have remembered to make you a woman; and in any case, things being so nicely settled as they are, I don't think I want to be a man. I waft a kiss to you on the wings of the wind. It's ponente to-day, so it ought to be ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... on distant cattle Waft across the range; Through the golden-tufted wattle, Music low and strange; Like the marriage peal of fairies Comes the tinkling sound, Or like chimes of sweet St. Mary's On far English ground. How my courser champs the snaffle, And with nostril spread, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... shoulder followed, and finally the whole body of a slender, emaciated little girl wriggled dexterously, though with much difficulty, through the narrow aperture, and the child dropped down upon the floor as lightly and noiselessly as a feather, a snow-flake, or a waft of thistle-down. She had been deceived by Isabelle's remaining so long perfectly quiet, and believed her asleep; but when she softly approached the bed, to make sure that her victim's slumber had not been disturbed by her own advent, an expression ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... the pulpy mass as the scimitar of Saladin clove the down cushion. Let Paul Peter Rubens wake from the dead, let him rise out of his cerements, and bring into this presence all the army of his fat women; the magian power or prophet-virtue gifting that slight rod of Moses, could, at one waft, release and re-mingle a sea spell-parted, whelming the heavy host with ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... of eternal fire. Is there leisure for sport and business, or room for science and literature, or mood for pleasures and amenities? No: to get ourselves and our friends into the magic car of salvation, which will waft us up from the ravenous crests of the brimstone lake packed with visages of anguish, to bind around our souls the floating cord of redemption, which will draw us up to heaven, this should intensely engage every ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... man, he does a thing because it has to be done! The space between the Rhine and the Pyrenees seems to him not field enough for the lilies of France. He would have them occupy the two shores of the Mediterranean, and waft their odors thence to the extremest countries of the Orient. Measure by the extent of his designs the extent of his courage." [Letters to Racan and to M. de Mentin. OEuvres ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... to him, with a distinctiveness that he could idly follow. He thought of Rosario and the rose-breath of the open windows with a strange longing, and remembered the half-stifled sweetness of her happy voice rising with it from the veranda. Why had he ever let it pass from him then and waft its fragrance elsewhere? Why— ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... Polly O, O'er the sea you go; Fairer than sunbeam, lovely as moon-gleam, All of us love thee so! While the breezes blow To waft thee, Polly O, We will be true to thee, Crossing the blue to thee, Polly—Polly! Dear little ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... transplace[obs3], transplant, translocate; convey, carry, bear, fetch and carry; carry over, ferry over; hand pass, forward; shift; conduct, convoy, bring, fetch, reach; tote [U.S.]; port, import, export. send, delegate, consign, relegate, turn over to, deliver; ship, embark; waft; shunt; transpose &c. (interchange) 148; displace &c. 185; throw &c. 284; drag &c. 285; mail, post. shovel, ladle, decant, draft off, transfuse, infuse, siphon. Adj. transferred &c. v.; drifted, movable; portable, portative[obs3]; mailable [U.S.]; contagious. Adv. from hand to hand, from ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a letter too, In happy hope no more to roam; I bade her bless the vessel true Whose gallant sails should waft me home. But ere my letter reach'd her hand, My love, my little love, was dead, And when the vessel touch'd the land, Fair hope for evermore ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... path strange and new With slow feet, pausing at each turn; A sudden waft of west wind blew The ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... monotonous hills, and both before and behind were more lonesome hills, more dreary fields, and black masses of woodland. Not one homely roof was visible in the hard, white moonlight, nor the glimmer of a lamp, nor a waft of chimney-smoke; not even the tinkle of a sleigh-bell or a foot-step was to be heard. The silence seemed whispering to the hills. One star glimmered in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... face of the waters, circled around the lone canoe and the woman therein, and seemed to waft her forward with the ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... and feasted with him, and at the end of the month he dismissed them with many presents, and gave to Ulysses at parting an ox's hide, in which were inclosed all the winds: only he left abroad the western wind, to play upon their sails and waft them gently home to Ithaca. This bag bound in a glittering silver band, so close that no breath could escape, Ulysses hung up at the mast. His companions did not know its contents, but guessed that the monarch had given to him some treasures of gold ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... went down (up) to Kingston, and from thence to Hampton Court, to speak with the Protector about the sufferings of friends. I met him riding into Hampton Court Park; and before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his life-guard, I saw and felt a waft (whiff) of death go forth against him; and when I came to him he looked like a dead man. After I had laid the sufferings of friends before him, and had warned him according as I was moved to speak to him, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... the good German's hand, "I have just administered to him, and consoled him; at this moment the holy man has a fair wind to waft ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... monks he maintained. Dead is he, a bed-death, A leech-death, a priest-death, A straw-death, a cow's death. Such doom I desire not. To high heaven, all so softly, The angels uphand him, In meads of May flowers Mild Mary will meet him. Me, happier, the Valkyrs Shall waft from the war-deck, Shall hail from the holmgang Or helmet-strewn moorland. And sword-strokes my shrift be, Sharp spears be my leeches, With heroes' hot corpses High heaped ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... friend thou art,— Do, prithee, take now in good part Lines the first steamer shall waft o'er. Sorry am I to hear the blacks Still bear your ensign on their backs; The stripes they suffer make me sore. Beware of wrong. The brave are true; The tree of Freedom never grew Where Fraud and Falsehood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... to Grey Abbey; and, as he presumed his attendance was required for the purpose of talking over some method of raising the wind, he obeyed the summons.—I should rather have said of raising a storm, for no gentle puff would serve to waft him through his ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... despised. The calm continued. The old mate felt conscious that he himself was growing weaker and weaker, and he feared that poor Walter would begin to suffer even more severely before long. There was just wind enough to waft on the raft; but many days must pass before they could possibly reach land. Wine and water would help to sustain them, and they might even gnaw ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... sudden memory, for instance, there was the fine old hotel in Burlington, Vermont—is it called the Van Ness House?—where we remember a line of cane-bottomed chairs on a long shady veranda, where one could look out and see the town simmering in that waft of hot and dazzling sunshine that pours across Lake Champlain in the late afternoon: and The Black Lion, Lavenham, Suffolk; where (unless we confuse it with a pub in Bury St. Edmunds where we had lunch), there was, in the hallway, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... back to the fireplace after that pronouncement on the spiritual and moral condition of the Zappo Zap, his thoughts strayed for a moment with a waft of the wing right across the world to the camping place by the great tree. Out there now, under the stars, the tree and the pool were lying just as he had seen them last. Away to the east the burst elephant gun was resting just where it had been ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... imperious masters that never let it alone. It is nursed and caressed, next bandied about, and soon cuffed and kicked by its invisible overseers. Poor atoms! No abolition societies will ever free them from their bondage, no colonization movement waft them to any physical Liberia. For every particle of matter is bound by eternal fealty to some spiritual lords, to be pinched by one and squeezed by another and torn asunder by a third; now to be painted by this and now blistered by that; now tormented ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... herself met us at the Mausoleum, which is a small but handsome stone Gothic building, situated above the Nuuanu Avenue, on the road to the Pali. It commands a fine view over land and sea, and the gentle breezes waft through the open windows sweet scents from the many fragrant trees and flowers by which it is surrounded. There lay the coffins of all the kings of Hawaii, their consorts, and their children, for many generations past. The greater part were of polished koa wood, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... his feet peruse, Wings grow again from both his shoes; Design'd, no doubt, their part to bear, 25 And waft his godship through the air; And here my simile unites, For in a modern poet's flights, I'm sure it may be justly said, His feet are useful as his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... thy cradle swung, And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong, Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung, Rose in the sky, and bore thee soft along; The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way, And danced and shone beneath ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... of a warbling vireo, and also watched a sandpiper teetering about the edge of the water, while a red-shafted flicker dashed across the lake to a pine tree on the opposite side. As I left this attractive valley, the hermit thrushes seemed to waft me a ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... Fawning, thrift may follow Fear, perfect love casteth out —, with hope, farewell Fearfully and wonderfully made Fears, saucy doubts and —, our hopes belied our Feast, bare imagination of a —of nectared sweets —of reason Feather, of his own, espied a —, a wit 's a —, to waft a Feature, cheated of Feel, would make us, must feel themselves Feelings, great, came to them Feels, meanest thing that Feet beneath her petticoat —like snails did creep Feet, standing with, reluctant Felicity, we make or find our own Fell, I do not like thee, Doctor Fellow that had losses ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... waft, ye winds, his story; And you, ye waters, roll; Till, like a sea of glory, It spreads from pole to pole; Till o'er our ransomed nature, The Lamb for sinners slain, Redeemer, King, Creator, In bliss ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... stories, but they were extremely entertaining. So I won't bowstring you or cut off your unusually attractive head! No! On the contrary, I thank you for your wonder-tales, and for not murdering me. And, furthermore, I bestow upon you your liberty. Have you sufficient cash to take you where you desire to waft yourself?" ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... hauen Or any swinging sail to seek after haven, Bot flote forthe with e flyt of e felle wynde[gh] But floated forth with the force of the fell winds. Wheder-warde so e water wafte, hit rebounde Whither-ward so (as) the water waft, it rebounded, Ofte hit roled on-rounde & rered on ende Oft it rolled around and reared on end, Nyf our lorde hade ben her lode[gh]-mon hem had lumpen harde Had our Lord not been their (pilot) leader hardship had ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... do not practise quietism as a religion, or whether it be from any other cause, it is difficult to say, seem to have more than their fair share of premonitions. Every one remembers how George Fox saw a "waft" of death go out against Oliver Cromwell when he met him riding at Hampton Court the day before he was prostrated with his fatal illness. Fox was full of visions. He foresaw the expulsion of the "Rump", the restoration ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead

... winged hours, too swift, too sweet, And waft this message o'er To all we miss, from all we meet ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... nearly all her canvas spread, so as to take advantage of the first puff of air which came to waft us beyond the Doldrums towards the region of the south-east trades, then beginning to blow just below the calm belt; consequently, it took all hands some time to clew up and furl all the light upper sails, and squall after squall burst over us ere we could reduce ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... dogs of the city had it to themselves. No women were about, but here and there a guarded light betrayed sin still awake, and here and there a bell, calling the faithful to church, sounded a homely note of peace. The morning was desperately close, without a waft of air. She found the Abbot Milo at his lodging, in the act of setting off to mass at the church of Saint Martha. The sight of ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... quiet, warm day in June. The wind is westerly, but there is only just enough of it to waft now and then a sound from the far-off town, or the dull, subdued thunder of cannon-firing from ships or forts distant some forty miles or more. Massive, white-bordered clouds, grey underneath, sail overhead; there was heavy rain last night, ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... places and company, with a rooted laziness, and an utter impatience of fatigue. A coach and six horses is the utmost exercise you can bear; and this only when you can fill it with such company as is best suited to your taste, and how glad would you be if it could waft you in the air to avoid jolting; while I, who am so much later in life, can, or at least could, ride five hundred miles on a trotting horse. You mortally hate writing, only because it is the thing you chiefly ought to do; as well to keep up the vogue you have in the world, as to make you ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... Anticipates sweet rest but in the tomb— White winged Faith, her guardian one, alway There hovering nigh. 'Tis morn; dreams she no more; On Fotheringay's black scaffold now she stands, Clasping her cherished croslet in her hands, Anon to die. Her fate the loves deplore; The angel-loves, eke, waft her soul to heaven; Her faults, her ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... He is precious; He has my heart: let the union subsist for ever. Never let me leave Thee more; but through all the vicissitudes of life, keep me; and if I am entering upon my last year, let it be the best of all. Let the odours of the celestial world waft upon ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding, Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea; Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... Cromwell's glory. But the fever crept steadily on, and his looks told the tale of death to the Quaker, Fox, who met him riding in Hampton Court Park. "Before I came to him," he says, "as he rode at the head of his Life Guards, I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and when I came to him he looked like a dead man." In the midst of his triumph Cromwell's heart was heavy in fact with the sense of failure. He had no desire to play the tyrant; ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... the ruined arbour was a lawn, and along one edge of it under the wall, grew a bed of lilies, lilies of the valley, so sweet in their season, that sometimes the old lady's grand-daughters would affirm that a waft of their breath had reached them as they sat up in the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary, But the voice of the weeper Wails manhood in glory. The autumn winds rushing Waft the leaves that are searest, But our flower was in flushing When ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various

... soul is man's God still, What wind soever waft his will Across the waves of day and night To port or shipwreck, left or right, By shores and shoals of good and ill; And still its flame at mainmast height Through the rent air that foam-flakes fill Sustains the indomitable light Whence only ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... within me, and I went, As one whom winds waft o'er the bending grass, Through many a vale of that broad continent. At night when I reposed, fair dreams did pass 1705 Before my pillow;—my own Cythna was, Not like a child of death, among them ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves the slave ships in the basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills, headed, "cash for negroes." These men were ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... ye waves, bear these lines, And tell her my distress; Bear all these sighs, ye gentle winds, And waft them to her breast; Tell her if e'er she prove unkind, I never ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various

... minutes, that seemed like an age, he rubbed at her hands, resprinkled her throat and face, and waved a folded paper to waft her the zephyr of air. When she once more opened her eyes she was fairly well restored. She recovered her strength by a sheer exertion of will and sat up, weakly, passing her hand across ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... painting. That is the kind of longing which is satisfied here, where one feels alive in a brilliantly coloured picture, with none of the hardness of reality. When I was a child, illustrations of woodland and sea, in Paul and Virginia, or Robinson Crusoe, would waft me away from the everyday world; and the sunshine here brings back to my mind the feeling with which I used ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... fade as the leaf grows dry. Be good, and thy spirit in a few more moons shall rejoin that of thy beloved rock-rose in the blissful island. Depart, son of the Red Elk; the canoe which brought thee hither will waft thee hence. Thou lingerest!—it is well! I know thy thoughts and wishes—clasp her to thy heart then. It is well! The recollection of the embrace will do more to keep thy spirit purified than all the sayings of thy fathers, and ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... people to open their eyes and ears wide, and men aid to this effect by the great display, expense, and magnificent buildings with which they adorn them, so that everything shines and glitters. There they waft incense, they sing and ring bells, they light tapers and candles, so that nothing else can be seen or heard. For when a priest stands there in a surplice embroidered with gilt, or a layman continues all day upon his knees in church, that is regarded as a most precious work which no one can sufficiently ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... maid; They live, they breathe, they speak what love inspires, Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires; The virgin's wish without her fears impart, Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart; Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... trade it is the rarest one, Simple shepherds all, My trade is a sight to see; For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, And waft 'em to a ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... mission, his son had been appointed governor of New Jersey, and he looked forward to a life of honorable ease in his adopted city. Just before sailing he wrote to Lord Kames: "I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America, but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the old world to the new, and I fancy ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More

... a bit shamefaced. "The Sage is a tenacious person," he said. "We argued for a bit without much satisfaction. As a matter of fact we nearly came to blows again, only he got another waft of goldenrod, which started him sneezing, and then his nose began bleeding once more. He is convinced that I'm a ruffian, and said so in excellent prose. Honestly, I admire him a great deal. I believe he intends ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... waft me from the harbour-mouth, Wild winds, I seek a warmer sky; And I will see before I die The palms and temples of ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... stir up the harmless Africans to war, and stain their fields with blood: you keep constant hostile ferment in their territories, in order to procure captives for your uses; some you purchase with a few trifling articles, and waft to distant shores to be made the instruments of ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America; but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the old world to the new; and I fancy I feel like those ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... fantastic in their growth that I stood to wonder; and in an open space upon the bank of the Esaro (which stagnates through the orchard) rose a majestic palm, its leaves stirring heavily in the wind which swept above. Picturesque, abundantly; but these beautiful tree-names, which waft a perfume of romance, are like to convey a false impression to readers who have never seen the far south; it is natural to think of lovely nooks, where one might lie down to rest and dream; there comes a vision of soft turf under the golden-fruited ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... tender bud to the last sere autumn leaf. And the ferns! Did the Great Artist have any left after planting the fence-corners, roadsides and deep woods of Peterboro? Overarch these features with a fair dome of fleece-scattered blue and waft abroad throughout the place a succession of mountain breezes, ozone charged, and you have a place to live and work and grow ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page

... impending woe sat heavy on his breast. He summons strait his Denizens of air; 55 The lucid squadrons round the sails repair: Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seem'd but Zephyrs to the train beneath. Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold, Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold; 60 Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light, Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, Thin glitt'ring textures of the filmy dew, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... heir to the throne being an infant only seven years of age, the Duke of Orleans assumed the reins of government, as regent, during his minority. Law now found himself in a more favourable position. The tide in his affairs had come, which, taken at the flood, was to waft him on to fortune. The regent was his friend, already acquainted with his theory and pretensions, and inclined, moreover, to aid him in any efforts to restore the wounded credit of France, bowed down to the earth by the extravagance of the long ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay



Words linked to "Waft" :   pennoncelle, flag, pennoncel, pennant, drift



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