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Complexioned   Listen
adjective
Complexioned  adj.  Having (such) a complexion; used in composition; as, a dark-complexioned or a ruddy-complexioned person. "A flower is the best-complexioned grass, as a pearl is the best-colored clay."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Complexioned" Quotes from Famous Books



... proved to be a small, dark-complexioned man, with heavy eyebrows and a heavily-bearded face. He ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield

... glanced at Leslie Cunningham, was one of disappointment. He was not the least like his father. However, by degrees she began to like him—for his own sake. He could not have been more than five-and-twenty, and looked even younger; for he was fair-complexioned and clean-shaven. His thick, flaxen hair, and rather pallid face were decidedly wanting in color, but were relieved by very dark gray eyes. His features were well cut and regular, and the face was altogether a clever as well ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... in Shakespeare's invectives a spark of Jodelle's satiric fire. {122} The dark lady of Shakespeare's 'sonnets' may therefore be relegated to the ranks of the creatures of his fancy. It is quite possible that he may have met in real life a dark-complexioned siren, and it is possible that he may have fared ill at her disdainful hands. But no such incident is needed to account for the presence of 'the dark lady' in the sonnets. It was the exacting conventions of the sonnetteering ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... fifteen per week and the Lady of the Land has entreated me to kindly excuse the waiting-maid for jumping with diffidence whenever I pop upon her unpremeditatedly on the stairs, being a nervous girl and unaccustomed to dark-complexioned gentlemen—though her own countenance, from superabundance of blacking and smuts, being of a far superior nigritude, it is I myself who should be ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... the Sitting Bull were both dead, but Rain-in-the-Face (made famous by Longfellow) was alive, very much alive, though a cripple. We met him several times riding at ease (his crutch tied to his saddle), a genial, handsome, dark-complexioned man of middle age, with whom it was hard to associate the acts of ferocity with ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... small one, with no pretensions to style, but Kit was hungry and not particular. At the same table there was a dark complexioned boy of about his own size, who had just begun to ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.

... because it suggested questions in the solution of which she felt an interest, but which, with the characteristic prudence of her race, she forbore to ask; and the latter, because he found it hard to realize that the fair-complexioned and every way beautiful girl, who stood before him, readily speaking his own language, and neatly and even richly arrayed in the usual female habiliments of the day, with the single exception of the gay, beaded moccasins, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... did he make as the old man with menacing stick approached him, which so incensed Snarleyow that be hastened his pace to a decrepit run. But, as perverse fate or the green-complexioned gentleman at the gate would have it, the old man tripped across a pump handle which was frozen in the ground, and fell directly, and with all his might, upon the tip of his ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... been neglected, and his good native parts were well cultivated by the instruction of his father and the best tuition which the learned French ecclesiastics of Quebec could impart. He was very fair complexioned, with flossy hair and flaxen beard. As man is usually ruled by contrast, this was probably the reason why he loved the dark-tressed, brown-eyed Pauline. He was ten years her senior, and had known her from her childhood, but his florid air and perfect health made him look much ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... at the schoolhouse, just as the school was dismissed. Coming slowly along the white highway two small boys were espied, each carrying on his head a raft-like platform laden with plaster-of-Paris images. They were dark-complexioned little fellows, not more than twelve or thirteen years old; and were having difficulty to keep their feet and stagger along with ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... of Egypt are generally swarthy and dark complexioned, and of a rather melancholy cast of countenance, thin and dry looking, quick in every motion, fond of controversy, and bitter exactors of their rights. Among them a man is ashamed who has not resisted the payment of tribute, and who does not carry about him wheals which ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... you!" exclaimed Charlie. "There's our German spy," he added, pointing to the dark-complexioned and bearded man who had been seen, through the mirrors' reflections, talking to the Frenchman. He had evidently hurried up on deck to ascertain the cause of the confusion, for he ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton

... picture and expose my likeness. I called upon the artist who had painted the other miniature for me, and in three sittings I had what I wanted. He afterwards made me an Annunciation, in which the angel Gabriel was transformed into a dark-haired saint, and the Holy Virgin into a beautiful, light-complexioned woman holding her arms towards the angel. The celebrated painter Mengs imitated that idea in the picture of the Annunciation which he painted in Madrid twelve years afterwards, but I do not know whether ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... mixture of the Spanish and the Sclavonic. Some jabber a little French. The men are generally athletic, very dark complexioned and have strong, energetic features, wavy hair and sonorous voices. The women, when young, are remarkably beautiful; but like all who lead an exposed and migratory life, they become hideous before they are thirty. They live in families or tribes, each family consisting ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... friends, the attention of the two ladies was drawn to a crowd gathering rapidly on the sidewalk not far from the Baldwin Hotel. There was no shouting, no commotion, nothing but the idle curiosity of men and boys, for a young soldier, a handsome, slender, dark-eyed, dark-complexioned fellow of twenty-one or two, had been arrested by a patrol and there they stood, the sergeant and his two soldiers fully armed and equipped, the hapless captive with his arms half filled with bundles, and over the heads of the little throng the ladies could see that ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... foregoing chapter, he descended into the cabin, and found Manuel sitting upon one of the lockers, apparently in great anxiety. He, however, waited for the mate to speak before he addressed the Captain. The mate awoke and informed the Captain that a slender, dark-complexioned man had been aboard a few minutes after he left, making particular inquiries about the steward; that he spoke like an official man, was dressed in black clothes, and ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... sea, was originally inhabited, and is still largely peopled by men who completely come under the definition of the Australoid race given above. In Abyssinia and Egypt there is a smooth-haired, dark-complexioned, long-headed stock which I am strongly inclined to regard as a westward extension of the Australoid race. I would venture to suggest that the dark whites who stretch from Northern Hindostan through Western Asia, skirt both shores of the Mediterranean, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... greatly pleased with the island and also with the people, whom they described as being a large-figured, light-complexioned race; all, men, women, and children, being well clothed in sealskins. They had large dwellings, many towns, and fine canoes. What struck Padre Ascension most strongly was their temple, of which he says: "There was in the temple ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... concertina belonged to—a tall fresh-complexioned young fella he was, an' very mild of manner—turned out to be a sort o' leader o' the party; an' he was the first to talk any sense. 'Th-thank you,' he said. 'They told us ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Mrs. McKeown) "has her box locked agin me, and I've no clothes but what's on me!" she protested, producing after a long interval a large brown shawl and a sallow-complexioned blanket, "but the Captain's after sending these. Faith, they'll do ye grand! Arrah, why not, asthore! Sure ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... rose, and rolled a thought unsteadily across the room. He was a tall, loose-limbed fellow, blue-eyed, fair-complexioned, with a thatch of fiery red hair excellently suited to his temperament. He halted before the map, and with legs wide apart, to afford him the steadying support of a broad basis, he traced with his finger the course of the Douro, fumbled ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... The olive-complexioned redhead grinned at him and turned back to her stack of boxes on the deck. She bent over and lifted one of the boxes to the operating table. Clay eyed her trim figure. "You might act like ma sometimes," he said, "but you sure don't ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael

... own crazy imagination. Much of what he said seemed so amusing to his two friends that they nearly went into hysterics from laughter. His mind's image of Roland was particularly laughable, for he saw him as a bow-legged, swarthy-complexioned gentleman with a ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... blood coursed through his veins. His face was expressive of much intelligence, and he now seemed to listen with an earnest interest to the conversation that was going on between his father and a dark-complexioned ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... two groups, the Little Negros or Negritos and the Indios. It is quite conceivable that involuntarily the opinion prevailed that the Negritos had close relationship with the African blacks, and the Indios with the lighter-complexioned inhabitants of India, or at ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... watch the steamboats for a Confederate bearer of dispatches—a young fellow, dark complexioned, slight mustache, dressed in citizen's clothes and a roan colt ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... western hill, a ball of orange fire.... One evening Delphin and Herve, followed by two other canoes, paddled up to the landing. New visitors had arrived, Dr. McLeod, who had long been an intimate of the Wishart family, and with him a buxom, fresh-complexioned Canadian woman, a trained nurse whom he had brought ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... to which our vessel belonged; and the other, who was dressed in the Spanish dress of the country, was a brother of our captain, who had been many years a trader on the coast, and that the lady was his wife. She was a delicate, dark-complexioned young woman, of one of the respectable families of California. I also found that we were to ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... all those old women's superstitions, miss," declared Katy, stoutly. "I imagine that it was got up by some muddy-complexioned creature, whose only annoyance was that the pretty blossoms didn't look good on her, and consequently she gave them a bad name to keep others from wearing them. There's plenty of such ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... evidence is that of anthropology. We know that the pure Anglo-Saxons were a round-skulled, fair-haired, light-eyed, blonde-complexioned race; and we know that wherever (if anywhere) we find unmixed Germanic races at the present day, High Dutch, Low Dutch, or Scandinavian, we always meet with some of these same personal peculiarities in almost every individual of the community. But we also know that the ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... of Hydaspes, King of Ethiopia, had given birth, in consequence of one of those accidents which will sometimes happen in the best regulated families, to a white or fair-complexioned daughter;[58] and dreading lest the hue of her offspring, unusual in that country, might draw on herself suspicions which might expose her to certain pains and penalties, she secretly committed the infant to the care of Sisimithres, an officer of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... burial of the former's bright little son Harry. As the casket rested upon the trestles there was a painful pause, broken only by the mother's sobs, until the undertaker advanced toward a stout, florid-complexioned gentleman in the party and whispered to him, the words being inaudible to the lookers-on. This gentleman was Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, a friend of the Millers, who had attended the funeral—at their request. He shook ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... cloak, was the agent of the firm to which our vessel belonged; and the other, who was dressed in the Spanish dress of the country, was a brother of our captain, who had been many years a trader on the coast, and had married the lady who was in the boat. She was a delicate, dark-complexioned young woman, and of one of the best families in California. I also found that we were to sail the same night. As soon as we got on board, the boats were hoisted up, the sails loosed, the windlass manned, the slip-ropes and gear cast off; and after about twenty minutes of heaving at the windlass, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... everywhere everywheres not nearly nowhere near not at all not much or not muchly ill illy first firstly thus thusly much muchly unknown unbeknown complexioned complected ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood

... compeers. It's all very well for some of us, who perhaps are of an active turn of mind, to talk about curing oneself of this fault; but perhaps, if we knew all, we should find that it would be about as easy as for a fair-complexioned person to make himself dark. Ned's disposition is due more to his constitution than his upbringing, and those who are blindly intolerant of his ways do him a wrong. I'm sure he himself wishes he were as smart as some boys he sees, but he can't be, and you might ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... accompanied by a colored servant who answered to the name of Venus. Fred christened her "the black divinity," at which she became highly offended; and ever after, there was a perpetual war of words waging between the two. My grandmother was a small, dark-complexioned woman, with an exceedingly haughty, and very repulsive expression. She received all her daughter-in-law's endeavors to make her feel at home as a natural right; and appeared to consider other people intended only for her ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... by the first person who enters the house after the old year has expired. In the North of England this important person must be a dark man, otherwise superstitious folk believe that ill-luck would befall the household. In other parts of England a light-complexioned man is considered a more favourable harbinger ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... indestructible bliss can be acquired by one's deeds alone, became devoted to virtue. When Santanu grew up into a youth, Pratipa addressed him and said, 'Some time ago, O Santanu, a celestial damsel came to me for thy good. If thou meetest that fair-complexioned one in secret and if she solicit thee for children, accept her as thy wife. And, O sinless one, judge not of the propriety or impropriety of her action and ask not who she is, or whose or whence, but accept her as thy wife at my command!'" Vaisampayana continued, 'Pratipa, having thus commanded ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... was locked up, and it was currently reported that Stephenson and the devil each night repeated the hanging scene in the stable; and that when the former was committing the "hopeless sin," the halter slipped several times from the beam of the stable-loft, when Satan came, in the shape of a dark-complexioned man with a hollow voice, and secured the rope ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... of Gentile and Gian, which are preserved in a painting by Gian, show Gentile fair-complexioned and red-haired, and ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... the eye. It used to be the seat of an archbishopric, and its fine episcopal chairs are now preserved at Sant' Angelo; and you may still do homage to the authentic Byzantine Madonna painted on wood by Saint Luke, brown-complexioned, long-nosed, with staring eyes, and holding the Infant on her left arm. Earthquakes and Saracen incursions ruined the town, which became wholly abandoned when Man-fredonia was built with ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... a hymn-book under his arm whenever he walked the street, and most exemplary in his attendance at sermon and lecture. For, the rest, a singularly unobtrusive personage, twenty-seven years of age, low of stature, meagre, mean-visaged, muddy complexioned, and altogether a man of no account—quite insignificant in the eyes of all who looked upon him. If there were one opinion in which the few who had taken the trouble to think of the puny, somewhat shambling stranger from Burgundy at all coincided, it ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... European crockery. The smell of the curry and ghee (clarified butter) in some shops was intensely disagreeable, and the numerous shelves of metai (sweets compounded of sugar, butter and flour, and of which the natives are very fond) looked anything but inviting to a gora-log (a fair-complexioned person). It is generally supposed that the Hindoos never use intoxicating beverages, but I passed several liquor-shops and saw three or four men drunk in the streets. The drink in general request is the fermented juice of the taul or Indian palm tree, which, though mild and soft to the palate, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... something about her face which made me think of the little Margaret who had moved away. She had the same pretty laugh, the same innocent-looking mouth,—only the child Margaret was not so fair-complexioned. Her figure, and the way of carrying her head, reminded me of the West-India girls, as I had seen them riding out in their volantes. I decided that I was pleased with her. When she was ready to go, with her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... Foljambe. Amphillis looked up, and saw a tall, handsome, fair-complexioned woman, with a rather grave, not to say stern, expression of face. "Good," said Lady Foljambe. "You are welcome, Mistress Neville. I trust you can do your duty, and not giggle ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... fair-complexioned to the point of insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited. It was Lord Gervase who broke at last the silence—broke it with an oath, a thing unusual in one whose ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... Literature, says that, "Tormented by the fate of a collection which had consumed forty years, at every personal sacrifice to form it for 'the use and services of posterity,' he sank at the sudden stroke. In the course of a few weeks he was so worn by injured feelings that, from a ruddy-complexioned man, his face was wholly changed into a grim blackish paleness, near to the resemblance and hue of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... pleasant-faced man; clean-shaven, rosy-complexioned, grey-haired, with something of the air and carriage of a country squire; a pleasant-tempered man too, although he appeared to be in a pet of some sort, and fairly fired up when the first lieutenant (a little ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... speak better," cried the blacksmith, starting up from a stool on which he was seated. "Vaya! he is a big man and a fair complexioned like myself. I like him, and have a horse that will just suit him; one that is the flower of Spain, and is eight inches ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... married a young person in bed-furniture, with great rejoicings; the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last census) turning out on the beach to rub their own hands and shake everybody else's, and sing "Fill, fill!" A certain dark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything else that was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed to two other Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so effectually done (the Swab family having considerable ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... finish the book," said Maggie. "As soon as I came to the blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up, and determined to read no further. I foresaw that that light-complexioned girl would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable. I'm determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice against them. If you could give me ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... to the impluvium of his private residence; and several office scribes who were present heard the invitation given. They did not, however, allow themselves to be disturbed in their work; the youngest only—a handsome lad of sixteen, an olive-complexioned Egyptian, with keen, eager black eyes, who had listened sharply to every word spoken by the treasurer and his master, quietly rose from his squatting posture as soon as they had quitted the office, and, stole, unobserved into the anteroom. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... race, which has so abundantly demonstrated its ability to cope with the Greek, the Slav and the Teuton, finds itself outreached in cunning, outworn in persistence and over- matched in strength by an olive-complexioned, almond-eyed fellow with felt shoes, baggy trousers, loose tunic, round cap and swishing queue, who represents such swarming myriads that the mind is confused in the attempt to comprehend the enormous number. The canny Scotchman and the shrewd Yankee are alike discomfited by the Chinese. Those who ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... beside him, now with another, and now quite alone, but always at a fast, rolling pace, with his head in the air, and his eyes as wide open as he could get them. I guessed it was Wilson, and it was. A bright, clear-complexioned, mountain-looking fellow, he looks as though he had just come down from the Highlands, and had never in his life taken pen in hand. But he has had an attack of paralysis in his right arm, within this ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... that some of the children wuz dark complexioned, and some lighter, and some kinder yeller favored, and some wuz big, and some ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... he saw his father walking under the lime-trees, which formed a kind of lateral aisle to the great avenue, which was one of the boasts of the Wentworths. The Squire was like most squires of no particular character; a hale, ruddy, clear-complexioned, well-preserved man, looking his full age, but retaining all the vigour of his youth. He was not a man of any intellect to speak of, nor did he pretend to it; but he had that glimmering of sense which keeps ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... a heavy, dark-complexioned youth of eighteen with a flat nose and a broad mouth, shook hands politely, murmuring something that Steve took to mean that he was pleased to meet him, and sank back to his seat. Steve took the ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... several qualities which might well attract them each to the other, and a common gravity of mind in contrast with their companions' prevalent and somewhat tiresome frivolity. Of the two I Judged Mr. Urquhart (the elder by a year) to have the more stable character. He was a good-looking, dark-complexioned young Highlander, with a serious expression which, without being gloomy, did not escape a touch of melancholy. I should judge this melancholy of Mr. Urquhart's constitutional, and the boyish sullenness which lingered on Mr. Mackenzie's equally handsome face to have ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... such a set of black-coated, stiff-jointed, soft-muscled, paste-complexioned youth as we can boast in our Atlantic cities never before sprang from loins of Anglo-Saxon lineage. Of the females that are the mates of these males I do not here speak. I preached my sermon from the lay-pulpit on this matter a good while ago. Of course, if you heard it, you ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the stranger's name) was, as already hinted, a tall, dark-complexioned man, as yet slightly on the sunny side of thirty, with a straight nose, firm, shapely mouth, which was neither sensual nor over-sensitive, and a pair of clear dark-brown eyes, in which there was a gleam of fervor, showing that he was not altogether incapable of enthusiasm. But for all that, the ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... exceedingly fair, and, smooth complexioned, and appeared to me no more than twenty at most, though he was three years older than what my conjectures gave him; but then he owed this favourable mistake to a habit of fatness, which spread through a short, squab stature; ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... corporeal capacity, to judge from his appearance, he was ill calculated to sustain the continual exertions incumbent on his vocation; and yet he performed them with an alacrity truly surprising. He was of the middle height; rather slim in figure, apparently delicate in his constitution, fair complexioned; and a bachelor of about thirty-five years of age. He had refused various solicitations from congregations, to accept of a residentiary charge, and had devoted himself to the missionary's work, where the presence of a spiritual teacher ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... the green blinds. After supper, she walks to the village. Morning and evening, she goes a-milking. And thus passes her life, cheerfully, usefully, virtuously, with hopes, doubtless, of a husband and children.—Mrs. H——— is a particularly plump, soft-fleshed, fair-complexioned, comely woman enough, with rather a simple countenance, not nearly so piquant as Nancy's. Her walk has something of the roll or waddle of a fat woman, though it were too much to call her fat. She seems ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... this rocky country at a period anterior to the Deluge; it was then less wild and less barren than it afterwards became, and was laid out in vineyards and fields. I saw there the Patriarch Japhet, a majestic dark-complexioned old man, surrounded by immense flocks and herds and a numerous posterity: his children as well as himself had dwellings excavated in the ground, and covered with turf roofs, on which herbs and flowers were growing. There were vines ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... was big, too, although he didn't approach the redhead in size. He was slightly over six feet, Rick guessed. He was dark-complexioned and clean-shaven. His eyes, a light blue, were a surprising contrast to his dark hair and ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... Hills are darker than the Khasi uplanders. The Wars who live in the low valleys are frequently more swarthy than the Khasis. The Bhois have the flabby-looking yellow skin of the Mikirs, and the Lynngams are darker than the Khakis. The Lynngams are probably the darkest complexioned people in the hills, and if one met them in the plains one would not be able to distinguish them from the ordinary Kachari or Rabha. The nose in the Khasi is somewhat depressed, the nostrils being often large ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... much farther when he met with somebody who was vastly more concerned about the animal's impending fate. This was old Joe McEvoy himself, who, out of the mouth of a steep, sandy boreen, sprang up suddenly, like a jack-fn-the-box-one of the shock-wigged, saturnine-complexioned pattern. But no jack-in-the-box could have looked so flurriedly distracted, or have muttered to itself such queer execrations ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... have made a recreation, of a recreation; and that it might prove so to thee in the reading, and not to read dull, and tediously, I have in severall places mixt some innocent Mirth; of which, if thou be a severe, sowr complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent Judg. For Divines say, there are offences given; and offences taken, but not given. And I am the willinger to justifie this innocent Mirth, because the whole discourse is a kind of picture of my ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton

... later it becomes more pale. Women in poor health often have a pale discharge. There always is a faint odor to the menstrual flow, which has been likened to the odor of marigolds. The quantity varies with the individual. Usually fleshy girls flow more than thin ones and dark complexioned ones than light ones. The average quantity is four to six fluid ounces. The time between the periods is required by the uterus or womb to first restore the lining and then prepare it for the reception of the ovum. Every month one or more ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry

... perhaps be worth five hundred florins of gold; and having given the invoice to the officers of the dogana and stored the goods, Salabaetto was in no hurry to get them out of bond, but took a stroll or two about the city for his diversion. And as he was fresh-complexioned and fair and not a little debonair, it so befell that one of these ladies that plied the shears, and called herself Jancofiore, began to ogle him. Whereof he taking note, and deeming that she was a great lady, supposed that she was taken by his good looks, and cast about how he might manage this ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... that seemed the utmost effort of a wary understanding, and was so void of anything remarkable in his aspect, that being asked if I knew who it was, I judged him a Scottish officer (for he was sandy-complexioned and in regimentals), who was cautiously awaiting the moment of promotion.' Memoirs of the Reign of George ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... postilion, in the course of this day's journey, as wild and savagely good-looking a vagabond as you would desire to see. He was a tall, stout-made, dark-complexioned fellow, with a profusion of shaggy black hair hanging all over his face, and great black whiskers stretching down his throat. His dress was a torn suit of rifle green, garnished here and there with red; a steeple- ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... right if he's rather stout, so long as he's no shorty. Of course he'd better be tall than an insignificant little runt! And most of all, Ustinya Naumovna, he mustn't be snub-nosed, and he absolutely must be dark-complexioned. It's understood, of course, that he must be dressed like the men in the magazines. [She glances at the mirror] Oh, Lord, my hair looks like ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... all seated round a comfortable fire. Though a prodigious admirer of beauty, I am a bad hand at describing it. To do Julia justice, however, I must make the attempt. She was rather under the middle size, (not much,) blue-eyed, auburn-haired, fair-complexioned, and her shape was of uncommon elegance and proportion. Neck, bosom, waist, ankles, feet, hands, &c. all were perfect, while her nose was beautifully Grecian, her mouth sweetness itself, and her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various

... circles had formed round his eyes, and his visage had turned yellow." The term "yellow" is used among the dark-complexioned people of the East in the same sense as our word "pale," or the Latin "pallidus," ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... to us all—dark, fair, middle-complexioned, short and tall, amiable, passionate, or reserved—just the opposite of our own complexions or temperament, such as she judged them to be; and she showed a great deal of talent and keen perception of character in the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... many riders to and from the ranch, there is one, a great, two-fisted, high-complexioned man, whose genial presence is ever welcome. He answers to many names. To the youngsters he is "Uncle Jack,"—usually with an exclamation. To some of the older folk he is "Mr. Summers," or "Jack." Again, the foreman of the Moonstone Ranch seldom calls him anything more dignified than "Red." ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... your pardon," said the darker complexioned of the two men, "my name is Stone, and this is my friend, Mr. Kennedy. We are on the regatta committee and we'd like to get as many entries for the water pageant as we can. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... remembering with pleasure only Tom Thumb, I could not hope to find gratification in the sight of two dwarf Indians. But I was disappointed. These children are simply abridgements or pocket editions of Humanity—bright-eyed, delicate-featured, olive-complexioned little elves, with dark, straight, glossy hair, well-proportioned heads, and animated, pleasing countenances. That their ages are honestly given, and that the boy weighs just about as many pounds as he is years old (twenty), while the girl is about half his age and three pounds lighter, I ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... thousand Christians, those were multiplied in a few years and the number rose to eight thousand, and in 1716 they reached the number of twelve thousand. There are still a great number of people in the mountains, which are inhabited by wild men. Some of those men are quite light-complexioned, and are believed to have originated from the Chinese and Japanese established there for the convenience afforded by the island, or who have put in there because of shipwreck, or been driven thither by the winds. Others are Cimarron Negritos, who are the first inhabitants, and, as it were, more ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... aware of it, he was closely observed by a dark-complexioned man, dressed in rather a flashy manner. When our hero laid down the paper this ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the steamer deck one saw people of almost every clime, the dark complexioned, straight-haired and intelligent-looking natives being in the majority, their white suits and dark faces adding greatly to the color of the scene. Pretty girls, too, were very much in evidence, and the ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... The relationship of the two was kept a profound secret, for reasons best known to themselves; but to the eye at least it was revealed by their striking resemblance, both being small, spare, dingy-complexioned men, with keen, cunning eyes, and faces that looked as hard and sharp as steel. Ever since they first heard of the prophecy, they had half ridiculed, half flattered, and kept remarkably familiar with Bill. That familiarity rather increased as we went up the Sacramento. A goodly number ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... suspected their fidelity and that he must test it by shadowing their every movement. When Lomas's companion entered my room he was completely disguised but on discarding the various contrivances by which his identity was concealed he proved to be a rather slender, dark-complexioned, handsome young man, of easy address and captivating manners. He gave his name as "Renfrew," answered all questions satisfactorily, and went into details about Mosby and his men which showed an intimacy with them at some time. I explained the work I had laid out for them, * ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... With regard to Roland, or Rotolando, or Orlando (for the histories call him by all these names), I am of opinion, and hold, that he was of middle height, broad-shouldered, rather bow-legged, swarthy-complexioned, red-bearded, with a hairy body and a severe expression of countenance, a man of few words, but very ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... when his good resolves failed him and he relapsed, generous and enthusiastic but without steadiness of purpose, a weathercock that shifted with every varying breath of impulse, now believed that experience had done its work and taught him the error of his ways. He was a small, light-complexioned man, with a high, well-developed forehead, small nose, and retreating chin, and a pair of attractive gray eyes in a face that indicated intelligence; there were times when his mind ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... himself in a square room, almost bare of furniture. In an office chair at a table sat a dark-complexioned man of near forty. He appeared to be ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger

... of the Prometheus Unbound (to take an individual instance of the last character) has a fire in his eye, a fever in his blood, a maggot in his brain, a hectic flutter in his speech, which mark out the philosophic fanatic. He is sanguine-complexioned and shrill-voiced. As is often observable in the case of religious enthusiasts, there is a slenderness of constitutional stamina, which renders the flesh no match for the spirit. His bending, flexible form appears to take no strong hold of things, does not grapple with the world about ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... those stars, thine eyes, Lighting the dark: but when the royal sun Looks o'er the pines and fires the orient skies, I bask no longer in thy beauty's ray, And lo! my world is bankrupt of delight. Murk night seemed lately fair-complexioned day; Hope-bringing day now seems most doleful night. End, weary day, that art no day to me! Return, fair night, to me the best of days! But O my rose, whom in my dreams I see, Enkindle with like bliss my waking gaze! Replete with thee, e'en hideous night grows fair: Then ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... polished button in a little machine on the table beside him. The assailants, favoured by the fall of the ground, soon reached the limits of the cantonments, bare now of buildings and trees. There were trained Chinese troops, some tall, light-complexioned Northerners of Manchu blood, others stocky, yellow men from Canton and the Southern Provinces. Mobs of Bhutanese with heads, chests, legs, and feet bare, fierce but undisciplined fighters, armed with varied weapons, led the van. Uttering weird yells ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... is all-knowing! but I fear thy father hath sent me an officer from the Kazi or the Chief of Police." Quoth she, "Go down and see what it is." So he went down; and, opening the door, found his father-in-law, the Provost of the merchants with an Abyssinian slave, dusky complexioned and pleasant of favour, riding on a mule. When the slave saw him he dismounted and kissed his hands, and Ala al-Din said, "What dost thou want?" He replied, "I am the slave of my lord Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat, son of Shams al-Din, Consul ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... bells a-ringing merrily for a wedding; and in the course of a morning, some one says to me, 'Hark! how the bells is ringing for Jerry Dixon's wedding!' And, all on a sudden, he changed back again from a heart-broken young fellow, like Jemmy Gray, into a stout, middle-aged man, ruddy-complexioned, with a wart on ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... looked terribly formidable, with his livid face, deadly eye and jaws firmly set—his long fingers clutching his knife with an iron grasp, and his left arm raised to protect himself.—The Doctor was a large, dark-complexioned, handsome man—an Apollo in beauty and a Hercules in strength, presenting a singular contrast to the hideous, misshapen being with whom he was about to engage ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... I could not tell where the old servant (for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary's pale brown ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... round and round, and returned almost to the very spot whence I had set out, I at last found the residence of the librarian.—On being admitted, I was introduced to a tall, sharp-visaged, and melancholy-complexioned gentleman, who seemed to rise six feet from the ground on receiving me. He read the Professor's note: but alas! could not speak one word of French. "Placetne tibi, Domine, sermone latino uti?" I answered in the affirmative; ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... despicable hound! He is only trifling with you. He cares nothing for you; you are not to his taste. What! He, a Northern pale-faced boor, choose you, with your dark skin and black hair! Never! I know better. Only to-day I saw him with the woman he prefers—a fair beauty light-complexioned like himself." ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... has been, and is, obtained from the province; not that the province yields it, but the Igorrotes bring it down from the mountains. They are light-complexioned Indians, but more unconquerable than what we have said of Zambales and Negrillos. When peaceful they bring down gold, which they extract there from their mines; and they exchange it for cattle, which those along the coast own. They trade also ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various

... a small, light-complexioned man, of slighter make than those around him, holding in his hand a scroll. It was a letter from Sidonius, sent beforehand by a swift-footed mountaineer, and containing a guarantee for 1200 soldi, twice the price for a Goth of ordinary ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... paper I propose to consider Hamlet not as he is represented on the stage, but as he is described in the original text. At the theatre, he usually appears as a dark-complexioned, black-haired, beetle-browed, and slender young man, wearing an intensely gloomy wig, eyebrows corked into the blackness of preternatural bitterness, while on thin and romantic legs, imprisoned in black silk tights, he struts across ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... up jokes together; he could be awfully funny even when he was swearing like a pirate about his luck landing him in a hospital. Bad language didn't seem so awful coming from him, because he was so light-complexioned and boyish-looking. He was only passing through the city, in an awful hurry to get West, when he got hurt, and he was madder than a hornet at the delay. But after a while he quieted down, because he'd got something else to think about, which ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... they had a pow-wow in the settlement, which they called a dance. I was invited, and being considered such a great man here, of course—I do not speak it boastingly—the hearts of all the tallow-complexioned girls throbbed at a great rate ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... members of the graver professions live about Golden Square, it is not exactly in anybody's way to or from anywhere.... It is a great resort of foreigners. The dark complexioned men, who wear large rings, and heavy watchguards, and bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the opera colonnade, and about the box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon, when they give orders—all live in Golden Square, or within a street of it. Two or ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... white. Below the bare part of the neck there is a cinereous ruff. The bag of the stomach, which is only seen when distended with food, is of a most delicate white, intersected with blue veins, which appear on it just like the blue veins on the arm of a fair-complexioned person. The tail and long wing-feathers are black, the belly white, and the rest of the body ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... and plenty of sunshine," said Gunson, as he led us down to a wharf where a schooner was being laden with barrels, while a red-nosed, copper-complexioned man looked ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... observed for nearly three hundred years, it is safe to say, will not fall into desuetude, for it usually results in each poor widow realising a gold coin." In the north of England first-footing on New Year's Eve is common, and a dark-complexioned person is esteemed as a herald of good fortune. Wassailing exists in Lancashire, and the apple-wassailing has not quite died out on Twelfth Night. Plough Monday is still observed in Cambridgeshire, and the "plough-bullocks" drag around the parishes their ploughs and perform a weird ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... far as looks go there is no fault to be found with him," answered Diana. "He is a typical Italian, tall, slender, and olive complexioned. He speaks English very well, indeed, and appears to be possessed of considerable education. Certainly, to look at him, and to speak with him, you would not think he was a villain likely to murder a defenceless old man. But if he did not kill ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... coffee, when the outer door opened and a tall, sallow, dark-complexioned woman entered, the same whom I had met on the Meadow Brook bridge, while leading Little Dagon. She wore a calico gown and sun-bonnet, and may have been fifty years of age; and she walked in quite as a matter of ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... or para con todos: Affable to all. Agradecido a los beneficios: Grateful for the favours. Agudo de ingenio: Sharp-witted. Ajeno de la verdad: Foreign to truth. Alegre de cascos: Light-headed. Blanco de tez: fair-complexioned. Cargado de espaldas: Round-shouldered. Codicioso, deseoso de dinero: Greedy, wishing for money. Cercano a su fin: Nearing his end. iDesdichado de mi!: Unhappy me! Dificil de comprender: Hard to understand. Dotado de buenas partes: Endowed with good ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... is a dark complexioned man; about five feet three inches in heighth; weighs about 135 pounds and looks to be much younger than he is. When asked how he had maintained his youth, he said that living close to nature had done it together with his manner of living. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... packed with a jostling, slowly moving throng. Fat, breathless hausfraus rubbed elbows with high-cheeked, almond-eyed Slav maidens, and tired office clerks took advantage of the half holiday to fill their shopping lists. Here, a well-dressed, clear-complexioned lady of leisure examined an expensive knickknack, there an Irish mother led her brood to the throng around the elevators that they might see Santa Claus. But they were all filled with a desire to buy, buy, buy, in the name ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... the speaker, who was smiling mirthfully to himself. He was a fair-complexioned man of about forty-five, rather carefully dressed, blue-eyed, with a short, well-groomed beard—evidently an old acquaintance of ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... Indians did not seem to me to resemble the first; but many beautiful women were seen. I did not see the latter, but some who did assured me that in their opinion, they are as beautiful as the women in Lima, but light complexioned and not so tall—and the women in Lima are very beautiful. The articles of food seen in that port were swine and fowl, sugar-cane, excellent bananas, cocoanuts, and a fruit that grows on high trees. Each of the last is as large as a good-sized pineapple, and is excellent eating. Much ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... speaks thus of Ireland:—"To wind up all, whether we regard the fruitfulness of the soil, the advantage of the sea, with so many commodious havens, or the natives themselves, who are warlike, ingenious, handsome, and well-complexioned, soft-skinned and very nimble, by reason of the pliantness of their muscles, this Island is in many respects so happy, that Giraldus might very well say, 'Nature had regarded with more favorable eyes than ordinary ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... that nothing in his exterior revealed the astute statesman; that, on the contrary, he looked very much as one might imagine Dickens's Mr. Pickwick to look; and she confesses that at the first glance he reminded her more of an English red-complexioned country squire, who rides and hunts, eats good dinners, and takes life lightly, than of a profound and sagacious politician, who, with sure glance and firm hand, steers the vessel of the State towards its destined haven over the stormy waves of statecraft. ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... set of men, and I have since often wondered what they thought of me, who met such courteous and friendly advances as they made towards me in a temper that must have seemed to them morose or churlish and stupid. Before the dinner was over another tourist entered—a fresh-complexioned young Englishman in spectacles, who, sitting next to me, did at length, by force of sheer good-humour, contrive to get into a desultory kind of conversation with me, and, as far as I remember, he talked well. He was not an artist, I found, but an amateur geologist and antiquary. ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... his brothers death he came to the House of Peers, where he never will make any great figure, the sword being more his profession; he is a fair-complexioned man, well shaped, taller than the ordinary size, and a man of honour.—Swift. As arrant a scoundrel as ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift



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