Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Fancy   /fˈænsi/   Listen
Fancy

adjective
1.
Not plain; decorative or ornamented.  "Fancy clothes"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Fancy" Quotes from Famous Books



... habitation for a firm and commodious building, because the latter had not a porch to it, or because some of the rooms might be a little larger or smaller, or the ceilings a little higher or lower than his fancy would have planned them. But waiving illustrations of this sort, is it not manifest that most of the capital objections urged against the new system lie with tenfold weight against the existing Confederation? Is an indefinite power to raise money dangerous in the hands of the federal ...
— The Federalist Papers

... 'That can't be done without a will or something, but I'd better promise. It's a morbid fancy, and yet she's not a morbid subject, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Solon, that none can be said to be happy until he is dead: "whether, then, he who has lived and died according to his heart's desire, if he have left an ill repute behind him, and that his posterity be miserable, can be said to be happy?" Whilst we have life and motion, we convey ourselves by fancy and preoccupation, whither and to what we please; but once out of being, we have no more any manner of communication with that which is, and it had therefore been better said by Solon that man is never happy, because never so, till he is ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... remain quietly on the banks of the Nile, and leave to his generals the task of conducting the campaign. The ease with which mercenary leaders passed from one camp to the other, according to the fancy of the moment, was not calculated to inspire the Egyptian Pharaoh with confidence: he refused to comply with the wishes of Agesilaus, and, entrusting the regency to one of his relatives, proceeded to invade ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... myself. I fancy I never fooled you very much. But at any rate I never used my own house for ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London

... homeward. I found him much troubled over the disappearance of his little spaniel. It had wandered on to the moor and had never come back. I gave him such consolation as I might, but I thought of the pony on the Grimpen Mire, and I do not fancy that he will ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... heighten the joy, he ordered a hundred squires to be bathed whom he wished to dub knights. There was none of them but had a parti-coloured robe of rich brocade of Alexandria, each one choosing such as pleased his fancy. All had arms of a uniform pattern, and horses swift and full of mettle, of which the worst was ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... first time in his life he commenced keeping an account of his personal expenses. This acted as a salutary check upon his bad habit of spending money for every little thing that happened to strike his fancy, and enabled him to clear off his whole debt within the first year. Unwisely, however, he had, during this time, promised to pay some old debts, from which the law had released him. The persons holding ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur

... with firmness, 'I don't, and I think it very strange that a clever girl like you should be so easily taken in by a foreigner. Much worse than a foreigner, my dear! A Greek is almost as bad as a Turk, and we all know what Turks are! Fancy a decent young woman trusting herself alone with a Turk! I declare, it's not to be believed! Your dear mother's daughter too! You'll end in a ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... put on the old lady; it was as if a warlock spell had passed over her; not merely her look but her nature was changed: her spirit had passed into the character she represented; and jest, quick retort, whimsical fancy, the wildest nonsense flowed from her lips, with a freedom and truth to nature which appeared to be impossible ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... Bourdonnais, a McDonnell or a Bird play or he might have modified his views as to the undue seriousness of chess. The Fortnightly Review in its article of December, 1886 devoted some space to the fancy shirt fronts of Lowenthal, the unsavoury cigars of Winawer, the distinguished friends of one of the writers, the Foreign secretary, denial that Zukertort came over in two ships, and other less momentous matters, so we may assume that the authors who greatly ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... strange and unusual as it may seem, was absolutely the first whose glance or voice had ever stirred his blood. His passion for her had grown slowly; for years it had been growing, ever since the grey-eyed girl on the brink of womanhood had conducted him to his castle home. It was no fancy, no light desire to pass with the year which brought it. Owen had little imagination, that soil from which loves spring with the rank swiftness of a tropic bloom to fade at the first chill breath of change. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... to do something for me," he said. "It is a strange fancy, but I should like you to follow her. I suppose I am beginning to get old and nervous; at any rate, I am full of silly fancies tonight. I am possessed with the idea that my unhappy little girl is ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... person she seemed to be; yet why not? She had assured Archdale more than once that she was free, and her certainty had given him comfort. But he was here this morning for another purpose than to weigh the question of Miss Royal's fancy. If she did encourage Edmonson she was all ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various

... Saturday—as though gathering breath for the final onset—the storm fairly reached its height, and then slowly abated, leaving us substantial tokens of its visit in the shape of shattered boats, and the ruin of all our port bulwarks forward of the deck-house. I fancy there was nothing extraordinary in the tempest; and, in a stout ship, with plenty of sea room, there is probably little real danger; but about the intense discomfort there could be no question. I speak with no undue bitterness, for of nausea, in any shape, I know of little or nothing, but—oh, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... convenient season. "Well, but—come my friend, you may find it greatly to your advantage. We are numerous, we are respectable, we are influential, we can aid you in your business, and elevate your character in society." This is no fancy sketch, I have seen it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, a thousand times; and I beg those who honor this work with a perusal, to reflect for one moment, and I think that they can call to mind similar circumstances. I am loathe to wound the feelings ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... raw oysters or meat balls, asparagus tips on toast, fresh or stewed fruit, bread cut in fancy shapes. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... woke up and still thought he saw the features of the woman. Olaf took the dream very much to heart, and told it to his friends, but no one could read it to his liking. He thought those spoke best about this matter who said that what had appeared to him was only a dream or fancy. ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... our Ball—since we parted, I've thought of you, more than I'll say; Indeed, I was half broken-hearted, For a week, when they took you away. Fond Fancy brought back to my slumbers Our walks on the Ness and the Den, And echoed the musical numbers Which you used to sing to me then. I know the romance, since it's over, 'Twere idle, or worse, to recall:— I know you're a terrible rover: But, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various

... fancy, must be the relationship—comes over from Greece to interfere. He imprudently puts himself into the power of the young man and his older associate. They seize him and use violence towards him in order to make him sign some papers to make over the girl's fortune—of which he may be trustee—to ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... just returned from college, resplendent in peg-top trousers, silk hosiery, a fancy waistcoat, and a necktie that spoke for itself. He entered the library where his father was reading. The old gentleman looked up and surveyed his son. The longer he looked, the more ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... afternoon from the Germans, when suddenly they began throwing shrapnel at our trench. For about half an hour it was all over us, and I'm blest if I know why nobody was hit. It was the overhead cover, I fancy, that saved us this time. We came out like a lot of rabbits when it was over and proceeded to get ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... very fascinating, as well as useful; and every lady should have one, as they can make every conceivable kind of crochet or fancy work upon them. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... packed up, and secretly as possible conveyed on board his vessel, so that only himself and his two servants were aware of it; the Turks making a great difficulty of allowing mummies to be carried away, because they fancy that the Christians make use of them for magical operations. When they were at sea, there arose at sundry times such a violent tempest that the pilot despaired of saving the vessel. A good Polish priest, of the suite of the Prince de Ratzivil, recited the prayers suitable to the circumstance; ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... at Jessie's ready use of his quaint fancy about the little wizard. He had no doubt about her firmness. But shaking his finger at her he said, "Take care! the little wizard is a cunning fellow, and knows how to ensnare little misses who have tasks to perform," and ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester

... paused, then went on again: "I am perfectly aware, George, that you regard my dream as a fancy, and think I am probably out of my mind. Isn't that true?" Mr. Hardy looked George full in the face, ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon

... Nor does the whole fail to strike us with greater reverence, though many of the parts are childish, ill-placed and unequal to its grandeur." This view of Shakspere continued to be the rule until Coleridge and Schlegel taught the new century that this child of fancy was, in reality, a profound and subtle artist, but that the principles of his art—as is always the case with creative genius working freely and instinctively—were learned by practice, in the concrete, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... "Yes, and I fancy I am indispensable to her. I have lived with her for nearly six years. I manage her affairs; I write her letters; I attend to her business; she consults me about everything. She goes where I like; she does what I want. The nest is comfortable. It was meant for you, but ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade

... money, and your brother will not refuse you a bit o' land. Why not build some of these new-fangled cottages, with fancy gardens, and dwarf palaces for a cow and a pig? Rhoda, child, if I was a poor woman, I could graze a cow in the lanes hereabouts, and feed a pig in the woods. Now you do that for the poor, Miss Vizard, and don't let my girl think for you. Breed your own ideas. That will divert you from self, my ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... Tode's fancy for attaching himself to Mr. Hastings still continued in full force, and brought him bright and early on Friday morning around to the hotel, where he had last seen him. Not one minute too early, however, and but for Mr. Hastings' ...
— Three People • Pansy

... The family are very reticent about it. Some fancy of Mr. Ocumpaugh's father, I believe. He was an odd man; they tell all manner of stories about him. If anything offended him, he rid himself of it immediately. He took a distaste to that end of the hut, as they used to call it in the old days before ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... while she had been so nearly lost by her love for him. For women such episodes in the lives of their lovers have an excitement which is almost pleasurable, whereas each man is anxious to hear his lady swear that until he appeared upon the scene her heart had been fancy free. Mary, upon the whole, had liked the story,—had thought that it had been finely told, and was well pleased with the final catastrophe. But, nevertheless, she was not prepared with her reply. "Have you no answer to give me, Mary?" he said, looking up into her eyes. I am afraid that he ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... their state as of children of nature was a refinement of freedom and grace. They were to become great and beautiful, the household of that glimmering vision, they were to figure historically, heroically, and serve great public ends; but always, to my remembering eyes and fond fancy, they were to move through life as with the bare white feet of that original preferred fairness and wildness. This is rank embroidery, but the old surface itself insists on spreading—it waits at least with an air of its own. The rest is silence; I can—extraordinary encumbrance even ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... imagination enough to fancy anything, but there are ideas and feelings that her sex prefer to have expressed before they yield them all their own sympathies, and she had a vague consciousness that these of Jasper might properly be enumerated in the class. With a readiness that belonged to her sex, therefore, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... "The Harfang man, we used to call him. Why, he was old then! He must be fifteen or twenty years older than I am. A wild, savage sort of fellow, who held aloof from everyone and was known to fear nothing—neither fire nor water. It was his own fancy to follow the trade of 'monk,' which few would have liked. The constant danger of the business had unsettled his brain. He was prodigiously strong, and he knew the mine as no one else—at any rate, as well as I did. He lived on a small allowance. In faith, ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... soil which the tribunes would have divided peaceably among peaceable men. [Sidenote: The policy of the Gracchi justified by after events.] The civil wars and the triumvirates are the best vindication of the policy of the Gracchi, unless we can bring ourselves to fancy that the Gracchi created, instead of attempting wisely to satisfy, the demands of the age. By an orderly intermixture of Italians and foreigners with the corrupt body of Roman citizens new life might have been ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... read those quaint and curious old legends I suppose I naturally contrasted those days with ours, and it made me curious to fancy what might be the picturesque result if we could dump the nineteenth century down into the sixth century and observe ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... it reasonable to believe, as we have believed, that popular fancy, whims, climate, the state of politics, any or all of a hundred lawless elements, are able to ruin a man's business while he stands by and doesn't know enough even to make an ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... one might fancy, after this sad clap went visibly down in the world; but the fact is not altogether so. Old King Blue-tooth was now dead, died of a wound got in battle with his unnatural (so-called "natural") son and successor, Otto Svein of the Forked Beard, ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... of cologne. Some nights she rolls on the string in her sleep, an' then the bell wakes her along with the rest of 'em, which Mrs. Macy says is a-doin' more aggravatin' to the Lupeys than any words can do justice to. Mrs. Macy says as she really does believe that if Mrs. Kitts took a fancy to oysters in August she'd be fully equal to ringin' that bell for 'em till September came an' they could get 'em for her. She says it would be just like her, she does declare. Mrs. Macy says she sit with Mrs. Kitts considerable an' Mrs. Kitts was very pleasant to her, an' give her ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner

... literal sense. Indeed, I was very indignant when I heard that Grotius had insolently declared, "he did not read Terence as boys do." Happy narrow-mindedness of youth!—nay, of men in general, that they can, at every moment of their existence, fancy themselves finished, and inquire after neither the true nor the false, after neither the high nor the deep, but merely after that which is ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... myself positively—I am both a town traveller and a country traveller, and am always on the road. Figuratively speaking, I travel for the great house of Human Interest Brothers, and have rather a large connection in the fancy goods way. Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and there from my rooms in Covent-garden, London—now about the city streets: now, about the country by-roads—seeing many little things, and some ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... took. He reproduced all sorts of cries of birds, as of the thrush, the wren, the pipit lark, otherwise called the gray cheeper, and the ring ousel, all travellers like himself: so that at times when the fancy struck him, he made you aware either of a public thoroughfare filled with the uproar of men, or of a meadow loud with the voices of beasts—at one time stormy as a multitude, at another fresh and serene as the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... the man declared. "I've a way of getting a drop too much when I'm by myself. Then I tumbles off to sleep and that's the end of it. I've no fancy for company at ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... you let everybody trample over you as much as they please. You have no conveniences. One cannot even get a cab. Fancy! Not a cab to be had unless one pays enough for a drive ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton

... The explanation, I fancy, must be that people who sign and mail coupons at once do not know when they are bored; that the word 'boredom,' so hopelessly heavy with sad significance to many of us, is nevertheless but caviar to the general and no bait at all ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... Just because he could not get her, he fell more in love with her. That she had taken some one else, that was another thing. So the Top danced around and hummed, but always thought of the Ball, which grew more and more lovely in his fancy. Thus many years went by,—and now it was ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... from the north," said one of the men at last; "he has been here several times before now, and last year he was a fairly constant attendant. I believe he is a butcher by trade, and I fancy he comes from Calais. He was originally brought here by Citizen Brogard, who ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... If a crowd of ghosts were to put themselves into his exact shape, and he stood amongst them, there is something that would tell me how to point him out. If you buried him fifty feet deep, and took me across his grave, I fancy I should know, if there wasn't a mark above it, that he lay ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... at Zarah that there hasn't been an Injun seen from the trail in ten days. I fancy our escort scared the buffalo. Now like as not we ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... dispatched to London lay already warm in his pocket, sent straight to him from the post-office as the police had directed. It was fitting that he should open the ball with a lie about this, and add thereto any other pleasant fancy ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... there was nothing grand or superfluous, but everything neat and agreeable"; and how, after a little time, "I began to share the Tranquillity that visibly appeared in everything round me. I set myself to do Works of Fancy and to raise little Flower-Gardens, with many such innocent rural Amusements; which altho' they are not capable of affording any great Pleasure, yet they give that serene Turn of the Mind, which I think much preferable to anything else Human Nature is made susceptible of." To ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... in English I have followed my fancy in adding such touches of local color or description as they seemed to need or as pleased me, and in one or two instances I have gathered in an incident from another version. At all times, among my friends, both young and old, English or American, I have ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... mother and Alice's mother; but the Yes or No must come from Alice herself. What am I that I should stand between you two and God, if it is His will to bestow His sweet boon upon you both? Only do not disturb the child, Felix. Leave her fancy-free a little longer." ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... to lessen. Most of the figures in sight were men. There were very, very few women. The neon signs proclaimed that here one could buy beer, and that this was Fred's Place, and that was Sid's Steak Joint. Bowling. Pool. A store—still open for this shift's trade—sold fancy shirts and strictly practical work clothes and highly eccentric items of personal adornment. A movie house. A second. A third. Somewhere a record shop fed repetitious music to the night air. There was movement and crowding ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... mothers brought their fancy-work and sat on the shady side of the tent during the lesson. The popcorn man wheeled his glass wagon under the big cottonwood by the door, and lounged in the sun, sure of a good trade when the dancing was over. Mr. Jensen, the Danish laundryman, used to bring a chair from his ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... windy morning.'" Such passages are not to be misunderstood. The appeal to Samuel Pepys years hence is unmistakable. He desires that dear, though unknown, gentleman keenly to realise his predecessor; to remember why a passage was uncleanly written; to recall (let us fancy, with a sigh) the tones of the bellman, the chill of the early, windy morning, and the very line his own romantic self was scribing at the moment. The man, you will perceive, was making reminiscences—a sort of pleasure by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... you will explain this to me later," he rejoined, in a manner in which my penetration or my fancy detected something dictatorial, which annoyed and provoked me. Wherever I stood, whenever I danced, to whoever I talked during the next two hours, I felt conscious that his piercing eyes were fixed ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... at once pique and disappoint the fancy, that these two graceful verses are all that remain of a song, where, doubtless, they were once but two fair blossoms in a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... "No, Dagaeoga, my fancy sleeps. Instead, my ear, which speaks only the truth, tells me a man is walking along the crest of the cliff, and coming on a course parallel with our ravine. My eye does not yet see him, but soon it will confirm what my ear has already told me. This deep cleft acts as a trumpet ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Black hole, where he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake himself to Captain Taunton's quarters. In the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the officers' quarters were; twisting and breaking in his hands, as ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens

... read the letter in the tone used by well-bred women when they would, if in a slightly lower social stratum, say "Fancy that now! Did you ever, the brazen hussy!" Grandmama listened, cynically disapproving, prepared to be disgusted yet entertained. On the whole she thoroughly enjoyed letters from Gilbert's wife. She settled down comfortably in her chair with her second cup of tea, while Mrs. Hilary ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... drama they were reconciled, and fought each with its shield before the breast of the other." Fine as this is, it would perhaps be more exact to say, that in his earlier poems his intellect, acting apart from his sensibility, and playing with its own ingenuities of fancy and meditation, condensed its thoughts in crystals. Afterwards, when his whole nature became liquid, he gave us his thoughts in a state of fusion, and his intellect flowed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... some kind of compensation for disobedience to the message, by liking to listen to the messenger. And there are a great many of us, all whose Christianity consists in giving ear to the words which we never think of obeying. I wonder how many of you there are who fancy that you have no more concern with this sermon of mine than approving or disapproving of it, as the case may be; and how many of us there are who, all our lives long, have substituted criticism of the Gospel as ministered by ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... and cold. Then Nature rises and shakes herself as Samson rose and shook himself and snapped the seven new cords that bound him, as tow is snapped when it smells the fire. Then "the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest," and then also the young Hindu's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love; and so it came about quite naturally that, looking around, among his plentiful gods, for a deity who might fitly be invited to preside over his lusty rejoicings at this season, he ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... Then she became serious. "Say, do you believe in omens?" She was gazing out at the great antlers. "I don't guess you do. Only Indians worry with omens. Not folks of sense. Still, I kind of fancy that feller set up that way is our omen. He's going to hand us good luck in plenty. We'll get a great 'catch' where we're going, and we'll get back-safe. ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... was a poet of the fancy rather than of the imagination also tended to keep his poetry near the ground. His love of the ballad-design and "the good coloured things of Earth" was tempered by a kind of infidel humour in his use of them. His ballads are the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... thereby. As our journey through the forest-scenery here along the extended solitary road, so, travelling on the great high-road of thought, ideas pass through our head. Strange, rich caravans pass by from the works of poets, from the home of memory, strange and novel—for capricious fancy gives birth to them at the moment. There comes a procession of pious children with waving flags and joyous songs; there come dancing Moenades, the blood's wild Bacchantes. The sun pours down hot in the open forest: it is as if the Southern summer had laid itself up here to rest in Scandinavian ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen

... cultivated exclusively the poetry of idea, where each moral problem is worked out with detailed, and often tedious, analysis; where all intense emotion is frittered away by a ratiocinative process. Johnson, we repeat, had no natural perception nor relish for the high and excursive range of poetic fancy, and the age at which he composed his criticisms on the English poets, was far advanced beyond that when purely imaginative poetry usually affords delight. Hence, no doubt, proceeded his capricious strictures on the odes of Gray to which ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... the Professor murmured approvingly. "I have a weakness," he went on, turning to his hostess, "for always walking home after an evening like this. In the daytime I am content to ride. At night I have the fancy ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... become attached in a certain degree to this young commander, and at the same time, as the nearest to his august person, they regarded themselves as something better than the others. At present they were to watch over the whole caravan and seize those who should take a fancy to desert. It was to be foreseen that when the hardships and dangers began ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... my fancy," said Dick, as he ran on to the house of the captain. "But it is very pleasant to be spoken to kindly, even by the bells. And I wonder whether good fortune is in store for me ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various

... enough to please even your refined fancy," laughed Harlan. "It reminds me of travelling in the West, where you look out of the window and see your engine on the track beside ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... tides, the white line of the bar at the mouth of the bay—all are exact. But the locations and relations irrelevant to the story are wholly ignored. The characters and happenings are purely imaginary. He is the artist using his experiences and his fancy as his colors, and the minimum of experience and small observation suffice. His perception of character is marvelous. He pictures the colonel, his daughters, the spruce lieutenant, and the Irish deserter ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... garment, so proceeded to her seat. And on Sylla looking up and wondering what it meant, "What harm, mighty Sir," said she, "if I also was desirous to partake a little in your felicity?" It appeared at once that Sylla was not displeased, but even tickled in his fancy, for he sent out to inquire her name, her birth, and past life. From this time there passed between them many side glances, each continually turning round to look at the other, and frequently interchanging smiles. In the end, overtures were made, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... with regard to the new St. James, who was not deficient in working such miracles as the people liked to ascribe to him and to believe of him. The belted knights were pleased to find out that the growing of a beard was only a passing fancy of their patron; and as all were satisfied, and the revenues increased, the ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... hates parting with his money, but he does it because he has given his word. I receive my salary regularly at the end of each month—not a franc extra, though I have done many things which are not part of a courier's proper work. Fancy the Baron trying to borrow money of me! he is an inveterate gambler. I didn't believe it when my lady's maid first told me so—but I have seen enough since to satisfy me that she was right. I have seen other things besides, which—well! which don't ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... there engaged with some fancy work. Slender and straight, Kate Cullison rose and gave Curly her hand. For about two heartbeats her fingers lay cuddled in his big fist. A strange stifling emotion ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... happiness of nations. May we not hence infer, either that the Deity feels little interested in the religion of men, or that he always declares in favour of the opinions, which best suit the interest of earthly powers; in fine, that he changes his plan to accommodate their fancy? ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... themselves from dying, and upon the art of rendering themselves immortal," she writes. "Their conferences are not like those of other people; the fear of breathing an air too cold or too hot, the apprehension that the wind may be too dry or too damp, a fancy that the weather is not as moderate as they judge necessary for the preservation of their health—these are sufficient reasons for writing from one room to another...." If one could find this correspondence, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... constitute the hostile aspect that Death assumes to most of us, is that it apparently hales us away from all the wholesome activities and occupations of life, and bans us into a state of apparent inaction. The thought that death is rest does sometimes attract the weary or harassed, or they fancy it does, but that is a morbid feeling, and much more common in sentimental epitaphs than among the usual thoughts of men. To most of us there is no joy, but a chill, in the anticipation that all the forms of activity which have so occupied, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... tell," he remarked. "Even the cleverest women have their interludes. I rather fancy, though, that this time the lady has something more in ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "It is his fancy. Every hunter and trader and learner of our tongues, living in the villages or straying in the woods, has been sent back to Jamestown or his home with presents and fair words. You will lull the English in Jamestown ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... man a leather strap fastened to a large brass check, similar to a baggage check. Every check bears a number, and the man who carries it, or to whom it is fastened, is known by the number on his check. Mr. Powderly grimly comments: "Fancy the future of the American laborer, whose name is forgotten, and whose only means of identification rests with a brass check, which may be substituted for another while he sleeps." If this is not white slavery, ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... an error to fancy that the copy of Cartwright now in my hands, containing the cancelled and uncancelled leaves, is a rarity; but although in my time I have inspected at least thirty copies of his Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with other Poems, I certainly never met with one before with this peculiarity. ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.15 • Various

... be in earnest, if you please; for my part, I only tell you matter of fact. Aman. I'm sure there's so much jest and earnest in what you say to me on this subject, I scarce know how to take it. I have just parted with Mr. Loveless; perhaps it is fancy, but I think there is an alteration in his manner which alarms me. Ber. And so you are jealous; is that all? Aman. That all! is jealousy, then, nothing? Ber. It should be nothing, if I were in your ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... "Practitioner in Physic and Chirurgery." In 1677, he published his great work. Its Title is "The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft. Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of Deceivers and Impostors. And Divers persons under a passive Delusion of Melancholy and Fancy. But that there is a Corporeal League made betwixt the Devil and the Witch, Or that he sucks on the Witches Body, has Carnal Copulation, or that Witches are turned into Cats, Dogs, raise Tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled, the ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... This caught the fancy of the street boys, who called him, "Towser, where's your collar?" "Seek him, Towser." He was the last Pittsburg lawyer who took a case against a slave, and public sentiment had so advanced that there never afterwards was a fugitive ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... on, in the same measured tone, "we will forget everything you may fancy that you said, or that I did, since the time when you came in wounded and ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... close under the barricade and watched; an idea was stirring in his brain—an idea that made him pat his breast-pocket, twirl his moustache, and smile contentedly. "Not much of a fisherman, I think," he murmured. "Ah, my friend, I know the cut of your jib, I fancy. After poor old Jean Dieppe, are n't you, my boy? A police-spy; I could ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... butterfly's wing, a dilettante of literature would assign for the scene of her authorship a fairy-like boudoir, with rose-coloured and silver hangings, fitted with all the luxuries of a fastidious taste. How did the reality agree with this fancy sketch? [Picture: Attic, No. 22 Hans Place] Miss Landon's drawing-room, {33} indeed, was prettily furnished, but it was her invariable habit to write in her bed-room. I see it now, that homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, fronting the street, and barely ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... which he is constantly sacrificing.[56] It would be an insult to any one who has read Mr. Whateley's work, to endeavour to clear him from such a virulent and ill-founded attack. Neither Dr. Johnson, with all his deep learning, nor Mr. Whateley, with all the cultivated fancy of a rich scholastic mind, would either of them have been able to comprehend, or to understand, or even to make head or tail of the first half of Mr. George Mason's poem, with which he closes the above edition of his Essay. As ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... other, and let him speak for himself. Still I think I can tell you what he says quite as well as he could do it.—Oh,—he said to me, one day,—I am but a hand-organ man,—say rather, a hand-organ. Life turns the winch, and fancy or accident pulls out the stops. I come under your windows, some fine spring morning, and play you one of my adagio movements, and some of you say,—This is good,—play us so always. But, dear friends, if I did not change the stop sometimes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... days afterwards the queen's pensioners were appointed "to run with the spear," and this chivalrous exhibition was accompanied with such circumstances of romantic decoration as peculiarly delighted the fancy of Elizabeth. She caused to be erected for her in Greenwich park a banqueting-house "made with fir poles and decked with birch branches and all manner of flowers both of the field and the garden, as roses, julyflowers, lavender, marygolds, and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... calm and self possessed as if he and the Doctor were alone on the bank of some river, far from church and church people. But the Doctor thought that the boy flinched a bit when he introduced him as Reverend Matthews. Perhaps, though, it was merely the Doctor's fancy. The old man felt too, even as he presented Dan to his people, that there had come between himself and the boy a something that was never there before, and it troubled him not a little. But perhaps this, too, ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... it, and I'll write and get my father to pay for mending it. We're all awfully sorry, sir. Dr Winter sends his regards, and we shall hear the result of the exam. on Thursday. One of the wheels came off, but I fancy it will go on again. It was a rut did it. We were coming along at a very good pace, and should have been here an hour ago if it hadn't been for the accident. We're sorry to be ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... fit words for that exquisite song, And thou couldst not, proud beauty! be obdurate long; It would come like the voice of a saint from above, And win thee to kindness, and melt thee to love. Not gilded with fancy, nor frigid with art, But simple as feeling, and warm as the heart, It would murmur my name with so charming a tone, As would almost persuade thee to ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... tale, like every other literary production, must be judged by the fitness of its emotional effects. Fairyland is the stage-world of childhood, a realm of vicarious living, more elemental and more fancy-free than the perfected dramas of sophisticated adults whose ingrained acceptance of binding realities demands sterner stuff. The tales are classics of a particular kind; they are children's classics, artful adaptations of life and form which grip ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... are so besotted to their idols, that they fancy they secure their favour by prostituting their wives, sisters, and daughters to strangers. When any stranger comes among them, all the masters of families strive to procure him as a guest, after which, they leave the stranger to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... of his delusions have not infrequently suffered an untold amount of anguish and financial ruin, through having been obliged to play the part of defendants in civil suits based on nothing else but the distorted fancy of a ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck



Words linked to "Fancy" :   imagination, busy, desire, fantastic, vermiculate, imagine, elaborate, liking, will-o'-the-wisp, plain, ideate, envisage, rhetorical, misconception, castellated, damascene, want, flamboyant, bubble, damask, baroque, fussy, florid, decorated, ignis fatuus, embattled, like, battlemented, fancy woman, vermiculated, castled, fancier, churrigueresque, rococo, realise, lacelike, wishful thinking, vermicular, imaginativeness, dressy, churrigueresco, fanciful, lacy, luxuriant, aureate, understand, conceive of, puffed, fancy dress, adorned, puff, crackle, vision, realize



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com