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More "Splay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... She always called De Bernis her pigeon pattu (splay-footedpigeon—on account of his large feet and his love-songs). Voltaire had previously nicknamed him Babet le bouquetiere, at first because the abbe always introduced flowers into his poetry; afterward, on account of the resemblance he bore to a flower girl who ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... as the elbow, but the lower part resembles a fin; they are amphibious, living equally well on the mud or in the water; in moving in the mud they walk, as it were, on their elbows, and the lower arm or fin then projects like a great splay foot; but in swimming the whole of this apparatus is used as a fin. They have also the property of being able to bury themselves almost instantaneously in the soft mud when disturbed. The uncouth gambols and leaps of these anomalous creatures were ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... which expressed itself in his growing shyness, his splay-footed awkwardness, his rapidly increasing deference to Father, Mr. Hartwig saw Lena, the maid, spread forth tables for the social and intellectual game of progressive euchre; saw Father combat mightily ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... be out at night," he said to Catherine. "Then you don't keep looking off at things; you can look inside;" and he struck his breast with his splay hand. ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... into the duties of a soldier, many things seem absolute tyranny which would appear to a civilised man a mere necessary restraint. To keep the restless body of an African negro in a position to which he has not been accustomed; to cramp his splay feet, with his great toes standing out, into European shoes made for feet of a different form; to place a collar round his neck, which is called a stock, and which to him is cruel torture; above all, to confine him every night to his ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... arms; Britain to soft refinements less a foe, Wit grew polite, and numbers learned to flow. Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full-resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine. Though still some traces of our rustic vein, And splay-foot verse, remained, and will remain. Late, very late, correctness grew our care, When the tired nation breathed from civil war. Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire, Showed us that France had something to admire. Not but the tragic spirit was ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... may perhaps be excused for borrowing an illustration from Alcaeus, who lived slightly later; and who, speaking of his political opponent Pittacus, calls him a "bloated paunch-belly," and a "filthy splay-footed, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... new number. There is a description of me in it: 'A little, splay-footed, ugly dumpling of a fellow, with a mouth from ear to ear.' Conceive how such a charge must affect a man so enamoured of his own beauty as ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... banana thrives. At early dawn, or towards sunset, however, they come out from their retreats, and search for fallen bananas, papaws or guavas, and I have spent many a delightful half-hour watching them from my own hiding-place. Although they have such thick, long and clumsy legs, and coarse splay feet they run to and fro with marvelous speed, continually uttering their insistent croak. Usually they were in pairs, male and female, although I once saw a male and three female birds together. The former can ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... in the bazaar were shabby people for the most part, whose black masks nobody would feel a curiosity to remove. You could see no more of their figures than if they had been stuffed in bolsters; and even their feet were brought to a general splay uniformity by the double yellow slippers which the wives of true believers wear. But it is in the Greek and Armenian quarters, and among those poor Christians who were pulling figs, that you see the beauties; and a man of a generous disposition may lose his heart half-a-dozen ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... goat-path, having sharp turns at the extremity of every zigzag, and with huge projecting stones, which seemed to bid defiance to the passage of the camels' bodies. Indeed, it was very marvellous, with their long spindle-shanks and great splay feet, and the awkward boxes on their backs striking constantly against every little projection in the hill, that they did not tumble headlong over the pathway; for many times, at the corners, they fell upon their chests, with their hind-legs dangling over the side, and were only pulled into the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... and as broad and powerful as possible, the hips being set wide apart. The hind-legs should be well bent at the stifle, with great length from the hip to the hock, which should be broad and flat. Cow hocks, weak pasterns, straight stifles, and splay feet are very bad faults. COAT—The hair on the body, neck, and quarters should be harsh and wiry, and about 3 inches or 4 inches long; that on the head, breast, and belly is much softer. There should be a slight hairy fringe on the inside of the fore and ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... crooked grows, It well-nigh kissed her chin; thick bristled hair Grew on her upper lip, and here and there A rugged wart with grisly hairs behung; Her breasts shrunk up, her nails and fingers long; Her left leant on a staff, in her right hand She always carried her enchanting wand. Splay-footed, beyond nature, every part So patternless deformed, 'twould puzzle art To make her counterfeit; only her tongue, Nature had that most exquisitely strung, Her oily language came so smoothly from ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... deformed; harelipped; misshapen, misbegotten; misproportioned[obs3], ill proportioned; ill-made; grotesque, monstrous, crooked as a ram's horn; camel backed, hump backed, hunch backed, bunch backed, crook backed; bandy; bandy legged, bow legged; bow kneed, knock kneed; splay footed, club footed; round shouldered; snub nosed; curtailed of one's fair proportions; stumpy &c. (short) 201; gaunt &c. (thin) 203; bloated &c. 194; scalene; simous[obs3]; taliped[obs3], talipedic[obs3]. Adv. all manner of ways. Phr. crooked as ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... then you find yourself staring in wonderment at the Peter Breughels and Jerome Bosches with their malodorous fantastic versions of temptations of innumerable St. Anthonys. The air is thick with monsters, fish-headed and splay of foot. St. Anthony must have had the stomach of an ostrich and the nerves of a politician to endure such sights and sounds and witches. Such females! But Peter and his two sons are both painters of interest. There ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... potations, was content habitually to slumber. The Captain's gait we have described as "rolling;" which in fact it was; but without meaning at all, by that expression, to derogate from its firmness: for firm it also was as the tread of a hippopotamus; and wheresoever the sole of his vast splay foot was planted, there a man would have sworn it had taken root like a young oak: but a figure as broad as his could do no other than roll when treading the deck of a vessel that was ploughing through a gay tumbling sea. As to dress, the Captain wore long slops of striped linen; ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... Phoby turned to envy and spite, and to a disgraceful meanness of spirit. The reason of this to some extent was that the girl—Amelia Sanders by name—couldn't abide him because of the colour of his hair and his splay feet: yet I believe she would have married him (her father being a boat-builder in a small way at Porthleven, and beholden to the Cove for most of his custom) if Dan'l hadn't come along first and ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... extremity of every zigzag, and with huge projecting stones, which seemed to bid defiance to the passage of the camels' bodies. Indeed, it was very marvellous, with their long spindle-shanks and great splay feet, and the awkward boxes on their backs striking constantly against every little projection in the hill, that they did not tumble headlong over the pathway; for many times, at the corners, they fell upon their chests, with their hind-legs dangling over ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... wonder which expressed itself in his growing shyness, his splay-footed awkwardness, his rapidly increasing deference to Father, Mr. Hartwig saw Lena, the maid, spread forth tables for the social and intellectual game of progressive euchre; saw Father combat mightily with that king of euchre-players, Squire Trowbridge; saw the winners presented with ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... cats?" the witches bawled, And began to call them all by name As fast as they called the cats, they came There was bob-tailed Tommy and long-tailed Tim, And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim, And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged Beau, And Skinny and Squally, and Jerry and Joe, And many another that came at call,— It would take too long to count them all. All black,—one could hardly tell which was ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... towards the gate of the town, when two persons, Moors, came up to us. I almost started at sight of the first; he was a huge old barbarian with a white uncombed beard, dirty turban, haik, and trousers, naked legs, and immense splay feet, the heels of which stood out a couple of inches at least behind his rusty ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... feet, short feet, broad feet, splay feet, club feet, and bumble feet, to which may be added cloven feet in the case of certain animals, ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... obliged to look at him with him splay foot on Mr. Wickfield's head, I think I could ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... vessels. One of the projecting promontories we find hollowed through and through by a tall rugged archway; while the outer pier of the arch,—if pier we may term it,—worn to a skeleton, and jutting outwards with a knee-like angle, presents the appearance of a thin ungainly leg and splay foot, advanced, as if in awkward courtesy, to the breakers. But in a winter or two, judging from its present degree of attenuation, and the yielding nature of its material, which resembles a damaged mass of arrow-root, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... and stilted, and the caps generally have super-abaci. The north aisle has pointed arches at intervals and a flat roof; the nave of the Santissimo also has a flat roof with beams and brackets. There is a triumphal arch and one blocked window in the apse, with mosaic on the splay of the jamb. ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... splay-foot is that deformity in which there is loss of the arch, and the foot tends to be pronated and abducted. The term pes planus is applicable when there is merely loss of the arch; pes valgus when the foot is pronated and the sole looks laterally. Of all deformities of the ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... bristled hair Grew on her upper lip, and here and there A rugged wart with grisly hairs behung; Her breasts shrunk up, her nails and fingers long; Her left leant on a staff, in her right hand She always carried her enchanting wand. Splay-footed, beyond nature, every part So patternless deformed, 'twould puzzle art To make her counterfeit; only her tongue, Nature had that most exquisitely strung, Her oily language came so smoothly from her, And her quaint action ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... women. Those in the bazaar were shabby people for the most part, whose black masks nobody would feel a curiosity to remove. You could see no more of their figures than if they had been stuffed in bolsters; and even their feet were brought to a general splay uniformity by the double yellow slippers which the wives of true believers wear. But it is in the Greek and Armenian quarters, and among those poor Christians who were pulling figs, that you see the beauties; and a man of a generous disposition may lose his ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he should have been, and there were those in his own day who didn't entirely approve of him. But it wasn't because of his dogs. However, if you mention King Charles now, it is a dog you think of—a small, eary dog, with somewhat splay feet and a seventeenth-century monarchical preference for the society of ladies and the softest cushion. Maybe the royal gentleman didn't deserve anything better of posterity; but, anyhow, ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... on that! I don't pretend to be in the same class with Old Ben or Young Ben, or even of the fox terriers; but if I'm not more of a dog than that lot of splay-footed freaks, I'll go bite myself! If they're that hard up for dogs, I'll be cornswizzled if I ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... great anomaly to the Milby mind that a canting evangelical parson, who would take tea with tradespeople, and make friends of vulgar women like the Linnets, should have so much the air of a gentleman, and be so little like the splay-footed Mr. Stickney of Salem, to whom he approximated so closely in doctrine. And this want of correspondence between the physique and the creed had excited no less surprise in the larger town of Laxeter, where Mr. Tryan had formerly held a curacy; for of the two other ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... made with her own hands from odds and ends; and a huge work-basket spilling worsteds, and last, and by no manner of means least, a big chintz-covered rocking-chair, the little lady's very own—its thin ankles and splay feet hidden by a modest frill. There were all these things and a lot more—and yet I still maintain that the room was just one big fireplace. Not alone because of its size (and it certainly was big: ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of Sparkford), is a village on the N.E. side of Cadbury Camp, with a church dedicated to St Thomas a Becket, who is perhaps intended by the fresco of a bishop which is on the splay of a window in the N. aisle. The responds of the aisle arches are curiously banded. There is a good reredos, ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... his face, but he wore a covert-coat of un-English length, and the lamp across the road played steadily on his boots; they were very yellow, and they made no noise when he took a turn. I strained my eyes, and all at once I remembered the thin-soled, low-heeled, splay yellow boots of the insidious foreigner, with the soft eyes and the brown-paper face, whom I had turned from the door as a palpable fraud. The ring at the bell was the first I had heard of him, there had been no warning step upon the stairs, and my suspicious eye ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... with an olive-branch in the morning, and consequently that business was not to be done that day. The angry-faced official communicated the intelligence to a large group of Anadolian, Caramanian, Bosniac, and Roumelian Turks,—sturdy, undersized, broad-shouldered, bare-legged, splay-footed, horny-fisted, dark-browed, honest-looking mountaineers, who were lounging about with long pistols and yataghans stuck in their broad sashes, head-gear composed of immense tarbooshes with proportionate turbans coiled round ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... three rows of white tape running around the skirt hem and white bone buttons up the back. Through the doorway one of them was washing down a flight of stairs, raising a cold, soap-and-lye smell. Another, with a splay smile that was terrible as a wound, wiped in and out among the spokes of the banisters, her face as without muscle as a squeezed orange, and smiling ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... De Bernis her pigeon pattu (splay-footedpigeon—on account of his large feet and his love-songs). Voltaire had previously nicknamed him Babet le bouquetiere, at first because the abbe always introduced flowers into his poetry; afterward, on account of the resemblance he bore to a flower ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... begun to flow back into it. Mary Magdalen had brought a dog with her—a yellow dog of unknown ancestry, of shamefaced demeanor, a ropy tail, splay feet, and a rolling eye; named, she and heaven alone ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... repeated Mrs. Tree. "Not the point of her toe, if she had a point. She was born splay-footed, and I suppose she'll die so. Not the ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... of Lynceus; but be blinder than Hypsaea, when you survey such parts as are deformed. [You may cry out,] "O what a leg! O, what delicate arms!" But [you suppress] that she is low-hipped, short-waisted, with a long nose, and a splay foot. A man can see nothing but the face of a matron, who carefully conceals her other charms, unless it be a Catia. But if you will seek after forbidden charms (for the [circumstance of their being forbidden] makes you mad after them), ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... they depend on rain alone. Everything is irrigated. Below the surface a network of waterpipes runs in all directions with taps available everywhere. I was much struck by the way the turf is watered. The water is forced with great power through minute orifices in the large splay metal end of a hose, ascends some thirty or forty feet, and falls exactly in the form of very fine rain; thus every blade of grass is moistened. Wonderful indeed is the effect as you stand at the park entrance and compare the scene outside and within. The dry, baked soil, innocent of vegetation on ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... the largest lake south of the Ohio, lying mostly in Tennessee, but extending up across what is now the Kentucky line, and taking its name from a fancied resemblance in its outline to the splay, reeled foot of a cornfield negro. Niggerwool Swamp, not so far away, may have got its name from the same man who christened Reelfoot; at ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... altar, and the decorations included St. Julian, the patron of travellers, with his saltire doubly crossed, and his stag beside him. Little ships, trees, and wonderful enamelled representations of perils by robbers, field and flood, hung thickly on St. Julian's pillar, and on the wall and splay of the window beside it; and here, after crossing himself, Master Headley rapidly repeated a Paternoster, and ratified his vow of presenting a bronze image of the hound to whom he owed his rescue. One of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... habitually to slumber. The Captain's gait we have described as "rolling;" which in fact it was; but without meaning at all, by that expression, to derogate from its firmness: for firm it also was as the tread of a hippopotamus; and wheresoever the sole of his vast splay foot was planted, there a man would have sworn it had taken root like a young oak: but a figure as broad as his could do no other than roll when treading the deck of a vessel that was ploughing through a gay tumbling sea. As to dress, the Captain wore long slops of striped linen; ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... Rire" was a caricature (if such a thing were possible) of the English female traveler of that period. Coal-scuttle poke bonnets, short and scanty skirts, huge splay feet arrayed in indescribable shoes and boots, short-waisted tight-fitting spencers, colors which not only swore at each other, but caused all beholders to swear at them—these were the outward and visible signs ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... ahead of him was a tall, gaunt Virginian, clad in butternut-colored jeans of queer cut and pattern, and a great bell-crowned hat of rough, gray beaver. Though his gait was shambling and his huge splay feet rose and fell in the most awkward way, he went over the ground with a swiftness that made it rather doubtful whether Jake was gaining on him at all. But the latter was encouraged by the sings of his chase's ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... it a durned sight seriouser for you if you don't keep them splay feet o'your'n offen ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... and weed tufts. But the calf did not see or notice any of these. All she saw was a tall, dark, ungainly looking, long-legged creature, half as tall again as her mother had been, with no horns, a long clumsy head, thick overhanging nose, and big splay hooves. She didn't quite know whether to be frightened at this great, dark form or not. But she stopped her noise, I ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... an ordinary but very ill-expressed metaphor. The ladies and gentlemen to whom I allude, not looking very clearly into the systems of pains and pleasures in accordance with which we have to live, put their splay feet down now upon this ordinary operation and now upon that, and call upon the world to curse the cruelty of those who will not agree with them. A lady whose tippet is made from the skins of twenty animals who have been wired in the snow and then ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
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