"Sheepish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made a smite; you a'n't such a bad-looking fellow, when you're dressed as you are now—you a'n't indeed, Titty!" Mr. Titmouse was quite flustered with the mere supposition, and also looked as sheepish as his features ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... to polite letters. There the talk was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time. Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen. There were earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads from universities, translators and index makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great press was to get near the chair where John Dryden sate. In winter that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it stood ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... inside the room and the light was switched on. One look at the four girls, armed to the teeth, and Nyoda doubled up on the stairs and laughed until she cried, while the Winnebagos looked sheepish and laid their ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... before that hour, Mr. Gresley and his party entered the Parish Room. It was crammed. The back benches were filled with a large contingent of young men, whose half-sheepish, half-sullen expression showed that their presence was due to pressure. Why the parishioners had come in such numbers it would be hard to say. Perhaps even a temperance meeting was a change in the dreary monotony of rural life at Warpington. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... look sheepish," Wallie replied, smiling, "it may be due to the nature of my new occupation. You see," in reply to their looks of inquiry, "Canby bought me out, to get rid of me, and for a far more munificent sum than I ever expected. I re-invested, and ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... looking towards the house, where the light windows and pealing music of the drawing room proved an attraction too strong for his pride to resist. Crestfallen and sheepish, he nevertheless returned to the scene of festivity, where the young people were now all engaged in dancing, and where, after a while, they all with the happy facility of youth forgot his rudeness and drew him into their sports. All except ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of the room self-consciousness overtook her. With the awakening sense of eyes upon her, she looked first to one side, then to the other. Her smile broadened while growing by just a tinge sheepish; she seemed to waver and consider turning from her course and finishing her journey close along the wall, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... swinging. His arms were very strong, and as is the way with fools and those that drown, many things went through his mind. The horse was his. He would go adventuring along the winter roads, adventuring and singing. The townspeople gathered about him with sheepish praise. From a dolt he had become a hero. Many have taken the same step in the same space of moments, the line being but a ...
— The Truce of God • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... boat many signs admonished that we were floating eastward. A shabbily-dressed phrenologist laid his hand on every head which would bend, with half-conceited, half-sheepish expression, to the trial of his skill. Knots of people gathered here and there to discuss points of theology. A bereaved lover was seeking religious consolation in—Butler's Analogy, which he had purchased for that purpose. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... a very astonished crew upon which they came but at the sight of Alexander herself they all became sheepish and ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... disgrace to have behaved so in any gentleman's house; that Quentin could have no friend to see him, and the other three could not come inside the White House, until I felt that a sufficient time had elapsed to serve as punishment. They were four very sheepish small boys when ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... several English sailors pass before us, decked out in their white drill clothes, fresh, fat, and pink, like little sugar figures, who attitudinize in a sheepish manner around the shafts ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... under the menace of those rifles. The men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... February, Theresa and Philippina chanced to be sitting by the lamp mending the week's wash. Jason Philip entered the room; there was a sheepish expression on his face; ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... four men destined to that locality, with their camping-gear. By the open gate the farmer stood eying his new material askance. Dejected enough creatures they looked—poor devils picked up at ten pound the dozen, who, by the mingled apathy and sheepish amusement on their faces, might never have seen a pitchfork, or smelled a field ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the other men barely acknowledged their introduction to him. "He was afraid of his life to go to you"—continued Mr. Harland, with a laugh—"He thought you might be an illusion—or even the devil himself, with those fiery sails!" Mr. Swinton looked sheepish; Santoris smiled. "This fair dreamer of dreams"—here he singled me out for notice—"is the only one of us who has not expressed either surprise or fear at the sight of your vessel or the possible knowledge of yourself, though there was one little incident connected with the pretty bunch of bell-heather ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... a laugh at this, and Mackay, the third baseman, looked a little sheepish. The baited umpire suggested that the whole play be called off and that Curry go back to third while Larry resumed ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... light of the Word under cowardly and sheepish and indifferent silence. I wonder how many of us have done that? Like blue-ribbon men that button their great-coats over their blue ribbons when they go into company where they are afraid to show them, there are many Christian people that are devout Christians at the Communion Table, but ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... piles. There were miners' jackets, miner's leather trousers, and felt hats. We chose the suits best fitting our different anatomies, and dressed. My choice fell on a boy's rather clean suit. We felt very rakish in the dressing-room, but very sheepish when we joined the gentlemen outside. In going down the shaft we had to stand on the platform of the cage, which had neither railing nor support of any kind. We went down thirteen hundred feet and stepped ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... safe arrival at the Argos. Miss Wallace and her aunt were on deck to welcome us. Sam and I exchanged rather sheepish glances. Nobody likes to be caught making a mountain out of a mole hill, and that was apparently what we had done. Our elaborate preparations to defend the map during the past ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... limbo for the night; and the justice next morning gave him such a clapper-clawing with his tongue, and bore down upon him so hard with his reprimands, as I think the lawyers call it, and raked him so severely fore and aft with his good advice, to wind up with, that Ben felt pretty sheepish; and, as he told us afterwards, didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels—on the truck, or on the keelson. He felt so sore about it, and so much ashamed of himself, that he did not touch a drop for six weeks. He then thought he would take it moderately just enough to keep the steam up—or, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... can read the enchantments in this book," declared Kwytoffle; but he hung his head with a sheepish look, for he knew his deception ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... on guard duty, and I admit it," Darrin went on, looking sheepish. "Dick, when you found me asleep why didn't ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... there was such a terrible storm in the house that all the servants hung their heads in sheepish silence. Nana had come near beating Francois for not throwing himself across the door through which Satin escaped. She did her best, however, to control herself, and talked of Satin as a dirty swine. Oh, it would teach her to pick filthy things ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... her, and since convention was something alien to his soul, and possession his sole inspiration, he decided that he could make his advances now in full confidence that he might be successful; and if not, there would be no necessity for feeling sheepish over his rebuff. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... the other arrivals, stared. And well they might, for Sandy Griggs and Bluff were swathed in seemingly innumerable bandages. They looked a bit sheepish too, even while ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... maid had been hinting that she did not think much of working out, and this in conjunction with the nightly appearance of a rather sheepish young man caused her ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... never would have intermingled. Rene feasted his eyes, planning in his mind a thousand fruitions of love that brought the water into his mouth. In his ecstasy he let his book fall, which made him feel as sheepish as a monk surprised at a child's tricks; but also from that he knew that Blanche was sound asleep, for she did not stir, and the wily jade would not have opened her eyes even at the greatest dangers, and reckoned on something else falling as well ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... apparently trivial acts in an uneventful life, it was decisive. As she expected, she met two or three of her late applauders, whom, she fancied, looked sheepish and embarrassed; she met, also, her companions looking for her in some alarm, who really appeared astonished at her escort, and, she fancied, a trifle envious of her evident success. I fear that Miss Arnot, in response to their anxious inquiries, did not state entirely the truth, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... boy following a good thirty yards behind, feeling uncommonly sheepish when he was not thinking angrily of his neglected chores. It was not thought good form in Menlo Park to put on the trappings of Circumstance. Mrs. Washington drove a phaeton and took a boy in the rumble to ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... man with an angry glance, and Nick shrank back into his old position with a sheepish grin, which, in conjunction with his cross eyes, did not improve ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... knew what she would have said. It was in both their minds. They hadn't finished their talk. It had merely strayed into another channel, or bolted and run away there. Aunt Anne's money and her Palace of Peace still stared them in the face. Dick put his head in at the door. He looked rather sheepish, as if his dignified going had been invalidated by this impetuous coming back, as if he couldn't live without Nan and she was bound to see ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... following morning, the sheik, accompanied by fifteen headmen of villages and a number of natives, together with Tomby the interpreter, attended and formed a deputation. I received them beneath the shady tree near my diahbeeah. They looked very sheepish, and asked me, "Why ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... partner, were indescribably ludicrous. Now and then, in her evolutions, she would cast a momentary reproachful glance at the ungallant clergyman who had refused to dance with feminine royalty, and who stood looking on with a sheepish expression of face. He was a Kentuckian, and lack of gallantry ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... to his cloth, or his recent tragical mood, but Glendenning was not offended; he laughed with a sheepish pleasure, and that evening he came with Miss Bentley to call upon us. The visit passed without unusual confidences until they rose to go, when she said abruptly to me: "I feel that we both owe you a great ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... who seemed unprepared for this affable rejoinder, had the sheepish air of a man whose ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... more and more intense, yet carrying his talk along in all simplicity, and with a directness that made scores of the workmen look sheepish. ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... with a violent start, his feet swung to the floor, his body hunched as if to spring, his glance wildly alive. Then it fell on her and the fierce alertness died out; his face softened into a smile, almost sheepish, and he rubbed his hand over ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... and a trifle sheepish. Life was full of queer chances, that was all. No resemblance on earth, no coincidence of birthplace, could make him believe that Judson Clark, waster, profligate and fugitive from the law was now sitting up at night with ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... one can see!" she said, "now one can just see one can snub you with just the tiniest frown—make you look sheepish by just moving a little away from you" ... she laughed, tantalizingly, roguishly, with tightly-closed eyes, as if she could not stand being looked ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... exterior so stern and grave that I wondered to see him, and could scarcely believe he was the same gay spark whose elegant affectations had more than once caused me to smile. He saluted me in silence; Maignan with a sheepish air, which ill-concealed the savage temper defeat had roused in him. Counting my men, I found we mustered ten only, but the equerry explained that he had despatched a rider ahead to make inquiries and leave word for us at convenient points; to the end that we might follow the trail with as few ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... sheepish grin that was rendered somewhat sinister by the fixed eye, "I jostled him real rude in a crowd an' picked his ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Plutarch lingered at the door, and kept nervously wiping the blood off his thumb upon the fringe of his doublet. Mrs. Blennerhassett, with gracious solicitude, insisted upon wrapping a small linen handkerchief about the wounded member. The gawky hero looked very sheepish while she ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... to the excited Bob, then with a stifled shout of laughter he dropped into a chair. For a moment he gave way completely to a wild spasm of mirth, laughing as Mart had never seen him laugh before, while the two boys began to feel sheepish ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... chat, and then she was no longer the prophetess, but the sort of woman that you sometimes see, I am told, in London drawing-rooms—cool, decisive in manner, unsparing of enemies, full of audacious fun, and saying the downright things that the sheepish society around her is afraid to utter. I am told that Lady Hester was in her youth a capital mimic, and she showed me that not all the queenly dulness to which she had condemned herself, not all her fasting and solitude, had destroyed this terrible power. The first whom she crucified ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... day even Mr. Doty was convinced. After his customary visit to the Cross-roads, he returned to his family wearing a bewildered expression. It became a sheepish expression when his wife confronted ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in what seemed a strangely embarrassed—indeed, rather sheepish manner, altogether unlike his usual bearing. I attributed it to a doubt whether Clara would acknowledge their old acquaintance. On her part, she met him with some frankness, but I thought also a rather embarrassed look, which was the more surprising as I had let her know ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... study in the half-sheepish, half-defiant manner peculiar to small brothers in the presence of their elders, and stared in silence at the photographs on the walls. Bob was changing into his cricket things. The atmosphere was one of constraint ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... explained. Also he found out their road for them and sent them off, rather sheepish, ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the Mugwump sniffs and sneers; Gregarious 'votes of thanks' and sheepish 'cheers' Stir him to satire scornful. But when sleek Culture apes, irate and loud, The follies of the Caucus and the Crowd, The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... Nosey looked sheepish and rather flattered—as a Hottentot might if you asked him for the address of his tailor. The Writer gave the surface of the parchment a preparatory rub with a piece of indiarubber. "Well, come on—R. C., Church of England, Methodist . . ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... wearing a coloured muslin. On one point, however, it was evident she had not changed her mind; for the happy man, Uncle Dozie, was there in full matrimonials, with a new wig, and a white waistcoat. The groom elect looked much like a victim about to be sacrificed; he was as miserably sheepish and fidgety as ever old bachelor could be under similar circumstances. Mrs. Creighton paid her compliments to the bride very gracefully; and she tried to look as if the affair were not a particularly good joke. Mr. Wyllys summoned up a sort of resigned cheerfulness; Miss Agnes and Elinor ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... head. He remembered the time when a girl from down East, on a holiday tour, had looked over his mine. Her eloquent blue eyes had made him feel decidedly sheepish. Colorado Jim, who had tackled most of the bad men around Medicine Bow, and had tamed the wildest bronchos that ever roved prairie, was lamentably lacking where the fair sex was concerned. He didn't know what to do, what to say, or ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... outraged in all the dignity of her eleven years at being carried like a child, but unspeakably happy in her father's favor, looked over his shoulder with a sheepish, smiling, sleepy face, murmuring, "Sour grapes, Split, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... began to motion to the men; and one of the fellows came toward Bart in a sheepish way and held out a hand. Bart hesitated about taking it, fearing a trick; but the man's intentions were honest. Having made this advance, the way to an understanding was so fully paved that within less than ten minutes thereafter ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... sheepish as he sneaked from one street corner to another, and skulked in shadows to avoid observation, though he tried to flatter himself that he was doing something highly meritorious. Two or three times, when the unknown young man inclined his head toward Pet, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... ha, ha, ha!" roared Mr Bunker; while like sheepish mushrooms the people sprang up on ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... of Mr. Moreland's eye was rebuked by this appeal, and instead of looking for a place of refuge, he now merely looked sheepish. He, however, entirely agreed with the young lady, as the surer way of getting ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... at a button-hole and looking sheepish. He blushed, now, and his eyes fell. Mr. Walters' heart sank within him. He said to himself, it is not possible that the boy can answer the simplest question—why DID the Judge ask him? Yet he felt obliged ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Lade, a load. Lag, backward. Laggen, the bottom angle of a wooden dish. Laigh, low. Laik, lack. Lair, lore, learning. Laird, landowner. Lairing, sticking or sinking in moss or mud. Laith, loath. Laithfu', loathful, sheepish. Lallan, lowland. Lallans, Scots Lowland vernacular. Lammie, dim. of lamb. Lan', land. Lan'-afore, the foremost horse on the unplowed land side. Lan'-ahin, the hindmost horse on the unplowed land ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... came to pass that when Mr. Whittington's face was washed, his hair curled, and dressed in a rich suit of clothes, that he turned out a genteel young fellow; and, as wealth contributes much to give a man confidence, he in a little time dropped that sheepish behaviour which was principally occasioned by a depression of spirits, and soon grew a sprightly and good companion, insomuch that Miss Alice, who had formerly seen him with an eye of compassion, now viewed him with other eyes, which perhaps was in some measure occasioned by his readiness to oblige ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.
... looked a bit sheepish. "The captain is right, ladies and gentlemen. We could even see the sand where she has plowed it up—they've got lanterns over the rail. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... was his reply. "I was born in Norfolk. My father and grandfather before me were in Her Majesty's Navy, and we are descended from the old commander of Queen Elizabeth's time." To this I observed that I was sorry to see him in the Boer camp amongst the Queen's enemies. He looked rather sheepish, but replied: "Our family settled in Natal many years ago, and I have ever since been a Transvaal burgher. I owe everything I possess to the South African Republic, and of course I fight for its cause; ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... away the prisoners in the stables—great big, docile, sheepish-looking men of the Garde-Schuetzen-Bataillon (2nd and 4th companies) and machine-gun battery attached. I talked to several of them, and they said that the battalion had lost very heavily and there were hardly any officers left. One of the latter, Fritz Wrede by name, I found wounded ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... "Yes," said Lane with sheepish surliness. "I was telling the doctor about it not long ago. My key's gone off my bunch. I found it out just now. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... sheepish, for it was just as Old Mother Nature had said. Jumper's foot really was quite different from that of Peter. ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... know what persons visited these rooms last night?" Thorndyke asked him, when he entered looking somewhat sheepish. ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... further overtures to her during the ride, but he was neither sulky nor sheepish. He feigned an anxiety as to the threatened strike, and related at great length and with extreme cleverness of invention his ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... looked sheepish enough at this, but he looked sorrowful, too, as if he could have wished it had been different, and he asked the man if he had been abused since he came on board. Well, the man said, not unless you called tainted ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... friends looked startled—and sheepish, too. They had been throwing currants through the doorway, to ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Redcar spoke to him in rather a sheepish way. "Shake hands, old lad," said he; "thou knows one or t'other must win; and there's not a grain of spite against thee. It's just a ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... party of school girls with the slim talkative teacher in spectacles, tellin' 'em all the pints of interest, and stuffin' 'em with knowledge gradual but constant; the stiddy goin' business men and the fashionable ones; the married flirt and the newly married bride and husband, sheepish lookin' but happy; old wimmen and young ones; young men and old ones; the sick passenger confined to his bed, but devourin' more food than any two well ones—seven meals a day have I seen carried into that room by the steward, while a voice weak but ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... a few moments later several policemen came up, staring here and there, and leering at their victims. Of the latter the men were for the most part frightened and sheepish-looking. The women took it as a joke, as if they were used to it—though if they had been pale, one could not have told, for the paint on their cheeks. One black-eyed young girl perched herself upon the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... made one of them cry. And Martin suddenly realized that all these girls were against him as much as though it were six months ago. And he swung his feet and looked as though he didn't care, so that Joan knew he was feeling rather sheepish inside, and held ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... flower-wreathed hats and streamers of many-coloured ribbons, the lasses with gay skirts and tall black combs, the old women with lace head-shawls, carrying bundles of house-linen and stockings for the bride; and the sheepish pair are made one, and the peasants dance and then go in procession to the strains of the Rakoczi March, and are photographed with odd spectators (like myself) tacked on, and they sit down to the wedding-dinner under the trees, and the viands are heaped high on the white table-cloths, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... I walked into the laboratory, feeling a little sheepish over the practical joke, but none the less curious to find out ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... shoulder I watched the hulking devils go past in sheepish single file with furtive glances at me. When they had passed out of ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... like a balloon! Jack, I'm a poor devil of a poet. Not two months before I shipped aboard here, I published a volume of poems, very aggressive on the world, Jack. Heaven knows what it cost me. I published it, Jack, and the cursed publisher sued me for damages; my friends looked sheepish; one or two who liked it were non-committal; and as for the addle-pated mob and rabble, they thought they had found out a fool. Blast them, Jack, what they call the public is a monster, like the idol we saw in Owhyhee, with the head of a jackass, the body ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... being made a Cabinet Minister and being garrotted. "I am glad that your headache is better," he said to his wife, who had risen from her seat to meet him. Phineas also had risen, and was now looking somewhat sheepish ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... produced, nevertheless, such a confusion in Roland's mind, that he became uncertain whether he was not still under a mistake from the beginning; the knowing shrewdness which should have animated his visage faded into a sheepish bashfulness, and the half-suppressed but most intelligible smile, became the senseless giggle of one who laughs to cover ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... shaped: she dressed very genteel, walked like a goddess; and yet, her face, though made like those that generally please the most, was unfortunately one of those that pleased the least: nature had spread over it a certain careless indolence that made her look sheepish. This gave but a bad opinion of her wit: and her wit had the ill-luck to make good that opinion: however, as she was fresh coloured, and appeared inexperienced, the king, whom the fair Stewart did ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... distance; pursue the noiseless tenor of one's way, do good by stealth and blush to find it fame [Pope], hide one's light under a bushel, cast a sheep's eye. Adj. modest, diffident; humble &c 879; timid, timorous, bashful; shy, nervous, skittish, coy, sheepish, shamefaced, blushing, overmodest. unpretending^, unpretentious; unobtrusive, unassuming, unostentatious, unboastful^, unaspiring; poor in spirit. out of countenance &c (humbled) 879. reserved, constrained, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... stimulate the men of the immediate neighbourhood, but not enough to bring any very high talent from a distance; so, after a glance or two round, a tall fellow, who is a down shepherd, chucks his hat on to the stage and climbs up the steps, looking rather sheepish. The crowd, of course, first cheer, and then chaff as usual, as he picks up his hat and begins handling the sticks to see which will ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... warmly, and was advancing close up to her—for what purpose I cannot say—whereupon Belle, withdrawing her hand, drew herself up with an air which caused the postillion to retreat a step or two with an exceedingly sheepish look. Recovering himself, however, he made a low bow, and proceeded up the path. I attended him, and helped to harness his horses and put them to the vehicle; he then shook me by the hand, and taking the reins and whip ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... long as they are fancies, grandfather," said Davie, looking outwardly a little sheepish, but with inward triumph, as Katie knew quite well. For to get his grandfather to listen to him was a great step. "And now, Katie, I'll just ask grandfather which is right, you or me. Come over here, grandfather, ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... pressure of the hand, and it must be confessed that the old man looked a little bit sheepish when his wife hoped he had been ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... What form are you in?" Eric expected all this, and it therefore did not annoy him. Under any other circumstances, he would have answered cheerfully and frankly enough; but now he felt miserable at his morning's rencontre, and his answers were short and sheepish, his only desire being to get away as soon as possible. It was an additional vexation to feel sure that his manner did ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... notwithstanding her vigilance and her anxiety to see our strange inmate, had been hitherto foiled by a series of cross accidents. We were sitting together somewhere about ten o'clock at night, when there came a tap at the room-door. We had just been discussing the unaccountable Smith; and I felt a sheepish consciousness that he might be himself at the door, and have possibly even overheard our speculation—some of them anything but complimentary, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... expenses, though that would not be likely. They would have an uphill job at first, for the sailor has been so long accustomed to being preyed upon by the class he knows, and neglected by everybody else except the few good people who want to preach to him, that he would probably, in a sheepish shame-faced sort of way, refuse to have any "truck" with you, as he calls it. If the "sailors' home" people were worth their salt, they would organize expeditions by carriage to such beautiful places as—in London, for instance—Hampton Court, Zoological Gardens, Crystal Palace, Epping ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... with hung heads and sheepish faces, stepped forward with Mark Shaw and ranged themselves behind Sir Claude. Amid the hootings and hissings of their comrades, they marched off together to the Gascon's hut, while the main body broke up their meeting and set ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Gordon looked sheepish and hung his head. "I'm sorry. Anyway, boys, I'll advance you funds. You fly to Las Vegas as soon as possible and ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... that I didn't know why he called Galloway "Crockett country"; but Mrs. James saw my sheepish look, and excused me. "The child has had no novels to read ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and bolder, at length fused into an uninterrupted steady gaze. How fine and beautiful she was! His eyes began to glitter, a smile of approbation overspread his face. Suddenly she looked down and their eyes met. Shosshi's smile hurried off and gave way to a sickly sheepish look and his legs felt weak. The terribly fine maid gave a kind of snort and resumed her inspection of the ceiling. Gradually Shosshi found himself examining her again. Verily Sugarman had spoken truly of her charms. But—overwhelming ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... another old friend, named Gobelin, "you wouldn't have your children disgraced, would you? think how sheepish they would have looked, hiding themselves in the smithy here, when all the other young men were parading round the green with the guns and swords they have taken from the rebels, and the women and girls all admiring ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... envious poetaster demonstrated that Venice Preserved ought to have been hooted from the stage. Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen. There were Earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads from the Universities, translators and index makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great press was to get near the chair where John Dryden sate. In winter that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it stood in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him, but tried to turn the squirm in' into a sickly smile; and he murmured in a meachin' voice, and with a sheepish smile,— ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... a week at Beechcote, and at the end of that time Diana and Mrs. Colwood accompanied her on a Saturday to town, and she was married, to a sheepish and sulky bridegroom, by special license, at a Marylebone church—Sir James Chide, in the background, looking on. They departed for a three days' holiday to Brighton, and on the fourth day they were due to sail by a West Indian steamer for Barbadoes, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... still and the fox never knew that his life had for twenty minutes been in the power of the foe he most feared. Ranger would also have passed me as near as the fox, but I spoke to him, and with a little nervous start he quit the trail and looking sheepish ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... tried at a later time was that of a tall young man, diffident, pale and modest, being given a broom carefully wrapped in a sheet, and told that it was his sweetheart. He accepted the situation and sat down by the broom. He was a little sheepish at first, but eventually he grew bolder, and smiled upon her such a smile as Malvolio casts upon Olivia. The manner in which, little by little, he ventured upon a familiar footing, was exceedingly funny; but when, in ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... said the dame sharply. Then turning her experienced eyes from Kate to Giles, and observing the position he had taken up, and a sheepish expression, she hinted at ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... into his chair and glared at her. "Ef you dare open yore mouth agin, I'll make you git right out an' make tracks fer home." The old woman jerked on her bonnet and turned her face towards the horses. Old Wambush looked over his shoulder at Westerfelt, a sheepish look on his face. ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... sitting on the sidewalk. There was somthing of that venerable, dignified, I've-been-a-slave look about him, so much of it that I almost stopped to question him. Inside I entered a classroom, where a young woman was in conference with a couple of sheepish youngsters who had been kept in ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... drift again, Sandy. I wouldn't be used to such grand people as the patriarchs and prophets, and I would be sheepish and tongue-tied in their company, and mighty glad to get out of it. Sandy, which is the highest rank, patriarch ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... establishment a mere stalk") people had come at last to say, "that the Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains." From the moment when Young Toots's voice was first heard, in tones so deep, and in a manner so sheepish, that "if a lamb had roared it couldn't have been more surprising," saying to Little Dombey with startling suddenness, "How are you?"—every time the Reader opened his lips, as speaking in that character, there was a burst of merriment. His boastful account always called forth laughter—that ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent |
