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Trimmer   Listen
noun
Trimmer  n.  
1.
One who trims, arranges, fits, or ornaments.
2.
One who does not adopt extreme opinions in politics, or the like; one who fluctuates between parties, so as to appear to favor each; a timeserver. "Thus Halifax was a trimmer on principle."
3.
An instrument with which trimming is done.
4.
(Arch.) A beam, into which are framed the ends of headers in floor framing, as when a hole is to be left for stairs, or to avoid bringing joists near chimneys, and the like.
5.
(Coal Storage) An apparatus used for piling the coal in gradually increasing piles made by building up at the point of the cone or top of the prism.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Trimmer" Quotes from Famous Books



... patriotism to speak out at all hazards. The struggle was for life and death, on the part equally of Whig and Tory. Marion knew the character of the person, and disdained it. To the surprise of all, who knew how scrupulous of insult he was,—how indulgent and forbearing,—he turned away from the trimmer and the sycophant without recognition. This treatment was greatly censured at the time, and when Marion rose in the Senate, to speak on the subject of the petition of the man whom he had so openly scorned, it was taken for granted that he would again give utterance ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... detailed description of my first fast with colonics; you'll read about others shortly. In the end I withstood the boredom of water fasting for 17 days. During the fast I had about 7 colonics. I ended up feeling great, much trimmer, with an enormous rebirth of energy. And when I resumed eating it turned out to be slightly easier to control my dietary habits ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... because he couldn't help it, and consequently had seen and done things that more well-to-do travellers are debarred from. He had housed amongst the most iniquitous places on God's earth, from Callao to Port Said; he had wandered from Yokohama to Mandalay; he had been trimmer on a Shaw-Savile boat; he had served as mate ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... source of credit and renown to him in his circle. He knows every weak place, what parts need humouring, what stems are crowding others between the furry screen of leaves, and where the wind got in and did mischief in the last January gale. When in the course of Nature the old hedge-trimmer dies, there is no one to take his place. The men do not learn these outside accomplishments as they once did, and the art is likely to be lost, just as ornamental thatching and the making of the more decorative kinds of oak paling are in danger ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... thou lamp-carrier! have a care and look to thyself; content not thyself with that only that will maintain thee in a profession, for that may be done without saving grace. But I advise thee to go to Aaron, to Christ, the trimmer of our lamps, and beg thy vessel full of oil of him—that is, grace—for the seasoning of thy heart, that thou mayest have wherewith, not only to bear thee up now, but at the day of the bridegroom's coming, when many a lamp will go out, and many a professor be left in the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... wash-basin at the forward part of the cabin suggested these operations to him. He had an opportunity to see the yacht now by daylight, and his previous impressions of her were more than confirmed. She was even trimmer and more janty than he ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic

... the Library of the British Museum; but the richest collection of these celebrated little rarities of Toy Books is in the venerable Bodleian Library. Among the very interesting block relics of the past are the pretty cuts to Mrs. Trimmer's "Fabulous Histories, or The Robins:" these were designed by Thomas Bewick, and engraved by John Thompson, his pupil, who enriched Whittingham's celebrated Chiswick Press with his fine and tasteful work. A numerous series of little fable cuts by the ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson

... thou lamp-carrier! have a care and look to thyself; content not thyself with only that which will maintain thee in a profession, for that may be done without saving grace; but I advise thee to go to Aaron, to Christ the trimmer of our lamps, and beg of him thy vessel full of oil, that is, grace for the seasoning of thy heart, that thou mayest have wherewith not only to bear thee up now, but at the day of the bridegroom's coming when many a lamp ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... tomorrow shake the manly hand of the English Joe Sheard of Toronto, open enemy and all as he is, than touch the vile, clammy paw of such repulsive creatures as compose the snake-like breed of which this same paltry and sordid trimmer is a true representative. Of course, Greaves and he understood each other at once—they were both traitors alike; only that the former was lavish of money in attaining his nefarious ends, while the latter would crawl to whatever goal he had in view, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... year before I found out that, and I dare say I never should have found it out for myself. A gentleman named Trimmer, who, alas! is now dead, was, I believe, the first to find it out. He knew that along the coast of Labrador, and other cold parts of North America, and on the shores, too, of the great river St. Lawrence, the stranded icebergs, and the ice-foot, as it is called, which is ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley

... the worst measures, you remained, for seven years, the creature of salary, without the conscience of government. Mortified at the discovery, and stung by disappointment, you betake yourself to the sad expedients of duplicity. You try the sorry game of a trimmer in your progress to the acts of an incendiary. You give no honest support either to the government or the people; observing, with regard to both prince and people, the most impartial treachery and desertion, you justify the suspicion ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... a statesman. Unlike most other men of his party, he did not rely wholly upon discipline and organisation, or upon party fealty and courtesy. Hamilton had cherished the hope that Clinton might become a Federalist, not because he was a trimmer, or would seek a party in power simply for the spoils in sight, but because he had the breadth and liberality of enlightened opinions, the prophetic instinct, and the force of character to make things go his way, without drifting into success by a fortunate turn in tide and wind. He was ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... high-tariff man. He would have a low tariff for the United States, if the United States would grant Canada a low tariff—he had answered; but the United States would not grant Canada any tariff concessions. And the grand old guard of Whigs had jeered back that he was "a compromiser" and "a trimmer," who tacked to every breeze and never met an issue ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... really were. I could not see faces, of course. But the grey coat on the one looked as if its shoulders had been more carefully brushed than had been the case with the other; the spotless pantaloons, which seemed to be just out of the laundress's basket, as I suppose they were, sat with a trimmer perfection in one case than in the other. Preston's pocket gaped, and was, I noticed, a little bit ripped; and when my eye got down to the shoes, his had not the black gloss of his companion's. With that one there was not, I think, a thread awry. And then, there was a certain relaxation in ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... is to be Governess to Princess Charlotte, Mrs and Miss Trimmer [5] the acting ones. I doubt the mother accepting the appointment. On the 25th February there is to be a grand ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... way by trimming; he had gained the governor's chair by yielding to the opinions of others. This training combined perfectly with the natural disposition of a chameleon. He was, or became, a sincere trimmer, taking his colour and his temporary beliefs from those with whom he happened to be. His judgment often stuck at trifles, and his opinions were quickly heated but as quickly cooled. His private morals were none of the best, which gave certain men ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under the direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens

... dear friend, are my sentiments, by which you will see I was right in saying, I am neither federalist nor anti-federalist; that I am of neither party, nor yet a trimmer between parties. These, my opinions, I wrote, within a few hours after I had read the constitution, to one or two friends in America. I had not then read one single word printed on the subject. I never had an opinion in politics or religion, which I was afraid ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... The window-trimmer must not make the mistake of thinking that the showiest stocks are the most salable. The advertiser must not make the mistake of thinking that the showiest ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman

... was a walking calculation, Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their covers, Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education, Or 'Coelebs' Wife' set out in quest of lovers, Morality's prim personification, In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers; To others' share let 'female errors fall,' For she had not ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... ambitious youth of that calling, returning from Rome and thinking himself a Fontaine or a Percier, should bow before the administration. The liberal student became a royalist, and sought to win the favor of influential persons. When a grand prix man behaves thus, his comrades call him a trimmer. The young architect in question had two ways open to him,—either to serve the perfumer well, or put him under contribution. Birotteau the deputy-mayor, Birotteau the future possessor of half the lands about the Madeleine, where he would sooner ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... first prize. He subsequently changed hands several times, till he became the property of Mr. Murchison, in whose hands he died in the early 'seventies. He was exhibited for the last time at the Crystal Palace in 1870, and though then over ten years old won second to the same owner's Trimmer. At his best he was a smart, well-balanced terrier, with perhaps too much daylight under him, and wanting somewhat in jaw power; but he showed far less of the Bull-terrier type than did ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... worthy of her when yer get home. My sweetheart, God bless her! is all the sunlight I have in a voyage of this kind. My little wife is my sweetheart, she is, Mr. Toodleburg. She an' the two little angels are the sunlight of my heart. There ain't nobody sails the sea has a trimmer little craft of a sweetheart nor I have." He paused for a minute, as if to collect his distracted thoughts. "The man that would bring trouble to her door while I'm away—he would'nt be a man, Mr. Toodleburg," ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... Educated and religious people had, however, come to the conclusion that it would be well to help all the village children to know their faith and duty, and to read their Bibles; and the good work of Mrs Hannah More and Mrs Trimmer were examples that had begun to be followed, now that the one was in extreme old age, and the other in her grave. The Carbonel family had been bred up to such work, and all of them knew a good deal more ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of invasion: he had laboured, even when the Dutch were in full march towards London, to effect a reconciliation; and he had never deserted James till James had deserted the throne. But, from the moment of that shameful flight, the sagacious Trimmer, convinced that compromise was thenceforth impossible, had taken a decided part. He had distinguished himself preeminently in the Convention: nor was it without a peculiar propriety that he had been appointed to the honourable office of tendering the crown, in the name of all ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... high hills, rich valleys, scattered forests, and swift streams of clear water. Harry liked this Northern land, which was yet not so far from the South. It was not more beautiful than his own Kentucky, but it was much trimmer and neater than the states toward the Gulf. He saw all about him the evidences of free labor, the proof that man worked more readily, and with better results, when success or failure were ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... not one which rests on competent historical authority, such traditions are not apt so to cluster as to blur the fair fame of a sturdily incorruptible man, but are much more likely to cling to the memory of a trimmer and ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... their Cooper; because the Reverend T. C. (by which mystical letters is understood either the bouncing parson of East Meon or Tom Cokes his chaplain), hath shewed himself in his late admonition to the people of England to be an unskilful and beceitful [sic] tub-trimmer. Wherein worthy Martin quits him like a man, I warrant you in the modest defence of his self and his learned pistles, and makes the Cooper's hoops to fly off, and the bishops' tubs to leak out of all cry. Penned and compiled ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... writers already mentioned, and represented by selections in the following pages, there were several others whose books are yet accessible and now and then read for their historical interest if not for any intrinsic literary value they may possess. One of these was Mrs. Sarah K. Trimmer (1741-1810), who, associated with the early days of the Sunday-school movement, wrote many books full of the overwrought piety which was supposed to be necessary for children of that earlier time. One of her books, The History of the Robins, stands out from the mass for its strong appeal of simple ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... not perhaps so injurious (except to the character of the trimmer) as cooking, which the next paragraph will teach, The reason of this is, that the AVERAGE given by the observations of the trimmer is the same, whether they are trimmed or untrimmed. His object is to gain a reputation for extreme accuracy in making observations; but from respect for truth, ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage

... perched on the side of that mountain, fourteen hundred feet above the present sea-level, is an ancient sea-beach, five-and-thirty feet thick, lying on great ice-scratched boulders, which again lie on the mountain slates. It was discovered by the late Mr. Trimmer, now, alas! lost to Geology. Out of that beach fifty-seven different species of shells have been taken; eleven of them are now exclusively Arctic, and not found in our seas; four of them are still common to the Arctic seas and to our own; and almost all the ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of that great revolution which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole state of parties, the character of every public man, is elaborately misrepresented, in order to make out something which may look like a defence of one most eloquent and accomplished trimmer. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... they skim over bents which the mill-stream washes, Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem; They need no parasols, no goloshes; And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... Bible. The king's gracious wish unconsciously indicated a difficulty. Was it safe to teach the Bible without the safeguard of authorised interpretation? Orthodox opponents feared the alliance with a man whose first principle was toleration, and first among them was the excellent Mrs. Trimmer, who had been already engaged in the Sunday-school movement. She pointed out in a pamphlet that the schismatic Lancaster was weakening the Established Church. The Edinburgh Review came to his support in 1806 and 1807; for the Whig, especially ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... shore leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets up to the Chief's room and has to be subdued by the power of executive eye or the strength of executive arm. As most Chiefs are Scots, the eye is generally sufficient. So the Chief, mightily ferocious, turned about, eye set, as ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Prussian power in the Far West of Germany. Still another ancestor of a collateral branch becomes Grand Master of the religious Order of the Teutonic Knights, and this fact induces Master Martin Luther, who was much more of a realist and a time-server and a trimmer than theologians give him credit for, to advise the Hohenzollern Grand Master to secularize his knights, to confiscate the whole Church property of the Order, and to make himself the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... diameter, we were immediately greeted by the hippo, who snorted and roared as we approached, but quickly dived, and the buoyant float ran along the surface, directing his course in the same manner as the cork of a trimmer marks that of a pike upon the hook. Several times he appeared, but as he invariably faced us I could not obtain a favorable shot; I therefore sent the old hunter round the pool, and he, swimming the river, advanced to the opposite side and attracted the attention of the ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... Halifax's defect of fervour as a Jacobite was more than made up to Macaulay by his defect of fervour as a Williamite. As for the moderns, I have myself more than once failed to induce editors of 'series' to give Halifax a place. Yet Macaulay himself has been fairer to the great Trimmer than to most persons with whom he was not in full sympathy. The weakness of Halifax's position is indeed obvious. When you run first to one side of the boat and then to the other, you have ten chances of sinking to one of trimming her. To hold fast to one party only, and ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... Elsie's face, and all was serene again. Her mother seemed somewhat ashamed of her little girl's bad manners, as was shown by her apologetic air when she observed to the trimmer that Elsie was as queer a child as ever lived. When she set her mind on a thing, it was so hard for her to ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson

... on a Saturday evening the Young Gent would draw down his six dollars worth of salary and chase himself to the barber shop, where the Bolivian lawn trimmer would put a crimp in his mustache and plaster his forehead with three cents worth of hair and a ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... seven volume treatise on that. It sounds prosy, I know, and very stupid, but let me tell you that it is the wise girl who buys for comfort, utility and wear, instead of style and elaborateness. A plain little fedora, if well brushed, makes a trimmer, neater appearance than a cheap velvet hat ornamented with feathers that have straightened out and flowers that have long since lost their glory in the rains and storms of autumn time. It is the same way with shoes and gloves. If one can possibly afford it, calfskin boots and heavy ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... was sitting behind the parlor curtains with Mrs. Trimmer's Roman History, and Grandmamma was sitting, looking very grave in her new black dress, with a pocket handkerchief and book in her lap, and sherry and sponge biscuits on a tray on the piano, for visitors of condolence, ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... look so cast down, boy. I honour you for your self-respect and independence. You have other friends besides Sir Alexander Moncton, who will not forsake you for taking your own part like a man. You shall go to school yet—ay, and become the head scholar in Dr. Trimmer's head class, and finish your education at Oxford, or my ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... was the quality of sympathy in Jerry which I had lacked, the love for and confidence in every human being with whom he came into contact which endeared him to every person on the place. From Radford to Christopher, throughout the house, stables and garage, down to the humblest hedge-trimmer, all loved Jerry and Jerry loved them all. He had that kind of nature. He couldn't help loving those about him any more than he could help breathing, and yet it must not be supposed that the boy was lacking in discernment. Our failings, weaknesses and foibles were a ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... took to coiffes and wimples in later life; in early days she was fond of splendour, and, as we read, had herself painted in emerald earrings. How many others besides her are there to admire! Who does not know the prim, sweet, amply frilled portraits of Mrs. Trimmer and Joanna Baillie? Only yesterday a friend showed me a sprightly, dark-eyed miniature of Felicia Hemans. Perhaps most beautiful among all her sister muses smiles the lovely head of Amelia Opie, as she was represented ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... Jane's person grew neater and trimmer. In her face, now filled out with proper food and rest, there was a look of happiness as if some great hope ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... respect. He was known for a scholar, and it was his scholarship which had obtained for him the proud position of secretary to the provident society styled the Queen's Arms Slate Club. His respectability and his learning combined had enabled him to win with dignity the hand of Susie Trimmer, the grocer's daughter, to whom he had been engaged about a year. The village could not make up its mind concerning that match; without doubt it was a social victory for Froyle, but everyone wondered that so sedate and sagacious ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... decision at this time, his behaviour in circumstances to be recounted in the next chapter shows. Unpopular as his resignation made him with politicians, it was nothing to the storm of abuse which he was forced to endure when he chose, a few months later, to stand—now an imputed trimmer—for the sake of preserving what was best in a policy ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... But this was not the end of the story. Many readers are doubtless familiar with Halifax's remark when Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, was removed from the post of First Lord of the Treasury and installed in that of Lord President. "I have seen people kicked downstairs," remarked the great Trimmer, "but my Lord Rochester is the first person that I ever saw kicked up-stairs."[77] In like manner the Lieutenant-Governor's clerk was soon afterwards kicked up-stairs, by being appointed Registrar ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... that; but some half-starvin' oiler or, maybe, trimmer must ha' opened it awhile to mak' sure o' leavin' the Grotkau. It's a demoralisin' thing to see an engine-room flood up after any accident to the gear—demoralisin' and deceptive both. Aweel, the man got what he wanted, for they went aboard the liner cryin' that the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... within three or four years the number of learners was reckoned at two or three hundred thousand. A Sunday School Association was formed in 1785 with well known men of business at its head. Queen Charlotte's friend, Mrs. Trimmer (1741-1810), took up the work near London, and Hannah More (1745-1833) in Somersetshire. Hannah More gives a strange account of the utter absence of any civilising agencies in the district around Cheddar ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... more, there was, I admit, a certain amount of subdued jubilation on board. It is true that the Mate and the Second Engineer fox-trotted twice round the deck and into the galley, where they upset a ship's tin of gravy; and the story that the Trimmer, his complexion liberally enriched with oil and coaldust, embraced the Lieutenant and excitedly hailed the Skipper by his privy pseudonym of "Plum-face," cannot be lightly discredited; but at the same time I think each one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various

... attempt was made to pull down the woodwork, and substitute a pyramid for the crucifix; the Virgin was superseded by the goddess Diana—"a woman (for the most part naked), and water, conveyed from the Thames, filtering from her naked breasts, but oftentimes dried up." Elizabeth, always a trimmer in these matters, was indignant at these fanatical doings; and thinking a plain cross, a symbol of the faith of our country, ought not to give scandal, she ordered one to be placed on the summit, and gilt. The Virgin also was restored; but twelve nights ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... very natural that brilliant and vehement men should depreciate Harley; for he had nothing which they possess, but had everything which they commonly do not possess. He was by nature a moderate man. In that age they called such a man a "trimmer," but they called him ill: such a man does not consciously shift or purposely trim his course,—he firmly believes that he is substantially consistent. "I do not wish in this House," he would say in our age, "to be a party to any extreme course. Mr. Gladstone brings forward ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... any one of which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice. Nay, the perfection of the Supreme Being himself consists in the exact equilibrium of attributes, none of which could preponderate without disturbing the whole moral and physical order of the world. [20] Thus Halifax was a Trimmer on principle. He was also a Trimmer by the constitution both of his head and of his heart. His understanding was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and objections; his taste refined; his sense of the ludicrous exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but fastidious, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... instinct who they are working for; and the poultry is fatter and tenderer, the hens being careful never to over-fatigue themselves, and the peacocks and the geese not to exhaust themselves in screaming and cackling. All nature, alive and dead, takes upon itself a trimmer and more perfect ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... also found them pleasant places, and I delighted in butterflies, though I seldom succeeded in catching one. I do not remember that I ever killed one. Heart and conscience both were against that. I had got the loan of Mrs. Trimmer's story of the family of Robins, and was every now and then reading a page of it with unspeakable delight. We had very few books for children in those days and in that far out-of-the-way place, and those we did get were the more dearly prized. It ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... truth, before the mind was prepared to receive it, and that therefore, Jack the Giant-Killer, Parisenus and Parismenus, and The Seven Champions of Christendom were fitter for them than Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer.' Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 16) says:—'Dr. Johnson used to condemn me for putting Newbery's books into children's hands. "Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... an obstinate little woman, when she is sure that she is right. And indeed if love had never sped me straight to the heart of Lorna (compared to whom, Ruth was no more than the thief is to the candle), who knows but what I might have yielded to the law of nature, that thorough trimmer of balances, and verified the proverb that the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... went one evening to walk with Belle Carpenter, a trimmer of women's hats who worked in a millinery shop kept by Mrs. Kate McHugh. The young man was not in love with the woman, who, in fact, had a suitor who worked as bartender in Ed Griffith's saloon, but as they walked about ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... the daring war leader, Crazy Horse, surrendered to the military, he went down to the agency and roundly rebuked Spotted Tail for signing away the freedom of his people. From the point of view of the irreconcilables, the diplomatic chief was a "trimmer" and a traitor; and many of the Sioux have tried to implicate him in the conspiracy against Crazy Horse which led to his assassination, but I hold that the facts do not bear ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... Vennard came in together. Both looking uncommonly fit, younger, trimmer, cleaner. Vennard, instead of his sloppy clothes and shaggy hair, was groomed like a Guardsman; had a large pearl-and-diamond solitaire in his shirt, and a white waistcoat with jewelled buttons. He had lost all his self-consciousness, grinned cheerfully at the others, warmed his hands at the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... blocks against critics did no harm to an enemy skilled in the use of trimmer weapons, notably the fine one of letting big missiles rebound. He wrote from India, with Indian heat—"curry and capsicums," it was remarked. He dared to claim the countenance of the Commander-in-chief of the Army of India for an act disapproved by the India House. Other letters might ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... While, however, he played the often thankless part of instructor to the English, he had the courage to assume the even less popular role of a moderator towards the colonists. He made it his task to soothe passion and to preach reason. He did not do this as a trimmer; never was one word of compromise uttered by him throughout all these alarming years. But he dreaded that weakness which is the inevitable reaction from excess; and he was supremely anxious to secure that trustworthy strength which is impossible ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... all was still. The solid little building looked so quiet and well cared for in the bright sunshine, which shone on the polished window-panes and on the bright red top of the lantern, where he could see the lamp-trimmer going round on his ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... is!" "But there's Wiggins, who's much nicer." "My eye, what a cauliflower hat Mrs. Thompson's got!" "What a buck young Snooks is!" "What gummy legs that girl in green has!" "Miss Trotter's bustle's on crooked!" from the young ladies at Miss Trimmer's seminary who were drawn up to show the numerical strength of the academy, and act the part of walking advertisements. These observations were speedily drowned by the lusty lungs of a flyman bellowing out, as Green ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... Schlegel is pleased to indulge in one of his most declamatory rhapsodies upon the life, "so dear to the gods," of this "pious and holy poet." But Sophocles, in private life, was a profligate, and in public life a shuffler and a trimmer, if not absolutely a renegade. It was, perhaps, the very laxity of his principles which made him thought so agreeable a fellow. At least, such is no uncommon cause of personal popularity nowadays. People lose much of their anger and envy of genius when it throws them down a bundle ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... landed interest. And when, not very long after Audley took his seat in parliament (which he did not do for some months), he thought proper both to vote and to speak in a manner wholly belying the promises the squire had made on his behalf, Mr. Hazeldean wrote him such a trimmer that it could not but produce an unconciliatory reply. Shortly afterwards the squire's exasperation reached the culminating point; for, having to pass through Lansmere on a market-day, he was hooted by ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... place. Still, it was a nice house, and the barns were splendid. My father always said that when a man's barns were bigger than his house it was a sign that his income exceeded his expenditure. So it was all right that they should be bigger; but it was all wrong that they should be trimmer and better painted. Still, thought I, what else could you expect of a ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... drawn, in order to repeat the murder, in case the barber should commit the same mistake. Yet so tamed are those poor people to subjection, that when Peregrine mentioned this assassination to his own trimmer, with expressions of horror and detestation, the infatuated wretch replied, that without all doubt it was a misfortune, but it proceeded from the gentleman's passion; and observed, by way of encomium on the government, that such vivacity ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... the woman that can honor herself with her attire; a good text always deserves a fair margent; I am not much offended if I see a trim far trimmer than she that wears it. In a word, whatever Christianity or civility will allow, I can afford with London measure: but when I hear a nugiperous gentledame inquire what dress the Queen is in this week: what the nudiustertian fashion of the Court; I mean the very newest; with egg ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... of a trimmer to go back on us now," said Joyce. "Public sentiment is all on our side now, and ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... principles of Charles de Buonaparte. It contains also the last profession of morality which a youth is not ashamed to make before the cynicism of his own life becomes too evident for the castigation of selfishness and insincerity in others. Its substance is a just reproach to a selfish trimmer; the froth and scum are characteristic rather of the time and the circumstances than of the personality behind them. There is no further mention of a difference between the destinies of France and Corsica. To compare the pamphlet with even the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... to him unquestionably a noble field of patriotic exertion had he been fully adapted for its cultivation—his firmness been equal to his eloquence, and his sincerity to his address—had he been more of a Whig in the good old Hampden sense, and less of a trimmer. As it is, he cuts, on the whole, a doubtful figure, and is no great favourite with the partisans of either of the great contending parties. He was again elected member for Agmondesham, and when the question came before the House, whether the supplies demanded by Strafford should ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... themselves strove to make us late with our work, and so have an opportunity of cutting down the price paid for our labour. They frequently put off giving out the trimmings to us till the time at which the coat is due has expired. If to the trimmer we return an answer that is considered 'saucy,' we are find 6d. or 1s., according to the trimmer's temper." "I was called a thief," another of the three declared, "and because I told the man I would not submit ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... you snaike-seeing delirying trimmer, will yer! Give anyone the 'orrers to listen to yer! When Priddell is wrote off as 'Dead' 'e is dead, whether 'e likes it or no," and he turned to give orders to the listening guard to arrest ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... Michel, the apostle who of old had converted her to the cause, she had long scorned as a deserter. Leroux, in the moment of action, was a nonentity. Barbes "reasons like a saint," she observes, "that is to say, very ill as regards the things of this world." Lamartine was a vain trimmer; Louis Blanc, a sectarian; Ledru-Rollin, a weathercock. "It is the characters that transgress," she complains naively as one after the other disappointed her. Her own shortcomings on the score of patience and prudence ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... market-town—very much like Treddleston—where the arms of the neighbouring lord of the manor were borne on the sign of the principal inn; then mere fields and hedges, their vicinity to a market-town carrying an agreeable suggestion of high rent, till the land began to assume a trimmer look, the woods were more frequent, and at length a white or red mansion looked down from a moderate eminence, or allowed him to be aware of its parapet and chimneys among the dense-looking masses ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... first-class trimmer, then!" replied Miss Bean, emphatically. "Works in one o' them big houses in New York, I ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... that on a Saturday evening the young gent would draw down his six dollars worth of salary and chase himself to the barber shop, where the Dago lawn trimmer would put a crimp in his moustache and plaster his forehead with three cents worth of hair and a dollar's ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh

... a bolder eye 30 Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn! Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn; Lest so we tempt th' approaching Noon to scorn The mists and painted vapours of our ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... indeed to have a turn for this species of Nursery Tales and prattling Lullabies; and, if he will studiously cultivate his talent, he need not despair of figuring in a conspicuous corner of Mr NEWBERY's shop window: unless indeed Mrs. TRIMMER should think fit to proscribe those empty levities and idle superstitions, by which the World has been ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... out joyfully, as he rode up to the white paling which separated the trim lawn and trimmer flower-garden from the rough park-like ground ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... lodging—without it I must die. And, harkee, now; when I meet a man I like, and who, after all, has a touch of humanity and truth about him, to such a man, I say, I myself am all truth, at whatever cost; but to every other—to your knave, your hypocrite, or your trimmer, for instance, all falsehood—deep, downright, wanton falsehood. In fact, I would scorn to throw away ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... sure of his gaiety of soul, since he is gay when he is hungry! But you who, void of gaiety because void of love, have imagined that evil wit can take the place of good humour, and that one can play the sparrow when he is a sleek and vulgar trimmer, sniggering behind his wing, what I say to you is, ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... earlier years, instead of courting your fair friends, as Burns appears to have done, with copies of your own works, you used to present unto them the "Legacy of Dr Gregory to his Daughters"—or "Mrs Chapone's Letters," or Miss Bowdler's, or Mrs Trimmer's, appropriately bound and gilt; and thus apprized of the superabundance of prose provided for their edification, are prepared to feel, with me, that if they have not Mrs Barbauld and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded by the frippery tomes which load the counters of our bazars. This ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... element began to predominate among my emotions and cogitations. In my childhood in my father's house we had no special religious training; our habits were those of average English Protestants of decent respectability. My mother read the Bible to us in the morning before breakfast; Mrs. Trimmer's and Mrs. Barbauld's Scripture histories and paraphrases were taught to us; we learnt our catechism and collects, and went to church on Sunday, duly and decorously, as a matter of course. Grace ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... the Jews and Jewish quarter of Rome—a "longshore population" of beggars and pedlars, with a Ghetto resembling the Alsatia of The Fortunes of Nigel, seething with dirt and fanaticism. These were St. Peter's congeners at Rome, whose ideas and claims, "timid trimmer" though he was, he came to Rome to support against the Hellenism and Protestantism of St. Paul. And at Rome they, both of them, probably, perished in Nero's persecution, and that is the history of the success of Christianity. "Only fanatics can found anything. Judaism lives on because ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... her way. She was soon in the downtown district where factories abound. On a large brick building was a gilt sign, "Posey-Trimmer, Artificial Flowers." Below it was hung a newly stretched canvas hearing the words, "Five hundred girls wanted to learn trade. Good wages from the start. Apply ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... kinds—silk, velvet, lace, chiffon, etc.—and she as a result learns to know intimately and to handle skilfully delicate and costly fabrics. From being an apprentice she becomes an assistant maker and then a maker of hats. She may then be promoted to the work of a trimmer. The work of the trimmer is considered one of the most difficult stages in the creation of a hat. The girl who aspires to this work must have an eye for beauty of line and she should know how to harmonize the trimming to the shape ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy

... admire his work, it was borne in on him afresh with how few creature-comforts he had hitherto existed. Plain to see now, why he had preferred to sit out-of-doors rather than within! Now, no one on the Flat had a trimmer little place ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... had been under denunciation as a rebel ever since the Pentland rising (in which he had, indeed, borne no part), he had never given his voice for war; and, though assuredly neither a coward nor a trimmer, had always kept from any active share in the proceedings of his more tumultuous brethren. His plan, and the plan of the few who at that time and place were on his side, was temperate and reasonable. They asked for no more than they were ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... now he had cognisance of this naughty calumny? "Of course Hannah had contradicted it?" "Of course I have a done no such indeed," replied Master Clive's old friend; "of course I have set 'em down a bit; for when little Trimmer said it, and she supposed it was all settled between you, seeing how it had been a going on in foreign parts last year, Mrs. Pincott says, 'Hold your silly tongue, Trimmer,' she says; 'Miss Ethel marry a painter, indeed, Trimmer!' says she, 'while she ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... conscience—if she's the same, well, the winter's been worth a great deal to all of us! When I see her and watch her back there—I'll know. And that leads me to what I really came here to tell you." John Westley drew a letter from his pocket. "I had word from Trimmer—the Boston attorney. He's found traces of a Craig Winton who was a graduate of Boston Tech. He lived in obscure lodgings in a poorer part of Boston and yet he seemed to have quite a circle of friends of an intellectual sort. Some of them have given ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... meet them in the Forest, and they all seem fond of Argus. I'm sure you have made them extremely polite, Miss Pierson. I shall be very pleased to come to your school-feast, Mrs. Scobel; and I'll tell our good old Trimmer to make ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... was glued to the glass. "But she's lighter built, trimmer. Some pleasure-craft, like enough. You can see her walk—same as if she was a lady—a-bowin' and bobbin'." He laid down the glass, a look of pleasure in his face. "She's comin' right in, whoever she is. She'll drop anchor ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee

... the hearth is usually obtained as indicated—by bringing what is called a "row-lock" or "trimmer" arch between the foundation masonry of the chimney and a pair of floor joists set out at the proper distance, depending upon the desired width of the hearth. While this is the customary method, occasionally a support is secured in some other way, such as corbeling out from the ...
— Making a Fireplace • Henry H. Saylor

... sound the depth of that calamity. I sometimes think that it would be well if we could wear around this last, terrible, black headland by sounding, and trimming sails, rather than attempt to sail by compass and quadrant. Do not mistake my figure. I am no moral trimmer, and that you know. Conscience must be obeyed. But conscience does not forbid that we should treat the Southern people with great consideration. What we must do, we may do in the spirit of love, and not of wrath or ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... be busier in about a minute, if I don't see you right now," said the man addressed as Trimmer, a raw, bull-like lumberman from the mountains. "Been waitin' to ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... had long entertained an unfavourable opinion of Mr. Jefferson's talents as a statesman and his firmness as a republican. That he conceived him an accommodating trimmer, who would change with times, and bend to circumstances for the purposes of personal promotion. Impressed with these sentiments, he could not, with propriety, he said, acquiesce in the elevation of a man destitute of the qualifications essential to the good administration ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... of infamy. Yet, even before Churchill had performed those great actions which in some degree redeem his character with posterity, the load lay very lightly on him. He had others in abundance to keep him in countenance. Godolphin, Orford, Danby, the trimmer Halifax, the renegade Sunderland, were all men of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... in Thomasville, Thomas County, Georgia, on the 21st day of March, 1856. He and his mother were the property (?) of Rev. Reuben H. Lucky, a Methodist minister of that place. His father, Festus Flipper, by trade a shoemaker and carriage-trimmer, was owned by Ephraim G. Ponder, ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... she kept us at work for a given number of hours during the day; tatting by our sides as we practised our scales, or roasting her petticoats over the fire, whilst Matilda and I read Mrs. Markham's England or Mrs. Trimmer's Bible Lessons aloud by turns to full-stops. But when lessons were over Miss Perry was quite as glad as we were, and the subjects of our studies had as little to do with our holiday hours as a Sunday sermon with the rest of ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... have gone up and seen Lurindy, after all, but his ship was ready for sea just as he was; and I thought it was about as well, for he wasn't looking his prettiest. And so he declared I was the neatest little trimmer that ever trod water, and he believed he should know a Ruggles by the cut of her jib, (I wonder if he'd have known Aunt Mimy,) and if ever he went master, he'd name his ship for me, and call it the Sister of Charity. And he kissed me on both cheeks, and looked serious enough when he sent his ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... anybody, in his most direct thrusting, more than to himself, reaching others only through his own wounded heart. Meantime, some of his ecclesiastical constituents will suspect him, in his local ethics, of leniency to wide-spread corruption; and professed philanthropists will brand him as a trimmer and coward, recreant, fawning, and dumb,—the term spaniel having been flung at one of the best men and most conscientious ministers that ever lived, simply because he could not vituperate as harshly as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... on the farm buildings and large gates, consisted of Venetian red, a dry paint, and oil, five to eight pounds of paint to the gallon of oil. A white trimmer was used on the face boards of the roof, doors ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... clear though rudely thrown And loosely scattered in my poesie, May lend men light till the dead Night be gone, And Morning fresh with roses strew the skie: It is enough, I meant no trimmer frame Or by nice needle-work ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More



Words linked to "Trimmer" :   worker, electrical condenser, trimmer joist, hedge trimmer, trimmer arch, capacitance, pruner, capacitor, condenser, trim, machine



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