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Windfall   Listen
noun
Windfall  n.  
1.
Anything blown down or off by the wind, as fruit from a tree, or the tree itself, or a portion of a forest prostrated by a violent wind, etc. "They became a windfall upon the sudden."
2.
An unexpected legacy, or other gain. "He had a mighty windfall out of doubt."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Windfall" Quotes from Famous Books



... find, yet in the end faithful; bitter, the Kyprian's feet— ah, flecks of withered clay, great hero, vaunted lord— ah, petals, dust and windfall on ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... much of his lost money seemed to Herbert quite a lucky windfall. He went at once to a trunk store, and, for five dollars, purchased a good, durable trunk, which he ordered sent home to his lodgings. Fifteen dollars more he invested in necessary underclothing, and this left him one-half of the money for future ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger

... not a moment after the decision was made; he even blamed himself for having waited so long. From the "higher regions" there had come a windfall in the shape of two railroad-passes; and a couple of days later they stepped out upon the depot-platform of a little town upon the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... of the globe nobody hain't ever been able to make out. He bought a boat and a shanty down at my shore and went into a sort of mackerel partnership with Snuffy Curtis—Snuffy supplying the experience and this young fellow the cash, I reckon. Snuffy's as poor as Job's turkey; it was a windfall for him. And there ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... first to tap the wealth of the gorgeous East, into her lap fell the stream of gold from that quarter. The secret of her windfall was the small bulk and enormous value of her cargoes. From Malabar she fetched pepper and ginger, from Ceylon cinnamon and pearls, from Bengal opium, the only known conqueror of pain, and with it frankincense and indigo. Borneo supplied camphor, Amboyna nutmegs ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... they come and they go. Ha, yonder soundeth Ralfwyn's horn—three blasts which do signify some right fair windfall. Come, let us see what this jolly wind hath blown us this time!" So saying, Robin laughed and led the way out into the sunny green. And here, surrounded by a ring of merry forest rogues, they beheld a knight ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... only wish he would. The hoard would be a jolly windfall to me if I could manage to light upon it. But I'm not the kind who goes about seeing ghosts. I'm too plain and matter-of-fact by half, and, though I often hear mysterious taps on the panels of my bedroom, I prosaically set it down to rats and mice. Now, you're a psychic sort of a ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... foreign investment helped spur output of both domestic and export goods. On the darker side, the leadership has often experienced in its hybrid system the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy, lassitude, corruption) and of capitalism (windfall gains and stepped-up inflation). Beijing thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. In late 1993 China's leadership approved additional long-term reforms aimed at giving still more play to market-oriented institutions and at strengthening the ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... bring the loafer to a disgraceful end. The Devil has a short but nimble tail; and it makes no difference how slovenly he may conduct his business, his recruits have got to pay the piper in the end. This will be a windfall for mother. Let's hurry so that we can serve it to her while it's ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... of the noble family of that name. He passed his youth in contracted circumstances, which gave him early those parsimonious habits which in after-life never forsook him; so that, with one windfall or another, about the time I knew him he was master of four or five hundred thousand pounds; nor did he look, or walk, worth a moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite the pump in Serjeant's-inn, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... proposed be made the first priority of this session of the Congress. These measures will require the oil companies and other energy producers to provide the public with the necessary information on their supplies. They will prevent the injustice of windfall profits for a few as a result of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans. And they will give us the organization, the incentives, the authorities needed to deal with the short-term emergency and to move toward ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... and prepared to spend a comfortable night in the woods. I cooked my supper and then turned in. The wind had come up and I soon became very chilly, so I looked around for a warmer place. I found a windfall and made myself a nice little fire by crossing the trunks and building a fire under them. I spent the next four hours in comfort, though it was very cold. My uncle had told me to start with the first rays of the sun. I had no timepiece, so ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... returned, "that they're thankin' God for the windfall of a tradin' schooner at family worship in Jolly ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... you a small case, in which is a large ring, seemingly of the finest gold, with a little label attached to it, on which is marked 2 pounds 15s. "Now, sir," he continues, "I said we were fortunate, because as we were close to each other, I consider you as much entitled to gain by this windfall as myself. I'll tell you how it shall be: the price of the ring, which was probably dropped by some goldsmith's man, is, as you see, two pound fifteen; however, as I am in a hurry, you shall only ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... had endured for nearly fourteen years the soul-deadening ugliness of the Middle West, and that Boyne had ground on doggedly at his engineering till, with a suddenness that still made her blink, the prodigious windfall of the Blue Star Mine had put them at a stroke in possession of life and the leisure to taste it. They had never for a moment meant their new state to be one of idleness; but they meant to give themselves ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... well as his bold defence of Freethought. He made out a will in Mr. Bradlaugh's favor, but he subsequently made another will, and died in circumstances that necessitated an inquest. By agreement, however, Mr. Bradlaugh obtained L2,500 from the estate, and the windfall came opportunely, for his struggles and litigations had involved him in considerable debt. I know he often had to borrow money on heavy interest. One day, at Turner-street, he told me that a creditor of this species had coolly invited him to dinner. "Hang it," he said, "you can't dine ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote

... and the address prevented Monsieur de Maulincour from following the beggar and returning it; for there are few passions that will not fail in rectitude in the long run. The baron had a presentiment of the opportunity afforded by this windfall. He determined to keep the letter, which would give him the right to enter the mysterious house to return it to the strange man, not doubting that he lived there. Suspicions, vague as the first faint gleams of daylight, made him fancy relations between ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... about Paimpol, and even in the world, for whom I would have missed a windfall; truly, for nobody else would I have come back ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... remembered her grandfather used to say that luck was a powerful ingredient in the successful career of every man, but that the man was on the spot to take the luck, knew when to take it, and how to use it. "The lucky man is the man that sits up watching for the windfall while other men are sleeping"—that was the way he had put it. So Rudyard Byng, if lucky, had also been of those who had grown haggard with watching, working and waiting; but not a hair of his head had whitened, and if he looked older than he was, still he was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... a windfall—servants do sometimes, we should have to keep a sharp eye on you both, and now ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas

... easy and we made pretty good time; then we had a rocky hill to get over. We had to use care when we got into the timber; there were marshy places which tried us sorely, and windfall so thick that we could hardly get through. We were obliged to pick our way carefully to avoid noise, and we were all together, not having come to a place where it seemed better to separate. We had about resolved to go to our horses when we ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... into farmers, and presently word came that if we needed Old Beek (shortened from Lord Beaconsfield), surrey, and harness complete, they were ours to command. They would be delivered to us in the city, the message said, from which point we could drive, or ship, them to the farm. It was a windfall from a clear sky—we said it must be our lucky year. We accepted the quickest way, and were presently in the city to receive ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... simplicity in the belief that superiority in arts of comparatively little worth could only be attained by aid of qualified teachers, but that the leadership of the state, the most important concern of all, was destined to drop into the lap of anybody, no matter whom, like an accidental windfall. (7) ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... hospital; but, now his father is dead, he would himself take care of his future productions. This, however, was no better than a gasconade. Yesterday the house was in a hot alarm, on account of a new windfall of this kind: the sisters were in tears; the brother was visited by the cure of the parish; the lady in the straw (a sempstress) sent him the bantling in a basket, and he transmitted it by the carriers to the Enfans ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... discharged themselves into the main body of water, while by imperceptible degrees the waterway narrowed, and the forest—dense, green, flower-decked, alive and gay with bird and insect life—pressed its foliaged walls in upon them ever closer and closer, except where an occasional break caused by fire or windfall afforded them a momentary glimpse of giant mountain ranges to right and left, at first a delicate purple-grey in the distance, but ever, like the forest, creeping closer in upon them. And now at increasingly frequent ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... was the Banquo's ghost at the Rodney board, Mrs. Rodney hearkening back to it in and out of season. If the family made merry over a chance windfall of game or fresh vegetables, a prospect of possible employment for one of the boys, a donation of money from Judith, Mrs. Rodney remembered the unbuilt bird-house and indulged herself to the full of melancholy. It is ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... glorious excitation in the swift, smooth flight and a grim assurance of soon seeing the old lion. But I hoped we would not rout him too soon from under a windfall, or a thicket where he had dragged a deer, because the race was too splendid a thing to cut short. Through my mind whirled with inconceivable rapidity the great lion chases on which we had ridden the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... one who seemed chiefly concerned over this money matter; for it happened that the fat scout wanted dearly to visit the Far West, and was always talking of California, together with the game to be met with in the famous Rock Mountains. And with this windfall coming to their almost exhausted treasure box, it now seemed as though the Silver Fox Patrol might get away when the next vacation ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... father of young Easy!" observed Captain Wilson, after a silence of some minutes; "if he had not assisted me when I was appointed to a ship, I should not have gained my promotion—nor three thousand pounds I have made in prize-money— the command of a fine frigate—and now four thousand pounds in a windfall." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... but when she did it was Eunice Plympton, the daughter of the drunken fiddler who earned his livelihood by playing for the dances the young people of Olney sometimes got up. He was anticipating quite a windfall from the infair it was confidently expected would be given by Mrs. Markham in honor of her son's marriage; and Eunice herself had washed and starched and ironed the white waist she intended to wear on the same occasion. Of course she knew she ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... It was the windfall for which the youth had been waiting to enable him to gratify his first love. In his childhood, his father and one M. Foucher, head of a War Office Department, had jokingly betrothed a son of the one to a daughter of the other. Abel had loftier views than alliance with a civil servant's ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... what reception they may have, shall be our care. Not merely shall we not love money, or trust in it, or seek it as the business of life, but, whether we have it or have it not, we must never think of it as a windfall from the tree of event or the cloud of circumstance, but as the gift of God. We must draw our life, by the uplooking, acknowledging will, every moment fresh from the living one, the causing life, not glory in the mere consciousness of health and being. It is God feeds us, warms us, quenches ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... heard that, but only the other day. It was a most unexpected windfall. I was delighted to hear about it." Jean looked at him and wondered if he were well. His long holiday did not seem to have improved his spirits; he was more absent-minded than usual and ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... but they won't forget it in the town for a long time. Such things happen only once a year or more around dull old Stanhope. To-night we meet to see how many have the money earned for the suits; and I'm glad to say I can cover my needs. You're doubly supplied now, with this windfall." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... saw a Serpent asleep in a sunny nook, and flying down, greedily seized him. The Serpent, turning about, bit the Crow with a mortal wound. The Crow in the agony of death exclaimed: "O unhappy me! who have found in that which I deemed a most happy windfall the source of ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... replied Jerry. "There's a windfall under the roots of that dead pine tree. It's only half-a-dozen yards from ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... lengthen, I shouldered my rifle and plunged into the woods. At first my route lay along a mountain side; then for half a mile over a windfall, the dead timber piled about in crazy confusion. After that I went up the bottom of a valley by a little brook, the ground being carpeted with a sponge of soaked moss. At the head of this brook was a pond covered ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... Royal, and was appointed organist to Westminster Abbey when only two-and-twenty, a place he very nearly lost by refusing to give up to the Dean and Chapter the proceeds of letting the seats in the organ-loft to view the coronation of James II., a windfall he considered as a perquisite. He is buried beneath the great organ, which had so often throbbed out his emotions in the sounds in which he had clothed them. On leaving Tufton Street he went to Marsham Street, where he died in 1695. The art students from the gallery now patronize the ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... sport of British parties. Individual statesmen may point at past mistakes; but a party, as a party, can never admit error: it is against the rules. To make things easier, there is that question-begging phrase, the "Union." If South Africa, like Australia, had been federalized, this windfall would have been lost, because the word "Federal" might have suggested some form of Federal Home Rule for Ireland. Labels mean ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... it seems. One of my servants was at the camp to-day and found the gypsies greatly excited over the old cat's windfall." ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... church whither we had to take him. Besides, what is Dierich Brower to me? I'll see him hanged ere I'll tell him. But I wish you'd tell me where the parchments are! There are a hundred crowns offered for them. That would be a good windfall for my Joan and the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... friend Suarez. I have no doubt it will be a good thing; and for you who are married and have a family to support, this five hundred dollars would be a windfall. I am single, and don't require it. I am therefore willing to surrender my chance to you, and you can look for the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... to the sense that she was still dependent upon Mrs. Minto for her existence. During this tea-time, while her mother mutely ate bread and margarine, Sally was away in the clouds, dreaming of all that her windfall was to produce. It was to produce beauty, opportunity, happiness. So much for a pound to do! Sally was so impatient to call on Mrs. Perce that she could hardly eat anything ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... case I should say: Confine your formal programme (super-programme, I mean) to six days a week. If you find yourself wishing to extend it, extend it, but only in proportion to your wish; and count the time extra as a windfall, not as regular income, so that you can return to a six-day programme without the sensation of being poorer, of being ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett

... the wise man meant. He was speaking of unearned money. Money is power, and to save up power is thrift. On thrift civilization is builded. The root of all evil is the desire to get money without earning it. To get something for nothing demoralizes all effort. The man who gets a windfall spends his days watching the wind. The man who wins in a lottery buys more lottery tickets. Whoever receives bad money, soon throws good money after bad. He will throw that of others when his own is gone. No firm or corporation ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... introduced me to one of his comrades, a self-styled poet, and a great enemy of the Abbe Chiari, whom I did not like, as he had written a biting satire against me, and I had never succeeded in avenging myself on him. I asked them to come and sup with me—a windfall which these people are not given to refusing. The pretended poet was a Genoese, and called himself Giacomo Passano. He informed me that he had written three hundred sonnets against the abbe, who would burst with rage if they were ever printed. As I could not restrain a smile at the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... and ate them, rather for an occupation than from hunger. Still it was not ten o'clock, and the night was long before us, when one of the party produced an old pack of Spanish cards from his monkey-jacket pocket, which we hailed as a great windfall; and, keeping a dim, flickering light by our fagots, we played game after game, till one or two o'clock, when, becoming really tired, we went to our logs again, one sitting up at a time, in turn, to keep watch over the fire. Toward morning the rain ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... right. He was still young, as every man of forty-three will agree, but he was getting older. A few years ago a windfall of three hundred and forty-one pounds would not have been followed by morbid self-analysis; it would have been followed by unreasoning, instinctive elation, which elation would have ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... to our bill-of-fare for dinner by this unexpected windfall, I kept on walking towards the entrance of a glade, the soil of which, being quite burrowed, betrayed the presence of the moles. Each of us lay down under the shade of a tree. Chance led me under a robinia or iron-wood tree, the trunk of which will defy the best-tempered axe. In front ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... it's my opinion that if a chap is to turn soldier and carry a musket, he should have soldier's play, and leave to plunder a little—now the devil a thing have I laid my hands on to-night, except this firelock and my cutlash—unless you can call this bit of a table-cloth something of a windfall." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... priced. Still, I sat down and wrote him a letter, telling him how we were fixed. He answered by return mail, making a special rate and setting a day. I hoped to take twelve of the children, but I had car fare for only seven. Then came our windfall. I told the railroad what I was trying to do, and they made a special excursion rate and took the children at less than half fare. We were all able to go, and the extra money went for a treat to soda and ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing

... necessary food and cause them to "die back." Where the trees are tall and slim or on short and steep hillsides, it is also important to be conservative in marking in order that the stand may not be exposed to the dangers of windfall. No hard-and-fast rule can be laid down as to what would constitute a conservative percentage of trees to cut down. This depends entirely on the local conditions and on the exposure of the woodlot. But in general it is not well to remove more than twenty per cent of ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... of friend in dire straits, himself fell into the bog. It appeared that of 1056 divisions taken in two Sessions he had been absent from 602. Here was another unexpected little windfall for the Exchequer. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various

... on the morning when my husband nearly killed me my friend cried because he hadn't the money to get me away. He told me afterwards he'd come into a windfall. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... leaving London, and for the first time in her life there, she had sat down with paper and pencil and made up a statement—rough, of course—of all she owed, and added it up.... Appalling! Thousands and thousands of pounds! Why, great Heavens! if she used her recent windfall to pay her debts, she would have nothing left worth mentioning. And Bullard was going to give her a hundred thousand—if—if ... Oh, but he must not fail! It was her final chance, her final hope, of averting downfall ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... later, fortune put into his hands the opportunity of striking a vigorous and telling blow for the newly-published book. Never was windfall more eagerly accepted. A short account of this lucky chance was written by him for the Darwin "Life" (volume 1 ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... culmination, had taken place in the life and family of William Gerhardt, a glass-blower by trade. Having suffered the reverses so common in the lower walks of life, this man was forced to see his wife, his six children, and himself dependent for the necessaries of life upon whatever windfall of fortune the morning of each recurring day might bring. He himself was sick in bed. His oldest boy, Sebastian, or "Bass," as his associates transformed it, worked as an apprentice to a local freight-car builder, but received ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... superior officer passed out of sight; "just as I expected. A moment ago I was fool enough to doubt it. Now I am sure of it. Some smuggler is going to risk it to-night. Well, I shall manage badly if I don't come in for a windfall—though it be at ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... not distribute much money, as she had none. It was heart-breaking to her to realise her powerlessness, when he could so easily empty his purse. She was, of course, happy that such a windfall had come to the poor, but she felt as if she were greatly diminished in her former self-estimation. She no longer had the same happiness in giving, but was disturbed and sad that she had so little to distribute, while he ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... other in mutual congratulation, he rejoicing in the unexpected windfall, she exulting in the part her boys had played in ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... it was light enough to see we took stock of our windfall. The horses were both bays and of the finest; their trappings new and in perfect condition. Our attire was made up of the best horsemen's boots, a trifle too large for us, but not enough to be so noticeable as ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... that all stopped to play, romping much as children romp and showing a sociable disposition. It was usually late in November before the black bear denned up for the winter, commonly adapting the shelter beneath some windfall to make a winter home by enlarging and improving it and perhaps by raking in some dead ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... received a mysterious postal order for one-and-fivepence. It was in the early days of his novitiate, before he had ceased to question the workings of Providence. So he made inquiries, and after prolonged investigation discovered the source of the windfall. On field service an officer is entitled to a certain sum per day as "field allowance." In barracks, however, possessing a bedroom and other indoor comforts, he receives no such gratuity. Now Bobby had once been compelled to share his room for ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... twelve good people, who, upon my arrival at Unyanyembe, without an exception, voluntarily engaged themselves as carriers to Ujiji. With the formidable marches of Marenga Mkali in front, I felt thankful for this happy windfall,, which resolved the difficulties I had been anticipating; for I had but ten donkeys left, and four of these were so enfeebled that they were worthless as ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... rose from passengers and crew alike as the bicycle was lowered to the waves, the string tightened, and the bicycle started, Billy in the saddle and Harold on the step. The event was a perfect windfall to the passengers. It gave them something to talk of all the way to Suez; some of them are talking about ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... that he demanded faith of them in order to make them regard him, that so his personal being might enter into their hearts. Healing without faith in its source would have done them harm instead of good—would have been to them a windfall, not a Godsend; at best the gift of magic, even sometimes the power of Satan casting out Satan. But he must not therefore act as if he were the only one who could render this individual aid, or as if men influencing ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... flame of self-preservation was hot in Neewa's head; he was still dazed by the thunderous beat of wings; his sides burned where Oohoomisew's talons had scarred his flesh; so, when he saw in his path a tangled windfall of tree trunks he dived into the security of it so swiftly that for a moment or two Miki ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... earth and heaven. He is exceedingly curious; will dig, dive, ferret, and poke his nose everywhere. At the consummatum est he only laughs, the little scoffer! He is always saying "Further," or "Forward." Moreover, he is not hard to please. He takes every rebuff; picks up every windfall. For instance, when the Church throws out nature as impure and doubtworthy, Satan fastens on her for his own adornment. Nay, more; he employs her, and makes her useful to him as the fountain-head of the arts; thus accepting ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... real windfall. The shelves were relatively untouched and he had a wide choice of tinned goods. He found an empty cardboard box and hastily began to transfer the cans from the shelf ...
— Small World • William F. Nolan

... degree,' and in three days Atwater, the two women and I will be off for Breslau. Leave me a free hand, and I'll get your murderer and the money. But remember, one single imprudence loses both man and money; you, your vengeance; me, my reward. And I depend on this windfall to marry!" ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... wife lay awake for long hours that night, in a flutter of excitement, discussing Milly's marvellous windfall. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... all the while had been gloating over the gold on the table now swept it into her pocket. It was a windfall which had come at the right moment. She was tired of Bedfordbury. She aimed at a step higher. There was a coffee house business in the Old Bailey going cheap, the twenty pounds would enable her to ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... somewhere, the more so that he had seen him absent himself for near an hour that morning and come back with a smile lurking on his face and his mouth filled with unswallowed food. It must be that he had had a windfall, had probably joined some marauding party and laid in a stock of provisions. And Chouteau labored with Loubet and Lapoulle to stir up bad feeling against the comrade, with the latter more particularly. Hein! wasn't he a dirty dog, if he had something to eat, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... frame. 2dly, it is quite contrary to the evidence on Joanna's trial; for Southey's "Joan" of A. Dom. 1796 (Cottle, Bristol), tells the doctors, amongst other secrets, that she never in her life attended—1st, Mass; nor 2d, the Sacramental table; nor 3d, Confession. Here's a precious windfall for the doctors; they, by snaky tortuosities, had hoped, through the aid of a corkscrew, (which every D. D. or S.T.P. is said to carry in his pocket,) for the happiness of ultimately extracting from Joanna a few grains of heretical ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... the rivers—Moose or Abitibi—leading to Hudson Bay. Radisson had sprained his ankle; and the long portages by the banks of the ice-laden, rain-swollen rivers were terrible. The rocks were slippery as glass with ice and moss. The forests of this region are full of dank heavy windfall that obstructs the streams and causes an endless succession of swamps. In these the paddlers had to wade to mid-waist, 'tracking' their canoes through perilous passage-way, where the rip of an upturned ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... fellow, I've out-guessed you this time," said he to himself. "I am behind you and the wind is from you to me, so that you cannot get my scent. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you're back right where you started from, behind that old windfall." He at once began to move forward silently and cautiously, with eyes and ears alert and his terrible gun ready ...
— The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer • Thornton W. Burgess

... cat sold a picture? — or more likely had a windfall? Or for God's sake, what's broke loose? Have you a bee-hive in your head? A little more of this from you will not be easy hearing. Do you know that? Understand it, if you do; for if you won't. . . . What the ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... delicacy of mind—in Corona, and doubt if the bloom of it will survive the rough contact of a public elementary school? . . . Come, I've thought of that, as a godfather should. You're aware that, a couple of years ago, a small legacy dropped in upon me—a trifling windfall of ten guineas a year. Well, I've been wasting it on luxuries—a few books I don't read, a more expensive brand of tobacco, which really is no better than the old shag, some extra changes of body-linen. Now since the Education ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... which generally have lagged behind the United States in technical know-how, are now rapidly bringing their technology up to date—this windfall from our space program is especially opportune. It is providing the incentive to American industry to remain in the world's technological van. And it is emphasizing that economic leadership is a dynamic thing, that U.S. mass-production techniques which ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics

... wished to give me no chance to change my mind and fly his net. I was soon alone, staring dazedly at my windfall and wondering if fortune would ever give me anything without attaching to it that which would make me doubt whether my gift had more of bitter or more ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... new, now, and Tom's low condition was a windfall to her. She had him out at daylight every morning, stood him up in the woodshed and drowned him with a deluge of cold water; then she scrubbed him down with a towel like a file, and so brought him to; then she rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him away under blankets till ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... weary, they sought for a place to rest, and something to satisfy their hunger. They soon found a cool shady spring, and after quenching their thirst, saw with pleasure, a little way beyond, where there had been a windfall, and as berries generally grow profusely in such places, they hastened to it and found, as they had anticipated, an abundant supply, as it was now the season for their ripening. After eating as many as they desired, the chief took some stout ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... Buxton so early in the morning. My Lord Colambre, if I see rightly into a millstone, as I hope and believe I do on the present occasion, I have to congratulate your lordship (haven't I?) upon something like a succession, or a windfall, in this denewment. And I beg you'll make my humble respects acceptable to the ci-devant Miss Grace Nugent that was; and I won't derrogate her by any other name in the interregnum, as I am persuaded it will only be a temporary name, scarce worth assuming, except for the honour of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... occasionally Belshazzar's excited bark broke the silence. The Harvester stretched on the ground, his eyes feasting on the Girl. Intensely he watched every movement. If a squirrel barked she gave a nervous start, so precipitate it seemed as if it must hurt. If a windfall came rattling down she appeared ready to fly in headlong terror in any direction. At last she dropped her pencil and ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... like everything in this world but Saratoga. Once or twice our monotony was broken up by short halts before country inns. At one an excitement was going on. "Had a casualty here this afternoon," remarked a fresh passenger, as soon as he was fairly seated. A casualty is a windfall to a country village. It is really worth while to have a head broken occasionally, for the wholesome stirring-up it gives to the heads that are not broken. On the whole, I question whether collisions and collusions ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... ever knew of that voyage. They had touched at the Cape, and had done the civil thing with the English admiral and the fleet, and then, leaving for a long cruise up the Indian Ocean, Phillips had borrowed a lot of English books from an officer, which, in those days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall. Among them, as the devil would order, was the Lay of the Last Minstrel, which they had all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I think it could not have been published long. Well, nobody thought there could be any risk of any thing national in that, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... we, ourselves, were some kind of a mysterious high-caste Romany they had already concluded, and what faith could we put in dukkerin? But as it would indubitably bring forth shillings to their benefit, they wisely raised no questions, but calmly took this windfall, which had fallen as it were, from the skies, even as they had accepted the beer, which had come, like a providential rain, unto them, in the ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... sure of one else," interpolated Stephen. "It would be a perfect windfall to Anania, for she'd get talk out of it for nine times nine days. But would it ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... regiments in his division soon took up our seventeen horses, which produced the sum of 85 louis. This was handed over to my detachment, who, not having had any pay for six months, were delighted with this windfall, for which ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... prize was called Neustra Signora de Cabodonga, mounted with forty guns, manned with six hundred sailors, and loaded with treasure and effects to the value of three hundred and thirteen thousand pounds sterling; with this windfall he returned to Canton; from whence he proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope, and prosecuted his voyage to England, where he arrived in safety. Though this fortunate commander enriched himself by an occurrence that may be termed almost accidental, the British nation was not ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... as taking good counsel with himself; for even if things fall out against one's hopes, still one has counseled well, though fortune has made the counsel of no effect: whereas, if a man counsels ill and luck follows, he has gotten a windfall, but his counsel is none the less silly. Seest thou how God with His lightning smites alway the bigger animals, and will not suffer them to wax insolent, while those of lesser bulk chafe Him not? How likewise His bolts fall ever on the highest houses and the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... groan of helpless gratitude, appealing piteously from so strange a windfall. "It's like the angel of the Lord who bids people in the ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... point of returning to Crosset with a request to double the loan when his common sense asserted itself. Poverty was odious, but not shameful, he reflected; ostentation, on the other hand, was vulgar. Would it not be in bad taste to squander this happy windfall upon jewelry ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... weeks since he had quitted Littlefield. Having disposed of his practice in the nick of time to a college friend who wished to settle in the country, and having also received an unexpected windfall in the shape of a small legacy from a distant relation, he had decided, after a short stay in London, to take a holiday before starting to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... Vanringham, "and I warn you, you will find me a daring antagonist. I had to-day an extraordinary—the usual prejudice, my dear Herle, is, I believe, somewhat inclined to that pronunciation of the word,—the most extraordinary windfall. I am rich, and I protest King Croesus himself sha'n't intimidate me to-night. Come!" he cried, and he drew from his pocket a plump purse and emptied its contents upon the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... grabs my hat, and wavin' and hollerin' starts down the trail to meet him. A big sugar pine had gone down in a windfall and lay about breast high. I stops jest behind it, old bald-face comin' all the time. It was jest then that fear came to me. I yelled like a Comanche Indian as he raised up to come over the log, and fired my hat full in his face. ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... says I, 'I won't! But I've a sister at home who spends all her time in tryin' to do good. If you'll be kind enough to send it to her, she'll consider it a blessed windfall, and will lay it out to the best ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne

... hour I had passed the place where I first found the blaze, but soon after came to a windfall,* where I found it impossible to follow the line through. I was, therefore, compelled to leave the blaze—my only sure guide—which, however, I still hoped to re-find, by keeping round the edge of the windfall, till I again struck the line. Just before dark, ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... said of Jeypore's fair sex that they are bimetallists in the strictest sense. The argument of the savings-bank has probably never been brought to their attention, for when one of them has a little money ahead she purchases a silver ornament for her person; and if a windfall come to her by legacy or otherwise, she buys something of gold, most likely a necklace of barbaric design. When one of these women goes to the market-place or the public well, she wears everything of value she possesses, ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... the exile mounted the fallen tree, dug his claws deep into the bark, stretched himself again and again, yawned prodigiously, and ended the exercise with a big, rasping miaow. At the sound there was a sudden rustling in the bushes behind the windfall. Instantly the catamount sprang, taking the risk of catching a porcupine or a skunk. But whatever it was that made the noise, it had vanished in time; and the rash hunter returned to his perch with a ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... in the brownstone slab covering the tomb of, I know now, an old pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, who died full of wisdom and grace. I am afraid that I was not over-burdened with either, or I might have gone to bed with a full stomach, too, instead of chewing the last of the windfall apples that had been my diet on my two days' trip; but if he slept as peacefully under the slab as I slept on it, he was doing well. I had for once a dry bed, and brownstone keeps warm long after the sun has set. The night dews and the snakes, and the dogs that kept sniffing and growling ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various

... down, greedily seized him. The Serpent, turning about, bit the Crow with a mortal wound. In the agony of death, the bird exclaimed: "O unhappy me! who have found in that which I deemed a happy windfall ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... two magnificent five-franc pieces were lying, in fact, upon my table when I reached my room. During the first confused thoughts of early slumber, I tried to audit my accounts so as to explain this unhoped-for windfall; but I lost myself in useless calculations, and slept. Just as I was leaving my room to engage a box the next morning, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... output of both domestic and export goods. On the darker side, the leadership has often experienced in its hybrid system the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (windfall gains and growing income disparities). Beijing thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls at intervals. The government has struggled to (a) collect revenues due from provinces, ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... increase of good fortune, was pondering on the best means of applying this sudden acquisition of capital, when I accidentally paid him a visit in Half-moon Street. "Give me joy, Bernard," said Bob; "here's a windfall;" thrusting the official notice into my hand; "five hundred pounds from an old female miser, who during her lifetime was never known to dispense five farthings for any generous or charitable purpose; but being about to slip her wind and make ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... prospects. Whether there was any special reason for hopefulness, Piers could not discover; it seemed probable that here also the windfall of fifty pounds had changed the aspect of the world. To hear him, one might have supposed that the struggling casual contributor had suddenly been offered some brilliant appointment on a great journal; but he discoursed with ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... in words the rare and weird effects, the storm, the sunsets that seem not of earth, the cascade, or the ravage of the "windfall," it is wise not to be lured into fanciful word-painting, and the temptation is large. Yet the simplest expression of facts is then and for such rare occasions the best, and often by ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... incomes: a part, too, that is easily and regularly earned, since it is independent of disease, and brings every person born into the nation, healthy or not, to the doctors. To boot, there is the occasional windfall of an epidemic, with its panic and rush for revaccination. Under such circumstances, vaccination would be defended desperately were it twice as dirty, dangerous, and unscientific in method as it actually is. The ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... extending from the poop-deck to the chart-room. We had also taken aboard a ton of whale-meat for the dogs. The big chunks of meat were hung up in the rigging, out of reach but not out of sight of the dogs, and as the 'Endurance' rolled and pitched, they watched with wolfish eyes for a windfall. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... know more or less where I should thrust my luchet, I have only one resource left, which is to watch for the females emerging from the ground or else entering it. With a great expenditure of time and patience I have at last had this windfall, very rarely, I admit. ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara's estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... the child inaugurated a season of comparative prosperity in the home of Timothy Harding. To persons accustomed to live in their frugal way, five hundred dollars seemed a fortune. Nor, as might have happened in some cases, did this unexpected windfall tempt the cooper or his wife to enter upon a more extravagant mode ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... was only too delighted at such a windfall. This man promised to send me two days after his return 120,000 francs, and he kept his word. My reason for giving the details of this little episode, which after all belongs to my life, is to show how differently things turn out from what seems likely ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... of the right of his own career and his family to the full profit of this windfall, he looked up a reporter and through him a group of reporters and promised them a peep ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... you are inheriting a soft snap, son. The ranger's job was a man's job in the old days when it was a mere matter of patrolling; but it's worse and more of it to-day. A ranger must be ready and willing to build bridges, fight fire, scale logs, chop a hole through a windfall, use a pick in a ditch, build his own house, cook, launder, and do any other old trick that comes along. But you'll know more about all this at the end of ten days than I can tell ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... him at the Golden Rule Hotel, and the loss of which had started all of his misfortunes. He paid for the ticket and then in a secluded spot he counted the contents of the purse, which proved to be a windfall to the penniless lad, as it amounted ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... nothing, he is bound to admit, that can come to him, from the reader, as a result on the latter's part of any act of reflexion or discrimination. He may ENJOY this finer tribute—that is another affair, but on condition only of taking it as a gratuity "thrown in," a mere miraculous windfall, the fruit of a tree he may not pretend to have shaken. Against reflexion, against discrimination, in his interest, all earth and air conspire; wherefore it is that, as I say, he must in many a case have schooled himself, from the first, to ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... quite a windfall, and both mother and son retired to rest in a cheerful frame of mind, in spite of Luke's failure ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger

... ours." He smiled. "He told me then that after fifteen years up here he was inclined to try civilization again. Mostly to give Sophie a chance to see what the world was like, I imagine. I gathered from his talk that some sort of windfall was coming his way. But I daresay you know more about it than ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... and tens and twenties, and even as many as five hundred, the miners began moving up the river prospecting. Those with horses had literally to cut the way with their axes over windfall, over steep banks, and round precipitous cliffs. Where rivers had to be crossed, the men built rude rafts and poled themselves over, with their pack-horses swimming behind. Those who had oxen killed the oxen and sold the beef. Others breasted the mill-race of the Fraser in ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut

... Our worthy friend intended to pay himself with the ready money. To have the cash in his own hands he would have given in David himself over and above the bargain, and so much the more willingly since that this nuisance of a son could claim one-half of the unexpected windfall. Taking this fact into consideration, therefore, the generous parent consented to abandon his share of the business but not the business premises; and the rental was still maintained at the famous sum of ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... how fast he could get through it. In this laudable endeavour he was ably assisted by Lady Scattercash, late the lovely and elegant Miss Spangles, of the 'Theatre Royal, Sadler's Wells.' Sir Harry had married her before his windfall made him a baronet, having, at the time, some intention of trying his luck on the stage, but he always declared that he never regretted his choice; on the contrary, he said, if he had gone among the 'duchesses,' ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... caution akin to awe she approached the windfall where a cyclone years before had levelled a wide swath through the heavy growth. Giant trunks and branches, resisting decay, littered the floor of the lane and formed a barrier impenetrable to those inhabitants of the jungle confined ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... to that of his days; but, of course, he could not keep it up for long. It is highly-paid work, as it ought to be; but the ten shillings or so that a man may earn at it four or five times a year come rather as a welcome windfall than as a part of income ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... has left an annuity of seventy pounds for the support of her two favourite cats. Since the announcement of this windfall we understand that the beneficiaries have been overwhelmed with offers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... peasant's uncle, a tradesman of Efremov, was burnt to death with all his family, and the property devolved to the peasant. Did you ever hear of such a thing? What is going to happen CANNOT be foretold, for at any moment fortune may pity a man, and send him a windfall." ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... windfall that has crossed Mr. Marble's track, Neb," I said, pulling up, in order to go a short distance at an even pace with my brother-tar. "As nice an old woman for a mother, as pretty a little girl for a niece, and as snug ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... This discovery proves a windfall to the parliamentary party. Pym hies to the citizens and apprises them, in one breath, at once of their danger and their signal deliverance. The Commons draw up a vow and covenant, expressing their detestation of all such conspiracies, and appoint a day ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... 2002 presidential elections - as well as the 1999 legislative elections - were widely seen as being flawed. The president controls most opposition parties through the judicious use of patronage. Despite the country's economic windfall from oil production resulting in a massive increase in government revenue in recent years, there have been few improvements in the country's ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... but the woods muffle all sound but the scream of the wild cat or the uncanny hoot of the screech owl. Aubry wanders desperately on and on in the dark, his cassock torn to tatters by the brushwood, his way blocked by the undisturbed windfall of countless ages, . . . on and on, . . . till gray dawn steals through the forest and midday ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... impressions, but withal tenacious. He clearly inherits father's medical instinct of preserving life, and the very thought of suffering on the part of man or beast arouses him to action. When he was only a little over three years old, I found him carefully mending some windfall robins' eggs, cracked by their tumble, with bits of rubber sticking-plaster, then putting them hopefully back into the nest, with an admonition to the anxious parents to "sit very still and don't stwatch." While last summer he unfortunately saw a chicken decapitated over at the farm barn, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright



Words linked to "Windfall" :   occurrent, edible fruit, bonanza, occurrence, godsend, gold rush, natural event, manna from heaven, boom, bunce, windfall profit



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