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Tiresome   /tˈaɪərsəm/   Listen
Tiresome

adjective
1.
So lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness.  Synonyms: boring, deadening, dull, ho-hum, irksome, slow, tedious, wearisome.  "The deadening effect of some routine tasks" , "A dull play" , "His competent but dull performance" , "A ho-hum speaker who couldn't capture their attention" , "What an irksome task the writing of long letters is" , "Tedious days on the train" , "The tiresome chirping of a cricket" , "Other people's dreams are dreadfully wearisome"



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"Tiresome" Quotes from Famous Books



... rattling of infantry, and the noise was deafening. I expected at the first fire that our bugler would come out in front of headquarters and blow for heaven's sake, for us to saddle up, but for three hours we loafed around camp and no move was made. It was tiresome. We started to play cards several times, but nobody could remember what was trumps, and we gave that up. Some of our boys would sneak up on to a hill for a few minutes, against orders, and come back and say that they could see the fight, and it was which and tother. Then a few more ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... very tiresome letter written in my master's spider tracks, containing long and tiresome enumerations of his services. He presented a large bill for his guardianship on the voyage and across France. He said I was not only a Rich Man through his Influence, but ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... now to bring me her invitation, and her husband's invitation, to stay. Her husband, she said, expected me. He was out; he had had to go to a Diocesan Meeting—but it would be over by now, the tiresome meeting, and he would be here in a ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... more elementary and barbarous age, but, now that the world has broadened somewhat, I think an addition to the trio is demanded. A man may be faithful, hopeful, and charitable, and yet leave much to be desired. He may be useful, no doubt, with that equipment, but he may also be both tiresome and even absurd. The fourth quality that I should like to see raised to the highest rank among the Christian graces is the ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman

... mountain. At the end of three hours, we reached the banks of a stream—the outlet of the second lake above mentioned—here and there frozen over, and then again tumbling down over rock and pebbly bottom in a thousand fantastic gambols; and very soon we had to ford it. After a tiresome march, by an extremely difficult path in the midst of woods, we encamped in the evening under some cypresses. I had hit my right knee against the branch of a fallen tree on the first day of our march, and now began to suffer ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... this chief thing, this one thing will bring all the rest into order again. The attractions of home life present the best antidote to bad morals. The bustling life of little children, considered so tiresome, becomes pleasant; it makes the father and the mother more necessary to one another, more dear to one another; it draws closer between them the conjugal tie. When the family is sprightly and animated, domestic cares form the dearest occupation of the wife ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... even more heavily with the average young man, and less weight be put on such superficial characteristics as "flashiness," ability to use the latest slang freely, and other "smart" traits which are usually considered attractive in a girl, but which have no real value and soon become tiresome. They are not wholly bad in themselves, but certainly should not influence a young man very seriously in his choice of a wife, nor a young woman in her choice of a husband. It is to be feared that such standards are largely promoted by the stage, the popular ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... to these shores, apart from that natural instinct to scatter and multiply which urges even sober salmon to climb the Rocky Mountains, was their desire to find a country at once fertile and winterless, where their flocks and herds could find pasture all the year, thus doing away with the long and tiresome period of haying and feeding necessary in the eastern and old western States and Territories. Cheap land and good land there was in abundance in Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa; but there the labor of providing for animals of the farm was very great, and much of that labor ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... been a tiresome trip by steamer to Anticosti, from there by schooner to Widgeon Bay, then down the coast and up the Cape Clear River to Port Porpoise. There we bought three pack-mules and started due north on the Great Fur Trail. The second day out we ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... he rode slowly up the turnpike on a hired horse, he was beginning to regret, with an impatient self-reproach, the three tiresome days he had stolen from his grandfather's delight. It was characteristic of him at the age of twenty-one that he began to regret what appeared to be a pleasure only after it had proved to be a disappointment. Had the New York days been gay instead ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... all, never travel alone, if your heart is sad! How hostile and inhospitable the first sensation is that one feels then when entering an unknown city! Amedee was obliged to submit to the tiresome delay of looking after his baggage in a commonplace station; the hasty packing into an omnibus of tired-out travellers, darting glances of bad humor and suspicion; to the reception upon the hotel steps by the inevitable Swiss porter with his gold-banded cap, murdering all ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... England, so soft, and beautiful, and grey, and the moon rises 'not as in northern climes obscurely bright,' but with far-spreading rays around her. The figures, costume, and attitudes that you see in the churches are wonderfully picturesque. I went afterwards to the Jesu, where there was a tiresome service (the Tre Ore), and heard a Jesuit preaching with much passion and emphasis, but could not understand a word he said. So then I called on Cheney and saw his mother's illustrations of Milton, which are ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... between religion and morality seems almost complete and it is not strange that most modern writers speak of the Roman religion as a tiresome ritual formalism, almost wholly lacking in ethical value. And yet it did not present itself in this light to the Romans themselves. Cicero, sceptic as he was, could speak of it as the cause of Rome's greatness; Augustus, the practical politician, ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey

... exhibition—the march of an army, the exhilaration of a spectacle; the court as a banquet—the throne, the best seat at the entertainment. The life of the heir-apparent, to the life of the king possessive, is as the distinction between enchanting hope and tiresome satiety. ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... introduced simple apparatus, such as his adjustable scaffold and his packets for holding the bricks, by means of which, with a very small amount of cooperation from a cheap laborer, he entirely eliminates a lot of tiresome and time-consuming motions which are necessary for the brick-layer who lacks the scaffold ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor

... been the thoughts of the individual at the breaking of home-ties and during the long, tiresome railroad journey to Camp Meade, were buried deep in the heart, to be cherished as a future memory only. Personal griefs were hidden as those seven hundred young men in civilian clothes stepped from the train at Disney, grasped their suit case, box, or bundle, firmly ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... spaces between ribs. This reduced the amount of lagging required but made working on the centers more difficult and resulted in loss of tools from dropping through the openings. Work on the centers and forms was tiresome owing both to the difficulty of moving around on the lagging and to the cramped positions in which the men labored. Carpenters were hard to keep for ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... how I can have any other friends or beneficiaries. You are surprised that I speak so openly of such near relatives to such a comparative stranger. However, it is my nature to be outspoken. And now, Luke, if you don't think it will be tiresome to escort an old woman, I mean to take ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... these half-thoughts rushed through his brain, a breath of something cold and distracting—a wind from the land of ennui—seemed to blow upon them and scatter them. Was it the mention of the Bishop—tiresome, pompous fellow—or her slightly pedantic tone—or the infinitesimal hint of "management" that her speech implied? Who knows? But in that moment perhaps the scales of ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... must be funny people," she said to Ozma. "They don't seem to do anything in a bold straightforward manner. In making this passage they forced everyone to walk three times as far as is necessary. And of course this trip is just as tiresome to the Flatheads as it is ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... was preparing to erect a handsome country-place, and he did not want to alter his plans. Courteously at first, then somewhat scathingly he declined to discuss the proposition with her agents. After two months of pressure of the most tiresome persistency, he lost his temper and sent a message to his inquisitors that suddenly terminated all negotiations. Afterward, when he learned that heir client was a lady, he wrote a conditional note of apology, but, if he expected a response, he was disappointed. A year went by, and now, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... during a long life; a fair load of philosophy; the poets en masse; among orators, Demosthenes, Cicero, and Parliamentary debates from the Revolution to the year 1742; pretty copious divinity, including Blair, Tillotson, Hooker, with the characteristic addition—"all very tiresome. I abhor books of religion, though I reverence and love my God without the blasphemous notions of sectaries." Lastly, under the head of "Miscellanies" we have Spectator, Rambler, World, &c., &c; among novels, the ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... little one on the top of the other. I don't think three or four peaches and a few flowers can add much to the weight. It is tiresome enough to do what I don't want to do, ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... so tired in the morning, darling," she protested gently, while Dinah knelt beside her, earnestly pleading. "You will get that tiresome side-ache, and you won't be fit ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... mustn't let myself go like that. Besides, it's quite true, as Hebe says, Anne has got a very good heart, and she's very particular in some mind ways; she never says a word that isn't quite true—she doesn't even exaggerate. I have noticed that rather tiresome, careless people often have very good hearts. I wish they could see how much nicer it would be for other people if they'd put some of their good hearts ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... and again at other times it would be advisable not to do so. If, for instance, in the solution of a problem there were a great many opportunities to give commands to fire, to make signals, to deliver messages, etc., and if these things were actually done every time, it would not only become tiresome but it would also delay the real work and instruction. Common sense must be used. Just bear this in mind: In the solution of map problems the noncommissioned officers and the privates are to be given proper and sufficient ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... It was tiresome walking over the uneven ground and through obstructing bushes, branches, and stumps. The tall brick barrier seemed as interminable as unbroken. How many houses, thought Balder, might have been built from the material thus wasted! If ever he came into possession ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... the documents. He looks into the writings; he can hardly keep his eyes open for wine. When he thereupon withdraws to consider his sentence, he says to his boon-companions, 'What concern have I with these tiresome people? why should we not rather go to drink a cup of mulse mixed with Greek wine, and accompany it with a fat fieldfare and a good fish, a veritable pike from the Tiber island?' Those who heard the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... black, the negroes in the gallery. That was back in the days when there was "no lookin' neither to the right nor to the left" when in church; no matter what happened, no one could even half way smile. This all was much harder than having to listen to the long tiresome sermons of those days, Arrie thinks, specially when she recalled on one occasion "when Mr. Sutton wuz a preachin' a old goat [HW: got] up under the Church an' every time Mr. Sutton would say something out real loud that old goat would go 'Bah-a-a Bah ba-a-a' an' we couldn't laugh a bit. I most ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... as not native to English shores—may be said to bring into English secular drama honourable womanhood. Her amused indifference at first, her sharp reproof of her maids who have allowed themselves to act as Ralph's messengers, her gathering vexation at Ralph's tiresome wooing, her genuine alarm when she sees that his boastful words are accepted by the sea-captain as truth—these are sentiments and emotions copied from a healthy and worthy model. Matthew Merrygreek, an unmistakable 'Vice' ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... ground; and all in town and country who were partial to the exercise of skating could enjoy it freely. But the severe cold confined the delicate invalids to their heated rooms, and fair Annie Lee again found herself shut up to the tiresome routine of sick-room pleasures, only varied by intervals of suffering. The pleasure, however, predominated. She seemed almost to forget her pain and increasing languor in her unceasing efforts ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous

... green plate, or a day old evening paper. The view outside was flooded with light, and across the corner of it came the head of the acacia, and at the foot the top of the balcony-railing of hammered iron. In the foreground was the weltering silver of the river, never quiet and yet never tiresome. Beyond was the reedy bank, a broad stretch of meadow land, and then a dark line of trees ending in a group of poplars at the distant bend of the river, and, upstanding behind them, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... just a horse, so long as it can work, than a young woman who wakes up at twelve o'clock, has her coffee in bed, and then spends two hours dressing.... Oh it's awful! Sometimes when it's hot, your thirst can be just as tiresome as my need for work. And if I don't get up early in future and work, Ivan Romanovitch, then you may refuse me ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov

... or four things. I think they are all good and can all be done, but they are tiresome, and besides they require money. But as soon as the ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... had much regard and respect for Noel de Caron. He knew him to be able, although he thought him tiresome. It is amusing to observe the King and Ambassador in their utterances to confidential friends each frequently making the charge of tediousness against the other. "Caron's general education," said James on one occasion to Cecil, "cannot amend ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... time we had been riding leisurely along, enraptured with the delightful country, while the way itself and the estates on either hand offered such variety of landscape that the view never became tiresome nor uninteresting. ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... for its late outrageous conduct, the weather, after the night of the great storm, continued unbrokenly serene for many days, enabling our travellers to make rapid progress towards their destination: It would be both tiresome and unnecessary to follow them step by step throughout their journey, as the part of it which we have already described was, in many respects, typical of the whole voyage along the east coast of Hudson's Bay. Sometimes, indeed, a few incidents of an ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... later a citizen of Denver, was a veteran pony man. He entered the employ of the company at the outset, and helped Superintendent Roberts to lay out the route across Nevada. Along the Carson River, tiresome stretches of corduroy road had to be built. Kelley relates that in constructing this highway willow trees were cut near the stream and the trunks cut into the desired lengths before being laid in place. The men often had to carry these ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley

... verses, which produces a slight monotony, notwithstanding that the composer has displayed vast ingenuity in varying the accompaniment to each verse. The most beautiful melody is generally found to become tiresome after a third repetition. The present is sweetly plaintive and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... Nobody'll ever say, 'Poor Jerrold'. I like happy people, Anne. In this tiresome world it's ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... polite, offensively polite to women—he doesn't understand them at all—thinks they like deference and flattery, the low-grade molasses kind of flattery. He has a very nice smile. But he's so stilted and tiresome, always serious,—and such a pose! It's what I call the presidential pose. No doubt ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... the purest, which in his age we could not expect it to be, he makes amends for this by the fulness and vigour of his expression. He is fond of poetical words, and they are often used with striking effect. His moral reflections, which are numerous, have the merit of not being unmeaning and tiresome, because he is always in earnest and has got something to say, and does not deal in commonplaces. When the reflection is not very profound, it is at least true; and some of his remarks show a deep ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... The minds of such, since they are turned in a contrary direction, are inwardly in collision with each other; and if not outwardly, still, he that is not in conjugial love, regards his lawful consort as a tiresome old woman; ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... come forward with MRS. RIIS). I have been thinking so much about you the last day or two, my dear! What a tiresome business this is! ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... contemptuous age. He looked as though he had been living in that house for weeks, although, as a fact, he had just driven up, after a long and tiresome journey, in an ancient cab through the pouring rain. The Archdeacon gazed at his son in a bewildered, confused amaze, as though he, a convinced sceptic, were suddenly confronted, in broad daylight, with an ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... he answered. "She'll be in a state if you don't turn up." He sighed. "I've never said a word about it, but she's rather trying and tiresome if you want ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... been terribly tiresome; she was weary in every fibre, it seemed to her. But for all that she intended, sometime that evening, to meet Art Osgood if he were in town. She intended to take him with her on the train that left the next morning. She thought it would be a good idea to rest now, ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... Alexandropol the railway traversed plateau land with outlook over a wide expanse of country. Studying the large-scale map, it looked as if one ought to be able to see Mount Ararat, eighty miles away to the south, but there was a tiresome hill in the way obstructing the view ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... oaks crowning a hill-top above the Serpentaro stream. It has often been described, often painted. It is a corner of Latium in perfect preservation; a glamorous place; in the warm dusk of southern twilight—when all those tiresome children are at last asleep—it calls up suggestions of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Here is a specimen of the landscape as it used to be. You may encounter during your wanderings similar fragments of woodland, saved by their inaccessibility from the invading ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... along the road, for he had made up his mind to do as the alderman had advised and travel to Norwich, that he might eat some of the famous pease porridge that was made there. And finally, after a long and tiresome journey, he reached the town and stopped at one of the first houses he came to, for by this time he ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum

... lot of rubbish you're talking, child! Who came from Australia? Oh, that tiresome Arnold! A lamp does matter, for I want ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... is beautiful in you," continued Julia, cowering down before her mistress. "These eternal, tiresome and intolerable state affairs would make your face prematurely old and wrinkled, my dear princess. Ah, there is nothing more tedious than governing. I am heartily sick of it! At first I was amused when we two ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... remarked that the favorites of the religious clan of Madame de Saint-Dizier rose to high distinction with singular rapidity. The virtuous young men, such as were religiously attentive to tiresome sermons, were married to rich orphans of the Sacred Heart Convents, who were held in reserve for the purpose; poor young girls, who, learning too late what it is to have a pious husband selected and imposed upon them by a set of devotees, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... your kind lines, and excuse my not having written to you long ago. I might indeed have told you many a thing of more or less interest; but all seemed to me tiresome and insufficient in writing to you. I needed more than ever, and above all things, ample time to compose myself, to gather my thoughts, and to bestir myself. During the first year of my stay here I ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... bless me, how my poor head is vexed and worried by that girl Jupe's so perseveringly asking, over and over again, about her tiresome letters! Upon my word and honour I seem to be fated, and destined, and ordained, to live in the midst of things that I am never to hear the last of. It really is a most extraordinary circumstance that it appears as if I never was to hear the last ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... introduced a more humane spirit into the civil administration, corporal punishment was at once abolished in the Consistorial courts, and the procedure was modified according to the accepted maxims of civil jurisprudence. But I must not weary the reader with tiresome historical details. Suffice it to say that, from the time of Peter the Great downwards, the character of all the more energetic sovereigns is reflected in the history of the ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... for a few weeks," Mrs. Gareth-Lawless said. Here she smiled satirically and added, "But I can tell you what it is all about. The little minx actually fell in love with a small boy she met in the Square Gardens and, when his mother took him from London, she began to mope like a tiresome girl in her teens. It's ridiculous, but is the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... as would have been honored in a better cause. Instances of the bravery of these people were numerous, so much so that were I to give the detail of each event my description would probably become tiresome." ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... with pride over a century of growth, exhibiting to you, as we are doing by a rather tiresome journey, what we have done, and appreciating fully the rapid progress and enormous resources of our sister American states, recognizing your equality and absolute independence, whatever may be your population or extent of territory, we say to you, in all frankness, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... of parties, which Elsie thought extremely tiresome, as she could have no share in them, and was thus deprived of the company of her papa and mamma almost every evening for several weeks. But at last that too was over, and they settled down into a quiet, home life, that suited them all much better, for neither ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... "Nothing so very tiresome," replied Anstey. "I made him brace for five minutes, and then go through the silent manual ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock

... the night, for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey, although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... you diet him with nothing but with Rules and Exceptions, with tiresome repetitions of Amo and [Greek: Tupto], setting a day also apart also to recite verbatim all the burdensome task of the foregoing week (which I am confident is usually as dreadful as an old Parliament Fast) we must needs believe that such a one, thus ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... beside the train March stood a moment. He could see Miss Garnet very plainly at her bright window and was wondering how she and her friends, but especially she, would take it if he should go back and help them while away this tiresome detention. If she had answered that last smile of his, or if she were showing, now, any tendency at all to look out the window, he might have returned; but no, howdy after farewell lacked dignity. The street-car came along just then and Barbara saw ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... Elephant's fore-leg to the ground. The Elephant drank some of the cool water and then amused himself with squirting it about in every direction. He aimed it chiefly at some rocks that lay by the side of the river—rocks of all sizes and shapes. This sport grew tiresome, however, and the Elephant began to look about for some new fun. The rocks ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... been detailed to watch this road, other patrols are guarding those that lead toward Boulogne and to Gravelines; but I have an idea, citizen, that our fox is making for Calais, and that to me will fall the honour of handing that tiresome scarlet flower to the Public Prosecutor en route ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... to make my own condition neither better nor worse; and after a remarkably brief period, the showy dejeunes and dinners which commemorated the triumphs of the heir-apparent of our house, grew tiresome to me beyond all count, and I openly petitioned to be sent to college, or to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... pulpit; for he wrote in his diary that at his own ordination he prayed for an hour and a quarter, and preached for an hour and three quarters. Added to the other ordination exercises these long Mather addresses must have been tiresome enough. Nathaniel Ward deplored at that time, "Wee have a strong weakness in New England that when wee are speaking, wee know not how to conclude: wee make many ends before wee make ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... I am to act as a sort of bridesmaid and to give her away,' said Mrs. Nettlepoint. She was in fact kind enough for anything and she showed on this occasion that it was easy enough to know her. There is nothing more tiresome than complications at sea, but she accepted without a protest the burden of the young lady's dependence and allowed her, as Mrs. Mavis said, to hook herself on. She evidently had the habit of patience, and her reception of her visitors' story reminded me afresh (I was reminded of it whenever ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... led me to put up with a good deal which I should otherwise, in the frame of mind in which I then was, have impatiently shunned. For it only too often happened that in the Councillor's characteristic extravagance there was mingled much that was dull and tiresome; and it was in a special degree irritating to me that, as often as I turned the conversation upon music, and particularly upon singing, he was sure to interrupt me, with that sardonic smile upon his face and those repulsive singing tones of his, by ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... model for his mates, commits his first offense. He strode along with a self-contented, rakish air, swinging his arms; and still along the dusty, sunlit roads, between the golden grain and the fields of hops that succeeded one another with tiresome monotony, the human tide kept pouring onward; the stragglers, without arms or knapsacks, were now but a shuffling, vagrant mob, a disorderly array of vagabonds and beggars, at whose approach the frightened villagers barred ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... our return, but, notwithstanding that fact, society has been paying due homage to the prospective increase of fortune and added social position of the Mainwarings. I am not particularly fond of society in the ordinary sense of the word, you know, and I have found it exceedingly tiresome." ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... don't be tiresome. If we were all to object as you do to the casting of the characters we will never get anywhere and spend the entire day in argument. Everybody knows I think it the greatest mistake in the world not to have had Dorothy in the leading role. Still, I am saying ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... talking together in Simon's room adjoining the dome. Simon had that air of absolute spruceness and freshness which in persons who have stayed at home is so extremely offensive to persons who have just arrived exhausted and unclean from a tiresome journey. It was Albert who, with Hugo, had ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough of the seasons,—I spare you the months of the fever ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... will you hold your stoopid tongue!' exclaimed she, adding, 'you certainly are the most tiresome man under the sun.' She then turned ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... said Dora, preparing to get down from the buggy; "I would not want to wait for you in that tiresome old horse-hair parlor of the Dudleys. I should ever so much rather sit here, by myself, until you come back. But of course I shall see her before long. Isn't it funny, Herbert? I had to look for her when I came here before, and I suppose I shall always have to look ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... other seemed to resemble the former one, but I was soon instructed that the former one was as naught to this one, for here the turbine—the "strong, silent man" among engines—was replacing the racket of cylinder and crank. Statistics are tiresome and futile to stir the imagination. I disdain statistics, even when I assimilate them. And yet when my attention was directed to one trifling block of metal, and I was told that it was the most powerful "unit" in the world, and ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... up; for never will I be slow to tell the story." Then she told and related to her how Erec came to Lalut; for she had no desire to conceal it. She told her the adventure word for word, without omission. But I pass over it now, because he who tells a story twice makes his tale now tiresome. While they were thus conversing, one lady slipped away alone, who sent and told it all to the gentlemen, in order to increase and heighten their pleasure too. All those who heard it rejoiced at this news. And when Mabonagrain ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... there, who follow the way they have pointed out? tho' every one who seriously considers it, must be convinc'd of the Advantage; and the generality of Schools go on in the same old dull road, wherein a great part of Children's time is lost in a tiresome heaping up a Pack of dry and unprofitable, or pernicious Notions (for surely little better can be said of a great part of that Heathenish stuff they are tormented with; like the feeding them with hard Nuts, which when they have almost broke their ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius

... among the trees, and the new moon shone in the sky above the Lethal Chamber. It was tiresome waiting in the square; I wandered from the Marble Arch to the artillery stables and back again to the lotos fountain. The flowers and grass exhaled a fragrance which troubled me. The jet of the fountain played in the moonlight, and the musical splash of falling drops reminded me of ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... source of entertainment which was soon ended. Melicent continued to turn over the pages of her visiting book during which employment she came to the conclusion that these people whom she frequented were all very tiresome. All, all of them, except Miss Drake who had been absent in Europe for the past six months. Perhaps Mrs. Manning too, who was so seldom at home when Melicent called. Who when at home, usually rushed down with her bonnet on, breathless with "I can only spare you a moment, dear. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... Sometimes the one, sometimes the other idea may enter into it, but in this alternation that which is not in the focus either remains in consciousness unattended or when it disappears from it it loses its mental character altogether. If I attend a tiresome lecture while my mind is engaged with a practical problem of my own life, there may be a steady rivalry between the words which come with the force of outer stimulus to my brain and make me listen and my inner difficulties which claim my attention. ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... lake and rowed to the head of Long Island, where we put up our tents for the night. I have spoken so often of the loveliness of the evenings on these beautiful lakes, that to attempt a description of the one we enjoyed on this romantic island, would be only a tiresome repetition. But there was a splendor about the heavens above, and their counterpart in the depths below, which I have scarcely ever seen equalled. There was no moon in the early evening, and so pure and clear was the atmosphere, so ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... pipe is a pocket philosopher, a truer one than Socrates. For it never asks questions. Socrates must have been very tiresome when ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... irreparable insult, the only recognised mode of kissing here being to rub noses while murmuring "Oo" for an indefinite period. This was Billy's first and last experience of love-making here, although Teneskin would gladly have welcomed a white man as a son-in-law, and without the tiresome preliminaries which generally precede a Tchuktchi marriage. For, on ordinary occasions, a man must first obtain the consent of his fiancee, then that of her parents, and when these points are settled he must reside ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... The tiresome maneuvering had carried them about in circles back and forth across the harbor, but by it Number Thirteen had himself learned something of the proper method of propelling and steering his craft. At last, more through accident than intent, they came opposite ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... thought it was the involuntary thing, which men can't help any more than we can. You know—at least, I know in my own case—when a man has said to me, 'So-and-so's a pretty girl,' I am seized with a momentary sourness against So-and-so, and long to tweak her ear. It's a tiresome feeling, but not an important one, and one easily manages it. But it wasn't only this in Mr. Wilcox's case, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... has, old girl—where else could the poor dear be?" cried Beale Farange, to the still greater scandal of their companion, who protested that unless he straightway "took back" his nasty wicked fib it would be, this time, not only him she would leave, but his child too and his house and his tiresome trouble—all the impossible things he had succeeded in putting on her. Beale, under this frolic menace, took nothing back at all; he was indeed apparently on the point of repeating his extravagance, but Miss Overmore instructed her little charge that she was not to listen to his bad jokes: ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... Hooker,—all very tiresome. I abhor books of religion, though I reverence and love my God, without the blasphemous notions of sectaries, or belief in their absurd and damnable heresies, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... Chinese or Pagoda bridge. Tallyho had often animadverted on the absurdity of the late inconvenient and heterogeneous wooden structure, which had been erected at a considerable public expense; its dangling non-descript ornaments, and tiresome acclivity and descent of forty steps each. "What," said he, "notwithstanding the protection by centinels of this precious memento of vitiated taste, has it become ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... at once her position became tiresome, unbearable. She wanted to go to sleep, indeed she must sleep, for she had a long hard day before her to-morrow, putting her things into her trunks. Perhaps, if she rose and walked ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... a pen into my youthful hand, I lived in a very secluded part of the Midlands, and perhaps, my little world being what it was, it was inevitable that the originals of my characters, especially the tiresome ones, should be immediately identified with the kindly neighbours within a five-mile radius of my paternal Rectory. Five miles was about the utmost our little pony could do. It was therefore obviously impossible that I could be acquainted with any one beyond that distance. And from ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... conventions, of formulas. They forgot the diseased burden that lay in the chamber above, with its incessant claims, its daily problems. They forgot themselves, thus strangely brought together and revealed to each other, at one glance as it were, without the tiresome preliminary acquaintanceship of civilization. It had grown dark in the room before Sommers came back to the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... after another tiresome day spent in boring the Board of Visitors, came the evening promenade, a solemnly joyous and very ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... the tone and manner, but he answered both with a shrug. The Lady Barbara was even more tiresome than he had feared. He would have to teach her that snapping eyes and quarrelsome speech were out of place in a mariage de convenance such as they were making. Doubtless he had failed to please her in some way. How he knew not. But how could he please a lady to whom he was quite indifferent, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... Delusions, and to wearisome and costly Superstitions; even sometimes to the giving the Fruit of their Bodies to attone for the sins of their Souls. All the Forms of Pagan Religion have abounded with Institutions of this Nature; and that of the Jews consisted very much of tiresome and unpleasant performances; which being Types and Shadows of him that was to come, were practis'd to the same purpose. All which things we are freed from by the Gospel; Christ having offer'd up himself once for all, through whom forgiveness of Sin is preached to as many as believe in ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham

... as I did not understand them at all, I quickly closed them again, and read my little Lafontaine, which I loved passionately. I knew all his fables, and one of my delights was to make a bet with my godfather or with M. Meydieu, our learned and tiresome friend. I used to bet that they would not recognise all the fables if I began with the last verse and went backwards to the first one, and ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... fear you will find it a very tiresome subject," said Percy. "It is, as a rule, not an easy matter to adopt a system of permanent improvement on land that has been depleted by a century or more of exhaustive husbandry. but you will be very welcome not only to listen ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... tiresome rain," said Milly, standing by the window in her nightdress, and gazing up into the sky. "Where does it all come from, I wonder? Won't it be wet to-morrow, Nana? and oh, what ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fussy old thing," she called her, "going on about Master Tom's eyes last night. I dare say I shouldn't say so to you, Miss Audrey, but I can't help owning I was glad you spoke up to her as you did. She's that tiresome and interfering,—as if I didn't know my own work! I'll be sorry to leave you, my dears, when the time comes, which it will only too soon; but I can't say that there'd be peace for long if that stupid old woman was to keep ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth

... know? Did you never feel, even in winter in Montreal, when you had skating-rinks, toboggan-slides, snow-shoe meets, and sleigh-rides to keep you amused, that it was all growing tiresome and very stale? Haven't you felt that you wanted something—something you hadn't got and couldn't define—though you might recognize it when ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... his body, beneath the camel's hair coat, was thin. The fat and fatigue of too many years of rich eating and drinking, of sedentary work, of immense nervous pressures, had been swept away without diet, without tiresome exercise. He was young again—and he almost ran the Pontiac into a ditch at the ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin

... avoid the recurrence of such tiresome phrases as "it may be answered in the second place," and "it will be objected in the third place," etc., I will ask the reader's leave to arrange the discussion in the form of simple dialogue, letting O. stand for objector, and ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... you?" she asked. "You see"—plaintively—"I must ask questions about you. I know we like each other, and that is all that really matters. But there are some tiresome items which it would be convenient to know. For example, have you a father—a mother? Are there any more of you? How long have you ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... instead of receiving patents for their inventions, divided the honour of illuminating the land with the blazing tar-barrels provided for their peculiar use and benefit. Whether it was that aerial gambols on unsaddled and rough-backed broomsticks grew tiresome, or the small profit attending the vocation became smaller, or that all the elderly ladies with moles, and without anything else, were burnt up, we can't pretend to say; but certain it is, the art of witchcraft fell into disrepute. Corking, minikin, and all description of pins, were obliged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various

... United States cavalry tactics and form in double ranks. The utility of the change was, to say the least, an open question, and it necessitated many weeks of hard and unremitting toil on the part of both officers and men. There was little time for rest or recreation. Long and tiresome drills and "schools of instruction" made up the daily routine. In one respect, however, these drills of troop, regiment and brigade were a good thing. Many hundreds of new recruits were sent on from Michigan and, being ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... grinding wheel may be either horizontal or vertical; the former has the advantage that the mineral can be held in either hand; with the latter only the right hand can be employed, and that in an awkward and tiresome position. Mr. Julian then referred briefly to the kinds of emery, its preparation by elutriation, etc., and cautioned operators against using rouge or tin putty powder in polishing rock sections, although they may be employed in polishing certain minerals and gems. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various

... unbending or of making herself agreeable. The girls voted her to one another stiff and tiresome, and quickly left her to her own devices. She looked longingly at Cecil Temple; but Cecil, who could never be knowingly unkind to any one, was seizing the precious moments to write a letter to her father, ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... from the interruptions and distractions of the growing city; and by a very simple transaction the house became the property of the minor, Marcello Consalvi, to do with as he thought fit. This was much more convenient than paying rent to a tiresome landlord who might at any time turn his tenant out. Corbario thought of everything. Twice a week a gardener came, early in the morning, and soon the garden was really pretty; and the respectable woman-servant watered the flowers every evening just before sunset. There was a comfortable Calcutta ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... is a pity I did not think to get myself a little bag for tea and sugar. I have to order it a glass at a time, which is tiresome and expensive. I meant to buy some tea and sugar to-day at ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... could be so long and that the woods and fields with which her mind had been recently filled could become so monotonous and tedious. Even the towns and villages,—of which she had never heard,—that were interesting at first, soon became stupid and tiresome. She had long ceased to notice them particularly, her mind being naturally filled with thoughts of the place to which she was going, and where her whole future seemed to lay yet undeveloped. She finally fell into a ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... the whirr and rattle of the restless machinery, and the harsh tones of the overseer. When she began her work in the morning she said to herself, "I shall see her in the evening;" and when it was unusually tiresome during the day, and things went very wrong, she could be patient and even cheerful when she remembered "it's fur her." The factory-girls with boisterous good-nature had tried to make her sociable when she first came; they invited ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton

... pay the penalty of having interrupted the tiresome rascal," thought I to myself, "and even gratify Mr. Fairservice by taking his communication on his own terms." Then raising my voice, I addressed him,—"And after all, Andrew, what are these London news you had from your ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... tone is greatly affected also by the length of the sentences. If one's sentences are unnecessarily long, the effect will be heavy and tiresome. If they are markedly short, the result will be a monotonous, choppy, jolting effect, like a flat wheel on a street-car. The bing-bing-bing style just discussed is an illustration of the latter. The writer should aim at a happy medium, with ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... win, no matter how, one's laurels, By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end To strife; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend: Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot[62] We ne'er forget, though there ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... been of the blood royal of France, it had been overweening; and when she went abroad, she gave herself so many airs that she did nought but make wry faces, as if there came to her a stench from whomsoever she saw or met. But, letting be many other vexatious and tiresome fashions of hers, it chanced one day that she came back to the house, where Fresco was, and seating herself near him, all full of airs and grimaces, did nothing but puff and blow; whereupon quoth he, 'What meaneth this, Ciesca, that, to-day being a holiday, thou comest home so early?' To which she ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... like him any better than I do. He comes to see her about twice a week, and I've heard her say, "Goodness me, there's that tiresome old bachelor again." But she treats him just as polite as she does anybody; and when he brings her candy, she says, "Oh, Mr. Martin, you are too good." There's a great deal of make-believe about ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... if I accepted him it would look, over here, as if the home supply of husbands were of inferior quality; and then we had such disagreeable discussions at the beginning, I simply could not bear to leave my nice new free country, and ally myself with his aeons of tiresome history. But it came to me in the night, a week ago, that after all I should hate a man who didn't love his fatherland; and in the illumination of that new idea Ronald's character assumed a different outline in my mind. How could he love America when he had never seen it? How ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... may appear tiresome, and so they are when written out at length, but the time occupied in carrying them out is very short, and quartz threads break easily, unless the pull upon them is accurately in the direction of ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... up. My uncommercial travelling has not yet brought me to the conclusion that we are close to perfection in these matters. And just as I do not believe that the end of the world will ever be near at hand, so long as any of the very tiresome and arrogant people who constantly predict that catastrophe are left in it, so, I shall have small faith in the Hotel Millennium, while any of the uncomfortable superstitions I have glanced at ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... lovely complexion and an unlovely griffon (to her companion). So fussy and tiresome of the Government bringing in muzzles ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various

... numerous progeny, even in his own language, to answer for; though we fear we must concur in the sweeping censure of a Quarterly Reviewer, (vol. x. p. 301,) who condemns then en masse, with the single exception of the "Ethiopics" of the last-named author, as "a few tiresome stories, absolutely void of taste, invention, or interest; without influence even upon the declining literature of their own age, and in all probability quite unknown to the real forerunners of Richardson, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... go and join that other party now, Jack! What did you make me come away for, you tiresome thing!" she ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... home could be made even shorter. She had felt this man's love for her only in a vague way before, and now, as he turned to speak to her from time to time, she could not meet his eyes. The groups of people bade each other good-night merrily, though the entertainment had been a little tiresome to every one at the last, and it seemed the briefest space of time before Miss Fraley and Nan and their cavalier were left by themselves, and at last Nan and George ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... an ideal talker to children and young people, because, besides leisure, he had an innate kindliness and sympathy with the young which made him always anxious to put himself and his mind and heart at their disposal. He was in a perpetual mood to answer any questions, however tiresome and however often repeated. As he was a man of wide reading, of good memory, and almost an expert in many kinds of knowledge, we as children had something of that incomparable advantage for which I have always envied royalty. They are able to learn by the simple ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... unspoken question. "I am playing the part of the undutiful wife and running away from him, for exactly three weeks. It is very wicked of me, isn't it? but I have an engagement that I must keep. It is most tiresome." ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... evidence. No foliage is dense enough to hide his brilliancy; his temper, quite as fiery as his feathers, leads him into noisy quarrels, and his insistent song with its martial, interrogative notes becomes almost tiresome until he is happily mated and family cares ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... city and been made to feel deeply about the tragi-comedy of human existence, his experiences might have resulted in a deeper and more original note being sounded in his music. But we must take him as he is, reflecting, when the unbroken peacefulness of his music becomes a little tiresome, that he belonged to the "old time before us" and was never quickened by the newer modes of thought that unconsciously affected Mozart and consciously moulded Beethoven; and that, after all, his very smoothness and absence of passion give him an old-world charm, grateful in this hot and dusty ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... off one of his pseudo-philosophical disquisitions; and, notwithstanding many successful hits in expression, and a specious but misleading assumption of fervid accuracy in phraseology, his language is loose, promiscuous, and altogether tiresome. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... with their stone axes, dug in their big toes, and ascended. Such efforts provided them with long legs, while, again, they walked with turned-in toes. Why? Having scrub to penetrate, they must cut roads through it—a tiresome labour, not pursued more than was necessary. If they turned in their toes, they could sidle along ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... for his son by his fund of far-gathered business incidents and adventures, pointed with his crude but apt philosophy, and irradiated with his centripetal optimism. He possessed and was conscious of this prime virtue of talk, that he was never tiresome. Yet recently he had noted a restlessness verging to actual distaste on Hal's part, whenever he turned the conversation upon his favorite topic, the greatness of Certina and the commercial romance ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... for? God forbid! you are too tiresome, without counting the difficulty of pleasing you with your food. Oh! no, indeed! Explain to me whence comes this ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... and fresh, and her goddess-ship, which I had suspected of being something marshy, had no taint of mud about it. If only I might reveal all that she said to me in a confidence which I could have wished longer![295] But apparently she got tired of it[295] and let go my wig. "'Twould be too tiresome," she said, "to go on talking like this. Go out there, and leave us alone!" I turned round, and seeing no one in the room, I thought this order was addressed to me, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... "Here comes that tiresome Thurston girl, whom you were going to use as your tool, Peter," teased Mrs. Wilson. "She wasn't so easy to manage as you thought, was she? Never mind; she will still be used as our scapegoat. But I shall not see her this morning. ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... definitions which belong to this exercise, and then dismissing them for the principles of syntax, Dr. Bullions encumbers his method of syntactical parsing with such a series of etymological questions and answers as cannot but make it one of the slowest, longest, and most tiresome ever invented. He thinks that the pupil, after parsing any word syntactically, "should be requested to assign a reason for every thing contained in his statement!"—Principles of E. Grammar, p. 131. And the teacher is to ask questions as numerous as the reasons! Such is ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... is one time at night when he must go home that his friends may sleep; and another time in the morning when all the world agrees to shut out interruption. These are the moments of which poor Sober trembles at the thought. But the misery of these tiresome intervals he has many means of alleviating.... His daily amusement is chymistry. He has a small furnace which he employs in distillation, and which has long been the solace of his life. He draws oils and waters, and essences and spirits, which he knows to be of no ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... Newport[77] (who distinguished himself so much in that riot of the Chartists[78]); he is a very timid, modest man, and was very happy when I told him orally how exceedingly satisfied I am with his conduct.... The officers have been rewarded too.... I am plaguing you already with tiresome politics, but you will in that find a proof of my [confidence] love,[79] because I must share with you everything that rejoices me, everything that vexes or grieves me, and I am certain you will take ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... which cost him much pain and took up much of his time for many years, but of which Luke says little. At the date when Luke wrote, it was a dead controversy, and it belonged to a different plane from that along which his story moves. But at the time when it was raging, it tried Paul far more than tiresome journeys or angry seas. It was at its hottest about the close of his third journey, and the Epistles already mentioned as having been written then may be said to have been evoked by it. The Epistle to the Galatians especially was a thunderbolt hurled against his opponents in this controversy; ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... with weary, contemptuous eyes, and her very attitude said, "How inexpressibly tiresome it is!" Jack felt helpless before this persistent melancholy. He thought he might make the acquaintance of some one of these honest, simple families, and perhaps in their society his mother might be cheered. Once he thought he ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later. My mind is evidently so constituted that I am subconsciously forced into the path of duty without recourse to tiresome mental processes. However that may be, I have never regretted that cowardice ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... many charming country houses and farm houses in France with dining-rooms furnished with painted furniture. Somehow they make the average American dining-room seem very commonplace and tiresome. For instance, I had the pleasure of furnishing a little country house in France and we planned the dining-room in blue and white. The furniture was of the simplest, painted white, with a dark blue line for decoration. The corner cupboard was ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... to Town "pour ce bore," as the good King always said to me; whenever there were tiresome people to present he always said: "Je vous demande pardon de ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took me on his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome journey of it, for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very bad temper that if the Church had been thrown open, he would probably have excommunicated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In his lay capacity, he persisted ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... sure you both would rather spend your last morning in New York going through a candy factory than doing anything else? Factories are tiresome places, you must remember." ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... from. This incident effectually cured the offender of his unpleasant habit. The accusation of neglecting his laundress may have been an unfounded one. In my early youth I was given a book to read about a tiresome little girl named Ellen Montgomery, who apparently divided her time between reading her pocket-Bible and indulging in paroxysms of tears. The only incident in the book I remember is that this lachrymose child had an aunt, a Miss Fortune, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... American friends who are thankful for a breath of fresh air, are frequent guests. The nearest chateau to us is Montalon, where Madame de Sevigne used to live, and from which she wrote some of her letters. If she ever wrote a tiresome one, it must surely have been from here, as the damp and moldy house, covered with creeping vines and overgrown with ivy, surrounded by melancholy cypress and poplar trees, which shut out the view, could scarcely have ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... "Oh, don't be so tiresome, Charmion. Of course I am tired. I've been on my feet all day long. Cross! Why should I be cross? Only—I don't choose to accept hospitality from that man. I tell you ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... about on the whirlpool and swallowed up. Then would come the haggling with managers, long and tiresome journeys, gloomy hotels and indifferent fare, curious people who desired to see the one-time fashionable belle; her portraits would be lithographed and hung in shop-windows, in questionable resorts, and the privacy so loved by gentlewomen gone; ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... "The Divine Fire," in fact every reader of any of Miss Sinclair's books, will at once accord her unlimited praise for her character work. "The Three Sisters" reveals her at her best. It is a story of temperament, made evident not through tiresome analyses but by means of a series of dramatic incidents. The sisters of the title represent three distinct types of womankind. In their reaction under certain conditions Miss Sinclair is not only telling a story of ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... But he, too, had been expensive in the pursuit of delight. He, too, had tiresome trifles on his mind. So he produced the sixpence, and accepted the dissipation of nearly eight hundred pounds in less than a month with ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... word. No doubt, all things that are perilous, horrible, awful, ghastly, deadly, and the like, are disagreeable too. But when we use the word disagreeable by itself, our meaning is understood to be, that in calling the thing disagreeable we have said the worst of it. A long and tiresome sermon is disagreeable; but a venomous snake under your pillow passes beyond being disagreeable. To have a tooth stopped is disagreeable; to be broken on the wheel (though nobody could like it) transcends that. If a thing be horrible and awful, you would not say it was disagreeable. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... would be tiresome; two or three times is quite enough. Besides, what earthly good could my saying 'I love ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... myself. You would have been discussing things, and I hate discussions. She would have been hunting for first principles, and you would have been running about, trying to catch some for her. Besides, she is coming herself some Sunday with that tiresome Mr. Ratcliffe. I don't see what she finds in that man to amuse her. Her taste is getting to be demoralised in Washington. Do you know, Mr. Carrington, I'm not clever or serious, like Madeleine, and I can't read laws, and hate politics, but ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... so," sighed Mollie sinking down in her chair resignedly, "but it's horribly tiresome. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... series we first tell you something about the theory, and then proceed to give you "something to do." This is the true Yogi method as followed and practiced by their best teachers. Too much theory is tiresome, and sings the mind to sleep, while too much exercise tires one, and does not give the inquiring part of his mind the necessary food. To combine both in suitable proportions is the better plan, and one that we ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... carefully through the editorial communication. Mr Gibbs was not quite so tiresome as she had feared he would be. After him, the packet from her London flat was inspected and its contents laid aside for future perusal. Next, she tackled the local letters. One was embossed with the Bank of Leichardt's Land stamp and contained ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... he was a Pole—one of those very tiresome specimens who wander about and pretend to be outlaws. However, she soon perceived that she had made a mistake, and this piqued Mademoiselle Adele. For one of her many specialties was the ability to immediately 'assort' all the foreigners with whom she mingled, and she ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland

... subject, and the typical salon picture, no longer decorously pompous, began to deal in blood and horror and sensuality. It was Regnault who began this sensation hunt, but it has been carried much further since his day than he can have dreamed of, and the modern salon picture is not only tiresome but detestable. ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... Rubini and Grisi, Lablache and Tamburini. The opera, by Bellini, I Puritani, was dreadfully tiresome, and unintelligible in its plan. I hope it is the last opera I ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... possible, to get it finished in order to read it to him on Tuesday evening. So on Monday evening at six o'clock I sat down to begin my fifth act, and by half-past eleven had completed my task; I am thus minute because I know you will not think these details tiresome, and also because, even if it succeeds and is praised and admired, I shall never feel so happy as when my father greeted my entrance into the drawing-room with, "Is it done, my love? I shall be the happiest man ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... of this primitive young woman that she held these opinions in an age of general darkness)—which she rarely had an occasion to hear, except on the hand-organ. She confessed that she was not particularly fond of literature. Morris Townsend agreed with her that books were tiresome things; only, as he said, you had to read a good many before you found it out. He had been to places that people had written books about, and they were not a bit like the descriptions. To see for yourself—that was the great thing; he always tried to see for himself. ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... the morning they took their travel, intending a day's journey up the river. I took my load at my back, and quickly we came to wade over the river; and passed over tiresome and wearisome hills. One hill was so steep that I was fain to creep up upon my knees, and to hold by the twigs and bushes to keep myself from falling backward. My head also was so light that I usually ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

... you'll be free from business cares and where the boy can grow strong without having to fight a raw Eastern spring. You might try the Riviera, but I'm afraid the sea would be too much for Phil just yet; or southern California—but the trip is tiresome. The South is nearer at hand. There's Palm Beach, or Jekyll Island, or Thomasville, Asheville, or Aiken—somewhere down in the pine country. It will be just the thing for the boy's lungs, and just the place for you to rest. Start within a week, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt



Words linked to "Tiresome" :   tedious, uninteresting



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