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adjective
Dim  adj.  (compar. dimmer; superl. dimmest)  
1.
Not bright or distinct; wanting luminousness or clearness; obscure in luster or sound; dusky; darkish; obscure; indistinct; overcast; tarnished. "The dim magnificence of poetry." "How is the gold become dim!" "I never saw The heavens so dim by day." "Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way."
2.
Of obscure vision; not seeing clearly; hence, dull of apprehension; of weak perception; obtuse. "Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow." "The understanding is dim." Note: Obvious compounds: dim-eyed; dim-sighted, etc.
Synonyms: Obscure; dusky; dark; mysterious; imperfect; dull; sullied; tarnished.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dim" Quotes from Famous Books



... all the facts within our knowledge, it seems more than possible that the influence of these and other captives, now venerable with age, upon their red brethren, on the one hand, and dim but precious memories of their own childhood, on the other, had aided materially in determining the location of the college. The patronage of the Canadian tribes was President Wheelock's main reliance for Indian students after his removal ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... don't care; what does it matter? A few places and thousands in the dim future—the loss of them is nothing to me if I only have my ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn

... Again dim lights were turned on, that men might find all their belongings. Adjusting their packs the platoons of the Ninety-ninth found their way to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock

... turned the handles. The first two I tried were locked, but the third was not. When I saw it yield to my hand, I confess I felt so startled that I drew back for a moment; but curiosity conquered—I looked in. The dim light admitted by the Venetian blinds showed me a small apartment, scantily furnished, which might have been a salon or an ante-room. Two small tables standing against the wall, a few chairs covered with yellow damask, and a pier-glass, were all it contained; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... ending with the fifteenth, the church of Iceland maintained its bishops and other missionaries and built its churches and monasteries on the frozen coast of Greenland is abundantly proved by documents and monuments. Dim but seemingly unmistakable traces are now discovered of enterprises, not only of exploration and trade, but also of evangelization, reaching along the mainland southward to the shores of New England. There are vague indications that these beginnings of Christian civilization were extinguished, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... offspring and the lonely spouse: She on high Albyn's dusky hills may raise The tearful eye in melancholy gaze, Or view, while shadowy auguries disclose The Highland seer's anticipated woes, The bleeding phantom of each martial form Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm; While sad, she chants the solitary song, The soft lament for him who tarries long— For him, whose distant relics vainly crave The coronach's wild requiem ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Benjamin Crane's book, and in it had seen the picture of Peter, but the portrait was so different in effect from the bearded man whom she saw but indistinctly by the dim light in the library that she never connected ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... been ordered to give these papers?" So saying, he jumped out of the boat, and, wading knee-deep through the water, handed me a thick letter. I felt by its weight that it was an enclosure containing many others. I hastily tore open the first cover, and read indistinctly in the dim moonlight a note from my friend L—-, dated that same morning from Chambery. L—— informed me that my lodging was taken and prepared for me at Fanchette's poor house in the Faubourg, and that no one had yet arrived from Paris at our old friend the doctor's. He added, that, having ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... pursued our journey, a dreary one, for the most part, over bleak and barren plains, interspersed with silent and cheerless towns and villages, which stood at the distance of two or three leagues from each other. About midday we obtained a dim and distant view of an immense range of mountains, which are in fact those which bound Castile on the north. The day, however, became dim and obscure, and we speedily lost sight of them. A hollow wind now arose and blew over these desolate plains with violence, wafting ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... cohesion, and powers supposed to belong to matter are constituents of mind," Mrs. Eddy says. By this she does not mean that these forces exist, for us, in our minds, but that at some time in the dim past "mortal mind" imagined matter and imagined these properties in it. Christ, she says, was able to walk upon the water and to roll away the stone of the sepulcher because he had overcome the human belief in the laws of gravity. (Yet, Mrs. Eddy is continually reminding us that the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... but hurried within the house; and when the gray light of morn broke upon his gloomy features, haggard from the want of sleep, it might have seemed, in that dim eye and fast-sinking cheek, as if the lovers were not to ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... herself to the very air, cowering from observation, yet betrayed by her excellences; and repaying with a thousand graces the labour of those who sought her in her lonely bye-path. Idris was as the star, set in single splendour in the dim anadem of balmy evening; ready to enlighten and delight the subject world, shielded herself from every taint by her unimagined distance from all that was not like ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... paused, fell over and with their hands pressed to their stomachs they felt their internal organs on fire, their entrails devoured by the fiery liquid, before their minds began to grow dim. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... from her devotions, and went with downcast eyes, her lips still repeating prayers, to the font of holy water, which was in a dim shadowy corner, where a painted window cast a gold and violet twilight. Suddenly there was a rustle of garments in the dimness, and a jewelled hand essayed to pass holy water to her on the tip of its finger. This mark of Christian fraternity, common in those times, Agnes almost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... chilly, had accompanied him. Stella was standing with her head thrown back, her figure tall and splendid in her evening gown of white satin, thrown into vivid relief against the background of empty air. She was angry, and the pose suited her. The slight hardness of her expression was lost in the dim blue twilight which still waited for the moon. Vine, an unemotional man, felt with a curious strength the charm of this isolation on the housetop, this tranquillity, so much more suggestive of solitude than anything which could be realized within the walls ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... dim cloud-vistas looking, I can see The new moon's crescent sailing Pallidly: And one star ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... hanging over the gate. The light is rather dim, because the sides are made of silk instead of glass. What is written upon the lantern? The master's name. The gateway leads into a court into which many rooms open. There are not doors to all the rooms; to some there are only curtains. Curtains are ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... the present Book a quiet idyllic folk on their island home out in the West listening to the mighty struggle of their race, with dim far-off anticipations of all that it involved. Nor were the women indifferent. Arete, the wife and center of the Family, is not henceforth to be exposed to the fate of Helen; think what would Phaeacia be ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... of Want and Hunger? Has she ever slipped her bared arm thro' the iron staples and held it there, while they howled in fury outside, and this iron cut and bruised and tore flesh and nerve,—till her teeth sank through tongue and lips and her eyes grew misty and dim with torture worse than death? Has she ever done all this—while her strength reeled and failed and through it all she cursed God for the white fear in the faces of those who loved and lived upon her? Has she ever felt that sickening GIVE, as the hell-hounds swept her back ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... to look down upon it from so great a height, so he closed his eyes tight and held his breath. Higher and higher climbed the huge bird. Tarzan opened his eyes. The jungle was so far away that he could see only a dim, green blur below him, but just above and quite close was the sun. Tarzan reached out his hands and warmed them, for they were very cold. Then a sudden madness seized him. Where was the bird taking him? Was he to submit thus passively to a feathered creature however enormous? Was he, Tarzan ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... World, passing away: Chances, beauty and youth sapped day by day: Thy life never continueth in one stay. Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey That hath won neither laurel nor bay? I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May: Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay On my bosom for aye. ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... but now and then might be heard the greedy cry of the 'morepork,' chasing the huge night-moths through the dim dewy air." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... the taste and powers of the mind; and that it requires a spirit at ease to be sensible even to the abstract pleasures of pure intellect. The enthusiasm of genius, with all its pictured scenes, now appeared cold, and dim. As she mused upon the book before her, she involuntarily exclaimed, 'Are these, indeed, the passages, that have so often given me exquisite delight? Where did the charm exist?—Was it in my mind, or in ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... and sit where you would, for it was crowded, you did not feel safe. True, they are good shots, and can generally make sure to three square inches of the spot they aim at; still, when you are surrounded with shooters, as we were in this car, you feel nervous, especially at night when the dim light makes it more than ever hazardous. In the Pullman car spitting on the floor is not allowed; the class so travelling are naturally more considerate in this way, nay, possibly, we will hope, steer clear of the habit, but to some even there it is a necessity, and entails an open window or frequent ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... make her senses reel, This mystery, or dim her zeal, Till by degrees she seems to feel Her broken lot; She roams aloof, she grows depressed; And then, her broody sorrow guessed, Men lure her to a well-filled nest And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various

... haven't half enough for myself," and passed on. And as he went he thought the sunbeams grew more dim, and he saw a low bank of black cloud rising out of the west; and, when he had climbed for another hour, the thirst overcame him again, and he would have drunk. Then he saw the old man lying before him on the path, and heard him cry out for water. "Water, indeed," said Schwartz; "I haven't half ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... the house, slammed the front door, shut and locked it. She believed she had surprised thieves at work, for she saw two dim forms running ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... the porch was dim, and as Elice Gleason, answering the ring, opened the outer door she stared as one who sees unbelievable things. For a moment she did not utter a sound, merely stood there gazing at the visitor with a look that was only partially credulous; in sudden ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... substitute for his presence In the light of stars, a pledge That he'd soon return to bless me. With the sun I lost my way, And then wandering dejected Through the windings of the forest, Found me in the dim recesses Of a natural bower, wherein Even the numerous rays that trembled Downward from each living torch Could in noways find an entrance, For to black clouds turned the leaves That by day were ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... dark dwellings." "Do you know this place? No, you never saw it; but you recognize the nature of these trees, this foliage—the cypress, the willow, the yew. Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers. Here is the place." "Then the watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh." In the same passage comes another single ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... had been struck dead, and strained my eyes. There, just in front of me, near enough for me to grasp with my hands, I saw the dim outlines of a short, thick-set man. Was he one of my men? No, for no man would dare to leave his post at that time of night. Should he be discovered in such an act, the penalty for his ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves

... for the images that stand in the holy temple are more to be worshipped than thine. Zucheus, the god of my brother Nahor, is more venerable than Marumath, because he is made cunningly of gold, and when he grows old, he will be worked over again. But when thy Marumath becomes dim, or is shivered in pieces, he will not be renewed, for he is of stone. And the god Joauv, who stands above the other gods with Zucheus, is more venerable than Barisat, made of wood, because he is hammered out of silver, and ornamented ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... dim shades again involve the sky; Again the wanderers want a place to lie, 130 Again they search, and find a lodging nigh. The soil improved around, the mansion neat, And neither poorly low, nor idly great: It seem'd to speak its master's turn of mind, Content, and not for ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... Countess, no great observer of ceremony towards other people, whatever she might exact from them towards herself, cried out, "Come hither, come hither, Cicely Talbot, and tell me how it fares with the poor lady," and as the maiden came forward in the dim light— "Ha! What! Is't she?" she cried, with a sudden start. "On my faith, what has she done to thee? Thou art as like her as the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sense that it was better to forget old joys—rather a quiet pleasure that so much that was beautiful and tender was laid away in memory, and could neither be altered nor taken away. And one does not find in old people, whose memory of the past is clear, while their recollection of the present grows dim, any sense of pathos, but rather of pride and eagerness about recalling the minutest details of the vanished days. To feel the pathos of the past, as Tennyson expressed it in that wonderful and moving lyric, Tears, idle tears, is much more characteristic of youth. There is rather in serene ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... three or four miles nearer. But the sun set while he was still several miles from his goal, and the darkness, which had been closing round him where he rode in the narrow valley, crept over the tops of the high bluffs and shut out from his vision everything but a dim track in the snow faintly illuminated by the stars. Roosevelt hurried his pony. Clouds were gathering overhead, and soon, Roosevelt knew, even the light that the stars gave would be withdrawn. The night was very cold and the silence ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... is a saint of homely tastes and will not have a dome over him or a cover for his tomb, which is only surrounded by a wall breast-high, enclosing a small square bit of ground with the rough tomb on one side. At each corner was set up a flag, and a few dim lanterns hung overhead. The 200 men eating were quite noiseless—and as they rose, one by one washed their hands and went, the crowd melted away like a vision. But before all were gone, came the Bulook, or sub-magistrate—a ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... sight, the girl went more slowly, while she sought to arrange her mode of attack. If her host were what he once was, he would make everything easy after she recalled herself to him. As for the mother, Priscilla had only a dim memory of her, but something told her that the call would be a happy and memorable one after ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... sleepily. She was already in bed. "There is a spoon on that box in the corner; take a tea-spoonful." Another minute of silence, then Eurie suddenly raised her head from the pillow and looked about her wildly. The dim light of the lamp showed Ruth, slowly pulling the pins from ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... we saw, through a long avenue of arches, an iron-grated door; within was a dim light which just sent its feeble rays upon some objects in its neighborhood, not strong enough to show what they were. It required no great effort of the imagination to fancy an emaciated, spectral figure ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... Over the dim purple of the distant hills, a brighter purple line proclaimed the sea. Closer at hand, on a ridge exposed to every wind of heaven, sighed a little wood of stunted larch and dull blue pine, against a clear ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... the way led from beneath the overhanging cliffs out into a dim light, and then it was that I saw that the trail had been cut from the living rock, and that it ran up along the river's ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... not a tree, But thine own dear lover free, Tall and youthful in my bloom With the bright green nodding plume. Thou art leaning on my breast, Lean forever there, and rest! Fly from man, that bloody race, Pards, assassins, bold and base; Quit their dim, and false parade For the quiet lonely shade. Leave the windy birchen cot For my own light happy lot; O'er thee I my veil will fling, Light as beetle's silken wing; I will breathe perfume of flowers, O'er thy happy evening hours; I will in my shell ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... two colossal statues, the sepulchres of the kings, and the temple of Medinet Abu. The glory of Thebes belongs to a period prior to the commencement of authentic history. It is recorded only in the dim lights of poetry and tradition, which might be suspected of fable, did not such mighty witnesses remain to attest their truth. Strabo and Diodorus Siculus described Thebes under the name of Diospolis (the city of God), and gave such magnificent descriptions of its monuments as caused the ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... thankful to know that, although I cannot go out, nor even receive the friends I so much desire to see, still there is no fear of a sudden visit from Colonel P—— or his soldiers; nor of one of those examinations that sometimes take place in the cells. I also like the lamplight at night. Too dim to read or work by, it enlarges and transforms my little cell, so sad and grey by daylight, and in filling it with a golden mist produces an illusion of warmth and life. Besides, the evening is the time for ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... beauty and grace—her high-bred self-possession and polished manner—impressed him as he had never been impressed before, even by the society girls whom he was in the habit of meeting, and Kitty McKenzie's charms grew pale and dim beside the brighter and more perfect ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... In the dull, dim dawn of day I heard The twitter and thrill of a brown-backed bird, As he sat and sang in the leafless tree, A herald ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... indescribable nature causes all the difficulty there is in defining beauty. This third element is—charm. A work of art, to be beautiful, must charm, and to different people different things are charming. Plato's theory is that the sense of beauty is a dim recollection of a standard we have seen in a heavenly pre-existence. Accepting it as as good an explanation of charm as we can get, we may conclude by defining beauty as, in its highest form, a combination of simplicity and ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... AEolian art, a wondrous sight. It was a ferryman's of Calydon: A goat it cost me, and a great white cheese. Ne'er yet my lips came near it, virgin still It stands. And welcome to such boon art thou, If for my sake thou'lt sing that lay of lays. I jest not: up, lad, sing: no songs thou'lt own In the dim land ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... than of tilling the little rood of earth, and living under the wattle roof, and being called Baas by neighbors a little poorer or a little less poor than himself. The cathedral spire, where it rose beyond the fields in the ruddy evening skies or in the dim, gray, misty mornings, said other things to him than this. But these he told only to Patrasche, whispering, childlike, his fancies in the dog's ear when they went together at their work through the fogs of the daybreak, or lay together at their rest ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... bird, ever rising and diminishing to fade away at last into the universal blue. Then, as if aspiring too, she would seek the highest point on some high down, and sitting on her horse survey the prospect before her—the sea of rounded hills, hills beyond hills, stretching away to the dim horizon, and over it all the vast blue dome of heaven. Sky and earth, with thorny brakes and grass and flowers and wild creatures, with birds that flew low and others soaring up into heaven—what was the secret ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... brought honour upon the family name. And I was still more interested when, later, the Vidame informed me that it is the Provencal custom at the Christmas festival for the old thus to instruct the young and so to keep family tradition alive. No doubt there is in this a dim survival of ancestor-worship; but I should be glad to see so excellent a relic of paganism preserved in the Christmas ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... gone half a mile when Henry glanced around for Paul. His eyes, trained to the darkness, ran over the dim forms about him. Many were limping and others already had arms in slings made from their hunting shirts, but Henry nowhere saw the figure of his old comrade. A fever of fear assailed him. One of two things had happened. ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... could not paint a picture and leave man out. Whistler very seldom leaves man out, although I believe there is one "Nocturne" wherein only the stars and the faint rim of the silver moon keep guard. But usually we see the dim suggestion of the bridge's arch, the ghostly steeples, lights lost in the enfolding fog, vague purple barges on the river, and ships rocking solemnly in the offing—all strangely mellow with peace, and subtle thoughts of stillness, rest, dreams ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... his people stayed on the shore that night and until the morning glimmered. Then, with the dim dawn, silence stole ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm

... there, where gas-wells blazed, the smiths of the Folk shaped their iron implements or worked most skillfully in gold and copper; and the ringing of the hammers, through the dim-lit gloom around the strange blue fires, formed a chorus fit for Vulcan or the tempering ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... a hole in the boarding, which latter proved to be a rough door and opened noisily upon rusty hinges. Orsino followed him in silence. To the young man's inexperienced eye the interior of the building was even more depressing than the outside. It smelt like a vault, and a dim grey light entered the square apertures from the curtained scaffoldings without, just sufficient to help one to find a way through the heaps of rubbish that covered the unpaved floors. Contini explained rapidly and concisely the arrangement of the rooms, calling one cave ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... with its classic qualities in many ways fits Shakespeare's description of a beautiful woman when he said, "Age cannot wither her nor custom dim her infinite variety." Anyone who knows Dr. Bennion or has read his writings knows that neither custom nor age has dimmed his infinite variety. Furthermore, a glance at the table of contents of this book will reveal the fact that the problems and principles ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... observe him, not exactly certain when he walks across a room, of going quite straight to where he wants to go. But Cousin Feenix, getting up at half-past seven o'clock or so, is quite another thing from Cousin Feenix got up; and very dim, indeed, he looks, while being shaved at Long's Hotel, in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... perfection, in thy purest ray, Free from the clogs and taints of clay, Hovers divine the archetypal man! Dim as those phantom ghosts of life that gleam And wander voiceless by the Stygian stream,— Fair as it stands in fields Elysian, Ere down to flesh the immortal doth descend:— If doubtful ever in the actual life Each contest—here a victory crowns the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... can't. But, Katie, you're in the army, you must admire courage and I want you to take my word for it when I tell you I did what it took courage to do. I think you'd let me live on in your heart as Ann if you knew what I gave up—and just for something all dim and distant I had no assurance I'd ever come near to. For oh, Katie—when you love love—need it—it's not so easy to let go what's the closest you've come to it. Not so easy to turn from the most beautiful thing you've known—just because something ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes fixed upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much it meant to him, this first sight of that strange spot where the men of his blood had held sway ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... the streets were dim in the dusty twilight, when the figure so long unused to them hurried on its way. In the immediate neighbourhood of the old house it attracted little attention, for there were only a few straggling people to notice it; ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... of a dim, far-off time when he had been a "Methody." But he had shown scant perseverance in the road which, strait and narrow though it be, has now become easy to trace, being well marked by the tread of countless bleeding feet. Instead of continuing therein, ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... out, alone, upon the porch where, huddled in a big rocker, she gazed gloomily at the lights of Manti, dim and distant. Something of the turmoil and the tumult of the town in its young strength and vigor, assailed her, contrasting sharply with the solemn peace of her own surroundings. Life had been a very materialistic ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... green-shaded light on the study table in the centre of the room had been turned low—Sumner prided itself on being conservative to the extent of gas instead of electricity and tin bathtubs instead of porcelain—and in the dim radiance the three occupants of the room were ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... stripling from the sheepcotes and qualifies him to be the antagonist of the grim Saul, and the king of Israel. There are subsidiary lessons, especially for young and ardent souls confined for the present to lowly tasks, and feeling some call to something higher in a dim future. Patience, the faithful doing of to-day's trivial tasks, the habit of self-repression, the quiet trust in God who opens the way in due time,—these, and such like, were the signs that David was called to a throne, and that God's Spirit was preparing him for it. They are ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... reigning sovereign of the realm preserved a decorous alliance in the royal arms that appeared above the official notices. Presently he pushed open the door gently and entered the nave. For a moment it seemed to him as if the arched gloom of the woods he had left behind was repeated in the dim aisle and vaulted roof; there was an earthy odor, as if the church itself, springing from the fertilizing dust below, had taken root in the soil; the chequers of light from the faded stained-glass ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... imagination recognised and delighted in a certain margin of mystery to this harsh world of facts and figures. He is generally too anxious to set everything before us in broad daylight; there is too little of the thoughts and emotions which inhabit the twilight of the mind; of those dim half-seen forms which exercise the strongest influence upon the imagination, and are the most tempting subjects for the poet's art. De Foe, in truth, was little enough of a poet. Sometimes by mere force of terse idiomatic language he rises into real poetry, as it was understood in the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... unattacked. Down the hallway he saw an open door, through which a dim light shone. Before the door were two Mexicans, each armed ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... and walked with the crowd under the temple porch and into the great, dim room. He trembled and grasped his father's hand in awe. For there in the soft light towered great Zeus. In embroidered robes of dull gold he sat high on his golden throne. His hands held his scepter and his messenger eagle. His great yellow curls almost ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall

... world flowed under us: the hills Billow on billow of umbrageous green Heaved us, aghast, to fresh horizons, seen One rapturous instant, blind with flash of rills And silver-rising storms and dewy stills Of dripping boulders, till the dim ravine Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene Coverts grew loud with ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... out Swanson finally to his companion. "Is that the place, do you think?" pointing to the dim shape of a log ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... without giving you the trouble of reaching them; above all, it had a brass candle-socket on each side, which would give it an aristocratic air to the very last. But Hetty objected to it because it had numerous dim blotches sprinkled over the mirror, which no rubbing would remove, and because, instead of swinging backwards and forwards, it was fixed in an upright position, so that she could only get one good ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... Here a storm worthy of Tierra del Fuego was experienced. "White, massive clouds were piled up against a dark blue sky, and across them black, ragged sheets of vapour were rapidly driven. The successive mountain ranges appeared like dim shadows; and the setting sun cast on the woodland a yellow gleam, much like that produced by the flame of spirits of wine on a man's countenance. The water was white with the flying spray; and the wind lulled and roared again through the rigging. It was a most ominous, sublime ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... admit of no sure solution, albeit they date from a time adjacent contrasted with that wherein the land was born. Nature's message still endures for man to read as his knowledge grows; but the records of our primal fellows have grown dim and uncertain as the centuries rolled over them. There exists, however, within the lofty, lonely kingdom of the granite, a chain of human evidences extending from prehistoric ages to the ruined shepherd's cot of yesterday. At many spots a spectator may perceive ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... the sun peeps through The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, How jubilant the happy birds renew Their old, melodious madrigals of love! And when you think of this, remember, too, 'Tis always morning somewhere, and above The awakening ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... of the last, dim, weird battle in the west, beginning at the bottom of page 240 with the line "A death-white mist slept over land and sea," is one of the most stirring things in the poem, and deserves particularly close reading. The pictures are crowded, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... In fancy's dim corridors I see you stand, away back in the early dawn of our national day, with the tallow candle drooping and dying in its socket, as you waited for the physician to come and announce to you that ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... on the foreparts of the Scorpion. A little way from the head of the Serpent-holder is the head of the so-called Kneeler. Their heads are the more readily to be distinguished as the stars which compose them are by no means dim. ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... from sleep the morning after my good fortune, I did not at first realise the extent of my happiness; I only knew that deep in my heart I was conscious of some great cause for joy. Then my eyes, still dim with sleep, discovered that I was in my brother's bedroom, and in a flash the joyful truth was revealed to me. I sat up and hastily examined my body to make sure that the rash had not disappeared, and then my spirit ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... dark, holding me in his arms. But the clouds had cleared off a little, and though there was no moon, I could see the dim blue of the sky-lights, and a little shine from the gray of ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... along a blue river the wagon rolled. Here the vegetation was rank, and the tops of the hickory trees were dim in the dazzling blue above. Great birds with long legs stretched out far behind, flew past, ancient war-bolts they seemed; and a flying squirrel looped his flight from one tree to another. The tall rattle weed, in bloom, nodded a yellow salute as ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read

... listened with tender sympathy. "I see, dear child," said she, "that you are a loving daughter, for two years have gone by since your misfortune, and yet your eyes are dim with tears." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... his train; half-undressed, and in a dejected mood, he was standing near a large mirror, by the light of a dim taper. He heard the door tapped by a soft, soft touch. It was thus Undine had been wont to knock, when she meant to steal upon him playfully. "It is all fancy!" thought he. "The bridal bed awaits me."—"Yes, but it ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... lived in a hovel. These eyes were not always bleared and dim, nor this skin wrinkled and discoloured. I have not always been covered with these filthy rags—nor have I always wanted or coveted the gold which you have just now bestowed upon me. I have lived in palaces—I have commanded ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... the great avenger; history's pages but record One death-struggle in the grapple 'twixt old systems and the Word. Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God in the darkness keeping watch above ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn; With all the mournful voices of the dirges, poured around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—Where amid these you journey, With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang; Here! coffin that slowly passes, I give you ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... transformations). As the flowers and fruits of a tree, unurged by visible influences, never miss their proper season, so does Karma done in a previous existence bring about its fruits in proper time. With age, man's hair grows grey, his teeth become loose; his eyes and ears too become dim in action; but the only thing that does not abate is his desire for enjoyments. Prajapati is pleased with those acts that please one's father, and the Earth is pleased with those acts that please one's mother, and Brahma is adored ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... open my heart to the only friend I have nearest to it. But though this is my most ardent wish, yet, my dear, dearest Lamballe, I leave it to yourself to act as your feelings dictate. Many about us profess to see the future as clear as the sun at noon-day. But, I confess, my vision is still dim. I cannot look into events with the security of others—who confound logic with their wishes. The King, Elizabeth, and all of us, are anxious for your return. But it would grieve us sorely for you to come back ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... gazing on the starry heavens, hushes that baby's soul into reverence as he looks upon it. The terrible shapes melt away into the gloom, he feels no dread of the dark now, and vaguely and gradually there arises the first dim consciousness of the deep spiritual want within him—the first awakened desire of the finite soul to see and find the Infinite Father and claim his protection. Fragments of childish hymns, parts of simple prayers, such poor and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... sarcastic, amico!—even in this dim morning light I can see the scornful curve of your upper lip!—you are really very good-looking, you know!—and you imply the same old Garden of Eden story of man giving away woman as a wholly incomprehensible bad job! Adam flung her back as a reproach to ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... the fire burned briskly after he had used the toe of his boot to give it new life; and sure enough, Step Hen could see the outlines of a long, dim figure that seemed to be hugging the ground. He could even catch the odd gleam of the wicked yellow eyes that were ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... of Eve moans low, her smile is o'er, Dim steals her twilight down the crimson'd west, He climbs the top-most mast, to seek once more The far-seen coast, where ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... of their beloved colors, were surprised to hear hinted the possibility of their being placed, against their will, under the jurisdiction of a foreign power, whose hand might easily prove an arbitrary one. Restlessly they agitated the question at their miners' meetings, with a dim hope that some solution of the trouble would present itself, and ultimately they would be left in the happy possession of properties for which they had endured strenuous hardships and from which they would ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... proprietor of Annesley Hall. Being together in London in 1765, in a chamber of the Star and Garter tavern in Pall Mall, a quarrel rose between them. Byron insisted upon settling it upon the spot by single combat. They fought without seconds, by the dim light of a candle, and Mr. Chaworth, although the most expert swordsman, received a mortal wound. With his dying breath he related such particulars the contest as induced the coroner's jury to return a verdict of wilful murder. Lord Byron was sent to the Tower, and subsequently tried ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... faithful night! Now all things lie Hid by her mantle dark and dim, In pious hope I hither hie, And ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and left her. She was still sitting with her hands clasped round one knee, gazing towards the dim ray-strewn valley. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... before they dropped into a patch of oak-brush. After them appeared others, and we sat there a long time, hoping to see at least one that had its home within our reach. But every bird that passed over turned its face to the mountains; some seemed to head for the dim Oquirrhs across the lake, while others disappeared over the top of the Wasatch behind us; not one paused in our neighborhood, excepting long enough to look at us, and express its opinion in loud and not ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... hand with a droop that spoke of weariness or of weakness. So she sat looking down the road, and the sweet October light was all over her and all around her. Mrs. Sandford watched her, till the light lost its brightness and grew fair and faint, and then began to grow dim. Daisy sat still, and Mrs. Sandford looked at her, till a step within the room drew her ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... pallahs, and another of water-bucks, appeared, standing as quiet and still as if they were part of a painted landscape. Then, in passing a thick clump of thorns, they could see, through openings in the bushes, the dim phantom-like forms of buffaloes, with heads lowered and eyes glaring at them, ready to charge, if need be, though too lazy from heat, apparently, to begin the 'fray, and willing to act on the principle of "let be for let be." Still farther on, a native was observed keeping at a respectful ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... Academy board, on which was sketched, in wash, a midnight express striking out across the Jersey meadows with sparks blazing from the smoke stacks and dim lights burning in the sleepers. It was a vivid thing, strong with all the strength of an engine, and rich in the go and enthusiasm ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... was imaginative, I knew, but never moody; common sense was strong in her, though she had her times of hypersensitiveness. I caught the echo of some unreasoning, big alarm in her. She stood there, gazing across my balcony towards the sea of wooded country that spread dim and vague in the obscurity of the dusk. The deepening shadows entered the room, I fancied, from the grounds below. Following her abstracted gaze a moment, I experienced a curious sharp desire to leave, to escape. Out yonder ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood

... head on my arms, for I had gone through a great deal that day, and this final example of Comyn's generosity overwhelmed me. Then I felt his hand laid kindly on my shoulder, and I rose up and seized it. His eyes were dim, as were mine. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... slipping her hand into his and, in silence, she led him through several dim chambers, and finally stopped before a blank wall in a great ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... his appearance in the drawing-room that night. To Booty's secret rapture, he put on his great-coat, and went out into the chill darkness. He had much to consider; and it was easier to make his plans under the dim March starlight. A difficult charge had been given him, and he had not shrunk from it; on the contrary, he had felt much as some knight in the olden times must have felt when his liege lady had given ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... before breakfast. In the dim light we moved through wet fields of some kind of globe-seeded plant, abundantly variegated with gladiolus and hyacinth. Every one was suffering from our course of Sumaikchah waters, and progress was slow. Splashing ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... hence; Kings must have slaves; Kings rise to eminence Over men's graves; So this man's eyes are dim. Cast the ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... he saw the reflected glare on the opposite wall, he sank deeper into the pillow. The woman was openly sobbing. She came back to his side, knelt, and laid her lips upon his hand. There was now only a dim white speck on the horizon, and with that strange sea-magic the hull suddenly dipped down, and naught but a trail of smoke remained. Then this too vanished. Breitmann withdrew his hand, but he laid ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... growl like a small thunderstorm. The seat was well chosen, for the cowering trees are like a shed over it, and there is a pleasant landscape in front (though that mattered little to Andy), a landscape of dim green moors—with brown stains on them where sedge grows and black shadows where bushes huddle in clefts—chequered by a grey net of low walls, dotted with the white gables of cabins, and framed by a wavering ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... was about to retreat; but as he looked once more toward the haunted Louse a dim light appeared in the crack of a closed window, and presently old Jean Poquelin came, dragging his chair, and sat down close against the shining cranny. He spoke in a low, tender tone in the French tongue, making some inquiry. An answer came from within. Was it the voice of a human? So unnatural ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... a church a person soon contracts an attachment for the edifice. We naturally personify it, and conceive its massy walls and its dim emptiness to be instinct with a calm and meditative and somewhat melancholy spirit. But the steeple stands foremost in our thoughts, as well as locally. It impresses us as a giant with a mind comprehensive and discriminating enough to ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... will be able to dream of celestial hosts coming towards them across the fields of daffodils, and will perhaps be the better for being free from visions of the kind, for as I grew older, uncomfortable doubts laid hold of my heart with cold fingers, dim uncertainties as to the exact ultimate position of the gardener and the governess, anxious questionings as to how it would be if it were they who turned out after all to be sheep, and I who—? For that we all three might be gathered into the same fold at ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... so, too, perhaps, and withdrew discreetly into a dim corner, near the bookcase at the end ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... heather, he could see a faint brightness behind the eastern rim of the moor; but, when he stepped down, it was very dark among the serried tree-trunks. The slender birches had faded utterly, the stately beeches resembled dim ghosts of trees and only the spruces retained, imperfectly, their shape and form. Thurston was country bred, and, lifting high his feet to clear bramble trailer and fallen twig, he walked by feeling instead of sight. The beck moaned a little more ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... dim down in the cellar, and before I knew it some other man had thrust a pannikin into my other hand. Then I stumbled on to a still darker room, where were benches and tables and men. The place smelled vilely, and the sombre ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... for a while. The driver might have been turning around to go back the way he had come. But it was more likely that he had driven into the cross street to the west. He strolled over that way, but the light was too dim to trace automobile tracks in the dust of the street so he went back to the adobe cabin and put in the next hour oiling and cleaning and polishing a 25-35 carbine which he meant to give Helen May, and in filling a cartridge belt ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... Simeon Holly and his wife again sat on the kitchen porch, resting from the labor of the day. Simeon's eyes were closed. His wife's were on the dim outlines of the shed, the barn, the road, or a passing horse and wagon. David, sitting on the steps, was watching the moon climb higher and higher above the tree-tops. After a time he slipped into the house and came out ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter

... months of separation, he must find no flaw in her. She searched her mirror for the ravages of the past few days, and found them. Yet, appraising herself with cold eyes, she felt she was still beautiful. The shadows about her eyes did not dim them. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... been asleep a long time when the barking of Fred woke us. I could just see Uncle Eb in the dim light of the fire, kneeling beside me, the rifle in ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... two had been standing something, indeed, still remained. Concealed hitherto by their bulk, this other figure had been left. They saw its large, dim outline. It moved. Apparently it began to climb over the rails, or to move in some way just outside them, hanging half above the sea. There was a free, swaying movement about it, not ungainly so ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... above the glorious sun To this dim scene we came: And may, if wise, for ever bask In great ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young



Words linked to "Dim" :   slur, weaken, faint, dip, dimness, dark, subdued, wispy, shadowy, blind, dim sum, efface, dim-witted, focus, obliterate, dense, black, indistinct, hopeless, stupid, dimmed, dim-sighted, low-beam, change intensity, vague, slow, darken, blur, bleak



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