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Feline   Listen
adjective
Feline  adj.  
1.
(Zool.) Catlike; of or pertaining to the genus Felis, or family Felidae; as, the feline race; feline voracity.
2.
Characteristic of cats; sly; stealthy; treacherous; as, a feline nature; feline manners.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Feline" Quotes from Famous Books



... remorselessly the stone knife was driven home through the glossy hide—time and again it drank deep, until with a final agonized lunge and shriek the great feline rolled over upon its side and, save for the spasmodic jerking of its muscles, lay quiet and still ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... know how to bring them up. I am tired of folks who smile continuously. I am tired of amiable fools and the platitudes of unintelligent saints. I am tired of mediocrity. I am tired of cats, both human and feline. I am tired of being a soldier and marching with the advance guard. I am tired of girls who giggle and of boys who swear. I am tired of married women who think it charming to be a little giddy, and of married men who ogle young girls and other men's wives. I am tired of a world where ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden

... are now exhibiting in Regent-street; but as we have not yet left our card with their feline excellencies, we cannot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various

... Jorkins apartments on the second floor; up stealthily by the Tinkletons' abode on the third; up past the fire-escape Italian garden of little Mrs. Persimmon on the fourth; up past the windows of the disagreeable Garraways' kitchen below mine, and then, with the easy grace of a feline, zip! he silently landed within reach of my hand on my own little iron veranda, and craning his neck to one side, peered in through the open window and listened intently for ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... sulphur amid black powder, of burned stuffs and calcined earth which roams in sheets about the country, all the menagerie is let loose and gives battle. Bellowings, roarings, growlings, strange and savage; feline caterwaulings that fiercely rend your ears and search your belly, or the long-drawn piercing hoot like the siren of a ship in distress. At times, even, something like shouts cross each other in the air-currents, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... in a subdued tone, his voice half-drowned by a second roar from the great feline, this ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... where Cesarine was to achieve her crowning act of treachery, she and her husband were closeted. On the latter's unruffled brow not even her feline gaze could read what a perfect acquaintance he possessed with all her past and ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... fame, Foul, and dirty, and black as ink, That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink, Poured in her horn like slops in a sink: While sitting in conclave, as gossips do, With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green, And not a little of feline spleen, Lapped up in "Catty packages," too, To give a zest to the sipping and supping; For still by some invisible tether, Scandal and Tea are linked together, As surely as Scarification and Cupping; Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea - Or sloe, or whatever it happened to be, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... different from the fierce glare seen in the eyes of many of our animals, especially the feline race, which seems to enlarge the eyes to enormous orbs of brilliant light. In the Martians it is simply a colourless, soft, and liquid glow which has a different effect on eyes of different colours; but it is ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... rated cleanliness higher. Some of us primates have learned to keep ourselves clean, but it's no large proportion; and even the cleanest of us see no grandeur in soap-manufacturing, and we don't look to manicures and plumbers for social prestige. A feline race would have honored such occupations. J. de Courcy Tiger would have felt that nothing /but/ making soap, or being a plumber, was compatible with a high social position; and the rich Vera Pantherbilt would have deigned ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... of rats, and, with a majestic bound over bushes upwards of twelve feet high, re-entered the jungle. With a feeling of indignation at such contemptuous treatment, George Rennie re-charged his gun in haste, vowing vengeance against the whole feline race—a vow which he fully redeemed in after years. His brother John, who was injured to the extent of a scratch on the back and a severe bruise on the ribs by the rough treatment he had received, arose and ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... from between his fingers. And when Jud reluctantly ordered her away she did not blunder down the steps, but threw her weight back on her haunches and swerved lightly away. It fascinated Andrew; he had never seen so much of feline control in the muscles of a horse. When he turned back to the table he announced: "Pop, I've got to ride that horse. I've got to have her. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... contributions of the rifle to peaceful amusement, if not peaceful industry. Contemptuously giving the go-by to its minutest phase in this field—the "parlor rifle," with a target against the chimney-piece or meandering, in feline form, along our neighbor's roof-tree—we go forth, with Snider and sunrise, to the forest fastness. Our companions throng, tall, bronzed, close-knit and sinewy, true children of the four-grooved, from frosty Caucasus, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... at Memphis, in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, his funeral cost not less than L13,000 sterling. When a cat died, the family it belonged to expressed great grief, and prayed and fasted several days. In cases of fire, more care was taken to preserve the feline animals than the most valuable property in the house. Dead cats, which were almost invariably embalmed, were sometimes carried from remote parts to be interred in the city of Bubastis, and hawks and moles were ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... naked under her transparent dress of gauze, which fell in straight folds as far as the gold bracelets on her slender wrists, with languor in her rich voice, and something undulating and feline in the rhythmical swing of her wrist and hips. Tatia Caroly was singing one of those sweet Creole songs which call up some far distant fairy-like country, and unknown caresses, for which the lips remain ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... noticed that the fox-terrier always knew its feline friend in the dark, and was always able to distinguish it from other cats. These, when they appeared, were always ferociously charged and driven away; and one day, in its eagerness to get at a strange cat, the dog nearly hurt its little companion. It happened in this way. The two friends ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... old Israel found her more than once sitting in the middle of the kitchen-floor with Toby crouched for a spring under the table, his poor mistress afraid to move, for fear of her unlucky ankles. And this literally cat-ridden woman was hazed about and ruled over by her feline tyrant to that extent that he occupied the easiest chair, the softest cushion, the middle of the bed, and the front of the fire, not only undisturbed, but caressed. This is a veritable history, beloved reader, and I offer it as a warning and an example: if you will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... he ran deeper into the wood upon an alarm, occasionally found his neck in a noose suspended across his path. For rabbiting, the lurcher was and is the dog of all others. He is as cunning and wily in approaching his game as if he had a cross of feline nature in his character. Other dogs trust to speed; but the lurcher steals on his prey without a sound. He enters into the purpose of his master, and if any one appears in sight remains quietly in the hedge with the rabbit or leveret in his mouth till a sign bids ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... Dulac made another forward movement, slowly, not lifting his foot, but sliding it along the rug to its new position.... Then immovability.... Then another feline approach. Step after step, with ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... think I fell victim to their feline charm. The children were pets, but you didn't feel like patting the adults on their big grinning heads. Personally I didn't like the one I knew best. He was called—well, we called him Charley, and he was the ethnologist, ambassador, ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily

... tapering muzzle, small ears, bushy tail, and grayish hair. It takes to the water, for the one we saw at Tabatinga was caught while crossing the Amazon. Fawn-colored pumas, spotted jaguars, black tigers, tiger-cats—all members of the graceful feline family—inhabit all parts of the valley, but are seldom seen. The puma, or panther, is more common on the Pacific side of the Andes. The jaguar[177] is the fiercest and most powerful animal in South America. It is marked like the leopard—roses of black spots on a yellowish ground; ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... Lucien," said Finot, drawing des Lupeaulx in the direction of the poet, and shaking hands with feline amiability. "I cannot think of another example of such rapid success," continued Finot, looking from des Lupeaulx to Lucien. "There are two sorts of success in Paris: there is a fortune in solid cash, which any one can amass, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... one of the type of these elegant good-for-nothings. Ripe and pretty, with a feline charm, you can see that she is vicious to the marrow. Everybody has a good time at her house, with cards, dancing, and suppers; in fact there is everything which goes to make up the pleasures of ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... ardent desire to "kill a panther" and a horrible fear of being eaten alive. No one dared to move; only after five minutes it occurred to one of the carriers to light a match. I then remembered the fear which feline animals exhibit at the presence of fire, and ordered my men to gather two or three handfuls of brush, which I set on fire. We then saw, about ten steps from us, one of our carriers stretched out on the ground, with his ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... them—times when he cruelly reproached her and when her native melancholy deepened into outbursts of despair. Finally there occurred an incident which is more or less obscure in parts. The Duchesse de Bouillon, a great lady of the court—facile, feline, licentious, and eager for delights—resolved that she would win the love of Maurice de Saxe. She set herself to win it openly and without any sense of shame. Maurice himself at times, when the tears of Adrienne proved wearisome, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... woke in the night, disturbed by a low growl from Tinker, who slept in the passage. I heard afterwards that his dreams were always haunted by cats. He was an inveterate enemy to all the feline species, with the exception of Peter, the great tabby cat. They had long ago sworn an armistice, and, in his way, Tinker took a great deal of notice ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... torn the scalp over his forehead. In this frightful condition the hunter grappled with the raging beast, and struggling for life, they rolled together down a steep declivity. All this passed so rapidly, that the other boor had scarcely time to recover from the confusion in which his feline foe had left him, to seize his gun, and rush forward to aid his comrade, when he beheld them rolling together down the steep bank in mortal conflict. In a few moments he was at the bottom with them, but too late to save ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various

... the clear space to Persimmon Sneed. He was a little, slim, wiry man, with light, sleek hair, pink cheeks, high cheek-bones, and a bony but blunt nose. He had a light eye, gray, shallow, but inscrutable, and there was something feline in his aspect and glance, at once smooth and caressing and of ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... this early morning visit was about to be made apparent. Bill returned to his position at the desk and lit another cigarette. The suave manner of his unwelcome guest was dangerous. He was prepared. There was something almost feline in the attitude and the expression of the young rancher as he waited for the money-lender to proceed. Perhaps Lablache understood him. Perhaps his understanding warned him to adopt his best manner. His usual method in dealing with ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... admirable legislator when his time comes. Although his highest intellectual recreation is reiterated attendance at the musical comedy that has caught his fancy for the moment and his favourite literature the sporting pages of the daily papers, he has a curious feline pounce on the salient facts of a political situation, and can thread the mazes of statistics with the certainty of a Hampton Court guide. His enthusiastic researches (on my behalf) into pauper lunacy are remarkable in one so young. I foresee him an invaluable chairman of committee. But he will never ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... one walks toward it, barefooted, on the heated pavement, heedless of the heat. The motives which led Boleslas to choose the French novelist as the one from whom to obtain his information, demonstrated that the feline character of his physiognomy was not deceptive. He understood Dorsenne much better than Dorsenne understood him. He knew him to be nervous, on the one hand, and perspicacious on the other. If there was an intrigue between ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... quickly and softly, but somebody was inside the room, somebody who had a light, feline step, and John felt the prickling of the hair at the back of his neck. He longed for a weapon, something better than only his two hands, but he was reassured when the intruder, speaking ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the outside light, fitting his own quick step to the prince's feline saunter. This is coming it pretty soft, he said to himself. I'll have a magnificent suite, with bowls of fruit and gin pahits, not to mention two or three silken girls with skin like rich cream bringing me towels in the shower.... Well, well, well, it's not so bad working for ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance

... like that of a pole-cat, her features singularly sunken and attenuated, it was not easy to tell her age; she looked as near fifteen as thirty, although she was in reality only nineteen, four years younger than her husband. There was much feline slyness in the depths of her little black eyes, which suggested gimlet holes. Her low, bumpy forehead, her slightly depressed nose with delicate quivering nostrils, her thin red lips and prominent chin, parted from her cheeks by strange hollows, all suggested the countenance of an ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... quite in the line of drawing-room anecdotes, and Starratt had seen the time when his wife would have recoiled from them with the disdainful grace of a feline shaking unwelcome moisture from its paws. But to-night she drew her dark eyebrows together tensely and let her thin, vivid lips part with frank eagerness. Her interest flamed her with a new quality. Fred ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... limbs. Her gaze hung fixedly on a faded engraving which was over the mantel, and which represented a banquet held by one of the ancient English kings. With glassy eyes she stared at this picture representing the joys of living. She did not notice that Borgert had followed her with his feline step. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... ran the Governor, now goaded to courage by the loss of his papers, and she, finding herself in a cul-de-sac, turned at bay, launched the cat at his head, and attempted to spring past him. But he caught the whirling feline in one white-gloved hand and barred her way with the other; and she turned once more in desperation to seek an egress which ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... age, her face the very picture of health and freshness. Upon her knees lay a large cat, with her paws folded under her, and her eyes half-closed, purring in that significant manner which, according to feline habits, indicates perfect contentment. The two friends paused before the window in complete amazement, while Planchet, perceiving their astonishment, was, in no little degree, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... on the turf the woman, still alone with her thoughts, suddenly moved. She unclasped her long hands from about her knees, stretched her limbs and body with feline grace, then slowly raised her head and extended her arms with open, curving fingers, as if to gather to her all the glory and overwhelming sanity of the morning. This was a gesture not to be mistaken: it was a gesture of freedom, the movement of a soul's resolution to be, to ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... him too, without letting Barty know. I did not like the man—he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade me that no other treatment was ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... the city of Caneville, I lately drew the materials of a Bear's Biography. From the same source I now derive my "Adventures of a Dog." My task has been less that of a composer than a translator, for a feline editoress, a Miss Minette Gattina, had already performed her part. This latter animal appears, however, to have been so learned a cat—one may say so deep a puss—that she had furnished more notes than there was original matter. Another peculiarity ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes

... the cat-bird is a nest-robber I have no evidence, but that feline mew of hers, and that flirting, flexible tail, suggest ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... because it loves warmth, but because the sun keeps off terrifying and antagonistic occult forces, to the influences of which the cat, above all other animals, is specially susceptible; a fact fully recognized by the Egyptians, who, to show their understanding and appreciation of this feline attachment, took care that whenever a temple was dedicated to the sun an image or symbol of the cat was placed somewhere, well in ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... of feline curses, the poor animal broke loose, and dashed across the garden and through the hedge, faster than even the fairies could follow. "Never mind, never mind, we shall find her again; and by that time she will have laid in a ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... up the dark, silent defile, hears the solitary voice of the water, sees the decayed trunks of fallen trees bridging the stream, and all he has dreamed, when a boy, of the haunts of beasts of prey—the crouching feline tribes, especially if it be near nightfall and the gloom already deepening in the woods—comes freshly to mind, and he presses on, wary and alert, and speaking to ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs

... stairway was empty, for both I and my charge were with La Marmotte, and the Italian ran upstairs with a footfall as light as that of a cat. On reaching the landing he stopped for a second, glanced around him, with the same feline caution that marked all his movements, and then, creeping forward on tiptoe, went along a corridor leading to a wing ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... two men whom she observed at the soiree musicale; but she would never have felt moved to any kittenish display to attract their notice—to any feline or feminine wiles to express herself toward them. Their personality attracted her in an agreeable way. Her fancy selected them, and she was glad when a lull in the music gave them an opportunity to meet her and talk with her. Often on the street the glance of strange eyes had ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... having these facts told him this morning, said he thought it unlikely that Cat Number Two was the same individual as Cat Number One, though the story of Androcles and the lion, if true, would indicate that animals of the feline species sometimes remember and reciprocate a kindness. "Why, then," said the doctor, solemnly closing one eye, "may we not suppose that a cat would have the will and the intelligence to revenge ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... from her grave, To this frenzied hunt she hies, In her hands the gory head Which with feline joy she flings ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... meals," Blaze said, warningly. "First thing I know you'll have me in a full-dress suit, spillin' soup on my shirt." Then to his guest he complained, feelingly: "I don't know what's come over Paloma lately; this new dressmaker has plumb stampeded her. Somebody'd ought to run that feline out of ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... proposal to take her to Bellevale. The eyes inured to the perusal of dusty commentaries and reports were still sharp enough to see the mutual tenderness exchanged in the unwavering, eye-to-eye encounters whereby Amidon was converted into Brassfield, and to note the softness of the feline strokings by which Florian's catalepsy was induced or dispelled. He rather favored dropping the Blatherwick acquaintance: but he could not answer Amidon's arguments as to ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... in the beginning of the pyramid times; but her main period of popularity was that of the Shishaks who ruled from Bubastis, and in the later times images of her were very frequent as amulets. It is possible from the name that this feline goddess, whose foreign origin is acknowledged, was the female form of the god Bes, who is dressed in a lion's skin, and also came in from ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie

... treatise to prove that Puss in Boots is an allegory upon the progress of the human understanding, having its origin in the mystical schools of the Egyptian priests, and evidently an illustration of the worship rendered at Thebes and Memphis to those feline quadrupeds of which they make both religious ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Miss Wilson in the study, correcting examination papers, heard in the distance a cry like that of a cat in distress. She ran to the door and listened. Presently there arose a prolonged wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsiding again. It was a true feline screech, impossible to localize; but it was interrupted by a sob, a snarl, a fierce spitting, and a scuffling, coming unmistakably from a room on the floor beneath, in which, at that hour, the older girls ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... There is something feline about this combination of perfect patience with quiet persistence—a combination which the Jesuits on a larger scale have turned into the characteristic of their order. It is especially remarkable when it breaks the bonds of silence, and takes the form of what in vulgar language is called ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... occasions Miss Berber suddenly appeared in the tent, dressed wonderfully in white panne, with a barbaric mottle of black and white civet-skins flung over one shoulder, and a tight-drawn cap of the fur, apparently held in place by the great claws of some feline mounted in heavy gold. She wore circles of fretted gold in her ears, and carried a tall ebony stick with a gold handle, Louis Quatorze fashion. From her huge civet muff a gold purse dangled. She looked at once more conventional and more dynamic than Mary had ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... was consoled by being allowed to earn a quarter of a dollar by transporting the luggage to that destination. The procession at once set forth, including Dave, who strolled in the rear, softly whistling, and apparently totally unconcerned, yet all the while alive with feline watchfulness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... couldn't be hypnotized, to walk up and prove it. Dirty Dan O'Leary had volunteered, had been mesmerized after a struggle, and, upon being told that he was Dick Whittington's cat, had proceeded to cut some feline capers that would have tickled the sensibilities of a totem-pole. Mr. Daney's honest cachinnations now were so infectious that Nan commenced to laugh with him—heartily, but no longer with that strident little note of resentment, and cumulatively, as Mr. Daney's mirth mounted until the honest ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... going on among the birds, even on the warmest days. The companionship of Calvin, also, counts for a good deal. He usually attends me, unless I work too long in one place; sitting down on the turf, displaying the ermine of his breast, and watching my movements with great intelligence. He has a feline and genuine love for the beauties of Nature, and will establish himself where there is a good view, and look on it for hours. He always accompanies us when we go to gather the vegetables, seeming to be desirous to know what we are to have for dinner. He is a connoisseur ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... come to the conclusion that she was being made a fool of, for she got up, stretched herself lazily, with arched back and bared claws, and yawned a bored feline yawn. And even as she did so she was aware of a sudden final flourish of thuds, and then dead-silence. Next moment, in that same dead-silence, she distinctly heard something coming towards her, and that something was taking no pains ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... So the feline beauty took it, with courtesies and 'thankees,' smiling still, and hid it away as if she stole it, and looked on my open palm still smiling; and told me, to my surprise, that there was somebody I liked very much, and I was almost afraid she would name Captain Oakley; that he ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... spouting fish. Vertical zones of writhing figures ascend the sphere at the base of the Victor. Across the upper portions of the sphere, and modeled as parts of the Earth, stretch titanic zoomorphs, representing the Hemispheres, East and West. The spirit of the Eastern Hemisphere is conceived as feline and characterized as a human tiger cat. The spirit of the Western Hemisphere is conceived as taurine and characterized as a human bull. The base of the Equestrian is surrounded by a frieze of architecturalized fish and the rearing sea horses that furnish the principal upper motif ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James

... Cow with crumpled horn, Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn, Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew The Rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through The textile fibers that involved the grain That lay ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous

... an opportunity of enjoyment and of display. She sat amid her like, the feline ladies and the young nobles, half brute, half fop, who though already most of them fasted without the merit of piety, still prided themselves on being the flower of Roman fashion. During one of ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... it, then. Miss Arthur seems to me to be feline, rather than vulpine, though." Bending forward, the girl studied ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... Beach) she had expelled him from her presence like a schoolboy. Naturally he had been annoyed and offended—stung even into the rudeness of abandoning her in a summer-house to an entire stranger. How could you possibly wonder (unless feline) that he, great unsocial at best, had thereafter remained ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... was electric with feline expression; his ears stood up, his eyes sent out green sparks; hair and whiskers were on end; he devoured poor little Cheeps already with his gaze; his tail grew huger, and vibrated ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... coldly and sharply. Then he grinned with feline cordiality. "I reckon I ain't scared of anyone," he said, "but I ain't likin' to go back to the Circle Cross after puttin' Yuma out of business. I've done some mean things in my time, but I ain't dealin' double with no man, an' I couldn't go back to the Circle Cross an' work for Dunlavey when ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... in general speak of lions, tigers and other beasts of the feline tribe as "cats," and elephants, camels, horses and their like are known in show parlance as "hay animals," because hay ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum

... lips, burning like ice. To-morrow,—in a few hours,—his first thought, his only thought would be to find that woman again, to experience that voluptuous impression, that dream that had penetrated his heart. A danger, Lissac had said. The feline eyes of Marianne had a dangerous ardor; but it was their charm, their strength and their adorable seductiveness, that filtered like a flame through her long, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... cognizance of the fact that Chieftain, upon his face, wore an expression unnatural for lions to wear. It was an expression which might be classified as dreamily good-natured. His eyes drooped heavily, his lips were wreathed in a jovial feline smile. Transfixed as he was by a shock of astonishment and chagrin, Riley under his breath snapped a word ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... perhaps; you know the particular zone where the hemlocks look so black in October, when the maples and beeches have faded. All its reliefs and intaglios have electrotyped themselves in the medallions that hang round the walls of your memory's chamber.—The sea remembers nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet,—its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you; but it will crack your bones and eat you, for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened. The mountains give their lost children berries ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... on his feet and as quick and graceful as a cat, but there was nothing feline about his appearance. He stood well over six feet in his stockings and tipped the beam close to the two hundred mark. Not one ounce of fat was on his huge frame. So fine was he drawn that unless one looked closely he would never suspect the weight of bone and muscle that ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... after poem it is the tenderness, the purity, the delicacy of women, which draws and allures him. Their more feline, more raptorial attributes are only alluded to in the verses where he is obviously objective and impersonal. In the excessive gentleness of his eroticism Verlaine becomes, among modern poets, strangely ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... decided him. Mouton was sound asleep, with his stomach turned upwards, one of his paws resting on his nose, and his tail twisted over this side, as though to keep him warm; and he was slumbering with such an expression of feline happiness that Florent, as he gazed at him, murmured: "No, it would be too foolish! I accept the berth. Say that ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... at him, she knew that in all her wide demesne no soldier could stand before him and look straight into his eyes. So deep and honest a book it was, so easily readable, that she must turn to its final pages. Love him? No. Be his wife? No. She recognized that it was the feline instinct to play which dominated her. Consequences? Therein lay ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... if the gulf were bridged! What late, What all undreamed-of hurdle-winners Might blossom from a natural hate Of forming parts of feline dinners? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... Dulcinea too loudly. When Hedwige's little sister came to me with a doll into which Hedwige had savagely run hatpins so that the stuffing came out, I consoled the weeping infant with a new doll and the assurance that Hedwige was the spitefullest cat as yet evolved from a feline sex. I had no notion at the time of the reason for Hedwige's viciousness. But now I fancy she must have acted according to mediaeval superstition and used the doll as Joanna's hated effigy. I remember ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... match-making mother had found out for herself in a week. That the discovery had been carefully kept in each maternal breast, it is needless to relate. Ces dames are not confidential upon such matters between themselves. When they have scented their game they stalk him, and if possible bag him in a feline solitude which has no fears for stout, ambitious hearts. The fear is that some other prowling mother of an eligible maiden may hit ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... it without your order, sir," said she quietly, and shot him a feline glance from under ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... grandmother inside it, would find it easy to wrap itself up in bedclothes, or whether, seeing that even walnut shells subject cats to such extreme discomfort, top-boots would not be even more intolerable to the most faithful of feline retainers. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... hope you won't be angry with me when I tell you that I have put the Bear Cat into commission and driven it three times already. It is running like the feline it is, and I am being as careful as I can. I know exactly how you will feel. It is the same feeling that has held me all these months, when I wouldn't even let myself think of it. But something happened at school one day, Marian. You know the Whitings? Mary Louise Whiting's brother ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... but walked over to the table and began the work of investigation. Mr. Linden came too. "If you are to make feline discoveries, I must stand by you, little bird," ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... alternately with brown and yellow, the ground being a sort of silver-grey. The head resembles that of the lion, but without the mane, and is prolonged into a face and snout more like those of the wild boar. Its limbs are less unlike those of the feline genus than any other Earthly type, but have three claws and a hard pad in lieu of the soft cushion. The upper jaw is armed with two formidable tusks about twelve inches in length, and projecting directly forwards. A blow from the ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... first and foremost on gossip, silly, pitiful gossip and conjecture. Gossip in England, gossip in Brussels, conjecture all round. Above all, it rests on certain feline hints supplied by Madame Heger and her family. Charlotte's friends were always playfully suspecting her of love-affairs. They could never put their fingers on the man, and they missed M. Heger. It would never have occurred to their innocent mid-Victorian minds ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... of these adventuresses, elegant, mature, and still beautiful. Charming feline creatures, you feel that they are vicious to the marrow of their bones. You find them very amusing when you visit them; they give card-parties; they have dances and suppers; in short, they offer you all the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... I am a handsome youth, not unlike my mother in the delicacy of my features. My father's heritage is evident in my large, feline eyes, and in my slight body and quick movements. My mother's death, when I was four, left me in the charge of my father and his coterie of loyal servants, and I could not have wished for a finer ...
— My Father, the Cat • Henry Slesar

... however: that incorruptible Robespierre is not wanting, now when the brunt of battle is past; in a stealthy way the seagreen man sits there, his feline eyes excellent in the twilight. Also understand this other, a single fact worth many: that Marat is not only there, but has a seat of honour assigned him, a tribune particuliere. How changed for Marat; lifted from his dark cellar into this luminous ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... slender like his daughter, and walked with lithe, slightly feline movements. His face was oval, clear skinned, and with a pallid complexion made still paler by his dark hair and eyes and a tiny mustache, almost black and with waxed and pointed ends. He was good-looking as to features, but the face ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... filled the cat with indescribable terror; and she leapt back. The blast of a trumpet, the smash of a pile of crockery, or a pistol-shot fired by her ear would not have dismayed the feline to such an extent. All her ornithological ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier

... of either the one or the other. If the wealthy maiden was really a worthy soul she did not let her nephew know it. Corporeally she was angular and iron-grey, with a summary tongue and wintry temper, chastened by a fondness for feline favourites. Unluckily, I was always falling foul of the latter, and my aunt continually fell foul of me in consequence. Crabbed age and youth could not live together in our case on account of cats. Age, as represented by the ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... Such was Mr. Marmaduke's feline ingenuity! I had a retort ready, and I saw that Mrs. Manners, long tried in such occasions, was about to pour oil on the waters. But it was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... a careful scrutiny of the larder, assisted by the gratuitous services of his ever faithful feline friend, THOMAS, he found the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various

... Softly and with feline stealth BRUNO MECHELKE enters the room at this moment. He has on his Sunday duds, a sprig of lilac in his hat and a great bunch of it in his hand. JOHN drums with his fingers on the window and does ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... house there was another attraction in the shape of the concierge's cat, on whom Sir Charles would call before paying his respects upstairs. At another house a cat named Pouf was held in great honour by him, and his feelings were deeply wounded when, with feline capriciousness, it turned, on Paul Hervieu's entrance, to bestow all its blandishments on the writer. His love of cats was as well known to his French as to his English friends, Emile Ollivier writes in 1891 from La Moutte: 'Campion ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... Swinton. "That a lion generally lurks and lies in wait to seize his prey is certain, but this is the general characteristic of the feline tribe, of which he may be considered as the head; and it is for this mode of hunting that nature has ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... because its object was to admit of free intercourse with cats, to whom it was mostly talked, and by whom it was presumed to be comprehended. In this tongue the cat was naturally the chief subject of nomenclature; all feline positions were observed and named, and the language was rich in such epithets, as Arabic contains a vast number of expressions for lion. Euphonic changes were very arbitrary and various, differing for the same termination; but the adverbial ending ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... Lear's house the fine-bodied, feline lady with nictitating eyes, drew aside the curtain, even while the dying man above was in frigid waters, that she might slowly raise and drop her ambrosial lids, and express a refined but not less marked surprise. Agnes, by an excitement of the nerves of apprehension, saw everything while ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... a wave of crimson surged to her face in spite of herself. To hide her confusion she turned her head, and her eyes met those of Amalia, brilliant and steely, as they rested upon her. They looked at each other for an instant. The feline mouth of the Valencian was wreathed in a smile. Fernanda tried to respond by a similar one, but it was a failure. She turned again to the count, and talked of indifferent subjects, of theatres, music, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... condescendence of his superior officer towards the priest; and every day he was beseeching the Commander to let him do once, just once, "Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" merely for the sake of having a little fun. And he begged for it with feline gracefulness, the cajolery of a woman, the tenderness of voice of a beloved mistress craving for something, but the Commander did not yield, and to console himself, Mademoiselle Fifi exploded mines ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... one of many feline goddesses, figured with the head of a lioness. In the great development of reverence for sacred animals which took place after the New Kingdom, the domestic cat was especially the animal of Bubastis, although it had also to serve for all the other feline goddesses, owing no doubt ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... Those feline orbs of mingled gray and green, with their small, pointed pupils, were keen, vigilant, and observing beyond all eyes it had ever before or since been my lot to encounter. After meeting their penetrating glance I was not surprised to hear their possessor ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... all is! every word tells as the generations pass before us. The very spirit of romantic Irish fidelity is incarnate in Thady. Jason Quirk represents the feline element, which also belongs to our extraordinary Celtic race. The little volume contains the history of a nation. It is a masterpiece which Miss Edgeworth has never surpassed. It is almost provoking to have so many details of other and less interesting stories, such as EARLY LESSONS, ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth

... soon, he got up sooner. If there is one thing that a house cat should be taught, it is to sleep elsewhere than on the top stair. When he fell and struck the sleeping cat there was a crisis. He took in the situation at once. An occasional disengaged feline toe nail, and a squall, told him in burning words that, while his title to the seat was contested, it would be impolitic to wait for a commission of unbiased judges to decide which was entitled to it. His opponent was armed, and had possession, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... in spotless white, from their duck oxfords to the white ties encircling the open collars of their tennis shirts. The two tall figures—Crane's slender, wiry, at perfect ease; Seaton's broad-shouldered, powerful, prowling about with unconscious, feline suppleness and grace—and the two handsome, high-bred, intellectual faces, each wearing a look of eager happiness, ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... still moved in a semi-phantasmagoric world, swiftly raised the hem of her kimona, affording a glimpse of a shapely silk-clad limb. From a sheath attached to her garter she drew a thin stilletto. Curiously feline, she crouched, as if about ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... among other names, called the puna. The disorder is sometimes fatal to stout plethoric people; oddly enough, cats are unable to endure it: at villages 13,000 feet above the sea, Dr. Tschudi says that they cannot live. Numerous trials have been made with these unhappy feline barometers, and the creatures have been found to die in frightful convulsions. The symptoms of the puna are giddiness, dimness of sight and hearing, headache, fainting-fits, blood from mouth, eyes, nose, lips, and a feeling like sea-sickness. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... this as she managed to rise above an inauspicious background, and the lazy stretch she gave beneath the sheet that was all that covered her, bringing out two white arms above her head so that the muscles swelled under the tight skin, was so lovely in its feline grace as to triumph ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... feathers, craning his neck inquisitively downward in all directions, before chancing to descend to earth and breakfast; nor need we see the panther skulking from his lair to know that he has stopped to lick his paw and pass it over his face—the feline morning ablution. Each creature has a particular mode of resurrection after its hours of mimic death; and so I, on a bed of whatsoever it may be, yawn hideously and stretch my arms and grumble: O, Lord, how I hate to get up! Indeed, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... was graciousness personified. All her jokes and smiles and all her conversation were lavished upon Frank. It may be that she wished to make amends for the opportunities she knew he was anxious to obtain but could not, for the most charming of women have a little of the feline instinct in their nature, and whether there is any response to a man's wooing in their hearts or not, they love to enjoy their power. Several times Frank, who intuitively felt she did not wish to be left alone with him, started to ask her to take a walk that Sunday evening, but ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... she caught sight of some envelopes lying on the round marble-topped table in the middle of the hall. She seized one of them with a wonderfully quick, almost feline, movement and tore it open, saying to us, "Excuse me, I must . . . Do go into the dining-room. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... fearsomely Celtic in its hideousness, resembling the gargoyles which peer down upon the traveller from the carven 'top-hamper' of so many Breton churches. Black and menacing of countenance, these demon-folk are armed with feline claws, and their feet end in hoofs like those of a satyr. Their dark elf-locks, small, gleaming eyes, red as carbuncles, and harsh, cracked voices are all dilated upon with fear by those who have met them upon lonely heaths or unfrequented roads. They haunt the ancient dolmens ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... curled upward at the ends and looked a little thicker, giving an exaggerated impression of wetness. Hastings thought of some small, feline animal, creeping, anticipating prey—a ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... again. There was always something feline about y'u. I remember when y'u were a boy y'u liked to torment wild animals y'u ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... cats; and Mr. Newman says, "Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice." Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin



Words linked to "Feline" :   cat, carnivore, big cat, family Felidae



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