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Expensive   Listen
adjective
Expensive  adj.  
1.
Occasioning expense; calling for liberal outlay; costly; dear; liberal; as, expensive dress; an expensive house or family. "War is expensive, and peace desirable."
2.
Free in expending; very liberal; especially, in a bad sense: extravagant; lavish. (R.) "An active, expensive, indefatigable goodness." "The idle and expensive are dangerous."
Synonyms: Costly; dear; high-priced; lavish; extravagant.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Expensive" Quotes from Famous Books



... is all right, this place is," he said, leaning back in his chair with a large cigar between his teeth. "Jolly expensive, I ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I return, you must rejoice more in me than in the money I bring. 100 Friedrichs-d'or don't make 900, but 700, florins,—at least so I am told here. 2d. Lichnowsky being in haste left me here, so I am obliged to pay my own board (in that expensive place, Potsdam). 3d.——borrowed 100 florins from me, his purse being at so low an ebb. I really could not refuse his request—you know why. 4th. My concert at Leipzig turned out badly, as I always predicted it would; so I went out of my way nearly a hundred miles almost for nothing. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... but, bless you, it's quite otherwise! He's a victim of the same aberration that prompts people apparently as upright as a flagstaff to drop hotel towels into their trunks, collect coffee spoons in popular restaurants, or steal flowers in public gardens when they have expensive conservatories at home. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... than summer or autumn for planting strawberries. In thirty years' experience in strawberry culture I have never, except in two instances, found any advantage in summer or fall planting, and in these pot-plants were used, which are too expensive for general planting and not always preferable. Three or four of the varieties named, 100 of each, planted as early in spring as the ground is in good condition, in rows three to three and a half feet apart, and confined, as they run, to narrow strips, will give an abundance of ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... at Chur from Vienna, having taken the route through Milan and across the Splugen Pass. Although he was very short of funds, upon reaching the capital of the canton of Grisons he had put up at the Hotel Steinbock, the best and most expensive in the place. It was his opinion that he owed this mark of respect to Count Larinski; such duties he held to be very sacred, and he fulfilled them religiously. He was in a very melancholy mood, and set out for a promenade ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... cannot as they formerly could, so that there would be less strikes, reduction in wages, and petty tyranny practised upon the younger generation of workers. Fourthly, it would cause the abolition of workhouses, with their great army of expensive, well-paid officials. There would be no need for workhouses, because cottage homes would be provided for those who were infirm and feeble, on the lines of the present homes for children; an infirmary for those who were sick ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... sum out of their own resources, made an appeal to the generosity of other friendly powers, Amasis graciously offered them a thousand talents of Egyptian alum, then esteemed the most precious of all others. Alum was employed in dyeing, and was an expensive commodity in the markets of Europe; the citizens of Delphi were all the more sensible of Pharaoh's generosity, since the united Greeks of the Nile valley contributed only twenty minae of the same mineral as their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... far the most eligible for such as are very juicy: but it totally destroys their colours, and often renders their parts less fit for examination than by the process of drying. It is, besides, incommodious for frequent study, and a very expensive and bulky way of making ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... they have been at the seances at which I have been present with them; and that there is an unwillingness on the part of Mediums to have their powers freely and thoroughly investigated—a fact which makes any investigation of Spiritualism difficult and expensive. My opinions are not based exclusively upon what I have seen and recorded in my work with my colleagues, but also upon observations made at various times in a private capacity; and there is but one conclusion to be appended to them ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... with a vicious grin. "Be as smart as you like. I'll be paid well for every word of it and for every minute you've kept me waiting yesterday and tonight. That was the most expensive supper you ever ate. I thought you had sense enough to come, Mr. Bannon. That's why I wasted a stamp on you. You made the biggest ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster

... and loyal subjects, the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, having nothing so much at heart, as to enable your Majesty to bring this long and expensive war to an honourable and happy conclusion, have taken it into our most serious consideration, how the necessary supplies to be provided by us may be best applied, and the common cause may in the most effectual manner ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... very fast have the disadvantage of being expensive, but by combining them with logwood it is possible to obtain blacks that have a great degree of resistance to light, acids and milling. They are in this respect much superior to pure logwood blacks, while the cost ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech

... could produce it, which rendered the same taxation crushing on the Italian farmers, which was borne with comparative facility in the remoter provinces, where land was more fertile, and labour less expensive. An example, a fortiori, applied to the British empire, where the free traders wish us to admit a free importation of grain from Poland and the Ukraine, where not only is labour cheap but taxation trifling, into the British islands, where not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... was no appeal case going on—and an appeal was too expensive an amusement to be indulged in often—there was always a good deal of exciting litigation to keep up the interest of the convent, and to give them something to think about and gossip about nearer home. We have the best authority—the authority of the great Pope Innocent III.—for believing ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... twisted it round to the rougher road, feeling the grind of the broken glass that strewed the way. Billy had done his work thoroughly, and anticipated well what would happen. But those tires were costly affairs. They did not yield to the first cut that came, and the expensive car built for racing on roads as smooth as glass bumped and jogged down into the ruts and started toward Sabbath Valley, with the driver pulling again at his almost empty flask, and swaying giddily in his seat. Half a mile farther down the mountain, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... of teak, covered with zinc, with copper edges and corners. The bottom should be first covered externally, to enable the wet to drain off without touching the wood. The expensive canteens purchased of Messrs. Silver and Co., although covered with metal on the top and sides, had no metal beneath; thus they were a prey to damp ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... Manchester Guardian. Finally I went, at the end of 1918, for a short holiday to England, Lord Derby (with whom I always had the friendliest relations) giving me a diplomatic pass. When, however, early in January 1919 I prepared to return to Paris, where I had kept on my expensive rooms, I found difficulties in my way. Italian intrigue had apparently been on foot. I was advised to write to Lord Hardinge, and I told him briefly the circumstances. This great man never answered or acknowledged my letter, and it was only by making urgent ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... looked upon as frivolous and unsuited to the gravity of a Vestal, Brinnaria introduced Terentia to the organ. This instrument the child had heard, but had not learned to play, as organs were expensive in those days, whereas Terentia's family, although of the most ancient nobility, were in very ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... authors to whom he wished to lend his patronage; books which he had ordered in beautifully bound editions, partly because they looked well on his shelves, lending a noble colour to his rooms, partly because no man of culture should ever be without them; old editions, new editions, expensive books, cheap books, a library in which everybody, whatever his taste, could be sure of finding something ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne

... heard the Gospel but for their disinterested services. Their toils cannot have been for worldly honours, where could they win them? They cannot have been for pecuniary gain, because their labours have ever been gratuitous, and often expensive to themselves;—pelted with hailstones, dripping with rain, torn by storms, blistered with sun-heat, in all parts of the land, over miles of barren hills and wild moor, through dirty lanes and new-ploughed ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell

... The vastly expensive armaments of the present—the rifled breech-loader, the magazine rifle, the machine guns, the long-range field-guns, and so forth, are all accepted and paid for by the respective nations in the frank and naked expectation that these weapons ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... one and then another upon the things that interested them. It rejoiced his heart to be able to give them education and opportunity, it pleased him to see them in clothes that he knew were none the less expensive because of their complete simplicity. Miriam and Mr. Blent wrangled pleasantly about Debussy, and old Dunk waited as though in orders of some rare and special sort that qualified him for ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... Mary. "Isn't it wonderful! But do you suppose her mother will allow her to accept such an expensive gift? It must have cost ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester

... Swing it! Sure, we're in the groove now, but you never can tell! I'll buy you an orchid, honey! Not roses, just one orchid—black like your hair! Ever see a black orchid, hon? They're rare and they're expensive! ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long

... strangers were given seats on the platform; at the horseshoe of tables which fenced the front and sides of the platform sat a strong force of special correspondents who had come from everywhere. It was the best-dressed house the town had ever produced. There were some tolerably expensive toilets there, and in several cases the ladies who wore them had the look of being unfamiliar with that kind of clothes. At least the town thought they had that look, but the notion could have arisen from the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the N.S.W. Government found their system of State Socialism so expensive that the Treasury began to rapidly empty. The war, with its upsetting of the British money market, stopped the usual method of loan-raising, but some smart English capitalists, more experienced in finance than the average labor politician, offered to take ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... like them, and they are expensive, and he can give them up. If you would wish it, we would come here,—for a time." He turned round and looked at her almost suspiciously; and she,—she blushed as she remembered how accurately she was obeying her husband's orders. "It would be ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... dance-house. We slept on the floor of the dance-house, cooked our meals out in the garden, spread our food on the old beer tables, and imagined we were proprietors of the place, or guests of the government. We always ordered beer or expensive wines with our meals. Not that we ever got any beer or wine, because the beer garden was deserted, but we put on a great deal ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... visit the whole establishment had been abandoned for some years and was rapidly going to decay. The frames had been torn from the windows, and both the floor of the building and the ground in its vicinity were strewn with fragments of expensive machinery, broken cog-wheels, shafts, etc. This building is shown in Pl. XLV, and may serve as an illustration of the contrast between Tusayan masonry and modern stonemason's work carried out with the same material. The comparison, however, is not ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff

... however, too complicated, too cumbersome and expensive, performed too little service, and required too much tinkering and repairs to be viewed as a practical and available implement.—The English farmer found the sickle or reap hook preferable, for it was everywhere resorted to.—The cutting apparatus of Bell's consisted of shears, ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various

... tables, easels, pedestals, brackets and shelves with much less taste than an average dealer in antiquities would have shown in arranging his wares. There was not even light enough to see them distinctly, for the terrifically heavy and expensive Genoa velvet curtains produced a sort of dingy twilight. Moreover the Persian carpet was so extremely thick that Margaret almost turned her ankle as she made ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... said Lord Newhaven, as Rachel bought an expensive tea-cosey from Fraeulein. "In these days of death-duties you cannot possess four teapots, and you have already bought ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... quotation; fair price, going price; what it will fetch &c v.; what the market will bear. money's worth; penny's worth &c; worth. cost (price) 812. V. value, esteem; appreciate. [estimate value] appraise, evaluate, assess. Adj. valuable, estimable; worthwhile; worthy, full of worth. precious (expensive) 814. Phr. worth the price; worth a king's ransom; accountants who know the price of everything and the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... and Lily departed for the south-land, June week's joys lamented also. Stella's father came in instant response to her telegram and though the one to suffer the heaviest losses, made light of them and asked Stella if she couldn't tear herself from Columbia Heights without such an expensive celebration. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... out towards the fat plains of the Vale of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury, and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for the thickness of the average knee, and ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... twentieth part of such torture on him he would have yelled the house down. He remembered, with an inward grin, the anguished precautions on which he had insisted whenever he sat down in the chair of his expensive ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... the nature of both. Produced as they were for the Court, it was natural that they should possess something of that atmosphere of pageantry, music, and pantomime which we now associate with the word masque. But Elizabeth was economical and preferred plain drama to the expensive masque displays, though she was ready to enjoy the latter, if they were provided for her by Leicester or some other favourite. Lyly's work therefore never advanced very far in the direction of the masque, though in its complimentary ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... and seven pounds; which, divided by twenty-four, the number of years which that king reigned, make four hundred and seventy-six thousand eight hundred and eight pounds a year. During that time, he had two violent wars to sustain with the Dutch; and in 1678, he made expensive preparations for a war with France. In the first Dutch war, both France and Denmark were allies to the United Provinces, and the naval armaments in England were very great; so that it is impossible he could have secreted any part, at least any considerable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... still swam in troubled waters. Creditors became impatient and began to press their claims. More than one suit was brought against the Company involving long and expensive proceedings in the Court of Chancery, and very early in 1868 it was found necessary to convene, at Oswestry, a meeting of the "mortgagees, holders of certificates of indebtedness and other creditors, and of the preference and ordinary proprietors for the consideration of the best means of ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... this pursuit, beauty! beauty!—ah! beauty often struck mine een, and played about my heart! and fluttered, and beat, and knocked, and knocked, but the devil an entrance I ever let it get;—for I observed, sir, that beauty—is generally—a proud, vain, saucy, expensive, impertinent ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin

... to find suitable furnished lodgings for you," suggested Chatelet; "that way of living is less expensive than an inn. You will have a home of your own; and, if you will take my advice, you will sleep in your ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... has made an expensive blunder, and set real diamonds for you instead of paste. Where did you purchase them—or ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... that this is all very well, but special local advantages and special selection of children must be necessary to such success. Secondly, that this is all very well, but must be very expensive. Thirdly, that this is all very well, but we have no proof of ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... seemed to brood over the western farmer: blight and drouth destroyed his best crops just when they seemed to promise most; farm stock had to be reduced. The good years were few, the bad years were many. The great strain of carrying a large outfit of expensive agricultural machinery which on a small farm could be used with profit only from ten to forty days in the year, began to be felt. The debts, incurred by the purchase of the machinery, were growing steadily larger. With each renewal of the mortgage on the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... to refit. Captain Oliver, therefore, kindly offered my mother and me a passage, should she in the meantime be able to make arrangements for her departure. For this proposal she was very grateful. A journey across the whole width of Ireland and England was both difficult, hazardous, and very expensive, if performed in a comfortable manner. I was delighted with the thoughts of meeting again the Little Lady with the kind Misses Schank; for I must confess that the habits and customs of my relatives did not suit my taste much more than they did that ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... broke down; the sand-hogs all got drunk and lost much time; an untimely frost spoiled a thousand dollars' worth of concrete one night. But the detail that required the most handling was the psychological effect on Rob's subcontractors. These men, observing the expensive preliminary operations, and knowing that Rob was losing money every day the foundation work lasted, began to ask one another if the young boss would be able to put the job through. If he failed, of course they who had signed up with him for various stages of the work would lose ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... to have sailed to Sicily with Demosthenes. Since they had come too late, the Athenians determined to send them back to Thrace, whence they had come; to keep them for the Decelean war appearing too expensive, as the pay of each man was a drachma a day. Indeed since Decelea had been first fortified by the whole Peloponnesian army during this summer, and then occupied for the annoyance of the country by the garrisons from the cities relieving each other at stated intervals, it had ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... man. For, in the little apartment were three individuals whose faces did not indicate any too much honesty, and whose clothes were on the same "flashy" order as were Mr. Baker's, though none of the trio had as expensive jewelry as ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster

... war and certainly never in one against regular troops. It is true that the English were accustomed to fighting, for they had been constantly obliged to measure themselves with barbarous and semibarbarous peoples. They had made expensive expeditions and gained dearly purchased victories; but it was always the undisciplined, dark-skinned, and black hordes with whom they had had to deal. The experiences of the Boer War had not entered into the flesh and blood of the troops. The personal bravery ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... Mick, for all that," answered Mr. Mowbray, who knew by experience that impossible, when uttered by his accommodating friend in this tone, meant only, when interpreted, extremely difficult, and very expensive. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... are uncommon, and what few we have are expensive. Think not of luxuries, but rather of necessities. Husband the little money I shall be able to leave you and be prepared against ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... Mesdames de Montmorency and de Montemart and the Bishop of Metz. It seemed to me that these ladies were more contented than I was to leave the excellent dinner which was awaiting us there." Soissons, which had made many expensive preparations, had no return for its money and trouble. As to the ceremonious meeting in the pavilion two leagues off, which had been prepared for the next day at some expense, it was not to be thought of. Napoleon showed tact and courtesy by relieving ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... of results is to be attained, the correctness of all measuring instruments must be tested. None of the apparatus offered for sale can be implicitly relied upon except those more expensive instruments which are accompanied by a certificate from the !National Bureau of Standards! at Washington, or ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot

... Marshall tried bear-leading; but people are not particularly anxious to entrust their boys to a non-public school man afflicted by religious doubts. He thought of making use of his really exquisite voice and becoming a public singer; but the training is fearfully expensive, and so somehow that plan also fell through. For a time I am afraid he was really reduced to great straits, with the consequence that he broke down in health. Through friends, my husband got to hear of Marshall's miserable circumstances—shortly after our marriage it was—and felt it incumbent ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... he allotted a small parcel of ground ninety-four feet square and lying in the corner formed by Rose Alley and Maiden Lane (see page 245). Then he interested in the enterprise his tenant Cholmley, for, it seems, he did not wish to undertake so expensive and precarious a venture without sharing the risk with another. On January 10, 1587, he and Cholmley signed a formal deed of partnership, according to which the playhouse was to be erected at once and at ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... court and its official system. But these measures also failed because they were based on the assumption that judicial bodies could exercise effective control over administrative [v.03 p.0322] action, a control for which they are naturally unsuited, and which they could only carry out by cumbrous and expensive methods of procedure. Under the act of 1849 a totally new principle was introduced by the provision that a deed of arrangement executed by six-sevenths in number and value of the creditors for L10 and upwards should be binding upon all the creditors ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... guillotined, as fine white leather as ever you saw. The preparations for these Ecoles Centrales are all too vast and ostentatious: the people are just beginning to send their children to them. Government finds them too expensive, and their number is to be diminished. The librarian of this Ecole Centrale at Bruges is an Englishman, or rather a Jamaica man, of the name of Edwards. Brian Edwards was his great friend, and he was well acquainted with Johnson the bookseller, and Dr. Aikin, and Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld. ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... Powers was a necessary first step towards the liberation of oppressed peoples everywhere and the building of a better world. Italy entered the war at a time when things were going badly for us in Russia, and looked very menacing in France, and when she herself was still ill-prepared for a long, expensive and exhausting struggle. The first effect of her entry was to pin down along the Alps and the Isonzo large Austrian forces, which would otherwise have been available ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... Littell girls. Betty knew nothing of her uncle's finances, beyond the fact that he had been very generous with her, sending her checks frequently and never stinting her by word or suggestion. Still, boarding school, especially a school selected by the Littells, would undoubtedly be expensive. Betty wisely decided to let the matter drop ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson

... pounds," Mr. Barrow remarked succinctly. "All expensive material, and made at a Parisian modiste's. He spent money lavishly enough, ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... centuries old. All this points to the conclusion that people of former times laid much greater store by pigeon-flesh than their descendants do. It may have been that other animal food was relatively more expensive than at the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... confess her delights to be enough for them? They want a change, they say; yet where is the change? The table is the same, high-priced, choice and varied; the society is the same, the gossip is the same, the amusements are the same, the intrigues the same; the costume equally elaborate and expensive; the restless idleness as great and as hungry for excitement: all the artificiality of life is transported bodily into another place, and the only difference lies in the frame of the picture. Exquisites from the capital bring their own ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... manners, habits, speech) have a proverb, Holmes-Dale never won; he never shall. It had once a fort, call'd Homes-Dale Castle: I know not whether it might not be that of Rygate; but leaving this uncertain, and return to the plant, I have often wonder'd at our curiosity after foreign plants, and expensive difficulties, to the neglect of the culture of this vulgar, but incomparable tree; whether we will propagate it for use and defence, or for sight ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... felt both angry and ashamed. "I can't believe," she forthwith remarked, "that he has become so bad at heart! Not to speak of the milk I've had, I have, in fact every right to even something more expensive than this; for is it likely that he holds Hsi Jen dearer than myself? It can't forsooth be that he doesn't bear in mind how that I've brought him up to be a big man, and how that he has eaten my blood transformed into milk and grown up to this age! and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... At twelve I took the steamer down the Delaware to Philadelphia. Several floats of timber on the river, 36 yards long, 6 broad and 6 planks deep. A pleasant sail and view of Philadelphia. Paid 25 cents to one of the Rail line porters. Found Head's Hotel, Mansion House, rather less expensive than Bunker's. After dinner set off with C. D.'s parcel to Ridings in 13 St. a long way. Rain came on, I borrowed an umbrella from an entire stranger, who waited until my return and then accompanied me to Mr. Hulme's. ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood

... sake, Lottie, don't go on again with your usual absurdities. Since you are bent on being an artist, and your Popper has consented and put you under the most expensive master in Paris, the least you can do is to follow the rules. And I dare say he only wanted you to 'sink the shop' in company. It's such horrid bad form for you artistic people to be always dragging out your sketch-books. What would you say if your Popper ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... morning.—We received your Badge at last yesterday. Sir W. Musgrave and I deliberated a great while about the method of sending it, and at last went together to Lord Clive, who sets out for Paris to-morrow, and will take charge of it, as the surest conveyance. The courier was rejected as too expensive, and Mr. Ward as too uncertain. I have enclosed a schedule of what the packet delivered to Lord Clive contains. It is addressed to Sir J. Lambert and Mr. Ward. If he goes to Paris to-day, as he intended, [he] will carry a letter from me to Sir J. L[ambert] with directions for the safest and ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... influence of his environment upon him is marked from the first. He breaks with his father and mother, never writes to them or goes back to see them; partly because he feels it necessary to avoid contact with 'certain tendencies prevailing there.' 'Friends are an expensive luxury,' he finds, because they keep him from doing what he wishes to do, out of consideration for them. Is not this intellectual sensitiveness the corollary of a practical cold-heartedness? He cannot live ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... the credit that the campaign might bring him. But campaigns conducted under daily telegraphic promptings from distant superiors were not the brisk and independent matters of a few years back. There were too many advisers within easy, if expensive, reaching distance—too many "Friends of the Indian," and far too few of the soldier, close in touch at court. Crook himself was looking vexed and worried. It is so hard to serve God and Mammon, to grapple with the foemen at the front, the ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... certain disadvantages from a commercial standpoint. The primary battery is not an economical way to generate electric energy. In all its commercial forms it involves the consumption of zinc and zinc is an expensive fuel. The actual amount of current in watts required by a telephone is small, however, and this disadvantage due to the inexpensive method of generating current would not in itself be of great importance. A more serious objection to the ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... in answer to the inquiry whether he was of the royal party at Marly, say, "No, I am only here 'en polisson'," meaning simply "I am here on the footing of all those whose nobility is of a later date than 1400." The Marly excursions were exceedingly expensive to the King. Besides the superior tables, those of the almoners, equerries, maitres d'hotel, etc., were all supplied with such a degree of magnificence as to allow of inviting strangers to them; and almost all the visitors from Paris were boarded at the expense ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... been agent to old Topertoe, felt a kind of personal attachment to that good-humored reprobate, so long as he believed him to be honest. Old Tom's venality, however, at the union, made him rather sick of the connection, and the conduct, or rather expensive profligacy of the young absentee Lord, rendered his situation, as an honest and humane agent, one of great pain to himself, considering his ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... Coils, or shocking coils, are rather expensive to buy, and altogether too complicated for boys to make by the methods usually given in books. The method here given is simple, the materials are cheap, and if you make them according to directions, you will have ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John

... I confess it left me indifferent, and I turned a deaf ear, thinking it very insignificant and expensive. Then ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... twenty-four hours. The condensation of anhydrous sulphuric acid would pay, according to estimates submitted by Herr Hasenclever; but to pass the gases through a tower filled with lime, in order to get rid of the remaining sulphurous acid, would prove too expensive at Stolberg. An attempt to use milk of lime proved partially successful; but it was not followed up, because it was decided to experiment with the process suggested by Prof. Cl. Winkler, of Freiberg, who ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... was well that he made me this present, for without it I should have been penniless, having contracted rather expensive habits during the time that I lived with the young baronet. I now determined to visit my parents, whom I had not seen for years. I found them in good health, and, after staying with them for two months, I returned again in the direction of town, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... object that this is a troublesome and expensive way of growing strawberries. Do not the facts in the case prove the reverse? A plant restricted to a single root can be hoed and worked around like a hill of corn or a currant-bush. With comparatively little trouble the ground between the rows can ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... more scrupulously dressed than ever. His clothes, trimly cut in the latest style, were new and spotless. His plump, not to say puffy, face, of an overfed white, was as smooth-shaven as ever. His plentiful watch-chain and his elegant shoes and his expensive stockings were, if possible, more plentiful and elegant and expensive than ever. When Miss Josephine appeared in a fresh costume, his small gray eyes revolved about her with an appearance of sluggish satisfaction which for him ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... woodwork was grained and varnished after the manner of the Philistines, the walls papered in dark crimson, with heavy curtains of the same colour, and the sideboard, dinner-waggon, and row of stiff chairs were all carved in the same massive and expensive style of ugliness. The pictures were those familiar presentments of dirty rabbis, fat white horses, bloated goddesses, and misshapen boors, by masters who, if younger than they assume to be, must have been quite old enough ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... wheels!" Mrs. Bogardus sighed impatiently. "Hunting trips are expensive, and—when young men are living on their fathers, it is convenient sometimes to have a third. However, Paul goes, I half believe, to prevent their making a descent ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... already shown, it must therefore have been the authority of his Sovereign, and had Adam enjoined it to his posterity, it is not to be imagined that they would have obeyed him in so extraordinary and expensive a rite, from any other motive than the command of God. If it be urged, that superstitions prevail unaccountably in the world, it may be answered, that all superstition has its origin in true religion; all superstition is an abuse; and all abuse supposes ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... so far as the doctoring is concerned, Christian Ivan'itch and I have already taken measures; the nearer to nature, the better—we don't use any expensive medicines. Man is a simple creature; if he dies, why then, he dies; if he gets well, why then, he gets well; and moreover, it would have been difficult for Christian Ivan'itch to make them understand him; he doesn't know one ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... reflection! Who could do justice to the air with which he strutted along! He felt as happy, poor soul, in his little ostentation, as his Corinthian rival in tip-top turn-out, after twice as long, and as anxious, and fifty times as expensive, preparations for effective public display! Nay, my poor swell was in some respects greatly the superior of such an one as I have alluded to. Mr. Titmouse did, to a great degree, bedizen his back—but at the expense of his belly; whereas, the Corinthian exquisite, too ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... sends us a case of a novel method to keep out would-be marauders from the garden. A friend of his who has some expensive ferns planted in a rockery put up the notice, 'Beware of the Scolopendriums and Polypodiums'—which, of course, are the Latin ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various

... management, and he was certain of that a year ago. He has not been blind to the young man's infatuation for Madame Lepelletier, and he secretly hopes now that it will be transferred to Mrs. Grandon. Certainly such dissipations are much less expensive than fast horses and champagne suppers. As for himself, he sees that he must go as circumstances dictate. He will make some money, but he can never be master here, with his name up in plain solid gilt letters over the entrance, as he once allowed himself to dream. He can strike ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... beautiful and strong. But the most significant fact to my mind is that, until the past year, there have been in Nova Scotia no public schools, comparatively few private ones; and in these there is no severe pressure brought to bear on the pupils. The private schools have been expensive, consequently it has been very unusual for children to be sent to school before they were eight or nine years of age; I could not find a person who had ever known of a child's being sent to school under seven! ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... King's storehouses, which had been previously erected, were unfortunately so remote from the water-side, as to occasion much superfluous labour, as well as to render the unloading of ships extremely burdensome and expensive. These inconveniences have, however, been considerably lessened by the new arrangements; and the pursuance of a similar system will speedily render the port infinitely more commodious, and effectually remove those grievances which were calculated to restrict the influx, and increase ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann

... pardon,—that is not what I was going to speak of. As the young females of each successive season come on, the finest specimens among them, other things being equal, are apt to attract those who can afford the expensive luxury of beauty. The physical character of the next generation rises in consequence. It is plain that certain families have in this way acquired an elevated type of face and figure, and that in a small circle ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... fencing is expensive—and so are good sheep to begin with. No. Slow but sure must be our motto. I mustn't advise any great outlay of money—that would ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... that those who won't pay for expensive funerals are filibusters," rejoined the person addressed, with a ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... decided, was to obtain an attorney and consult him regarding the proper steps. For no other reason than that they had met occasionally in the corridor he thought of Patrick Enright, a heavy-set man with a loud voice and given to wearing expensive clothes. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... my companion. "Silver is a little better conductor, and a new metal, called glucinium, is better still, but both of these are too expensive for general use. Our telegraph and telephone wires were formerly made of iron for the sake of economy, but copper is now used for these lines, as well as for distributing electricity on a large scale. The copper wire ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... by my father was elegant—some would have called it luxurious. On our education and accomplishments no expense was spared. I had the best teachers—and, of course, the most expensive; with none others would I have been satisfied, for I had come naturally to regard myself as on a social equality with the fashionable young friends who were my companions, and who indulged the fashionable vice ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... be illustrated by a story. A certain Pythagoraean bought a fine pair of shoes from a shoemaker; and as they were an expensive piece of work, he did not pay ready money for them. Some time afterwards he came to the shop to pay for them, and after he had long been knocking at the closed door, some one said to him, "Why do you waste your time? The shoemaker whom you seek has been carried out of ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... Journal is a hazardous and expensive undertaking. Every reader of this volume receives what has cost more than he pays for it, and in addition receives the product of months of editorial, and many years of scientific, labor. May I not therefore ask his aid in relieving me of this burden by increasing ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... some twenty odd years of expensive living, with occasional excursions into good society. He wears broadcloth, and dines on venison, when his legitimate costume had been the striped uniform of the galleys, and his diet the black bread ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... you read these papers. He soon discovered what manner of man your uncle was, and the kind of company the Abbey gave shelter to. It was worse than you have imagined—a whirlpool of vice and debauchery. Such vice is expensive, and a long run of bad luck at play might easily bring a man to the verge of ruin. Your uncle came to the brink of the precipice, his appetite for vice and play still insatiated. Your fortune was in his ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... thought that he must know better than his stay-at-home brother, who had not seen a battlefield for eighteen years. He had listened contemptuously to dom Pedro when he pointed out that African conquests were both expensive and useless, that the cities, even if taken, could never become part of Portugal, and would always need garrisons to hold them, and smiled scornfully at the statement that any Portuguese force besieging Tangier ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... have associations. The originals were too small for the requirements of those who wished to live in such an expensive situation, and within the last score of years they have been pulled down and others built on their sites. One of these so destroyed was called the Gothic House; in it lived Count D'Orsay, and it was ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... the senior of whom looked a little scared at the prospect of having to wait on the magnificent gentleman who had just entered the house. In general, when Mr. Douglas came up to town in the absence of his family, he put up at his own very expensive club, and the servants in Portman Square were not troubled with him. But they, like every one else, knew that something was going wrong with ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... beckoned us to enter, we unhesitatingly followed him, and passing through the magnificent entrance, found ourselves in a vast ante-chamber, adorned after the manner of the Martians in the most expensive manner. Thence we passed into a great circular apartment, with a dome painted in imitation of the sky, and so lofty that to our eyes it seemed like the firmament itself. Here we found ourselves approaching an elevated throne situated in the center of the apartment, while long ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss

... visitor said, "I see that you are afraid to confess yourself the popular failure as a critic which you are. You are afraid that if you made a list of The Hundred Worst Books you would send the classes to buying them in the most expensive binding, and the masses to taking them out ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... little row with which he dealt each morning—first came his wife's strong, serviceable boots, then his own two pairs, a good deal patched and mended, and next to his own Mr. Sleuth's strong, hardly worn, and expensive buttoned boots. Of late a dear little coquettish high-heeled pair of outdoor shoes with thin, paperlike soles, bought by Daisy for her trip to London, had ended the row. The girl had worn these thin shoes persistently, in defiance of Ellen's reproof and advice, and he, Bunting, had only ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes



Words linked to "Expensive" :   dear, overpriced, valuable, pricy, high-priced, big-ticket, dearly-won, costly, pricey



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