"Unprepossessing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aback was he, that he had not acknowledged it. He, therefore, to make amends, had had himself photographed in an attitude of perpetual salutation. Other letters rained in on my sister from the eccentric individual, and he sent her almost weekly fresh presentments of his unprepossessing exterior, but always in a bowing attitude. We made, naturally, inquiries about this person, and found that he was an elderly widower, a hatter by trade, who had retired from business after making a considerable fortune, and was living in Rathmines, a South Dublin suburb. The hatter was undoubtedly ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... lest you stumble in the darkness on the rough ground," said the muffled voice of El Diablo Cojuelo. "The entrance to my mountain eyrie is narrow and unprepossessing, but I promise you that ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... shoulder. In such a climate as that of Terra del Fuego, their being able to go without clothes shows that they must be of a very hardy nature. We were soon surrounded by some thirty or more of these very unprepossessing gentlemen, all talking most furiously to us or at us, some patting us on the back, and others examining our handkerchiefs, and caps, and buttons, or any article of our dress they could get hold of. We patted them on the back in return, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... to have had any original connection with it. The reputation of Wellington, made by war, is now maintained by woollens. The town is girdled by large cloth and serge mills. In general appearance the place is not unprepossessing. The streets are wide and airy, and their arrangement compact, but the shops are poor, and create an impression of dullness. The only object of more than passing interest is the Parish Church, inconveniently situated at the E. extremity of the town. It is ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... very easily about everything. He told me who a great many of the people were, with a little commentary on their profession and career which was very useful to me, as I knew so few of them. Renan was short, stout, with a very large head, almost unprepossessing-looking, but with a great charm of manner and the most delightful smile and voice imaginable. He often dined with us in our own house, en petit comite, and was always charming. He was one of those happy mortals (there are not many) ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... protegee, had a sort of latent interest in Nelly, from her association with her pleasant visit to Ashleigh, accompanied her cousin in her long walk to look for the house. On reaching it at last, tired and hot, the door was opened, not by Nelly, as Lucy had hoped, but by an unprepossessing-looking woman, whose hard face grew more rigid when informed what was the ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... known from Chausee d'Antin to Rue de Lille. In those days—it was in 1836—there had not yet arisen the tribe of journalists and reporters who now swarm on all sides like ants in an ant-hill; but even then there was seen in Varvara Pavlovna's salon a certain M. Jules, a gentleman of unprepossessing exterior, with a scandalous reputation, insolent and mean, like all duelists and men who have been beaten. Varvara Pavlovna felt a great aversion to this M. Jules, but she received him because he wrote for various journals, and was incessantly mentioning ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... laid aside his theatrical bandage over both eyes, he wore a black patch over one, or rather where one had been; the eye exposed was of singular beauty, dark and brilliant. For the rest, the man had a striking countenance, rugged, and rather ugly than otherwise, but by no means unprepossessing; full of lines and wrinkles and strong muscle, with large lips of wondrous pliancy, and an aspect of wistful sagacity, that, no doubt, on occasion could become exquisitely comic,—dry comedy,—the comedy that makes others roar when the comedian himself ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wanted to be out in the train shed, and we went out there and walked up and down before the gate. I noticed that he was studying Sheener with some embarrassment in his eyes. Sheener was, of course, an unprepossessing figure. Lean, swarthy, somewhat flashy of dress, he looked what he was. He was my friend, of course, and I was able to look beneath the exterior. But it seemed to me that sight of him ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... face, with great cheekbones and massive jaws; a low forehead surmounted by a dense brush of up-standing grayish-brown hair; beetling brows and eyes deep-set, fierce and furtive; combined to make a sufficiently unprepossessing countenance. Nor was his manner more pleasing. He scowled forbiddingly at me, he scrutinized the other customer, craning sideways to survey him in the mirror, he looked about the shop and he stared inquisitively at the parlor door. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... then boil it; in which state it is known throughout the country by the elegant name of robbiboo. Pemmican is good wholesome food, will keep fresh for a great length of time, and were it not for its unprepossessing appearance, and a good many buffalo hairs mixed with it, through the carelessness of the hunters, would be very palatable. After a time, however, one becomes accustomed to ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... a good reception in the Hanse Towns. The difference of language, indeed, occasionally caused discord, but when better acquainted the inhabitants and their visitors became good friends. The Marquis de la Romans was a little swarthy man, of unprepossessing and rather common appearance; but he had a considerable share of talent and information. He had travelled in almost every part of Europe, and as he had been a close observer of all he saw his conversation was exceedingly agreeable ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and when the Company promoted him, he journeyed with them still deeper into the vastness of the North-West Territory to a place called Sin Rock, where he took charge of a new post in a more important fur field. Here he spent several lonely and depressing months, eminently disgusted with the unprepossessing appearance of the Indian maidens, and greatly worried by his growing sons who stood in need of a mother's care. Then his eyes chanced ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... straight at Jim and Sorry, and those two unprepossessing ones looked at each other and at Swan and at the doctor and at each other again, and headed for the door. But Swan was leaning against it, and his eyes were on them. "I would like it if you say somebody rides to get the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... of a gentle eminence she entered the narrow, winding street of the town, a crooked little town physically both in the matter of this meandering alley-like thoroughfare and in the matter of the hastily builded, unprepossessing houses; a crooked town in its innermost character, it was easy to believe. On either hand as she rode forward were low, squat, ugly shacks jammed tight together or with narrow passageways between their unlovely ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... dress consisted of a blue woollen shirt, coarse blue trousers grimed in mud, and a low-crowned black hat; on his shoulder he carried a spade and pickaxe. As he walked along he was joined by others of an equally unprepossessing appearance, and found many more already assembled at the scene ...
— Adventures of a Sixpence in Guernsey by A Native • Anonymous
... quick note of these men. They were Neal Taggart; a tall, lanky, unprepossessing man with a truculent eye rimmed by lashless lids, and with a drooping mustache which almost concealed the cruel curve of his lips, whom he knew as Denver Ed—having met him several times in the Durango country; and a medium-sized ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... considered one of his greatest attractions. But my cousin had no personal attractions. There was nothing manly or decided about him. Smooth and insidious where he wished to please, his first appearance to strangers was always unprepossessing; and few persons on their first introduction had any great ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... explained that the n'zala was kept by some of the immediate family of Mahedi el Menebhi, who had put them there, presumably to make what profit they could. I looked very carefully at our greedy hosts. They were a rough unprepossessing crowd, but their wealth in sheep and goats alone was remarkable, and their stock was safe from molestation, for they were known to be relatives of the Sultan's chief minister, a man whose arm is long and hard-hitting. Since last autumn Menebhi has resigned his high office, reduced his household, ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... him for nearly a year, owing partly to our unfrequent meetings, and his absence, that I began to be sensible of his superior talents and acquirements. His personal appearance was, it must be candidly owned, certainly insignificant and unprepossessing. He was of slight make, a trifle under the middle height, his hair was rather light, and his complexion pale. He wore spectacles, being excessively near-sighted, and had a very slight cast in his eyes, which were somewhat full and prominent. The expression of his features, at all events when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... personal charms conveyed to him perhaps a sense of the artistic; to him the Greek language was a delight, "an ornament of women." Simon, the son of Lakish (200-275), hardy of muscle and of intellect, started life as a professional athlete. A later Rabbi, Zeira, was equally noted for his feeble, unprepossessing figure and his nimble, ingenious mind. Another contemporary of Jochanan, Joshua, the son of Levi, is the hero of many legends. He was so tender to the poor that he declared his conviction that the Messiah would arise among the beggars and cripples of Rome. Simlai, who was born in Palestine, and ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... seated at the table, however, was a fishmonger who, before entering the public house of the Rue de Chaffaut, had been to stable his horse at Labarre's. It chanced that he had that very morning encountered this unprepossessing stranger on the road between Bras d'Asse and—I have forgotten the name. I think it was Escoublon. Now, when he met him, the man, who then seemed already extremely weary, had requested him to take him ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... got the money?" snarled Mack, screwing up his features into a frown that made him look even more unprepossessing. ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... some future time, was possible; but Captain Archibald Clavering had not yet reached the profitable stage in the career of a betting man, though perhaps he was beginning to qualify himself for it. He was not bad-looking, though his face was unprepossessing to a judge of character. He was slight and well made about five feet nine in height, with light brown hair, which had already left the top of his head bald, with slight whiskers, and a well-formed moustache. But the peculiarity of his face was in his eyes. His eyebrows were light-colored ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... stop, in Charlottesville, at the New Gleason, and when we alighted at the dingy old brick railroad station—a station quite as unprepossessing as that at New Haven, Connecticut—we began to feel that all was not for the best. A large gray horse hitched to the hack in which we rode to the Gleason evidently felt the same, for at first he balked, and later tried ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... himself hardly knew how to take the sting from the rebuke, which he was aware his mission could not but convey; and he was no less aware, that unless the dose had a little sugar in it, at any rate to hide its unprepossessing appearance even if it did not render it palatable, his patient would never ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... after another those to whom he was offered shook their heads. The haggardness of Lionel's face was too unprepossessing. They had seen slaves with that look before, and experience told them that no good was ever to be done with such fellows. Moreover, though shapely, his muscles were too slight, his flesh looked too soft and tender. Of what use a slave who must be hardened ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... as a promising Transvaal General. A typical Boer of the modern school, with curiously unkempt hair literally standing on end, light sandy whiskers, and a small moustache, he was wearing a sullen and dejected expression on his by no means stupid, but discontented and unprepossessing, face. This scion of the Kruger family did not scruple to air his grievances or disclose his plans with regard to the struggle of the previous day. That he was brilliantly assisted by the French and German freelances was as surely demonstrated as ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... agreeably surprised when a pretty-looking maid admitted me. I had taken a strange dislike to Leah, and the man who had waited upon us at dinner that evening had a dark, unprepossessing face; but this girl looked bright and cheerful, and took my message to Miss Hamilton at once without a moment's hesitation. She returned almost immediately. Miss Hamilton was in her room, but she would be very glad to see ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... tall, grim, angular spinster who looked like the last person in the world to whom a love affair might be confided. But never were appearances more deceptive than in this case. Behind her unprepossessing exterior Miss Susan had a warm, sympathetic heart filled to the brim with kindly affection for her pretty niece. She had seen Burton Ellis going moodily across the fields homeward and guessed that something had ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pressure of astonishment and indignation. It was bad enough to be pictured thus unprepossessing, but to be suddenly made aware of her husband in a man whom she feared, was desperate. She stared with frank and ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... found out that Siva is one of the gods of Hinduism—one of a great trilogy: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer. He had also spoken of the attributes of Kali, and, after a little further search, I discovered that Kali was Siva's wife—a most unprepossessing and fiendish female. ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... found his garage in charge of an unwashed, unkempt, unprepossessing young ruffian whom he stared at for a full minute before he accepted him as the man he had left there. The ragged trousers, the spotted "reefer" buttoned high around the neck, the dirty cap pulled over the eyes, and the wholly disreputable broken ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... Too late, Tommy remembered his scheme of obliterating the unprepossessing Conrad. A moment later he was glad that he had, for it was not Conrad who entered, but a girl. She carried a tray which she set down ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... as the office, where the former spent most of his time when not in the saddle. Whatever the planter's vices, and he was reputed to possess a fair working knowledge of good and evil, no one had ever charged him with hypocrisy. His emotions lay close to the surface and wrote themselves on his unprepossessing exterior with an impartial touch. He had felt no pleasure when Murrell rode into the yard, and he had welcomed him according to the dictates of his mood, which was one ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... of 1849 that I went into residence at the little college and was assigned a very unprepossessing room in a very ugly barrack. Entering my new quarters I soon discovered about me various cabalistic signs, some of them evidently made by heating large iron keys, and pressing them against the woodwork. On inquiring I found that the room had been occupied some years ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... touch about all this which was not lost upon Beryl. He was horribly ugly, she thought to herself, with that hideous red smear across his dusky face; but in spite of this she felt no fear. Unprepossessing he might be, but he was in ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Nothing can be more unprepossessing than the approach to Gwalior; the hills being naked, black, and ugly, with rounded tops devoid of grass or shrubs, and the soil of the valleys a poor red dust without any appearance of verdure or ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... sneered a stout, unprepossessing boy, who seemed to be always scowling. "Knocks the kid overboard, and then goes to his rescue to make himself solid with the father. Very clever stroke, that, ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... might have been nearly as bad," Rendel said; "though if we were canaries we should be nicer to look at perhaps," and his eye fell on an unprepossessing elderly couple who were descending the stairs with none of the winsomeness of singing birds. "Have you read Maeterlinck's 'Life of ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... should we know of your cattle!" exclaimed a harsh voice behind the boys, and Dick and Nort, turning in their saddles, saw fairly glaring at them Del Pinzo, the unprepossessing ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... consulate, however, he found difficulty of admission. This was to be expected. His appearance was unprepossessing. He was still attired in the ragged clothes tied up with string, and the aged boots he had got Leon to procure for him, to complete his disguise as a Haitian boy. Moreover, while the soap-weed wash ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... his innocence of any such design, and vehemently besought the officer to release him, telling him as a reason for his urgency and an explanation of his unprepossessing aspect—that he was an oculist from Amsterdam, John Hermansen by name, that he had just committed a homicide in that place, and was fleeing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of stature and thin, with a sad drawn face and manners that even his staunch friend, Silas Watson, admitted were awkward and unprepossessing. What he might have been under different conditions or with different treatment, could only be imagined. Slowly climbing the stairs to the little room Kenneth inhabited, Mr. Watson was forced to conclude, with a sigh of regret, that he could not blame Miss Jane for wishing ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... name was Wingate—Stephen Wingate—and he was eking out a not too robust existence in South Third Street as a broker. He was forty-five years of age, of medium height, fairly thick-set, not at all unprepossessing, and rather intelligent and active, but not too forceful and pushing in spirit. He really needed a man like Cowperwood to make him into something, if ever he was to be made. He had a seat on 'change, and was well thought of; respected, but not so very prosperous. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... been kind to him, and he would protect her from all harm, but not for all the gilt-edged securities in Wall Street would he have the story of his knight-errantry get abroad, nor the unprepossessing heroine of ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... also remained unmarried; but whether it was from a very unprepossessing squint which deterred suitors, or from the same dislike to matrimony as her brother had imbibed, it is not in our power to say. Mr. Witherington was three years younger than his sister; and although he had for some ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... whose name clung to the place we have been unable to ascertain, but when Ward Glazier moved there, the house seemed fairly to scowl upon the passer-by—so utterly unprepossessing was its appearance. A rude, capacious wooden structure, it stood fronting the highway, and was a place where the beautiful had no existence. The very soil looked black and rough—the vegetation rugged. Every inclosure was of stone or knotted timber, and even a dove-cot which ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... built man, a little past middle life and grey-haired, with rough-hewn face—unprepossessing one would have pronounced him until the intelligent, kindly expression of the eyes was seen and the agreeable voice was heard. As our talk progressed and we found how much in sympathy we were on the subject, I was reminded of that Biblical expression about ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... stranger was dark in complexion and not unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large, open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the room. He seemed pleased with the survey, and, baring his ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... George took no notice of the friendly hand. He was staring hard, almost savagely at the other's face. Simmy was surprised to find that his cheeks, though sunken and haggard, were cleanly shaved, and his general appearance far from unprepossessing. In the light from a near-by window, the face was lowering but not inflamed; the eyes were heavy ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... wishing to stay, she colored at this. Among his other unprepossessing characteristics, Jim had a trick of saying things he ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... soon returned followed by a most unprepossessing boy, who slouched in and stood looking about him, with a half bold, half sullen look, which made Mrs. Bhaer say to herself, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... clad, wretchedly provided, and unprepossessing military host, probably never entered a civilized city. In all, except our order, deportment, and arms, we might have been mistaken for a procession of tatterdemalions, or a tribe of Nomades from Tartary. There were not many of us so fortunate as to have in our possession ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... the fame of a photographer's window. It is clear that the physique of actors must vary; there can be no military standard of proportions on the stage. Some great actors have had to struggle against physical disabilities of a serious nature. Betterton had an unprepossessing face; so had Le Kain. John Kemble was troubled with a weak, asthmatic voice, and yet by his dignity, and the force of his personality, he was able to achieve the greatest effects. In some cases a super-abundant physique has incapacitated actors from playing many ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... close to sixty years of age, but florid and vigorous. His body was heavy and round; but so were his arms and legs. An otherwise absolutely unprepossessing face was rendered most attractive by a pair of twinkling, humorous blue eyes, set far apart. Iron-gray hair, with a tendency to curl upward at the ends, escaped from under his hat. His movements were slow ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... with some reason; and it may be added, that his devotion after marriage amply compensated for his lack of ardour before. For her sake he settled down in the old home of her ancestors, Wiseton Hall, and expended; L10,000 in making the unprepossessing house habitable; every wish and whim of hers he lived but to gratify, and so complete was his confidence in her, that during his absence she was deputed to read all his letters, at her judgment destroying what was unimportant or reserving what required attention. "It ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... went into the best coffeehouse in the town here, and sat down to read the newspapers. I found in it people of all descriptions—several of a most unprepossessing appearance, and others really like gentlemen. One of the best dressed of these last, decorated with the white cockade and other insignia, and having several rings of precious stones on his fingers, a watch, with a beautiful assortment of seals and other trinkets, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... of humans. They were clad in tight-fitting attire of thin and pliant metal which, with the exception of their faces, shielded them from head to foot. On their heads they wore close-fitting helmets, apparently equipped with visors which could be drawn down to cover their unprepossessing features. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... him,' said Margaret, apologetically. 'You would not have thought him unprepossessing if you had ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that you are taken unawares," said Linda. "I have had four long years to work up to this hour. Hasn't it even dawned on you that this worm was ever going to turn? You know exquisite moths and butterflies evolve in the canyons from very unprepossessing and lowly living worms. You are spending your life on the butterfly stunt. Have I been such a weak worm that it hasn't ever occurred to you that I might want to try a plain, everyday pair ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... wished her at Fern Torr fully as much as she did. She had already become jealous of Lionel's preference, and it was too galling to find the affection of her children stolen from her by that cold, pale, proud, unprepossessing girl. Had the love been on the part of Elliot or Walter, Mrs. Lyddell would hardly have regretted it, considering Miss Arundel's large fortune and high connexions; but nothing was less probable than this, and Marian's influence over Caroline was at present, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... for you?" It had been too dark on the other occasion of his meeting with the Three Pointers to take note of their faces, though he fancied that he had seen the man holding the door-handle before. The others were strangers. They were all exceedingly unprepossessing in appearance. ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... over her, but superior to them all was the feminine feeling that she could not endure to have Harry see her in her present unprepossessing plight. ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... ten minutes he was brought downstairs. His appearance was most unprepossessing. He was very short, with a huge head and a remarkable shock of coal-black hair. Having hastily risen from bed, he had retained his pyjamas, but a long frock-coat hung nearly to his slippers, and in one hand he carried a pair of gloves, and in the other a huge ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Dempster, astonished to find his chatty communications to his old friend, Mrs. Frankland, taken up in this way by this unprepossessing-looking stranger. "Yes, their name was Melville, and I never in my life met with more amiable, more intelligent, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... art contemporaries. Among these, the highest place must be given to Mme. Antoinette Cecile Saint Huberty, nee Gavel. Born in Germany of French descent, she made her first appearance in Paris in a small part in Gluck's "Armide." Small, thin, and unprepossessing in person, her power of expression and artistic vocal-ism won more and more on the public, till the retirement of Sophie Arnould and Mile. Levasseur, and the death of Laguerre, left her in undisputed possession of the stage. When ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... introduced to the second mate, and Miss Arminster thought she had seldom seen a more unprepossessing individual. He was surly and shifty-eyed, and she confided to the Bishop, when they were alone, that she was glad they were not going far from land under that man's charge, for ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... moment that Tom saw him approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror at him, that increased as he came near. He was evidently, though short, of gigantic strength. His round, bullet head, large, light-gray eyes, with their shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry, sun-burned hair, were rather unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large, coarse mouth was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time to time, he ejected from him with great decision and explosive force; his hands were immensely large, hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... herculean form and strength. His face was marked by smallpox; he wore neither beard or mustache, and his hair was combed smoothly back, like a peasant's. His disposition was melancholy and taciturn; but he seemed constantly striving to atone, by the amiability of his manners, for an unprepossessing exterior. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... 201; curtailed of its fair proportions; ill-made, ill- shaped, ill-proportioned; crooked &c. (distorted) 243; hard featured, hard visaged; ill-favored, hard-favored, evil-favored; ill-looking; unprepossessing, unattractive, uninviting, unpleasing. graceless, inelegant; ungraceful, ungainly, uncouth, stiff; rugged, rough, gross, rude, awkward, clumsy, slouching, rickety; gawky; lumping, lumpish[obs3]; lumbering; hulky[obs3], hulking; unwieldy. squalid, haggard; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... it, it wriggles away sideways, and refuses to give any hold for jaws or palate. In fact, a more slippery or guileful egg was never yet devised by nature's unconscious ingenuity. Then, again, the Antarctic chimaera (so called from its very unprepossessing personal appearance) relies rather upon pure deception than upon mechanical means for the security of its eggs. The shell or case in this instance is prolonged at the edge into a kind of broad ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... Mansfield, Louisiana. To the best of her knowledge, she was about 13 when the "freedom papers" were read. She had had 13 children by her two husbands, both deceased, and lives with her youngest daughter in Beaumont. Their one-room, unpainted house is one of a dozen unprepossessing structures bordering an alleyway leading off Pine Street. Rosa, a spry little figure, crowned with short, snow-white pigtails extending in various directions, spends most of her time tending her small flowerbeds and vegetable ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... that's what! Thankful? You make me sick! Honest to God, when you gas like that I feel like bashing in your brain, if you've got any! You and your thankfulness!" He turned his quivering face and stared at the wall, winking. I wondered, heartsick, if I had ever seen a more hopelessly unprepossessing creature. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... character of Paul in the former of the two is a wonderful study. She must herself have been in love with some Paul when she wrote the book, and have been determined to prove to herself that she was capable of loving one whose exterior circumstances were mean and in every way unprepossessing. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... away from the world that, for all I know, this ancient British type, this "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore," may have become extinct, like another, but less unprepossessing bird—the dodo; whereby our state is ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... through my money, and I returned to my parents. I have left them this morning again, and, like you, I am now on my way to London to start in life, and if possible make my own living. You see my appearance is not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly handsome, a refined woman of style) ... I bowed ... "Well, I am also fortunate in having a good voice, it is well-trained, and I am going to London to sing as a paid professional in the houses in which I have formerly ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... small in comparison with the wonderland that lies beyond the rubber plantations between Hana and the Honomanu Gulch. Two days were required to cover this marvellous stretch, which lies on the windward side of Haleakala. The people who dwell there call it the "ditch country," an unprepossessing name, but it has no other. Nobody else ever comes there. Nobody else knows anything about it. With the exception of a handful of men, whom business has brought there, nobody has heard of the ditch country ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... clearly defined in his mind, he had walked into a livery stable near the market, but a short distance from his lodgings, with the silks in a bundle and after looking the stock over had picked out this unprepossessing beast as best able to take him to Moorlands and back between sunrise ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... perfectly well that the intended attempt could not be made for at least twenty-four hours, went away with a comfortable mind and slept in Bailey's cottage. When I left the door next morning I saw striding towards me through the mud a very begrimed and unprepossessing-looking figure. It was, after all, a man with a two days' beard, a very dirty face, a collarless, grimy shirt, who wore heavy ankle Jack-boots, and had his trousers rolled above his ankles. This person accosted me brusquely. "What are you doing in that cottage there?" he asked ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... Unprepossessing as most of the colliers' homes were, Lowrie's cottage was a trifle less inviting than the majority. It stood upon the roadside, an ugly little bare place, with a look of stubborn desolation, its only redeeming feature a certain rough cleanliness. The same cleanliness reigned inside, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... brought a man with him to work the mill who was even more surly and morose than his master. Poor Dusty Dick, as he was called, was deaf and dumb, so that he could only express his feelings by his looks, and they were unprepossessing in the extreme. When corn was brought he ground it and returned the proper quantity of flour on receiving payment, though he would never ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... he had none—et ca passe—for in Seoul it is a blessing not to have one; and where his mouth should have been there was a huge gap, his lower jaw being altogether missing. A few locks of long hair in patches on his skull, blown by the wind, completed a worthy frame for this most unprepossessing head. ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... in splendid convolutions, about the sunlit meadow, saluted by the crash of mortars, bursts of military music from the band, chanting priests and women, and all the bagpipers congregated in a mass, each playing his own favourite tune. The figure of the Madonna—a modern and unprepossessing image—was carried aloft, surrounded by resplendent ecclesiastics and followed by a picturesque string of women bearing their votive offerings of candles, great and small. Several hundredweight of wax must have been brought up on the heads of pious female pilgrims. These multi-coloured ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... set foot on shore, two men, very poorly dressed and of unprepossessing appearance, came to us and begged for assistance. I asked them who they were, and one, quicker than ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of the cottage opened, and a young man appeared, a distinctly unprepossessing young man, whose shabby clothing somehow suggested a corresponding shabbiness of soul. He stood irresolute for a moment, then turned and struck off across the fields, his shambling gait increasing the unfavorable impression that Peggy had ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... fleet of pleasure craft lay the Gem of the Ocean. She was not a comely craft; her sides were weather-beaten, and her general appearance homely and unprepossessing; but the same waters that bore the others bore her. In her homeliness she presented a strange contrast to her surroundings. In the composition of those who were her occupants there was still greater difference. The men who trod the decks of the yachts were seekers after the pleasures of life, ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... entirely, and went on with argument and wit, anecdote and ridicule, until his opponent was completely crushed. Old settlers of Sangamon County who heard this reply speak of his personal transformation as wonderful. When Lincoln began, they say, he seemed awkward, homely, unprepossessing. As he went on, and became excited, his figure rose to its full height and became commanding and majestic. His plain face was illuminated and glowed with expression. His dreamy eye flashed with inspiration, and his whole person, his voice, his ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... me," Hitty said, advancing, a figure of menace, into the center of the dusty workshop, strangely uncouth and unprepossessing in the cold morning light,—"and if it's any pleasure to you, that's an effect that I ain't calculated to produce. I've come here on business—the business of collecting that poor neglected child there, and taking her back where she belongs, where ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... which, save in ourselves, we call obstinacy. To-night, however, her features were devoid of even their wonted dignity, compressed, as they had been, by the bandage encircling her face. She looked like a caricature of her unprepossessing self. On one of her uneasy journeys to the window, she caught the sound of sleigh-bells; and staying only to assure herself of their familiar ring, she hastily closed the shutter, and, going back to the fireplace, sank into a chair there, ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... house was a great unprepossessing building, washed and dried by the rain and sun into a dark, dingy colour, the only one that had ever supplanted the original hue of the freshsawn boards. This, indeed, was not an uncommon thing in the country; near all the houses of the Deepwater settlement were in the ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... "we found this lady in a lamentable state of intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain any longer. Good night," and raising his hat again he entered the cab and drove off, assuring the Baron ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... these craft it is the fashionable thing amongst well-to-do Chinamen to hold their jamborees. They hire a particular junk for a certain date, and at the appointed hour the party assembles there, being received by two or three unprepossessing servants. Dinner, or whatever form the entertainment may take, is commenced, and as general mirth rises with the good cheer, guests write on a slate provided for the purpose the names of such flower-girls as they may ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... opulent dominions the sun shone upon, and future Emperor of Germany, she had (1528) been given in marriage to the ruler of a petty Italian duchy, himself as inferior to her in mind as in moral character.[402] As for Renee, if her face was homely and unprepossessing, her intellect was vigorous. She had turned to good account the opportunities for self-improvement afforded by her high rank. Admiring courtiers made her classical and philosophical attainments the subject of lavish panegyric, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... tightly over the four fingers, and make what is called "a fist of it." Dangerous symptoms of these mingled and aggressive sentiments were visible in Lenny Fairfield at the words and the look of the unprepossessing stranger. And the stranger seemed aware of them; for his pale face grew more pale, and his sullen eye more fixed ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... shaking his head vigorously. He was a thin, pale man with a singularly scholastic face. Quite an unprepossessing, unsanguinary person, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... and noblemen who were present at the wedding all joined in the tournament except the poor bridegroom, who was too weak and feeble in body, and too timid in mind, for any such rough and warlike exercises. Francis was very plain and unprepossessing in countenance, and shy and awkward in his manners. His health had always been very infirm, and though his rank was very high, as he was the heir apparent to what was then the greatest throne in Europe, every body ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... miner, carrying a long-handled shovel, came slowly through the woods. A red handkerchief tied around his head under his hat, with the loose ends hanging from beneath, did not add much favor to his unprepossessing face. He did not perceive the master and M'liss until he was close upon them. When he did, he stopped suddenly and gazed at them with an expression of lowering distrust. M'liss drew nearer to ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... was, but from the moment, I believe, I first cast eyes on his singularly unprepossessing face, Moses Reeks had been my ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... what first led us to feel that beneath that unprepossessing exterior were concealed the pulses of a warm, generous heart, and the powers of a strong and cultivated mind, but we remember well the morning that she set her ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... eleven o'clock the explorers saw the gang of labourers come filing in among the ruins, armed with rude wooden mattocks and spades, and provided with large baskets in which to convey away the soil as it was dug out. They were as unprepossessing a lot of specimens of female humanity as could well be imagined. Naked, save for a filthy ragged skin petticoat round their waists and reaching to the knee, their faces wore, without exception, an expression of sullen stupidity, and they looked as though they had never experienced ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Indiana to the Isle of Bourbon, we always see Ralph turn up, phlegmatic as usual. Unnecessary to say that Ralph is in love with Indiana. His apparent calmness is put on purposely. It is the snowy covering under which a volcano is burning. His awkward and unprepossessing appearance conceals an exquisite soul. Ralph brings Indiana good news. Colonel Delmare is dead, so that she is free. What will she do now with her liberty? After due deliberation, Ralph and Indiana decide to commit suicide, but they have to agree ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... and completed his costume. The man himself was of middle size, athletic, yet slender; with straight and regular features,—sunburnt, but not swarthy; and an expression of countenance which, though reckless and bold, had in it frankness rather than ferocity, and, if defying, was not altogether unprepossessing. ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... entertainment, but no such guest might sleep in College, and the permission is carefully restricted to the male sex. Women were, as (p. 073) a rule, not allowed within a College gate; if it was impossible to find a man to wash clothes, a laundress might be employed, but she must be old and of unprepossessing appearance. A scholar or Fellow of a college had not, however, committed himself irrevocably to a celibate life, for marriage is included among the "causas rationabiles et honestas" which vacated a fellowship. It was possible, ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... such evening their discussion was interrupted by an unprepossessing and travel-stained stranger, who, when his wants, none too amiably expressed, had been attended to, exhibited a marked curiosity concerning the people of the locality. As the stranger paid for his welcome with a liberal hand, Peter became more ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... occupied by our Army are monotonously lacking in distinction. To tell the truth they wear an impoverished look, and are singularly unprepossessing. I prefer the villages, the small chateaux built on grassy mounds surrounded by moats, and the timbered farm-houses with their red-tiled roofs and barns big enough to billet a whole company at a pinch. The country is one vast bivouac, and every cottage, farm, and mansion is ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... shock-headed, stout-limbed boy of about sixteen, who constituted the whole crew of the Johannes, and was as dirty as his master was clean. I felt a certain envious reverence for this unprepossessing youth, seeing in him a much more efficient counterpart of myself; but how he and his little master ever managed to work their ungainly vessel was a miracle I never understood. Phlegmatically impervious to ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Marie Louise's bell he had not imagined how much help Marie Louise would render him in giving him the precious privilege of meeting her unprepossessing brother-in-law; nor had she dreamed what peril she was preparing for Davidge in planning to secure for him and his shipyard the services of this same Jake, as lazy and as amiable as any side-winder rattlesnake that ever basked in the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... was an Irishman by birth, prematurely aged, of diminutive stature, and unprepossessing appearance. He had been many years at sea; had witnessed perilous scenes; had fought for his life with the savages on board the Atahualpa on "the north-west coast"; had served in an English man-of-war, from which he ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... never believe Felicina was Paolo's child. She was an unprepossessing little girl, affected, cold, selfish, foolish. Maria and Paolo, with real Italian greatness, were warm and natural towards the child in her. But they did not love her in their very souls, she was the fruit of ash to them. And this must have been the reason that she was so self-conscious ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... and looked into the singularly unprepossessing face of a swarthy foreigner, a powerfully-built, ungainly person of about ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... leafy season Oak Knoll may have its charms, but it was distinctly sinister that December morning. We rang, and after a long pause the front door opened slightly, and a very unprepossessing dog emerged, and shut the door (if I may say so) behind him. We were face to face with this animal, which presented none of the features identified in one's mind with the idea of Mr. Whittier. It sniffed unpleasantly, but we spoke to it most blandly and it became assured ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... of turtle is unprepossessing in appearance, having a head very like that of a snake, with a dark green shell spotted with yellow, it produces excellent soup; the body is exceedingly flat, and the projecting edges of the shell are soft; it runs extremely fast upon the shore, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... half later one of the somewhat unprepossessing set of domestics attached to the Mansion Hotel, Cheynemouth, undertook to deliver Mr. Lawrence Cardiff's card to Miss Bell. She didn't remember no such name among the young ladies of the Peach Blossom Company, but she would h'inquire. They was a ladies' drawin'-room upstairs, ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... reappears, and in response to our invitation, takes a seat beside us, while we enter into conversation with her. She is a fair sample (excuse the mercantile term) of her class, and her history is a history of a majority of her associates. Not unprepossessing in appearance, by any means, Ellen— that, she tells us, is her name—is twenty-two years of age; was born in the village of Tarrytown; resided with her parents until she was eighteen, when her father died. Leaving her mother ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... following her also took a slower gait. She cast a furtive look over her shoulder and gave a horrified gasp as her eyes squarely encountered two other eyes, which were fixed upon her own in an insulting leer from beneath the rim of a rakish felt hat which was worn tilted on the side of a very unprepossessing head. The eyes, bad as they were, proved the best feature in a thoroughly vicious face, and for the first time in her life Nan felt frightened—chokingly frightened. She would have rushed on, but a stealthy ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... row of sharp teeth of ivory whiteness, were certain lines and wrinkles that gave to his physiognomy an expression in the highest degree repulsive. Deceit, low cunning, and greed of gain, were legibly written upon this unprepossessing countenance; whose wild character was completed by a profusion of coarse dark hair, that hung or rather stuck out in black elf-locks around the receding forehead and tawny sunken cheeks. The dress of this man was in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... behind the sheep-pens, an Italian gentleman in the ice industry was scraping on a yellow fiddle which looked sticky. But like many things of plain exterior this unprepossessing instrument had something in it, something that the Italian gentleman knew how to extract, and all the ship was hushed into listening. Such as had conversation left spoke in low tones, and even the stewards ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... frail integument. An untrimmed beard, run wild; and a pair of whiskers so huge, as to refuse all accordance with the thin diminutive cheeks which wore them; thin lips, and a sharp chin;—completed the outline of a very unprepossessing face, which a broad high forehead did not tend very ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... presidio, with its soiled, tri-colored flag flying, and the discordant din of drums and trumpets for the noon parade; all brought up the scene we had witnessed here with so much pleasure nearly a year before, when coming from a long voyage, and our unprepossessing reception at Santa Barbara. It seemed almost like coming to ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana |
