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Gloss   Listen
verb
Gloss  v. t.  
1.
To render clear and evident by comments; to illustrate; to explain; to annotate.
2.
To give a specious appearance to; to render specious and plausible; to palliate by specious explanation. "You have the art to gloss the foulest cause."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gloss" Quotes from Famous Books



... you have not touched it," said Kind William; "but the dust of fourteen years must have destroyed all gloss and colour." ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... was delivered by the early fathers to those who came later, according to Deut. 32:7: "Ask thy father, and he will declare to thee." Now the apostles were most fully instructed about the mysteries, for "they received them more fully than others, even as they received them earlier," as a gloss says on Rom. 8:23: "Ourselves also who have the first fruits of the Spirit." Therefore it seems that knowledge of matters of faith has not increased as time ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... but the lesson he had received made him cautious. He must get him into trouble by some means. Should he complain to his uncle? It would involve the necessity of admitting his defeat, unless he could gloss over the ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger

... dwelt a little, and only a little, upon the intensity of the contest waged for four hundred years previous to the added atrocities introduced by the Reformation, we have done so advisedly, since it has become a fashion of late to throw a gloss over the past, to ignore it, to let the dead bury their dead—all which would be very well, could it be done, and could writers forget to stamp the Irish as unsociable, barbarous, and bloodthirsty, because with arms in their hands, and a fire ardent ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... beautiful, seeing each day something new and wonderful, seemed to me truly enchanting. But cruel reality strips everything of its rose tints. The poor women arrive looking as haggard as so many Endorian witches, burnt to the color of a hazelnut, with their hair cut short, and its gloss entirely destroyed by the alkali, whole plains of which they are compelled to cross on the way. You will hardly find a family that has not left some beloved one buried upon the plains. And they are fearful funerals, those. A person dies, and they stop ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... recent epoch, for the surface of the coral has scarcely suffered from the action of the weather, and hundreds of sea-shells, exactly resembling those still found upon the beach, and many of them retaining their gloss and even their colour, are scattered over the surface of the island to near ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... example of this style. It dates from 1327 to 1343. The MS. of Boethius at Laon is another. But one of the most masterly, whether as to design or manipulation, is a law book in the Library at Laon (No. 382). This grand folio contains "Glossa Ioannis Andre in Clementinas"—"The Gloss or Explanation of Joannes ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... column'd hemlocks point in air Their cone-like fringes green; Their trunks hang knotted, black and bare, Like spectres o'er the scene; Here lofty crag and deep abyss, And awe-inspiring precipice; There grottoes bright in wave-worn gloss, And carpeted with ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... been taught to hold As full of pith and gravity, he took As 'twere, 'twixt thumb and finger of his wit— Rubbed off their gloss, until they seemed to me, All, ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope

... of having pretended ignorance of the English language, as he found himself at the mercy of a rascal, who put a false gloss upon all his words, and addressed himself to the audience successively in French, High Dutch, Italian, and Hungarian Latin, desiring to know if any person present understood any of these tongues, that his answers might be honestly explained to the bench. But he might have accosted ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... who hovered between Jacobite and Jacobin; who disliked the loyal-minded, and loved to lampoon the reigning family. Besides, the marvel of the inspired ploughman had begun to subside; the bright gloss of novelty was worn off, and his fault lay in his unwillingness to see that he had made all the sport which the Philistines expected, and was required to make room for some "salvage" of the season, to paw, and roar, and shake the mane. The doors ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... increased from five or six to twelve or fourteen hours, and the light had increased and grubs were easier to find. By April, the starlings no longer appeared to be the same species as the poor, rusty, bedraggled wretches we had been accustomed to see; they are now lively, happy birds with a splendid gloss on their feathers and beaks as bright a yellow as the blackbird's. Finally, in April they left us, not going in a body, but flock by flock, day after day, until by the end of the month all were gone back to their homes in the north—all ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... treats of gardens I immediately buy, and thus possess quite a collection of fascinating and instructive garden literature. A few are feeble, and get shunted off into the drawing-room; but the others stay with me winter and summer, and soon lose the gloss of their new coats, and put on the comfortable look of old friends in every-day clothes, under the frequent touch of affection. They are such special friends that I can hardly pass them without a nod and a smile at the well-known ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... though he wanted these outward things, that flie away like shadows, was not his mind a full one, and a brave one? You have wealth enough to give him gloss and outside, and he wit enough to give way ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... own, and that he personally was entitled to the credit of whatever power they exhibited, was certainly practicing deception. It was a gross violation of Franklin's cardinal virtue of sincerity. It was unworthy of Franklin, in his charitable regard for the offender, to gloss over the real ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... she went on, "how things will take the gloss of humor, looking back. That cloudburst was anything but funny at the time; it was miserably exasperating to stand there drenched, with the comfortable quarters of the mining company in sight, cut off by an impassable washout. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... talk mingled with the twittering of the birds in the hedges which bordered the Coton pathway or the Madingley road. On such occasions it must have been well worth the loss of sleep to hear Macaulay plying Austin with sarcasms upon the doctrine of the Greatest Happiness, which then had still some gloss of novelty; putting into an ever-fresh shape the time-honoured jokes against the Johnians for the benefit of the Villierses; and urging an interminable debate on Wordsworth's merits as a poet, in which the Coleridges, as in duty bound, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... manner had always been radiantly self-confident; but there was about him a conspicuous element of quick feeling, of warm humanity, which grew rather than diminished with his success. He was frank, too, and did not try to gloss over a mistake or a failure. Perhaps in his lordly way he felt he could afford himself a few now and then, he was so much ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... that was not honorable; he would do nothing that was not just and right; he would do nothing that was contrary to his great profession of faith. Thus, without any abatement of the verbal inspiration of the Fourteen Points, they became a document for gloss and interpretation and for all the intellectual apparatus of self-deception, by which, I daresay, the President's forefathers had persuaded themselves that the course they thought it necessary to take was consistent with every ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... in classes IV and V were made of a much finer clay, and the surface bears a gloss, almost a glaze. The ornamentation on the few fragments which were found is composed of geometric patterns, and is identical with the sherds from other ruins of Verde valley. A fragment each of a dipper and a ladle, portions of a red bowl, ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... War. It seems the Chief Minister of State had some private Ends in these dilatory Proceedings, and King James's Cause in Ireland was also to be sacrific'd to this Gentleman's Resentments. The Case was this, Lewis XIV upon great Importunity, and to put a Gloss upon, and lay deep Colours upon his Politicks, condescended so far, as to order five or six Thousand despicable Foot Soldiers for King James's Service in Ireland, with a General at their Head, who had been more accustom'd to lead up a ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe

... traces of the old. She felt that the chief sting of present deprivation lay in the evidence of its contrast with former plenty. She hated the image in her memory of her cottage glistening with the white gloss of paint, and would have weakened it if she could. Paulina Maria accordingly, standing on a kitchen-chair, had scrubbed with soap and sand the old paint-streaks as high as her long arms would reach, and had, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... and Cuffs Laundered in the newest style of finish. "The DOMESTIC FINISH." No high gloss to look like Celluloid or Paper Collars, but a nice medium finish that has all the appearance of new work. High gloss finish is all out of style. Gentlemen these times always ask for the "Domestic Finish." We have equipped ourselves with the latest ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various

... us. Cavalry, artillery, lancers, infantry, sappers and miners, trench-diggers, road-makers, stretcher-bearers, they swept on as smoothly as if in holiday order. Through the dust, the sun picked out the flash of lances and the gloss of chargers' flanks, flushed rows and rows of determined faces, found the least touch of gold on faded uniforms, silvered the sad grey of mitrailleuses and munition waggons. Close as the men were, they seemed allegorically splendid: as if, under the arch of the sunset, we had been watching the ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... it has not been a lightly-considered matter with me at all, and, after thinking it well over, I have come to the conclusion that it is not sufficient to part us. You see, sweet, that you may implicitly believe me. I have no false gloss of compliments. Frankly, as you yourself would do, I admit the drawback; but, unlike you, I affirm that it does ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... spirit, like a bruised reed, yet soaring beyond all his misfortunes to study the highest problems, and bequeathing his knowledge for the benefit of future ages! Can such a man be stigmatized as "the meanest of mankind"? Is it candid and just for a great historian to indorse such a verdict, to gloss over Bacon's virtues, and make like an advocate at the bar, or an ancient sophist, a special plea to magnify his defects, and stain his noble name with an infamy as deep as would be inflicted upon an enemy of the human race? And all for what?—just to make a rhetorical ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... usual exaggerates the knowledge possessed by the personae of the dialogue; cf. Introd. p. 38, De Or. II. 1. In promptu: so II. 10. Quod ista ipsa ... cogitavi: Goer., who half a page back had made merry over the gloss hunters, here himself scented a miserable gloss; Schutz, Goerenz's echo expels the words. Yet they are thoroughly like Cic. (cf. De Div. II. 1, Cat. Mai. 38), and moreover nothing is more Ciceronian ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... nothing now but practice," he said. "I give you joy, Sheik Ilderim, that you have such servants as these. See," he continued, dismounting and going to the horses, "see, the gloss of their red coats is without spot; they breathe lightly as when I began. I give thee great joy, and it will go hard if"—he turned his flashing eyes upon the old man's face—"if we have not the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... dissimilar—one individuality projecting itself in length and the other in breadth, which is already a sufficient ground for irreconcilable difference. Marlow who was lanky, loose, quietly composed in varied shades of brown robbed of every vestige of gloss, had a narrow, veiled glance, the neutral bearing and the secret irritability which go together with a predisposition to congestion of the liver. The other, compact, broad and sturdy of limb, seemed extremely ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... of weathered oak, give one coat of thin shellac to fix the stain and two coats of wax for a soft-gloss finish. ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor

... which no doubt it has, was much worse. The dress was very inflammatory; and the nudity of the beauties of the portrait-painter, Sir Peter Lely, has been observed. The queen of Charles II. exposed her breast and shoulders without even the gloss of the lightest gauze; and the tucker, instead of standing up on her bosom, is with licentious boldness turned down, and lies upon her stays. This custom of baring the bosom was much exclaimed against by the authors of that age. That honest divine, Richard Baxter, wrote a preface to a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Mrs. Gale. She was a square-set, blunt-featured woman of forty-five or so, who had once been comely like her daughter Essy. Now her soft chin had sagged; in her cheeks the stagnant blood crawled through a network of little veins, and the gloss had gone from her dark hair. Her brown eyes showed a dull defiance and deprecation ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... rosebud garden of girls, Come hither, the dances are done, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... with gasoline and cornmeal. To restore the gloss, rub the hat with a very fine piece of sandpaper which has been tacked over a small block of wood. Rub with the nap. To complete the process, remove the sandpaper and substitute a piece of velvet. Rub this on a ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin

... was written when we were a wandering tribe come out of the desert of Arabia, without towns or cities, without a Temple, without an Ark—ours having fallen into the hands of the Philistines. He continued his gloss till Mathias held up his hand and asked Hazael's permission to speak: the words that had been quoted from Deuteronomy, those in which the Scriptures speak of God as if he were a man, attributing to him the acts and motives of man, were addressed, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... effort to feel at ease, but all their hilarity is fictitious and assumed—they have the common feelings of our nature, and of which they can never divest themselves. Those who possess an unusual buoyancy of spirits, and gloss over their feelings with their companions, I have ever observed on the whole, to feel the most internal agony. I have seen upwards of two thousand under this sentence, and never conversed with one who did not appear to consider the punishment, if it exceeded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various

... very extravagant," said the old man, gently. "He won't wear anything when once the gloss is off it. But," with a sad smile, "I get ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... palimpsest, 'the prophet's holograph, defiled, erased, and covered by a monk's.' What he has written is fresh, legible, and in full conformity with the manners and the diction of the day, and those who are unable to understand him without gloss and comment are in fact not prepared to understand what it is that the original has to say. Scarcely any literature is so entirely unprofitable as the so-called criticism that overlays a pithy text with a windy ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley

... rather Madame Sagittarius, as she must for the present be called, was a smallish woman of some forty winters. Her hair, which was drawn away intellectually from an ample and decidedly convex brow, was as black as a patent leather boot, and had a gloss upon it as of carefully-adjusted varnish. Her eyes were very large, very dark and very prominent. Her features were obstreperous and rippling, running from right to left, and her teeth, which were shaded by a tiny black moustache, gleamed in a manner that could scarcely be called natural. She ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... he was a shrewd Philosopher, And had read every text and gloss over: Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath, He understood b' implicit faith: Whatever Skeptic could inquire for; For every WHY he had a WHEREFORE: Knew more than forty of them do, As far as words and terms could go. All which he understood by rote, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... course in philosophy was nothing less than a summary of the important systems of thought put forward in Western Europe during the last twenty-six hundred years. Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration—we did gloss over a few centuries in the Middle Ages. For the rest we touched upon all the historic names from Thales to Nietzsche. After about nine weeks of this bewildering transit a friend approached me with a sour look on his face. "You know," he said, "I can't make head or tail out of ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... gloss is scarcely necessary to tell us what these words mean. 'Come down,' they say, 'from your bleak North country hills where she dwells who binds you with her spell, and be at peace far away from her in the genial ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales

... of the host to-night,' said Cuchulainn to his father. 'Go from us with a warning to the Ulstermen. I am forced to go to a tryst with Fedelm Noichride, [Note: Gloss incorporated in the text: that is, with her servant,' etc.] from my own pledge that ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown

... was a black skirt, terminated by naked feet in worn and tattered sandals, and above it a withered bust, bent and bony, a head coppery and wrinkled, with but one eye, and thin gray hair, which allowed the gloss of baldness to shine ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... altered for the better. His improved finances had sweetened his temper and cast the shining gloss of prosperity over his appearance; and, in a measure at least, time had revived in him the ardent, if fluctuating, emotions of the lover. For three months after her return, he evinced a fervent sentiment for Gabriella, which she, who was staunchly paying the price of her folly, received with ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... Sk. It was usual with Chatterton to prefix a to words of all sorts, without any regard to custom or propriety. See in the Alphabetical Gloss. Aboune, Abreave, Acome, Aderne, ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... Column and his cut-throat Quartier Montmartre, I, the negative; drew it a little into more polished circles where wit and talent sparkled. The Vicomte D'Haberville, a French d'Argentenaye, took us to a reception—not too proud of us I daresay, for the gloss of his shoes and the magnificence of his cravat outshone us as the sleek skin of a race-horse does a country filly. Especially did he eye Quinet a little coldly, so that I could scarcely persuade ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... her box, "we are happy in our own good opinion this evening, Mr. Croftangry. And so you think you can restore the gloss to the tartan which it has lost by being ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... natives. I soon dried my tall hat, which, during the storm, I had attached to my button-hole by a string, and, though it was a good deal battered, I was not without hopes of partially restoring its gloss and air of British respectability. As will be seen, this precaution was, curiously enough, the human means of preserving my life. My hat, my black clothes, my white neck-tie, and the hymn-book I carry would, I was convinced, secure ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... features that, without having the soft and fluent graces of childhood, were yet regular and striking. His dark-green shooting- dress, with the belt and pouch, the cap, with its gold tassel set upon his luxuriant curls, which had the purple gloss of the raven's plume, blended perhaps something prematurely manly in his own tastes, with the love of the fantastic and the picturesque which bespeaks the presiding genius of the proud mother. The younger son had ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... gloss of prosperity. When they left the train they put on polished silk-hats, brought forth by ready servants, and when they walked through the streets of the little villages they were resplendent in long, black frock-coats and light trousers. They were not, as Mr. Heathcote had ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... then those pensive eyes would close, And bid their lids each other seek, Veiling the azure orbs below, While their long lashes' darken'd gloss Seemed stealing o'er thy brilliant cheek, Like ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... this sense that he advocated Bible-reading in schools—simple Bible-reading, without theological gloss. On the one hand, this was the only workable plan under existing circumstances. True, that he would not have employed the Bible as the agency for introducing the religious and ethical idea in a system that could begin with a clean slate. He believed that ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley

... shortcomings of my work, would be but feebly to express my convictions in this respect. I beg the reader however to consider that the subject is not a hackneyed one, that mine has not been the work of the compiler who remodels the brain-work of others. It may be crude and rough, it may lack the gloss and polish that is the result of much handling, but I have at least the consciousness that it has the merits ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig

... the brooklet fell With plashy pour, that scarce was sound, But only quiet less profound, A stillness fresh and audible: A yellow leaflet to the ground Whirled noiselessly: with wing of gloss A hovering sunbeam brushed the moss, And, wavering brightly over it, Sat like a butterfly alit: The owlet in his open door Stared roundly: while the breezes bore The plaint to far-off places drear,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... familiarity of the lower orders, and indeed the unpolished state of society in general, would neither surprise nor disgust if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement which may be looked for in a new and inexperienced people. But, when we find them arrived at maturity in most of the vices, and all the pride of civilization, while they are still so far removed from its higher and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... years ago; that it has had Reform Acts indeed, and such—like changes of formula, but no essential revolution since then; that all that is modern and different has come in as a thing intruded or as a gloss upon this predominant formula, either impertinently or apologetically; and you will perceive at once the reasonableness, the necessity, of that snobbishness which is the distinctive quality of English thought. Everybody who is not actually in the shadow of a Bladesover is as it were perpetually ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... she with her English accent. Then she arranged the shawl about her shoulders and looked at herself in the glass. The proprietor took it to the light, gathered it up in his hands, smoothed it out, showed the gloss on it, played on it as Liszt plays on ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac

... species in his catalogue of the Accipitres in the British Museum, it will be seen how many of the terms employed apply equally to our Eudynamis, even to the general words, 'deep brown above with a chocolate gloss, all the feathers of the upper surface broadly edged with rufous.' ... Beyond the general grouping of the colours there is nothing to remind us of our own Bush-hawk; and that there is no great protective resemblance is sufficiently ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar

... make it up. He should become familiar with the methods of classifying the economic woods of the United States, both under the microscope and with the unassisted eye, and for this purpose should know something of their color, gloss, grain, density, odor, and resonance both as aids to identification and as to their importance in giving value to the wood; the defects of timber; its moisture content, density, shrinking, checking, warping; and the effect of all these ...
— The Training of a Forester • Gifford Pinchot

... noticed it when Breitmann came in. The latter's velvet collar was worn; there was a suspicious gloss at the elbows; the cuff buttons were of cheap metal; his fingers were without rings. But the American readily understood. There are lean years and fat years in journalism, and he himself had known them. For the ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... have the same thought which appears a few pages later in prose: "All that Shakespeare says of the king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself." He has failed in the verse because he has thrown a mystical gloss over a thought which was stronger in its simplicity; because in the verse he states an abstraction instead of giving an instance. The same failure follows him sometimes in prose when he is too conscious ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... should be firm ground. He waded toward wallowing. This is a perilous way of living and the sad little end of Euphemia, flushed and coughing, left him no doubt in many ways still more exposed to the temptations of the sentimental byway and the emotional gloss. Happily this is a book about Lady Harman and not an exhaustive monograph upon Mr. Brumley. We will at least leave him the refuge ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... application-blanks to be filled in she would pore inkily over them and, after a while, slyly crunch hers up in her hand and steal out. She was still pinkly and prettily clean, and her hair with its shining mat of plaits, high of gloss, but one Saturday half-holiday, rather than break into her last bill, she ate a three-cent frankfurter-sausage sandwich from off a not quite immaculate push-cart, leaning forward as she bit into it to save herself from the ooze of mustard. Again she had the sense of Cora ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... amusement in his eyes. He was a tall thin man of middle age, with a striking appearance and the straight composed features of an early American portrait. His dark hair, brushed back from his forehead, had the shining gloss that comes of good living and careful grooming, and this gloss was reflected in his smiling gray eyes and in the healthy red of his well-cut though not quite generous mouth. He was a charming guest, an impressive speaker, a sympathetic listener; yet there had always ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... learned to think more alluring than other beauty. He was sick of fair faces, and fat arms, and free necks. Madame Goesler's eyes sparkled as other eyes did not sparkle, and there was something of the vagueness of mystery in the very blackness and gloss and abundance of her hair,—as though her beauty was the beauty of some world which he had not yet known. And there was a quickness and yet a grace of motion about her which was quite new to him. The ladies upon whom the Duke had of late most often smiled had been somewhat ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... soldier pooh-poohed her first letters. She would come round in time. Her natural good-feeling would get the better of her when she had had her religious fling. He didn't put it so—a strict old Puritan of the old school—but that was Miss Graythorpe's gloss in her own mind on what he did say. However, her mother never did come round. She cherished her condemnation of her daughter to the end, forgiving her again more suo, if anything with ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... position towards the truth; and the results were weighty.—Nor did the child's influence work forward merely. In his intercourse with her he was so often reminded of his first wife, and that, with the gloss or comment of a childish reproduction, that his memories of her at length grew a little tender, and through the child he began to understand the nature and worth of the mother. In her child she had given him what she could not be herself. Unable to keep up with ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... test of antiquity when suspicions are entertained of the workmen having forged the hatchets which they offer for sale. The most general test, however, of the genuineness of the implements obtained by purchase is their superficial varnish-like or vitreous gloss, as contrasted with the dull aspect of freshly fractured flints. I also remarked, during each of my three visits to Amiens, that there were some extensive gravel-pits, such as those of Montiers and St. Roch, agreeing in their geological ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... smoke, because it was not considered right for women to use tobacco until they were past the age of sixty-five. After that they had their weekly allowance with the groceries. In the evenings of bright days you saw Peggy at her best. When the dusk fell, and the level sands shone with a deep smooth gloss, you would see strange figures bowing with rhythmic motions. These figures were those of women. All the women of the village turn out on the sand to hunt for sand-eels. To catch a sand-eel requires long practice. You take two iron hooks, ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... celebrated volume of sermons, pointed out a passage almost word for word identical with what the pastor had said in his sermon on the previous Sunday—a curious instance of parallel inspiration. Unkind people afterwards spread the gloss that the elder had accused the minister of plagiarism. Mere fiction, no doubt. After a thing has happened people can generally find twenty causes. The excommunication, however, was real enough, and ten times more effectual because the sentence was pronounced ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... hands. I pledged myself, when it was done, to follow the course laid out for me. Then I made bold to exchange roles. With some maidenly hesitation, which soon vanished, she in turn laid before me the inner history of her life. Ah, my boy, how little there was in it to gloss over! how much to humiliate the best and noblest of us men! It was a revelation that made me prostrate myself before her. I was not worthy ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... wanted to talk, for once, with a natural man—one unspoiled by the despicable gloss of wealth and supposed social superiority. Oh! you do not know how weary I am of it—money, money, money! And of the men who surround me, dancing like little marionettes all cut by the same pattern. I ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... inexorably, dismissing her as nonsense, and as a fine lady—terms to him interchangeable. Then his condemnation began to falter, then ceased; then acquittal, and at last commendation succeeded. For Miss Corbet asked his advice about the dogs, and how to get that wonderful gloss on their coats that his had; and she asked his help, too, once or twice and praised his skill, and once asked ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... by caricaturing the manners of a class of women who are even greedier but more wheedling and mealy-mouthed than the Malay woman, and who put a gloss of the best motives on the trade they ply. Asie affected to have lost all her illusions, five lovers, and some children, and to have submitted to be robbed by everybody in spite of her experience. From time to time she exhibited some pawn-tickets, to prove ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... if the sick man be ashamed to confess to the physician, the medicine is not adapted to that of which he is ignorant." Let the princes and cities, therefore, believe these authors rather than a single gloss upon a decree questioned and rejected by those who are skilled in divine law. Wherefore, since a full confession is, not to say, necessary for salvation, but becomes the nerve of Christian discipline and the entire obedience, they must be admonished to conform to the ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous

... in the Lord are blessed, on account of two things which immediately follow. For they enter into most sweet rest, and enjoy most delicate refreshment. Concerning their rest it immediately follows. "Even so saith the spirit" (that is, says the gloss, the whole Trinity), for they rest from their labors. "And it is a pleasant bed on which they take their rest, who, as is aforesaid, die in the Lord." For this bed is none other than the sweet consolation of the Creator. Of this consolation he speaks ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... attained by human means. But the dean saw a ray of hope out of those purblind old eyes of his. Yes, let them tell the bishop how distasteful to them was this Mr. Slope: a new bishop just come to his seat could not wish to insult his clergy while the gloss was yet fresh on his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... those that are partly worn look better for a little, every thing washes easier that has starch in. Nice table cloths, and all fine things, after being sprinkled and folded, should be tightly rolled up in towels, and ironed till perfectly dry, they will then retain their gloss. Large table cloths should be brushed clean from crumbs, and folded without shaking, as that tumbles them; those in daily use should be put under a press—a heavy book is suitable, or a board may be made for the purpose; they will keep in credit much longer ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... was the same but slower and more sonorous, more grave on the prolonged termination of the last word; at Paris the voices of the nuns drew it out and put a gloss on it at the same time, turned into satin its final sound, rendered it less dull, less spaced, less ample. The "Gloria in Excelsis" differed; that of La Trappe was more primitive, more mounting, more sombre, interesting by its very barbarism, but less touching, for in its ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... Madame de Saint-Dizier were appointed prefects, colonels, treasurers, deputies, academicians, bishops and peers of the realm, from whom nothing more was required in return for the all-powerful support bestowed upon them, but to wear a pious gloss, sometimes publicly take the communion, swear furious war against everything impious or revolutionary,—and above all, correspond confidentially upon "different subjects of his choosing" with the Abbe d'Aigrigny,—an amusement, moreover, which ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Laborum, which is employed by Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Prudentius, &c., still remain totally unknown, in spite of the efforts of the critics, who have ineffectually tortured the Latin, Greek, Spanish, Celtic, Teutonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c., in search of an etymology. See Ducange, in Gloss. Med. et infim. Latinitat. sub voce Labarum, and Godefroy, ad Cod. Theodos. tom. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... these pests appear, he comes out of his forest seclusion and makes excursions through the orchards stealthily and quietly, regaling himself upon those pulpy, fuzzy titbits. His coat of deep cinnamon brown has a silky gloss and is very beautiful. His note or call is not musical but loud, and has in a remarkable degree the quality of remoteness and introvertedness. It is like a vocal legend, and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... was covered by a frock-coat, which might once have belonged to a member of the Fat Men's Association, being aldermanic in its proportions. Now it was fallen from its high estate, its nap and original gloss had long departed, and it was frayed and torn in many places. But among the street-boys dress is not much regarded, and Ben never thought of apologizing for the defects of his wardrobe. We shall learn in time what were his faults and what his virtues, for I can assure my readers that street boys ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... badly in the encounter. In this case, as in so many others, the simple record denuded of all gloss gives at once a much better and we do not doubt much more true representation of the two remarkable persons involved, than when loaded with explanations, either from other people or from themselves. It ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... Alcohol one gill. mix and let stand for fourteen hours; then add Bay Rum one gill, fine Table Salt one tablespoonful, Soft Water three pints, Essence of Bergamot one ounce. This preparation not only gives a beautiful gloss, but will cause hair to grow upon bald heads arising from all common causes, and turning gray ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... of voices around the victim's door, and proclaim his skill or good fortune, and break into vivas that never end till he bribes their enthusiasm into silence. The naive commonplaceness of feeling in all matrimonial transactions, in spite of the gloss which the operatic methods of courtship threw about them, was a source of endless amusement, as it stole out in different ways. "You know my friend Marco?" asked an acquaintance one day. "Well, we are looking out a wife for him. He doesn't want to marry, but his father insists; and he ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... calm waters of the moat, and giving glimpses, through the trees, of fields and woods beyond,—a fireplace with a cheerful fire, which had evidently been kindled the moment my arrival was known,—the tessellated floor with its waxen gloss,—and the usual furniture of a French bed-room, a good table and comfortable chairs. A sugar-bowl filled with sparkling beet sugar, and a decanter of fresh water, on the mantel-piece, would have shown me, if there had been nothing else ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... the gloss the explanations of Menahem ben Saruk and Dunash ben Labrat are reproduced. This is without doubt a later addition. For these two ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... round her, among straws 440 And rustling leaves. Enchanting age and sweet! Romantic almost, looked at through a space, How small, of intervening years! For then, Though surely no mean progress had been made In meditations holy and sublime, 445 Yet something of a girlish child-like gloss Of novelty survived for scenes like these; Enjoyment haply handed down from times When at a country-playhouse, some rude barn Tricked out for that proud use, if I perchance 450 Caught, on a summer evening ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... through the high roof down on to the long rows of stalls, striking electric sparks out of the stirrup-irons and bits, and adding a fresh gloss to the polish that the grooms were giving to their charges. The judging had begun in several of the rings, and every now and then a glittering exemplification of all that horse and groom could be would come with soft thunder up the tan behind Fanny ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... head off!—Do me the favor to be seated, sir. Now, this," said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out in a flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand under it to show the gloss, "is a very sweet article. I can recommend it for your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall see some others. Give me Number Four, you!" (To the boy, and with a dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... some final instructions. It must be conceded that they look like business in their dark-blue flannel shirts, their "reinforced" riding-breeches, the substantial boots, and the field blouses and broad-brimmed campaign hats that Arizona suns and storms have long since robbed of gloss or freshness. The faces are strong and virile in almost every case. It is ten days since the razor has profaned a single chin, and very stubbly and ugly do they look, but long experience has taught them that the sooner the beard is allowed to sprout when actual campaigning is to be done ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... it may prove regarding your heart," I said boldly, not hesitating to meet her questioning eyes, "but in manner and graces you exhibit the gloss of courts." ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... even the gorgeous feathered tribes of his native East, excited his admiration to the highest degree—"animals likewise from every country of the earth were placed around, and might have been mistaken for living beings, from the gloss of their skins and the brightness of their eyes." The library, "containing, as I was told, 300,000 volumes, among which were 20,000 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts," is briefly noticed; and the sight of the mummies in the Egyptian collection sets the Khan moralizing, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... prompt action of my wife, who stood before and shielded me, for upon women the Mash-Glance had no effect. The ray must have missed me only by a second, for my elbow which was not wholly covered by my wife's bulk was scorched, and my hat has never since recovered its pristine gloss. Turning, I saw a bus-driver in Knightsbridge leap up and explode, while his conductor clutched at the rail, missed it and fell overboard; farther still, on the distant horizon, the bricklayers on a gigantic scaffolding went off bang against the lemon-yellow of the sky as the glance ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas

... Boston. Dave scented patronage in his "citified" air; he and other young men at the table—young men who helped about the farm—resented everything about the stranger from the self-satisfied poise of his head to the aggressive gloss on ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... features of the face, though not regular, were still attractive, for large black eyes, almond-shaped, shone bright from underneath heavy lashes. The complexion was dusky, and the skin had a velvety gloss. Form, carriage, and face together betokened a youth of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... her, and wondered about her. The dress she wore was sufficiently elegant, but had lost the gloss of newness. Her shawl, which she carried as gracefully as a Frenchwoman, was darned. Gustave perceived the neat careful stitches, and divined the poverty of the wearer. That she should be poor was no subject for surprise; but that ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... in the matter. When they were discussing the murder at Bolbec he, as a legal authority, had put forward some opinions and uttered some reflections on crime and criminals. Now he spoke no more; but the sparkle in his eye, the bright color in his cheeks, the very gloss of his beard seemed to proclaim ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... risked his own neck a score of times in descending the ravine which separated the route from the hillside where the fortunate plants were growing. He promised, however, to point out the locality from afar, and to show, by a certain changeable gloss proper to the leaf, the precise stratum of the calisaya amongst the belts of the forest. This promise he forgot to execute more particularly, but it appeared that the locality would never be excessively hard to find, marked as it was by Nature with the gigantic finger-post of Mount Camanti. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... all Buck staggered along at the head of the team as in a nightmare. He pulled when he could; when he could no longer pull, he fell down and remained down till blows from whip or club drove him to his feet again. All the stiffness and gloss had gone out of his beautiful furry coat. The hair hung down, limp and draggled, or matted with dried blood where Hal's club had bruised him. His muscles had wasted away to knotty strings, and the flesh pads had disappeared, so that each rib ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... one maternal aunt, which, though picturesque, would better be omitted. It is to be noted, however, that in this simple homely narrative of his ancestors (which, by the way, gives a vivid picture of the early pioneer days) and later in his own personal history, there is no attempt to conceal or gloss over weaknesses or shortcomings; all is set ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... girls—nicer, cleverer girls than I am every way, and their lives suffice for them—the daily, domestic routine that is most horrible drudgery to me, pleases and satisfies them. It must be that I have an incapacity for life; I daresay when the novelty and gloss wear off, I shall tire equally of the life I am going to. A new dress, a dance, a beau, and the hope of a prospective husband suffices for the girls I speak of. For me—none of your sarcastic smiles, sir—the thought of a ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... temple, which cost more than twelve thousand talents. Its columns are of Pentelic marble, exquisitely proportioned, which I myself saw at Athens; but at Rome they were again cut and polished, by which process they did not gain so much in gloss as they lost in symmetry, for they now appear too slender. However, if any one who wonders at the expense of the temple in the Capitol were to see the splendour of any one portico, hall, or chamber in the house of Domitian, he would certainly be led ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... compact of sovereign States and the National Government merely as their agent, the particularistic outlook definitely received a constitutional creed which in time was to become, at least in the South, a gloss upon the Constitution regarded as fully as authoritative as the original instrument. This recognition of state sovereignty was, indeed, somewhat delayed by the federalization of the Republican party in consequence of the ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... man I seem; the guilt, Try what I will, I cannot roll off from me; The equivocal demeanor of my life Bears witness on my prosecutor's party. And even my purest acts from purest motives Suspicion poisons with malicious gloss. Were I that thing for which I pass, that traitor, A goodly outside I had sure reserved, Had drawn the coverings thick and double round me, Been calm and chary of my utterance; But being conscious of the innocence Of my intent, my uncorrupted will, I gave way to my humors, to my passion: ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)



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