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Purveyor   Listen
noun
Purveyor  n.  
1.
One who provides victuals, or whose business is to make provision for the table; a victualer; a caterer.
2.
An officer who formerly provided, or exacted provision, for the king's household. (Eng.)
3.
A procurer; a pimp; a bawd.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Purveyor" Quotes from Famous Books



... stuff in the latest styles, he is one degree better than the purveyor of trite stuff in the old styles; but he is nobody before the high thinker who finds himself suited by the general ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... neither has any idea whether the world is round or flat; neither is aware, save dimly, that there are other lands and other peoples than his own; but the ragpicker is in a city full of books and newspapers (and, oddly enough, is a principal purveyor for the mills that make paper for printing); and the Digger has the advantage in the comparison. The Digger lives in vicious sexual relations, but in this particular point the comparison leaves the Indian far in advance of his rival, for the ragpicker's customs in this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... upon preaching in our day. It is said that the printing-press has superseded the preacher, and must more and more supersede him. Formerly, when people could not read, and literature was written only for scholars, the pulpit was a power, because it was the only purveyor of ideas to the multitude; but now the common man has other resources: he has books, magazines, the newspaper: and he can dispense with the preacher. To this it might be answered, that the sermon is not the only thing which brings people ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... an adjoining zone as is the habit, at times, with plants and animals." This condition will have to be rigidly observed, otherwise our expedition would be of no scientific value to future generations. As we shall have plenty of time to provide the necessary outfit, we will appoint Mr. Darwin purveyor-general of the party, and hold him responsible for ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... stated, the utmost confusion prevailed below. The royal purveyor and cook, who formed part of the king's suite, were busily employed in the kitchen, and though they had the whole household at their command, they made rather slow progress at first, owing to the want of materials. In a short time, however, this difficulty ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... and yet create beauty about them, to remain on the plane upon which Strauss began life, to persevere in the direction in which he was originally set, and yet live fully, one finds oneself convinced that the deterioration of Strauss, which has made him musical purveyor to this group, has not been the result of the pressure of outward and hostile circumstances. One finds oneself positively convinced that it was some inner weakness within himself that permitted the spoilt and ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... would seem that Chu I is the purveyor of official posts; however, in practice, he is more generally regarded as the protector of weak candidates, as the God of Good Luck for those who present themselves at the examinations with a somewhat light equipment of literary knowledge. The special legend relating to this role is known ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered the description at sixty feet. These trees were sold for ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... for the lord of the Tuileries, but he seems to have been not unhappy. There he dictated Memoranda to Las Cases or Gourgaud in the mornings, and often joined the neighbouring family of the Balcombes for dinner and the evening. Mr. Balcombe, an elderly merchant, was appointed purveyor to the party; he and his wife were most hospitable, and their two daughters, of fifteen and fourteen years, frequently beguiled Napoleon's evening hours with games of whist or naive questions. On ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... grooms; in the buttery the same; in the cellar three yeomen and three pages; in the chandlery and the wafery, each two yeomen; in the wardrobe the master of the wardrobe and twenty assistants; in the laundry, yeoman, groom, thirteen pages, two yeoman-purveyors and groom-purveyor; in the bake-house, two yeomen and two grooms; in the wood-yard one yeoman and groom; in the barn a yeoman; at the gate two yeomen and two grooms; a yeoman of his barge; the master of his horse; a clerk and groom of the stables; the farrier; the yeoman of the stirrup; a maltster; and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... but then smiled as at an act of childishness, for he reflected that the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, nowadays the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, was no longer the institution it had been, the purveyor of heretics for the stake, the occult tribunal beyond appeal which had right of life and death over all mankind. True, it still laboured in secrecy, meeting every Wednesday, and judging and condemning without a sound issuing from within its walls. But on the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... be told. The approval of the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson set the seal upon the successful career of Miss Matty as a purveyor of tea. Thus did she escape even the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Sir J. M. BARRIE has shown us the Transatlantic kinema man's idea of the perfect Macbeth, it is up to the purveyor of American films to retaliate by presenting one of his plots for ordinary stage performance in the Kirriemuir manner. Here and there an inadvertent touch of Western ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various

... no less than sixteen pages of these raptures—quite a section of a small magazine like the "Outlook". "The New Haven ramifies to every spot where industry flourishes, where business thrives." "As a purveyor of transportation it supplies the public with just the sort desired." "Here we have the new efficiency in a nutshell." In short, here we have what Dr. Lyman Abbott means when he glorifies "the great mass of American wealth". "It is serving the community; it is building a railway to open ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... which he was particularly fond, or some other gross and savory food. His cooks were often at their wits' end to devise some new dish, rich and highly seasoned enough to satisfy his appetite, and his perplexed purveyor one day, knowing Charles's passion for timepieces, told him "that he really did not know what new dish he could prepare him, unless it were a ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... your shoulders refuse, what they are able to bear." It is to be feared that "the monument more enduring than brass" is not erected with such rapidity. The only brass associated with the modern best seller is to be found in the advertisements; and, indeed, all that both purveyor and consumer seem to care about may well be summed up in the publisher's recommendation quoted by Professor Phelps: "This book goes with a rush and ends with a smash." Such, one might add, is the beginning and ending ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... preferred to Congreve. Dorset was too practised a courtier not to study the tastes of his master to good purpose. A liking for the stage, or a lively sense of poetic excellence, was not among the preferences of King William. The Laureate was sub-purveyor of amusement for the court; but there was no longer a court to amuse, and the King himself never once in his reign entered a theatre. The piety of Queen Mary rendered her a rare attendant at the play-house. Plays were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... possible however to collect and store mixed milk in so cleanly a manner that its germ content does not exceed 5000 micro-organisms per cubic centimetre. Such comparative freedom from extraneous bacteria is usually secured by the purveyor only when he resorts to the process of pasteurisation (heating the milk to 65 deg. C. for twenty minutes or to 77 deg. C. for one minute) or the simpler plan of adding preservatives to the milk. Information regarding the employment of these methods for the destruction ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... Purveyor, by Imperial appointment, he had not the least idea of anything relating to matters of business or of the world. All he was good for was: to take advantage of the friendships enjoyed by his grandfather in days of old, to present himself at ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... amounted to two thousand two hundred men at arms, and six thousand foot. They first attacked the Venetian flotilla, then lying upon the river Po, which they routed with the loss of above two hundred vessels, and took prisoner Antonio Justiniano, the purveyor of the fleet. The Venetians, finding all Italy united against them, endeavored to support their reputation by engaging in their service the duke of Lorraine, who joined them with two hundred men at arms: and having suffered so great ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... J. R. Taskinar, his conquered competitor, who, to be revenged, had bought a cargo of wild beasts, reptiles, and other objectionable creatures from a well-known purveyor to the menageries of both hemispheres, and had landed them at night in several voyages to Spencer Island. It had cost him a good deal, no doubt, to do so; but he had succeeded in infesting the property of his rival, as the English did Martinique, if we are to ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... himself. His nerves are a bit raw, and he's not always responsible for his manners. The other night he came in tired, and tried to read, when Poppsy and Pee-Wee were both going it like the Russian Balalaika. To tell the truth, their little tummies were a bit upset, because the food purveyor had had too strenuous a day to be regular in ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... that I have grown slumberous. Carlotta, if left to herself, would have gone on riding camels through Africa to the end of time. She had changed in many essentials. Instead of regarding me as an amiable purveyor of sweetmeats and other necessaries of life to which by the grace of her being Carlotta she was entitled, she treated me with human affection and sympathy, keeping her own wants in the background, anxious only to anticipate mine. But she still loved sweetmeats ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... entirely occupied by such Men as are recovered from Diseases; that no Men be sent there but those whose Names are returned to the Purveyor's Office by the Physician or Surgeon of ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... whom he only knows by Fame: Upon which she promises, if he can be secret, to procure him a Meeting. The Stranger, ravished at his good Fortune, gives her a Present, and in a little time is introduced to some imaginary Title; for you must know that this cunning Purveyor has her Representatives upon this Occasion, of some of the finest Ladies in the Kingdom. By this Means, as I am informed, it is usual enough to meet with a German Count in foreign Countries, that shall make his Boasts of Favours he has received from Women of the highest ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... individual named Emmanuel Schikaneder, a Jack-of-all-trades so far as public amusements were concerned—musician, singer, actor, playwright, and manager. There can be no doubt but that he was a sad scalawag and ribald rogue, with as few moral scruples as ever burdened a purveyor of popular amusements. But he had some personal traits which endeared him to Mozart, and a degree of intellectuality which won him a fairly respectable place among the writers for the stage at the turn of the century. ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... really Love, though good always, is not quite so good,) Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli,— For Love must be sustained like flesh and blood,—While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly: Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food;[bv] But who is their purveyor from above Heaven knows,—it may ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... the snuff-box was all-powerful. The Prince Regent was devoted to snuff, but disdained tobacco. He had a "cellar of snuff," which after his death was sold, said John Bull, August 15, 1830, "to a well-known purveyor, for L400." Lord Petersham, famous among dandies, made a wonderful collection of snuffs and snuff-boxes, and was curious in his choice of a box to carry. Gronow relates that once when a light Sevres snuff-box which Lord Petersham was using, was admired, the noble owner replied, with a gentle lisp—"Yes, ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... unblushing effrontery, and asked him for a cask of flour. "And for what?" demanded the purser. "Because I your good friend," was the answer. "You are an impudent, beggarly rascal," said our hasty-tempered purveyor of provisions to him. "What can I see in your precious ugly black face that will induce me to give you anything but a good kicking?" "Patience and policy, messmate," I said. "Where is your philosophy? Let your steward give them a few biscuits and a dram, and get rid of them." To ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... reaching the masses is not to ascertain the limitations of the new art, but to discover its boundless possibilities. None of the exuberant versions of things Edison has not done could endure for a moment with the simple narrative of what he has really done as the world's new Purveyor of Pleasure. And yet it all depends on the toilful conquest of a subtle and intricate art. The story of the invention of the phonograph has been told. That of the evolution of motion pictures follows. It is all one piece of ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... born near Artois; member of the Jacobin Club, Attorney-General of the Revolutionary Tribunal, purveyor of the guillotine; was guillotined himself after the fall ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... expected, and had, with a good deal of art, taken advantage of several trivial circumstances to inspire the burghers with confidence in his good-will. Thus, an infirm old lady in the city happened to imagine herself so dependent upon asses milk as to have sent her purveyor out of the city, at the peril of his life, to procure a supply from the neighbourhood. The young man was captured, brought to Alexander, from whose hands he very naturally expected the punishment of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... came over me to see what dimensions the circular edifice would assume, if the Spider were given an unlimited supply. With captives to whom I myself act as purveyor the thing is easy enough. Were it only with a view to helping whoso may one day care to continue these relations with the big Spider of the waste-lands, let me describe ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... outside the Court of the Emperor, there was scarcely even a sporadic knowledge of the literature of China until the Korean missionaries of Buddhism had obtained a lodgement in the Mikado's capital. Buddhism was the real purveyor of the foreign learning and became the vehicle by means of which Confucianism, or the Chinese ethical principles, reached the common people of Japan. The first missionaries in Japan were heartily in sympathy with the Confucian ethics, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... speech showeth thine unwisdom. Why, a king can have his purveyor to pick of the finest in the market ere any other be serven; he can lay tax on his people whenas it shall please him [this was true at that time]; he can have a whole pig or goose to his table every ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... sister—that innocent purveyor of home news—had no glimpse of the correspondence, and that other recipients of his confidence are not in touch with the writer of these chronicles. Whatever he wrote, with what fervour he described his wanderings in the forest ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... I replied, quickly. "I prefer the opium habit to the Sunday-newspaper habit, and if I thought Boswell was merely a purveyor of what is known as Sunday literature, which depends on the goodness of the day to offset its shortcomings, I should ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs

... portion of a ticket. The day proves equally propitious for the omnipresent organ-grinder and his ludicrously-dressed little monkey, a la Napoleon; the Chinese peddler; the orange and banana dealer; and the universal cigarette purveyor. Still, the rough Montero from the country, with his long line of loaded mules or ponies, respectfully raises his broad Panama with one hand while he makes the sign of the cross with the other as he passes the church door. The churches of Havana look very ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... the first appearance of the Pair in this vicinity, they excited a good deal of speculation and enquiry amongst every class in Walworth. It is now more than eight years ago since this man's predecessor—the purveyor, as he grandiloquently was wont to call himself, of milk to this large district—died. His dairies, which I fancy were lucrative things enough, were immediately sold, and taken by a person who, we were informed, would not only continue to supply Walworth with their produce, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... future contracts to be made with the domestic establishments. This, indeed, has been the case since 1845, at the arsenal of Ferrol, which has been supplied altogether from the iron-works of Biscay. The government, however, had determined for the future to be chiefly its own purveyor, and national founderies at Ferrol and Trubia, constructed without regard to expense, were about to go into operation when ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... seven-and-sixpence! It is the fashion to run down George IV., but what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for inventing Brighton! One of the best of physicians our city has ever known, is kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton. Hail, thou purveyor of shrimps and honest prescriber of Southdown mutton! There is no mutton so good as Brighton mutton; no flys so pleasant as Brighton flys; nor any cliff so pleasant to ride on; no shops so beautiful to look at as the Brighton gimcrack ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... lake and replaced it with the English one of George. He did not name it after St. George, the patron saint of England, of whom history asserts that he "was identical with a native of either Cappadocia or Cilicia, who raised himself by flattery of the great from the meanest circumstances to be purveyor of bacon for the army, and who was put to death with two of his ministers by a mob, for peculations, A. D. 361;" but he took that of a sensual king, George of England, in order to advance his own interests with ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... in the conduct of commercial affairs—not to speak of political movements—it was of the most vital importance that early information should be obtained of affairs on the Continent. The Editor resolved to become himself the purveyor of foreign intelligence, and at great expense he despatched his agents in all directions, even in the track of armies; while others were employed, under various disguises and by means of sundry pretexts, in ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... Prince and Princess in popular favour and the fact that even the most irresponsible or unscrupulous purveyor of news to such sheets as Mr. Labouchere's Truth had never dared to reflect upon the Princess of Wales' beauty of character and life sufficed long before the accession of His Royal Highness to the Throne to kill even the surreptitious stories which always float upon the surface of ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... apples The story of the young lady that was murdered, and of the young man her husband The story of Nourreddin Ali and Bedreddin Hassan The story of the little hunch-back The story told by the Christian merchant The story told by the sultan of Casgar's purveyor The story told by the Jewish physician The story told by the tailor The story of the barber The story of the barber's eldest brother Of the second Of the third Of the fourth Of the fifth Of the sixth The history of Aboulhassan All Ebn Becar and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... floating dankly in the soup, disguised as currants, or sacrificing their legs to the butter. But these distastes are as nothing to the new Terror of the Fly. He is now seen to be a purveyor of disease—we might say the purveyor ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... the Pike Gardens, some time called the Queen's Pike Gardens, with ponds for the preservation of fresh-water fish, which were said to be kept for the supply of the royal table, under the inspection of an officer, called the king's purveyor of pike, who had here a house for his residence."[1] On the Bankside, prior to the above date, were also the ancient Bordello, or Stews, which, according to Pennant, were distinguished by their respective signs painted against the walls, one of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various

... all understand her, though he had handled a variety of people during his long career as a purveyor of "refined vaudeville" to the public. He confessed as much to Mr. Smitherton, with whom, as Miss Burton's business manager, he ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... friends, that she might partake of their hospitality. Not, indeed, that she would venture so close to the grocer's shop, even for the sake of the cheese-parings; but she used to enter the village, and frequently spent her time at a pond hard by, while Old Phil went to pay his respects to the purveyor of groceries. ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... starting four hours later, brought the news of the defeat of the Austrians. Du Bousquier cursed Kellermann and Desaix; he dared not curse Bonaparte, who might owe him millions. This alternative of millions to be earned and present ruin staring him in the face, deprived the purveyor of most of his faculties: he became nearly imbecile for several days; the man had so abused his health by excesses that when the thunderbolt fell upon him he had no strength to resist. The payment of his bills against the Exchequer ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... minute confervoid growth, prevents their accumulation by removing them; and by its vital powers converts what would otherwise act as a poison into a rich and fruitful nutriment, again to constitute a pabulum for the vegetable growth, while it also acts the important part of a purveyor to its finny neighbours.'[5] This perfect adjustment in the economy of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, whereby the vital functions of each are permanently maintained, is one of the most ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various

... portraiture, and also at times in that devotional sculpture in wood which still responded to a native interest and consequently kept its sincerity and colour. Pious images may be feeble in the extreme, but they have not the weakness of being merely aesthetic. The purveyor of church wares has a stated theme; he is employed for a purpose; and if he has enough technical resource his work may become truly beautiful: which is not to say that he will succeed if his conceptions are without dignity or his style without discretion. There are ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... And at other times I imagine that she suspects absolutely nothing of that sort of life, you understand. Furthermore, she is a great novel reader. I am at present, while awaiting something better, her book purveyor. She calls me her 'librarian.' Every week the New Book Store sends her, on my orders, everything new that has appeared, and I believe that she reads everything at random. It must make a strange sort of mixture in ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers. Copying law-papers being proverbially a dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs, to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... the lady of the Manor whose return to her native home was so soon expected,—but Josey Letherbarrow was a privileged personage, and he might say what others dared not. As philosopher, general moralist and purveyor of copy-book maxims, he was looked upon in the village as the Nestor of the community, and in all discussions or disputations was referred to as final arbitrator and judge. Born in St. Rest, he had never been out of it, except on an occasional jaunt ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... Everything he needs or enjoys is to be a matter of special thought, and obtained with a special effort and often with difficulty. Much that was very comfortable and salutary in civil life must be given up in the camp. The government is the purveyor for and the manager of the army; it undertakes to provide and care for, to sustain and nourish the men. But, with all its wisdom, power, and means, it is not equal to the thousand or thousands of housekeepers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... husband buys Somebody's Soap, or treats her to Somebody's particular Starch or Patent Medicine! Ye jest watch and see!" The idea was startling, and seized upon the mercantile mind. The principal merchant of the town, and purveyor to the mining settlements beyond, appeared the next morning at the office of the "Clarion." "Ye wouldn't mind puttin' this 'ad' in a column alongside o' the Dimmidge one, would ye?" The young editor glanced at it, and then, with a serpent-like sagacity, veiled, however, by ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... road leading from the Constitution Hill Compound to the Controller's Camp on the bank of the river, about two miles nearer the Falls. There were to be seen a collection of huts and offices, where the Controller conducted his important business of food-purveyor to the community, and a Government inspector of cattle had equally arduous duties to perform. I must mention that, owing to disease in the south, cattle were then not allowed to cross the Zambesi, and horses and dogs had to be disinfected before they were permitted ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... secretary. The steward and butler are on their feet all the time we are dining; they walk about and watch if the table be properly served; they pour out the wine for the master of the castle and for the visitors. The courtiers are served with wine only on Sundays and festival days. The purveyor, the treasurer, the master of the horse, and the arm offerer (renkodajny), whose business it is to offer his arm to the master or mistress of the castle every time either one desires to go out, all dine at the steward's table. The courtiers who dine at our table certainly enjoy much honor, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... scavengers, while especially fond of carcasses and putrid flesh, are not averse to a little fresh meat occasionally. The jackal is truly the follower or purveyor for the lion, and oftentimes they work together. Jackals will gather in large numbers near a lion's den and howl and scream until the lions come forth to disperse them. As soon as a lion appears they stop their noise, but when he is out of sight, they immediately begin again. ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... advance that my imagination will never grapple with those startling circumstances—that my thoughts will begin to wander before my friend has got half through the remarkable chain of events, and that if the obliging purveyor of romantic incidents were to examine me at the end of the story, I should be spun ignominiously. For the most part, such subjects as have been proposed to me by friends have been hopelessly unfit for the circulating library; or, ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... the following day Mr. O'BRIEN issues to the world a manifesto of 60,000 words, in which he describes Mr. REDMOND as "a palsied purveyor of pledge-breaking platitudes," and announces that the Irish question can be settled only by the good will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various

... but he did not dare to look at his guest. "Our compact is broken. I shall not kill you. No! I will never be purveyor to the scaffold. But go ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... true poet is not one whom they can hire by money and flattery to be a minister of their pleasures, their writer of occasional verses, their purveyor of table wit; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. At the peril of both parties let no such union be attempted. Will a Courser of the Sun work softly in the harness of a Dray-horse? ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... of an early and intimate friend, and had finally offered him the very comfortable position he now occupies. There is a decided incongruity between Theodore as a man—as Theodore, in fine—and the dear fellow as the intellectual agent, confidant, complaisant, purveyor, pander—what you will—of a battered old cynic and dilettante—a worldling if there ever was one. There seems at first sight a perfect want of agreement between his character and his function. One is gold and the other brass, or something ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... is a tissue of sensations, which he distinguishes as they seem to come more directly from himself or his surroundings. He is conscious of himself as a joyer or a sufferer, as that which craves, chooses, and is satisfied; conscious of his surroundings as it were of an inexhaustible purveyor, the source of aspects, inspirations, wonders, cruel knocks and transporting caresses. Thus he goes on his way, stumbling ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... flour. Perpetual stoppages took place as these wains became entangled; and their rude drivers, swearing and brawling till their wild passions were fully raised, began to debate precedence with their wagon-whips and quarter-staves, which occasional riots were usually quieted by a purveyor, deputy-marshal's man, or some other person in authority breaking the heads of both parties. Here were, besides, players and mummers, jugglers and showmen, of every description, traversing in joyous bands the paths which ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... a boat would be in, the reply was "Seguro manana"—"To-morrow for sure." When would it leave? "Seguro manana." Nothing annoys or embarrasses a Filipino more than the American habit of railing at luck or of berating the unfortunate purveyor of disappointing news, or, in fact, of insisting on accurate information if it can be obtained. They are ready to say anything at a minute's notice. A friend of mine in Ilocos Norte once lost a ring, and asked her servant if he knew anything ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... the paper. At the end of the fifteenth month of its career, Mr. Bennett ventured to increase the size of the Herald, and to raise its price from one to two cents. Since then the paper has prospered steadily, and is now one of the wealthiest and most powerful journals in the land, and the best purveyor of news in the world. Its success is due almost exclusively to the proprietor. Mr. Bennett has not only built up his own paper, but has revolutionized the press of the world. This is his chief claim ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... corporation". Housewives with perambulators and oil-cloth shopping bags. Children on rollerskates. The din of small tradesmen and the humdrum of every city block where the homes remain unbearded all summer and every wife is on haggling terms with the purveyor of her evening ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... "The house of your purveyor, Sir Robert de Burgh, is burned, his lands wasted. The rebels are headed by lords and knights. Robin of Redesdale, who, methinks, bears a charmed life, has even ventured to rouse the disaffected in my brother's very ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... extraordinary if they did not mutually assist each other's functions. But, perhaps, upon a comparison, the body has more effect upon the mind than the mind upon the body. The first object of the mind is to act as purveyor to the wants of the body. When these wants are completely satisfied, an active mind is indeed apt to wander further, to range over the fields of science, or sport in the regions of. Imagination, to fancy that it ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... inserted the bodkin in the second cake; seemed to meet with some obstruction, and laid the ball down upon the counter. From beneath his jacket he took out a clasp-knife attached to a steel chain. Undeterred by a savage roar from the purveyor, he cut the sticky mass in half, and digging his long nails into one of the halves, brought out two lead shots. He directed a glance of his beady eye upon ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... home, however, his old milk purveyor had died; and, as such animals are rather scarce in the West Indies, he was not able to procure one either for love or money at Grenada, and was at a complete nonplus till we ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... that the manager of a theatre is the only purveyor who does not know the value of his wares? A bookseller will, if he approves of a work, pay a certain sum for the copyright, and risk an additional sum in the publication, at the hazard of losing by the fiat of a very capricious public, the reading public. But the writer of a drama must make up ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various

... this designation those who lived on the margin as well as those who were sunk in the depths of destitution, probably included the majority of the inhabitants of the town. The city had practically no organised industries. The retail trader and the purveyor of luxuries doubtless flourished; but, in the scanty manufactures which the capital still provided, the army of free labour must have been always worsted by the cruel competition of the cheaper ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... favourite position—and the other raised a pinch of snuff to his nose; and as he passed along he nodded and bowed to all about him, and seemed greatly pleased with the attention he excited." His company followed the manager on foot. Yet for many years Mr. Pentland was the sole purveyor of theatrical entertainments to several English counties, and did not shrink from presenting to his audiences the most important works in the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... one Philanthus who in front of my eyes sacrificed six Bees in succession and squeezed out their crops in the regulation manner. The slaughter came to an end not because the glutton was sated but because my functions as a purveyor were becoming rather difficult: the dry month of August causes the insects to avoid my harmas, which at this season is denuded of flowers. Six crops emptied of their honey: what an orgy! And even then the ravenous creature would very likely not have scorned ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... company, you never stir from her apartments during the time allotted to her by the King, that is to say, three whole hours every evening. There you pose as sovereign arbiter; as oracle, uttering a thousand divers decisions; as supreme purveyor of news and gossip; the scourge of all who are absent; the complacent promoter of scandal; the soul and the ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... more startling thing happened. Twice each week there passed through the country, from farm to farm, a butcher's wagon from Shelbyville, the county-seat, a few miles away. Isom Chase never had been a customer of the fresh meat purveyor, and the traveling merchant, knowing from the old man's notoriety that he never could expect him to become one, did not waste time in stopping at his house. His surprise was almost apoplectic when Isom stopped him and bought ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... successes," thought she. "The same number sometimes comes a dozen times in succession at roulette." She sent her handy man, secretary, social manager and organizer, mattre d'hotel, companion, scout, gossip, purveyor of comfort, J. Worthington Whitesides, to seek out Craig and to ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... without scruple her passion for joy-riding. The car she adored, Rupert Stillwell she regarded simply as a means to the indulgence of her adoration. He was a jolly companion, a cleverly humourous talker, and an unfailing purveyor of bon-bons. Hence he was to Patricia an ever welcome guest at the Rectory, and the warmth of Patricia's welcome went a long way to establish his position of intimacy ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... particularly the cook-book. Her bread was as heavy with undigested facts as is the stomach of a dyspeptic with food, but she was, in a way, a good servant, very faithful, attached to Mrs. Anderson, and a guileless purveyor of gossip, which rendered her exceedingly entertaining. She sniffed meaningly now in response to Mrs. Anderson's affirmative with regard to the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... smile girls like me are used to bear, 155 But never men, men cannot stoop so low; Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit Which seems to take possession of the world And make of God a tame confederate, 160 Purveyor to their appetites—you know! But still Natalia said they were your friends, And they assented though they smiled the more, And all came round me—that thin Englishman With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest; 165 He held a paper—"What we want," said he, Ending some explanation ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... who came to receive their orders touching the bill of fare for dinner, and his majesty found much more difficulty in settling this important concern, than in compromising all the differences between the Emperor and the Queen of Spain. At length, however, General Macleaver undertook the office of purveyor for his prince; Captain Minikin insisted upon treating the Count; and in a little time the table was covered with a cloth, which, for the sake of my delicate readers, I will not attempt ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... the orchard, and if we would dine there, we should find it cheerful enough." We readily adopted this proposal, and had a very pleasant dinner under an apple tree. Mademoiselle and myself had agreed to divide between us the office of purveyor to the party. It was my part to see that the meat or poultry was not over-boiled, over-hashed, or over-roasted, and it was her's to arrange the table with the linen and plate which we brought with us. It is inconceivable how much comfort, and even elegance, ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... in to buy some of the dried leaf which the starosta, honest tradesman, called tea. He found the purveyor of Cathay's produce at ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... essentially with the success of the government, and to give the Gars a fair chance of dying honorably, sword in hand, before he could fall a prey to the executioner, for whom this agent of the detective police acknowledged himself the purveyor. ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... any special indignation in this case. It was impossible to say yet whether it would roar or not. That in the last instance depended, of course, on the newspaper press. But in any case, Chief Inspector Heat, purveyor of prisons by trade, and a man of legal instincts, did logically believe that incarceration was the proper fate for every declared enemy of the law. In the strength of that conviction he committed a fault of tact. He allowed himself a ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... discovering ability, scenting it afar as an ogre might scent human flesh, cajoled Lucien, and did his best to secure a recruit for the squadron under his command. And Coralie watched the manoeuvres of this purveyor of brains, saw that Lucien was nibbling at the bait, and tried to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... more? And yet she spends, spends as never before. It is ridiculous. Can she not enjoy life at a smaller figure? Was ever monarch plagued with so extravagant an ex-wife. She owes her chocolate-merchant, her candle-merchant, her sweetmeat purveyor; her grocer, her butcher, her poulterer; her architect, and the shopkeeper who sells her rouge; her perfumer, her dressmaker, her merchant of shoes. She owes for fans, plants, engravings, and chairs. She owes masons and carpenters, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... when bountiful stores were the fashion in every household he insisted on a rigid observance of the more precise French system. He made an appropriation of a certain sum each day for his expenses, and required from his purveyor a strict daily account of disbursements. An amusing story is told of him at his own table. On an occasion when entertaining a company at dinner, he was dissatisfied with the menu and expressed his disapprobation to ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... for a sketch, if possible, of this excellent purveyor. Pere Seguin was tall as an obelisk, strong as a Hercules, vif as gunpowder, thin and sinewy as any wolf in his beloved forests. His ear large, flat, and full of hair; his teeth long, white, regular, and sharp as those of his favourite and extraordinary dog; his ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... proofreader, and deciphers pages of wit and pathos with the perseverance of a Champollion. For him, with each new moon, and punctual to the day, comes forth the Maga of the month, the fruit of incredible diligence, and the flower of admirable skill. For him the foreign purveyor of all he lives by pays down the golden honorarium, fifty guineas for the sheet, that he may have the whole for less than fifty pence. For him—the same benevolent provider takes pains to silence, by the same ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... with her in the course of his duties, had by no means so evil an opinion of her. He had never seen much harm in her, he had often been heard to say, and she never made pretence to much good. Nevertheless, David was by no means pleased to see her acting as purveyor to the gang which Harry had joined. He knew how such contact would damage him in the eyes of all the parochial respectabilities, and was anxious to do his best to get him clear ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... department. On being brought in contact with the official, and seeing his luxurious life, the peasant lost his mind, and thought that he might get along without work, like gentlemen, and receive proper support from the Emperor. This peasant now calls himself "the Most Serene Warrior, Prince Blokhin, purveyor of war supplies of all descriptions." He says of himself that he has "passed through all the ranks," and that when he shall have served out his term in the army, he is to receive from the Emperor an unlimited bank account, clothes, uniforms, horses, equipages, tea, pease and ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... have so disposed matters that my death would bring it to light. Ferdinando de' Medici will grant any request of mine. I am to go to Paris, not as the servant but as the Lady in Waiting of the Queen of France. Will it please you to join her train as Manager of her Royal Theatre and Purveyor of Sports to the French Court? You could then enjoy the society of the Queen ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... middle of the veranda pauses a tall, muscular man of fifty, with the usual smooth face and an iron-gray queue. That is Colonel Agamemnon Brahmin de Grandissime, purveyor to the family's military pride, conservator of its military glory, and, after Honore, the most admired of the name. Achille Grandissime, he who took Agricola away from Frowenfeld's shop in the carriage, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... reside John Cuzner, a British tar, For pluck renown'd both near and far! Nor would I willingly forget While tracing recollections met Of other days, and from the past Collecting memories fading fast, Of lines our earliest purveyor, John MacNaughton, the Surveyor, The only one who then was quite At home with the theodolite, And boxed the trembling compass well, Before the days of Robert Bell. A little further up the street, James Martin's name the eye did greet A round faced Caledonian, who Good eating and good drinking ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... young marquis, to England for a year or two, for she has a very warm heart, and longed to see you all. Also, she thought she had better go away a while, for her son's sake. As for me, now that Morella is dead, I am head of the household—secretary, general purveyor of intelligence, and anything else you like at ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... the commanding officer and the scandal of the sutler, a little ranch just outside the reservation lines whither venturesome spirits from the command were oft enticed and fleeced of the money that the authorized purveyor of high-priced luxuries considered his legitimate plunder. By this time Camp Cooke waked up to the fact that it had been dozing. While its own little force of cavalry was scouting the valleys of the Verde and the Salado to the east and Blake's troop ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... He did not think it at all curious that the great outer portals should be open; nor, though he saw the milk-cart at the door, and noted Cohen's uncomfortable look, did he remember that he had discovered the milk-purveyor nocturnally infringing the Sabbath. He stumbled up the stairs and knocked at the garret door, through the chinks of which light streamed. The thought of Hulda smote him almost sober. Zussmann's face, when the door opened, restored ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... government, in its constitution, if not always in its practice, long had a consideration towards the feelings of the people, and often contrived to hide the nature of its exactions by a name of blandishment. An enormous grievance was long the office of purveyance. A purveyor was an officer who was to furnish every sort of provision for the royal house, and sometimes for great lords, during their progresses or journeys. His oppressive office, by arbitrarily fixing the market prices, and compelling the countrymen ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli



Words linked to "Purveyor" :   purvey, provider



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