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Lie about   /laɪ əbˈaʊt/   Listen
Lie about

verb
1.
Hang around idly.  Synonym: lie around.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Lie about" Quotes from Famous Books



... didn't even have to go to ze house, although I had a plausible story all ready. I was going to say that Mrs. Traynor had sent me to fetch Miss Dorothy because her mother wanted her home for ze coming marriage of Miss Ray. But it wasn't necessary to lie about it. I found ze child playing in ze street near the house. I merely told her her mamma wanted her to come home, gave her some candy, and she followed ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... What a hang-dog face he's got on him! And he's a coward, too, or he wouldn't have slunk out when I ordered him. And he had it on him all the time! I wonder what he'll do with it. Hold it over her, I expect; maybe take it to Rosenthal's with some lie about her, so they will discharge her and ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... an important letter by express on the three o'clock train," said the cashier. "Get it and read what I have written. Stay as long as you need to, but smash that pool, and teach Lamson not to lie about ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... my comrade, "it is rayther ugly news the red-skinned devil's told me; but I don' know how much truth thar's in it; for I've foun' her out in more 'n one lie about this bizness. She's been wi' the carryvan, however, an' ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... harder to get those that fall to the ground than the game fellow that climbs the tree. Men will pull you down, tramp on you, in their endeavors to climb over you. It's the selfish idea of many men they can build up more rapidly if they tear down. They'll block your game, they'll lie about you, they'll not only throw you down but they'll sit on you, and hold you down, until you gather force to squirm from under. You'll never suffer as much when you have the least as you do when the grit has leaked out of you. The man who climbs the tree from ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... platform at the further end make two beds. In that open box are hymn-book, liturgy-book, and some volumes of the Eskimo Bible. Next it are a set of very fair cups and saucers, but it seems incongruous for the china to stand on the mud floor. Various utensils lie about, but there is neither ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe

... whut that one was; but I don't see how a circus could 'a' been any better than this here one I'm tellin' about, ef it was ten times ez big. I don't regret the investment and I don't aim to lie about it now. Mister Sublette, I'd do the same thing over ag'in ef the chance should come, lawsuit or no lawsuit. Ef you should win this here case mebbe I wouldn't ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... that rock," says he, nodding at a huge boulder lapped by the incoming sea. "There shall you be at midnight. We shall lie about a half a mile out to sea, and two of my sons will pull to the shore and take you up; so may all go well and nought be known, if you are commonly secret, for never a soul is seen here after sundown." I told him I would consult with my friends and give him our decision the next day, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... Crow Nest, and over the river and the heaped-up mountains that lie about West Point, and in the quiet room the boy's mother sat perplexed, uncertain, his letter in her hands; yet with a vague sense of coming comfort in her heart as she thought of the girl who would surely "find her and be good to her," But across ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... of thy casement twines With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines; The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie About the glimmering sky. No jasmine tress Can so caress Like thy ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... regretted not having seen any of his relations for the last twenty years of his life-time he was sure THEY would regret equally little his death. On no account was anyone to wear mourning for him, nor were they to express any open sorrow. 'They wouldn't FEEL it, so why lie about it?' I use his own words," added Mr. Hawkes, as if disclaiming all responsibility for such a remarkable point ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... the Two Foci.—There can be little doubt that the impulse at the north-west focus was responsible for the greater damage to buildings at Hereford, Dinedor, Fownhope, etc. The centre of its epicentral area must therefore lie about three miles south-east of Hereford. It is probable, also, that the corresponding centre of the other focus is similarly placed with respect to the south-east portion of the isoseismal 8—that is, ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... you have drawn near to hearken, O Brown Rock; you never lie about anything. Ha! Now I am about to seek for it. I have lost a hog and now tell me about where I shall find it. For is it not mine? My ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... high-seat, he saw over the whole world, and what every man was doing, and he knew all things that he saw. His wife hight Frigg, and she was the daughter of Fjorgvin, and from their offspring are descended the race that we call asas, who inhabited Asgard the old and the realms that lie about it, and all that race are known to be gods. And for this reason Odin is called Alfather, that he is the father of all gods and men, and of all things that were made by him and by his might. Jord (earth) was his daughter and his wife; with her he begat his first ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre

... staircase warmed. Flowers on all sides will charm your sight—flowers, the only gift she accepts, and those only from certain people, for nosegays live but a day; they give pleasure, and must be replaced; to her they are, as in the East, a symbol and a promise. The costly toys of fashion lie about, but not so as to suggest a museum or a curiosity shop. You will find her sitting by the fire in a low chair, from which she will not rise to greet you. Her talk will not now be what it was at the ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... some that look like mummies, others like old men with long beards, appall us like figures that we see in some wild dream. These are intermingled with pyramids, obelisks, baths that seem made of the purest alabaster, etc. A number of small round balls, petrifactions of a dead white, lie about here, forming little hollows in the ground. Here the cave is very wide—about two hundred feet, it ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... 'What! You a Purefoy and my daughter, yet not to be trusted to tell the truth! For the cherries, they are a small matter, I gave you plenty myself later, but to lie about even a trifle, it is ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... but take Notice likewise, that several of those little Nerves in the Heart which are affected by the Sentiments of Love, Hatred, and other Passions, did not descend to this before us from the Brain, but from the Muscles which lie about the Eye. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... you blush, and stammer, and lie about it? 'I think, madam, Captain Hyde,'" mimicking Katherine's slight Dutch accent. "'Tis to be seen, miss, that you understand a thing or two. Now, Captain Hyde wishes to see you; when can you oblige him ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... words were capable of being twisted as Hervey has twisted them. Well, if Widow Anne really went to see her son—and from the lie about the borrowed clothes it looks like it—he may have given her the manuscript, so as to throw ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... them, I want to try the experiment whether one can, even with oneself, be perfectly open and not take fright at the whole truth. I will observe, in parenthesis, that Heine says that a true autobiography is almost an impossibility, and that man is bound to lie about himself. He considers that Rousseau certainly told lies about himself in his confessions, and even intentionally lied, out of vanity. I am convinced that Heine is right; I quite understand how sometimes ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... if we understand that the conservation of our resources means beauty, and that waste means ugliness. Proper conservation of our mineral resources will include the removal of the ugly, unsightly piles of culm, slag, and other refuse that lie about the mouth of the mines, and disfigure some of our most beautiful mountain scenery, for, as we have shown elsewhere, this should be used and not wasted. The proper use of coal would solve the smoke problem of cities, one of the worst foes of cleanliness and beauty, and the use ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory

... lay listening to mysterious noises, strange crackings and creakings through the desolate house; sometimes he imagined the sound of footsteps in the bare rooms below; even hushed voices, from he knew not where, chilled his blood at midnight. Since crumbs had begun to lie about, mice were common; they scampered as if in revelry above the ceiling, and under the floor, and within the walls. Goldthorpe began to dislike this strange abode. He felt that under any circumstances it would be impossible for him to ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... him. His elder sister Miriam died at Kadesh, and Aaron died somewhat later at Mount Hor, which is supposed to lie about as far to the east of Kadesh as Hormah is to the west, but there are circumstances about the death of Aaron which point to Moses as having had more to do with it than of having been a mere ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... and rowed into the sea to the Erle of Cumberlands shippes, which to their great fortune chanced at that time to come by the Island, and ankered with his ships about halfe a mile from the Road of Angra, hard by two small Islands, which lie about a bases shot from the Island and are full of Goats, Deere and Sheepe, belonging to the inhabitants of the Island of Tercera. Those Saylers knew it well, and thereupon they rowed vnto them with their boates, and lying ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... to get you there, but to keep you there," said the Terror thoughtfully. "You see, I've got to go down every day for milk and things, and they're sure to ask me if I've seen anything of you. Of course, I can't lie about it; and then they'll not only take you away, but they'll probably turn us out of ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... then Villa del Pilar, a forlorn hamlet, where a few dejected inhabitants crouch in the shade of shattered houses. Next a magnificent forest of palms appears. In front the yellow sand of the shore is covered with alligators, which lie about in groups. From the boat M. Forgues fires at these, and a little later he tries his skill on a jaguar, which, however, with a fierce growl, scampers off, and is lost to sight in the mazes of the high grass beyond. These localities and Villa ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... difference in Jimmie's feelings when he read of German atrocities. To begin with, he did not believe in them; they were just a part of the poison-gas of war. When men were willing to stab one another with bayonets, and to blow one another to pieces with bombs, they would be willing to lie about one another, you might be sure; the governments would lie deliberately, as one of the ways of making the soldiers fight harder. What? argued Jimmie: tell him that Germans were a lot of savages? When he ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... occupied his shed undisturbed, had been ailing for some time. An attack of rheumatic fever in the summer had left him little better than a cripple. He crawled abroad still when he was able, and would do so, in spite of what Mr. Hillary said; would lie about the damp ground in a lawless, gipsying sort of manner; but by the time winter came all that was over, and Mr. Pike's career, as foretold by the surgeon, was drawing rapidly to a close. Mrs. Gum ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... of gaining some information respecting the coast to the Northward of Port Jackson, particularly of two large openings marked by Captain Cook, the Northernmost of which he named Hervey Bay, and appeared to lie about the latitude of 24 degrees 36 minutes south, he directed Lieutenant Flinders, who had been employed before with Mr. Bass in the circumnavigation of Van Diemen's Island, to proceed in the Norfolk sloop to the northward, and examine them with as much accuracy as the limited time of six weeks ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... pig that is fat, about a month old, kill and dress it, cut off the head, cut it in two down the back and bone it, then cut it in three or four pieces, wash it in a little water to take out the blood: take a little milk and water just warm, put in your pig, let it lie about a day and a night, shift it two or three times in that time to make it white, then take it out and wipe it very well with a dry cloth, and season it with mace, nutmeg, pepper and salt; take a little shred of parsley and ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon

... tone vibrant with emotion or in a deep tone of sternness, the wrong pitch certainly will make a bad impression on him. By employing an inconsistent pitch when stating facts, you might "queer" your chances for the position you most desire. The tone fault in your salesmanship would lie about your real character. The man addressed would think you were foolish to use such a pitch in merely imparting a bit of information to his mind. He would expect you to employ for that purpose simply a head tone, not a chest tone nor an abdominal ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... thought they were tops, and did everything I could to get into their school. But I mighty quick found out how wrong I was. I was good and sick of 'em, and about ready to quit when they threw me out on that lie about cheating ... say, I knew more'n their knuckle-headed instructors, so why'd I need ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... it; the other is the peculiar virtue of princes, which, as it is more majestic than that which becomes the rabble, so takes a freer compass, and thus lawful and unlawful are only measured by pleasure and interest. These practices of the princes that lie about Utopia, who make so little account of their faith, seem to be the reasons that determine them to engage in no confederacy. Perhaps they would change their mind if they lived among us; but yet, though treaties ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... beat. How is dot, you got cheek to talk of me afder dot vitch you hafe done?" Den he says, "Vell, vot for you dook dot gold, you false-hearded leetle gal?" und she says, "Vot gold is dot? I didn't dook some gold." Und he says, "Don'd you dold a lie about dot!" She says slowfully, "I told you I didn't dook some gold. Vot gold is dot?" Und den Rudolph tells her all aboud dot, und she says, "Dot is a orful lie. I didn't seen some gold;" und she adds mit much sarkasmness, "Und you beliefed I dook dot gold. Dot's de vorst I efer heered. ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... to-night," she said, as she turned the leaves of her book. "Ronald and Julian have been smoking, and she is so afraid that Father will find out. I hope he won't—for her sake. But if they don't eat any supper, he is sure to notice. He flogged Julian two nights running the last time because he told a lie about it." ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... truth Vaudreuil was writing lie after lie about Montcalm, in order to do him all the harm he could. Busy tell-tales repeated and twisted every impatient word Montcalm spoke, and altogether Canada was at sixes and sevens. Vaudreuil, sitting comfortably at ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood

... that lie about the eastern boundary of the empire are haunted by Jewish peddlers who carry in their sacks Russian drops, candied fruits, gay ribands, toys made of bark, and other pleasant things which make them welcome to young people. But they also supply sterner needs. In the bottom of their sacks are ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... will tell you then! I will not let Dick Garstin exhibit that picture because it is a lie about me." ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... the Decalogue, "Thou shalt not bear false witness," shall now be explained. "To bear false witness" signifies in the sense nearest to the letter to lie about the neighbor by accusing him falsely. But in the internal sense it signifies to call what is just unjust, and what is unjust just, and to confirm this by means of falsities; while in the inmost sense it signifies to falsity the truth and good of the Word, and on the other hand to ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg

... afraid of mischief, sir, would it not be best for me to lie about here?" he asked. "I'd rather be in the neighbourhood in case you want me. I am interested in this ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... got so at last I could anticipate the excuse. The inn was full already—of assessors and their victims. The assessors had descended on the spot, it seemed, and the whole country-side had come to town to lie about the value of its land. I only wished the inhabitants might have chosen some other time for false swearing. For it was a sad tax on my ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... Five Nations, that they could not muster one hundred and fifty warriors. The Creeks inhabit a fine country on the south-west, between four and five hundred miles distant from Charlestown, and the number of both the Upper and Lower nations does not exceed two thousand gun-men. The Chickesaw towns lie about six hundred miles due west from Charlestown, but the nation cannot send three hundred warriors to the field, owing to the incessant wars which they have carried on against the French, by which their number has been greatly diminished. The Choctaws are at ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... lie factory and all kinds of yarns were circulated there about us. For instance, it was told about the Princess Pats that when they went to Flanders they failed to hold their trenches and had to be brought back to London and hidden away "somewhere" to cool their nerves. This was a shameless lie about one of the grandest corps ever raised for the British army, a corps that in holding the "warm corners" in the British line in six months had casualties of over 2,700 men, or about three times its effective strength. The deeds of this gallant corps at Ypres and St. Eloi will live ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... give us leave to pass. We go to dig a nation's grave as great as England was. For this Kingdom and this Glory and this Power and this Pride Three hundred years it flourished—in three hundred days it died. Singing—Pour oil for a frozen throng, That lie about the ways. Give them the warmth they have lacked so long And what shall be next to blaze, good sirs, On ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling

... it, except as it has done this; and I can hardly conceive of a literary self-respect in these days compatible with the old trade of make-believe, with the production of the kind of fiction which is too much honored by classification with card-playing and horse-racing. But let fiction cease to lie about life; let it portray men and women as they are, actuated by the motives and the passions in the measure we all know; let it leave off painting dolls and working them by springs and wires; let it show the different interests in their true proportions; let it forbear to preach pride and revenge, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... fought their way up-hill in skirmish order, and when they got to the top the enemy— whoever they were—took to flight. But that is guesswork. There were two casualties on our side. One man shot through the arm, which did not matter much; he was well able to lie about what had happened and to boast of how many men he had slain before the bullet hit him. The other was wounded pretty seriously in the jaw. They came to me for first aid, taking it for granted that I knew something about surgery. I don't. I had a bad time bandaging both of them, ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... Forfarshire, Stirling, and Ayr, or the Lower Old Red formation; that of the Coccosteus, as developed in Caithness, Cromarty, Inverness, and Banff shires, and in so many different localities in Moray. The Sandstones at Scat-Craig belong to the grayish-red base of the Upper Old Red formation. They lie about five miles south of Elgin, not far distant from where the palaeozoic deposits of the coast-side lean against the great primary nucleus of the interior. We pass from the town, through deep rich fields, carefully ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... children thus unnaturally and inhumanly slaughtered, or interred alive, in the course of a year, is differently stated by different authors, some making it about ten and others thirty thousand in the whole empire. The truth, as generally happens, may probably lie about the middle. The missionaries, who alone possess the means of ascertaining nearly the number that is thus sacrificed in the capital, differ very materially in their statements: taking the mean, as given by those ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... satisfying himself about the Auroras, to proceed through the Strait of Magellan, and up along the western coast of Patagonia; but information received at Tristan d'Acunha induced him to steer to the southward, in the hope of falling in with some small islands said to lie about the parallel of 60 degrees S., longitude 41 degrees 20' W. In the event of his not discovering these lands, he designed, should the season prove favourable, to push on toward the pole. Accordingly, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... it—ain't any too glad to see him, and shows it. He phones for a taxi to go back to his hotel—about 9:15, that was, Miles says—but decides to walk down the hill to meet it. Don't want to go back out on the porch and lie about having had a good time, when he hasn't.... Well, he opens the front door, or what would be the front door if this was any ordinary house, but before he steps out he sees or hears something—probably a rustling in the hedge across the driveway, or maybe he ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... all of them; hence it follows that the diazotising process should not be carried out in a room where direct, strong sunlight can enter or fall upon the goods. Then again, after diazotising, the treated goods should not be allowed to lie about exposed to air and light, but the operation of developing should be proceeded with at once, otherwise the diazo body will decompose, and weak and defective colours are liable to be obtained on ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech

... and horse any way, to draw home my little straw, or I'd have had the house thatched long ago." "Cannot you give me a plain answer to this plain question? Did it rain yesterday?" "Oh sure, I wouldn't go to tell your honour a lie about the matter. Sarrah much it rained yesterday after twelve o'clock, barring a few showers; but in the night there was a great fall of rain any how; and that was the reason prevented my going to Dublin yesterday, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... He would have preferred to lie about it, probably, but knowing that we could go and see for ourselves in a couple of minutes, he made a ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... course you will, I know that; but you shall have something to lie about this time," and he advanced to the attack with a grim determination not pleasant for ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... you both good," said Dick. "You shall lie about, and Miss Bird shall read to you. You will go back to the excitements of the ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... said Gervaise. "I do not intend to lie about it. Lantier is not so nice that a woman need be very anxious to be his wife. If it were not for the children! I was fourteen and he was eighteen when the first one was born. The other child did not come for four years. I was not happy at home. Papa Macquart, for ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... And sometimes you will see little child-crystals put to school like school-girls, and made to stand in rows; and taken the greatest care of, and taught how to hold themselves up, and behave: and sometimes you will see unhappy little child-crystals left to lie about in the dirt, and pick up their living, and learn manners where they can. And sometimes you will see fat crystals eating up thin ones, like great capitalists and little laborers; and politico-economic crystals teaching the stupid ones how to eat each other, and cheat each other; ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... do it, I repeat. Do you think I would lie about it? Do you think I have no sense ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... for his judgments. He cannot be immoral unless he is untrue. To make us pity his characters when they are vile or love them when they are noxious, to invent excuses for them in situations where they cannot be excused—in a single word, to lie about his characters—this is for the dramatist the one unpardonable sin. Consequently, the only sane course for a critic who wishes to maintain the thesis that Ghosts, or any other modern play, is immoral, is not to hurl mud at it, but ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... the men folk. They kill and they rule others and they drink. It's drink that's ruined them, because drink is the only thing they canna rule. That's the men folk I'm talking of. Your great-grandfather lost all his lands that lie about Carlossie. The old grey house and the fields all about Ben Grief and Lashnagar were lost by your father. All he's got now is Lashnagar and the farm-house. And Lashnagar canna be sold because it hasna any value. Else he'd have sold it, to put it in ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... true, if only because, as far as Forrester could see, nobody had the slightest reason to lie about it. But why should it be true? What advantage did the Gods get out of that "psychological resemblance"? All he was supposed to be was a double—and anybody who looked like Dionysus would be accepted as Dionysus by the people. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... obvious but mostly overlooked weakness in the vivisector's position: that is, his inevitable forfeiture of all claim to have his word believed. It is hardly to be expected that a man who does not hesitate to vivisect for the sake of science will hesitate to lie about it afterwards to protect it from what he deems the ignorant sentimentality of the laity. When the public conscience stirs uneasily and threatens suppression, there is never wanting some doctor of eminent position and high character who will sacrifice himself ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... she came to my shop, and I saw directly I was nothing to him, and he owned it all to me; he had courted her, and she jilted him; so he said. Why should he tell me a lie about that? I'd lay my life 'tis true. And now you have sent him to her your own self; and, at sight of her, I shall be nothing again. Well, when this ship goes down, they can marry, and I hope he will be happy, happier than I can make him, that ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... from the Nor-East, the sea runs high, we ship a deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the laundress; but for my own uncommercial part I cannot pretend that I am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A general howling, whistling, flopping, gurgling, and scooping, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... young imp, but take the horse. I'll not forget you when I come out. What's the matter with you, you fool; d'ye think I'd tell you a lie about it?" ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... torrent of oaths; at which Argemone, taking Honoria's hand, walked proudly out of the room, with one glance at Lancelot of mingled shame and love. 'This is your handwriting, you villain! you know it' (and the squire tossed the fatal paper across the table); 'though I suppose you'll lie about it. How can you depend on fellows who speak evil of their betters? But all the servants are ready to ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... out of sight among the trees, is visible a portion of a Nishinam Indian camp. It is a temporary camp for the night. Small cooking fires smoulder. Standing about are withe-woven baskets for the carrying of supplies and dunnage. Spears and bows and quivers of arrows lie about. Boys drag in dry branches for firewood. Young women fill gourds with water from the stream and proceed about their camp tasks. A number of older women are pounding acorns in stone mortars with stone pestles. An old man and a Shaman, or priest, look expectantly up the hillside. ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London

... simmering, so that when the emergency arises, a vigorous thrust of her giant poker brings them quickly to the boiling point, and she is ready to take her lifeboat in tow and tug her out to the famed and fatal Goodwin Sands, which lie about four miles ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... tell a lie about it. I don't see as I wur bound to go round wi my cap in my hand a beggin' for a day's work to the likes o' them. They knowed well enough as I wur there, ready and willing to work, and they knowed as I wur able to do as good a day's work as e'er man in the parish; and ther's ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... here," said the man. "Sit ye down on the corn-husks there. My gal will soon be back with the water; and I wouldn't be long, if I were you, in case Master Saunders should come down the river, for when he asked me if you two was here I couldn't tell a lie about it, could I?" ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... Accordingly, much of our hero's time was spent in the company of the Duffer and Fluff. The three passed many delightful hours together at "Ducker." Armed with buns and chocolate, they would rush down the hill, bathe, lie about on the grass, eat the buns, and chaff the kids ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... to see any, except two or three that ran into the brush soon as they got a whiff of me. And this one I hunted out of a hole under a big tree root. It's a lie about them wintering in caves. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... and the joy of success are great. When he who has been chained by wounds to a hospital cot until his canvas tent seems like a dungeon cell, until the groans of those who lie about tortured with probe and knife are piled up, a weight of horror on his ears that he cannot throw off, cannot forget, and until the stench of festering wounds and anaesthetic drugs has filled the air with its loathsome burthen,—when he at ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... she had been upstairs since tea, and they would charge her with the naughty act. She meant to deny it, for those who are wicked enough to do such things are almost always wicked enough to lie about them. ...
— Proud and Lazy - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic

... find in her a shamed and penitent sinner, and had assumed beforehand the most affectionate and reassuring expression of face.... Why lie about it? I really loved her and was thirsting for the happiness of forgiving her, of holding out a hand to her; but to my unutterable astonishment, in response to my significant bow, she laughed coldly, observed carelessly, 'Oh, is that you?' and at once turned away from me. It is true that her ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... Now, this is certain, that savages who eat men—and alas! there are thousands even now who do so—usually know in their hearts that they are doing wrong. As soon as their consciences are the least awakened, they are ashamed of their cannibalism; they lie about it, try to conceal it; and as soon as God's grace begins to work on them, it is the very first sin that they give up. And next, this is certain, that there is a curse upon it. No cannibal people, so far as I can find, have ever ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... surprised to speak. Why had Captain Magnus been at pains to invent a lie about so trivial a matter? I recalled, too, that Mr. Shaw's question had confused him, that he had hesitated and stammered before answering it. Why? Was he a bad shot and ashamed of it? Had he preferred to ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... Don't lie about your poverty. You've a steady well-paid job, and plenty of money to throw away on drunken sprees, I'll bet. The weekly fee at the Hill Farm is only seven dollars. You can easily afford that—the price of a ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... as good as gospel! Who want to make up lie about poor debble of nigger? Well, den, Masser Mile, in all dem 1700 year, did he ebber hear of a Clawbonny that want to be a free nigger? Tell me dat, once, an' I ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... isn't necessary," replied Sam. "I know all about it, and it will not help the matter to lie about it. Listen to me. You were about to throw the boots into the river; but you changed your mind. You know why, of course, while I can only guess; but it doesn't matter. You took them into the drift pile and put them into a hole there. The next thing you know of them ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... to wear ye'er shoes in th' house, an' ye'er wife'd have ye around to rayciptions an' dances. Ye'd move to Mitchigan Avnoo, an' ye'd hire a coachman that'd laugh at ye. Ye'er boys'd be joods an' ashamed iv ye, an' ye'd support ye'er daughters' husbands. Ye'd rackrint ye'er tinants an' lie about ye'er taxes. Ye'd go back to Ireland on a visit, an' put on airs with ye'er cousin Mike. Ye'd be a mane, close-fisted, onscrupulous ol' curmudgeon; an', whin ye'd die, it'd take haf ye'er fortune f'r rayqueems to put ye r-right. I don't want ye iver to speak to me whin ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... bread, don Infidel," he said, "and now you would lie about your people and your castles. You are no beggar; you are the King of Cordova come here in this disguise to spy out the Christian's land. I know all about you from my mother's stories. So you must die. I shall send ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... Mr. Wilberforce, if, instead of being about Mr. Pitt, this had been an account of my being seen gaming at White's on a Sunday, would you have taken so much pains to prevent it being known?' 'I asked this,' said Mr. Fox, 'because I wanted to see what he would say, for I knew he would not tell a lie about it. He threw himself back, as his way was, and only answered: "Oh, Mr. Fox, you ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... We may probably resume the consideration of that in the process of our discourse; in the interim we will make use of their concessions. Now they suppose their last good to lie about the belly and such other conveyances of the body as let in pleasure and not pain; and are of opinion, that all the brave and ingenious inventions that ever have been were contrived at first for the pleasure of the belly, or the good hope of compassing such pleasure,—as ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the air, and his pumps offered themselves to me with an air that meant they were worth my while. 'A tight fit,' says I. But you talk about a job to bring those beetle-crushers of his away! I worked on top of him, tugging, twisting and shaking, for half an hour and no lie about it. With his feet gone quite stiff, the patient didn't help me a bit. Then at last the legs of it—they'd been pulled about so—came unstuck at the knees, and his breeks tore away, and all the lot came, flop! There was me, all of ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... think I'd lie about a thing like that, do you?" said "Dodd." "You can see where he hit me," he proceeded, himself revealing the welt on ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... his regiment in France. In writing an account of other people's lives it is difficult to know what to put in and what to leave out. If you bring in your own predilections or prejudices or speculations concerning them, you must convey a distorted impression. You lie about them unconsciously. A fact is a fact, and, if it is important, ought to be recorded. But when you are not sure whether it is a fact or not, what are you ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... told me a few days ago, Hook," he said, "but I really didn't need anyone to point out that I had made a fool of myself. Sorry I didn't wait to make sure rain was going to stop the game to-day. What makes it worse, I told my folks a lie about that game. I'll feel cheap enough when they fuf-find out the truth. Guess I'll be going, too. ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... All round where I sit the ground is ploughed up with great holes, some beside this battery the largest of any, big enough to completely hide a horse and cart. Pieces of shell of several hundredweight lie about. The precision of our gunfire has to be seen otherwise one could not believe how accurately they can hit a small object miles off. The very birds have got accustomed to the din, and on the face of the rocks where I sit ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... thing in that ward that nobody could lie about and that was the twitches of pain we suffered in the mornings when the old dressings of the day before were changed and new ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... the little he could add to the stock, compared with the countless stores that lie about him, that he should stoop to pick up a name, or to polish an idle fancy? He walks abroad in the majesty of an universal understanding, eyeing the "rich strond," or golden sky above him, and "goes sounding on his way," in eloquent accents, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... to deceive me about it. And if you'll tell me a lie about one thing, you'll tell me a lie about another, and I don't believe one word of all your explanations about the intrigue ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch

... or lesser degree, only ours in a greater, perhaps. Those shingles will come off. We are sure we put them on properly and securely. The nails must have been some inferior rotten quality, doubtless. Loose shingles lie about all around the shanty. They come in useful as plates, as our crockery is generally short. In fact, O'Gaygun prefers them to the usual article, and always goes outside to pick up a plate for any stranger who may happen to drop in to lunch. To use his words, "They fall aff the shanty roof loike ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... I rode with the missionaries to their large country-house, which is situated about six miles from the town, on some low hills. The valley through which we rode was very large, and altogether well cultivated and delightful. Although it is said to lie about 4,000 feet above the level of the sea, cotton, castor- oil plants, vines, tobacco, and every kind of fruit grow here as in South Germany. The castor-oil plant, indeed, is not more than four feet high, and the cotton but one foot; they produce, however, rather abundantly. Several ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... thing about that is this: Things that are not so do not match. If you hear enough of them, you see there is no pattern whatever; it is a crazy quilt. Whereas, the truth always matches, piece by piece, with other parts of the truth. No man can lie consistently, and he cannot lie about everything if he talks to you long. I would guarantee that if enough liars talked to you, you would get the truth; because the parts that they did not invent would match one another, and the parts that they did invent would not match one ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... the sending out of the city all who had arrived at ten years of age, in order to expedite the business of education by a generation, are also truly Platonic. (For the last, compare the passage at the end of the third book, in which he expects the lie about the earthborn men to be believed in the ...
— The Republic • Plato

... raises the dead, binds up broken hearts! The love that will not quench the religious instincts of children, and falsely educate them to know all manner of evil; but that teaches them to recognize it for what it is, the lie about God, and then shows them how to overcome it, even as Jesus did. My God is truth. Is truth real? Ah, yes, you say. But error is the opposite of truth. Then can error, evil, be real? No, not if you will be consistent. Again, God is infinite. But God is spirit. Then all is spirit ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... Miss? Sorrow a word, Miss, will any one hear from me av it. Would I tell a lie about it? But I'll be glad to see the day you're married, for that'll be the great wedding ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... wheedling to me again? I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed. But I don't care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... terribly frightened, and he cried almost all day; for he knew this dreadful thing had happened because he did not latch the back yard gate—and because he had told Daddy a lie about it. ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams

... engaged him. He put on a pair of new boots, leaving those he had been wearing, evidently intending to push the mare as far as she would go, expecting he would be pursued, and then leave her and walk the rest. I expect, when he reaches the settled districts, he will tell some abominable lie about the matter. If such conduct is not severely dealt with, no confidence can be placed in any ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... "We lie about south of what Mike calls the big house, a mile and a half distant from it. Make the boat's course north north-west, and you will strike the shore about half way between the planter's house and the fort. But when you get near enough ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... of course, on our perceptions constantly; most of our routine life is made up of such action on the perceptions of objects which lie about us. The positions of things in the house, in the streets, in the office, in the store, are so well known that we carry out a series of actions with reference to these objects without much supervision from our consciousness. Here the ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... more distinctive and interesting bit of Scotland than the bleak Lothian country, with its wide views, its brown ploughed fields, and its dense swaying plantations of fir. The Lammermoor Hills and the Pentlands and the veils of smoke that lie about Edinburgh are on its horizon, and within that circle all the large quietude of open grain fields, wide turnip lands, where sheep feed, and far-stretching pastures where the red and white cows ruminate. The patient processes of nature breed patient minds; the gray cold climate can be read in the faces ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... afternoon, we had passed all the islands that lay to the southward of us; the southernmost, at this time, bearing S. 5 deg. E., and the westernmost point of land now in sight, S. 82 deg. W. For this point we steered, and passed between it and two or three elevated rocks that lie about a league to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... gives a sense of green colour everywhere. But this is relieved with red—the soil is red, and where the plough has been the red furrows stand out so brightly as to seem lifted a little from the level. These red squares when on the side of rising ground show for many miles. The stones are red that lie about, the road dust has a reddish tint, so have the walls of the cottages and mills. Where the banks of the hedges can be seen (or where rabbits have thrown out the earth) they are red, and the water in the ditches and streamlets looks red—it is in fact clear, and the colour is that of the sand and ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... I find more enjoyable than this? Why should I not spend a few days at this inn, reading, studying, fishing? Here I wondered why that man told me such a lie about the fishing. If I wanted to exercise on my wheel I felt sure there were pretty roads hereabout. I had plenty of time before me—my whole vacation. Why should I be consumed by this restless desire ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... Tippett—Livingstone Tippett. Age, of no special moment. You know," he said pleasantly, "there are two things all of us lie about—our ages and our incomes. As this is a true story I will drop the age question. ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... to have the company hail from a point as far distant as possible from New York, and we could hardly have gone further or we would have slid right plumb off the continent. But we told no lie about the company being unparalleled. No, sir. You couldn't match it for money. It was what might be legitimately considered a 'star ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville

... admit how much he had told to his employers—then there was laughter inside Peter, and he broke down and wept tears of scalding shame, and said that it had all been because McCormick had told that cruel lie about him and little Jennie Todd. He had resisted the temptation for a year, but then he had been out of a job, and the Goober Defense Committee had refused him any work; he had actually been starving, and so at last he had accepted McGivney's offer to let him know about the seditious activities ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... behind. For a second I mean to pay her back, and for a third, although you may think it strange, I'm mad for her. I tell you she looked wondrous standing with her back against that wall, her marble face never wincing when I told her all the lie about young de Cressi's death—which will be holy truth when I get a chance at him—watching me out of those great, dark ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... present reminds one strongly of a grocer's and chandler's store — pemmican, biscuits, chocolate, and milk-sausage, lie about everywhere. In the other wall, opposite the ski, there is an opening. I see my companion making for it, but this time I intend to keep an eye on him. He goes up two steps, pushes a trap-door, and there he stands on ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... contact with the Scatcherds. He had boasted to himself that he, at any rate, was a gentleman; and that she, if she were to live in his house, sit at his table, and share his hearth, must be a lady. He would tell no lie about her; he would not to any one make her out to be aught other or aught better than she was; people would talk about her of course, only let them not talk to him; he conceived of himself—and the conception was not ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... presentiment I shouldn't, and I told your mother so. I don't know but I told a little more about how kind you were to me the other evening than what the facts would justify exactly, but as sure as you live I didn't mean to lie about it. If I exaggerated any, it was because it seemed the greatest thing in the world to me, just to talk to you, and be where I could see you smile, and hear you laugh; you've got a laugh that is like a child's, or an angel's, if angels laugh. I've heard of their weeping, and if ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... the "Biglow Papers." It is only by looking at all sides of a man of this mould that you can get a notion of his size and power. Readers, therefore, should search out for themselves the exquisite little gems of a lighter kind, which lie about in the other poems comprised in the volume. I am only indicating those which, as it seems to me, when taken with the "Biglow Papers," give the best idea of the man, and what his purpose in life has ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... most too good to be true. But you wouldn't tell me a lie about it, would you? you ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... delicate tracery overhead is of infinite complexity, exquisite in its endless detail; and the whole of this disrobed Nature, in its unadorned simplicity, has an impress of sincerity that reminds you of the drawings of Holbein. Flat pools of shallow water lie about, carpeted with mosses and mirroring the sky; the smoke of the huts rises upward gaunt and straight. No one is near; there are no passers-by; and there is no sound, except that of a waterfall, fuller in its rush than at ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... this parable?" the Master said. "How then shall ye know all parables?" Verily, they lie about us by the wayside, and the whole earth is vocal with the wisdom of ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... because once his Freule discovers that she isn't to be claimed by another, she'll find it convenient to change her mind about life in Rotterdam. I may be saint—or villain—enough to keep her dangling till sunset; but then, at latest, I shall have to cut her down; and woe to any Viking who happens to lie about loose and unattached, when she falls to earth ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... were made to confirm the woman's intentions to stay at Southampton, and to place her children with the other. She was asked, why she would not stay at Southampton then? "Why, to tell you the truth," said she, "for it's no use to tell a lie about that, I don't want to bring my children to you, like vagabonds; and as we shall earn a good bit of money at hopping, I shall buy them some clothes; and then, if you will take me a room at Michaelmas, ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... little while ago when I first told our old man that lie about his friend and the gold and the galley, I there and then stole the image from the citadel. Even then two fateful events were yet to come, and the town was still untaken. Later, on carrying the letter to the old man, I then slew my Troilus, when he thought Mnesilochus a short ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... of a river steamer on a sandbank off Yenangyaung, its black ribs lie about like the bones of disintegrated whale; it is not pleasant to look at. She went on fire, and about 200 Burmans were drowned, and no one would save them, though there were many canoes and people within three hundred yards. A Scotsman could only get one boat's ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... been the cause of many family feuds, and the outer boundaries have furnished the occasion for many tribal wars. The past and the present headquarters camping grounds of the Strong Woods Indians—as the inhabitants of the Great Northern Forest are generally called—lie about one hundred ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... he said. "To lie about the garden here and not have to follow the caprices of fashionable ladies at Wendover, would do you a ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... great deal of baggage with you. You, for instance," said our friend, turning to me, "packed up, I suppose, a heavy overcoat for cold weather, and a lighter one, and a good winter suit, and a good summer one, besides another for spring and fall, and an old suit to lie about in in the orange groves, and a dress suit, besides such convenient articles as old boots for tramping in, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... her!" Then it was all a lie about her death! He felt not only his faith, his hope, his future leaving him, but even his self-control. With an ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... Very good trade, I should think? You must send me your paper, Felix; I want one I can trust to lie about the house.' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... all I have to say: sign your name, and put the address—here it is. Ah, the letter," he muttered, "must not lie about! If anything happens to me, it ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... remember, you are in danger. You know perfectly well where the missing packet is. It is—or was, at least—in the hollow stump of the old oak-tree at the top of the hill, and you positively told Sibyl Ray a lie about it when she saw you looking at it yesterday. Afterwards, in order to divert her attention from yourself, you sent her to gather marguerites to make a wreath for her hair—a most ridiculous thing for the child to wear. What you did afterwards ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... with renewed hope. I felt the black storm clouds of doubt and despair were fading away, and that I was drifting into the safe harbor of the realms of truth. I felt as if everybody must believe him, for he clung to the truth, and I wondered how Mr. Hutchinson could so lie about a poor defenseless ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney

... known Gene or he | |wouldn't have killed him. Did they tell you at the | |Oak Street Station that the other policemen called | |Gene Happy Sheehan? Anything they told you about him| |is true, because no one would lie about him. He was | |always happy, and he was a fine-looking young man, | |and he always had to duck his helmet when he walked | |under the gas fixture in the hall, as he went out | |the door. | | | |"He was doing dance steps on the floor of ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... came. I have reason to believe that Mr. Nosnibor himself inspired this article. Presently it came round to me that the king had begun to dwell upon my having been possessed of a watch, and to say that I ought to be treated medicinally for having told him a lie about the balloons. I saw misfortune gathering round me in every direction, and felt that I should have need of all my wits and a good many more, if I was to steer myself and Arowhena ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... was a nice gentleman. And the agents,—it was all a lie about the agents de police. They were all nice men. She had hated and dreaded them; and had they not been good to her? Had they not taken her from the river and fed her and clothed her and visited with swift punishment those who ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... but did not reply. He knew very well that he had loved Roberta March, and he was not going to lie about it. ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... peak, and die off depth beyond depth. Of the old mines nothing remains but the level cuttings in the sides of the fells, and here and there the washing-pits cut out of the rock at your feet. Fragments of stone lie about, glistening with veins of lead, but no sound of pick or hammer breaks the stillness, and no cart or truck trundles over the rough path. It is a solitude in which one might forget that the world ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... their own people, fearing the dark season which has so often meant for them the end of wages and of food, tempted hither by thought that in the shadow of palaces work and charity are both more plentiful. Vagabonds, too, no longer able to lie about the country roads, creep back to their remembered lairs and join the combat for crusts flung forth by casual hands. Day after day the stress becomes more grim. One would think that hosts of the weaker combatants might surely find it seasonable ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... with the truth. I have always seen it coming, and why should I lie about it, now that it is come? When one is as tired as I am, there is only one other thing which happens—one dies. You don't suppose I should have sent for you like this if it hadn't ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... hard for Mr. Middlerib to say he only felt hot, but he did it. He didn't have to lie about it, either. He did feel very hot indeed—about eighty-six all over, and one hundred and ninety-seven on the end of his thumb. He reversed the bee and pressed the warlike terminus of it firmly ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... I do not think Saint-Antoine beautiful! and excellent, lie about it, I do not need to tell you. Let me ask you how I could have confided in the Levy clerks whom I do not know! I remember, as for Levy himself, saying to him last summer, that I found the thing ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... never be suffered to lie about like other books, but was kept constantly wrapt up in a handsome case of green velvet, with gold tassels—the only relic of departed grandeur they had brought with them to the cottage—everything else of value had been sold off for the purpose ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... and my eyes were bright; but I had a swimming in my head and I felt hot and cold by turns. I saw that I was splendid, for Margaret had put on me as many as she could of the jewels with which my lover loaded me, which used to lie about so carelessly that my grandmother had rebuked me saying I should be robbed of them one of these days. I hated them as though they had been my purchase-money; and I had scandalized Margaret only the night before by letting my necklace of emeralds and diamonds fall to the ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan

... dangled until the new ones swelled in the stem, one thought of the beauty of spring, when the hedges would be full of hawthorn, and the banks of cowslips, when cherry-blossom would fill the orchards, and the young lambs and calves lie about in the low, green meadows, and the sky would be great and vigorous above the quiescent earth. On the same day, a week later, Anne was in the dairy in the evening, packing her butter for the following day's market. The day just withdrawing had been ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... "Sit or lie about in the sunshine for ten minutes, my lads," he said, and the men gladly obeyed, dropping on the hot stones and tufts of brush, to begin talking together in a low voice, as they let their eyes wander ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... that he had been at first much pestered with Cats and Rats, the latter of which gnawed his feet and clothes, so that he was obliged to cherish the Cats with Goat's-flesh, and they grew so familiar with him as to lie about him in hundreds. But I cannot stay to recount half the wonderful Adventures of Mr. Selkirk. I knew him afterwards, a very old Man, lodging with one Mrs. Branbody, that kept a Chandler's Shop over against the Jews' Harp Tavern at Stepney. He was wont ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... January we crossed the Line, in longitude about 160 deg.. We continue on a straight course, making an average of about 240 miles a day. It already begins to get cooler, as we are past the sun's greatest heat. It is a very idle, listless life; and I lie about on the hen-coops all day, reading, or sitting down now and then to write up this log, which has been written throughout amidst ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... commissions to paint women who fell below a rather severe standard of personal attractiveness. Gross women were not allowed to crowd his canvases; ugly ones who succeeded in tempting him were surprised to find how ugly they really were when the portrait was finished. He made it a point never to lie about a woman, not even on canvas. It made him very unpopular with certain ladies who wanted to be ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... are sweet When they lie about our feet: February last, my heart First at sight of thee was glad; All unheard of as thou art, 5 Thou must needs, I think, have had, Celandine! and long ago, Praise of which I ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... tumble-down, and the cuisine bears traces of Caffir origin; a barbecue is nothing to a dinner there. The Court House of Port Tobacco is the most superflous house in the place, except the church. It stands in the center of the town in a square, and the dwellings lie about it closely, as if to throttle justice. Five hundred people exist in Port Tobacco; life there reminds me, in connection with the slimy river and the adjacent swamps, of the great reptile period of the world, when iguanadons and pterodactyls ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... she would say, "why do you trudge along this gloomy road, and why do you carry that bundle which bends your shoulders and tires your back? Don't you know that it is all a lie about the city you are seeking? There is no city of palaces at your journey's end. Indeed, you will never get to the end of the woods, but will walk on and on, stumbling and falling, and growing weaker and weaker, until at last you fall ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... he commanded. She sank back without speaking, and he hid his face again. The past months, the past years, were dancing a witches' dance about him. He remembered a hundred significant things.... Oh, God, he cried to himself, if only she does not lie about it! Suddenly he recalled having pitied Mrs. Nimick because she could not penetrate to the essence of his happiness. Those were the very words he had used! He heard himself laugh aloud. The clock struck—it went on striking interminably. At length he heard his wife rise again and say with sudden ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... what do you mean by coming here to me with a lie about your sick wife! Have you anything to ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... minor domestic worry. When you buy a bottle you have to pay a penny for it; but when you have emptied it you cannot get a penny back; no, nor even a farthing. You throw your empty bottle either into the dust heap, or let it lie about. But if we could collect all the waste bottles of London every day, it would go hardly with us if we could not turn a very pretty penny by washing them, sorting them, and sending them out on a new lease of life. The washing of old ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... get your material from reading; get it from observation. Don't steal it; earn it. Catch your fish; don't buy a string of dead ones at the fish-market, and then lie about the way you obtained them. Few of us can be original, but we can all be ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... breathing hard as he spoke, "I'm goin' away from here tonight. They never'll take me alive. It was this way. There was a man over where I lived that's most drunk himself under ground, but he ain't too fur gone to do mischief. He told a lie about me, an' lost me my place in the shoe shop. Then one night, I met him goin' home, an' we had words. I struck him. He fell like an ox. I killed him. I didn't go home no more. I didn't even see my wife. I couldn't tell her. I couldn't be took there. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... Usually she lay late, got up slowly and fretted at every thing as little girls are apt to do when they have had too much sleep. She wasn't a rosy, stout Daisy; but had been ill, and had fallen into a way of thinking she couldn't do anything but lie about, reading fairy-tales, and being petted by every one. Mamma and papa had tried all sorts of things to amuse and do her good; for she was their only little daughter, and they loved her very dearly. But nothing ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... it then, so I had not got my children to sign. My poor wife professed to take no alcoholic stimulants, yet I could not but know that she was deceiving herself. She was, alas! Too self-confident. She seemed to think that all danger of excess was now over, and that a white lie about taking none was no real harm, so long as it satisfied me; but it neither deceived nor satisfied me. At last, one winter's day, she proposed that John should drive her in her pony-carriage to the neighbouring village, where there was an old servant of ours who was ill, whom she ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson

... do? I wouldn't tell a lie about it. At first it was very wearisome; but later on I got used to it, I got more patient—it was nothing; there are others ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... earth, I went, With eyes fixed on the next step to be taken, Not glancing right or left; till, at the end, I stood straight up, and the tower stood straight up Before my face. One tower, and nothing more; For all the rest has gone this way and that, And is not anywhere, saving a few Fragments that lie about, some on the top, Some fallen half down on either side the hill, Uncared for, well nigh grown into the ground. The tower is grey, and brown, and black, with green Patches of mildew and of ivy woven Over the sightless loopholes ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... cried, "you are ten years younger than I!... There are times when you make me feel a little thing at your feet—a young, silly, protected thing. Do you know, Ann Veronica, it is all a lie about your birth certificate; a forgery—and fooling at that. You are one of the Immortals. Immortal! You were in the beginning, and all the men in the world who have known what love is have worshipped at ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... other human beings demanded of a corporal. He was still trying to read a little chemistry and crystallography, but it didn't "go with the life." In the scanty leisure of a recruit in training it was more agreeable to lie about and write doggerel verses and draw caricatures of the men in one's platoon. Invited to choose what he liked by his family, he demanded a large tuckbox such as he used to have at school, only "much ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement? The sparrows seem always chipper, never infirm. We do not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives. They must perish miserably; not one of them is translated. True, "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father's knowledge," but they ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... told me of yourselves. Who are you, and whence do you come? I have heard of vast plains and mighty rivers in the south and west, but I know nothing beyond these forest tracks which lie about our desolated home." ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green



Words linked to "Lie about" :   slug, lie around, idle, stagnate, laze



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