Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Sleek   /slik/   Listen
Sleek

verb
(past & past part. sleeked;pres. part. sleeking)
1.
Make slick or smooth.  Synonym: slick.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Sleek" Quotes from Famous Books



... French window opening upon the veranda, as if to secure a retreat in case of an emergency. Scrupulously washed and shaven, some of the soap appeared to have lingered in his eyes and inflamed the lids, even while it lent a sleek and shining lustre, not unlike his coat, to his smooth black hair. Nevertheless, leaning back in his chair, he had allowed a large white handkerchief to depend gracefully from his fingers—a pose at once suggesting ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... thing, yes. The normal being is sleek by nature. It's only when he cramps himself that he gets wrinkled. Cramps himself, I say. Cramping from an outside source never has much effect upon him, unless he chooses to have it. No; that's not Christian Science; ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... distinction in my favour from other rakes; who, almost to a man, follow their inclinations without troubling themselves about consequences. In imitation, as one would think, of the strutting villain of a bird, which from feathered lady to feathered lady pursues his imperial pleasures, leaving it to his sleek paramours to hatch the genial product in holes and corners ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... still insisted, still commanded, but he could not move her. At last he gave it up and turned her over for the day's inquest to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities—Beaupere, a doctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first remark—flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any unwatchful person ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... Medlicot's Mill. He rode the nine miles in an hour, and at once entered the building in which the canes were crushed. The first man he met was Nokes, who acted as overseer, having a gang of Polynesian laborers under him—sleek, swarthy fellows from the South Sea Islands, with linen trowsers on and nothing else—who crept silently among the vats and machinery, shifting the ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope

... short, slim figure in white linen European clothes bore no resemblance to the tall Arab she had expected to see. She thought her footsteps were noiseless, but he turned with a little quick bow. A typical Frenchman with narrow, alert, clean-shaven face, sleek black hair and dark restless eyes. His legs were slightly bowed and he stooped a little; his appearance was that of a jockey with the manners of a well-trained servant. Diana coloured hotly under his glance, but his eyes were ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... now deep in slumber, moved occasionally,—grunted, sighed, or twitched his legs in dreams. Smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm, black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of his sleek sides. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head and body joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin nose and a tiny tip of pink tongue betrayed ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... the bench was occupied by Timothy, sleek and complacent, with a snowy breast and white paws. After old Robert had taken a mouthful of anything he gave a piece to Timothy, who ate it ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... by what right?—how dared you come to this house, and lay hands on this woman? Who has ordained that she should suffer for you? You array yourself in fine linen, and set out, sleek and happy, for the home where your mistress languishes; you throw yourself upon the cushions where she has just knelt in prayer, for you and for her, and you gently stroke those delicate hands that still tremble. You think it no evil to inflame a poor heart, and you ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... A sleek gray-faced prairie wolf! his pointed black nose tucked in between his four feet drawn snugly together; his handsome bushy tail wound over his nose and feet; a coyote fast asleep in the shadow of a bunch of grass!—this is what Iktomi spied. Carefully he raised one ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa

... Suddenly shots were heard, and a great shout went up from the Indian camp; then forth came Red Cloud, in all his war paint and eagle feathers, followed by other warriors; and carefully led in the middle of the procession was the famous buckskin cayuse, sleek, clean-limbed, but decorated with eagle feathers in mane and tail, with furry danglers on his fetlocks and a large red hand painted on each shoulder and hip. He had no saddle and was led with an ordinary ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... this land of difficulties survives with a zeal and vitality which only proves the strength of the obstacles overcome. The flies, the mosquitoes, and the rats are proofs. We have none of your meek little wharf rats here. Ours are brazen imps, sleek and shameless, undaunted by cats or men. Their footmarks are as big as those of young puppies (withal not too well-fed puppies), and their raids on man and beast alike ally them with the horde Pandora loosed. Each day the toll mounts. One morning Miss Perrin, ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... would have to keep away from the Throgs, which meant well away from the camp. A fleck of green showed through the amethyst foliage before him—the lake! Shann wriggled through a last bush barrier and stood to look out over that surface. A sleek brown head bobbed up. Shann put fingers to his mouth and whistled. The head turned, black button eyes regarded him, short legs began to churn water. To his gratification the swimmer was obeying ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... sleek bird of Paradise had been donated by Miss Caron, of the adjoining chateau. There was also a newly-patented bird- trap, sent by a New York firm, in the days of Boss Tweed, Conolly, Field and other birds ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... said Josh, shaking his head, a way of denoting dissatisfaction, in which Simon joined him; for no crime appeared sufficiently grave in the eyes of these two sleek and well-fed officials to justify such a punishment. "Dat mons'ous bad, and cap'in ought to know better dan do dat. I nebber starves a mouse, if I catches him in de bread-locker. Now, dat a sort of reason'ble punishment, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... reply. He noticed that she was very bright, and clung to her husband affectionately. He did not like Kolia's befrizzled and pomaded head, and when his eye fell on Kollomietzev, thought, "What a sleek individual." He paid no attention to the others. Sipiagin turned his head once or twice in a dignified manner, as if looking round at his worldly belongings, a pose that set off to perfection his long drooping whiskers and somewhat small round neck. Then he shouted ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... pointed out that where the saloons were openly vaunting themselves disdainful of public decency, the public was in immediate process of wiping out the saloons. Which citation of fact caused a cold chill to permeate the spines of the liquor interests, and led the large, sleek leader of that clan to make a surpassingly polite and friendly call upon Hal, who, rather to his surprise, found that he liked the man very much. They had parted, indeed, on hearty terms and the understanding that ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... altogether for about twenty minutes. Now for the first time since my capture I hated the enemy. The simple, valiant burghers at the front, fighting bravely as they had been told 'for their farms,' claimed respect, if not sympathy. But here in Pretoria all was petty and contemptible. Slimy, sleek officials of all nationalities—the red-faced, snub-nosed Hollander, the oily Portuguese half-caste—thrust or wormed their way through the crowd to look. I seemed to smell corruption in the air. Here were the creatures who had fattened on the spoils. There in ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... we see old Darkness peer, Cold Dissolution beck, she had flung hence; And hence the talons and the beak of prey; Hence all the lures to silken swine Thronging the troughs of indolence; With every sleek convolvement serpentine; The pride in elfin arts to veil an evil leer, And bid a goatfoot trip it like a fay. He clasped in this revived, uprisen France, A valorous dame, of countenance The lightning's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... flows the Missouri. Indeed, there are many such—big, impassive, impressive in their very loneliness, in summer given over to the winds and the meadow larks and to the shadows fleeing always over the hilltops. Wild range cattle feed there and grow sleek and fat for the fall shipping of beef. At night the coyotes yap quaveringly and prowl abroad after the long-eared jack rabbits, which bounce away at their hunger-driven approach. In winter it is not good to be there; even ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... slopes below lay the herds that belonged to it, sleek fat cattle, guarded carelessly by a few lazy and desultory riders. Courtrey was too secure in his insolent might to take those rigid and untiring precautions which were the only price of safety to the lesser men of the community. Toward the south where the ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... notwithstanding their heavy and unwieldy appearance, which for a short time completely distanced the horses. But this speed could not be continued, and the Major and Alexander soon found themselves rapidly coming up. The poor animals exerted themselves in vain; their sleek coats first turned to a blue colour, and then white with foam and perspiration, and at last they, were beaten to a stand-still, and were brought down by the rifles of our travellers, who then dismounted their horses, and walked up ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... macadamize; polish, burnish, calender^, glaze; iron, hot-press, mangle; lubricate &c (oil) 332. Adj. smooth; polished &c v.; leiodermatous^, slick, velutinous^; even; level &c 213; plane &c (flat) 251; sleek, glossy; silken, silky; lanate^, downy, velvety; glabrous, slippery, glassy, lubricous, oily, soft, unwrinkled^; smooth as glass, smooth as ice, smooth as monumental alabaster, smooth as velvet, smooth as oil; slippery as an eel; woolly &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Jason in search of a golden fleece. "Is this the garden of the Hesperides?" I asked myself, for nothing seemed more unreal than the golden fruit hanging like balls of yellow worsted among dark and sleek leaves; it reminded me of the fruit I used to see when I was a child under glass shades in lodging-houses, but I knew, nevertheless, that I was looking upon orange trees, and that the golden fruit growing ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... des Ambassadeurs was rapidly filling when they entered and made their way to the table reserved for them. With keen interest Esther looked about her at the groups of sleek, well-dressed people, English, French, Russian, Italian. There was a large party of Americans who had crossed on the same boat with Roger. Their voices rang out, their R's smacked of the Middle-West, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... heard of his promotion, His eyes grew like two stars for bliss: There was a bow of sleek devotion 685 Engendering in his back; each motion Seemed a Lord's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... grew still and there was quiet, a quiet that every minute grew deeper so that the noisiest youngster grew round-eyed and the fat sleek horses moved never a hoof. And then, sweet and soft through the waiting, hushed air, came the notes of Major Rand's cornet. He was playing for his comrades as he had played at Shiloh, at Chickamauga and many another place in the ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... increased gradually, until he was careering around the arena in circles, which became shorter and shorter, until he came to a halt in the centre of the vast place. Then after a few more gentle words and light pats upon the sleek neck, he bent over and suddenly drew the rein. Once, twice, three times he gave that sharp pull, but the horse stood steadfast. Turning in his saddle, he said something to the troopers who had drawn near him, and then ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... and high, Draw his blue and humid eye; Draw his neck so smooth and round, Little neck with ribbons bound! And the muscly swelling breast, Where the Loves and Graces rest; And the spreading even back, Soft, and sleek, and glossy black; And the tail that gently twines, Like the tendrils of the vines; And the silky twisted hair, Shadowing thick the velvet ear; Velvet ears, which, hanging low, O'er the veiny temples flow. With a proper light and shade, Let ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... blemish, and he wore a creaseless black frock coat and a waistcoat of brown broadcloth. And as he stood looking up at his tall visitors, head on one side, he reminded them of nothing so much as a sleek cock-robin who had just dined to his taste. He seemed to ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller

... The sleek, lean warship was knifing the waters at 22 knots. It was like looking at a picture—a moving picture—and all was beautifully distinct. Our commander consulted a card, decided the speed of the warship, and then again propped ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall

... rows, stand the apple trees whose bright blossoms in the spring make the landscape so beautiful and whose fruit in the fall serves so richly for our enjoyment. A little farther on, a pasture is filled with sleek-coated cows, feeding quietly and patiently until the evening when they will return to their stalls to yield their rich milk. Still farther on lies a tract of forest. The varied shades of the beeches, the tulip poplars and the chestnuts make an exquisite contrast and give to the ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... And question'd every gust of rugged wings That blows from off each beaked promontory: They knew not of his story; And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd; The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd. It was that fatal and perfidious bark Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... thus roaming without a master over the boundless wastes of the Cordilleras, the Peruvian peasant was never allowed to hunt these wild animals, which were protected by laws as severe as were the sleek herds that grazed on the more cultivated slopes of the plateau. The wild game of the forest and the mountain was as much the property of the government, as if it had been inclosed within a park, or penned within a fold.7 It was only on stated occasions, at the great hunts, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... o'clock on the Great Day a huge crowd had assembled, including visitors, parents, old boys, and quite a number of Pressmen. Pennybet arrived, invested with all the sleek majesty that Sandhurst could give him: and, seeking out Doe and myself, he lent us the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... either vainly hacking at them with their sabres, or leaning from their saddles and as vainly attempting to grip the brutes. Grip there was none to be had. These were smugglers' horses, clipped to the skin, with houghed manes, and tails and bodies sleek with soft soap. Nor did the dragoons waste more trouble upon them, but charged forward and down upon the ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... girl with a delightful face, Washed with the rosy spring, how fresh you look In the easy stride of your sleek slenderness, Why ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes

... kept five or six friars of his order," says Gonzalo de Oviedo, "in his palace with him, and as many asses in his stables; but the latter all grew sleek and fat, for the archbishop would not ride himself, nor allow his brethren to ride ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... crowded with horsemen and carriages, country squires and their sons, gentlemen-farmers on sleek hunters, and humbler tenant-farmers on their stiff cobs, butchers and innkeepers, all eager for the chase. All was life, gaiety excitement, noise; the hounds, giving forth occasional howls and snappish yelpings, expressive of an impatience that was almost beyond endurance; the huntsman cracking ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... Her proceedings having excited attention, she was followed by two men, in one of her nocturnal retreats, and traced to the top of a wheat stack, at some distance. On obtaining a ladder, her surviving kitten was found, in a curiously constructed hole, sleek and plump, but as wild as a young tiger, and would allow no one to touch it. A few days afterwards, the mother finding, perhaps, that her own daily journeys were rather fatiguing, or thinking it was time that the object ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... were things which might have been conceived by demons. They were sleek, rat-like creatures, hairless, and large as ponies. Red saliva dripped from the corners of their sharp jaws. But in the eyes, which they raised now and then toward the grill, there was intelligence. These were the morgels, watchdogs and slaves of ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North

... fault!" she concluded, shaking her sleek, black head at the Lockwood twins. "You bumped right ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison

... have," resumed Mrs Jane, ignoring the scandalised tone of her sister Maiden: "and that's just Nancy Furnival. She's as sleek in the coat as ever a Barbary mare. But you'll not get her along the road to Tewkesbury, without you make her think you want to drive her to Gloucester. I heard plenty of folks pitying Madam when she bolted. My word!—but I pitied somebody ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... as people of one family could be. The gentle, saintly Mary Carvel had little in common with her aesthetic sister Chrysophrasia Dabstreak, and neither of them was very like Madame Patoff. Sturdy John Carvel was not like his sleek son Macaulay, except in honesty and good-nature. Alexander Patoff was indeed like his mother, but Paul's stern, cold nature was that of his father, long dead and forgotten. As for Hermione, she presented ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... spinning wheel. There was no money on the table, nothing but piles of chips of various denominations. Another thing that surprised me as I looked was that the tense look on the faces of the players was anything but the feverish, haggard gaze I had expected. In fact, they were sleek, well-fed, typical prosperous New-Yorkers rather inclined to the noticeable in dress and carrying their avoirdupois as if life was an easy game with them. Most of them evidently belonged to the financial and society classes. There were no ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... could not help regarding as the head of the order. He was a noble looking man, in the prime of his life, and of a most benignant aspect. The authority this man, whose name was Kolory, seemed to exercise over the rest, the episcopal part he took in the Feast of Calabashes, his sleek and complacent appearance, the mystic characters which were tattooed upon his chest, and above all the mitre he frequently wore, in the shape of a towering head-dress, consisting of part of a cocoanut branch, the stalk planted uprightly on his brow, and the leaflets gathered together and passed ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... no doubt, to get some notion of what sort of presents they would ultimately be expected to give; for though the question of wedding gifts was usually graduated in this way: 'What are you givin'? Nicholas is givin' spoons!'—so very much depended on the bridegroom. If he were sleek, well-brushed, prosperous-looking, it was more necessary to give him nice things; he would expect them. In the end each gave exactly what was right and proper, by a species of family adjustment arrived at as prices are arrived at on the Stock Exchange—the exact niceties being regulated at ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... we have seen Arick? Yes, your mother saw him at the head of a gang of boys, and looking fat, and sleek, and well-to-do. I have an idea that he misbehaved here because he was homesick for the other Black Boys, and didn't know how else to get back to them. Well, he has got them now, and I hope he likes it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... him and he rode off. Molly, the lariat twisted about her upper body from shoulders to waist, constricting her arms, fastened where she could not reach it by a hitch, sat on Blaze, looking with steady contempt at Plimsoll, who held her bridle rein. He regarded her with sleek complacency and then his eyes slowly traveled over her rounded figure, ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... not speak. A tantalizing smile broke over her face, and she stretched her beautiful body lazily in her chair, as a well-conditioned animal stirs in sleek, physical contentment. ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... Johnny McSwiggins, but the rest of them were silent, gazing at this transformed and glorified Sweetheart, while Mary laid her head against the sleek neck and murmured love names to her dear ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... taken time to tone down the pioneer and develop the deacon in his style, and a very sleek personage he had made of himself. He was clean shaved: clean shaving is a favorite coxcombry of the deacon class. His long black hair, growing rank from a muddy skin, was sleekly put behind his ears. A large white blossom of cravat expanded under his nude, beefy chin, and he wore a black dress-coat, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... neighbour on my right So sleek, so prosperously clad! What see you in that aged wight That makes your smile so gay and glad? What opportunity unmissed? What golden gain, what pride of place? What splendid hope? O Optimist! What read you ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... rubies, flowed in ample length, Like sparkles o'er Tahathyam's beauteous hand. The reptiles, in their fearful beauty, drew, As if from love, like steeds of Araby; Like blood of lady's lip their scarlet hue; Their scales so bright and sleek, 'twas pleasure but to see, With open mouths, as proud to show the bit, They raise their heads, and arch their necks—(with eye As bright as if with meteor fire 'twere lit;) And dart their barbed tongues, 'twixt fangs of ivory. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... have very brown firm Shells, and when the Kernel is taken out, it ought to be plump, well nourish'd, and sleek; of the Colour of a Hazle-Nut on the outside, but more inclining to a Red within; its Taste a little bitter and astringent, not at all sour or mouldy[z]. In a word, without ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus

... While they were gone, Jack and I climbed after more pine gum, and succeeded in getting five or six pounds for future use. As I was descending along a terrace, Jack being some distance behind and above, a fine, large mountain sheep, sleek and clean, with beautiful strong horns, sprang along four or five hundred feet from me, and stopped in full view listening to Jack's footsteps. I had no gun, and could only admire him till ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... black-bearded head, a flat nose, and his tongue hung from his mouth and waggled as he moved. He wore a belt and a necklace, and nothing else whatever except the plumes of the hawk arranged as a head-dress: and he rode upon a great sleek ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... peacefulness was soothing to the eye and the spirit. Along the stretch of the hollow the land was parcelled into meadows and tilth of varied hue. Here was a great patch of warm grey soil, where horses were drawing the harrow; yonder the same work was being done by sleek black oxen. Where there was pasture, its chalky-brown colour told of the nature of the earth which produced it. A vast oblong running right athwart the far side of the valley had just been strewn with loam; it ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... always did come back, glowing, dripping, laughing, her head as sleek as a young seal's, salt upon her lips and on her wave-whipped cheek. Spence, whose swims were shorter and more sedate, ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... conventional religion, the thin security of self-satisfied morality, can now no more tease us with their sleek impertinence. In the presence of a venture of this high distinction, of a faith of this tragic intensity, such shabby counterfeits of the race's hope dwindle and pale ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... their artless delight than so many children. They laughed and giggled nervously. They gesticulated as they talked, and shrugged their pretty shoulders with a grace taught them by our Spanish predecessors. They patted imaginary stray hairs into place in their sleek black coiffures, and settled camisa or panuela with indescribably quick and bird-like movements. Those of them who could speak Spanish talked clothes and babies and servants, or smiled politely at our mistakes in the language, laughing out-right at their own futile efforts to ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... busied, heard the sound Of rustling leaves, but minded not, as used To such disport before her through the field, From every beast; more duteous at her call, Than at Circean call the herd disguised. He, bolder now, uncalled before her stood, But as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed His turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck, Fawning; and licked the ground whereon she trod. His gentle dumb expression turned at length The eye of Eve, to mark his play; he, glad Of her attention gained, with serpent-tongue Organic, or impulse of vocal air, His ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... is not imposing in aspect, for there are no mountains; yet its appearance is not without attractions. It is a park checkered by pleasant highways and avenues. A handsome carriage, drawn by a sleek pair of New Holland horses, carried Phileas Fogg and Aouda into the midst of rows of palms with brilliant foliage, and of clove-trees, whereof the cloves form the heart of a half-open flower. Pepper plants replaced the prickly ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... the court, on the ensuing morning—"Will your Lordship allow me," rose and inquired the sleek, smiling, and portly Mr. Subtle, dead silence prevailing as soon as he had mentioned the name of the cause about which he was inquiring, "to mention a cause of Doe on the demise of Titmouse v. Jolter—a special jury cause, in which there are ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... beyond. The very air was still and listening to His words; from under jagged boulders tiny lizards peeped out, and on the branches of starved, gaunt trees the birds had stopped to rest. Then it was that panther-like, sleek sleuth-hounds hovered round Him, trying to entangle Him in His talk. They made their way close to Him, and with honeyed words and deft insinuations, spoke of allegiance and of the tribute due to Caesar. I stood not far off and could ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... adapted by her native logic to fit within the bounds of possibility,—though I must admit they bulged here and there and threatened to overlap and to encroach upon the impossible. Over the hills where her father's vast herds grazed, sleek and wild and long-horned and prone to stampede, galloped the Lorraine of Lorraine's dreams, on horses sure-footed and swift. With her galloped strong men whose faces limned the features of ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... management. 'I object,' says Mr. J.P. Hamilton, 'if I take a little run in the summer vacation to Paris or Brussels, to meet a greasy-looking gentleman from Whitechapel or the Minories, turned out sleek and shining from Moses', and to be told by him that he has a large property in Hireland, in a place called Derry, and that his tenantry are an industrious, thriving set of fellows, quite remarkable for their intelligence, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... cried she, "I am glad to see you again. I need not ask you how you are, you look so extremely sleek and prosperous. Adrian's wide acres are succulent, hey? I should have known you anywhere; though to be sure, you are hardly large enough for the breed, you have the true Landale stamp on you, the unmistakable Landale style of feature. Semper eadem. In that sense, at least, one ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... the great statesman who sate in the corner, with an evening paper propped up on a silver dish, and some iced compound bubbling pleasantly in his glass, smiling benignly at a caricature of himself. He, at all events, paid for his comforts by unremitting labour. But what of the sleek and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... across the floor together, her small sleek head came just above his shoulder. No embarrassment disturbed her manner. Keith could not find in him a spark of resentment against her. She moved by his side with an air of poise and detachment as a woman whose mind had long since weighed and settled the affairs of her ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... But what she did not enjoy was the rather too jovial comradeship that followed on the part of the men and women her father associated with. He was a good liver and a good spender, and he liked to have about him such persons-men "sleek and fat," who if they did not "sleep o' nights," at least had the happy faculty of turning night into day for ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... since an English pig has fallen in a fair battle upon English ground, or a farm-house been rifled, or a clergyman's wife been subjected to any other proposals of love than the connubial endearments of her sleek and orthodox mate. The old edition of Plutarch's Lives, which lies in the corner of your parlour window, has contributed to work you up to the most romantic expectations of our Roman behaviour. You are persuaded that ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights; Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much—such ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... sleek-sided lorry horses in Hunt and Carton's yard, and I recall precisely the odour of the place as I passed through it that morning; the heavy, flat wads of blue-wrapped paper, and the fluttering bits of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... What right have those sleek, pampered hunters and racers to their warm stables and high feed, their grooms and jockeys? It is really heart-sickening to think of it,' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... before his eyes. It was a fascinating roll of fat. A man could get his hand upon it and tear away one side of the neck; or he could place the muzzle of a rifle on it and blow away all the head in a flash. Losson had no right to be sleek and contented and well-to-do, when he, Simmons, was the butt of the room, Some day, perhaps, he would show those who laughed at the "Simmons, ye so-oor" joke, that he was as good as the rest, and held a man's life in the crook ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... COULD—and run, run, to freedom?" She grew quite melodramatic over the humiliation of the horse she had chosen to champion, and glared resentfully when Chip threw his saddle, with no gentle hand, upon the sleek back and tightened the cinches with a few ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... felt cold within him at that moment. If he had worn broadcloth and a smile, how different the popular verdict might have been. Who then would have said that he was a villain? Certainly not yonder sleek minister of Christ who was humming a psalm tune a moment ago, and paused to whisper, "Be sure your sin will find you out." The black-coated Pharisee was handing a lady into ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... been consulted in the matter he probably would have preferred not to have that particular footman exhumed. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Sir John Bankes would scarcely have been heard of in our young century if it had not been for his footman. As Robert stood day by day, sleek and solemn, behind his master's chair in Corfe Castle, how little it entered into the head of Sir John that his highly respectable name would be served up to posterity—like a cold relish—by his own ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... arrived at Paint Lick and were met at the station by Mr. and Mrs. Saylor, Sr. in the family carriage drawn by two sleek black mules; and Mr. and Mrs. Saylor, Jr. in ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... graceful, incessantly active flashed the marten. Along a log it raced in undulating leaps; in the middle it stopped as though frozen, to gaze intently into a bed of sedge; with three billowy bounds its sleek form reached the sedge, flashed in and out again with a mouse in its snarling jaws; a side leap now, and another squeaker was squeakless, and another. The three were slain, then thrown aside, as the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... of the two front doors a black boy came directly out to take the bridle; and behind him skipped a wiry shaven person, whose sleek crown was partly covered by a Madras handkerchief, the common headgear of humble Kaskaskians. His feet clogged their lightness with a pair of the wooden shoes manufactured for slaves. A sleeved blanket, made with a hood which lay back on his shoulders, almost covered him, and ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... did not reply at once. He seated himself, curled his tail into a graceful ring around his paws—and stared at the boy. It was a large black cat with one white spot on his chest. His fur lay sleek and soft, and shone in the sunlight. The claws were drawn in, and the eyes were a dull gray, with just a little narrow dark streak down the centre. The cat looked thoroughly ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... in his time plays many animals. Hardie at this period turned mole. He burrowed darkling into oes alienum. There is often one of these sleek miners in a bank: it is a section of human zoology the journals have lately enlarged on, and drawn the painstaking creature grubbing and mining away to brief opulence—and briefer penal servitude than one ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... his tawny head, the lion, and O'Brien behind the bar, a shaggy bear, and the deputy marshal a wolverine, fat but dangerous, and here stood a man as ugly and hardened as a desert cayuse, and there was Dan Barry, sleek and supple as a panther; but among the rest this whimsical observer must have noticed a fellow of prodigious height and negligible breadth, a structure of sinews and bones that promised to rattle ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... the folk there, waiters and customers, the idle and the busy, he quickly decided that there was only one man who possessed particular interest for him. That man was the big, smiling, frock-coated, sleek-haired patron or proprietor, who strode up and down, beaming and nodding, sharp-eyed and courteous, and whom Selwood, from a glance at the emblazoned lettering of the bill-of-fare, took to rejoice in ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... two horses were grazing. They were sleek, shiny, long-maned, long-tailed, black as coal, and, though old, still ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... Buckley was a hale hearty yeoman, of a ruddy and cheerful countenance. A few wrinkles were puckered below the eyes; the rest of his face was sleek and comfortably disposed. A beard, once thick and glossy, was grown grey and thin, curling up short and stunted round his portly chin. Two bright twinkling eyes gave note of a stirring and restless temper—too sanguine, maybe, for success in the great and busy world, and not fitted either ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... let this annual election go on undisturbed. Smile and keep your counsel. Let this sleek ferret Ferris, go on and marry the girl, for I, alone, can aid you. Worthington fears me. I know too much of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... compromised, as he faced about to his friend, by the way this very personage looked—though the case would of course have been worse hadn't the secret of personal magnificence been at every hour Chad's unfailing possession. There he was in all the pleasant morning freshness of it—strong and sleek and gay, easy and fragrant and fathomless, with happy health in his colour, and pleasant silver in his thick young hair, and the right word for everything on the lips that his clear brownness caused to show as red. He had never struck Strether as ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... sea-breeze—the sight of the slanting sunbeams glancing through the boles and branches of the venerable trees dotted here and there in clumps along the roadside; of the verdant hedges with their rich clusters of delicate dog-roses and trailing honeysuckle or wild convolvulus; of the groups of sleek cattle feeding in the fields, contemplatively chewing the cud under the shade of some over-hanging tree, or browsing along the roadside; of the knots of rosy, sun-tanned children playing about the village-roads or on the green, and turning to stand open-mouthed and stare at the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... a muffler to tie round my neck and lower part of my face and, with that greasy hat pulled down over my eyes and in those worn and shrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, the very antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had entered the flat half ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... remarks, appears to have gone back a generation, and to have resembled the jackal much more than their mother, whose appearance, with the exception of the very sharp muzzle, although she had so much jackal blood, was that of a sleek, well-fed pariah dog, colour yellow fawn, but her gait and gallop were precisely that of ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... spectacle of some minor ship of war—a truculent, gray destroyer as like as not—shepherding in a sleek submarine, like a felon whale armoured and strangely caparisoned in gray-brown steel, to be moored in chains with a considerable company of its fellows on the far side of the roadstead, while its crew was taken ashore and consigned to ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... of tables and bearing straight down upon them, came a strange apparition. With unsteady gait, his hand stretched out in caution before him and a watery smile upon his lips, came Uncle Buzz. An incongruously picturesque figure amidst smartness and glitter. His head was as sleek as ever and he had waxed the tips of his moustaches so that they stuck out jauntily as did the tips of his black bow tie. But his jacket was short and rusty and in need of pressing, of which fact he seemed blissfully ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... days in Brier Dale after he came out of the woods. The filly was now a sleek and shapely animal, past three years of age. He began at once breaking her to the saddle, and, that done, mounting, he started for Robin's Inn. He carried a game rooster in a sack for the boy Tom. ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... Sleepy?" said Jesse, going up to the sleek big white mule that stood with drooping head, the stalk of a thistle hanging out of a corner of his mouth. "He's fat and strong, isn't he? What makes him look so sad? And aren't you afraid he'll run away? He hasn't even a ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... at some centrally located church for a series of meetings lasting a week. It is really a social as well as a religious function. The people come in great numbers, making the trip, according to their financial status, in buggies drawn by sleek, fleet-footed mules, in ox-carts, or on foot. It was amusing to see some of the latter class trudging down the hot and dusty road, with their shoes, which were brand-new, strung across their shoulders. ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far out on the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... for so long that her father had lost his magnificent running start by the time she sauntered in all sleek and shiny and asked for her food. She brought a radiant grace into the dull gray room; and Serina whispered to Will to let ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... shook his head, laughed, embraced him, promised a return of good when the great stream made it possible, and set forth upon his further travel. The horse looked sleek, almost fat. The Scot's jaded wardrobe was cleaned, mended, refreshed. Living with Don Fernando were an elder sister and an ancient cousin who had fallen in love with the big, handsome Don, traveling so oddly. These had set hand-maidens to work, with the result that Ian ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... rear in a motor car, after the manner that more prudent Generals use. He has iron-gray hair and a bristly, close-cropped mustache to match, and a very florid complexion, and looks absolutely unlike the sleek individual whose photograph was published with his obituary notice in the London press while the forts of Liege were still "holding ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... bravely through the ceremony as the father of the bride, and bore himself with his usual massive, rude dignity. But he inwardly winced as he saw Elga, looking very stately and beautiful in her bride's veil, towering half a head above the sleek-haired little clerk. Not a few of the company smiled at the contrast, but she had no other feeling than perfect ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... astonishingly short space of time, she was dressed and downstairs, presenting her usual sleek and polished appearance. Wickham was alone in the drawing-room, and a suggestion that they should have another game of piquet quickly drove him to the writing of some purely ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... a bumper of whisky and refilling his pipe, he cleared his throat and began: "As a boy I always hated cats—God knows why—but the sight of a cat made me sick. I could not stand their soft, sleek fur; nor their silly, senseless faces; nor their smell—the smell of their skins, which most people don't seem able to detect. I could, however; I could recognise that d——d scent a mile off, and could ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... born of paganism; but how slowly, and with what fantastic and ludicrous results at first; as when the anatomical sculptor Pollaiolo gives scenes of naked Roman prize-fighters as martyrdoms of St. Sebastian; or when the pious Perugino (pious at least with his brush) dresses up his sleek, hectic, beardless archangels as Roman warriors, and makes them stand, straddling beatically on thin little dapper legs, wistfully gazing from beneath their wondrously ornamented helmets on the walls of the Cambio at Perugia; when he masquerades meditative ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... I liked him. If I didn't, I'm afraid I shouldn't," said Ferris; but he saw that his levity jarred upon her. "Come, Miss Vervain, you're not going to look at those fat monks and sleek priests in the procession to-morrow as so many incorporate tragedies, are you? You'll spoil my pleasure if you do. I dare say they'll be all of them devout believers, accepting everything, down to the animalcula ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... and apparently unattended camera came a steady, portentous view of the rocket ... sleek and so incredibly slim that Jordan wondered why on Earth it didn't simply topple over and be done ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy

... a fat, sleek Rat was caught in a shower of rain, and being far from shelter he set to work and soon dug a nice hole in the ground, in which he sat as dry as a bone while the raindrops splashed outside, making little puddles on ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten



Words linked to "Sleek" :   bright, polish, smooth, smoothen, groomed, shine



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com