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Roving   /rˈoʊvɪŋ/   Listen
Roving

noun
1.
Travelling about without any clear destination.  Synonyms: vagabondage, wandering.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Roving" Quotes from Famous Books



... upon him, which could not be brought to break or to suppurate; but by laying strong caustics on them the surgeons had, it seems, hopes to break them, which caustics were then upon him, burning his flesh as with a hot iron. I cannot say what became of this poor man, but I think he continued roving about in that manner till he fell down ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe

... and worried also. She loved Jims dearly and would feel deeply giving him up in any case; but if Jim Anderson were a different sort of a man, with a proper home for the child, it would not be so bad. But to give Jims up to a roving, shiftless, irresponsible father, however kind and good-hearted he might be—and she knew Jim Anderson was kind and good-hearted enough—was a bitter prospect to Rilla. It was not even likely Anderson ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Atreus," said he, "I deem that we should now turn roving home if we would escape destruction, for we are being cut down by war and pestilence at once. Let us ask some priest or prophet, or some reader of dreams (for dreams, too, are of Jove) who can tell us why Phoebus ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... assessed at twenty-five to one. The old-fashioned heaven was a poor thing beside it, and his shirt was on the daughter of Shirt-on-fire. But how much more than his shirt depended on this granddaughter of Suspender! At that roving age of forty-five, trying to Forsytes—and, though perhaps less distinguishable from any other age, trying even to Darties—Montague had fixed his current fancy on a dancer. It was no mean passion, but without money, and a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... graceful in their shape and Gnatty in their general appearance. The common mosquito is remarkable for its strong attachments. It follows man with more than canine fidelity, and in some cases, the dog-like pertinacity of its affection can only be restrained by Muslin. It is of a roving disposition, seldom remaining settled long in one locality; and is Epicurean in its tastes—always living, if possible, on the fat of the land. As the mosquito produces no honey, mankind in general are not as sweet upon it as they are upon that bigger hum-bug, the buzzy bee; yet it is so far akin ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various

... Mr. Truck proceeded to get the sun and the time. As soon as he had run through his calculations, he came to them with a face in which the eye was roving, though it was still ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... for a long time that some of them were hiding in the Rosebuds and that the Crow Indians were in league with them. It's only the bad Indians who stray from their reservations, you see," explained Mr. Simms. "We have to be on the lookout for these roving bands all the time or they'd steal ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... later voyages, the navigator was informed that a European vessel had lately been wrecked near the same part of the country, and that the crew, who reached the shore, had all been clubbed after a desperate resistance. It is likely enough that many a roving mariner who touched at the islands never informed the world of his doings, and had, indeed, sometimes excellent reasons for secrecy. Still, for many years after the misadventure of Marion du Fresne, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... unto him. And when they had escaped many perillous dangers, as well by land as by sea, they went together towards Zacynthe, to continue there according as fortune had appointed. But when they were arived on the sea coast of Actium (where we in our returne from Macedony were roving about) when night came, they returned into a house not far distant from their ship, where they lay all night. Then we entred in and tooke away all their substance, but verely we were in great danger: ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... to work in the Antidote Shop, but his lack of public spirit was growing apparent. He ignored invitations from the Dream Shop, and never attended any of the popular public executions. When roving mobs were formed to have a little fun in the Mutant Quarter, Barrent usually pleaded a headache. He never joined the Landing Day Hunts, and he was rude to an accredited salesman from the Torture of the Month Club. Not even visits from Uncle Ingemar could ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... legs. This answered better; it whiled away the time, and kept him from wondering where he was going, and how it was that he found himself in such an odd situation. Not that this would have worried him much, anyway—he was a mighty free and easy, roving, devil-may-care sort of person, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... goddess, Des," he said, his weary eyes roving out over the turgid, yellow stream, "and she has been kind to you, though, God knows, you have played a man's part in all this. She has placed in your possession something for which at least five men have died in vain, ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... glanced at the rivulet, And that pause than speech was worse, For his roving eye a saw-mill met, And, near it, the word which should be set At the end ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl

... was twelve thousand miles above the monotonous and scanty strains of a European wood; and when the roving and laughing, and harshly demanding bacca-boxes and then as good as telling you they didn't care a feather for bacca-boxes or anything else, gyroc de doc! cheboc cheboc cheboc! and loudly announcing their immediate ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... handsome figure as he approached her, his painter's wallet slung over his shoulder. That something remarkable had happened to him she divined at once. In moments of excitement a certain foreign look—as some people thought, a gypsyish look—was apt to show itself. The roving eyes, the wild manner, the dancing step betrayed the in most man—banishing altogether the furtive or jealous reserve of the North-Countryman, which were at other times equally to be noticed. Miss Anna had often wondered how the same man could be so shy—and ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... provinces; several members of it having titles; a sort of Castilian Rothschild, with a noble brother, or cousin, in every great trading town of South America. The alleged Don Benito was in early manhood, about twenty-nine or thirty. To assume a sort of roving cadetship in the maritime affairs of such a house, what more likely scheme for a young knave of talent and spirit? But the Spaniard was a pale invalid. Never mind. For even to the degree of simulating mortal disease, the craft of some tricksters had been known to attain. To think ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... a hold upon him, and force his surrender. His plan was this: He would teach a term here and there, gradually working his way westward, always toward the remote corners of the earth into which his roving instinct seemed unerringly to lead him. Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines seemed easy enough to access; surely, he thought, teachers must be needed in all those regions. And when he should have turned these pages, he ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... nearing some encampment or habitation. I could hear what was supposed to be music, and in the dark made my way, as near as I could judge, in the direction of the sound, and in about half an hour my efforts were rewarded, as I had overtaken a band of roving Indians, all in fancy dress, playing funny reed instruments and dancing continuously as they travelled. They could not speak Spanish, but at that time I knew sufficient of their language—"Aymara," as it is called—and soon explained to them my position. I was allowed to accompany them, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... now the hunting season, when the Indians leave their towns, set off with their families, and lead a roving life in cabins and hunting-camps along the river; shifting from place to place, as game abounds or decreases, and often extending their migrations two or three hundred miles down the stream. The women were as dexterous as the men in the management of the canoe, but were ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... running out into the sea. The sleepy town of Poole stands on the shore, having dim recollections of its ships and commerce of centuries ago. It was a nursery for privateersmen, and many are the exploits recorded of them. It was also, from the intricacy of its creeks and the roving character of its people, a notorious place for smuggling. Poole is an old-fashioned, brick-built town, with a picturesque gateway yet remaining as a specimen of its ancient defences. In the vale of the Stour, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... as astonished at the nature of the place as Mercy had. With gaping mouths and roving eyes, they halted ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... my hand over her night dress and raised it gently until I reached her pretty con. I played with the hair of her mount and inserted a finger into her warm vagina. While I was doing this I kissed her lips and my tongue met hers. I then felt her bottom and thighs, roving from one to the other. All these touchings excited us both to the highest pitch. I suddenly threw off all the covering of the bed and by the aid of the candle examined all her charms. Cordelia made no resistance whatever, but grasping my stiff rod in her ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival

... or ringing was dispensed with for the sufficient reason that there was neither bell nor knocker. We entered by the open door and walked along a paved passage, which, was evidently not held as sacred as it should have been by the roving fowls; looked in at the great dark kitchen, where beside the Gothic arch of the broad chimney was some ruinous clockwork mechanism for turning the spit, which probably did turn to good purpose when powdered ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... tremble chilled the forest shade, A roving lion turned and fled, The birds cowered home in hush of dread; But Eve was ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... that the name "vikings" was first given to those Northmen who dwelt in a part of Denmark called Viken. However that may be, it was the name given to all the Northmen who took to a wild, sea-roving life, because they would often seek shelter with their boats in one or another of the numerous bays which ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... the Spaniards took it for the Ram Head near Plymouth, they bore out to sea with an intention of returning next day, and attacking the English navy. They were descried by Fleming, a Scottish pirate, who was roving in those seas, and who immediately set sail, to inform the English admiral of their approach;[*] another fortunate event, which contributed extremely to the safety of the fleet. Effingham had just time to get out of port, when he saw the Spanish armada coming full sail towards him, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... opportunity to present yourself for examination offers itself, I intend to give you an acting order as lieutenant, to place you in command of a small schooner with a good strong crew, and to send you off upon a roving commission to do your best to put down these piratical outrages that are so frequently occurring under our very noses. Now, what d'ye think of my scheme, youngster? Is the job too big for you ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... Somewhere, however, in the far south-east a higher culture was brewing. By steps that have not yet been accurately traced legions of herdsmen and farmer-folk overspread our world, either absorbing or driving before them the roving hunters of the older dispensation. We term this, the earliest of true civilizations, 'neolithic', as if it mattered in the least whether your stone implement be chipped or polished to an edge. The real source of increased power and prosperity lay ...
— Progress and History • Various

... A roving war-party stumbled upon one of Boone's companions and killed him, and the others then left Boone and journeyed home; but his brother came out to join him, and the two spent the winter together. Self-reliant, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... gives a very ample yet concise account of Bacon, with valuable references to original documents. He was the son of Sir Thomas Bacon of Friston Hall, Suffolk. Born in 1642, about 1673 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Duke, Bart., and shortly afterwards in a spirit of roving adventure emigrated to Virginia. Here he was elected a member of the Council, and his estates being especially exposed to Indian raids the volunteer colonists chose him General. The Governor, however, delayed to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... not Marsac,' she murmured abruptly, her eyes roving from the ceiling to the wall at the foot ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... even more than was his wont, and the quarter-breed noticed that the usually roving eyes had set into a hard stare behind which lurked a dangerous glitter, "yo're a ornery, low-down cur-dog what hain't fitten to be run with by man, beast, or devil. I'd ort to shoot yo' daid right wher' yo' at—an' mebbe I will. But comin' ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... fortress, and recruited the entire fighting strength of the neighbourhood. More than that, he had unlimbered and conveyed to the provisional camp two of the big guns that stood above the gates at the fortress. There had been a dozen skirmishes between the regulars and roving bands of desperadoes. A savage fight took place at Ganlook and another in the gap below the witch's hut. In both of these sanguinary affrays the government forces had come off victorious, splendid omens ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... feet in height but so strongly built that he scarcely looked his inches. He was a sailor. The gulls might have told that by the way he stood, and his eyes, accustomed to roving over vast spaces, swept the beach before him from end to end, took in the sea elephants moving like slugs and the seal-nursery and the river and the sands beyond and the Lizard Point crawling out to sea ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... did all the grubby things which Plato obviated that her sons might rise to a place in society, to eighteen hundred dollars a year and the possession of evening clothes and a knowledge of Greek. But the light danced more perversely in his eyes every day of his roving. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... his literary instincts and the friends who appealed primarily to the intellectual and moral side of him. He made many mistakes alike in friends and in pursuits; in the freshness of a young and roving curiosity he had great difficulty in submitting himself to the intellectual routine of the University, a difficulty which ultimately cost him much; but at the bottom of the lad, all the time, there was a strength of will, a force and even tyranny of conscience, which kept his charm and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... another climate, and almost from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose name and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he sternly refuse the payment of the accustomed subsidies. The broad channel of the Euphrates was crowded by a fleet of eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to satisfy the wants, of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... maidens had subscribed to reward his skill and valour. But the truth was that he could not resist his own great curiosity. For, carefully spying across the moor, from behind the tuft of whortles, at first he could discover nothing having life and motion, except three or four wild cattle roving in vain search for nourishment, and a diseased sheep banished hither, and some carrion crows keeping watch on her. But when John was taking his very last look, being only too glad to go home again, and acknowledge himself baffled, he thought he saw a figure moving in the farthest distance ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... for a camp-marshal to undertake. The third time that he asked this favour, he obtained it by pure importunity. He carried the money safely into Landau, without meeting with any obstacle. On his return he saw some hussars roving about. Without a moment's hesitation he resolved to give chase to them. He was with difficulty restrained for some time, and a last, breaking away, he set off to attack them, followed by only two officers. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... villain's fate was not yet ready for him. He looked terribly frightened, and had brought with him a large candle and a small terrier—which latter indeed threatened to be troublesome, for he went roving and sniffing about until he came to the recess where they were. But as soon as he showed himself, Lina opened her jaws so wide, and glared at him so horribly, that, without even uttering a whimper, he tucked his tail between his legs and ran ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... more of a Dissenter than a Catholic. I beg your pardon," he added, seeing Willis look up sharply, "let me be frank with you, pray do. You were attached to the Church of Rome, not as a child to a mother, but in a wayward roving way, as a matter of fancy or liking, or (excuse me) as a greedy boy to something nice; and you pursued your object by disobeying the ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... the door, waved Bostwick into the crowded gaming room, and was about to follow when his roving gaze abruptly lighted on a figure in the place—a swarthy, half-breed Piute Indian, standing in front of the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... a visit from a Captain Vardell, an acquaintance of my father's, who had married a Spanish woman. This Captain had spent much of his time at sea; roving about from place to place, until at length he settled down for some years in Spain. He had no relations in America, and but little money, so that of course my father's house, the usual refuge of the needy and distressed, was at once his destination. He appeared to us an indolent, ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... it, saying, 'My soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.' By which repetition he insinuates, that many are content to give their bodily presence to God in his appointments, while their hearts were roving to the ends of the earth; but for his part he did not so. Verse 6. 'My soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning, I say, more than they that watch for the morning.' As who should say, even as it is with those that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... takes us back to the first (quoted) tune of the symphony in the wistful mood of dawn. For a symphony it proves to be in the unity of themes and thought. Now unmuted and unrestrained in conflict of crashing chords, the trumpet blows again the motto of the roving sea. In various figures is the pelagic motion, in continuous coursing strings, in the sweeping phrase of the woodwind, or in the original wave-motion of the ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... quiet sky is o'er thee, When the pale stars dimly burn, Dream that one is watching for thee, Who but lives for thy return! Wheresoe'er thy steps are roving, Night or day, by land or sea, Think of her, whose life of loving Is but one ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... mother was that she was a beautiful lady from London. Kranich carried the story dutifully to his aunt, adding his own ingenious surmise: "Can Francine have become sufficiently Anglicised to contract secret marriages with roving revolutionists, and scamper about the country with ardent young Frenchmen in the style of Gretna Green?" In fact, it was really from London that Mrs. Ashburleigh was proceeding, for the purpose of taking care, in the Rhenish city where he was dying, of her handsome, dissipated, worthless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... Captain Hansleig if he would take them off the island. This he said at once that he would do, if they chose to enter on board his craft, but that he could not undertake to carry passengers. They without hesitation accepted his offer, saying that they liked the look of his craft, and the roving commission which he had told them he held. The doctor received them very coldly, and seemed in no way pleased at their appearance. He seized the first moment that they were out of hearing ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... Fred to go to school, Mrs Ellice gave up her roving life, and settled in her native town of Grayton, where she resided with her widowed sister, Amelia Bright, and her niece Isobel. Here Fred received the rudiments of an excellent education at a private academy. At the age ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... and most elaborate poem in the volume, under the title of 'Resolution and Independence.' The poet, roving about on a common one fine morning, falls into pensive musings on the fate of the sons of song, which he sums up in this ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... attack from him, for he was not properly constructed for the defense of either. He had himself declared his "sympathies" were "with the Conservatives, and his opinions with the Liberals," and that he and his Peelite colleagues, during this period of political isolation, were like roving icebergs on which men could not land with safety, but with which ships might come into perilous collision. Their weight was too great not to count, but it counted first this way and then that. Mr. Gladstone was conscientious in his opposition. He said: "I ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... those days I gave to many a tramp such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor what he wanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things which people have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased Jove to take all away from me. He sent me with a band of roving robbers to Egypt; it was a long voyage and I was undone by it. I stationed my ships in the river Aegyptus, and bade my men stay by them and keep guard over them, while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre from every ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... primitive state, lives upon roots and the fruits of the earth, until, by degrees, he is driven to seek for new means, by which his wants may be supplied and enlarged. He then becomes a hunter and a fisher. As his species increases, greater necessities come upon him, when he gradually abandons the roving life of the savage for the more stationary pursuits of the herdsman. These beget still more settled habits, when he begins the practice of agriculture, forms ideas of the rights of property, and has his own, both defined and secured. The forest, the stream, and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... the alarm had been spread. By sunrise the rebels numbered fifteen, part of whom were mounted, and their outfit comprised a few firearms. Throughout the morning they continued their somewhat aimless roving, slaughtering such white households as they reached, enlisting recruits by persuasion or coercion, and heightening their courage by draughts upon the apple-brandy in which the county, by virtue of its many orchards and stills, abounded. By noon there were some ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... and to feel that his youth was over. But now it was different. He had no wife, nor any prospect of a wife. He had no definite plans for his future. For a long time he had been going altogether the wrong way; leading a roving, desultory kind of existence; living amongst men whose habits and principles were worse than ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... Hume's knife, which had been painstakingly lashed to a trimmed shaft of wood. Since he had emerged from that clouding of mind which still gripped the Hunter, he had done what he could to prepare for another attack from any roving beast. And he also had Hume's ray tube—its single charge to be used ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton

... whether Jean Valjean got away with the goods or not, and forgot whether you played third hand high or low in bridge. She even became chummy with Undine Meyers, who wasn't her kind of a girl at all. Undine was thin in a voluptuous kind of way, if such a paradox can be, and she had red lips, and a roving eye, and she ran around downtown without a hat more than was strictly necessary. But Undine and Ivy had two subjects in common. They were baseball and love. It is queer how the limelight will make heroes ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... musicians, jumpers, and trumpeters." The character of the clergy having sunk so low, the Church declared itself against the custom, and at several German councils theological students were expressly forbidden to lead this roving life. It required, however, considerable time for the ancient custom to become extinct, and we learn, among others, from Conrad Gesner, that it still existed at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... his eyes again, and returned to his slumbers. And, as he did so, my eye, roving discontentedly over the carriage, was caught by something lying in the far corner. It was "The Manoeuvres of Arthur." The girl had ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse

... involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. My wilful actions and acquisitions are but roving;—the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they do not distinguish between perception and ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... and I may weel tak the tale hame to mysell, that hae led a misruled and roving life. But ye were aye a canny wife. We're a' frailbut ye canna hae sae muckle to bow ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... the soul at all this. I had been beaten, degraded, and treated with slighting when I complained. I lost my usual good spirits and good humor; and, being out of temper with everybody, fancied everybody out of temper with me. A certain wild, roving spirit of freedom, which I believe is as inherent in me as it is in the partridge, was brought into sudden activity by the checks and restraints I suffered. 'I'll go from home,' thought I, 'and shift for myself.' Perhaps this notion was quickened by the rage for emigrating to Kentucky, which ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... cried Dorothy passionately, her eyes roving savagely, like the eyes of a badgered animal. "Am I to have no voice in disposal of myself? I tell you I shall marry whom I please! And since he makes his proffer through you, tell the creature ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... him begotten; builded too was he Of bigger and more solid bones within, And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh, Nor easily seized by either heat or cold, Or alien food or any ail or irk. And whilst so many lustrums of the sun Rolled on across the sky, men led a life After the roving habit of wild beasts. Not then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs, And none knew then to work the fields with iron, Or plant young shoots in holes of delved loam, Or lop with hooked knives from off high trees The boughs of yester-year. ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... connected with her early fate had left deep furrows in his memory. Time and vicissitude had effaced the wounds, and the Light of the Beautiful dawned once more in the face of Evelyn. Valerie de Ventadour had been but the fancy of a roving breast. Alice, the sweet Alice!—her, indeed, in the first flower of youth, he had loved with a boy's romance. He had loved her deeply, fondly,—but perhaps he had never been in love with her; he had mourned her loss ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... angel. She remained with them until the evening of their masterly retreat, and until the wounded men of the corps in the hospitals were all safely across. While she was in Fredericksburg, after the battle of the 13th, some soldiers of the corps who had been roving about the city, came to her quarters bringing with great difficulty a large and very costly and elegant carpet. "What is this for?" asked Miss Barton. "It is for you, ma'am," said one of the soldiers; ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... on the night before I left England with the credentials of a war correspondent on a roving commission, and there came into my head a vision of the hideous thing which was being hatched in the council chambers of Europe, even as the little clock ticked on my bedroom mantelpiece. I thrust back this vision of blood by old ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... and retired Canadian voyageurs occupy the upper part of the settlement. The half-breeds are strongly attached to the roving life of the hunter; the greater part of them depend entirely on the chase for a living, and even the few who attend to farming take a trip to the plains, to feast on buffalo humps and marrow fat. They sow their little patches ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... now in operation at the fair of the New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute, where we are spinning on a quill only 5-32 inches diameter at top, and where we can show you samples of yarn from No. 80 to No. 400 spun on this frame from combed roving from the Conant Thread Company and Willimantic Linen Company, which we believe has never before been accomplished ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... of the old Northern Races should have held a strong attraction for Borrow is not to be wondered at. His restless nature and his roving habits were well in tune with the spirit of the old Heroic Ballads; whilst his taste for all that was mythical or vagabond (vagabond in the literal, and not in the conventional, sense of the word) would prompt him to welcome with no common eagerness the old Poems dealing with matters supernatural ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... today in remote mountain regions. In early days he was quite often both preacher and teacher, such as William E. Barton, father of Bruce Barton, who after preaching in the thinly settled parts of Knox County, Kentucky, became the pastor of a Chicago church in later years. Some of the early roving preachers even studied theology in the great centers of learning both in ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... came in a very gentlemanly Catholic priest. I was told that he was a roving missionary. He led a charmed life, for he went to visit the wildest tribes, and was everywhere respected. I conversed with him in French. After a while he spread his blanket, lay down on the floor and slept till morning, when he read ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... loose blouse, and what seemed a dark blue skirt. Round her neck hung an old-fashioned link of coral beads. Her brow was low but broad, and her hair, brushed back from the forehead, was bunched large behind, but not below, the head. Her roving eyes, gradually overcoming the clinging gloom of the place, were dark brown and unnaturally bright. Half open in an empty smile, her lips disclosed white but somewhat irregular teeth. Seen plainly in such surroundings, she was—to me—a pitiable and ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... companions of the lonely hour, Friends, who can alter or forsake. Who for inconstant roving have no power, And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take. To My Books. MRS. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... have got you!" Sancho exclaimed. Then he divulged his longing, which he wanted his master to share, to become a saint; viewing a saint's life from all sides, he had come to the conclusion that it was a much more peaceful life than that of a roving knight errant, who had to be up at all hours and out ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... lately employed. Both were well enough known, though but little notice was taken of their movements, which lay generally beyond the observation of the citizen community. It was supposed they had been out upon one of their usual hunts, and had fallen in with a roving band of savages. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... From me and Pity do you fly? Your little heart against your plumes Beats hard—ah! dreary are these glooms! Famine has chok'd the note of joy That charm'd the roving shepherd-boy. Why, wand'rer, do you look so shy? And why, when I approach you, fly? The crumbs which at your feet I strew Are only meant to nourish you; They are not thrown with base decoy, To rob you of one hour of joy. Come, follow to my silent mill, That stands beneath yon snow-clad ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... just twenty-five, and gloriously adventurous. One can imagine with what a thrill he set sail for a new country, new friends, new excitements! I wonder if he guessed that the lady of his heart awaited him in that unknown land, as well as the dear home where, for all his sea-roving taste, he was to return again and again through twenty rich years? He was in command of the frigate Solebay then, and in the old papers we read many mentions of both ship and officer. From almost the first Peter loved the Colonies and the Colonies loved him. In between his cruises ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... stream rolling by more wildly every day; its bed became wider and wider, and he felt the period of his seclusion from the world must be still prolonged. Having found an old crossbow in a corner of the cottage, and mended it, he spent part of his days roving about, waylaying the birds that flew by, and bringing whatever he killed to the kitchen, as rare game. When he came back laden with spoil, Undine would often scold him for taking the life of the dear little joyous creatures, soaring in the blue ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... suddenly confident; determined. "We'll stop there to break the news. Then we'll be wedded, you and I, according to the custom of your people. Our honeymoon—years of it—will be spent in the Nomad, roving the universe. Mado'll agree, I know. Wanderers of the heavens we'll be, Ora. But we'll have each other; and when we've—you've—had enough of it, I'll be ready to settle down. Anywhere you ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... girls quit the service frequently. Then he flirts and walks out with the newcomer: always providing she is sufficiently attractive, and that she will consent to walk. It is remarkable, however, that most of the girls are quite comely, they are all young, and this roving life aboard the car gives them a sailor's dash and recklessness. What matter how they behave when the ship is in port. Tomorrow ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... fled long ago, and are now roving the face of the earth. The bombs well-nigh tore down old Levy's house, and I guess that will about kill him, as he is as stingy as a man well can be. If he had stayed by his suffering city, ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... eyes, and fretful complaint on his lips of the "infection" generated by every Modernist incumbent; and near him, Professor Vetch, with yet another divinity professor beside him, a young man, short and slight, with roving, grasshopper eyes. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... rivulet, that affords excellent sport to the brethren of the angle. Thither, accordingly, in the summer season occasionally resort the Waltons of the neighbourhood—young farmers, retired traders, with now and then a stray artist, or a roving student from one of the universities. Hence the solitary hostelry of A——, being somewhat more frequented, is also more clean and comfortable than could reasonably be anticipated from the insignificance ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... bells on the S.S. G——. The decks had been washed down with the hosepipe and the men paraded for the morning's inspection. The O.C. had scanned them with a roving eye, till catching sight of an orderly two files from the left he had begged him, almost as a personal favour, to get his hair cut. To an untutored mind the orderly's hair was about one-eighth of an inch in length, but the O.C. was inflexible. He was a colonel in that smartest ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... saw the Boy roving about here wrapped in his flaming discontents. There was flash on flash against the clouds, and rush on rush of shadows down the valley till the shaws were full of his hounds giving tongue, and the woodways were packed with his knights in armour riding down into the water-mists—all ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... residence, unless they had in view some very important object. The nearest settlement—Anadyrsk—was almost two hundred and fifty miles distant; the country along the lower Anadyr was said to be wholly destitute of wood, and inhabited only by roving bands of Chukchis, and a party landed there without an interpreter would have no means of communicating even with these wild, lawless natives, or of obtaining any means whatever of transportation. If there were any Americans there, they were certainly in a very unpleasant situation. Dodd ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the parade with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had been—upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he had once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired. He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him worth winning, who ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... possibly at times twelve to fifteen. It seems to be the same everywhere. The old people do not sufficiently realize the advantages of education themselves, and so seem to care little whether their children are in their place at class or roving about the bush with a bow and arrow. The Indians are great people for medicine. I had a good stock of it, and they were constantly coming to me with their ailments. They make medicines themselves from roots and herbs, but prefer generally to get the White man's physic. There ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... be sure. Who'd have thought it for a young gentleman of the quality-like yourself! But, there, some are born under the traveller's star, sir—created with a roving spirit. And the Lord help 'em, I say, for they're so made as to be powerless to help themselves seemingly. Rove they must and will, if they are to taste any contentment—an itch in their feet from the cradle nought but foreign lands'll serve to pacify. The sight ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... Carlos only expresses what must then have passed through Goethe's own mind: "And to marry! to marry just when life ought to come into its first full swing; to settle down to humdrum domestic life; to limit one's being, when one has not yet done with half of one's roving; has not completed half of one's conquests!" Out of Goethe's own heart, also, must have come these words of Clavigo: "She [Marie] has vanished, clean vanished from my heart!... That man is so fickle a being!" What was said of Werther as the counterpart of Goethe applies, ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... was North Farthing House on the other side of the Kent Ditch. Here lived Sir Harry Trevor, the second holder of a title won in banking enterprises, and lately fallen to low estate. The reason could perhaps be seen on his good-looking face, with its sensual, humorous mouth, roving eyes, and lurking air of unfulfilled, undefeated youth. The taverns of the Three Marshes had combined to give him a sensational past, and further said that his two sons had forced him to settle at Brodnyx with a view to preserving what was left of his morals and their inheritance. The ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... will, younker; but then soap is cheap, and I wouldn't want to soil Matilda's clean sheets and towels. Yes, if I'm going to become domesticated and give up all this roving business I suppose I'll just have to clean up a bit. Wonder now if Andrew he would have an extra suit of clothes he could turn over to me. I'd sure hate to make my poor sister blush to introduce her brother looking as tough as I do ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson

... family on the Rio del Norte—from Taos to El Paso—that has not good cause to lament this unhappy condition of things; scarce one that has not personally suffered, from the inroads of the savages. I might speak of houses pillaged and burnt; of maize-fields laid waste to feed the horses of the roving marauder; of sheep and cattle driven off to desert fastnesses; bah! what are all these? What signify such trifling misfortunes, compared with that other calamity, which almost every family in the land may lament—the loss of one or more of its members— wife, daughter, sister, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... he hailed from, Nor knew what far-off quay His roving bark had sailed from Before ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle

... while her gaze was still roving from one object to another, and threw his wet outer clothing, boy fashion, on the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... months old, was with her, and her husband, as stalwart and handsome an officer as ever wore shoulder-straps. But we were facing unknown dangers, in a far country, away from mother, father, sister and brother—a country infested with roving bands of the most cruel tribe ever known, who tortured before they killed. We could not even ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... After roving about in Spain and other countries he settled as a bookseller in London, and it was in his house and at his table that The Rights of Man was written. "This table," says an article on Rickman in the Wonderful Museum, "is prized by him very highly at this time; and ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... in her tracks and fear fell from her. Her roving eye searched the room for a weapon and her glance fell upon the potted geranium. Mrs. Tutts already had ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... unfamiliar: not only the flora, but the maritime wealth of this singular country. He would set out of a morning, visiting the coves and creeks, roving along the beaches of this magnificent gulf, a lump of bread in his pocket, quenching his thirst with sea-water in default ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... absently, only half hearing Leila's remark. Her eyes were roving up and down the platform in an effort to pick up any girl whom the Sans might deliberately choose to overlook. She saw no one. The considerable number of girls who had descended the car steps were being taken in tow ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... and that of the wounded Mukoki. It was with a feeling almost of awe that the three adventurers penetrated deeper and deeper into the silent gloom of this mystery-filled gulch between the mountains, and when they reached the bottom they set their loads down without speaking, their eyes roving over the black walls of rock, their hearts throbbing a ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood

... thousands shone in orbs of dew, I, wafted soft, with Zephyretta flew; Saw the clean pail, and sought the milky cheer, While little Daphne seized my roving dear. Wretch that I was! I might have warn'd the dame, Yet sate indulging as the danger came, But the kind huntress left her free to soar: Ah! guard, ye lovers, guard a ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... singing of songs and a weaving of country dances; and so shapely and buxom were the maidens—maidens of a type hard to find in our present-day villages on large estates—that he would stand for hours wondering which of them was the best. White-necked and white-bosomed, all had great roving eyes, the gait of peacocks, and hair reaching to the waist. And as, with his hands clasping theirs, he glided hither and thither in the dance, or retired backwards towards a wall with a row of other young ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... William J. Denham had made in his personal appearance. Denham was a slender, youngish man, neat and dapper, with light brown hair, a smooth face, and pale skin. Jones had reddish, rumpled eye-brows, puffy pink lids, and large, roving eyes behind convex glasses. His hair was also red and rumpled, and though he was not enormously stout, he was clumsily ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... bear on these things just as much as in analyzing a sentence, and how even those would not do without the higher motive of faithfulness to Him whose servants we all are. Her finish was a picture of the roving servant girl, always saying, 'I don't like it,' and always seeking novelty, illustrated by her experience of a little maid who left one place because she could not sleep alone, and another because the little girl ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... My roving thoughts were caught back to the divine score which Arnold Dolmetsch was reading to me. How well placed they were, those semibreves! Could anyone but Palestrina have placed them so nicely? I wondered what girl Palestrina ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... retrospective hours, Osmonde had told her of the thoughts he had dreamed on, as they had ridden homeward from the encampment of the gipsies—of his fancies of the comrade she would make for a man who lived a roving life. She had both laughed and wept over the story, clinging to his breast as she had told her own, and of her fear of his mere glance at her in those dark days, and that she had not dared to sit alone but kept near her lord's side lest she should ponder ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... to settle down anyhow," his father responded. "The old French spirit of roving and adventure has had its day with you, and now you ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... civilization at the point where it needed such protection, utterly neglected the summons of interest as well as of honour. The fall of Sinope, the decline of Rhodes, completed the isolation of the Hellenes on the northern shore of the Black Sea. A vivid picture of their position with reference to the roving barbarians is given to us by an inscription of Olbia (near Oczakow not far from the mouth of the Dnieper), which apparently may be placed not long before the time of Mithradates. The citizens had not only to send annual tribute to the court-camp of the barbarian king, but also to make him ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... another, they left their arrows in his quiver till ten children bloomed about the hearth. The old cabin had disappeared entirely. A good-sized frame house of one story, with a high-pitched roof, stood in its stead, and a slab fence kept roving animals out of the yard and saved the apple trees from the teeth of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... slightly expanded nostril, and keen grey eye; and when he smiled, which was but rarely, certain lines around his mouth gave a cruel, almost a savage expression to his otherwise agreeable physiognomy. A Navarrese by birth, and of a roving and adventurous disposition, this man, at the commencement of the civil war, had espoused the cause of Don Carlos; but a violent quarrel with a superior officer, punished, as he considered, with undue severity, soon induced him to transfer his services ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... said his name was Crannish, and he spelled it for the captain, who examined the crew list to verify him. He said that he was known as "Long Jim" by his mates. He did not seem to take the murder as a serious matter, but answered Captain Riggs's questions calmly, his eyes roving over the interior of the saloon, taking ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... this woman he finds the trick of a lifted lash, or a shadowy dimple in the melting rose of her cheek. In another, the stately curve of neck and shoulder and the somber fire of dark eyes draws his roving gaze; in a third, there is a soft, adorable prettiness, like that of a baby. He has always known them—all. And thus it is, that love comes and goes unbidden, like the wind which blows where it listeth; and woman, hearing the sound thereof, cannot ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... old Durham's lion banner float O'er the proud bulwark, that, with giant pride And feet deep plunged amidst the circling moat, The efforts of the roving Scot defied.] ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving



Words linked to "Roving" :   unsettled, rove, peregrine, wandering, travel, travelling, nomadic, traveling, drifting



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