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Wean   Listen
verb
Wean  v. t.  (past & past part. weaned; pres. part. weaning)  
1.
To accustom and reconcile, as a child or other young animal, to a want or deprivation of mother's milk; to take from the breast or udder; to cause to cease to depend on the mother nourishment. "And the child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned."
2.
Hence, to detach or alienate the affections of, from any object of desire; to reconcile to the want or loss of anything. "Wean them from themselves." "The troubles of age were intended... to wean us gradually from our fondness of life."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wean" Quotes from Famous Books



... we're weary to wean's frae oor waes, He comes when the bairnies are getting aff their claes; To cover them sae cosy, an' bring bonnie dreams, So Auld Daddy Darkness is better than ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... M. a part of our world, or is it not? Should its inhabitants be encouraged to maintain their connections with us, or is it better for them to "accept the situation" and gradually wean themselves from us and from our affairs? It would be idle to determine this question in the abstract: it is perhaps idle to decide any question of casuistry in the abstract. But, in practice, there are constantly arising questions which really require some decision of ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... chairs from the artistical lumber that usurped them, she bid us be seated, and resumed her place beside the easel—not facing it exactly, but now and then glancing at the picture upon it while she conversed, and giving it an occasional touch with her brush, as if she found it impossible to wean her attention entirely from her occupation to fix it upon her guests. It was a view of Wildfell Hall, as seen at early morning from the field below, rising in dark relief against a sky of clear silvery blue, with a few red streaks on the horizon, faithfully drawn and coloured, and very ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... nature contradiction: he is made up of mere antipathies; an Ishmaelite indeed, without a fellow. He is always playing at hunt-the-slipper in politics. He turns round upon whoever is next to him. The way to wean him from any opinion, and make him conceive an intolerable hatred against it, would be to place somebody near him who was perpetually dinning it in his ears. When he is in England, he does nothing but abuse the Boroughmongers, and laugh at the whole system: when he is in ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... have not done every act in subordination to his will, for his sake, and with a view to his blessing. But He is merciful as well as just, and if his punishment falls now upon my head, it is assuredly to wean me from my error, and to bring ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... wean ourselves from the Old World, and become more and more nationalized in our great struggle for existence as a free people, we shall carry this aptness for the production of beautiful forms more and more into common life, which demands first what is necessary and then ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... other tribe that was not at peace with his, this mistaken young man had associated himself with a band of like-minded desperadoes—who made him their chief—and took to pillaging the members of every tribe that misfortune cast in his way. Now, it occurred to Ortrud that the best way to wean her son from his evil ways would be to get him married to some gentle, pretty, affectionate girl, whose influence would be exerted in favour of universal peace instead of war, and the moment she set eyes on Branwen, she became convinced that her ambition was ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... deed forgotten, a royal wooer had earn'd thee? Deed that braver none ventureth ever again? Yet what sorrow to lose thy lord, what murmur of anguish! Jove, how rain'd those tears brush'd from a passionate eye! 30 Who is this could wean thee, a God so mighty, to falter? May not a lover live from the beloved afar? Then for a spouse so goodly, before each spirit of heaven, Me thou vowd'st, with slain oxen, a vast hecatomb, Home if again he alighted. Awhile and Asia crouching 35 Humbly to Egypt's realm added a boundary ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... cause," said she. "Aften I spaed to them the way that it would end. Twa shillin' Scots: no pickle mair; and there are twa bonny callants hingin' for't! They took it frae a wean[8] ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Twixt intellect and appetite? But a' in vain the Southron throws Abune each trout's suspectfu' nose His gnats and coachmen, greys and brouns, And siclike gear that's sold in touns, And a' in vain the burn he whups Frae earliest sunrise till the tups Wi' mony a wean-compelling "meeeh!" Announce the punctual close of day. Then hameward by the well-worn track Gangs the disgruntled Sassenach, And, having dined off mountain sheep, Betakes him moodily to sleep. And "Ah!" he cries, "would I micht be A clansman kilted to the knee, Wi' sporran, plaid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various

... a charmed and mystic number, which, if it be broken in these young days,—as, alas, it may be!—will only yield a cherub angel to float over you, and to float over them,—to wean you, and to wean them, from this world, where all joys do perish, to that seraph world where joys do ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... pictures, pretty portraits and the like, which yield money, but can never give fame. Do that, and your talent is lost and thrown away. Be patient, wait, reflect, chasten your taste by study, and wean yourself from that hankering after prettiness and dandyism. Leave such tricks to those who care but for gold, and propose yourself a higher aim, the never-dying laurels of a Titian ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... had thy company ower lang, Ill-lookin' wean,(1) thoo must be wrang, Thus to cut short my jerkin. I ken thee weel, I knaw thy ways, Thoo's awlus kept back cash an' claes, An' foorc'd me ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... have called our shepherd from the hill, Passed is the sunny sadness of his song, That song which sang of sight and yet was brave To lay the ghosts of seeing, subtly strong To wean from tears and from the troughs to save; And who shall teach us ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne

... moment all except Elisa were at home. On the whole, they were more needy than ever. The death of their patron, Marbeuf, had been followed by the final rejection of their long-urged suit, and this fact, combined with the political opinions of the elder Lucien, was beginning to wean them from the official clique. There were the same factions as before—the official party and the patriots. Since the death of Charles de Buonaparte, the former had been represented at Versailles by Buttafuoco, Choiseul's unworthy instrument in acquiring the island, and now, as ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... you, I was married then and had one son, a bright boy, and oh! I loved him and his mother. Then came the plague and took them both. So having naught left and being by nature one of those who could wean himself from women, which I fear that you are not, Hubert, noting all the misery there is in the world and how those who are called noble whom I hate, grind down the humble and the poor, I turned myself to good works. Half of all my gains I have given and still give to ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... Sir,—I received yours, and at first felt all the horror innocence so belied could do; but now, Sir, I look on it as a blessing from God, both to wean me from this world, and make the near approach of death less dreadful to me. You desire me, in your letter, if innocent of my poor mother's death and that of Mrs. Pocock, to make a solemn declaration, and have it witnessed; which ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead

... nights Badgy was chained in order to wean him from the old to the new home, his chain being made so short that he could not dig far into the ground under the stack. This wore upon him so that he grew cross, thinner than ever before, and ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... remain in seeming ignorance of his mission until it was too late for a parting word? Did he dread the ordeal of telling her his errand? Even he, so strong and resolute, who had so often smiled grim death out of countenance, feared the kiss which might wean him from the narrow way. And she must prove herself worthy of him. She must suffer in silence, trusting the All-powerful to bring him ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... whistle! Sing a sang to please the wean; Let it be o' Lady Summer Walking wi' her gallant train! Sing him how her gaucy mantle, Forest-green, trails ower the lea, Broider'd frae the dewy hem o't Wi' the field flowers ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... Nor could she wean Louise from association with the piratical looking mariner at Cap'n Abe's store. The girl utterly refused to be guided by the older woman in ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... Hodgson's verses, and encourages him to write; Hodgson recognizes in the Bards and Reviewers and the early cantos of Childe Harold the promise of Manfred and Cain. Among the associates who strove to bring the poet back to the anchorage of fixed belief, and to wean him from the error of his thoughts, Francis Hodgson was the most charitable, and therefore the most judicious. That his cautions and exhortations were never stultified by pedantry or excessive dogmatism, is apparent from the frank and unguarded answers which they called forth. In ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... what a wee boy could put into a whistle: it was awfully childish for a man and a gentleman to take up just a wean ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... her three Daughters" in "Polimanteia," 1595, speaking of Harvey and Nash, and the pending quarrel between them, uses these terms: "Cambridge make thy two children friends: thou hast been unkind to the one to wean him before his time, and too fond upon the other to keep him so long without preferment: the one is ancient and of much reading; the other is young, but full of wit."[4] The cause of his disgrace is reported to have been the share he took in a piece called ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... struggle against the slave system did more to wean religious and God-fearing men and women from the old interpretation of Scripture than the use of it ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... extraordinary scene another event took place at the Louvre sufficiently interesting to Henry to wean his thoughts for a time even from the foreshadowed future of his successor. In an apartment immediately contiguous to that of the still convalescent Queen, Madame de Verneuil became in her turn the mother of a son, who was baptized with great ceremony, and received ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... childhood. His father compelled him to relinquish it as a profession, but it remained his favorite avocation, and after his graduation from Harvard the cares of none of the various public positions he held, from schoolmaster to treasurer of the state of Massachusetts, could ever wean him from the study of music and its practice. At the age of thirty-one, while sitting one day in his study, the last ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... careless and dreaming, Sorely afflicted with books and with pubescent paresis, Hating the things of the farm, care of the barn and the garden, Always neglecting his chores—given to books and to reading, Which, as all people allow, turn the young person to mischief, Harden his heart against toil, wean his affections from tillage. ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... wean a calf at the time of the full moon, it will make less fuss. You mustn't wean it when the sign is in the belly, or it will never grow fat. Pursue the same course with a pig, or it will squeal. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various

... position. A life of toil may seem to be hard, but it conforms to nature and natural laws and favors the development of the best that is in man; and he who shirks toil misses his opportunity. Whatever tends to wean men from work only weakens them. Luxury and indolence travel on the downward road of degeneracy. They may make pleasant temporary indulgence, but ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... Had the ball reached its mark, the establishment of Vermont as a free state might have been postponed for many years. Ethan Allen's diplomacy in later dealing with the British agents who sought to wean Vermont from her federation with the struggling colonies, doubtless saved the Green Mountains from being overrun by a horde of Hessians and Indians who would have brought death and disaster to ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... instead of combating them directly, which would only serve to augment them, and to wean us from God, with whom alone we ought to be occupied, we should simply turn away from them, and draw nearer to God; as a little child, seeing a fierce animal approaching it, would not stay to fight it, ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... man's history, Nature and her marvellous ongoings were regarded with but a casual and careless eye, or else with the merest wonder. It was late before profound and reverent study of her laws could wean man from impatient speculations; and now, what is our intellectual activity based on, except on the more thorough mental absorption of Nature? When that absorption is completed, the mystic drama will be sunny clear, and all ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... bear the turning of our most sacred language into its depolarized equivalents. You have only to look back to Dr. Channing's famous Baltimore discourse and remember the shrieks of blasphemy with which it was greeted, to satisfy yourself on this point. Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified. Man is an idolater or symbol-worshipper by nature, which, of course, is no fault of his; but sooner or ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... the true God into his joy to come; but the evil doers will, I wean, late be from ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... that our own Hearts deceive us in the Love of the World, and that we cannot command our selves enough to resign it, tho' we every Day wish our selves disengaged from its Allurements; let us not stand upon a Formal taking of Leave, but wean our selves from them, while we are in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... ennobling influence of our social reforms, because those reforms removed the motive that impelled to most vices; we were perfectly satisfied that Freeland would produce no criminals, and would even, if it were not beyond the bounds of possibility, wean from vice those who had been previously made criminals by misery and ignorance; but we wished, in the beginning, to avoid being swamped by bad elements, and, in view of the excusable attempts of certain States to rid themselves in some way or another ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... the Pledge a Door of Refuge ope To wean my footsteps from the facile Slope, And write me down, fulfilled of Self-esteem, A Prop and Pillar of the ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... and have forsaken me in these troubles, {you} for whose sake I am in extreme disgrace, and have been disobedient to my father; on whose account I am now ashamed and grieved, that he who used to lecture me about the manners of these women, advised me in vain, and was not able to wean me away from her:— which, however, I shall now do; {whereas} when it might have been advantageous to me {to do so}, I was unwilling. There is no being more ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... the child's cry, only looked to either hand to see that none of his friends heard it, and finding there was no one near him, took off his Highland bonnet, lightly, to the house where he jaloused there was a woman with the wean, and passed ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... up in all respects as an English boy would have been. Having been sent to school he soon learned not only to speak English with fluency, but to read and write it with very superior ability; and he showed himself besides in everything remarkably tractable and obedient. Yet nothing could wean him from his partiality to his original condition; and he at last quitted the house of his protector, and contrived to find his way to New Zealand. Here he settled among a people even still more uncivilized than his own countrymen, and married the daughter ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... so, Philip. I thank him for the week—'tis but a short time to wean myself from happiness. I grant you, that were I to tease, to vex, to unman you with my tears, my prayers, or my upbraidings (as some wives would do, Philip), one day would be more than sufficient for such a scene of weakness on my part, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... say it is naughty, it is decidedly wrong, to talk in that way. I am not weaned from you, and no human being and no mortal influence can wean me." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... that has become Dr. Grey's Mecca. I could live without his love, but I can not stand tamely by and see him lavish it on another. Some women,—such, for instance, as we read of in novels, would meekly endure this trial, as one appointed by Heaven to wean them from earth; would fold their hands, and grow devout, and romantically thin and wan,—and get sweet, patient, martyr expressions about their unkissed lips; but I am in no respect a model heroine, and it will prove safer for us all if I am far away when Dr. Grey brings his bride to receive ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... among themselves. This custom of eating their enemies slain in battle (for I firmly believe they eat the flesh of no others) has undoubtedly been handed down to them from the earliest times; and we know it is not an easy matter to wean a nation from their ancient customs, let them be ever so inhuman and savage; especially if that nation has no manner of connexion or commerce with strangers. For it is by this that the greatest ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... alcohol with hard drinkers, and as a valuable drug in delirium tremens, has lately led physicians to regard the Capsicum as a highly useful, stimulating, and restorative medicine. For an intemperate person, who really desires to wean himself from taking spirituous liquors, and yet feels to need a substitute at first, a mixture of tincture of Capsicum with tincture of orange peel and water will answer very effectually, the doses being reduced in ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... mind to an endeavour to wean my brother's affection from Madame de Sauves, in order to counterplot Le Guast in his design to bring about a division, and thereby to effect our ruin. I used every means with my brother to divert his passion; but the fascination was too strong, and my pains proved ineffectual. In anything else, ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... Management of Infants,' just in the old voice, and Tibbie swept round indignantly, 'His Lordship, Lord Keith of Gowanbrae, suld hae the best tendance she could gie him. She did na lippen to thae English buiks, as though she couldna rear a wean without bulk learning.' Poor Rachel nearly cried, and was not half comforted by my promising to study the book as much as ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... greater man; And through my provinces you must expect Letters of conduct from my mightiness, If you intend to keep your treasure safe. But, since I love to live at liberty, As easily may you get the Soldan's crown As any prizes out of my precinct; For they are friends that help to wean my state Till men and kingdoms help to strengthen it, And must maintain my life exempt from servitude.— But, tell me, madam, is your ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe

... grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest and continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions, that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it. "Come," I said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of mind. Compare her ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien

... Then I take you Sir, for some new silken thing wean'd from the Country, that shall (when you come to keep good company) be beaten into better manners. Pray good proud Gentlewoman, help me ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... Here, lads, this is one o' chaps as is turning us out. We've got the wheels ti' Saturday, and we wean't hev no one here." ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... her. Indeed, the only trace of worldliness which I see in her is her intense yearning toward our dear Adele, and her passionate longing to clasp her child once more to her heart. Nor will I conceal from you that she hopes, with all the fervor of a mother's hope, to wean her from what she counts the heretical opinions under which she has been reared, and to bring her into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... market and keen competition to combine against the old reckoning and in a measure succeeded. But next year was as dull as '66 had been brisk, and then the buyers and dealers had their revenge and re-established the "clad score" in all its pristine firmness of position. The sheep-farmers wean their lambs about the 24th of August and delivery of them is given to the buyers as soon as possible thereafter. The delivery of ewes and wethers is timed by individual arrangement. A large proportion of the old ewes—no ewes are sold but such as are ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... my dear Fanny, I am glad you should have the wish of your heart. There were obstacles to your union with Lord Ballindine, which appeared to be insurmountable, and I therefore attempted to wean you from your love. I hope he will prove worthy of that love, and that you may never have cause to repent of your devotion to him. You are going greatly to increase your cares and troubles; may God give you strength to bear them, and wisdom to turn ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... parent's life And grant that no untimely strife May wean them from each other! For soon he'd find the golden fleece Slip from his grasp, should he e'er cease To ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... one they call Hannibal-the-Fighter. They say he never spares an enemy, and that he eats the flesh of those he kills. May the gods grant that my masters shall wean him to-night from the love of such hideous, barbaric fare!"—and yet, with all her horror, Marcia almost smiled to note how the girl looked upon this brute with more of woman's feeling for man than she bestowed upon any of his better ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... alone in acquiring and keeping or enjoying a kingdom. One that hath not his senses under control, cannot enjoy sovereignty for any length of time. He that hath his soul under control and is endued with great intelligence, can rule a kingdom. Lust and wrath wean away a man from his possessions and enjoyments. Conquering these foes first, a king bringeth the earth under his subjection. Sovereignty over men is a great thing. Those that are of wicked souls may easily desire to win a kingdom, but they are not competent to retain ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... rend them both asunder. It is evident to me that Charles's letter (which Emily showed to me with a melancholy face) was on principle less warm, less dottable with stars, and more conversant with things of this world; high, firm, honourable principle; intending very gently, very gradually, to wean her from him, if he could; for his faith in Jeanie Mackie had been shaken, and—but let us hear him tell us of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... I'll maintain you gallantly. I'll bring you to Court, wean you among the fair society of ladies, poor Kinswomen of mine, in cloth of silver: beside, you shall have your Monkey, your Parrot, your Muskrat, and ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... Hoping to wean her from worrying about Johnny, dad had bought the Bear Cat. Mary V had owned it for ten days now, and its mileage stood at 1400 and was just about ready to slide another "1" into sight. The Bear Cat had proven itself a ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... enough to bear, So dreadfully to wean it; But to go home and leave it there, And he had never seen it—! It was a thing to thank God for That home for me was none; I knew before we reacht the door That ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett

... throughout the world." He became one of those enthusiastic orators who preached revolution as a new religion, full of gentleness and salvation. The terrible days of December 1851, the days of the Coup d'Etat, were required to wean him from his doctrines of universal love. He was then without arms; allowed himself to be captured like a sheep, and was treated as though he were a wolf. He awoke from his sermon on universal brotherhood to find himself starving on the cold stones ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... was Rab M'Graen, A clever, sturdy fellow: He's sin gat Eppie Sim wi' wean, That liv'd in Achmacalla: He gat hemp-seed,[38] I mind it weel, And he made unco light o't; But monie a day was by himsel', He was sae sairly frighted ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... now her father told her that this young man had been thinking of marrying another girl, a tailor's daughter;—that such a marriage had been almost fixed. Surely it would be better that steps should be taken to wean her sister from such a passion! But yet she did not tell the secret. She only allowed a word to escape her, from which it might be half surmised that Clarissa would be a sufferer. "What difference will it make to Clary?" asked ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... time passed on, many little losses of money and valued articles disturbing and troubling the mind of Mrs. Campbell, until it became necessary to wean her babe. This duty was assigned to Jane, who took the infant to sleep with her. On the first night, it cried for several hours—in fact, did not permit Jane to get more than a few minutes sleep ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur

... therein," ordered the monarch, "for the youth has such beauty, both of body and mind, I am grieved he was born in Athens. Yet there is one short way to wean him from his doomed and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... her a prospect of death both near, and at a distance, and showed her the things of this life in a very different view from that in which they are seen by people in health; the necessity of dying, to which she saw herself so near, taught her to wean herself from the world, and the lingeringness of her distemper brought her to a habit in it; yet when she was a little recovered, she found that Monsieur de Nemours was not effaced from her heart; but to defend herself against him, she called to her aid all ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette

... strange things to come. Ambitious vision of himself successful among the city's throngs made his pulses beat faster. He felt that he had within him the power to achieve something worth while in the world. Certainly, he would not fail for lack of striving. But no triumph elsewhere could ever wean him from his love for the Blue Ridge—for his home country. Yes, it was as he had said there in the store: He would come back. He would come back to the cabin in the "cove" under the shadows of Stone Mountain—back to the old mother, back to Plutina. A warmth of exquisite ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... else of that sort should be spread under them, because the better they are bedded the more easily they are brought up. Puppies open their eyes twenty days after birth.[147] During the first two months they are not separated from their mother, but wean themselves gradually. A number of puppies should be kenneled together, where they may be encouraged to fight, which will make them fiercer, but they should never be suffered to tire themselves since weariness develops cowardice. They should also be ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... to mark the changes in the nurse's face during that brief interval. At first it wore a look almost of repugnance as she regarded the unconscious child, and then that very unconsciousness seemed to awaken her womanly compassion. "Puir hapless wean, ye little ken what ye're coming to! Lack o' kinsman's love, and lack o' siller, and lack o' beauty. God forgie me—but why did He send ye into the waefu' ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... play an important part in the Easter festival, which always lasts several days. They paint their faces hideously, tog themselves up with feathers on their sombreros, and carry wooden swords painted with red figures. Such ceremonies were a clever device of the Jesuits and Franciscan missionaries to wean the Indians from their native feasts by offering them something equally attractive in the new religion they were teaching. The feasts are still observed, while ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... could be easy every where, and every one should be at ease with me; now I shall go and find no Sylvia there, but sigh and wander like an unknown thing, on some strange foreign shore; I shall grow peevish as a new wean'd child, no toys, no bauble of the gaudy world will please my wayward fancy: I shall be out of humour, rail at every thing, in anger shall demand, and sullenly reply to every question asked and answered, and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... had our pious friend in virtue trod, But now the child half-wean'd his heart from God; Child of his age, for him he lived in pain, And measured back his steps to earth again. To what excesses had his dotage run? But God, to save the father, took the son. To all but thee, in fits he seem'd to go, 230 And 'twas ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... her mother had wished for, perhaps startled Faith to a fresh sense of what she had to do in the premises. She resolved to be as grave and cool as it was possible to be, in Dr. Harrison's presence. She would keep him at such a distance as should wean him from any thoughts of her. Faith tried faithfully to do what she had purposed. But it was very difficult to keep at a distance a person who did not pretend to be near, or only pretended it in a line where he could not be repulsed. He must see her every day as her physician. He must be ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... lately brought over, With forty things more: now hear what the law says, Whoe'er will not wear them is not the king's lover. Though a printer and Dean, Seditiously mean, Our true Irish hearts from Old England to wean, We'll buy English silks for our wives and our daughters, In spite of his ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... while he industriously shunned all opportunities of appearing in that superior sphere to which he was designed by nature and by fortune. He imputed his conduct to meanness of spirit, and advised with my father touching the properest expedient to wean his affections from such low-born pursuits. My father counselled him to send the young gentleman up to London, to be entered as a student in the Temple, and recommended him to the superintendence of some person ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... manner in which the visions came to her. She ardently desired to have a "bodily sight" of her Lord upon the Cross, "like other that were Christ's lovers"; and she prayed that she might have "a grievous sickness almost unto death," to wean her from the world and quicken her spiritual sense. The sickness came, and the vision; for they thought her dying, and held the crucifix before her, till the figure on the Cross changed into the semblance of the living Christ. "All this was showed by three parts—that is to say, by bodily sight, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... a little time, and persuaded him to remain till Sigenok returned. "He, though still a savage, is, at all events, faithful," I observed; "he will not desert us till he has seen us home and safe again with Sam Dawes. I wish that we could wean him altogether from his mode of life, and induce him to become a ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... soul weary. It was in vain that his daughter, with the tenderest, the kindest, the most assiduous care, strove to raise his expectations or support his resolution; it was in vain that she strove to wean his thoughts away from his own painful situation by music, or by reading, or by conversation. Grief, like the dull adder, stops its ear that it may not hear the song of the charmer; and while she sang to him or played to him upon the lute, at that time an instrument ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... she rejoined. "I hae baith a father and a wean to luik efter; and that's aboot as muckle as ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald

... perhaps she was only timid. At any rate, she used her influence to wean her husband from his outdoor pursuits—especially hunting. He must have been very much in love with her, for she succeeded, and he promised to give it all up—after one day more. It seems that he could not get out of this last run. The meet was on ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... Thekla was there, leading the little Karoline, and helping the toddling steps of Max; but she kept aloof from me; for I knew, or suspected, or had probed too much. She alone looked sad and grave, and spoke so little, even to her friends, that it was evident to see that she was trying to wean herself finally from the place. But I could see that she had lost her short, defiant manner. What she did say was kindly and gently spoken. The Fraeulein came out late in the morning, dressed, I suppose, in the latest Worms fashion—quite different to anything I had ever ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... retreat a Goddess holds, Daughter of sapient Atlas, who the abyss Knows to its bottom, and the pillars high Himself upbears which sep'rate earth from heav'n. His daughter, there, the sorrowing Chief detains, 70 And ever with smooth speech insidious seeks To wean his heart from Ithaca; meantime Ulysses, happy might he but behold The smoke ascending from his native land, Death covets. Canst thou not, Olympian Jove! At last relent? Hath not Ulysses oft With victims slain amid Achaia's fleet Thee gratified, while yet at Troy he fought? How hath he then so ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... me, and, in a way of great pleasance, got Mrs Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep at the manse. In short, we had just a ploy the whole two days they stayed with us, and I got leave from Lord Eaglesham's steward to let them shoot on my lord's land; and I believe every laddie wean in the parish attended them to the field. As for old Lady Macadam, Charles being, as she said, a near relation, and she having likewise some knowledge of his comrade's family, she was just in her element with them, though they were but youths; for ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... lad, there is an expedient so simple that you astonish me by not perceiving it. If there is no way to wean Landis away from the woman, then get him alone and shoot him through the heart. In that way you remove from the life of Lou a man unworthy of her and you also make the mines come to the heir of Jack Landis—namely, myself. And in the latter case, Mr. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... country, you, Antiphila, For sordid gain desert me in distress! You, for whose sake I courted infamy, And cast off my obedience to my father. He, I remember now with grief and shame, Oft warn'd me of these women's ways; oft tried In vain by sage advice to wean me from her. But now I bid farewell to her forever; Though, when 'twere good and wholesome, I was froward. No wretch more curs'd ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... hold by two anchors, looking to God, it is true, after a fashion, but also holding by our proper machinations. In certain medical experiences we have the same critical point to overcome. A drunkard, or a morphine or cocaine maniac, offers himself to be cured. He appeals to the doctor to wean him from his enemy, but he dares not face blank abstinence. The tyrannical drug is still an anchor to windward: he hides supplies of it among his clothing; arranges secretly to have it smuggled in in case of need. Even so an incompletely regenerate man still trusts in his ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... happy yet should I esteem myself, Could I, by any practice, wean the boy From one vain course of study he affects. He is a scholar, if a man may trust The liberal voice of fame in her report, Of good account in both our Universities, Either of which hath favoured him with ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... Giles so much that she knew perfectly well that he did not love her, and this knowledge taught her to mistrust him. As her passion was so great she was content to take him as a reluctant husband, in the belief that she, as his wife, would in time wean him from his earlier love. But she was well aware that, even to save Anne, he would not give ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... reasonable. No person shall be obliged beyond his ability. A mother shall not be compelled to what is unreasonable on account of her child, nor a father on account of his child. And the heir of the father shall be obliged to do in like manner. But if they choose to wean the child before the end of two years, by common consent and on mutual consideration, it shall be no crime in them. And if ye have a mind to provide a nurse for your children, it shall be no crime in you, in case ye fully pay what ye offer her, according ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... I cannot wean my wayward heart from waiting, Though the steps watched for never come anear; The wearying want clings to it unabating— The fruitless wish for ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... had stripp'd them, and have felt a joy Deeper than ear could lend unto the heart; And when the Winter from his mountains wild Look'd down on death, and, in the frosty sky, The very stars seem'd hung with icicles, Then came a sense of beauty calm and cold, That wean'd me from myself, yet knit me still With kindred bonds to Nature. All is past, And he—who won from me such love for him, And he—my valiant uncle and my friend, Comes not to lift the cloud that drapes my soul, And shield me ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... the sow flitted?' cries the carle; 'Gie me an answer, short and plain— Is the sow flitted, yammerin' wean?'" ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... Ruth works out of doors with him. And does what Simon cannot do; For she, not over stout of limb, Is stouter of the two. And though you with your utmost skill From labour could not wean them, Alas! 'tis very little, all Which they ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... because to judge well and candidly, we must wean our selves from a slavish Bigotry to the Ancients. For, tho' Homer and Virgil, Pindar and Horace be laid before us as Examples of exquisite Writing in the Heroic and Lyric Kind, yet, either thro' the Distance of Time, ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb

... says Farmer John: "The cattle are looking round and sleek; The colt is going to be a roan, And a beauty too, how he has grown! We'll wean the calf, next week." Says Farmer John, when I've been off, To call you again about the trough, And watch you, and pet you, while you drink, Is a greater comfort than you can think." And he pats old Bay, And he slaps old Grey; "Ah, this is ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... river. The Sauteux, of all other tribes, are the most tenacious of their own superstitions; and it would require all the zeal and patience and perseverance of the primitive teachers of Christianity to wean them from them. But when convinced of his errors, the Sauteux convert is the more steadfast in his faith; and his steadfastness and sincerity prove an ample reward to his spiritual father for his pains ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... necessity he is allowed to find his excuse; 2ndly, because an Englishman, attempting to play the adulatory character, finds an obstacle to his success in the standard of his own national manners from which it requires a perpetual effort to wean himself: whereas the oily and fluent obsequiousness found amongst Italians and Frenchmen makes the transition to a perfect Phrygian servility not only more easy to the artist, and less extravagantly palpable, but more agreeable in the result to ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... been able to suckle their own children generally wean them at the expiration of twelve months, and popular custom, which takes rank as a superstition, has appointed two days in the year for that purpose—one in July, the other in January. Both of these periods are unfavorable to the child: in July the cattle are mostly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... be it, and so much the worse for her, little fool!..." He would have granted anything rather than drive his daughter to extremes. In truth he might have used diplomacy, and pretended to give his consent to gain time, gently to wean Jacqueline from Olivier. But doing so meant giving himself more trouble than he could or would be bothered with. Besides, he was weak: and the mere fact that he had angrily said "No!" to Jacqueline, now inclined him to say "Yes." After all, what ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... reproached me for what he terms my insensibility to his perfections, and says I ought to rejoice that he is so easily rendered happy—only imagine this! Rose, you must give me your daughter, to be to me as my own. Her beauty and sweetness will at once wean my husband's love from this boy; and, moreover, children brought up together—do you not see?—that boy will become attached to one of the 'plebeian blood,' and wedding her hereafter, scald to the core the proud heart of his mother, as she has ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... she cried shrilly, the two scraggy muscles of her neck standing out long and thin as she screamed; "ye muckle lump—to strike a defenceless wean!—Dinna greet, my lamb; I'll no let him meddle ye.—Jock Gilmour, how daur ye lift your finger to a wean of mine? But I'll learn ye the better o't! Mr. Gourlay'll gie you the order to travel ere the day's muckle aulder. I'll have no servant about ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... though I should be kept here ever so long. That is what I want you to understand. Having given my word,—and so much more than my word,—I certainly shall not go back from it. I can understand that you should carry me off here so as to try and wean me from it—" ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... not all, that boy nuss he mommer breast till he 21 year old. He have to have that nussin' real reg'lar. But one time he pesterin' mommer and she tryin' milk the cow and the cow git nervous and kick over the bucket and mommer fall off the stool and she so mad she wean ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... for me most anxiously and earnestly. When he found I had become an unbeliever, he resolved never to go near a meeting of mine again, and prayed to God to help him to keep his resolution. For many years he tried to wean himself from me, to extinguish his passionate regard for me; but whenever he found that I was to lecture in his neighborhood, he lost his self-control, and came, though with reluctance, and many misgivings, to my meetings. He generally rose ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... taken in hand. Even now perhaps it is not too late. It is our duty to wean him from ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... man steals, he should have such punishment and for such a time as will wean his soul from theft, as will atone for his sin. Just so much. You see, to him mercy is a falling short of what is necessary, a leaving of work half done, as if you were to leave a garment half washed. Excess of punishment is mere useless brutality. He recognizes no vicarious ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... sex-differences asserting themselves. Pee-Wee is a bit of a stoic, while his sister shows a tendency to prove a bit of a squealer. But Poppsy is much the daintier feeder of the two. I'll probably have to wean them both, however, before many more weeks slip by. As soon as we get settled in our new shack and I can be sure of a one-cow supply of milk I'll begin a bottle-feed once in every twenty-four hours. Dinky-Dunk says I ought to take a tip from the ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... before us all the story Of thy life, and death of woe; And, with hopes of endless glory, Wean our ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz

... went from one year to another, and Nanette, foolishly permitted to meet him again in the East, had become infatuated. All that art and education, wealth, travel and luxury combined could do, was done to wean her from her passionate adoration of this superb young savage. There is no fiercer, more intense, devotion than that the Sioux girl gives the warrior who wins her love. She becomes his abject slave. She will labor, lie, steal, sin, suffer, die, gladly ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... residence in the eastern regions of Africa, may probably decree him to be the person to clear up this long-contested geographical point, unless the fascination of Arabian manners, or some Utopia in the interior regions of that continent, should wean him from the desire to re-visit ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... seat bean neat leaves meat heat peach lean please eagle clean eat seam teach mean stream glean read squeal wean ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams

... the nicht an' day, Yest're'en, I couldna bide For thinkin', thinkin' as I lay O' the wean that lies outside. ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob

... guardian's presence, whether he remembers Lizzie Maurice and the smart of Harry Oaklands' horsewhip. And now, having warned you, your fate is under your own control. For what is past I do not reproach you; you have been an instrument in the hands of Providence to wean my affections from this world, and if it is His good pleasure that, instead of a field for high enterprise and honest exertion, I should henceforth learn to regard it as a scene of broken faith and crushed hopes, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... Monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a severer view of the offender, 'a most remarkable thing, Miss Edwards, that you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that all I say and do will not wean you from propensities which your original station in life have unhappily rendered habitual to you, you extremely ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... suppressed laugh was audible, and the fisherman said as he returned: "You must pardon it in her, my honored guest, and perhaps many a naughty trick besides; but she means no harm by it. It is our foster-child, Undine, and she will not wean herself from this childishness, although she has already entered her eighteenth year. But, as I said, at heart she ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... it's time it was stopped for good. I don't believe very much in punishment, but you can't do a great deal of reforming with the Cross-Roaders unless you catch them young—very young, before they're weaned—they wean them on whiskey, I think. I realize you needn't have sworn me for me ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... children, their houses, and for their services to the community and the church and others. One might come on a business of importance, as I have ordered. Now your Lordship sees how annoying this is, and how you should wean them from repeating these comings and goings, in which they work their own harm and ruin themselves; and so, except in very important cases, their trouble and our time might be spared by preventing their coming and wasting ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... o' our fowk wad stir your gear [*Property] if ye had as mony capons as there's leaves on the trysting-tree.—And now some o' ye maun lay down your watch, and tell me the very minute o' the hour the wean's born, and I'll ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... a sentence falling from a wise man with astonishment so profound, as that particular one in a letter of Coleridge's to Mr Gillman, which speaks of the effort to wean one's-self from opium as a trivial task. There are, we believe, several such passages. But we refer to that one in particular which assumes that a single "week" will suffice for the whole process of so mighty a revolution. Is indeed leviathan so tamed? ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... a traveling man, came home a few days after this. He had a long consultation with his wife regarding the escapade of their venturesome son. They came to the decision that they had better move from the vicinity of the river and so wean him from his unnatural love of the water. A week later found the family at the head of Federal Street, about as far as they could get away from the river and still remain in the city. Paul spent his last night before moving on one ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... Paul the Russians had appeared to be indifferent to Montenegro, and for three years the annual subsidy of a thousand sequins had not been paid. This omission was made use of by the French Consul at Dubrovnik, who with the aid of a Dubrovnik priest, one Dolci, set himself to wean the Montenegrins from their Russian friendship. Fonton, Russia's Consul at Dubrovnik, demanded the sequestration and the scrutiny of Dolci's papers; the demand was rejected, and when force was tried Dolci leaped ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... to wean myself from everything; if I were only secure that my great sacrifices would bring forth ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... brightness wherefrom desolate thunder might roll at an instant. Indeed, she began to obsess him so that not even the ministrations of his aunt nor the obeisances of that pleasant girl, the name of whose boots was Fairybell, could give him any comfort or wean him from a contemplation which sprawled gloomily between him and his duties to the traffic. If he had not discovered the lowliness of her quality his course might have been simple and straightforward: the issue, in such an event, would ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... to indulge. But even these little attentions were looked upon with jealousy by the king; so that the marquis was sent into honourable exile from court as governor of Valencia. It was hoped that absence would wean the prince of his affection for the kind chamberlain. The calculation was erroneous. No sooner were the eyes of Philip II. closed in death than the new king made haste to send for Denia, who was at once created Duke of Lerma, declared of the privy council, and appointed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... innocently trivial, and at others profitably serious;—books read and commented on, together; meals ate, and walks taken, together,—and conferences, how we may best do good to this poor person or that, and wean our spirits from the world's cares, without divesting ourselves of its charities. What a picture I have drawn, Maria! and none of all these things may ever ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... Howden, "I'll ne'er believe Scotland is Scotland ony mair, if our kindly Scots sit doun with the affront they hae gien us this day. It's not only the blude that is shed, but the blude that might hae been shed, that's required at our hands; there was my daughter's wean, little Eppie Daidle—my oe, ye ken, Miss Grizel—had played the truant frae the school, as bairns will do, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... "She's nursin' a wean, Mr. Henry!" Logan replied, winking heavily. "We've a couple already, an' there'll be another afore long. She's as punctual as the clock, Sheila. She's a great woman ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... too returned to London I was privileged to take my humble share in the "tumbling," as also in the steady process that was gradually to wean us from Bohemia. We tumbled pretty regularly into the Pamphilon, a restaurant within a stone's throw of Oxford Circus, of the familiar type that exhibits outside its door a bill of fare with prices appended, to be studied ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles

... that good might come, to accept the addresses of one man while she could not detach her heart from another. 'Have I ever really tried yet? she thought. 'Perhaps I am punishing him and poor Mr. Ward, because, as papa says, I have languished, and have never tried in earnest to wean my thoughts from him. He was the one precious memory, besides my dear mother, and she never thought it would come to good. He will turn out to have been constant to Clara all the time, though ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge



Words linked to "Wean" :   ablactate, suck, wet-nurse, alienate, give suck, estrange, deprive, alien, lactate, breastfeed, nurse, suckle



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