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Nigh   Listen
adjective
Nigh  adj.  (compar. nigher; superl. nighest, or next)  
1.
Not distant or remote in place or time; near. "The loud tumult shows the battle nigh."
2.
Not remote in degree, kindred, circumstances, etc.; closely allied; intimate. "Nigh kinsmen." "Ye... are made nigh by the blood of Christ."
Synonyms: Near; close; adjacent; contiguous; present; neighboring.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nigh" Quotes from Famous Books



... circumstances which, more particularly in this country, have led to a well-nigh universal habit of literary lying—of a pretence of admiration for certain works of which in reality we know very little, and for which, if we knew more, we should perhaps ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... the tent was packed and the little party set out for the shanty, which was reached in good time without anything eventful occurring on the way. They found the work of getting the logs down upon the ice well nigh completed, and the foreman's return giving an impetus to the men's exertions, it was finished in a few days more, and then there was nothing to do but to await the breaking ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... and shouted for joy to see it stand so nigh, Given into their hands for spoil; and their ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... necessarily few, and popular education did not exist. Sir William Berkeley, who was the royal governor of the colony from 1641 to 1677, said, in 1670, "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years." In the matter of printing this pious wish was well-nigh realized. The first press set up in the colony, about 1681, was soon suppressed, and found no successor until the year 1729. From that date until some ten years before the Revolution one printing-press answered the needs of Virginia, and this ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... YESTERDAY. The lugubrious booming of cannons came rolling over the meanderings of the Seine from the capital. The hard-heads of Paris would understand nothing; they would make flow never-ceasing rivers of blood. The national troops were well-nigh impotent; it was difficult to shoot down your own flesh and blood at any time; doubly so when your native land has not yet been evacuated by a venturesome enemy. It was the time of the Commune. Traffic at Versailles was of that ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... fire had also killed our nigh wheeler, and, as the coach was going pretty fast at the time, the horse was dragged a considerable distance, and his hind leg becoming fast between the spokes of the fore wheel, his body was drawn up against the bed of the coach and all ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... the door. An' I tell you, suh, I couldn't a felt worse if 'twas one o' my own kids. Why, it seems like only the other morning she skipped onto my car, laughin' and sayin', 'How are you to-day, Mr. Barnes?' Why she and me been buddies for nigh three years, and she took my 9.30 north car every Sunday morning, rain or shine, just as reg'lar, and was the only one I ever let stand out on my platform, bein' strictly agin all rules, and my old partner Hornheim was fired for allowin' it, it ain't six months since. But what ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... nigh when I am to retire from the public service, I cannot refrain from expressing to Members of the national legislature, with whom I have been brought into personal and official intercourse, my sincere appreciation of their unfailing courtesy, and of their harmonious ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... They drew nigh a large, shelving aperture in the earth, on one side of the vault, and looking in saw a man, nearly naked; seated upon a heap of excrement and filthy straw. A fragment of a penny candle was burning dimly near him, which showed him to be literally daubed from ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... scene. Yet shall you ne'er unpunish'd boast your prize, The Delian god with stern resentment cries; 251 And wedg'd him round with Foot, and pour'd in fresh supplies. Thus close besieg'd trembling he cast his eye Around the plain, but saw no shelter nigh, No way for flight; for here the Queen oppos'd, 255 The Foot in phalanx there the passage clos'd: At length he fell; yet not unpleas'd with fate, Since victim to a Queen's vindictive hate. With grief and fury burns the whiten'd host, One of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... morning, that Sir Balin sat Close-bower'd in that garden nigh the hall. A walk of roses ran from door to door; A walk of lilies crost it to the bower: And down that range of roses the great Queen Came with slow steps, the morning on her face; And all in shadow from the counter door Sir Lancelot as to meet her, then at once, As if he saw not, glanced aside, ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang

... illegitimate son David, as Bishop of Utrecht. Thus a great step forward had been taken for the restoration of the middle kingdom, which had been the dream of Philip the Hardy, and which now seemed to be well-nigh on the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... his father that they should open the chest, thereby exciting a most unwonted burst of ire. "I pry into poor Jamie's accounts while he's lost his mind of grief about that girl!" (For also to him Mercedes, now nigh to forty, was still a girl.) "I would not stoop to doubt him, sir." Yet, on the other hand, Mr. Bowdoin would probably have never condoned a theft, once discovered; and James Bowdoin wasted his time in hinting they ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... she be at all in society, has generally to accept the possibilities of friendship in place of that gracious boon itself. The busy round of life to-day gives ample opportunity for judging of character, so that it is well nigh impossible not to feel that some are worthy of friendship, some especially gifted by nature with the power of inspiring it, while, on the other hand, there are those who repel or with whom the bond would be impossible. But friendship, however much it be the result of eternal fitness and the inevitable ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... apart, but exceeding nigh, for a little while they stand, Till Brynhild toucheth her lord, and taketh his hand in her hand, And she leadeth him through the chamber, and sitteth down in her seat; And him she setteth beside her, and she saith: "It is right and meet That thou sit in this throne of ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... stone into small bits with a hammer. I am known as No. 5, and am called by no other name. Imagine me, who found it so difficult to look out for Number One, having to care for No. 5. Indeed, I should find it well-nigh impossible were it not for the assistance which I have from the warders and turnkeys, who look after me with a touching solicitude. No physician could have kept me to a regimen so suitable for my health as strictly as they. You remember ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... just seven licensed 'ouses i' the village. Disgraceful? Aye, so 'tis, begad!—on'y seven licensed 'ouses—an' I do mind when 'twas pretty nigh one man one pub, as the sayin' is. Howsomever, to-day there's seven, and some goes to one and some goes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various

... gamblin'," he began, "puts me in mind of something that happened among the camps on the other side of the range, nigh onto fifteen years ago. A gang of us boys was in Dandy Jim's gambling hall one night. The place was crowded, I remember, and we was all tryin' to make our fortunes on the high card. Some of us was dead broke, but them that hadn't the stuff ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad,—I should be sorry for him to be a raskill,—but a sort o' engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool. They're pretty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one cat looks another. He's none frightened ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... wallowings in this slough of stupor, when all else, in him had been well-nigh submerged by it, two dim lights were preserved towards which, although foundered up to the chin, he began to struggle; and by superhuman efforts did at last extricate himself from the theological stupor and get himself blown clean again by the salt winds before he died. One light was his ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... right time and in the right place; so the bee-keeper must be sure that his colonies are numerous, just at the time when their numbers can be turned to the best account. If the bees cannot get up their numbers until the honey-harvest is well nigh gone, numbers will then be of as little service as many of the famous armies against which "the soldier of Europe" contended; which, after the fortunes of the campaign were decided, only served to swell the triumphant spoils of the mighty conqueror. A bee-keeper with feeble ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... back just as everything is nice, and worse, you come across him when he is nigh bein' shot to death. Then, worse yet, by what the papers said, you went to the hospital with him and gave the whole thing away. When I saw the name, Alves Preston, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... for any nearer approach would have been perilous, and even in that place where we were, twenty feet on the windward side, the heat was nigh unbearable. So near were we that I looked close as it might be into the dead face of Martin Hall, and saw that the fiends who had lashed him there had done their work too well. But I hoped in my heart that he had been dead when the end of the ship had ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... grass. It had never occurred to me to seek for any connection between the wondrously blissful emotions of intimacy that continually occupied me - and certain physical sensations which only alarmed me because I thought them unhealthy. And yet I consider this very connection well-nigh the most mysterious and interesting of all the enigmas of life. And perhaps, as I, you too have always felt when reading the writings of the great and distinguished lovers among mankind, a certain want of exactness, which led me to exclaim: ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... and of which we ourselves may be the cause by means of these conceptions. But how objects as things in themselves- how the nature of things is subordinated to principles and is to be determined, according to conceptions, is a question which it seems well nigh impossible to answer. Be this, however, as it may—for on this point our investigation is yet to be made—it is at least manifest from what we have said that cognition from principles is something very different from cognition by means of the understanding, which ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... guess he's keepin' company with her, by the looks. I got as nigh to 'em as I could, but I didn't hear much they said. Only, just as they was goin' out, he said somethin' about goin' for a little spin in the car. She said no, her father would want his letters. Carver, he said, why not send Oscar home—that's the chauffeur, ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the deities who watched over the fortunes of the Nederlanders having unthinkingly left the field, and stepped into a neighboring tavern to refresh themselves with a pot of beer, a direful catastrophe had well-nigh ensued. Scarce had the myrmidons of Michael Paw attained the front of battle, when the Swedes, instructed by the cunning Risingh, leveled a shower of blows full at their tobacco-pipes. Astounded at this assault, and dismayed at the havoc of their pipes, these ponderous warriors ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... remained faithful unto your God and the memory of your fathers, and taught other nations who suffered like you how to defend themselves without weapons. The Lord hath made you intelligent, pure, and charitable, O my people; but it is nigh two thousand years since you possessed the one necessary ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... first instance, reflected from below, from the interior of the larynx. The principles involved are few and simple, but their application to any particular case is not easy, and is sometimes well-nigh impossible. ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... song was a failure; my father each time was so sorely tempted to adopt the new version. There was the old woman whom my father heard warning her daughter, about to travel for the first time by rail, "Whativer yeou do, my dear, mind yeou don't sit nigh the biler." There was the old maiden lady, who every morning after breakfast read an Ode of Horace; and the other maiden lady, a kinswoman of my father's, who practised her scales regularly long after she was sixty. ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome

... years later the same designer abolished the quarter-galleries, and introduced the neater and stronger circular stern. From this time forward, improvements were considerable and rapid until about 1860, when the ironclad settled the fate of the "wooden walls" that had protected England for well-nigh ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... could turn his attention to the restoration and elevation of the nationality of which he had taken it upon him to assume the direction. He could cast his eyes over the unhappy Egypt—depressed, down-trodden, well-nigh trampled to death—and give his best consideration to the question what was to be done to restore her to her ancient greatness. There she lay before his eyes in a deplorable state of misery and degradation. All the great cities, her glory and her boast ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... indeed being watched, and by eyes well nigh as keen as those of the wild-cat. While he stood behind the tree, all of half a gun-shot from the camp, a figure stepped silently out of the shadows and stood at his elbow before the startled lad realized that he was not ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... the victim of a most singular and diabolical illusion. Poor country priest though I was, I led every night in a dream—would to God it had been all a dream!—a most worldly life, a damning life, a life of Sardanapalus. One single look too freely cast upon a woman well-nigh caused me to lose my soul; but finally by the grace of God and the assistance of my patron saint, I succeeded in casting out the evil spirit that possessed me. My daily life was long interwoven with a nocturnal life of a totally different character. By day I was a priest of the Lord, ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier

... instruction of a young man as mere dry law, after applying with tolerable assiduity to letters, to reviews, to elemental books of law, and, above all, to the newspaper, until the hour of dinner was drawing nigh, these young gentlemen would sally out upon the town with great spirits and appetite, and bent upon enjoying a merry night as they had passed a pleasant forenoon. It was a jovial time, that of four-and-twenty, when every muscle of mind and body was in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... he remarked, "fer ye must have nigh onto three hundred now. But yez should have a boom around them. If a gale springs up, there'll ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... eleven this mornin, and will be pretty nigh til the stage is wanted for to-night," said the janitor. "I'd as lief youd wait here as go up, if you dont mind, sir. The guvnor is above; and he aint in the best o' tempers. I'll ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... and Nelson were fighting off Cape St. Vincent, Harvey and Abercrombie came into Carriacou in the Grenadines with a gallant armada; seven ships of the line, thirteen other men-of-war, and nigh 8000 men, including 1500 German ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... as if the end was nigh, the tide turned—the brain cleared, restful sleep came, and my life ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... you, Perkins wouldn't go a-nigh the place. No!" observed the young man, with considerable feeling; "he an't overwise, an't Perkins, but he an't such a ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... his work, prospering in all their wicked attempts. This is a very trying dispensation, as we see it was to the holy penman of Psalm lxxiii. for it made him to stagger, so that his feet were almost gone, and his steps had well nigh slipt; yea he was almost repenting of his being a godly person, saying, ver. 13, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency." It was something like this, which made Jeremiah say, chap. viii. 18, "When I would comfort ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... of all evils when not properly restrained, retarded, and directed. This mysterious instinct develops earlier in proportion as the eye and the imagination are soonest furnished the materials upon which it thrives; and, long before the age of puberty, it is strong, and well-nigh ungovernable, in those who have been allowed these unfortunate occasions. The boy of the present generation has more practical knowledge of this instinct at the age of fifteen, than, under proper training, he should ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... we can just now call to mind is more distinct or is composed of species more widely divergent in size, form, structure, and color than is this one of Masdevallia. It was founded well nigh a century ago by Ruiz and Pavon on a species from Mexico, M. uniflora. which, so far as I know, is nearly if not quite unknown to present day cultivators. When Lindley wrote his "Genera and Species" in 1836, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... altogether before the dry advance of physical science and material organization. He was full of unsatisfied curiosities about its fierce hungers and passions, its fears and cruelties, its instincts and its well-nigh incommunicable and yet most precious understandings. He had long ceased to believe that the wild beast is wholly evil, and safety and plenty the ultimate ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... the one he had just slain, and he resumed his hitching forward, making it as deliberate and careful as he could. Clutching the branches, he hurried forward and was soon upon the other side of the chasm which had come so nigh witnessing his death. Without pausing longer he hastened on and was not long in placing himself upon the top of the elevation from which he was so confident of gaining his view of the promised land, as the pass had become to him, now that it seemed so difficult to ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... seems it may be even harder; and so bitterly realized Koerg when, nigh on to one merry Christmas-tide, an accident deprived him of his strong right hand, thereby cutting off forever his slender means of livelihood. There was but one resource, and, with crushed spirit Koerg betook himself to his elder brother to ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... e'er I sang; Thought, ire, and mirth unceasing rang Around me, where I guested; To be where loud life's battles call For me was well-nigh more than all My pen ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... centre of the group that struggled to hold him, was nigh to madness. The side of his face, his neck, and all the shoulder and breast of his shirt were covered with blood. He had ceased to cry out, but kept muttering between his gripped jaws, as he labored to tear himself free ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... and good, sahib. Ramoo knows that he will meet no friends like those he has here, but he longs for the bright sun and blue sky of India, and though it will well nigh break his heart to leave the young missie and you, he feels that ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... And the abundance and the sweetness of the water, as well as the presence of grass, showed us that but a little way up this valley there must be an open stream. We drank, and our beasts drank, until all of our skins were nigh to bursting; and the abundance of water was so great that we even could wash the dust at last from our parched faces and necks and arms; and much like raw beef our skins looked when our washing was ended, and the stinging of them was as though we had been whipped with ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... by this time, the reader is well nigh disgusted with the folly and weakness I have so freely laid before him. I never disclosed it then, and would not have done so had my own sister or my mother been with me in the house. I was a close and resolute dissembler—in this one case at ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... rays increased, rather than diminished, as his nerves became more and more unstrung. It seemed, even with, his eyes closed, that he could feel the weight of the cone of light upon his face. The desire to escape from its searching glare became well-nigh irresistible. How long would this torture continue? He began to feel intensely tired and worn out and realized that could he but shut out the blinding brilliancy which enveloped him, he would sink exhausted to sleep. Sleep! He could ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks

... who often discover genius where it is hidden from the cold, unfeeling world outside this sympathetic circle. Not that I would blame an amiable weakness without which love, friendship, in short, happiness were well-nigh impossible. Only a biographer who wishes to represent a man as he really was, and not as he appeared to be to one or more individuals, has to be on his guard against it. Let us grant at once that Chopin made a good figure at the Lyceum—indeed, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... sacking from end to end, or she must get a Christian bed. Poor Prosy! Whereon Mrs. Iggulden explained that her nephew had by an act of self-sacrifice surrendered this bed as a luxury for lodgers in the season, having himself a strong congenital love of bisection. He hadn't slept nigh so sound two months past, and the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... I think my master [229] means to die shortly; he has made his will, and given me his wealth, his house, his goods, [230] and store of golden plate, besides two thousand ducats ready-coined. I wonder what he means: if death were nigh, he would not frolic thus. He's now at supper with the scholars, where there's such belly-cheer as Wagner in his life ne'er [231] saw the like: and, see where they come! belike the feast is ended. ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... I have well-nigh exhausted the resources of this place. They are to go out three times a day to see how much the river has fallen; to talk with the house-master and Kocho; to watch the children's games and the making of shingles; to buy toys and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... Their conduct toward the king seems to have been of a more fraternal character than that of Tostig, who had acted the part of a rebel and an enemy. Gurth and Leofwin, on the contrary, adhered to his cause, and, as the hour of danger and the great crisis which was to decide their fate drew nigh, they kept close to his side, and evinced a truly fraternal solicitude for his safety. It was they, specially, who had recommended to Harold to fall back on London, and not risk his life, and the fate of his kingdom, on the uncertain event ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... every day; they lie in heaps unburied; what numbers of my countrymen have died by cold and hunger, perished for want of the common necessaries of life! I have seen it! This, sir, is the boasted British clemency! I myself had well nigh perished under it. The New England people can have no idea of such barbarous policy. Nothing can stop such treatment but retaliation. I ever despised private revenge, but that of the public must be in this case, both just and ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... for the widow; but it was charity—hardly enough to pay the rent. Fortunately Louise, who already looked like an old maid at twenty-three, going about the city all day with her roll of music under her black shawl, had many pupils, and more than twenty houses had well-nigh become uninhabitable through her exertions with little girls, whose red hands made an unendurable racket with their chromatic scales. Louise's earnings constituted the surest part of their revenue. What a strange paradox is the social life in ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... she was almost distracted," Elsie said. "She loves you for both your own and your father's sake. Besides, as she repeated again and again, she was sorely distressed on his account, knowing his love for you to be so great that to lose you would well-nigh break ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... wise,—'Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven?' (that is, to bring CHRIST down from above:) or, 'Who shall descend into the deep?' (that is, to bring up CHRIST again from the dead.) But what saith it? 'The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thine heart:' that is, the word of Faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the LORD JESUS, and shalt believe in thine heart that GOD hath raised Him from the dead, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... I'll go and beg her pardon. I'll go direckly—I will. I swear I will. I can't abear her, but I'll do it. I believe hunger has nigh drove ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... honesty) thinks it prudent to shake hands; the miller and he, too, greet; and forthwith a black bottle with a single glass make their appearance, and pass current with the company. Then the earth-stopper draws nigh, and, resting a hand on Tom's horse's shoulder, whispers confidentially in his ear. The pedestrian sportsman of the country, too, has something to say; also a horse-breaker; while groups of awe-stricken children stand staring ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... his desk when Mr. Stewart came in. He did not seem to see me, but took a seat near the door. I was well-nigh exhausted, but strove to appear as cold and indifferent as ever. I gathered up my books and turned to go, then he laid down his ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... and scratched marine scene—Margate in England—on the glass that covered the lower half) that stood alone on the slab shelf over the fireplace. The hands indicated half-past two, and Johnny, who had studied that clock and could "hit the time nigh enough by it," after knitting his brows and blinking at the dial for a full minute by its own hand, decided "that it must be getting on toward ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... said the worthy chairman with much unction, "the hour of dinner is nigh at hand, and the good people of this place have prepared entertainment for us; so we will e'en put off the ceremony of ordination till the afternoon. Let us look to the Lord for his blessing, ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... gates above Zion the hosts pass by, ascending and descending by the silvering portals. Upon that beautiful road he has built through the sky. All the earth is full of his glory as the wind, his power is nigh. His saints walk in his strength. There is no death, there is none of his hosts ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen

... audible silence—the twittering of birds, the humming of bees, the calls of boys in distant fields, the far-away sound of waggon-wheels—when there was a slight move, and Mary, in the tension of all her faculties, had well-nigh started, but restrained herself; and as she saw the half-closed fingers stretch, and the head turn, she leant forward, and ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Bob Sawyer was rapidly ripening into the furious, Mr. Ben Allen was fast relapsing into the sentimental, and the punch had well-nigh disappeared altogether, when the boy hastily running in, announced that a young woman had just come over, to say that Sawyer late Nockemorf was wanted directly, a couple of streets off. This broke up ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... there was an expression of well-nigh ludicrous doubt and amazement. He glanced from one to the other. The giant shifted his own tense look from me to the Irishman. A gleam of approval lighted in his eyes. He loosed me, and gripped O'Keefe's arm. "Staerk!" he said. "Ja—strong, and with a strong heart. A man—ja! ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... mos' nigh tickle him to death an' he'd say, 'Loosahna (dat was his pet name for me) what you want today? I'd say, 'Bring me some goobers, or a doll, or some stick candy, or anything. An' you can bet yo' bottom doller he'd always ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... an old fool that hath been nigh-hand everything, and seen nigh-hand all! Ye go too much on other people's errands, Master Dick. Ye go on Ellis's; but he desireth rather the death of Sir Daniel. Ye go on Lord Foxham's; well—the saints preserve him!—doubtless he meaneth well. But ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... men with men's weapons for the freedom to live and die unmolested in their own native land; but against the blandly-smiling, white-helmeted, sun-spectacled, perspiring horde of Cook's "cheap trippers," what can they do save remain inert and well-nigh speechless? For nothing like the cheap tripper was ever seen in the world till our present enlightened and glorious day of progress; he is a new-grafted type of nomad, like and yet unlike a man. The Darwin theory asserts ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... years after the death of Christ, the Jews continued the work of adding to and embellishing the temple buildings. The elaborate design conceived and projected by Herod had been practically completed; the temple was well-nigh finished, and, as soon afterward appeared, was ready for destruction. Its fate had been definitely foretold by the Savior Himself."—From the author's House of ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... so you may suppose the fellow that steered had his share of the seas; the others stood by to relieve him; and for the matter of water, she was just like a rock, the waves striking her bows and flying pretty nigh as high as the top of her funnel, and blowing the whole length of her aft with a fall like the tumble of half-a-dozen cartloads of bricks. I like to speak of what they went through, for the way they were knocked about was something fearful, ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... the children of the sun and moon at all, and they took no heed of me. Yet there was a grandeur in my desolation that would have elevated my heart but for the fear. If I had had one living creature nigh me—if only the stupid calf, whose dull sleepy low startled me so dreadfully as I stood staring about me! It was not dark out here in the open field, for at this season of the year it is not dark there all night long, when the sky is ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... o' which and t' other," the native confessed. "Obadiah declares its all along o' his chewin' an' smokin' an' snuffin' day in an' day out, fer nigh onto a hundred year; an' Ebenezer declares he has his health becase he never touched ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... owned the whole of it. Still, I've made nigh on to a thousand dollars durin' the last month for my share of the profits. Pretty ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... she said, the rebellious tears rising faster than she could choke them down. "He has no other home to offer me; but with Lady Mount Severn I cannot and will not remain. She would break my heart, as she has already well-nigh broken my spirit. I have not deserved ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... bosom strikes, On some wide field I lie, They'll take me off upon their pikes,— A grave is always nigh; Pumerlein Pum,—the drums shall say Better ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... at the hay that's burned!" whined the farmer. "Nigh on to three tons of it gone, an' the rest ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... day a poor Indian failed to appear with the others at the church for the divine services, having gone to the river to bathe; there, by divine permission, a cayman seized him, and well nigh caused his death. He was brought to the church covered with gashes, and in such agony that he could neither understand, nor hear, nor utter a word. On account of his precarious condition, and as he was one of the catechumens, he was at once baptized. Being ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... exceptions. It is true the German line had been smashed, but it had not fallen back. Instead the remnants of the line had collected themselves in the series of independent redoubts which had seemingly been prepared for just such an emergency. They were so situated that it was well-nigh impossible to destroy them at long range; but it was impossible to make any forward movement which would not be enfiladed by them. Hence it became necessary for the French, if they were to be really victorious, to reduce each separate redoubt. The ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... out of the water, he was nigh dead beat. In the soft still light which the moon poured down he could see beyond the beach a dark strip which seemed to promise a bed. He staggered blindly over the stones to this refuge, found that it was grass, and, sinking upon it, was ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas

... quality that gives distinction to Hardy's work: his fiction is notably well-built, and he is a resourceful technician. Often, the way he seizes a plot and gives it proportionate progress to an end that is inevitable, exhibits a well-nigh perfect art. Hardy's novels, for architectural excellence, are really wonderful and will richly repay careful study in this respect. It has been suggested that because his original profession was that of an architect, his constructive ability may have been ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... devour them, for the boat's gunwale was only six inches awash. Not a sail was in sight; and all felt convinced that if some unforeseen assistance did not come to their aid, they must perish. Despair was well-nigh taking possession of the bosoms of all the party. Silent and melancholy they sat on the wreck, meditating on their fate. All were young. Life, with all its fancied charms and anticipated pleasure, had a few short moments previously been before ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... not been nigh a mother To thy sweetness—tell me, dear? Have we not loved one another Tenderly, from year to year; Since our dying mother mild Said with accents undefiled,[32] 'Child, be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... between Germany and France to seize India, and after the terrible defeat at Cyprus and the siege of Calcutta the old King of England abdicated in favor of his grandson George. But the people clamored for an elective President, and it was nigh twenty years before the opening of our story that King George had been forced to seek his only safe refuge ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... was adread at this, and cried aloud, "Fair sweet Father, Jesu Christ, let me not be shamed, that was nigh lost, had not Thy good ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... "Hit'll mighty nigh cripple me ef we don't save 'em. I've done held on ter thet timber fer a long spell of years an' I sorrers ter part with hit now. But thar's a right weighty mortgage on my land an' hit's held by a man thet don't squander no ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... wants his love an' worship for hers; but a mother do give all—all—all—an' never axes nothin' for it. Just a kiss maybe, an' a brightening eye, or a kind word. That's her pay, an' better'n gawld, tu. She'm purty nigh satisfied wi' what would satisfy a dog, come to think on it. 'T is her joy to fret an' fume an' pine o' nights for un, an' tire the A'mighty's ear wi' plans an' suggestions for un; aye, think an' sweat an' starve for un all times. 'T is her joy, I tell 'e, to smooth his road, an' ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... they would not fail to boast of their signal triumph, and to represent the defeat of the Queres as akin to complete destruction. Therefore in what light could he and his brother appear to the people of Hashyuko than as fugitives from a tribe well nigh exterminated? Fugitives of that class are always, even by savages, received and treated as guests. Finally, should it come to blows, Hayoue was ready for them also, to give as ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... the woman, in some amazement. "Malviny, she don't make many, 'cause they don't sell very rapid. But be you goin' her way? She might have one to home, purty nigh finished." ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells

... thoroughly posted myself on the ancient, the present, and the future duties of "best men" on such occasions. I learned how they do it in China, in Turkey, in Russia, in New Zealand, more particularly how it is done, at present, in England and America. As the day drew nigh I felt equal to the emergency I had a powerful motive for acquitting myself handsomely. I wanted to show her what ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... Chateau, dark groups were crouching, huddled together in compact masses, which in the gloom seemed to vibrate with fear. Like hunted quarry seeking for shelter, sombre figures flattened themselves in the angles of the dank walls, as the noisy carousers drew nigh. Then as the torches and lanthorns detached themselves from out the evening shadows, hand would clutch hand and hearts would beat with agonized suspense, whilst the dark and shapeless forms would try to appear smaller, flatter, ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... about it if you was!" Nancy Rextrew broke in hastily, her little black eyes snapping and her wrinkled face all alive with eager excitement. "I don't care a mite if you was. Mis' Barlow has somebody a-comin' to see her nigh about every day, an' I've stood it jest as long as I can. Yesterday when the Chapin girl an' the Harding girl stayed along of her half the afternoon I made up my mind that the next girl that came through this corridor was a-comin' ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston

... de lady lying like dead, and a man jump up and run away, and when I went nigh, I seen her all welkering in her blood, an' dis yer lying by her," and the boy handed a ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... to git rations for de week. Dey gib us three pounds wheat, a peck o meal, a galon o molasses, two pound o lard, two pound o brown sugar, rice an evy'ting. I use to have plates an china white folks gib me. White woman come one day, say she wan buy 'em. Took plum nigh all I had. Did'n pay me much o ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... peel off bark, the youths followed, staying just far enough behind to keep them in sight. While the girls were peeling the bark, the youths kept themselves hidden. After awhile they no longer heard the sound of the maidens at work. Whereupon they began to creep up to where they were. When they drew nigh, behold, the maidens were in the act of taking off their clothes. The first to disrobe flung herself down on the ground and lay there. 'Pray, what are these girls going to do?' was the feeling in the hearts of the youths. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... place in which the woman was to kneel, was 'near the church door' in the ancient English use, 'near the choir door' in the Prayer-Book of 1549, 'nigh unto the place where the Table standeth' in the book of 1552. The words 'as hath been accustomed' refer to the one of these usages which has survived, and been adhered to, in any old church. The place at the altar rails was approved by the Bishops ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... child. As the hands wandered up and down the keyboard, the ear now and then took notice of a broken string. There were many of these broken strings. The instrument plainly announced itself to be a remote, well-nigh mythical ancestor of the modern piano, preternaturally lingering on amid an innumerable deafening progeny. It suggested a superannuated human being whose loudest utterances have sunk to ghostly whispers in ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen

... in regard to milk lies in the effect of pasteurization. This measure is now well nigh universal and in America at least has played a tremendous part in the reduction of infant mortality, especially during the summer months. At present, however, we know that this treatment while removing dangerous germs may also eliminate the antiscorbutic factor. ...
— The Vitamine Manual • Walter H. Eddy

... perseverance and zeal he set himself to seeking out the neglected, unskilled, and casual laborer. Within a few years he so dominated the movement that, in the public mind, the I.W.W. is associated with the Chicago branch and the Detroit faction is well-nigh forgotten. ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... eminence where, though the wood was above them, the river rolled nearly a hundred fathoms below. Some years before, a slip of ground had taken place at no great distance from the spot, when a mass of earth, amounting to well nigh half an acre, with the oak trees that grew upon it, slid down, all at once, towards the river. The rugged rent occasioned by the slip of earth, the great height of the road above the river, the rude rocks that here ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... swift beneath his slender burden.... The fire feeds on all it meets: nought will it spare, or, if aught it spares, only the pious. For Amphinomus and his brother, the best of sons, brave in the toil they shared, when the fires roared loud and were already nigh their home, behold their father and their mother fall fainting on the threshold fordone with years. Cease, greedy folk, to shoulder the spoil of your fortunes that are so dear to you: for these men father ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... when we call, While troubles like hailstones fall; For the help that is somehow nigh, In the deepest night when we cry; For the path that is certainly shown When we pray in the dark alone, Let us ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... that the Argonauts came nigh to and went past need not be told—Meliboea, where they escaped a stormy beach; Homole, from where they were able to look on Ossa and holy Olympus; Lemnos, the island that they were to return to; the ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... within my mind, A hand unseen hath set thee; There hath thine image been enshrined, Since first, dear love, I met thee; So in thy breast I fain would rest, If, haply, fate would let me— And live or die, so thou wert nigh, To ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... shalt thou come, who bewitch all men, whosoever shall come to them. Whoso draws nigh them unwittingly and hears the sound of the Siren's voice, never doth he see wife or babes stand by him on his return, nor have they joy at his coming; but the Sirens enchant him ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... what you call far," he said reflectively. "There's Gaynor's about fifteen miles along, an' Loose End nigh on thirty. Where ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... and the embrasure barricaded by three iron bars, thus separating the prisoner from the sentries by a distance of over two fathoms. I found an officer of the Free Company in the fortress who was nigh on fourscore years old; he told me that his father, who had belonged to the same Company, had often related to him how a friar had seen something white floating on the water under the prisoner's ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Chayma village had sunk deep into the earth, and in its place had risen this lake of pitch. So runs the tale, told some forty years since to M. Joseph, author of a clever little history of Trinidad, by an old half-caste Indian, Senor Trinidada by name, who was said then to be nigh one hundred ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... gift of polished and persuasive speech, he put in more plausible form the extreme and virulent utterances of intemperate partisans. He was skilled in dialectics, and his rhetorical dexterity had more than once served him and his friends in good stead. He was well-nigh the idol of his party, and no other man could so effectively rally its strength or direct its policy. His address as presiding officer was intended to be free from the menacing tone which marked ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me, Of a splendor that came and went; Of a life lived somewhere,—I know not In what diviner sphere,— Of memories that stay not and ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... presently, "oh! yes, we've got lots handy; and the animals are certain peeved with thirst. Boys, I'm going to snap that offer up, because you see, my canvasmen are pretty nigh done up, having so little sleep. Here you are; just take ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... shouts and songs as the two boats came flying down the stream, the young oarsmen pulling like mad to either retain or secure an advantage. Hope flickered up again in the hearts of the loyal Mechanicsburg rooters, who had well nigh taken a slump when they learned that their favorites were ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... stayed away to let huh t'ink hit ovah an' den come back an' axed huh ag'in. Den she could 'a' said yes all right an' proper widout a belittlin' huhse'f. But 'stead o' dat he mus' go a ta'in' off jes' ez soon ez de fus' wo'ds come outen huh mouf. Put' nigh brekin' huh hea't. I clah to goodness, I nevah did see ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... gaze to the predestined future, Anticipate the life that draweth nigh; Awake, my soul, and contemplate the portion Of those whose lot is fixed ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves

... sweet repose, Behold that trellis'd bower is nigh! That bower the verdant walls enclose, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... in despair. He was naturally of a strong-nerved and gallant temperament, nor unaccustomed to those perils of life and limb which German students delight to brave; but his heart well-nigh failed him at that moment. The silence became distinct and burdensome to him, and a chill moisture gathered to his brow. While he stood irresolute and in suspense, striving to collect his thoughts, his ear, preternaturally sharpened by fear, caught the faint muffled sound of creeping footsteps—he ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... fervent in return Of they who listen to its thrilling power. Then they would wander to the village oft, Now by the path along the bridge, and then Across the water by the ferry-boat; For the coy village is across the stream, Near on a line from where the castle stands, And nigh it well, that when the breeze accords, Or calm prevails, the sounds come floating o'er Of mirthful lads in gambol on the green, Or the part song of buxom damsel raised, Who lightly busies at her noonday task; ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar

... Swedes and Danes began in the course of the present century. Even the Muscovites now trade regularly with China, by a sort of caravans which go over land through Siberia and Tartary to Pekin. The East India trade of all these nations, if we except that of the French, which the last war had well nigh annihilated, has been almost continually augmenting. The increasing consumptions of East India goods in Europe is, it seems, so great, as to afford a gradual increase of employment to them all. Tea, for example, was a drug very little ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... deep-tangled wild-wood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew; The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it, The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell; The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well. The old oaken bucket—the iron-bound bucket— The moss-covered bucket which hung in ...
— Gems of Poetry, for Girls and Boys • Unknown

... men," said Big Swinton, in a subdued voice, to a knot of friends around him. "Blowin' hard as it has bin ever since we left England, it stands to reason that we must have pretty nigh got across the western sea to that noo land discovered by that man wi' the ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... his father, and whenever he found him perplexed or doubtful he was ever ready to point the way. His mother was constantly gaining both in health and understanding, and when Spring came and the end of the pastor's six months' vacation drew nigh, she was entirely healed. ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter

... the last fibre, from the very wealth of our own conscience and the very force of our own history. We haven't, for such an instance of our genius, to reach out to strange places or across other, and otherwise productive, tracts; the exemplary instance himself has well-nigh as a matter of course reached and revelled, for that is exactly our way in proportion as we feel ourselves clear. But the kind of experience so entailed, of contribution so gathered, is just what we wear easiest when we have been least stinted of it, and what our English use ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... by our fathers' holy Fear, Why must I hear Your insults, while in life on earth I stand, O ye that flow In wealth, rich burghers of my bounteous land? O fount of Dirce, and thou spacious grove, Where Thebe's chariots move! Ye are my witness, though none else be nigh, By what enormity of lawless doom, Without one friendly sigh, I go to the strong mound of yon strange tomb,— All hapless, having neither part nor room With those who ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... if he ain't lying there dead—" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried with ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... day of the wedding. 'Twas a little country kind of a town, smaller by a good deal than Orham, and so we cal'lated that perhaps after all, the affair wouldn't be so everlasting tony. But when we hove in sight of Dillamead—Ebenezer's place—we shortened sail and pretty nigh drew out of the race. 'Twas up on a high bank over the river, and the house itself was bigger than four Old Homes spliced together. It had a fair-sized township around it in the shape of land, with a high stone wall for trimming on the edges. There was trees, ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... who are endowed with physical courage, and yet are cowardly and ignoble in their moral being, see matters and things resuming their accustomed course about them after some catastrophe in which their honor and decency is well-nigh lost, such family kindness, or any show of friendliness towards them is a premium of encouragement. They count on impunity; their minds distorted, their passions gratified, only prompt them to study how it happened that they succeeded ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... fear the brother of the fleet giant, nor turn pale because I am nigh her. For I am sent by Grip, and never seek the couch and embrace of damsels save when their ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... been a instructin' on us. Thar's allers instruments ris up to do de Lord's will. Now, if 't hadn't been for me today, she'd a been took a dozen times. Warn't it I started off de hosses, dis yer morning' and kept 'em chasin' till nigh dinner time? And didn't I car Mas'r Haley night five miles out of de road, dis evening, or else he'd a come up with Lizy as easy as a dog arter a coon. These ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe



Words linked to "Nigh" :   left, virtually, distance, hot, near, close, nearby, about, almost, well-nigh



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