Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Sitting   Listen
noun
Sitting  n.  
1.
The state or act of one who sits; the posture of one who occupies a seat.
2.
A seat, or the space occupied by or allotted for a person, in a church, theater, etc.; as, the hall has 800 sittings.
3.
The act or time of sitting, as to a portrait painter, photographer, etc.
4.
The actual presence or meeting of any body of men in their seats, clothed with authority to transact business; a session; as, a sitting of the judges of the King's Bench, or of a commission. "The sitting closed in great agitation."
5.
The time during which one sits while doing something, as reading a book, playing a game, etc. "For the understanding of any one of St. Paul's Epistles I read it all through at one sitting."
6.
A brooding over eggs for hatching, as by fowls. "The male bird... amuses her (the female) with his songs during the whole time of her sitting."
Sitting room, an apartment where the members of a family usually sit, as distinguished from a drawing-room, parlor, chamber, or kitchen.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Sitting" Quotes from Famous Books



... sitting by the open pianoforte in a pensive attitude. She had been playing Scriabin and was overcome. The medium took in her small, tight, patrician features and porcelain-like hands, and wondered how Faull ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... captain's head if he went without them. Hassan Effendi, the Turk, was furious, and threatened to telegraph his complaints to Cairo if we did not go directly, and the poor captain was in a sad quandary. He appealed to me, peaceably sitting on the trunk of a palm-tree with some poor fellaheen (of whom more anon). I uttered the longest sentence I could compose in Arabic, to the effect that he was captain, and that while on the boat we were all bound to obey ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... may be put statuettes, artistic vases or framed photographs, should adorn the walls; and, above all, each child should have a little flower-pot, in which he may sow the seed of some indoor plant, to tend and cultivate it as it grows. On the tables of this sitting-room should be placed large albums of colored pictures, and also games of patience, or various geometric solids, with which the children can play at pleasure, constructing figures, etc. A piano, or, better, other musical instruments, ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori

... in the night; but in the daytime we had commonly our main topsail reefed. We met with nothing of moment; only we passed by a dead whale, and saw millions (as I may say) of sea-fowls about the carcass (and as far round about it as we could see) some feeding, and the rest flying about, or sitting on the water, waiting to take their turns. We first discovered the whale by the fowls; for indeed I did never see so many fowls at once in my life before, their numbers being inconceivably great: they were of divers sorts, ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... uncouth bird is very absurd, with his enormous mouth that literally reaches from ear to ear, and his eyes half shut. Mr. Browne surprised five of these birds on a stone, on the summit of Mount Arrowsmith, about half a degree to the southward of the Depot. They were all sitting with their heads together, and all flew in different directions ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... of the Alemanni, and wife of Rudolf II. king of Burgundy beyond Jura. She is represented on monuments of the time as sitting on her throne spinning. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... ma'am, but nurse, that called by chance, early this morning, to see the children, and had the good-nature to stay to help, and has been sitting in mistress's room, whilst I went to my bed. I'll step up and see if ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... was true; Ulrich had seen their blackened ruins; the old sitting with white faces among the wreckage of their homes, the little children wailing round their knees, the tiny broods burned in their nests. He had picked their corpses from beneath the charred trunks of ...
— The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl • Jerome K. Jerome

... California that the Territory needed a stable government. Accordingly, one of Taylor's first acts as President was to urge California to apply for admission to statehood. General Riley, military governor, at once called a convention, which, sitting from September 1st to October 13th, framed a constitution and made request that California be taken into the Union. This constitution prohibited slavery, and thus a new firebrand was tossed into the combustible ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... any. When you sung out, I was sitting on the beach. I had anchored the Rosabel, with a long cable, and when the squall came, it blew her off so far from the shore that I could not get on board of her ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... Martin was sitting with his arms crossed. The fingers of one hand were squeezing the muscle of his forearm. It gave him pleasure to feel the smooth, firm modelling of his arm through his sleeve. And how would that feel when it was dead, when a steel splinter had slithered through it? A momentary stench ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos

... meeting; a fact that was in some degree an explanation of the sharpness with which most of his friend's features stood out to Strether. Those he had lost sight of since the early time came back to him; others that it was never possible to forget struck him now as sitting, clustered and expectant, like a somewhat defiant family-group, on the doorstep of their residence. The room was narrow for its length, and the occupant of the bed thrust so far a pair of slippered feet that the visitor had almost to step over them ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... had he been of a piece with his destiny and a being merely barbarous? And we look and behold him instead filled with imperfect virtues: infinitely childish, often admirably valiant, often touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst his momentary life, to debate of right and wrong and the attributes of the Deity; rising up to do battle for an egg or die for an idea; singling out his friends and his mate with cordial affection; bringing forth in pain, rearing with long-suffering solicitude, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... House of the Governor," I was struck with their similarity to those which adorn the most ancient edifice of Chichen and whose construction, I judge, dates back 12,000 years. But what most particularly called my attention were the hieroglyphics that surrounded a sitting figure placed over the main entrance in the centre of the building. There were plainly to me the names of Huuncay and Chaacmol, and on both sides of the figure, now headless, the name of the individual it was intended to represent, Aac, ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... Oilell of Aran were sitting on the one seat with Bodb Dearg's wife, the queen of the Tuatha de Danaan, that was their foster-mother. And Bodb said: "You may have your choice of the three young girls, Lir." "I cannot say," said Lir, "which one of them is my choice, but whichever ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... sitting with a pen in my hand, impelled by a desire for writing, yet with nothing particular to write about. Everything in the house and in the whole household arrangement is in order. Little patties are baking in the kitchen, the ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... Wisconsin. The two travellers trembled for the consequences of this encounter; but the chief, after a short colloquy, passed on his way. In three days he returned in ill-humor, having found no traders at the appointed spot. The Picard was absent at the time, looking for game, and Hennepin was sitting under the shade of his blanket, which he had stretched on forked sticks to protect him from the sun, when he saw his adopted father approaching with a threatening look and a war-club in his hand. He attempted ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... some numbers. But then the Caithness painted pebbles were equally without precedent, yet are undisputed. The proverbial fence seems, in these circumstances, to be the appropriate perch for Science, in fact a statue of the Muse of Science might represent her as sitting, in contemplation, on the fence. The strong, the very strong point against authenticity is this: numbers of the disputed objects were found in sites of the early Iron Age. Now such objects, save for a few samples, ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang

... your way, I tell you. Why, bless me, they're sitting down now; I shall have to singe 'em with my torch to make 'em stir! What an ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... he was extremely reluctant to take any measures by which he should be arrayed in hostility against them. Maria, on the contrary, knew that decisive action alone could be of any avail. One night, about ten o'clock, the king and queen were sitting in their private apartment of the Tuileries, endeavoring to beguile the melancholy hours by a game of cards. The sister of the king, Madame Elizabeth, with a very pensive countenance, was kneeling upon a stool, by the side of the table, overlooking the ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... minister read the parable of the Prodigal Son. It seemed to me as a voice from home, and I determined to go to my father. Without hesitating, or stopping an hour, I took all the money I had to pay my way, and in about six days afterward, sitting beside the driver on the stage-coach, looked from a hill upon the house in which I was born. A pang shot through my heart at that instant. Until that moment I had dreamed of my father's seeing me whilst I was yet a great way off, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... Mrs. Costello was sitting at work by the table where the light fell brightly, but Lucia was glad that the lamp-shade threw most of the room into comparative darkness. Even as it was, she came with shy lingering steps to her mother's side, and was in no hurry to answer ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... me to pass in and out of the tomb where she dwelt—that in three days she would be sent away to Rome, together with her children, save Caesarion, whom Octavian had already slain, that she might walk in the triumph of Caesar. Accordingly I went in, and found her sitting, as now she always sat, plunged in a half stupor, and before her that blood-stained robe with which she had staunched the wounds of Antony. For on this she would continually feast ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... and pulled his long limbs together and rose till he was sitting, and decided that it was but courteous, but his duty as a gentleman, to wander over to her house and thank her for her remembrance of him. It was but an expression of good will toward the family generally, this little act of ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... read the letter through, I took a long survey of my little room, where I had lived so happily; then, sitting upon the sill of the open window, whence I could see my faithful star shine peacefully in the darkness, I remained until morning, absorbed ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... the sounds that the two had entered the alcove, and, prompted by a desire to know what manner of man he might next have to contend with, he slightly parted the heavy folds that hid the two from his view and looking out saw them sitting on the couch with their arms about each other, the girl with the same expressionless smile upon her face that she had vouchsafed him. He found he could so arrange the hangings that a very narrow slit between two of them permitted him to watch the actions of those ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... two from the wood when we made another halt in a field by the road. In a certain part of the line a little company fell together worthy of brief mention. One, a singer, had spread out his rubber cloth upon the wet ground, and was reclining upon it. Eight others had joined him, also singers, sitting down on the edges of the cloth; and they were singing together. A row of listeners sat perched on a rail fence five or six feet in front of them, and others were ranged around in various picturesque situations and attitudes. These swelled the choruses and joined in the melody according ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... Sudaveh, the daughter of the Shah of Hamaveran, happening to see Saiawush sitting with his father, the beauty of his person made an instantaneous impression ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... are sitting: all that I can doe Ile say in little; and in me theis Lords Promise as much. I am of your belief In every point you hold touching religion, And openly I will profes myself ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... peacock-plumes,—the vivid carnation-color of the dais, against which the black and yellow stripes of the tigress showed up in strong and brilliant contrast, . . and the graceful, jewel-decked figure of the Poet Laureate, who, half sitting, half reclining on a black velvet cushion, leaned his handsome head indolently against the silvery folds of Lysia's robe, and looked up at her with eyes in which burned the ardent admiration and scarcely restrained ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... Latin, that is to say of Roman origin. The Church is "the ghost of the Roman Empire sitting crowned and throned on the grave thereof": it is a new manifestation (and a higher one) of the political and social ideal which inspired the Roman people. Also the French have inherited most of the Latin passion for reason, ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... firmly secured in the grasp of the two men who had given evidence against him, when, seeing all the horror of the summary and dreadful fate that awaited him, he confessed the individual who had fired had been sitting with him the instant previously, but that he knew no more of him than of any other savage occasionally calling at the Fleur de lis. He added, that on discharging the rifle he had bounded across the palings ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... from a very remarkable cure on my ever worthy friend Tom Spindle,[454] who, through excessive gaiety, had exhausted that natural stock of wit and spirits he had long been blessed with: he was sunk and flattened to the lowest degree imaginable, sitting whole hours over the "Book of Martyrs," and "Pilgrim's Progress"; his other contemplations never rising higher than the colour of his urine, or regularity of his pulse. In this condition I found him, accompanied by the ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... Virgin, he was filled with these chivalric fancies, and resolved to prepare himself for a noble knighthood by passing a night in vigil before an altar of Our Lady at Montserrat. He would observe all the formalities of this ceremony, neither sitting nor lying down, but alternately standing and kneeling, and there he would lay aside his worldly dignities to assume ...
— The Autobiography of St. Ignatius • Saint Ignatius Loyola

... spectator, some beardless youth, who thinks himself a sage, will say, "What is this? What does the beetle mean?" And then an Ionian,(1) sitting next him, will add, "I think 'tis an allusion to Cleon, who so shamelessly feeds on filth all by himself."—But now I'm going indoors to fetch the beetle ...
— Peace • Aristophanes

... decision to look on from the galleries. Garrison, who with Charles Lenox Remond, Nathaniel P. Rogers, and William Adams, was late in arriving in England, finding, on reaching London the women excluded from the convention and sitting as spectators in the galleries, determined to take his place among them, deeming that the act of the convention which discredited the credentials of Lucretia Mott and her sister delegates, had discredited his own also. Remond, Rogers, and Adams ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... hour before the Doctor and Andy went up softly into the upper room and sat quietly down out of sight in the corner. Jane was sitting on the low cot-bed, holding Starke's head on her breast. They could not see her face in the feeble light. She had some brandy and water in a glass, and gave him a spoonful of it now and then; and when she had done that, smoothed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... The family sitting-room, if no other in the house, ought to be warmed by means of a wood fire if a stove is used, yet a grate is far better, and is the nearest approach to the old-fashioned fireplace attainable in these times. A flue cut ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... the Bainsizza Plateau, half wrecked by shell fire, two old peasants were sitting outside their house. Austrian shells whistled through the air and burst a few hundred yards away. "These are not for us," said one of the old men to an Italian soldier, "the shells and the war are for the soldiers, ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... He was sitting up, supported by many pillows; his face was hollow and colorless; his hands lay listlessly upon the counterpane. No one touches him; bathed in sunlight, as he was, the others seemed in shadow. When he spoke, his voice was almost a whisper, but it was distinctly audible to ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... knoll of trees. It was a stout little place of early English architecture, lifted high above the surrounding country and having a free horizon of sea and land. It consisted of a chancel, nave and south porch. Its bell cote held one bell; and within was a Norman font, a trefoil headed piscina, and sitting room ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... partly because the house-keeper was sick. She must have been sick, if that was she, the pale, drooping figure, sitting wrapped in an old red shawl, that summer afternoon. She looked not only sick, but exceedingly ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... I felt a good deal like making a fool of myself, for in those days I had not made up my mind about these things. Graeme, poor old chap, was gazing at him with a sad yearning in his dark eyes; big Sandy was sitting very stiff and staring harder than ever into the fire; Baptiste was trembling with excitement; Blaney was openly wiping the tears away, but the face that held my eyes was that of old man Nelson. It was white, fierce, hungry-looking, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... voyage, came to see him; he himself was going to start on a journey the following day, and had to visit the lumber-room to get out his trunks; Stevenson begged to be allowed to accompany him, and, sitting on a broken chair, evolved out of the drifted accumulations of the place a wonderful romance. But that sort of eager freshness we most of us find to be impossible as we grow older; and we are confronted with the problem of how ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... sitting beside Tom, the chauffeur; Mrs. Torrence is on the other side of me. Tom disapproves of these Flemish roads. He cannot see that they are beautiful. They will play the devil ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... took it all as it was intended, and were not discontented. There was one young lady, however, who longed to ask a question, but durst not. Had Ralph Newton promised that he would come? Clary was sitting between the old gentleman who seemed to be so fond of Mrs. Brownlow's hand and her cousin Mary. She said not a word,—nor, indeed, was there much talking among the guests in general. The merry, middle-aged ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... him a sedative and led him into a room adjoining that in which the Holsma family were sitting. Walter was to walk up and down the room till he felt better; but he soon got tired of this and did the very thing that he was not to do; he sat down on a ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... threatened with death;[266] and a certain Father Omnibow, a Venetian who had been in active co-operation with Dr. Croke, wrote himself to Henry, informing him in a very graphic manner of the treatment to which, by some treachery, he had been exposed. Croke and Omnibow were sitting one morning in the latter's cell, "when there entered upon them the emperor's great ambassador, accompanied with many gentlemen of Spain, and demanded of the Father how he durst be so bold to take upon him to intermeddle in so great and weighty ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... and as he came close to the palace he saw a troop of soldiers, and heard the sound of drums and trumpets. And when he went in he saw his wife sitting on a throne of gold and diamonds, with a golden crown upon her head; and on each side of her stood six fair maidens, each a head taller than the other. 'Well, wife,' said the fisherman, 'are you king?' 'Yes,' said she, 'I am king.' And when he had looked at her for a long time, he ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... are all here now, at last; all, from father down to the curates; some sitting resolutely down, some standing uncertainly up. Barbara's protege, with frightened stealth, is edging round the furniture to where she sits on a little chair alone. Barbara is locketless, braceletless, chainless, head-dressless! ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... Lady ***'s. It was a fatal day; and I remember, that in going upstairs I stumbled, and remarked to Moore, who accompanied me, that it was a bad omen. I ought to have taken the warning. On entering the room, I observed a young lady more simply dressed than the rest of the assembly sitting alone upon a sofa. I took her for a female companion, and asked if I was right in my conjecture. 'She is a great heiress,' said he, in a whisper, that became lower as he proceeded, 'you had better marry her, and repair ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... pretend that I am taking you to the Royal party, and that you are sitting with the King and Queen and all the fine men and lovely ladies; and we are watching the animals, while I tell you all ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh

... said: and she, sitting where his father had sat, unfolded Tara's letter—and the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... Church, about the year 1800, he had seen several people sitting with their hats on,[1070] as they might have done at Geneva, or in the time of the older Puritans. This, however, was something wholly exceptional at that date. One of the things which had displeased English Churchmen in William the Third was this ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... door of Raoul's house opened directly into the kitchen. Madame Martin was sitting patiently by the fire, knitting. She rose and took the violin case and wiped the raindrops from its waterproof covering. Then ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various

... rushed up to him with a wail of distress. 'He is dead, he is dead!' she cried; 'he was sitting here just now, talking to me—and all of a sudden he fell down and became rigid.... My God! can nothing be done to help him? And mamma not here! Pantaleone, Pantaleone, the doctor!' she went on suddenly in Italian. 'Have you ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... visited Uncle John he was busy cutting hay for a white family nearby, swinging the scythe with the vigor of a young man. In late afternoon he was found sitting on the doorsteps of his granddaughter's house after a supper which certainly had onions on the menu and was followed by ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... granted most seriously, most earnestly, that the men who are listening to me are in earnest, and I want to try to tell them as a brother might tell a brother, as I might tell to you or try to tell to you if sitting before my fireside, I want to try to answer the question which I know is upon your hearts. "What shall I do about this?" I know you say; "Is this all in the clouds? Is there anything I can do in the right way?" If you are in earnest, I shall try to tell you what I should do, if I were in your place, ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks

... rose at length, as by a sudden effort, to the sitting posture. For a few moments it turned its yellowish skull to this side and that; then, heedless of its neighbour, got upon its feet by grasping the spokes of the hind wheel. Half erected thus, it stood with its back to the other, both hands holding one of its knee-joints. ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... draw the line somewhere. At "Hatfield House," (good address this) landlady appears with eruptive face, powdered—effect not entirely happy—but I waive that. She has rooms—but the sitting-room is out at the end of a yard, and I am to get to my bed room through the kitchen! Can't write an epoch-making drama ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various

... blow should come, without knowing who hurt them," made them imagine that it would not be more proper than the time of parliament, nor by any other way likely to be attempted than by gunpowder, while the king was sitting to that assembly: the lord chamberlain thought this the more probable, because there was a great cellar under the parliament-chamber, (as already mentioned,) never used for any thing but wood or coal, belonging to Wineyard, the keeper of the palace; and having ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... them beside the woodshed. There was not an overabundant supply of firewood cut and Hiram realized that Mrs. Atterson would use considerable in her kitchen stove before the next winter, even if she did not run a sitting room ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... though bearing evidence of having been "made in Cheapside, London, in 1614," is not positively known to have been brought on the MAY-FLOWER. Thacher's "History of Plymouth" (p. 144.) states that "a sitting-chair, said to have been screwed to the floor of the MAY-FLOWER'S cabin for the convenience of a lady, is known to have been in the possession of Penelope Winslow (who married James Warren), and is now in possession ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... With master and his wife, While I must bear the whip? What doth the cur a kiss to draw? Forsooth, he only gives his paw! If that is all there needs to please, I'll do the thing myself, with ease.' Possess'd with this bright notion,— His master sitting on his chair, At leisure in the open air,— He ambled up, with awkward motion, And put his talents to the proof; Upraised his bruised and batter'd hoof, And, with an amiable mien, His master patted on the chin, The action gracing with a word— The fondest bray that e'er was heard! ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... children's view was entirely shut off by the size and heaviness of the things that were sitting on their chests. They had been completely taken by surprise and they had not even breath enough left to cry out, but lay still and listened to what was going on about them. This is ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels

... to her caldron and Eilene returned to the moon. Mr. Moon then advised her to be careful for Crono wanted her for her prisoner. She did not heed this because she thought that she could outwit Crono with all her fairy power, but she was mistaken, for Crono had more power than she. One day, while sitting at the moon's knee, listening to the story of how he got up in the sky, Eilene's hands and feet were tied, and before Mr. Moon could help her, what little power that fat personage possessed ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing

... Benjamin Franklin, grown taller of late, was in the act of splitting his face open with a wedge of pie, so that his features were seen to disadvantage for the moment.—The good old gentleman was sitting still and thoughtful. All at once he turned his face toward the window where I stood, and, just as if he had seen me, smiled his benignant smile. It was a recollection of some past pleasant moment; but it fell upon me like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... time he spent sitting in the shop, worrying the inventor of the fractious light, Amberson found opportunity to worry himself about another matter of business. This was the settlement ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... elegant mansion was located on a corner lot, with a broad hall through the centre of it, on one side of which was the large drawing-room, and on the other the sitting and dining-rooms. At the end of the great hall was a door opening into the library, a large apartment, which occupied the whole of a one-story addition to the original structure. It had also an independent outside door, which opened upon ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... of wattles that had had clay cast over them, and was whitened on the outside and thatched nearly down to the ground like any squatter's hut; it had cupboards of wood nearly all round it, and beneath the cupboards were lockers worn smooth with men sitting upon them, after the Dutch fashion—for there in Lincolnshire they had much traffic with the Dutch. There was a great table made of one slab of a huge oak from near Boston. Here they all ate. And above the ingle was another slab of oak from the same tree. ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... its head with a sharp metal spike, or beak, which was its chief weapon of offence, vessels of this class seeking commonly to run down their enemy. After a time these vessels were superseded by biremes, which were decked, had masts and sails, and were impelled by rowers sitting at two different elevations, as already explained. Biremes were ere long superseded by triremes, or vessels with three banks of oars, which are said to have been invented at Corinth,[912] but which came into use among ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... mother, what reminds me of home is here in my heart. It is not eating on plates or sitting on a chair that counts. It is your love, which I feel so near. . ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... away our eyes from the gauds that we can see, and open the eyes of our spirits on the things that are, the things where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Surely, surely, it is madness that when two sets of objects are before us, the one lasting for a moment, and then dying down into black nothingness, and the other shining on for ever; and when our 'look' settles whether we shall share the fate of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... June 7, Benito found Coleman sitting at his desk in the executive chamber of Fort Gunnysacks. His usually cheerful countenance wore an anxious look, a look of inner conflict. He glanced up, almost ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... saloon, followed by his companions. Ethan was sitting in a chair by the side of the stateroom door. The fireman passed round behind, and suddenly fell upon him, throwing him on the floor and pinioning ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... He was sitting in the mill-office one day about the middle of July. Herrick, the engineer, had just been in. He could not keep the engine in order, although Thorpe knew that it ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... between two granite blocks, brave in spring verdure, with the rain twinkling in little nests of flower buds as yet invisible, there rose a hawthorn. Within the stones a ewe stood and suckled its young, but there was no other sign of life. Then Blanchard, sitting here to rest and turning his eyes whither he had come, again noticed some sudden movement, but, looking intently at the spot, he saw nothing and returned to his own thoughts. Sitting motionless Will retraced the brief ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... it necessary to simulate a like performance, though nothing would have tempted him to incur such needless danger. His endeavors to mislead me on this point, without actually committing himself, were ingenious and wily in the extreme. Sitting in the saloon at the most incongruous hours of day and night, he would exclaim, "J'ai l'idee de prendre bientot mon bain!" or he would speak with a shiver of recollection of the imaginary plunge taken that morning. I don't think I should ever ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... people. Their laws, and their rules, their systems are forced on a race of an opposite temper, who would get on well enough, and thrive, if they were properly consulted. Ireland 's the sore place of England, and I'm sorry for it. We ought to be a solid square, with Europe in this pickle. So I say, sitting here. What should I be saying ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... next scene let us look in at the home of Caesar Rodney in Dover, Delaware. It is nearly eight o'clock on the evening of July 1, 1776. Rodney, pale and drawn, with the languid air of a man but recently out of a sick bed, is sitting in an easy chair. Mrs. Rodney is hovering over ...
— Caesar Rodney's Ride • Henry Fisk Carlton

... some paper on the table, and Otto, sitting down, wrote a passport in the name of Sir ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sledge had crossed diagonally, with a greater chance of breaking the snow-lid. The sledges were within thirty pounds of the same weight. The explanation appeared to be that Ninnis had walked by the side of his sledge, whereas I had crossed it sitting on the sledge. The whole weight of a man's body bearing on his foot is a formidable load and no doubt was sufficient to smash the arch ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... had been sitting silently during the discussion between the two men, said: "Look, Stanton, I know this is tough. Actually, it's a lot tougher on you than it is on your brother, because you have to make the decision. He can't. But I want you to keep it in mind that there's nothing ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... predicted of this mighty person that he will assume to be very God, "sitting in the temple as God," and winning the worship of the multitude by his miraculous power, signs, and lying wonders; deceiving all who perish, and who would not receive the love of the truth that they might ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer

... old its head and body are oiled every second or third day and the body is well hand-rubbed and bathed. The rubbing is meant to make the limbs supple and the oil to render the child less susceptible to cold. If a child when sitting soon after birth looks down through its legs they think it is looking for its companions whom it has left behind and that more children will be born. It is considered a bad sign if a child bites its upper teeth on its underlip; this is thought ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... to have lost its zest to the weary fugitives, and quite late in the evening, when the lads, after sitting talking together in whispers so as not to awaken the priest, who, evidently tired out by his afternoon expedition, had lain down upon the pallet and was sleeping heavily, were about to follow his example for want of something ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... my lord will honour me by sitting in my room that overlooks the outer gate, the favour will never ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... that can prevent her from putting it in execution. Men had better not put their wives under such restraint, as it only serves to teach them cunning." Having spoken thus to them, she put their rings on the same string with the rest, and sitting down by the monster, as before, laid his head again upon her lap, end made a sign to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... use what I want to furnish my dove cote in the clouds, and the rest that is too nice to sell but can't be used I shall store in the east bedroom, which I won't use. That will leave me three rooms and a bath—bedroom, sitting-room and dining-room. I can fix up a corner of the dining-room into a kitchen with my electric percolator and grills and things. Isn't it a glorious idea? And aren't you surprised that I thought of anything so ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... know very well the design of these pretended apprehensions, and why he wished to have that country left in the state he speaks of. He had left a secret agent of his own to control that ostensible government, and to enable him, sitting in the place where he now sits, to continue to govern those provinces in the way in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... consciousness that his appeal is not to any individual man, but to man in the mass, that makes the dramatist what he is. To scattered readers, each sitting alone, an author may whisper many things which he would not dare blurt out before a crowd. The playwright knows that he can never whisper slyly; he must always speak out boldly so that all may hear him; and he must phrase ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... "O Indra, O slayer of Vala, we shall so endeavour to allure him that thou wilt have nothing to fear at his hands. That very receptacle of austerities, sitting now as if scorching everything with his eyes, O god, we are going together to tempt. We shall try to bring him under our control, and to put an end to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... and feeling in Foss River at the time of the death of Horrocks; this was the state of affairs when the insouciant Bill leisurely strolled into the sitting-room at the Foss River Ranch, about the time that Joaquina Allandale had finished her tea. With the familiarity of the West, Bill entered by the French window. His lazy smile was undisturbed. He might have been ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... eat had come the way of the Dog-Wolf; only a little knowledge of something that was to happen, for he had heard things,—the voices of the Indians sitting in council had slipped gently down the wind ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser

... mind to order a Welsh rabbit, and in the interim of its arrival earnestly contemplates the scene around him. There is the room which, in after life, so vividly recurs to him, with its bygone souvenirs of mirth, when he is sitting up all night at a bad case in the mud cottage of a pauper union. There are its blue walls, its wainscot and its pillars, its lamps and ground-glass shades, within which the gas jumps and flares so fitfully; its two looking-glasses, that reflect the room and its occupants ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... characteristics, with no more than the usual amount of modification, but also no small share of characteristics which are less easily transmitted—I mean his pecuniary characteristics. It may be said that he acquired these by sitting still and letting money run, as it were, right up against him, but against how many does not money run who do not take it when it does, or who, even if they hold it for a little while, cannot so incorporate it with themselves that it shall descend through them to their offspring? ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... crevices which would admit the muzzle of a revolver, should it be necessary. Then they applied their eyes to the same cracks, and saw the youth asleep on a pile of dead grass, with Grump's knapsack for a pillow, and one of Grump's blankets over him. Grump himself was sitting on a fragment of stone, staring into the fire, with his face ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... if Araminta had deserted him, there was no friend left. He went on into the house and wept a little, curled up in the big leather chair in the sitting room. He felt ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White

... impersonal conscience, 'the policy of the paper,' he was still able to deal with subjects that really interested him, and in which he fancied he might actually be doing a little good. A few days after he had taken seriously to the new occupation, good Mrs. Halliss made her appearance in the tiny sitting-room one morning, and with many apologies and much humming and hawing ventured to make a slight personal representation to ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... was an object of great interest to the company in the beer-shop. They talked to him, and although he did not understand them, or answer them, they knew he was enjoying himself. And when the landlord rang a big bell, and a pale young man, wearing a high hat, and sitting at a table opposite him, threw into his face an expression of exalted melancholy, and sang a high-pitched song, Mok showed how he appreciated the performance by thumping more vigorously on the table than any of the other people who applauded ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... relieving some of her misery and with his wife guarded, as she should be, from the possibility of want. And here was he going back to Ireland as poor as he left it—though richer immeasurably in the love of Angela. She was sitting perfectly still, her eyes on the floor, when he entered the room. He came in so softly that she did not hear him. He lifted her head and looked into her eyes. He noticed with certainty what had been so far only a vague, ill-defined dread. Her face was very, very pale ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... who gravitated towards her with the facility common to natural man when he finds himself for any length of time under the same roof with an attractive young person of the opposite sex. He had an engaging habit of appearing at the door of Sara's sitting-room with an ingratiating: "I say, may I come in for a yarn?" And, upon receiving permission, he would establish himself on the hearth-rug at her feet and proceed to prattle to her about his own affairs, much as a brother ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... amusement were practised in those days, which seem wholly incompatible with the gravity of the nation in these latter times. Pepys tells us that going to the court one day he found the Duke and Duchess of York, with all the great ladies, sitting upon a carpet on the ground playing "I love my love with an A, because he is so-and-so; and I hate him with an A, because of this and that;" and some of the ladies were mighty witty, and all of them very merry. Grown persons likewise indulged ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... shade, without composition, as they say of pictures, without the lovely mystery of colour. To furnish colour I melted down the very substance of my own soul. I went about with my brush, touching up and toning down; a very pretty chiaroscuro you'll find in my track! Sitting here in this old park, in this old country, I feel that I hover on the misty verge of what might have been! I should have been born here and not there; here my makeshift distinctions would have found things they'd have ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... his watch had stopped; then cursed the lazy fellow for falling asleep, protesting that, for his part, he never would again consent to such waste of time. The very instant the hour was ended, he ordered "that dog" to be awakened, and to work we went. At this sitting 35,000l. were lost and won. I was very fortunate, for I lost a mere trifle—ten thousand pounds; but I could not expect to be always so lucky.—Now we come to the old story of being ruined by play. My English John o'-the-Scales warned me that he could ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... when Mr. Gaythorne gave up sitting in the winter garden, and ensconced himself in the library, but she soon changed her opinion when he began to show her his curiosities and rare prints. He had so much to tell her about the birds and butterflies in the museum as he called the inner room, ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... dead man's wife. Significant glances and smiles were interchanged by the bystanders. Approaching the carriage in which the woman was sitting, I laid my hand upon her arm, looked her ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... free; he began to move them about. He remembered that he had been flung on the stone floor of the bakeroom. This place sounded hollow underneath—it certainly was not the bakeroom. He rolled over and over. Presently he touched a wall—it was stone. He drew himself up to a sitting posture, but his head struck a curved stone ceiling. Then he swung round and moved his foot along the wall—it touched iron. He felt farther with his foot-something clicked. Now he understood; he was in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... made this discovery was one Friedrich Nietzsche, an idealist, a dreamer, a thinker, and a revolutionary. Nietzsche was an honest man of marked intellect, whose nerves were worn to the quick by the pretense of the times—the mad race for place and power—the hypocrisy and phariseeism that he saw sitting in high places. He longed to live a life of genuineness—to be, not to seem. And so he had wandered here and there, footsore, weary, searching for peace, scourged forever by the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... the twelve, who were sitting with clasped hands with the exception of Judas, who sat apart moody and sullen, exclaimed together, "O, Master, who art so full of love for us, ever will ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead

... Congress met in extra session, and the soundness of the President's judgment in setting a day which had at first been condemned as too distant was proved. In the interval, nothing had been lost which could have been saved by the sitting of Congress; while, on the other hand, the members had had the great advantage of having time to think soberly concerning the business before them, and to learn the temper and wishes ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... truth. I've even told them not to let him in to see me to-day. I love him, but I shall never forgive him for this. So he is a widower! Give me some water. But as to your putting Panshine's nose out of joint, why I think you're a good girl for that. But don't go sitting out at night with men creatures. Don't make me wretched in my old age, and remember that I'm not altogether given over to fondling. I can ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... of these letters to the King, and on the 28th, he waited on his Majesty, to present the Governor- General's letter. He found him sitting up in his bed in a small apartment in the baraduree, in his dishabille, having spent a restless night from rheumatic pains; but he was cheerful and in good spirits, and requested the Resident to present his respectful compliments to the ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... within her chamber's secret part, Sitting one day upon her heavy thought, Devising by what means, what sleight, what art, Her close departure should be safest wrought, Assembled in her unresolved heart An hundred passions strove and ceaseless fought; At last she saw high hanging on the ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... a camera could have perpetuated, for example, the striking scene presented to us one day of a party, consisting of two men and their wives, with two or three children, sitting on a rocky hillside, woefully scanning their team of done-out oxen and one wagon with a broken axle; no means at hand for recuperation and repair. In the scorching sun of a July day they waited, utterly helpless, hopeless, forlorn, confused; and ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... most familiar and attractive of the class are the Geckoes[1], which frequent the sitting-rooms, and being furnished with pads to each toe, are enabled to ascend perpendicular walls and adhere to glass and ceilings. Being nocturnal in their habits, the pupil of the eye, instead of being circular as in the diurnal species, is linear and vertical like those of the cat. As ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... smiled mournfully. "There's always the Wolverene," he said. "His other name is the Glutton. It just exactly suits him, for he can eat more at a sitting than any other creature of his size. How does he look? Something like a small bear, with thick coarse hair of blackish brown. Until he shows his double row of glistening teeth, you would never guess how ferocious he could be. His muzzle, as far as his eyebrows, and his large paws (they are ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... had me, sir, and we both should have been miserable by this time. I talked with that silly lord all night just to vex you and mamma, and I succeeded, didn't I? How frankly we can talk of these things! It seems a thousand years ago: and, though we are here sitting in the same room, there is a great wall between us. My dear, kind, faithful, gloomy old cousin! I can like now, and admire you too, sir, and say that you are brave, and very kind, and very true, and a fine gentleman for all—for all your little mishap ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... "I was sitting in my garden a few minutes ago, having a pipe before finishing the rest of my papers, and Wyatt dropped from the wall on to my ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... known as Frank Williams, and the man who occupied the post of honour, sitting at his right on the box, was one of the would-be robbers. On arriving at a very lonely spot on the trail, this individual on top cried out that the robbers were upon them, and a hurried shot was fired from the outside. At the same moment ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... Aun' Sheba were sitting silently near him, and at last the minister said, "Bruder Watson, you an' your wife will feel bettah if you express you'se feelin's, an' sing a while. I reckon, if I say you an' you' wife will sing, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... him of a certain dignity in their eyes. Some of the women of the congregation had been inclined to side with the deacons, for it hurt their vanity that the pastor found so many other interests when he might have been sitting in dark, stuffy rooms discussing theology with them; but Douglas had been either unconscious of or indifferent to their resentment, and had gone on his way with a cheery nod and an unconquerable conviction of right, that had only left them floundering. He intended to quit the room now unnoticed, ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo

... otter it certainly implies an amazing want of skill in its author. However it is assuredly not an otter, but is doubtless an unfinished or rudely executed ground squirrel, of which animal it conveys in a general way a good idea, the characteristic attitude of this little rodent, sitting up with paws extended in front, being well displayed. Carvings of small rodents in similar attitudes are exhibited in Stevens's "Flint Chips," p. 428, Figs. 61 and 62. Stevens's Fig. 61 evidently represents ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw

... ago, but I have been pestered with stupid letters, and am undergoing the purgatory of sitting for hours to Woolner, who, however, is wonderfully pleasant, and lightens as much as man can, the penance; as far as I can judge, it will ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... been right. And if you were right, it's the ghastliest tragedy—for her.... Oh, I shouldn't have let Gerda go and work with him; I should have known better.... Nan had rebuffed him, and he flew off at a tangent, and there was Gerda sitting in his office, as pretty as flowers and with her funny little silent charm.... And if Nan was all the time waiting for him, meaning to say yes when he asked her.... Poor darling Nan, robbed by my horrid little girl, who doesn't even want to marry.... If that's the truth, it would account for the ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... in early February, was sitting on the apex of a vast triangle in the northern end of the Orange River Colony. Two sides of the triangle were made up of long lines of blockhouses, strung on a chain of barbed-wire fencing. The blockhouses were of loop-holed stone or iron with iron roofs, and they were separated from ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... battered, hurting in every joint but conscious, found the torpoon's port open, and felt hands reach in and clasp him. Wearily he helped them lift him out into the thin sunlight. Sitting down, slitting his eyes against the sudden ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter

... temple consecrated to the god of Dulness. Upon my entrance I saw the deity of the place, dressed in the habit of a monk, with a book in one hand and a rattle in the other. Upon his right hand was Industry, with a lamp burning before her; and on his left, Caprice, with a monkey sitting on her shoulder. Before his feet there stood an altar of a very odd make, which, as I afterwards found, was shaped in that manner to comply with the inscription that surrounded it. Upon the altar there lay several offerings of axes, wings, and eggs, cut in paper, and inscribed with verses. The temple ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... side of an open space, now closely filled with sitting listeners, stood a Hebrew, not older than thirty-five. A knot of flaming pitch, stuck in a crevice of rock near him, lighted his face and figure. His frame had the characteristic stalwart structure ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller



Words linked to "Sitting" :   table tilting, unmoving, posing, table tipping, picture taking, sitting room, table tapping, sitting duck, movement, photography, spirit rapping, nonmoving, baby sitting, table lifting, seance, standing, session, sit, table turning, table rapping, motion, sitting trot, Sitting Bull, meeting, move, motility, get together, pet sitting



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com