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Nun   /nən/   Listen
Nun

noun
1.
A woman religious.
2.
A buoy resembling a cone.  Synonyms: conical buoy, nun buoy.
3.
The 14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.



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"Nun" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the rustling skirt, which turned out to be a pretty French print, had appeared at the doorway. She was a tall, slim blonde, with a shy, startled manner, as of a penitent nun who was suffering for some conventual transgression—a resemblance that was heightened by her short-cut hair, that might have been cropped as if for punishment. A certain likeness to her mother suggested ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... fury thereby, visited her repeatedly with punishments. No sooner had I learned this than I sent her to a convent of nuns at Argenteuil, not far from Paris, where she herself had been brought up and educated as a young girl. I had them make ready for her all the garments of a nun, suitable for the life of a convent, excepting only the veil, and these I bade ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... After an illness which lasted for ten weeks, he died on Christmas Day, 1635, at the age of sixty-eight. His beautiful young wife, who had shared his exile for four years, returned to France where she became an Ursuline nun, and founded a convent at Meaux, in which she immured herself until her ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... me made a nun—but first I will bring nunneries back from across the seas to this ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... A nun,[114] walking in the convent garden, took a fancy to eat a leaf of lettuce, and she ate, without first making the sign of the cross over it. Presently she was found to be possessed. At the approach of the abbot, the fiend protested it was not his fault; that he had been innocently sitting ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... exceedingly. He looked through the loophole out upon the Odense-Au, when the bed of the water was yet broad, and the monks' meadow was still a lake. He looked out over it, and over the rampart, and over the nuns' hill opposite, where the convent lay, and the light gleamed forth from the nun's cell. He had known the nun right well, and he thought of her, and his heart beat quicker as he ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... answered readily. "I love both places very much, and the sisters are so sweet. Sister Hyacintha is my favorite,—a dear old nun with the face of a saint. Do you like old-timey, quiet places, Mr. Stone? St. Rose church is perhaps the oldest building in the county. St. Catherine's is not half a mile from it, and the sisters conduct a boarding-school there. Had I been a Catholic, I doubtless ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey

... design as well as the details of a large movement from the shape of the chorale tune on which it was based, he became quite independent of any aid from symmetry in the tune as raw material. The chorus of his cantata Jesus nun sei gepreiset is one of the most perfectly designed and quite the longest of movements ever based upon a chorale-tune treated phrase by phrase. Yet the tune is one of the most intractable in the world, though its most unpromising portion is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... acquaintance remembers, when a schoolgirl at Rochester, exploring part of a vaulted tunnel running in the direction of the castle from Eastgate House, which in those days was a school, and had not yet received the distinction of being the "Nun's House" of Edwin Drood. Some way along, the passage was blocked by the skeleton of a donkey! Our informant is not given to romancing, therefore we must accept the story in ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea

... find out if it were really true that the train would stop, followed by a rapid retreat on bicycles so soon as it had been ascertained that it was true; the Affair of the German Prince traveling incognito, into which the Mayor himself had been drawn; and the Affair of the Nun who smoked a short black pipe in the Great Court shortly before midnight, before gathering up her skirts and vanishing on noiseless india-rubber-shod feet round the kitchen quarters into the gloom of Neville's Court, as the horrified ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... misconduct only with reference to religious standards: as a layman he was perfectly free to seduce Heloise; the scandal, the horrible sin, was not the seduction, but the profanation by married love of the dress of a nun, the sanctuary of the virgin. So it is with the renunciation of all the world's pleasures and interests. The ascetic sacrifice of inclination, which the stoics had conceived as resistance to the tyrant without and the tyrant within, as a method for serene ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... nun, and every one Who lives to save and tend, Sisters were these whose work is done And cometh thus to end; Full well they knew what risk they ran But still were strong to give; God's grace for all the Little Ships Who died that ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... entirely and was to have been carried to St. Catharine's hospital, but the Italian steward, who is not a bad fellow, objected and had her taken to a Catholic laundress. He has followed to nurse her. No one is left in the deserted house to attend to the young lady, except Sister Gonzaga, a good little nun, one of the three who were allowed to remain in the old convent near you, but early this morning, to cap the climax of misfortune, the kind old woman scalded her fingers while heating a bath. The Catholic ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... lying on a little iron bedstead, hard and narrow as a camp bed. The room was bare-looking, the floor being polished and with only two small rugs, one at the fireplace and one beside the bed, upon it. It looked like a nun's cell, and there was a certain suggestion of purity in the sweetness and order of it quite consistent with the idea; but it was a north room and very cold, Evadne had unconsciously clasped my hand, and dozed ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... mich erzog und stillte, Tot ist nun die jugendliche Welt, Diese Brust, die einst ein Himmel fuellte, Tot und duerftig wie ein Stoppelfeld; Ach es singt der Fruehling meinen Sorgen Noch, wie einst, ein freundlich troestend Lied, Aber hin ist meines Lebens Morgen, ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun

... death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, 2. Moses My servant is dead: now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. 3. Every place that the sole ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... was a nun the cap'n had brought away from a Roman Catholic convent in Spain, and some said he'd got her ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... bitter resentment, indignation, and anger. The features of his face became even harsher, coarser, and more unpleasant. When Abogin held out before his eyes the photograph of a young woman with a handsome face as cold and expressionless as a nun's and asked him whether, looking at that face, one could conceive that it was capable of duplicity, the doctor suddenly flew out, and with flashing eyes said, ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... cruel, very cruel, to deny me every innocent pleasure," said Camilla, with a harsh, displeased voice. "I must live like a nun who has taken an eternal vow; I ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... met at the door by a Sister in the black habit of the Order, a sweet-faced, gentle nun, smiling as ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... girls," said Humming-Bird, "do you really know, I have sometimes thought I should like to be a nun, just to get rid of all this labor. If I once gave up dress altogether, and knew I was to have nothing but one plain robe tied round my waist with a cord, it does seem to me as if it would be a perfect repose,—only one is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... determined by certain considerations, lent themselves in effect much better to certain others. Adopted in mere shy silence they had really only deepened her accent. It was singular, moreover, that, so constituted, there was nothing in her aspect of the ascetic or the nun. She was a good hard sixteenth-century figure, not withered with innocence, bleached rather by life in the open. She was in short just what we had made of her, a Holbein for a great Museum; and our position, Mrs. Munden's and mine, rapidly became that of persons having ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James

... entered, I saw Mary sitting by the bed, holding the hand of the poor white figure that lay, death-like, beneath the sheet. Helen's head was swathed in bandages, except for the oval of her face. She looked quite like some fair nun who had said her last "Ava." It was impossible to believe that it was her hand that had fired the shot that killed Jim, and if she lived, that she would have to face ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny

... the dress," said she, looking herself over with a little expressive sweep of the hands, as if to put all the blame on that innocent nun-gray gown, if there was ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... Prince; She that hath snow enough about her heart, To take the wanton spring of ten such lines off, May be a Nun without probation. Sir, you have in such neat poetry, gathered a kiss, That if I had but five lines of that number, Such pretty begging blanks, I should commend Your fore-head, or your cheeks, ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... of every ill wind. It was as if all that had been won by sixty years of victories and sacrifice fell away in one brief season. The forests filled with out-laws; neither peasant nor wayfarer, nor yet monk or nun in their quiet retreat, was safe from outrage; and pirates swarmed again in bay and sound, where for two generations there had been peace. The twice-perjured Bishop Valdemar left his cloister cell once more and girt on the sword, to take the kingdom ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... livid Flames display, Pour forth their Blaze, and form a mimick Day: Sudden a motley Mixture fills the Place, And Footmen shine as lordly as his Grace; To see the sad Effect and Power of Change, Ladies turn'd Men, in Breeches freely range: Young smooth-chin'd Beaux turn Priests and Fryars, And Nun's chaste Habits hide our Country 'Squires. Belles, Beaux, and Sharpers here together play, And Wives throw their good Spouses Wealth away; And when their Cash runs low, and Fate runs cross, They then Cornute 'em ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous

... see, it would hardly cost ten shillings a week to keep a nun, and of course," he said to Father Ricardo, "the more fasting you counsel the less outlay there would be; so I don't wonder you promise them more goodies in the next world, the more austerities they ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... them hunters, though sportsmen only at first, if possible, mighty hunters at last, so that they shall not find game large enough for them in this or any vegetable wilderness—hunters as well as fishers of men. Thus far I am of the opinion of Chaucer's nun, who ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... arrive at the discussion itself. The work is written in letters, addressed to a young prince; and, at the thirteenth letter—there are but sixteen in the whole—he approaches his main question—"Nun denn es sei zur sache!" "Now then to the matter." And first he protests that death is no punishment at all. The venerable historian absolutely flies to such aphorisms as were the delight of Seneca, to prove that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... description. The younger guests of the hotel in the mountains had got up a fancy dress ball, and among persons clad in all conceivable costumes, including those of monks, cardinals, and even popes, a lady of demure manners, who did not dance, had come downstairs in the habit of a nun. This aroused the superstitious indignation of the Archduke, who demanded that the lady should retire from the room instantly, or he would order his carriage and leave the hotel ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... "in a few minutes, I suppose, I shall be master of this place. Now you told me once you would rather be an abbess or a nun than marry me." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... listened to the music with pleasure; the officers were carried away by it. As for the general, he remained to all appearance calm and cold: the feelings with which he heard the notes given forth by the nun are among the small number of earthly things whose expression is withheld from impotent human speech, but which—like death, like God, like eternity—can be perceived only at their slender point ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... an mow em down. We uns will canter to'ards Brooklyn holdin' up Niggers as we go. Then we air to jine Hill, Sikes, Turpin, Isaacs an' others, an' raise hell in thet sexion. We uns air ter take no chances wid theese Wilminton darkies. I ain't ferget Seventy-six. Let nun git by without bein' sarched, uman er man. Shoot ef they resiss. Them's the Kurnel's orders." "Who is this man Isaacs?" asked a stranger from Georgia. "A Jew?" "Thet name's Jewey e'nuff fur yir, ain't it?" replied Dick Sands. "He is er Jew, an er good un, ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... insensibly into the more delicately romantic of the novelle themes. The following lines touch on a situation familiar in later pastoral and also found in English ballad poetry. They are by Alesso Donati, a contemporary of Sacchetti's. A nun sings: ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... were star o' t' pleace, For awd an' young observers; 'Twad meade a nun fra t' convent run An' ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... Biddy, it's not a matter for a priest, but if you knew of some good woman, not a nun, but still in the world—" I paused from sheer inability to go on; I was so unused to this kind of thing that any sign of suspicion on Biddy's part would have meant disaster. But Biddy had a kind heart, and ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... foothold until after the British evacuation. In 1783 St. Peter's, the first Roman Catholic Church, was erected at Barclay Street, and much trouble they had, if account may be relied on. The reported tales of an escaped nun did much to inflame the bigoted populace, but this passed, and today St. Joseph's, which was built in 1829, stands on the corner of ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... more fair than honest," thought Hugh. "It would take a great deal of nun to make her into a saint." But he only said, "She is more beautiful than lovely. ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... a little street with the remains of an old temple, now stood a convent; a grave was dug in the garden, for a young nun had died, and she was to be lowered in the earth at this early hour of the morning. The spade struck against a stone which appeared of a dazzling whiteness—the white marble came forth—it rounded into ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... from distant convents, in similar headgear, in caps flat or pointed like the small end of a watermelon, and with ears protected by black woolen shawls ungracefully pinned. Serviceable man's boots do more than peep out from beneath the short, rusty-black skirts. Each monk and nun holds a small pad of threadbare black velvet, whereon a cross of tarnished gold braid, and a stray copper or two, by way of bait, explain the eleemosynary significance of the bearers' "broad" crosses, dizzy "reverences ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... he should be so silly to imagine I would go into a nunnery! it is likely; I have much nun's flesh about me. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... poor humanity, there are in great nature profound words of soothing, of hope. Look at the flower in the fields, listen to the birds in the skies! After the distrest voices that perturb you, you shall know the voices that relieve and console. There shall befall you that which befell the nun whose memory is preserved for us in the old legends. Listening to the forest voices she had gone, following them always, as far as the thick solitudes where nothing any longer comes to trouble the collected soul. There, in the ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... runs away with his sister-in-law; in the third, he fights a duel with a rival, and kills him: whereupon the mistress of his victim takes poison, and dies, in great agonies, on the stage. In the fourth act, Don Juan, having entered a church for the purpose of carrying off a nun, with whom he is in love, is seized by the statue of one of the ladies whom he has previously victimized, and made to behold the ghosts of all those unfortunate persons whose deaths ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... enemy to truth. It is easy to say, 'I would become a nun,' and in Roman Catholic countries it is quite as easy to become one; but, though it may be sublime to retire in this way from the world, it is frightful when a woman has afterwards to regret the inconsiderate ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... coarser, he is more sensual-looking, he drinks more beer, he tells more stories, he uses harder names; he becomes arrogant, dogmatic; he dictates and commands; he quarrels with his friends; he is imperious; he fears nobody, and is scornful of old usages; he marries a nun; he feels that he is a great leader and general, and wields new powers; he is an executive and administrative man, for which his courage and insight and will and Herculean physical strength wonderfully fit him,—the man for the times, the man ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... Craigie ("John Oliver Hobbes") opened her very successful play, The Ambassador, with a scene between Juliet Desborough and her sister Alice, a nun, who apparently left her convent specially to hear her sister's confession, and then returned to it for ever. This was certainly not an economical form of exposition, but it was not unsuited ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... had become the chief article of Hilda's faith. She accepted the idea of it as a nun accepts the sacred wafer, in ecstasy. Yet she knew little about it. She was aware that Mr. Cannon meant to establish it first as a weekly, and then, when it had grown, to transform it into a daily and wage war with that powerful monopolist, The Staffordshire Signal, which from its offices at ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... not be permitted to visit her there, built a tower on the nearest pinnacle of the opposite shore, in order that he might live there, and at least comfort himself with a sight of the building where his beloved was confined. The story is, however, that the unhappy nun lived but a short time. Roland himself, however, continued to live in his tower, a lonely hermit, for ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott

... bourgeoisie or the clergy,[41111] through a son or brother who has risen a degree in trade, or by some industrial pursuit, or who, having completed his studies, has become a cure or lawyer, or else through some daughter, or well-married sister, or through one who has become a nun: now, this relation, ally, friend or comrade of a "suspect "is himself a "suspect,"—the last anti-revolutionary and decisive barrier. Sober and well-behaved persons, having prospered or maintained themselves under the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... recognized the good-nature of the world. In the few short reviews that dealt seriously with his work, he was able, when the excitement of seeing himself discussed had subsided, to read between the lines why The Puritan Nun had failed to make a larger appeal. It was idyllic and poetic, but it lacked virility; it lacked also simplicity in dealing with the simple and profound facts of life. He had been too solicitous to express himself, to write beautifully, instead of letting the human emotions ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... last to pass over and the path across was so level that it offered no obstacle to foot-passengers or chariots but was like a level plain so that they crossed dryshod, as the Jordan fell back for Josue the son of Nun [Josue 3:17]. Soon as Mochuda had crossed over he blessed the waters and commanded them to resume their natural course. On the reuniting again of the waters they made a noise like thunder, and the name of the place is The Place of ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda

... must choose the free woman or the white wraith of the prostitute. Today it wavers between the prostitute and the nun. Civilization must show two things: the glory and beauty of creating life and the need and duty of power and intelligence. This and this only will make the perfect marriage ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... nun answered in a loud tone: "I have voluntarily and freely chosen, and I do choose Sister Amelia for my holy mother ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... or Montague—whatever his name was—he waved his flipper disdainful. "Nun-nun-nun-no, Petey, my son," he says, smiling. "It ain't 'how much?' this time. When I heard how you'd rung the bell the first shot out the box and was rolling in coin, I said to myself: 'Here's where the prod comes back to ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... in Strasbourg University, Dr. van Calker. The Kaiser looked steadily at Professor van Calker for a moment, then, after the handshake, clenched his fist and struck downwards uttering these words: 'Nun aber wollen wir sie dreschen!'[19] ('Now we will jolly well thrash them!'); nodded to the professor ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... Abbaye de Chelles, I look upon myself as dead," added the nun who had not left the house, while the Sister that had just returned held out the little box ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac

... the care of the nun, she did not leave him for one second, and no longer went to bed. The ladies who had their names entered at the door-lodge made enquiries about her with feelings of admiration, and the passers-by were filled ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... inhabitants of Cornwall used "to place the disordered in mind on the brink of a square pool, filled with water from St. Nun's well. The patient, having no intimation of what was intended, was, by a sudden blow on the breast, tumbled into the pool, where he was tossed up and down by some persons of superior strength till, being quite debilitated, his fury forsook him; he was then carried to church, ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... was as if she had never been in the village. Whither she had gone, no one could tell. Officious old women would have despatched her to the same place whither Petro had gone; but a Cossack from Kief reported that he had seen in a cloister, a nun withered to a mere skeleton, who prayed unceasingly; and her fellow villagers recognized her as Pidorka, by all the signs,—that no one had ever heard her utter a word; that she had come on foot, and had brought a frame for the ikon of God's mother, set with such brilliant stones ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... must become a nun," observed Saint Patrick. "It's a mighty pleasant sort of life to those who don't like work, and are fond of ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... my recent notorious ballads of the polemic sort, I ought to name a famous couple—"The Nun's Appeal," and "Open the Convents"—which were written at the request of Lord Alfred Churchill, and given to Edith O'Gorman, the Escaped Nun (otherwise the excellent and eloquent Mrs. Auffray), to aid ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... "L'enfant charitable"—a nun on her deathbed embracing a child who is standing by her side, an angel behind—is a touching composition of Ary Schaeeffer. Another, by Paul Baudry, represents the death of Marat: Charlotte Corday's open, handsome face, looks incapable of the crime she has just perpetrated. There ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... formerly the Great Hall of the monastery; and here Edward Baliol did homage to Edward III. for his crown of Scotland. Nun Street, leading out of Grainger Street, reminds us of the days when the Nunnery of St. Bartholomew stood in this part of the town, and the Nun's Moor was part of the grounds belonging to the establishment. In ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... out a pink nun's-veiling, made up with innumerable ruffles and frills and laces and embroidery, a really very pretty dress for quite a gay party, but totally unsuitable for a ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... years Cosette and Jean Valjean stayed at the convent; and then, on the death of the old gardener, Jean Valjean, now bearing the name of Fauchelevent, decided that as Cosette was not going to be a nun, and as recognition was no longer to be feared, it would be well to remove into ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... A further reason for the snowdrop's association with the Virgin originated in the custom of removing her image from the altar on the day of the Purification, and strewing over the vacant place with these emblems of purity. The bleeding nun (Cyclamen europoeum) was consecrated to the Virgin, and in France the spearmint is termed "Our Lady's mint." In Germany the costmary (Costaminta vulgaris) is "Our Lady's balsam," the white-flowered wormwood the "smock of our Lady," and in olden days the iris ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... way the nun Blaubekin was perpetually tormented by the thought of what happened to the part of Jesus' ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... do, He hath sent me unto you. Laugh'd the world to bitter scorn, I his cruel sufferings mourn; Brawny youths with furious air Drag the Patriarch by the hair; Lewdness governs every one: Leaves her convent now the nun, And the monk abroad I see Practising iniquity. Now I'll tell how God, intent To avenge, a vapour sent, With full many a dreadful sign - Mighty, mighty fear is mine: As I hear the thunders roll, Seems to die my very soul; As I see the world o'erspread All with darkness thick and dread; ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... the great amount of happiness within it, of which, meanwhile, it has not the least idea. I have seen the dignitaries entering, but no glimpse could I obtain of the interior; for immediately behind the strong outer door is an inner one, and how many more I know not. Mr Seymour has told us of a nun, while he was in Rome, who found her way out through all these doors and bars; but, instead of fleeing back into her paradise, she rushed straight to the Tiber, and ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... paints the time, "as if a scorpion lay sleeping under every stone." The confessional had no secrets for Cromwell. Men's talk with their closest friends found its way to his ear. "Words idly spoken," the murmurs of a petulant abbot, the ravings of a moon-struck nun, were, as the nobles cried passionately at his fall, "tortured into treason." The only chance of safety lay in silence. "Friends who used to write and send me presents," Erasmus tells us, "now send neither letter nor gifts, nor ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... men as the Romantic philosopher Schubert, and of the physicians Carus and Passavant. Justinus Kerner wrote of the Seeress of Prevorst, and Clemens Brentano watched for years at the bedside of a stigmatized nun. On the other hand, from nature comes a love for home and country, and this love serves as a bridge to the patriotism which was the vital force in the Wars of Liberation and which, by well-marked gradations, destroyed the cosmopolitanism engendered by the French Revolution. Art went hand in hand ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... in my direction, with fine eyes, full of knowledge—but presently turned her head and passed on. There was nothing flagrant, nothing to be compared with what was allowed to religious in Padua and Venice; but I was a little discontented at this nun's inspection. I had observed that she was handsome and of fine person, pale, serious, and with ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... sounded delightfully romantic. The proprietress, this Doa Cecilia, who lives in such peaceful solitude, surrounded by mangroves, with no other drawbacks to her felicity but snakes and alligators, haunted my imagination. I trusted she was young, and lovely, and heart-broken; a pensive lay nun who had retreated from the vanities and deceits of the world to this secluded spot, where she lived like a heroine upon the produce of her flocks, with some "neat-handed Phillis," to milk the cows and churn the butter, while she sat rapt in contemplation ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... To solitary Saturn bore; His daughter she; in Saturn's reign Such mixture was not held a stain: Oft in glimmering bowers and glades He met her, and in secret shades Of woody Ida's inmost grove, Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of cypres lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn: Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step, and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... Onis was as strange in her way as her brother. She was short and stout, with a pale, round face, dull black eyes, hair plastered down with quince-juice gum, and constantly dressed in the mournful garb of a nun. She lived as secluded in her place, as a nun in a convent. She was absolutely absorbed in devotion, but it was a capricious, fantastic devotion, in no way similar to that practised by really mystic souls. All ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... but which is revealed in an English legend, a knowledge of which I owe to my friend James Russell Lowell of London. One learns from it that the great seducer lost his time with three women. One was a bourgeoise: she was in love with her husband; the other was a nun: she would not consent to violate her vows; the third, who had for a long time led a life of debauchery, had become ugly, and was a servant in a den. After what she had done, after what she had seen, love ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... Sue had ever seen before. She was a widow, and wore a widow's cap and a perfectly plain black dress, but she had a white handkerchief pinned neatly over her shoulders, so that she looked half-widow, half-nun. ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... dein haupt noch so braun wie die Locke der Lieben, Deren holdes Gebild still aus der Ferne mir winkt; Silbergrau bezeichzet dir fruh der Schnee nun die Gipfel, Der sich im sturmender nacht, dir um den Scheitel ergoss. Jugend, ach, ist dem Alter so nah, durch's Leben verbunden Wie ein beweglicher ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... idolatrous abbeykirk of Kilwinning, and the anguish of his suffering grew to such an head by Candlemas that he was obligated to send for his old acquaintance, Dominick Callender, who had, after his marriage with the regenerate nun, settled as a doctor of physic in the godly town of Irvine. But for many a day all the skill and medicamenting of Doctor Callender did him little good, till Nature had, of her own accord, worked out the root of the evil in the shape of a sklinter of bone. Still, though the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... account of this marriage, and his denial of the vile calumny about Napoleon, is corroborated by Madame Remusat. After saying that Hortense had refused to marry the son of Rewbell and also the Comte de Nun, she goes on: "A short time afterwards Duroc, then aide de camp to the Consul, and already noted by him, fell in love with Hortense. She returned the feeling, and believed she had found that other half of herself ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... and hands that neither art nor nature could improve. She was the sort of person over whom adversity passes like a summer cloud; she might, in the worst of conjunctions, knit her brows into one vertical furrow for a moment, but the next it would be gone. She had much of the placidity of a contented nun; with little of her piety, however; for Anastasie was of a very mundane nature, fond of oysters and old wine, and somewhat bold pleasantries, and devoted to her husband for her own sake rather than for his. She ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... misogamy[obs3], misogyny. virginity, pucelage[obs3]; maidenhood, maidenhead. unmarried man, bachelor, Coelebs, agamist[obs3], old bachelor; misogamist[obs3], misogynist; monogamist; monk. unmarried woman, spinster; maid, maiden;virgin, feme sole[Fr], old maid; bachelor girl, girl-bachelor; nun. V. live single, live alone. Adj. unmarried, unwed, unwedded[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... heard eagerly all the minstrel could tell of Sir John Maltravers himself, a man of great and good reputation, and no mean musician; "and," added Martin, "three fair daughters he hath, the eldest Eleanor, fairest of them all, of whom men say she would fain be a nun. Thou art a pretty lad, I wager one or other ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... Avignon. Some writers say that she always remained single, in her father's house, and some that she married and had many children. There are a few pictures of her, for the authenticity of which it is impossible to answer. They are all handsome, and remarkable for an almost nun-like shyness and sweetness of expression. She was certainly a woman of refined taste and cultivated mind, and at a time when female modesty was the only rare adornment of the fair sex in Avignon, her character was as ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... crowd, while Pollnitz remained near the door, and cast a searching glance around the room. Presently a mocking smile flitted over his face, and he said to himself: "There, there are all three of them. There is the modestly dressed nun who would not be recognized as Madame von Morien. There is the king of cards, Manteuffel, who is not yet aware that a quick eye has seen his hand, and his trumps are all in vain. There at last is Madame von Brandt, 'The Gypsy,' telling fortunes, and having no presentiment ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... in Flanders in 978, and received a pious education, under the care of a most virtuous mother, who died a nun at Verdun. In his youth he served for some time in the army, but even while he lived in the world, he found the spiritual food of heavenly meditation and prayer, with which the affections of the soul are nourished,[St. Aug. Tr. 26. in Joan.] to be incomparably sweeter than all the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... neither parasol, nor lap-dog, nor fan. Her plain grey dress, made almost as simply as a nun's, contrasted oddly with the profusion of expensive bad taste displayed in her hostess's attire, as her serious white face and quiet noble eyes were strangely unlike Frau von Greifenstein's simpering, nervous ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... said: "O Lord, may it be Thy will to begin the creation with me, for Thou art called Samek, after me, the Upholder of all that fall." But God said: "Thou art needed in the place in which thou art;[11] thou must continue to uphold all that fall." Nun introduces Ner, "the lamp of the Lord," which is "the spirit of men," but it also introduces Ner, "the lamp of the wicked," which will be put out by God. Mem starts Melek, king, one of the titles of God. As it is the first letter of Mehumah, confusion, as well, it had no chance ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... are responsible for all the extravagances of modern times, for the irreparable loss to virtue and society of the noble youth of your country. You hate the church of God because she is a witness against you. The priest, the nun, and the recluse are objects of your malice; for they are living examples of what you call impossible morals, and refuters of the code of low virtue you practise and preach. The faith of the Catholic laity, too, you endeavor to destroy, in order more ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... to yield to the fear of isolation; and if there was something to alarm in the aspect of affairs, there was also much to encourage. His parliament was united and resolute. His queen was pregnant. The Nun of Kent had assigned him but a month to live after his marriage; six months had passed, and he was alive and well; the supernatural powers had not declared against him; and while safe with respect to enmity ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... Richardson and Sterne, were anything but romantic. "A more modern sentimentalist would probably express his feelings[4] by describing some past state of society. He would paint some ideal society in mediaeval times and revive the holy monk and the humble nun for our edification." He attributes the subsequent interest in the Middle Ages to the progress made in historical inquiries during the last half of the eighteenth century, and to the consequent ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... of a clear summer night when Natalie reached the cloister in which she was on the next day to take the vows and exchange her ordinary dress for the robe of hair-cloth and the nun's veil. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... graceful way in which he rides his horse. By his side is his servant, the Yeoman, "clad in cote and hood of grene," with a sheaf of arrows at his belt. We may even note his cropped head and his horn suspended from green belt. We next catch sight of a Nun's gracefully pleated wimple, shapely nose, small mouth, "eyes greye as glas," well-made cloak, coral beads, and brooch of gold. She is attended by a second Nun and three Priests. The Monk ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... fled, and in all directions they were seen in the streets, rushing here and there, shrieking and crying out as if they were pursued. Their terror, however, was imaginary, for, savage as the image-breakers might have appeared, they had but one object in view, and not a nun or monk was in the slightest degree injured. In the prison of the Barefooted Monastery they found an unhappy monk who had been shut up for twelve years for his heretical opinions, and with loud shouts of joy they ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... Fondege, "a marriageable young girl should never shut herself up like a nun. She will never find a husband if she remains at home—and she must marry. Indeed, marriage is a sensible woman's only object in life, since it ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... tower he wedded a Nun, To St. Edmond's his bride he bore, On this eve her noviciate here was begun, And a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... own method cynically; to explain his art—how he takes you in—as a clever, confident conjuror might do. So properly were the readers of La Guzla taken in that he followed up his success in that line by the Theatre of Clara Gazul, purporting to be from a rare Spanish original, the work [30] of a nun, who, under tame, conventual reading, had felt the touch of mundane, of physical passions; had become a dramatic poet, and herself a powerful actress. It may dawn on you in reading her that Merimee was a kind of Webster, but with the superficial mildness of ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... that he owes money to several people. He had a dower of 200 florins which came from a possession which the nuns of Ogni Santi held, because they said that they were heirs to his daughter-in-law, a nun in that convent (!) and they had kept possession for six years and he could not sue these nuns at law on account of his poverty. There are several documents referring to money and property which his brother left to this man, but which ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... wedding night, to die a maid, as she did; all were ruined, all my hopes lost. My heart would break, and my estate would be left to the wide world, he? I hope you are a better Christian than to think of living a nun, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... gathering girls into groups, suppressing the hilarity that would break out over and over again, and anxious to clear a corner and begin the actual work. A tall girl, leaning on the piano, scribbled a crude programme, murmuring to the alert-faced nun beside her ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... evident, and procures his pardon; an ignorant monk who knows only his Ave Maria, and is despised on that account, when dead reveals his sanctity by five roses which come out of his mouth in honour of the five letters of the name Maria; a nun, who has quitted her convent to lead a life of sin, returns after long years, and finds that the Holy Virgin, to whom, in spite of all, she has never ceased to offer every day her prayer, has, during all this time, filled her place as sacristine, so that ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... the forms which the sexual impulse takes is false piety, religiosity. This is something ancient. Friedreich points to the connection between religious activity and the sexual organization, and cites many stories about saints, like that of the nun Blanbekin, of whom it was said, "eam scire desiderasse cum lacrimis, et moerore maximo, ubinam esset praeputium Christi.'' The holy Veronica Juliani, in memory of the lamb of God, took a lamb to bed with her and nursed it at her breast. Similarly suggestive ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... distant chimes and thought forbidden thoughts and cherished impossible hopes. Here she met and talked with Dr. John. Deep beneath this "Methuselah of a pear-tree," the one nearest the end of the alley, lies the imprisoned dust of the poor young nun who was buried alive ages ago for some sin against her vow, and whose perambulating ghost so disquieted poor Lucy. At the root of this same tree one miserable night Lucy buried her precious letters, and "meant also to bury a grief" and her great affection for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... into one, but got no further with it. Her back was turned to him, and he threw the berry out of the window. She felt rather than saw what he had done. She saw that he was fagged. She instantly thought of a cordial she had in the house, the gift of a nun from the Ursuline Convent in Quebec; a precious little bottle which she had kept for the anniversary of her wedding day. If she had been told in the morning that she would open that bottle now, and for a stranger, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... and half-length figures, the first new work to the left of the door on entering is a figure that holds a lamb, the two half-length figures that come next in sequence are also new—the second of these is a nun holding a little temple. The second upper choir of angels and saints is still in its original [?] colour and seems to have been little touched, as also ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... Folk-Lore Society.[87] Mr. Gerould doubts whether it really belongs to the cycle, as it is nearly two centuries earlier, even in Cicero's version, than any other yet discovered; but it certainly inspired Chaucer in his Nun's Priest's Tale, and it may well have influenced other later versions. The Jewish version is closer to the Simonides story than any of the others, and I will quote it in Mr. ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley

... the chime of the church-bells and the roll of the stately organ, or wafted to devout multitudes the savor of holy incense. Here were congregated the soldiers, merchants, artisans of old France; on these high walls paced the solemn sentry; in these streets the nun stole past in her modest hood; or the romantic damsel pressed her cheek to the latticed window, as the young officer rode by and, martial music filled the avenues with its inspiring strains; in yonder bay floated the great war-ships of Louis; and around the shores ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... Thorne, in low, swift whisper, "a few days, a week ago—it seems like a year!—I was of some assistance to refugees fleeing from Mexico into the States. They were all women, and one of them was dressed as a nun. Quite by accident I saw her face. It was that of a beautiful girl. I observed she kept aloof from the others. I suspected a disguise, and, when opportunity afforded, spoke to her, offered my services. She replied to my poor efforts at Spanish in fluent English. She had fled in terror from ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... was called Nun's House. Miss Twinkleton, the prim old maid who managed it, termed it a "Seminary for Young Ladies." It had a worn front, with a shining brass door-plate that made it look at a distance like a battered ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... before I knew her, for the nuns of the place, taught by Elfric, had prayed her to take their dress for the journey, and she had done so, as also had her two maidens. They were as abbess and sisters therefore, and I thought that one trouble was over—that is if our queen would but take the part of a nun as well as the dress, and be ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... of beautiful nun's lace which she bought in Florence. She says it is to trim a morning dress; but it's really too pretty. How dear Polly is! She sends me something almost every day. I seem to be in her thoughts all the time. It is ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... when Queen Guenever understood that King Arthur was slain, and all the noble knights, Sir Mordred and all the remnant, then the queen stole away, and five ladies with her, and so she went to Almesbury; and there she let make herself a nun, and ware white clothes and black, and great penance she took, as ever did sinful lady in this land, and never creature could make her merry; but lived in fasting, prayers, and alms-deeds, that all manner of people marvelled how virtuously she was changed. Now leave we ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... Great grew the slaughter, bloudy waxt the fight, Like Troy, where all was fir'd, and all despis'd, But what stood gracious in the victors sight. Such was the wo of this great citty right: Here lay a Saint throwne downe, & here a Nun, Rude Sarazens which no high God agnis'd, Made all alike our wofull ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... hope of breaking her inflexible spirit, except by the agency of a minister of religion; for it was not enough to put her to death, the poisons must perish with her, or else society would gain nothing. The doctor Pirot came to the marquise with a letter from her sister, who, as we know, was a nun bearing the name of Sister Marie at the convent Saint-Jacques. Her letter exhorted the marquise, in the most touching and affectionate terms, to place her confidence in the good priest, and look upon him not only as a helper ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Protestants it may be said that, once the first violence of fanaticism had died out, there was little attempt to enforce the legal enactments in all their hideous atrocity. According to the strict letter of the law, no Roman Catholic bishop, archbishop, or other dignitary; no monk, nun, or member of any religious fraternity, could set foot in Ireland; and any one who harboured them was liable at the third offence to confiscation of all his goods. A list of parish priests was also drawn up and certified, and their names entered, and when these had died no others were by law allowed ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... shelf, To give you a sketch—ay, a sketch of myself. 'Tis a pitiful subject, I frankly confess, And one it would puzzle a painter to dress; But, however, here goes, and as sure as a gun, I'll tell all my faults like a penitent nun; For I know, for my Fanny, before I address her, She wont be a cynical ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... I gave life to Mashkan-Shabri and poured forth abundance on SIT-LAM (temple of Nergal there). The wise, the restorer, who had conquered the whole of the rebellious, I rescued the people of Malka in trouble. I strengthened their abodes with every comfort. For Ea and DAM-GAL-NUN-NA I increased their rule and in perpetuity appointed the lustrous offerings. As a leader and king of the city, I made the settlements on the Euphrates to be populous. As client of Dagan, who begat me, I avenged the people of Mera and Tutul. As high prince, I made the face of Ninni to shine, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... Of a nun whom a monk wished to deceive, and how he offered to shoo her his weapon that she might feel it, but brought with him a companion whom he put forward in his place, and of the answer ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... faith is simple, with a pronounced taste for the supernatural. In the year 1907 a Jesuit priest, M. Hudon, published at Montreal the life of Marie Catherine de Saint Augustin, 1632-1668, a Quebec nun. This devout lady lived in an atmosphere charged always with the supernatural. She knew of events before they happened; with demons who tempted her she had terrific combats; she read the thoughts of others with divine insight. Perhaps the climax of her ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... changing, is it not? Say, has not the body of that love died, and left you its invulnerable soul? You see, I can give you a spirit love, I have given it you this long, long time; but not embodied passion. See, you are a nun. I have given you what I would give a holy nun—as a mystic monk to a mystic nun. Surely you esteem it best. Yet you regret—no, have regretted—the other. In all our relations no body enters. I do not talk to you through the senses—rather ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... nature was in danger of being as warped as a busy city man's is liable to become. His work had become an engrained habit, and, being a bachelor, he had hardly an interest in life to draw him away from it, so that his soul was being gradually bricked up like the body of a mediaeval nun. But at last there came this kindly illness, and Nature hustled James Stephens out of his groove, and sent him into the broad world far away from roaring Manchester and his shelves full of calf-skin authorities. At first he resented it deeply. Everything ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... Henry that popular feeling was strong against his policy, but instead of being deterred by this, he became more obstinate and determined to show the people that his wishes must be obeyed. A nun named Elizabeth Barton, generally known as the "Nun of Kent," claimed to have been favoured with special visions from on high. She denounced the king's marriage with Anne, and bewailed the spread of heresy in the kingdom. People flocked ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... practically possible for any young gentleman to take any young lady for what he calls (I deeply regret to say) a joy ride; but at least the man goes with the woman as much as the woman with the man. In France the young woman is protected like a nun while she is unmarried; but when she is a mother she is really a holy woman; and when she is a grandmother she is ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various



Words linked to "Nun" :   Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, Hebrew script, buoy, Teresa, letter of the alphabet, alphabetic character, nun buoy, letter, conical buoy, sister, nun's habit, Hebrew alphabet, Theresa, Mother Teresa, religious, Mother Theresa, Hebraic alphabet



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