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Wan   Listen
verb
Wan  past  obs. of Win. Won.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wan" Quotes from Famous Books



... lippes, erst like the corall redde, Did waxe both wan and pale, And for the sorrow she conceivde Her vitall ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols

... is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One pale as yonder wan and horned moon, With lips of lurid blue, The other glowing like the vital morn, 5 When throned on ocean's wave It breathes over the world: Yet both so ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... of the village parson John Jacob grew in mind and body—his estate was to come later. When he was seventeen, his father came and made a formal demand for his services. The young man must take up his father's work of butchering. That night John Jacob walked out of Waldorf by the wan light of the moon, headed for Antwerp. He carried a big red handkerchief in which his worldly goods were knotted, and in his heart he had the blessings of the Lutheran clergyman, who walked with him for half a mile, and said a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... shore, but they could hear no signal from them. What was their surprise one day, at catching in a thicket of mangrove trees, a glimpse of a man in Spanish attire. They entered, and found the unfortunate Ojeda; he lay on the matted roots of the trees; he was speechless, wan, and wasted; but his hand still grasped his sword. They restored him with wine and a warm fire; he recounted the story of his rash expedition; of his struggles among rocks and forests to reach the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... animal bore a case marked with a large red cross. Amongst the animals were donkey-boys, and it was from their lips came the dismal wailing. Never have we seen so ragged and wretched a crew. The boys were evidently the "unfits," and they looked it, every face showed the wan, pallid shadow of hunger and disease. A few old men in huge fur caps, with rifles on their backs, stumbled along, guarding the precious convoy. "Glue pot" led us all to a large empty building, once a Turkish merchant's store, where ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... tales were told of inland seas Like sullen oceans, salt and dead, And sandy deserts, white and wan, Where never trod the foot of man, Nor bird went winging overhead, Nor ever stirred a gracious breeze To wake the silence with its breath — A land ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... I guess I begin to feel kinder comfortable here in this place, if it wan't for this tarnal fat critter. He don't seem to have any work to do, but swells out his big bosom like an old turkey-cock in laying time. I do wonder what he's here for? Do they think I mean to absquatulate with the spoons? [Binny attempts ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor

... intended to protect them. As we passed the portal we found ourselves looking upon a large reservoir, or tank, as they call them here, which long ago was blessed by Nizamu-Din, one of the holiest and most renowned of the Brahmin saints, so that none who swims in it is ever drowned. A group of wan and hungry-looking priests were standing there to receive us; they live on backsheesh and sleep on the cold marble floors of the tombs. No dinner bell ever rings for them. They depend entirely upon charity, and ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... grew to be all graveyards, sepulchral urns, skeletons. How beautiful it would be to die young and a poet, to die like the young English poet, Henry Kirke White, whose works I was so enamoured of. The wan consumptive glamour of his career led me, as he had done, to stay up all night, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... dynasty which preceded that of Ku, B.C. 1766 to 1123. Of those five, the latest piece should be referred to the twelfth century B.C., and the most ancient may have been composed five centuries earlier. All the other pieces in the Shih have to be distributed over the time between Ting and king Wan, the founder of the line of Ku. The distribution, however, is not equal nor continuous. There were some reigns of which we do not have a ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... With a wan smile the old man answered: "Much bruised and very painful, but I am not concerned about myself. I am only afraid for you. I hope you will not come to harm by reason of your ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... 'gainst the likes o' Marrlyou. Many's the wan I've sent after her, ay, an' through her, and she none the worse. Guyablle!" and old Tom ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... when he returned to Hendlip, he was met by two wan, gaunt men, whose countenances showed privation and suffering. They gave their names as William ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... deeper grief to man Than when his mother, faint with years, Decrepit, old, and weak, and wan, Beyond the leech's art appears; When by her couch her son may stay, And press her hand and watch her eyes, And feel, though she revive to-day, Perchance ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... a wan hand to his friend. "I can't begin to thank you for what you and the other boys did for me," he said, weakly. "If you hadn't discovered me in that lonely hut I ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates

... nature. By instinct he was a lover, proof of which lies in the fact that he was deeply religious. The woman he loved he has pictured over and over again. The touch of sorrow is ever in her wan face, but she possessed a silken strength, a heroic nature, a love that knew no turning. She had faith in Botticelli, and surely he had faith in her. For forty years she was in his heart; at times he tried to dislodge her and replace ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... was a vary seemilar case," broke in Snecky Hobart shrilly. "Maist o' ye'll mind 'at Donal was michty plagueit wi' a drucken wife. Ay, weel, wan day Bowie's man was carryin' a coffin past Donal's door, and Donal an' the wife was there. Says Donal, 'Put doon yer coffin, my man, an' tell's wha it's for.' The laddie rests the coffin on its end, an' says he, 'It's for Davie Fairbrother's guid-wife.' 'Ay, then,' says Donal, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... she sent for him to come to her in a chapel that was in the cloister. He, knowing not who it was that sought him, went in all ignorance to the sternest battle in which he had ever been. When she saw him so pale and wan that she could hardly recognise him, yet filled with grace, in no whit less winning than of yore, Love made her stretch out her arms to embrace him, whilst her pity at seeing him in such a plight so enfeebled her heart, that she sank swooning ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... Bridget had declared cheerfully, "what's enough for wan will be enough for two, and you'll never feel the ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... midway, the calabashes were lowered, and the dancers ceased, as all gazed into the abyss above the sea, where a rocket flared like a wan phantom through ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London

... beholds; and I dare not say that the idyl is touched more with the melancholy of human fate for us than for the poet. Poverty such as this, so absolute, I see everywhere at every hour. It is a terrible sight. It is the physical hunger of the soul in wan limbs and hand, and the fixed gaze of the unhoping eyes—despair made flesh. How long has it suffered here? and was it so when Theocritus saw his fishers and gave them a place in the country of his idyls? He spreads before ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... conclusion, Gustave Rameau felt the touch of a light, a soft, a warm, yet a firm hand, on his aria. He turned, and beheld the face of the woman whom, through so many dreary weeks, he had sought to shun—the face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as Savarin had seen her, looking pinched and wan, with faded robes, nor, as when met in the cafe by Lemercier, in the faded robes of a theatre. Julie never looked more beautiful, more radiant, than she did now; and there was a wonderful heartfelt ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Three roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down Each with its loveliness as with a crown, Drooped in a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... life of our party, and I have never appreciated the young man so well. His originality of perception makes his conversation both lively and in- teresting, and as he talks, his wan and suffering countenance lights up with an intelligent animation. His father seems to become more devoted to him than ever, and I have seen him sit for an hour at a time, with his hand resting on his son's, listening eagerly to his ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... wan and heavy-eyed. His head was aching from a bump against the edge of a step, and his cold was much worse; no wonder, said my mother; but she was always softened by any ailment, and feared that the phantoms were the effect of coming illness. I ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to let you no that if you go an givin wan la for the poor and anud'her for the rich you will soon get a bullet through you as Tandrem af Tavnibeg got. If you wish to bay safe thin bay the poor man's friend—oderways it'll ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... said, and threw his spear, but by design, Err'd from the man. The polish'd weapon swift O'er-glancing his right shoulder, in the soil 440 Stood fixt, beyond him. Terrified he stood, Stammering, and sounding through his lips the clash Of chattering teeth, with visage deadly wan. They panting rush'd on him, and both his hands Seized fast; he wept, and suppliant them bespake. 445 Take me alive, and I will pay the price Of my redemption. I have gold at home, Brass also, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... we are, so wan with care,' we begin to wish that we had never undertaken the publication of these letters. Between two impending law-suits how shall we muster courage to keep on the even tenor of our way? Even our staunch friend, the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... it was a very sweet and repentant, if rather wan, Diana that greeted her husband when he returned from the afternoon rehearsal at ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... on Him Who saith, "Move the mountains with your faith"— Doubt the lips that falter, wan, "The age of miracles is gone!" I have learned to read the grim Testimony unto Him Printed with starvation's hand On every hove! through the land; I have swung the crazy door To find huddled on a floor Rat-gnawed and riddled, with never a clout To keep the eager winter out, Some ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various

... knees, and a considerable section of his legs as well; for all that he had white socks and low slippers, now soaking wet, upon his feet; for all his elbow sleeves and his pink garters and his low neck; and finally for all that his face was now beginning, as they stared upon it, to wear the blank wan look of one who is about to succumb to a swoon of exhaustion induced by intense physical exertion or by acutely prolonged mental strain or by both together—Mr. Bob Slack detected in this fabulous oddity a resemblance to his ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... of our career—in less than no time John Knox, preaching from a house half-way down the Canongate, gave us the go-by—and down through one long wide sprawl of men, women, and children we wheeled past the Gothic front, and round the south angle of Holyrood, and across the King's-park, where wan and withered sporting debtors held up their hands and cried, Hurra—hurra—hurra—without stop or stay, up the rocky way that leads to St. Anthony's Well and Chapel—and now it was manifest that we were bound for the summit ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various

... after the disappearance that a wan, living skeleton staggered out of the wilderness in Africa, and blindly groped his way to the coast as a man might who had lived long in darkness and found the light too strong for his eyes. He managed to reach ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... death, she sought to save him. It was another woman who stood opposite the yielding, cracking door, past whose head a half-spent bullet spat its way, burying itself in the wall behind her,—another woman, disheveled, forgetful of her wan beauty, trusting to no power but that which her heart gave her to face the man she had betrayed and ruined. Yet both in an instantaneous flash remembered that first meeting. The drawn sword sank, point downward. He stood motionless in the shattered ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... looked round the ragged moor, brooding in the twilight, and half hesitated. Then she forced a wan little smile. ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... to have wan vote, too," said Bonner. "I thought mesilf the only dang fool on the board—an' he made a spache that airned wan vote—but f'r the love of hivin, that dub f'r a teacher! What come over you, Haakon—you voted f'r ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... o' Craigentolly Is a wan and waefu' bride, Singing, O waly! waly! Through the whole country side; And a river to wade For a dying maid, And a weary way ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang

... the city that day, and I was much struck with an example of Chinese ingenuity. The suburban inhabitants all seem to keep poultry, and all these fowls were of the same breed—small white bantams. So, to identify his own property, Ching Wan dyed all his chickens' tails orange, whilst Hung To's fowls scratched about with mauve tails, and Kyang Foo's hens gave themselves great airs on the strength ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... smarted in Margot's eyes; she ran forward, dropped on her knees before the chair, and clasped her strong young arms round the swaying figure, steadying it with loving, gentle pressure. The wan eyes stared at her unrecognisingly for a moment, then, at the sight of her girlish beauty, old memories returned, and the ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... were like ugly gutters to drain the darkness, and the "Ark" rose mysteriously into the sky of night like a ponderous mountain. Dark cellar-openings led down into the roots of the mountain, and there, in its dark entrails, moved wan, grimy creatures with smoky lamps; there were all those who lived upon the poverty of the "Ark"—the old iron merchant, the old clothes merchant, and the money-lender who lent money upon tangible pledges. They moved fearfully, burrowing into strange- looking heaps. The darkness was ingrained ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... should be freed from the dull society of two poor women. It was dull—very, certainly. The tender widow's habitual melancholy seemed to deepen into a sadder gloom; and Laura saw with alarm that the dear friend became every year more languid and weary, and that her pale cheek grew more wan. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and brightness as seldom comes to human eyes. It was a vision of angels and of brilliant stars. She commenced calling her father, and those with him, and began talking about the radiant forms that hovered over her. Her wan, pale face was illumined with smiles, and with an ecstasy of joy she talked of the angels and stars, and of the happiness she experienced. "Why, Reed," exclaimed McCutchen, "Patty is dying!" And it was ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... weet saut wind is blawing Upon the misty shore: As, like a stormy snawing, The deid go streaming o'er:— The wan drown'd deid sail wildly Frae out each drumly wave: It's O and O for the weary sea, And ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... up with a wan attempt at a smile as he passed under the windows and saw the rows of grinning faces looking down, but the rest kept their eyes fixed ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... with unexpected power, and only the hunter himself could tire her out. As for him, he was not happy unless he was working, and at times he made the screw spin again under his fierce strokes, whenever his eyes fell on the wan faces of his young companions stewing in the insufferable heat. He shortened the journey by twenty-four hours, for on the afternoon of the fourth day the woman, for the first time, showed ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... his poor worn face; he was evidently thinking of the young wife whom he had lost. I repeated—fervently and sincerely repeated—what I had already said to him in writing. "I owe everything, sir, to your fatherly kindness." Saying this, I ventured a little further. I took his wan white hand, hanging over the arm of the chair, and respectfully put it to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... perfect peace, went to his door and called one of his slaves. The negro made some reply which the master construed into insolence, and in a great rage he swore if he did not come to him immediately he would shoot him. The man replied he hoped massa wan't in earnest. 'I'll show you whether I am in earnest,' said the master, and with that he levelled his rifle, took deliberate aim, and shot the negro on the spot. He died immediately. Though great efforts were made by a few colored men to bring the murderer to punishment, they were all ineffectual. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... individual clad in black whom Wilkie had addressed as Philippe, and who had endeavored to prevent him from entering the restaurant, come out, and walk rapidly away. He was warmly clad in a thick overcoat, but he shivered, and his pale, wan face betrayed the man who is a martyr to the pleasures of others—the man who is condemned to be up all night and sleep only in the daytime—the man who can tell you how much folly and beastliness lurk in the depths of the wine-cup, and ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... to comfort them. "Banshee daren't set fut in the garden, or raise wan skirl of a cry, after all the prayers yez have been sayin'," she would tell them. But when she left them it was only to go to the kitchen fire and pray against the same fear herself. But, apart from this shadow, that often lifted for weeks at a time, their life was very happy. Mick, ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick

... Again that wan smile crossed the hard, sharp-featured face that once had been so lovely. "I mean that if the devil came out of hell and called himself my son, I should acknowledge him to ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... in the Keltic gwuwrn, gwen, white. Older authorities hold it a corruption of 'Vinchune,' the indigenous name of the Nivarian race. Again, 'the inhabitants of Tenerife called themselves Guan (the Berber Wan), one person, Chinet or Chinerf, Tenerife; so that Guanchinet meant a man of Tenerife, and was easily corrupted to Guanche. Thus, too, Glas's 'Captain Artemis' was Guan-arteme, the one or chief ruler. Vieira derives 'Tenerf' ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... see from mine that she stood there talking to the stars, and asking them where was the woman that had been she, and where was her own dear love and unalterable affection? I could see that she wept often, and that the tears ran down her white wan face all pinched by suffering, and that she supplicated the night in tender words to bring back to her what had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... he kill'd and five did wound, That was an unmeet marrow! And he had weel nigh wan the day Upon ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various

... tradesman, savage with anger which one knows to be justifiable; the taunt of the poor servant who wants her wages; the gradual relinquishment of habits which the soft nurture of earlier, kinder years had made second nature; the wan cheeks of the wife whose malady demands wine; the rags of the husband whose outward occupations demand decency; the neglected children, who are learning not be the children of gentlefolk; and, worse than ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... beauty but a hollow mask?" How barren, borrowed, trivial, every thought and word of hers seemed now, as I looked back upon them, in comparison with the rich luxuriance, the startling originality, of thought, and deed, and sympathy, in her who now sat by me, wan and faded, beautiful no more as men call beauty, but with the spirit of an archangel gazing from those clear, fiery eyes! And as I looked at her, an emotion utterly new to me arose; utter trust, delight, submission, gratitude, awe—if ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... wan't far astray; but there, I wouldn't let on to the likes of her that Mr. Winthrop might do more for them. Anyway there's no one gives more for the poor in the parish, nor anything nigh as much; only its taxes, and one don't ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... off the dog, who generally grew fiercer as he felt his backer near him, and it was commonly with a feeling as of a bare escape of my life that I finally got into the house. It was sad enough, too, often to find sickness and death in those fever-stricken abodes—a wan mother nursing one dying child, with perhaps another dead in the house. My business, too, was not the most welcome. I came to dun a delinquent debtor, who had perhaps been inveigled by some peddler of our goods into an imprudent purchase, for a payment which it was inconvenient or impossible ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... "Sorra wan o' me knows what's come to the master; he's gone up the stairs, and the heart of him that light that his foot is only touchin' the ground in an ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... soul, since you would not have spoken to save me,— Yes; for I go from these saints to my brethren and sisters, the sinners." Spoke and went, while her faint lips fashioned unuttered entreaties,— Went, and came again in a year at the time of the meeting, Haggard and wan of face, and wasted with passion and sorrow. Dead in his eyes was the careless smile of old, and its phantom Haunted his lips in a sneer of restless, incredulous mocking. Day by day he came to the outer skirts of the circle, Dwelling on her, where she knelt by the white-haired exhorter, her father, ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... cours, that hath so wide for to turne, Hath more power than wot any man. Min is the drenching in the sea so wan, Min is the prison in the derke cote, Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte, The murmure and the cherles rebelling, The groyning, and the prive empoysoning, I do vengaunce and pleine correction, While I dwell in the signe of the leon; ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... a wan light upon all things when he thrust his short, sharp muzzle inside that hole, to be met by a positively hair-raising volley of ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... Goesler, standing close by him and putting her left arm very lightly on his shoulder. It was all that she could do for him, but it was in order that she might do this that she had been summoned from London to his side. He was wan and worn and pale,—a man evidently dying, the oil of whose lamp was all burned out; but still as he turned his eyes up to the woman's face there was a remnant of that look of graceful faineant nobility which ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... away and far away, Heard a voice but knew it not in the clear cold, Many a wide circle and many a wan star away, Dwelling in the chambers where the ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... aisles of Rievaulx. By and by we quitted the wood, and having descended a deep ravine, we climbed a barren moor, over which we had proceeded half way, when to my unutterable joy, we discovered the far-off fane of Rievaulx, whose wan towers just peered from out of the hanging woods. Pursuing our way we soon exchanged the trackless moor for a much more grateful domain. A sloping wood on each side of us opened into a wider expanse, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various

... became general that the child's mind had sunk into hopeless imbecility. The kind-hearted miller and his wife endeavored to coax her out of her chair by the chimney-corner, but she crouched there, a wan, mute figure of woe, pitiable to contemplate; asking no questions, causing no trouble, receiving no consolation. One bright March morning she sat, as usual, with her face bowed on her thin hand, and her vacant gaze fixed on the blazing fire, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... stood absently looking at his fingers against the light—and they seemed strangely wan and transparent—the thought at last took shape. It rushed upon him with such vehemence, that he could no more resist it. So he bade the clergyman good-bye, gathered his few worldly goods together and set out for Bergen. ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... all-gracious Parent hears the wretch's prayer; The meek tear strongly pleads on high; 10 Wan Resignation struggling with despair The Lord beholds with pitying eye; Sees cheerless Want unpitied pine, Disease on earth its head recline, And bids Compassion seek the realms of woe 15 To heal the wounded, and to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the fairy sight Of your illumined haunts by night, To see the park glades where you play Far lovelier than they are by day, To see the sparkle on the eaves, And upon every giant bough Of those old oaks whose wan red leaves Are jewelled with bright drops of rain— How would your voices run again! And far beyond the sparkling trees, Of the castle park, one sees The bare heath spreading clear as day, Moor behind moor, far far away, Into the heart of Brittany. And here and there locked by the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... highness ordered his greatest thanks to be given to the whole army, for their bravery and good behaviour yesterday, particularly to the English infantry, and the two battalions of Hanoverian guards; to all the cavalry of the left wing; and to general Wan-genheim's corps, particularly the regiment of Holstein, the Hessian cavalry, the Hanoverian regiment du corps, and Hammerstin's; the same to all the brigades of heavy artillery. His serene highness declares publicly, that, next to God, he attributes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... father, who, other things being equal, you might have mistaken for Zuloaga's "Uncle." The lank hair, the sad eyes, the wan face, the dressing-gown, there he sat. Only the palette was absent. Instead was an arm in a sling. There was another difference. Beyond, in lieu of capricious manolas, was a piano and, above it, a portrait with which Zuloaga ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... project, however, health is a sine qua non. Whether you can ever enjoy it in Charleston or on Sullivan's Island has become a problem in my mind. I was quite shocked with your wan appearance when I first met you last spring. How different from that which you took hence the fall preceding. With every advantage attainable in your climate, you have scarcely been free from fever during the season. This cannot fail to debilitate both ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... decolorize, bleach, tarnish, achromatize, blanch, etiolate, wash out, tone down. Adj. uncolored &c (color) &c 428; colorless, achromatic, aplanatic^; etiolate, etiolated; hueless^, pale, pallid; palefaced^, tallow-faced; faint, dull, cold, muddy, leaden, dun, wan, sallow, dead, dingy, ashy, ashen, ghastly, cadaverous, glassy, lackluster; discolored &c v.. light-colored, fair, blond; white &c 430. pale as death, pale as ashes, pale as a witch, pale as a ghost, pale as a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... to her bosom, as if by laying their two aching lives together they might both be healed, and, rocking him to and fro, said to herself, for the first time, that her trouble was greater than she could bear. "O baby! baby! baby!" she cried, and her tears streamed on the little wan face. But, as she sat with him in her arms, the blessed sleep came, and the storm sank to ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... Bidatsu (A.D. 572-585), a memorial sent by Korea to the Yamato Court was illegible to all the officials except one man, by name Wang-sin-i, who seems to have been a descendant of the Paikche emigrant, Wan-i. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... proper," said Scipio, with a wan smile. "Y'see, it was jest a game, an'—an' the boys were rough. Now we'll ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... I began to think that I should not survive, even if the mate and Dr Cockle did. Though they had eaten no more than any of us, they endured their sufferings better. By this time we were a scarecrow crew, our hair long, our faces wan, our bodies shrunk, and our skin tanned to a yellow by the hot sun. At last the men entreated that they might have the remainder of the biscuit, declaring that they were ready to die after they had had one good meal if we could not catch ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston

... but hasta la vista!" She lifted her chin valiantly, although her smile was a trifle wan. "That means 'until we meet again', you know, and I feel somehow that it will ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... ma'am, for your kindness. You are the first friend I have seen this many a year," said the poor woman, while hot tears trickled down her wan cheeks. ...
— Aunt Amy - or, How Minnie Brown learned to be a Sunbeam • Francis Forrester

... part of the ground which belonged to a famous botanical garden owned by William Curtis at the end of the eighteenth century. The building is of red brick, faced with white stone, and it is on a piece of ground about 3 acres in extent, lined by small trees, under which are seats for the wan-faced patients. The ground-plan of the building resembles the letter H, and the system adopted inside is that of galleries used as day-rooms and filled with chairs and couches. From these the bedrooms open off. The galleries ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... that the sermon is ended, and the last lingerer has quitted the church, he turns from the spot whence he has anxiously watched the different members of the departing throng, and feebly crouches down on his knees at the base of a pillar that is near him. His eyes are hollow, and his cheeks are wan; his thin grey hairs are few and fading on his aged head. He makes no effort to follow the crowd and partake their sustenance; no one is left behind to urge, no one returns to lead him to the public meal. Though weak and ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... John, you would go to the bottom as soon as you would go home? Come now!"—"To the bottom," repeated the wan voice, composedly. "Aye! That's where we all are going to, in one way or another. The ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... scarcely dropped off to sleep—though in reality she had been unconscious for more than two hours—when she awoke suddenly, to see Doubler sitting erect in the bunk, watching her with a wan, sympathetic smile. There was the light of reason in his eyes and her heart gave ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... distressful thing entirely to see a fine gurrl like that wid a husband an' he wed on wan leg. 'Twas mesilf Billjim should ha' ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... wan, Head from the mother's bowels drawn, Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one, Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown, helve produced from a little seed sown, Resting the grass amid and upon, To be lean'd and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... holy and mysterious principle of maternal nature that caused my mother to clasp her hands, to raise her eyes to heaven, and, while a gleam flitted athwart her glassy eyes and wan cheeks, to murmur her thanks to God for the boon. She was herself hastening away to the eternal bliss of the pure of mind and the redeemed, and her imagination, quiet and simple as it was, had drawn pictures in which she and her departed babes were ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... from Big Sandy River; I can outrun, outjump, and outfight any man in Kentucky. They telled me in Danville, that this 'ere lawyer was comin down to give you a lickin. Now I hadn't nothin agin that, only he wan't a goin to give you fair play, so I came here to see you out, and now if you'll only say the word, we can flog him and his mates, in the twinkling of ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... it with an intense conviction that his mother needed his presence, and that he must make all haste to reach his home. In half an hour he had paid his bill and taken a carriage for Leith harbor, and the yacht was speeding down the Firth ere the wan, misty daylight brightened the colorless sea. The stillness of sea and sky was magical and they were a little delayed by the calm, but in due time the wind sprang up suddenly and the yacht ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... having thus prepared his audience, looked silently into the fire for another half-hour, until the room was dark, and all the tutor could see was a wan hand fidgeting uneasily on the ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... bloody from their recent brutal treatment. They were sad spectacles to behold, truly, and would have moved to pity any hearts less obdurate than those by which they were surrounded. Their faces bore those expressions of dejection and wan despair, which may sometimes be perceived in the look of a criminal, when, loth to die, he is assured all hope of pardon is past. Not that either Younker or Reynolds felt criminal, or feared death in its ordinary way; but there were a thousand ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... wood of the alley; muffled commands to Charles Eugene: "Hold up, there! Back ... Back up! Whoa!" Then the tinkle of the sleigh-bells. In the silence that followed, the sick woman groaned two or three times in her sleep; Maria watched the wan light stealing into the house and thought of her father's journey, trying to reckon up the ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... building a bower to receive him in, when his aged steps should bring him there at last. He is filled with joy to see her, so young—so bright—so full of promise—and is enraptured to think that she never was old, wan, tearful, withered. This is always one of the sources of consolation in the deaths of children. With no effort of the fancy, with nothing to undo, you will always be able to think of the pretty creature you have lost, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... it from himself soon. I shall only spare her some unnecessary pain; it is cruel to see her thus, and to keep her in suspense. Besides, her weakness might be her ruin, in his opinion, if it were to extinguish all her energy, and deprive her of the very power of pleasing. How wan she looks, and how heavy are those sleepless eyes! She is not, indeed, in a condition to meet him, when he comes to us to-morrow: if she had some hopes, she would revive and appear with her natural ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... Larmor strove to pierce the lashing mist, and then!—oh, yes, the long crimson stream flew, wavered in the gale, and broke into scattered star-drift. Larmor and the doctor put their arms round each other and sobbed. Then they told poor death-like Withers, and his wan eyes flickered with the faint image of a smile. Ferrier gave him the remainder of the wine, and the helpless seaman patted his benefactor's hand like ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... fragrant blossoms ever young, In gardens of romantic Spain,— Lovely land, and rich in vain! Blest by nature's bounteous hand, Cursed with priests and Ferdinand! Lemons, pale as Melancholy, Or yellow russets, wan and holy. Be their number twice fifteen, Mystic number, well I ween, As all must know, who aught can tell Of sacred lore or glamour spell; Strip them of their gaudy hides, Saffron garb of Pagan brides, And like the Argonauts of Greece, Treasure up ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various

... "I wan't never in 'em afore, and wouldn't be now, only my son Dan'el's wife's took oncommon bad, and he thinks I ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... Juan had just quitted was so sudden that he could not help shuddering. He turned cold as he came towards the bed; the lamp flared in a sudden vehement gust of wind and lighted up his father's face; the features were wasted and distorted; the skin that cleaved to their bony outlines had taken wan livid hues, all the more ghastly by force of contrast with the white pillows on which he lay. The muscles about the toothless mouth had contracted with pain and drawn apart the lips; the moans that issued between them ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac

... down with a grunt of satisfaction. "That settled 'em," he grinned. "They dunno who did steal the bar'l to this day, and each wan do suspect t'other." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various

... the floor, and covered her face with her hands. Hester stood a moment and looked at her weeping, her heart filled with sad dismay, mingled with a kind of wan hope. Then softly and quickly she opened the door of the room ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... direction. On the fourth, Caroline, who the night before had seemed as averse as ever, showed her, as she crossed the hall on the way to luncheon, a letter directed to the Reverend Walter Lyddell. Her heart leapt, but as she smiled satisfaction, she saw Caroline's face so wan, dejected, and miserable, that she could not make herself too happy. There were other doubts, now that this point was gained, as to how Walter might be able to manage Caroline,—whether he would lead her to the right, or unconsciously turn her to the wrong, by his want ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... pain, on beds of woe, Where stricken heroes languish, Wan faces smile and sick hearts grow Triumphant over anguish; While souls that starve in lonely gloom Flush green with odorous praises, And all the lowly pallets bloom With Gratitude's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... sit on de winder An' kip jus' so quiet lak wan leetle mouse, She say de more finer moon never was shiner— Very fonny, for moon isn't ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond

... Prince!" Yet another. This little girl's mother is to-day a celebrated beauty—and her next-door diner was farmed out and insured. When fourteen months old the child only weighed fourteen pounds. Every child is a picture—the wan cheeks are no more, a rosy hue and healthy ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... her softly on their snowy bosoms. But she moves on, impelled. She sweeps beyond the sad clouds. Deeper and deeper into the darkness. Closer and closer the Shadow clutches her in his inexorable arms. Wan and weird becomes her face, wrathful and wild the astonished winds; and for all her science and her faith, the Earth trembles in the night, and a hush of awe quivers through the angry, agitated air. On, still on, till the fair and smiling moon is but a dull and tawny orb, with no beauty to ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... Wan, and with rather dark circles under their eyes, the girls got breakfast the next morning. The meal put them in better spirits, and when they bustled around about the camp duties they, forgot their scare of the ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... some years after that a small and partly ruinous tenement in the outskirts of A. received a new family. The group consisted of four children, whose wan and wistful countenances, and still, unchildlike deportment, testified an early acquaintance with want and sorrow. There was the mother, faded and care-worn, whose dark and melancholy eyes, pale cheeks, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... so faint I do not know that I can take any," said Mrs. Chatterton. Whether it was her white cashmere dressing-robe, and her delicate lace cap that made her face against the pillows seem wan and white, Polly did not know. But it struck her that she looked more ill than usual, and she said earnestly, "I am so ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on! sail ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... those big front steps. I seen 'em. Nice colored people wouldn't 'a gone there. They had respec' for theirselves an' their white folks. But Dr. Bellamy came home soon with his fam'ly an' those colored people got out. They wan't ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... falling full on her face. She was evidently listening, and there was a look of joyous expectancy in her face. Underneath, on the margin of the canvas, was written in charcoal, "Hope." The other represented the same figure, darkly dressed, with a wan, hopeless look in her face, standing on a rock at the edge of an angry sea, over which she was gazing; while the sky overhead was dark and sombre without a rift in the hurrying clouds. It was ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... fading many-colored woods, Shade deepening over shade, the country round Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun, Of every hue, from wan declining ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... in my time, as you d' know; an' if either wan had been rich enough to leave me a pianner, I'd ha' married three more. . . . What tickles me is you men with your talk o' spoort. Catchin' fish for a business I can understand: you got to do that for money, which is the first thing in life; ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... Jack, it was mighty lonely fo' Neb dem days. I didn't know whar any ob yo' all was, an' it wan't no fun fo' dis nigger bein' free dat away. I got out ter Independence, Missouri, an' was roustaboutin' on de ribber, when a coupple ob men come along what wanted a cook to trabbel wid 'em. I took de job, an' dat's what fetched me here ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... I am zealous; the Separatist, I am zealous; their plea is more probable, then the lukewarme worldlings, that serve God without life. If the colour bee pale and wan, and the motion insensible, the party is dead or in a swoune; if good and swift, wee make no question. The zealous Christian is never to seeke for a proofe of his salvation: what makes one Christian differ from ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward

... Waive (abandon) forlasi. Wake veki. Wake of ship sxippostsigno. Waking time (reveille) vekigxo. Walk marsxi, promeni. Walk (path) aleo. Walking stick bastono. Wall muro. Wallet sako, tornistro. Wallow ruligxi, ensxlimigxi. Walnut juglando. Walrus rosmaro. Waltz valso. Wan pala, palega. Wand vergo, vergego. Wander erari, vagi. Wander (be delirious) deliri. Wanderer nomadulo, vagisto. Wandering nomada, eraranta. Wane ekfinigxi. Wanness paleco. Want seneco, mizerego. Want (need, require) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... She lifted a wan and startled face. Must the torturing similarity and still more torturing contrast of the two occasions be continued? But she saw her father regarding her sternly—saw that she was becoming the subject of curious glances and whispered surmises. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... to grete sorowe, and hath ytake away myrth fro my hert." Aftir this he turned toward the feste, and made him redy toward the turnement, and there he bare him so manly, and so doutely in the turnement and that twies or thries, that he wan the victory, and worship, and wynnyng of that day. For the emperour hily avauncid him, and made him maister of his oste,[FN542] and commaundid that all shuld obey to him, and he encresid, and aros from day to day in honure and richesse. And he went ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... girl," pursued Virginia. "I'd have had another father if I could, one who'd 've loved me. Matty says even fathers like their kids sometimes—a little." She paused a minute, a wan, sweet smile passing over her lips. "But I've got Milly Ann and her kittens, and they're soft and ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... up from the pile of duffle in the canoe; and his fangs showed ivory white in the wan light. It was Fenris, and he guarded the canoe. He crouched, ready to spring ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... truckle-bed in the chamber above, lay the dying child. Had she survived till the following spring, she would then have been eight years old. As Isoult bent over her, a smile broke on the thin wan face, and the little voice said,—"Aunt Isoult!" This was Honour's pet name for her friend; for there was no tie of relationship between them. Isoult softly stroked the fair hair. "Aunt Isoult," the faint voice pursued, "I pray you, ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... entirely right. Ludowika rarely appeared so early; Myrtle's face seemed wan and pinched, and her father rallied her on her indisposition after what should have been an entrancing evening. She declared suddenly, "I hate David Forsythe!" Gilbert Penny was obviously startled. Caroline half rose, as if she had finished breakfast; but she sat down again with ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... not a taste av butthermilk that wan can buy or beg, Thin their sweet milk has no crame, an' is as blue as a duck-egg; Their whisky is as wake as wather-gruel in a bowl—Och, Muckish Mountain, where the poteen ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... mind, which kept his body so weak, that tho' youth and an excellent constitution threw off the fever in a short time, yet he was unable to quit his chamber in near three weeks, and when he did, appeared so wan and so dejected, that he seemed no more than the shadow of the once gay ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... happened to be working, twinkled his eyes at the professor through thick, silver-rimmed glasses, and demanded: "For why do ye be readin' a buke about it? For why don't ye get down wit yer pick, man, and see what's in the ground? My gorry, I been minin' now for forty-wan year, ever sence I come from the auld country, an' I never read no buke t' see what I had in me claim. I got down inty the ground, an' I seen for meself what I got there—an' whin I found out, my gorry, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... call is wan thing, and the chune Mrs. Barry sings is another. Take shame, Carus Renault, ye blatherin', bould inthriguer! L'ave innocence to ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... noon, Pauses above the death-still wood—the moon; The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs; The clouds descend in rain; Mourning, the wan stars wane, Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres! Haggard as spectres—vision-like and dumb, Dark with the pomp of Death, and moving slow, Towards that sad lair the pale Procession come Where the Grave closes on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... wan, beautiful face that turned up to Theodore King when he came home to dinner. Too kindly by nature to hurt any one, he smiled at Molly. Then he stopped and held out his hand. The woman took ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... told to take 'twa marys' on her journey. We suddenly realise how little there was to amuse the Burd Isbels of yore. Twa marys provide a week's diversion. Otherwise her only occupation would have been to kemb her golden hair, or perhaps, like Fair Annie, drink wan water to ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... combat his objections beforehand might have been a more difficult matter. Esther found Mrs. Barker's dismay quite enough to deal with. Indeed, the good woman was at first overwhelmed; and sat down, the first time she was taken to the house, in a sort of despair, with a face wan in its anxiety. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... room it seemed as if he dropped away back into the wan dusk behind him, and next moment they saw him in motion a few paces distant, limping fast, and gesticulating as though he were ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... everything. She begun about the 'beautiful' sermon that Mr. Perley preached at the last 'Come-Outers'' meetin'. That was what started me thinkin' about the grave, I guess. Then she pitched into Seth Wingate's wife for havin' a new bunnit this season when the old one wan't ha'f wore out. She talked for ten minutes or so on that, and then she begun about Parker's bein' let go over at the cable station and about the new feller that's been signed to take his place. She's all for Parker. Says he was a 'perfectly lovely' man and that 'twas outrageous the ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... long dark pathway, Past Oceanus's great streams, Past the White Rock, past the Sun's gates Downward to the land of Dreams: There they reach the wide dim borders Of the fields of asphodel, Where the spectres and the spirits Of wan, outworn ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... sister from an early age. In their quarrels, although he was much weaker than Antoine, he always got the better of the contest, beating the other with all the authority of a master. With regard to Ursule, a poor, puny, wan little creature, she was handled with equal roughness by both the boys. Indeed, until they were fifteen or sixteen, the three children fraternally beat each other without understanding their vague, mutual hatred, without realising how foreign they were to one another. It was only in youth ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... back of Michmash, Naomi rode off, with such a bright look upon her wan face that her father and mother could not help thinking that better days were ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips

... above the water, displaying her bright green copper. The nights were more glorious than the days, when the broad full moon would shed her light upon the water with a brilliancy unknown in our foggy clime. It did not look like a wan flat surface, placed flat upon a watery sky, but like a large radiant sphere hanging in space. The view from the wheel-house was magnificent. The towering waves which came up behind us heaped together by mighty winds, looked like hills of green glass, and the phosphorescent ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... was very fair and very good to look at; she found, half-consciously, that her beauty had its drawbacks. There did not seem to be any reason why she should spare her strength in any way. So, a little wan and tremulous, she appeared at the early morning service, and then, after walking back in any weather, there was a dull little breakfast, and soon after that she got to work. Every post brought begging letters in crowds, and these hurt her dreadfully. It was her wish to live ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... for your character (as I believe I can)," she went on with a wan, almost wistful smile, "he is ready ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Orthopaedic Hospital, she told Delia. The legs twisted with rickets had been broken and set twice, and now he was "doing fine." She set him down, and made him walk. "I never thought to see him do that!" she said, her wan face shining. "And it's all his doing—" she pointed to ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... valley was brightening. Great palls of curling smoke rose white and yellow, to turn back as the monuments met their crests, and then to roll upward, blotting out the stars. It was such a light as he had never seen, except in dreams. Pale moonlight and dimmed starlight and wan dawn all vague and strange and shadowy under the wild and vivid ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... rather sad smile. For, as she was washing up the tea things, she had noticed Tom's voice grow feebler, and his features sharper and more wan. ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... the man, with a tremendous oath—"haven't they? LOOK HERE!" A glance was enough. Crawley turned wan and shuddered from ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... replied, 'twas the Lord give me the b'ys, an' 'twas the Lord took away their blissid father. Do ye think He'd 'a' done ayther wan or the other if He hadn't thought I could care for 'em all? An' I will, too. It may be we'll be hungry—yis, an' cold, too—wanst in a while. But it ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger

... last, saw Poppy draw herself up, push the soft masses of her hair back from her forehead with a petulant gesture, and turn towards him. As she did so she let her hands drop at her sides, as though she had finished with and dismissed some unwelcome form of thought, while her face showed wan, and her eyes large and vague, as though they saw beyond and through all that ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... legion who had gained entry to the palace by such ways as this—perhaps had accomplished their intent and returned to tell the tale, perhaps had been found in the dawn-light, floating out there on the lake with drawn, wan faces ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... her lover was safe restored the sparkle to Irene's eyes and the color to her wan cheeks. Fenshawe, indeed, had not given her the full measure of Abdur Kad'r's breathless recital. Recent events had led the old curio-hunter to view life in less ultra-scientific spirit than was his habit. Perhaps he had re-awakened to the knowledge that the hearts of men ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... watched making its way steadily across the solar face. Notwithstanding the gradual obscuration of the sun, one does not notice much diminution of light until about three-quarters of his disc are covered. Then a wan, unearthly appearance begins to pervade all things, the temperature falls noticeably, and nature seems to halt in expectation of the coming of something unusual. The decreasing portion of sun becomes more ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... thought that he heard people coming up the staircase that he had a glimpse of; that the door opened, and there entered a warrior, leading a lady by the hand, who was young and beautiful, but pale and wan; The man was dressed in complete armour, and his helmet down. They approached the bed; they undrew the curtains. He thought the man said, "Is this our child?" The woman replied, "It is; and the hour approaches that he shall be known for such." They then separated, and one stood ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... saw a woman sitting far back in the shadows of the church wearing such a look of sadness that she frightened me. It was not goodness but sorrow that had spiritualised her face. And to me she seemed a wan prisoner looking through the windows of her cell, despairing, like one who already knows his death sentence. "What if after all I am mistaken," I thought, "and there really is occasion for such grief as that!" I could think of nothing but that white mystery ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... assure you, my ancestors were writing books when the Anglo-Saxon was living in caves."[3] She was astonished and somewhat dismayed, but was not cast down—the clever American woman never is. I told her of our classics, of our wonderful Book of Changes, written by my ancestor Wan Wang in 1150 B. C. I told her of his philosophy. I compared his idea of the creation to that in the Bible. I explained the loss of many rare Chinese books by the piratical order of destruction by Emperor Che Hwang-ti, ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... as lively and droll as ever, with a wan face as eloquent of grief as any face I ever saw; he had it in his head that the right eye would go the same way as the left. He could no longer see the satellites of Jupiter with it: hardly Jupiter itself, except as a luminous blur; indeed, it was getting quite near-sighted, and full ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... is not more fortunate. "Look at that for a nate patthern!" he says ecstatically, "that'd paper a bed! Come now, ma'am, wan an' thrippence!" ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... the Tsar issued an order for the creation of a city on the Bay of Talien-Wan; and in two years Dalny stood in massive completeness, with docks and wharves and defences which had cost millions of dollars. Millions more had been expended upon Port Arthur, and still more millions upon the railway binding Manchuria to Russia with bands of steel. ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... long time, which seemed hours to the waiting and watching settlers, not a sound could be heard, nor any sign of the enemy seen. Thin clouds had again drifted over the moon, allowing only a pale, wan light to shine down on the valley. Time dragged on and the clouds grew thicker and denser until the moon and the stars were totally obscured. Still no sign or sound ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... was dragged ashore and Ransom had thrown himself at his feet, he saw that he yet lived, and lived triumphantly. Ransom could not have told more; it was for others to see and point out the smile that sweetened the wan lips, and the passion with which he held against his breast some sodden and shapeless object which he had rescued from those awful depths, and which, when spread out and clean of sand, betrayed ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... took one look at the wan face only dimly visible in that prison-light, for the poor little man shrank back as he recognized the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... dreamed I found a sunlit room Filled with a delicate perfume, Where, moaning their sweet lives away, A thousand lovely flowers lay. They drooped, so pale, and wan, and weak, With hardly strength enough to speak, With stems so crushed and leaves so torn It was too dreadful to be borne! And one white lily raised her head From off her snowy flower bed. And sighed, "Please tell the children, oh! They should not treat the flowers so! They plucked ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess



Words linked to "Wan" :   come down, pale, pallid, wide area network, colourless, unanimated



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