Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Informal   /ɪnfˈɔrməl/   Listen
Informal

adjective
1.
Not formal.  "An informal free-and-easy manner" , "An informal gathering of friends"
2.
Not officially recognized or controlled.  Synonym: loose.  "A loose organization of the local farmers"
3.
Used of spoken and written language.
4.
Having or fostering a warm or friendly and informal atmosphere.  Synonyms: cozy, intimate.  "A relaxed informal manner" , "An intimate cocktail lounge" , "The small room was cozy and intimate"



Related search:



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 |





"Informal" Quotes from Famous Books



... Not many months ago there was a party of men and women, belonging to the capital of a certain kingdom, who attended a dinner. It was one of those times when exalted personages divest themselves of the dignity and pomp of court and become free and informal. There were twenty of these steins made especially for the occasion. By a circumstance, over which I had no control, I was the only alien at this dinner. The steins were souvenirs. How I came by two was due to the lady whom I took down to dinner, and who ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... occasion, by caressing the man whom he designed to ruin, and he eventually obtained possession of his person, only by a violation of the royal safe-conduct. The constable's trial was referred to a commission of jurists and privy counsellors, who, after a summary and informal investigation, pronounced on him the sentence of death on a specification of charges either general and indeterminate, or of the most trivial import. "If the king," says Garibay, "had dispensed similar justice to all his nobles, who equally deserved it in those turbulent ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... entered, in a preliminary and informal way, upon the pastorate of the Fifteenth Street Church, he seems to have attempted to turn his seminary into a high school, limited to twenty-five or thirty pupils, exclusively for the more advanced scholars of both sexes; and his plan ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... in a shop or an industry are a soviet. These little informal Soviets elect a local soviet; which elects delegates to the city or country (community) soviet; which elects delegates to the government (State) soviet. The government Soviets together elect delegates to the All-Russian Soviet, which elects commissionaires (who correspond ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt

... have come the desire to reconstruct a mental picture of the vast, dead city in certain of the various periods in which it had been teeming and throbbing with human life. Had the wish become the task, formal history would have played its part. Informal history would have proved more fruitful, and bygone days would have taken shape in the study of old prints, letters, and diaries. But for the full flavour of the town that once was and now had become crumbling dust he would have turned ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... impossible. At last Mr. Davis, on consultation with Vice- President Stephens and his Cabinet, decided to appoint a commission, composed of Mr. Stephens, Senator R. M. T. Hunter, and ex-Secretary of War John A. Campbell. This commission was directed (January 28, 1865) to go to Washington for informal conference with President Lincoln "upon the issues involved in the existing war, and for the purpose of securing peace to the two countries." Mr. Davis was advised by his Secretary of State, Mr. Benjamin, to instruct ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... excited crowd carrying small American flags, which cheered the destroyers from the time they were first seen until they reached the dock. They cheered again when Admiral Sims went ashore to greet the British senior officer who had come to welcome the Americans. It was a most informal function. After the usual handshakes the British commander congratulated the Americans on their ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... (Man), and any flower arrangement which did not embody these principles was considered barren and dead. They also dwelt much on the importance of treating a flower in its three different aspects, the Formal, the Semi-Formal, and the Informal. The first might be said to represent flowers in the stately costume of the ballroom, the second in the easy elegance of afternoon dress, the third in the charming deshabille ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... other facts I was at the time vividly aware: of the charm of finding the archaeologist in an upper room of the mediaeval church which is turning itself into his study, of listening to his prefatory talk, so informal and so easy that one did not realize how learned it was, and then of following him down to the scene of his researches and hearing him speak wisely, poetically, humorously, even, of what he believed he had reason to expect to find. We stood with him by the Arch of Titus and saw how the sculptures ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... heiress." So I sicked myself on to her. Well, you know I'm not a piker. I went after her right. Eats, drinks, shows, and all the expensive things. I touched Johnny Black's brother-in-law for fifty, and gave an informal luncheon that was a pippin. I wore my New York Central shirt with the four stripes, and we had wine with cobwebs. There wasn't a thing served that any one could pronounce, and Johnny Black got loaded and told ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.

... my mind. It is a good thing we brought along ducks and white soft shirts. I must say that this is extremely informal garb for a state wedding, but since the natives are ignorant of our customs, it ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... by right of more than one informal conquest, reached the position of leader, I can do no better than begin ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... the chapel after supper was for the most part informal. Yells and songs and the waving of pennants punctuated the proceedings, as is quite the proper thing in an Epworth League gathering. Some people, who see only what is on the surface, cannot wholly understand the exuberance of an Epworth League ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... necessary, as a just reprisal on the part of His Majesty." No doubt Rose did his best to soften the tone of these instructions, but he could not fail to make them clear; and Madison, who had conducted these informal interviews, slowly awoke to the real nature of what he was asked to do. He closed further negotiations with the comment that the United States could not be expected "to make, as it were, an expiatory sacrifice ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... replied, "Uncle Ike has been equally kind in speaking of his niece, Miss Pettengill, so that I feel acquainted with her even without this,—I was going to say formal introduction,—but I think that we must both confess it was rather informal." ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... to express deeply the inner characteristics of a people, a statement I am glad to corroborate. But never had it struck me so forcibly as now. Gazing up at a dim picture of informal construction, interlaced and blended with the trunks, boughs and foliage of the overarching palms I saw at a glance the key-note of the life of this ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... poetic symbol; nor do I now regard the communion of this supper as being essentially different from that of any ordinary family-meal, lodge-banquet, or socialist-picnic, with each of which repasts the informal Lord's Supper of the apostolic church had much more in common than it has with the formal celebrations of the sacrament in ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... technical amendments will be required from time to time. What is still more requisite is an understanding between the more reasonable leaders on both sides of industry, by which arrangements may be made for the more effectual and informal use of the Conciliation Boards. Meanwhile it savours of the absurd to talk and write—as certain fault-finders have done—as though every arbitration under the Act were a disturbance of industry as ruinous as a prolonged strike. Other critics have not stickled to assert that it has mischievously ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... meet her?" he asked; "this is such a very informal gathering that I might venture to present her, if only I knew ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks

... But the entry of the United States was regarded with warm approval; her cause was acknowledged to be just and the Latin American press reflects nothing but admiration for her step. The Republics of Cuba, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, and in an informal manner, Costa Rica, as well as the more or less American-controlled Nicaragua, Haiti and Santo Domingo, quickly aligned themselves with the United States, with whose fortunes their own are ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... Mrs. Dampier has appealed to me very properly for help, these hotel people—if they are as worthy as you believe them to be—will not mind consenting to an informal interrogatory from one of my clerks. I have here a sharp young fellow who knows English as well as he does French. I'll send him back with you. He can take down the Poulains' story, even cross-examine them in a friendly manner. Mrs. Dampier ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... Informal contests were often held between players, in which the use of the bowl or platter was dispensed with. The dice were held in the hand and then tossed in the air. They were allowed to fall upon some prepared surface, generally a deerskin spread for the purpose. The same rules as to ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis

... in every letter that he was extravagant. He ran through the two dollars in practically no time at all. He was a member in good and regular standing of the informal club that hung about the Corner Drug Store, to drink coffee soda and discuss athletics and stare at the passing girls. He loved to set off his clear skin and shining pale hair with linen collars, though soft roll-collar shirts were in ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... on shore and gave his evidence before the informal court, which was dealing with the case at the British Embassy, presided over ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... entering the Scheldt. The opening of that river, he said, was a right decreed by Nature, and confirmed to France by the conquest of Brabant—a point which he pressed Grenville to concede. He then charged England with unfriendly conduct in other respects. In reply Grenville said that he welcomed this informal explanation, but he declined to give any assurance on the Scheldt affair. If (said he) France and England were not on good terms, it was not the fault of the latter Power, which had consistently remained neutral but declined ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... Dooiney Molla—literally, the 'man-praiser'; and his primary function is that of an informal, unmercenary, purely friendly and philanthropic match-maker, introduced by the young man to persuade the parents of the young woman that he is a splendid fellow, with substantial possessions or magnificent prospects, and entirely fit to ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... which was duly returned, and then the invitation. That was quite informal. Mrs Grove would be happy if Miss Elliott and her sister would spend the evening at her house to meet a few friends. To their surprise, Harry, as well as Arthur, came home with a little pink note to the ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... says, "but I was afraid you would escape me, and I have so much to do this week. I want you to come in socially on Tuesday evening; just a few friends; an informal gathering; tea at eight, because the girls want a little dance after it. Now ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... which we write, say a month prior to the Convention, informal meetings of the Sons of Liberty were frequent, and large numbers of the members often went out of the city on excursions, nominally for pleasure, but really for practice with fire arms. The most active preparations were made ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... "nerve," bent on making him say something, preferably indiscreet; it seemed almost a shame to bother this man whose brain was big with the fate of empire. But, although I hadn't been specially invited, but had just "dropped in" in informal American fashion, the Commander in Chief of all his Kaiser's forces in the east stopped making history long enough to favor me with a short ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Gambetta's met with an accident which confined him to his house. The statesman strolled to his friend's residence. The accident was a trifling one, and the mistress of the house was holding a sort of informal reception, answering questions that were asked her by the numerous acquaintances ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... and informal dance, as befitted the ages of the guests, but Mr. and Mrs. Littell knew to perfection the secret of making each one enjoy himself. There were a handful of outside friends invited, and Betty, to whom a party was a never-failing source of delight, ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... still I don't mind as long as we have plenty of quiltings." In answer to my questions she told me that the previous winter she had "kept count," and she had helped at twenty-eight "regular" quiltings, besides her own home patchwork and quilt-making, and much informal help of neighbors on plain quilts. Any one who has attended a county fair (one not too modernized and spoiled) and seen the display of intricate patchwork and quilting still made in country homes, can see that it is not an ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... to the enforcement of law and order. If Private M'Sumph is insubordinate or riotous, there is never any question of informal correction or summary justice. News of the incident wends its way upward, by a series of properly regulated channels, to the officer in command. Presently, by the same route, an order comes back, and in a twinkling the offender finds ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... carried on with much earnestness and excitement. One of the Virginians failed in proof as to the identity of the person he claimed. In the case of several others, the power of attorney was pronounced informal by the magistrate. After a long protracted controversy, during which Friend Hopper threw as many difficulties in the way as possible, it was decided that four of the persons in custody were proved to be slaves, and the other ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... at night consists in our kneeling down together hand in hand, the last thing before going to bed, and in our own room. The awful thought of changing this sweet, informal habit into a formal ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... of two. Wonderful is the precision with which this mental mechanism may be made to work. Some men can even think their best on their feet in the presence of a great assembly. There are others whose spontaneous thoughts move by informal syllogisms. Emmons sometimes laid off his common utterances like the heads of a discourse. Johnson's retorts exploded like a musket, and often struck like a musket-ball. John Hunter fairly compared his own mind to a bee-hive, all in a hum, but the hum of industry and order ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... they kept—admitted young Terence to their intimate companionship; and soon he was widely known as making a third in the friendship of Gaius Laelius with the first citizen of the Republic, the younger Scipio Africanus. This society, an informal academy of letters, devoted all its energies to the purification and improvement of the Latin language. The rough drafts of the Terentian comedies were read out to them, and the language and style criticised in minute detail; gossip even said that they were largely ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... mate got pretty nearly what he deserved, under the code of natural justice. While business was going forward, the magistrate, Mr. Mansfield, talked about a fancy ball at which he had been present the evening before, and of other matters grave and gay. It was very informal; we sat at the table, or stood with our backs to the fire; policemen came and went; witnesses were sworn on the greasiest copy of the Gospels I ever saw, polluted by hundreds and thousands of perjured kisses; and for hours the prisoners were kept standing at the foot of the table, interested to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... successful action at law. The number of cases of repudiation of such agreements is almost negligible. To plead the Statute of Frauds in an action for non-delivery or non-acceptance of goods under such informal agreements might be a defence in the law courts, but would not save the defendant from the indeterminate but effective penalties due to the feeling of his fellows that he was acting dishonourably. It is instructive to notice that in dealing with the question of industrial disputes, which are in ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... On Sunday we had three services, and Sunday-school twice. The morning service was in an Indian wigwam, for Indians only. In the afternoon at the saw mill, in English; all the settlers and some Indians attended—in all about thirty. In the evening we held an informal meeting at our own tent. The Indians came together about sun-down, and, it being cold, we all sat round the camp fire. We sang several hymns and I read the latter part of the I Thess. iv, dwelling on the subject of the death ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... is much virtue in horsehair. Few who attended the informal opening of the Third Parliament of KING GEORGE THE FIFTH would have guessed that under the full-bottomed wig and gorgeous black-and-gold robes of the dignified figure on the Woolsack lay the volatile personality of "F. E." He played his new part nobly. A trifling error ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various

... as it was, in such informal terms, came very strangely from Nastasia Philipovna. Her usual entertainments were not quite like this; there was more style about them. However, the wine was not refused; each guest took a glass excepting Gania, who ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... assisting at a very charming social gathering at the Sylvesters', that as soon as he was married he would have to cut Brodonowski's. The reasons he gave himself were plausible enough, and, indeed, he would have found himself the only Benedict among this horde of wild bachelors. The informal circle was of such recent association that, so far, no precedent for matrimony had occurred, and it was more than doubtful how the experiment might be received. In any case, he told himself, he could ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... His Excellency.—Mr. Speaker announced the receipt of an informal intimation from the Senate that they were awaiting the arrival of the Commons to present the farewell address to His Excellency the Governor-General, in view of his early departure ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... work was to be entirely informal and on our own initiative, no military provision having been made for such emergency. With little difficulty five tons of army rations were secured, and, accompanied by good Major ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... New Republic taking shape and running together through the social mass, picking themselves out more and more clearly, from the shareholder, the parasitic speculator and the wretched multitudes of the Abyss. The New Republicans will constitute an informal and open freemasonry. In all sorts of ways they will be influencing and controlling the apparatus of the ostensible governments, they will be pruning irresponsible property, checking speculators and controlling the abyssward drift, but at that, at an indirect control, at any ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... be brought back to the Union. All they ask is an amnesty and a military convention to cover appearances. Slavery they admit to be defunct," etc. (Id., vol. xlvi. pt. iii. p. 575.) Lincoln to Grant, April 6th, says he had put into Judge Campbell's hands "an informal paper" repeating former propositions and adding "that confiscations shall be remitted to the people of any State which will now promptly and in good faith withdraw its troops and other support from resistance to the government. Judge Campbell thought it ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... expression in the "New Atlantis" of his great contemporary, Lord Bacon. The modest beginnings of the Royal Society of London, founded in 1662, cannot be traced back beyond 1645. The French Academy of Sciences, founded in 1666, was preceded by earlier informal meetings of French scientists, to which allusion is even made by Lord Bacon, who died in 1626. The Berlin Academy came much later, in 1700, and the St. Petersburg Academy was first established in 1725 by Catherine I, widow of Peter the Great. One ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz

... the friendship which he lost no chance of manifesting that morning, was that Mr. Mayhew, in an easy, informal manner, extended his invitation, and the artist accepted in a way that proved he was constrained by something more than courtesy or a sense of duty, and Conspirator Number Two walked down Broadway muttering (as do all conspirators): "Those young people are liable to stumble ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... they gave charity unscrupulously—in the same Oriental, unscientific, informal spirit in which the Dayanim, those cadis of the East End, administered justice. The Takif, or man of substance, was as accustomed to the palm of the mendicant outside the Great Synagogue as to the rattling pyx within. They lived in Bury Street, and Prescott ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... crowd become that it was necessary to limit claims, and at an informal meeting of the prospectors, a digging committee was formed to make regulations controlling the working of the digging. Thirty feet square was thought to be a reasonable claim for one person. Some sought the river's banks to prospect, others the kopjes or hills. Some pinned their faith to light-colored ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... Castelar, who was a close friend of Canovas, the late Premier. Senor Castelar was President of Spain when it was a republic, before the young King's father was put on the throne by the aid of Canovas. At an informal dinner-party at Senor Castelar's, Mr. Taylor begged the Senor to talk to Canovas, and convince him that the war in Cuba was only a cruel waste of life and useless waste of money, as the Cubans would not submit. He asked Senor Castelar to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 55, November 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... whole party adjourned to the theatre, altogether in an informal manner. Some of the guests had carriages waiting, others went down in hansoms. Ernestine was rather late in coming downstairs and found Trent waiting for her in the hall. She was wearing a wonderful black satin opera cloak with pale ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... man, be it ever so casually, he may desire to thrust his company upon you, willy-nilly, in future; and when you have ladies of your family living in a place, you really CANNOT be too particular what companions you pick up there, were it even in the most informal and momentary fashion. Besides, the fellow might turn out to be one of your social superiors, and not care to know you; in which case, of course, you would only be letting yourself in for a needless snubbing. In fact, in this modern ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... April.—Grand informal meeting of the Crowned Heads of Europe (with the CZAR in the chair) to discuss a scheme of general disarmament, at which the Emperor of GERMANY creates a profound sensation by the announcement that, as a hint to his brother Monarchs, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various

... should be written, books that acquaint young readers with historical personages in a pleasant, informal way."—New ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... whether this theory of an election by electors has ever been truly carried out. It was probably the case even at the election of the first Presidents after Washington, that the electors were pledged in some informal way as to the candidate for whom they should vote; but the very idea of an election by electors has been abandoned since the Presidency of General Jackson. According to the theory of the Constitution, the privilege and the duty of selecting a best man as President was to be ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... discussion not being fully satisfied by the stated meetings of the School in the Orchard House, the hospitable Concord folks opened their houses for informal symposia in the evenings. I was privileged to make one of a company that gathered in Emerson's library. The subject for the evening was Shakespeare, and Emerson read, by request, that mysterious little poem "The Phoenix and the Turtle," attributed to Shakespeare on rather doubtful evidence, ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers

... burden. If she has been making a week's visit away from home, she notifies her hostess of her safe return and her enjoyment of the visit, as soon as she is back again. If a bouquet is sent her,—too informal for a note,—she remembers to speak of it afterward. You never can remember? No; but Fanny does. That is why I admire her. If she has borrowed a book, she has an appreciative word to say when she returns it; and if she has dropped ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... at the outer edge of the platform, a Planeteer officer faced a dozen slim, blackclad young men who wore the single golden orbits of lieutenants. This was a graduating class, already commissioned, having a final, informal get-together. ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... to hear her voice one morning over the telephone—although the reason she gave for calling him up occasioned his undisguised surprise, for she informed him that sometime during the day he would receive an informal invitation from Mrs. Ames requesting him to be present at a luncheon she was giving at the ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... speaking French with the accent of Marseilles. "I am the Aumonier of Amara, and have just heard of your arrival here, and as I was visiting my friends on the sand-hills yonder, I thought I would venture to call and ask whether I could be of any service to you. The hour is informal, I know, but to tell the truth, Madame, after five years in Amara one does not know how to ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... horseback, and under the lead of Samuel J. Jones, then postmaster of Westport, Missouri; Claiborne F. Jackson and a Mr. Steeley, of Independence, Missouri. They were armed with double- barreled guns, rifles, bowie-knives and pistols, and had flags hoisted. They held a sort of informal election off at one side, at first for governor of Kansas Territory, and shortly afterwards announced Thomas Johnson, of Shawnee Mission, elected governor. The polls had been opened but a short time ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... liked to meet you and her little ladyship—the first ladyship we've had in these parts. You didn't give us any idea, though, and now I see why. But look here, Mother, you might have had the front door open. I'm afraid the young lady from England will think we're mighty informal." ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... so often in these manuscripts, we seem to see Casanova thinking on paper. He uses scraps of paper (sometimes the blank page of a letter, on the other side of which we see the address) as a kind of informal diary; and it is characteristic of him, of the man of infinitely curious mind, which this adventurer really was, that there are so few merely personal notes among these casual jottings. Often, they are purely abstract; at times, metaphysical jeux d'esprit, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... which was always an informal meal at The Headlands. Helen sat among the tea-cups, my mother had a little table by her sofa, and Mr. Floyd and I walked about carrying cream and sugar and cakes. I was on my way for a fresh cup when this question was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... to doubt his own conviction a little—that conviction which had sprung full-grown out of Nita's strange, informal will, and which had seemed to explain everything—followed Lydia Carr from her basement room to the bedroom in which Nita ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... and looked down at her, framing a commonplace reply. But for some reason the words lay unspoken upon his tongue. Alaire's informal greeting, her parted lips, the welcoming light in her eyes, had sent them flying. It seemed to him that the dim half-light which illumined this nook emanated from her face and her person, that the fragrance which came to his nostrils was the perfume of her breath, and at the ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... what immediately followed recalled to Mrs. Bunting, for the first time, that informal little ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... to an informal club of young men who called themselves, facetiously, the Hodiernals. Vixi hodie! The motto, suggested by some one or other after a fifth tumbler of whisky punch, might bear more than a single interpretation. Harvey Munden, the one member of this genial brotherhood who lived by the sweat ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... began at half-past eight. The audience had been hustled into their seats, happier than is usual in such circumstances from the rumor that the proceedings were to terminate with an informal dance. The abbey was singularly well constructed for such a purpose. There was plenty of room, and a sufficiency of retreat for those who sat out, in addition to a conservatory large enough to have married off half the couples in the county. The audience was in an excellent humor, and ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse

... suspected Louis Bonaparte; but long continued suspicion blunts the intellect and it wears itself out by fruitless alarms." On December 1, the session of the Assembly was devoted to a discussion on municipal law. It terminated with a peaceful tribunal vote. Prince Louis Napoleon held an informal reception at the Elysees. During that night, Louis Napoleon, in complicity with the bastard princes, De Morny, Valevsky, Saint-Arnaud, Persigny, Maupas and others, having made sure of the commanding officers of the troops on duty, caused the arrest before daylight of all the leading Republicans. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... on the Governor's right, and at the proper point his Excellency sang her praises in a charmingly informal speech, which delighted and amused the press men, actors and actresses whom he had collected for the occasion. Only the guest of honor looked a little weary and condescending; she had a sufficient experience of such ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... members in all, of whom twelve were necessary to make a quorum. One of the Avogadori di Comun, or State advocates, was always present, without the power to vote, but to act as clerk to the court, informing it of the law, and correcting it where its procedure seemed informal. Subsequently it became customary to add twenty members to the Council, elected in the Maggior Consiglio, for each important case as it arose."—Venice, an Historical Sketch, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, pp. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... struck me: why should you not come to see me in the country—at Colombes? It would be a little excursion. I have plenty of fruit, and I take a landowner's pride in my fruit. I could offer you luncheon, a very informal luncheon. Will you come, madame—and your daughter? Would your son give me the pleasure ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... market economy marked by a large informal sector. This sector features both reexport of imported consumer goods to neighboring countries, as well as the activities of thousands of microenterprises and urban street vendors. Because of the importance of the informal sector, accurate economic measures are difficult to obtain. A large ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... near the estates of the Warren family, where as children we were taken to visit his house and hear anecdotes of the aged patriot’s hospitality and humor. The honor in which he was held by the country-side, the influence for good he exerted, and the informal tribunal he held, to which his neighbors came to get their differences straightened out by his common sense, are still talked of by the older inhabitants. One story in particular used to charm our boyish ears. It was about a dispute over land between the Livingstons and ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... office in the court house, hearing an unimportant matter. Because the day was hot, the Judge wore a gray silk coat, without a vest, and because the matter was unimportant, no newspaper reporters were called in. The matter in hand was highly informal. The Judge, tilted back in his easy chair, toyed with his silken mustache, while counsel for defendant, standing by the desk before which the Judge's chair was swinging, handled the papers representing the defendant's answer, to the plaintiff's pleadings. The plaintiff ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... of the entertainments given by the king and queen included as guests nearly all the court, but Mary often had little fetes and dancing parties which were smaller, more select and informal. These parties were really with the consent and encouragement of the king, to avoid the responsibility of not inviting everybody. The larger affairs were very dull and smaller ones might give offense to those who were left out. The ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... grotesque ornament from the dwarf bookcase, and used the top of the bookcase as a writing-board. Hilda was called upon to sign two papers. He explained exactly what these papers were, but she did not understand, nor did she desire to understand. One was an informal sale-note and the other was an authority; but which was which, and to what each had reference, she superbly and wilfully ignored. She could, by a religious effort of volition, make of herself an excellent clerk, eagerly ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... is wholly ex parte. As the informal statement of the crime brought the supposed criminal to answer before the inferior tribunal, so does the formal accusation call upon him to answer before the superior court. The preliminary proceedings being now complete, and every step having been taken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... he felt that his cause was lost. There was no enthusiasm, no approval, in the faces of his auditors. After a short and informal discussion, in which the engineer was called on to explain his plans and estimates in detail to one and another of the members, Magnus, the bank president, sufficiently summed up the sense of the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... which is the chief factor in ordinary language training, will be insufficient. It will be necessary to invent ways, chiefly games, by which the vocal organs may be used; this may be considered play, but it is more artificial and less spontaneous than the informal activity already described. It is well to be clear as to the kind of exercises best suited to make the vocal organs supple, and then to make these the basis of a game: for example, little children constantly imitate the cries of ordinary life; town children ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... Mr. Bolton," he said over his shoulder. "And please believe that I am not usually so inquisitive. But I'm more than a little curious to know why you did not present this card first—and go through the little informal examination I arranged for you afterward? It would have insured you a far different reception. Was there any special reason, or did ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... been for him profitable. He got the best part of his education at Dresden, where he had skilful and sympathetic masters; and almost, one may say, without knowing it he had received an informal musical education which was profoundly to affect him as soon as he started writing operas. I mean that he constantly attended the opera while Weber was conductor, and Weber, who had been a friend of Geyer's, used to call at the house to pass the time of day with the widow. Richard ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... liberty of worship, liberty of instruction and liberty of the press. The ultra-clericals, who looked to the Vatican for their guidance, and the advanced liberals who professed the principles of the French Revolution were thus by the force of events led on step by step to convert an informal into a formal alliance. The Abbe de Foere in the Spectateur and MM. D'Ellougue and Donker in the Observateur had been for some years advocating united action; and it was their success in winning over to their side ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... before a police justice in a country town is much more informal than in a city, and this should be remembered by those who ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... you'd say that to my comrades here," said Miss Holland. "We should all be so glad to hear you. Will you not let me present you for a few minutes during the informal discussion?" ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... tentative experiments, we obtained permission to found the Politics Class described in our previous book. Suffice it to say here that the class was a voluntary body of some thirty or forty senior boys, that met once a week on a half-holiday evening to hear informal lectures from one or other of us, and occasionally from one or other of our colleagues, on questions of the day. Sometimes the topic was purely general—"Competition and Co-operation," "The Spirit of the Reformer," or the like. Sometimes a historical topic was traced rapidly from its ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... beside the beck that runs from the lake, he was overtaken by the gentleman he had left behind, and accosted in the informal English style, with all the politeness possible to a nervously blunt manner: 'This book is yours,—I have no doubt it is yours; I am glad to be able to restore it; I should be glad to be the owner-writer ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... scared to death when the Scoutmaster announced at the close of the meeting that the visitor would remain for an informal talk ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... Albans for three years, when he again went to Oxford and studied philosophy and theology there for nine years. He was on a visit to St. Albans at the time of the death of Abbot Hugh. He was elected Abbot, but the election was found to be informal, so he resigned his claim to the Pope, who thereupon appointed him Abbot. He wrote a Register of things done in his time, compiled a book of Decretals and Constitutions of Provincial Chapters, and sundry works on geometry ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... hand surreptitiously inside Jack's arm as her aunt moved away, and squeezed it. She knew quite well that the party itself had been of his devising—an informal dance to celebrate her twenty-first birthday, which was less than ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... too busy a woman to indulge in the village game of constant informal calls on her neighbours. She left all that sort of thing to her younger step-daughters; and as Mrs. Crofton never came to Old Place—making her nervous fear of the dogs the excuse—Janet only saw the new tenant of The Trellis House when she happened to be walking ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... a way in which, with luck, we may communicate with the upper world. By relays of my Queen's fish-servants we believe we can send up the Professor's invaluable notes[A] and this informal account of what has happened since we left ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... moods of revolt, they honestly believed their parents to be dull and obstinate creatures who had lost the appetite for romance and ecstasy and were determined to mortify this appetite in others. They desired heaps of money and the free, informal companionship of very young men. The latter—at the cost of some intrigue and subterfuge—they contrived to get. But money they could not get. Frequently they said to each other with intense earnestness that they would do anything for money; ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... the tangled festoons of a wild convolvulus spray. His talent, however, though genuine, could hardly supply him with a livelihood, and he would have been seriously put to it had not his father's death left him a tiny income, while a half-informal secretaryship to a political friend, offered him propitiously at the same time, gave him leisure for his painting as well as for a good many other pleasant things. He had leisure, in especial, for going from country-house to country-house, where he was immensely in demand, and where he ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Smolni was the same informal affair that it was in the old days, only with much less to eat. The Commissars, men and women, came in from their work, took their places, fed and went back to work again, Zinoviev in particular ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... late come up for a pretty thoroughgoing examination by the psychologists, and their conclusions are so generally familiar as to need no restatement here. William James, in a rather informal paragraph quoted from one of his letters, states the psychologist's point of view more simply and vividly than either he or his disciples have defined their position in their more formal works. "In the case of conversion I am quite willing ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... your honour,' said the servant, entering with a very informal-looking note on coarse paper, and fastened with a wafer. 'The gossoon, sir, is waiting for an answer; he run every mile ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... weeping; yes, and praying, too, as men must pray when they stand powerless in the stress of terrible sorrows. At noon the twelve men summoned dropped in one by one, and the informal court was opened. David Lorimer admitted the murder, and explained the long irritation and the final taunt which had produced it. The testimony of the returned drovers supplemented the tragedy. If there was any excuse to be made, it lay in the disgraceful epithet applied to David and the scornful ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... a trinket she had dropped, or, better still, like the people in novels, travel with her on a long journey and prove himself a tactful cavalier. Under any of these circumstances the ice would be broken, and possibly an informal introduction would take place. It ought, however, to be supplemented by more regular proceedings before any recognised intercourse ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux

... the most informal of little evening company, so every one came early, and in a little while the quiet evening air grew musical with merry voices and gay laughter, then became quieter, and was replaced by notes from the piano, or some one voice trilling out a popular song or a pretty ballad. ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... asked me to go rabbiting with him. He's not much of a shot, though he is a baronet's son and heir, and I rather think I put him up to a wrinkle or two. Anyway, the other day he mentioned that they were going to have a dance—quite an informal affair—and asked if I'd care to go; and Lady Maltby's ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... be strictly informal," continued Mrs. Easterfield. "Only myself and family, three guests, and Olive. We shall sit ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... wont to command in person in any important action, and in the general policy of his realm took counsel with none, yet it had somehow come about that we, the old man and the young, had been constituted an informal council of two which was liable to be summoned at any moment, whenever the Prince ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... we ever were was a research and educational center, a sort of informal university specializing in the scientific study of man. We're not any kind of political organization. You'd be surprised how much we ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... this kind of evidence that we believe the great facts of the Christian Revolution. We have contemporary histories, formal and informal; letters, public and private, from the principal agents in it, and opposers of it, dispersed from Babylon to Rome, and addressed to Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Asiatics, written by physicians, fishermen, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... Army. Here we rubbed up our ceremonial drill and practised guard of honour for the King's visit. This, however, fell through, and on the 7th December we marched to a point on the Leuze-Tournai road, near Barry, where His Majesty held an informal inspection. ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... of propaganda was at last made the subject of an informal protest by Major J. Brooks Nichols, one of our most influential and level-headed American officers, in a letter to General Ironside, whose sympathetic letter of reply did credit to his respect for ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... embodied in the basic Decision) is determined upon the basis of an estimate procedure essentially similar to the basic estimate. There is thus a series of subsidiary estimates for this purpose. Such estimates tend to be abbreviated and informal, since the necessary data, and often much of the consideration as to the subsidiary courses of action, may be available ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... day, I soon found, were to consist in an early and informal breakfast at the house of Frau Kranich; then the civil wedding at the mayor's office, followed by the usual church-service, from which the Protestant godmother of Francine begged to be excused; the day to wind up with a general dinner at a place of resort outside ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... his eye; yet I felt he was one who expected to be obeyed. He took Amroth into the embrasure of a window, and talked with him in low tones. Then he came back to me and asked me a few questions of which I did not then understand the drift—but it seemed a kind of very informal examination. Then he made us a little bow of dismissal, and sat down at once to his writing without giving us another look. Amroth took me out, and led me up many stone stairs, along whitewashed passages, with narrow windows looking out on the plain, to a small ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Choate moved that in all future wars horses shud be fed with hay wheriver possible. Carrid. A long informal talk on th' reinthroduction iv scalpin' followed. At last th' dillygate fr'm Chiny arose an' says he: 'I'd like to know what war is. What is war annyhow?' 'Th' Lord knows, we don't,' says th' chairman. 'We're all profissors iv colledges or lawyers whin we're home,' he says. 'Is it war ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne

... names of all their confederates. Whether the names thus extorted from them by suffering were false or true would of course be wholly uncertain, but all whom they named were seized, and, after a brief and very informal trial, all, or nearly all, were condemned to death. The sentence of death was executed on them in the most barbarous manner. A great column was erected in the market-place in Moscow, and fitted with iron spikes and hooks, which were made to project from it on every side, from top to bottom. The ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... things. When you see them on the chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over to do a bit of entertaining—possibly an informal dance or something. When you go on board, you find that the place has shrunk to the dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands again. For one reason or another the necessity for ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... officers that he wished to "enlist their sympathies for the poor soldiers who are now suffering in the cold and snow of the mountains!" An interview of half an hour with Young followed—too private in its character to be participated in even by the other heads of the church. An informal discussion ensued, the following extracts from which, on Mormon authority, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... Anthony) Sherley (1565-1630), a picturesque gentleman-adventurer, the first Englishman to mention coffee drinking in the Orient, sailed from Venice on a kind of self-appointed, informal Persian mission, to invite the shah to ally himself with the Christian princes against the Turks, and incidentally, to promote English trade interests in the East. The English government knew nothing of the arrangement, disavowed him, and forbade his return to England. However, the expedition ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... officer was kind, genial Mr. Hawk when he returned to Brussels from The Hague and proceeded to get the Legation into working order. I am sure Mr. Hawk entered into the spirit of the thing and gave an informal breakfast afterwards in the Rue de Spa to which Mons. and Mme. Walcker, Mons. and Mme. Trouessart, and the Directeur of the prison of Saint-Gilles and his wife were invited. I think the head gardener of ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... Gwendolin Morton. "You promised to help me explain to Miss Stuart the plan for our day of sports. You see, Miss Stuart, every season at Lenox we have an annual entertainment for the benefit of our hospital fund. This year father is to take charge of the sports, which we try to make just as informal and jolly as possible. One of the reasons for my call was to ask you to let your girls help us out with our amusements. As soon as I told my father we had met some delightful American girls who were camping near here, he suggested that we invite them to join in our sports. We ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane

... uncle, who had gone out into the street to walk backwards and forwards before the door, as he had walked backwards and forwards on his deck for forty years, she sat down and accepted the Count's informal invitation. She seemed to do it without reflection, as if impelled thereto by something stronger than pro or con, as if acknowledging the Spaniard's right to come into her life, bringing to bear upon it an influence which she never attempted ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... be told now that when Agnes Sinclair and Tom Scott stopped at the post-office that very evening Tom posted a number of little notes for Agnes—an informal tea was to be given ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose

... was truly intoxicating. Mrs. Holman, the fashionable belle of society and wife of one of the leading physicians of the city, was entertaining a brilliant assemblage of the elite. The informal announcement of her grand "at home" had kept society in a delightful state of anticipation for the past ten days, and reality was indeed equal to all that could be devised. The grand drawing-room, furnished with regard to the beautiful in art, was certainly a fit receptacle ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... in one of the inner rooms, he would stand against the mantelpiece chatting, smoking often with the men. Everything came up in turn to be discussed; and Robert was at least as ready to learn from the practical workers about him as to teach. But in general these informal talks and debates became the supplement of the Sunday lectures. Here he met Andrews and the Secularist crew face to face; here he grappled in Socratic fashion with objections and difficulties, throwing into the task all his charm and all his knowledge, a man at once of no ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and if so, whether he ought to mind. As the day wore on, the noises grew louder-trampings of feet, breakdowns, jolly little squawks—and the cubicles were assigned, and the bags unpacked, and the bathing arrangements posted up, and Herbert kept on saying, "All this is informal—all this is informal. We shall meet the house ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... he is? A K. C. after seven years—lucky dog!—and last year he was engaged in an Anglo-American case not wholly unlike yours—Brown v. Brown. So I thought of him as the best person among your old friends and mine to come and give us some private informal help to-day, before you take any fresh ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... most informal table, spread according to no rules that, for many generations at least, have been known in the refined world; an anomaly in the eyes of certainly one of the company. Yet the board had a character ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... was never revived. The evidence which would warrant a formal verdict of guilty was not forthcoming; and a formal verdict of guilty would hardly have answered Wharton's purpose better than the informal verdict of guilty which the whole nation had already pronounced. The work was done. The Whigs were dominant. Leeds was no longer chief minister, was indeed no longer a minister at all. William, from respect probably for the memory of the beloved wife whom ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... be gentle to him. I shall ask him to dinner and we can give a May dance perhaps—something informal and ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... letters in miniature confined chiefly to invitations, acceptances, regrets and introductions, and modern etiquette tends towards informality in their composition. Card etiquette, in fact, has taken the place of ceremonious correspondence and informal notes are now the rule. Invitations to dinner and receptions are now mostly written on cards. "Regrets" are sent back on visiting cards with just the one word "Regrets" plainly written thereon. Often on cards and notes of invitation we find the letters R. S. V. P. at the bottom. These letters ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... system of placing juvenile offenders on probation for a first offence. This same report contains illustrations of the work of the Children's Aid Society's probation officer. "A boy, fifteen years of age, already on informal probation, and apparently doing fairly well, was suddenly brought into court, charged with breaking and entering his employer's shop at night. On {86} account of his past good character, he was put on probation by the court under our agent's care. He told Mr. Lawrence that he got into this ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... should not marry at least till Edward graduated. They had to wait a year. Bateman remembered the winter at the end of which Isabel and Edward were to be married, a winter of dances and theatre-parties and of informal gaieties at which he, the constant third, was always present. He loved her no less because she would shortly be his friend's wife; her smile, a gay word she flung him, the confidence of her affection, never ceased to delight him; and he congratulated himself, somewhat complacently, ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... it was a jolly evening, after all,—that is, for some hours and for some people. As Mrs. Rayner and her sister were so soon to go, probably by the morrow's train if their section could be secured, the garrison had decided to have an informal dance as a suitable farewell. Their announcement of impending departure had come so suddenly and unexpectedly that there was no time to prepare anything elaborate, such as a german with favors, etc.; but good music and an extemporized supper could be had without trouble. The colonel's wife ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... was gay and most informal. Jack was at his best and gave us in inimitable satire a description of a luncheon at Newport in honor of a prize chow dog attended by all the high-bred pups of Bellview Avenue, including Jack's own bull terrier Scotty, which in an inadvertent ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... the following evening, several hours after the informal little dinner for five in the Inter-Mountain cafe, when the senator had himself lifted from the lobby to the private-suite floor and made his way to the door of his own apartments. As was her custom when they were together, his wife was waiting ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... was appreciated to the extent of making her a welcome guest at the informal gatherings which were forever being held in the various students' rooms after recitations were over for the day. The consequence was that, as her studies and clerical duties left her limited time for amusements, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... corner of what is now the Sunday School room were located the social parlours. They were handsomely furnished, and there every Monday evening Mr. Beecher held an informal reception, when all members of the church or congregation were cordially welcomed. The prominent members of the church were present, including such men as Messrs. Howard, Bowen, Claflin, Sage, Storrs, Freeland, Wheelock, ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold

... down the terrace at which Jason was holding thy big chestnut. The horse pricked up its ears and turned its head for her morning caress, the touch of the small, soft, but firm hand which it had come to regard as its due, and Ida sprang lightly from the last step into the saddle. It was an informal way of mounting which few girls could have accomplished gracefully; but Ida did it as naturally and as easily as a circus rider, for the trick was a necessity to her who had so often to dismount and ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... the troops marched in, and camped outside the post. The married officers were able to join their wives, and the three days we spent there were delightful. There was a dance given, several informal dinners, drives into the town of Prescott, and festivities of various kinds. General Crook commanded the Department of Arizona then; he was out on some expedition, but Mrs. Crook gave a pleasant dinner ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... An informal luncheon followed in one of the Des Moines tea rooms which had often housed the suffragists in times of desolation and it was turned into a jollification meeting. Three former State presidents and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... returning to this country from England about the time of the breaking out of the war, fresh from an acquaintance with Miss Nightingale, and filled with her enthusiasm, at once called an informal meeting at the New York Infirmary[14] for Women and Children, where, on April 25th, 1861, the germ of the sanitary, known as the Ladies' Central Relief,[15] was inaugurated. A public meeting was held April 26, 1861, at the Cooper Union, its object being ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... said Carter, presenting me to Miss Harding. She did not bow coldly, as do most young ladies in our set, neither was there anything bold in accepting this most informal introduction. She acted like a good fellow should act, and frankly offered her hand, her eyes dancing ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... propaganda increased in momentum, caucuses assumed a more open character. They were a sort of informal town meeting, where neighbors met and agreed on candidates and the means of electing them. After the adoption of the Constitution, the same methods were continued, though modified to suit the needs of the new party alignments. In this informal manner, local ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth

... an old coat, and go down into my workshop, where I have a little tinkering to do with one of the electric wires which has gone wrong, and threatens to burn up the premises. So glad to see you. Always think these informal conferences between individual members of the two Houses are not only personally agreeable, but may be fraught with the greatest benefit to the State, which we both serve. Wait till ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... Washington on this errand, he met President Roosevelt several times. Their informal talks served to increase Lane's strong liking for the vigorous man of action, then at the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... self-confidence and perseverance; the physical grossness of the old burghers, as constitutional vigor. Many of their customs too have come down to us; their heavy afternoon teas are recalled in our informal receptions; their New Year's Day sociability in our calls, their Christmas celebrations in our festival of Santa Claus. Much of our domestic architecture reflects their influence: the gabled fronts, the tiled fireplaces, the high "stoops," and the custom of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... at the Co-operative Society's Hall, 55, Castle Street, on August 25, 1873. Twice before this, I had ventured to raise my voice in discussion, once at a garden-party at which I was invited to join in a brief informal debate, and discovered that words came readily and smoothly, and the second time at the Liberal Social Union, in a discussion on a paper read by a member—I forget by whom— dealing with the opening of Museums ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... formal diplomatic relations, although informal contact is maintained between the Bhutanese and US Embassies in New Delhi (India); the Bhutanese mission to the UN in New York has consular ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... that the Countess was now a different woman. She had suddenly put on a manner to match her costume, which in certain parts was stiff with embroidery. From the informal companion and the tamer of mules she had miraculously developed into the public celebrity, the peeress of the realm, and the inaugurator-general of philanthropic schemes and buildings. Not one ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... the lease of the West Division Railway Company of Chicago to the West Chicago Street Railroad. Widener and Elkins controlled the West Division Railway; their partner, Charles T. Yerkes, controlled the latter corporation. The negotiation of a lease, therefore, was a purely informal matter; the partners were merely dealing with one another; yet Widener and Elkins received a fee of $5,000,000 as personal compensation for ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick

... rather unexpected, boys. But this distinguished man happened to be passing our hall to-night and has dropped in on us in a purely informal manner. It's a great honor, and I want to say to him for all of us that the old Square Deal Club is mighty grateful. I ask you to ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... upon the devoted town; while her numerous cutters, hauled in order alongside, were ready to effect a landing, under cover of her batteries. She maintained this belligerent attitude for several days, during which time a series of informal negotiations were pending, and wide alarm spread over the island. Many of the Tahitians were at first disposed to resort to arms, and drive the invaders from their shores; but more pacific and feebler counsels ultimately prevailed. The unfortunate queen Pomare, incapable ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... evening dress and a diamond necklace, in case anything should happen on the way. I am not in the least nervous about their appearance. I only hope that they will not be too exuberant; American girls are so frightfully vivacious and informal, I always feel as if I were being ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... bodies throughout the country endorsed the scheme. The parliamentarians, who formed the nucleus of the Committee, came together and invited prominent men from all quarters to join them. A committee which, though informal and self-appointed, might fairly claim to be representative in every material respect, was thus constituted ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... Haeckel now and again calls the attention of the entire class to some particular phase of the subject just passing under their individual observation, and in the most informal of talks, illustrated on blackboard and chart, clears up any lurking mysteries of the anatomy, or enlivens the subject with an incursion into physiology, embryology, or comparative morphology of the parts under observation. Thus by the close of the session the student has something far more ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... service to the various Societies. The Association has established the Menorah College of Lecturers, consisting of a number of Jewish scholars, publicists, and religious leaders, who have undertaken to lecture (for love) before the Societies. Their lectures, which are generally followed by informal discussions, are, as a rule, open to the whole university, and are often held not merely under the auspices of the Menorah Society, but also in conjunction with some department of the university, or with some other student organization. At times, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various



Words linked to "Informal" :   folksy, cozy, formalness, unliterary, subliterary, vernacular, unceremonious, formality, epistolary, unceremonial, unrhetorical, common, colloquial, formal, unofficial, free-and-easy, daily, friendly, conversational, everyday, casual, nonliterary, vulgar, slangy, epistolatory



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com