Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Waggish   Listen
adjective
Waggish  adj.  
1.
Like a wag; mischievous in sport; roguish in merriment or good humor; frolicsome. "A company of waggish boys."
2.
Done, made, or laid in waggery or for sport; sportive; humorous; as, a waggish trick.






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 |





"Waggish" Quotes from Famous Books



... this occasion to show-off, and she soon broke out on the easy, indolent, but waggish Wallace, in a strain to surprise him, notwithstanding the specimen of the lady's skill from which ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... eyes, but with the minde, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blinde. Nor hath loues minde of any iudgement taste: Wings and no eyes, figure, vnheedy haste. And therefore is Loue said to be a childe, Because in choise he is often beguil'd, As waggish boyes in game themselues forsweare; So the boy Loue is periur'd euery where. For ere Demetrius lookt on Hermias eyne, He hail'd downe oathes that he was onely mine. And when this Haile some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolu'd, and showres of oathes did melt, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... I told you about,—in Chicago," said Vinnie, astonished to find her waggish acquaintance, the elegant Radcliff Betterson, and this ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... nature description, although unconventional, does not lack truth. Goethe offers a similar example, when he speaks of schalkhafte (roguish, waggish) Veilchen. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... this poor creature excited, both here and at Niagara, was astonishing. His very exit (than which nothing could be more natural) was considered somewhat mysterious, as his body was not found; and some time subsequent to the event, a fellow of a waggish disposition happening to be accidentally in that part of the country, and bearing, it is said, a singular resemblance to Patch, was stopped by a Rochester-man on the road, and questioned on the subject. The stranger immediately saw a fair ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... and spiritualized look that had in other times distinguished it.... He was still, however, eminently handsome, and in exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high romantic character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, waggish wisdom, that epicurean play of humor, which he had shown to be equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while by the somewhat increased roundness of the contours the resemblance of his finely-formed ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... the afternoon express to Cologne. At six, just as the castle guard was being relieved, two persons led their bicycles through the archway and down across the bridge. It was dark, and nobody recognized them. Fritzing was got up sportingly, almost waggishly—heaven knows his soul was not feeling waggish—as differently as possible from his usual sober clothes. Somehow he reminded Priscilla of a circus, and she found it extremely hard not to laugh. On his head he had a cap with ear-pieces that hid his grey hair; round his ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... Eulenspiegel, the hero of the tales, is a waggish vagabond who goes about the country,—originally Brunswick, it would seem,—working at this and that and playing pranks on people. The earliest extant edition of the Eulenspiegel stories—that here followed—was printed at Strassburg in 1515. ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas

... how many present-day writers keep diaries. I wish The Bookman would conduct a questionnaire on the subject. I have a suspicion that Charley Towne keeps one—probably a grim, tragic parchment wherein that waggish soul sets down its secret musings. I dare say Louis Untermeyer has one (morocco, tooled and goffered, with gilt edges), and looks over its nipping paragraphs now and then with a certain relish. It undoubtedly has a large portmanteau pocket with it, to contain clippings ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... would say, Sir Billy served the crown, Blunt could do business, H-ggins knew the town; In Sappho touch the failings of the sex, In reverend bishops note some small neglects, And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing, Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king. His sly, polite, insinuating style Could please at Court, and make Augustus smile: An artful manager, that crept between His friend and shame, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... marriage bell; joyful, joyous, jocund, jovial; jolly as a thrush, jolly as a sandboy^; blithesome; gleeful, gleesome^; hilarious, rattling. winsome, bonny, hearty, buxom. playful, playsome^; folatre [Fr.], playful as a kitten, tricksy^, frisky, frolicsome; gamesome; jocose, jocular, waggish; mirth loving, laughter-loving; mirthful, rollicking. elate, elated; exulting, jubilant, flushed; rejoicing &c 838; cock-a-hoop. cheering, inspiriting, exhilarating; cardiac, cardiacal^; pleasing &c 829; palmy. Adv. cheerfully &c adj.. Int. never say die!, come!, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... the house had been facetiously named by some waggish officer, stood in the open lake, at a distance of fully a quarter of a mile from the nearest shore. On every other side the water extended much farther, the precise position being distant about two miles from the northern end of the sheet, and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... through the gratings in their cell-doors, clasped in frantic entreaty before his very eyes, it was particularly remarkable. Indeed, Mr Dennis appeared to think it an uncommon circumstance, and to banter himself upon it; for he thrust his hat on one side as some men do when they are in a waggish humour, sucked the head of his stick with a higher relish, and smiled as though he would say, 'Dennis, you're a rum dog; you're a queer fellow; you're capital company, Dennis, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... of utterance was of the hyper-intense school. On one occasion he begun his speech at the top of a voice of most prodigious compass, and kept on in the same strain, which, mildly described, might be characterized as a roar. When some waggish member on the Southern side cried, "Louder!" the effect upon the audience was convulsing. There stood Lovejoy, with his coat off and his collar open, his big, bushy head thrown back like a lion at bay, and brandishing his arms aloft, while his whole body rocked and quivered with excitement, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... His Flutiness the Duke—the title was granted last Candlemas—has a voice of a rare richness. He is cursed with a melancholy disposition most pleasing. He suffers from a surfeit of rejected love. A most waggish ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne

... us not into temptation,' used with waggish and gallant humour to whisper Mrs. Davies, 'You, my dear, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... leaning as before on the counter, shook his head from side to side, with a waggish air, which confused Ephie still more. She made her escape, and left him there, still wagging, like ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... Bradley Headstone noticed a very slight action of Lizzie Hexam's hand, as though it checked the doll's dressmaker. And it happened that the latter noticed him in the same instant; for she made a double eyeglass of her two hands, looked at him through it, and cried, with a waggish shake of her head: 'Aha! Caught you spying, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... month, and Tom would not work. An excellent painter and glazier, and a good cook besides. His only fault is that he has a great idea of his own reserved rights, to the neglect of those of his master." This was said with a waggish kind of a leer, as if he thought he had said a very smart thing in a very smart way. 300 dollars were first offered for him; but poor Tom went for 350. "Now, sir," said the man-seller to Tom, with a malicious look, "you'll go into ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... ill to, the other injures indifferently both friends and foes. I cannot forbear, on this occasion, transcribing a fable out of Sir Roger L'Estrange, which accidentally lies before me. A company of waggish boys were watching of frogs at the side of a pond, and still as any of them put up their heads, they would be pelting them down again with stones. "Children," says one of the frogs, "you never consider that though this be play to you, 'tis death ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... music of the trumpet; and another pole made its appearance, with a piece of bacon on it, and a placard bearing the inscription of "Treasury bacon," all which Tom Durfy had run off to procure at a huckster's shop the moment he heard the waggish answer, which he thus turned ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... be a very waggish air, Harry put out his tongue, and held it with his finger and thumb. It was unfortunate that he had not time to draw it in again before the hot-tempered gentleman gave him a stinging box on the ear, which brought his teeth rather sharply ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... we have a surprising total of'—here he figured on the table, and King Sancho pursued his drift until Richard brought his hand slamming down—'of one-and-twenty million ridges of gold upon the treasure!' he concluded with a waggish look. Agreement was as hard as to prolong parallels to a point. Yet this went on for some two hours, until, worn frail by such futilities, the Navarrese chancellor plumply asked his brother of England if King Richard would marry. 'Marry!' cried he, when they brought him down the ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... sat upon the velvet seat behind him. The white, wild night outside was playful and waggish compared with the black dejection behind the ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... strong, awkward, ugly boy, unblushingly pouring forth his energetic lines—cheered by the sight of the relaxing gravity of his teachers' looks—while around, you see the bashful tremulous figure of poor Cowper, the small thin shape and bright eye of Warren Hastings, and the waggish countenance of Colman—all eagerly watching the reciter—and all, at last, distended and brightened with joy ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... surprised; but they blundered over the ordinary English, and had next to no sense of the meaning of punctuation. I admit that probably they were not trying to do their best; that they might have put on a little intentional clumsiness, in the instinctive hope of escaping derision by being thought waggish. But the pity of it was that they should need to protect themselves so. They had not the rudimentary accomplishment: that was the plain truth. They could not ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... day I received from him the following additional scraps ['To Lord Thurlow']. The lines in Italics are from the eulogy that provoked his waggish comments."—Life, p. 181. The last stanza of Thurlow's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... Jack Jargon, the gigantic guardsman;[691] And General Fireface,[692] famous in the field, A great tactician, and no less a swordsman, Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he killed. There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman, In his grave office so completely skilled, That when a culprit came for condemnation, He had his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... and then hear how wittily they would depict the manners of the steerage. We were in truth very innocently, cheerfully, and sensibly engaged, and there was no shadow of excuse for the swaying elegant superiority with which these damsels passed among us, or for the stiff and waggish glances of their squire. Not a word was said; only when they were gone Mackay sullenly damned their impudence under his breath; but we were all conscious of an icy influence and a dead break in the course of ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... A waggish young person in white beaded slippers and a green sport skirt broke free from the cavorting ring, and behind Mr. Leary's back the nimble fingers of the madcap tapped his spinal ornamentations as an instrumentalist taps the stops of an organ; and she chanted ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... jack jargon, the gigantic guardsman; And General Fireface, famous in the field, A great tactician, and no less a swordsman, Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill'd. There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman, In his grave office so completely skill'd, That when a culprit came far condemnation, He had ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... of its totality; hence very little indeed of the sage's multifariousness will be portrayed in a simple narrative like the present. This casual private intercourse with Israel, but served to manifest him in his far lesser lights; thrifty, domestic, dietarian, and, it may be, didactically waggish. There was much benevolent irony, innocent mischievousness, in the wise man. Seeking here to depict him in his less exalted habitudes, the narrator feels more as if he were playing with one of the sage's worsted hose, than ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... Lake St. Clair and into Michigan. The writer happened to be on the Cleveland steamer with the returning party, and had occasion to notice that the amateurs were too busily engaged in writing up their notes to thoroughly enjoy Mr. King's waggish allusions ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... After this, it was astonishing to see with what eagerness every one caught at every thing he saw. It even went so far as to become the ridicule of the natives, who offered pieces of sticks and stones to exchange. One waggish boy took a piece of human excrement on the end of a stick, and held it out to every one he ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... trout. I believe he knew Sunday just as well as Deacon Marble did. At any rate, the deacon thought the trout meant to aggravate him. The deacon, you know, is a little waggish. He often tells about that trout. Sez he, "One Sunday morning, just as I got along by the willows, I heard an awful splash, and not ten feet from shore I saw the trout, as long as my arm, just curving over like ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... running, like a turkey. That wasn't the reason they let me go, though. Not on your life!" He winked portentously, and strangely enough his eyelid failed to resume its normal position. It continued to droop, giving the appearance of a waggish leer. "I knew too mush! Isn't healthy to know too mush, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... the ship clove the dark sea into a blaze of phosphorescence, and her wake streamed like a comet's tail, a waggish middy got a bucketful hoisted on deck, and asked the doctor to analyze that. He did not much like it, but yielded to the general request; and by dividing it into smaller vessels, and dropping in various chemicals, made rainbows and silvery flames and what not. But he declined ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... peculiar Grace or Advantage so that Mr. Triplett was beaten from one Limb and Feature to another, till he was forced to resign the whole Woman. In the end I took notice Triplett recorded all this Malice in his Heart; and saw in his Countenance, and a certain waggish Shrug, that he design'd to repeat the Conversation: I therefore let the Discourse die, and soon after took an Occasion to commend a certain Gentleman of my Acquaintance for a Person of singular Modesty, Courage, Integrity, and withal as a Man of an entertaining ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... already seen similar waggish endings to phrases in the 'Lysistrata'; the figure is called [Greek: ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... that water-fowl that cries, Quack! Quack!? Full often have I seen a waggish crew 30 Fasten the Bird of Wisdom on its back, The ivy-haunting bird, that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Senate and House of Representatives at Washington, "but after all, the congressman in feathers interested me most. I thought indeed, that the Chat might well enough have been elected to the lower house. His volubility and waggish manners would have made him quite at home in that assembly, while his orange colored waistcoat would have given him an agreeable conspicuity. But, to be sure, he would have needed to learn ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various

... Honest waggish Vigee, painting industriously at his pleasing portraits, would recall it well; since, early in the following year, there was that to happen under his own modest roof which was to bring fame to his name, though he should not live to ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall

... our stretching gallop, for such had our pace sobered into, brought us up with it, and as we flew by, at top speed, Baby jumped to her feet, and turning a waggish look at our beaten rivals, burst out into ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... rays of the sun smote on their weary backs, the murmurings of the troops grew loud. This, then, was the land "more fertile than Lombardy," which was the goal of their wanderings. "See, there are the six acres of land which you are promised," exclaimed a waggish soldier to his comrade as they first gazed from ship-board on the desert east of Alexandria; and all the sense of discipline failed to keep this and other gibes from the ears of staff officers even before they reached that city. Far worse was their position now ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... house, belonging to the Laird of Col, and possessed by Mr. M'Sweyn. On the beach here there is a singular variety of curious stones. I picked up one very like a small cucumber. By the by, Dr. Johnson told me, that Gay's line in The Beggars Opera, 'As men should serve a cucumber[786],' &c. has no waggish meaning, with reference to men flinging away cucumbers as too cooling, which some have thought; for it has been a common saying of physicians in England, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... somewhat calmer than I should otherwise have been; nay, I was even composed enough to divert myself with the folly of one bearing so vulgar an appellation taking it into his head to play the man of honor, and could not help a waggish feeling of curiosity to see if his name and ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... this Farthest North family of fellow-Canadians. I have lived under many roof-trees, but never have I seen a more harmonious family, nor a menage of nicer adjustment. Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak the Elder, full of the mellow juice of life, waggish and keen, "quick at the uptak'," as the Scotch say, presides over her household with dignity, never for a moment relaxing her hold on the situation. Chief Oo-vai-oo-ak wisely leaves the interior economy of the household in the hands of the women. He is the quiet, dignified gentleman ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... frantic entreaty before his very eyes, it was particularly remarkable. Indeed, Mr. Dennis appeared to think it an uncommon circumstance, and to banter himself upon it; for he thrust his hat on one side as some men do when they are in a waggish humor, sucked the head of his stick with a higher relish, and smiled as though he would say:—"Dennis, you're a rum dog; you're a queer fellow; you're capital company, Dennis, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... far as I am concerned," responded the trapper, seriously; but adding, with his old waggish gleam of the eye: "that is, if you will take what I give, and swallow it as easily as you did Phillips' fish story. But let Carvil, who must be the youngest, go on with his story first; I will follow; and Phillips shall bring up ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... must forget to be a woman; change Command into obedience: fear and niceness— The handmaids of all women, or, more truly, Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage: Ready in gibes, quick answered, saucy, and As quarrelsome as the weasel; nay, you must Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek Exposing it—but, Oh! the harder heart! Alack! no remedy! to the greedy touch Of common-kissing Titan, ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... called inquests. Brien Moon, Esq. is particularly fond of the ludicrous, is ever ready to appreciate a good joke, and well known for his happy mode of disposing of dead dogs and cats, which, with anonymous letters, are in great numbers entrusted to his care by certain waggish gentlemen, who desire he will "hold an inquest over the deceased, and not forget the fees." It is said-the aristocracy, however, look upon the charge with contempt-that Brien Moon, Esq. makes a small per centage by selling those canine remains ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... was bright, crisp, and frosty. The men were in excellent spirits. We had with us a number of waggish fellows that would be the life of any company, jovial, hearty, able to bring forth a joke under the most forbidding circumstances. One of these (Smith let us call him) had served eight years in ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride

... piteously; whereupon, Kit's mother and Barbara's mother, who had restrained themselves as much as possible, burst out sobbing and weeping afresh. Poor Kit could not help joining them, and not one of them could speak a word. During this melancholy pause, the turnkey read his newspaper with a waggish look (he had evidently got among the facetious paragraphs) until, happening to take his eyes off for an instant, as if to get by dint of contemplation at the very marrow of some joke of a deeper sort than the rest, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... in one night's flood. But the Captain was ready with another verse of the Chaldee MS., and groaned out, by way of echo, "Verily my fine gold hath perished!" Whereupon the "Great Magician" elevated his huge oaken staff as if to {p.276} lay it on the waggish soldier's back—but flourished it gayly over his own head, and laughed louder than the youngest of the company. As we walked and talked, the Pepper and Mustard terriers kept snuffing about among the bushes and heather near us, and started every five minutes a hare, which ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... his incomparably beautiful word paintings and his ludicrous humor was characteristic of two sides of the waggish newspaper reporter who developed into a good deal of a philosopher and the ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... to the edge of the trees and looked out, anxiously peering in different directions, but nothing was seen of his friend. Knowing Fred's waggish nature, Jack hoped that he was indulging in some jest, but he could not quite convince himself that such was the fact. The hunger of Fred would have prevented his postponing the meal one moment longer than ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... appointed a committee to revise its statutes. This committee had a pious horror of all dead languages, and a patriotic fear of paying too high a compliment to England, and so reported that all proceedings in courts of law should be in the American language! An inquiry by a waggish member, whether the committee intended to allow proceedings to be in any one of the three hundred Indian dialects, restored to the ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... write in the Athenaeum and forestall him. When I saw myself thus quoted—yes! quoted! double commas, first person—I felt as I suppose did Wm. Wilberforce[378] when he set eyes on the affectionate benediction of the potato which waggish comrades had imposed on a raw Irish reporter as part of his speech. I felt as Martin[379] of {237} Galway—kind friend of the poor dumb creatures!—when he was told that the newspapers had put him in Italics. "I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker! I appeal to the House! Did I speak in Italics? ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... prosperity and comfort, abundance and carelessness; and then you will see the poor honest man, as soon as he shall drink of the alluring cup of Ease, become a perverse, proud, untractable churl—the industrious labourer change into a careless, waggish rattler—and every other person become just what you would desire him. Because pleasant Ease is what every one seeks and loves; she hears not counsel, fears not punishment—if good, she will not recognise it—if bad, she will foster it of her own accord. ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... an inducement to the one who should put the finishing stroke to the building, Plante, Pillon, and Manaigre, whom the waggish Plante persisted in calling "mon negre," whenever he felt himself out of the reach of the other's arm, all ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... more to raise the condition of the book clubs than Sir Walter Scott. In 1823 the Roxburghe made proffers of membership to him, partly, it would seem, under the influence of a waggish desire to disturb his great secret, which had not yet been revealed. Dibdin, weighting himself with more than his usual burden of ponderous jocularity, set himself in motion to intimate to Scott ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... top boots, big or little, shine with a lustre more resplendent; never was postilion's jacket more excellent of fit, nattier, or more carefully brushed; and nowhere could there be found two rows of crested silver buttons with such an air of waggish roguery, so sly, so knowing, and so pertinaciously on the everlasting wink, as these same eight buttons that adorned the very small person of his groomship, Milo of Crotona. He had slipped out suddenly from the hedge, and now stood cap in hand, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... the former, it is clear from Byron's words, came from the south. Their canoes also, it may be added, were of very similar materials and structure. Of the jealousy of these Indians, Byron relates some striking evidences, from what he himself had the unhappiness to experience. Who knows what some waggish spectator of the young lady might surmise about her English features, if he had ever heard of the gallant commodore's adventure in the wigwam, &c., so feelingly introduced and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... the Florida tourist it is important as lying at the head of steamboat navigation on the St. John's River, which here expands into a lake—Lake Monroe—some five miles in width, with Sanford on one side, and Enterprise on the other; or, as a waggish traveler once expressed it, with Enterprise on the north, and Sanford and enterprise ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... receive an order we release them the very same day. We do not keep them; we do not particularly value their presence," said the general, again with a waggish smile, which had the effect only of ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... pockets, shivering and stamping. Most of them were undersized, some tough, some rather sickly. A dull-eyed, wretched, sodden lot. I got the liquor on their breaths. A fat old Irish stoker came drifting half-drunk up the pier with a serene and waggish smile. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... hearty, emphatic manner, as were he, Chinaman-like, shaking hands with himself over the glad event of the day. But on receiving the pluck of the ear, in the dear old way, the dear old fellow, quick to take the hint, gave vent to a sort of double yelp, peculiar to him when in a waggish humor—a smothered nasal "boo-woo," so irresistibly ludicrous that it had always made Sprigg laugh, as now it did, right heartily. This is but the prelude to what needs must follow. Up he rears himself on his hind legs, snaps at the ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... flow'ry brow I'll give thee with my Tempe, and to boot That horse which struck a fountain with his foot. A bed of roses I'll provide for thee, And crystal springs shall drop thee melody. The breathing shades we'll haunt, where ev'ry leaf Shall whisper us asleep, though thou art deaf. Those waggish nymphs, too, which none ever yet Durst make love to, we'll teach the loving fit; We'll suck the coral of their lips, and feed Upon their spicy breath, a meal at need: Rove in their amber-tresses, and unfold That glist'ring grove, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... strange words and seeing the extravagant figure of him who uttered them, the merchants drew up, and one of them, who was of a waggish disposition, answered for the whole company and said: "Sir Knight, we do not know the good lady of whom you speak; let us see her, and if she is of such beauty as you describe, we will most gladly make the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... staring into the far distance, as though the shadowy pictures evoked by his reading were hovering before his eyes. Then, with a start, he was present and among them all, his eyes running over them with a waggish expression; and then he stood up, placing his stick so that it supported his diseased hip. The master's hands danced loosely in the air, his head and his whole figure jerking crazily under the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... in one of his waggish moods, undid all that she might have accomplished in the way of soothing Hicks' injured feelings, by inquiring facetiously if he would mind rolling him out a couple of pie-crusts to be tanned ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... Redland Post Office. Newman is said to have had a jackdaw. The bird, as the mail coach ran down the narrow road on Black Boy Hill, called "Mail, mail, quick, quick!" to attract his master's attention, and, waggish bird as he was, he not infrequently gave a false alarm, and called his master at the wrong time. After some years Mr. Newman moved with the Post Office to the east side of Black Boy Hill, to a house ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... Fabian, with a forced laugh, with which he attempted to conceal his uneasiness, "you are a waggish rogue! Your last words have afforded me so much amusement that I have not the heart to injure you for such a trifle. But listen, you little simpleton; you must not suppose that the justice would allow you to say all that. No, he would have sent you away long before you could have had ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... some waggish baboon to drop a nut or a berry in!" said Peterkin, winking at me with one eye as he lay down in the spot from which ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... did not interfere one jot with the good humour of the waggish company, who laughed and joked all the way from the church to the castle, some repairing thither on horseback, and some on foot. Ordinarily, Master Jock would have been much diverted by their practical jokes, but now he only ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... passing through Division Lobby; coming back startled by angry roar. COURTNEY on his feet solemnly shouting "Order, Order!" like minute-gun at sea. Nothing came of this; excitement increased; COURTNEY crying "Order, Order!" in sterner voice. Looked about for explanation, and lo! there was the waggish WIGGIN with his hat cocked well on one side of his head, waddling down the floor of the House past the Chair. You may do almost anything in the House of Commons but walk about with your hat on, and here was WIGGIN, not only doing it, but persisting in the offence, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various

... of age, realizing himself to be a "landed proprietor" through the christening gift of his waggish grandsire, young Barnum set out to survey his estate, which he had not yet seen. He had heard much of "Ivy Island." His grandfather had often, in the presence of the neighbors, spoken of him as the richest child in ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... any knowledge of our language will cut but a sorry figure, and be more liable to ridicule than an Englishman in a similar condition in Paris: to wit, the waggish joke told of the Parisian inquiring for Old Bailey, or Mr. Bailey, Sen. It is, therefore, quite as requisite that a Frenchman should be provided with a good French and English phrase-book, as that an Englishman should ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various

... sentiment the gurgling of an astonishingly long drink seemed to emphasize. The Count then handed the bottle back to his nephew, who, shaking it, ejaculated, "Why, we can't pledge you in return—there is nothing left!" to which came the waggish response, "I beg pardon; it was so dark I couldn't see"; nevertheless there was a little remaining, as ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan

... that the loftier notions are the earlier. If man began with the conception of a powerful and beneficent Maker or Father, then I can see how the humorous savage fancy ran away with the idea of Power, and attributed to a potent being just such tricks as a waggish and libidinous savage would like to play if he could. Moreover, I have actually traced (in 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion') some plausible processes of mythical accretion. The early mind was not only religious, in its way, but scientific, in its way. It embraced ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... I told ye of, was with me at a Feast, where I happen'd to have a small Girl: This Stripling began to be sweet upon her, and waggish upon me too. How now, you impudent Saucebox, said I; you're Man's meat your self, and yet have a mind ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard

... when the service was over, and the men were chatting about the deck, he quietly mentioned what he had seen, and some of the waggish among the crew came up to Gunter and asked him, with significant looks and laughs, what time o' day ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... it was so funny when gospadarz—big, fat gospodarz—compared himself to a tiny little flea. I couldn't help it, I had to laugh." And she gave a waggish laugh, in which Mrs. Tiralla this time joined. There was something merciless in the laughter ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... her kindly servant; the very dogs seemed to partake of the human nature of their protector, and attended us wherever we went, with more than ordinary civility. Hogarth might have been tempted to immortalize one of them for its extreme ugliness, and the waggish spirit with which it pulled at its companion's ears, who in vain attempted to tug at the bits of stumps that stuck out at either side of its tormentor's head. Mr. Fairholt was permitted to sketch the drawing room; the open door leads to the chamber from whence, it is said, Miss Thornhill eloped ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... as, the moment the old sailor chanced to notice one or other of the children eyeing him more attentively than usual on his looking up from the cards before him, he would smile knowingly and nod his head in the most waggish fashion. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... ascended his bicycle with a waggish winkle in his eye, repeated that I might try it ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... Crusoe! That paint'st the strife And all the naked ills of savage life, Far above Rousseau? Rather myself had stood In that ignoble wood, Bare to the mob, on holiday or high-day. If nought else could atone For waggish libel, I swear on bible, I would have spared him for ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... Not a sound disturbed the peace of this solemn house, where the hinges were always oiled, and where the meanest article of furniture showed the respectable cleanliness which reveals strict order and economy. The most waggish of the three youths often amused himself by writing the date of its first appearance on the Gruyere cheese which was left to their tender mercies at breakfast, and which it was their pleasure to leave untouched. This bit of mischief, and a few others ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... attractive and honest one—the sort of face that instinctively invited one's "Hail, fellow, well met!" trust at first sight. His hair was dark auburn in colour, short and wavy, with a sort of golden tinge in it; his forehead was broad and open, and below it were two uncommonly waggish blue eyes. His habitual expression was a mixture of nonchalant good humour and gay insouciance, but the slightly aquiline, prominent nose and the set of the square aggressive jaw belied in a measure the humourous ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... with something of a waggish leer, thou owest the lad for the venison, I suppose that thou killed, Cousin Duke! Marmaduke! Marmaduke! That was a marvellous tale of thine about the buck! Here, young man, are two dollars for the deer, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... and kill himself. 'Tis easier to swallow a sword than to fall upon one, and the first is quite as much a Mountebank's Trick as t'other. Blow your brains out! A mighty fine climax truly, to make a Horrible Mess all over the floor, and frighten the neighbours out of their wits, besides, as a waggish friend of mine has it, rendering yourself stone-deaf for life. If it comes to powder and ball, why, a Man of courage would much sooner blow out somebody else's Brains instead of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... A fantastic, waggish crew—yet Francis minded them not, so long as they observed sufficient etiquette to keep their distance from his royal person and immediate following. This nice decorum, however, be it said, was an unwritten ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... of the soldiers, led on by a corporal, the coating of whose powdered poll had been converted into a sort of paste by too great an intimacy with a bucket of water, essayed to mount the rigging; an exploit to them much more arduous than to enter a breach. The waggish quarter-gunners and quarter-masters, satisfied with their own success, stimulated them to the enterprise; and Nightingale and his mates, while they rolled their tongues into their cheeks, gave forth, with ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... fatuous Friar A prime plump priest in passion seen, such pleasure doth inspire, That sober souls, 'spite sorrows sad, shall sudden, shout and sing Because thy belly big belittleth baleful ban ye bring. Wherefore with wondrous wit withal, with waggish wanton wiles, I joyful chant to glorify the ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... meant to take her, but had not told her so yet, and now, being a waggish old fellow, he thought he would let her take her cat, for the joke of ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... omens were not in favour of the marriage. Upon this Helge assembled his people to hear the word which the messengers were to carry to their master, but unfortunately King Halfdan gave way to his waggish humour, and made scoffing reference to the advanced age of the royal suitor. These impolitic words were reported to King Ring, and so offended him that he immediately collected an army and prepared to march against the Kings of ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... the stout Friar looked upon Robin for a long time, his head on one side, and with a most waggish twist to his face; then he slowly winked his right eye. "Nay, good youth," said he gently, "I doubt not that thou art in haste with thine affairs, yet thou dost think nothing of mine. Thine are of a carnal ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... made its appearance on one of those joyous occasions, when the sons of old Etona return from Oxford and Cambridge, filled with filial regard for early scenes and school-boy friendships, to commemorate a college election. It was, at the time, purposely attributed to some of these waggish visitors, a sort of privileged race, who never fail of indulging in numerous good-humoured freaks with the inhabitants of Eton, to show off to the rising generation the pleasantries, whims, and improvements of a college life. The subject is one ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... The waggish judge gave the poor nymph fair play, holding the eye steady for her; but when she wished to slip in the thread that she had twisted to make straight, he moved a little, and the thread went on the other side. She suspected the judge's argument, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... humped but still high, keeping step with them a yard or so behind. Several times they turned, terrified by that tread, and could make nothing more of it, till the rays of a lamp showed them a tall Chinaman with a flat yellow face and a slimy pigtail drooping with a dreadful waggish school-girlishness over the shoulder of his blue nankin blouse; and long black eyes staring but unshining. They were between the high blank walls of warehouses closed for the night. They dared not run. Flippety-flop, flippety-flop, he came after them, always ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... and turned up his eyes. The band was playing 'Pop goes the weasel,' and old Jackson, very well dressed and buckled up, with a splendid smile upon his waggish, military countenance, cried, as he passed, with a wave of his hand, 'How do, Lake—how do, Mr. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... discarded the use of them,) was actually mounted on the wooden horse without a saddle, with his face to the tail, while he was plied by four servants of the household with syringes and squirts, till he had a thorough wetting. "He was a waggish fellow," says Lewis, "and would not lose any thing for the joke's sake when he was putting his tricks upon others, so he was obliged to submit cheerfully to what was inflicted upon him, being at our mercy to play him off well, which we did accordingly." ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... brings to my mind a good old parson in Springfield who used to complain that the Weekly Republican was as bad as himself. He was preaching his old sermons over and over again with new texts. Come to find out, he had a waggish grandson who for three previous weeks had neatly gummed the fresh date over the old one, and the dear divine had been perusing the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... for a better view, and discovered a strange object lying on the path. It was a false nose, a large, red, boosy nose, with, a length of elastic to hold it in its place. One of the guests had dropped it. Nickie put it on in a waggish humour, and stood moralising as three pretty Spanish dancers, in charge of a ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... while his small, keen eyes, which were somewhat sunken, gave forth a flash that was perhaps but a flickering ember of the fire they once contained. The left eye, which was partly closed by a paralytic stroke several years ago, gave him a rather artful, waggish appearance. The whole physiognomy was that of a man of strong intuition, with the ability to force his point when necessary, and the shrewd common sense to yield ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben



Words linked to "Waggish" :   humourous



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com