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Drooping   /drˈupɪŋ/   Listen
Drooping

adjective
1.
Weak from exhaustion.  Synonym: flagging.
2.
Hanging down (as from exhaustion or weakness).  Synonyms: droopy, sagging.
3.
Having branches or flower heads that bend downward.  Synonyms: cernuous, nodding, pendulous, weeping.  "The pendulous branches of a weeping willow" , "Lilacs with drooping panicles of fragrant flowers"



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"Drooping" Quotes from Famous Books



... ships, becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail at dawn of day, Are scarce ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... answers his companion, who, save for his drooping fair moustache would better deserve to be called a 'pretty maid.' 'Mabel has a small party on, and I promised to drop in, we may ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton

... to smother a laugh but did not succeed. This unexpected treat had wonderfully cheered his drooping spirits, and he laughed and chatted merrily as they walked to the Manse; but beneath the outward pleasure that the invitation gave him, there was running an undercurrent of deep happiness, for he knew that in the moment of the ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... taking care of him, and he'll soon be all right," broke in Polly cheerily. "Do go with Jasper, Phronsie, do, dear." She took hold of the clasped hands, and smiled up into the drooping face. ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... through the frames of the old men as for the first time in long years they stood side by side before the doorway about which as children they had played, and through which as boys they had rushed together. In Cynthia's drooping head plans were rapidly forming themselves, but she had time to be thankful that she did not know which was Reuben and which was Stephen—it saved her the anxiety of decision; instinctively she turned to the right, a small brown hand ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... depravity, who does not recognize the specific duty growing out of a general obligation which is forced upon us by the intrinsic claims of that child's nature. If we were appealed to by nothing else but its drooping reliance and natural wants, there would be enough to draw our attention to every phase of childhood that ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... the same pity for their sufferings is extended—a pity unusual among the ancients, and still hardly known around the Mediterranean. Yet Apuleius counted the sorrows of the ill-used ass, and, speaking of the same flour mill, he describes the old mules and pack-horses labouring there, with drooping heads, their necks swollen with gangrenes and putrid sores, their nostrils panting with the harsh cough that continually racked them, their chests ulcerated by the ceaseless rubbing of their hempen harness, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... it is, swinging there through sunlight and shadow from the long drooping tips of the old elm boughs! And what a delightful cradle for the young orioles, swayed all day long by every breath of the summer breeze, peeping through chinks as the world sweeps by, watching with bright eyes the boy below who looks up in vain, or the mountain ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... of summer months—August—in the year of our Lord 1854, Willard and his uncle Henry were slowly wending their way towards Fullerville—the former with his ox-team and the latter with a spanking span of horses. The beasts of burden by their drooping heads and slow pace evinced the fact that the loads of ore they were drawing were unusually heavy, and this, combined with the sultry atmosphere, was telling upon the strength of even such powerful ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... pedestal (as it were) of brick—a pedestal higher than the houses, and in this base are pierced two towering, broad, and single ogives, empty and wonderful and full of that untragic sadness which you may find also in the drooping and wide eyes ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... the inner edge of the reef, to the shore of the island. The tall tops of the palms bordering the beach, seemed scarcely a stone's throw distant and you could fancy that, but for the roar of the breakers, you might hear the rustling of their long, drooping leaves; but it only added to the horror of our situation, to see that safe and peaceful haven, so near, yet ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... Every night when the moths were flying and the tall candles were lit in the hall, when the soft air was musical with the strumming of harps, and the sweet complaint of violins, he would walk out on the great parapet with one hand under his chin and his head drooping; then the courtiers would say, ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl

... bearing its feathery burden; and there were spruces and hemlocks, regal in snowy splendor. It lay upon them in heavy masses, and gave their bending boughs a still more graceful dip. There was something which harmonized with my grief in the silent snow and the drooping trees. They sank beneath the snow as the human heart sinks beneath its burden of sorrow. Yet it fell gently and beautifully upon them, as affliction falls from the hand of our Father, 'who chasteneth whom he loveth.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the same occasion, addressed a letter to Burghley and Walsingham, expressing himself as became a crushed and contrite man, never more to raise his drooping head again, but warmly and manfully urging upon the attention of the English government—for the honour and interest of the Queen herself—"the miserable state of the poor soldiers." The necessity of immediate remittances in order to keep them from starving, was most imperious. For himself, he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... who binds her warrior's sash With smile that well her pain dissembles, The while beneath her drooping lash One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles, Though Heaven alone records the tear, And Fame shall never know her story, Her heart has shed a drop as dear As e'er bedewed the field ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... the opposite slope of the ravine, and at last he discovered a mournful figure perched on the high bough of an oak. Its feathers were drooping, its head was bent down until it was almost buried in the feathers below its neck, and its entire attitude showed despondency. The owl, too, had come back, but only a part of the way, and, blinded by the sun, it sat there on ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... larger, I should judge, than the dome of St. Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it there depended two long, drooping green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... what should he do now? He could not leave her alone and helpless,—yet how could he justify another disconcerting intrusion? He touched her hands; they were cold and lifeless; her eyes were half closed; her face as pale and drooping as her lily. Well, he must brave the worst now, and carry her to the house, even at the risk of meeting the others and terrifying them as he had her. He caught her up,—he scarcely felt her weight against his breast and shoulder,—and ran hurriedly down ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... of the garden she heard the faint rustle of a robe, and she looked round and saw Ibrahim coming slowly towards her, smiling, with his curly head drooping a little to the left side. Behind both his ears there were roses, and he held a rose in his hand ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... for thee, That Talbot's name might be in thee revived, When sapless age and weak, unable limbs, Should bring thy father to his drooping chair. But—O malignant and ill-boding stars!— First part ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Gnome! forbears not so; He breaks the Vial whence the sorrows flow. Then see! the nymph in beauteous grief appears, Her eyes half-languishing, half-drown'd in tears; On her heav'd bosom hung her drooping head, 145 Which, with a sigh, she rais'd; and thus she said. "For ever curs'd be this detested day, Which snatch'd my best, my fav'rite curl away! Happy! ah ten times happy had I been, If Hampton-Court these ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... message was given to the envoys by the aid of the Lady Marina, who became day by day more necessary to Cortes, and who was, indeed, generally admired for her courage and the cheerfulness with which she endured all the hardships of the camp and raised the drooping spirits of the soldiers, while by every means in her power she alleviated the miseries of her own countrymen. This time, the ambassadors of Cortes received a respectful hearing from the deeply dejected council of Tlascala, for whom ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... bog, and gathered rare plants and herbs, and laid them down near the hermit's cell. And when the hermit was inside, the boy came into the garden, and gathered the stones and swept the paths, and tied up such plants as were drooping, and did all neatly and well, for he was a quick and skilful lad. And when the ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... returned. She was lying back in the hammock where Penton lounged to read his news clippings ... near the outdoor table ... dressed easily in her bloomers and white middy blouse with the blue bow tie ... her great, brown eyes, with big jet lashes, drooping langourously over her healthy, rounded cheeks ... her head of rich, dark hair touseled attractively. She was reading a book. I caught the white gleam of one of her pretty legs where the elastic on one side of her bloomers ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... laugh; in spite of all his cleverness he did not know where she was to go either. There really was nobody, nobody who could advise her. What would he say if she went into the Przykop into the deep morass, where the pool under the drooping birches was just now as deep as any lake on account of the rainy spring? If she went into it up to her mouth, or even a little further, and never more appeared, what would he say then? Would he shed a tear in memory of her, a little forget-me-not in his book ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... the child in her arms just at the same moment as the man, who leaped off the barge, carrying Ned, whose eyes were closed and head drooping over ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn

... her mother, who sat in a drooping attitude, her head sunk on her breast, as she did when she had one of her "turns." He looked ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... foothills; and burrowing marmots, mountain beavers, wood-rats, and other small mountain people, go into winter quarters, some of them not again to see the light of day until the general awakening and resurrection of the spring in June or July. The fertile clouds, drooping and condensing in brooding silence, seem to be thoughtfully examining the forests and streams with reference to the work that lies before them. At length, all their plans perfected, tufted flakes and single starry crystals come in sight, solemnly ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... dear aunt," murmured the drooping and subdued Fanny, aware how much the remonstrance must cost her aunt, and sure that she must be in fault in some way, if she could only see how. "Please, dear aunt, help me, for indeed I don't know how to manage—tell me how to ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... any form of affectation. To be well dressed in a period when little attention was paid clothes by the San Franciscan, might, it is true, in some men have suggested assumption of an air of superiority; but with Mr. Harte, to dress well was simply a natural instinct. His long, drooping moustache and the side-whiskers of the time—incongruous as the comparison may seem—called to mind the elder Sothern as "Lord Dundreary." His natural expression was pensive, even sad. When one considers that pathos and tragedy, perhaps even more than humor, ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... beat upon the drooping vegetation with a sound so monotonous that Suma grew accustomed to it and did not notice its existence. But the chamber in the giant tree trunk remained dry and comfortable, a little world apart from its mournful surroundings. And scarcely had she entered upon ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... But she was always accompanied by the abbe, and sometimes even by her father, and if she remained alone with the old peasant, he would escort her to the chateau afterwards. Frequently I have concealed myself in the foliage of a giant yew-tree, which spread out its monstrous shoots and drooping branches to within a few yards of the cottage, and have seen Edmee sitting at the door with a book in her hand while Patience was listening with his arms folded and his head sunk on his breast, as though he were overwhelmed by the effort of attention. At that time I imagined ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... received us in a large room overlooking the Seine. She had one of her sons with her, and two intimate friends, who welcomed my mother with the consideration due to the widow of one who had served the good cause. Supper was served; I was drooping with sleep, and the only remembrance I have of this meal is the voice of my mother, passionate and excitable as ever. Next morning, after breakfast, the gardener appeared with his cart, to take us to the house we were to occupy; the road was so steep and rough ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... well-grown man of twenty-three, and would have made a good enough appearance but for the stoop in his shoulders, and the drooping, uneasy way in which he carried his head. Many a time when he was alone in the fields or woods he had straightened himself, and looked courageously at the buts of the oak-trees or in the very eyes of the indifferent oxen; but, when a human face drew near, some ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... the horses are so fond, existed here. To-day we saw a single quandong tree (Fusanus; one of the sandal woods, but not of commerce) in full bearing, but the fruit not yet ripe. I also saw a pretty drooping acacia, whose leaves hung in small bunches together, giving it an elegant and pendulous appearance. This tree grows to a height of fifty feet; and some were over a foot ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... softer than rabbit's fur, or goose's marrow, or lowmost ear-lobe, limper than the drooping penis of an oldster, in its cobwebbed must, greedier than the driving storm, such time as the Kite-Goddess shews us the gaping Gulls, give me back my mantle which thou hast pilfered, and the Saetaban napkin and Thynian tablets which, idiot, thou dost openly ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... that she loved him still. But her calmness belied the hasty conclusion he drew from her words. He thought she looked like a statue, as she lay there in her magnificent rest, her hands folded upon her knees before her, her eyes so turned that he could see only the drooping lids. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... outlaw broncho and its rider was over. The confidence of Teddy Roosevelt as well as its strength had been shaken. The bucks of the pony were easy to foresee. Presently they ceased. The horse stood with drooping head, foam dripping from its mouth, flanks ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... across their arms. Possibly they passed houses, but they saw none, and the only incident occurred when the sound of wheels came to them from the highway ahead and, presently, a queer, old-fashioned two-wheeled chaise drawn by a piebald, drooping-eared horse passed slowly from the mist ahead to the mist behind. The boys gazed at it in wonderment, too interested in the equipage itself to heed the occupants. When it was out of sight again Han ejaculated: "Well, I'll be switched, Perry! I didn't suppose there was one of those things left ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... to-morrow, and the scene the terrace of Shepherd's Hotel. She wore long, clinging robes of chiffon and gold cut in the style of Cleopatra along Parisian lines. Her rose-tinted ears were enhanced by drooping earrings, and her eyes were cunningly lengthened at the corners, in a fetching Egyptian slant. She was very beautiful and very merciless; she broke every masculine heart in Cairo. As a climax to her shocking career of ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... and hardihood were his only merits, and who yielded to nothing but the cogent arguments of the whip, looked toward us with an indignant countenance, as if he meditated avenging his wrongs with a kick. The other, Pontiac, a good horse, though of plebeian lineage, stood with his head drooping and his mane hanging about his eyes, with the grieved and sulky air of a lubberly boy sent off to school. Poor Pontiac! his forebodings were but too just; for when I last heard from him, he was under the lash of an Ogallalla brave, on a war party ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... made a little group waiting at some distance. There was a sallow-faced, mean little chap with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in a blue flannel coat, as dry as a chip and no stouter than a broomstick, with drooping grey moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty imbecility. The third was an upstanding, broad-shouldered youth, with his hands in his pockets, turning his back on the other two who appeared to ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... are so distressing to English eyes and English feelings. All these, except the streets devoted exclusively to business, are shaded on both sides by trees, generally, if I remember rightly, by the beautiful American elm, whose drooping boughs have all the grace of the willow without its fantastic melancholy. What the poorer streets of Portland may be like, I cannot say. I saw no poor street. But in no town of 30,000 inhabitants did I ever see so many houses which must require an expenditure of ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... him, he ended wistfully and as if upon a question, I did not offer to come. It seemed a mighty dull way to finish a summer's afternoon. Moreover I was nettled. So I let him go and watched him through the gate, thinking bitterly that our friendship was sick and drooping by no fault ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... broken. I was, however, too ill to attempt anything more that day. I walked home at a very slow pace and went to bed. A sound sleep restored me, and in a day or two I was quite recovered. I watered my plants, which I found drooping, as if they had grieved at my being so long away from them, and then I returned to where my faggots had been left; and to lighten my labour I resolved to carry them down to the bathing-pool and stack them up there on the rocks near to it. I mention this ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... from the light, to where the cypress shade In mournful darkness falls, a figure crept; And as she knelt, the morning breezes swept A cloud of hair about her drooping head. ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... augmented the bitter resentment of Adrienne against the Princess de Saint Dizier, Father d'Aigrigny, and their creatures. The slight paleness of Mdlle. de Cardoville's charming face, and her fine eyes a little drooping, betrayed her recent sufferings; seated before a little table, with her forehead resting upon one of her hands, half veiled by the long curls of her golden hair, she was turning over the leaves of a book. Suddenly, the door opened, and M. Baleinier entered. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... dawn, and lading Egypt's child With water and with bread, sent her grief-worn With Ishmael to wander lone within Beersheba's wilderness. While yet the air Was cool, and nature locked in the embrace Of morn, likely the child was blithe and gay, Unheeding the sad face and drooping form Of her who doubtless turned from childhood's ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass

... in sheer ascent. The ledge was dank and slippery with the dashing spray. Gain the top of it, however, she must. She ran up the embankment under the cliff. Here a sapling gave her support; she clung to a crevice or projection there; a drooping bough saved her from falling when the soft earth slid from beneath her feet farther on. So she climbed along the side of the precipice, until the broken corner of the cliff was hardly two yards off before her. Yes, a secure foothold was there, and above it rose irregular pointed stairs, ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... down back, illuminating everything. In the general glare thrown on the fog, the fainter light was invisible, but across a plot of kitchen garden I saw where it had been; a square, squat building of concrete, flat roofed, vining plants in boxes drooping over its cornice; the typical garage of such an establishment, but nearly double the usual size. The light had come from there, but how? In the short time that the lamps of the machine were showing it up to me, there seemed no windows on this side; only the double doors for ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... world was hidden or obscured by long veils of rain, driven in ragged clouds before a west wind. Yesterday the leaves had waved lightly, the undergrowth of shrubs had uplifted in feathery airiness of texture, the ground beneath had been crisp and aromatic with pine needles. Now everything bore a drooping, sodden aspect which spoke rather of decay than of the life of spring. Even the chickens had wisely remained indoors, with the exception of a single bedraggled old rooster, whose melancholy appearance added another shade of gloom to the dismal outlook. ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... Luck of Troy, but the Trojans were in despair, and guessed that the beggar was the thief, and that Ulysses had been the beggar. The priestess, Theano, could tell them nothing; they found her, with the extinguished torch drooping in her hand, asleep, as she sat on the step of the altar, and she never ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang

... railings. Oh! how Ida had wished to go out that afternoon! How long and clear the shadows were! It seemed to Ida that whoever was free to go into the open air could have nothing more to desire. "Out of doors" looked like Paradise to the drooping little maid, and the passers-by seemed to go up and down the sunny street in a golden dream. Ida gazed till the shadows lengthened, and crept over the street and up the houses; till the sunlight died upon the railings, and then upon ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... clasp the diamond girdle round his waist; His breast, with rays, let just Godolphin spread; Wise Burleigh plant the plumage on his head; And Edward own, since first he fix'd the race, None press'd fair glory with a swifter pace. When fate would call some mighty genius forth To wake a drooping age to godlike worth, Or aid some favourite king's illustrious toil, It bids his blood with generous ardour boil; His blood, from virtue's celebrated source, Pour'd down the steep of time, a lengthen'd course; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... touched on the edges by the wind, or lifted up and bent back so as to show all the white under surfaces of the leaves shivering in light, as the bottom of a boat rises white with spray at the surge-crest; or drooping in quietness towards the dew of the grass beneath them in windless mornings, or bowed down under oppressive grace of deep-charged snow. Snow time, by the way, is one of the best for practice in the placing of ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... particular evening when you have seen little Ursula drooping under the weight of gold which Fortune it appears has so thanklessly showered upon her, she has met with an adventure which brings before her with all its tenacity the impression so early engendered. And now, as she sits ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... hand whose tender care To every virtue would have formed your youth, And strewed with flowers the thorny ways of truth? O loss beyond repair! O wretched father! left alone, To weep their dire misfortune and thy own: How shall thy weakened mind, oppressed with woe, And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave, Perform the duties that you doubly owe! Now she, alas! is gone, From folly and from vice their ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... the light flutter of glistening ephemeridae that wheel and skim delightfully through the limpid azure. Sometimes it is the passionate fanning of wings preparing themselves for swift sharp ascents. Sometimes, it is the drooping of pinions that sink brokenly. For all these pieces are "Poemes ailes," flights toward some island of the blest. They are all aspirations "vers la flamme," toward the spiritual fire of joy, toward the paradise ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... orchard way, Breath of blossoms, and waft of breeze; Dew-wet vistas of breaking day, Drifted snow on the drooping trees. ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... drawn, his eyes veiled by the drooping lids. He had ceased to smoke, and when, a few minutes later, he threw away his cigar, it was all but squeezed flat by the two fingers which had seemed ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... reader of the classics knows how Selene cast Endymion into a profound slumber because he refused her love, and how at sundown she used to come and stand above him on the Latmian hill, and watch him as he lay asleep on the marble steps of a temple half hidden among drooping elm-trees, over which clambered vines heavy with dark blue grapes. This represents the rising moon looking down on the setting sun; in Labrador a similar phenomenon has suggested a somewhat different story. Among ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... shown in Fig. 157. The bowl is beautifully modeled, is symmetrical, and has a flaring rim, rounded and polished on the upper surface and drooping slightly at the outer margin. The body is hemispherical and is supported by three grotesque anthropomorphic figures that strongly remind us of the "mud head" masks used in one of the dances of the Zuni Indians. The head is a rounded ball, upon which pellets of clay are ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... Antefaa's sepulchral monument shows him to us standing in the midst of his dogs, who wear collars, and have their names engraved over them. The dogs are four in number, and are of distinct types. The first, which is called Mahut or "Antelope," has drooping ears, and long but somewhat heavy legs; it resembles a foxhound, and was no doubt both swift and strong, though it can scarcely have been so swift as its namesake. The second was called Abakaru, a name of unknown meaning; it has pricked up, pointed ears, a pointed ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... opposite stared with open mouths; neither knew him: the one he had addressed as Mirrable turned at the salutation, screamed, and dropped the teapot. She was a thin, active woman, of forty years, with dark eyes, a bunch of black drooping ringlets between her cap and her thin cheeks, a ready tongue and a pleasant manner. Mirrable had been upper maid at Hartledon for years and years, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... clouds, reddening in the east, were scudding before the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. That curly grass which always grows by country roadsides became clearly visible, still wet with the night's rain; the drooping branches of the birches, also wet, swayed in the wind and flung down bright drops of water to one side. The soldiers' faces were more and more clearly visible. Rostov, always closely followed by Ilyin, rode along the side of the road between two ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... Montbovon we breakfasted; afterwards, on a steep ascent, dismounted; tumbled down; cut a finger open; the baggage also got loose and fell down a ravine, till stopped by a large tree; recovered baggage; horse tired and drooping; mounted mule. At the approach of the summit of Dent Jument[1] dismounted again with Hobhouse and all the party. Arrived at a lake in the very bosom of the mountains; left our quadrupeds with a shepherd, and ascended farther; came to some snow in patches, upon which my ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various

... up to the place, and there the form sat, like one of the great figures at the door of an Egyptian temple, motionless, with drooping arms and head. Then Diamond grew frightened, because she did not move nor speak. He was sure it was North Wind, but he thought she must be dead at last. Her face was white as the snow, her eyes were blue as the air in the ice-cave, and her hair hung down straight, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... Yerbury wore a particularly listless air. The leafless trees hung out long and drooping arms, that swayed to and fro in the biting wind. The sullen sky overhead added its tone of dreariness to the picture. There was no cheerful whir of factories and shops, no brisk steps of men going to and fro, though there were enough standing around in groups with scowling faces ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... can't get a-goin' at no two o'clock," he assured them. A drooping gray mustache curtained his mouth, drooping gray eyebrows shaded his eyes, and he crowded very close to them and whispered, "I've stole the call for the caucus, and they'll hunt for it about half an hour, and then they'll have to round the committee up and get ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... other times a quick, brief incursion into the branches above delayed it momentarily in its steady journey toward the east. To its sensitive nostrils came the subtle unseen spoor of many a tender four-footed creature, bringing the slaver of hunger to the cruel, drooping jowl. ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... time had worn in the threadbare scraps of carpet, and made them whole and decent. The schoolmaster swept and smoothed the ground before the door, trimmed the long grass, trained the ivy and creeping plants which hung their drooping heads in melancholy neglect; and gave to the outer walls a cheery air of home. The old man, sometimes by his side and sometimes with the child, lent his aid to both, went here and there on little patient services, and was happy. Neighbours, too, as they came from work, proffered their ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... holding her hand in his, he kissed her, and left her standing behind the broom bushes. She passed out into the moonlight, and walked slowly back over the moor with her head drooping, an unusual thing for Morva, for from childhood she had had a habit of looking upwards. Up there on the lonely moor, the vault of heaven with its galaxy of stars, its blue ethereal depths, its flood of silver moonlight, or its breadth ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... eyes, the soft waves of dark hair drooping over the low forehead, the slender oval of the olive tinted face, the crimson curving lips, the shrinking figure presented such a picture of exquisite helplessness that Eveley's brave and buoyant soul rose leaping to ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... leaves falling, the apples are more distinct on the trees. I saw one year in a neighboring town some trees fuller of fruit than I remember to have ever seen before, small yellow apples hanging over the road. The branches were gracefully drooping with their weight, like a barberry-bush, so that the whole tree acquired a new character. Even the topmost branches, instead of standing erect, spread and drooped in all directions; and there were so many poles supporting the lower ones, that they looked like pictures of banian-trees. As an old English ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau

... Lady Montbarry with a moment's steady attention—bowed to her with formal politeness—and passed on in silence. At the sight of her husband's brother, the sinking spirit of the woman sprang to life again. Her drooping figure became erect. Her eyes met Westwick's look, brightly defiant. She returned his bow with ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... you choose The formal garden With lilac hedges And vistas of velvet lawn And marble fountain Shining pool and Marble bench o'er-topped By drooping willow; Massed color in trim beds, And stately garden house Festooned with wisteria And ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder

... likeness taken, the attic was temporarily transformed. At least a score of unappreciated masterpieces concealed the dilapidation of the walls; the broken window was decorated with an Eastern fabric that had been a cherished "property" of half the ateliers in Paris; the poet himself—with the palm drooping gracefully above his head—mused in a massive chair, in which Solomon had been pronouncing judgment until 12:15, when the poet had called for it. The appearance of exhaustion observed by admirers of the poet's portrait was due to the chair's appalling weight. As he staggered under it up the ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... kinds of fruit, and sprinkled here and there with bunches of gay flowers; and at the entrance gate by the road two magnificent elms, of an age and height which denoted that they must have given shade to several past generations from the summer heat, flung out drooping branches which extended a very great distance from the parent trunks. After dinner, our host entertained us with a narrative of his recent visit to the capital town of Boston, to testify, in company with a former neighbor, now resident there, in behalf of his hired man, Jasper ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... the barren field, Rising beyond the night's gray folds of mist, Rests stirless where the upper air is sealed To perfect silence, by the faint moon kissed. But the low branches, drooping to the ground, Sway to and fro, as sways funereal plume, While from their restless depths low whispers sound: "We fear, we fear the darkness and the gloom; Dim forms beneath us pass and reappear, And mournful ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... intended stratagem, and the colt was, by the celestial mandate, previously to the combat, conjured in the holy name to be obedient to his rider during the encounter. The fiend-horse intimated his submission by drooping his head, but his word was not entirely credited. His ears were stopped with wax. In this condition, Richard, armed at all points and with various marks of his religious faith displayed on his weapons, rode forth to meet Saladin, and the Soldan, confident of his stratagem, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... sport. But if she be once come, and on a sudden and openly surprise, either them, their wives, their children, or their friends, what torments, what out cries, what rage, and what despaire doth then overwhelme them? saw you ever anything so drooping, so changed, and so distracted? A man must looke to it, and in better times fore-see it. And might that brutish carelessenesse lodge in the minde of a man of understanding (which I find altogether impossible) she sels us her ware at an overdeere rate: were she an enemie by mans wit to be avoided, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... courteously, for I guessed her embarrassment, "I can assure you that my boy is ready to give you his life in return for the kindness he received at your hands in Rome." She looked up, smiling through her tears, for the sudden happiness had moistened the drooping lids. ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... "Oh!" came from every one. The girls could not see the street fence. The end of the woodshed was the limit of their vision down the long yard. Two or three fruit trees loomed like drooping ghosts in ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill

... and sometimes eluding, and sometimes resisting, the attacks of the Barbarians, who were masters of the field, he arrived with honor and safety at the camp near Rheims, where the Roman troops had been ordered to assemble. The aspect of their young prince revived the drooping spirits of the soldiers, and they marched from Rheims in search of the enemy, with a confidence which had almost proved fatal to them. The Alemanni, familiarized to the knowledge of the country, secretly collected ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... was death! I looked in her pale, beautiful face. It was more than pale,—it was wan—it was sickly. There was a purplish shadow under her soft, dark eyes, which I had not observed before, and her figure looked thin and drooping. I gazed into the sad, loving depths of her eyes, till mine were blinded with tears, when throwing my arms across her lap, I laid my face upon them, and wept and sobbed as if the doom of the motherless ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... on the window pane; a teacher rises, tiptoes slowly about the room and sits down again. She can do nothing, now, but keep watch on the pairs of drooping shoulders ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... he spoke in no gentle voice to the animal which was wearing its life away for its master's gain. A meadow lark arose a little to one side. I noticed his yellow vest, sprinkled with dark spots, as he flew with drooping tail for a few rods, then sank down again in the clover. From somewhere in the distance a Bob White's clear notes welled up through the silence. A flutter of wings near by, and I turned my head to see a bluebird flit gently to the top of a stake in the fence-corner not ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey

... small tree about 10 high, with leaves broad, 6-12' long, hanging or drooping, lanceolate, entire, and somewhat pubescent on both surfaces. Petioles very short with 2 deciduous stipules at the base. Flowers in clusters on the roots, trunk and branches. Peduncle very long. Nectary divided in 5 parts, straight, awl-shaped and 2-nerved. ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... specify but one—a charming species of pansy-like beauty, found at Farmington, Connecticut, with the two upper petals of the finest violet tint, and of velvet softness. In moist woodlands in Western Connecticut the staphylea, or bladder-nut, attracts attention by its drooping racemes of white flowers, and later in the season the rich brown seed-vessels are as handsome as the flowers in the spring. All around on the rocky road-side banks and in dry fields the airy wild columbine and pretty corydalis blossoms ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... rain dropped ceaselessly upon the pebble-paving below, could not give—steepy slopes, hedge-divided into small fields, some green and dotted with red cattle, others crowded with shocks of bedraggled and drooping corn, which ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... time was it then? he asked himself. Seven, at the latest. That meant eight long hours of agony, before anything happened! That is what the wounded love and long for—something to happen—something to distract the attention from the slow, insistent pain—something to liven drooping spirits, and raise ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... beautiful, I think, in a rose-coloured dinner-gown (rose-coloured chiffon, with accessories of drooping old pale-yellowish lace), a spray of scarlet geranium in her hair, pearls round her throat, and, as you could now and then perceive, high-heeled ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... a pleasing, uncertain quality by successive coats of whitewash. The room where Ishmael had been born boasted a domed ceiling, and a band of moulding half-way up the walls culminated over the bed's head in a representation of the Crucifixion—the drooping Christ surrounded by a medley of soldiers and horses, curiously intent dogs and swooning women, above whose heads the fluttered angels seemed entangled in the host of pennons flaunting round the cross. Cloom was a house of neglected glories, of fine things fallen on base ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... death. Oh, deign look down upon me! In thy face Alone I look on day; it is my sun Most bright; the which denied, no sun doth rise. Shine out upon me, my divinity! My gentle Widow Green! My wife to be; My love, my life, my drooping, ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... snap them. A great grass, stout and thick, rises three feet by the hedge, with a head another foot nearly, very green and strong and bold, lifting itself right up to you; you must say, 'What a fine grass!' Grasses whose awns succeed each other alternately; grasses whose tops seem flattened; others drooping over the shorter blades beneath; some that you can only find by parting the heavier growth around them; hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands. The kingly poppies on the dry summit of the mound take no heed of these, the populace, their subjects so ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... however it might once have been, the state would immediately abandon its industries now that she had come away from it. I beheld its considerable area desolated, the forges cold, the hammers stilled, the fields overgrown, the ships rotting at their docks, the stalwart mechanics drooping idly above their unfinished tasks. It was not possible to suppose that any one could feel, in a state which she had left, that interest which good ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... from the Countess for three minutes by the glass. The great lady stood erect, cold and white, seemingly frozen by the frost which burns you. The only sound in the room was the sobbing of the cowed girl, who also stood with hidden face and drooping knees, broken with sobs, but tearless. Ah, what under heaven could she do but as she did? Married to Prosper? How, when he had not declared it; had received her as his servant, and treated her as a servant? How, when she knew that the marriage of such as he to such as she was a disablement far ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... up!" cried Zaidos, speaking in English. He reflected that Velo could not understand a word of the language, and proceeded to give vent to his feelings in a tongue that he had found extremely expressive in times of need. He glared at the drooping boy, while ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... when we see that by our drainage work the apparently obstinate soil is made to reflect the sunlight from a covering of golden grain; when gardens and orchards bloom and yield fruit where once the willows dipped their drooping branches in the slimy fluid below, and frogs regaled the passer-by with their festive songs. Roses now twine over the rural cottage and send their fragrance into the wholesome air, where once the beaver reared his ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... And you are always telling us that we must not think about the morrow, or even the next hour. But, then, that's in the pulpit," she added, with a sly look up at me from under the drooping feather of her ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... educating and refining vanished like morning mists, and through her drooping eyelids, the firelight seemed strangely red.... She had been too kind, too encouraging: now she must collect her forces round her and be stern. As she dozed off to sleep, she reminded herself to ask Georgie to lunch next day. He and Peppino and she must have a serious talk. She ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... stroll of ten miles before breakfast to Koomerial along the level valley, through shady groves of apple, pear, green-gage, peach, and mulberry trees, and forests of cherry trees drooping with the weight of their golden blushing fruit. I have not seen any vines in the Solab. Koomerial is a very small place, and I had a little difficulty in getting supplies. I ought to have gone three miles further ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster

... sat majestically at her table, with an ominous frown upon her face. Miss Cotton stood beside her, looking unusually sour and stern, for the ancient virgin's temper was not of the best. Alone, before them all, with her face hidden in her hands, and despair in every line of her drooping figure, stood Rachel,—a meek culprit at the stern bar of justice, where women try ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... squat figure of the chief advanced like a machine. Jack noticed the swing of the muscular arms, the play of the legs and the occasional slight turning or ducking of the head. The straggling black hair, with the painted eagle feathers drooping like the plume of a lady's hat, the blanket slung loosely over the shoulders, the fringed hunting shirt and leggings, the faded moccasins, so soft that they spread out of all manner of shape when the weight of the body rested on them:—all these and much more were impressed upon the mind of the ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... not be running high, the foam is torn off them in a way which shows they will soon run higher. On the other hand, nothing is so perfectly calm as Turner's calmness. To the canal barges of England he soon added other types of languid motion; the broad-ruddered barks of the Loire, the drooping sails of Seine, the arcaded barks of the Italian lakes slumbering on expanse of mountain-guarded wave, the dreamy prows of pausing gondolas on lagoons at moon-rise; in each and all commanding an intensity of calm, chiefly because he never admitted an instant's rigidity. ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... a little revived the drooping spirits of Titmouse. Accidentally, however, an asterisk at the last word in the above sentence, directed his eye to a note at the bottom of the page, printed in such minute type as would have baffled any but the ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... would, and Madeline would have been very sorry if anything like that had happened. One of the ears of the Rabbit was just getting soft and drooping over a little to one side, when the cook happened to ...
— The Story of a Candy Rabbit • Laura Lee Hope

... some dark-haired princess. And yet, in the fairy stories, the real princess was often poor, and wore a shabby dress, and had golden hair, and—" but here Fern banished these thoughts resolutely, and came back to her footstool a little pale and drooping. ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... immediately. They brought him here. They found—conditions awful. They did all that surgery could do—every known thing was being done now, but—they did not know. He had rallied a little from the operation; now he seemed to be drooping. He was in bad shape generally,—heart weakened by the shock of his blindness, intestines broken down by lack of exercise, whole system affected by changed conditions—all these things combined against him. He told the short story with his own lips white, ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... together as Mr. Ingram spoke. They were resting after a spirited game, and they made a pretty picture as they stood under the shelter of the old oak tree. Both were in white, and both wore large drooping hats. These hats cast picturesque shadows on ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... photographs and souvenirs of women everywhere. The windows were fast-closed and the curtains half-drawn. The man who stood upon the hearthrug was of medium height, dark, with close-cropped hair and a black, drooping moustache. His first glance at his visitor, as the door opened, was one of ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... missed Sir Sooty. And so, two weeks later, when her wing was nearly well, in its new, drooping shape, what was her joy when he himself actually waddled into the farm-yard—into her very presence—without a single ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... up with another grand flourish at the entrance, a smooth grassy plateau shaded by oaks and drooping elms, they simply poured out a stream of girls from each conveyance; the old man and his companion drivers laughing to see them tumble out. "Pretty quick work, eh, Bill?" said old man Kimball, "no screaming for ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... body among them. One by one the survivors came along the pier, the most dismal procession it was ever my lot to behold—eleven live but scarcely living men, most of them clad in oilskins, and walking with bowed backs, drooping heads and nerveless arms. There was blood on the faces of some, circled with a white encrustation of salt, and this same salt filled the hollows of their eyes and streaked their hair with lines which looked like snow. The first man, ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... much better." When we were seated, I ordered a pint tankard of Reid's London stout for my friend. It was in perfect condition. He put his lips to it in doubt, but did not remove them until, with reverential drooping of the eyelids, he had emptied the tankard. "The very finest beer I have ever swallowed," he said. "What in the name of goodness is it?" I told him, and ordered him more. Soon a perfectly grilled chop and a large, clean, floury ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... the Futurists as so real, but it must purge and order it, by complexities of tone and rhythm hitherto unattempted. One art, beyond all others, has blossomed into real, spontaneous, unconscious life to-day, and that is Music; the other arts stand round arrayed, half paralyzed, with drooping, empty hands. The nineteenth century saw vast developments in an art that could express abstract, unlocalized, unpersonified feelings more completely than painting or poetry, ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... set and the darkened sky draws upon the sea like drooping lashes upon a weary eye it is time to take away his pen, and let his thoughts sink into the bottom of the deep amid the ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore

... that did most to stem the advancing tide of heresy and to raise the drooping spirits of the Catholic body during the saddest days of the sixteenth century was undoubtedly the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola.[16] By birth St. Ignatius was a Spaniard, and by profession he was a soldier. Having been wounded ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... happy surprise at last gave way to bodily fatigue. Antonia, like some drooping blossom, stretched her fair form on the again burning sand, and slumbered under the protection of her lover and her chosen brother. "Sleep also," said Heimbert softly to Fadrique; "you must have wandered about wildly and wearily, for exhaustion is pressing down your eyelids ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque

... Ulrica sat drooping, her head bent, her great eyes veiled, her hands entwined on her lap.... The little pathway led to a wood. The wide landscape disappeared. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... haste me to my bed, The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd; But then begins a journey in my head To work my mind, when body's work's expired: For then my thoughts—from far where I abide— Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see: Save that my soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel (hung in ghastly night, Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. Lo! thus, ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... opened a broad way for the army. On the fifth day, which was the twenty-first of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] Josephus prevented him, and came from Tiberias, and went into Jotapata, and raised the drooping spirits of the Jews. And a certain deserter told this good news to Vespasian, that Josephus had removed himself thither, which made him make haste to the city, as supposing that with taking that he should take all Judea, in case he could but withal get Josephus under his power. So he took ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... Rumble filled the Spacious Room and went echoing through the Corridors. The Sound beat out through the Open Windows and checked Traffic in the Street. It sang through the Telegraph Wires and lifted every drooping Flag. ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... their bony old faces, which they do not even soften with powder or the charming accessories of the toilet known to every European woman of fashion. And feathers! Why are they so fond of feathers—not charming drooping feathers, but a sort of clipped hedge, all of a size, like a garden plot; sometimes oblong, sometimes round? And why do they never look a la mode, in spite of ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... soul-blushing, and repentant shed Unwholesome thoughts in wholesome tears, and pour Their sin to earth,—and with low drooping head Receive the solemn blessing, and implore Its grace—then soberly with chasten'd tread, They meekly press towards the gusty door With humbled eyes that go to graze upon The lowly grass—like him ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood



Words linked to "Drooping" :   lax, tired, unerect, biology, droopy, biological science, sagging



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