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adjective
Wan  adj.  (compar. wanner; superl. wannest)  Having a pale or sickly hue; languid of look; pale; pallid. "Sad to view, his visage pale and wan." "My color... (is) wan and of a leaden hue." "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" "With the wan moon overhead."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wan" Quotes from Famous Books



... hand, went along the lengthy passage, and opened the door. No one was there! She came back to the dining-room smiling—"Masther Edward is afther playin' wan av his thricks, ma'am——" she began, when the bell again rang—this time vigorously. My eldest sister threw down the book she was reading, and with an impatient exclamation herself went to the door, opened it quickly, and said sharply ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... the Lord give me the b'ys, an' 'twas the Lord took away their blissid father. Do ye think He'd 'a' done ayther wan or the other if He hadn't thought I could care for 'em all? An' I will, too. It may be we'll be hungry—yis, an' cold, too—wanst in a while. But it won't ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger

... She was so bright, so imperious, so queen-like! You ask me why I did not let you know I was living? Blythe, I would have died in very truth by my own hand rather than trouble her peace in her married life with you!" He paused—then glanced up at his friend, with the wan flicker of a smile—"And—do you ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... o' dem, dey shouted enough, dey shouted dey fill. But dat ain' whut I's drivin' at yit. Whut I wan' 'o know, whut mek Brothah Simon ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... upon the image of the dog, which had taken, the evening before, such fantastic liberties with my overwrought fancy. But these drops gathered themselves up nimbly into little shining balls, and fled off to the ground like so much quicksilver. I looked out upon the wan pools and marshes, whence a greenish mist steamed up, and seemed to poison the sunlight streaming through it. It is possible that this semblance of an unwholesome mist was not so much the fault of the marshes as a condition of the atmosphere, premonitory of the fierce electric storms and the earthquake ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... young circus tank-actor propped up in the clean, white hospital bed, with a pleasant-faced nurse hovering about him. Benny looked pale and wan, though perhaps some of his pallor was caused by the white ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum

... after a life of vicissitude, anxious only to be forgotten, and after so much storm and stress to be nothing more than pious. There must be many descendants of the Moors, but the present population is wan and lifeless. They are taciturn, sombre folk, with nothing in them of the chattering and vivacious creatures of Arab history. Indeed, as I wandered through the streets, it was not the Moors that engaged my mind, but rather Ferdinand of Arragon and Isabella of Castille. ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... you, sir? Oh, I did hope that you would come again!" she exclaimed, "The doctor says that my little girl's certain to get well. I was terrible anxious the day before yesterday, but now though she's weak and wan, you'd hardly know ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... entered without his knowledge. Turning his head, he beheld that the God of Love was standing in the room, even as he seemed in the form of the image that stood over the fountain by the bridge. But now the bright feathers of his wings were faded, and his face was wan, and the garment that he wore was no longer red but black, and he looked very sadly upon Dante, and Dante felt his spirit grow cold and old within him before that melancholy gaze. Then the God of Love made a sign to Dante to rise ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... but nedder of us had no learnin' an' I say to Paul, 'Does you think you got nough learnin' to lead a flock of people? I don' wan' you to git up an' mek me shame.' I tell him to go to de Benedicts an' see what book he needs to study, come by town bring me a pair of broggans for me, 'cause I wuz a-gwine to wuk and he wuz a-gwine to school. For t'ree long years I plowed ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... for anny wan who comes routin' me out av bed at such an hour, an' may the devil fly off wid yez for that same," growled the man. "Go away wid yez, an' niver let me ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... various stages of life and death, yoked up to every conceivable manner of springless vehicle, piled high with odds and ends of furniture and bedding which had been snatched up in the mad hurry of flight. On top of the bundles lay sick and starving children, wan with want and exposure. Beside the wagon walked weary women or old men, urging their animals on with weird cries and curses, returning to the devastated remains of what had once ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... will, chile! But, w'at you wan' it fer?" answered Aunt Connie, smiling down at the little girl whom she ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis

... not open, ranne to the backsyde and lept ouer the garden wal; but, in lepyng, the draught-bord so troubled hym, that he fell downe into the gardyn and had almoste broken his necke: and ther he lay styll, tyll that the pryncypall cam into the garden; which, wan he saw hym lye there, had wente some man had ben slayne and there caste ouer the wall, and durst not come nye him, tyll he had callyd vp hys companye which, when many of the gentylmen[57] wer com to gether loked well ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown

... they came to Alberich's dwelling,—a frowning fortress of granite built in the mountain-side. The gate was opened by the sleepy giant who always sat within, and the party rode into the narrow court-yard. There they were met by Alberich, seeming smaller and grayer, and more pinched and wan, than ever before. ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... they fled in terror from the board of old. Than these no deadlier portent nor any fiercer plague of divine wrath hath issued from the Stygian waters; winged things with maidens' countenance, bellies dropping filth, and clawed hands and faces ever wan with ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... scarcely sleep at all that night. She rose when the sparrows began to walk out of the roof-holes, sat on the floor of her room in the dim light, and by-and-by peeped out behind the window-curtains. It was even now day out-of-doors, though the tones of morning were feeble and wan, and it was long before the sun would be perceptible in this overshadowed vale. Not a sound came from any of the out-houses as yet. The tree-trunks, the road, the out-buildings, the garden, every object wore that aspect of mesmeric fixity which ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... sight of her first, and she could see him turn and say a word to his comrade. Bannister looked up, caught sight of her, and smiled. That smile, so pale and wan, went to her heart like a knife. But the message of her eyes was hope. They told the prisoners silently to be of good cheer, that at least they were ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... but then there wan't any danger o' that, cos, you see, I kep the vessel off by night, an the danger couldn't hev riz. I thought we were a mile further up the bay; we've been a doin better than I ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... and there, indeed, a sceptic Mutters language rather rude; Here and there a wan dyspeptic, Yielding to a peevish mood, Wonders why a winning nation finds itself so short ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various

... de wagons broke down 'cause de mules ain't had nothin' ta eat an' most ob dem died. We git in sich a bad fix some ob de people died. When it seem lak we wuz all gwine die, a planter come along de road an' he stopped ta find out what wuz de matter. Wan he heard our story an' who our master wuz he git a message to him ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... quarreling with her mother, but he said nothing. He gathered the driest bits of thatch and wood he could find in the litter on the stable floor and kindled a fire, while she sat sullenly glaring at him, her face wrinkled and tired in the wan firelight. When the blaze was going steadily, a compact and safe little fire, he spread his coat as a seat for her, and called, cheerily, "Come on now, honey; here's a regular home and ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... wan smile. "Yes, that is so. But it still is very slowly we go when I measure with my thoughts the swiftness. In my ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... but hasta la vista!" She lifted her chin valiantly, although her smile was a trifle wan. "That means 'until we meet again', you know, and I feel somehow that it will ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... was cut at night by torchlight. It was a warm and dull evening, and the wan moon threw a yellow light onto the torches which made the night misty with their resinous smoke. The hounds devoured the wild boar's stinking entrails, and snarled and fought for them, while the prickers and the gentlemen, standing ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... home-coming? Ellie was taken to the hospital, whither frightened Mrs. Connors was summoned. Upon one of the cots in the accident ward lay the child, her small face wan with pain, and in her eyes the startled expression noticeable in those of a person who has had a serious fall. In one feverish hand she held something tightly clasped—something for which she had asked before being carried from the store. When ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... unexpected power, and only the hunter himself could tire her out. As for him, he was not happy unless he was working, and at times he made the screw spin again under his fierce strokes, whenever his eyes fell on the wan faces of his young companions stewing in the insufferable heat. He shortened the journey by twenty-four hours, for on the afternoon of the fourth day the woman, for the first time, showed ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... "Nary a wan did I see, Masther Ned. Sure there was a slatherin' lot of lads bint on some joke, an' I didn't interfere wid 'em, knowin' they was up t' no harm. But ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman

... looked shocked. "Julie was real dacent, she niver sought her betters' society. Nay, she was afeared Miss Kathleen might listen to his courtin'. She didn't consider no wan good enough ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... distance rose the yell of hounds: The flame-wisps, starting from the sedge and grass, Hung, 'mid the vapours, over the morass. Up to him came a beldame, wildly drest, Bearing a closely-folded feather-vest: She smil'd upon him with her cheeks so wan, Gave him the ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... Captain, it's meself that has a pairt of me rations lift, and Oi'll go and get it for the poor crayther, and Oi'll bring the horses at the same toime," and he started off muttering to himself, "Ah, them Apaches, the dhirty divils; I'd like to kill ivery wan o' thim." ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... could not destroy. Then, with a sudden transition of tone and gesture, he denounced vengeance against her betrayer, and called upon the north wind to cool the fervour of his brain. His hair hung in dishevelled parcels, his cheeks were wan, his looks ghastly, his vigour was fled, and all the glory of his youth faded; the physician hung his head in silence, the attendants wrung their hands in despair, and the countenance of his friend was ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... sheen; And, floating swan-like, stately, and serene, A few light fleecy clouds, the drapery of heav'n, Throw their pale shadows o'er this witching scene, Deep'ning its mystic grandeur—and seem driven Round these all shapeless piles like Time's wan ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various

... chiefly Italians, though a few Swiss, French and Germans are to be found among them. They are commonly to be found in the streets in pairs; but sometimes three work together, and again only one is to be found. There are several hundreds of these children on the streets. Dirty, wan, shrunken, monkey-faced little creatures they are. Between them and other children lies a deep gulf, across which they gaze wistfully at the sports and joys that may not be theirs. All day long, and late into the night, they ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... so pale and wan, fond lover, Prithee why so pale? Will, when looking well wont move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee why ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... had no more meaning for him. He was again eternal and infinite. All this beauty of earth and sky and moon-wan water, it was not outside him, it was himself. He reached out a hand to pluck a handful of stars, and could not—because they were too close. You cannot pluck the jewels of your ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... or else these caitiff rogues Had wreaked themselves on me; good cause is theirs To hate me, for my wont hath ever been To catch my thief, and then like vermin here Drown him, and with a stone about his neck; And under this wan water many of them Lie rotting, but at night let go the stone, And rise, and flickering in a grimly light Dance on the mere. Good now, ye have saved a life Worth somewhat as the cleanser of this wood. And fain would I reward thee worshipfully. What guerdon will ye?' Gareth sharply spake, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... thousands and thousands and thousands of mutilated strangers this poor girl has started out of cover, and hunted from city to city, from state to state, from continent to continent, till she has run them down and found they wan't the ones; I ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... do with her as I pleased. I observed the door of a small out-house a-jar. I pushed it open; and, with some hay strewed about, I formed a couch for her, placing her exhausted frame on it, and covering her with my cloak. I feared to leave her, she looked so wan and faint—but in a moment she re-acquired animation, and, with that, fear; and again she implored me not to delay. To call up the people of the inn, and obtain a conveyance and horses, even though I harnessed them myself, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... by words, doth turn Wan ashes. Still, from memory's urn, The lingering blossoms tenderly Refute our wilding minstrelsy. Alas! we work but beauty's wrong! The dream is lovelier ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson

... Bridget, in a loud whisper, "would ye be havin' th' milkman lave wan or two quarts ov milk ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler

... Lost Hollow! Over it loomed darkly the mountain whose peak was so often shrouded in clouds. The people loved the hills and the shadows; they glided like wan ghosts up and down The Way or took to the more sheltered trails. When they were sober they were gentle, harmless folk, but when whiskey overpowered them the men became dully brutal, the women wretchedly slavish, and ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... tropics it seemed as if it were nearly a quarter the size of the moon. The frost was still on the ground in England, but the world was as brightly lit as if it were midsummer moonlight. One could see to read quite ordinary print by that cold clear light, and in the cities the lamps burnt yellow and wan. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... cheek-bones were nearly pressing through her skin, till her elbows were sharp, and her finger-bones as those of a skeleton. Her eye did not lose its lustre, but it became unnaturally bright, prominent, and too large for her wan face. The soft brown locks which she had once loved to brush back, scorning, as she would boast to herself, to care that they should be seen were now sparse enough and all untidy and unclean. It was matter of little thought now whether they were seen ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... records show that, in the reign of the Emperor Bidatsu (A.D. 572-585), a memorial sent by Korea to the Yamato Court was illegible to all the officials except one man, by name Wang-sin-i, who seems to have been a descendant of the Paikche emigrant, Wan-i. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... very last line of the ascending troop—lean, hungry looking men, with wan faces, but shouting lustily. I think they were about three hundred in all. "Come on, lad," called out a bearded fellow with a bandage over one eye, making room for me at his side; "there's work for plenty more!"—and a minute after, a shot took him in the ribs, and he scream'd out "Oh, my God!" ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... rays touched the trees of the forest, then eyes were first turned upon one another, and then in different directions. Those of Captain Redwood rested upon the faces of his children, now truly overspread with the wan pallor of what seemed to be rapidly ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... first landing Nina knocked at a door, and was desired to enter by a soft female voice. The only occupant of the room when she entered was a dark-haired child, some twelve years old perhaps, but small in stature and delicate, and, as appeared to the eye, almost wan. "Well, Ruth dear," said Nina, "is Anton ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... wan after her mother's departure, but her companions soon discovered that anything like outspoken sympathy was unwelcome. The redder her eyes, the more erect and dignified was her demeanour; if her lips trembled when she spoke, the more grandiose and formidable ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... himself, to Colonel Greenleaf, the large, dingy-gray, lively-eyed Major Kincaid, at the sentinelled door of the room where he and his four wan fellows, snatched back from liberty on the eve of release, were prisoners in plain view of the vessel on which they were to have ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... "Thou knowest what would befall, bestir thee than; Prevent with craft, what force could not withstand, Turn to their evil the speeches of the man, With his own weapon wound Godfredo's hand; Kindle debate, infect with poison wan The English, Switzer, and Italian band, Great tumult move, make brawls and quarrels rife, Set all the camp on ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... was I in days agone For storm, wherein the Sweeping One, Midst rain of swords, and the darts' breath, Blew o'er all a gale of death. Now a maimed, one-footed man On rollers' steed through waters wan Out to Iceland must I go; Ah, the skald ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... stolid faces passed, Too dull for sin; old loosened lips set hard To drain the stale lees from the cup of sense; Or if a young face yearned from out the mist Made by its own bright hair, the eyes were wan With desolate fore-knowledge of the end. My life lay waste about me: as I walked, From the gross dark of unfrequented streets The face of my own youth peered forth at me, Struck white with pity at the thing I was; And globed in ghostly fire, thrice-virginal, With lifted face star-strong, went one ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... were rude to you: they said, "Be gibbetted!" In many a ruthless road your cheek grew wan Where hawkers and street-music were prohibited And stout policemen urged you to get on; Yet still that stubborn heart, the heart of CATO'S kin, Stayed you, and still the gleam that cannot die, Though every now and then an old potato skin Did ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various

... at its ghastly noon, Pauses above the death-still wood—the moon; The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs; The clouds descend in rain; Mourning, the wan stars wane, Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres! Haggard as spectres—vision-like and dumb, Dark with the pomp of Death, and moving slow, Towards that sad lair the pale Procession come Where the Grave closes on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... him with a fascinated gaze; it was as if he expressed things for her and relieved her spirit by making them clear and coherent. Her eyes managed, each time, to be dry again, and now a somewhat wan, ironical smile moved her lips. 'Mamma knows what she wants—she knows what she will take. And ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... [Footnote: Commonplace.] compositions, intermingle and wrest in whole sentences taken from ancient Authors, supposing by such filching-theft to purchase honour and reputation to themselves, doe cleane contrarie. For, this infinite varietie and dissemblance of lustres, makes a face so wan, so il-favored, and so uglie, in respect of theirs, that they lose much more than gaine thereby. These were two contrarie humours: The Philosopher Chrisippus was wont to foist-in amongst his bookes, not only whole sentences and other long-long discourses, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... tales of saints in my breviary," soliloquized Mary of Scotland; and in the streaming moonlight, as she spoke, a faint outline gathered, lips and eyes of solemn peace, a crown of blood-red roses pressing thorns into the wan temples that dripped sanguine streams, and in the halo above the wreath a legend, partially obscured, that ran, "Utque talis ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... at six o'clock of a foggy morning; the light bad, the ground heavy from a night's rain. The marchese wore black, I remember, and looked horrible; a wan, doomed face, a mouth drawn down at one corner, a slavered, untidy red beard; and those wide fish-eyes of his which seemed to see nothing. Count Giraldi bore himself gallantly, as he always did. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... Emperor, about the yere 1480. The same began likewise to encroach vpon the countries of Lituania and Liuonia, but the conquest only intended, and attempted by him vpon some part of those countries, was pursued and performed by his sonne Basileus, who first wan the citie and dukedom of Plesko, afterwards the citie and dukedome of Smolensco, and many other faire towns, with a large territory belonging vnto them, about the yere 1514. [Sidenote: 1580.] These ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt

... fainting in the midst of space, so weak that she was unable to wane, forced to stay up yonder, seized and paralyzed by the severity of the weather. She shed a cold, mournful light over the world, that dying and wan light which she gives us every month, at the end ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... Saint Giles of Holy Thorn, a broad and fair foundation, one of the two set up in the forest by the Countess Isabel, Dowager of March and Bellesme, Countess of Hauterive and Lady of Morgraunt in her own right. Where the Wan river makes a great loop, running east for three miles, and west again for as many before it drives its final surge towards the Southern Sea, there stands Holy Thorn, Church and Convent, watching over ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... when they found what Eden really was—a handful of rotting log cabins set in a swamp. The wharves and public buildings existed only on the agent's map with which he had so cruelly cheated them. There were only a few wan men alive there—the rest had succumbed to the sickly hot vapor that rose from the swamp and hung in the air. At the sight of what they had come to, Martin lay down and wept in very despair. But for his comrade's cheerfulness he would have wholly ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was sitting alone when his son came in. He looked very wan in his great armchair. And his eyes travelling round the walls with their pictures of still life, and the masterpiece 'Dutch fishing-boats at Sunset' seemed as though passing their gaze over his life with its hopes, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... that week she never saw him but he was swaying, or standing with his hand before his eyes, or clutching on to the edge of a chair, or walking with feeble footsteps; and she never spoke to him but he replied with a tired, wan smile, until she became seriously alarmed, thinking his brain was affected, and consulted Captain Hamilton, ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... was deemed satisfactory by the fussy old tradesman, and they went out. Baptista nervously conducted him in an opposite direction to her walk of the former day in other company, showing on her wan face, had he observed it, how much she was beginning to regret her sacrificial step ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... his vigil. As the long hours wore on he felt creep over him the comforting sense that he need not forever fight sleep. A wan glow flared behind the dark, uneven horizon, and a melancholy misshapen moon rose to make the white night one of shadows. Absolute silence claimed the desert. It was mute. Then that inscrutable something breathed to him, telling him when he was alone. He need not have looked at the ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... said this gentleman," indicating the nervous and apprehensive Captain Elisha, "was fightin' and murderin'. I ask your pardon, sir. 'Twas this bloke's foolishness. G'wan ashore! You make me sick. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... has been a stormy, a cold, a boisterous and inclement day. The winds have been harsh, the skies have been severe; and if we had no houses over our heads; if we had no shelter against this howling and freezing tempest; if we were wan and worn out; if half of us were sick and tired, and ready to descend into the grave; if we were on the bleak coast of Plymouth, houseless, homeless, with nothing over our heads but the Heavens, and that God who sits above the Heavens; ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... recollect is the scene as it was revealed by the momentary light of one of the last matches. Maqueda sat by Oliver. His arm was about her waist, her head rested upon his shoulder, her long hair flowed loose, her large and tender eyes stared from her white, wan face up toward his face, which was almost that of ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... When this old cap was new When we two parted Where gang ye, thou silly auld carle Where the bee sucks, there lurk I While larks with little wing Who is Sylvia? what is she Why does your brand so drop with blood Why do ye weep, sweet babes? Can tears Why so pale and wan, fond lover With ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... ones lies down to sleep, One in the strength and glory of his prime, Whom sorrow never touch'd, nor age impair'd; And still another, wan misfortune's child, Nurtur'd in bitterness, who never took His meat with pleasure. Side by side they rest On Death's oblivious pillow. Do ye say Their varied lot below, mark'd their deserts? ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... recovered his senses he was lying on the deck of one of the war-vessels, and Waggie was barking in an effort to awaken him. Near him sat Watson, with a happy smile on his wan face. Around him was ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... smaller one, which he entered from under a heavy blue velvet curtain, and found himself in an atmosphere heavy with warmth and perfume, and strangely oppressed besides. On one side of the large fire sat the young Queen, faded, wan, and with all animation or energy departed, only gazing with a silent, wistful intentness at her husband. He was opposite to her in a pillowed chair, his feet on a stool, with a deadly white, padded, puffy cheek, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... pressure of that hateful object to her face bound me faster in a dungeon of utter hopelessness. My sweet day-dreams and midnight rhapsodies trooped back to mock at me. I felt that I must bow broken under anguish or else steel myself and shout back cynical derision to the whole wan troop of torturing regrets. And all the time, she was caressing that thing in her hand and looking down at it with a fondness, which I—poor fool—thought that I alone could inspire. I suppose if I could have crept away unobserved, I would have gone from her presence hardened and embittered; ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... sighs thro' the chimney, complaining and wailing and melting away in a depth of sadness, as if it would pacify its own sorrow, and found newer grief in that need. The clouds break and roll away in the sky, and the wan moon sails up as if to a weary duty. Yet so calm it is, so pure, that it chides weariness and preaches a deep, still hope. In the city I seem not to breathe quite freely yet, but daily I gain ground and air. It is so different, even more than ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... warm, breezeless summer night, Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fog Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky; But, undiscouraged, we began to climb The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round, 15 And, after ordinary travellers' talk With our conductor, pensively we sank Each into commerce with his private thoughts: ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... you sit in the churchyard weeping? Why do you cling to the dear old graves, When the dim, drear mists of the dusk are creeping Out of the marshes in wan, white waves? Darling, I know you're a slave to sorrow; Dearie, I know that the world is cruel; But you'll be in bed with a cold to-morrow, I shall be ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... necessity of having good men in office. The officials of his day excited his contempt, and reciprocally scorned his teachings. It was in contrast to these officials that he painted the ideal times of Kings Wan and Woo. The two motive-powers of government, according to Confucius, are righteousness and the observance of ceremonies. Righteousness is the law of the world, as ceremonies form a rule to the heart. What he meant by ceremonies was rules of propriety, intended ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... pitiless light of the morning, he appeared to Lily like a drowned man, with a puffed-out face, swollen eyes and wan cheeks. To think that she belonged to that! Lily spat at him in contempt. Oh, rather sleep with lizards and guinea-pigs than that; rather with a woolly dog, like Poland, that Parisienne! Oh, to get rid ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... persistent knock, and I beheld Miss Charity's meager figure outlined against walls and a flight of uncarpeted stairs such as I had never seen before out of a tenement house. I may have dropped my eyes, but I recovered myself immediately. Marking the slow awakening of pleasure in the wan old face as she recognized me, I uttered some apology for my early call and then waited to see if she would welcome ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... Dooley, "there's wan thing I wuddent do. I wuddent r-read th' Declaration iv Independence. I'd ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... smile flickered for an instant across his wan face. "You have not changed—your voice is just the same. Oh, how it makes me remember! We were good ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... getting immediate payment for it. A couple of shillings would purchase them coal and food, and they were much in need of both. John was sitting by the scanty fire, with his daughter's shawl over his shoulders, looking wan, wasted, and desponding. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... Then four he kill'd and five did wound, That was an unmeet marrow! And he had weel nigh wan the day ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various

... the way to the river; and then she thought how Maxwell would laugh when she told him the fear of being spoken to had kept her from suicide; and she sat waiting for him to come with such an inward haggardness that she was astonished, at sight of herself in the glass, to find that she wan looking very much as usual. Maxwell certainly noticed no difference when he came in and flung himself wearily on the lounge, and made no attempt to break the silence of their meeting; they had kissed, of ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... witchcraft, declares that "that mighty angel of darkness is not foolishly nor idly to be scoffed at or blasphemed. The Devil," says he, "may properly be looked upon as a dignity, though his glory be pale and wan, and those once bright and orient colors faded and darkened in his robes; and the Scriptures represent him as a prince, though it be of devils." Although our fathers cannot be charged with having ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... yet,"—with a faint wan smile. "Let me keep it a little longer. Not even Mrs. Massereene knows of it. Indeed, it is too soon to proclaim my design. People might scoff it; though for all that I shall work it out. And something ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... which is becoming or graceful. Port, manner of movement or walk. At-tire', dress, clothes. Tar'-nish, to soil, to sully. Av'a-lanche, a vast body of snow, earth, and ice, sliding down from a mountain. Vouch-safes', yields, conde-scends, gives. Wan'ton, luxuriant. Net'ted, caught in a net. Fledge'ling, a young bird. Rec-og-ni'tion, acknowledgment of ac-quaintance. Pre-con-cert'ed, planned beforehand. Cai'tiff (pro. ka'tif), a mean villain. Thral'dom, bondage, slavery. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... had risen, ending his speech, her need to talk with him past. Her self-absorption was without pretence. Wan and white and with a redness about her misty dark eyes, she stood facing the old enemy, and spoke in a worn ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... you'll be very patient with me," said she, with a wan smile. "I am far from well. I've been debating for several days whether or not to give up and send for ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... linger—follow The phantom pale and wan. O'er hill and dale, and rill and vale It slowly ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... bleach, tarnish, achromatize, blanch, etiolate, wash out, tone down. Adj. uncolored &c (color) &c 428; colorless, achromatic, aplanatic^; etiolate, etiolated; hueless^, pale, pallid; palefaced^, tallow-faced; faint, dull, cold, muddy, leaden, dun, wan, sallow, dead, dingy, ashy, ashen, ghastly, cadaverous, glassy, lackluster; discolored &c v.. light-colored, fair, blond; white &c 430. pale as death, pale as ashes, pale as a witch, pale as a ghost, pale as a corpse, white ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... charm; that you invite her exquisite influence to sink into your spirit. The creature varies like a nervous woman, whom you know only when you know all the aspects of her beauty. She has high spirits or low, she is pale or red, grey or pink, cold or warm, fresh or wan, according to the weather or the hour. She is always interesting and almost always sad; but she has a thousand occasional graces and is always liable to happy accidents. You become extraordinarily fond of these things; you count upon them; they make part of your life. Tenderly ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... greeting, as she perched herself on the foot of the bed. "I've just had the very sweetest note from Hunt-Goring accompanied by a box of the most exquisite Eastern cigarettes—'Companions of the Harem,' he says they are called. And how are you feeling now, you poor wan thing? What interesting shadows you have developed! I wish I could make my eyes look like that. The revered Max suffered agonies about you last night, and nearly slew me with a glance because I dared to touch my mandolin after dinner. Poor little Nick was rather blue too though ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... attendant, and led the Chemist to the door, throwing a blanket around him as he did so. In the doorway the Chemist paused and looked back with a wan smile over the wreck ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... moment she sat gazing at the sand, her lips moving. She looked wan as old ivory in the dying firelight, and in the hollows of her immense eyes seemed to dream the mysteries of all ages. "Take a handful of sand," she said to Victoria. "Hold it over thine heart. Now, wish with the whole ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the eyes of the Chevalier, who had been sorely smitten through the friends of his heart, out at sea Night and Death were closing the eyes of another wan old man who had been a traitor ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... her powers were overtaxed. The cleaning was triumphantly concluded on Saturday night, and Lucy crept away early to bed, but was unable to sleep from fatigue. She came downstairs next morning so wan and white that Aunt Hepsy feared she was going to turn sick on her hands. But Lucy said she was well enough, and would go to church as usual. Thinking she looked really ill, Miss Goldthwaite came round to the porch after ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... probably been a double debate, and between three and five o'clock he has written "a column bould." No one can well mistake him. The features are often Irish, the gait jaunty or resolutely brisk, but neither "buxom, blithe, nor debonnair," complexion wan, expression pensive, and the entire propriety of the toilette disarranged and degagee. The stuff that he has perpetrated is happily no longer present to his memory, and neither placeman's sophistry nor patriot's rant will be likely in any way to interfere with his repose. Intense fatigue, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various

... to miss a beat, for against the wan surface of the river he saw an arm raised and a gun point—presumably at the dummy he had left under the tent. Oddly enough his shock of horror was not primarily that one should seek to kill him, Stonor; ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... and Ned began to bestir himself, he missed the cheery "Good-morning" of his companion, who was not able to lift his head from his pillow of palmetto. His wan smile went to Ned's heart, and the boy had to busy himself with the fire to hide his emotion. Every hour of that day he watched over the invalid, and from time to time tempted him with bits of broiled bird, heron soup ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... very seemilar case," broke in Snecky Hobart, shrilly. "Maist o' ye'll mind 'at Donal was michty plague't wi' a drucken wife. Ay, weel, wan day Bowie's man was carryin' a coffin past Donal's door, and Donal an' the wife was there. Says Donal, 'Put doon yer coffin, my man, an' tell's wha it's for.' The laddie rests the coffin on its end, an' says he, 'It's for Davie Fairbrother's guid-wife.' 'Ay, then,' says Donal, 'tak ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... the cause. One of their number, promenading with Lieutenant Hartley, glanced up at Major Webb as they passed him by, with such a world of mingled question and reproach in her soft blue eyes that his heart for the moment smote him. He had never seen Esther Dade looking so languid or so wan, yet more of her and for her had he been thinking during the week gone by than of any other girl in or out of the army. To-day, however, there was another he eagerly sought to see, and, with something akin ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... to her without a word. She opened the door into the next room, which was the kitchen and dining-room of the family, and there, not three feet from her, in the dim light, haggard and wan, bareheaded, his clothes in rags about him, she ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... of this kind to exercise your admiration. Many of those domains of love, which, under the old-fashioned dress, would have been considered as a flat country, now present, through a transparent crape, the perfect rotundity of two sweetly-rising hillocks. As prisoners, wan and disfigured by confinement, recover their health and fulness on being restored to liberty, so has the bosom of the Parisian belles, released from the busk and corset, experienced a ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... advantage and generously started a fresh topic. "They's a tawld 'ee, I reckon, 'bout the bill they's a posted up, right afore the winder, by the Three Pilchards," he said. "Iss," he added, not waiting for an answer, "the king's pardon and wan hunderd pound to be who'll discover to 'em the man who 'twas fired the fatal shot. Wan hunderd pound!" he sneered. "That's a fat lot, surely; and as for t' king's pardon, why 'twudn't lave un braithin'-time to spend it in—not if he war left here, 'twudn't. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... can answer for your character (as I believe I can)," she went on with a wan, almost wistful smile, "he is ready to ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... deride; And some demented hurl aside their gowns, And queens their robes discard and jewelled crowns, And rush upon the streets bereft of shame, Their forms expose, and all the gods defame. Alas! from earth the Queen of Love has gone, And lovers 'void their haunts with faces wan And spurn from them the hateful thought of love, For love no longer reigns, all life to move. An awful thrill now speeds through Hades' doors, And shakes with horror all the dismal floors; A wail upon the breeze ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... superinduce insanity." He went to a switch on the wall and pressed it, and instantly the cone of light disappeared. Another movement, and the room Was flooded with the yellow glow of an electric lamp, which seemed dingy and wan, compared with the cold ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks

... of the area open to international foreign settlement at Shanghai and the opening of the ports of Nanking, Tsing-tao (Kiao chao), and Ta-lien-wan to foreign trade and settlement will doubtless afford American enterprise additional facilities and new fields, of which it will not be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... she raised her cup to her lips, and the dark blood that had stained her face, in a manner distressing to see, slowly retreated. She continued to look down, and, the light of her big, dark eyes gone out, her face seemed wan and dead. Madeleine, studying her, asked herself, not for the first time, but, as always, with an unclear irritation, what the secret of the other's charm was. Beautiful she had never thought Louise; she was not even ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... putting one wan finger on his trembling lips in protest. She did not speak, but he read the thrilling simplicity of her silence completely. "Love is never too late!" was what her eloquent ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... visitors, eager to hear the story which was agitating the whole community, but about midnight I told my friends that rest was a necessity, for never in my life was I so thoroughly exhausted from talking; but, as the next day wan-the Sabbath, I would in the evening meet all who chose to come in the Valley School-house (at that day the largest in the county) and tell them the whole story, and save repeating ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... Mrs. Van Buren; "while the horse-shoe remains over the stable to keep witches out, you may let the wan stay. You have as much right to your superstitions as ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth

... her countenance radiant with intelligence, and her dark eyes beaming with sympathy and kindness, it was indeed a pleasant surprise to see one so young and delicate, going about from hospital to hospital to find opportunities of doing good to the wan and suffering, and crippled heroes, who had been brought from hard-fought battle-fields to be cared for ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... swept by us. Swiftly we followed her. Far, far ahead was a wan gleaming. It quivered, a faintly shimmering, ghostly curtain, a full ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... doors behind them burst open and the Guards flocked in—mighty men of many foreign lands; but now their faces were wan, their eyes stared wide, and their jaws hung down. But at the sound of the clanging of their harness the strength of the Wanderer came back to him again, for the Gods and their vengeance he feared, but not the sword of man. And now once more the bow sang aloud. He grasped it, ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... to the health of a family. It is a universal law of physiology, that all living things flourish best in the light. Vegetables, in a dark cellar, grow pale and spindling,[H] and children, brought up in mines, are wan and stinted. This universal law, indicates the folly of turning day into night, thus losing the genial influence, which the light of day produces on all ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... moment a change had come. The moon had got round, and was fronting her from the west, and she saw that her face was altered, that she had grown pale, as if she too were wan with fear, and from her lofty place espied a coming terror. The light seemed to be dissolving out of her; she was dying—she was going out! And yet everything around looked strangely clear—clearer than ever she had seen anything before: how could the lamp be shedding more light when ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... the young man, pressing his wan and wasted fingers over his heart,—"till then, no more dreams, no more strain on my life—my heart would break! Oh, monsieur, how small is my prison—how low the window—how narrow are the doors! To think that so much pride, splendor, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... o'erspreads it all, He places lightly, and, as time subdues The rage of fermentation, plunges deep In the soft medium, till they stand immersed. Then rise the tender germs upstarting quick And spreading wide their spongy lobes; at first Pale, wan, and livid; but assuming soon, If fanned by balmy and nutritious air Strained through the friendly mats, a vivid green. Two leaves produced, two rough indented leaves, Cautious he pinches from the second stalk A pimple, that portends a future sprout, And interdicts its growth. ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... greatness. I could hear her open her window, and could see from mine that she stood there talking to the stars, and asking them where was the woman that had been she, and where was her own dear love and unalterable affection? I could see that she wept often, and that the tears ran down her white wan face all pinched by suffering, and that she supplicated the night in tender words to bring back to her what had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... suffer. Tell her that I shall be as crushed by it as she. But anything is better than degradation such as this. Tell her specially that I have not decided without absolute knowledge." Emily was told. The letter was read to her and by her till she knew it almost by heart. There came upon her a wan look of abject agony, that seemed to rob her at once of her youth and beauty; but even now she would not yield. She did not longer affect to disbelieve the tidings, but said that no man, let him do what he might, could be too far gone for repentance and ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope

... room she was shocked at the change in his appearance. It was almost as though what Arsdale had gained Donaldson had lost. He was colorless, wan, and haggard. His eyes seemed more deeply imbedded in the dark recesses below his brows. Even his hair at the temples looked grayer. But neither his voice nor his manner betrayed the change. The grip of his hand was just as sure; there was the same certainty in gesture and speech, save ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... had the rising sun the day reveal'd, Scarce had his heat the pearly dews dispell'd, When from the woods there bolts, before our sight, Somewhat betwixt a mortal and a sprite, So thin, so ghastly meager, and so wan, So bare of flesh, he scarce resembled man. This thing, all tatter'd, seem'd from far t' implore Our pious aid, and pointed to the shore. We look behind, then view his shaggy beard; His clothes were ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... retreat from Williamsburg, did not tend to cheer the inexpert. First came squads of convalescent sick, barely able to march, who had been sent ahead to save the ambulances for those worse than they. It was a black Sunday afternoon, when those wan and hollow-eyed men limped painfully through the streets on their weary way to Camp Winder Hospital. Weak—mud-encrusted and utterly emaciated—many of them fell by the roadside; while others thankfully accepted the rough transportation of any chance wagon, or cart, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... grew fiercer as he felt his backer near him, and it was commonly with a feeling as of a bare escape of my life that I finally got into the house. It was sad enough, too, often to find sickness and death in those fever-stricken abodes—a wan mother nursing one dying child, with perhaps another dead in the house. My business, too, was not the most welcome. I came to dun a delinquent debtor, who had perhaps been inveigled by some peddler of our goods into an imprudent purchase, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... To scowl upon his Maker, well from him May all our mis'ry flow. Oh what a sight! How passing strange it seem'd, when I did spy Upon his head three faces: one in front Of hue vermilion, th' other two with this Midway each shoulder join'd and at the crest; The right 'twixt wan and yellow seem'd: the left To look on, such as come from whence old Nile Stoops to the lowlands. Under each shot forth Two mighty wings, enormous as became A bird so vast. Sails never such I saw Outstretch'd on ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... and cultivating the garden, or our reading. Of the latter, I had many times endeavored to give her some idea, showing her the plates in the Family Bible, and doing my best to explain them to her, but of late I had quite lost sight of her. Now, how changed, how wan she looked! As I addressed her with my ordinary phrase, "Tshah-ko-zhah?" (What is it?) she gave a sigh that was almost a sob. She did not beg, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... his hands down to the bottom of his pockets. They were all one hole, and that sad lost foolish look came over his wan face again, and startled ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

... for G[^u][n]wani[']gist[^u]['][n][)i] or Atawin[)e][']h[)i], was obtained from A'wan[']ita (Young Deer), who wrote down only the prayer and explained the treatment orally. He coincides in the opinion that this disease in children is caused by the birds, but says that it originates from the shadow of a bird flying overhead having fallen upon the pregnant ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... nightfall, yet the interminable forest through which he journeyed was lit with a wan glimmer having no point of diffusion, for in its mysterious lumination nothing cast a shadow. A shallow pool in the guttered depression of an old wheel rut, as from a recent rain, met his eye with a crimson gleam. He stooped and plunged his hand into it. It stained his fingers; it was blood! ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... As the doctor was preparing to leave, Rajendra and Auddy appeared at the door. The resentment in their faces changed into sympathy as they glanced at the physician and then at my somewhat wan countenance. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... at his companion in surprise; then an absent look came into his eyes, and a variety of expressions passed over his wan visage. At last ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... that it was all right and just what she had expected. What else could she have dreamed? That he should ever marry her was beyond possibility; that had been settled long since—there where the tall, dark pines, wan with the shades of evening, cast their haunting shadows across the Silver Fleece and half hid the blood-washed west. After that he would marry some one else, of course; some good and pure woman who would help and uplift and ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... house over there, is my mother. Her brother is here, too, and she has some friends with her. Mother Anastasia was away recently on a little jaunt, and when she came back she said that I looked tired and wan, and that I ought to go to my mother's for a fortnight. So I came. That was all simple ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... feet, And pleads with thee to raise it. Only Heaven Means crowned, not vanquished, when it says 'Forgiven!'" Back hurried Sister Monica; but where Was the poor beggar she left lying there? Gone; and she searched in vain, and sought the place For that wan woman with the piteous face: But only Angela at the gateway stood, Laden with hawthorn blossoms from the wood. And never did a day pass by again, But the old portress, with a sigh of pain, Would sorrow for her loitering: with a prayer That the poor beggar, in her wild despair, Might not have come ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... herself the day following, wan and silent. Willoughby was away; the news of his failure was public property, and she writhed when she read of it in the daily prints. But in the following days she suffered other pangs that were a healthy counter-irritant—she learned to pick and number her FRIENDS, and ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... night I stole upon them both. (Lord Dinas knew of this alone, my Lords.) Iseult was sleeping, and Lord Tristram slept An arm's length scarce before me in the moss All pale and wan, and breathed so heavily, So wearily, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... the youngest of the flock, she whose birth we have said was not heralded with loud joy; for when she came into the world, four others, with pale temples, wan, worn cheeks, and skeleton, white arms, were awaiting permission ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... solemnly, "ye burns in yer insides till ye feel like ye had a furnace blazin' there. Thin whin it seems ye must bust wid the flarin' av it, ye suddintly turns cowld as ice, an' yer sowl do shrivil up wid fear. An' thin, at last, ye fergit all about it till the nixt wan happens along. Och—I haven't had a sphell fer months! This is an awful dull place. I think I'll ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... while her hand rose to his face and stroked it softly, then she drew herself away from him and with a wan smile upon her ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... had been the most exciting, the most savage of all sports—a man hunt! They had caught the man at last, and they pushed him, they dragged him, they belaboured him with blows. And he, the man, what a sorry prey he looked! A wreck, wan and dirty from having spent the night in a hole full of leaves, still soaked to his waist from having rushed through a stream, drenched too by the rain, bespattered with mire, his coat and trousers ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... the eye of that faithful friend he tried to extend his hand. It was so wan that Glastonbury trembled ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... been strong, for the skylight and all its burden opened on a hinge, and the snow could be seen sliding from it, could be heard in a heavy body rumbling on the roof. She closed the skylight, and now a wan light filtered down the funnel and turned their faces green. It was like life at the bottom of a well, and they felt as though the level of the earth was far above their heads, and its weighty walls pressing ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... my dear?" she said, with a wan little smile at Patty. "How pretty you are! I used to be pretty, too; at least, so they told me." She gave a trilling little laugh, and Patty said, heartily, "I'm sure they were right; ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... to wark we gaed, And raised the slogan ane and a', And cut a hole through a sheet of lead, And so we wan to the castle ha'. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... the doctor. The strong light increased the pallor of her face. Sommers noticed that the eyes were sunken and had black circles. His glance rested on her hands, as she leaned with folded arms on the table. They were white and wan like the face. The blood seemed to have ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... Goesler, standing close by him and putting her left arm very lightly on his shoulder. It was all that she could do for him, but it was in order that she might do this that she had been summoned from London to his side. He was wan and worn and pale,—a man evidently dying, the oil of whose lamp was all burned out; but still as he turned his eyes up to the woman's face there was a remnant of that look of graceful faineant nobility which had always ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... reduced to less than half its full dimensions—stole ghostlike above the horizon; and by her wan light we saw that a host of soft, fleecy clouds—shaped like the smoke belched from the mouth of a cannon upon a windless day—were mustering their squadrons in the eastern quarter; and we knew them for the welcome trade-cloud, the sure indication that the breeze ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... "that I ought to have two pigs: 'For shure, a pair o' pags is double wan pag,' says Flannigan—good clear logic it strikes ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... I don't think you are posing. It's getting on for dinner-time, and you've got that wan, sinking feeling that makes you look upon the world and find it a hollow fraud. The bugle will be blowing in a few minutes, and half an hour after that you will ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... that one of the Taidshut chiefs, called Mutchin Sultu, had revolted against Madagu, the Kin Emperor of China, who had sent his chinsang ("prime minister"), Wan-jan-siang, with an army against him. He eagerly volunteered his services against the old enemies of his people, and was successful. He killed the chief and captured much booty; inter alia was a silver cradle with a covering of golden tissue, such as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... hundred times a day The names of Shiva, wound with darting snakes About their sun-tanned necks and hollow flanks, One palsied foot drawn up against the ham. So gathered they, a grievous company; Crowns blistered by the blazing heat, eyes bleared, Sinews and muscles shrivelled, visages Haggard and wan as slain men's, five days dead; Here crouched one in the dust who noon by noon Meted a thousand grains of millet out, Ate it with famished patience, seed by seed, And so starved on; there one who bruised his pulse With bitter leaves lest palate should be pleased; ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... were raised, and a human head, impassible and bloated, was seen resting on a large pillow; the eyebrows, which were like arches of ebony, met each other at the points; golden dust sparkled in the frizzled hair, and the face was so wan that it looked as if it had been powdered with marble raspings. The rest of the body was concealed beneath the fleeces ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... took him away through the labyrinth of small and gloomy canals, until at length the wan orange glare shining out into the night showed him that he was drawing near one of the entrances to the Fenice. If he had been less preoccupied—less eager to think of nothing but how to get the slow hours over—he might have noticed ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... not so glad Were she to read the graven tale of lines On the wan face of one somewhere alone; Nor were they more content could he have had Her thoughts a moment since of one who shines Apart, and would be ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... heard, an' didn't dacloine for till do it, But tuk the mate-thray down, an' into the foyre he threw it: A shape's choine an' a goat's he throwed on top of the platter, An' wan from a lovely pig, than which there wor nivir a fatter; Thase O'Tommedon tuk, O'Kelly devoided thim nately, He meed mince-mate av thim all, an' thin he spitted thim swately; To sich entoicin' fud they all extinded their arrams. Till ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... I'm willing to give up wan evenin' to society. We all are, for that matter. But it takes an hour an' a half to read the blissed story. If we could only sit down during the recital, sor, it— it wouldn't be so bad. But as it ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... is it that we are to keep?" she asked, with a wan smile. Her kind blue eyes had that glitter in them which is caused by a constant and continuous hunger. Six months ago they had only been gay and kind, now they saw the world as it is, as it always must be so long as the human heart is capable of happiness and the human reason recognizes ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... of that ilk, David Arnot of that ilk, and Mr. John Wedderburn, vicar of Dundee; the yeomen, John Thomson, in Leith, Steven Taburner, with a piper, called Alexander Bailie; they shot very near, and warred [worsted] the English-men of the enterprise, and wan the hundred crowns and the tun of wine, which made the King very merry that his men wan ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Wan" :   wanness, weak, wide area network, sick, pale, colorless, colourless, computer network, unanimated



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