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Accost   Listen
verb
Accost  v. t.  (past & past part. accosted; pres. part. accosting)  
1.
To join side to side; to border; hence, to sail along the coast or side of. (Obs.) "So much (of Lapland) as accosts the sea."
2.
To approach; to make up to. (Archaic)
3.
To speak to first; to address; to greet. "Him, Satan thus accosts."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Accost" Quotes from Famous Books



... Thionviller) who accost him, this puissant Henriot flings into guardhouses. He bursts towards the Tuileries Committee-room, "to speak with Robespierre:" with difficulty, the Ushers and Tuileries Gendarmes, earnestly pleading ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... my mind had been less anxiously excited on the subject of his visit, or if I had not disliked him so much, I should not have found courage to accost him as I did. There was something sly, I thought, in his dark, lean face; and he looked so low, so like a Scotch artisan in his Sunday clothes, that I felt a sudden pang of indignation, at the thought that a great gentleman, like my father, should have suffered under his influence, and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... its too evident disguise in liquor I knew the voice of my errant Pat. Would it be wise to accost him at such a moment, in such company? The streets of the Lower Town were none too peaceful after dark. And yet, if he were not altogether out of his head, it would be a good thing to stop him from going further and getting into trouble. At least ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... disappearance alarming his suspicion, he managed his inquiries with so much art, that in a few days he made himself acquainted with every particular of the transaction, and resolved to gratify his spleen at the expense of the impatient dupe. With this view, he took an opportunity to accost him with a very serious air, saying a friend of his had immediate occasion for a thousand pounds, and as Peregrine had the exact sum lying by him, he would take it as a great favour if he would part with it for a few months on undoubted ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... you scoundrelly cut-throat," said the Duke, as much impatient of Colonel Blood's claim of acquaintance, as a town-rake of the low and blackguard companions of his midnight rambles, when they accost him in daylight amidst better company; "if you dare to quote my name again, I will have you thrown ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... uncertain how to accost Mr. Danforth. His employer solved the doubt in his mind by advancing cordially, and taking ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... mournful thought, his clothes stained and torn, with all the traces of a week's toil in the docks upon them, Hubert made his way round St. Paul's and across Holborn. As he was about to cross into Oxford Street, he heard some one accost him,— ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... Charley Kinraid and the story of crazy Nancy had been the subjects for her dreams for many a day, and many a night. Now he stood there, bright and handsome as ever, with just that much timidity in his face, that anxiety as to his welcome, which gave his accost an added charm, could she but have perceived it. But she was so afraid of herself, so unwilling to show what she felt, and how much she had been thinking of him in his absence, that her reception seemed cold and still. She did not come forward to meet him; ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Captain Broughton?' she answered, smiling. 'If the journey was too much for your poor London strength, could you not have waited till tomorrow morning, when you would have found me at the parsonage?' But she did not draw her hand away from him, or in any way pretend that he had not a right to accost ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... day to the room where I was writing, and waited patiently for some time, then began coughing with increasing violence, until I asked what he wanted. Then he would shyly stammer out his request. Never would they accost me or otherwise disturb me while I was writing or reading; yet at other times they could be positively impertinent, especially if excited. The islander is very nervous; when he is quiet, he is shy and reticent, but once he is aroused, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... And, if yes: what to do? Was he to alight and accost her, accuse her of forcing an entrance to his rooms for the sole purpose (as far as ascertainable) of presenting him with the outline of her hand in the dust of his desk's top?... Oh, hardly! It was all very ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... take this partial resemblance for identity, as we occasionally do resemblances of persons. A momentary posture of circumstances is so far like some preceding one that we accept it as exactly the same, just as we accost a stranger occasionally, mistaking him for a friend. The apparent similarity may be owing perhaps, quite as much to the mental state at the time, as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... own behalf and to the prejudice of another or others, as in the phrase "to forestall the market." But to anticipate is very frequently used in the favorable sense; as, his thoughtful kindness anticipated my wish (i. e., met the wish before it was expressed): or we say, "I was about to accost him when he anticipated me" (by speaking first); or one anticipates a payment (by making it before the time); in neither of these cases could we use forestall or prevent. To obviate (literally, to stop the way of or remove ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... myself too late to make an appearance in the ball-room, I prowled round the premises, listening to the sounds of revelry within; and then seeing Miss Lovel alone here—playing Juliet without a Romeo—I made so bold as to accost her and charge her ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... assistance of some muse: However, criticks count it sillier Than jugglers talking to familiar. 640 We think 'tis no great matter which They're all alike; yet we shall pitch On one that fits our purpose most Whom therefore thus do we accost: ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... week day during working hours. He had on his leather apron, and was bareheaded, dark and grimy as usual, so that every one could see that he had just left his anvil. He looked so unfriendly, that those who met him did not care to accost him. It was about the time in the forenoon when the Waltheim children were let out of school. He walked past the schoolhouse, which stood in an open square in the middle of the village, as if some errand ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... before them, and in the midst of the glade three pavilions set, each of red sendal, that shone in the morning. In the first pavilion slept seven knights, and in the second a score of damsels, but by the door of the third stood a lady, fair and tall, in a robe of samite, who, as they drew near to accost her, inquired ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Post was peculiarly well informed. A noble Lord who held a high office, and who, though the most pompous, was not the wisest of mankind, was habitually a victim to a certain journalist of known enterprise, who used to waylay him outside Downing Street and accost him with jaunty confidence: "Well, Lord——, so you have settled on so-and-so after all?" The noble lord, astonished that the Cabinet's decision was already public property, would reply, "As you know so much, there can be no harm in telling the rest"; and the journalist, grinning like a dog, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... With sudden blaze diffus'd, inflames the Aire: So started up in his own shape the Fiend. Back stept those two fair Angels half amaz'd 820 So sudden to behold the grieslie King; Yet thus, unmovd with fear, accost him soon. Which of those rebell Spirits adjudg'd to Hell Com'st thou, escap'd thy prison, and transform'd, Why satst thou like an enemie in waite Here watching at the head of these that sleep? Know ye not then said Satan, filld with scorn, Know ye not me? ye knew me once no mate For you, there ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... exposed space in order to reach it before George could come up with her. She realised with a quiver of alarm that it was the first time in all these months that he had ventured to approach her. It was clear that he now meant to accost her,—he might even contemplate violence! She wanted to run, but her feet refused to obey the impulse. Fascinated she watched the unsteady figure lurching toward her, and the white face growing more and more distinct and forbidding as it came out of the darkness. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... tossed the driver his fare—he always paid liberally—and let himself in with his latch-key. To Mrs. Hamlyn's astonishment, she had seen the woman dart from her standing-place to the middle of the road, evidently to look at or to accost Mr. Hamlyn. But his movements were too quick: he was within in a moment and had closed the outer door. She then ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... moody silence and even rigid bearing of these persons, which inspired me with a feeling rather of awe than suspicion. It might be that they were retainers of the duke; but then, if any ambuscade or foul play was intended, why give such palpable warning of it? I resolved to accost them. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... Oldeb—to whom I became much attached at Calcutta, during the administration of Warren Hastings. I was then only twenty years old. When I first saw you, Mr. Bedloe, at Saratoga, it was the miraculous similarity which existed between yourself and the painting which induced me to accost you, to seek your friendship, and to bring about those arrangements which resulted in my becoming your constant companion. In accomplishing this point, I was urged partly, and perhaps principally, by a regretful memory of the deceased, but also, in part, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... I will accost her, and will address her thus: 'I was young— madly in love, I possessed, however, sufficient respect to throw myself at your feet, and to prostrate myself in the dust, if your looks had not raised me to your hand. I fancied I understood your looks, I rose, and then, without having done anything ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... are from the forehead they adorn.[1] Dante thought them only reflected faces, and turned round to see to whom they belonged, when his smiling companion set him right; and he entered into discourse with the spirit that seemed the most anxious to accost him. It was Piccarda, the sister of his friend Forese Donati, whom he had met in the sixth region of Purgatory. He did not know her, by reason of her wonderful increase in beauty. She and her associates ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... home," and mentally I thought "if he had ever sung like that when he was at home they were probably glad he had left." The scene was sickening and disgusting to me, but empty stomachs stand not on ceremony, so I turned around and was just about to accost the proprietor, when Biff! I felt a stinging whack between my shoulders. Quickly I faced about, all the risibility of my red headed nature coming to the surface, and there I saw a big handsome chap standing in front of me. Six feet tall, broad-shouldered, straight, lithe limbs, denoting herculean ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... youngest brother and his descendants should be inferior to the others and make obeisance to them, while the others promised to treat him almost as their equal and give him a share in all the offerings to the dead. The Pardhans or Patharias are the descendants of the youngest brother and they accost the Gonds with the greeting 'Babu Johar,' or 'Good luck, sir.' The Gonds return the greeting by saying 'Pathari Johar,' or 'How do you do, Pathari.' Curiously enough Johar is also the salutation sent by a Rajput chief to an inferior landholder, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... he dropped his hands with a lost gesture as I left him. I was sufficiently moved to accost the warder who ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... homecraft, were it not more wise No longer to refuse to turn your eyes Towards the suitors brave who, now your days Of mourning are accomplished, fix their gaze Upon your goings? Verily now 'twere right That you should each a noble Moabite Espouse, till, with another's love accost, Your childless grief in motherhood be lost. And I, why should I tarry longer here To be a burden on you year by year? Kinsfolk and friends have I at Bethlehem Where plenty reigns; I will go back to them—" ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... a short pipe of very strong tobacco, and speaking to no one. He had been there for some time, and the girl in the office was watching him with eyes round with curiosity. For he had not even said "Good morning" to her. She wanted to accost him, but somehow the hunch of his shoulders was too discouraging even for her. So she contented herself ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... prepared for any thing that might happen. I was disappointed. The baron, looking very cheerful and very happy, made his appearance from the temple which he had so recently profaned, and walked steadily and quietly away. I followed him, and in the excitement of the moment was about to approach and accost him, when he suddenly turned into a narrow lane, and I lost sight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... say, articulate, enunciate, express, talk; discourse, address, declaim, harangue, preach, lecture, rant, descant, expatiate; accost, address; declare, publish, proclaim, announce, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... bed, an hour later; yet I certainly went with an unquiet anticipation that I should find that child in no peaceful sleep. The forewarning of my instinct was but fulfilled, when I discovered her, all cold and vigilant, perched like a white bird on the outside of the bed. I scarcely knew how to accost her; she was not to be managed like another child. She, however, accosted me. As I closed the door, and put the light on the dressing- table, she turned tome with these words:—"I cannot—cannot sleep; and in this ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... the train, some hurrying to catch other trains, some stopping to greet friends and acquaintances; there was a general rushing to and fro, the clamor of well-bred voices, the calling out of names in surprised accost, the frou-frou of gowns and the fragrance of flowers, in ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... Jack, "since you saw my friend—for otherwise you could not have observed his strong general resemblance to the person whom you are so anxious to meet—will you permit me to suggest that obviously the proper thing for you to have done was to accost him when the opportunity presented itself to you, instead of following me. Before I answer your question I am afraid I must ask you to favour me with your card, as a guarantee of your bona fides, ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... the object of art, then the material of the sculptor should be wax, and not marble. Every visitor mistakes the sitting figure of Cobbett, in Madame Tussaud's collection of wax-works, for a real man, and will very likely, as we did, speak to it. But who would accost the Moses of Michael Angelo, or believe the sitting Medici in his chapel to ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... to be sent down by the various academies were diligently prosecuted to the great neglect of debates and essays, now join issue with an adroitness on the part of their respective members which gives great promise for political life. Committees at the station-house await the arrival of every train, accost every individual of right age and verdancy; and, having ascertained that he is not a city clerk nor a graduate, relapsed into his ante-academic state, offer their services as amateur porters, guides, or tutors, according to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... the little house on the westerly slope, where lived Dame Ransom, Lucy's bowed and wrinkled grandmother. Mark wondered not a little where the midshipman had been; but as he still retained the memory of the old quarrel, he did not accost him, and presently thought no more of it. Reaching the house, he got some dry clothes and then went home with bounding steps. The earth was never so beautiful nor the sky so benign. The cloud of doubt had furled off and left his heaven blue. He had spoken and found that the dream of his boyhood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... bridge Da Souza saw him accost a policeman, and brushing close by, heard him ask the same question. The man shook his ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... have no effect upon my nervous system—still was I doomed to torment, and was very sick indeed. For some time I had been watched by the evil eyes of one, whom the Yankees would designate, as almighty ugly. He was a thin, spare man, whose accost I could well have spared, for he had the look of a demon, and, as I soon found, was possessed with the demon of politics. Imagine what I must have suffered when I found out that he was a button-holder to boot. Observing that I was the only one who was ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... the collar of his shirt, and flung it into a hedge, he ventured to accost a respectable carpenter at a pale fence, about a mile this side of Brentford, to whom his deplorable situation now induced him to apply for work. The man did not wish himself to hire, but said that if he (Israel) understood farming or gardening, he might perhaps procure ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... been very polite and chivalrous to her. But their voices and their manner of speaking had been rough; and it is one thing, Lorraine reflected, to mingle with made-up villains—even to be waylaid and kidnapped and tied to trees and threatened with death—but it is quite different to accost rough-speaking men in the dark when you know they are not being rough to suit the director of ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... by herself, and did not like to associate with other people. Only along toward autumn did she become restless and impatient; about that time of the year she would talk to herself a great deal, and would often accost people of her own accord, especially strangers who happened to be passing through the village. For she was anxious to find out whether the masons from this or that place had yet returned home for the winter, and whether they had brought news of her John. While she was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... polite acquaintances accost each other, they pause before meeting and each shakes his own hand; (a much neater and more refined custom ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.

... knight resumed, anxious to discover his own advantage in Droop's plans. "'Twere vain for you, a stranger to the Lord High Treasurer, to accost him with it. A very circumspect and pragmatical old lord, believe me. Not every man hath admittance to him, I promise ye. As for me, why, God 'ild you, man! 'twas but yesterday a fortnight Burleigh slapped ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... which justifies its bad reputation abroad." After a week's stay in it, such was my own opinion. Things which are tolerated in London and New York streets, are not permitted in the streets of Paris. A street-walker ventured to accost an Englishman in Paris at night, and was taken in charge by the police. But this outward fairness only indicates that in Paris, even the vices are regulated by the state. Bad women cannot make a display and accost men ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... I speak to you for a minute?" said a gaudily-dressed, vulgar-looking personage, crossing the street to accost Tom Ryfe as he emerged from the painter's house. "It's about a lady. About her ladyship, askin' your pardon. Lady Bearwarden, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... with the Burgundian knights and nobles who returned after the truce was proclaimed came Count Charles d'Estournel, and several of those who had fled with him. Guy met the former riding through the street on the day after his return to Paris. Not caring to accost him there, he followed him and saw him dismount at his former lodging. As soon as he had entered Guy ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... dressed civilians passed me, and although they appeared physically fit, I said to myself, "They don't want to Join the army; perhaps they have someone dependent on them for support," so I did not accost them. ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... and they go about with guns. They spend most of their time sitting on the lateral moraines, pretending to be chamois-hunters. When they see solitary strangers, they come down on to the glacier and accost them without introduction, their usual form of salutation being, Donnez-moi tout l'argent que vous avez? The ideal way to treat a brigand is to arrest him, drag him to the nearest police station, and give him into custody. A more practical plan is to humour him by relieving his ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... were natural, cordial, and full of a lightsome heartness that robed accost with sunshine,—a quietude withal—that rare quality —that irked them not at all—one gathered from their Indian kin-folk. Their knowledge of each other was simply universal—their kin ties almost as general. These ties were brightened and friendships reknit in the holiday season of the year, ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... the amiable girl would never have left C—— if her seducer had not given her this promise of marriage in his own handwriting. She walked as far as the barge, and she landed at the very moment I was passing the Roman gate. An inspiration from above told me to accost her and to invite her to follow me. She obeyed, as if she was fulfilling the decree of Heaven, I took her to a refuge impossible to discover, and placed her under the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... of my story, gentlemen, remains to be told. Some six weeks ago, happening, in search of a theatrical engagement, to find myself in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge, I fell in with a pedestrian whose affability of accost invited me to a closer acquaintance. He introduced himself as the Reverend Josias Micklethwaite, a student of Nature, and more particularly of the mosses and lichens of Wilts. Our liking (I have reason to believe) was mutual, and we spent a delightful ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... Cf. Napoleon's accost of Goethe, "Vous etes un homme," and "as Goethe left the room, Napoleon repeated to Berthier and Daru, 'Voila un homme!'" ("The Life ...
— Hiero • Xenophon

... move was to accost him. Pausing before the doorway in which he stood, I addressed him some trivial question. He answered me with sufficient politeness, but with a grudging attention which betrayed the hold which his ...
— A Difficult Problem - 1900 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... assert his political equality. It is his shibboleth that he is politically equal to the best, that he is independent, and that his labor, though it earn him but a dollar a day by porterage, places him as a citizen on an equal rank with the most wealthy fellow-man that may employ or accost him. But, being so inferior in that coat, hat, and boots matter, he is forced to assert his equality by some effort. As he improves in externals, he will diminish the roughness of his claim. As long as the man makes his claim with any ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... or a shoemaker's daughter, but not for you that are a gentlewoman?" "Fancy is free," quoth Peg; "I'll take my own way, do you take yours. I do not care for your flaunting beaus, that gang with their breasts open, and their sarks over their waistcoats, that accost me with set speeches out of Sidney's 'Arcadia' or the 'Academy of Compliments.' Jack is a sober, grave young man; though he has none of your studied harangues, his meaning is sincere. He has a great regard to his father's will, and he that shows himself a good son will make a good ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... "St. George be my speed!" exclaimed Jobson; "Can that be Madam Mellicent? Ah, sure enough it is her sharp wrinkled face: I never thought she would bend her stiff joints, or walk in the dirt without her riding-hood." Dr. Lloyd offered to go and accost her. "Not for your life," replied Jobson; "she never would forgive me for letting you catch her thus out of sorts. Stop behind that buttress, and I'll go and tell her there is some company coming, and when she has put ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... outer gate I drew back, leaving Jose to accost the janitor, who greeted him heartily. Then in silence we rode through the park to the courtyard, and in response to ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... Cosimo chanced upon Cammilla de' Martelli, as he passed on his way from the Pitti Palace to Castello, to dawdle with the lovely Eleanora degli Albizzi, her cousin. Something prompted the Duke to accost the maiden,—her blush and his own tremor revealed delightful possibilities quite in his way! Very warily he approached Messer Antonio. His idea was probably to keep Eleanora at the Villa del Castello, and to take Cammilla away to ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... remain in hiding behind the tree. You will hear me knock, accost the ruffians and hold them in conversation. The moment you hear me exclaim loudly, "Hey, Presto! Pots and Pans", you will dart out and engage the villains at fisticuffs. The rest leave ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay

... Pons saw M. Cardot coming towards them. Warned by Count Popinot's allocution, Pons was very careful not to accost the old acquaintance with whom he had dined once a fortnight for the last year; he lifted his hat, but the other, mayor and deputy of Paris, threw him an indignant glance and went by. ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... later we went out into the town, and I thought there was a horse-fair; I should think we met a dozen people at least who came up to accost me on the subject of buying a horse. And such a collection of animals!—wild colts from the Pustza that had never been ridden at all, and other ancient specimens from I know not where, which could never be ridden again—old, worn-out roadsters. There ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... him in another form. A lady of fifty or thereabouts was coming up the path, refined, sedate, mistress of herself, the one type of all others most difficult to accost. All the same he must do it. He must keep on doing it till some one yielded to his suit. The rebuffs to which he had been subjected did no ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... picked up his hat, and was about to step out into the darkness when the Indian girl, whom he had seen accost Harry, noiselessly entered the tent, and drawing the wet blanket from her head, said passionately, in quaint broken English, as she pointed in the direction of Shuter's store, "He go dare again—Harry—for ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... out from the arch, and his companion followed him. By the lamp-light in front I caught a view of the face as the former went out, and saw that I had not been mistaken as to the voice. I had intended, when I first knew it was Ralston, to accost him before he left, but I had now lost the desire, while my head was in that whirl and his own position seemed to be so ambiguous. He stepped toward the gateway, and, I believe, entered a carriage and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... ticket entitles you to walk on to the platform from which the Brighton train starts, and, when it is just moving out and all the tickets have been looked at, you will leap on board. This brings you to Brighton, and all you have to do there is to accost the man who takes the tickets in a voice hoarse with fury. "Look here," you will say, "I had an important business engagement at Streatham Common, worth thousands and thousands of pounds to me, and one of your fool porters ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various

... author of the Citizen of the World condescended to take some of his ideas from Pompey the Little. In Count Tag, the impoverished little fop who fancies himself a man of quality, and who begs pardon of people who accost him in the Park—"but really, Lady Betty or Lady Mary is just entering the Mall,"—we have the direct prototype of Beau Tibbs; while Mr. Rhymer, the starving poet, whose furniture consists of "the first Act ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... much of one another that they accosted one another like old acquaintances. The heart of each had broken the ice and made all the advances before they had taken the first steps. The young girl had read in the priest's eyes the wish to accost her, and he saw ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... mark of the highest literary genius. The men and women whom he has made are not stage-puppets moved by hidden strings; they are real. We know them as intimately as the friends and acquaintances who visit us, or the people whom we accost in our daily walks. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... back, biding his time, until the party had disappeared inside the ferry building. Then he hastened toward one of the exits, intent on securing a cab. He had made up his mind not to accost them; he would not present himself unexpectedly at a time and place when embarrassment to them might ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... various thoughts and fancies lost, When one, who was in shepherd's garb attired, Came up the hollow:—Him did I accost, And what this place might be ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... Station last night," Gerald declared. "I had no idea how to accost him, and as to stealing any of his belongings, I couldn't have done it. You must hear how fortune helped me, though. Mr. Dunster missed the train; so did I—purposely. He ordered a special. I asked permission to travel with him. I told him a lie as to ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... poor pathetic Louise of Prussia. Bean had already fallen in love with her face, observed in advertisements of the Queen Quality Shoe. He recalled the womanly dignity of the figure descending the shallow steps, the arch accost of the soft eyes, the dimple in the round check. She had been sent to sue him, the invader, to soften him with blandishments. He had kept her waiting like a lackey, then had sought cynically to discover how far her devotion to her country's safety would carry her. And when her pitiful ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... had never seen him before, and indeed did not really know who he was. But, quick as a flash, he thought that the ex-manager of Drury Lane must be the only living Englishman with presumption enough to accost him in this way. So he answered without hesitation, "Why, this is Mr. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... chief dish a swan roasted, and that excellent meate. At, dinner and all day very merry. After dinner to cards, where till evening, then to the office a little, and to cards again with them, and lost half-a-crowne. They being gone, my wife did tell me how my uncle did this day accost her alone, and spoke of his hoping she was with child, and kissing her earnestly told her he should be very glad of it, and from all circumstances methinks he do seem to have some intention of good to us, which I shall endeavour to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... "Who is the gentleman we accost politely?" he asked, very blandly, but behind this blandness of Cocardasse's there was something menacing to those ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... that he was guilty—when he met other robins—of boasting of his conquest of me and of my utter subjugation? I cannot believe it possible. Also I never saw other robins accost him or linger in their passage through the rose-garden to exchange civilities. And yet a very strange thing occurred on one occasion. I was sitting at my table expecting him and heard a familiar chirp. When I looked up he was atilt upon the branch of an apple tree near by. ...
— My Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... towards the woods. We meet a small boy with a tin pail and thirty-six fishes in it. We accost him. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... could neither think nor talk of anything else; so much so, that meeting Lord Thurlow hurrying through Parliament-street to get to the House of Lords, where an important debate was expected, for which he was already too late, Boswell had the temerity to stop and accost him with "Have you read my book?" "Yes," replied Lord Thurlow, with one of his strongest curses, "every word of it; ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... not resist the temptation to accost this mild and grave young beauty. Stepping forward as she was passing, he lifted his hat, and said, "Will you be good enough to tell me the way to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... curves divided the shore from the sea. After a time, she bent down, rose again, moved towards the water, and drew back. Hilda did not stir. She could not bring herself to approach the lonely figure. She felt that to go and accost Sarah Gailey would be indelicate and inexcusable. She felt as if she were basely spying. She was completely at a loss, and knew not how to act. But presently she discerned that the white foam was circling round Sarah's feet, and that Sarah was ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... father and a son, who had just performed this act of devotion, arose together, and as they gained their feet, observed their immediate predecessor in the pious act, awaiting them, as if he wished to accost them. ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... alternations of cool reserve and docile respect—now sweeping past him in all the dignity of the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him as abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors; bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power to inflict penalties ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... appeal, and my curiosity aroused, I consented, and followed the man back to a great stone-built mansion about fifty yards away. The front door in its deep portico stood open, just as the servant had left it when, apparently, he had dashed out into the street to accost the first passer-by. ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where you met me, waiting until some one shall arrive who may have power to break this magic spell. I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. I walk as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. You are the first to accost me for now three hundred years. I behold the reason. I see on your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, which is proof against all enchantment. With you it remains to deliver me from this awful dungeon, or to leave me to keep guard ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... Lady laughing next the Window to the Street; you may take her out, for she loves you as well as she does any Man, tho' she never saw you before. She never thought in her Life, any more than your self. She will not be surprised when you accost her, nor concerned when you leave her. Hasten from a Place where you are laughed at, to one where you will be admired. You are of no Consequence, therefore go where you will ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... with unconcealed wonder as he looked at the odd coin, was eager to accost Harry King at once and demand to know whence the roysterer had obtained it. In, fact, the jeweler half arose from his chair, to approach the three swaggering men in the cafe section of the grill, when Colonel Ashley laid a restraining hand on the ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele

... in thought, and the ash was getting so long, that a young student—of the age that knows no mercy-was struck by these twin phenomena. I saw him nudge a friend, hastily roll a cigarette, and, doffing his hat, accost my uncle. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... would be disposed to put me on the scent of this monster. By dint of searching, I thought I had met with a willing auxiliary, but as these Ariadnes, however ill used or forsaken they may be, yet shrink from the immolation of their betrayer, I determined to accost the damsel I met with cautiously. It was necessary, before I ventured my bark, to take soundings, and I took care not to manifest any hostility towards Winter, and not to alarm that residue of tenderness, which, despite of ill usage, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various

... d'Orleans' request, out of which therefore nothing came. The Duke meanwhile lived more abandoned by everybody than ever; if in the salon he approached a group of courtiers, each, without the least hesitation, turned to the right or to the left and went elsewhere, so that it was impossible for him to accost anybody except by surprise, and if he did so, he was left alone directly after with the most marked indecency. In a word, I was the only person, I say distinctly, the only person, who spoke to M. d'Orleans as before. Whether in his own house or in the palace I ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... practice can be devoid of disadvantages even to its beneficiaries. To foreigners it proves disastrously perplexing. For if you chance upon a man whom you have not met for some time, you can never be quite sure how to accost him. If you begin, "Well met, Green, how goes it?" as likely as not he replies, "Finely. But I am no longer Green; I have become Brown. I was adopted last month by my maternal grandfather." You of course apologize ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... voices within, male and female, ineffectually endeavouring to persuade the heavy-headed Cerberus to relinquish his keys. It would have been a choice moment for our friends, had any of them wished to accost us; but either they had not observed us, or perhaps they thought that C—-n walking so late must have been armed; or perhaps, more charitable construction, they had profited by ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... not intended for my ears. It happened in this wise: I had been down-stairs on an errand for Mrs. Harrington, and was coming back through the dimly lighted hall, when I saw Dwight Pollard step out of a room in front of me and accost a man that was locking ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... weird," said March, faltering at the sight. "I wonder if we might ask these young ladies where to go?" General Triscoe made no answer, and was apparently no more prepared than himself to accost the files of danseuses, when they were themselves accosted by an angry voice from the head of the stairs with a demand for their business. The voice belonged to a gendarme, who descended toward them and seemed as deeply scandalized at their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... diction of Poet BURNS in my fingers' ends) I did genially accost the first native I met in the street of Kilpaitrick, complimenting him upon his honest, sonsie face, and enquiring whether he had wha-haed wi' Hon'ble WALLACE, and was to bruise the Peckomaut, or ca' the knowes to the yowes. But, from the intemperance ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... the corner of a road beyond. He checked his pace,—a lady alighted,—it was she! She turned into the cross-street, darkened with the shadows of some low suburban tenement houses, and he boldly followed. He was fully determined to find out her secret, and even, if necessary, to accost her for that purpose. He was perfectly aware what he was doing, and all its risks and penalties; he knew the audacity of such an introduction, but he felt in his left-hand pocket for the sprig of fern ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... with my hands before me, all patience, all resignation; for I think I hear him coming up. Or shall I roundly accost him, in the words, in the form, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... did think Tempest might have been on the look- out for me. I did not know where to go, or of whom to inquire my way. The boys I met either took no notice of me at all, or else stared so rudely at my hat and boots that I could not bring myself to accost them. At length I was beginning to think I had better march boldly to the first master's house I came to, when, as luck would have it, I stumbled up against my old travelling companion, who, having safely arrived a quarter of an hour before, was ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... innocence of conduct or explanation so explicit as to satisfy any ordinary man, becomes evidence of more subtle guilt to the mind of a bank official. The ordinary citizen, seeing the Lieutenant finally overtake and accost the hurrying girl, raise his cap, then pour into her outstretched hand the gold he had taken, would have known at once that here was an every-day exercise of natural politeness. Not so the cashier. The farther he got from the bank, the more poignantly ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... of Flies you will find them,' said the Sheik, 'and late at night. There are always some of his people walking there. Seek out such a man as you have seen, and without fear accost him after his fashion, kissing him and saying, "Ah, Ali. Ah, Abdallah, servant ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... reproached for toadying the newspapers, for allying himself with their enemies and wheedling sexagenarian baronesses, to fall upon Claude, who now became the great culprit. Well, after all, the other was only a hussy, one of the many found in the artistic fraternity, fellows who accost the public at street corners, leave their comrades in the lurch, and victimise them so as to get the bourgeois into their studios. But Claude, that abortive great artist, that impotent fellow who couldn't set a figure on its legs in spite of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... three days and in Park Lane in a week. I was, therefore, about to return an evasive answer, when he saved my conscience by leaving me suddenly and darting across the platform. Following him with my eyes, I saw him lift his hat and accost a graceful, fashionably dressed woman who had just appeared from the booking-office. She was, perhaps, a year or two over thirty, tall, dark, and of rather full figure. As George talked, I saw her glance at me, and my vanity was hurt by the thought that, muffled ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... looked at him in surprise. "She has gone into the woods somewhere, with Tyrker; but surely you would not be so mad as to accost her, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... had set after them, with intent to accost Calendar; but their pace had been swift and his irresolute. He hung fire on the issue, dreading to reveal himself, unable to decide which were the better course, to pursue the men, or to wait and discover what Mrs. Hallam was about. In the end he waited; and had his disappointment ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... in their build and in their manner of speech. The accost and the reply sounded like reports from the same pistol. The old man was tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular—a grey edition of the son, upon whose disorderly attire he cast a glance, while speaking, with settled disgust. Robert's necktie streamed loose; his hair ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... with a cocked ear, and smiled as he thought how easy it would be to stroll down the road to where the singing girl was, and accost her pleasantly: "So he's in Holland, is he? That's the queer and foolish place for him to be, and I here!" There would be banter, quick and smart as a whip, a scuffle, a clumsily placed kiss, laughter, another scuffle, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... traitor, I say, and her eyes darted fire beneath a bristling palisade of iron curling-pins. She had not the heart in these days to free her imprisoned tresses. The villain had the perishing nerve to accost her, jauntily touching the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... gentleman, after remaining in his room a few minutes, takes his wife or his daughter, or whomever he may have travelling with him, and goes out from the door of the hotel, he is pretty sure to be met near the door by one or more of these men, who accost ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott

... the thought that occurred to him, but it was only a passing thought. It vanished in a moment as he heard her accost Bathurst. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... when passion overwhelms us all. But at that moment I heard the soft rustle of a dress, and wheeled to face the fair young wife of Lieutenant Helm. It was plain she had been weeping; but De Croix, ever quicker than I in such matters, was first to accost her in words of courtesy. A pretty face to him ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... went everywhere on the towers, ever urging, and arousing the courage of the Achaians. One they would accost with honeyed words, another with hard words they would rebuke, whomsoever they saw utterly giving ground from the fight: "O friends, whosoever is eminent, or whosoever is of middle station among the Argives, ay, or lower yet, for in no wise are all men equal in war, now is there ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... by your eyes, if I saw nothing more of your face but your eyes,—I should know you to the last day of your life," said she. She was always talking about my eyes. She had seen me several times, but had not dared to accost me she said. I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... him, he would have hurried past them and called to the man to stop—not an unusual thing with him when his suspicions were aroused. Instead, he waited until he was well down the stairs, then strolled carelessly toward the door, intending to make some excuse to accost the man on the sidewalk. Not that he had any definite conviction regarding his likeness to the man he wanted; more to satisfy his conscience that he had permitted no clew to slip ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... council finally broke up, Moses took leave of his sister with fraternal affection. She knew that he was in the act of plunging into fresh dangers and—in the modest manner in which she was always wont to accost the brother who so far surpassed all others in every gift of mind and body,—expressed her anxiety. He looked into her eyes with friendly reproach and raised his right hand toward heaven; but she understood his meaning, and kissing his hand ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... early in the morning, strolled along the banks of the murmuring stream on her road to a wealthy weaver's. The young fellows saluted the fair one as they greeted no other. No one ventured, however, to accost her with unseemly speeches—a kind of thing, by the way, that young men at all times are very prone to. Maud was treated by every one like a saint. Maidens even, her equals in years, prized her highly; and in no way envied her the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... experiences, please allow me to relate an incident that occurred on the train. In a seat almost parallel with the one we occupied sat two women, one of whom was richly dressed. She repeatedly looked my way. Her face seemed familiar. Presently I ventured to accost her with that fact. She smilingly replied: "Of course it is. I'm —— ——. You came to my house in Santa Cruz dressed in a Salvation Army bonnet. If it hadn't have been for that, you would never have got in. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... gone, Miss Rottenmeier explained to Heidi with many signs how to help herself at table. She also told her never to speak to Sebastian unless it was important. After that the child was told how to accost the servants and the governess. When the question came up of how to call Clara, the older girl said, "Of course you shall ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri

... circumstances, and when he heard how it had come about, he determined, if the opportunity should present itself again, to show his most amiable side to the old beggar with the miraculous power of blessing. He had not long to wait. A few days later he saw the old man pass by. He hastened to accost him, and, excusing himself for his unfriendliness at their former meeting, begged him to come into his house. All that the larder afforded was put before Elijah, who pretended to eat of the dainties. At his departure, he pronounced a blessing upon ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... her illness. I did so. He was in a mean shop, whose whole contents had been displayed in thick festoons, of jackets, shirts, and pantaloons, on the outside, where a man was pacing to and fro upon the pavement, whose vocation it was to accost and convert into a purchaser every passer-by who chanced even to look, at his goods. I was most unfavorably impressed with all that I saw about the shop. When I went in, the impression deepened. There sat the proprietor in his shirt-sleeves, a vulgar-looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various



Words linked to "Accost" :   approach, recognize, come up, recognise, come up to, offer, solicit, address



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