Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Soiled   /sɔɪld/   Listen
Soiled

adjective
1.
Soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime.  Synonyms: dirty, unclean.  "A child in dirty overalls" , "Dirty slums" , "Piles of dirty dishes" , "Put his dirty feet on the clean sheet" , "Wore an unclean shirt" , "Mining is a dirty job" , "Cinderella did the dirty work while her sisters preened themselves"



Related search:



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





"Soiled" Quotes from Famous Books



... only been taken away. Still, I must be calm and patient, find its hiding-place, and recover it by force or cunning. And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked about me, wondering where I could bathe. I felt weary, stiff, and travel-soiled. The freshness of the morning made me desire an equal freshness. I had exhausted my emotion. Indeed, as I went about my business, I found myself wondering at my intense excitement overnight. I made a careful examination ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... reached the Nila Mahal, or Blue Palace, as His Highness's residence was called, with its iron-studded gates, carved doors, and countless wooden balconies. A swarm of retainers in magnificent, if soiled, gold-laced liveries filled the courtyards, and bare-footed sepoys in red coats, generally burst at the seams and lacking buttons, and old shakoes with white cotton flaps hanging down ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... and deliquescent Puritanism Bernard Shaw has always been the antagonist; and the only respect in which it has soiled him was that he believed for only too long that such sloppy idealism was the whole idealism of Christendom and so used "idealist" itself as a term of reproach. But there were other and negative effects ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... he came balancing around, with his plug hat on the back of his head, his spectacles hanging over his nose, and grasping his gold-headed cane about the center with his left hand, and still retaining in his right hand a soiled napkin which he had brought from the table and mistaken for his handkerchief, he came balancing up to his partner with a regular Highland-fling step, a most fascinating and bewitching smile on his countenance, and looked her straight in ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... devil's beauty of youth. A common type, one that would not arrest masculine eyes as she passed by. Dozens of the girls there round about might have called her sister. She was dressed with cheap neatness, the soiled white wing of a bird in her black hat being the only touch of bravura. She spoke with the rich ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... in no hurry; he jogged along leisurely, evidently on the lookout for an opportunity to replenish his wardrobe. Truth to say, this needed replenishing—Leslie resembled a scarecrow clad in a suit of soiled pajamas. But by this time most of the shops had their shutters up. When the last one had been left behind O'Reilly spurred his horse into a gallop, relieved to know that the worst ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... plates at the positive pole of the pile (584.), still it is evident that heat can render platina active, which before was inert (595.). The cause of its occasional failure appears to be due to the surface of the metal becoming soiled, either from something previously adhering to it, which is made to adhere more closely by the action of the heat, or from matter communicated from the flame of the lamp, or from the air itself. It often happens that a polished plate of ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... the village-houses, On the long, silent street, Where its plumes are soiled and broken Under ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... at breakfast) were on the South Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back into my carriage—nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon the turn—to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on her wedding day, and Mr Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone's red neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... was an old red handkerchief, inconceivably soiled. The tramp removed it, grumbling and whining. Mifflin gave me the pistol to hold while he tied our prisoner's wrists together. In the meantime we heard a shout from the quarry. The three vagabonds were gazing up in ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... in January that chill one's heart. I awoke on this particular day with a vague feeling of anxiety. It had thawed during the night, and when I cast my eyes over the country from the threshold, it looked to me like an immense dirty grey rag, soiled with mud and rent ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn-door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre-cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the fate of artless maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betrayed, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... that afternoon. She was chanting to herself, "The right wing, well marshaled, led on foremost in good order, and we heard a mighty shout—'Sons of the Greeks! On! Free your country!'" She did not notice that she trod swiftly across a trail of soiled rice in ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... was opened by a young man in a rich but torn and soiled eighteenth-century costume, and he looked, in the half-light of the entrance, as though he was just recovering from a sustained debauch. The young man stared haughtily in silence. Only after an appreciable hesitation did George see through ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... month before he found the letter all crumpled and soiled there where he had placed it. He really had forgotten where it came from. The envelope was opened and out dropped a Bank of England note for one thousand pounds. This note was to pay for certain legal advice. The advice wanted was of a trivial nature, and Disraeli, always conscientious ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... finished speaking when her husband came into the room, and though he had heard nothing, he found the bed all rumpled and tossed about, the quilt dirty and soiled, and looking more like the bed of a bride than ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... wayward will, oftenest within the inclosure with Pani by the hand. The repairs going on interested her. The new soldiers in their Continental blue and buff, most of it soiled and worn, presented quite a contrast to the red and gold of the English to which their eyes had become so accustomed. Now and then some one spoke respectfully to her; there was much outward deference paid to women even if the men were some of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... formality of our own days, if not with more. The guests assembled in gay dresses ornamented with flowers; they took off their shoes, lest the couch, inlaid with ivory, perhaps, or adorned with cloth of gold, should be soiled; and laid themselves down to eat, each one adjusting his napkin carefully, and taking his position according to his relative importance, the middle place being deemed the most honorable. About the tables stood the servants, dressed in the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... the splendid fortune awaiting him. Not that he felt any vocation for commerce, but the instinct of geographical discoveries was dear to him. He had always dreamt of placing his foot where no mortal foot had yet soiled ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... teaspoonfuls to the pint. This should be done carefully at least once a day. If any discharge is present, the boric-acid solution should invariably be used twice a day. Great care is necessary at all times to prevent infection which often arises from soiled napkins. ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... keep your garments always white; for if they be soiled, it is a dishonour to Me. I have a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.' Even in Sardis, with every street and every house full of soil and dishonour to the name of Christ, even ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... you believe, that if that hand of Europe, which you grasp every day, remains dirty, you can escape from soiling your own hands? The cleaner they are, all the more will the filth of old Europe stick to them. There is no possible means to escape from being soiled, than to help us, Europeans, to wash the hands of our ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... No doubt every clergyman in England would tell me the same thing. It is easy to say all that, sir. Wait till you are tried. Wait till all your ambition is to be betrayed, every hope rolled in the dust, till all the honours you have won are to be soiled and degraded, till you are made a mark for general scorn and public pity,—and then tell me how you love the child by whom such ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... him trembling under her touch, and went on with her encouragement. "Think of what you have to offer the woman you love! Most men come to us soiled, with fingerprints on them which the most forgiving wife can never seem to wash quite away. But you—you are as clean as your mother left you.—Look at me, Philip! Yes, I knew it.—And what a home you will make for her! Money ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... night the two monarchs came into collision in Hare Alley (now Hare Court). The Lord of Misrule bade my Lord Mayor come to him, but Palmer, omitting to take off his hat, the halberts flew sharply round him, his subjects were soundly beaten, and he was dragged off to the Compter. There, with soiled finery, the new year's king was kept two days in durance, the attorney-general at last fetching the fallen monarch away in his own coach. At a court masque soon afterwards the king made the two rival potentates join hands; but the King of Misrule had, nevertheless, to refund ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... through it. For all I know, Sibyl may go there—I can't tell her about such things, and she wouldn't believe me if I did. She's an idealist—sees everything through poetry and philosophy. I should be a brute if I soiled her mind. And, I say, old man, why don't your wife and she see more of each other? Is it ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... between two booths, they came out at the back of the rows, where it was comparatively quiet. It gave them greater space to move, but it was not pleasant walking. Every now and then they came across piles of dingy straw, or a bundle of old rags, or odds and ends of soiled draperies, which had become almost too worn out to use, or wooden cases which had seen many journeys, and were overflowing with shavings and paper. This was indeed a contrast to the life and ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... of the finest of white linen and the daintiest of embroideries; lying within it was a broad sash of blue silk, neatly folded together, a pair of tiny, blue silk stockings, and little kid shoes of the same delicate shade; but the shoes and sash, as well as the dress, were soiled and blackened as if they had come in contact ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... done with him and his dirty pack, who feed by "lying and slandering," and slake their thirst by "evil speaking"? I have adduced facts already well known, and of JEFFREY's mind I have stated my free opinion, nor has he thence sustained any injury:—what scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England because I have censured there "persons of honour and wit about town;" but I am coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who know me can testify ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... persons, foreigners or natives, took off their shoes before entering upon their delicately-lacquered or polished floors. This we not only did out of respect to the universal custom of the country, but because one did not feel like treading upon those floors with nailed heels or soiled leather soles. The conviction was forced upon us that such universal neatness and cleanliness must extend even to the moral character of the people. A spirit of gentleness, industry, and thrift was ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... spot where Dawes had been seized the night before. A little stream ran through the garden, and a Triton—of convict manufacture—blew his horn in the middle of a—convict built—rockery. Under the lip of the fountain lay a small packet. Frere picked it up. It was made of soiled yellow cloth, and stitched evidently by a man's fingers. "It looks ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... on the forehead, instead of an eye. The glory surrounding the heads of Tibetan deities is also alluded to by Ermann, who recognises in it the Nimbus of the ancients, used to protect the heads of statues from the weather, and from being soiled by birds; and adds that the glory of the ancient masters in painting was no doubt introduced into the Byzantine school from the Boodhists.] and the Chinese "cloud messenger," or winged dragon, floated in azure and gold along the capitals and beams, amongst scrolls and groups ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... forehead was broad at the base and narrow at the top (which was close to the forehead) and very retreating. The protuberant temples, small eyes, heavy nose, wide mouth and retreating chin—the whole smeared with daubs of paint, such as soiled the horsehair-like covering of his head, rendered the features the most repulsive on which the lad had ever looked. He certainly had never beheld ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... and the Indians had started on their way back to the Indian village Rose and Anne followed Mrs. Freeman into the square comfortable house. Mrs. Freeman had heard all about Anne, and now, as she noticed the torn and soiled dress, the untidy hair and moccasin-covered feet, she whispered to Rose: "Take the child right up-stairs. I don't want your uncle to see her looking so like a wild ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... this House, and the manner in which he has, by his dispensation of patronage, preserved the highest traditions of his office, and even raised its lofty tone. Too late now, too late;" and the old gentleman putting his crumpled papers in his pocket, and wrapping his soiled pocket-handkerchief round the knob of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various

... told him, "That if he loved himself he should be merciful to his beast." Thus he left the poor man: and at his coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that Mr. George Herbert, which used to be so trim and clean, came into that company so soiled and discomposed: but he told them the occasion. And when one of the company told him "He had disparaged himself by so dirty an employment," his answer was, "That the thought of what he had done would prove music to him at midnight; and that the omission of it ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... up in a cupboard. He accepted it, took it up in his hand, recognized it, smelled it, spoke of its quality in a tone of emotion, filled it with tobacco, and lighted it. Then he set Emile astride on his knee, and made him play the cavalier, while she removed the tablecloth and put the soiled plates at one end of the sideboard in order to wash them as ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... transferred to the Grand-Chatelet. On being interrogated, she at length owned that she had sent these notes to Monsieur de Lamotte's lawyer, and that her husband had given them her in an envelope hidden in the soiled linen for which she had ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... who lives a life of exile in the outskirts of the great city, earning every penny with a noble fortitude and in the full light of virtue, returning to heaven inviolate of body and soul; unless, indeed, she comes to lie at the last, soiled, despoiled, polluted, and forgotten, on a pauper's bier. As for the men whose brains are encompassed with bronze, whose hearts are still warm under the snows of experience, they are found but seldom in the country that lies at our feet," he added, pointing to the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... Average Jones, removing some sand from a wrinkle in his scarified and soiled trousers as carefully as if that were the one immediate and ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... more of the past than of the present, Mr. Percival. You are right about the future. It is a blank page, to be glorified or soiled by what is set down upon it. Fate has thrown you two together. Perhaps it was so written in the past that you despise. A single turn of the mysterious wheel of fortune brought you into her life. Half a turn,—the matter of minutes,—and you would never have seen each other, and you ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... station the head porter received their inquiry for a Bradshaw with a dull stare and a shake of the head. No such thing had ever been asked for at Bursley Station before, and the man's imagination could not go beyond the soiled time-tables loosely pinned and pasted up on the walls of the booking-office. Hilda suggested that the ticket-clerk should be interrogated, but the aperture of communication with him was shut. She saw Edwin Clayhanger brace ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... cannot tell, but I was obliged to cry "Caffa! Caffa!" (enough! enough!) as it looked improper, and the perfumery was too rich. Fortunately my wife was present, but she did not appear to enjoy it more than I did. My snow-white blouse was soiled and greasy, and for the rest of the day I was a disagreeable compound of smells—castor oil, tallow, musk, sandal-wood, burnt ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... before the arraigning lady was that Wilfrid had cast her off. Female justice, therefore, said: "You must be unworthy of my brother;" and female delicacy thought: "You have been soiled by a previous history." She had pitied Wilfrid: now she held him partially blameless: and while love was throbbing in many pulses all round her. The man she had seen besieged by passionate love, touched her cold imagination with a hue of fire, as Winter dawn lies on a frosty ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the spot where her stepfather had been cutting the wood the girl was in a very bad temper indeed, and when she caught sight of the axe, there were the three little doves, with drooping heads and soiled, bedraggled feathers, ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... the plate-glass door. The house was new and luxuriously furnished, and the elevator on which the wounded soldiers were taken up, was carefully covered with some kind of cloth, for fear that the velvet would be soiled and the insects would get into the seams. Upstairs the wounded were cordially greeted by a priest and a man dressed in white. After having kissed the priest's hand, the wounded, evidently embarrassed by the bright light and the luxury of the place, entered the ward awkwardly ...
— The Shield • Various

... will not throw away a garland, though soiled, which her lover gave: not in the object lies a present's worth, but in the love which it was ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston

... dressmaking, embroidering, tailoring, and silversmithing, there is relatively a fair industrial willingness. Men are willing to be cooks and house servants, but they do not want to learn carpentry or blacksmithing or gardening, all of which mean soiled clothes and hot work; and women are unwilling to work in the kitchen. From the poor Filipinos' standpoint, the Americans do not work—they rule. It would be difficult to make a Filipino of the laboring class believe that a teacher or a provincial treasurer had done a day's work. Loving, as all Filipinos ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; Sitting along the bed's edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands. ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot

... having the appearance of being semi-double, and being of good substance. The petals are small, short, of a lively green, and numerous. It is a bold and effective flower, but to see it in its full beauty it should be gathered spotlessly clean, as grey and pink tints are ugly when soiled. The leaves accompanying the flowers are of the previous season's growth, and are produced on slender round stalks, 1ft. to 11/2ft. long, and much thickened at their junction with the leaves. The latter are nearly a foot across, pedate, or palm-shaped; ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... word was needed; the message explained itself; and when we went to take a last look at the dear child, the scrap of cardboard lay in the still hand, the needle threaded with yellow wool, the childish knot, soiled and cumbersome, hanging below the pattern just as she had left it. It was her only funeral offering, her only funeral service, and was it not something of a sermon? It told the history of her industry, her sudden ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... of sorrow )—Ver. 846. He alludes, figuratively, to the art of the fuller or scourer, in taking the spots out of soiled garments.] ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... see, Mary, how you have soiled the carpet with the dredging-box! Didn't you know the flour would come out and be scattered ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur

... to this. It is time now that she should do so. The people of the nation are educated and clever. The women are bright and beautiful. Her charity is profuse; her philanthropy is eager and true; her national ambition is noble and honest—honest in the cause of civilization. But she has soiled herself with political corruption, and has disgraced the cause of republican government by those whom she has placed in her high places. Let her look to it NOW. She is nobly ambitious of reputation throughout the earth; she desires to be called good as well ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... moment she had noticed that the simple white frock Mrs. Coombe was wearing was not simple at all. The delicate embroidery on it was all hand work. And French embroidery is no inexpensive trifle. It was probably a new "best" gown; but if so, why had it been worn on the train, why was it soiled in places and carelessly put on? The skirt was not even, the collar, having lost a support, sagged at one side and just below the girdle belt there was a small, jagged rent. Esther noticed these details with vexation and discomfort, ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... mischance to my little friend here," smiling at Miss Moppet, who regarded him with affectionate eyes, "is an affair of little moment. May I ask where you will bestow me for the night, and also the privilege of a dip in cold water, as I am too soiled and travel-worn to sit in the presence of ladies, even though ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... worth more than any benefit I imagined I was bestowing on people. But after all was there not some share of sincere desire to serve God?' he asked himself, and the answer was: 'Yes, there was, but it was all soiled and overgrown by desire for human praise. Yes, there is no God for the man who lives, as I did, for human praise. I will ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... Not in a darkened mind does the white ray of heavenly light break into prismatic glory; not through the mists of ignorance is the sweet countenance of the divine Saviour best discerned. If some have pursued a sublime art frivolously; have soiled a fair mind by ignoble life,—this leaves the good of the intellect untouched. Some who have made strongest profession of religion, who have held high and the highest places in the Church, have been unworthy, but we ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... Eleventh was a merry fellow, loving a good joke, and —the interests of his position as king, and those of the church on one side—he lived jovially, giving chase to soiled doves as often as to hares, and other royal game. Therefore, the sorry scribblers who have made him out a hypocrite, showed plainly that they knew him not, since he was a good friend, good at repartee, and a jollier ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... folded arms, awaiting his approach. Nonchalance is always respected by the police. I must have presented a likely picture, however—my face blackened with coal-dust, cobwebs stringing down over my eyes, my Capuchin gown soiled and rent. The girl quietly ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... from Eber nor from Melanchthon. Instead, the Wittenbergers, with the silent consent of Melanchthon, circulated a caricature in which Flacius was accorded the role of a braying ass being crowned by other asses with a soiled crown. (Preger 2, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... the fort of Detroit by that redoubtable chief and his confederates in 1763. It was found in the garret of one of the French habitants, thrust away between the plate and the roof; partly torn, and much soiled by rains and the ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... milk-cart rattles by, and a walking advertisement stalks on; here is a fashionable doctor's gig, there a mammoth express-wagon; a sullen Southerner contrasts with a grinning Gaul, a darkly-vested bishop with a gayly-attired child, a daintily-gloved belle with a mud-soiled drunkard; a little shoe-black and a blind fiddler ply their trades in the shadow of Emmet's obelisk, and a toy-merchant has Montgomery's mural tablet for a background; on the fence is a string of favorite ballads and popular songs; a mock auctioneer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... clean. Remove the litter from the floor as soon as it becomes damp or soiled and replace with new, fresh material. Clean the droppings boards at frequent intervals. Wash with Pratts Poultry Disinfectant or scald the food and water dishes. Disinfect the whole house every few weeks, taking ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.

... these three years at school that I placed upon myself the most stringent and effective curbs to my sex nature. I somehow never could 'get my own consent' to go to a brothel or stay with a 'soiled dove,' for I had by this time firmly resolved that I would bring to my wife, whoever she might turn out to be, a clean body at least. I limited myself in my autoexcitement to one emission a week and on one or two occasions ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... antiquity is not held to weaken the force of grandeur. The titled card left on a chance occasion more than a year ago still keeps the uppermost place, still represents a perpetual renewal of aristocratic visits, and an unbroken succession of social triumphs. Yellowed and soiled, it is none the less the trump-card of the list; and while the outside world laughs and ridicules, the lady at home thinks that no one sees through this puerile pretence, and that the visiting-list is accepted according to the status of ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... we had travelled two or three miles one of the outside passengers climbed down and came in to escape from the cold, and edged into a place opposite mine. He was a little boy of about seven or eight years old, and he had a small, quaint face with a tired expression on it, and wore a soiled scarlet Turkish fez on his head, and a big pepper-and-salt overcoat heavily trimmed with old, ragged imitation astrachan. He was keenly alive to the sensation his entrance created among us when the loud buzz of conversation ceased very suddenly and all eyes were ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... and manifestly affected by her appreciation]. Wait a bit: I got more yet! Talk abaht bee-utiful!—That bit was on'y an ash-pan! Look 'ere, ma'am, I got the loveliest little job on as ever yer soiled yer 'ands ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy

... "never were beauties and faults more easily separated than those of this tragedy. The latter, in its purification for the stage, came off like dirt from a fine statue, taking away nothing from its symmetrical surface, and leaving us only to wonder how the author himself should have soiled it with such disfigurements. Pierre is a miserable conspirator, as Otway first painted him, impelled to treason by his love of a courtesan and his jealousy of Antonio. But his character, as it now comes forward, is a-mixture of patriotism and excusable misanthropy. Even in the more modern ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway

... lost his hat in the area; his light walking-stick lay in the middle of the floor; his inverness coat hung wet and bedraggled about him; his shirt was crumpled and soiled. But his air of good humor and his tame acceptance of capture seemed to increase the Servian's caution, and he backed away toward the inner door with his revolver still pointed at ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... to Kirtley after a month that personal cleanness and neatness in Germany were not particularly considered as next to godliness. The gold braid, spick and span uniforms and other showy gear, were apt to cover dirty bodies and soiled underwear. Alas, the Germans could not wash in beer. He wondered why his old enthusiastic mentor had never given him a hint of these things. Likely he did not know. Distance often increases eloquence in proportion ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... have said this was quite bad enough, but through and above all, her whole rather exceptional being was desirous of love. Not the shape which clothes its diseased body in soiled robes of imitation something at one and elevenpence three farthings per yard, and under ferns in conservatories, in punts up back-waters, in stifling tea-rooms, hotels, theatres and night-clubs, exchanges ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... manner of a perfect gentleman, but with a look of compassion for his companion's want of tact, made the desired inquiry; which being satisfactorily answered, he again bowed and was retiring, as one of several pointers who followed the cavalcade sprang upon Jane, and soiled her walking dress with his ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... left the poor man: and at his coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that Mr. George Herbert, who used to be so trim and clean, came into that company so soiled and discomposed; but he told them the occasion. And when one of the company told him "he had disparaged himself by so dirty an employment," his answer was: "That the thought of what he had done would ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... barbaric splendour of the fittings and furniture of the ship. Rich silken curtains were hung anywhere and everywhere where they could be fastened; thick carpets from Turkey and Persia and India were strewn wholesale on the soiled planking. Every available space on wall or bulkhead was ornamented with some trophy or another. Stars of pistols, swords, hangers, boarding-axes, and pikes were hung wherever there was room for them. Roger noticed some pieces of exquisite and priceless old tapestry ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... exaggerated yawn. Her hair was rough and disordered, her frock was rumpled and untidy, her hands were obviously soiled. Miss Blake remarked on none of these things. She laid her bit of needle-work upon the table and quietly passed ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... Fourteenth Street. Here he entered without hesitation a small, foreign-looking restaurant which intruded upon the pavement only a few yards from the iron staircase by which he descended from the station. There were two faded evergreen shrubs in cracked pots at the bottom of the steps, soiled muslin curtains drawn across the lower half of the windows, dejected-looking green shutters which, had the appearance of being permanently nailed against the walls, and a general air of foreign and tawdry profligacy. Jocelyn Thew stepped ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... father when he should clasp him in his arms again. He could have spent several hours building his air-castles in this manner, had he not checked himself and resolutely faced the difficulty before him. Looking again at the mustang, he was to be seen with his beautiful Indian blanket somewhat soiled from contact with the dirt, but cropping the grass with the air of an equine which expected to spend ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... He did not know what to make of this adventure. Presently he became aware that the Indian girl was sitting on a roll of blankets near the wall. With curious interest Shefford studied her appearance. She had long, raven-black hair, tangled and disheveled, and she wore a soiled white band of cord above her brow. The color of her face struck him; it was dark, but not red nor bronzed; it almost had a tinge of gold. Her profile was clear-cut, bold, almost stern. Long black eyelashes hid her eyes. She wore a tight-fitting waist garment of material resembling velveteen. ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... to the world and collected other follies than the Spanish ones, and to another age than the administration of the duke of Lerma; with more genuine pleasantry than any writer from the days of Lucian, not a solitary spot has soiled the purity of his page; while there is scarcely a subject in human, nature for which we might not find some apposite illustration. His style, pure as his thoughts, is, however, a magic which ceases to work in all translations, and Cervantes is not Cervantes in English or in ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... My friend, we are alone, and no one hears except God. Here on the confines of Germany, the poor unhappy emperor may be permitted to shed a tear over the severed garment of German royalty—that garment which has been rent by so many little princes! Have you observed, Rosenberg, how they have soiled its majesty? Have you noticed the pretensions of these manikins whose domains we can span with our hands? Is it not pitiable that each one in his principality is equal in power to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... many patients and so much unavoidable sickness, druggists and apothecaries will obtain a profitable sale for their medicines. Nurses will be next in demand, who may expect high wages. Even the lowly washers of soiled clothes will find the life-blood of the victims 'coined into drachms' for their reward. It is highly probable that many of the patients may die under the expurgatory process, and hence sextons and coffin-makers may calculate upon good times. With death come mourning and lamentation, and 'weeds of ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... slipped down the green-curtain-lined aisle to the glory of his first private compartment. The porter indicated that he knew Babbitt was used to a man-servant; he held the ends of Babbitt's trousers, that the beautifully sponged garment might not be soiled, filled the bowl in the private washroom, and ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... it. Yet he clung grimly to the mystery as the truck clattered on, mile after mile, while the broad road led along the sides of the hills, finally to dip downward and run beside the bubbling Clear Creek,—clear no longer in the memory of the oldest inhabitant; but soiled by the silica from ore deposits that, churned and rechurned, gave to the stream a whitish, almost milk-like character, as it twisted in and out of the tortuous canon on its turbulent journey to the sea. But Fairchild failed to notice either that or the fact that ancient, age-whitened water ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... silence for some time; then Joe drew forth a soiled letter, which he handed to his ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne

... the dove.) When Noah had despatched a dove from the Ark, the bird alighted on an oak, but soiled its feet in the water of the Flood, which was all red from the blood of the multitudes that had been drowned. Since then, doves have all had red feet. (This detail appears in part word for word ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... of them cakes will you sell for five cents?" he asked timidly of the slovenly woman who was embroidering an odd green flower on a small square of soiled and faded red silk. ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis

... was peeling badly. She hated the conflicting odours that seeped into the atmosphere at certain hours of the day. She hated the three old maids on the third floor and the frowsy woman on the first, who sat on the front steps in her soiled breakfast cap and bungalow apron. She hated the nervous tenant who occupied the apartment just over her mother's three-room-and-bath, and pounded with a broom handle on the floor when Lorraine ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... waiting on the last step; so springing into the room he motioned the host to leave it. The door being closed, the four friends waited in expectation. Grimaud's agitation, his pallor, the sweat which covered his face, the dust which soiled his clothes, all indicated that he was the messenger of ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... its little soiled buckskin sheath, and gave it to Mrs. Manly. She turned pale as she looked at it. Frank was eager to see it, and, almost reluctantly, she placed it in his hands. It might almost have passed for a portrait of himself, only it was that of a girl; and he knew at once that it was his mother, as she ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... distinguished gentlemen was a so-called colonel of the insurrecto army who had been captured a short time before. The colonel posed as an aristocrat, whose hands had never been soiled by labour, and when his companions in confinement were turned out to assist in making way for liberty by means of the cable trench, he protested vigorously at the indignity, and averred that he was not seeking the opportunity ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... The polished shiny apples of the fruit-stands are a delusion. The practice of burnishing the fruits produces a most inartistic result, destroying the natural bloom and violating the appearance of a natural apple. It is one thing to clean a fruit if it is soiled (which is seldom the case with boxed or barreled apples); it is quite another thing to rub and furbish an apple as if it were a billiard ball or glass marble and not a living object that grew on a tree,—it sets false standards before the children. Yet all this ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey

... directly with the question of slavery. Whatever harm he may have done in that decision was speedily overruled by war, and the country can now contemplate a venerable jurist, in robes that were never soiled by corruption, leading a long life of labor and sacrifice, and achieving a fame in his profession second only to that ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... his pocket and drew out a small roll of bills. He was not the usually neat Snooks. One eye was blackened and one side of his face was scratched. His clothes were badly torn and soiled. He looked as if some one had ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... the census-takers had ordered every one who asked for them to be directed. I entered the tavern. It was very dark, ill- smelling, and dirty. Directly opposite the entrance was the counter, on the left was a room with tables, covered with soiled cloths, on the right a large apartment with pillars, and the same sort of little tables at the windows and along the walls. Here and there at the tables sat men both ragged and decently clad, like laboring-men or ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... apartment extend ranges of shelves, from floor to ceiling, filled with ponderous tomes in black substantial binding, seeming to belong to that class of standard works chiefly valuable for reference as authorities, and bearing ample testimony in their wear and tear, and their soiled appearance, to having been faithfully fingered. No thin, delicate and perfumed duodecimo is there, resplendent in gold and Russia, with costly engravings on steel, and letter-press in gilt or hot-pressed post. No, the books, ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... realized that she was lost. What she had given that was noble and pure, she had given to a man that did not exist. Her fair young life, her purity, her pride, had all been flung at the feet of a base, cowardly brute who instead of being grateful to her had merely soiled her by acts of coarse lubricity. For a moment she felt ready to wring her hands and fall to the ground in an agony of despair, but lightning-swift her mood changed to one of ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... indeed! Their pretty gingham frocks were limp and stringy with dampness, and soiled and stained from contact with the buckets and the moss-grown ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... plaid carefully, that it might not be torn or soiled, with loud shouts obeyed, and soon both were dashing and slashing away among the infuriated brutes. The heads of numbers rolled upon the snow, which for miles round ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... solitary. On the opposite shore the trees of a private park enclose the view, the chimneys of the mansion just pricking forth above their clusters; on the near side the path is bordered by willows. Close among these lay the houseboat, a thing so soiled by the tears of the overhanging willows, so grown upon with parasites, so decayed, so battered, so neglected, such a haunt of rats, so advertised a storehouse of rheumatic agonies, that the heart of an intending occupant might well recoil. A plank, by way of flying drawbridge, joined ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the time when it was weakest. But a few years afterwards, as history goes, the relations of the Crown and its new servants were to be reversed on a high stage so as to horrify the world; and the axe which had been sanctified with the blood of More and soiled with the blood of Cromwell was, at the signal of one of that slave's own descendants, to fall and to kill ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... massive marble front, and exclaimed: "Upon my soul, gentlemen, it is so grand I begin to fear I shall not be comfortable in it." He had scarcely concluded this sentence, when a distinguished politician, habited in soiled drab trousers and a shabby brown dress coat, and a badly collapsed hat, which he wore well down over his eyes, rushed eagerly out, and was followed by a mellow faced policeman, with a green patch over his left eye and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... color-notes and the high clearnesses, here and there, of his white and beautifully figured price-labels, which pleased him enough in themselves almost to console him for not oftener having to break, on a customer's insistence, into the balanced composition. But the dropped expanse of time-soiled canvas, the thing of Sundays and holidays, with just his name, "Herbert Dodd, Successor," painted on below his uncle's antique style, the feeble penlike flourishes already quite archaic—this ugly vacant mask, which might so easily ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... in hand, wandering still, in search of the ideal home. To them it is anything but an amusement. Most of these poor pilgrims look simply tired, some are argumentative in addition, but all are disappointed, anxious, and unhappy, their hands dirty with prying among cisterns, and their garments soiled from cellar walls. All, in the exaltation of the wooing days, saw at least the indistinct reflection of the perfect house, but now the Quest is irrevocably in hand they seek and do not find. And such a momentous question ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... clad in soiled dungarees, his uniform cap alone denoting his rank, came briskly up the companion, followed by four jackies carrying the bombs. A fifth man remained in the boat, fending it away with a boat hook from the tall black side of ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... a fair and happy breast, And watched by eyes that never yet knew weeping, And loved by a young heart, too deeply blest To feel the poison through her spirit creeping, Or know who rested there, a foe to rest, Had soiled the current of her sinless years, And turned her pure heart's purest blood ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... on the streets of these hamlets, for the Frenchmen are dressed in bright-colored suits, made of Indian blankets. And lounging about in cheap paint or soiled finery are lazy Indians, begging at times and at times idly watching the boats rowing up ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... from New York, asked me to loan this new dress to him to perform in once in a while in a fair day when we had a large audience, for his own costume was considerably soiled. I did so, and now when I handed him his $500 ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... especially of the Persian walnut. Some of the infested walnuts appear to drop prematurely and others adhere to the branches beyond the regular harvest time. The shell of infested Persian walnuts parts poorly from the husk and the nut is discolored, soiled ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

... guide me through its thousand galleries to bed was an indispensable necessity. I was fatigued, and cared not where I hung up. Large as was the establishment, everything looked so costly that I became cautious lest what I sat down upon might become soiled, in which event I might be compelled to pay the shot with a short locker; or, should the case go before Pierce, he might in the profundity of his wisdom exile me to some remote spot on the Mosquito coast. I walked into the establishment like one who feels himself an independent citizen, and ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... popular song, written by Eliakum Zunser (Vilna, 1836-New York, 1913), then a rising and beloved Badhan (bard) writing in Yiddish and Hebrew, Alexander II was likened to an angel of God who finds the flower of Judah soiled by dirt and trampled in the dust. He rescues it, and revives it with living water, and plants it in his garden, where it flourishes once more.[6] The poets hailed him as the savior and redeemer of Israel. All that the Jews needed was to make themselves deserving of his kindness, and worthy ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... both rather frightened, and they did not stop to find their flowers. The possibility that the train might go off and leave them filled the two children with alarm. They ran on as hard as they could, and Vi fell down and soiled her ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope

... pacing the apartment with a furtive glance at the half anxious, half frightened girl, suddenly stopped, dragged a small portmanteau from behind the heap of bales and opened it. "Look, Mademoiselle," he said, tremulously lifting a handful of worn and soiled letters and papers. "Look—these are the tools of your banker, your lawyer, your doctor. With this the banker will make you poor, the lawyer will prove you a thief, the doctor will swear you are crazy, eh? What shall you call ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... to catch myself praising the clean private citizen Roosevelt, and blaming the soiled President Roosevelt, when I know that neither praise nor blame is due to him for any thought or word or deed of his, he being merely a helpless and irresponsible coffee-mill ground by the ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger

... old and ever young demand which man slaps into the face of the universe." The colonel searched among the scraps in his note-book. "See," holding up a soiled slip of typed paper, "I copied this out years ago. Listen. 'What a monstrous spectre is this man, this disease of the agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with slumber; killing, feeding, growing, bringing forth small ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... privacy, where he might collect his thoughts; and his freedman Phaon offering him his country-house, between the Salarian [626] and Nomentan [627] roads, about four miles from the city, he mounted a horse, barefoot as he was, and in his tunic, only slipping over it an old soiled cloak; with his head muffled up, and an handkerchief before his face, and four persons only to attend him, of whom Sporus was one. He was suddenly struck with horror by an earthquake, and by a flash of lightning which darted full ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus



Words linked to "Soiled" :   draggled, sooty, raunchy, begrimed, dirty, cobwebby, ratty, untidy, filthy, cleanness, black, mucky, bedraggled, smutty, Augean, buggy, dingy, snot-nosed, foul, dirty-faced, grubby, travel-stained, uncleanly, smudgy, grimy, feculent, muddy, lousy, fouled, unwashed, unswept, oily, clean, nasty, befouled, squalid, flyblown, scummy, maculate, grungy, snotty, unclean, greasy, sordid, travel-soiled



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com