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Understudy   Listen
verb
Understudy  v. t. & v. i.  (Theater) To study, as another actor's part, in order to be his substitute in an emergency; to study another actor's part.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Understudy" Quotes from Famous Books



... head of the firm and made the proposition that I should work at the office each day until one o'clock and be paid half of what I was then getting—that is, fifty dollars a month. In the afternoons an understudy should sit at my desk, ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... child, full of that sort of bright ideas. Well, now he has found that I am not all his fancy painted me, he wouldn't come away with me; and I want you to understudy me while the going is good. In the fifth reel, which will be released to-night after the household has retired to rest, you will be featured. It's got to be tonight, because it has just occurred to me that Ogden, knowing that Lord Wisbeach is a crook, may ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... daughter, CHARLOTTE, married Richard Charke, a violinist, from whom she was soon separated. She began as an understudy to actresses in leading parts, but quarrelled with her manager, Charles Fleetwood, on whom she wrote a one-act skit, The Art of Management (1735). She also wrote two comedies and two novels of small merit, and an untrustworthy, but amusing Narrative of Life of ... Charlotte Charke, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... Charlotte; the thing had expired naturally. But, irrationally, he thought of Polder with a trace of contempt—a man who had, unquestionably, possessed Mariana Jannan's regard marrying the pink-faced understudy to a second-rate emotional actress! In a way it made him cross; the fellow should have shown a—a greater appreciation, delicacy. "Commonplace," he said decisively, aloud. The following day Mariana herself appeared, with a touch of sable and ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... their casing. These two pyramids very probably belong to kings of the Hid Dynasty, as does the Step-Pyramid of Sakkara. They strongly resemble the Giza type, and the northernmost of the two looks very like an understudy of the Great Pyramid. It seems to mark the step in the development of the royal pyramid which was immediately followed by the Great Pyramid. But no excavations have yet proved the accuracy of this view. Both pyramids ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... with her grandmother. A few years later she came to New York to get a start. Though she bore one of the most distinguished and honored names in the profession, she sat around in agents' offices for six months, beating vainly at the door of opportunity. Finally she got a chance to understudy Elsie De Wolfe, who was playing with John Drew, in "The Bauble Shop," at the Empire. One day when that actress became ill this seventeen-year-old child played the part of a thirty-two-year-old woman with great success. Understudies ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... time: I scraped the dirt off, and made myself smart, turning my cloak inside out, so that the clean side might be uppermost. Among the numerous guests assembled at the door, whom should I see but the very man whose understudy I was to be, the invalid, in a litter! He was evidently in a sad way; groaning and coughing and spitting in the most alarmingly emphatic manner; ghostly pale, puffy, and not much less, I reckoned, than sixty years ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... you zay zo? demanded the manager. 'How am I to know? Gif her a zovereign,' he whispered, 'and ask her if she vants anything—bort-wine or chellies. You know.' Then he turned, roaring: 'Vere is Miss Lawrence's understudy? Zing, if you please, Miss Clewes. I never sbeak to beobles twice. You may go home, Miss Lawrence. Dell Villips if you want anything, ant I'll zee to it. Vy the tevil don't beobles zay when there are things the madder ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... explaining to Fillmore stopped Sally. And while she was chafing at this new complication which had come to upset the orderly routine of her life there was an outburst of voices in the other office. Ginger's understudy seemed to be endeavouring to convince somebody that the Big Chief was engaged and not to be intruded upon. In this he was unsuccessful, for the door opened tempestuously and Miss Winch ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... In fact, I should like to have the entire synopsis of the magazine drawn up and brought to me a month before publication. So what a Tartar of an editor I am going to be! I have quite decided that if I am to get through the work at all, I must have an understudy, a sub-editor, so to speak, who can keep the contributors up to time, collect their suggestions, and submit them for my criticism. It will involve a good deal of steady, methodical ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... fashionable brothel." Having thus secured adequate funds, she assembled a number of out-of-work actors and actresses and engaged them to accompany her on a twelve months' tour in Australia. Except for Josephine Fiddes (who was afterwards to understudy Adah Isaacs Menken, of Mazeppa renown) and, perhaps, her leading man, Charles Follard, they were ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... With the first and second officers on duty, and the Captain aboard, my routine was more or less that of an understudy. ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... manufacturers than some of the manufacturers did themselves. But he did not live for accountancy. At five o'clock every evening he was capable of absolutely forgetting it. He lived for music. He was organist of Saint Luke's Church (with an industrious understudy—for he did not always rise for breakfast on Sundays) and, more important, he was conductor of the Bursley Orpheus Glee and Madrigal Club. And herein lay the origin of those Friday nights. A glee and madrigal club naturally comprises ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... it may be, it led to notorious jealousies and disputes. At the time of which I write, the principal curators of the art section were Professor Girdelstone and Mr. Monteagle, of Prince's College. I looked after the scientific welfare of the museum with Lowestoft as my understudy—he was practically a nonentity and an authority on lepidoptera. Now, whenever a grant was made to the left wing of the building, as I call it, I always used to say that science was being sacrificed to archaeology. I mocked at the illuminated ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... loan me your horse I'll ride out and see them myself. My understudy can perhaps stand another day with the sheep without going crazy. When I come back I may be in a better position to call upon the lady doc and talk it over. She's fond ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... a point-lace scarf," I snapped. Nebuchadnezzar's understudy squeezed himself out from behind the counter, and lumbered a step or two nearer me, moving not straight ahead, but from side to side, as ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... for ideals, not for love. I was in love with the ideal, and the man I married led me to believe he was that ideal; picture my heart-aching disappointment when I found that his art was his real bride, and that I was a sort of understudy; hardly that, after the first few months. I awoke to the fact that I had exchanged my youth and freedom for a domestic mill that sank all my ideals into commonplace. I said I would make my own mistakes and I did. Then came the long battle with my pride, and ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... see? So they promote me to his job. It's the only job I ever held, and I held it because it wouldn't let go of me, savvy? There's only three hundred men aboard The Blessed Isle, so all I have to do, regular, is to understudy the cooks, carry the grub, wait on table, wash the dishes, mop the floors, make the officers' beds, peel six bushels of potatoes a day, and do the laundry. Then, of course, there's some odd tasks. Oh, it was a swell job—more like a pastime. When a mop ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... Understudy for Driver; 3. Butler; 4. Footman; 5. Veterinary Surgeon; 6. Carpenter (if wheel comes off, &c.); 7. Handy working Orator (to explain to people that we're not a Political Van); 8. Electrician (in case horses go lame, and we have to use electricity); ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various

... cars, greasing up, and changing tires in a country garage down in the San Juan." He paused for a moment. "Before that I was chaperon to a stable full of horses on a Salinas ranch. I've tried being a carpenter's helper, an assistant gardener, understudy to a suburban plumber—and other things too numerous to mention—in the last three months. I think the most satisfactory thing I've tackled was the woods ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... detective-inspector (whom I showed over the entire house, including the museum and laboratory), I took a cab to Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials, where resided a well-known dealer in osteology. I did not, of course, inform him that I had come to buy an understudy for a deceased burglar. I merely asked for an articulated skeleton, to stand and not to hang (hanging involves an unsightly suspension ring attached to the skull). I looked over his stock with a steel measuring-tape in my hand, for a skeleton of about the right size—sixty-three ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... song that it was broad daylight, was awake and splashing in his bath. Again in Poppy's mind (how unnecessarily) he stood for the respectabilities and proprieties; he was an understudy for Tiny of the ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... lifting her around the curves in breath-taking spurts. Later this expedient began to lose its fillip. Since the train was running wholly on the air-brakes there was nothing for the fireman to do, and Jackson, the loyalest understudy Gallagher had ever known, tumbled from his box in a doze, staggered across the gang-way into the half-filled tender, and fell like a man anaesthetized full length on the coal. Gallagher did not try ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... if indeed he had not already done so. It was obvious that he could not last much longer—perhaps a year; not more—and it was necessary, therefore, to find an understudy. Irish terriers had been a part of the household for many years. Yet another must be discovered, though, as all agreed, there could never ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry

... proposed Joan for the vacant place, but Brown was dubious, and Joan herself not at all anxious for the honour. She had more or less understudied the part, every member of the chorus took it in turn to understudy; but the question was whether it would not be better if Fanny's understudy took the part of the Princess and Fanny played Franzi. It was a character which she had often scored it. Against this had ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... holes; there was "the trail," hard and firm, in the full pride of present patronage, defying the invasion of the boldest blade of grass; and by the side of it, faint and shadowy, like a rainbow's understudy, ran "the new trail," strong in the certainty of ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... never could get on. I always quoted the text 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof' to him, until at length he sent for the family Bible and ruled it out with red ink in a rage. But I say, do you think that we shall be called upon to understudy St. Lawrence on ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... had boarded for ten years, and watch a stranger taking cash. He had watched Donna's mother so long that the vigil had become a part of his being—a sort of religious ceremony—and in this little tragedy of life no understudy could ever star for Harley P. Her beautiful sad eyes were closed forever now and the tri-daily joy of his ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... she said to her maid. "Tell him I cannot play to- night. He must put on my understudy. Say ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... such portion of that gold as had come to his coffers, in trying to keep his little estates intact; but now it was all gone, and long ago he had died of grief and bitter disappointment; the Hereditary Grand Duchy of Baumenburg-Drippe was ruled by a cousinly understudy of the German Emperor William the Second; the one son of the marriage had been adopted, as heir to his crown, by the childless King of Hungaria; the handsome and lamentably extravagant old Duke of Northmoreland was dead; his title and vast estates had passed to ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... tears from her eyes.] I was a pupil of Tedder's for twelve months, and then he got me on at the Canterbury; and from the Canterbury I went to Gatti's, and from Gatti's to the Lane, for a few lines in the pantomime and an understudy— my first appearance in the West End— [singing] "Oh, the West End is the best end!"— and from there I went to the old Strand, and there Morrie Cooling spotted me, and that led to me being engaged at the Pandora, where I ate my heart out, doing next to nothing, for two ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... but little better than they had been in the theatrical business. Many good men and women, too, were out of engagements, and every available part was quickly snapped up. Mr. DeVere had waited long enough for this opening, and now to have to put on an understudy when the play was on the eve of opening, might mean the loss of his chances. Theatrical managers were uncertain at best, and an actor in an important part, with a voice that would not carry beyond the first few rows, was out ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope

... August; he never played first-class cricket after July, when, a scholastic understudy took his place in the Middlesex eleven. And in vain did I scour my Field and my Sportsman for the country-house matches with which he wilfully preferred to wind up the season; the matches were there, but never the magic name of A. J. Raffles. Nothing was known ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... she had wept hot tears about, but on each of these occasions Bordenave had refused to give her even the shortest leave and had deferred her holiday till September on the plea that he did not intend putting an understudy in her place, even for one evening, now that the exhibition was on. Toward the close of August he spoke of October. Nana was furious and declared that she would be at La Mignotte in the middle of September. Nay, in order to dare Bordenave, she even invited ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... that may occur, you want to make sure that there are two men in the office who understand the work of each position in it. Every business should be bigger than any one man. If it isn't, there's a weak spot in it that will kill it in the end. And every job needs an understudy. Sooner or later the star is bound to fall sick, or get the sulks or the swelled head, and then, if there's no one in the wings who knows her lines, the gallery will rotten-egg the show and howl for its money back. Besides, ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... hurry back. Make an excuse to leave your pilgrims the minute you get this, and take the first train to Cairo. Surely the late conductor can be your understudy, and trot the people round Alexandria for a day? We need you more than they do. I picture you reading this early in the morning, with Alexandria still in the distance; for you said you'd arrange to have letters come out to the yacht by the pilot. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Where is the understudy to read Miss Lyston's part? You haven't got one! I knew it! I told you last week to engage an understudy for the women's parts, and you haven't done it. I knew it, I knew it! God help me, ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... those, at least!" protested Tiddy, to whom it seemed a shame that Phyllis' golden loveliness should be wasted. Allan was Lord Tolloller, the other suitor, but Phyllis preferred, she said, to be generally useful. She was practically understudy to every one in the place, having a quick memory and a good ear, and spent her time, besides, hearing parts. Her real reason for not wanting to play was that she was afraid the De Guenthers would be left too ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer

... of applause playing it. You must understand, however, that once having given out a part, I should not attempt to take it from the girl I had given it to simply because some other girl desired it. That would be both unfair and unjust. The only thing I could promise you would be to allow you to understudy Rosalind in case anything happened to Miss Pierson. Would you care ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... dry, became as dull and homely as the flints upon a garden path. I have toiled at this childish pleasure for hours in the strong sun, conscious of my incurable ignorance; but too keenly pleased to be ashamed. Meanwhile, the blackbird (or his tropical understudy) would be fluting in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... very earnest, very dutiful, anxious to please Terriss, listened eagerly to the suggestion during an understudy rehearsal. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... The mother of the incomparable—Penelope, has heard that I am a famous business woman; a worthy understudy for Mrs. Hetty Green; so she came to me for advice. She had a letter from a New York broker offering her a fraction more than the market price for her three thousand ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... district; the hero of the cave affair in which men, women, and children were closed up in a cave and burnt to death or suffocated; a man who is the living terror of a whole countryside, the mere mention of whose name is sufficient to cow any native. Mr. Schoeman is the understudy of Abel Erasmus, and is the hero of the satchel case, in which an unfortunate native was flogged well-nigh to death and tortured in order to wring evidence from him who, it was afterwards discovered, knew absolutely nothing ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... Sadie Kate's skeptical question. But Santa Claus is undoubtedly coming this time. I asked the doctor, out of politeness, to play the chief role at our Christmas tree; and being certain ahead of time that he was going to refuse, I had already engaged Percy as an understudy. But there is no counting on a Scotchman. Sandy accepted with unprecedented graciousness, and I had ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... the same position in which Lloyd had carried hers, she swept down the aisle in such exact imitation of the other maid of honor, that every one who had seen the first wedding was convulsed, and Kitty's whisper about "Lloyd's understudy" was passed with stifled giggles from one ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... by William G. Lee, who had served in many subordinate offices in local lodges before he had been chosen First Vice-Grand Master in 1895. For fifteen years he was a faithful understudy to Morrissey whose policy he has continued in a characteristically fearless and thoroughgoing manner. When he assumed the presidency of the order, he obtained a ten-hour day in the Eastern territory for all train and yard men, ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... and face the shame of your actions in the past?' But the fact is, I am not at all ashamed, nor do I mind confessing exactly what I have done. My talent is my own, and it is my opinion that the world will crowd after me all the more because I have done this daring thing, and you, my poor little understudy for the time being, will be my understudy no longer. I take the part of leading lady once for all myself. I am coming up to London to-morrow, and will call to see you, as, on consideration, I think that fourth story which you are preparing for the Argonaut might ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade

... afraid, the obvious end of things," he explained. "You have given me a run for my money, I confess. A Monsieur Guillot who is remarkably like you, still occupies your box at the Empire, and Mademoiselle Jeanne Lemere, the accomplished understudy of the lady who has just left us, is sufficiently like the incomparable Louise to escape, perhaps, detection for the first few minutes. But you gave the game away a little, my dear Guillot, when you allowed your quarry to come and gaze even from the shadows of his box at the woman ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... act of simple human charity she was called upon to perform? Could it not be considered something similar to acting as an understudy—continuing a role which had been left with some last lines unsaid by the principal actor? Why need she hesitate to respond to the urgent appeal for comfort and for help? "No brightness—only darkness, until you came. Ah, dear love! the shadows when you ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... cheerfully disentangled by the bulky proprietor himself. Uncle Noah made a critical pilgrimage about the store, pausing at last before a counter where the proprietor had laid out a number of turkeys for the careful inspection of this beaming shopper about to select an understudy for the incomparable Job. A very respectable fowl was presently mantled in brown paper and laid beside the other bundles, along with sundry bags of cranberries and apples, oranges and nuts, celery and raisins, cigars for the Colonel, a box of candy for Mrs. Fairfax, huge bunches ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple

... engaged his passage to Cherbourg on a ship that was to sail at the end of the week. That would give Billie's answer time to come. Or—just madly supposing she cared enough to have an understudy play her part for a few days—it would allow time for a wonderful surprise, and the greatest proof of love a girl ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... what to do. Sid had died for fame, and it wasn't just he shouldn't get what he paid so dearly for. I gathered together what money I could, and went to Africa steerage. I found I couldn't do anything there about searching for Sid, so I resolved to be his understudy and bring fame to him, if it was possible. I sank my own identity, and made up as Sidney Ormond, took his boxes, and sailed for Southampton. I have been his understudy ever since; for, after all, I always had a hope he would come back some day, and then everything ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... performance of "Acis and Galatea" and been entertained with the spectacle of Polyphemus crushing the head of presumptuous Acis with a stave like another Fafner while singing "Fly, thou massy ruin, fly" to the bludgeon which was playing understudy for ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... interesting than acting as understudy for an absent g.p.," said I, a little enviously. "But you deserve to succeed, for you were always a deuce of a worker, to say nothing ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... practising making up faces," advised the old man, amiably. "Perhaps in the course of time your uncle will give you a job making up faces as his understudy, seeing that his physog is getting so tough he can't manage it ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... together," the plump girl continued, very much in earnest. "No hanging back—no squabbling over little things. If Ruth Fielding can write a picture play we must all do our prettiest in acting in it. Why! I'd play understudy to a baby elephant in a circus for the sake of helping build ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... Jequier's husband, for instance, had been a pasteur who had gone later into the business of a wine-merchant. She herself was not really the keeper of a Pension for Jeune Filles, but had drifted into it owing to her husband's disastrous descent from pulpit into cellar— understudy for some one who had forgotten to come on. The Postmaster, too, had originally been a photographer, whose funereal aspect had sealed his failure in that line. His customers could never smile and look pleasant. The postman, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... see the vicar about a 'service of song' they are getting up. That was Tom, but we call him 'Jephson' in the house. He was one of Michael's stud grooms, but he is engaged to one of the housemaids, and I found he so very much preferred being in the house, so I have arranged for him to understudy Lawson, and he is growing side whiskers. I shall have to break it to Michael on his return from Norway. This way, Jane. We have put you in the Magnolia room. I knew you would enjoy the view of the lake. Oh, I forgot to tell you, a tennis tournament is in progress. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... to follow. The Infant Samuel, making fresh appearance in new part of understudy of Chancellor of Exchequer, conceded point of procedure made by Radical Cave. Promised objection should be fully met. Holt, amid ironical cheers from Opposition, said in these circumstances would not move amendment. Incident reminded Walter Long of story of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various

... 44. THE UNDERSTUDY by Johnson Morton (Harper's Magazine) is an ironic character study developed with much finesse in the tradition of Henry James. Its defect is a certain conventional atmosphere which demands an artificial attitude on the part of the reader. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the young preacher should aim at developing on his own lines, thinking in his own way and expressing his thoughts in their own native dress. No matter how eminent the paragon you admire, do not become an understudy of him. Remember he is great only because he is himself and not the imitation of another. Try, however, to get at the secret of his greatness. What is it? He discovered his strong points and cultivated them. Go ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan

... pounds. I did it myself, single-handed, in seven days.... I've saved my stamps since then. Well, I've got a small staff." Anthony heaved a sigh of relief. "Two old carters, two carpenters, three magnificent sailors—all deaf, poor chaps—and a little lame engineer. But I haven't an understudy.... I hope you'll like it, and stay. It's ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... man who did know why might carry out a threat to blow up somebody who had refused to be blackmailed. It is practically impossible to get inside the complicated emotions and motives that lead a man to become an understudy in dynamiting. Rizzi probably got well paid; at any rate, he was constantly demonstrating his fitness "to do big things in a big way," and be received into the small company of the elect—to go forth and blackmail on his own hook ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... it at that. But we can't go on pretending to study this menu for ever! You came to dine with Mr. Smith. You'll dine with his understudy instead. You'll let me order dinner? ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... The landlord was an intelligent, good- looking young fellow; he told them that he was lately married, and they liked him so much that they were sorry to see him afterwards privately boxing the ears of the piccolo, the waiter's little understudy. Perhaps the piccolo deserved it, but they would rather not have witnessed his punishment; his being in a dress-coat seemed to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... fate of this unhappy man. And what tools Fate uses with which to carve out her devious peculiar patterns! An Apache Indian, besmeared with brilliant greases and smelling of the water that never freezes, an understudy to Cupid? Fudge! you will say, or Pshaw! or whatever slang phrase is handy and, prevalent at the moment you ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... favourable. "He seemed a bit queer, no doubt, and kept laughin' at nothin'; but I've knowed lots o' queer people as had more sense than them as wasn't queer, and there's no denyin' as he's knowledgeable in sheep." The result was that Toller was forthwith appointed as an understudy to Snarley Bob. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... rehearsal, and they scampered boisterously to the kitchen precincts. Amarilly, as stage director, provided seats at the table for herself, her mother, Flamingus, Gus, the baby, and the Boarder, the long-suffering, many-roled family cat personating the latter as understudy. Behind their chairs, save those occupied by the Boarder and the baby, were stationed Milton, Bobby, Bud, and Cory. This outer row, Amarilly explained, was to be fed from the plates of their elders with food convenient as was Elijah ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... young friend," said his father, "although the interview will be private, you have really no cause for jealousy. At present, remember, I am but the second string in the bow-case, the understudy who has learnt the part, a humble position, but ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... Miss Coghlan had been taken ill just before the raising of the curtain, and, there being no understudy, no performance had been given and the audience dismissed. All this was duly commented upon by the New York morning newspapers. Edward read this bit of news on the ferry-boat, but his notice was in the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... child-mind lingers in every adult reader. Genius has often been called the gift of prolonged adolescence, and in this sense, surely, there was genius in the warm and gentle heart of this fortunate provincial who held that "old Indianapolis" was "high Heaven's sole and only understudy." No one has ever had the audacity to say that ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... Baronet, builder of railway-stations, and institutes, and churches, author, antiquarian, and senior partner of Farquhar and Farquhar, leant back in his office chair and turned it sideways to give more point to his remarks. Before him stood an understudy, whom he was sending to superintend the restoration work ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... sacred text of Sophocles. In the fifth play of this pentalogy Heywood has to cope with no such matchless models or precursors; and it is perhaps the brightest and most interesting of the five. Sinon is a spirited and rather amusing understudy of Thersites: his seduction of Cressida is a grotesquely diverting variation on the earlier legend relating to the final fall of the typical traitress; and though time and space are wanting for the development or indeed ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... cutting, and the swift flashes of humor which set the great multitude in a roar, became in that summer and autumn familiar to millions of his countrymen; and the cartoonists made his features and gestures familiar to many other millions. On his Western trip, Roosevelt for a companion and understudy had Curtis Guild, and more than once when Roosevelt lost his voice completely, Guild had to speak for him. Up to election day in November, the Republicans did not feel confident, but when the votes were counted, McKinley had a plurality of over 830,000, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... regarded as serious, had suddenly taken an alarming turn, and owing to his age the worst was feared. His granddaughter was telegraphed for in hot haste, and she, after obtaining permission from her manager, who gave her part in "Arivana" to an understudy, hurried home at once. ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... at first. He let me understudy Victoria Lafontaine, a young artist very much in vogue just then, who had the most delightful talent. I played in La maison sans enfants, and I took her role at a moment's notice in Le demon du jeu, a piece which made a great success. I was ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... to tell her of the extraordinary likeness which existed between the two and had let her read his first wife's love-letters. She brooded over these facts now that he neglected her. She realised that she had inherited all the first one's pet names, that she was only her understudy, as it were. It irritated her and the attempt to win him for herself led her into all sorts of mischief. But she only succeeded in boring him, and in silently comparing the two women, his verdict was entirely in favour of the first one. She had been so much more gentle than ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... "And we haven't an understudy," said Jimmy. "There's something in that. We must work! My goodness, that kid's a bad study. I've known deaf-mutes who would have ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... says I. "But you know how easy a queen like her can pick up an understudy. Some have been mighty busy lately, too; one in particular. And I don't mind sayin' I'd hate to see him ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... his name and his friendship for them to advance their own ambitious designs. Antony and Octavius struggle with each other to catch the reins of power which have fallen from his hands; Dolabella, who seems to regard himself as an understudy of Caesar, plays a serio-comic part in Rome in his efforts to fill the place of the dead dictator; while Decimus Brutus hurries to the North to make sure of the province which Caesar ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... accomplished monotonously, the conversation drifting into a discussion, in the course of which mention was made of actors, singers, theatre, prices of admission, 'make-ups,' stage management, and music. It was in Birmingham that Ashton, Leslie's understudy, sang the tenor's music instead of her own in the first act of the Cloches: and poor So-and-so, who was playing the Grenicheux—how he did look when he heard his B ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... for a understudy?" he ses, laughing. "They all thought it was you. There wasn't one of 'em 'ad ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs

... out of herself and interested in some work, or study, it would be the salvation of her reason. Her mother told me she is an accomplished musician, but that she refuses to touch her piano now. I thought you might take her as an understudy on the organ, and by your influence and association lead her out of herself. You could make her acquaintance through approaching the mother who is a milliner, on business, and your tact would do the rest. In all my large ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... a tragic Muse, has been writing letters to her clients recommending another typist—quite a professional sort of person, who was her understudy once, a year or so ago, when she thoughtlessly allowed herself to come ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... quite a startlingly strong emotion. Alas! the motherly feeling seemed to have had its little day, and to have been swept off the stage on which her mental drama was being acted. It had played a principal part, but now an understudy appeared, more full-blooded, stronger, wilder. Lady Locke was very angry with herself ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... likelihood of it. The match before Christmas on the Ripton ground had resulted in a win for Wrykyn by two goals and a try to a try. But the calculations of the school had been upset by the sudden departure of Paget at the end of term, and also of Bryce, who had hitherto been regarded as his understudy. And in the first Ripton match the two goals had both been scored by Paget, and both had been brilliant bits of individual play, which a lesser man could not have ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... have done before me, employ a "Ghost"—(my first dealings with the supernatural, and probably my last!). I wired to one of the leading Sporting Journals for their most reliable Racing Ghost—he was busy watching Nunthorpe—(who is only the Ghost of what he was!)—and the Bogie understudy sent to me was a Parliamentary Reporter!—(hence the stilted style of the letter signed "POMPERSON." Heavens! what a name!)—I had five minutes to explain the situation to him before catching the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various

... He laughed freely and easily nowadays. His first wife had been a sort of understudy for a saint, and after a brief but depressing connubial experience she had died, leaving him with a boy of six; a boy who already, at that tender age, seemed to cherish a passionate aversion to virtue in any form—the ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... employment, labor,—but his express function is to restore to an organization the simple but powerful human relation without which higher efficiency cannot be maintained. In factories and stores employing many women this understudy to the manager is usually a woman, who is given plenary authority in the handling of her charges, in reviewing disputes with foremen, and in finding the right position for the misplaced worker. Whether man ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... Pacific coast, (Odocoileus columbianus) is, to most sportsmen of the Rocky Mountains and the East actually less known than the okapi! Not one out of every hundred of them can recognize a mounted head of it at sight. It is a small, delicately-formed, delicately-antlered understudy of the big mule deer, and now painfully limited in its distribution. It is the deer of California and western Oregon, and it has been so ruthlessly slaughtered that today it is going fast. As conditions stand to-day, and without a radical change ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... held out this far, Bob, and you must pull yourself together so as to go through the game today," Jack went on to say, warmly. "If you failed us our goose would surely be cooked, you know, because the fellow who has been practicing as your understudy at fullback is a mighty poor fish, and Marshall will know it as soon as the first period is over, especially if they push us hard, and he breaks down, as he's ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... word to play but the part of an understudy in this drama before he had seen Sancie, else never would he have consented to the compact. King Louis had indeed explained it to him before sending him to Aldobrandino, and Richard had demanded carelessly: "Of what sort is the maiden?" The King had answered: "All of the daughters ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... the basement, where he was wont to keep his hat during business hours. He was aware that it would be a matter of some delicacy to leave the bank at that hour. There was a certain quantity of work still to be done in the Fixed Deposits Department—work in which, by rights, as Mike's understudy, he should have lent a sympathetic and helping hand. 'But what of that?' he mused, thoughtfully smoothing his hat with his knuckles. 'Comrade Gregory is a man who takes such an enthusiastic pleasure in his duties that he will go singing about the office when he discovers that ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... boughs of which the unconscious actress studied her part; but at the end of five minutes something happened which completely altered the current of Peggy's thoughts. Mellicent's partner called attention to something at the opposite end of the room, and the girl turning to look at it, her understudy naturally followed her example, and straight-way forgot Mellicent and her doings for ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... you wouldn't ask. Brookport! Ugh! I left when they tried to get me to understudy the hired ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... drawn round her, a circle that was gradually becoming narrowed. She had begun to know that she was being incessantly watched. If Emile were occupied with the business of the Society, and could not fetch her from the Hippodrome himself, he never failed to send an understudy in the shape of one of his allies, generally one of the older men. When she emerged from the performers' entrance a silent figure would come forward to meet her. Often they exchanged no words throughout the walk home, but she was never left till ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward

... Captain Murphy arrived on the Timaru, with the information that he had taken a chance and left our affairs in the laps of the gods and the capable hands of his understudy. It has been pretty tough sledding waiting for the next Australian steamer, but, thank God! she made port yesterday and your report of the success of your mission is before me. I thank you. Yen're ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... kohl! That there was anything to be ashamed of in this stolen ride never even occurred to him. And perhaps there was little wrong in it, after all. Perhaps, when the secrets of all hearts are revealed, it will come out that the Miller's Daughter took the opportunity to meet Narcissus' understudy,—who can tell? ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... then the quarantine launch swung around the neighboring island. I tightened my horse belt and dragged the "Colt" around within easy reach; and a moment later the doctor and his bulking understudy stepped ashore—alone. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... city accent! Ah, you wish to bite off bits of slang? My friend, they are green! Every grape you pick breaks in your jaws, for city grapes are glass bubbles! Having taken from the sparrow only his make-up and grimace, you are just a clumsy understudy, a sort of vice-buffoon! And you serve up stale old cynicisms picked up with crumbs in fashionable club-rooms, poor little bird, and think to astonish us with your ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... almost all the profits and the depositors and policy holders taking almost all the risk. It had never once occurred to me to have any feeling of any kind about Tom, or in any way to take him into my calculations as to Anita. He was, to my eyes, too obviously a pale understudy of his powerful and fascinating brother. Whenever I thought of him as the man Anita fancied she loved, I put it aside instantly. "The kind of man a woman really cares for," I would say to myself, "is the measure ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... goes out this morning and I am determined to get this letter written if I break up a dozen parties. As you see, I am in Shanghai, this wonderful big understudy for Chicago, which seems about as incongruous in its surroundings as a silk hat on a haystack! There are beautiful boulevards, immense houses, splendid public gardens, all hedged in by ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... snarled in a foolish sarcastic way. 'And who may this be that I have the honour of addressing?—Captain Macnaughten's ghost? or his next-of-kin, belike? Or may be his deputy understudy?—with your One moment, please? . . . You sit down on that thwart there, and don't you dare open your face again until I give you leave. . . . That was the old fool's way with me—hey? ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... lowly. "I have been Madame's understudy too long not to read. Forgive me. I was to keep you apart; I have done so. The evil can not now be repaired. Your hope is that Madame has ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... robbery, and worse. That of the Filipinos, [45] in imitation of their Spanish masters, is no better. At any rate, when we took over the Archipelago in 1898, a vast area of Luzon was held by a people who looked, and justly, so far as their experience had gone, upon the white man and his Filipino understudy as an enemy. The difficulty of guiding and controlling these people undoubtedly had been (and still is) great, and partly accounts for the state of affairs we encountered when we first entered the country, but it was ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... Hexter said. Then I told him I knew the part; how I'd played Valentine to Wilkins' Mephisto when the piece was first produced before these Gaiety people brought their 'Faust up-to-date' from London. You remember how, as Wilkins was given to late dinners and too much ale, he made me understudy his Mephisto, and if the piece had run more'n two weeks, I'd probably had a chance to play it. Well, Hexter said, as everything was ready to put on the piece, if I thought I was up in the part, he'd let me try it. So we went to Renshaw's room and got the part ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... years old, and sang like an angel of Paradise. Another of them was the Lucrezia, the Roman matron—put into the short skirts, spangles, and mischievous peering glances of Colombina. Belviso would have sustained it had he been present. Adone, his understudy, took his place. My own share in the mummery was humble and confusing. In toga and cothurnus I had to read a pompous prologue, and did it amid shouts of "Basta! basta!" from the audience. I don't believe that I was more thankful than they were ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... telephones and typewriters in his managerial room at the Regent. He received me very courteously. "Yes," he said in response to my question, "the rumour is quite true. The principal part in 'The Orient Pearl' will be played on the first night by Miss Euclid's understudy, Miss Olga Cunningham, a young woman of very remarkable talent. No, Miss Euclid is not ill or even indisposed. But she and I have had a grave difference of opinion. The point between us was whether Miss Euclid's speeches ought to be clearly audible in the auditorium. I considered they ought. I may ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... Caragol was the understudy charged with drinking all which the captain refused, together with certain others which he dedicated to himself in the mystery of the galley. On warm days he manufactured refresquets, and these refreshments were enormous ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... "Let your understudy take your part to-night, while we think, and work," I suggested. "You cannot go to ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... "Either I shall be dead—or the man waiting for me on the street corner... I shall not tell him my decision until the last moment. I don't want to give him the chance to work in an understudy or complete the job himself... Will you go to Hilmer to-morrow and warn him?... He arrives from the south at the Third and Townsend depot somewhere around eleven o'clock. Advise him to postpone the launching. And have the approaches to the shipyards ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... he came from Boston, was a monitor and assistant instructor. He was very lank and solemn, and extremely precise in his manner of speech. In the matter of discipline, he was almost as severe as Dr. Rally himself, and the boys sometimes referred to him as "Hardtack's understudy." ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... It was unfortunate, she thought, that Colonel Dermot, with his extraordinary knowledge of and influence over the Bhutanese, had left India. But even without him the power of the British Empire would be set at once in motion to avenge this outrage on an Englishwoman. Dermot's understudy, the Assistant Political Officer, faithless lover though he was, would do all he could to save her. Assuredly she would ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... fiery. A ring horse is one that just goes round the ring for the bareback riders and equestriennes to perform on. The human being is the "star", and the horse in only a secondary performer, a sort of understudy; yes, that's it, an understudy—he has to study how ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... never had his voice been so friendly as in these regretful accents, "don't try to go on to-day. You're evidently not yourself. Go home and rest for a few days. We'll get along with your understudy, Miss Esmond. When Mr. Crossley wants to put you in again, he'll send for you. You mustn't be discouraged. I know how beginners take these things to heart. Don't fret about it. You can't fail ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... not be in a running play, you may be an understudy for one or two of the ladies who are. You will study their parts, be rehearsed in their "business," and will then hold yourself in readiness to take, on an instant's notice, either of their places, in case of sickness, accident, or ill news ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... burst out radiantly, "Oh, I had such luck. I was only the understudy, and doing minor parts, when the soprano was taken ill in the second act and I went in and scored a triumph. It was 'Love Tales of Hoffmann' and when I sang the 'Barcarolle' they recalled me seven times! That is they recalled us both—it's sung as a ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... groups, each conscious that something unusual had occurred. "It's really a queer, and perhaps a serious thing," he whispered as he steered his companion through a maze of scenery. "And if Oliver doesn't turn up, we shall be in a fine mess. Of course, there's an understudy for his part, but—I say!" he went on, as they stepped upon the stage, "Have any of you seen Mr. Oliver, anywhere, since Saturday night? Can anybody tell anything about him—anything at all? Because—it's useless to deny ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... of his time in New York now," the letter read, "and is there at present. His understudy here advised me to go on East. I should rather see him there than here, on account of the greater likelihood that Pendleton may detect us: so I'm going. I shall stay as long as I can do any good by it. Lattimore won't get the condition of the estate worked out for a month, and ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... asking us to warm up to her," contradicted Mademoiselle Eloise, a pale, light-haired sprite, who had arrived late and was making undignified efforts to get out of her clothes by way of her head. She was Polly's understudy and next in line for the ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo

... always directs her wedding rehearsal, but never herself takes part in it, as it is supposed to be bad luck. Some one else—anyone who happens to be present—is appointed understudy. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... downhearted? I haven't drunk up all my Christmas presents yet. As a last hope I can load upon them and get some kind ambulance to drag me up to the dippy department of some nice hospital. Honest, I am getting so thin that before long I won't be able to understudy a drop of water in Mr. ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... taking of pulse and temperature, to say nothing of hypodermic injections at those awful moments when there seems no pulse to feel. It means that no one woman, be she ever so competent, can keep up the fight single-handed for twelve hours at a stretch, and that an understudy to work under her may mean the very turning of the scale. I have been understudy by night, and proud I am to record that Nurse proclaims me unusually "handy" for a member of the "laity". Hour after hour we have fought together for the little darling's ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... go," she said, "if I'm to get any dinner before the theatre. I would have liked to stay, and put my poor little understudy on, so as to give her a chance. She's a nice little girl—not half stupid, and really keen to learn and to work. But I can't. I'm in honour bound to appear to-night. You see, it's our second century—the first one we could not observe, because it came at the end of January just in the general ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... worth having—nothing really worth father's years of hard work—could come to them as a family until Peter Rolls ceased to identify himself personally with the Hands, Ena had pleaded, and at last the head of the establishment engaged an official "understudy" to represent him every day in the gorgeously furnished office which had seemed to old Peter what the ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... and Taylor by twenty; but both established their reputation before middle age. Lowin at twenty-seven took part with Shakespeare in the first representation of Ben Jonson's Sejanus in 1603. He was an early, if not the first, interpreter of the character of Falstaff. Taylor as understudy to the great actor Burbage, a very close ally of Shakespeare, seems to have achieved some success in the part of Hamlet, and to have been applauded in the role of Iago, while the dramatist yet lived. When the dramatist died, Lowin was forty, ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee



Words linked to "Understudy" :   role player, memorize, standby, thespian, player, actor, histrion



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