Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Wand   /wɑnd/   Listen
Wand

noun
1.
A rod used by a magician or water diviner.
2.
A thin supple twig or rod.
3.
A ceremonial or emblematic staff.  Synonyms: scepter, sceptre, verge.
4.
A thin tapered rod used by a conductor to lead an orchestra or choir.  Synonym: baton.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Wand" Quotes from Famous Books



... Tabulu, the shepherd king, And from his love continuous didst wring Sem-uk-ki[4], till he to appease thy love, The mighty gods of heaven then sought to move To pity with his daily offerings. Beneath thy wand upon the ground he springs, Transformed to a hyena; then was driven From his own city—by his dogs was riven. Next Is-ul-lan-u lov'st, uncouth, and rude, Thy father's laborer, who subject stood To thee, and daily scoured thy ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... perceiving the enemy, made haste, and in so doing, they produced an effect of their breasts which was of service to the little fisher; the water flowed back before the swans, and one of these gentle concentric undulations softly floated the brioche towards the child's wand. Just as the swans came up, the stick touched the cake. The child gave it a brisk rap, drew in the brioche, frightened away the swans, seized the cake, and sprang to his feet. The cake was wet; but they were hungry and thirsty. The elder broke the cake into two portions, a large one ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... note from out the sky, "Pure, pure, pure," in plaintive tone, As if the wand'rer were alone, And hardly knew ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... with a blue-black bandage (turkadee), in the form of a turban, but also brought, according to the invariable custom of the Tuaricks, over and under the eyes. His shoes were the common Soudan sandals; and thus, with a long wand, or a white stick, he proceeded with a slow-measured pace through the streets of the town. A dependant followed the Sultan at a short distance, but the absence of an escort proclaimed ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... make a brief study of one of these objects. An object described by Ling Roth[58] as the "head of the staff or wand of offices" may be used as an illustration. The design is "that of a leopard supporting a column on its back. The uppermost portion of this staff head consists of a band of engraved basket work patterns with grained open ground. This is followed by a band ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... now held by Wolfert Webber, while the doctor produced the divining rod. It was a forked twig, one end of which was grasped firmly in each hand, while the center, forming the stem, pointed perpendicularly upward. The doctor moved his wand about, within a certain distance of the earth, from place to place, but for some time without any effect, while Wolfert kept the light of the lantern turned full upon it, and watched it with the most breathless interest. At length the rod began slowly to turn. The doctor ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... his clear, unsuspicious eyes upon her. He had replaced his wide wool hat on his head, and he leaned forward, resting his cheek on his hand and his elbow on his knee. He aimlessly flicked his long spurred boot, as he talked, with a willow wand which he carried in ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... see you do not like to apply that epithet to her, and you are right. She should not be designated as a mantua-maker, but a great artist,—a true artist,—a fairy, who, with one touch of her wand, can ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... a slight meditative smile came on her lips and made a little dimple in her chin. Her thoughts were pleasant then; no more of that grim impossible duty. Had Wetter's wand conjured any other idea into her mind? Had his picture another side for her imagination? It seemed possible enough; it may well have seemed possible to Princess Heinrich when she requested that Elsa should not read the speech. Princess Heinrich may have ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... threat Of that illustrious anchoret, Cried, as he launched with ready hand A fiery weapon, "Stand, O Stand!" Vasishtha, wild with rage and hate, Raising, as 'twere the Rod of Fate, His mighty Brahman wand on high, To Visvamitra made reply: "Nay, stand, O Warrior thou, and show What soldier can, 'gainst Brahman foe. O Gadhi's son, thy days are told; Thy pride is tamed, thy dart is cold. How shall a warrior's puissance ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... hid from human eyes, And in your walks see empires fall and rise. And ye, immortal souls, who once were men, And now, resolved to elements again, Who wait for mortal frames in depths below, And did before what we are doomed to do; Once, twice, and thrice, I wave my sacred wand, Ascend, ascend, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... Splendid, hard at it on my right, for once a zealous Protestant, and he was whisking around him his broadsword like a hazel wand, facing half-a-dozen Lochaber-axes. "Cruachan, Cruachan!" he sang. And we cried the old slogan but once, for time pressed and ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... uniting Italy in a great federative republic, of which Rome should be the ancient and lawful head, and the free cities and princes the members and associates. His pen was not less eloquent than his tongue; and his numerous epistles were delivered to swift and trusty messengers. On foot, with a white wand in their hand, they traversed the forests and mountains; enjoyed, in the most hostile states, the sacred security of ambassadors; and reported, in the style of flattery or truth, that the highways along their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... and hesitated, till Abi in a rage lifted his cedar wand to strike him on the back. Then he went, step by step, slowly, pausing at each step to address prayers and praises to her Majesty of Egypt. At length he came to the door of the Queen's chamber, and kneeling down, peeped into it, to see that it was quite empty. Next he crawled across the ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... the sticks, which, with a close-grained outside, has a small core of pith, and this notched stick is laid horizontally on a knife-blade on the ground; the operator squatting, places his great toes on each end to keep all steady, and taking the other wand which is of very hard wood cut to a blunt point, fits it into the notch at right angles; the upright wand is made to spin rapidly backwards and forwards between the palms of the hands, drill fashion, and at the same time is pressed downwards; the friction, in the course of a minute or so, ignites ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... deliver the man. If he was unable to do so, or was friendly to the criminal, he still secured the reward by giving false information against an innocent person, and supported his assertions by the perjury of his subordinates. By these methods he soon grew rich. He carried a silver wand which he asserted to be a badge of office given him by the government, and entered into secret leagues with corrupt magistrates. After a time he called himself a gentleman, and wore a sword, the first use of which was to cut off his wife's ear. At last he was detected in aiding the escape of ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... chariot of the princess, and in each sat two officers of the court; then came a dozen of slaves ready for any service, and lastly a crowd of wand-bearers to drive off the idle populace, and of lightly-armed soldiers, who—dressed only in the apron and head-cloth—each bore a dagger-shaped sword in his girdle, an axe in his right hand, and in his left; in token of his peaceful ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... sleigh with shout and din, To bind his hands and feet; A hundred strong they clambered in Our good old Kris to meet. He sat quite still, with twinkling eyes, Then seized his mystic wand, He raised it up, and waved it round ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson

... sun dips Beneath the western sea, A prayer is on my lips, Dearest! a prayer for thee. I know not where thou wand'rest now, O'er ocean-wave, or mountain brow— I only know that He, Who hears the suppliant's prayer, Where'er thou art, on land or sea, Alone can ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various

... a desk, the wagon seat was useless. Nevertheless, Mary set forth, with all her eloquence, the mission of a desk. Mrs. Yellett was genuinely depressed. Had she imported the magician without his wand—Aladdin without his lamp? She proposed a bewildering choice—an inverted wash-tub, two buckets sustaining the relation of caryatides to a board, the sheet-iron cooking-stove. In an excess of solicitude she even suggested ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... Miss Jeffries and Miss Hanbury, who could not keep in step. But the best part of it was the pantomime. Ellaline came up a trap with a diamond dress and her hair down her back and electric lights all over her, and said, "I am the Fairy Queen," and waved her wand, at which the "First Boy" in the pantomime said, "Go long, now, do, we know your tricks, you're Ellaline Terriss"; and the clown said, "You're wrong, she's not, she's Mrs. Seymour Hicks." Then Letty Lind ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... the learned air that breathes from the grassy quadrangles and stone walls of halls and colleges—was at home in the Bodleian; and at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered Ciceroni that attended us, and that pointed, in vain with his wand to commonplace beauties in matchless pictures.—As another exception to the above reasoning, I should not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreign country without a companion. I should ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... yesterday," he declared, pointing towards the Empty House with a bit of broken flower-pot, "or else it's the ones you killed last week, and who was always astealin' of my strorbriz." He looked very wise as he said this, and his wand of office—a dirty trowel—which he held in his hand, gave him ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... bristly boars, Their wildman's limbs naked upon the earth, Rolling themselves in leaves and fronded boughs. Nor would they call with lamentations loud Around the fields for daylight and the sun, Quaking and wand'ring in shadows of the night; But, silent and buried in a sleep, they'd wait Until the sun with rosy flambeau brought The glory to the sky. From childhood wont Ever to see the dark and day begot In times alternate, never might they be Wildered ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... the blue sky, and the few Poplars that grew just in the view Of the hall of Sir Hugo de Wynkle: "Answer me true," pleaded Sir Hugh, (Striving to woo no matter who,) "What shall I do, Lady, for you? 'Twill be done, ere your eye may twinkle. Shall I borrow the wand of a Moorish enchanter, And bid a decanter contain the Levant, or The brass from the face of a Mormonite ranter? Shall I go for the mule of the Spanish Infantar - (That R, for the sake of the line, we must grant her,) - And race ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... some mistake brought back before reaching the laundry. This individual, with a look as unlike heaven as the wickedest of his flock, will be seen stirring about on his little stage; now carrying a wand—now a brazen pot of smoking "incense," and anon some waxen doll—the image of a saint; while in the midst of his manipulations you may hear him "murmuring" a gibberish of ill-pronounced Latin. If you have witnessed ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... who had evoked all this by a wave of his wand? How could smiling Mr. Blocque roll in luxury thus, when everybody else was starving? How could my host wear broadcloth, and drink champagne and smoke Havanas, when ragged clothing, musty bacon, and new apple-abomination, were the order of the day with ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... depravity in a nation. There are still speakers and writers who seem to think that the Irish are incurably vicious, because the accumulated effects of so many centuries cannot be removed at once by a wave of the legislator's wand. Some still believe, or affect to believe, that the very air of the island is destructive of the characters and understandings of all who ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... her Face was cover'd with a Vail; and her Eyes were fixt, as one at her Looking-glass, on the River. Every now and then a Sigh burst out, as if her Heart were breaking. In her Hand she held a little Wand or Rod, with which she was tracing out some Characters on the dry Sand, that lay between the flow'ry Bank she sat on, and the purling Current. Zadig's Curiosity induc'd him, unperceiv'd, to observe her Operations at some Distance. But ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... The sun seemed a lake of glory and I a boatman, fair and free, sailing vast distances upon it with just one stroke of my wand-oar—and here I began ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... the wand-like lily, which lifted up, As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, Till the fiery star, which is its eye, Gazed through the clear dew on ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway

... sister of the baronet's, quitted Deerhurst to settle themselves with her importunate ladyship in Harley Street for the remainder of the winter—at least the winter of fashion! which, by a strange effect of her magic wand, in defiance of grassy meadows, leafy trees, and sweetly-scented flowers, extends its nominal sceptre over the vernal months of April, May, and even the rich ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... House" in New Place, where Shakespeare led the life of a country gentleman after breaking the magician's wand, like the other residences in Stratford, must have stood even with the street, for the brick arches of part of the foundation, and fragments of the side and cross walls remain, being covered with iron gratings to prevent depredation. The curb and canopy of the well from which he drank ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... had come for us with a respectable elderly automobile which (as the estate agents say) "went with the place." The chauffeur was (is) elderly and respectable, too, evidently transferred by the fairy wand of Circumstance from the box-seat of a carriage to the wheel of a car. We took poor forlorn little Pat and pouting Angele to Awepesha with us, instead of carrying them a mile farther on; and then, without waiting for half a glance at his new ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... Ants, near whose nest he was standing. One of them climbed up and stung him, and he immediately trampled them all to death with his foot. Mercury presented himself, and striking the Philosopher with his wand, said, "And are you indeed to make yourself a judge of the dealings of Providence, who hast thyself in a similar manner ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... popular pieces of mechanism which we have seen, Is the Magician constructed by M. Maillardet, for the purpose of answering certain given questions. A figure, dressed like a magician, appears seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand in one hand, and a book in the other A number of questions, ready prepared, are inscribed on oval medallions, and the spectator takes any of these he chooses and to which he wishes an answer, and having placed it in a drawer ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... which begins the round of feasting and dancing, takes place during the November moon. It is a local ceremony in which gifts are exchanged between the men and women of the village, which result in offers of temporary marriage. It takes its name from the Aiyaguk or Asking Stick,[13] which is the wand of office of the messenger or go-between. The Annual Feast to the Dead is held during the December moon, and may be repeated again in spring after the Bladder Feast, if a large number of Eskimos have died in the interim. It consists ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes

... front of the thrones. We three sat down, Alphonse and Umslopogaas standing behind us. Scarcely had we done so when there came a blare of trumpets from some passage to the right, and a similar blare from the left. Next a man with a long white wand of ivory appeared just in front of the right-hand throne, and cried out something in a loud voice, ending with the word Nyleptha, repeated three times; and another man, similarly attired, called out a similar sentence before the other throne, but ending with the word Sorais, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... had already taken place in the baron's soul. When his heart was trampled in the dust, his pride was broken. The stubborn rock was smitten by the heaven-directed wand, and the waters of contrition ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... that day as if all the rampart of will, which ten years' labour had built up between her and the dangers and miseries attendant upon such a temperament as hers, were beginning before her eyes to crumble into dust, touched by the wand of a ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... Suddenly, by a wave of a wand, as in the fairy tales, his maiden was transformed. Instead of the orphan girl, working bravely with her brave hands to earn her bread, he saw—a rich woman! saw the woman he loved condemned by ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... "convoluted albumen and fibre, of some four pounds' weight," and there sits the intelligence which has worked all these wonders! An intelligence, say, six thousand years old next century. How many thousand years more will it think, and think, and wave the wand, and raise new spirits out of Nature, open her sealed-up mysteries, scale the stars, and uncover a universe at home? How long will it be before this inherent power, laid in it at the beginning by the Almighty, shall be exhausted, and reach its limit? Yes, how long? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... of thy light, or a dumb blind personification of thy smiles and tears, or an ignis-fatuus of the intelligence that is in thee or beyond thee, I am thine forever and ever: I come to thee, I prostrate my face before thee, I surrender myself wholly to thee. O touch me with thy wand divine again; stir me once more in thy mysterious alembics; remake me to suit the majestic silence of thy hills, the supernal purity of thy sky, the mystic austerity of thy groves, the modesty of thy slow-swelling, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... same personal manner as the rest of us. The poet brought into the ranks of the dramatis personae!—the creator of fictions converted himself into a fictitious personage!—there seems some strange confusion here. It is as if the magic wand were waved over the magician himself—a thing not unheard of in the annals of the black art. But then the second magician should be manifestly more powerful than the first. The second poet should be capable of overlooking and controlling the spirit of the first; capable, at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... for this kind of thing, to believe his most intimate friend, Horace Walpole, was quite a fact. His friend relates that he even bargained for the High Sheriff's wand, after it was broken, at the condemnation of the gallant Lords, but said, 'that he behaved so like an attorney the first day, and so like a pettifogger the second, that he would not take it to light his ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... party came to the German wires. The lieutenant had drawn on a rubber glove. In his gloved hand he grasped a strip of steel which he held in front of him, like a wand, fanning the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... place in the world where you can wave a magic wand like that," said Birotteau, with an Asiatic gesture worthy of the Arabian Nights. "You will do me the honor to come to my ball, monsieur? Men of talent are not all disdainful of commerce; and you will meet a scientific ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... ladies and gentlemen, that the tree has not its root in English ground from which the yard wand can be made that will measure—the mine has not its place in English soil that will supply the material of a pair of scales to weigh the influence that may be at stake in the war in which we are now straining all our energies. That war is, at any ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... He took the stopper out of the decanter and deliberately raised it to his nostrils. No, it was powerless. The aroma had no more effect upon him than the scent of, say, eau de Cologne would have had. That night in Warwick Gardens, it had been like the touch of some evil magician's wand. Then, in an instant, it had transformed his whole nature; but now his brain remained cool and calm, and his senses absolutely unmoved. Yes, he had conquered. He needed a stimulant, merely as an invalid might need a tonic, and he could take it ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... wand had wrought so surprising a change, shared, of course, in the general prosperity. His wife and daughter were courted by the highest nobility, and their alliance sought by the heirs of ducal and princely houses. He bought two splendid ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... her hair a vigorous shake in the breeze. In the bright sunlight it sparkled with glints of gold as if a fairy wand had touched it. ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed

... up to him from desire of protection, and swear, saying, "O Brahmana, we shall never again commit any sinful act," they would then deserve to be let off without any punishment. This is the command of the Creator himself. Even the Brahmana that wears a deer-skin and the wand of (mendicancy) and has his head shaved, should be punished (when he transgresses).[1215] If great men transgress, their chastisement should be proportionate to their greatness. As regards them that offend repeatedly, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... must descend at Genets, to cross the greve, tu sais" interpolated the waiter, excitedly changing his napkin, his wand of office, from one armpit to the other. The thought of travel stirred his blood. It was fine—to start off thus, without having to make the necessary arrangements for a winter's service or a summer's ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... about 1 in. long, bright purple or rose purple, of tubular florets only, from an involucre of overlapping, rigid, pointed bracts; each of the few flower-heads from the leaf axils along a slender stem in a wand-like raceme. Stem: 1/2 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Alternate, narrow, entire. Preferred habitat - Dry, rich soil. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Ontario to the Gulf of ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... o'ershaded in the field of blood, Gored by his foes, deserted by his God. Mute with amaze, they cease the war to wage, Gaze on their leaders and forget their rage; When pious Capac to the listening crowd Raised high his wand and pour'd his voice aloud: Ye chiefs and warriors of Peruvian race, Some sore offence obscures my father's face; What moves the Numen to desert the plain, Nor save his children, nor behold them slain? Fly! speed your course, regain the guardian town, Ere darkness shroud you ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... thy mountain-hall Learned our painter, Dahl; Wand'ring on thy strands our poet dreamed, Welhaven; All thy morning's gold Ole Bull ensouled, Greeted on thy ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... meads, Here woods, Lycoris, lift their verdant heads; Here could I wear my careless life away, And in thy arms insensibly decay. Instead of that, me frantick love detains, 'Mid foes, and dreadful darts, and bloody plains: While you—and can my soul the tale believe, Far from your country, lonely wand'ring leave Me, me your lover, barbarous fugitive! Seek the rough Alps where snows eternal shine, And joyless borders of the frozen Rhine. Ah! may no cold e'er blast my dearest maid, Nor pointed ice ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... Do come in! I cannot wait another minute!" cried an eager little voice as the red door flew open; and there stood Fay, looking very like a happy elf in her fresh white frock, a wreath of spring flowers on her pretty hair, and a tall green wand in her hand, while the brilliant bird sat on her shoulder, and the little white dog danced ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... this man carried a wand, about the length of an ordinary walking cane. He told her to observe and remember its length, and to mark well the measurements he was about to make, the result of which she was to communicate to ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... her crystal wand three times and said: "I can see a walled-in garden in a distant land. A bell is ringing for vespers, and all the nuns with downcast eyes hasten across a cloister to the chapel door. The youngest of them all sees a ...
— The Dumpy Books for Children; - No. 7. A Flower Book • Eden Coybee

... ceased to please. Even those who possessed them have disowned the gibberish, and as they outgrew the rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home, society, contemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand, to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the Bastille of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... course prepared for his honoured weight. Shoes or sandals, for in truth the latter alone are used in Arabia, are slipped off on the sand just before reaching the carpet, and there they remain on the floor close by. But the riding stick or wand, the inseparable companion of every true Arab, whether Bedouin or townsman, rich or poor, gentle or simple, is to be retained in the hand, and will serve for playing with during the pauses of conversation, like the fan of our great-grandmothers in ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... intoxicates the poet, it is not inactive in other men. The metamorphosis excites in the beholder an emotion of joy. The use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for all men. We seem to be touched by a wand which makes us dance and run about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave or cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables, oracles, and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating gods. Men have really ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... women and their partners—a scene so gay that one could only think of it as happening in a fairy legend, or some old romance of knighthood. Four sets of favours were given during this function, and jewels and objects of art were showered forth as if from a magician's wand. Mrs. Devon herself soon disappeared, but the riot of music and merry-making went on until near morning, and during all this time the halls and rooms of the great mansion were so crowded that ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... A tin cup rattles in a bucket, and another shadowy figure steals off into the darkness, with an instinct as unerring as the skill of a water-witch with a willow wand. The Yankees chose open fields for camps, but your rebel took to the woods. Each man and his chum picked a tree for a home, hung up canteens and spread blankets at the foot of it. Supper—Heavens, what luck—fresh beef! One man broils it on coals, pinning pieces of fat to it ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... condition of any substance whose light is submitted to it, telling its story equally well, provided the light be strong enough, whether the luminous substance be near or far—in the same room or at the confines of space. Clearly such an instrument must prove a veritable magic wand in ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... of the palace and gardens by the waving of Armida's wand is astonishing; it appears completely to be the work of inchantment, from the rapidity of execution which follows the potentissime parole. The French recitative however does not please me. The serious opera is an exotic and ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... the rod for divination; and there is reason to believe that often God permitted that the rods should make known by their movements what was to happen; for that reason they were consulted. Every body knows the secret of Circe's wand, which changed men into beasts. I do not compare it with the rod of Moses, by means of which God worked so many miracles in Egypt; but we may compare it with those of the magicians of Pharaoh, which produced ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... said, "For what cause hath thy Gerald parted? I cannot lend my mystic aid, Except to lovers, faithful hearted; My magic wand would lose its might— I could not read my spells aright— All skill would from my soul depart, If I should aid the false ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... of Bion for Adonis, and of Moschus for Bion, which are the most pathetic products of Greek idyllic poetry; and the transmutation of their material into the substance of highly spiritualized modern thought, reveals the potency of a Prospero's wand. It is a metamorphosis whereby the art of excellent but positive poets has been translated into the sphere of metaphysical imagination. Urania takes the place of Aphrodite; the thoughts and fancies and desires of the dead singer ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... circumstance which could have added to the resentment he felt, it was that this extravagant donation had been made in favour of our friend Caleb, towards whom, for reasons to which the reader is no stranger, he nourished a decided resentment. He raised his riding-wand against the elder matron, but she stood firm, collected in herself, and undauntedly brandished the iron ladle with which she had just been "flambing" (Anglice, basting) the roast of mutton. Her weapon was certainly the better, and her arm not the weakest of the two; so that Gilbert ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... wistfully From birdlike wand'rings, ever come to rest, On fostering hand on tender cheek or breast; The upturned eyes, with loving certainty Seek ever the grave face where broodingly, The mother-soul by yearning love opprest, With wings down-drooped, seems folded o'er the nest Where lies the Hope ...
— The Angel of Thought and Other Poems - Impressions from Old Masters • Ethel Allen Murphy

... who kept the way seized a stick from some one by, broke it across his knee in unequal parts, and bound them hurriedly together; so, in the legend and in all the pictures, when Mary of Nazareth was led to her espousals, one of her disappointed suitors broke his wand. The cross was rough with its broken edges which Jeanne accepted from her enemy, and carried, pressing it against her bosom. One would rather have that rude cross to preserve as a sacred thing, than the highest effort of art in gold and silver. This was her ornament ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... friends, having withdrawn herself for the purpose, appears at one of the doors of the house, and is led to the bridegroom, who stands ready to receive her. Having now taken their station on a mat, placed in the centre of the room, they lay hold of the extremities of a wand about four feet long, by which they continue separated, whilst the old men pronounce some short harangues suitable to the occasion. The married couple after this make a public declaration of the love and regard they entertain for each other, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... chair stood a red-haired girl in a blue cotton gown; and in her hand she languidly waved a long instrument made of clustered strips of green and white and yellow tissue paper fastened to a wooden wand; with this she amiably amused the flies except at such times as the conversation proved too interesting, when she was apt to rest it on the shoulder of one of the guests. This happened each time the editor of the "Herald" joined in the talk. As the men seated themselves they all ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... touched the heights with its magic wand. And the forest seemed a temple in which man might worship nature and life rather than steal through the dells and under the arched aisles like a beast of prey. The green-and-gold leaves of aspens quivered in the glades; maples in the ravines fluttered their red-and-purple leaves. The ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... to my Republican friends, you are too late. You have gone too far to recede now. Four million people, one-seventh of your whole population, you have set free. Will you start back appalled at the enchantment your own wand has called up? The sequences of your own teachings are upon you. As for me, I start not back appalled when universal suffrage confronts me. When the bloody ghost of slavery rises, I say, 'Shake your gory locks at me; I did it.' I accept the situation. I fight not against the logic of events or ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... of this proposal, Bill, in the course of a few minutes, found himself dressed in a midshipman's uniform. He could scarcely believe his senses. It seemed to him as if by the power of an enchanter's wand he had been ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... took it up and looked at it. It was the baton with which he conducted his last symphony. He smiled and shook his head. "I am through; thoroughly and completely through," and he broke the conductor's wand in pieces and threw them into the fire. "That finishes me!" he said. "I am snapped; broken in little bits. I did not ask to live, but now,—now, I ask to die! To die, that is all I ask, to die." He took out the little miniature of his wife and looked at it long and tenderly. "Elene, Elene! ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... Fodder, a wand, and burdens, are for the ass; and bread, correction, and work, for ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous

... freedom: the winter ended, the soil soon to reappear, rivers once more running their joyous course, the earth again transformed like some lovely girl released at last from an evil spell by touch of magic wand. But they did not allow themselves to be glad in this house of death, nor indeed did they feel the happiness of it in the midst ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... are sleeping with their kindred—summer blossoms o'er them wave; Some, lonely and unfriended, with the stranger found a grave; While others now are wand'ring on a far and foreign shore, And that happy, loving ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... photoplay; only, and the reasons must be obvious, its importance in the photoplay is even greater. Without the plot, the writer's script will remain forever a script, a mere piece of hand- or typewriting; it will never be transformed by the magic wand of the director into a film picture. Remember always that the photoplay is nothing but a series of scenes in action which make up a story. How can you expect to have action without a sufficient cause for every effect shown and the scenes ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... Thus wand'ring, I afflicted go Through Vales and Forrests all alone; Nor do I know how to direct my Steps. But here this Instant I perceive The fam'd inchanted Fountain of Love, Whose Waters faithful Lovers undeceive: In it I'll view my self, to see Whether ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... of keen and alert intelligence pervading the whole assembly; the quaint survival of the time-honoured "overture"—three knocks on the boards—dating back to Roman times when the Prologus of the comedy stepped forth and craved the attention of the audience by three taps of his wand; the chief actor's approach to the front of the stage after the play is ended to announce to Mesdames and Messieurs what in these days they have known for weeks before from the press, that "the piece we have had the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... unsightly row of old willows. Billy was going to rent it for temporary barn purposes but his wife, who had a nimble and a prophetic eye, made him buy it. Then, under her supervision Billy enlarged and remodeled it and Billy's wife waved some sort of a fairy wand over it, for it became over night a lovely, story-book home. When everything was ready she had the unsightly willows cut, revealing a gently rising stretch of mossy sward ending in a cluster of old trees from ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... climes, it was my lot To meet the wondrous Michael Scott; A wizard of such dreaded fame, That when, in Salamanca's cave, Him listed his magic wand to wave, The bells would ring in ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... against its dim greenness. She stopped at the bars that led into the pasture field, and as she did, Charles Stuart came vaulting over the fence from the lane and strode towards her. And surely everybody must have been touched with a magic wand, and turned into somebody else; because it wasn't Charles Stuart at all, but Mr. Coulson, to whom Elizabeth had bidden such an agonized farewell only yesterday! He came straight towards Annie, holding out both his hands, and when he reached the bars ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... a small palfrey, having a white wand in his hand, and, attended by his two marshals on each side of him, he rode at a footpace through all the ranks, encouraging and entreating the army that they would guard his honor and defend his right. He spoke this so sweetly and with such a cheerful countenance that all who had been dispirited ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the boat, then—both of us singing, Love his wand swinging Over our fate. AEol is moving, But though wild proving, In your arms loving Comfort doth wait. Blest, on angry waves of ocean riding, By thee clasped, vain 'twere this dear thought hiding: Death shall find me in thy pathway ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... thought, "He thinks the notary yonder is a magician and the pen his wand. Something is ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... was hot and calm. The lamp burning before the tabernacle in Pere Jerome's little church might have hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St. Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery, with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door which stood ajar, sat ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable

... his sin To Zeus in sending violent darts of death, A raising hand irreverent, against The one-eyed forgers of the thunderbolt. For shepherd's crook he held the living rod Of twisted serpents, later Hermes' wand. Him sought the king, discovering soon hard by, Idle as one in nowise bound to time, Watching the restless grasses blow and wave, The sparkle of the sun upon the stream, Regretting nothing, living with the hour: For him, who had his light and song within, Was naught ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... gentleman servant takes the first dish, the second is taken by the controller, and the other officers of the Kitchen take the rest. They advance in this order: the maitre d'hotel, having his baton, marches at the head, preceded some steps by the usher of the hall, carrying his wand, which is the sign of his office, and in the evening bearing a torch as well. When the Meat, accompanied by three of the body-guards with carbines on their shoulders, has arrived (that is, in the first antechamber, where the King is to dine), the maitre d'hotel makes ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne

... we send to King Marsile at Saragossa?' 'I will go, if it is your pleasure,' said Duke Naimes. 'Give me your glove and the wand of office.' 'No,' replied Charles, 'your wisdom is great, and I cannot spare you from my side. Remain where ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... tender, pure and true, civilization is impossible. Ladies, the ornaments you wear upon your persons tonight are but the souvenirs of your mother's bondage. The chains around your necks; and the bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold. Nearly every civilization in this world accounts for the devilment in it by the crimes of woman. They say woman brought all the trouble into the world. I don't care if she did. I would ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... hoping to see a house where he might beg something to eat and drink. Presently a handsome young woman appeared at a distance. As she approached, Jack could not help admiring how beautiful she looked; she was dressed in the most elegant manner, and had a white wand in her hand, on the top of which was a peacock of pure gold. While Jack was looking with the greatest surprise at this charming female, with a smile of the most bewitching sweetness, she inquired how he came there? Jack told how he had climbed up ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... of rebellion, to try their fangs and claws on his person; but, thanks to the armor concealed beneath his pelisse, they blunted their claws upon a skin of steel, and notched their fangs upon arms or legs of iron, whilst a slight touch of their master's metallic wand left a deep furrow in their smoking, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... like a jewel in the world which could not tarnish the purity and devotion of one whose heart entertained no evil thought. In the intricate byways of the crumbling Kraton, a professional story-teller draws a squalid crowd of women from their dark hovels and cellars, with the magic wand of enchantment wielded by the reciter of heroic deeds from the Panji, exaggerated out of all recognition by the addition of fairies and giants, demons and dwarfs, to the simple human element of the original story. The apathy and decay ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... my basnet a widow's curch? Or my lance a wand of the willow-tree? Or my arm a ladye's lilye hand, That an English lord ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... the stranger stamped with his foot; and, as if the stamp had been the blow of an enchanter's wand, two folding-doors, opposite to those by which he had entered the apartment, suddenly opened, and four dancing figures, with flesh-coloured silk masks upon their faces, and clothed in tightly-fitting dresses of the same ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... festal moments we beguile. And while the harp impassioned flings Tuneful rapture from the strings, Some airy nymph, with fluent limbs, Through the dance luxuriant swims, Waving in her snowy hand, The leafy Dionysian wand, Which, as the tripping wanton flies, Shakes ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... seized another healing wand and with desperate eagerness, he explained, he shouted, 'Divine happiness has not the same form as human happiness. Divine happiness is ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse

... was not disobedient unto his word. Straightway beneath his feet he bound on his fair sandals, golden, divine, that bare him over wet sea and over the boundless land with the breathings of the wind. And he took up his wand wherewith he entranceth the eyes of such men as he will, and others he likewise waketh out of sleep: this did the strong slayer of Argus take in his hand, and flew. And quickly came he to Troy-land and the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... opportunity's too good to be lost! What exhilaration there is on seeing a human soul imbruted and grovelling hopelessly in the dirt or rather to have a body before you, without a soul for the time being—a coarse animal mass, swinish as those whom the wand of Circe smote, but with the human intelligence quenched besides, and the charactery of reason wiped away. Here, some ochre and lamp-black, quick! There—plaster it well about the whiskers and eyelids, and put a few patches on the hair! Magnificent!—he ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... mortification of a dandy angler, who, with his beaver garnished with brown hackles, his well-posed rod, polished gaff, and handsome landing-net, with every thing befitting, spends his long summer day whipping a trout stream without a rise or even a ripple to reward him, while a ragged urchin, with a willow wand, and a bent pin, not ten yards distant, is covering the greensward with myriads of speckled and scaly backs, from one pound weight to four; so it is in every thing—"the race is not to the swift;" the elements of ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... couch. Mrs. Gardiner sank down gratefully and Migwan put away her story and went at the sweeping. She soon turned it into a game in which she was a good fairy fighting the hosts of the goblin Dust, and must have them completely vanquished by four o'clock, or her magic wand, which had for the time being taken the shape of a broom, would vanish and leave her weaponless. Needless to say, she was in complete possession of the field when the clock struck the charmed hour. Being then out ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... Peg? That was the thought beating through him as he strained his eyes to see the familiar and beloved little figure. Was she coming back to him—transformed by the magic wand of association—a great lady? He could scarcely believe that she WOULD, yet he had a half-defined fear in his soul that she might ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... came before Charlemagne, bearing in his hand a book, from which he read many spells and weird enchantments. Upon the ground he drew with his wand a magic ring, and he laid therein the hammer of Thor and the sword of Mahomet. In a loud, commanding voice, he called upon the sprites, the trolls, and the goblins, with whom he was familiar, to come at once into his presence. Forthwith ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... visit from their supernatural guest. To be sure, the strange sights he beheld rested on his testimony alone; but his word was never questioned, and his coming was of equal potency with the magician's wand in raising ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... my wand'rings round this world of care, In all my griefs—and God has giv'n my share— I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, Amid these humble bowers to lay me down; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting by repose; I still had hopes, for ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... which had towered so promisingly in the air a moment ago, was dashed to the dust with one touch of shabby gentility's tarnished wand. The glow died out of Theo's face, and she went back to her bread-and-butter cutting with a soreness of disappointment which was, nevertheless, not without its own desperate resignation. This was why she had watched the tide come in with such a forlorn ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett

... except to ask the rebbe a question; but the naughty boys stared around the room, and kicked each other under the table, till the rebbe caught them at it. He had a ruler for striking the bad boys on the knuckles, and in a corner of the room leaned a long birch wand for pupils who ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... their last legs. She played to the eye as well as to the ear, with such a smart gesture of the bow, and such a radiance of face as she looked at them, that whether the music came out of her wooden shell, or her horse-hair wand, or her bright self, seemed doubtful. They pranced on their chairs; they could not keep still. She jumped up; so did they. She gave a wild Irish horroo. She put the fiddle in ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... if a magician had waved his wand over it. The streets swarmed with people. Farmers' vehicles of every description added to the confusion, and Roland frowned as he noticed how badly organized had been the preparations for coping with this sudden influx of food, but he also saw that the men of Mayence had taken a hand ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... Where upon the limber grass Poppy and mandragoras With like simples not a few Hang for ever drops of dew. Where flows Lethe without coil Softly like a stream of oil. Hie thee thither, gentle Sleep: With this Greek no longer keep. Thrice I charge thee by my wand; Thrice with moly from my hand Do I touch Ulysses' eyes, And with the jaspis: Then ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)



Words linked to "Wand" :   staff, branchlet, verge, rod, bauble, twig, sprig



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com