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Debonair   /dˌɛbənˈɛr/   Listen
Debonair

adjective
1.
Having a sophisticated charm.  Synonyms: debonaire, debonnaire, suave.
2.
Having a cheerful, lively, and self-confident air.  Synonyms: chipper, debonaire, jaunty.  "Life that is gay, brisk, and debonair" , "Walked with a jaunty step" , "A jaunty optimist"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Debonair" Quotes from Famous Books



... soldiers wear Button'd up high about the throat, But easy, flowing, debonair— In short ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various

... He had been what men sneeringly called a "tradesman" king, caring little for the show and splendor of his office, but using it to amass enormous sums of money by means not over-scrupulous. Young Henry VIII, handsome, dashing, and debonair, at once repudiated his father's policy, executed the ministers who had directed it, and was hailed as a liberator by his delighted people. They quite overlooked the fact that he neglected to restore the ill-gotten funds, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... lookt when, with grace debonair, He began first to court—rather late in the season— Or when, less fastidious, he sat in the chair Of his old friend, the Nottingham Goddess ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... bright and gay, Oh, years! that slip so fast away, Keep her, I pray thee, fresh and fair, Dainty, bewitching, debonair, For life is but ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... pyrotechnics, and at its touch, the latent floods of pity gushed; people sprang to their feet, and somewhere in the wide auditory a woman sobbed. Habitues of a celebrated Salon des Etrangers recall the tradition of a Hungarian nobleman who, apparently calm, nonchalant, debonair, gambled desperately; "while his right hand, resting easily inside the breast of his coat, clutched and lacerated his flesh till his nails dripped with blood." With emotions somewhat analogous, Mr. Dunbar sat as participant in this judicial rouge et noir, where the stakes were a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... dame came forth courtesying and bowing her delighted thanks, Earl William, setting a forefinger under her triple chin, stooped and kissed her in his gayest and most debonair manner. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... me outwardly like ice. I was an attentive, careful, reliable, and respectful attendant, seeing to the safety of my charges; but the one-time gay and debonair cowboy was a thing ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... "but in the fashion that befits gentlemen—with a bold face, a gay tongue, and a fine coat well carried. Remember, Dick, look up, and no snivelling! Tell your ill-fortune and you bid for more. 'Tis Monsieur Debonair that ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... assuming her sprightliest air, she spread her plumage and prepared to descend with effect, for a party of uninvited peris stood at the gate of this Paradise casting longing glances at the forbidden splendors within. Slowly, that all might see her, Kitty sailed down, with Horace, the debonair, in her wake, and was just thinking to herself, "Those girls won't get over this very soon, I fancy," when all in one moment she heard Fletcher exclaim, wrathfully, "Hang the flounces!" she saw a very glossy black hat come skipping down the steps, felt a violent twitch backward, and, to save ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... pleasantly a young man turned into the gate and came up the path with a debonair swing that proclaimed him much ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... discomfiture. He did not put in appearance until the sheriff and his friend were climbing anxiously and sadly into the light wagon to return home empty-handed. Then he sauntered from behind a hedge and lifted his hat in his usual debonair manner. ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... learnt, of which this mocking piece of silver symbolised the end and the reward. In that minute he saw Honoria and George, himself and Lizzie Pezzack as figures travelling on a road that stretched back to childhood; saw behind them the anxious eyes of his parents, Sir Harry's debonair smile, the sinister face of old Squire Moyle, malevolent yet terribly afraid; saw that the moving figures could not control their steps, that the watching faces were impotent to warn; saw finally beside the road other ways branching to left and right, and down these undestined and neglected ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and let a Sabbath song Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong. The sweet Lenore hath gone before, with Hope that flew beside, 15 Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride: For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies, The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes; The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... my wife," volunteered Markel, with a debonair wave of his pudgy hand, and trying to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying, There, on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, Nods and becks and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides. Come, and trip ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... liked and the devil take the consequences. Already Ned Holiday's younger son had acquired something of a reputation as a high flier among his own sex, and a heart breaker among the fairer one. Reckless, debonair, utterly irresponsible, he was still "terrible Teddy" as his father had jocosely dubbed him long ago. Yet he was quite as lovable as he was irrepressible, and had a manifest grace to counterbalance every one of his many faults. His soberer brother Larry worried uselessly ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... life were refreshed as a flower in the perfumed dew-fall. She felt competent, able to cope with them all; her restored self-confidence pervaded her whole entity, spiritual and material. She walked back with an elastic step, a breezy, debonair manner, and she met Justus Hoxon at the gate of her cousin's yard with a jaunty assurance, and with all the charm of her ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... On the broad band, which was formerly adorned with flower-de-luces, and at this day with emblems of liberty, were the medallions of twelve of the most famous kings of France: namely, Clovis, Dagobert, Childebert, Charlemagne, Lewis the Debonair, Charles the Bald, Philip Augustus, St. Lewis, Lewis XII, Henry IV, Lewis XIII, and Lewis XIV. The first arch, distributed into twelve equal parts, presented the twelve apostles, painted in fresco by JOUVENET. The second arch, painted by LA FOSSE, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... suited a leading part in the business of organised persecution. They are among the nations that have been inventors in politics, and both the constitution of Arragon and that of the society of Jesus prove their constructive science. While people in other lands were feeling their way, doubtful and debonair, Arragon went straight to the end. Before the first persecuting pope was elected, before the Child of Apulia, who was to be the first persecuting emperor, was born, Alfonso proscribed the heretics. King and clergy were in such accord that three years later the council of Girona decreed that ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... began to stroll into the sun. They were men of leisure. Picturesque, handsome, careless, debonair, they wandered back and forth, smoking their cigarettes, exhibiting their finery. Indian women, wrinkled and careworn, plodded patiently about on various businesses. Indian girls, full of fun and mischief, drifted ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White

... an invariable practice to speak affably to his enemy in passing, mainly because it so angered the latter; this time he insisted upon stopping. He was debonair and smiling, as always, but there was more than a trace of mockery in ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... and fair, To you will come suave debonair, Fortune robed in shining dress, Bearing ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... to live up to," said Patty, smiling at the debonair Philip, who quite looked the part ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells

... he went along, and swung his gun in debonair fashion. It would not take him, an expert borderer and woodsman, long to get that prairie chicken, and after that, as he had said before, it was only a ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... turn were riveted on his sad, lean apparition, how terribly changed from the old debonair days! Kind sympathy spoke in her look and mien till the radiance of love, beginning in little ghosts of welcoming smiles at the corners of her mouth, ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... on, easy, careless, unperturbed. His stories were amusing Pasquale, and the old ruffian had a fondness for anybody that could entertain him. But back of his debonair gayety Steve nursed a growing unease. He was no longer dressed in the outfit of a cowpuncher, but wore a gray street suit and a Panama straw hat. Culvera had caught only a momentary glance at him the night they had faced each other revolver in hand. Yet the American was morally convinced that given ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... green, old and faded, a black jacket rusty, with the sleeves patched, and a scarlet sash tied loosely about the waist. On the back of her cropped yellow curls was a velveteen cap, rakishly tipped, and she stood debonair beneath the folds of the curtain with a ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... the other was not. Lapierre was handsome, debonair, easy of speech, and graceful of movement; deferential, earnest, at times even pensive, and the possessor of ideals; generous and accommodating to a fault, if a trifle cynical; maligned, hated, discredited by the men who ruled the North, yet brave and infinitely capable—she ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... delicate, like a young man's. His blue eyes twinkled with some inscrutable source of pleasure, his skin was fine and tender, his nose delicately arched. His grey hair being slightly ruffled, he had a debonair look, as of a youth ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... backed up to the door with much gong-clanging, and the capable young medico, in his white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... me[FN33] with fire, to make me speak, And found me patient and debonair. For this I am borne on men's hands on high And kiss the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... Debonair his traditional name, although it is not an exact rendering of that which was given him by his contemporaries. They called him Louis the Pious. And so, indeed, he was, sincerely and even scrupulously pious; but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... with his still gallant figure, scrupulously attired; a blue frock-coat with a ribboned button-hole, a well-turned boot, hat a little too hidalgoish, but quite new. There was something respectable and substantial about him, notwithstanding his moustaches, and a carriage a degree too debonair for his years. He did not look like a carbonaro or a refugee. Who ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... 'can ye no' bring doon one wee airman?' 'Gi' me anither thoosand shots,' gasps Willie, 'and there'll be a vacant seat in the sergeant's mess;' and so the afternoon wears away and the landscape is littered wi' shell cases, but high in the air, glitterin' in the dyin' rays of the sun, sits the debonair scoot, ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... are brown, oh, Edith's eyes are brown! I will not boast the midnight of her hair, Nor yet because her radiant cheek is fair, And like the touch of autumn's thistle down; I will not swear I have not seen her frown; She may be rich and proud and debonair, For aught I know, I'm sure I do not care: But oh, her eyes, her ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe

... tedious days of the policeman rampant, our melancholy selves are debarred from many a sport, joyous and debonair, whereof our happier fathers were free. Book-stealing, to be sure, remains to us; but every one is not a collector; and, besides, 'tis a diversion you can follow with equal success all the year round. Still, the ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... 7 Then Shakspeare debonair and mild Brought that strange comment forth to view; Conceits more deep, he said and smiled, Than his own fools or madmen knew: But thank'd a generous friend above, Who did with free adventurous love Such pageants ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... a prince's charetter [charioteer] shall be a full braver [finer, more showy] man than the prince his master. Sir Roger made a deal more bruit than ever the King himself; that during all these four years was meek and debonair [humble and gentle], as though he abode his time. He wrought what he would (which was mostly ill), and bare him like those of whom the Psalmist speaketh, that said, "Our lips are of us, who is our lord?" [Psalm 9 4, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... said that no two persons see another in exactly the same light. Be that as it may, it is extremely doubtful if Uncle Bill Griswold would have immediately recognized in the debonair raconteur who held a circle breathless in the Bartlesville Commercial Club the saffron-colored, wild-eyed dude whom he had fished off the slide rock with a pair of "galluses" attached to ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... the old days. But for his 19th century garb, he might have just stepped down from a frame—a gallant by Fortuny, who loved the awakened animal in man. The poise was careless, but graceful, and the smile was debonair. His eyes were holding Gretchen's. A ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... debonair, and taking pattern by him, I turned away from my aunt's husband, pretending that I had neither seen nor ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... regarding Sadie Burch. There was something even more offensively plebeian about them than that of the vulgar Weng. It would have been bad enough to have had to consider the propriety of paying over a large sum to a lady calling herself by an elegant or at least debonair name like Claire Desmond or Lillian Lamar,—but Sadie! And Burch! Ye gods! It was ignoble, sordid. That was a fine discovery to make ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... Carefree and debonair, between acts Mr. Toomey strolled in the lobby smoking and looking so very much in his element that Mrs. Toomey temporarily forgot her disquietude in being proud of him. His dinner jacket was not the latest cut, but after giving it much consideration they had decided that ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... might be mentioned a third reason: that this same Danny O'Rourke, red-haired, smiling, and debonair was listed on the Air Fire Force of the United States with the highest rating that the A. F. F. has to give its pilots. But Danny would have grinned at such a suggestion and would have countered with a denial that he was better qualified than ...
— The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin

... celebrated incident of his career is that one winter's night he took off his wadded silk garment to evince sympathy with the poor who possessed no such protection against the cold. Partly because of his debonair manner and charitable impulses he is popularly remembered as "the wise Emperor of the Engi era." But close readers of the annals do not fully endorse that tribute. They note that Daigo's treatment of his father, Uda, on the celebrated occasion of the latter's visit to the palace to intercede ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... old, gray-bearded man, wringing his hands in groveling misery, while the mumbling voice, now whining and pleading, now servile, now plucking up courage to indulge in abuse, kept on without even, it seemed, a pause for breath. And she could see the Adventurer, quite unmoved, quite debonair, a curiously patient smile on his face, standing there, much nearer to her, his right hand in the side pocket of his coat, a somewhat significant habit of his, his left hand holding a sheaf of ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... prisoner in its dungeon in 830 for uttering some words too true for an age unaccustomed to the perpetual veracity of our newspapers. Count Wala, who was also an abbot, had the misfortune to speak of Judith of Bavaria as "the adulterous woman," and when her husband, Louis le Debonair, came back to the throne after the conspiracy of his sons, the lady naturally wanted Wala killed; but Louis compromised by throwing him into the rock of Chillon. This is what Wala's friends say: others say ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells

... same Duke Charles was a good prince and a debonair; he was kind and he was pitiful. More than any other he possessed the gift of pleasing. He charmed by his grace, albeit but ill-looking and of weak constitution.[1235] His temperament was so out of harmony with his position that he may ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... spar'd: A heart thus pierc'd would never rove, Nor meanly seek a second love; No distance e'er could give him pain— No rivalry torment his brain. Self-love will bear a many knocks, A thousand mortifying shocks; One moment languish in despair, The next alert and debonair. ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham

... Winifred, Danvers had been a hero—handsome, debonair; to the woman Winifred, he found himself talking as easily as to the little girl who listened years before. The life at Fort Macleod was the one subject that would win Danvers from his silence, and in the next hour Miss Blair had good reason ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... plumed hat to the grid with a swaggering gesture of homage. A courtierlike fellow this, debonair as a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... gone straight to France after the Kentish knight was killed, men would have said he feared being slain like the knight. It was his duty to show himself debonair to his English people as it was De Aquila's duty to see that he took no harm while he did it, But it was a great burden! De Aquila, Hugh, and I ceased work on the ships, and scoured all the Honour of the Eagle—all De Aquila's lands—to make a fit, and, ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... his voluntary retirement from the Senate and from political activities at the first low murmur heralding the muck-raking cyclone which was to devastate public life as men of his type understood it. But every inhabitant of the State, including his enemies, took an odd pride in his fiercely debonair defiance to old age, in his grandiloquent, too fluent public addresses, and in the manner in which, despite his dubious private reputation, he held open to him, by sheer will-power, sanctimonious doors which were closed to other less robust ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... the passage without haste and reached the outer door. She opened it without fumbling, and in a moment Saltash's debonair accents came ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... caught sight of my figure in the antechamber beyond, and resuming in an instant his former debonair manner, he bowed very low and opened his lips as if about to ask a question. But he evidently thought better of it, for he strode by me and made his way to the front door without a word. Being an intruder myself, I did not like to stop him. But I am sorry now for the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... his stinging eyes. Whoever could have seen him now must have failed to recognize the radiant Gianapolis so well-known in Bohemian society, the Gianapolis about whom floated a halo of mystery, but who at all times was such a good fellow and so debonair. He took up his hat and gloves, turned, and resolutely strode to the door. Once he glanced back over his shoulder, but shrugged with a sort of self-contempt, and ascended to the top ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... honour of the thirty-seventh anniversary of her accession. The poet George Peele pictured in blank verse the gorgeous scene, and likened the Earl of Southampton to that ancient type of chivalry, Bevis of Southampton, so 'valiant in arms,' so 'gentle and debonair,' did he appear ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... excessively long in Ruhleben—hung lankly over his eyes and forehead, producing altogether an appearance not very uncommon in the country. To be very precise, if not complimentary, we must admit that the usually debonair and dapper Henri looked like the village idiot at that moment; while his astonishment, causing his mouth to open, gave his face a vacant expression which matched ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... a girl more jubilant, never more buoyant, never so charming, so blithesome, or so debonair, as when she is the gazetted about-to-be bride of the man ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... are a debonair man of the great world; and yet you are still American, in that you are ab-om-i-nab-ly rich. [She laughs sweetly.] The settlement—Such matter as that, over which a Frenchman, an Italian, an Englishman might hesitate, you laugh! Such matter as one-hundred-fifty ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson

... lost its silky curl and stands straight out now from the corners of his mouth, its points reaching almost to the line of his ears. There is, too, beneath it a small imperial, giving to his face the debonair look of a cavalier, and which accentuates more than any other one thing his Southern birth and training. As you follow the subtle outlines of his body you find too, that he is better proportioned than he ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... harem, of which all the doors are open to every man, and whose fair inmates are all alike impressionable to the charm of intrigue or to the chink of gold. But, in simple earnest and reality, I have heard the wildest and most debonair amongst you—once convinced of the honour and innocence looking from a woman's eyes—stand up in defence of these when libelled in her absence, with a zeal and a stanchness ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... king's sister to wife, Arthur confirmed him in that kingdom of Lyones, which he had held for a great while, and gave him many another earldom besides. This Lot was the father of Gawain, who as yet was a damoiseau, young and debonair. ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair knave, and I liked Rupert Hentzau better than his long-faced, close-eyed companions. It makes your sin no worse, as I conceive, to do it a ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... coarse, tear-compelling Calvary was at the opposite pole from those debonair Golgothas adopted by the Church ever since the Renaissance. This lockjaw Christ was not the Christ of the rich, the Adonis of Galilee, the exquisite dandy, the handsome youth with the curly brown tresses, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... the morning of her arrival, and I went alone to meet her at the railway station. I was early there and, as I was walking up, awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name. I turned and there, immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... chance arrived a damsel at the place, Who was (though mean and rustic was her wear) Of royal presence and of beauteous face, And lofty manners, sagely debonair: Her have I left unsung so long a space, That you will hardly recognise the fair. Angelica, in her (if known not) scan, The lofty daughter ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... a manner meant to be debonair, but his thought was divided and uncontrollable impulse drew his ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... of 'slams.' He is as debonair and inconsequential as a young Hermes to whom only the serious lessons of life can teach sympathy and true insight, ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various

... number of formal visits. General Yanushkhevitch, Chief of the Staff, had held that same position when the Grand Duke Nicholas had been commander-in-chief at the Stavka. Tall, handsome and debonair, he was a man whom it was a pleasure to meet, although he may not perhaps intellectually have been quite equal to the great responsibilities placed on his shoulders in the early days of the war. This distinguished soldier of very attractive personality was murdered ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... was untroubled as the sky, And all our talk was delicate and shy, Though in that cage of words wild thoughts were pent Like prisoned birds that some sweet accident Might yet release to sing again, and fly. We passed between long lines of poplar trees . . . Where, summer comrades gay and debonair, The south wind and the sunlight danced . . . you smiled, With great glad eyes, as bright as summer seas, To feel their twinkling fingers in your hair . . And then you kissed me, ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance

... coat" hides all maiden grace. Although men's clothes are always vile, The coat, the trousers and the "tile"! Some sense still lingers in each style. But women's garments should be fair, All graceful, gay and debonair. And if they lack good sense, why care? O JULIA, cease to wear a sack, A garb all artists should attack, In which both sense and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various

... characteristics always of the secular wars between the British and the French. From the old glittering days of knighthood, with their high and gallant courtesy, through the eighteenth century campaigns where the debonair guards of France and England exchanged salutations before their volleys, down to the last great Napoleonic struggle, the tradition of chivalry has always survived. We read how in the Peninsula the pickets of the two armies, each of them as earnest as any ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... dreamed that the handsome, debonair young millionaire paid the good landlady an exorbitant price to keep ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... room, and it seemed to Blair as though the sparkle had fled from the glasses, the gleam of candlelight from the silver. Across the cloth he had watched her—girlish, debonair, and with a secret laughter lurking in her eyes. And yet he had not had a chance to exchange half ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley

... came in from an early morning romp with Don and Solomon looking even more rosy and debonair than usual. It was surprising how much easier it was to rise early at the ranch than it had been at Woodford. She liked to steal quietly out of the nursery and go adventuring before breakfast; she felt then like Blue Bonnet ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... and we know the embassy was a success—a great success. The debonair Fleming surprised the King by saying, "Your Majesty, it is like this"—and then with a few ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... Lord, and be debonair: for ours is a particular case. We are not like the men of St. Neot or the men of St. Udy, who are for ever importuning Thee upon the least occasion, praying at all hours and every day of the week. Thou knowest it is only with extreme cause that we bring ourselves to ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... accumulative force of ascending breakers, till the vast amphitheater was deluged with sounding and resounding acclaim, such as a man could hope would envelope and uplift his name but once in a life-time. And he? There he stood, strong, Saxon, fair, debonair, yet white as new snow, and trembling like an aspen. It seemed too much, this sudden storm of applause and enthusiasm for him, the new idol, the coming President; yet who may say that through his exultant, yet trembling ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the long ago? She was sister to him—just another one of his problems— and nothing more. "Report on the job as soon as possible, Moira," he called to her from the gate. Then the gate banged behind him, and with a smile and a debonair wave of his hand, he was striding down the little camp street where the dogs and the children ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... perfect view of the King and royal family. The King is the same in age as I knew him in youth at Holyrood House—debonair and courteous in the highest degree. Mad. Dauphine resembles very much the prints of Marie Antoinette, in the profile especially. She is not, however, beautiful, her features being too strong, but they announce a great deal of character, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... forth into the streets of Paris and Toby shopped. At first she was shy, halting here and hesitating there, till Saltash, looking on, careless and debonair, made it abundantly evident that whatever she desired she was to have, and then like a child on a holiday she flung aside all indecision and became eager and animated. So absorbed was she that she took no note of the passage of ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... stepmother, the fair Stepdaughter, kind and leal, The bull and bear so debonair, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... man, dapper and debonair, swallow-tailed and top-hatted, was waltzing about the stage with dainty, mincing steps, and in a thin little voice singing something or other about somebody or something evidently pathetic. As his waning voice neared ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... races. In a generous mood he bought his employee's lunch and took him to a seat in the grand stand. All afternoon the two men watched the races, smoked and quarreled. Tom contended that Bud Doble, the debonair, the dramatic, the handsome, was the greatest of all race horse drivers, and Jim Priest held Bud Doble in contempt. For him there was but one man of all the drivers he whole-heartedly admired, Pop Geers, the shrewd and silent. "That Geers of yours doesn't drive at all. He just ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... to the hands which pushed him away. It charmed him that this tall, spirited creature was taking things in a debonair way. He thought it splendid that she should talk of an adventure and of entering into the spirit of it. If she had made a fuss and tried to escape and refused to eat supper with him, there would have been some pleasure in conquering, ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... away in his cheerful, debonair manner and rode off. Troubles sat lightly on his stout heart. His effervescent nature never left him long depressed when Fortune played her freakish tricks upon him. He had lost his commission upon the sale of Iredale's land, but ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... and fell back. This debonair, self-reliant fellow could not be Billy! But as a hasty glance down the line revealed only half a dozen straggling women, and beyond them, no one, William decided that it must be Billy; and taking brave hold of ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... the knight through the town, until he saw him lodged. Then, very joyful, he passed on a little farther until he saw reclining upon some steps a vavasor [17] well on in years. He was a comely man, with white locks, debonair, pleasing, and frank. There he was seated all alone, seeming to be engaged in thought. Erec took him for an honest man who would at once give him lodging. When he turned through the gate into the yard, the vavasor ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... flourished only accentuated their own misgivings. They were tired before the train drew in to St. Marys and decided to discuss nothing that evening. At the works station Clark met them. He was cheerful and debonair. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... the race and prepare, —DuLuth in his breeches and leggins; And the brown, curling locks of his hair downward droop to his bare, brawny shoulders, And his face wears a smile debonair, as he tightens his red sash around him; But stripped to the moccasins bare, save the belt and the breech-clout of buckskin, Stands the haughty Tamdka aware that the eyes of the warriors admire him; For his arms are the arms of ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... their esquires in attendance. Now these knights were all in full armor, shining very bright, and the esquires were clad in raiment of many textures and various colors, so that they were very gay and debonair. So, with all this throng moving along the highway toward the meadow of battle, it seemed as though the entire world was alive ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... them with a shrug of indifference and a smiling face. And down the aisle that opened to him he went—debonair and easy—until he stood before the Throne. There he bent knee for an instant; then, erect and unruffled, he looked the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... than one humble home in Port Agnew, it had been said that the two McKaye girls were secretly ashamed of their father. This because frequently, in a light and debonair manner, Elizabeth and Jane apologized for their father and exhibited toward him an indulgent attitude, as is frequently the case with overeducated and supercultured young ladies who cannot recall a time when ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... the little drawing-room, where Hermione was waiting to receive him, he looked young and debonair, though still pale from ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... old-fashioned ladies and gentlemen. Our aged relatives and friends seem to be tucked away, nowadays, into neglected corners, as though it were the correct thing to give them a long preparation for still narrower quarters. For my own part, comely and debonair old age is most attractive; and when I see the "thick silver-white hair lying on a serious and weather-worn face, like moonlight on a stout old tower," I have a strong tendency to lift my hat, whether I ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... former self, Monty was now almost a physical wreck, haggard, thin and defiant, a shadow of the once debonair young New Yorker, an object of pity and scorn. Ashamed and despairing, he had almost lacked the courage to face Mrs. Gray. The consolation he once gained through her he now denied himself and his suffering, peculiar as it was, was ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... woman with keen gray-blue eyes that never betrayed her. A little apart, speaking now and then to some courtier or councilor, stood the Spanish Ambassador in somber black and gold, like a watchful spider in a garden of rich flowers. Ralegh, careless and debonair, gave him a frank salutation as he came to speak to ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... while Sixteen-String Jack was content to shout threats, and pick up half-a-crown, Gilderoy breathed murder, and demanded a vast ransom. Only once in his career did the 'disgraceful Scotsman' become gay and debonair. Only once did he relax the tension of his frown, and pick pockets with the lightness and freedom of a gentleman. It was on his voyage to France that he forgot his old policy of arson and pillage, and truly the Court ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... beauty! Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps at night, Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all, Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding, (No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,) Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd, Launch'd o'er the prairies wide, across the lakes, To the free skies unpent and glad ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... back wishing he had taken the hundred lines. But the others thought it amazingly brave of him. Lovelace minor, handsome, debonair, a swashbuckler in the teeth of authority, ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh

... men and women were scattered along both the slough and the river banks, talking earnestly and seriously. Rasba, bound up town to buy supplies, heard the name of Palura on many lips; the policemen on their beats waltzed their heavy sticks about in debonair skilfulness; and stooped, rat-like men passing by, touched their hats ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... Clad in a splendid suit of yellow, With emerald stars on his glittering breast And eyes that shone with a diamond light: They made you feel sure it would always be best To tell him the truth: he was not perhaps quite So polite as Pease-blossom, but then who could be Quite such a debonair ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... manhood, small of stature, it is true, but with muscles of steel—and a soul of fire. From all parts, from the warden of Guildford Castle, from the tilt-yard of Farnham, tales of his prowess were brought back to her, of his daring as a rider, of his debonair courage, of his skill with all weapons; but still she, who had both husband and son torn from her by a bloody death, could not bear that this, the last of the Lorings, the final bud of so famous an old tree, should ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... hearth, and standing before the empty grate, put up his hand and loosened his high stock with suddenly petulant fingers, rather as though he found some difficulty in breathing; and, looking at him, Barnabas saw that the debonair Slingsby had vanished quite; in his place was another—a much older man, haggard of eye, with a face peaked, and gray, and careworn beneath the brim of ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... one-half of the small tent next the Miners' Retreat, and the youthful operator instantly recognized his debonair visitor. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... racing-kings, an eminent art connoisseur, and a smattering of men-about-town. Seated between the lawyer and one of the racing-men, Banneker, as the dinner progressed, found himself watching Delavan Eyre, opposite, who was drinking with sustained intensity, but without apparent effect upon his debonair bearing. Banneker thought to read a haunting fear in his eyes, and was cogitating upon what it might portend, when his attention was distracted by Ely Ives, who had been requested (as he announced) to exhibit his small skill at some minor sleight-of-hand ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... melodramatic outbreak. He slipped into his habitual pose, rose and withdrew without another word. All this fright and groveling and treachery for plunder, the loss of which would not impair his fortune—plunder he had stolen with many a jest and gibe at his helpless victims. Like most of our debonair dollar chasers, he was a good sportsman only when the game ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... tongue; kneel to her, and she will scorn and contemn you. What woman, think you, would prefer the solemn, stern-eyed purity of a Sir Galahad (though he be the king of men) to the quick-witted gayety of a debonair Lothario (though he be but the shadow of a man)? Out upon thee, pale-faced student! Thy tongue hath not the trick, nor thy mind the nimbleness for the winning of a fair and lovely lady. Thou'rt well enough in want of a better, but, when Lothario comes, must she ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... from a free, debonair, and courtly sort of behaviour, which we formerly had found them in, to so strict a gravity as they now received us with did not a little amuse us, and disappoint our expectation of such a pleasant visit as we used to have, and had now promised ourselves. Nor ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood



Words linked to "Debonair" :   cheerful, refined



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