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Plumpness   Listen
noun
Plumpness  n.  The quality or state of being plump.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plumpness" Quotes from Famous Books



... than an hour; and her mother, with a stick in her hand, watching her all the while, and using the stick without mercy whenever she observed that her daughter was not swallowing. This singular practice, instead of producing indigestion and disease, soon covers the young lady with that degree of plumpness, which, in the eye of a Moor, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... eyes and a very red face, slapped his hand on the bar and vaulted over it with more agility than his plumpness warranted. He shouldered his way hurriedly through the crowd to the rapidly widening circle around the two disputants. They stood with their right hands resting with rigid fingers low down on their hips, and their eyes, fixed on each other, forgot the rest of the ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... girls stood side by side, and though they both had dark eyes and hair, there the resemblance ceased. Betty Littell was a dumpling of a girl with curly hair, a snub nose and round face. She looked the picture of good-nature, and her plumpness suggested a fondness for sweets that subsequent acquaintance with her ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... an age, and a widow of dignity—the late Monsieur Jolicoeur has held the responsible position under Government of Ingenieur des Ponts et Chaussees—yet being also of a provocatively fresh plumpness, and a Marseillaise, it was of necessity that Madame Veuve Jolicoeur, on being left lonely in the world save for the companionship of her adored Shah de Perse, should entertain expectations of the future that were antipodal and antagonistic: on the one hand, of an austere life suitable ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... the shades were drawn against the dirty dusk of Allen Street, and the oilcloth-covered table dragged out center and spread by Esther Kantor, nine in years, in the sturdy little legs bulging over shoe-tops, in the pink cheeks that sagged slightly of plumpness, and in the utter roundness of face and gaze, but mysteriously older in the little-mother lore of crib and knee-dandling ditties and in the ropy length and thickness of the two ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... to caress the saint's face with his tiny hand. He is a loving little fellow, not particularly pretty, except in his infantine plumpness, yet the face is full of innocent sweetness. A mysterious light shines above his head, the emblem of divinity. The good friar does not presume to touch the holy child, but folds his hands reverently across his breast. His eyes are ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... motions of the gastric glands, the pancreas, liver, and lacteal vessels, are excited into action; but at the same time the whole tribe of irritative motions are exerted with greater energy, a greater degree of warmth, colour, plumpness, and moisture, is given to the skin from the increased action of those glands called capillary vessels; pleasurable sensation is excited, the voluntary motions are less easily exerted, and at length suspended; and sleep succeeds, unless it be prevented by the stimulus of surrounding objects, or ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... joy at recognizing his mother, toward whom his hands are invitingly opened. His figure is foreshortened, and to such a degree that his legs are out of the canvass, instinct with life and motion. His flesh has the plumpness and transparency of perfect health, flushed with roseate tints; his appearance denotes a child of nine or ten months old, but without that expression of premature intelligence by which the infant SAVIOUR is distinguished in the pictures of RAPHAEL. He is, in short, just one of those angelic creatures ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... hotel and sat himself beside her at the board, it was pretty clear that he had an eye to 'the other one' also, for he often glanced across at Mercy, and seemed to draw comparisons between the personal appearance of the two, which were not unfavourable to the superior plumpness of the younger sister. He allowed himself no great leisure for this kind of observation, however, being busily engaged with the supper, which, as he whispered in his fair companion's ear, was a contract business, and therefore the more she ate, the better the bargain was. His father and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... certain as I can be that they are the lips of a corpse, drawn up in the stiff tension of death, showing the teeth below. I am absolutely convinced that here we get as near to the man as we can get, and that the head is taken from a death-mask. What injures the dignity and beauty of the face is the plumpness of the chin that testifies to the burgher prosperity, the comfortable life, the unexercised brain of the later days. I saw afterwards the various portraits; I suppose it is a matter of evidence, but nothing ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... worse for his experience except that he had lost some of his plumpness; and he had developed such a strong dislike of monkeys that it boded ill for the members of that tribe in ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... matter with you?" said I, staring at the landlord, who appeared strangely altered; his features were wild and haggard, his formerly bluff cheeks were considerably sunken in, and his figure had lost much of its plumpness. "Have you changed your religion already, and has the fellow in black commanded you to fast?" "I have not changed my religion yet," said the landlord, with a kind of shudder; "I am to change it publicly this day fortnight, and the idea of doing ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... bloated his face out of all wholesome contour and had given to his stomach, a chronic distention, but had depleted his frame and shrunken his limbs so that physically he was that common enough type of the hopeless alcoholic—a meagre rack of a man burdened amidships by an unhealthy and dropsical plumpness. ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... quite bald on the top. Unkind critics, who had once compared Albert to an operatic tenor, might have remarked that there was something of the butler about him now. Beside Victoria, he presented a painful contrast. She, too, was stout, but it was with the plumpness of a vigorous matron; and an eager vitality was everywhere visible—in her energetic bearing, her protruding, enquiring glances, her small, fat, capable, and commanding hands. If only, by some sympathetic magic, she could have ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... happy to be placed under her roof, and wished to have two lodging rooms and a sitting room to ourselves. Madame P——, who possessed that sort of good and generous heart, which nature, for its better preservation, had lodged in a comfortable envelope of comely plumpness, observed, that Messrs. G—— were gentlemen of great respectability, were her patrons, and always sent their friends to her house (a point upon which these rival dames were at issue, but the truth ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... double eyeglass that he used to carry in his hand; and a black neckerchief, surmounted by immense shirt-collars, appeared as the unworthy successor of the clerical white cravat of former times. Nothing remained of the man I once knew but the comfortable plumpness of his figure, and the confidential courtesy and smoothness of his ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... and the monk arrived just as Monsieur de Lamotte folded his wife in his arms. Although she had passed her fortieth year, she was still beautiful enough to justify her husband's eulogism. A moderate plumpness had preserved the freshness and softness of her skin; her smile was charming, and her large blue eyes expressed both gentleness and goodness. Seen beside this smiling and serene countenance, the appearance of the stranger was downright repulsive, and Monsieur de Lamotte ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... as was to have been expected, had increased a thousand-fold since her school girl days. She had grown tall to match the plumpness of her figure, which had not decreased. Her magnificent hair showed its copper redness in every variety of curl and twist upon her white forehead, and against ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... neither a review, nor a distribution, but a battle that was in prospect, this time the statements were not exaggerated. His army was reduced indeed, but sound, supple, nervous,—like those manly bodies, which, having just lost the plumpness of youth, display forms more ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... Alec, surveying the belt with great disfavour as he put the clasp forward several holes, to Rose's secret dismay, for she was proud of her slender figure, and daily rejoiced that she wasn't as stout as Luly Miller, a former schoolmate, who vainly tried to repress her plumpness. ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... was staring glassy-eyed through the window that his attention wandered to the big, white bowl of stewed prunes. They looked good, with their shiny, succulent plumpness standing up like little wrinkled islands in the small sea of brown juice. Ward reached out with his left hand—he was gripping the gun in his right, ready for Buck when he showed up—and picked a prune out of the dish. It was his first ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... that the liberty of my captive was infringed upon, or when interrupted in its pursuits, it became less sensible of external objects, the vivacity of its colour, and the plumpness of its form underwent a visible change. Its natural colour is a beautiful green; and when in a state of liberty it is to be found in the grass, or lodged on the branches of some tree, ornamented with the gayest foilage; and it would appear ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... Greenriver, the Warrick, and the Hinton. Some of these varieties compare favorably in the matter of size with the average pecans of the South, and while none of those yet discovered are of extremely thin shell, in points of plumpness, richness, bright color of kernel and pleasant flavor one or two of these northern varieties are not excelled by any of the southern sorts. Scions and buds from these trees have been used in the propagation of nursery ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association

... bent over the child, and was about to lift him, when he stirred, opened his eyes, and sat up of his own accord. He appeared about five years of age. He might have been a handsome child, but hardship and poor feeding had taken away his infantile plumpness, and he looked old and haggard, even beneath the grime on his face. The kindly woman lifted him up and began to ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... depends on the weather in Spring and early Summer, for when the shell is once formed and hardened little more growth can be expected under any conditions, while plumpness of kernel depends on favorable conditions in late ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various

... "You go to the marriage-shop, and get a wife. You take her on the understanding—let us say—that she has lovely yellow hair, that she has an exquisite complexion, that her figure is the perfection of plumpness, and that she is just tall enough to carry the plumpness off. You bring her home, and you discover that it's the old story of the sugar over again. Your wife is an adulterated article. Her lovely yellow hair is—dye. Her exquisite skin is—pearl powder. Her plumpness is—padding. ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... the woods stretched a wheat-field, in the stubble of which coveys of bob-whites were giving themselves final plumpness for the table by picking up grains of wheat which had dropped into the drills at harvest time or other seeds which had ripened in ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen

... straw-hat, which seemed to Rand, in some odd fashion, to restore her original girlish simplicity. The change was certainly not unbecoming to her. If her waist was not as tightly pinched, a la mode, there still was an honest, youthful plumpness about it; her step was freer for the absence of her high-heel boots; and even the hand she extended to Rand, if not quite so small as in her tight gloves, and a little brown from exposure, was magnetic in its strong, kindly grasp. There was perhaps a slight suggestion of the practical ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... a college crew requires six weeks of training before his muscular power and endurance have reached their height. Every particle of superfluous fat must be removed, for fat is not strength, but weakness. There is a vast difference between the plumpness of good muscular development and the flabby, heavy overloading of these muscles with rolls of fat. The chest must be enlarged, that the lungs may have full play, and be capable of long-continued, extra draughts upon them; and special diet and special exercise alone ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... quantity of bass, and noted the plumpness of the fish, the proprietor was more interested. It is always a problem, with a summer hotel, to serve enough novel food. But the proprietor offered less than half the price Dick named. The high school boy, however, ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... by the Indians and made into sausage meat?" joked Mr. Merkel, for at times they poked a bit of fun at Dick on account of his plumpness. Though, truth to tell, he was now not too stout, and the life of the west ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker

... infinitely kind-hearted. I helped her at last into an opening she coveted, and she amazed me by a sudden display of business capacity. She has now a typewriting bureau in Riffle's Inn, and she runs it with a brisk vigour and considerable success, albeit a certain plumpness has overtaken her. And she still loves her kind. She married a year or so ago a boy half her age—a wretch of a poet, a wretched poet, and given to drugs, a thing with lank fair hair always getting into his blue eyes, and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... grooveless and grooved tubercles should always be made out easily. It may be useful to suggest as a caution, however, that often tubercles in drying develop folds which simulate grooves, and especially is this true in quadrangular tubercles. In such cases it is necessary to restore the original plumpness of the tubercle by boiling, before the presence or absence of the groove can be definitely determined. The species and varieties are indicated only by their specific or varietal names in the following key, and the numbers refer to ...
— The North American Species of Cactus, Anhalonium, and Lophophora • John M. Coulter

... well as of dress, without which no female appears. The common people here, as in all countries where they live poorly and dirtily, are hard-featured, and of very brown, or rather tawny complexions. As they seldom eat meat, their juices are destitute of that animal oil which gives a plumpness and smoothness to the skin, and defends those fine capillaries from the injuries of the weather, which would otherwise coalesce, or be shrunk up, so as to impede the circulation on the external surface of the body. As for ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... or more seeds, if the fertilization has been perfect, are ripe and ready to go forth and produce other pine trees. In early September the sap begins to recede from these ripe cones, the scales lose their green plumpness and begin to dry and curl back toward the base of the cone. This gives the seed eating birds, the siskins, the pine grosbeaks and especially the crossbills their best opportunity and they eagerly pluck out such seeds as the narrow openings will give ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... painted, and sent it to her mother in France. She did not, however, in the letters which accompanied the picture, though his mother, praise the beauty of her child. She said, in fact, that he was so ugly that she was ashamed of him, though his size and plumpness, she added, atoned for the want of beauty. And then he was so comically serious and grave in the expression of his countenance! the queen said she verily believed that he was ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... we all understand as far as the difference between a nut with a plump well filled kernel is concerned, and one with a shriveled up kernel, but when it comes to arranging the kernels of a lot of nuts in order of their plumpness, the one who tries to do it becomes ready to give up before he really gets started. It was found that the ratio of the weight of kernel to the weight of the entire nut which is termed "proportion of kernel" was never large in the case of a nut with shriveled kernel. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... was a fine clear brunette, lively and graceful, without giddiness; thin as girls of that age usually are; but her bright eyes, fine shape, and easy air, rendered her sufficiently pleasing with that degree of plumpness which would have given a heightening to her charms. I went there of mornings, when she was usually in her dishabille, her hair carelessly turned up, and, on my arrival, ornamented with a flower, which was taken ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... used to like sitting by Flossie because she was so pretty and so plump. He used to be sorry for her, because she worked so hard, and, though plump, was so pathetically anaemic and so shy. Critically considered, her body, in spite of its plumpness, was a little too small for her head, and her features were a little too small for her face, but then they were so very correct, as correct as her demeanour and the way she did her hair. She had clusters ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... height, pleasant countenance, and a figure inclined to plumpness. Her dark hair, in which there was not a line of gray, was brushed down smoothly on each side of her face, and her dress, while plain, was extremely neat. In fact, everything in the house and on the place was extremely neat, ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... it, as Polly does; but this I do know—it plumps and pinks them for a little while. Polly says her aunt told her that after enough practice the plumpness would stay." ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... was better than I, and Hodson better still; Burr major, from being so long, bony, and thin, was anything, as Mercer used to say, but eely in the water,—puffing and working hard to keep himself afloat; while Dicksee, though naturally able to swim easily from his plumpness, was, I think, the greatest ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... of complexion, the rather full habit of body, the temperamental disposition, but in addition that close-cropped head, it is almost as if it were shaved, the plumpness, the glasses—those are things that are made. And the way he carries himself. And the way he thinks. His meticulousness. When he arrived he was delightful, he was wearing a student's corps cap and ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... nutritious, it produces a full habit of body, and promotes plumpness, restores vigour and freshness, besides possessing the property of calming the passions, ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore

... leg, which she often exposed to sight by her manner (be it said without malice) of lifting her gown when it rained, could never have been taken for the leg of a woman. It was sinewy, with a thick projecting calf like a sailor's. A stout waist, the plumpness of a wet-nurse, strong dimpled arms, red hands, were all in keeping with the swelling outlines and the fat whiteness of Norman beauty. Projecting eyes, undecided in color, gave to her face, the rounded outline ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... interrupted by the dinner-bell. That long table was a goodly sight. Few ever looked happier than Dr. and Mrs. May, as they sat opposite to each other, presenting a considerable contrast in appearance as in disposition. She was a little woman, with that smooth pleasant plumpness that seems to belong to perfect content and serenity, her complexion fair and youthful, her face and figure very pretty, and full of quiet grace and refinement, and her whole air and expression denoting a serene, unruffled, affectionate happiness, yet with much authority in her mildness—warm ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... entire front of the body — in prime full, rounded, and smooth — has become flabby, wrinkled, and folded. It is only a short time before collapse of the tissue takes place in all parts of the body. An old woman, say, at 50, is a mass of wrinkles from foot to forehead; the arms and legs lose their plumpness, the skin is "bagged" at the knees into half a dozen large folds; and the disappearance of adipose tissue from the trunk-front, sides, and back — has left the skin not only wrinkled but loose and flabby, folding over the ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... Vaucelles one still August night as she sat at her window, overlooking the acacias and chestnuts of her garden. Noel, conspicuously prosperous in blue and silver, had but now gone down the Rue Saint Jacques, singing, clinking the fat purse whose plumpness was still a novelty. That evening she had given her promise ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... far the lightest weight, was the most troublesome of Clare's burdens. Marian had been like a sack of meal, a dead weight of plumpness under which he has literally staggered. Izz had ridden sensibly and calmly. Retty was a bunch ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... satisfaction he drains a can. By June he has a dozen of these empty cabins on the shelf alongside his country boots. Time was when he was lean of girth—as becomes an accountant, who is hinged dyspeptically all day across his desk—but by this agreeable stowage he has now grown to plumpness. When in the country Colum rises early in order to stretch the pleasures of the day, and he walks about before breakfast from tree to tree to view his feathered tenants. He has even acquired, after much practice, the knack of ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... ribs are expanded to a certain width. They are short in the belly. Their heads have a certain resemblance to the stag, the swiftness of which animal they imitate. These horses are gentle from their extreme plumpness; very swift notwithstanding their great bulk; pleasant to look at, still better to use. For they have gentle paces, not fatiguing their riders by insane curvetings. To ride them is repose rather than toil; and being broken-in to a delightful and steady ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... whom they do not widely differ in features. Some of the women, however, show a good deal of the Chinese character. I liked both their general expressions and the sound of their voices. They appeared poor, and their houses were destitute of furniture; but it was evident from the plumpness of the little children, that cocoa-nuts and turtle ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... who make constant use of chocolate are the ones who enjoy the most steady health, and are the least subject to a multitude of little ailments which destroy the comfort of life; their plumpness is also more equal. These are two advantages which every one may verify among his own friends, and wherever the practice is ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa

... had all the beauty of great plumpness and youthfulness. Every contour was round and full, and yet firm. Her body was beautiful in the sense that all healthy, sound, young, well-formed things are, but there was, as it were, no soul in the beauty, nothing transcendent ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... soon as they reach their destination. If the vines are dry on arrival, they should be drenched well before heeling-in. It sometimes happens that the vines are shriveled and shrunken from excessive drying, in which case the plants often may be brought back to plumpness by burying them root and branch in damp earth, to remain a week or possibly two. To heel-in, a trench should be double furrowed in light, moist soil, the vines spread out in the trench two or three deep, ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... at the ranch in looking after the immense herd of cattle grazing over the surrounding country and acquiring the plumpness and physical condition which fitted them for the Eastern market. Hank Hazletine was in charge of the four men, and would so remain until the task was finished and the stock disposed of. Barton Coinjock and Morton Blair were absent looking ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... frame-work, too, So stiff and hard and homely, Will serve when plumpness all is gone, And lost is all that's comely. Fling beauty, grace and sweetness round, Festoon your lives with flowers, But ne'er forget that plainest things Are life's ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... about devouring the rykors that had been abandoned in the fields the previous day. She commenced to grow pale and thin. She did not like the food they gave her—it was not suited to her kind—nor would she have eaten overmuch palatable food, for the fear of becoming fat. The idea of plumpness had a new significance ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Moorish day-boat; not that he knew of any such craft, but the decorations were so Saracenic and the architecture so Hudson Riverish. They found there on the grand central divan a large lady whose vast smoothness, placidity, and plumpness set at defiance all their preconceptions of Mrs. Grosvenor Green, so that Mrs. March distinctly paused with her card in her hand before venturing even tentatively to address her. Then she was astonished at the low, calm voice ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... occasional attacks of insatiable longing for True Sympathy, chiefly produced by over-eating of pickles and slate-pencils to avert excessive plumpness, she could generally take pie twice without experiencing a subsequent reactionary tendency to piety and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... dives, nor runs, nor swims, nor flies, in a consistent manner; but humorously dabbles, or dips, or flutters, or trips, or plashes, or paddles, and is always doing all manner of odd and delightful things: being also very good-humored, and in consequence, though graceful, inclined to plumpness;[20] and though it never waddles, sometimes, for a minute or two, 'toddles,' and now and then looks more like a ball than a bird. For the most part, being clever, they are also brave, and would be as tame as any other chickens, if we would ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... examples of method and style may now be given. Here is Marianne's criticism—rather uncannily shrewd and very characteristic both of her subject and of herself—of that peculiar placid plumpness which has been observed by the profane in devout persons, especially in the Roman Church and in certain dissenting sects (Anglicanism does not seem to be so favourable to it), and in "persons of religion" (in the technical ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... Substancismus (Substance-Domain) of Being which embraces the Substances, Materials or Stuffs of creation of whatsoever name that infill the interstices of the Framework or are laid upon it, and constitute the richness and fulness and plumpness of the Structure, as the Flesh does ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of the back seen in profile, of the torso, and of the left thigh. The thigh is raised, and, so stretched, seems slightly compressed near the knee. It is more rotund than thick or heavy; it is not so much size as roundness; it is not mere plumpness, but form. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... really didn't mean anything by tying up a gay, dancing, frolicking, prancing colt of a girl with a terribly ponderous bridle. But God didn't want to see me always trotting along slow and tired and not caring what happened to me, even pounds and pounds of plumpness, so he found use for Mr. Carter in some other place but this world, and I feel that He is going to see me through whatever happens. If some of the women in my missionary society knew how friendly I feel with God they would put me out for contempt ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... a compassionate expression, appeared, and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light was dim, and a heavy writing-desk squatted in the middle. From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frock-coat. The great man himself. He was five feet six, I should judge, and had his grip on the handle-end of ever so many millions. He shook hands, I fancy, murmured vaguely, was satisfied with my French. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... pleasures. "Wait here," she said, "I am going to change my dress. I shall be back in one minute." Left alone, and not knowing what to do, I looked in the drawers of her writing-table. I did not touch the letters, but finding a box full of certain preservative sheaths against the fatal and dreaded plumpness, I emptied it, and I placed in it the following lines instead ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... favourable spot and digs her burrow. During the process of excavation, she returns from time to time to her Spider; she nibbles at the prize, feels, touches it here and there, as though taking stock of its plumpness and congratulating herself on the plentiful provender; then she returns to her burrow and goes on digging. Should anything alarm or distress her, she does not merely inspect her Spider: she also brings her a little closer to her work-yard, but never fails to lay her on the top of a tuft ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... clock, which went on ticking as loud as ever, though just below the dead—sat a woman about sixty years of age, whose plump face to the first glance looked kindly, to the second, cunning, and to the third, evil. To the last look the plumpness appeared unhealthy, suggesting a doughy indentation to the finger, and its colour also was pasty. Her deep set, black bright eyes, glowing from under the darkest of eyebrows, which met over her nose, had something of a fascinating influence—so much of it ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... water, with a handful of salt in it, for an hour before you dress them. Most vegetables being more or less succulent, it is necessary that they possess their full proportion of fluids in order to retain that state of crispness and plumpness which they have ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... front, to the ornamental buttons of his coat behind. The figure of the amiable Mrs. Tuggs, if not perfectly symmetrical, was decidedly comfortable; and the form of her only daughter, the accomplished Miss Charlotte Tuggs, was fast ripening into that state of luxuriant plumpness which had enchanted the eyes, and captivated the heart, of Mr. Joseph Tuggs in his earlier days. Mr. Simon Tuggs, his only son, and Miss Charlotte Tuggs's only brother, was as differently formed in body, as he was differently constituted in mind, from the remainder of his family. There was ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... ended at the waist! But far from being depressed by the apparent absence of all below the lower edge of her gold belt with its glittering diamond buckle, she was cheerful, and now and then would sing a little song. Her sweetness of manner and voice and the plumpness of her rounded arms and shoulders were what had won Sampey's heart and made him all the more zealous in his useful occupation of devising the names which Castellani ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... eighteen, the youngest of the Shippen family. The other girls were somewhat older, yet the three were considered the most beautiful debutantes of the city, the youngest, if in anything, the more renowned for grace and manner. Her face was of that plumpness to give it charm, delicate in contour, rich with the freshness of the bloom of youth. Her carriage betrayed breeding and dignity. And all was sweetened by a magnetism and vivacity that charmed ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... incomparable; the position and the regular proportion of her nose added to her beauty such an air of dignity, as inspired a respect for her equal to the love that might be inspired by her beauty; the rounded contour of her face, produced by a becoming plumpness, exhibited all the vigour and freshness of health; to complete her charms, her glances, the movements of her lips and of her head, appeared to be guided by the graces; her shape corresponded to the beauty of her face; lastly, her arms, her hands, her bearing, and her gait were such that nothing ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... an odious face, whose plumpness told me at once he was no friend to fasting, strutted to the magisterial chair, and committeed me and the nigger-rebel, to whom I was kindly hobbled, to take our ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... Her innocent white muslin apron was a little domestic poem in itself. Her jet earrings were so modest in their pretensions that a Quaker might have looked at them and committed no sin. The comely plumpness of her face was matched by the comely plumpness of her figure; it glided smoothly over the ground; it flowed in sedate undulations when she walked. There are not many men who could have observed Mrs. Lecount entirely from the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... the teacher, lacked Aunt Cordelia's optimism, also her plumpness. "No doubt she can," agreed Miss Clara, politely, but without enthusiasm. Miss Clara had stepped from the graduating rostrum to the school-room platform, and she had been there some years. And when one has been there some years, and is already battling with seventy little boys and ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... varieties upon which to build up your pecan industry be careful to choose varieties showing as many of the following qualities as possible: Productiveness, hardiness, early maturity, plumpness of kernel, good flavor and cracking qualities. The varieties selected for cross pollenization should combine as many of the desirable qualities as possible. By grafting from the young hybrids into the top of old bearing trees you may have samples of nuts in a very few years. The propagation ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

... feet below, and was found sitting on the riverbank "without a scratch, 'cept that he was lazily givin' himself with his off hind paw." He had been forgotten in a snowdrift on a Sierran shelf, and had come home in the early spring with the conceited complacency of an Alpine traveler and a plumpness alleged to have been the result of an exclusive diet of buried mail bags and their contents. He was generally believed to read the advance election posters, and disappear a day or two before the candidates and the brass band—which he ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... this time, was growing fat. His increasing plumpness was perceptible from day to day, and it proved a constant source of mirth to his companion. One morning he appeared in a pair of checkered trousers purchased in South Africa during his skeleton period. They seemed on the verge of exploding ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... higher state, Sir Thomas Rumbold found and condemned it.[26] It afterwards fell into such a terror as to sweat away a million of its weight at once; and it sunk to 1,400,000l.[27] However, it never was without a resource for recruiting it to its old plumpness. There was a sort of floating debt of about four or five hundred thousand pounds more ready to be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Denzil was a rather uncommon specimen of the class. She inclined to plumpness, was lively in the extreme, wore very fashionable garments of the brightest colours, and—although somewhat elderly—still cherished a hope that some young man would elevate her to ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... marked changes in Virginia. She was losing the formless plumpness of childhood and growing rapidly into a slight and graceful maiden—a "rare and radiant maiden," with the tender light of womanhood beginning to dawn in her velvet eyes and to sweeten the curves of her lips. A maiden lovelier by far than the child had been but with the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... expression; her lips, which were a little thick, recalled the type of the Austrian Imperial line, just as a slightly aquiline nose distinguishes the Bourbon princes; her whole appearance expressed candor and innocence, and her plumpness, which she lost after the birth of her son, indicated ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... that?" asked Lola, with interest. Ana was now sixteen, and was nearly as heavy as her mother, and much more sedate. In true Mexican fashion the look of youth had left her betimes, and her swarthy plumpness had early hardened and settled to a look of maturity to which future ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... the master does not cry 'haro' on the 'bloomer.' It is admirably suited, he maintains, to the average Frenchwoman, who is more inclined to a reasonable plumpness than her English sister. 'The skirt to England,' says he, 'the bloomer to France.' The whole question is one of physique and latitude. The Esquimaux lady would look ungainly and feel uncomfortable if she exchanged her moose furs for the wisp of calico which is patronised ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... becomes agreeable, only when the breaks or intervals cease to be heard." Again: "Quantity, or the division into measures of time, is a second element of verse; each line must be stuffed out with sounds, to a certain fullness and plumpness, that will sustain the voice, and force it to dwell upon the sounds."—Rev., p. 485. The first of these positions is subsequently contradicted, or very largely qualified, by the following: "So, the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... than his. It was broad, generous, supple. It had the little depressions and the smoothness to be noticed in the hands of truest charity; yet it had the ample outlines of the vigorously imaginative temperament, so different from the hard plumpness of coarseness or brutality. At the point where the fingers joined the back of the hand were the roundings-in that are reminiscent of childhood's simplicity, and are to be found in many philanthropic persons. His way of using his fingers was slow, well thought out, and gentle, though never lagging, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... appearance which made him agreeable; he showed consideration for rank; he allowed young men a certain freedom, to which his Parisian experience assigned due limits; though skilful with sword and pistol, he was noted for a feminine gentleness for which others were grateful. His medium height and plumpness (which had not yet increased into obesity, an obstacle to personal elegance) did not prevent his outer man from playing the part of a Bordelais Brummell. A white skin tinged with the hues of health, ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... height but inclined to plumpness, and so looked smaller than Margaret; and she had no great pretensions to beauty, Graeme thought—but then he was biassed for life and incapable of free and impartial judgment—save such as might be found in a very frank face given to much laughter, ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... condition of every part of the body. If the quantity sent to the arm, for example, be diminished by tying the artery through which it is conveyed, the arm, being then imperfectly nourished, wastes away, and does not regain its plumpness till the full supply of blood be restored. In like manner, when the quality of that fluid is impaired by deficiency of food, bad digestion, impure air, or imperfect sanguification in the lungs, the body and all its functions become more or less disordered. Thus, in consumption, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... form in a woman; the very attributes which disgust the western European form the highest attractions of an Oriental fair. It was from the common and admired shape of his countrywomen that Reubens, in his pictures, delights in a vulgar and almost odious plumpness. He seems to have no idea of beauty under two hundred pounds. His very ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... Like the poor wretch who, doomed to the gallows, is permitted to fare sumptuously the last morning of his life, the ring-snake ate three frogs, by which the Ophiophagus was to derive chief benefit; he, all unconscious of the cause of his victim's unusual plumpness, swallowed him speedily. ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... and flowers in abundance. Among the fragrant blossoms, quick to catch the eye, were those of the peach, pear, orange, and apple. Indeed, Valetta seemed to be clothed in blossoms, and in the case of the orange-trees the ripe fruit was also to be seen in rich yellow plumpness. There must be a prevailing refinement of taste in this island city, otherwise the abundance of flowers offered on the Strada Reale would not find purchasers. Several kiosks were observed erected along the main thoroughfare, whose occupants were busy making ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... sturdy-limbed, tender young 'three-year-old' in some old-fashioned seignorial stud stable, a young horse that they have hardly begun to break in to the traces.... Those who came across Sanin in later years, when life had knocked him about a good deal, and the sleekness and plumpness of youth had long vanished, saw in ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... however, show a good deal of the Chinese character. I liked both their general expressions and the sound of their voices. They appeared poor, and their houses were destitute of furniture; but it was evident, from the plumpness of the little children, that cocoa-nuts and turtle afford ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... not a goodly round sight to behold? Round all over; round of eye and of head; and like the jolly round Earth, roundest and biggest about the Equator. A girdle of red was his Equinoctial Line, giving a compactness to his plumpness. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... by a stout, well-defined form, a full face, florid complexion, moderate plumpness, firm flesh, chestnut or sandy hair, and blue eyes. This is the tough, hardy, working temperament, excessively fond of exercise and activity, and a great aversion to muscular quiescence and inactivity, and consequently averse to ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... when the creams swerved out upon the broad hilltop, just as Banjo thundered past with nothing left of his rider but the legs, and with them shorn of their plumpness as the hay ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... self-reliant youngsters, and sometimes, before they are quite steady on their feet, we meet them already doing the family errands, trudging along, hugging a loaf of bread taller than themselves. But the rosy plumpness of the fields is wanting; for children are like chameleons, and partake of the color of the locality they inhabit, so these poor little ones are toned down by the smoke and dust of the workshops. Their play-ground is under the dusty, dingy trees of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... negroes regarding female perfection consist, according to Lander, in "the bulk, plumpness, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... tightness and plumpness of limbs and person exhibited by Foreign Affairs cannot have escaped observation. This attractive quality may be acquired by purchasing the material out of which the clothes are to be made, and giving the tailor only just as much as may exactly suffice for the purpose. Its general effect will be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... window as a memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. But Schepstein, wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full year after, encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an office far over in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness which she had taken on in the happy days was gone. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... in brief. The Yogis have discovered the reason of the wondrous capacity of the chameleon to assume the appearance of plumpness or of leanness. This animal looks enormous when his lungs are filled with air, but in his normal condition he is quite insignificant. Many other reptiles as well acquire the possibility of swimming across large rivers quite easily by the same process. And the ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... held late enough the preceding summer and therefore the tree had strength enough to make good strong fruit buds. The late action of the leaves shows that the trees had enough autumn moisture. You will soon learn to recognize the condition also from the plumpness of the wood which carries the fruit buds. If all has gone well so far, the next point is to spray with the bordeaux mixture in November or December so that the new wood shall not be attacked by the peach blight or shothole fungus. This disease comes on early in the ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... houses that will not require to be pruned for some time should have the tops or other portions of the immature wood cut off, to give strength and plumpness to the back eyes. If the houses are dry, kept free from drip, and the scissors employed amongst decaying berries, the fruit that now remains will be in a good condition for holding on for ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane

... very pleasing monster he was. A neck like that of a rhinoceros sat piled between his "Atlantean shoulders," and bore upon its tower-like and sturdy stem, a countenance prepossessing from its good-humour, and amazing for its plumpness and rubicundity. His cheeks were swollen out into billows of fat—his eyes overhung with turgid and most majestic lids, and his chin double, triple, ay quadruple. As for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various

... piano was embedded in a corner, and the lady who had just executed the waltz had swung around on the stool, and was smiling up at a man who stood beside her with his hand in his pocket. She was a decided brunette, neither tall nor short, with a suggestion of plumpness. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Our light must have burned long after every other in Riverbend was out. The muslin curtains of Nell's bed were drawn back; Mrs. Deane had turned down the white counterpane and taken off the shams and smoothed the pillows for us. But their fair plumpness offered no temptation to two such hot young heads. We could not let go of life even for a little while. We sat and talked in Nell's cozy room, where there was a tiny, white fur rug—the only one in Riverbend—before the bed; and there were ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... brown hair, which when pulled out nearly hung to her waist, the hair of her cunt and arm-pits in quantity of a lighter golden brown; all looked much darker than their true colour, against the dazzling whiteness of the skin. Ample calves and thighs, breasts firm as ivory, her arms to match in plumpness and whiteness, her hands alone discoloured by work, looked dark against the rest of her glorious person. I recollect this all well, and that at that time I disliked light-haired women: but in her suddenly, the light hair ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... Captain Ripon said, examining the portions of fowl, "though the plumpness of the breasts, and the size, show that they are ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... a cheerful, healthy, plump little man, with a plump little wife, and three plump little daughters. Plumpness was not only a characteristic of the Gambarts, but also of their surroundings, for the cottage in which they dwelt had a certain air of plumpness about it, and the spot on which it stood was a round little knob ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne

... them grotesquely, innocently mocking them, telling stories that made them laugh till the tears came and playing a thousand pranks. At times they would measure their feet, to see whose were the smallest, compare the white plumpness of their arms, see whose nose had the infirmity of blushing after supper, count their freckles, tell each other where their skin marks were situated, dispute whose complexion was the clearest, whose hair ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... became aware of him and turning, saw him behind the trees and was ashamed that he should see her naked. So she laid her hands on her parts, but the Mount of Venus escaped from between them, by reason of its greatness and plumpness; and the Caliph at once turned and went away, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... and spoons shone bright and clean from behind the glass door of the cupboard, and the two beds, one for herself and her husband and the other for her three daughters, were more mountainous than any I afterwards saw. The size and plumpness of her feather beds, the Frau Inspector tells me, is a woman's chief claim to consideration from the neighbours. She who can pile them up nearest to the ceiling becomes the principal personage in the community, and a flat bed is a social disgrace. ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... common amongst the Friendly Islanders, and which seems a consequence of their being accustomed to much action, is lost here, where the superior fertility of their country enables the inhabitants to lead a more indolent life; and its place is supplied by a plumpness and smoothness of the skin, which, though perhaps more consonant with our ideas of beauty, is no real advantage, as it seems attended with a kind of languor in all their motions, not observable in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... personage after Madame Soudry was Lupin, the notary. Though forty-five springs had bloomed for Lupin, he was still fresh and rosy, thanks to the plumpness which fills out the skin of sedentary persons; and he still sang ballads. Also, he retained the elegant evening dress of society warblers. He looked almost Parisian in his carefully-varnished boots, his sulphur-yellow waistcoats, his tight-fitting coats, his handsome silk cravats, his fashionable ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... plumtiregi, senplumigi. Pluck (courage) kuragxo. Plug sxtopilego. Plum pruno. Plumage plumaro, plumajxo. Plumbago grafito. Plumber plumbisto. Plume plumfasko. Plummet sondilo. Plump dika. Plumpness dikeco. Plunder rabadi. Plunge subakvigxi. Plural multenombro. Plush plusxo. Poach cxasosxteli. Poach (eggs, etc.) boleti. Poacher cxasosxtelisto. Pocket posxo. Pod sxelo. Poem poemo. Poesy poezio. Poet poeto. Poetize versi. Poetry ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... from Miss Jevne the black silk gown, modest but modish. There was no joy in Ray's face. Ten minutes later she emerged in the limp and clinging little frock that toned down her colour and made her plumpness seem ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... adored or the adorer might be either of them married—that made no difference; and the tender litany would sometimes run on for years, long after the idol's hair was silvered and her form more remarkable for plumpness than grace. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... the most perfect form, and of the most vigorous contexture, in which all the strength of manhood was concealed, and softened to appearance by the delicacy of his complexion, the smoothness of his skin, and the plumpness of his flesh. ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... couldn't do any—" And just then the end of the too-much inclined crutch skated outward and the habitually unfortunate girl dropped kerplunk on the floor. Gus and Grace picked her up. She was not hurt by her fall. Her very plumpness had saved her. ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... was no longer any plumpness in his cheeks, and his face was very white. But so were his teeth, and his eyes were as ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... ten. At fifteen, appearances were mending: she began to curl her hair and long for balls, her complexion improved, her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave way to an inclination for finery; she grew clean and she grew smart; and she had now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark on her personal ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... above the thickness of the gaol, sits all alone a woman's figure, clothed in solemn black. Her shadowy skirt hides her feet, so that we cannot see whether they are riveted; her sleeves of sable sweep down to her wrist, and dark gloves cover the plumpness of her hand, while a palm-leaf fan nods to and fro to assist the obscurity of her vail of crape, descending from her ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... marry and bury themselves. You hear of them about six times in ten years, and there is a baby each time. They crawl out of the farther end of the ten years, sallow and wrinkled and lank,—teeth gone, hair gone, roses gone, plumpness gone,—freshness, and vivacity, and sparkle, everything that is dewy, and springing, and spontaneous, gone, gone, gone forever. This our Tract-Society book puts very prettily. "She wraps herself in the robes of infantile simplicity, and, burying her womanly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... it will be found that those who make use of a diet consisting chiefly of vegetable matter have a vast advantage in looks, in strength, and spirits, over those who partake largely of animal food. They are remarkable for the firm, healthy plumpness of their muscles, and the transparency of their skins. This assertion, though at variance with popular opinion, is amply ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... a girl,—how pretty she was, with the crimson flooding the old ivory of her cheeks and her gracious plumpness! She had come to the valley during the summer to "do housework." I met and walked home with her, in the thrilling shadows, to an old village home I knew well; then as I turned to leave I learned that she ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... had originated in a rising family of East Orange. She was short rather than small, and hovered audaciously between plumpness and width. Her hair was black and elaborately arranged. This, in conjunction with her handsome, rather bovine eyes, and her over-red lips, combined to make her resemble Theda Bara, the prominent motion picture actress. People told her constantly that she was a "vampire," and she believed ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... small, ignoble scenes unrolled themselves so logically. The denouement would of course be in keeping, and would consist simply of the spiritual death of Mrs. Luna, who would end by understanding no common speech of Olive's at all, and would sink into mere worldly plumpness, into the last complacency, the supreme imbecility, of petty, genteel conservatism. As for Newton, he would be more utterly odious, if possible, as he grew up, than he was already; in fact, he would not grow ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... observable in Lead, Tin, Silver, Antimony, Pitch, Rosin, Bees-wax, Butter, and the like; all which, if after they be melted you suffer gently to cool, you shall find the parts of the upper Surface to subside and fall inwards, losing that plumpness and smoothness it had whilst in fusion. The like I have also observed in the cooling of Glass of Antimony, which does very neer approach the ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... the by, your friends Batt, Sir John Russell, and Lascelles dined with me one day before they set off: for I sometimes give the prettiest little dinner in the world." One can imagine Gibbon, the picture of plumpness and content, doing the honours of his modest household. Still he was never prominent in society, even after the publication of his great work had made him famous. Lord Sheffield says that his conversation ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... little, pretty, dark woman looked like a crafty animal ... there was a beady shine of triumph, which she could not conceal, in her eyes, as she opposed my entering. I smelt the pungent smell of her physical womanhood. There was a plumpness about her body, a ruddiness to her lips, that gave me the phantasy that, perhaps, the moment before, she had drunk of my father's blood, and that she was preventing me from going in to where he lay till a certain tiny, red puncture over his ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... small, tending to plumpness like her mother. She was very fair with eyes of true violet, a baby-doll sort of young woman, and she took possession of Jack MacRae as easily and naturally as if she had known him for years. They drifted away in a dance, sat the next one out together with Stubby and a slim ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... did not shrink, but her comely pink and white face, usually so lineless in its healthy matronly plumpness, suddenly took on a look of age and hardness, the one moment of horrid repulsion marking it more deeply than years of those household cares which write themselves on the mind without contracting the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... all right, but chatting is not sufficient. Wit is something, but not everything. A waltz furnishes much knowledge that conversation cannot. Dress-makers nowadays are so wily. They know how to bring out this point and hide that; they remodel bad figures. They give plumpness and roundness to the thin; they make hips, shoulders—everything, in fact. One doesn't know what to expect, science has made such advances. The eye may be deceived, but the hand of an experienced ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy

... apple and as rosy as its ripest side. There was something cherubic in the smoothness and the fullness of his face, the clear gray of his eyes, the fine-spun blond of his short-cropped hair, and the plumpness of his hands and half-bared arms. He was a priestly, well-fed looking man, was this Jolly Roger, rotund and convivial in all his proportions, and some in great error would have called him fat. But it was a strange kind of fatness, ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... of all the outward tokens of a woman, save the tresses of her hair, which were rolled up in a net. As for the rest, she was a comical-looking young man, at once slender yet afflicted by an unnatural plumpness, one of those beings who appear to us in dreams, and in the delirium of fever, one of those creatures toward whom an unknown power attracts us, and who resemble angels too ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... shyly rolling her fat arms in her pinafore. She was less plain than the others, and had not outgrown her plumpness. ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... medium height, but a little too stout, like all women over fifty who retain their beauty, rose and walked toward the group which surrounded Diane de Maufrigneuse, stepping daintily on little feet that were as slender and nervous as a deer's. Beneath her plumpness could be seen the exquisite delicacy of such women, which comes from the vigor of their nervous systems controlling and vitalizing the development of flesh. There is no other way to explain the lightness of ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... muscles fill up the spaces of the surface that extend between them, which are the muscles which never lose their prominence in any amount of fatness; and which too are the muscles of which the attachments are lost to sight in the very least plumpness. And in many cases several muscles look like one single muscle in the increase of fat; and in many cases, in growing lean or old, one single muscle divides into several muscles. And in this treatise, each in its place, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... hands. Mrs. Vimpany met this friendly advance with a suavity of action, not often seen in these days of movement without ceremony. She was a tall slim woman, of a certain age. Art had so cleverly improved her complexion that it almost looked like nature. Her cheeks had lost the plumpness of youth, but her hair (thanks again perhaps to Art) showed no signs of turning grey. The expression of her large dark eyes—placed perhaps a little too near her high aquiline nose—claimed admiration ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... from the unskilled girl accountant. He was nervously attracted by her smartness. She was a slender woman, in a black Swiss frock dotted with white, a cool-looking graceful frock. A broad black hat shaded her face. Her eyes were lustrous, her soft chin of an agreeable plumpness, and her cheeks an even rose. Babbitt wondered afterward if she was made up, but no man living ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... lashes; and pupils instinct with fire. That look of wan emaciation which anxiety or low spirits often communicates to a thoughtful, thin face, rather long than round, having vanished from hers; a clearness of skin almost bloom, and a plumpness almost embonpoint, softened the decided lines of her features. Her figure shared in this beneficial change; it became rounder, and as the harmony of her form was complete and her stature of the graceful middle height, one did not regret (or at least I did not regret) ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... eyes and her tremulous lips offering themselves to him; in his grasp he felt her cold hands; her breath floated about him. Against his bosom were pressed hidden curves of firm elastic plumpness, the existence of which ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... said Val, as they drove back. "They may be scientific, or soldiers, philosophers, or musicians, but if they're Germans or Belgians or Austrians, or anything of that sort, they always get bowled over by a young girl, a blue ribbon, plumpness, ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... and alert shrewdness written upon his features. He was a handsome fellow, clear-eyed and intelligent, finer far, in the estimation of his parents, than themselves; but that which rounded out the lines of his figure was rather a tendency to plumpness than the development of muscle, and the intelligence of his face suggested rather the power to think than the power ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... and looked at herself intently...shook her head with a frown. She had always been slim; she was now very thin. The roundness and color had left her cheeks. They were pale—almost hollow. Janet and Alice had rejoiced in the lack of fats and sweets, both having a tendency to plumpness had achieved without effort the most fashionable slenderness that anxious woman could wish. But she had not had a pound to lose. It seemed to her that she was almost plain. Her eyes retained their dazzling brilliancy, a trick of nature that old age alone no doubt could conquer, but there were dark ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... too busy climbing to answer. She was a natural born climber, but she lacked practice. Besides, her plumpness would prevent her from ever being quite as ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... surgeon here, and which confined me to my bed. I suffered much from the disease, and more from the doctor; rather than again put my mouth into his hands, I would put my hands into a lion's mouth. I am happy to hear of, and should be most happy to see, the plumpness and progression of your dear boy; but—yes, my dear Wade, it must be a but, much as I hate the word but. Well,—but I cannot attend the chemical lectures. I have many reasons, but the greatest, or at least the most ostensible reason, is, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... second journey. All the time they had lived in a cave hard by, fed daily by some fisher folk that knew their hiding-place; and indeed they looked as men that had fared exceeding roughly, and all the plumpness of the ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar

... cutting commenced, but suspecting that the ringes had been cooked a little, the wily curate examined them and found every tenth, from the woodman's way of counting fell upon a very thin ringe! Remonstrances followed and the "tenths" were made up to the same condition of plumpness as the rest, and the curate received the commendation of his superior for so well looking after ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... person of good height, originally slender, but gathering an appreciable plumpness as the years went on, and with good taste in dress when she chose to exert it, which on the present occasion she did. She possessed acute perceptions and a decided method of action. But whether or not the ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... great majesty, at the same time gentle when occasion required it; of noble appearance and good grace, her face handsome and agreeable, her bosom full, beautiful, and exquisitely fair, her body also very fair, the flesh firm, the skin smooth, as I have heard from several ladies-in-waiting; of a good plumpness as well, the leg and thigh well formed (as I have heard ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... the darkness grew deeper and deeper, and the cold made Boule de Suif shiver, in spite of her plumpness. So Madame de Breville offered her her foot-warmer, the fuel of which had been several times renewed since the morning, and she accepted the offer at once, for her feet were icy cold. Mesdames Carre-Lamadon and Loiseau gave ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... each muscle with blood and nervous power, as will be hereafter described. The size and strength of the muscles depend greatly on their frequent exercise. If left inactive, they grow thin and weak, instead of giving the plumpness to the figure, designed by Nature. The delicate and feeble appearance of many American women, is chiefly owing to the little use they make of their muscles. Many a pale, puny, shad-shaped girl, would have become a plump, rosy, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... means of improving the complexion in conversation with Mrs. Eustace Macallan. She had never used it herself, but she had read of the practice of eating arsenic among the Styrian peasantry for the purpose of clearing the color, and of producing a general appearance of plumpness and good health. She positively swore that she had related this result of her reading to the deceased lady exactly as she ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... tall and at the same time plump. She was fair and blue-eyed and still delicately florid; she had perfect little features, with mutinous upward curves in the plumpness. I say mutinous, because Mrs. Thesiger's way of being handsome was in revolt against her husband's. Her light-brown hair waved, too, and to a discreet extent she encouraged its waving. This sounds as if Mrs. Thesiger's appearance was frivolous. But it was not. All these florid plumpnesses and the ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... Al-Iraq 2 miskals each; also 2 okes of tongue-sucking, mouth and lip kissing, all to be pounded and mixed. Then put upon a furnace 3 drams of Egyptian grain with the addition of the beautiful fold of plumpness, boil it in love-water and syrup of desire over a fire of wood of pleasure in the retreat of the ardour. Decant the whole upon a royal dibaqy divan and add to it 2 okes of saliva syrup and drink it fasting ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... a vision of Mollie Flippin's middle-aged plumpness upon him, exclaimed: "You don't mean that your mother ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... no improvement, either in the bodily or mental symptoms. On returning home she became still worse. Then she again met the object of her passion, succumbed, abandoned her husband and children, and fled with him. Six months later she was scarcely recognizable; beauty, freshness and plumpness had taken the place of emaciation; while the symptoms of consumption and all other troubles had entirely disappeared. A somewhat similar case is recorded by Camill Lederer, of Vienna (Monatsschrift fuer Harnkrankheiten ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... "children-eating Prussians" might perhaps forego their craving for one evening. Therefore the chef did his best, encouraged by a group of hysterical maids who had suddenly become keenly alive to their own plumpness and possible desirability ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... cases, if the foot and ankle have lost a certain moderate plumpness, and assumed a certain sinewy or bony appearance, the woman has generally passed the ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... an article most necessary to her at all times? Anyway, at most times. How did she come to slip this bit of silk and silver about your neck? Was it the caprice of a moment,—when you, before you had lost your pristine plumpness, marched singing into her bedroom to bid her good-morning? Of course, and she sat up among the pillows, her coiled hair tumbling to her shoulders, as you sprang upon the bed purring: 'Good-day, my lady.' Oh, it is very easy to understand," ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... injuring the seal, pressed the roll of papyrus with a skilful hand, separating the layers and peering into the openings to decipher the contents. While thus engaged, the corpulent courtier's round eyes sparkled brightly and it seemed to the youth as if the countenance of the man, whose comfortable plumpness and smooth rotundity at first appeared like a mirror of the utmost kindness of heart, now had the semblance of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... his father's genius than might have been derived from her own quick talents, and neat, nice fingers. And she was comforted: not in the sense of marrying again—oh dear, no! she cherished the memory of her Will as a sacred thing, and through all her returning plumpness and rosiness—for she was still a young woman—never forgot the honour she had borne in being a great painter's wife and companion for half-a-dozen years. Perhaps, good as she was, she grew rather to brandish this credit in the faces of the cloth-workers ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... Creitz, Mintle, Thomas. Homeland is a local nut and is unknown to the trade. It makes a poor test score, partly because of its pointed shape, partly because of the plumpness and tenderness of the kernel. It fills out much better than Thomas growing beside it: bears moderate crops every year, both on the parent and on grafted trees. It is a nice, upright, healthy grower; new growth tinged with purple. I consider ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various

... celebrations, even if he had to swim for it but before he left he paid a farewell visit to the Christmas dinner. "In case of accidents," he explained, "mightn't see it again. Looks like another case of one apiece," he added, surveying with interest the plumpness of six young pullets Cheon was ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... on account of his plumpness, was not as good a hiker as the other boys, was for turning back, but the other three wanted to go on. And, being three against one, Jimmy had not the shadow of a chance ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman



Words linked to "Plumpness" :   tubbiness, rolypoliness, buxomness, obesity, corpulency, fleshiness, plump, roundness, embonpoint, pudginess, chubbiness



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