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Puff   /pəf/   Listen
Puff

verb
(past & past part. puffed; pres. part. puffing)
1.
Smoke and exhale strongly.  Synonym: whiff.  "Whiff a pipe"
2.
Suck in or take (air).  Synonyms: drag, draw.  "Draw on a cigarette"
3.
Breathe noisily, as when one is exhausted.  Synonyms: gasp, heave, pant.
4.
Make proud or conceited.
5.
Praise extravagantly.  Synonym: puff up.
6.
Speak in a blustering or scornful manner.
7.
To swell or cause to enlarge,.  Synonyms: blow up, puff out, puff up.  "Puffed out chests"
8.
Blow hard and loudly.  Synonyms: chuff, huff.



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"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books



... thumped loudly on the fir boards. A silence that was like a swound fell on the instant, and the light within went out at a puff. For a moment it seemed as if our notion of occupancy and light and lament had been a delusion, for now the grave itself was no ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... in the bottom he made a clutch— A heart or a puff-ball of sin? Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust, He grasped but a handful of dry-rotted dust: It was a horrible thing to touch, But he hid it his ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... more "duchessy" than ever in her dinner dress. Jewels shone in the great puff of snowy hair that lay like a crown about her head. (Graham had always wanted to poke his finger into this marvel to see if it would burst and flatten like a toy balloon.) Jewels shone in the laces of her dress and on her fingers. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... proposition; it's got to be thought out. Feelin's don't allers point the right trail to jedgment, an', as often as not, the blazes lead the wrong way. You're all right in your own way, Bob-Cat, but you're shy on roots, and your idees gets a windfall every time an extra puff comes along. You're like the trees settlers forgets about when they cuts on the outside of a forest ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... east could be seen a great number of sailing-boats and steamers. Just at seven o'clock a great puff of white smoke broke out from the black side of the Invincible, which was carrying the admiral's flag, and even before the sound reached the ears of the little party on the hill similar bursts of smoke spurted out from the other vessels. Then came the deep ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... Guy who would don his Undertaker's Regalia and the White Satin Puff Tie and go out of an Afternoon to read a ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... flared with a puff on the rocks, twenty feet from where the two projectors were mounted. I saw that two helmeted figures were down there. They tried to swing their grids upward, but could not get them vertical to reach us. The ship was ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... came a slight puff of wind, and the water curling under it glanced more luminously; while an occasional flash of lightning announced that the clouds above ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... at Chuzenji, all the world goes to sleep. It awakes at about four o'clock, when the white sails come gliding out of the green bays like swans. They greet, or avoid. They run side by side for the length of a puff of breeze. They coquet with one another like butterflies; or they head for one of those hidden beaches which are the principal charm of the lake, where baskets are unpacked and cakes and sandwiches appear, where dry sticks are gathered for a rustic fire, and after an hour or more ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... Lenny's present position, that every equitable person would recognize the tyranny of Stirn and the innocence of its victim; secondly, that if even here he were mistaken, for public opinion was not always righteous, what was public opinion after all?—"A breath, a puff," cried Dr. Riccabocca, "a thing without matter,—without length, breadth, or substance,—a shadow, a goblin of our own creating. A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should care no more for that phantom 'opinion' ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... dirty, sickening-looking, stump-tailed moccasin predominated. There must have been thousands of serpents in the mass which covered a space twenty by thirty feet, from which came the sibilant hiss of puff adders, and a strong, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... sundown, and at sundown a puff of dust rose on the track, and as a cry of "Mail oh !" went up all round the homestead, the Fizzer ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... two little round, white fungi, which probably sprung from the ground in the course of last night,—curious productions, of the mushroom tribe, and which by and by will be those small things with smoke in them which children call puff-balls. Is there nothing else? Yes; here is a whole colony of little ant-hills,—a real village of them. They are round hillocks, formed of minute particles of gravel, with an entrance in the centre, and through some of them blades of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... love's young dream all right." He stopped to puff, and waved at the couple by the tree. Then he hitched up his loose, baggy trousers, gave a jerk to his big flowing blue necktie, let fly at the ball and cried "Fore." When he came up to the ball again, he was red ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... regiment is dashing ashore, While bullets are whistling and cannons do roar, Says Montcalm: "Those are Shirley's—I know the lappels." "You lie," says Ned Botwood, "we belong to Lascelles'! Tho' our cloathing is changed, yet we scorn a powder-puff; So at you, ye b——s, here's give you Hot ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... rest assured, and the author of this pamphlet believes his reputation will warrant the assertion and belief, that he could not be hired to puff an unworthy article, or write a book to induce American farmers, to purchase an article which would not prove highly beneficial to ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... breeze that was playing truant round the steps did Ben a service without knowing it, for a sudden puff blew a torn leaf to his feet, and seeing a picture he took it up. It evidently had fallen from some ill-used history, for the picture showed some queer ships at anchor, some oddly dressed men just landing, and a crowd of ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... several disjointed members of a sentence thrown out, ending in a cough; at length his voice forced its way in the slow, but absolute tone of a man who feels the weight of his purse, if not of his ideas; every portion of his speech being marked by a testy puff of tobacco smoke. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... as in Fig. 5. An inch or more is now heated white hot, the tube being turned continually to assure even heating and to prevent the hot end from bending down by its own weight. When very hot, a sudden puff into the open end of the tube will expand the hot glass into a bulb, as in Fig. 6. These can be made of considerable size, and, if not too thin, make very good flasks (Fig. 7) for physical experiments. The base of the bulb should be flattened ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... great physician, called Imaoji—I forget his other name: he was a very famous man. Once upon a time, a man from a place called Kuramaguchi advertised for sale a medicine which he had compounded against the cholera, and got Imaoji to write a puff for him. Imaoji, instead of calling the medicine in the puff a specific against the cholera, misspelt the word cholera so as to make it simpler. When the man who had employed him went and taxed him with this, and asked him why he had done so, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... workmanship, apparently Indian, being made of some kind of dark brown, mottled wood, bearing a marked resemblance to a snake's skin; and the top of the cane was carved in conformity, to represent the head of what I took to be a puff-adder, fragments of stone, or beads, being inserted to represent the eyes, and the whole thing being finished with an artistic ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... a puff of his cigarette. "Maybe he just wants to be sure," he said. "Funny things are happening all over." The cigarette tasted terrible and he put it out in an ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... eleven o'clock. The night was intensely still, without a zephyr stirring among the trees, and of that wavering darkness caused by a half-clouded moon. On the black and green water close to the bank rocked a light birch-bark canoe, a ticklish craft, which a puff might overturn. The young man who had urged the necessity for silence was groping round it, fumbling with the sharp bow, in which he fixed a short pole or "jack-staff," with some object—at present no ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... that point the railroad was straight, leading into Savannah, and about eight hundred yards off were a rebel parapet and battery. I could see the cannoneers preparing to fire, and cautioned the officers near me to scatter, as we would likely attract a shot. Very soon I saw the white puff of smoke, and, watching close, caught sight of the ball as it rose in its flight, and, finding it coming pretty straight, I stepped a short distance to one side, but noticed a negro very near me in the act of crossing the track at right angles. Some one called to him to look out; but, before the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... of our times is, perhaps, partly the cause of the excessive use of rouge and powder. The wielder of the powder puff sees herself afar off, as it were. She knows that she cannot judge of the effect of her complexion with her face almost touching its reflection in the glass, and, standing about a yard off, she naturally accentuates her roses and lilies in a ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... had to cross, dotted with gorsebushes; and the enemy's regiments, plain to see, drawn up in battalia on the slope above, which here was gentler than to the south and west. But hardly had we gone ten yards than I saw a puff of white smoke above, then another, and then the summit ring'd with flame; and heard the noise of it roaring in the hills around. At the first sound I pull'd up, and then began running again at full speed: for ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... puffing, and talking and guffawing in the vulgarest way, en route to swill and smoke and puff and ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... mistery to peeple how I make farmin pay, but, Squire, between you and I, heer's where I reckon I've got 'em. Where I loses in other branches I make up heer. Any and everybody which invents a farmin masheen sends me one, and I gives them a puff. Every 30 days I gets up a bee, to which I invites the nabors. With hammers we knock them masheens to pieces, and, sir!" said he, blowin his bugle horn of liberty with his cote sleeve, "as the Roman mother once said, 'these is my tressoors,' ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various

... noisy puff-adder," said Shiela, who had retreated very close against Hamil, "but, oh, I don't love them even when they are harmless." And rather thoughtfully she disengaged herself from the sheltering arm of that all too sympathetic young man, and went ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... judgments of men, the fashions of the day in morality, the changing judgments of our own consciences—these are the things on which men build, if they are not building upon Jesus Christ. Like a vessel that has a raw hand at the helm, you sometimes head one way, and then the puff of wind that fills your sails dies down, or the sails that were flat as a board belly out a little, or you are caught in some current, and round goes the bowsprit on another tack altogether. How many of us are pursuing the objects ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... Kittie, flying about the kitchen with her big apron on. "She and Bea went down town this afternoon; I don't know whether they're back or not. If you're going in the sitting-room, tell Ralph to come; he said he'd beat the eggs, if I'd make a puff-cake." ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... That puff of the breeze was louder; it had a tone unlike the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned itself, and afflicted all mankind with miserable sympathy, for five days past. The wind has veered about! It now comes boisterously from the northwest, and, taking hold of the aged framework ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... cool puff of his own verses, 'which, it is thought, are well suited to the occasion, while at the same time they preserve the true Corsican character.' About a month after this masquerade, Goldsmith dined at Boswell's lodging with Garrick, Johnson, Davies, ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... cigarette. A deep inhalation and the gray cloud rose slowly from his lips and nostrils. Stooping he carefully gathered a handful of sharp pebbles and—one by one— flipped them idly toward the opposite side of the canyon. Another generous puff of smoke and a second handful of pebbles followed the first. Then rising he dropped the cigarette and went ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... visitors desired him to praise God for the good he had done. He answered, "Flesh of itself is too proud, and needs nothing to puff it up," and protested that he only laid claim to the free mercy of God in Christ among others. To the earl of Morton (who was then about to receive the regency, the earl of Moray being dead) he was heard to say, "My lord, God ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... assemblage rose, whiffed ceremony to the winds, and rushed for the door like a mob; overturning chairs, smashing crockery, tugging, struggling, shouldering, crowding—anything to get out before I should change my mind and puff the castle into the measureless dim vacancies of space. Well, well, well, they were a superstitious lot. It is all a body can do to conceive ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the surface, there is deep water which scours the weeds and mud away; in other places duckweed forms a green carpet on the top, and on this floating velvet cowers the poisonous water-fungus in the form of a turnip-radish, blue and round, and swelled like a puff ball—deadly poison to every living thing. When Timar's oar struck one of these polyp-like fungi, the venomous dust shot out like a blue flame. The roots of this plant live in a fetid slime which would suffocate man or beast who should fall into ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... lifted their wings and panted with exhaustion in the sickly heat of the fervid atmosphere. The sun had long passed the zenith, dinner was over, and the inmates were enjoying the siesta, so refreshing in this climate of the sun. Here and there the leaves would start and dally with a vagrant puff from vesper's lips, then droop again as if in grief at the vagaries of the little truant which now was fanning and stirring into lazy motion ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... with its encircling wall; the nearer tree stems gleamed like bronze in the firelight; beyond that—blackness, and, so far as he could tell, a silence of death. Just behind them a passing puff of wind lifted a single leaf, looked at it, then laid it softly down again without disturbing the rest of the covey. It seemed as if a million invisible causes had combined just to produce that single visible effect. Other ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood

... telling you of it in company; but either intimate it by some sign, or wait for an opportunity when you are alone together. She is also in the best French company, where she will not only introduce but PUFF you, if I may use so low a word. And I can assure you that it is no little help, in the 'beau monde', to be puffed there by a fashionable woman. I send you the inclosed billet to carry her, only as a certificate of the identity of your person, which I take ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... shade—and that through the enveloping wealth and rank of a state, or the whole republic of states, a sneak or sly person shall be discover'd and despised—and that the soul has never once been fool'd and never can be fool'd—and thrift without the loving nod of the soul is only a foetid puff—and there never grew up in any of the continents of the globe, nor upon any planet or satellite, nor in that condition which precedes the birth of babes, nor at any time during the changes of life, nor in any stretch of ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... Cole, with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively. He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord's assurance in it; And once a man was there all ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... little girl as quickly as his rusty joints would let him,—while Pansie, as apprehensive and quick of motion as a fawn, started up with a shriek of mirth and fear to escape him. It so happened that the garden-gate was ajar; and a puff of wind blowing it wide open, she escaped through this fortuitous avenue, followed ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a la mode. And the first cigar of my convalescence—ah, that, too, abides as a vivid memory! Dropping in one morning to replace the wrappings Doctor Z said I might smoke in moderation. So the nurse brought me a cigar, and I lit it and took one deep puff; but only one. I laid it aside. I said ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb

... you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff and settled himself in his chair,—"I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold were it known that I ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... dropped over his head, and his hiding-place was hidden. But while he and Hiram stood looking at the place where Mr. Crymble had disappeared, there sounded a muffled squawk from the depths, there was the dull rumble of rocks, an inward crumbling of earth where the planks were, a puff of dust, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... continued he, giving out with a sigh a long puff of smoke, "I dare not assume the responsibility. I go with the majority, which has decided that we await in this city the threatened siege, and repulse the enemy by the power of artillery, and if ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin

... puff of wind came in through the window, and it blew the blind against the candle, and the flame of the candle came towards me, and I had my hand up to arrange my hair. I was fastening it up with hairpins to make ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... two strokes before the matter was settled finally. For there came a puff of white smoke from the ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... him sitting, with his gray beard blowing about him like a puff of fog; I hear him when his pitiful voice intones its grief as if it were a chant; I see the pleading in his eyes, and it fills my breast with heart-break. You who love great delineations of passion, what think you of our dramatist's ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... a puff of white smoke thrust out from the blunt bows of the cutter, and the ball ricochetted from wave-top to wave-top to fall half a ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... Just then a little puff of smoke arose from the machine, followed by a tongue of yellow flame. Barney had already started ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Edgar, was our sworn friend, and allowed us to ride free as often as we could get away. Charles intended crossing the river to get pawpaws. A pawpaw is an easily mashed fruit, three or four inches long, with a tough skin inclosing a very liquid pulp full of seeds, and about as solid as a cream puff, when it is dead ripe. It grows on a ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... into his den while he rummaged through his books to find some which would be acceptable to me—'May as well give 'em away before it's too late, ye know'—and then he settled back in his easy chair to puff at a pipe. I must note down one of his phrases which tickled me—he has such a knack for the proverbial and the epigrammatic. 'He's cut his cloth, he can wear his breeches,' he said of a certain scapegrace. He chuckled over the Suffolk phrase 'a chance child,' for a bastard (alluding to one such ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... believe that she is a pilot-boat," chuckled Mr. Beardsley. "We'll be almost certain to find some fellow creeping along inside of Diamond shoals, thinking of no danger, and he'll never try to sheer off when he sees us coming, kase he'll think we're friendly. He'll think different when he sees a puff of smoke go up from our bows, but then it will be too late for him to square away. Good ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... making up her mind to turn round and brave it out, and keep her watch—if possible—when she saw something on the grass by the roadside, a little ahead of her, that made her heart leap with relief and pleasure—namely, a puff of smoke, and a figure clad in a brown tweed suit. She was sure, even after a mere hurried glance, that the owner of the suit must be English, for it bore the stamp of an English tailor, and the breeze bore her ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... inconvenience you by our intrusion. Perhaps, however, Miss Janice will fill us each a glass from you bowl of punch. 'T is a long ride to Morristown, and a stirrup cup will not be amiss. Yet stay again. Let me first puff off my friend to you. Ladies and gentleman, Captain Henry Lee, better known as ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... cross-legg'd, with great sang-froid, Among the scorching ruins he sat smoking Tobacco on a little carpet;—Troy Saw nothing like the scene around:—yet looking With martial stoicism, nought seem'd to annoy His stern philosophy; but gently stroking His beard, he puff'd his pipe's ambrosial gales, As if he had three lives, as well ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... the bouncers go for his sap. "Try it, you gorilla," I told him, wrenching around, now that I was free on his side. "Try it and I'll rip the retinas off your eyeballs the way you'd skin a peach!" He recoiled as though I were a Puff Adder. The other bouncer let go of me, too. I skidded in the slippery sawdust, scared half to death, but got my back against a wall just as the stick-man who had slugged me lost his orientation completely and fell to his knees in ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett

... the ground, behind the loom, huddled deep on his bolster under a dirty blanket: a thin little black chap, leaning against a pillow in the dancing twilight of the lantern. His eyes were closed and his bony face half-hidden in the blue night-cap. His breath rustled; and each puff from his hoarse throat, blowing out the thin flesh of his cheeks, escaped through a little opening on one side of his sunken lips, which each ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... lips—"more than you can ever know. But the greater the love, the greater the glory of crushing it out. The heavier the cross, the brighter will be the crown, and with the greater rapture shall I wake the music of my golden harp through the countless years of eternity. What is this life? A puff, a breath of air. In it we must prepare for the real life, which lies beyond. When the heavens are rolled up like a scroll, what will it avail me that I passed with one whom I loved with an earthly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... perpetually. All night long searchlight bombs were thrown. All night long, golden and red and yellow streams of flame or the sudden jagged flash of an explosion lit up the black smoke of burning buildings and fields in the valley, or showed the white puff-like low clouds of the bursting shrapnel. Not for an instant did the roar diminish, not for a second was the kindly veil of night left unrent by a fissure of vengeful flame. Yet, all night long, as ceaselessly as the great ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... night the fire died down and the woodpile grew small. Neither of us moved to replenish the stock, and the darkness consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet beyond the circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray puff of wind set the billows shivering about us, but apart from this not very welcome sound a deep and depressing silence reigned, broken only by the gurgling of the river and the humming ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... "Being the substance of a conversation on the Times, over a friendly tankard and pipe, between Sharp, a country Parson; Bumper, a country Justice; Fillpot, an inn-keeper; Graveairs, a Deacon; Trim, a Barber; Brim, a Quaker; Puff, a late Representative. Taken in short-hand by ...
— The Group - A Farce • Mercy Warren

... for us all that it is so. This is my observation window, Dr. Petrie, and you are about to enjoy an unique opportunity of studying fungology. I have already drawn your attention to the anaesthetic properties of the lycoperdon, or common puff-ball. You may have recognized the fumes? The chamber into which you rashly precipitated yourselves was charged with them. By a process of my own I have greatly enhanced the value of the puff-ball in this respect. Your friend, Mr. Weymouth, proved the most obstinate ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... deepest crimson. Care should be taken in the selection of this variety of roses as unscrupulous nurserymen often palm off on inexperienced customers a rank imitation, little better than a weed, known as the Common Rouge or Make-up Plant (Pigmentia Artificialis), a variety of the Puff Blossom. The imposture may be easily detected, however, by the application of the water test, a spray of water from a watering can or hose causing the false rose to turn a chalky ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay

... habits of their seniors. Little Tommy and Johnny see their fathers or uncles smoke a pipe, and they say, "If I could only do that, I would be a man too; uncle John has gone out and left his pipe of tobacco, let us try it." They take a match and light it, and then puff away. "We will learn to smoke; do you like it Johnny?" That lad dolefully replies: "Not very much; it tastes bitter;" by and by he grows pale, but he persists and he soon offers up a sacrifice on the altar of fashion; but ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum

... said Uncle Ike, as he drew the match across the cloth, put it to his pipe, and began to swell out his cheeks and puff, keeping his eye on the boy, through the smoke, who had taken his eyes from the picture, drawn a deep sigh, and sat down on the lounge, as though he never expected ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... seat-mate a sly pinch to make her move to a more tolerable distance, shall the teacher utter his rebuke in tones which might possibly be appropriate if a murder was about being committed? I have known a schoolmaster "fire up" like a steam-engine, and puff and whiz at the occurrence of some such peccadilloes, and the consequence was that the whole school was soon at a stand-still as to study, and the askance looks and suppressed titter of the little flock told you that the ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... make part of her toilet in a railway waiting-room under the eyes of half a score of enemies, that is to say, of ten other women, arranges her tresses, purchased or natural, uses powder-puff and hare's foot if she choose, and turns away from the mirror armed for conquest; but an American similarly situated, forgets half her hair-pins, does not dare to wash her face carefully lest some one should sniff condemnation of her fussiness, and looks worse after ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... water. Take half a pound of rice, cree it soft as you would do for eating, and pour it upon the back of a sieve, let it stand while it is cold, then take a spoon and flat it like paste on your hand, and lay on the breast of every pigeon a cake; lay round your dish some puff-paste not over thin, and send them to the oven; about half an hour ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon

... (in German Barlappen-mehl), vulgarly known as the Devil's Puff-ball or Witchmeal, is used on the stage, as well in England as on the continent, to produce flashes of fire. It is made of the pollen of common club moss, or wolf's claw (Lycopodium clavatum), the capsules of which contain a highly inflammable powder. Translators have uniformly failed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Vatican, and, as he knew the palace well, went up to the pope's bedroom, a light in his hand and attended by no servant. As he turned round a corridor a puff of wind blew out his lamp; still, as he knew the way, he went on, thinking there was no need of seeing to find the object he was in search of; but as he entered the room he recoiled a step, with a cry of terror: he beheld a ghastly apparition; it seemed that there before his eyes, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... pretty readily divisible into two great classes, based upon the arrangement of the spores. The first of these is known as the Ascomycetes (Sac fungi), the other the Basidiomycetes (mushrooms, puff-balls, etc.). ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell

... am done I am going to take you with me. What do you think of that, Thomas?" And thereupon the old man lighted his pipe, and sat smiling for a little and moving his long fingers daintily. "When the two queer companions had taken puff by puff together for some ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... yours. Do what you like with it," said Mr. Early benignly. He was thinking how well a picturesque cut of the Hindu's head would look on the covers of The Aspirant, combined with a judicious puff within. ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... 1872.—Leave Chikulu's, and pass a large puff-adder in the way. A single blow on the head killed it, so that it did not stir. About 3 feet long, and as thick as a man's arm, a short tail, and flat broad head. The men say this is a very good sign for our journey, though ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... chest. He stood quite still and gave me every opportunity, but whether it was the excitement or the wind, or the fact of the man being a long shot, I don't know, but this was what happened. Getting dead on, as I thought, a fine sight, I pressed, and when the puff of smoke had cleared away, to my disgust, I saw my man standing there unharmed, whilst his orderly, who was at least three paces to the left, was stretched upon the ground apparently dead. Turning swiftly, the officer ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... stood, it was," declared the Father. "But all at once, a smart puff o' wind caught that pretty wisp o' veilin' from the young wife, and wafted it away. And as quick as the wind itself after it she darted; but when she was close to it, up and off it whirled again, and she followed it, and he after her, and—shouts o' ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... faint wind for Hastings beach. As yet there was little light and much fog, still the landward breeze was enough to draw us forward. Then of a sudden we heard sounds as of men talking upon ships and the clank of spars and blocks. Presently came a puff of air lifting the fog for a little and we saw that we were in the midst of a great fleet, a French fleet, for the Lilies of France flew at their mast-heads, saw, too, that their prows were set for Hastings, though for the while they were becalmed, since the wind that was enough for our light, large-sailed ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... man never left the Tower, and was indefatigable in endeavouring to torment him. One time he would sing the 'Caramgnole,' and a thousand other horrors, before us; again, knowing that my mother disliked the smoke of tobacco, he would puff it in her face, as well as in that of my father, as they happened to pass him. He took care always to be in bed before we went to supper, because he knew that we must pass through his room. My father suffered it all with ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... hair, once of a golden tint, is long behind and is gathered into two braids, which start from just behind the ears, cross one another, and are fastened together in front; the short front hair is combed forward and conceals the ends of the braids; and there is a mysterious puff in front of each ear. In the whole work, so far at least as appears in a profile view, there is nothing to mar our pleasure. The sculptor's hand has responded ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... cried Dick. His voice quavered a little, but he tried to speak boldly. Pussy was displeased at the question. She hissed, put up her back, swelled her tail to a puff, and fled to a distant part of the roof, where, from some hidden ambush, Dick could hear ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... up, cab at the door." A general rush was made in the direction indicated, Arthur jumped into the vehicle, and amid the shouts and cheers of his friends, was quickly rolled over the stones to the railway terminus. Ding, dong, ding, dong, waugh, waugh, puff, puff, and the train moved slowly out of the station, increasing its velocity until it was whirling along at something very like fifty miles an hour. On reaching Switchem, the station nearest to Vellenaux, Arthur found his horse ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... gates, The Ceramites flapped him, and smacked him, and slapped him, In the ribs, and the loin, and the flank, and the groin, And still, as they spanked him, he puffed and he panted, Till at one mighty cuff, he discharged such a puff That he blew out his ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... adventure, was Robinette's sudden impulsive kiss as she bade him good-night, Lavendar standing by. She had never kissed him before, for all her cousinliness, but she just brushed his cool, round cheek to-night as if with a swan's-down puff. ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... hands and drew the burning brazier close to his feet; then, suddenly, from a sleeve of his robe he took a little box of the sacred tortoise-shell, pressed his lips to it, opened it, poured its contents upon the flame, leaned over with his face close to the brazier and inhaled the little puff of smoke that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... obtained grants of immense estates, containing thousands of acres. All the while the common people of England were learning to smoke, snuff, and chew tobacco, and across the English Channel the Dutch burghers, housewives, and farmers were learning to puff their pipes. A pound of tobacco was worth three shillings. The planters grew richer, purchased more land and more slaves, while the apprenticed men, who had no money and no means of obtaining any, of course could not become land-owners. Thus the three classes of men—planters, poor ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... had not come to him as a complete surprise: that morning, as he strolled back to the house with Owen Leath and Miss Viner, he had had a momentary intuition of the truth. But it had been no more than an intuition, the merest faint cloud-puff of surmise; and now it was an attested fact, ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... length by the heat, G. W. reached the summit, only to sink down at once in the tangle of bushes and pant and puff. But after a while he revived; and then peering through the undergrowth he gazed down upon the plain below that ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock

... see any thing," said Bletson, "excepting those terrified oafs, who take fright at every puff of wind that whistles through the passages of ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... fifty patents for this object and with all of them before their eyes, the British Society for the Advancement of Art still hold the $5,000 reward for a pigment or covering which will perfectly protect from rust and fouling. However they may puff their products for selling, no one has the temerity to claim that ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... blew the muslin curtains softly across his face. It had driven Miss Eunice and Macklin from the porch. Alec could hear their voices in the sitting-room. Suddenly another puff of wind blew the hall door shut, and the cheerful sound ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston

... up into th' place, Whear yo'd expect to find a face; A awful craytur met mi gaze, It took mi puff: "Gooid chap," aw sed, "please let me ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... exhibit strong symptoms of astonishment and admiration. He is said to have turned to master Juet, and uttered these remarkable words, while he pointed towards this paradise of the new world—"See! there!"—and thereupon, as was always his way when he was uncommonly pleased, he did puff out such clouds of dense tobacco smoke that in one minute the vessel was out of sight of land, and Master Juet was fain to wait until the winds dispersed ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... far end of the room lay a man of more than ordinary girth, with coat, vest, and shoes off, his face concealed by a newspaper. From beneath this sheet came, at regular intervals, a long-drawn sound like the subdued puff of a tired locomotive at rest on a side-track. Beside him was an empty tumbler, decorated with a broken straw and a spray of ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... when they depend upon the hips. It cannot be denied that the heavily-weighted skirts now in vogue are uncleanly and unwholesome, even when worn short; and while school-girls elaborate, friz, powder, and puff their hair like their elders, and trim their dresses to such excess, it will be impossible for them to find time for consecutive study. Every separate curl, lace, or fold, becomes a separate cause of worry; and "worry" lies at the bottom of ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... with yellowish powder, and their eyebrows strongly pencilled, and they each had a yellow orchid in their black hair, and their dresses were of silks of infinite variety of tint—primrose, rose, and delicate white—"soft as puff, and puff, of grated orris root" and they glittered with diamonds and emeralds, and each held a silver bowl marvellously embossed, filled with petals of flowers and gold leaf. Their attitudes were studied to their finger tips, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... filled with oil, burned with a clear and steady light, and began to swell with pride and boast that it shone more brightly than the sun himself. Just then a puff of wind came and blew it out. Some one struck a match and lit it again, and said, "You just keep alight, and never mind the sun. Why, even the stars never need to be relit as you had to be ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... solemn one. My audience is astounded and so am I, but more at my own success than at the relighted candle. A puff of vainglory rises to my brow; I feel the fire of enthusiasm run through my veins. But I say nothing of these inner sensations. Before the boys' eyes, the master must appear an old hand at the things he teaches. What would the young rascals think of me if I allowed ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... provision that in storm and snow they grow fattest and fastest. I have marvelled greatly how it is possible for any hot-blooded creature to enjoy so immensely this terribly cold water as do these old seals. They paddle about, throw themselves on their backs, float and puff out their breasts, flapping their flippers like paws over ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... neighbourhood of Santa Fe, another very beautiful and curious little bird, the copper-bellied puff-leg, is found, at an elevation of about 9000 feet. (Unlike the greater number of birds, the female humming-birds are generally as richly ornamented as the male.) It is named from the curious white puffs or ruffs—looking ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... advancing host caught the ear of the Wonderful Wisitors, and in an instant they had extracted glittering cases of their crimson cigarettes from their pockets, and lighting them in the strange fashion I have described elsewhere, they proceeded to puff the smoke luxuriously into the faces of ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas

... Bombay consists in the wind blowing hot and cold at the same time, so that persons who are liable to rheumatic pains are obliged to wrap themselves up much more warmly than is agreeable. While enduring a very uncomfortable degree of heat, a puff of wind from the land or the sea will produce a sudden revulsion, and in these alternations the whole day will pass away, while at night they become still more dangerous. It is said that the hot season is not so hot as ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... home until the spring has come and all the young things are born. The grass will be green, the dandelions will have their puff-balls on, the apple blossoms will be over, and Daddy will get a kind man to take care of everything for us. It will be May time and we will sail in a big ship over to the aunts and uncles in Scotland and Ireland and I shall show them ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... not. He harbored a dim but dreadful picture of what might happen should the amiable cavalryman actually lose his temper. Loss of patience had menace enough, though the Southerner had not stirred from his lazy posture in the doorway nor overlooked a single contented puff from ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... a match, and, with a very haughty look on his thin face, began to puff at a cigarette which he had taken from a little silver case, Vane watching him scornfully the while, but only to explode with mirth the next moment, for the young West Indian, though he came from where his father's plantations ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... all somewhat familiar with the type of commander who, when asked: "What are your officers doing about special studies, so that they may better their reading habits and further their powers of self-expression?" will puff himself up by replying, "They are kept so busily employed that they have no time for any such exercise." This is one way of saying that his subordinates are kept too busy ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... spring and summer: jet black with ashy-white rump and shoulders; some light edgings on the back, wings, and tail-feathers, and a buff patch on the back of the neck, like a cream-puff baked ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... Tucker drew from his pocket a briar-root pipe, filled and lit it and began to puff ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill

... still in the Roman villa, and, from time to time, a slight puff of air which came cool from the mountains, but grew hot before it reached the house, sent one of the vine strands swinging to and fro like a pendulum, while the other, having secured itself to an outer shutter by one of ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... ride across the forest. Horses bred on the moors, if left to themselves, rapidly pick their way through pools and bogs, and canter smoothly over dry flats of natural meadow; creep safely down the precipitous descents, and climb with scarcely a puff of distress these steep ascents; splash through fords in the trout-streams, swelled by rain, without a moment's hesitation, and trot along sheep-paths, bestrewed with rolling stones, without a stumble: ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... need advice," he was saying, as he slowly exhaled a great puff of smoke which he had drawn deep into his lungs. "My name is Martigny—Jasper Martigny"—I nodded by way of salutation—"and I am from France, as you have doubtless long since suspected. It is my desire to become ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson

... (if you please) a few Carroways, Rose, or Orange-flower Water (as you best like) to make it grateful. Mingle all with a little boiled Cream; and set the Dish or Pan in the Oven, with a Garnish of Puff-Paste. It will require but very moderate Baking. Thus have you ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... of bread and milk was both desirable and advisable; the savoury and the salutary he thought might be combined. There was store of rosy apples laid in straw upon a shelf; he picked out three. There was pastry upon a dish; he selected an apricot puff and a damson tart. On the plain household bread his eye did not dwell; but he surveyed with favour some currant tea-cakes, and condescended to make choice of one. Thanks to his clasp-knife, he was able to appropriate a ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... sweltering afternoon of little air, and that little as hot and dry in the nostrils as the atmosphere of a laundry on ironing day. Beyond and above the trees a fiery blast blew from the north; but it was seldom a wandering puff stooped to flutter the edges of the tents in the little hollow among the trees. And into this empty basin poured a vertical sun, as if through some giant lens which had burnt a hole in the heart of the scrub. Lulled ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... we hastened toward the clearing, committed Cranberry Lodge to the custody of the "hired man," and untied our horses from the saplings to which they were made fast. In another moment we were on the back trail. Scarcely, however, was the clearing shut out of view when a little hesitating puff of wind from the east blew chill upon us; the breeze had veered, and the tempest was at hand. In the twinkling of an eye, the western horizon was overhung with the same ghastly storm-bank that threatened in the east, while a monitory ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... of learning's crumbs, The not incurious in God's handiwork (This man's flesh he hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, To coop up and keep down on earth a space That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) —To Abib, all sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, 10 Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip Back ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... he heard the sound of the withdrawing bolts, and his heart beat fast. Surely, his half-hour had not already expired; and if it had, would she be the person to conduct him to death? The door opened; a puff of wind extinguished his candle, but not until he had caught the glimmer of jewels, the shining of gold, and the flutter of long, black hair; and then some one came in. The door was closed; the bolts shot back!—and he was alone with ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... woman nodded her head, her black eyes fixed on the red draught of the stove with a far-away, fateful, veiled glint in them which her grandsons knew well. She had ceased to puff at her pipe for the moment, and in the failing light from the window they could see a thin reek of smoke trailing straight up ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... Instantly a puff of fire shot up, colorless and clear, throwing no very satisfactory light, yet capable of dispelling ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... live. (Her voice drops to a whisper.) Sometimes, I almost pray to God to let him die. (FALLON who already has determined to kill MOHUN, receives this speech with indifference, and continues grimly to puff on his cigar.) He's killed my happiness, he's killing me. In keeping him alive, I've grown ill and old. I see the children growing away from me, I see Tom drawing away from me. And now, after all my struggles, after all my torture, Tom must be told. Mohun is in some new trouble. ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... word for him to follow us. He did,—two hours afterwards! by way of being our esquire; and then told me he knew it would be in good time, and so he had stopped to breakfast at Sir Joseph Banks's. I suppose the truth is, it saved him a fresh puff of powder for ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... alarm, she set out with me in order not to miss a peep of the great man. James Skene and his lady were with us, and we gave our carriages such additional dignity as a pair of leaders could add, and went to meet him in full puff. The Prince very civilly told me, that, though he could not see Melrose on this occasion, he wished to come to Abbotsford for an hour. New despair on the part of Mrs. Scott, who began to institute a domiciliary search for cold meat through the whole city of Selkirk, which ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... Doctor after a long pause in which he lit his cigar and again began to puff rings out into the moonlight, "I'd like to say ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... may do as he wills, my pretty damsel,' replied the old Baron. 'Once for all, as I told your sister, these threats are of no avail, though they sound well to puff up your little airs. Your own kingdom is a long way off, and breeds more men than money; and as to our neighbours, they dare not embroil themselves by meddling with us borderers. You had better take what we offer, far better than aught your barbarous ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to leave the pressman alone with the star. As the latter promised to "give her a good puff in his paper," Lola, who never missed an opportunity, made herself specially agreeable to him. Her bright eyes did their work. "When we separated," says "Q" in his reminiscences, "I found myself tumbled heels over head into the profound depths of that which ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... to do?" Morhange leaned back in the armchair and smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... is smoked in the dark it lights up the smoker's face at each puff. Suddenly a voice from out of the gloom ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... bustling America. From the windows opposite mine, on the other side of the street, protrude Germans with long pipes. They sit there hour after hour, those pipes hanging down a foot below the window-sill. Occasionally they emit a puff of smoke. This is the only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... clouds were completely overhead now, from north to south, from east to west. There was not a patch of blue to be seen. The panting earth waited in abject fear. A puff of wind came, hot and stifling, as if an oven door had suddenly been opened. It passed over the mulgas, making them sigh and moan, and then was gone again, leaving the same breathless stillness. Another puff, this time cool and fresh. It also passed away and left ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... have done it; she wouldn't take my advice. Ah! she'll rue it some day, I well believe,' and all on like that. Of course Meg means mother, and I was just wondering what it was she was talking about, when the wind blew quite a puff, and blew the piece of paper right on to my garden. I was just going to peep at it, and see what it was mother shouldn't have done. Then granny gets up, and goes peering all round to see where the paper's gone. She pulled all the cushions out of the chair, and turned up the ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... taking her back to her school. The sleighing was excellent, the day fine, and all went merry as a marriage bell until they reached the railroad. There the inevitable train of cars loomed in view, and the puff, puff of the engine, sending out great volumes of steam and its wild screech at the crossing, completely upset what few ideas of propriety and steady travel this horse may have had in his poor, bewildered head, and, with a leap and a jerk, he ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... seemed to flicker like a candle flame in a sudden puff of wind. "A friend of my, a dragoman. He could not come to bring it. So he give it to me. The gentleman's name was Fenton. My friend, he was sent from him at Cairo." As the fellow spoke, in fairly good English, he took from a pocket of the short coat which spoiled his costume, a colourful silk handkerchief. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... her hand, and a puff of steam hissing out after her, Mrs. Schum peered into the hallway. She was strangely smaller, Lilly thought, as if the flesh were beginning to wither off ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... of the publisher's speculation, is greatly increased by the publicity gained by the introduction of the song at the theatre or the concert-room. When this event takes place, claqeurs are active, the friends of the singer support them, the playbills announce "a hit," and a sly newspaper puff aids the delusion; copies of the ornamented title-page are distributed among the various music-sellers, to be exhibited in their windows, and the song is popular, and "sells." Modest merit is unknown among us now. Thus songs and ballads without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... fasten a small piece of paper; a drop of paste or mucilage will hold all three in place. Write "blonde" on one paper; "brunette," on another, and "medium" on the third. Label papers before gluing them on feathers. Hold up feather by its top and send it flying with a puff of breath. Do same with the other two; the feather landing nearest you denotes complexion of your true love. To make test sure, try three times, not using too much force in blowing feathers, which should land on table, ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... fistful of slips which had come that evening from a Press-Cutting Agency. "All about me," he said, "and the play. Mundane knows more about the preliminary puff than any one else in England. He calls me 'this talented young author from whom much may be expected.' I never thought I should get pleasure out of a trade advertisement, but I do. I'm lapping up this ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... close by; but the result of all my efforts (and I tried mixing the ingredients in every conceivable way) was a very coarse kind of powder with practically no explosive force, but which would go off with an absurd "puff." ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... douce gudeman, tho' he was there, As weel micht been in Rome, For by the fire he puff'd his pipe, An' never fash'd his thumb; But, titterin' in a corner, stood The gawky sisters four— A winter's nicht for me they micht Hae stood ahint the door. There 's ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the silence which followed I could hear him chuckling to himself, and tasting the words over again as though they were good wine. I sat fingering my pistol and waiting for him to speak again. When he did so, it was with another dry chuckle and a long puff of tobacco smoke. ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... in his chair, and leaning his elbow on his knees, opened wide a pair of expectant eyes; the Natchalnik, after a long puff of his pipe, said, with some magisterial decision, "That was a moment when nature had her sleeves tucked up. I think our Kara Georg must also have been ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... out of here," said Ogden with finality. He put his hand in his trouser-pocket and pulled out a sticky mass which looked as if it might once have been a cream-puff or a meringue. He swallowed it contentedly. "I'd forgotten I had that," he explained. "Mary gave it to me on the stairs. Mary thinks you've a funny nose, too," he proceeded, ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... meditative puff or two, Dyce launched into his familiar demonstration. He would very much rather have left it aside; he felt that he was not speaking as one genuinely convinced, and that his father listened without serious interest. But the theory had all to be gone through; he ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... soul this hour? What wouldst thou here? What makes thy heart so sore? Unhappy Faust! I know thee thus no more. Breathe I a magic atmosphere? The will to enjoy how strong I felt it,— And in a dream of love am now all melted! Are we the sport of every puff of air? And if she suddenly should enter now, How would she thy presumptuous folly humble! Big John-o'dreams! ah, how wouldst thou Sink at her feet, ...
— Faust • Goethe

... force from an enemy. pri'vate, not publicly known; peculiar to one's self. pro ces'sion, regular movement, as of soldiers. prod'ucts, fruits; that which is brought forth. proved, turned out; showed the truth of. pro vid'ed, furnished; supplied with necessary articles. puff'ing, swelling with air; blowing in short, sudden whiffs. pure, ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... right, Grimmy. Lancaster's sporting a silk tile, so he's off to town. To think of your cutting our six-a-side to puff down a dirty blow-pipe! Come out, you idiot, and get into your footer togs!" ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... and night. Startled from brooding over its eggs or yet dependent chicks, it is ghost-like in its flittings and disappearances. In broad daylight it moves from its resting-place as a leaf blown by an erratic and sudden puff, and vanishes as it touches the sheltering bosom of Mother Earth. Mark the spot of its vanishment and approach never so cautiously, and you see naught. Peer about and from your very feet that which had been deemed to be ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... sip of the potent spirit, and a puff or two at his cigar, De Lara responds to the call. But first leaning across the table, and looking his confederate straight in the face, he ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... there had been never a puff of wind to fan the blaze. But now above the shrilling of the Indian chant and the crackling of the flames a low growl of thunder trembled in the upper air, and a gentle breeze swept ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde



Words linked to "Puff" :   patchwork, swell, recommendation, gasconade, exhalation, tout, brag, duvet, patchwork quilt, continental quilt, swell up, eiderdown, breathing out, toke, blast, fancy, intumesce, elate, breathe in, good word, tumesce, inspiration, expiration, shoot a line, smoke, pick up, lift up, gust, intake, aspiration, seat, smoking, bluster, pad, uplift, inspire, pastry, bed clothing, testimonial, praise, boast, vaunt, bedclothes, intoxicate, inhale, insufflation, chou, breathing in, bedding, tumefy, inhalation, gas, swash



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