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Moorish   /mˈʊrɪʃ/   Listen
Moorish

noun
1.
A style of architecture common in Spain from the 13th to 16th centuries; characterized by horseshoe-shaped arches.  Synonym: Moorish architecture.



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"Moorish" Quotes from Famous Books



... a century after the Arab conquest of North Africa, successive Moorish dynasties began to rule in Morocco. In the 16th century, the Sa'adi monarchy, particularly under Ahmad AL-MANSUR (1578-1603), repelled foreign invaders and inaugurated a golden age. In 1860, Spain occupied northern ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... old looked more than usually oracular, and were, all that day, full of those hints that Hamlet deprecated. The manse itself, where it stood by the water of Dule among some thick trees, with the Shaw overhanging it on the one side, and on the other many cold, moorish hill-tops rising toward the sky, had begun, at a very early period of Mr. Soulis's ministry, to be avoided in the dusk hours by all who valued themselves upon their prudence; and guidmen sitting at the clachan alehouse shook their heads together ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... could move The Tyrian princess, who disdain'd his love, His breast with fury burn'd, his eyes with fire, Mad with despair, impatient with desire; Then on the sacred altars pouring wine, He thus with pray'rs implor'd his sire divine: "Great Jove! propitious to the Moorish race, Who feast on painted beds, with off'rings grace Thy temples, and adore thy pow'r divine With blood of victims, and with sparkling wine, Seest thou not this? or do we fear in vain Thy boasted thunder, and thy ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... Kenneth, "the cross which I wear in common with yourself, and the importance of what I have to tell, must, for the present, cause me to pass over a bearing which else I were unapt to endure. In plain language, then, I bring with me a Moorish physician, who undertakes to work a cure on ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... We find Fr. archegaie in the 14th century, azagaie in Rabelais, and the modern form zagaie in Cotgrave, who describes it as "a fashion of slender, long, and long-headed pike, used by the Moorish horsemen." In Mid. English l'archegaie was corrupted by folk-etymology (see p. 115) into lancegay, launcegay, the form ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... is observable both among Moorish and Arab females—that of ornamenting the face between the eyes with clusters of bluish spots or other small devices, and which, being stained, become permanent. The chin is also spotted in a similar manner, and a narrow blue line extends from ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... show traces of Arabic influence in their national music. In Venetian airs it is only a dim memory, manifesting itself by the frequent repetition of single notes, whereas the Spanish melodies are often so Moorish in construction and sentiment that it is easy to fancy in them tones like the call of the muezzin. Thus, too, the following Spanish song, judged by its repetitions and short intervals, might easily be taken for an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... Another work, entitled "Dyuers Soyles for manuring pasture & arable land," enumerates, in addition to the usual odorous galaxy, such extraordinarily new matters (in that day) as "salt, street-dirt, clay, Fullers earth, moorish earth, fern, hair, calcination of all vegetables, malt dust, soap-boilers ashes, and marle." But what I think particularly commends him to notice, and makes him worthy to be enrolled among the pioneers, is his little tract upon "The Setting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... countries. They fought with the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of the country, to see who should have us. A Moor seized my mother by the right arm, while my captain's lieutenant held her by the left; a Moorish soldier had hold of her by one leg, and one of our corsairs held her by the other. Thus almost all our women were drawn in quarters by four men. My captain concealed me behind him; and with his drawn scimitar cut and slashed every one that opposed his ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... [sic] di Monviedro, an orphan lady, bequeathed by both Parents on their death-bed to the wardship of the Marquis, and betrothed to Don Garcia—Gulinaez a Moorish Chieftain and ostensibly a new Christian—Alhadra his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... 'History of Spanish Literature' may be found his touching letter to De Guzman at the Moorish court. He is, like Lear, poor and discrowned, but not like him, weak. His prelates have stirred up strife, his nobles have betrayed him. If Heaven wills, he is ready to pay generously for help. If not, says the royal philosopher, still, generosity and loyalty exalt ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... visited many of the European colonies and Moorish kingdoms on the north coast of Africa, so that he enjoyed the advantage of comparison, and, of course, was not stupefied by the untravelled ignorance of Africans who consider Timbuctoo a combination of Paris and paradise. Indeed, he did not presume, like most of the Mandingo chiefs, to ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... politics of the East Indies, and now it is difficult to picture the state of affairs when King Hiawang revisited China to pay homage to the Emperor. In 1521, within a hundred years of that event, Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan's great exploit, was calling on the "Moorish" king of Bruni, in the course of the first voyage round the world. The change had come. Of the two new influences, so potent for good and evil, Mohammedanism made its appearance first. The struggle for religious supremacy ended in the complete victory of the Prophet's ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... the 'bus was full. At the end, with his nose in his prayer-book, sat a large and black-bearded vicar from town; facing him was a young Moorish merchant smoking coarse cigarettes, and a Maltese sailor and four or five Moorish women muffled up in white cloths, so that only ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... have worn mail and steel and wielded sword and lance, so that at a long stone's throw they might almost have passed for men, but that cunning jewellers and artificers of Italy, and Moorish smiths from Spain, had been brought at great pains and cost to France to make such armour and weapons as had never been wrought before. The mail was of finest rings of steel sewn upon soft doeskin, fitted so ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... altogether too palatial in its size and too severe in its aspect to shield a man of so garish a mind as I attributed to Rufus Blight, judging him from memory alone. I should have placed him rather next door to it, behind the over-ornate Moorish front and had him look out on the world through curtains of elaborately figured lace. But within, I now said to myself, I shall find the expression of the man in a riot of color in walls and hangings and in ill-assorted mobs of furniture. Here again I was wrong. ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... wand of office, waiting to greet their master and his guests. The hall itself was panelled with polished Spanish mahogany, black with age, and softly illuminated by cunningly-concealed electric lights around the painted roof. There were beautiful Persian and Moorish rugs on the floor, and here and there along the walls there hung paintings by Old Masters between ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... was taken from the Moorish king of Grenada, in 1344: the Earls of Derby and Salisbury took part in the siege. Belmarie is supposed to have been a Moorish state in Africa; but "Palmyrie" has been suggested as the correct reading. The Great Sea, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... mighty, raises its once impregnable walls and towers against the sky. The beauty of its interior remains briefly to be touched upon, for the fortress palace had, as Clement left it, some analogy with the great Moorish palace of the Alhambra in that it stood outwardly grim and strong, while within it was a shrine of exquisite and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... something about the size of El Paso. Both Bucky and his friend were familiar with the manners of the country, so that they felt at home among the narrow adobe streets, the lounging, good-natured peons, and the imitation Moorish architecture. They found rooms at a quiet, inconspicuous hotel, and began making their plans for an immediate departure in the event that they succeeded ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... Adventuresses and Adventurous Ladies, was really of Irish extraction, and had been settled in Limerick since the year 1645. "The family pedigree," he says, "reveals no trace of Spanish or Moorish blood." Further, by the beginning of the last century, the main line had, so far as the union of its members was blessed by the Church, expired, and no legitimate offspring were left. Gilbert's spouse, accordingly, must, if a genuine Oliverres, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... may have been, and no matter how it was guarded, it is a most lovely place. There are whole sections of garden here of various styles—Greek, Italian, French, German, Dutch, British, Spanish, African, Moorish—all the older nationalities. I am going to have a new one laid out for you—a Japanese garden. I have sent to the great gardener of Japan, Minaro, to make the plans for it, and to come over with workmen to carry it out. He is to bring ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... answered Don Juan, with a slight laugh, "thou hast learned, within yonder walls, a creed of morals little known to Moorish maidens, if fame belies them not. Suffer me to teach thee easier morality and sounder logic. It is no dishonour to a Christian prince to adore beauty like thine; it is no insult to a maiden hostage if the ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... genius, fortitude, and patience, as St. Paul's is that of Wren; and our own Remington's bridge-enthusiasm involves a pathetic story. At Cordova, the bridge over the Guadalquivir is a grand relic of Moorish supremacy. The oldest bridge in England is that of Croyland in Lincolnshire; the largest crosses the Trent in Staffordshire. Tom Paine designed a cast-iron bridge, but the speculation failed, and the materials were subsequently used in the beautiful bridge ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... new army composed of two army corps, five reserve divisions, and a Moorish brigade was constituted. This army was to assemble in the region of Amiens between Aug. 27 and Sept. 1 and take the offensive against the German right, uniting its action with that of the British Army, operating on the line ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... ship of some sort," Ralph said; "but her masts have gone. It may be that she is a merchantman that has been captured and sacked by the Moorish pirates." ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... not be conceived as a negro, but a high and chivalrous Moorish chief. Shakspeare learned the sprit of the character from the Spanish poetry, which was prevalent ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... have covered it. The olla consisted of several sorts of pottages, salads, fricassees, saugrenees, cabirotadoes, roast and boiled meat, carbonadoes, swingeing pieces of powdered beef, good old hams, dainty somates, cakes, tarts, a world of curds after the Moorish way, fresh cheese, jellies, and fruit of all sorts. All this seemed to me good and dainty; however, the sight of it made me sigh; for alas! I could not taste a bit on't, so full I had filled my puddings ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... 1491, Columbus, mounted upon his mule, rode into the Spanish camp before the city of Granada. But even now, when he had been told to come, he had to wait. Granada was almost captured; the Moors were almost conquered. At last the end came. On the second of January, 1492, the Moorish king gave up the keys of his beloved city, and the great Spanish banner was hoisted on the highest tower of the Alhambra—the handsomest building in Granada and one of the most beautiful in the world. The Moors were driven out of Spain and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... of the Blaneys in the city was much like the one Patty had seen at Lakewood, only a little more elaborately bizarre. The Moorish lamps were bigger and dustier: the thick brocade draperies a little more faded and tattered; the furniture a little more gilded ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells

... declaring that if ever she have to choose another husband on ne m'y prendra plus when a letter arrives from her brother announcing that her husband, as he fled from battle towards Arzila, had been killed by a Moorish shepherd. The faithful Pero Marques again presses his suit. He is accepted and is made to suffer the whims and infidelity of the emancipated Ines. The question of women's rights was a burning one in ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... devotions, finding in religion an excellent pastime to precede supper and sleep. The Jews lighted the lamps of their synagogues and sang to the glory of Jehovah; the Catholics counted their rosaries in the Cathedral; from the Protestant temple, built in the Moorish style as if it were a mosque, rose, like a celestial whispering, the voices of the virgins accompanied by the organ; the Mussulmen gathered in the house of their consul to whine their interminable and monotonous salutation to Allah. In the temperance ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... with tall windows and arched tops rising between, and other spaces between the columns covered with drapery in more subdued colors. Up to a few feet from the floor the painting is in a dark-hued bronze. The coloring is in the Moorish style throughout, and the effect of the whole is very fine. At the north end is the platform for the desks of the Vice-President and Secretary, and on each side of this is a black board for recording the quotations ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... doctor; "most characteristic. Simulation is of the very essence of their race. Oh, this is beautiful! Did you catch what they said just then? It was an expression in the Maeso-Shemitic dialect, still to be found in the south of Spain and on the old Moorish coast of Africa. I know it ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... name, and Quintin Bandera he will remain in history. While in the African penal settlement the daughter of a Spanish officer fell in love with him. She assisted in his escape and fled with him to Gibraltar. There he married his rescuer. She is of Spanish and Moorish descent, and is said to be a lady of education and refinement. She taught her husband to read and write and feels unbounded pride in ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson

... the drowning sailor his rescue was miraculous; to the despairing King the arrival of his brother was a godsend; and to Joinville and his crew, who were in imminent danger of being carried off as slaves by Moorish pirates, the wind that brought them safe to Cyprus was more than a fortunate accident. Our language differs from the language of Joinville, yet in our heart of hearts ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... defraying the reckoning! I would I saw her once more, but to explain to her the solecism of which her inexperience hath rendered her guilty. And I fear," he added, as he emerged from some straggling trees, and looked out upon a wild moorish country, composed of a succession of swelling lumpish hills, "I fear I shall soon want the aid of this Ariadne, who might afford me a clew through the recesses of yonder ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... this portion of his life is among the most entertaining passages of his biography. Drawing the Roman ruins, shooting pigeons, scouring the Campagna on a pony like a shaggy bear, fighting duels, prosecuting love-affairs, defending his shop against robbers, skirmishing with Moorish pirates on the shore by Cerveterra, stabbing, falling ill of the plague and the French sickness—these adventures diversify the account he gives of masterpieces in gold and silver ware. The literary ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... not the oddest part of it. In that street stood talking a girl in gorgeous Spanish dress and a man in Moorish costume. The warm reds and greens and russets of their garments made an unbelievable patch of colour in the grey March day. And this in ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... nose is first depressed by crossing it near the tip with a silk thread, which is tied at the back of the head. A small piece of kid is placed under the thread, thus keeping it from coming in contact with the skin. The nostrils are built out until the nose has a Moorish appearance." ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... far as the simple old-world plot is concerned, is very probably not the original invention of whoever gave it this particular form, any more than were the plots of Shakespeare's plays of his own devising. It seems likely that in origin it is Arabian or Moorish, and its birthplace not Provence but Spain. Possibly it sprung, as so much of the best poetry and story has sprung, from the touching of two races, and the part friction part fusion of two religions, in this case of the Moor and the Christian. ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous

... efficient management of Stilicho, however, prevented any catastrophe; for ships from Gaul and from Spain, laden with corn, appeared in the Tiber, and Rome was supplied during the winter months. Early in 398 a fleet sailed against the tyrant, whose hideous cruelties and oppressions were worthy of his Moorish blood; and it is a curious fact that this fleet was under the command of Mascezel, Gildo's brother, who was now playing the same part toward Gildo that Gildo had played toward his brother Firmus. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... log on the fire and watch the flames dance higher—illuminate with their glowing radiance the dim corridors and the vast and stately apartments of a Chateau en Espagne. What an addition those new pictures are to the noble gallery! And the vast library with the windows opening on the Moorish court! But some of the tapestries need renovating, ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... Florence and Pisa. It occupies one day; and the five acts correspond respectively to its "Morning," "Noon," "Afternoon," "Evening," and "Night." The day is that of a long-expected encounter which is to end the war. The Florentine troops are commanded by the Moorish mercenary Luria. He is encamped between the two cities; and with, or near him, are his Moorish friend and confidant Husain; Puccio—the officer whom he has superseded; Braccio—Commissary of the Republic; his secretary Jacopo, or Lapo; and a noble ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... this horological exuberance in Damascus, the center of gravity of Islamic astronomy shifted from the East to the Hispano-Moorish West. At the same time there comes more evidence that the line of mathematical protoclocks had not been left unattended. This is suggested by a description given by Trithemius of another royal gift from East to West which ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price

... place in art, for its characteristics may be duplicated by anyone who takes the fancy to do so. On the other hand, the vital element of music—personality—stands alone. We have seen the Viennese Strauss family adopting the cross rhythms of the Spanish—or, to be more accurate, the Moorish or Arab—school of art. Moszkowski the Pole writes Spanish dances. Cowen in England writes a Scandinavian Symphony. Grieg the Norwegian writes Arabian music; and, to cap the climax, we have here in America been offered ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... friend, whose conscious heart With virtue's sacred ardour glows, Nor taints with death the envenom'd dart, Nor needs the guard of Moorish bows: ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... of a country gentleman went by, and the Shah of Persia, who had been on a visit to Italy and met Verdi, sent a command for an opera. The plot must be laid in the East, the characters Moorish, and the whole to be dedicated to the immortal ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... Over this Franciscan-Moorish city the sun set with an incomparable glory one evening in May, eighteen thirty-five. The white, flat-roofed, terraced houses—each one in its flowery court—and the domes and spires of the Missions, with their gilded crosses, had a mirage-like beauty in the rare, soft atmosphere, ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... We have records of them at Basra, Samarcand, Ispahan. From here the thirst for education spread to the other cities ruled by the Mohammedans, and each town became affected by it. Alexandria, the cities of the Barbary States, those of Sicily and Provence, where Moorish influences were prominent, and of distant Spain, Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Granada, Saragossa, all took up the rivalry for culture which made this a glorious period in the ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... after common men in this, To make a difference of me for my poorness; As if the filth of poverty sunk as deep Into a knowing spirit, as the bane Of riches doth into an ignorant soul. No, Caesar, they be pathless, moorish minds That being once made rotten with the dung Of damned riches, ever after sink Beneath the steps of any villainy. But knowledge is the nectar that keeps sweet A perfect soul, even in this grave of sin; ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... the ring were the Moorish hound—a creature full of feline grace and suppleness, with silky drop-over ears and a tufted tail—an exceptionally fine cross-bred collie, the Stone bulldog, a Dandie Dinmont, and a Welsh terrier, the last extraordinarily small, bright, shapely, ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... Spain; with offers to forsake the christian faith, turn mahometan, deliver up his kingdom, and hold it of him in tribute, for his assistance against his enemies. But it does not appear the ambassador succeeded: the Moorish Monarch did not chuse to unite his prosperous fortune with that of a random prince; he might also consider, the man who could destroy his nephew and his sovereign, could not be ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... plume of gallant air, Many a rich-grain'd cappellare, Many a boot a-borzegui, Many a silken string and tie, Many a spur of gold there clung, Many a silver stirrup swung. All the men that rode that day Were expert at battle-fray: Midst of all that pomp and pow'r Chyquo Monarch of the Moor. Moorish dames and maidens high Them from proud Alhambra eye; And the Moorish Queen so grey In this guise was heard to say: "Speed thee hence my son and love! Mahomet thy Guardian prove! Crown'd with honor back from Jaen May he bring ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... Sovereignties of the Peninsular, with the sole exception of the mountainous district of Navarre, and the Moorish territories in the south, were now all united; and it was the sagacious ambition of Ferdinand and Isabella to render Spain as important in the scale of kingdoms as any other European territory; and to do this, they knew, demanded as firm a control over their own subjects, ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... the progression of influences was, strange to say, a dream. Our residence was then on Grosvenor street,—a Florid Gothic one after the model of Desdemona's House in Venice. My own little room was fitted up in a Moorish fashion. ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... the town of Pisania, where an English factory had been established, and a few Europeans were settled, with a medical man, Dr Laidley. Leaving this place, he proceeded to Tisheet, a place in the Great Desert, hoping from thence to reach Timbuctoo; but, robbed by a Moorish chief, of everything he possessed, he wandered alone through the desert, till, exhausted by hunger and thirst, he sat down under a tree and died. The news of his fate was brought to Dr Laidley ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... fragrance of the South and full of the sound of splashing, running water, as it had been in a certain old garden in Florence, long ago. The sky was one great turquoise, heated until it glowed. The wonderful Moorish arches threw graceful blue shadows all about him. He had sketched an outline of them on the margin of his notepaper. The subtleties of Arabic decoration had cast an unholy spell over him, and the brutal exaggerations of Gothic art were a bad dream, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... actuating the Spanish administration. England could not allow Spain to erect a fortress opposite to Gibraltar, on the Straits, and such was believed throughout Europe to be the real object of the Spanish minister. France was solicitous to weaken the power of the Moorish empire, and so promote her own designs of encroachment. A Spanish war was favourable to such an object. It would also be practicable for the French, at any time, to expel the Spaniards, and seize ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... parts of the town—the eastern quarters—one cannot help noticing the still remaining influence of the Moors. There are even some true relics; but certainly the influence survives in flat-sided houses with small windows and Moorish ornament high up just under the edge of the flat roof. One day, being tired of the more noisy western town, I went east and climbed up and up, being alternately in deep shadow and burning sunlight and turned round by a barrack, where some ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... at the court of Alexander. I was living in Spain toward the close of the tenth century, when I married the daughter of an Arabian physician, who was a wonderfully beautiful woman. She was not dark, like the ordinary Moorish women. In feature and form she surpassed any creation of the Greek sculptors, and I have been in many of their workshops, and have seen their models. This lady lived longer than any other wife I had. She lived so long, in ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... of her Oriental eye Accorded with her Moorish origin (Her blood was not all Spanish, by the by; In Spain, you know, this is a sort of sin); When proud Granada fell, and, forced to fly, Boabdil wept, of Donna Julia's kin Some went to Africa, some stay'd in Spain, Her ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... names from places. We hear a great deal nowadays of the "morris dances" which used to be danced in England in olden times. But morris comes from morys, an old word for "Moorish." In the Middle Ages this word was used, like "Turk" or "Tartar," to describe almost any Eastern people, and the name came, perhaps, from the fact that in these dances people dressed up, and so looked strange and foreign. The name of a very well-known dance, the polka, really means "Polish ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... themselves On the main promenade just at the wrong time: You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat Making a peaked shade blacker than itself Against the single window spared some house Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work— Or else surprise the ferret of his stick 20 Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, The man who slices lemons into drink, The ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... where in this present year, on the second day of the month of January, by force of arms, I saw the royal banners of your Highnesses placed on the towers of Alfambra,[89-1] which is the fortress of that city, and I saw the Moorish King come forth from the gates of the city and kiss the royal hands of your Highnesses, and of the Prince my Lord, and presently in that same month, acting on the information that I had given to your Highnesses touching the lands of India, and respecting a Prince who is called Gran Can, ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... this: A Moorish king, who had entertained with great hospitality a British captain trafficking on the coast of Africa, reposed such confidence in him, as to intrust him with his son, about eighteen years of age, and another sprightly youth, to be brought to England ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... too true," the captain said. "Those are the galleys of the Moorish corsairs. They are thirty or forty oars, draw but little water, and will be ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... 1415 a Portuguese fleet, crossing to the northern point opposite Gibraltar, took and plundered the fortress and city of Ceuta. It was on this occasion, and subsequently in 1418, that Prince Henry gained from Moorish prisoners reliable information of the rich caravan trade from the Senegal and Gambia Rivers, and from the Gold and Ivory Coasts on the Gulf of Guinea, to Timbuctoo, and across the desert to Ceuta and ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... different character from whatever else I have seen of Norman architecture. The circular ornaments inserted in the spandrils of the arches of the choir, possess, as a friend of mine observes, somewhat of the Moorish, or, perhaps, Tartarian character; being nearly in the style of the ornaments which are found in the same situation in the Mogul mosques and tombs, though here they have much more flow and harmony in the curves. Some are merely in bas-relief: in others the central circles ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... djebba were turned back, disclosing two enormous, shapeless arms, laden with bracelets, with long slender chains wandering amid a wilderness of little mirrors, red chaplets, boxes of perfume, microscopic pipes, cigarette cases, the trivial toy-shop display of a Moorish beauty at ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... morning dress of soft dove-coloured merino entirely unadorned, and looking more like a maiden in a romance than ever. She had just left Adeline standing on the steps of a stone cross, exhorting the Provencals to arm against a descent of Moorish corsairs, and she held out her hand to Fitzjocelyn much as Adeline did, when the fantastic Viscount professed his intention of flying instead of fighting, and wanted her to sit ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... draped with cloth of gold and led by Moors, moved in cadence like the grooms by whom they were conducted. Then followed more pages, and a band of trumpeters whose occasional flourishes overpowered the softer instruments of those who marched in front; and finally, twelve Moorish knights, led by the Duc de Nevers,[321] all resplendent with gold and jewels, closed the procession, and fell back to the remaining extremity of the enclosure. A combat then commenced between the knights of Earth and those of Water, first single-handed, then in couples, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... dress for exhibiting a figure, there was a grace and lightness in her carriage, that would have arrested my attention, even had I not been riveted by her countenance. She was on the opposite side of the street to myself, and was attended by an old Moorish woman, who carried an illumined missal. Of these women, several may yet be seen in Malta, looking very Oriental and duenna-like. As I stopped to admire her, she suddenly attempted to cross to the side of the street where I stood. At the same moment, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... dwells, By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades, She may pass on with unblenched majesty, 430 Be it not done in pride, or in presumption. Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece To testify the arms of chastity? 440 Hence ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... Mary's Aisle; it stands surrounded by luxuriant thickets of pine and other trees, a cluster of beautiful Gothic arches supporting a second tier of smaller and more fanciful ones, one or two of which have that light touch of the Moorish in their form which gives such a singular and poetic effect in many of the old Gothic ruins. Out of these wild arches and windows wave wreaths of ivy, and slender harebells shake their blue pendants, looking in and out of the lattices like little ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... slightly higher level, curves the Canal Imperial, 400 years old, and not yet finished; assuredly conceived by a Moorish love of clear water in high places, but left to Spanish enterprise and in completeness ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... Chapel, the church and convent at Belem, and the gardens of the Escola Polytechnica. But a day should certainly be set apart for a trip to Cintra (17m. by rail, trains about every hour). The town (pop. 5000, hotel—Lawrence's) is 1800 ft. above the sea. See the Royal or Moorish Palace in the town, the beautiful Pena Palace and grounds, and the gardens of Sir F. Cook at Villa Montserrate (3m). These last are open daily to visitors who write their names at the entrance lodge. About 15 miles from Cintra is Mafra, with a palace, ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... the doorway of the living room wearing a white burnoose, her pale brown hair caught up in a loose knot, her feet thrust into yellow Moorish slippers much too large for her. In the thin morning sunlight Lawrence, dressed for his journey, was locking a metal trunk. Lilla sat down and fixed her ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... the Moorish kiosk. Number nine went up on the board. It was a waltz tune. The pale girls, the old widow lady, the three Jews lodging in the same boarding-house, the dandy, the major, the horse- dealer, and the gentleman of independent means, all wore the same ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... burnous welit streaming, like the storm-rack o'er the sea, When thou rodest in the vanward of the Moorish chivalry; How thy razzia was a whirlwind, thy onset a simoom, How thy sword-sweep was the lightning, dealing ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Tortosa. This Town is situated on the Side of the River Ebro, over which there is a fair and famous Bridge of Boats. The Waters of this River are always of a dirty red Colour, somewhat fouler than our Moorish Waters; yet is it the only Water the Inhabitants drink, or covet to drink; and every House providing for its own Convenience Cisterns to preserve it in, by a few Hours standing it becomes as clear as the clearest Rock-water, but as soft as Milk. In short, for Softness, Brightness, and ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... with a party of our officers to the house of the Spanish admiral, who had a very pretty niece, and was liberale enough not to frown on us poor heretics. She was indeed a pretty creature: her lovely black eyes, long eyelashes, and raven hair, betrayed a symptom of Moorish blood, at the same time that her ancient family-name and high good-breeding gave her the envied appellation ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... possible bit of sensationalism that could be extracted from tales of passion, she almost never made use of the heroic feats of arms which constituted a no less important resource of the French romances. Her heroes are victors in love but not in war. The sole exception is a little romance of Moorish chivalry in the eighth century. Though this period had already been pre-empted by Mrs. Manley's "Memoirs of Europe," there is little doubt that Mrs. Haywood was responsible for "The Arragonian Queen: A Secret History" (1724), a peculiar blend of heroic adventures in battle, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... march, which marks the beginning of the Second Punic War, started from the banks of the Ebro in the beginning of the summer of 219. His army was 20,000 foot and 12,000 horse, partly Carthaginian, partly Gaul and Iberian. The horsemen were Moorish, and he had thirty-seven elephants. He left his brother Hasdrubal with 10,000 men at the foot of the Pyrenees and pushed on, but he could not reach the Alps before the late autumn, and his passage is one of the greatest wonders of history. Roads there were none, and he had to force his ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Munchausen; but the Berber professes to be nothing more than a novel; or, as the author says in his preface, his principal object has been to tell an agreeable story in an agreeable way. In doing so, however, an eye has been had to the illustration of Moorish manners, customs, history, and geography; to the exemplification of Moorish life as it actually is in Barbary in the present day, and not as it usually appears in the vague and poetic glamour of the common Moorish romance. It has also been an object ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... the brawlers, the drinkers of absinthe and the domino players were sleeping or wasting their time in the darkness over the pastimes of the lewd, when the sybarites were sweating under the smoky arches of the Moorish baths, and the marechale of the dancing-girls sat in her flat-roofed house guarding the jewels and the amulets of her gay confederation. These verses were written both in Arabic and in French, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... Bourrienne, "I believe that I shall have Bernadotte and Moreau against me. But I do not fear Moreau. He is devoid of energy. He prefers military to political power. We shall gain him by the promise of a command. But Bernadotte has Moorish blood in his veins. He is bold and enterprising. He does not like me, and I am certain that he will oppose me. If he should become ambitious he will venture anything. Besides, this fellow is not to be seduced. He is disinterested and clever. But, after all, we have just arrived. ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... the weather cleared somewhat. Edwin, vaguely blissful, but with nothing to occupy him save reflection, sat in the lounge drinking tea at a Moorish table. An old Jew, who was likewise drinking tea at a Moorish table, had engaged him in conversation and was relating the history of a burglary in which he had lost from his flat in Bolton Street, Piccadilly, nineteen gold cigarette-cases and thirty-seven jewelled scarf-pins, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... of the Douglas family. Robert Bruce, on his death-bed, bequeathed his heart to his friend, the good Lord James, to be borne in war against the Saracens. "He joined Alphonso, King of Leon and Castile, then at war with the Moorish chief Osurga, of Granada, and in a keen contest with the Moslems he flung before him the casket containing the precious relic, crying out, 'Onward as thou wert wont, thou noble heart, Douglas will follow thee.' Douglas was slain, but his body was recovered, and ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... Marcos Dias, will give your Grace a flagon and a little flask of Moorish brass workmanship. I send them in order that your Grace may remember this ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... slippery, and arrived in a large plain streaked here and there with verdure; but the turf was so hard and piercing, we could scarcely walk over it without wounding our feet. Our presence in these frightful solitudes put to flight three or four Moorish shepherds, who herded a small flock of sheep and goats in an oasis. At last we arrived at the tents after which we were searching, and found in them three Mooresses and two little children, who did not seem in the least frightened by our visit. A negro servant, belonging to an officer ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... sounded, and Quinones and his nine companions heard mass in the church of St. John at Orbigo, and took possession of the lists in the following fashion: First came the musicians with drums and Moorish fifes, preceded by the judge, Pero Barba. Then followed two large and beautiful horses drawing a cart filled with lances of various sizes pointed with Milan steel. The cart was covered with blue and green trappings embroidered with bay trees and flowers, and on every tree was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... brooklet, moaning slow Through moorish fen in utter loneliness! The partridge cowers beside thy loamy flow In pulseful tremor, when with sudden press The huntsman fluskers through the rustled heather. In March thy sallow buds from vermeil shells Break satin-tinted, ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum

... of the name Morris and the true source of the dance are not to be traced with absolute certainty. Most authorities accept, or assert, that the dance is Moorish in origin: some again bring evidence to show that the English Morris (or Morrice) owed nothing whatever to the Moors. Still, the weight of testimony must be held to show Morocco as the fount and origin, no matter if the genius of our own folk—so very far removed from anything native ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp

... described, the former censuring with great scorn the frequent attempts which he observed towards an imitation of the costume of the East, and appealing with self-complacence to his own superior representation, as he greeted, in Moorish and in Persic, the several turban'd figures who passed his way; while the clergyman, whose mind seemed to labour with some weighty and important project, looked in every direction for the fair representative of Helena, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... ancients, their ways, and manners, that I felt, when I went home to Naples, and its lazaroni, and its English travellers, as I suppose, that one of the seven sleepers to have done, who went to purchase bread with money five centuries old. As to the marble cities of Moorish Africa, when we consider their exposure to the sirocco, and read Dolomieu's Experiments on the Atmosphere, during the prevalence of that wind at Malta, we shall find but too probable a reason for their ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... pigs and fowls and dried fish from the sea, and other things the produce of the country, of which I do not know the name; and in like manner a fair is held every day in different parts of the city. At the end of this street is the Moorish quarter, which is at the very end of the city, and of these Moors there are many who are natives of the country[416] and who are paid by the king and belong to his guard. In this city you will find men belonging to every nation and people, because of the great trade which ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell



Words linked to "Moorish" :   moor, type of architecture, architectural style, style of architecture



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