Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Ruff   Listen
verb
Ruff  v. i. & v. t.  (Card Playing) To trump.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Ruff" Quotes from Famous Books



... his hand to help her to rise, for she was ready dressed in the most magnificent clothes, though he took care not to observe that they were cut on the pattern of those of his grandmother, and that she wore a ruff, which was not now in fashion, but she looked quite as beautiful as if her dress had ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous

... the cook's shop. Then with a presidential majesty holding his bauble sceptre-like in his hand, muffling his head with a hood of marten skins, each side whereof had the resemblance of an ape's face sprucified up with ears of pasted paper, and having about his neck a bucked ruff, raised, furrowed, and ridged with pointing sticks of the shape and fashion of small organ pipes, he first with all the force of his lungs coughed two or three times, and then with an audible voice pronounced this following sentence: The court declareth that the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... one round yellow spot in the middle and a dirty white smudge under the spot. There are members of this family—Aunt Eleanour, for instance—who tell me the yellow spot is a man's face and the dirty white smudge is an Elizabethan ruff. Then there is a picture of a man in armour in the oak room, which I don't believe is a portrait at all; but Aunt Henrietta swears it is, and of the ghost, too—as he was before he died, of course. And very interesting details both my aunts are ready to furnish concerning ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer

... green, and the red last, and yet you will give me the first which comes.—He's a handsome lord, that Duke of Portland; he was one of the bon—before King William went over and conquered England, and he was made a lord for his valour.—My ruff, Babette. The Dutch are a brave nation. My bustle now.—How much beer did you give the officers? Mind you take care of everything while I am gone. I shall be home by nine, I dare say. I suppose they are going to try him now, that he may be hanged at sunrise. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... dining-room. William the Silent was dressed upon that day, according to his usual custom, in very plain fashion. He wore a wide-leaved, loosely shaped hat of dark felt, with a silken cord round the crown,—such as had been worn by the Beggars in the early days of the revolt. A high ruff encircled his neck, from which also depended one of the Beggars' medals, with the motto, 'Fideles au roy jusqu'a la besace,' while a loose surcoat of gray frieze cloth, over a tawny leather doublet, with wide slashed underclothes ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... nothing else; that there man in the night-cap, with the red ruff round his neck, is Sail's fancy man, and he sometimes lets her have a cargo of fish for services done and performed, you understand—and so Sail she comes down this morning, and she finds Poll having a phililoo with him, that's ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... for her digester, and if I only had one dropped in water," she said, and quick as thought Maude brought her one, while Hannah growled again, "Ole marster 'll raise de ruff, case he put 'em ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... themselves of difficult search after the mere truth. The public who imposed these laws, this exacting public of women who read Plutarch and Plato, who judged the merits of great men as learnedly as the cut of a ruff, found at the very moment they most wanted him the author who could please them in the person of a novel writer, the famous Lyly. At twenty-five years of age, John Lyly, a protege of Lord Burghley, who was ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... all was still; and now it seemed Power brooded on the silence, and Drake saw A woman come to meet him,—tall and pale And proud she seemed: behind her head two wings As of some mighty phantom butterfly Glimmered with jewel-sparks in the gold gloom. Her small, pure, grey-eyed face above her ruff Was chiselled like an agate; and he knew It was the Queen. Low bent he o'er her hand; And "Ah," she said, "Sir Francis Walsingham Hath told me what an English heart beats here! Know you what injuries the King ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... scarlet patch. Close to the eye there is a silvery blue mark, and above it part of the skin is blue and part scarlet. The bill is orange and black, and those curious lumps or carbuncles on its forehead are rich orange. At the lower part of the neck it wears a black ruff. The wing feathers and tail are black, and the lower part of the body white, and the rest a fine grey ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... represent her so upon canvass. Her effigies are, I believe, pretty numerous, varying in ugliness, but none that I have seen even handsome—prettiness, of course, is out of the question. She was fond of finery, but had no taste in dress. Her ruff is downright odious; and the liberal exposure of her neck and bosom anything but alluring. With all her pearls about her, she looks like a pawnbroker's lady bedizened for an Easter ball, with all the unredeemed pledges from her husband's shop. She seems to have patronized that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various

... the author and his friend M.G. sat cheerful and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John Philip Kemble, at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a piece—the protasis—should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... favourite, one admitted to his privacy (no uncommon word in Jeremy Taylor and Fuller), has quite disappeared; so too has 'quirpo' (cuerpo), the name given to a jacket fitting close to the body; 'quellio' (cuello), a ruff or neck-collar; and 'matachin', the title of a sword-dance; these are all frequent in our early dramatists; and 'flota' was the constant name of the treasure-fleet from the Indies. 'Intermess' is employed by Evelyn, and is the ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... took a dish, and gave me one spoonful of samp, and bid me take as much of the broth as I would. Then I put some of the hot water to the samp, and drank it up, and my spirit came again. He gave me also a piece of the ruff or ridding of the small guts, and I broiled it on the coals; and now may I say with Jonathan, "See, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because I tasted a little of this honey" (1 Samuel 14.29). Now is my ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

... someone else sees him, er another one, an' he recollects that he heard tell of a monstr'us big wolf er dog, he cain't recollect which, so he splits the difference an' makes him half-dog an' half-wolf, an' he adds a big ruff onto his neck fer good measure, an' tells it 'round. After that yo' kin bet that every tin-horn that gits within twenty mile of Spur Mountain will see him, an' each time he gits bigger, an' his ruff gits bigger. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... teeth, like a hare's, in a tiny little mouth, with a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, and painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink ribbons, a high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella slippers with red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue satin, with a sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was precisely the costume in which she was arrayed ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... went out to do some necessary shopping. When I got back my mother was gone. She had received a bogus note, written I presume by Crabtree, asking her to come to me at once, as I had been taken sick in one of the stores. I immediately hired a detective, Mr. Ruff here, and we tracked Mr. Crabtree to ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield

... was in the turn of arm and shoulder under the close-fitting purple cloth! He was artistically thankful that there was no other trimming of the straight bodice than the line of buttons that descended from the full white ruff of swansdown at her throat, to her delicate, trim waist. Her unconscious stateliness of girlish form, and the conscious shyness of her manner, were the ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett

... glance of intelligence. He looked at each mask,—harlequin, ape, bulbous-headed monster, or anything that was absurdest,—not knowing but that the messenger might come, even in such fantastic guise. Or perhaps one of those quaint figures, in the stately ruff, the cloak, tunic, and trunk-hose of three centuries ago, might bring him tidings of Hilda, out of that long-past age. At times his disquietude took a hopeful aspect; and he fancied that Hilda might come by, her own sweet self, in some shy disguise ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... escape persecution. In each of the great islands of the Austro-Malayan region there is a distinct species of Tropidorhynchus, and there is always along with it an oriole that exactly mimics it. All the Tropidorhynchi have a patch of bare black skin round the eyes, and a ruff of curious pale recurved feathers on the nape, whence their name of Friar-birds, the ruff being supposed to resemble the cowl of a friar. These peculiarities are imitated in the orioles by patches of feathers of corresponding colours; while the different tints of ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... lovingly, when Colonel Purefoy entered, heading the little procession,—a tall, erect, soldierly-looking man, though his hair was decidedly grey, and grey too was the pointed beard that he still wore over a small ruff, in the fashion of ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... coolness in engrossing it to the end of the dinner. This was the old Marechal de Bassompierre; he had preserved with his white locks an air of youth and vivacity curious to see. His noble and polished manners showed a certain gallantry, antiquated like his costume—for he wore a ruff in the fashion of Henri IV, and the slashed sleeves fashionable in the former reign, an absurdity which was unpardonable in the eyes of the beaux of the court. This would not have appeared more singular than anything else at present; but it is admitted that in every ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... pillow, and in the coffin lay Philip the Fourth, with his head on the pillow, upon it a white beaver hat, his head combed, his beard trimmed, his face and hands painted. He was clothed in a musk colour silk suit, embroidered with gold, a golilla (or ruff) about his neck, cuffs on his hands, which were clasped on his breast, holding a globe and a cross on it therein; his cloak was of the same, with his sword by his side; stockings, garters, and shoe- strings of the same, and ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... would, at a single glance, have detected the sensible woman, in the erect head, the compressed lips, square elbows, and firm judicious step. Even her very garments seemed to partake of the prevailing character of their mistress: her ruff always looked more sensible than any other body's; her shawl sat most sensibly on her shoulders; her walking shoes were acknowledged to be very sensible; and she drew on her gloves with an air of sense, as if ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... out before, ole 'oman," he replied; "got a good ruff over de head now. Guess de white massar ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... liked the glass doors opening to the gardens at the end, and trees in full leaf. The proportions of this room are excellent, and everything but the ceiling, which is too plain. The busts of Bacon and Newton excellent; but that of Bacon looks more like a courtier than a philosopher: his ruff is elegantly plaited in white marble. By Cipriani's painted window, with its glorious anachronisms, we were much amused; and I regret that it is not recorded in Irish Bulls. It represents the presentation of Sir Isaac Newton to His Majesty George the Third, seated on his throne, and Bacon ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... no less magnificent. She wore a dress, with a train, of silver brocade covered with gold bees; her shoulders were bare, but on her arms were tight sleeves embroidered with gold, the upper part adorned, with diamonds, and fastened to them was a lace ruff worked with gold which rose behind half up her head. The tight-fitting dress had no waist, after the fashion of the time, but she wore a gold ribbon as a girdle, set with thirty-nine pink gems. Her bracelets, ear-rings, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... the throng and looked about her. Close at hand a tall, swaggering fellow was loafing about. He was dressed in yellow from head to foot, save where his doublet and hose were slashed with dirty red at elbows, shoulders, and hips. A dirty ruff was around his neck, and on his head he wore a great shapeless ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... red tissue-paper flowers in Tonto's wreath, and tied red tissue-paper streamers to the goat's horns. They put a green ruff around the cat's neck, and a red one on the dog; but the dog ran at once to the river and waded in and got it all wet, and the color ran out and dyed his coat, and the ruff fell off, before they were ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... fat farmer, repeating annually the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear, into an old gallery, that has not been glazed since Queen Elizabeth, and under the nose of an infant Duke and Duchess, that will understand you no more than if you wore a ruff and a coif, and talk to them of a call of Serjeants the year of the Spanish Armada! Your wit and humour will be as much lost upon them, as if you talked the dialect of Chaucer; for with all the divinity of wit, it grows out of fashion like a fardingale. I am convinced that ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... nothing about Aunt Kate Sherwood suggesting a softening of her hard lines. Her plain, ugly print dress was cut low at the throat, and had no collar or ruff to hide the scar. Nan's gaze was fastened on that blemish before she was half way to the door, and she could see nothing ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... Cardoville resembled that day one of those proud portraits of Velasquez, with stern and noble aspect. Her gown was of black moire, with wide swelling petticoat, long waist, and sleeve slashed with rose-colored satin, fastened together with jet bugles. A very stiff, Spanish ruff reached almost to her chin, and was secured round her neck by a broad rose-colored ribbon. This frill, slightly heaving, sloped down as far as the graceful swell of the rose-colored stomacher, laced with strings of jet beads, and terminating ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... corselet, bodice, girdle &c. (circle) 247; stomacher; petticoat, panties; under waistcoat; jock[for men], athletic supporter, jockstrap. sweater, jersey; cardigan; turtleneck, pullover; sweater vest. neckerchief, neckcloth[obs3]; tie, ruff, collar, cravat, stock, handkerchief, scarf; bib, tucker; boa; cummerbund, rumal[obs3], rabat[obs3]. shoe, pump, boot, slipper, sandal, galoche[obs3], galoshes, patten, clog; sneakers, running shoes, hiking boots; high-low; Blucher boot, wellington ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... of which, and seals, there are enough to supply the navy of England. Among the birds one was very remarkable; the head resembled that of an eagle, except that it had a large comb upon it; round the neck there was a white ruff, exactly resembling a lady's tippet; the feathers on the back were as black as jet, and as bright as the finest polish could render that mineral; the legs were remarkably strong and large, the talons were like those of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... corpse-like than the queerly foreshortened dead body in the picture on anatomy at The Hague. The warrior's head, supposed to be a portrait of his father, is an ancient copy and a capital one. Old dame Elizabeth Bas, with her coif, ruff, and folded hands, holding a handkerchief, is a picture you return to each day of ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... pearls, from which three pear-shaped pearls depend. And, finally, she has large pearl-tassel earrings. In the Henham Hall portrait (engraved in vol. vii. of Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England), the ruff is confined by a collar of pearls, rubies, &c., set in a gold filagree pattern, with large pear shaped pearls depending from each lozenge. The sleeves are ornamented with rouleaus, wreathed with pearls and bullion. The lappets of her head-dress also are adorned at every "crossing" with a large ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various

... in the ruff over there? That is Mary Darragh, Lady Benneville, my bitterest, bitterest enemy! See how she smiles at me! Deceitful minx! When I tell you all you will surely take her out of the room and fling her into the fire! For sixty years she has hung there taunting me. They brought ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... very brilliant in the billowy silken skirts, puffed sleeves, tight bodice, and wide ruff of Queen Elizabeth, and carried off well the character of that hot-tempered majesty, making no effort to disguise the fact that she was ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... it is that we are needing now: The spring, the spring! These stifling fumes we bear Of royal incense and of monkish snuff, Of corpses in romantic cloak and ruff, Are bad for morals and for ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... laughed. "Mortimer bet? That's rich. We call him 'Old Solemnity' in the bank; but he doesn't mean any harm by it—he just can't help it, that's all. If he had a stiff ruff about his neck, you could pose him for a picture of one of those old ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... out in company of three or four ministers to the bishop's dwelling, but no sooner had the little party stepped into the street than they were surrounded by 'hundreds of enraged women with fists and staves and peats, but no stones. They beat him sore; his cloak, ruff, hat were rent. He escaped all bloody wounds, yet he was in great danger even ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... the prairie-dog town we found a settlement of five white men. They Proved to be the two Clifford brothers, Arthur Ruff, Dick Seymour, and John Nelson. To the last I have already referred. Each of these men had a squaw for a wife and numerous half-breed children. They lived in tents of buffalo skins. They owned a herd of horses and ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... downstairs nervously. She was wearing a new net blouse that she thought became her. It had a high collar with a tiny ruff, reminding her of Mary, Queen of Scots, and making her, she thought, look wonderfully a woman, and dignified. At twenty she was full-breasted and luxuriously formed. Her face was still like a soft rich mask, unchangeable. But her eyes, once lifted, were wonderful. She was ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... woman's (and man's) neck is lost in a ruff, her sweeping locks, instead of parted on her brow, entwined with pearls or other gems to frame her face and make long lines down the length of her robe, are huddled under grotesque head-dresses, monstrous creations, rising and spreading until they ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank

... Boswell, "and it's rather amusing to watch them at it, too. Xanthippe with her Greek clothes finds it rather difficult; but for rare sport you ought to see Queen Elizabeth trying to keep her eye on the ball over her ruff! It really is one of the ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs

... my ruff looks so nice," said Ruth, with gentle pleasure. And indeed it did look nice, and set off the pretty round throat most becomingly. Her hair, now grown long and thick, was smoothed as close to her head as its waving nature ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new; Endless labour all along, Endless labour to be wrong; Phrase that time has flung away, Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... other ruff-island-like curs fetcht from among the Antipodes, which bite and barke at the fantasticall humourist and abuses of the time. 0 ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... man as big as himself, clad wholly in black, save for a stiff cambric ruff worn rather fuller than the fashion. He was heavily booted, and sat sideways on a settle with his left hand tucked in his belt and a great right elbow on the board. Something in his pose, half rustic, half braggart, seemed familiar to Gaspard. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... accustomed to assume and to guess everything, had their eyes centered on a masked woman, a woman whom no one else could identify. They, and certain habitual frequenters of the opera balls, could alone recognize under the long shroud of the black domino, the hood and falling ruff which make the wearer unrecognizable, the rounded form, the individuality of figure and gait, the sway of the waist, the carriage of the head—the most intangible trifles to ordinary eyes, but to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... friend of him for life, now," she said as they seated themselves, Duke stationing himself at her side in such a manner as to show his snow-white vest and great double ruff to the best possible advantage. "He is a very aristocratic dog, and if any one fails to show him what he considers proper respect, ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... cried the boy, joyfully burying his face in the sable ruff of the dog's neck. In response to his voice, the door of the cabin was thrown open and a tall youth of nineteen stepped out, hesitating as he saw the group below. Jeremy shook off the collie ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... there arose a baying and barking, a snarling and howling and growling, a yelping and squealing and bawling for which no words can be found. Now and again a dog nosed among a thousand smells and scented his master; the ruff of his neck stood up like a hog's bristles and a netty ridge prickled along his spine. Then with red eyes, with bared fangs, with a hoarse, deep snort and growl he rushed at the cave, and then he halted and sneaked back again with all his ruffles smoothed, his tail between his legs, ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... "Chust let me see Rudolph vonce, und I vill vander avay." So den Rudolph comes oud, und she vants to rush of his arms, but dot pluddy fool voodent allow dot. He chucks her avay, und says, "Don'd you touch me, uf you please, you deceitfulness gal." I dold you vot it is, dot looks ruff for dot poor gal. Und she is extonished, und says, "Vot is dis aboud dot?" Und Rudolph, orful mad, says, "Got oudsiedt, you ignomonous vooman." Und she feels so orful she coodent said a ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... to wear a sort of ruff round the neck, composed of the longest white hair of the deerskin, hanging down over the bosom in a manner very becoming to young people. It seemed to afford so little additional warmth to persons already well clothed, that I am inclined rather to attribute their wearing it to some superstitious ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... on the floor of Anne's room, then the soft padding of naked feet, and Anne stood beside him in her white nightgown. Her hair rose in a black ruff round her head, her eyes were very black in the sharp ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... exactly such a one as Sir Robert says they would have admired; a picture probably in a tawdry frame, representing Queen Bess, just as queens were always painted then, bedizened with 'browches, pearls, and owches,' satin and ruff, and probably with crown on head and sceptre in hand, made up, as likely as not, expressly for the purpose for which it was used. In the name of all simplicity and honesty, I ask, why is Raleigh to be accused ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... one bit nasty!" flamed Dick, burying the grubby fingers of his right hand protectively in the fluffy mass of the puppy's half-grown ruff. "She's the dandiest dog ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... of his unpopularity be taken prisoner by his own bloodthirsty people, he went on board and gave himself up to the captain of one of our ships of the line, a seventy-four called the Bellerophon. I remember that owing to that event she was very commonly known amongst us as the "Billy Ruff'un," and we used to aggravate the people not a little on our march into the city, by singing, "God save Buonaparte, who has fled and given himself up to the Billy Ruff'uns," in opposition to their cry of "God save the king;" thousands of them having come out with white cockades in their ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... skilfully that they are perfectly supple, compose their shirt or coat, which is girt round the waist with a belt, and reaches half way down the thigh. Their moccasins and leggins are generally sewn together, and the latter meet the belt to which they are fastened. A ruff or tippet surrounds the neck, and the skin of the deer's head is formed into a ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous

... so near, that he was under the necessity of taking the road for Llandu; and leaving those covers on the left, he returned much fatigued, near to the place where he was first started. He then went through a large cover called Cowman's Ruff, and back to Llanymynech hill; and in a lime quarry there, he stopped for his little pursuers, who, having run him in view under that hill, opposite the village of Llanymynech, he ascended a craggy rock, and got ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... church with my host. The congregation, including their pastor, wore the costume of the middle ages; it was a most curious and interesting sight. I am never a good hand at describing the details of dress, but I know my impression was that the pastor—wearing a ruff, I think, or something like it—might just have walked out of a picture, such as one knows so well of the old Puritans in Cromwell's time. The dress of the peasants, though unlike the English fashion ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... fort of posts and poles saved from ruined lodges, which the Iroquois had built for themselves, adding a ruff of freshly chopped trees, the two white men sat down in a ring of glowering savages. Six packs of beaver skins were piled ready for the oration; and the ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... oven didn't set the ruff afire! Sunthin was the matter with that chimbly, and your uncle fixed it e'enamost a month ago. I don't know nothin' what he did to it. Mebbe there was a hole in that chimbly—For massy sake! What's ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... into wicked Faustinas and vulgar Anonymas long enough with their frizzes and short curls and "banging," as the square-cut straight lock on the forehead is called. Let us see the Madonna brow once more. The high ruff, the sleeve to the elbow, the dress cut to show the figure, all bring-back the days of our great-grandmothers: the opera is filled with Copley's portraits. The bonnets, too, are delightfully large, with long feathers. Every new fashion brings out a new crop ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... lernt how to make white oak split chair bottoms. I made all kinds baskets. We had all sizes and kinds of baskets. When they git old they turn dark. Shuck bottom chairs last longer but they kinner ruff ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... of?" "Why, Spencer!" said he; "I've read the Monody he wrote on the occasion, and a very pretty thing it is." This led to an explanation (it could be delayed no longer) that the sound Spenser, which, when poetry is talked of, generally excites an image of an old bard in a ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of Sir P. Sidney and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my gentleman a quite contrary image of the Honorable William Spencer, who has translated some things from the German very prettily, which are published with Lady Di ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... as was usual with him, was elegant, if not rich.[77] Oldys describes it, but mentions, that "he had a wrought nightcap under his hat;" this we have otherwise disposed of; he wore a ruff-band, a black wrought velvet night-gown over a hare-coloured satin doublet, and a black wrought waistcoat; black cut taffety breeches, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... English letters, and those half pick'd out, Leave us, unskilful readers, much in doubt; Our sons shall see its more degraded state; The tomb of grandeur hastens to its fate; That marble arch, our sexton's favourite show, With all those ruff'd and painted pairs below; The noble Lady and the Lord who rest Supine, as courtly dame and warrior drest; All are departed from their state sublime, Mangled and wounded in their war with Time, Colleagued with mischief: here ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... Sherburne family, the most singular monument being that to Sir Richard and his lady, which the villagers point out as "old Fiddle o' God and his wife"—Fiddle o' God being his customary exclamation when angry, which tradition says was not seldom. The figures are kneeling—he in ruff and jerkin, she in black gown and hood, with tan-leather gloves extending up her arms. These figures, being highly colored, as was the fashion in the olden time, have a ludicrous appearance. We are told that when these monuments came from London they were the talk of the whole ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... away, on a ridge across the valley where he had no concern; for presently he drummed again on his own log. I answered it promptly, rolling back a defiance, and also telling any hen grouse on the range that here was another candidate willing to strut and spread his tail and lift the resplendent ruff about his neck to win his way into her good graces, if she would but come to his drumming log and ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long

... couldn't localize—water ouzel in moss covert, or hawk babies in hiding, or—or what? She couldn't descry. Then, suddenly, with a hiss—ss and swear plain as a bird could swear, a little male grouse came sprinting down the trail to stop her, ruff up, tail spread to a fan, wings down, screaming at her in bad words "to stop! to stop! or he'd pick her eyes out!" Eleanor naturally stopped. There was a rustle and a flump; and a mother grouse whirred up with her brood—a dozen of them Eleanor counted, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... from midst the depth of woods Heard the love-signal of the grouse, that wears A sable ruff around his mottled neck; Partridge they call him by our northern streams, And pheasant by the Delaware. He beat His barred sides with his speckled wings, and made A sound like distant thunder; slow the strokes At first, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... trees and approached her slowly. He was withered and thin and though but fifty years of age seemed much older. His doublet and hose were of some dark stuff and his short cloak was surmounted by a huge ruff, the edges of which almost joined the brim of the small, high, cone-shaped hat which partly concealed ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... old-fashioned brougham was being drawn slowly by a very fat old white horse into the too narrow space between the hearse and Briggs's car. Seated in the brougham was the erect figure of a very thin old man. His hair showed beneath his high silk hat like a stiff white ruff on his neck. His hands were clasped over a gold-headed cane. His whole appearance was one of extreme dignity and reverence. The procession at once took on the decent air ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... youth and beauty now, but later in the day, when her hair would be taken out of its crimping kids, her sallow cheeks touched with rouge, and her veined neck covered by a high collar, a coral chain, and an ostrich-feather ruff, some traces of her former good looks might be visible. She still affected tight corsets, high heels, enormous hats. But Emeline's interest in her own appearance was secondary now to her fierce pride and faith in Julia's beauty. Drifting ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... childhood—the life-size stone figure of a man. He lay in a niche in the chancel, peacefully at rest on his side, with closed eyes and one hand under his cheek. He had a short peaked beard and wore an enormous ruff; his face looked very grave and quiet—so quiet that it always filled Mary with a sort of awe. He had lain there for more than three hundred years, undisturbed by pain, or trouble, or joy. Would he be sorry for her, she wondered, if he knew how unhappy she was? But no—he would not ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton

... which he now stretched out of the wide sleeve of his gaily-chequered jacket in welcome. Behind him a tall, lean figure showed, or rather, hid itself—the slender neck feathered with a fine white cambric ruff, and the thin, pale face strangely adorned with an incredibly long nose, which peered with ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Miss Eulie says she's a 'great sinner,' and between you and me that's the only fib I ever caught Miss Eulie in. Good Lord! there's no more sin in Miss Eulie's heart than there is specks of dirt on the little white ruff she wears about her neck that looks like the snow we had last April around the white hyacinths. She's kind of a half-sperit anyhow. Now your goodness, Miss Annie, is another kind. Your cheeks are so red, and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... trimmed with silver. We had not come out of the convent when the King passed through the square on his way to see Quelus, who was then sick. He had with him the King my husband, D'O———, and the fat fellow Ruff. ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... mariner has ever landed on. It seemed like a perfect garden, with churches and planters' houses peeping out from among the trees, in the midst of the most picturesque scenery. In the centre rose a lofty cone, surrounded by a ruff of trees, below which all was one mass of verdure. We had little time or inclination just then to admire the beauties of nature. The crew having been mustered, none being missing except the poor fellows who were known to have been killed, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... ruff-embastioned vast Elizabeth, Bush to these bushel-bellied casks of wine, Home-growth, 'tis true, but rank as turpentine,— What would we with such skittle-plays at death % Say, must we watch these brawlers' ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... comin', too," she says from her chamber, and forth she come pavisandin' like a peacock—stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... begin with the English: He broyleth first upon a Charcoale fire; the first thing that you must have a care of is, when your Grid-iron is hot you must coole it with ruff Suet, then the skin of your Fish will not break, with care of turning them: when they are nigh broyled, take them off the Grid-iron; set on a Chafing-dish of coals in a Stew-pan, or Dish; put in a good quantity of fresh Butter, ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker

... in a town, Before them everything went down; Some tore a ruff, and some a gown, 'Gainst one another justling; They flew about like chaff i' th' wind; For haste some left their masks behind; Some could not stay their gloves to find; ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... Prince Peerless had discovered the Princess's absence, and was lamenting over it by the river's brim, when he suddenly became aware of the presence of a little old woman. She was quaintly dressed in a ruff and farthingale, and a velvet hood covered ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... they do, that instead of a lady he loves a cap and a feather instead of a maid that should have verum colorem, corpus solidum et succi plenum (as Chaerea describes his mistress in the [5012]poet), a painted face, a ruff-band, fair and fine linen, a coronet, a flower, ([5013]Naturaeque putat quod fuit artificis,) a wrought waistcoat he dotes on, or a pied petticoat, a pure dye instead of a proper woman. For generally, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... the chapel is lighted, and Founder's Tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters, heraldries, darkles and shines with the most wonderful shadows and lights. There he lies, Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting the great Examination Day. We oldsters, be we ever so old, become boys again as we look at that familiar old tomb, and think how the seats are altered since we were here, and how the doctor—not ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... tolerable show in the rather vacant aisles. Nobody is in the great pew of the Clavering family, except the statues of defunct baronets and their ladies: there is Sir Poyntz Clavering, Knight and Baronet, kneeling in a square beard opposite his wife in a ruff: a very fat lady, the Dame Rebecca Clavering, in alto-relievo, is borne up to Heaven by two little blue-veined angels, who seem to have a severe task—and so forth. How well in after life Pen remembered those effigies, and how often in youth he scanned ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... struck the electric lamp over the table, and out went the light. For an instant the room was black. Then a white ray flickered on the wall, as if thrown through the window by a searchlight. Out of its glimmer stepped a man, with a long, laughing face and a pointed beard. Round his neck was a high ruff. He wore a doublet of velvet, and shining silk hose. In his hand was a silver goblet, frothing over the top with champagne. "He drinks best who drinks last!" cried he in French, and flung the goblet at the face of him who named the bottle. At the same second there was a great ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Captain be affronted by a starch'd Ruff and Beard, a Coward in querpo, a walking Bunch of Garlick, a pickl'd Pilchard! abuse the noble Captain, and bear it off in State, like a Christmas Sweet-heart; these things must not be whilst Nicholas Fetherfool wears ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... to the Big House which lately he had left in anger; and as he entered the great dining-room he saw once more his coveted picture, the image of the morning, the tall young girl with the brown ruff of hair rolling back from the smooth brow, above the clear-seeing dark eyes. Here again, by miracle, had come his friend, to meet him in the smother of the grimy way of life! Yet he thought the girl looked at him but coldly as he ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... His clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean face was dark by contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler. There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... think of them, Dekko old fellow?" She took him on her wrist, at which he spread his tail, rattled his wings, and puffed his ruff, whereupon the children fled, yelling. "Come now, say something nice to the poor little things. You've frightened them. Ask them ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... tail, and lives principally in trees, although it can run very swiftly along the ground: when not provoked or disturbed it moves quietly about, with its frill lying back in plaits upon the body: but it is very irascible and, directly it is frightened, elevates the frill or ruff and makes for a tree; where if overtaken it throws itself upon its stern, raising its head and chest as high as it can upon the forelegs, then doubling its tail underneath the body and displaying a very formidable ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... his sailor dress he chose one of the handsomest of those he possessed. It consisted of maroon doublet and trunks, slashed with white, with a short mantle of dark green, and hose of the same colour; his cap was maroon in colour, with small white and orange plumes, and he wore a ruff round his neck. Captain Martin saluted him with a bow of reverence as he came ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... 'Dolph, recoiling, shook his neck-ruff and prepared for another spring; but Tilda pushed him back and stood up. "Take me along to him," she commanded, and lifted her face impudently to the clock-face of St. Barnabas above the mean roofs. "Barnabas, are yer? Then give my compliments to the ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... caused them to pause; and in another moment a group of ladies, attired in deep mourning, appeared beneath the portico; where, separating into two ranks, they left a passage open for the widowed Queen; who, clad in violet velvet like her son, with a high ruff, and her head uncovered, advanced with an unsteady step and streaming eyes towards ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... a good-humored, good-looking man, with immense bushy, red whiskers, a freckled, florid complexion, and sandy hair, rather inclined to scantiness towards the scalp of the head, which garnished the nape of his neck with a ruff of crisp little curls, like the ring on a monk's shaven crown. Notwithstanding this tendency to baldness, Jack could not be more than thirty, though his looks were some five years in advance. His face was one of those inexplicable countenances, which appear to be proper ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... His very serviceable suit of black Was courtly once and conscientious still, And many might have worn it, though none did: The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, 10 Scenting the world, looking it full in face, An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels. They turned up, now, the alley by the church, That leads ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... The impression was of value to a cherisher of quaintness, and he must have wondered—not knowing me for such a character—why I stared at him. It wasn't him I was staring at, but some handsome Seymour or Dudley or Digby with a ruff and a round ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... and owl, curlew and crested hern, Kingfisher, mallard, water-rail and tern, Chaffinch and greenfinch, warbler, stonechat, ruff, Pied wagtail, robin, fly-catcher and chough, Missel-thrush, magpie, sparrow-hawk, and jay, Built, those far ages gone, in this year's way. And the first man who walked the cliffs of Rame, As I this year, looked down ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... length of Time; for however necessary it may be, it may be turnd to the Disadvantage of his Character, which if I am not flatterd, he has hitherto kept unsullied. In this virtuous & important Struggle, he will remember that all of us must ruff it as well as we can.——The medical Committee inform me that it is the Duty of the State Cloathier to furnish him without the intervention of the Commander in ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... the ludicrous public, who snarl at the carpenter and shoemaker if the fitness of things be not observed; we, the shrewd critics, who pillory the luckless painter who dresses a gentleman of the Restoration in the ruff of James First's court, gaze calmly on the most ridiculous anachronisms and impossibilities, and smite our perfumed gloves in approbation. It is no excuse to say that the whole thing is absurd; that people do not carry on the business ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... to let the great creature past him, and Lloyd uttered an exclamation of delight, he was so unusually large and beautiful. His curly coat of tawny yellow was as soft as silk, and a great ruff of white circled his neck like a collar. His breast was white, too, and his paws, and his eyes had a wistful, human look that went straight to Lloyd's heart. She shook the offered paw, and then impulsively threw her arms around his neck, exclaiming, ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston

... seized the full medicine bottles, and hurled them fiercely out of the window. Just at this moment Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni was entering the house, when two or three bottles came bang upon his head, smashing all to pieces, whilst the brown liquid ran in streams all down his face, and wig, and ruff. Hastily rushing into the house, he screamed like a madman, "Signer Salvator has gone out of his mind, he's become insane; no skill can save him now, he'll be dead in ten minutes. Give me the picture, Dame Caterina, give me the picture—it's mine, the scanty reward of all my trouble. Give ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... Squash hath fetched his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel; Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn With droppings of the barrel; And those that hardly all the year Had bread to eat, or rags to wear, Will have both clothes and dainty fare, And all the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... what you call literature. There's Ruff, and Hoyle, and—I say, Nell, there's a dog-cart going a pace! Who can that ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... encouraged cook to talk of Ruff, the former black cat, which had been a great favourite of hers, and which she had been nursing when he was dying. "Oh, poor thing, when he was ill, he would creep into dark corners, so I put him in his basket ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... the social summits he perhaps never knew so much, but he had not studied their humbler sisters in vain, and beneath all the width of ruff and opulence of silk, he knew well enough what primal feelings lurked, what affections, what jealousies, what caprices of the eternal feminine. As for the mere externals of their behaviour, he had abundant opportunities ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... of the escutcheon was the figure of a woman, standing. It was an enchanting vision. She was tall and slim, and wore a robe of brocade which fell in ample folds about her feet, a ruff of many pleats and a necklace of large gems. On her head was an enormous and superb turban of blond hair on which rested a crown of filigree that was not round, and that followed all the undulations of the hair. The face, although somewhat too round and large, was ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... fourth wife and she is much younger dan me. I am unable to work and have to stay in bed lots of de time. My wife works at odd jobs, like washing, ironing and cooking. We rent a two-room house from Miss Ann Ruff. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... and in the full vigor of life. His age might be anywhere from thirty-five to forty-five, for while his eye possessed the fire of youth, there were streaks of gray in his long hair and beard. His ruffled shirt of well-worn linen was met at the neck by a modest ruff faded and torn like the shirt, and both sadly in need of washing. On his head he wore a round black cap which, if it ever had a peak, had lost it. The trousers of dark stuff came just below the knee, Puritan fashion, and were met by coarse gray stockings. The feet ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... 'em, an' fin'ly he told me not to do so no more, an' said suthin' to himself about devourin' widders. So I didn't darst to go up agin, he looked so kind o' furce an' sharp, till, last night, I reck'n'd the snow would sift in through the old ruff, an' I went up to offer him a comf'table for his bed. I knocked; but he didn't make no answer, so I pushed the door open an' went in. It was a good while sence I'd seen the inside o' the room,—for when he heerd me comin' up, he'd open the door a crack ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... Serralunga, who are doubtless descended from the sculptor. After 1608 nothing more is known of him. At Varallo, over and above his work on the Sacro Monte, there is an exceedingly beautiful Madonna by him, in the parish church of S. Gaudenzio, and one head of a man with a ruff—a mere fragment— which Cav. Prof. Antonini showed me in the Museum, and assured me was by Tabachetti. I know of no other work by him except what remains at Crea, about which I will presently write ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... head, beside a necklace of exceeding fine gold and jewels about her neck. She was attired in a white silk gown bordered with pearls the size of beans, and over it wore a mantle of black silk, cunningly shot with silver threads. Her ruff was vast, her farthingale vaster; and her train, which was very long, was borne by a marchioness who made more ado about it than Elizabeth ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... old person of Bude, Whose deportment was vicious and crude; He wore a large ruff of pale straw-colored stuff, Which perplexed ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... things you say, Colonel Lightmark," she added demurely. "Who is that stately person in the dark figured silk, with a cinque-cento ruff? Isn't ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... though, is this Gousta, whose lofty summit traversed by deep snow-covered ravines, rises out of a forest of pines that form a thick green ruff about its snowy throat! And what a superb view one enjoys from its summit. To the east lies the bailiwick of Numedal; On the west, the Hardanger and its magnificent glaciers; down at the base of the mountain, the winding valley of Vesfjorddal between Lakes Tinn and ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne

... tall, stepped and sharply pointed gable, flanked on either hand by slender, four-sided pinnacles. From the niche in the said gable, arrayed in sugar-loaf hat, full doublet and trunk hose, his head a trifle bent so that the tip of his pointed beard rests on the pleatings of his marble ruff, a carpenter's rule in his right hand, Sir Denzil Calmady gazes meditatively down. Delicate, coral-like tendrils of the Virginian creeper, which covers the house walls, and strays over the bay windows of the Long Gallery below, twine themselves yearly about his ankles and his square-toed ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... and plaited cap, which carefully obscured the profusion of long dark-brown hair—the small ruff, and the long sleeves, would have appeared to great disadvantage on a shape less graceful than Alice Bridgenorth's; but an exquisite form, though not, as yet, sufficiently rounded in the outlines to produce the perfection of female beauty, was able to sustain and give grace even to this unbecoming ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... Yorkshireman, or a Cornishman, speak as veil as a Lonnoner? I tell you what, Evans, I'll pet the pest game-cock on ter Neck, against the veriest tunghill the parson hast, ter Presitent of Yale calls p e e n, pen, ant roof, ruff—and so on." ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... for the event, the father in black with a fur mantle, and the boy in white satin embroidered with gold. The man wears the stiff quilled ruff of the period, the boy a round collar of soft lace. It is not every day in the year that a little boy is allowed to wear his best satin doublet, and the child feels the gravity of the occasion. We may suppose that these are people of distinction, and that ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... toilet be eminently simple, for you will find the time coming when to button a cuff or arrange a ruff will be a matter of absolute despair. You lie disconsolate in your berth, only desiring to be let alone to die; and then, if you are told, as you always are, that "you mustn't give way," that "you must rouse yourself" and come on deck, you will appreciate the value ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em enough to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where the horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way, and it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... and slowly opened the eyes which had closed so wearily on the dull December afternoon. The bare wall with its brown spiders no longer confronted her, but the colored print of a little girl dancing to the tune her father was playing on a guitar, while a stately lady, with satin dress, ruff, and powder, stood looking on, well pleased. The quaint figure, in its belaced frock, quilted petticoat, and red-heeled shoes, seemed to come tripping toward her in such a life-like way, that she almost saw the curls blow back, heard the rustle of the rich brocade, and caught ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... stuff for goodly and noble women to foster," grimly uttered a flame-colored hawk's-bill tulip, that directly assumed a ruff and an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... cly the nab of the Harmanbeck, If we mawnd Pannam, lap, or Ruff-peck, Or poplars of yarum: he cuts, bing to the Ruffmans, Or els he sweares by the light-mans, To put our stamps in the Harmans, The ruffian cly the ghost of the Harmanbeck If we heaue a booth we ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... out of the frame in the Long Gallery. The stately figure is attired in white doublet, trunks, and hose, embroidered with pearls. On the purple surcoat, lined with red, gold buttons gleam. The white ruff is fastened at wrist and throat with gold buttons: the black cap is solely adorned with a knot of pearls; a golden cord hangs from the neck; the right hand rests upon the head of a large dog, that has, perhaps, a rather stuffed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... dainty white gown hours before the time, but Wolfgang, who was detained at the opera house until the last moment, had just time to jump into his fine new costume of satin and lace, with the flash of brilliants in his ruff and on his slippers; without a glance in the mirror, but he looked like a proud young prince when he joined his father and sister, although the hand that he slipped through Nannerl's arm was trembling. ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... Buckles Fluke and Tongs, ruff and smooth Files, Bone Buckle Brushes, Freezing Punches, Binding Wire, Steel Top Thimbles, Cypher and Brilliant Button Stones, Cypher and Brilliant Ring Stones, Ring Sparks, Motto Ring Stones, Amethysts, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks

... yours. But I did not stop to argue about such matters. There is something else I wished to say. I want to tell you that you have greatly pleased the king with the new dance. Now teach him 'honor and ruff' and your fortune is made. He has had some Jews and Lombards in of late to teach him new games at cards, but yours is worth all of them." Then, somewhat hastily and irrelevantly, "I did not dance the new dance with any other gentleman—but I suppose you did ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... glad to read Arun's explanation of the origin of the bands now worn by the clergy; which, however, seems merely to amount to their being an adoption of a Genevan portion of clerical costume. That they are the descendants of the ruff, there can be no doubt, just as wrist-bands have more ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... Some tore a ruff, and some a gown, 'Gainat one another jostling; They flew about like chaff i' th' wind, For haste some left their masks behind, Some could not stay their gloves to find, There never was ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... Persis Tame, taking a pinch of snuff—the real Maccaboy—twice as large, with twice as fierce an action. "I don't know what it is to bury children, nor to lose a husband; I s'pose I don't; but I know what it is to be jammed round the world and not have a ruff to stick my head under. I wish I had all the money I ever spent travelling,—and that's twelve ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... "'Prefaces,' said Charles Blount, Gent., 'Prefaces,' according to this flippant, ill-opinioned, and unhappy man, 'ever were, and still are, but of two sorts, let the mode and fashions vary as they please,—let the long peruke succeed the godly cropt hair; the cravat, the ruff; presbytery, popery; and popery, presbytery again,—yet still the author keeps to his old and wonted method of prefacing; when at the beginning of his book he enters, either with a halter round his neck, submitting himself to his readers' mercy whether he shall ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... his altar on a rock, which becomes resonant beneath his fervent blows. Have you seen the Partridge drum? It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much caution and tact it may be done. He does not hug the log, but stands very erect, expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauses half a second, and then resumes, striking faster and faster till the sound becomes a continuous, unbroken whir, the whole lasting less than half a minute. The tips of his wings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... Under his arm was a rolled-up banner, which seemed to be the banner of England, but strangely rent and torn; he had a sword in his right hand, and grasped a Bible in his left. The next figure was of milder aspect, yet full of dignity, wearing a broad ruff, over which descended a beard, a gown of wrought velvet, and a doublet and hose of black satin. He carried a roll of manuscript in his hand. Close behind these two came a young man of very striking countenance and demeanor, with deep ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... tabor, taborine. Associated Words: reveille, rappel, chamade, ruff, tattoo, ruffle, roll, rataplan, drummer, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... from Angora, in Syria. It is much larger than the common cat; its hair is very long, especially about the neck, where it forms a fine ruff, of a silvery whiteness and silky texture, that on the tail is three or four inches long; these cats frequently spread their tails on their backs, as squirrels do. The colour is generally white, but sometimes light brown; ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss

... signifying a prince's favourite, one admitted to his privacy (no uncommon word in Jeremy Taylor and Fuller), has quite disappeared; so too has 'quirpo' (cuerpo), the name given to a jacket fitting close to the body; 'quellio' (cuello), a ruff or neck-collar; and 'matachin', the title of a sword-dance; these are all frequent in our early dramatists; and 'flota' was the constant name of the treasure-fleet from the Indies. 'Intermess' is employed by Evelyn, and is the Spanish 'entremes', though not ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... ruff and farthingale, could have said it with more consciousness of her own dignity, or more superb dismission of that of another. But probably Queen Elizabeth would not have cast upon her courtiers the look, ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner



Words linked to "Ruff" :   Philomachus, bridge, choker, trump, turn, go, overtrump, frill, collar, external body part, Philomachus pugnax, crossruff, trumping, card game, cards, play, neck ruff, fraise, move, neckband, reeve, ruffle, genus Philomachus, sandpiper



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com