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Undersized   /ˈəndərsˌaɪzd/   Listen
Undersized

adjective
1.
Smaller than normal for its kind.  Synonym: undersize.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Undersized" Quotes from Famous Books



... undersized boy, who was two or three years younger than Ike, and not strong enough for work at the anvil, was a great tactician. It was his habit, in doing a favor, rigorously to exact a set-off, and that night when the blacksmith had left the shop, ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... After the grain had been harvested, cattle were turned out indiscriminately on the stubble, on the supposition that the fields were common property. It was useless to attempt to breed fine cattle when all were herded together. The breed deteriorated, and both cattle and sheep were undersized and poor. A full-grown ox was hardly larger than a good-sized calf of the present time. Moreover, there were no potatoes or turnips, and few farmers grew clover or other grasses for winter fodder. It was impossible, therefore, to keep many cattle through the winter; most of the animals ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... proceedings are most suggestive of an ideal naked savage leading a "natural" life, are supposed to be not only more advantageous to the child but in some mystical way more moral. The spectacle of an undersized porter-fed mother, for example, nursing a spotted and distressful baby, is exalted at the expense of the clean and simple artificial feeding that is often advisable to-day. Yet the mortality of first-born children should indicate that a modern woman carries no instinctive system ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... was dead. I went out in the night. At the first barricade I stopped and offered myself; a man examined me by the light of a lantern. 'A child!' he exclaimed. I was not fifteen. I was very slight and undersized. I answered: 'A child, maybe, but my father was killed two hours ago. He gave me his musket. Teach me how ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy

... girl said. She stared up at Lee. He towered above her, and beside him the undersized and stoop-shouldered Franklin was swaying happily. Admiration leaped into ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings

... when first his team had been reduced to one rather undersized dog he did arrange for his charge to walk. And within an hour, having cunningly awaited his opportunity, the demented creature had leaped upon him from behind, exactly as a wolf might, and fastened his teeth ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... folds his arms and throws his head back in a peculiar way he has. How strangely full of dignity these undersized ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... Orlando when he became furioso because Angelica would have nothing to say to him and married Medoro. And I saw Astolfo's father, Ottone d'Inghilterra, and Il Re Desiderio and Gandellino, who seemed undersized; but when ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones

... men with the big man were noncommittal. The pale, undersized man was a mere onlooker whose sympathies were with the accused. Miss Bransford would have been quite willing to have this young man escape punishment, but she could not deny that the cattle in question belonged ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... here? And Tako, the giant? We had seen nothing of either of them. These men seemed all undersized rather than gigantic. We were about to start around the corner of the veranda for a closer view of the figures in the grove, when a sound near at hand froze us. A murmur of voices! ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings

... and everybody in this free country has a right to outwit others if he can. What a turn-out he has!' One was once heard to add, 'I never saw a more genteel-looking man in all my life except one, and that was a gentleman's walley, who was much like him. It is true he is rather undersized, but then madam, you ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... passed Richmond without taking particular notice of him. He was rather undersized, and was bald, but his head was shapely. He was so sensitive that he often assumed a brusqueness in order not to appear effeminate. His judgment of men was as swift as the sweep of a hawk, and sometimes it was as sure. He had taken so many chances, ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... had kept his eyes on O'Day as he peered into the dark, an undersized, gaunt-looking man, sidled toward Felix and pulled at his coat sleeve. "I ain't too early, am I? ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... came to canvassing in the end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up to it. He used to tell us his experiences in that line. He made us laugh till we cried, and, not altogether displeased at the effect, undersized and bearded to the waist like a gnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and say, "It's all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that work." I don't know how Jim's soul accommodated itself to ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... smaller than the live ones, although French soldiers are small enough. That portion of the French army which I have seen—at Longchamps, Chalons-sur-Marne, Saumur, and at various other places—are, as a rule, undersized, badly dressed, and badly groomed. They do not look neat, nor even clean, if you want the truth. The uniform is very ugly, and was evidently designed for men thirteen feet high; so that on those comical little toy Frenchmen it is grotesque ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... had said she might make a visit with the Odell girls. They had grown and changed; and Hanny felt quite as if she were undersized. Mr. Odell had been building a new part to the house; and oh, what a lovely garden they had! It made ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... what he was looking for, out in the throng of traffic that filled the Avenida do Acre, in Rio. He'd seen it over the heads of the crowd, which was undersized, as most Brazilian crowds are, and he managed to get through the perpetual jam on the mosaic ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... my way, you'll have to run," called out Marshal Crow as he unlimbered his long legs and made for the mouth of the alley. He was not running, but Newt, being an undersized individual, had no other means of keeping up with him unless he obeyed the sardonic behest. For ten or fifteen rods, Mr. Spratt jogged faithfully at the heels of the leader, and then suddenly remembered that it was a long way to ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... space was devoted to three or four bulky casks, and here an aproned drawer sat astride of a rush-bottomed chair, grinning delightedly and exchanging nods and winks from time to time with an impish, undersized lad who lay on his stomach on a wine-butt with his head craning forward over ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... traveled and in an instant he was looking down from his new height at the gray undersized cat. Then the screen door of the porch opened and ...
— The Inhabited • Richard Wilson

... way out. There ain't much in them chaps, tailors and shoemakers, and the like; they are always great hands for jaw, them tailors and shoemakers, but I never seed one as I would put five pound on in a twelve-foot ring. Poor undersized creatures, for the most part, but beggars for jaw; but there are some rough uns with 'em, and yer might get badly marked ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... to wake up and do something, and a wiry-looking, undersized, lean-ribbed old warrior, with an immense head, whose bow and arrows had been hanging near him, at once rushed forward and began to make a sort of pin-cushion of that cow. He twanged arrow after arrow into her, yelling ferociously, and was just turning away to get his ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... conspicuous figures among the dark mass of unimposing Anchurians, as they penetrated to within a few yards of the steps of the Casa Morena. Looking easily above the heads of the crowd, they perceived another that towered above the undersized natives. It was the fiery poll of Dicky Maloney against the wall close by the lower step; and his broad, seductive grin showed that he recognized ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... out of the tail of his eye—an undersized, peaked, and sallow little woman, whose clothes fitted her abominably. It was just like Stener to marry a woman like that, he thought. The scrubby matches of the socially unelect or unfit always interested, though ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... that? Some folks say he is. Say, are you one o' these here detectives? Be you after Carder? Pete's a boy they took out of an asylum, and if he'd ever had any care he wouldn't be bandy-legged and undersized, but don't you say I've told ye anything, 'cause ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... line up all the men in Salt Lake City according to size we should find at one end of the line a few exceptionally tall men, likely from six feet to six feet six inches in height. At the other end of the line would be a few exceptionally small men—undersized men from three feet eight or ten inches to four feet six inches. In between these two types would come in graduated order all sorts of men with a decidedly large number standing about five feet six or eight inches. This latter height we call ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... attendance. The red heart of the general's cigar was visible midway between the window and the central doorway, but the jovial host was wrapped in shade. The light from the doorway fell upon the white gown of Mrs. Archer and the trim, slender, undersized figure of Lieutenant Harris, standing before her. They heard the general's voice, cordial and resonant, uplifted presently in protest: "No, don't go yet, boy. Let 'Tonio take care of himself to-night. I want you both to hear Lilian sing. Here, orderly, you go find 'Tonio and give ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... the show languished. Nothing but the happy acquisition of a Chinese giant nearly eight feet high, with slanting eyes and a long pigtail,—a man who did penance in his height for the undue brevity of his undersized nation,—would have ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... voice at his elbow. He looked around, and then he looked down. An undersized urchin with not much on but a pair of ragged breeches stared up at him boldly, hands behind his back. "Do you know what ails your ship over there?" He nodded sideways at the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... boys wear a close-fitting cap covering the ears, like a baby's bonnet, and have the crown and base of the skull partly shaved, which gives them a quaint monastic appearance, while every man carries a long sharp knife in a leather sheath thrust through his belt. The women are undersized creatures, some pretty, but most have hard weather-beaten faces, as they work in the open in all weathers. Many have beautiful teeth, which, however, are soon destroyed by the constant chewing of sealskin to render it pliable for boots and other articles. They wear a ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... change in the stock sizes of hats. But, where there has been no cranial distension, provision will be made to remedy the defect by the insertion of a cork sheath, by the aid of which a head of undersized circumference will be able to wear a No. 8 hat. Again, to meet the needs of customers in whom the temperature of the cranial region is habitually high, a hat has been devised with a vacuum lining for the insertion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various

... carved balustrade, black and worm-eaten, Cecil de la Borne stared at his brother with the angry disgust of one whose sense of all that is holiest stands outraged. Slim, of graceful though somewhat undersized figure, he was conscious of having attained perfection in matters which he reckoned of no small importance. His grey tweed suit fitted him like a glove, his tie was a perfect blend between the colour ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... into shell holes from time to time. The men ahead of us were mostly Brandenburgers, Bavarians and Prussians. At one place I had leapt with my pal into a small shell hole, and over to my right was a kiltie engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with a Hun. The kiltie was an undersized chap and Fritz was about twice his size, and with a much longer bayonet, and Jock seemed to be getting a bit tired. I didn't think it wise to wait, even though I felt very certain that Jock could hold his own, and taking careful aim with my revolver I tumbled the Fritzie over. Looking then to the ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... double-barreled penis this opening could be seen and was of sufficient size to admit the finger. On the right side of the aperture was an elongated and rounded prominence similar in outline to a labium majus. This prominence contained a testicle normal in shape and sensibility, but slightly undersized, and surrounded, as was evident from its mobility, by a tunica vaginalis. The left testicle lay on the tendon of the adductor longus in the left groin; it was not fully developed, but the patient had sexual desires, erections, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... features there is nothing to distinguish them from the red race elsewhere, they have strong national traits. Physically they are rather undersized, averaging not over five feet four inches in height, but strong-limbed, agile, and symmetrical. Their foreheads are low, their noses more allied to the Aryan types than usual with their race, and their skulls of that form defined by craniologists ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton

... a name that you ought to be proud of. It calls attention to your best point. And if you keep on making as much noise in the world as you do now, maybe people won't notice that you're a bit undersized. You certainly sound as big as any little shote ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... squire and his son Arthur appeared in the yard. The Gaffer, as he was called, was a man of about medium height. He wore breeches and gaiters, and in them his legs seemed grotesquely thick. His son was a narrow-chested, undersized young man, absurdly thin and hatchet-faced. He was also in breeches and gaiters, and to his boots were attached long-necked spurs. His pale yellow hair gave him a somewhat ludicrous appearance, as he stood talking to his father, but the moment he prepared to ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... physical side, because children who breathe through the mouth are apt to have a vacant expression, to be stupid and inattentive, undersized, pigeon-breasted, with short upper lip and crowded teeth, we have leaped to the conclusion that it is a fearsome and dangerous thing to breathe through your mouth. All sorts of stories are told about the dangerousness of breathing ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... more than a score wild-rose bushes. On the very first of them we see that some of the blossoms are a light pink, others a pink so deep as to seem dashed with vivid red. And while a flower here and there is decidedly larger and more vigorous than its fellows, a few of the blossoms are undersized and puny: the tide of life flows high and merrily in a fortunate rose or two, it seems to ebb and falter by the time it reaches one or two of their unhappy mates. As we search bush after bush we are at last repaid for sundry scratches from their thorns by securing a double rose, a "sport," as the ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... love the King. Young and lacking in wisdom, this amazed me. In age he compared favourably with her husband he was but thirteen years older than herself—but in nothing else. He was a weedy, unhealthy-looking man, weakly of frame, rachitic, undersized, with spindle-shanks, and a countenance that was almost grotesque, with its protruding jaw, gaping mouth, great, doglike eyes, and yellow tuft of beard. A great king, perhaps, this Philip, having so been born; but a ridiculous man and an unspeakable lover. And ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... excessive laudation should turn the stripling's head? Professionally, if not artistically speaking, Dore passed straight from child to man; in one sense of the word he had no boyhood, the term tyro remained inapplicable. This undersized, fragile lad, looking years younger than he really was, soon found himself on what must have appeared a pinnacle of fame ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... observer, Chick was but a dirty, ragged little boy, undersized and underfed, and rather frightened, to himself at least he was a bold desperado, about to avenge himself for ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... anxiety and undernourishment used up his wife and children. It all seems to have come out in the baby—queerest little kid you ever saw—born about a year ago. Mighty funny—ain't it?—the way we let children just a few squares away from us grow up pinched, half-starved, undersized, uneducated, and as little moral as the gutters can make 'em, and all the time we're parading and begging and even collecting the pennies out of orphan asylums, for the sake of the children on the other side of the world. But it's a queer thing, charity, however ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... never found one, and I am not in love with her and never was.) Warburton has described to me her eyes, so I am positive that they were as heavenly blue as a rajah's sapphire. Her height is of no moment. What man ever troubled himself about the height of a woman, so long as he wasn't undersized himself? What pleased Warburton was the exquisite skin. He was always happy with his comparisons, and particularly when he likened her skin to the bloomy olive pallor of a young peach. The independent stride was distinguishingly American. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... of the Bible, does not always follow exactly the text which he is to illustrate. The people called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercury. This would seem to show that Barnabas was a great, imposing figure, and Paul, according to tradition, was a small, undersized man; but there is no such contrast to be ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... men and women, well dressed, sober-looking, crying, "Shame! shame!" and topping by a head the little squad of undersized soldiers (for the regular army was then recruited almost entirely from foreigners) who marched hurriedly forward, with eyes cast straight before and downward, and dressed in that shabby blue that ten years later was to pour southward in serried column, all American then, to free ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... complete turnout, and it well deserved all the attention it attracted, which was considerable. The horses were capricious, highly polished grays, perhaps a trifle undersized, but with such an action as is not to be bought for less than twenty-five guineas a hoof; the harness was silver-mounted; the dog-cart itself a creation of beauty and nice poise; the groom a pink and priceless perfection. But the crown and summit of the ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... to the splendor of the surroundings. He did not monopolize the talk, and never failed to return an appreciative response to any remark or question. To the ladies he gave the most deferential attention. Arlington, a peer in the social realm, felt piqued to admit himself outrivalled by an undersized widower who was ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... gait." The same consequences for the eyes and the whole constitution are produced by the embroidery of lace. Medical witnesses are unanimously of the opinion that the health of all children employed in the production of lace suffers seriously, that they are pale, weak, delicate, undersized, and much less able than other children to resist disease. The affections from which they usually suffer are general debility, frequent fainting, pains in the head, sides, back, and hips, palpitation of the heart, nausea, vomiting ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... toilet with brocaded underskirt and high-heeled twinkling shoes, and breathing out essences as she swept by smiling; and he, a pathetic little brown man, pockmarked, with an ill-shapen nose and a head too large for his undersized body, in a rich velvet suit ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... Deuce was an undersized, scrawny specimen of the genus which is popularly known as "tinhorn," a sort of free-lance gambler, usually to be found sitting in at a poker-game. The engineer was a big ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... had as yet observed upon the excellent bearing of the two men. They were dark, undersized, and well set up; stepped softly, waited deftly, brought on the wines and dishes at a look, and their eyes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to Denver in the spring of 1880, at the age of eleven, as mildly inoffensive a small boy as ever left a farm—undersized and weakly, so that at the age of seventeen I commonly passed as twelve, and so unaccustomed to the sight of buildings that I thought the five-story Windsor Hotel a miracle of height and magnificence. I had ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... on the Frenchmen I dimly remembered about St. Regis. They were undersized fellows, very apt to weep when their emotions were stirred. I could whip ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... a faint air of insolence was apparent in his attitude. He was not accustomed to being treated with contempt, and the desire awoke within him to find some means of disconcerting this undersized whippersnapper who had almost succeeded in making ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... fragile being smaller than Butscha? That is a question which we ask ourselves in more than one salon in Paris when we hear the greatest names of France announced, and see the entrance of a thin, pinched, undersized young man, scarcely possessing the breath of life, or a premature old one, or some whimsical creature in whom an observer can with great difficulty trace the signs of a past grandeur. The dissipations ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... army height of 5 ft. 3 in. They are in a separate organization called "The Bantam Battalion," and although undersized have the opinion that they can lick the ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... first sight very striking about Mr. John Wesley's appearance. He was, I thought, rather undersized, and I at that moment failed to see what there was about him to cause so much commotion. And yet as I looked again I could not help being impressed with the calm strength which shone from his eyes. He seemed to possess a ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... say it about. It was art from the moment we met until we parted, though we might sit over our coffee for hours. Often it was next morning when J. and I reached the house at the top of the hill, and he dragged the huge key from his pocket, undid the ponderous lock and struck the overgrown match, or undersized candle, by which the Roman lit himself to his rooms, and we panted up our six flights afraid ours would not last, for we had but the one supplied ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... his small, sandy moustache. He was an insignificant-looking little man, undersized, with thin frame and watery eyes. His mouth, however, was hard, and there were some tell-tale little lines ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... cold meat) to a party of friends and relations - They're a ravenous horde - and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations. And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Devon); He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when he tells you he's only eleven. Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the bye the ship's now a four-wheeler), And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer"; But this you can't stand, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... was it unprofitable, for the British as a race, and particularly the British soldier, will bet on anything. One man, a sapper, made quite a good thing out of backing a scorpion which he carried about with him in a tobacco-tin. It was a great scrapper, and as it was a very undersized creature, he usually managed to obtain good odds from men who were backing larger and more powerfully developed specimens. What this sapper fed his gladiator on was a mystery; but ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... a puff and agonized groan from the poor little undersized engine, we departed into the dim, mysterious night, which hourly became more chill, and which promised a sharp frost before morning. As we crawled out of the station, our kind military friends saluted, and wished us, a little ironically, a pleasant journey. When I ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... slight, undersized youth, very pale, very fair, with the face of a delicate boy. He had large, near-sighted blue eyes in which lurked a wistful, deprecatory smile, a small chin running from wide cheek-bones to a point. His lips were sensitive and undecided, his nose unformed, his hair ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... even "Pussy wants a corner" disarranged her painfully curled curls and was rarely risked. "Hop- scotch," when the figure was small and lady-like, was practically the limit of Hattie's "violent exercise." So she did not develop-how could she! She remained undersized. Moreover, her play-days were sadly shortened, for they early merged into work-days. Housekeeping cares were many, as her mother planned her household. According to York State traditions Hattie was early taught domestic details, and for over a generation seriously, slavishly ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... going to take a peer—and I must own peers are rather my fancy at present—it was Mohammedan pashas last year, wasn't it, Ri?" ("That is so," from Ri.)—"If I AM going to take a peer, I must have a man that LOOKS a peer. I've been plagued with so many undersized and round-shouldered noblemen that I'm beginning to wonder whether the aristocracy gets proper nourishment. ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... guide exclaimed, waving the lanthorn to and fro boastfully, that I might see its points. 'What do you say to that? Is that an undersized pony?' ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... Koritz, dark, undersized, with the eyes of an Oriental and the lean, sensitive fingers of one who creates, shivered a little, like a plant that is swept by an icy blast. Buck came over and laid one hand on ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... chalky hill, and commanded an extensive view of the wasteful Double. It had a windblown, naked appearance, like many villages near the sea, although the ocean was still far from here. Moreover, there was a strange quietude—the stillness of a fever-stricken spot. The men and women looked undersized and prematurely old, and the children were pale and thin. Although the village was on a hill, the evil influence of the marshes reached it. I was told, however, that it had become much less unhealthy of late years. On the highest spot was a poor and plain little ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... motoring at the first go-off." As for me, I have always found a certain piquant charm in a timid woman. There is a subtle flattery in her almost unconscious appeal to superior courage in man which is perhaps especially sweet to an undersized chap like me; and I had never felt more kindly to the Countess and her daughter than I did ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... them without any disguise, obtaining a remission of taxes, and gaining two lawsuits. In every litigation he used the Public Prosecutor's name with such good effect that the matter was carried no further, and, like all undersized men, he was contentious and litigious in business, though in the ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... them, and that their progress was really very great, and most satisfactory, as Mr. Nixon, Charles's guardian, who had examined him, had reported most favourably thereon. But he appears to be insignificant, and undersized, thin as a whipping post, pale, and somewhat sickly-looking, he appears much younger than he is, and seems hardly fitted for what you and I would delight in. Eh! ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... the highest development is as truly an injury as giving to life wrong direction. Has not a plant been positively injured when its most beautiful possibilities are unrealized because of unfavoring conditions? Is not a body, undersized and stunted because of lack of fresh air and food, as truly deformed as though the back were bent? Has not that soul received the most cruel of all injuries, when its divinest possibilities can never be attained either ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux

... good point of Champion Rothsay Chief and not a flaw from nostril to tail-tip'! Rothsay wrote those very words about her, you remember. And he's supposed to be the most dependable man in the collie business! Lord! She's undersized—no bigger than a five monther! And she's prick-eared and apple-domed; and her head's as wide ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... frowning. "He is just plain foolish to smoke. Why, he is undersized and underweight now for his age, and every time he smokes he checks his growth. It is up to him. I bet he has had it explained to him a million times by each teacher and tutor he has ever had just how smoking will harm him and dope ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb

... at her doubtfully. She was an undersized, wizened little Cockney, and Avice was a big, stoutly-built girl—who held, moreover, the advantage of a commanding position on the top step. In an encounter of strength there was little doubt as to who would win. She turned in silence, cowed, and went down to ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... all I want, Annabel. I was a little afraid you'd be sick of the place. But, my, we can go right ahead and set a crew of men to grubbing out the sage on both sections to once. Folks might have said, seeing you take up with a undersized, froze-up fellow like me, you was marrying me for my money; but they can't, no, ma'am, not when they see the valuable claim you are developing in your ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... expecting to find a saucy street boy; but the owner of the voice was a girl. She was dirty-faced, undersized, poorly dressed, and ill-nourished. But she was absolutely independent, and stood there in the crowded square with all the ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... was only natural when we consider the utter lack of board schools and their frantic belief in a hereafter. I imagine the Norse Sea-kings who pushed out to Vine-land—aye, even down to Cape Cod—would have been puzzled to hear an undersized clerk who had saved a man from a watery grave described as a hero. Their method was to pull the drowning wretch out with a boat-hook, and curse him for being so clumsy as to fall in. Eric the Red never worried about a sailor who had the bad judgment to be washed overside during ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... using tact and discretion when in camp. A revolver settled all disputes. On approaching them they treated me as well as their rough natures would permit; but I did not take kindly to any of them. They all told me that I was undersized, and too young to stand the dangers and hardships of a trip. I returned to camp much ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young

... came in from school; they were frail and undersized little girls, with clothing that was neatly but pitifully patched. And ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... giving a dinner-party, and extremely unlikely to leave the private side of the house. John heard snatches of song, howls, and cheers. Ordinarily Lawrence (in whose passage the shindy was taking place) would have stopped this hullabaloo; but Lawrence was dining with his house-master, and Trieve, an undersized, weakly stripling, lacked the moral courage to interfere. John was getting a "con" from Trieve when an unusually piercing howl ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... you would be a grown, strong, formed—widow. Alas, my dear, the delicacy of age reckoned, as usual, without the derision and cruelty of youth. You told me that you didnt want to be an old man's nurse, and that you didnt want to have undersized children like Bentley. It served me right: I dont reproach you: I was an old fool. But how you can imagine, after that, that I can suspect you of the smallest feeling for me except the inevitable feeling of early youth for late age, or ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw

... document. The Blue Class, as became mere infants ranging from six to ten years old, remained phlegmatically indifferent to the missive, yet avid for samples of the chocolates that had accompanied the declaration, made to eighty girls of all ages by one undersized, pasty, freckled young man employed as junior clerk and chain-assistant in a surveyor's office, and who signed at the end of a long row of symbolistic crosses the unheroic name of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... thing we weren't prepared for was the thing that befell. We had expected 'him' to be offensive, and he wasn't. He was, quite simply, insignificant. He was a South American, a Brazilian, a member of the School of Mines: a poor, undersized, pale, spiritless, apologetic creature, with rather a Teutonic-looking name, Ernest Mayer. His father, or uncle, was Minister of Agriculture, or Commerce, or something, in his native land; and he himself was attached in some nominal capacity ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... little impatience as he could help: these embraces were not to his taste. And yet the boy did love his mother. She was not at all a wise woman, or a clever one; rather silly, indeed, in many things; but she was fond of him. At this period he was young-looking for his age, slight, and rather undersized, with an exceedingly light complexion, a wishy-washy sort of face with no colour in it, unmeaning light eyes, white eyebrows, and ragged-looking light hair with ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... He was an undersized, foxy fellow, dressed as a gamekeeper and carrying a fowling-piece under one arm. His small eyes regarded her through ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... an opportunity to observe her more closely. Her figure was slightly formed, and undersized for her apparent age of seventeen years. Her face would have been plain, but for one peculiarity which made it charming, in his practised judgment. This rare excellence was her complexion, which showed a perfect pink and white, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... began to learn the difference between Englishmen and Scorpions," Pedro Roldos went on. "Up to then I had not known that it made a difference being born on the Rock or in England. I did not know what a Scorpion was—with all the vices of England and Spain in one undersized body. I haunted the Rock. I learnt English. All to no avail. Lorenza was gone. Nino never said anything—he merely stayed by my side—but I think that something—some fibre had broken within him while he held the sheet that ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... Lean, "Captain Marryat's personal appearance was very prepossessing. In figure he was upright and broad-shouldered for his height, which measured 5ft. 10in. His hands, without being undersized, were remarkably perfect in form, and modelled by a sculptor at Rome on account of their symmetry. The character of his mind was borne out by his features, the most salient expression of which was the frankness of an open heart. The firm decisive ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... An undersized man with a remarkably large head of hair spoke up from the righthand side of the table: "I want to suggest that it is high time we sent another ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... vegetation at Heddon's Mouth, gathering wisdom from the earth and from the sea tranquillity. De Wichehalse was naturally vexed a little when all this accumulated wisdom culminated in nothing grander than a somewhat undersized, and unhappily female child—one, moreover, whose presence cost him that of his faithful and loving wife. So that the heiress of Ley Manor was greeted, after all, with a very brief and sorry welcome. "Jennyfried," for so they named her, soon began to grow ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... made Sabina light the fire, turn out the kitchen and wash endless cups and saucers that had been left over from the evening before. Hans, the scullery boy, did not come until seven. He was the son of the butcher—a mean, undersized child very much like one of his father's sausages, Sabina thought. His red face was covered with pimples, and his nails indescribably filthy. When Herr Lehmann himself told Hans to get a hairpin and clean them he said they were stained from birth ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield

... kelson, her water-tight compartments, and her double skin, the outer one being of polished Honduras mahogany, and the inner of yellow pine, with canvas between them; also by her strong, firm deck, her undersized masts and sails, and ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... was tall, well favoured, a good rider, quite an athlete, an accomplished performer with the mouth-organ and concertina; ready and persuasive of tongue. These qualities provoked unaffected admiration; for the natives of the place are undersized, ill-looking, and deficient generally in the arts of pleasing. Before the master left, Caesar was persuaded by his envious fellow-countrymen to remain with them to be flattered ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... wiry, small men, in the main, mounted on shaggy, strong, little horses, no bigger in reality than ponies. He had heard of the prowess of the Cossacks, of course. They had fought well in the past in a good many wars. But somehow it seemed rather absurd to match them, with their undersized horses, against magnificent specimens of men and horseflesh such as the German cavalry. He had passed a squadron of Uhlans, near Virballen, outlined against the sky. They had been grim and business-like in appearance. But then the Cossacks were that, too, though in ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... and the tractor are now doing much of the work formerly done by horses, the "horseless era" is still far off. A good horse will always be worth good money, will always be a desirable and profitable member of the farm family. But the undersized no-breed specimen will be even less valuable in the future than ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.

... respected him most highly, "Marsh" McNutt (and sundry other appellations by those who respected him not at all), became the recipient of a letter from New York announcing the intention of a certain John Merrick, the new owner of the Wegg Farm, to spend the summer on the place. McNutt was an undersized man of about forty, with a beardless face, scraggly buff-colored hair, and eyes that were big, light blue and remarkably protruding. The stare of those eyes was impenetrable, because observers found it embarrassing to look at them. "Mac's" friends had a trick of looking ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... de Mussidan in no way resembled the man sketched by Florestan. Since the time of Montaigne, a servant's portrait of his employer should always be distrusted. The Count looked fully sixty, though he was but fifty years of age; he was undersized, and he looked shrunk and shrivelled; he was nearly bald, and his long whiskers were perfectly white. The cares of life had imprinted deep furrows on his brow, and told too plainly the story of a man who, having drained the chalice of life to the bottom, was now ready to shiver the goblet. As ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... but her father was exceedingly surprised. Neither of them, however, made any objection, and one of the pleasantest apartments of their house was fitted up for the reception of pupils. She was then a delicate-looking girl of about eighteen, and rather undersized. As soon as her desks were brought home by the carpenter, the ambitious little lady went around to the families of the place, informed them of her intention, and solicited their patronage at the established rate of three dollars a quarter for each pupil. She was puzzled and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... little sympathy for Lyad. Lyad had lost out on a very big gamble. And, each in his own way, there were three very formidable males among whom she was sitting. None of them was friendly; two were oversized, and the undersized one had a fairly bloodchilling record for anyone on the wrong side of law and order. Trigger decided to forget about beady stares for ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... is,' said the Constable, 'that there are far too many rioters. One would have been quite sufficient. If there had been only one small undersized rioter, I should have quelled him with the ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay

... they seem so vast that you get the impression that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over to do a bit of entertaining—possibly an informal dance or something. When you go on board you find that the place has shrunk to the dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands again. For one reason or another the necessity for swinging cats does not arise and ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... roads, bordered with stones placed one on top of the other, without cement or plaster; that these paths, bordered with impenetrable hedges; that these grudging plants; these inhospitable fields; these crippled beggars, eaten with vermin, plastered with filth; that even the flocks, undersized and wasted, the dumpy little cows, the black sheep whose blue eyes had the cold, pale gleam that is in the eyes of the Slav or of the tribade; had perpetuated their primordial state, preserving an identical ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... Lake, and in 1914 about the same amount was realized. There is always a good demand for a good article, carefully picked and honestly packed, discarding all bruised and scabby or wormy apples, or those undersized or less than ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... powerful undersized build and enjoys good health, injured by no excesses. He considers himself nervous. He worked hard at school and was always the first in his class; he adds, however, that this is due less to his own abilities ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... almost felt sorry for her. She turned sickly yellow and her eyes went wild; they were looking at the downfall of all her schemes and hopes. I didn't look at Mark Foster, at first, and, when I did, there wasn't anything to see. His face was just as sallow and wooden as ever; he looked undersized and common beside Owen. Nobody'd ever have picked him out ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... was a short, undersized man, as nearly as he could make out. Someone whom he did not recognize jumped in it from the gambling house and they disappeared. Even though my man, his suspicions aroused, tried to follow them in a taxicab they managed to ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve

... beans are turned on to a tray to dry in the sun. They are still sticky, but of a brown, mahogany colour. Among them are pieces of fibre and other "trash," as well as small, undersized beans, or "balloons," as the nearly empty shell of an unformed bean is called. While a man shovels the beans into a heap, a group of women, with skirts kilted high, tread round the sides of the heap, ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head

... Lanky Smith, a small, undersized man of retiring disposition. Then came Skinny Thompson, six feet four on his bared soles, and true to his name; Hopalong described him as "th' shadow of a chalk mark." Pete Wilson, the slow-witted and very taciturn, and Billy Williams, the ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... I did n't pay special attention to any of them, only to wonder who the officer was, 'cause I never remembered seein' him here before at Dodge, but, as I recollect, the fellow with a beard was rather undersized; had ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... a rather undersized little man, of perhaps thirty. Dark of hair, and sparkling of eye, the stranger's rather pallid face was partly covered, in front, by a short goatee, of the French "imperial" sort, and a moustache whose points were waxed out in fierce ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... good woman, undersized. I see several charming women, but they are all undersized. They are more or less imbecile and idiotic, but always fascinating and undersized. They wear coquettish caps and aprons. I observe that feminine virtue is invariably below the medium height, and that it is always ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... little maiden of eleven summers, rocks in a boat a rod from shore, and by her side, his length along the warm wave, his arm along the boat, a boy floats in his linen clothes, an amphibious child, so undersized as to seem but little more than a baby, and yet a year her senior. He swims round and round the skiff in circling frolics, followed by the great dog who gambols with them, he dives under it and comes up far in advance, he treads ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... intelligent, but he distinguishes between magpies and men; he doesn't reveal himself; his accomplishments, vocal and mental, are for his own tribe. In this he differs from the daw; for the daw is less specialized; he is an undersized common crow, livelier, more impish than that bird, also more plastic, more adaptive, and takes more kindly to the domestic or parasitic life. Human beings to him are simply larger daws, and unlike the pie he can play his tricks and be himself ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... I saw numbers of German wounded, most of them bearded; many there were who seemed weakly and undersized, and among them were many grey heads, a very motley company. These, the Colonel informed us, received precisely the same treatment as our own wounded, even to tobacco ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol

... to get anywhere he ordered out his car and Guy Little. When he wanted information he sent for Guy Little. The undersized mechanician was gifted with eyes which could see, ears which could hear, and a tongue which could set matters clear; he must have been unusually keen to have retained his position in the old man's household for the matter of five ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... unpopular man in the telegraph-car. An undersized, aggressively important individual, just out of college, and affecting a stylish khaki hunting-suit, natty leather leggings and a broad-brimmed hat, he bore himself generally as though second in importance only to the construction ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs



Words linked to "Undersized" :   little, small, undersize



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