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Expressionless   /ɪksprˌɛʃənlɪs/   Listen
Expressionless

adjective
1.
Deliberately impassive in manner.  Synonyms: deadpan, impassive, poker-faced, unexpressive.  "His face remained expressionless as the verdict was read"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Expressionless" Quotes from Famous Books



... him, but the other did not turn his head; his horse cantered along lazily in the evening light as he sat loosely in the saddle, his pale, expressionless face turned towards the path by which they ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... forefinger upon the table. His eyes were wandering around the room absently. His face was calm and expressionless. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... he concentrated on his work. He went over the patient's torso, up and down, back and forth. At times he straightened to rest his back and stared down into the calm, expressionless face ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... own vanity! Meet thyself face to face, and then in that moment thou shalt learn the fatal force of thy vanity. Learn it, know it, and repent ere the quicksand swallow thee!' Then without another word he went back to his seat and sat there immovable and expressionless as before. ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker

... beating out their lives against the hot chimney; but save this and the soft voice there was no other sound. The man at the right held his pipe in his hand; to the left the boys had ceased whispering; one and all were listening to the speaker with the stolid, expressionless gaze of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... vantage point or a thinning in the ranks. There seemed to be fewer people ahead. He came to the end of the crowd, moved on a few yards, stood at the curb. The yellow-jackets had passed now, and a group of round-thighed girls in satin blouses and black boots and white fur caps glided into view, silent, expressionless. As they reached a point fifty feet from Brett, they broke abruptly into a strutting prance, knees high, hips flirting, tossing shining batons high, catching them, twirling them, and up ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer

... menacing cry, half-human and half-animal, and apparently in mid-air, directly over my head. I looked up, and to my horror saw suspended, a few feet above me, the face of a Dalmatian dog—of a long since dead Dalmatian dog, with glassy, expressionless eyes, and yellow, gaping jaws. The phenomenon did not last more than half a minute, and with its abrupt disappearance came a repetition of the cry. What was it? I questioned the owner of the cottage, and she informed me she had always had the sensation ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... dog, lying on a rug at his feet, raised its head and growled as Gemma knocked at the open door, and the Gadfly rose hastily and bowed in a stiff, ceremonious way. His face had suddenly grown hard and expressionless. ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... narrowly for some sign that the news was as bad as he feared. But it cost me no effort to keep my face expressionless; I was like a man who has been killed by lightning and lies dead with the look on his face that he had just before the bolt ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... very abundant, and large eyes; which, since they exhibited the unusual phenomenon, in a blonde, of long dark lashes (Mr. Soames judged their blackness to be natural), would have been beautiful had they not been of too light a color, too small in the pupils, and utterly expressionless. Indeed, her whole face lacked color, as did her personality, and the exquisite tea-gown which she wore conveyed that odd impression of slovenliness, which is often an indication of secret vice. She was quite young ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... expected the Sahib to stick up for a Sikh against any damn Chinee. I would have liked to photograph the two—they were such a contrast as they sat on their heels beside each other, the wizened little expressionless, beady-eyed Chinaman with his thread of a pigtail, and his arm in the grasp of the long Sikh, with black beard and long hair wound untidily round ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... barely managed it. I reckon nobody could misunderstand that. By no means cordial—but of course not!" Carrington reflected. His own handsome face had been expressionless when he returned her bow, and Betty could not have guessed how consoled and comforted he was by it. With great fortitude and self-denial he forbore to look in her direction again, but he lingered at the table until the last moment ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... belly grunt of acceptance. In silence rose Kawa Kendi, the heir-apparent. His face was as expressionless as his father's. He stepped around the body of Bakahenzie and across the open space followed by a young man, Kingata Mata. Ten feet away from the enclosure, Kingata Mata sank upon his haunches. Before MFunya MPopo squatted his son. They spat each in the other's hand and swallowed the ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... out in silence, and his intent, expressionless scrutiny seemed to flick her on the raw. She stamped her foot at him. "Oh, for the Lord's sake, get a move on—-do something, can't you? I didn't come here to be stared at as though ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... at the clock—only eight! She waited some time, then looked again. Five past. Why, surely the clock must have stopped; surely it must be half an hour since she had last glanced at its expressionless face. ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres

... passer-by. He who has his eyes on the ground passes unheeded. For the surest way of awakening interest is to appear interested. It would seem that this cobbler was waiting for a pair of boots not made in Konigsberg. And on the third day his expressionless black eyes lighted on feet not shod in Poland, or France, or Germany, nor yet in ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... Her face was blank—expressionless. Never before had she been brought up short with such a threat as the man was uttering, nor had she ever been in danger of detection. And all the time she was eyeing him so steadily, not a muscle of her face ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... absolute, and comparison unavoidable. That he, familiar with the glory of the conception of the Israelite, should be thought blinded by this Beit Allah of the Arab, so without grace of form or lines, so primitive and expressionless, so palpably uninspired by taste, or genius, or the Deity it was designed to honor, restored him at once: indeed, in the succeeding reaction, he found it difficult to keep down resentment. Dropping his hands, he took another survey ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... my boys," said he, with some trace of excitement in his mottled face, which generally was as expressionless as a vegetable- marrow, "we haven't seen the last of ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... just this young native girl walking slowly toward me, her face quite expressionless, her black eyes fixed on emptiness. Yet she was not like other Indios, not like the six other girls sitting behind me. I can only liken her to a lamp in which a hot flame burned. The others were ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner

... head suddenly. Her uncle was looking at her. His eyes had lost their far-away gleam, and were fixed upon hers, cold and expressionless. ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... English immobility appeared, clothed in extreme evening dress, and established himself, ramrod-like, in a customary spot in the center of the floor. There was a figure on the Persian rug whereon Mr. Gwynn never failed to take position. Once in place, eye as expressionless as the eye of a fish, Mr. Gwynn would wait in dead silence for Richard ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... twisted to their red elbows in her apron, took a few stiff steps across the floor. Her face was expressionless, her eyes lowered. Garth smiled at them both and went out, shutting the door. They heard him singing as he put ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt

... those things; and when, after a long time, after the early Crusades, Byzantine artists came to Italy, their productions were even worse than those of the still ignorant Italians, because they were infinitely more pretentious, with their gildings and conventionalities and expressionless types, and were not really so near the truth. What I mean is that the revival of real art came from a new beginning deep down and out of sight, among humble craftsmen and hard-working artisans, who found out by degrees that their hands could do more than they had been taught ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... baritone, distorted to a guttural travesty of itself, rose to a shout on the ascending notes of the last line. Then, without pause for breath, came the voice of speech—hurried, expressionless, heartrending to hear. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... Bompard, suddenly moving in his sleep, roused himself and sat up. His rough, weather beaten face was expressionless for a moment, then his eyes fell on the girl and recognition ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... you," said Tom, in his expressionless way. "If I'd had my way we'd have made a detour when I saw those broken branches, 'cause I knew it meant people were there, and then we wouldn't have got those fellers as prisoners, at all. So they got to ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... horn, and in their left, a pig's jaw. The shoulders are modelled in the shape of faces, and from these, occasionally, sticks protrude, bearing the heads of dead sons, so that such a statue often has three or four heads. These figures stand along the walls of the gamal, smiling with expressionless faces on their descendants round the fires, and are given sacrifices ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... overlook their repulsiveness. Renewed hope aroused within her a spirit of greater cheerfulness, and it was almost blithely now that she moved at the side of her weird companion. She even caught herself humming a gay little tune that was then popular in Helium. The creature at her side turned its expressionless eyes upon her. ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... even, expressionless tones. "Go away and leave me to sleep. To-morrow we will cut out this Houseman's eyes and tongue, so that he may see nothing and tell nothing. Then you may have him for your plaything—it will be ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... almost irresistible; and at the last moment it was only a foolish fear that such a declaration might interfere with her sister's prospects that stayed the words as they rose to her lips. She picked up her gloves, and a moment after found herself in the brougham—packed into it, watching the expressionless church-going faces of ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... seemed to harden and contract into a small expressionless mask, in which he could no longer read anything but blank opposition to ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... on the other a row of furnace doors. The stoker is sitting on a heap of cinder. He is only an old man, a little stooping, with a head that is turning ashes color; his eye is faded, and his face nearly expressionless, while he sits perfectly still on the heap, as if he were a part of the engine which turns slowly in a shed adjoining and pants through its vent in the roof. He has been sitting there so long that he has a vague notion that his mind ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... rose, and Miss Fortune taking her chair, set it by the side of the table next the fire. Ellen was opposite to her, and now, for the first time, the old lady seemed to know that she was in the room. She looked at her very attentively, but with an expressionless gaze which Ellen did not like to meet, though otherwise her face ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... draw any nearer to him. Her face was almost expressionless, save that her eyes seemed slowly to darken as she regarded him. And then he saw that certain muscles in her face twitched, and that ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... his throat, knee on his chest, looking with unmoved features down into his eyes, as if he considered whether to make an end of him there or let him go his way in added humiliation and disgrace. Mackenzie lay still under Carlson's hand, trying to read his intention in his clear, ice-cold, expressionless eyes, watching for his moment to renew the fight which he must ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... Vogotzine's arm, led him gently toward the door, a little alarmed at the purple hue of the General's cheeks and forehead. "Come, take a little fresh air," she said to the old soldier, who regarded her with round, expressionless eyes. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... unexpected, they all turned. A small man with sleek dark hair and expressionless features stood before them. Behind him was Abel, carrying a ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... Saxe-Hildburghausen, a lady described as "plain, but exemplary." Still, so far as personal appearance goes, Ludwig himself was no Adonis. Nestitz, indeed, has pictured him as "having a toothless jaw and an expressionless countenance." But his consort did her duty; and, at approved intervals, presented him with a quiverful of four sons and three daughters. Of his sons, one of them, Otto, was, as a lad of sixteen, selected by the Congress of London to be ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... The Princess turned and looked at him. He was standing upon the hearthrug smoking, his face as expressionless ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... mayor's house to find out how the town had fared. He was a solemn old Arab, and showed me the damage done by the shells with an absolutely expressionless face. The houses within a fair radius had been riddled, but the natives had taken our warning and no one had been killed. After a cup of coffee in a lovely garden on the river-bank, I came back to the cars and we ran on through to Haditha. Here we were to remain ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... but sleep and eat bacon and eggs could be looked upon as a "home." He had thought of it only as an apartment, or "diggings." Now he loved his home and everything that was in it. How he would miss the stealthy blue linen nurses, and the expressionless doctors, and the odour of broths and soups, and the scent of roses, and the swish of petticoats, and the elevating presence of pretty women, and the fragrance of them, and the sweet chatter of them—Oh my, oh me-oh-my! If George would only get well ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... pillar to support the ends of two lintels or beams. This may be simply a long squared piece set on end (Fig. 4), and will perform its constructive functions perfectly well in that form; but it is not only absolutely expressionless, but is in one sense clumsy and inconvenient, as taking up more space than need be, presenting an unwieldy-looking mass when viewed at an angle, and shutting out a good deal of light (if that happen to be a matter of practical consequence in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various

... older and thinner, Billy Duncan appeared, with his blond hair and large childish blue eyes and his somewhat expressionless face. ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... and coat on an old-fashioned couch that stood against the wall, and was about to sit down beside them, when the door opened again and a stocky man entered. His tanned face was expressionless, and the eyes looked dully at Marsh. A lock of light brown hair drooped over his forehead from under a cap, which he wore well back on his head. The cap seemed to be a fixture, for it was not removed while Marsh remained, and the detective had the humorous thought that ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne

... have rather strangled you with my own hands," said Almayer, in an expressionless voice which was such a contrast to the desperate bitterness of his feelings that it surprised even himself. He asked himself who spoke, and, after looking slowly round as if expecting to see somebody, turned again his eyes ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... the interviewer handed her a quarter. At first the old woman's face was expressionless. But she moved the coin nearer to her eyes and a smile broke and widened until her whole face was a wrinkle of joy. When she turned in the doorway, the interviewer noticed that the hand jammed into an apron pocket was ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... senses of hearing and feeling are sharper and more developed than those of other folk perhaps," replied the grey-bearded old gentleman, as he turned his sharp-cut, grey, but expressionless countenance to the tall, sweet-faced girl standing beside ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... course that McTavish pricked for him on a map, and the old Indian studied it all that day, until it was a part of the vast lore that lay behind his expressionless eyes. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... not there,' said Margaret, still keeping her expressionless eyes fixed on his face, with the unconscious ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... down on him, faintly smiling. Ciccio, sitting with his arms on his knees on the sofa, screwed round his head and watched the phenomenon of Mr. May with inscrutable, expressionless attention. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... the muscles which be uses when he talks or walks. Among his questions Parsons included such ones as: "Are your manners quiet, noisy, boisterous, deferential, or self-assertive? Are you thoughtful of the comfort of others? Do you smile naturally and easily, or is your face ordinarily expressionless? Are you frank, kindly, cordial, respectful, courteous in word and actions? Do you look people frankly in the eye? Are your inflections natural, courteous, modest, musical, or aggressive, conceited, pessimistic, repellent? What are your powers of attention, observation, ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg

... smile of the spring sun died behind a cloud and a rumor insinuatingly whispered itself about the floor. Magnet-wise it drew men from scattered points into focal groups and panic-wise it stamped a growing apprehension on faces that had been expressionless. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... since Miss Blake's arrival at the Flying Heart Ranch she had seen Mariedetta flitting noiselessly here and there, but had never heard her speak. The pretty, expressionless face beneath its straight black hair had ever retained its wooden stolidity, the velvety eyes had not laughed nor frowned nor sparkled. She seemed to be merely a part of this far southwestern picture; ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... by the door, unnoticed, looking down the ward. Pancho lay wound up in his blanket like a giant chrysalis, rolling in silent misery. Sandy was stretched as straight and stiff as if he had been "laid out"; his eyes were closed, and there was a stolid, expressionless set to his features. Margaret MacLean knew that it betokened much internal disturbance. Susan, ex-philosopher, was sobbing aloud, pulling with rebellious fingers at the pieces of iron that kept her head where nature had planned it. The Apostles gripped hands and moaned in unison, while Peter hugged ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... came out again an inch or two farther on, transfixing him; or listened to the devilish noise of the "worry," as the cat turned in agony on himself and buried his fangs where he could behind those expressionless green reptilian eyes; or caught the stupendous flurry and whirl of wings and fur and gripping claws and scaly legs, as a cloud put out the moon and darkness fell with silence, like the falling ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... away steadily, having "got his second wind" at the end of the first mile. I was sitting with tiller-ropes in hand, and studying his strong-featured, but utterly expressionless face, with deep curiosity. His face was one over which the hot roller of a great agony has passed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... satisfied that she was more than pretty—that she was beautiful. Her features, that had seemed too thin and colorless, flushed with excitement, and her blue eyes, which he had thought cold and expressionless, kindled until they became lustrous. He felt, in a way that he could not define to himself, that her face was full of power and mind, and that she was different from the pretty girls who had hitherto been ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... from within. It struck me that this peculiar type of wire mask gave an indescribable tone of ghostliness to the whole exhibition. It is not in the least comical; it is neither comely nor ugly; it is colorless as mist,—expressionless, void,—it lies on the face like a vapor, like a cloud,—creating the idea of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... waiting for him, in his office. One was short and stocky, with an angry, impatient face—Brannad Klav, Transtemporal's vice president in charge of operations. The other was tall and slender with handsome and entirely expressionless features; he wore a Paratime Police officer's uniform, with the blue badge of hereditary nobility on his breast, and carried a sigma-ray needler in a ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper

... "human form divine" by this debasing vice. Once a bright boy, kind, affectionate, active, intelligent, the pride of a loving mother and the hope of a doting father, his mind had sunken to driveling idiocy. His vacant stare and expressionless countenance betokened almost complete imbecility. If allowed to do so, he would remain for hours in whatever position his last movement left him. If his hand was raised, it remained extended until placed in a position of rest by his attendant. Only with the utmost difficulty could he be made to rise ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... down and gazed at the audience, but with a stare so expressionless as gave no further index to his mood. For some time there was a rather painful silence; but at last Hepsey Burke arose and faced about to command ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... likely," rejoined Arnold in an expressionless voice. "I know a man who is always painting pictures of that kind. His girls are always going to suffer for their faith, and they have many costumes, but only one face. ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney

... almost as flexible; a Phidian goddess is not more perfect in a certain still and stately sort. They have such features as the Dutch painters give to their madonnas: low-country classic features, regular but round, straight but stolid; and for their depth of expressionless calm, of passionless peace, a polar snow-field could alone offer a type. Women of this order need no ornament, and they seldom wear any; the smooth hair, closely braided, supplies a sufficient contrast to the smoother cheek and brow; the dress cannot be too simple; ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... and picked up the lamp. As he did so, his eyes fell upon the pale face of Hartley Parrish. He lay on his back in the space between the desk and the window. His head was flung back, his eyes, bluish-grey,—the narrow, rather expressionless eyes of the successful business man,—were wide open and fixed in a sightless stare, his rather full mouth, with its clean-shaven lips, was rigid and stern. With the broad forehead, the prominent brows, the bold, aggressive nose, and the square bony jaw, it was ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... lighted room. He was a tall, lean man having straight, jet-black hair, a sallow complexion, and the features of a Sioux. A long black cigar protruded aggressively from the left corner of his mouth. His hands were locked behind him and his large and quite expressionless blue eyes stared straight across the room at the closed door with a dreamy and vacant regard. His dinner jacket fitted him so tightly that it might have been expected at any moment to split at the seams. As if to precipitate the ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... returned to the cabin, he found Shorty squatted on the floor, rubbing ointment into Sally's tail, his countenance so expressionless that it ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... ugliness. They show in an exaggerated degree all those repulsive traits which we see toned down and refined in the face of an average Chinaman; and it is difficult, when we meet them for the first time, to believe that a human soul lurks behind their expressionless, flattened faces and small, dull, obliquely set eyes. If the Tartar and Turkish races are really descended from ancestors of that type, then we must assume that they have received in the course of time a large admixture of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... first appeared, our cowboy's face for a single instant had flamed with amazed incredulity. Then a mask of expressionless stolidity fell across his features, which in no line ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... its nose; and not only of nose, but of eyes and ears and all other natural appliances which help to capture and intensify the simple joys of life. We all know the civilised, the industrial eye—how atrophied, how small and formless and expressionless it has become. The civilised nose, it would seem, degenerates in the other direction. Like the cultured potato or pumpkin, it swells in size. The French are civilised and, if we may judge by old engravings (what else are we to ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... door opened. Kirkwood, swinging on one heel, beheld hesitant upon the threshold a rather rotund figure of medium height, clad in an expressionless gray lounge suit, with a brown "bowler" hat held tentatively in one hand, an umbrella weeping in the other. A voice, which was unctuous and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... and then at the expressionless face of the curio dealer. Was it merely the natural blankness of his countenance that impressed me, or was there, in fact, something deep and dark hidden in it, something of "East is East and West is West" which I did not and could ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... little eyes never moved from his stepbrother's face. There was no curiosity in his expression, no surprise, no wonder. The heavy under lip dropped a little farther open and there was more than usual of dull, expressionless stupidity upon the lumpish face; but ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... back against the wall, his face expressionless. "You take a rather tough way of trying to ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... uttered a dismal groan. Her companions burst out laughing, Jeremiah regarding them with eyes that twinkled and laughed, though the face remained almost expressionless. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower

... I said, "we will first talk about uniforms. Could you make me a uniform like that?" I pointed to an expressionless person tightly wedged into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various

... information that he was to be at the supper himself. A man might go anywhere; no one could think of suspecting evil where at most there could only be curiosity. The count listened to these arguments with downcast eyes and expressionless face. Vandeuvres felt him to be hesitating when the Marquis de Chouard approached with a look of interrogation. And when the latter was informed of the question in hand and Fauchery had invited him in his turn, he looked at his son-in-law furtively. There ensued an embarrassed ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... the celebrated Bella di Tiziano of the Pitti Gallery, another work which, like the Venus of Urbino, recalls the features without giving the precise personality of Eleonora Gonzaga. The beautiful but somewhat expressionless head with its crowning glory of bright hair, a waving mass of Venetian gold, has been so much injured by rubbing down and restoration that we regret what has been lost even more than we enjoy what is left. But the surfaces ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... cabin that Dan Treu stooped quickly and brought the lantern close to a blurred outline in a bit of soft earth close to a growth of cactus. He looked at it long and intently and when he straightened himself his heavy, rather expressionless face wore a ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... to Saxon, and the contempt of Saxon for Celt, simply paled and grew expressionless when compared with the contempt and hate felt by the Southron towards the Yankee anterior to our Civil War and while it was in progress. No Houyhnhnms ever looked on Yahoo with greater aversion; better, far better ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... drove away, and Clavering, who sat in a corner, found the time pass heavily. A clock ticked noisily upon the wall, and the stove crackled when the draughts flowed in; but this, he felt, only made the stillness more exasperating. The big, hard-faced bushman sat as motionless as a statue and almost as expressionless, with a brown hand resting on the rifle across his knees, in front of a row of shelves which held Miss Muller's crockery. Clavering felt his fingers quiver in a fit of anger as he watched the man, but he shook it from him, knowing that he ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... thinking of no such thing," said Sheila indignantly, but feeling all the same that the hard, glittering, expressionless eyes were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... seven weary days; my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the bedroom looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and was as other men once more. Curiously enough my face showed no signs of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as expressionless and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanent alteration—visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away. I ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... door to sharply and stood with her back against it, facing him. Her face was as white as a linen mask, and about as expressionless. Only her eyes lived. Anger and fear had enlarged the pupils until they seemed black in the dead white ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... His face was expressionless, ivory; his red lips were firm, and he drooped his head. But the long black eyes glinted and gleamed as if they reflected the glow from a furnace. He wore a motor coat lined with leopard skin and he was pulling off his ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... by two o'clock, so rapidly had he driven. He went at once to Dickson's, and found him at home, busy swinging the poker, in deep thought, before the fireplace in his inner office. He was a small man, with an impenetrable, expressionless face, who never was known to unbend himself to a human being. Only two facts were known about him. One was that he was the best swimmer in Exeter, and had saved several lives from drowning, and the other was, that he gave away (for him) large sums ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... rise; pain and happiness, mingled, confusing her for a moment; and he was already seated near her, looking at her with an intentness almost expressionless. ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... it was nobody's business to find out if they had come back or not. I will start at once—in about ten minutes. You will come with me? Good! I have sent for reinforcements, who are to follow us if we are not back in twelve hours." His voice was expressionless, and only Raoul de Saint Hubert, who had known him since boyhood, could and did appreciate the significance of a fleeting look that crossed his face as he went back ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... and the sight of them clustering expressionless in the caboose brought last evening's uncomfortable memory back to me. Our next stop revealed how things were ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... of the chagrin with which the news filled him. His features were perfectly expressionless. A part of his plans had failed from excess of caution. He did not need Fairfield to tell him what had happened. He could make a fairly accurate guess as to the manner in which he had been unwittingly betrayed. His thoughts turned at once to the question of what the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... Mersey's throat had come falteringly at first, but now they were strong, although the tone was flat and expressionless. The ...
— The Inhabited • Richard Wilson

... the honour of the Chamber, gentlemen. On that point I have more to say." Now Le Merquier was reading no longer. After the chairman of the committees, the orator came on the scene, or rather the judge. His face was expressionless, his eyes hidden; nothing lived, nothing moved in all his body save the right arm—the long angular arm with short sleeves—which rose and fell automatically, like a sword of justice, making at the end of each sentence ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... toward Lanyard, seemed wan in the half light, but immobile, expressionless; only her eyes ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... breast, but finally lifted his face and looked squarely at his friend. Good Heaven!—Could calf-love do that to a boyish face?—Was it really Ivan, this gray-hued, inexpressibly weary man, with the dull, expressionless eyes, and the mouth drawn into so ugly ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... in the gun-room was Quarrier, who favoured him with an expressionless stare, then with a bow, quite perfunctory and non-committal. It was plain enough that he had not expected to meet ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... of dissimulation, together with advancing age, had given the queen-mother that well-known abbess face, with its haughty and macerated mask, expressionless yet full of depth, inscrutable yet vigilant, remarked by all who have studied her portrait, the courtiers now observed some clouds on her icy countenance. No sovereign was ever so imposing as this woman from the day ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... in white velvet. A preparation of menthe, dripping from a phial, spotted it green. He did not notice. At the moment the spasm had him. Then as that clicked and passed, he looked in the expressionless face of the butler ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... the world that is inclined to regard servants as automata; but he was absurdly self-conscious as he saw his card on a silver tray, in the hand of an expressionless, liveried youth who probably had the famous interview in his pocket. If not there, it was only because the paper would not fit in. The footman had certainly read the interview, and followed the "Northmorland Case" with passionate interest, for months, from the time it began with melodrama, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... slightly parted; her breathing came quietly. By and by repose took the place of tension— her face looked as if it were cut out of marble. The excitement and unrest, which her words had betrayed, vanished utterly; her features were beautiful, but almost expressionless. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... curious, I caught the eye of Suliman ben Saoud in the front row opposite, ten or twelve cushions nearer the door than where I sat. He did not seem to notice me. The absence of eyebrows made his face expressionless. He didn't even vaguely resemble the Major James Grim whom I knew him to be. When his eyes met mine there was no symptom of recognition. If he felt as nervous as I did he certainly did not show it behind ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... bands and lace frills were wrought with a beauty and softness of finish, and a speed and precision of workmanship, that made her the wonder and envy of the shop. And with what ease she seemed to do it all, despite the riveted eyes and tense-drawn muscles of her expressionless face! Suddenly her machine stopped, she looked up with a loud yawn, and stretched her arms above her head. She acknowledged the flattery of my look with a patronizing smile and a "How-do-you-think-you're-going-to-like-your-job?" I answered the conventional ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... Kenneth Thornton and by the hand he held a savage-visaged child clad in breech clout and moccasins, but otherwise naked. Its eyes held the beady sharpness of the Indian, and though hardly past babyhood, it stood haughtily rigid and expressionless. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... looked at each other curiously. Antoinette was leaning against the bed, her face expressionless. Her heavy hair had come undone and fell in smoky gold waves ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... coughed, and the burgher moved in his chair and swallowed half a goblet of wine. Twonette laughed outright at the pretty turn Max had made upon Yolanda, and I ridiculously tried to keep my face expressionless. Yolanda laughed flutteringly, and the long ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... here!' indicating spots not visible to any one else. 'Take me away,' she shuddered, but before her frightened exclamation could be obeyed her body suddenly stiffened.' He is there!' she said, with a pitiful horror in her tone, but with her face expressionless and her ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial

... morning after the recovery of Farrington's body that T. B. Smith sat in his big study overlooking Brakely Square. He had finished his frugal breakfast, the tray had been taken away, and he was busy at his desk when his man-servant announced Lady Constance Dex. T. B. looked at the card with an expressionless face. ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... no words can give the least idea, or whether some other reason affected them, those in the vicinity of this man immediately moved away and left him alone. He cast upon them and also upon the officer a calm, expressionless look, the celebrated look of Monsieur de Talleyrand, a dull, wan glance, without warmth, a species of impenetrable veil, beneath which a strong soul hides profound emotions and close estimation of men and things and events. Not a fold of his face quivered. His mouth and forehead were ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... lordship might be encountered and where—as if by chance, and therefore, quite respectfully. Sometimes she remotely wondered if he himself did not make such encounters easy for her. But his manner never altered in its somewhat stiff, expressionless chill of indifference. He never was kindly in his manner to the child if he met her. Dowson felt him at once casual and "lofty." Robin might have been a bit of unconsidered rubbish, the sight of which slightly bored him. Yet the singular fact remained that it was ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... McChesney sat absolutely expressionless while a shrill blonde lady and a nasal dark gentleman went through what the program ironically called a "comedy sketch," followed by a chummy person who came out in evening dress to sing a sentimental ditty, shed the evening dress to reappear in an ankle- length fluffy pink affair; shucked the fluffy ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... sentiment could have been less like Dante's love for Beatrice than Michael Angelo's for Vittoria Colonna. Dante's comes in early youth; Beatrice is a child, with the wistful, ambiguous vision of a child, with a character still unaccentuated by the influence of outward circumstances, almost expressionless. Vittoria is a woman already weary, in advanced age, of grave intellectual qualities. Dante's story is a piece of figured work inlaid with lovely incidents. In Michael Angelo's poems frost and fire ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... and settled back, his whole body tired. He was a tall man, rather slender, with flat, bland features punctuated only by blond caret-shaped eyebrows. His grey eyes were heavy-lidded now, his mouth an expressionless line as he waited, sunk back into his coat with a long-cultivated air of lifeless boredom. He watched the screen without interest as it bleeped a time or two, then shifted into the familiar scrambled-image pattern. After a moment he muttered the Public Information Board audio-code ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse

... anything winning about his smile - nor any of their smiles for that matter. The Piute smile seems to me to be simply a cold, passionless expansion of the vast horizontal slit that reaches almost from one ear to the other, and separates the upper and lower sections of their expressionless faces. Even the smiles of the squaws are of the same unlovely pattern, though they seem to be perfectly oblivious of any ugliness whatever, and whenever a pale-faced visitor appears near their teepe they straightway present him with one of those repulsive, unwinning ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... strained smoothly back, tied just on the crest of the head with brown ribbon and going down in "rats'-tails" to join the rest of their hair which hung straight and flat half-way down their backs. The elder was dark with thick shoulders and heavy features. Her large expressionless rich brown eyes flashed slowly and reflected the light. They gave Miriam a slight feeling of nausea. She felt she knew what her hands were like without looking at them. The younger was thin and pale and slightly hollow-cheeked. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... the start to find that there were five Indians in the canoe, instead of the four promised by Major Wilkins. He was also amazed to discover that none of them could speak English, for they all shook their heads with expressionless faces when he addressed them in that tongue. By using signs and the few Iroquois words that he could remember, he managed to make known his wishes; but, although these were obeyed, he imagined there was some mystery in the ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... asked to be allowed to stay on. Her name was Madame Lelanne. She was useful by reason of her great physical strength. She could take up a man as he lay and carry him on her outstretched arms. It was an expressionless face, with dull, slow-moving eyes that never changed. She and Joan shared a small grenier in one of the barns. Joan had brought with her a camp bedstead; but the woman, wrapping a blanket round her, would creep into a hole she had made for herself among the hay. She never took off her clothes, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... reached the door, he spoke, his voice shaking a little, but in the slow, almost expressionless way which was ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... finished he was able to breathe his thanks. On the seat was a Congo negro who had been with one of the Belgian regiments, coal black and thick-lipped, with bloodshot eyes; an unsensitized human organism, his face as expressionless as his bare back with holes made by shell-fragments. A young Frenchwoman—she could not have been more than nineteen —with a face of singular refinement, sprayed his wounds with the definiteness of one trained to such work, though two days ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... a moment at gaze, his attitude haughty, his face expressionless; then slowly he advanced. He was dressed in a short white caftan that descended to his knees, and was caught about his waist in a shimmering girdle of gold that quivered like fire in the glow of the torches as he moved. His arms from the elbow and his legs from the knee ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... extremely pallid complexion. Talcum powder hides the fact that his nose is shiny and somewhat pink. His eyebrows are carefully penciled and there are artificial shadows under his eyes. His face is absolutely expressionless.) ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken

... gnarled oak halfway down the slope to the gulch bottom, from which protruded, like a long witch arm, a single withered branch. Over this the unseen threw the end of the lariat. Bennington faced the expressionless gaze of twenty masks, on which the torchlight threw Strong black shadows. Directly in front of him the leader posted himself, watch ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... a little apprehensively. This was the crucial point in the interview. If Lord Belpher did not now freeze him with a glance and order him from the room, the danger would be past, and he could speak freely. His light blue eyes were expressionless as they met Percy's, but inwardly he was feeling much the same sensation as he was wont to experience when the family was in town and he had managed to slip off to Kempton Park or some other race-course ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady remain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards them at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never slackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask—if it be a mask —and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every crease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great or whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his personal ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... and sat back to study the group. The waiter had it straight; there was the horizon blue of France; there was the Englishman tall and lean and ruddy and expressionless and handsome; there was the Canadian, more of our own cut, with a mobile, alert face. The American had his back to me and all I could see was an erect carriage, a brown head going to gray, and the one star of a brigadier-general ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... the man, his blocky, big-jawed face expressionless. "I've been doing experimenting with power generators, yes," he said after a moment. "That's ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett

... marked, "Belonging to the boy, Donald," and the other simply "Belonging to the girl." There were the photographs of the two babies, which had been taken a week after their landing, carefully labelled in the same way, giving the boy's name but leaving a blank in place of the girl's. Poor, pinched, expressionless-looking little creatures, both of them were; for, as Uncle George explained to the crestfallen Donald, the babies were really ill at first, from exposure and unsuitable feeding. Then there were the two tiny papers containing each a lock of hair, and these also were marked, one, ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... Rebel lines was a situation to make a man think—not of course while in immediate danger, but afterwards. I had some narrow escapes—we all had. But, dear Leila, it has been a splendid thing to see how this man Grant, with the expressionless face, struck swiftly one army after another and ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... table in the center of the room with measured pace and gravely expressionless face. The rose-tinted machine on his left did a couple of impulsive pirouettes on the way and twittered a greeting to Meg and Roger. The other machine quietly took the third of the high seats and lifted a claw at Meg, who now occupied a stool ...
— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... that man carries with him on his course through the ages. Such an amount of luggage for a journey after all so short! There were no individual objects; there was nothing but dozens and hundreds, all machine-made and expressionless, in spite of the repeated grimace, the conscious smartness, of "the last new thing," that was stamped on all of them. The fatal facility, of the French article becomes at last as irritating as the refrain ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... until, even with the constant fancy that he was there looking over my shoulder, and so close that there was always a risk of contact, I grew to disregard him. All day long he watched the pen travelling over the paper, all day long I was aware of him, featureless, shadowy, expressionless, with a vague cheek near my own. During the brief interval I gave myself for luncheon he stood behind my chair, and, being much refreshed and brightened by my morning's work, I mocked ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray



Words linked to "Expressionless" :   poker-faced, deadpan, uncommunicative, incommunicative



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