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Play   /pleɪ/   Listen
Play

verb
(past & past part. played; pres. part. playing)
1.
Participate in games or sport.  "Play cards" , "Pele played for the Brazilian teams in many important matches"
2.
Act or have an effect in a specified way or with a specific effect or outcome.  "This development played into her hands" , "I played no role in your dismissal"
3.
Play on an instrument.
4.
Play a role or part.  Synonyms: act, represent.  "She wants to act Lady Macbeth, but she is too young for the role" , "She played the servant to her husband's master"
5.
Be at play; be engaged in playful activity; amuse oneself in a way characteristic of children.  "I used to play with trucks as a little girl"
6.
Replay (as a melody).  Synonym: spiel.  "She played the third movement very beautifully"
7.
Perform music on (a musical instrument).  "Can you play on this old recorder?"
8.
Pretend to have certain qualities or state of mind.  Synonyms: act, act as.  "She plays deaf when the news are bad"
9.
Move or seem to move quickly, lightly, or irregularly.
10.
Bet or wager (money).  "She plays the races"
11.
Engage in recreational activities rather than work; occupy oneself in a diversion.  Synonym: recreate.  "The students all recreate alike"
12.
Pretend to be somebody in the framework of a game or playful activity.  "Play cowboy and Indians"
13.
Emit recorded sound.  "The stereo was playing Beethoven when I entered"
14.
Perform on a certain location.  "She has been playing on Broadway for years"
15.
Put (a card or piece) into play during a game, or act strategically as if in a card game.  "The Democrats still have some cards to play before they will concede the electoral victory"
16.
Engage in an activity as if it were a game rather than take it seriously.  Synonym: toy.  "Play the stock market" , "Play with her feelings" , "Toy with an idea"
17.
Behave in a certain way.  "Play it safe" , "Play fair"
18.
Cause to emit recorded audio or video.  Synonym: run.  "I'll play you my favorite record" , "He never tires of playing that video"
19.
Manipulate manually or in one's mind or imagination.  Synonyms: diddle, fiddle, toy.  "Don't fiddle with the screws" , "He played with the idea of running for the Senate"
20.
Use to one's advantage.
21.
Consider not very seriously.  Synonyms: dally, trifle.  "She plays with the thought of moving to Tasmania"
22.
Be received or accepted or interpreted in a specific way.  "His remarks played to the suspicions of the committee"
23.
Behave carelessly or indifferently.  Synonyms: dally, flirt, toy.
24.
Cause to move or operate freely within a bounded space.
25.
Perform on a stage or theater.  Synonyms: act, playact, roleplay.  "He acted in 'Julius Caesar'" , "I played in 'A Christmas Carol'"
26.
Be performed or presented for public viewing.  "'Cats' has been playing on Broadway for many years"
27.
Cause to happen or to occur as a consequence.  Synonyms: bring, make for, work, wreak.  "Wreak havoc" , "Bring comments" , "Play a joke" , "The rain brought relief to the drought-stricken area"
28.
Discharge or direct or be discharged or directed as if in a continuous stream.  "The fountains played all day"
29.
Make bets.  "Play the casinos in Trouville"
30.
Stake on the outcome of an issue.  Synonyms: bet, wager.  "She played all her money on the dark horse"
31.
Shoot or hit in a particular manner.
32.
Use or move.
33.
Employ in a game or in a specific position.
34.
Contend against an opponent in a sport, game, or battle.  Synonyms: encounter, meet, take on.  "Charlie likes to play Mary"
35.
Exhaust by allowing to pull on the line.



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"Play" Quotes from Famous Books



... I know the associations better. In point of fact, I do. Even though you may have stooped to play the spy last night, Miss Bannon—you couldn't keep it up. You had to fly further contamination from that pack ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... is at once purified and fortified extends to every nook and corner of the restored and renovated building. Even had we, however, a perfect and trustworthy transcript of Shakespeare's original sketch for this play, there can be little doubt that the rough draught would still prove almost as different from the final masterpiece as is the soiled and ragged canvas now before us, on which we trace the outline of figures so strangely disfigured, made subject to such rude extremities of defacement and defeature. ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... specimen of the gratitude you were talking about. Well, after all, to take a leaf out of your book, Mr Price, I consider that the better part of valour is discretion. Now, that fellow, Stewart, he actually gave them his head to play with, and I am not sorry that he has had it broken—for I calculate that I shall be saved at least a dozen thrashings by some of his hot blood being let out—'the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... He is not quite a fool, but you are. He's not clever enough to be annoyed by your folly. Hugh, on the other hand, would positively dislike you after a month. There! don't howl, for goodness' sake—don't snivel, child! Run away and play ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... to light entertainment with two suffrage monologues by Miss Marjorie Benton Cooke; a suffrage slide talk by Mrs. Fitzgerald; a clever speech portraying the results if women voted, by Miss Inez Milholland (N. Y.) and the sparkling play, How the Vote Was Won, read by Miss Fola La Folette. A striking address was given one afternoon by Mrs. T. P. O'Connor, an American woman but long a resident of England and Ireland, who took for her subject, Let Our Watchword ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... attracted by the reputation of her wealth, he cannot be said to have looked forward in any prudential way to coming years. His desire to put himself in possession of so magnificent a fortune had simply prompted him, as he might have been prompted to play for a high stake at a gaming-table. But now, during these moments, he did think a little of her. Would she be happy, simply because he loved her, when all women should cease to acknowledge her; when men would regard her as one degraded ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... could find some one of her own age," she said at last, "whom she could play with, and talk with—some one who would lead her thoughts ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... fiery baptism, and went to his baseball team, and said: "Boys, you swear, and I am now a Christian, and I cannot play with you any more"; and God made him the wonder of all his old friends, and ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... hero; "but, aw! I dawn't knaw you, do I?" (He spoke for all the world like Lord Foppington in the old play—a proof of the perennial nature of man's affectations. But his limping dialect, I scorn to continue ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... to live as an experiment in happiness, to extract from life all there was for her own enjoying, left her. Slowly she began to see it as a vast concerted enterprise in which she was called to play her part. The days when the world was made for her pleasure were over. The days had begun when she saw her obligation, not alone to the man and child who were part of her, but out and beyond these to the diminishing ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... and there are probably thousands who are risking blood and life in our armies, who yet do not cordially sympathize with the objects of the war. But an army must be actuated by a living motive—one of powerful importance; in this war there is room for such a motive to have full play, and it is essential that our soldiers should be incited by no mere abstract inducements, by no mere entreaties to gain victory, but by exhibitions of all the reasons that make our side of the struggle the noblest and holiest that ever engaged the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... sense comes in for free play here, both in adjusting one's personal and family schedule and in giving. Giving may be done foolishly, or not wisely. There is no place where there is more room for good sense in avoiding both the extreme of unwise giving and the other extreme of ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... rod-shaped, spore-producing microorganism, Bacillus anthracis (Fig. 103). It gains entrance to the body by way of the intestinal tract, lungs and air-passages and the skin. The bites of insects play an important part in the distribution of the disease in some localities, but the most common method of infection is by way of the digestive tract, through eating and drinking food and water contaminated with the anthrax germs. The spores of the ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... "you must have made great play in the cab coming from the station. James looks a new man. I never would have guessed him to be so fickle. But, mind you, no more of it! Let James ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... our chronicler grew out of this bad system of all work and no play. The clerks, released from business towards midnight, were accustomed to go to a tavern and spend part of the night in drinking and carousing; reeling home at a late hour, much the worse for drink, and unfit for business in the morning until they had taken another glass. All day ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... on Christmas eve, And next came Christmas day; And then some little folks arrived, To eat, and drink, and play. ...
— The Mouse and the Christmas Cake • Anonymous

... of his getting into trouble so often, Al was a most likable lad, and a real boy,—earnest, honest and industrious. He had a big stock of horse sense and a great fund of humor. Though his life seemed to be 'all work and no play,' he took great pleasure in his work. In the course of his daily routine at Detroit, he could hardly help making friends on the Free Press, the greatest newspaper there. In this he resembled that other great inventor, also a great ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... am not without hope that I may be able to obtain from the Court of Chancery an order for the benefit of its ward, and I trust before very long that I shall be able to insure to my child an education which will fit her to play her part worthily when she reaches womanhood. I had hoped to save her from the pain of rejecting a superstitious faith, but that is now impossible, and she must fight her way out of darkness into light as her mother did before her. But in order ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... destruction of the rival continent, more especially as the hue of its stony sides, its crest and chine, is tawny even as that of the hide of the desert king. A hostile lion has it almost invariably proved to Spain, at least since it first began to play a part in history, which was at the time when Tarik seized and fortified it. It has for the most part been in the hands of foreigners: first the swarthy and turbaned Moor possessed it, and it is now tenanted by a fair-haired race from a distant ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... he muttered. "Those who've taken her away will play a deeper game than to bring her back for the first reward that's offered, or the second, or the third. She'll have to be found by those that are a match for the scoundrel that stole her from her home; and perhaps ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... bridegroom, but with that further ingredient in joy before them—that nightly romp with their Mite, to which Frank had been looking forward all through his voyage. Their Mite all the happier because his Tom and Fanny were at the keeper's lodge, and allowed to play with him in the ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... resided, than he acquired the affections of the young monarch; and joining his interests with those of James Stuart, of the house of Ochiltree, a man of profligate manners, who had acquired the king's favor, he employed himself, under the appearance of play and amusement, in instilling into the tender mind of the prince new sentiments of politics and government. He represented to him the injustice which had been done to Mary in her deposition, and made ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... growing fears, and resolved now upon his course, Galliard set himself to play upon them until terror should render the boy as ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... "I see. I'm a waddy and a thief, but you're going to protect me for old times' sake. That's the play, is it? I ought to be much obliged to you and promise to reform, ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... may probably have played her part well;—well, considering her object. But she played it very badly in showing that she thought it possible that her daughter should play her false. It was now Clara's turn to ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... day when they enter the married state. Thus it is written (Deut. 22:20, 21): "If . . . virginity be not found in the damsel . . . the men of the city shall stone her to death, and she shall die; because she hath done a wicked thing in Israel, to play the whore in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... "All this coming and going in crowded streets, all this fighting for bread, and scheming over pennies—child's play. Less than that—the blind swarming of ants! Tomorrow, where will all ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... I have always clung. May my friends find me as I have always been." And at the end of the war he writes: "See, your friend is victorious for the second time! Who would have said a few years ago that your pupil in philosophy would play a soldier's part in the world; that Providence would use a poet to overthrow the political system of Europe?" This shows how fresh and young Frederick felt when he returned to Berlin in triumph ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... arm, and commencing a discourse upon the wonderful things and people of South Carolina they wended their way to the Charleston Theatre. The company then performing was a small affair, and the building itself perfectly filthy, and filled with an obnoxious stench. The play was a little farce, which the Captain had seen to much perfection in his own country, and which required some effort of mind to sit out its present mutilation. Yet, so highly pleased was Master George, that he kept up a succession of applauses at every grimace ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... To play spy was not included in Lansing's duties as he understood them. He gave one disgusted glance after the canoe, shrugged, set fire to the tobacco in his pipe, and started slowly along the river towards O'Hara's with a vague idea of lending counsel, ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... I was wide awake enough now, and hadn't come much farther when I was brought up short by the clicking of guns being cocked, and some one says in a low voice, 'Stand,' he says, 'or we'll blow you out of your skin.' 'Two can play at that,' I says: 'who are you?' 'Norton, and six more,' says the voice; 'who are you?' 'Bob Tregelly o' Trevallack, Cornwall, mates,' I says. 'Good man and true,' says another voice. 'Look here, mate, there's firing going on ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn

... not be kept in play, until our friends returned? Providence may befriend us in some unexpected ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... love-draughts and diablerie. The most innocent occupation which I observed amongst them was trimming and shearing horses and mules, which in their language is called 'monrabar,' and in Spanish 'esquilar'; and even whilst exercising this art, they not unfrequently have recourse to foul play, doing the animal some covert injury, in hope that the proprietor will dispose of it to themselves at an inconsiderable price, in which event they soon restore it to health; for knowing how to inflict the harm, they know ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... Hallowed Day? Shall happy bells from yonder ancient spire Send their glad greetings to each Christmas fire Round which our children play? ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... play at a game of that sort; I do not relish an encounter, but whoever gets my life will have to strive for it. But that is of little consequence. What is ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... frequently "your honour," instead of "my lord." I observed, on drawing nearer, that he handled the pea and thimble with some awkwardness, like that which might be expected from a novice in the trade. He contrived, however, to win several shillings—for he did not seem to play for gold—from "their honours." Awkward as he was, he evidently did his best, and never flung a chance away by permitting any one to win. He had just won three shillings from a farmer, who, incensed at his loss, was calling him a confounded cheat, and saying that he would play ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... obtain his liberty, the vacillating Philip of Hesse, though he had declined to submit to the resolutions of the Council of Trent, declared himself willing to adopt the Interim. "It is better," he is reported to have said, "to hear a mass than to play cards," etc. (Jaekel 1, 130. 162.) Special efforts were also made by the Emperor to induce John Frederick to declare his submission to the Council and to sanction the Interim. But the Elector solemnly protested that this was impossible for him. All attempts ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... mantle with roses red, And lilies flowered over, If I might sleep one night with thee, And play the ...
— Alf the Freebooter - Little Danneved and Swayne Trost and other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise

... of Matrimonio Segreto was performed before the Emperor Joseph, he invited all the singers to a banquet, and then in a fit of enthusiasm, sent them all back to the theatre to play and sing the whole opera ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various

... saw it, and I longed to souse that black head of hers with salt water. I don't like brains to grow to the contempt of healthful play." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... children to inherit your wealth. But I was born of the Royal House, my father squandered his wealth. My sisters were beautiful and they have married well. My brother was servile; he has attached himself to the retinue of a wealthy Baroness. But I was made of better stuff than that. I would play the hero. I would face danger and gladly die to give Berlin more life and uphold the House of Hohenzollern in its fat and idle existence; and for me they have ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... vexed with us," tittered Miss Annabel, "that they won't even hold prayer meeting on the same night as ours. They have theirs on Thursday nights and it's as good as a play to hear them shout and sing and carry on. You'll enjoy the Come-Outers, Mr. Ellery. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... and the cigarette was done. Again she took up the knitting, pausing for but one brief speech before the needles began their shrewd play. This concerned the whale. She said the whale was the noblest beast left to us in all the animal kingdom and would vanish like the buffalo if treated as food. She said it was shameful to reduce this majestic creature of the deep to the ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... as it is that McKinlay cannot have discovered the remains of Burke's party, as he so firmly believed he had, it is equally clear that some other white men must have met their deaths at the spot reached by him, and that those deaths were, to all appearance, the result of foul play. That the remains found by McKinlay cannot have been those of Burke and Wills, disinterred, removed, and mangled after death, may be inferred from a number of circumstances detailed by him in the extracts which we have given ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... books are great helps to study. You must read some of it this evening, child. I am somewhat, tired, and will be both amused and entertained. You can sit in the old chair and I will play lazybones ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... and he has taught himself to play the violin by practicing all night, after working all day on the "killing beds." He is in his shirt sleeves, with a vest figured with faded gold horseshoes, and a pink-striped shirt, suggestive of peppermint ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... of this age should be put into night-drawers, cotton ones in summer and flannel ones either with or without feet, in winter. Tiny overalls or "rompers" are now used a good deal for both boys and girls while at play. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... the snow where the bull had taken a stand and the big cats went creeping about him, waiting for a chance to spring all together. He broke away from that, but the three-legged gallop speedily exhausted him. Only when he trots is a caribou tireless. The lynxes followed the deadly cat-play began again. First one, then another leaped, only to be shaken off; then two, then all five were upon the poor brute, which still struggled forward. The record was written red all over ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... pair of doors flew open and a wedge of young men inserted itself boisterously and deeply into the throng. There was a great scuffle attended by a general banging of books upon heads. The two lower classes engaged in herculean play while members of the two higher classes, standing aloof, devoted themselves strictly to the encouragement of whichever party for a moment lost ground or heart. This was in order to ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... shelter thee: thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup;— I would be kind to thy Sylvio;—in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee back;—when the sun went down I would say my prayers: and when I had done thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering heaven along with that ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... neighbourhood of Calcutta that they are procurable at all. As the Hindostanee women neither knit nor sew, they seem to devote their energies exclusively to their infant charge. The baba is their work and their play, the exercise of their thoughts, the substance of their dreams. He is the only book they read; and the only expansion their minds know is from the unfolding of the pages of his character. They are proud ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various

... is a matter very much overrated. No man at Heart's Desire ever dreamed of locking his door. His horse might doze saddled in the street if he liked. No man spoke in rudeness or coarseness to his neighbor, as do men in the cities where they have law. No man did injustice to his neighbor, for fair play and an even chance were gods in the eyes of all, eikons above each pinon-burning hearth in all that valley of content. The speech of man was grave and gentle, the movements of man were easy and unhurried; neither did any man work by rule, or by clock, or by order. There ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... brother," he resumed, "you distress me, for I can detect that you are hiding something from me. Remember that new ties have linked us together and that we love one another as in the old days when you were in your cradle and I used to come to play with you. I know you well, remember. I know all your tortures, since you have confessed them to me; and I won't have you suffer, I want to cure you, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... I was ever ready to assist when I deemed help needful, but my offers of assistance were habitually declined. The boys had tasted the sweets of intellectual conquest and demanded victories of their own. I have seen their diagrams scratched on the walls, cut into the beams upon the play ground, and numberless other illustrations of the living interest they took in the subject. For my own part, as far as experience in teaching goes, I was a mere fledgling: I knew nothing of the rules of pedagogics, as the Germans name it; but I adhered to the spirit indicated ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... generally stayed with them. They were well-to-do, good-natured people; but, beyond occasionally reminding Jack that he ought to be thinking about a profession, they left him very much to his own devices, and he had begun to write a novel, and a play, and two ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... rencontre happen, he would defend himself as he could; that, after all, he had said nothing but what he could prove. Upon these words being repeated to the Master of Sinclair, he fell into a violent passion, and swore that he would not give Schaw fair play; that his honour was concerned. The second whom he had employed then threatened to take the challenge to Colonel Preston; upon which the Master told him "he was a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... before said, he has many chances offered for the employment of judgment and skill; and to make the best use of these he must be possessed of some brains. The ideal catcher not only stops the ball and throws it well, but he is a man of quick wit, he loses no time in deciding upon a play, he is never "rattled" in any emergency, he gives and receives signals, and, in short, plays all the points of his position, and accomplishes much that a player of less ready perception would lose entirely. Two of the best catchers in the country ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... brother's office in New York nearly a month ago to tell you how hardly it had fared with me here at home, that the eye of my home was plucked out when that little innocent boy departed in his beauty and perfection from my sight. Well, I have come back hither to my work and my play, but he comes not back, and I must simply suffer it. Doubtless the day will come which will resolve this, as everything gets resolved, into ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... economic reform program in 1989 initially by lifting import quotas and opening some exports to the private sector. Subsequently, it has liberalized regulations to allow more foreign investment. Agriculture and manufacturing continue to play a minor role in the economy, constrained by the limited availability of cultivable land and the shortage of domestic labor. Most staple foods must be imported. Industry, which consists mainly of garment production, boat building, and handicrafts, accounts for ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... chasm, from the very edge of the rock, was terrifying. It was like nothing ever seen by human eyes. Peering down into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado would have been child's play beside it. For this was no question of looking down a half-mile, a mile, or even ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... overboard, and, wading on shore, speedily formed. Then the order to advance was given, and pike in hand we rushed up the bank. The Cavaliers received us with a hot fire of musketry, but their artillery was silent, being unable to play on us without ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... Jakin, to himself, "Are we to play forhever?" Lew was staring straight in front of him and marching more stiffly than ever he ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... especially every remark of Hamlet. What I mean by believing the mirror, and breaking it, can be recorded in one case I remember; in which a realistic critic quoted German authorities to prove that Hamlet had a particular psycho-pathological abnormality, which is admittedly nowhere mentioned in the play. The critic was bewitched; he was thinking of Hamlet as a real man, with a background behind him three dimensions deep—which does not exist in a looking-glass. "The best in this kind are but shadows." No German ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton

... prancing horses, the lithe supple riders with their great sombreros, their bright scarfs, guns and chaps, and boots and spurs. Their lassos! How they fascinated Panhandle! Ropes to whirl and throw at a running steer! That was a game he resolved to play when he grew up. And his mother, discovering his interest, made him a little reata and taught him how to throw it, how to make loops and knots. She told him how her people had owned horses, ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... themselves allowing their children to grow up, not only removed but far away from all parental influences whatsoever, if they realize that they will have only themselves to blame if they add to the stock of unfortunates who bear the mark of Cain? Of course, a woman who would rather play Bridge than rock her baby to sleep would be a bad influence upon a budding soul at any time, and her child is to be congratulated when its mother's engagement card is full from Sunday to Sunday, but even a mother of that sort owes it to society to ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... comic, says or does something funny, the audience laughs, and then suddenly leaves off and looks more serious than before. Laughter seems out of place. One does not know how to bear it; so one walks up and down the corridors, then instead of returning to the play, wanders out again on to the Boulevard. It is ten o'clock—dreadfully late. Many of the cafes are already closed for the night. At Tortoni's and the Cafe Anglais, not a glimmer is visible. The crowd has nearly disappeared. Only a few officers remain, who have been drinking all the evening ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... a new phase in the character of the Indian, and one that highly amazed the young people. As for Howe, though he did sometimes open his eyes with wonder, it did not interest him, and he never spoke to them of the "by play" that was every day growing more interesting to the younger ones, and becoming a great torture to the young mother. Jane, who was daily becoming more and more attached to her guests, used every art in her ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... would you rather see the incessant stir Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the grasshopper Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whir Of meadow lark, and its sweet roundelay, Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take Your nooning in the ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks

... middle of the last century three-quarters of the MSS. had been destroyed by rough usage or by the water dripping in from the gutters; the books were in charge of the men who swept the Church, and they allowed the school-children to play with the illustrated volumes and to tear out the miniatures and woodcuts. Mr. Harrisse has described with much detail the grandeur and the decline of this celebrated institution, and he gives reasons for supposing that it may have suffered even in recent ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... have yet to answer number three. Bueno! As I said, it was near the Big Timbers, where she got into the hands of the Arapahoes. There was only a small band of the robbers, with Red-Hand at their head. He wanted to play the brute with her. She kept him off with her rifle, and a big dog you have seen. Red-Hand became angry, and had her strapped to a tree—where the monsters threatened to shoot their arrows into her ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... Saturday afternoon, I was to play for the school in a football match; I was a good runner, and strong for my size, though I was quite a little chap. I remember being very much annoyed with my mother for saying I had better not play, as I had had a cold. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... Fretwork.—Ornamental work consisting of small fillets, or slats, intersecting each other or bent at right angles. Openwork in relief, when elaborated and minute in all its parts. Hence any minute play of light and shade. A, ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... weapons on him, Wilton," said the knight, "and let him enter if there is no suspicion of foul play. It will go badly with him, though, I trow, has he ventured here ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... distasteful to think that the revival of her own nation depended on her single will. M. Frederic Masson, whose minute studies regarding everything relating to Napoleon have won him a seat in the French Academy, writes of Marie Walewska at this time: Every force was now brought into play against her. Her country, her friends, her religion, the Old and the New Testaments, all urged her to yield; they all combined for the ruin of a simple and inexperienced girl of eighteen who had no parents, whose husband even thrust her into temptation, and whose friends thought that her downfall ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... which consumed thirteen large houses, and turned more than two hundred poor people out of doors. This gave me an opportunity to see how fires are managed here. It was full half an hour after the alarm-bell was rung before the first engine began to play; the water had to be hauled from the canal, and the machine, of a very small and antiquated pattern, contributed little towards stopping the progress of the flames. The intervention of a row of gardens alone saved the whole suburb from destruction. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... is not acquainted with the name I bear, he will not suspect who I am. You must appear as the person of chief importance, while you represent me as a friend whom you have brought for the sake of companionship. This will throw Cochut off his guard. And if we manage to play our cards well, we may gain the confidence of the rajah; when I hope that he may then be induced to deliver up my father's property, and the casket containing the valuable deeds I ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... they are not fit to be recited. He often obliged married women, by menaces, to bring their daughters to the Jacobin clubs, for the purpose of insulting them with the grossest obscenities.—Having a project of getting up a play for his amusement, he caused it to be declared, that those who had any talents for acting, and did not present themselves, should be imprisoned as suspects. And it is notorious, that this same Deputy once insulted all the women ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet are still prohibited in Great Britain by the Lord Chamberlain. An attempt was made to prevent even its performance in Ireland by some indiscreet Castle officials in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant. This attempt gave extraordinary publicity to the production of the play; and every possible effort was made to persuade the Irish public that the performance would be an outrage to their religion, and to provoke a repetition of the rioting that attended the first performances of Synge's Playboy of the Western World before the most sensitive and, on provocation, ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... gone now to a world of perpetual spring, and the flowers she loved so well are blooming over her grave. She faded away in the early spring, and we laid her to rest where her mother had long been sleeping. By the side of the streamlet where we used to play in the sunny days of childhood, and where the Dandelion grew, and the Butter-cup, and the Violet—there is now the form of ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... circumstances, sins if indulged, and the source of sin and misery; but the effect of this piece is altogether favourable to virtue, and to the parent and nurse of virtue, a pious conviction of the moral government of the world. The play contains an 'anatomy' of passion, not a 'picture' of it in a concrete form, such as the works of Richardson and of Rousseau present, a picture fitted to excite 'feelings' of baneful effect upon the mind, rather than to awaken 'thought', ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... to have received a letter from Robert during the interval of Edna's visits, she would give her the letter unsolicited. And she would seat herself at the piano and play as her humor prompted her while the young woman read ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... steel-gray eyes a look which reminded Kincaid of the play of a jagged flash of lightning. He spoke slowly and enunciated very carefully ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... are grazing the cows, they play a game. Krishna divides the cows and cowherds into two sides and collecting flowers and fruits pretends that they are weapons. They then stage a mock battle, pelting each other with the fruits. A little later Balarama ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

... heavier luggage to follow by carrier waggon. Mrs. Troutbeck's joy, when her two nephews arrived together, for a time completely overpowered her, and smelling salts and other restoratives had to be brought into play before she recovered. The event created quite an excitement in Weymouth. The appearance of Frank's name so frequently in Sir Robert Wilson's despatches had been a source of pride to the whole town, and especially to his old school-fellows, while ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... before, and yet he didn't look like that," thought the young inventor. "It's different, somehow. Now why should my memory play me a trick like this? Who in ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... retorted irritably. "I want liberty as much as you do. If I had any, I'd go to every play and opera in New York. And I'd go about with my friends and I'd have gowns fitted, and I'd have tea at Sherry's, and I'd shop and go to matinees and to the Exchange, and I'd be elected a member of the Commonwealth Club and play basket-ball there, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... fluttered the pages of his book as he answered us slowly: "Restless, feverish Titans, forever challenging the great gods of Love and War. Give me the dappled shade of a green garden, the sable shadows quivering on a ground of gold, a book of verse by me to play with when I would be busy, and a swarm of sweet rhythms like colored butterflies floating about my drowsy senses. What to me are wars and rumors of wars in that delicious ease? What to me are the white breasts ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... to himself. It is not the massive, exuberant play of Jean Paul. He does not challenge the slow-riding moon to a cricket match, nor hurl the stars from their orbits in his mad game in the skies. Neither has he the brusque but more solid geniality of Lessing. Imagination fails him for the one, and a strong power of logic for the other. But ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the present time, generally,—even in Germany, which is famous for its schools,—is without solid foundation, and altogether superficial and of no real worth. It consists usually in acquiring a smattering of two modern tongues and learning to play the piano, to which a wholly unreasonable amount of ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... the samovar, Rostov took a pack of cards and proposed that they should play "Kings" with Mary Hendrikhovna. They drew lots to settle who should make up her set. At Rostov's suggestion it was agreed that whoever became "King" should have the right to kiss Mary Hendrikhovna's hand, and that the "Booby" should go ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... why the Jews play so tremendous a part in the Socialist movement of the world. The Jew is almost always a student and often a fine scholar. The wide experience of the Jewish people has taught them (and they have always been quick to learn) the value of that something called "scholarship," ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis

... type from any she had ever met before, but they had in their eyes a kind of homage which Pop Wallis had not shown and they were not repulsive to her. Besides, the Boy was in the background, and her nerve had returned. The Boy knew how a lady should be treated. She was quite ready to "play up" to his lead. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... have your father's love of fair play, Cornelius, you will. What you can do to that end now is to make yourself thoroughly acquainted ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... Petion, a democrat, their mayor. In the Jacobin club were Robespierre; Marat, who denounced fiercely in his journal, "The Friend of the People," as aristocrats, all classes above the common level, whether by birth or property, and the former play-actor, D'Herbois. Danton, and Camille Desmoulins, who belonged to the Cordeliers, took part in its sessions. From this company, the Girondists separated after the fall of the king. The red Jacobin cap came into vogue as a ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... over which our flag has flown. It is urgently necessary to enact suitable laws dealing with general transportation, mining, banking, currency, homesteads, and the use and ownership of the lands and timber. These laws will give free play to industrial enterprise; and the commercial development which will surely follow will accord to the people of the islands the best proofs of the sincerity of our desire ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, 'I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll

... her trunk: you see she didn't dare make any objections, as long as papa had given his consent, but she didn't want to go one step, and she just let us know it. "I'll have to be on my company manners the whole livelong time, and I simply loathe that," she fumed. "Mrs. Erveng won't let me play with Hilliard, I'm sure she won't, 'that's so unladylike!'"—mimicking Mrs. Erveng's slow, gentle voice,—"and I never know what to talk to her about. I suppose I'll have to sit up and twirl my thumbs, like a regular Miss Prim, from ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... as naturally as he does the other. He has no moral enthusiasms or enthusiasms of any kind. It is merely an obvious thing to him that right should triumph and wrong should fail. He does not play with his emotions. I remember how, one night, in relating the fall of Abdul Hamid, Harrington had worked himself up to an extraordinary pitch of excitement. Never had that despot been painted in such horrid colours; and after he had told how the palace guards rose against the Constitution, and ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... probably find the person of whom he was in quest employed at the billiard-table, Graham passed thither at once. A tall man, who might be seven-and-forty, with a long black beard, slightly grizzled, was at play with a young man of perhaps twenty-eight, who gave him odds,—as better players of twenty-eight ought to give odds to a player, though originally of equal force, whose eye is not so quick, whose hand ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... being almost famished for thirst, asked the Noya, where he might go to find a little water. The Noya a little before had met with a bowl of water in which a Child lay playing. As it is usual among this people to wash their Children in a bowl of water, and there leave them to tumble and play in it. Here the Noya quenched his thirst, but as he was drinking, the Child that lay in the bowl, out of his innocency and play, hit him on the Head with his hand, which the Noya made no matter of but bare patiently, knowing it was not done out of any malice: and having drunk as ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... Napoleon agitated all France and all Europe. The character of this bold soldier was, indeed, now well known, and none could tell what game fraught with blood he next might play. Suspicion was well founded: Napoleon had designs in view when he returned from Egypt which time alone could unfold. The fact is, when in Egypt, letters from his brothers Joseph and Lucien, and from some of his admiring friends, informed him that Italy was lost; that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... "Your clothes, your pearls and jewels, even your golden crown, I do not care for; but if you will love me, and let me be your companion and play-fellow, sit near you at your little table, eat from your little golden plate, drink from your little cup, and sleep in your little bed—if you will promise me this, then I will bring you back your golden ball from ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... animal. This was a white cat, which was shameless enough to turn somersaults back and forward over the dog's recumbent form, to strike it on the nose with her paw, and at last to lay herself before it on her back, and take one of its webbed paws between her four soft feet and play with it like a kitten. When the great black porter found its foot tickled, it drew it back and gave the cat the other ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... attempt to avoid it, but returned the gaze with another as steadfast. I was telling myself: "Let us see this trick and play one stronger." My nerves centered throbbingly back of my eyes, and I gave them the whole force ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... reckon," returned the young fellow ironically. "Folks mostly does go to the mill to play, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... players. The flowing sweetness of his style is indescribable. There were many, indeed, who complained of a want of fire, and denied him that passion without which no work of art is perfect. But it was impossible to hear him play his fantasia from "Don Giovanni," for instance, without perceiving all the passion of the original. Mozart was not lost under his hands. And the impression of coldness was largely due, doubtless, to the tranquillity and propriety of his ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... Hispellum, it is not certain which, was born 58 B.C. or according to others 49 B.C., and lost his father and his estate in the same year (41 B.C.) under Octavius's second assignation of land to the soldiers. He seems to have begun life at the bar, which he soon deserted to play the cavalier to Hostia (whom he celebrates under the name Cynthia), a lady endowed with learning and wit as well as beauty, to whom our poet remained constant for five years. The chronology of his love-quarrels and reconciliations has been the subject of warm disputes between Nobbe, Jacob, and ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... formidable difficulty. Would Merriman consent to this plan and agree to help? Hilliard was doubtful. That his friend had so obviously fallen in love with this Madeleine Coburn was an unexpected and unfortunate complication. He could, of course, play on the string that the girl was in danger and wanted help, but he had already used that with disappointing results. However, he could see nothing for it but to do his best to talk ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... such charity as you can. I hope you were not very much annoyed by the loss of your ride. The young lady will not be in a hurry to play such a trick again. I'll join you after supper in this your favorite and ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... see you both laughing," she said, "but I should like to know what's happened! At present I feel as if I was acting in a cinematograph play." ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... grossly improper as to reflect dishonour upon me; at least, in comparison with the conduct of other young men of a certain station in the world; and as a mistress is not considered a disgrace, any more than a little dexterity in drawing some advantage from play, I gave my father a candid detail of the life I had been leading. As I recounted each transgression, I took care to cite some illustrious example in my justification, in order ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... earlier in these pages that I was a "strong" swordsman. In point of fact, I had carefully studied in the transpontine theatres that form of melodramatic mediaeval sword-play known as "two up and two down." To my disgust, however, this wretched Scotchman did not seem to understand it, but in a twinkling sent my sword flying over my head. Before I could recover it, he had mounted ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... their chief game being a guessing contest, where sides are chosen, the fortune of each side depending on its ability to guess who holds a certain decorated stick. Men and women alike play the game, though generally the sexes separate and play by themselves. Quiet chanting or singing often accompanies the game. All alike smoke ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... the irritable nasal tone familiar to Stone's acquaintances. Laramie's eyes merely brightened a little with the effort to reply: "Tom," he declared, with just enough of hesitation to play the game, "that's the first thing my ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... upon in the house as quite a matter of course. Half a dozen times a week he would drop in to execute some little commission for the ladies, or, if Captain Cooper was at home, to smoke a pipe of tobacco with him, to sip a dram of his famous old Jamaica rum, or to play a rubber of checkers of an evening. It is not likely that either of the older people was the least aware of the real cause of his visits; still less did they suspect that any passages of sentiment had ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... the worst wall-paintings I have ever met with, worse even than the coarsest painted shrines on the waysides of Italy; indeed no Church save the Greek Church would tolerate an art thus debased. A year after my journey to Kief I travelled through the Tyrol on my way from the Ammergau Passion Play. The whole of this district abounds in frescoes, many being on the external walls of private dwellings. This village art of the Bavarian Highlands, though often the handiwork of simple artisans, puts to shame both the external and the internal wall-paintings at Kief, ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... in both rooms. The Judge and the Bernardine were playing at marriage; spades were trumps, and the Judge was just about to make an important play. The Monk could hardly breathe for excitement, when the Judge caught the beginning of the story, and was so interested in it that with head thrown back and card uplifted, ready to take the trick, he sat quiet and only alarmed the Bernardine, until, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... distraction, in half uttered replies, in the joke that mechanically escapes the lips, in the capricious laugh that best discovers the anguish preying on the mind and the despair eating at the heart. But it is in the ingenuity with which he makes local surroundings play such an important part in the drama of human destiny, that Griffin excels to a remarkable extent. What reader of the "Collegians" has not realized all the perils of the windy night and the stormy sea with trepidation and horror scarcely surpassed by the occupants of the little ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various



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