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Drawl   Listen
verb
Drawl  v. i.  To speak with slow and lingering utterance, from laziness, lack of spirit, affectation, etc. "Theologians and moralists... talk mostly in a drawling and dreaming way about it."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Drawl" Quotes from Famous Books



... The soft drawl did not utterly hide the tone of reflection on the caller's audacity in presuming to enter a home ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... as rather cool. Surely English should be spoken with an English accent, not with a French, German, or double-dutch one! Then I found that what they meant by an English accent was an English affectation of speech—a drawl with a tendency to "aw" and "ah" everything. They thought that every one in England who did not miss out aspirates where they should be, and put them in where they should not be, talked of "the rivah," "ma brothar," and so on. Their conclusion ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... a tall, loosely built, rather slouching fellow; a typical young Australian of a certain class; not unintelligent, rather lazy, given to drawl in his speech, and extremely self-centred. He had been eyeing Finn all this while with growing interest, and now ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... "Guess it is, if you're goin' to Lower Merritt." As Gaites shot through the doorway toward his train, he added, in an insolent drawl, "Miss—Des—mond!" ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... sell," he repeated eagerly, then relaxed once more into his drawl, though his eyes reflected a strange inward turmoil. "Listen, Son," he said. "Ef you let that snake in the grass argy you into sellin', you're a bigger fool 'n I take you to be. An' what's more," his voice lowered and the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope

... you know, a high-toned gentleman who lives by begging. He brings his bag to the hotels every day. Of course you have heard him talk, Miss Louise. His strong card is his wife. 'Th' ole 'ooman's nigh blin','"—here Talboys gave a very good imitation of the South Carolina local drawl—"'an' she's been so tenderly raised she cyan't live 'thout cyoffee three times ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... her memory for the owner of this second voice. She had thought at first of Doctor Sherman, but this voice had not a tone in common with the young clergyman's clear, well-modulated baritone. This was a peculiar, bland, good-natured drawl. She had not heard it often, but she had unmistakably heard it. As she ransacked her memory it grew increasingly familiar, yet still eluded her. Then, all of a sudden, she knew it, ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... eye-glasses an abomination. They fixed a spell upon his courage; for somehow the youth had always ranked them as emblems of our nobility, and hearing two exquisite eye-glasses, who had been to front and rear several times, drawl in gibberish generally imputed to lords, that his heroine was a charming little creature, just the size, but had no style,—he was abashed; he did not fly at them and tear them. He became dejected. Beauty's dog is affected by the eye-glass in a manner not unlike the common ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... you could call this funny, or tragic—perhaps serio-comic is the word," returned Mrs. Campbell in her smooth little drawl, with its expression of amused indifference, which always stimulated the interest of the listener. "It was exciting, anyhow. Somewhere well along towards midnight, last evening, a certain young lady—a mere girl indeed—was promenading ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... feeling half awake. The children answer so well, better than children do at home; but then, of course, Graham knows exactly their capabilities and catechizes on what he has been teaching in the week. The people like learning new tunes, and sing them better than the old ones, which they are apt to drawl. To keep up to the mark involves a fair amount of practising at home, especially when you have no harmonium; you must have the tunes and chants at your finger ends. For once we had the afternoon and evening to ourselves, and sat ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... Democratic position was naively exposed when a member arose with a law book in his hand and said, "I deny your right, Mr. Speaker, to count me as present, and I desire to read from the parliamentary law on the subject." Speaker Reed, with the nasal drawl that was his habit, replied, "The Chair is making a statement of fact that the gentleman from Kentucky is present? Does he deny it?" The rejoinder was so apposite that the House broke into a roar of laughter, and the ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... answered in the parade voice which the regular soldier soon acquires, this, softened by his nice Scots drawl, "Sir, there's a man outside an' he says he's a letter for you and that he ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... slight change of dress, could have been a Company man in the higher ranks—or so the casual observer would have placed him, until an observer marked the eyes behind those sleepy drooping lids, or caught a certain note in the calm, unhurried drawl of his voice. To look at the two senior officers of the Free Trading spacer were the antithesis of each other—in action they were each half of a powerful, steamroller whole—as a good many men in the Service—scattered over a half dozen or so planets—had discovered ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... on the floor, and the leader begins a long monotonous drawl, the rest either singing in concert, or joining in the choruses, or singing in turn with him. After a tiresome period of this, they stand up and march with slow and solemn step in single file round the Pagar Api. The monotonous chant sometimes slackens, sometimes ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes

... all of them were on the platform of 218 by this time—shouted, "Well done, Ralles!" quite forgetting in the excitement of the moment his English accent and drawl. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... the lively aid-de- camp, imitating the nasal drawl and language which had called up so much mirth, even in presence of the General— "I calculate as how I have introduced Ensign Paul, Emilius, Theophilus, Arnoldi, of the United States Michigan Militia, into pretty considerable snug quarters—I have billeted him at the inn, in which he ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... seen the whole scene, Mary. There were half- a-dozen new boys to be admitted, four Brownlows! Think of that! Well, there stood manifestly one of the old stock, with the same oval face and sleepy brown eyes, and the very same drawl I know so well in the 'No-a-' to the vain question, 'Have you done any Latin?' And how shall I do justice to the long, dragging drawl of his reading? Aye, here's the sentence I set him on: 'The-Gowls-had-con-sen- ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... km. pedometer, perambulator; scale &c (measurement) 466. V. be long &c adj.; stretch out, sprawl; extend to, reach to, stretch to; make a long arm, drag its slow length along. render long &c adj.; lengthen, extend, elongate; stretch; prolong, produce, protract; let out, draw out, spin out^; drawl. enfilade, look along, view in perspective. distend (expand) 194. Adj. long, longsome^; lengthy, wiredrawn^, outstretched; lengthened &c v.; sesquipedalian &c (words) 577; interminable, no end of; macrocolous^. linear, lineal; longitudinal, oblong. as long as my arm, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Dutch oven, and a little forge where the guides sometimes shoe a mule. They aren't blacksmiths; they merely have to be. Bill was in charge of the camp—a dark, rangy, good-looking young leading man of a cowboy, wearing his blue shirt and his red neckerchief with an air. He spoke with the soft Texas drawl and in his way was ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... Duchess was in town. M. de Mauves must come with him to call; she had abused him dreadfully a couple of evenings before—a sure sign she wanted to see him. "I depend on you," said with an infantine drawl this specimen of an order Longmore felt he had never had occasion so intimately to appreciate, "to put ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... Wordsworth's other productions; with less boldness of originality, and less even of that extreme simplicity and lowliness of tone which wavered so prettily, in the Lyrical Ballads, between silliness and pathos. We have imitations of Cowper, and even of Milton here, engrafted on the natural drawl of the Lakers—and all diluted into harmony by that profuse and irrepressible wordiness which deluges all the blank verse of this school of poetry, and lubricates and weakens the whole structure of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... back in a few moments, having discarded his broom and provided himself, from some mysterious source, with an exquisite bouquet of flowers. "Buy a posy, buy a posy! Only a 'ap'ny!" he chanted, with the melancholy drawl of a professional beggar. ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... anecdotes lose a good deal in reading by anyone unacquainted with their method. Each sentence is uttered in a rising scale with a drop on the last few words, forming, as a whole, a not unmusical rhythmical drawl. As instances of "muscular effeminacy," two fields of mine, where flax was formerly grown, went by the name of "Pax grounds"; the words "rivet" and "vine," were rendered "ribet" and "bine." "March," a ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... want to give me a hand out of here, Neale?" the cattleman demanded abruptly, tired of listening to the fellow's monotonous drawl; and after all ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... with you, I suppose. Your fame has spread." Heywood spoke with a slow, mischievous drawl; but he crossed ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... this here army," remarked a quiet, mild-mannered man in uniform, beside whom I happened to be standing. He spoke with a slow, almost sleepy, drawl. He was the new veterinarian of the supply company, and there were a number of things that were new to him, as his story revealed. He was the first homesick ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... they do!" interrupted Whitney, whom life had taught not to measure wisdom by profession of it, nor yet by repute for it. And he went on in a drowsy drawl, significantly different from his wonted rather explosive method of speech: "But does any of 'em say what 'proper care' is? Each gives his opinion. Eight opinions, each different and each cautioning me against the kind of 'care' prescribed by the other seven. And I ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... for them, how much would they be "raised"? They would not laugh, they would not yawn; they would be stupefied, and a trifle insulted. Give them a good silly swinging chorus about some subject connected with the tender affections, and let the refrain run to a waltz rhythm or to a striking drawl, and they are satisfied in mind and rejoice exceedingly. The finer class of people in the East-end of London seem to enjoy the very noblest and even the most abstruse of sacred music at the Sunday concerts; but it will be long before the music-hall audiences are educated ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... coast," he read in a nasal drawl. "Greatest storm of year drives shipping upon west coast. Six vessels reported lost. S. S. Valhalla, ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... and Sofia. They will come there next year or in 1923. The Hungarian women are broad-faced and broad-bosomed, and talk more than they smile. City madam in elegant attire with languorous half-shut eyes and Hungarian drawl is a man's darling. Flesh-coloured stockings greatly abound. One is, however, strongly advised not to judge of Hungary by the people who spend four or five hours of the day sitting in the cafes of Budapest. The poor parts of the city present a different spectacle. Here there are great numbers ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... another ten minutes," she said, in her slow drawl. "Won't you have an egg beaten up in a glass ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... used to amuse themselves by acting little plays, or some other nonsense; and when they wanted to make a very ridiculous figure, I noticed they came for me. I always observed that whoever had me on talked through his nose, with an ugly drawl, and used vulgar words and expressions, such as "Now you don't! ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen

... little girl, who could not have been more than six, missed a number. She had a queer drawl ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... you forever, and we don't need no men! Don't like 'em no-how!" she was exclaiming down my back, when a drawl from the doorway made us all turn in ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... right soon of being a Southerner," Mrs. Whitney went on. "He admitted he was a Missourian. When I confessed I liked his drawl he told me I ought to hear his brother, a lawyer, who stutters. Mr. Glover says he wins all his cases through sympathy. He stumbles along until everyone is absolutely convinced that the poor fellow would have a perfectly splendid case if he could only ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... heard a little of this gentleman's romantic career," continued the tutor, with his half-drawl. "He has been good enough to tell us, in fact, that when he left home—by the way, when ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... St. George had said, was delicious, especially his drawl; but there were times—now, for example, when all that the eyes of Amory expressed was what his ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... alone, old girl," he said quietly, a bit of Southern drawl in the voice. "We'll try for the ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... says merely, the shock he feels only slightly intensifying his habitual drawl. "Not immediately, ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... rhetoric. The great size of most things, the huge pilasters and columns of churches, the huge stretches of palace, the profusion of water, the stature of the people, their great beards and heads of hair, their lazy drawl—all this tends to the grand, the emphatic. It is not a grandeur of effort and far-fetchedness like that of Jesuit Spain, still less of achievement and restrained force like that of Tuscany. It is a splendid wide-mouthed rhetoric; with a meaning certainly, but with no restriction ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... asked Mr. Bennet courteously, as they walked. His voice was another of his distinct attractions, rather deep and with the slightest possible drawl. ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... the century the American character had assumed a good deal of definiteness and greatly interested foreign travellers. There was, by those who knew what foreign manners were, much foolish aping of the same. English visitors noted Brother Jonathan's drawl in talking, his phlegmatic temperament, keen eye, and blistering inquisitiveness. Jonathan was a rover and a trader, everywhere at home, everywhere bent upon the main chance. He ate too rapidly, chewed and smoked tobacco, and spat indecently. He drank too much. During the first quarter of the century ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... answered the prior, "some fathers of families. Their children stammer forth caresses, and tell them no matter what, and yet they are delighted to listen! Why should not our Lord, who is a good Father, love to hear His children when they drawl, or ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... and came front to front with old Jim Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter, hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and slipped an arm into that of ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... in his doleful drawl, "thou hast returned at last. In what misfortune dost thou find us! Our good master in prison, you and I homeless, my dear mistress and ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... his pleasant, quiet drawl, "I guess we could take care of 'em 'bout as well as the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... the silence that followed, the passions had not yet evidently cooled. It was broken by the sarcastic drawl of Dick McKinstry: "If them Harrisons don't mind heven had their medders trampled over by a few ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... yankee, with his usual drawl, and apparently only just perceiving our distress, "I've a notion we had better be movin' out o' the way o' the fire. Now, strangers, in with you." And he helped Carleton and myself into the boat, where we lay down, and became ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... olive-hued cheeks. She was richly dressed in bright colors with heavy broad stripes and space-encircling hoops after the fashion of the day. When she spoke it was in a rich, well-rounded tone—not with the nasal drawl which we hear so much when across the line, and which some Victoria school-girls and boys seem to delight in imitating in spite of the efforts of their teachers. Taken all in all I sized the lady up ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... the extremities to a hempen hue. His bristly hair was cut short, and stood aggressively erect upon a bullet head, his clothes were soiled and greasy beneath a gray coating of dust. A pair of alert, lead- blue eyes and a certain facility of movement belied the drawl that marked his nativity. He removed his hat and bowed at sight ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... in the first word that falls from his lips one hears the tone of the man far more at home in camp than court. There is something utterly blunt and abrupt in his manner, a scathing contrast to the affected drawl brought into the regiment by recent importations from the East, and assiduously copied by a professed Anglo-maniac among the captains. Rude indeed may he sometimes be in his speech, "and little versed in the set phrase of peace," but through it all is the ring of sturdy honesty ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... dispute; the talkative were silent; and even Pat Blathermouth, who could usually spin a yarn which lasted from the beginning to eight bells in a watch, and then wasn't half finished, could scarcely drawl out an oft-told tale, which was wont to make his hearers burst their sides with laughter, but now only sent ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... is sung. But by placing my hand on another's throat and cheek, I enjoy the changes of the voice. I know when it is low or high, clear or muffled, sad or cheery. The thin, quavering sensation of an old voice differs in my touch from the sensation of a young voice. A Southerner's drawl is quite unlike the Yankee twang. Sometimes the flow and ebb of a voice is so enchanting that my fingers quiver with exquisite pleasure, even if I do not understand a word ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... which seemed to be a dancing hall. The windows of that were also open, and through them they heard the scream of the jiggered and tortured violin, and the pump, pump of the oboe, and saw the moving shapes of men and women in quick transition, and heard the prompter's drawl. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... is this interesting lecture to last?" asked Bull, with his usual insufferable drawl; "for I want to finish ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... "Old Graham," one of the wealthiest men in Australia. The quartette consisted of Bill Buster, a typical Cornstalk with a nut-brown face, twinkling eyes and a spice of the devil and the Lord in his soul. Next came Claud Dufair, a handsome remittance man with an eye-glass and a drawl. This fellow had personality. He insisted on wearing a white collar and using kid gloves when doing anything, from dung lifting to sheep shearing. Paddy Doolan was the third member. He was an Irishman by birth, but ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell

... period of the legislative National Assembly, was, the same as during the period of the constitutive assembly, simply the struggle between republicans and royalists; the movement itself was summed up by them in the catch-word Reaction—night, in which all cats are grey, and allows them to drawl out their drowsy commonplaces. Indeed, at first sight, the party of Order presents the appearance of a tangle of royalist factions, that, not only intrigue against each other, each aiming to raise its own Pretender to the throne, and exclude the Pretender of the Opposite party, but ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... in such a fuss to go somewhere and do something else," she said, rather affecting the drawl of a fashionable young lady; for she could hide anxiety better, she felt, that way. "Do you know, Mr. Torrens, I don't believe a word of all that about people coming. Nobody's coming. If there is, they've been there ever so long. I did so want to talk to you about one of your poems. I mustn't stop ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... fairly well up in the matter," the Captain said, going back to his old drawl, in a few moments. "I shall not object to your going on ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson

... fast stuck in his head, & as well as the Canary he had swallowed would give him leave, struck up a Carol, which Christmas Day had taught him for the nonce; & was followed by the latter, who gave "Miserere" in fine style, hitting off the mumping notes & lengthened drawl of Old Mortification with ...
— A Masque of Days - From the Last Essays of Elia: Newly Dressed & Decorated • Walter Crane

... far worse than the colour, both of men and women, is their voice and accent. Well may Coleridge enumerate among the pains of the West Indies, 'the yawny-drawny way in which men converse.' The soft, whining drawl is simply intolerable. Resemble the worst Northern States woman's accent it may in some degree, but it has not a grain of its vigour. A man tells you, 'if you can speer it, to send a beerer with a bottle of bare,' and ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... reckon," she hazarded, but even as she spoke there was a flicker of light flashed through the darkness and, lantern in hand, Watts rose from his comfortable seat in a niche of rock near the fork of the trail and greeted them with his kindly drawl. "I 'lowed yo' all ort to be 'long d'rec'ly. I'll take 'em now, Miss; the trail's kind of roughish like, but ef yo'll jist take the lantern an' foller 'long ahead I reckon we'll make hit all right. I've druv ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... thought she could never be moved since the death of Oliver. Her thoughts winged themselves back to an afternoon, remote almost as her socked and sashed childhood, when Doggie, immaculately attired in grey and pearl harmonies, had declared, with his little effeminate drawl, that tennis made one so terribly hot. The scene in the Deanery garden flashed before her. It was succeeded by a scene in the Deanery drawing-room when, to herself indignant, he had pleaded his delicacy of constitution. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... is confined to two brief views, both before he had achieved his fame. One was hearing him tell a story with his inimitable drawl, as he stood smoking in front of a Montgomery Street cigar-store, and the other when on his return from a voyage to the Hawaiian Islands he delivered his famous lecture at the Academy of Music. It was a marvelous address, in which with apparently no effort he led his audience to heights ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... walking perfectly upright, regardless of danger, with his left arm shattered. He dropped into the next shell hole and with his expressionless drawl unshaken, said, ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... with a slow drawl: "Well, most ginerally I sot on de bench in shade in summer and in de sun in winter. Sometimes I sot and think, ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... you'll come up to the top, Lady Lucille!" remonstrated a man's voice, the half-nasal drawl of the man about town—the ordinary club lounger. "There's a view, don't you know—there ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... it was, I used to wonder sometimes if I could possibly bear it. You understand why, now; don't you? And yet, in a way, it is NOT like hers. Hers is deeper; and she often speaks with a delicious kind of drawl, and uses heaps of slang; and you are such a very proper little person; and possess what the primers call 'perfectly correct diction.' What fun it would be to hear you and Jane talk together! And yet—I don't know. I should be on thorns, all ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... think anything I said justified such an inference," said Mrs. Gradinger in the same solemn drawl; "but I may remark that the children are taught from illustrated manuals accurately drawn and coloured. Well, to come back to the fungi, I took the trouble to measure the plot on which they were growing, and found it just ten yards square. The average weight of edible fungus per square ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... can tell you pretty near everything you want to know, I guess," replied the old lady. She had the drawl and twang and accent of rural New England. "I guess you've come here, like myself, jest to see the folks. A few here, like you and me, ar'n't in official life, but the most are, I guess. Nearly all the Cabinet ladies are here to- ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... was a new side in his nature. I assumed that it had been developed in the City, where Charlie was picking up the curious nasal drawl of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... hear good old United States spoken with every dialectic flavour from New England hardness to Texas drawl. In charge of all the operations in the field was Doyle, a clear-cut, upstanding American engineer who had served his apprenticeship in the Angola jungles, where he was a member of one of the first American prospecting parties. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... until noon, Daddy," said the girl in a voice which carried a more strongly defined tone of authority than her father's soft drawl, "and then I shall come into that room, if I have to use an axe, and bring you out—do ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and the others played up to him. Hart's slow drawl was ever trenchant and witty, and Grant forgot his woes in congenial company. As for the mercurial detective himself, it might be said of him as of ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... boys," urged Fraser, still in his gentle drawl, to the astonished vigilantes whom his sudden sally had robbed of their victim. "Think about it twice. We'll all be a long time dead. No ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... and protests of impatience, but every head remained lowered until the august relic was again covered. Piang began to chant in a high, nasal voice, and the others rose and joined in creating a weird, monotonous drawl. Like a statue stood the boy, holding the branch high above his head while they circled round and round him. Faster, faster they whirled; in a frenzy they shrieked; some fell and others tramped them in their excitement. Suddenly the boy stamped his ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... I tried it once or twice; but all I could think of was 'Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound'; then somebody would cough, and I just couldn't get any further." Her voice was tragic in spite of its drawl. ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

... myself in, so that no human being can find me? Where shall I lose myself, so that even I cannot find me? How shall I live or die on these thorns? What's that to you—do you say? Ha ha! You say God has punished me, and you are satisfied. You drawl out your prayers and fall asleep ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... deepened to a burning blush of embarrassment, as he realized that his outburst had been overheard by her who had been the cause of it. But his eyes met her quizzical glance with candid directness. After a moment, he spoke. All the harshness was gone from his voice; its soft drawl was vibrant with tenderness. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... characteristics which enhanced this unfortunate impression of aloofness. His voice had what used to be described in satirical writings of the first half of the century as "an aristocratic drawl," and his pronunciation was archaic. Like other high-bred people of his time, he talked of "cowcumbers" and "laylocks," called a woman an "'ooman," and was "much obleeged" where a degenerate age is content to be obliged. The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... exceedingly colourful; though the average reader might find it somewhat difficult to associate the name Miko with Yankee countryside. Such a praenomen carries with it suggestions of a rich brogue rather than a nasal drawl. "Personal Liberty," a brilliant short essay by Leo Fritter, ably and sensibly explodes one of the characteristically specious arguments of the liquor advocates. Mr. Fritter's legal training aids him in presenting a clear, polished, and logical arraignment of anti-prohibition hypocrisy. "Just ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... composed his face to its usual expression of laziest indifference. His imperturbability always 'had the effect of a goad upon his father's temper. His face never changed colour when the old man's was purple. His voice never lost its measured drawl.' ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... that The Author always makes a great hit when he tells that on himself, and is considered tremendously clever because he can imitate Fernolia's soft South Carolina drawl. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... discovered, probably, that he ... that "sticks" in Greek, and cannot tell, by demonstration of his own, whether the three angles of a triangle are equal to two, or four, ... can nevertheless drawl out the word Fresh, &c.—Scenes and Characters in College, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... she answered, with a sweet little drawl; "but you do not observe that I am not the only lady in the room." Then, turning to me, "This is my husband, Mr. Cromwell," she said. "I cannot tell ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... all the above about Argentina's coast trade, that Tugg kept his seamen at work through fear. He never changed his drawl in speaking; but when he gave an order there was a grimness about his mouth and a flash in his gray-blue eyes that gave one a cold, creepy feeling in the region of the spine. I don't know that Captain Tugg went armed. But ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... Roach and another fellow entered. Steve was Ridings' hired hand, a herculean fellow, with a drawl, and a liability for taking offence quite ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... a nasal drawl which made his hooked nose wrinkle, "get Mr. Trunnell a drink o' ginger pop, or milk, if he prefers it, and then, steward, you may get Mr. Rolling a drink o' sody water. It's hot, but ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... early," he began, with tranquil drawl, "but I'm going back to the West to-night. I've got to get out of this climate or join the spooks. I'm thinking of doing that, anyway, just to see what it's like 'round the corner in the 'fourth dimension,' and also because I'd ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... Blanchard, the young and progressive publisher of the "Beau Monde", a weekly whose circulation rivalled that of "Macintyre's". There came also young Macklin, Mrs. Patton's nephew, with his monocle and his killing drawl. Macklin came by these honestly, having been brought up in England; but Thyrsis did not know that—he only heard the young gentleman's passing reference to his yacht, and to his passion for the poetry ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... Ned Burnleigh, with his affected drawl, "what the devil's the use, I'd like to know, for a fellah's putting himself out to do things, when there's any quantity of other fellahs, that can't be better employed, ready and ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... that of communities who are seldom utterly illiterate, and as seldom scholarly. I have listened in vain for any national twang, drawl, or peculiar intonation. The young people, perhaps, speak rather faster than English of the same age, that is all. On the other hand, anything like picturesque, expressive language within the limits of grammar is rarely found. Many good words in ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... before Naida, with her father and Immelan, appeared. The little party at once joined up, and Naida seated herself next to Nigel. She talked very slowly, but her accent amounted to little more than a prolongation of certain syllables, which had the effect of a rather musical drawl. Her father, after the few words of introduction had been spoken, strolled away to speak to some acquaintances, and Immelan and the Prince discussed with measured politeness one of the commonplace subjects of the moment. Naida and her companion ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... aids to ambition were increased by his next step, his appearance on the lecture platform. Noah Brooks, who was present at his first attempt, has recorded that Mark Twain's "method as a lecturer was distinctly unique and novel. His slow, deliberate drawl, the anxious and perturbed expression of his visage, the apparently painful effort with which he framed his sentences, the surprize that spread over his face when the audience roared with delight or rapturously applauded the ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... not in any way degenerate. He is a good fighting man, according to his lights. He does not wear a stand-up collar, nor an eyeglass, nor spats to his veldtschoon. He does not talk with a silly lisp or an inane drawl. Therefore, the useless fellows whom Britain trusted with the important task of watching him and sizing him up counted him as a boor as well as a Boer—a mere country clod. But now, from the rocky hills, these clods, these sons of semi-white savages, laugh ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... jokes. And, in a sly kind of way, they egged Phil on to quarrel with Fee,—laughing at all his speeches, and pretending that they thought Phil was afraid of Felix. And Chad joined in, I could hear his affected laugh and drawl above all the others; I felt how that ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... outside the few servant-girls and matrons in my own immediate service; for they invariably spin out, what could be condensed in a single phrase, into a long interminable yarn, and they munch and chew their words; and sticking to a peculiar drawl, they groan and moan; so much so, that they exasperate me till I fly into a regular rage. Yet how are they to know that our P'ing Erh too was once like them. But when I asked her: 'must you forsooth imitate the humming of a mosquito, in order ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... Al, with his dreamy drawl, "is this the line of talk you've been putting out to that bunch of Indians ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... does she constantly drawl out her time, without either profit or satisfaction; and, while I see my neighbours' wives helping in the shop, and almost earning as much as their husbands, I have the mortification to find that mine is nothing but a dead weight upon me. In short, I do not know any greater misfortune ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... supposed to be grown up. I'm eighteen, so I ought to know better. I went out to my first dinner-party this winter, and the most awful thing happened. A stupid male creature took me in, with a collar about a foot high, and such an affected drawl that I could hardly understand a word he said. However, I talked away and tried to be pleasant. I have a habit of waving my hands when I talk; we all have—perhaps you have noticed it! I was telling a story, and came to a point where it seemed necessary to lift my hand suddenly, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... invite you-alls to a taffy pulling in the kitchen," she said, with a drawl and an odd little courtesy that made everybody laugh, "No one admitted except en costume," pointing to her apron, "so each of you must find one hidden somewhere in the hall ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... a speaker must drawl his words. One of our national characteristics is that we shorten our words in pronouncing them—ing generally loses the g, does not has become doesn't and quite incorrectly don't, yes is yeeh, etc. In many cases nothing more is required than the restoration ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... Miss Smith," she said softly, with a tone that just escaped a drawl—"My dear Miss Smith, your work is interesting and your faith—marvellous; but, frankly, I cannot make myself believe in it. You are trying to treat these funny little monkeys just as you would your own children—or even mine. It's quite heroic, of course, but it's sheer madness, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... anything I particularly want," murmured Dan, in his lazy drawl: looked at from that point of view, school prizes are, it must be confessed, not worth ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... the Battle was fighting for him by the Few against the Many of us who only laughed at 'Louisa in the Shade,' etc. His Brother was then Master of Trinity College; like all Wordsworths (unless the drowned Sailor) pompous and priggish. He used to drawl out the Chapel responses so that we called him the 'Meeserable Sinner' and his brother the 'Meeserable Poet.' Poor fun enough: but I never can forgive the Lakers all who first despised, and then patronized 'Walter Scott,' as ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... await his onset. Slipping lithely to one side he avoided the bull-rush, all the time talking in the same pleasantly modulated drawl. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... Tom Hutter winked at Carley and said he "reckoned on general principles it was his hunch to go to bed." Mrs. Hutter suddenly discovered tasks to perform elsewhere. And Flo said in her cool sweet drawl, somehow audacious and tantalizing, "Shore you two ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... distinguished themselves,—chief among them Siddons. On the memorable night at Arden, however, it was but wretchedly rendered by a tall, small-voiced, flaxen-haired young woman, who stalked about the stage in high-heeled shoes and prodigious hoops, and declaimed the most fiery passages with an execrable drawl. The remainder of the company were barely passable as strolling players, with the exception of the actor who personated Osmyn. This was a young man named Bury, of respectable parentage and education, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... don't we start to-night?" the complacent usurper demanded in that plaintive drawl which so irritated the other. "You went for your ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... had sent for his elder son, Cornelius. A tall youth of seventeen, with the strong family features, varied by a droop in the eyelids and a slight drawl in the speech, lounged to the door of the library. Before entering he straightened his shoulders; he did not, however, ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... the English drawl soon gave way to sharp, emphatic Americanisms. It was after eight o'clock and the train was well under way. The street lamps were getting fewer and fewer, and the soft, fresh air of the suburbs ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... DRAGGING STEP.—Those who sluff or drag their heels, drag and drawl in everything; while those who walk with a springing, bouncing step, abound in mental snap and spring. Those whose walk is mincing, affected, and artificial, rarely, if ever, accomplish much; whereas those who walk carelessly, that is, naturally, are just what they ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... "How glad I am I came back! It's always better to be humble!" and added aloud, with a fine-lady drawl,— ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May

... equivalent to the foot omitted in the pauses, or the dwelling emphasis, or the diffused retardation. I do not, however, deny that a good actor might by employing the last mentioned means, namely, the retardation, or solemn knowing drawl, supply the missing spondee with good effect. But I do not believe that in this or any other of the foregoing speeches of Polonius, Shakspeare meant to bring out the senility or weakness of that personage's mind. In the great ever-recurring dangers and duties of life, where to distinguish ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... well as the Canary he had swallowed would give him leave, struck up a Carol, which Christmas Day had taught him for the nonce; and was followed by the latter, who gave "Miserere" in fine style, hitting off the mumping notes and lengthened drawl of Old Mortification with infinite humour. April Fool swore they had exchanged conditions: but Good Friday was observed to look extremely grave; and Sunday held her fan before her face, that she might not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... talk of Sarah's manners being good, nor her way of talking either; they're both as bad as bad can be,' said George Clay, with his soft drawl. ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... place, they would sound with their poles, and in a sing-song high-pitched tone drawl out the number of feet. Sometimes their sleepy drawling tones would suddenly cease, and crying loudly, "No alli agua!" they would swing themselves over the side of the boat into the river, and begin their strange and intricate manipulations with the poles. Then, again, they would ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... all the world over. Few Baltimorean voices are free from a perceptible accent; it is more marked in the gentler sex, but rarely so strong as to be disagreeable. The ear is never offended by the New England twang, or Connecticut drawl, and some tones ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... in his languid drawl, "We did but beg a cup of cider from his daughter. James hath a long face and a dull tongue for a boy of his age; but I warrant I spoke the wench fair for my part; and in French that had passed muster at Versailles. But 'tis ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... was remarkably soft and musical; but its sweetness of tone was marred by a peculiar, purring drawl, perhaps mere affectation, more probably the result of a habitual effort to conquer some impediment of speech, but in any ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... entrance with a volley of good-humored banter, some of which was so personal and evoked such responses that it sounded like the preliminary skirmish to a fight. But under all was that soft accent, that drawl of humorous appreciation and eyes twinkling in suppressed merriment. Here they were thoroughly at home and the spirit of comradeship manifested itself in many subtle ways; the wit became more daring and sharp, Billy lost some ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... feller who says he did, bring him here, and, by"—Yankee remembered himself in time—"and I give you my solemn word that I'll eat him, hat and boots." Yankee brought his bony fist down with a whack into his hand. Then he relapsed into his lazy drawl again: "No, siree, hoss! If it's doin's you're after, don't you be slow in bankin' your ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... exponent of the typically American style of fun-making, the humorous story. I asked Mr. Clemens one day if he could remember the first money he ever earned. With his inimitable drawl he said: ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... sailor," said he, with a slow, unpleasant drawl, "you're not rowing; you're weaving. It's fancy work you're ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.

... the fashion of a mammoth kitten. He bounded this way and that, knocking into somebody inevitably at every leap, and at each contact he wheeled toward the injured and lifted his hat and bowed low and brought out "I—beg—your—pardon" with a drawl of sarcastic emphasis too insulting ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... little hands in the side-pockets of her white reefer, Captain Mayo, like a man hit by a cudgel, was struck with the sudden and bewildering knowledge that he did not know much about women, for she asked, with a quizzical drawl, "Just what is there about me, dear captain, to inspire that everlasting regret which seems to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... you're liable to have your hands full?" she asked him with a certain drawl that Jean had possessed since she first learned ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... some reason, whenever he did speak every playmate in hearing stopped whatever he was doing and listened. Perhaps it would be a plan for a new game or lark; perhaps it was something droll; perhaps it was just a commonplace remark that his peculiar drawl made amusing. Whatever it was, they considered it worth while. His mother always referred to his slow fashion of speaking as "Sammy's long talk." Her own speech was still more deliberate, but she ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine



Words linked to "Drawl" :   accent, articulate, enounce, speech pattern, pronounce, enunciate, say



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