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Wide-awake   Listen
adjective
Wide-awake  adj.  Fully awake; not drowsy or dull; hence, knowing; keen; alert.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wide-awake" Quotes from Famous Books



... I was not wide-awake enough to play the like comedy with Madame d'Etampes. That evening, when she heard the whole course of events from the King's own lips, it bred such poisonous fury in her breast that she exclaimed with anger: "If Benvenuto had shown me those fine things of his, he would have given me some reason ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... amusement, you could hardly say you liked her—not in the way you could say it of most of the men and women I have specified. Michael Rossiter, who comes into this story, ought really if there were a discriminating wide-awake, up-to-date Providence—which there is not—to have met Honoria when she was twenty. (At nineteen such a woman is still immature; and moreover until she was twenty, Honoria had not mastered the Binomial Theorem.) Had he married her at that period he would himself have been about twenty-seven which ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... hour ago. The tradespeople over there, generally, have put up their shutters, and the time for closing the drinking-saloons is at hand; but lights are yet lingering in the pawnbroker's establishments, for the Mont de Piete is an institution of an extremely wakeful, not to say wide-awake, kind. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... sixty couplets were finished they were sung again; and that lullaby of "Ave, ave, ave Maria!" came back incessantly, stupefying the mind, and gradually transporting those thousands of beings into a kind of wide-awake dream, with a vision of Paradise before their eyes. And, indeed, at night-time when they were asleep, their beds would rock to the eternal tune, which they still and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... was a wide-awake boy of sixteen who supported his mother and sister by selling books and papers on the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad. He detects a young man in the act of picking the pocket of a young lady. In a railway accident many passengers are killed, but Paul is fortunate ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger

... asking a higher price than they expect to get is a bad one. It is a notorious fact that foreigners in Paris can rarely buy an article so cheaply as a native. There are always quantities of verdant Englishmen visiting Paris, and the temptation to cheat them is too great to be resisted by the wide-awake shop-keepers. Besides, it satisfies a grudge they all have against Englishmen. I always found it an excellent way not to buy until the shop keeper had lowered his price considerably. Sometimes I state my country, and the saleswoman would roguishly ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... "We don't particularly want Mr. Weiss to be put on his guard, for I take it, he is a pretty wide-awake gentleman under any circumstances. If she does come, we had better keep out of sight. I think we will look over the house first. That is of the most interest to us. If the lady does happen to come while we are here, she may stay to show us over the place and keep an eye on us. So we will leave ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... the lay of the land better than any of us," said Robert. "He is the most wide-awake and gamiest man I know. I reckon when the war is over Tom will be a preacher. Did you ever ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... I; "I should say we did." This long conversation had made me sleepy, but the mention of the Breton had brought me wide-awake again. ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte

... strap or a part of the sledge, and be dragged along helter-skelter over everything that came in the way, till the team got sick of galloping and one could struggle to one's feet again. One gets very wary and wide-awake when one has to manage a team of eleven dogs and a sledge load by oneself, but it was a most interesting experience, and I had a delightful leader, "Stareek" by name—Russian for "Old Man," and he was the most wise old man.... Dog driving like this in the orthodox manner is a very different ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... her work had been performed, but only remembered, with a little sigh of satisfaction, the many loaves of cake, and the rows of pies, which she had baked that very morning in order to save her mother's steps. This was all she thought of now, but there came days when she was wide-awake. ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... "The captain is eating coal-tar! The captain is eating coal-tar!" But they soon found out that this same "coal-tar" was very good to eat, and that I had brought a quantity of it. One day when I was spreading a sea-biscuit thick with it for a wide-awake youngster, I heard them whisper, "Chut-chut!" meaning that a shark had bitten my hand, which they observed was lame. Thenceforth they regarded me as a hero, and I had not fingers enough for the little bright-eyed tots that wanted to cling to them and follow me about. Before ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... upon the spot before beginning to dig. Richard did not question why this should be done. The book recommended it as a practice which had been followed by some very famous treasure hunters. If at times a certain wide-awake and calculating gleam suddenly dispelled the dreaminess of expression in which his father was exulting, it was because a black Orpington rooster which daily strayed from a nearby cottage to the beach below the studio ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... He was wide-awake now. Doubtless Pegloe had put him to bed. Well, that had been thoughtful of Pegloe—he would not forget him—the City Tavern should continue to enjoy his patronage. It would be something for Pegloe to boast of that ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... as Pons was wide-awake. Pons was a collector, Schmucke a dreamer of dreams; Schmucke was a student of beauty seen by the soul, Pons a preserver of material beauty. Pons would catch sight of a china cup and buy it in the time that Schmucke took to blow his nose, wondering ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... explaining to his majesty that plaid shooting-coats and felt hats are the court costume in England, but no doubt he thought it all correct. It is, moreover, the prerogative of Englishmen to sit in the presence of Oriental potentates with their hats on, which prevented my secreting my shabby old wide-awake as I ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... notebook before them and several papers spread out upon the seat. Norgate, who was really weary, closed his eyes again, and it seemed to him that he dreamed for a few moments. Then suddenly he found himself wide-awake. Although he remained motionless, the words which Selingman had spoken to his companion were throbbing ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... bed wide-awake, alert, caught up his pistol and crept to the window. Two horsemen were at the gate. The door opened below him, his host went out, and the three talked in whispers for a while. Then the horsemen rode away, his host came back into the house, and all was still again. For half an hour ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... to imagine that the wattle is just prisoned sunlight; that one early morning the sun's rays came stealing over the hill to kiss the wattle-trees while they seemed to sleep; but the trees were really quite wide-awake, and stretched out their pretty arms and caught the sunbeams and would never let them go; and now through the winter the wattles hide the sun rays away in their roots, cuddling them softly; but in spring they let them come out on the branches and play wild games ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox

... arrival he was interested in everything that took place around him; looking at each bird in succession; making close study of every member of the family; noticing the sounds of the street, including the sparrow broils on the porch-roof; in fact, extremely wide-awake and observing. To the goldfinch's song he gave attention, standing motionless except for a slight nervous jerk of one wing, looking and listening as intently as though studying the notes for future use. The freedom ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... that reached to his heels,—a present from his master,—a red silk cravat fringed at the ends, a green waistcoat ornamented with an orange patch at the spot where the watch-pocket formerly was, boots which had seen their best days, and a wide-awake hat,—such was the elegant and excessively fashionable attire of Dick, the old black fiddler, who, when dressed in these rags, believed ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... indeed. One would have thought he must have believed himself to be dreaming. Not a bit of it. He knew perfectly well that he was wide-awake. In fact, a doubt upon that point never crossed his mind for a moment. At length he resolved to ask the meaning of it all, and, observing a stout old gentleman, with a bland smile on his yellow countenance, in the act of taking a pinch of golden snuff from a gold snuff-box, he advanced ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... becomes only the trying out of the course and accompanying methods. As, one practice teacher remarked when this plan was suggested "But, I might have to make my course all over." Such would often be the case. Any wide-awake teacher will change his course more or less from year to year. Even if the first plan were entirely discarded the energy and thought prompted by its making would not be lost. And now let us change the name given to those in charge of practice teachers. Advisor would be more fitting ...
— Adequate Preparation for the Teacher of Biological Sciences in Secondary Schools • James Daley McDonald

... look at it presently. But meanwhile what I want to say is that I've been charged—in the most informal way—to express to you the committee's appreciation of your admirable promptness and energy in capturing the Bartley Reynolds. We shouldn't have got it at all if you hadn't been uncommonly wide-awake, and to get it at such a price is a double triumph. We'd have thought nothing of a ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... picketed so as to provide a barrier against a sudden rush, made the men lie down with their weapons beside them, posted sentries all round the bivouac, and agreed to keep watch for an hour each, to ensure the sentries not going calmly to sleep. Gerrard, who felt wide-awake again now after talking and walking about, insisted on taking the first watch, which passed uneventfully. Then he called Charteris, and dropping into the hollow which the latter had scooped for himself in the sand, was asleep in a moment, only to be waked, as it seemed, in another ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... question about his artillery, informed Chang that he had the bearings of his official residence, and could drop a shell into it with unerring precision at a distance of three miles. He was also aided by the influence of Mr. Fraser, a wide-awake British consul. Fraser modestly disclaims any special merit in the matter, but British missionaries at Hankow give him the credit. They say that, learning from them the state of feeling among the people, he induced the viceroy to take prompt measures to prevent an outbreak. At one ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... a wink across the bar to Blister Mike—who didn't need much winking, being a wide-awake one—and then he went ahead with some more of the same kind. "No doubt, my dear sir, in the older civilization to which you are accustomed my methods would seem irregular—perhaps even reprehensible. In England, very likely, unfavorable comment would be made upon a pastor who cordially drank with ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier

... that this next sixty miles of way, but especially the heat of the days and the dank mists of the night, should have to be told as of a real journey in this very repetitive and sui-similar world. How much rather I wish that being free from mundane and wide-awake (that is to say from perilously dusty) considerations and droughty boredoms, I might wander forth at leisure through the air and visit the regions where everything is as the soul chooses: to be dropped at last in the ancient and famous town of Siena, whence comes that kind ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... the first characteristic of the good soldier, whether in peace or war. The dreamy look that was so often in his face in the days when he sat upon a high stool painting the portrait of Donna Tullia Mayer, had given place to an expression of wide-awake curiosity in ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... a melancholy fact that Mr. Barry, when he heard the last story from Tretton, began to think that his partner was not so wide-awake as he had hitherto always regarded him. As time runs on, such a result generally takes place in all close connections between the old and the young. Ten years ago Mr. Barry had looked up to Mr. Grey with a trustful respect. Words which fell from Mr. Grey were certainly words of ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... first glimpse, seemed all hair. There was certainly a profusion of it; eyebrows, beard, whiskers, all heavy, and black as night. He was attired in loose fustian clothes with a red handkerchief wound round his throat, and a low slouching hat—one of those called wide-awake—partially concealed his features. By his side stood another man in plain, dark, rather seedy clothes, the coat outrageously long. He wore a cloth hat, whose brim hid his face, and he was smoking a cigar. Both men were slightly ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... "He's exceeding clever and wide-awake, and very charming. What we should have done without him heaven only knows. I fancy his visit saved the entire ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... dollars. In the night he stole her, cut her tail, painted her legs white, gave her a "blaze" on her face, sold her for 100 dollars, and decamped, sending a note to the first purchaser acquainting him with the particulars of the transaction. "'Cute chap that;" "A wide-awake feller;" "That coon had cut his eye-teeth;" "A smart sell that;" were the comments made on this roguish transaction, all the sympathy of the listeners being on the side ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... of the English church beadle, this colonial sleep banisher, was equipped with a long staff, heavily knobbed at one end, with which he severely and pitilessly rapped the heads of the too sleepy men, and the too wide-awake boys. From the other end of this wand of office depended a long foxtail, or a hare's-foot, which he softly thrust in the faces of the sleeping Priscillas, Charitys, and Hopestills, and which gently brushed and tickled them ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... reconcile the French orderly's muttered, C'est l'heure, monsieur, that rouses me from slumber, with the strictly American words and music of "When That Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam'" warbled by a particularly wide-awake pilot in the next room. A few minutes later, having swallowed some coffee, we motor to the field. The east is turning gray as the hangar curtains are drawn apart and our machines trundled out by the mechanicians. All the pilots whose planes are in commission—save those remaining ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell

... rear of the infantry, who were now hotly engaged. This was the beginning of the second battle of Manassas, during the first two days of which, and the day preceding, Jackson's command was in great suspense, and, with a wide-awake and active foe, would have been in great jeopardy. He was entirely in the rear of the Federal army, with only his own corps, while Longstreet had not yet passed through Thoroughfare Gap, a narrow defile ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... twice—once in a crowded drawing-room, and once on the slopes of Blackdown, in his big cloak. The strong set face under the wide-awake, the energy of undefeated age that breathed from the figure, remains with me, stamped on my memory, like the gentle face of Mrs. Wordsworth, or a passing glimpse—a gesture—of George Meredith as we met on the threshold of Mr. Cotter Morison's house ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... self-assertion was on him, he would go back in thought to his boyish holidays in Oxford, and to his uncle. He saw the kind old fellow in his shepherd plaid suit, black tie, and wide-awake, taking his constitutional along the Woodstock road, or playing a mild game of croquet in the professorial garden; or he recalled him among his gems—those rare and beautiful things, bought with the savings of a lifetime, loved, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... her candle, and glided up to her bedroom. And, the moment she got there, and could gratify her somnolence without offense, need we say she became wide-awake? She sat down and wrote long letters to three other young ladies, gushing affection, asking questions of the kind nobody replies to, painting, with a young lady's colors, the male being to whom she was shortly to be married, wishing her ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... wide-awake in an instant, raised himself and while listening intently took a loaded revolver from under his pillow and ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... back again, with a wide-awake face, a bit of dough in her hand and a dab of flour on ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... society, though, because I devoted much of my young energies to shooting and fishing, which were worth any expenditure of energy in those days. And so I restricted my evening rounds of duty to one or two houses which were conducted on the always-at-home principle, walking in and hanging up my wide-awake when it suited me, and staying away when it didn't,—which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... thin, his hair was gray and thin, his eyes were sunken, the veins were corded at his temples, his hands were transparent. He was, as you promised me, old. Yet when I saw him I did not smile. He heard me stir as I would have withdrawn, and when he arose to his feet he was wide-awake. Monsieur, he is a great man; because, even so clad he made no more apology than you do, showed no more curiosity; and he welcomed me quite as a gentleman unashamed—as a ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... U.G.R.R. documents for future reference. Touching the "rascality" of William and James and the unfortunate predicament in which it placed the kind-hearted widow, Mrs. Louisa White, the following editorial clipped from the wide-awake Richmond Despatch, was also highly appreciated, and preserved as conclusive testimony to the successful working of the U.G.R.R. in the Old Dominion. It ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... cried Mrs. Bretton, looking at least as animated and as wide-awake as her son. "I would undertake to sit you out yet: leave us both here till morning, and we should see which would look the most ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... generally speaking, the boy who comes to school to study can afford to play football, train for football, and think football, because instead of interfering with his studies it really helps him with them. It makes him healthy, strong, wide-awake, self-reliant, and clearheaded. Some time I shall be glad to show you a whole stack of careful statistics which prove that football men, at least, rather than being backward with studies, are nearly always ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... a cold, cruel rain—or so it seemed to the sad-hearted, wide-awake little boy. He stole out quietly, afraid that he might be sent back to bed, but only his mother heard him, and she understood. It was lonesome and dark outside, but love lighted his way. He groped his way up the ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... is sometimes half a yard in length, and pieces have to be torn off from point to point. To avoid the disturbance caused by this operation, miners, cowboys, and others are in the habit of wearing their tickets slipped into the band of their great wide-awake hats, and Donald was in this inviting position when the conductor came round. He snatched it out of the hat to tear off the necessary piece, when the monkey, thinking a theft was meant, sprang at the man and buried his teeth in his wrist. ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond

... for limitless patience, that life be not pitifully narrow, and the defective senses call for wise and remedial attention, the normal, keen, wide-awake senses exact the most from the conscientious parent or teacher. Eternal vigilance is the price of beautiful building material for the character in such an unfolding life. Each day adds to the store put away in the brain, to ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... to the Stump Puzzle offered in No. 33. With two straight cuts of the scissors the old dead stump is transformed into a mouse, alive and wide-awake. ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... closer view of all that went on, for I was permitted to sit at his left and grip his little finger. The circle was slightly changed the next time, and on his right sat a young lady whom we will call Miss Brown. She was a wide-awake and very unexcitable person, and I believe kept close hold on the psychic's right hand. In addition to our linked fingers, the psychic's hands were tied ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... confidently expected that the thousands, nay, as some say, millions, of American spiritualists will gladly welcome the name and the creed of Buddha.[89] It will be idle therefore to assume that the old sleepy system of Gautama has no chance in this wide-awake republic ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... rocks. Once he had seen a big-footed lynx creep upon a wide-awake fox, and like that lynx he crept upon the man beside the fire. One of the tired dogs moved, and his pointed nostrils quivered in the air. Jan lay flat in the snow. Then the dog's muzzle dropped between his paws, and ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... in country costume—she in a light habit, but well cut, and sitting on her as well as she sits on her dainty grey; he in shooting-coat and wide-awake, with his fishing basket slung over his shoulder. They come steadily up the hillside, rousing a yellow-hammer here and there from the furze-bushes, and only draw bit when they have reached the very top of the knoll. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... waterman said: "'Old on—I bet 'e's the bloke wot old Bill Stammers took. Yorkey was fust on the rank, but the bloke wouldn't 'ave a 'ansom—wanted a four-wheeler, so old Bill took 'im. Biggish chap in a long black coat, collar up an' muffled thick; soft wide-awake 'at, pulled over 'is eyes; and he was in a 'urry, too. Jumped ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... parapet and threw bombs and the others kept up a steady fire with their rifles. Our trench mortars were doing great work throwing over six bombs for every one Fritzie sent, and the Germans evidently thought we were too wide-awake, for they failed ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien

... to share with my advisers their poor opinion of the taste, enterprise, and intelligence of the wide-awake American, but, for the sake of my message, I yield in some part to their warnings. Therefore I have so presented my material that the miscalled, and, I verily believe, badly slandered "average reader," may have his "popular" book by omitting ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... most of them, and they dress older than you and have a manner; they always know how to reply and they are not awkward and too shy; they know how to address people, and introduce people, and sometimes to entertain them, they seem to know what to talk about, and they are bright and wide-awake. They play and sing and study the languages and mathematics. The girls I know are all ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... what's wrong?" he asked. "I've been too wide-awake and restless to go to bed,—so I came out in the garden just to breathe the air and look up at your window—and I heard a sound of sobbing like that of a little child ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... he was expected to take in capturing the rebellious raven. He crouched there on the step-ladder, waiting for his chance. Trust a lively, wide-awake boy for being able to outwit any raven that ever lived. Black Joe may have believed himself smart, but he could not match wits ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... person who indulges it. The other day a lady, apparently in no haste, sauntered into a station of the "Elevated" ahead of me, holding by the hand a small boy. The boy was enjoying himself immensely, gazing about him with the wide-awake, but calmly contemplative air peculiar to childhood. Suddenly the lady saw that a train was about to leave the station, and was seized by the not uncommon compulsion to take the last train instead of the next one. She hurried ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

... we are weary,—this is the victory that overcometh the world. To believe in God our strength in the face of all seeming denial, to believe in him out of the heart of weakness and unbelief, in spite of numbness and weariness and lethargy; to believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream; to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for a godless repose;—these are the broken steps up to the high fields where ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... at ten o'clock), sleep stood away from him altogether, though he did his best to find the well-known road, the point where true sleep began. At last he saw the brushwood-pile, and hurried along to the ridge, for behind him he felt was the wide-awake, sultry world. He reached the lamp in safety, tingling with drowsiness, when a policeman—a common country policeman—sprang up before him and touched him on the shoulder ere he could dive into the dim valley below. He was filled ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... twenty years ago, but her streets are not deserted. Senator Tillman still speaks vigorously as the representative of her wide-awake and increasing population. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... preparatory business training, and then took them into his office, where they speedily became known as the bright one and the stupid one. The stupid one was finally dismissed after repeated trials, when to the surprise of the entire establishment, he quickly betook himself into the shops, where he became a wide-awake and valuable workman. His chagrined benefactor, in telling the story, admits that he himself had fallen a victim to his own business training and his early notion of rising in life. In reality he had merely followed the lead of most benevolent people who help poor ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... promise and what happened during their visit to Old Point Comfort is fully set forth in "MADGE MORTON'S SECRET," a story no wide-awake girl can afford ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... the boy who had been so sleepy, but who was now wide-awake and crying with fright, back to ask the miners they had just left to come to their assistance. Then he turned his attention to Harry Mule. The poor beast was not dead, but was evidently badly injured. ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe

... simplest kind. The nursery sofa or settee—a position of great natural strength—is further fortified with chairs and other furniture to represent the stronghold of the enemy. Christian should be equipped with a wide-awake hat, a stick, and a great-coat (papa's will do, or, better still, a visitor's), with a stool wrapped up in a towel and slung over his shoulders to do duty as the bundle of sins. He is then made to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... room before the children, to imitate some animals they had seen at a circus, and getting the children to guess the animal represented until they hit upon the elephant, would put certain children in a spirit of fun that would be exactly the wide-awake brightness and good humor needed to receive the story of The Elephant's Child. You can get children best into the story-telling mood by calling up ideas in line with the story. In the case of the story cited above, under the establishment ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... de Norf; looks like it, an' dey allus askin' who we 'longs to. In course we 'longs to somebody. We has ter," Ted thought, as he made his way back to Mandy Ann, who was wide-awake and ready for any war of words which might come up between herself and Ted, "who felt mighty smart 'case he was cabin ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... I met on the Shoshone River a very wide-awake warden, actually "on his job," who was maintained by a body of private citizens headed by Col. Pickett and known as the Northern Wyoming Game Protective Association. And even then we saw that the laws were too liberal for the game. In one man's cold-storage dug-out we ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... in due time, and the wide-awake little negro was the second on the plantation to find it out, Bose being the first. Julius slept in the back part of the house, so close to Marcy's room that if the latter wanted anything during the night, all he had to do was to open his window and call out, and consequently it was no trouble ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... no money to start with; but if he would do so, I would promise him fifty pounds, and he agreed to do so before Saturday. On Friday I went again, but he did not seem so willing, so I said little about it. On Sunday I went and they were all gone. An old wide-awake hat and an old straw bonnet, of the plum-pudding sort, was left behind, and I put the hat in my pocket, thinking it might be useful for another opportunity. As good lack would have it, it ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... complimented, Mrs. Pryor," she said, nodding toward that lady's back. "I don't believe we've had a meeting like this since you've been president. I thought everybody would be so tired after the party we wouldn't have anybody at all, but everything in Yorkburg is wide-awake this morning. There'll be a lot of visits paid to-day. I wonder if Miss Gibbie Gault ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... itself looked alert and wide-awake, with all its windows thrown open, and its door standing hospitably ajar, as if awaiting welcome guests. From an upper window came a sound of singing, for Rose was there, arranging flowers in the vases; from another direction was heard the ring of a ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... she, almost forty, but having preserved all the attractiveness of youth,—a black moustache, a vigorous, yet graceful figure, eyes still bright, charming and wide-awake,—Monjardin, without ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... at the stranger, while Nan watched his face with mischievous enjoyment. He was surprised—there was no mistake about that! When Lilias raised her face to his, he gave a distinct little start of surprise, and the sleepy eyes looked for once quite wide-awake and animated. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... adventures between the lines follow, and a good pen-picture of General Garcia is given. The American lad, with others, is captured and cast into a dungeon in Santiago; and then follows the never-to-be-forgotten campaign in Cuba under General Shafter. How the hero finally escapes makes reading no wide-awake ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... knew that it was right to go out and earn dimes to buy the things needed in the cabin, but he equally knew it was wrong to get this money dishonestly. Crow was a very shrewd little boy, and he made money honestly in a number of ways that only a wide-awake boy ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... but with nothing that would not yield to half a handful of quinine, a cup of coffee well "laced," a pipe, and a roaring fire. Some country people presently came up, and rated us for sleeping in the bush; we retorted in kind, telling them that they should have been more wide-awake. Whilst the boat was being baled, I walked to the shore, and prospected our day's work. The forest showed a novel feature: flocks of cottony mist-clouds curling amongst the trees, like opals scattered upon a bed of emeralds; a purple haze banked up the western ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... was, a minister, of the Sandemanian connection. I was settled in the active, wide-awake town of Naguadavick, on one of the finest water-powers in Maine. We used to call it a Western town in the heart of the civilization of New England. A charming place it was and is. A spirited, brave young parish had I; and it seemed as if we might ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... her servant some day; and if you was to marry any but her, I'd leave service altogether, and so would Rhoda Milton; but, Mr. Walter, sir, there's a time for everything: I hope you'll forgive me for saying so. However you are here now, and I was wide-awake, and I have made it ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... does no work; but I'm wide-awake for all that, an' have a pretty good notion of what is going on there. Now, lad, if I were to take you in, what would you say to 5 pounds ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... will all of you like the new Lamentations of Jeremiah—'to be continued in our next'—that's all," said Hans, seizing his wide-awake. "It's no use being one thing more than another if one has to endure the company of those men with a fixed idea, staring blankly at you, and requiring all your remarks to be small foot-notes to their text. If you're to be under a petrifying wall, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... and star-fish. The dragonets are quaint, wide-awake little fish. I saw one snap at a big, fat, red star-fish, who was sticking to the side of a rock. Why the dragonet snapped at him I have no idea. I do not believe he hurt him; but the star-fish gradually relaxed his hold, and fell slowly and helplessly on to his back; on which ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... guests, and it was reported by the Austrian agents to the Court of Vienna that her influence was increasing. But her modest, clinging nature had too little of the qualities which can permanently hold an intellectual man. The wide-awake members of the Brandenburg line felt the need of giving quick and pointed expression to every easily aroused feeling. When the Princess was excited, she grew quiet as if paralyzed; she also lacked the easy graces of society. The two natures did not agree. Then, too, her ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... this odd pleasure party. If you had told him eighteen months before that on a bright day in May, just as people were going home from the Park for luncheon, he would go for a drive in a hired trap with one horse, his companions being a man with a brown wide-awake, a girl dressed as though she were the owner of a yacht, and an immense deerhound, and that in this fashion he would dare to drive up to the Star and Garter and order dinner, he would have bet five ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... a comfort to me," he continued, his kind eyes beaming upon his companion from beneath the brim of his wide-awake, "to think that you are her friend. I don't see much of her. I told you I should not be able to, when she first came, but the next best thing is to know ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton

... before either spoke. The old priest broke the silence. He was a gentle-faced old man, not unlike a very shrewd and wide-awake dormouse; and his white hair stood out in a mass beneath his biretta. But the words he used were unintelligible, ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... surprised to be compelled to acknowledge that M. Villefort read wondrously well, and positively with hints of delicate perception. His voice was full and yet subtly flexible. Edmondstone tried to protest against this also, but uselessly. Finally he was soothed, and from being fretfully wide-awake suddenly passed into sleep as Bertha had commanded. How long his slumber lasted he could not have told. All at once he found himself aroused and wide-awake as ever. His headache had departed; his every sense seemed to have gained keenness. ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... say?'—Well, what do you suppose a man would say Christmas Eve to another man who has eight wide-awake children who will sit up in front of the biggest fire-place in the house until midnight Christmas Eve so that Santa Claus can't come down the only chimney big enough to hold his presents? He would say, 'John Clark, I have no children of my own, but you ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page

... and strolled towards the High-street, the marshall keeping, in a deferential but wide-awake manner, pretty close to them, but without making any show of watching them. When they reached the High-street he touched his hat and said civilly, "I hope you will go home now, gentlemen, the senior proctor is ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... over the muscles of the limbs. This is plainly seen in the trembling of the hands and the unsteady walking of the drunkard; but is equally true of those who drink only a little now and then. Their nerves are not as strong and wide-awake to control the machinery of the body as they would be if no alcohol were ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis

... say so in wide-awake earnest. Master Ormskirk has been his instructor, and for the last two years the lad has been learning of him and of his masters. That accounts for the change that we have noticed in his health and bearing. Faith, he used to go along with stooping neck, like a girl who has outgrown ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... a veteran commander, was no less wide-awake in the disposition of his army. Five companies, each numbering but six men, in order not to present too big a target to our sharpshooters, were to charge the fort from different points, their advance being ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... say the gadfly attacks bulls, and the tick dogs, in the ear: so the flatterer besieges with praise the ears of those who are fond of praise, and sticks there and is hard to dislodge. We ought therefore here to make a wide-awake and careful discrimination, whether the praise is bestowed on the action or the man. It is bestowed on the action, if people praise the absent rather than the present, if also those that have the same aims and aspirations praise not only us but all that are similarly disposed, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... forages for oneself. On Sundays, two miles to church twice, or you get into John Ford's black books.... Dan Treffry himself is staying at Kingswear. He says he's made his pile; it suits him down here—like a sleep after years of being too wide-awake; he had a rough time in New Zealand, until that mine made his fortune. You'd hardly remember him; he reminds me of his uncle, old Nicholas Treffry; the same slow way of speaking, with a hesitation, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... lost to us. Naturally, no hard and fast lines can be drawn, especially in the case of works of vague import like music; yet we can use this criterion as a principle for regulating and inhibiting our associations. It demands of us a wide-awake and receptive appreciation. The genuine meanings and associations of a work of art are those which are the irresistible and necessary results of the sense stimuli working upon an attentive percipient; the rest are not ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... questioning, the drawbridge was let down and the party admitted. The remainder of the Guides bivouacked here and there under the shade of the fort walls, cooked their food, and lay about at seeming rest, but all the while as alert and wide-awake as their extremely hazardous ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband

... and Caps.—There is no perfect head-dress; but I notice that old travellers in both hot and temperate countries have generally adopted a scanty "wide-awake." Mr. Oswell, the South African sportsman and traveller, used for years, and strongly recommended to me, a brimless hat of fine Panama grass, which he had sewn as a lining to an ordinary wide-awake. I regret I have had no opportunity ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... word where. It was all right of course, she was a fool to bother about it, but she couldn't rest till she knew where the girl had gone. It was probably either to the Spencers or the Joneses; they'd been teasing her to visit them all winter. Roy, now wide-awake, showed a tendency to ask questions, but she cut him off, swamped his curiosity in apologies and good-bys and ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... the fact that he was there, wide-awake now, to corroborate me, brought the additional conviction to my own mind that this was no animal, but some perplexing and dreadful form of life that drew upon my deeper knowledge, that much reading had perhaps ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... of the position which awaited him. He was handsome, tall, strong, and alert, determined and yet affable. He had more taste for military exercises than for the amusements of childhood and the pleasures of youth. He was at that time called Louis the Wide-awake. He had the good fortune to find in the Monastery of St. Denis a fellow-student capable of becoming a king's counsellor. Suger, a child born at St. Denis, of obscure parentage, and three or four years ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... his chin thoughtfully. "An alarm-clock is a pretty noisy article," he observed, "and it never says anything; and besides, I don't like its name. But one good, wide-awake person—" he looked directly at Marjorie, "—one good, wide-awake person could waken a very great many people—if he wanted to. But go on to sleep if you choose. ...
— By the Roadside • Katherine M. Yates

... "A wide-awake drummer boy you are," she replied, with her usual good-natured irony. "You'll have to rouse up earlier than this, I tell you, if you ever beat ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... complacent and sententious old person, intolerably talkative and minutely confidential, who lays down the law about everything, and takes what he calls the privileges of age, a sort of professional patriarch, ruddy and snowy-haired and wide-awake, a terrible specimen of a well-made machine, which goes on working long after heart and brain alike are atrophied. I have known an old man of this kind. He insisted on everything being done for his convenience. He breakfasted very late, and would allow no one to have any food earlier, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... home wrapped in a silence which Betty's most vigorous sallies could not penetrate. Long after Dora had finished her dishes and gone to bed, she sat in her Morris chair in the dark, wide-awake, every nerve throbbing painfully. She had failed Dora Carlson, spoiled the party that the poor child had so counted on, made her Beatrice Egerton's butt and laughing stock. Dora would never wholly trust her again. She would wonder what Beatrice had ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... astonishing to think how our real wide-awake world revolves around the shadowy unrealities of Dreamland. Despite all that we say about the inconsequence of dreams, we often reason by them. We stake our greatest hopes upon them. Nay, we build upon them the fabric ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence that was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me. I needed to be kept alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake household, I couldn't be anything else. The future did not look as dull and hopeless as it had when I left Bayport. I even began to consider the possibilities of another novel, to hope that I might write one. Jim Campbell's "prescription," although working in quite ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the revictualling is the most important one of the moment. The railroad kings, who had an interview with Count Bismarck at Versailles, seem to be under the impression that this exceedingly wide-awake statesman intends to throw impediments in the way of Paris getting provisions from England, in order that the Germans may turn an honest penny by supplying the requirements of the town. He has thrown out hints that he himself can revictual us for a short time, if it really be ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... with indignation or grief, and all at once Amy remembered. Then she sprang from her cosy nest, wide-awake and full ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... o'clock that night, three very tired but wide-awake little Freshmen, who had watched the dance from the gymnasium balcony, climbed the flight of stairs leading to Fifth Avenue, bearing in their arms three bouquets. After the first few dances the girls had thrown the flowers to their outstretched ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs

... make the mistake in thinking their old thoughts and classics are not needed in the new language. Their motto seems to be, "new literature for the new language", when to the English public, if not to themselves, the old writings would be the newest. It is marvelous how wide-awake preachers are mislead. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... effect—muslin, silk, embroidery, chains, bracelets, laces, ribbons, the newest thing in bonnets, and the last in parasols—and has quite the air of a fine lady. He is a burly rough, bearded to the eyes, the shapeless remnant of a coarse wide-awake covering a head of hair that has seemingly been long unknown to the barber; his blue flannel shirt, ragged jacket, breeches, and long riding-boots, are all crusted deep with mud, while a stock-whip is coiled round his shoulders. They walk amicably along together, conversing, though there ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... considerable information from Mr. Watson, and this enabled him to act comprehensively. The advertising sign business in this part of the state was controlled by two firms, who contracted directly with the advertisers and then had the signs painted upon spaces secured from the farmers by their wide-awake agents. These signs were contracted for by the year, but the firms controlling the spaces always inserted protective clauses that provided for the removal of any sign when certain conditions required such removal. In such cases a rebate was allowed ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne

... beneficial to him, that, in the figurative Eastern language of the last-named gentleman, he had not only been "sharpened up no end by being well rubbed against University bricks," but he had, moreover, "become so considerably wide-awake, that he would very soon be able to take the shine out of the old original Weazel, whom the pages of History had recorded as never having been discovered ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... and began to rattle on in her usual manner, while Elsie, from behind Katy's chair, took a wide-awake survey of her dress. It was of cheap material, but very gorgeously made and trimmed, with flounces and puffs, and Imogen wore a jet necklace and long black ear-rings, which jingled and clicked when she waved her head about. ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... that?" asked Ned, wide-awake at last, alarmed for the bushmen rapidly turning over in his mind the effect of strong young men being ready ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... Oswell, after marking it down, went back for men to carry the game home. But in this monotonous country, with its stretches of thorny bush and mimosa-trees, nothing is easier than to miss a track, and Mr. Oswell, though nicknamed by the Kaffirs, 'Jlaga,' the watchful or wide-awake, found himself on this occasion at fault. No waggons or encampment came in sight. He tried to retrace his steps and start again, or, by making a circle, to strike his original track, but all in vain. It had ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... shoulder, expecting to see the apparition of Master John Llewellin—who subscribes his name with a very energetic nourish as Clerk of the Council—standing behind me in grave-colored doublet and trunk-hose, with a starched ruff, a wide-awake hat drawn over his brow, and a short black feather falling amongst the locks of his dark ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various



Words linked to "Wide-awake" :   unsleeping, alert, awake



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