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Whet   Listen
noun
Whet  n.  
1.
The act of whetting.
2.
That which whets or sharpens; esp., an appetizer. "Sips, drams, and whets."
Whet slate (Min.), a variety of slate used for sharpening cutting instruments; novaculite; called also whetstone slate, and oilstone.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Whet" Quotes from Famous Books



... and supper, even whilst the dishes are cooling on the table, men and women repair to a side-table, and, to obtain an appetite, eat bread and butter, cheese, raw salmon or anchovies, drinking a glass of brandy. Salt fish or meat then immediately follows, to give a further whet to the stomach. As the dinner advances,—pardon me for taking up a few minutes to describe what, alas! has detained me two or three hours on the stretch, observing,—dish after dish is changed, in endless rotation, and handed round with solemn pace to each guest; ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... steadily into the face of the chairman. However, every specimen could not be expected to meet every requirement. No doubt of it—here was the made-to-order creature for clever manipulation; and there followed then the suggestion to visit New Ireland, with artful words to whet a fighting man's appetite for that ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... at Liverpool last year after the great race had served only to whet his appetite and kindle ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... abashed, and weened he had been dead, and flew every one, and their enemies after and chased them, but they wist not that the emperor was there. And when the enemies were far pursuing the chase, the emperor hid him in a thick wood. And whet, they were come again from the chase, they went and sought the woods if any of them had been hid in the thick of the woods; and many they found and slew them anon. So it happened that as they went searching toward the place that the emperor was, they saw an owl sitting upon ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... discussed Octavia House and he assumed that she was merely one of the proteges of the mysterious wealthy backers of that unusual enterprise. He thought it very good business indeed that the clever young woman had known enough to disappear for a brief time that she might whet her audiences' appetite while she let her agents lift her prices. It didn't at all occur to him that she was actually abandoning such a career as her extraordinary success seemed to foretell. He had in mind a romantic play in which she should make her bow as a legitimate ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... his knee and lambasted me to his heart's content. In spite of all this discipline, which one would have thought effective enough to take me out of the lists of Parnassus forever, it on the contrary served only to whet my thirst for writing, and from that time until now I have never gotten over my desire to chisel out sonnets, triolets, rondeaux and lyrics of ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... just dedicated to the German people. When their passions had been excited to the highest pitch by dreams of victory, by wine and soul-stirring songs, they went in the evening to the residence of the French minister to whet their sword- blades on the pavement in front ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... ensued; and, upon the whole, I never passed a duller evening in my life — Yet, without all doubt, some of them were men of learning, wit, and ingenuity. As they are afraid of making free with one another, they should bring each his butt, or whet-stone, along with him, for the entertainment of the company — My uncle says, he never desires to meet with more than one wit at a time — One wit, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives a zest and flavour to the dish; but more than one serves only to spoil ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... creeturs bin flyin' 'roun' Brer Wolf's gal 'ceppin' it's ole Brer Rabbit, en w'en he year w'at kinder treatments de yuther creeturs bin ketchin' he 'low ter hisse'f dat he b'leeve in he soul he mus' go down ter Brer Wolf house en set de gal out one whet ef it's ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... into it. With one impulse we are carried to the cabin of the musk-rat, that earliest settler, and see him dart away under the transparent ice, like a furred fish, to his hole in the bank; and we glide rapidly over meadows where lately "the mower whet his scythe," through beds of frozen cranberries mixed with meadow grass. We skate near to where the blackbird, the pewee, and the kingbird hung their nests over the water, and the hornets builded from the maple in the swamp. How many gay warblers ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... be the solitary concert for the season, but, to whet the appetite of society, Diana was also to appear at a single big reception—"Baroni won't look at anything less than a ducal house with Royalty present," as Jerry banteringly asserted—and then, while the ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... little," answered the official with another smile. "But I won't rob him of the pleasure of telling you himself. You ought to be disappointed. However, I'll just tell you enough to whet your appetite for more—Drillford is confident that he's just arrested the real man! No—no more!" he added, with a laugh. "You'll run up there in ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... then to the King And Queene wassailing; And though, with ale, ye be whet here, Yet part ye from hence As free from offence As when ye ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... children, and cakes and biscuits, biiru (beer) and ramune (lemonade) and a distressing sickly drink called "champagne cider" and all manner of vanities. In one corner of the square a theatre was in full swing, the actors making up in public on a balcony above the crowd, so as to whet their curiosity and attract their custom. Beyond was a cinematograph, advertised by lurid paintings of murders and apparitions; and farther on there was a circus ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... mild, questioning look upon his face whenever anyone surprised him in the daytime, Solomon Owl was the noisiest of all the different families of owls in Pleasant Valley. There were the barn owls, the long-eared owls, the short-eared owls, the saw-whet owls, the screech owls—but there! there's no use of naming them all. There wasn't one of them that could equal Solomon Owl's laughing and hooting and shrieking and ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey

... made, And his axe should elsewhere drive its trade. Oh, the oaks and firs that then might stand, A pride and a joy throughout the land, For their ancientness and glorious charms! The innocent Forest lent him arms; But bitter indeed was her regret; For the wretch, his axe new-helved and whet, Did nought but his benefactress spoil Of the finest trees that graced her soil; And ceaselessly was she made to groan, Doing penance ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... attractions present, meant to fill not the tables only, but the guests. The breakfast was by no means a matter of form. People had evidently come with more serious intentions, than merely to display new bonnets, and trifle with grapes and peaches. Sea-air gives a whet to even a lady's appetite, and if the performances that morning were any criterion of the effects of that of Glyndewi, the new Poor Law Commissioners, in forming their scale of allowances, must really have reported it a "special case." The fair Cambrians, in short, played very respectable knives ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... faithfully promise to keep the whole work sacred to your credit. And if ever I go into print—which is most unlikely—I'll refer to this essay in such a way as to whet public curiosity to a feather edge. Again, if anything should happen to this copy, you'll have mine to ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... already looked upon them as hors tie combat; and the frequent visits of the whisky bottle to the ugly mouth of their dam I hoped would soon reduce her to a like state. Judge of my astonishment, reader, when I saw this incarnate fiend take a large carving-knife and go to the grindstone to whet its edge. I saw her pour the water on the turning machine, and watched her working away with the dangerous instrument, until the cold sweat covered every part of my body, in spite of my determination to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... father's shares in one of those unlucky banks; and so it fell upon him one morning like a clap of thunder that he was responsible for about as much as the acres of Whitethorn would retrieve, besides the trifling morsel to whet his appetite in the loss of his loose thousands. Harry Jardine was likely to know himself as "landless, landless," ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... fruits and gain of victory to get, Wherefore, dear lord, be wise, take care that yet A like misfortune happen not to you. Still in their lair the cubs and she-bear,[Q] who Rough pasturage and sour in May have met, With mad rage gnash their teeth and talons whet, And vengeance of past loss on us pursue: While this new grief disheartens and appalls, Replace not in its sheath your honour'd sword, But, boldly following where your fortune calls, E'en to its goal be glory's path explored, Which fame ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... harmless and full of play put forth claw, and sting, and tooth, and tusk. Birds whet their beak for prey. Clouds troop in the sky. Sharp thorns shoot up through the soft grass. Blastings on the leaves. All the chords of that great harmony are snapped. Upon the brightest home this world ever saw our first parents turned their back and led forth on a path ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... after my retreating form and wish, in Heaven's name, that I had stayed! Better for the girl, I mean. For my own feelings—but I do not count. I am only giving a girl one of her rights in love. A few judicious obstacles but whet a man's appetite—if he is worth having. And I do not mind being a judicious obstacle once in a while—if I like ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... found a moment in Mrs. Haughton's widowed life so propitious to his chance of success. In her lodging-house at Pimlico, the good lady had been too incessantly occupied for that idle train of revery, in which the poets assure us that Cupid finds leisure to whet his arrows and take his aim. Had Lionel still been by her side, had even Colonel Morley been in town, her affection for the one, her awe of the other, would have been her safeguards. But alone in that fine new ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was enough to whet my curiosity. I was not long before I called on Raton, but not wishing to be duped by her I took due precautions. I told her that she must come and sup with me, and that I would give her the twenty-five louis if my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... to a stand still, and as, in such cases, it is not allowed for one to sharpen without the other, he turns to his antagonist, now far ahead, and inquires, in a tone of despair, "When d'ye wiffle-waffle (whet), mate?" "Waffle!" said the farmer, with a well-feigned stare of amazement, "O, about noon mebby." "Then," said the despairing spirit, "That thief of a Christian has done me;" and so saying, he disappeared and was never ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various

... could rise to flattery as deftly as the best of them. It was an art at which his tongue was wonderfully facile, considering the fact that he mingled so seldom with men in the outside doings of life. His wits had no foil to whet against and grow sharp, save the hard substance of his own inflexible nature, for he was born with that shrewd faculty for taking men "on the blind side," as they used to call that ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... old women of all sorts here and at Nice do without such a choice temple of scandal to whet their teeth upon? Well, I suppose you and your precious daughter can take care of yourselves. There are the gardens, or you can tell Gregorio to order you ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... However, some progress was made during the century. Serfdom or slavery was abolished from 1861 to 1866; restraints upon newspapers, publishers, and schools were partly withdrawn. Natural resources were developed, factories established, and railroads built. But these measures only served to whet the appetite of the people for more liberal government. The activities of revolutionists and reformers were met by most severe measures on the part of the government. Thousands were transported to Siberia and many were executed. Even as late as 1903 five thousand persons ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson

... practical and dry (Being sated with sensation in excess, With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press), Then I turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract, Or the interest to waken and to whet, And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact In the Oxford ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... judge his wit apocryphal; Our laws for such affronts have forfeits made; He takes his life who takes away his trade. Were I myself in witness Corah's place, The wretch who did me such a dire disgrace, Should whet my memory, though once forgot, 670 To make him an appendix of my plot. His zeal to heaven made him his prince despise, And load his person with indignities. But zeal peculiar privilege affords, Indulging latitude to deeds and words: And Corah ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... wait they within that would snare me; There whet they their swords for my slaying. My bane they shall be not, the cowards, The brood of the churl and the carline. Let the twain of them find me and fight me In the field, without shelter to shield them, And ewes of the sheep should be surer To shorten ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown

... be prais'd, good-nature is ador'd; Then draw your wit as seldom as your sword; And never on the weak; or you'll appear As there no hero, no great genius here. As in smooth oil the razor best is whet, So wit is by politeness sharpest set: Their want of edge from their offence is seen; Both pain us least when exquisitely keen. The fame men give is for the joy they find; Dull is the jester, when the joke's ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... tell the story of cruelty the like of which, it is to be hoped, for the credit of one's manhood, is not often repeated. And while it was telling, Jack "sat tight" and listened, storing up every vile word and every monstrous detail in his mind that he might have something to whet his vengeance upon when the time for vengeance should come. But his agitation was so evident, his distress so poignant, that Alvaros thought it would be very good fun to direct public attention to it; so, feigning to become ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... breeds; and, despite Peary to the contrary, he will eat anything. "He will not eat anything but meat," says Peary; "I have tried and I know." No dog accustomed to a flesh diet willingly leaves it for other food; the dog is a carnivorous animal. But hunger will whet his appetite for anything that his bowels can digest. "Muk," the counterpart of Peary's "King Malamute," has thriven for years on his daily ration of dried fish, tallow, and rice, and eats biscuits and doughnuts whenever he can get them. The malamute is affectionate and faithful and likes ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... waiting for certain people at the last day, thousands of years hence, but hanging over all our heads already, and always ready to fall on us. Not knowing that it is as true now as it was two thousand years ago, that "God is a righteous judge, strong and patient." "If a man will not turn, He will whet His sword; He hath bent His bow, and made it ready," against those who travail with mischief, who conceive sorrow, and bring forth ungodliness. They dig up pits for their neighbours, and fall themselves into the destruction which they have ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... have acquired to run away as quickly as possible from the "school," whereas the Chopin etudes are so full of melody and of the rarest and the most beautiful musical effects, that to play any one of them suffices to whet the appetite for the others. The pianolist might well go through the entire two sets of twelve. It would open up a new musical world to him. Here I can only point out three. Opus 10, No. 5, is the "Black Key" etude, so called because all the notes of the right hand are on black keys. This ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... to the king And queen wassailing: And though with ale ye be whet here, Yet part ye from hence, As free from offence As when ye ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... selection serves as a sort of preface to the novel "Vanity Fair." It is quite as remarkable for the things it leaves unsaid as for the things it says. Of course its object is to whet the reader's appetite for the story that is to follow; but throughout the author seems to be laughing at himself. In the last paragraph we see one of the few superlatives to be found In Thackeray—-he says the show has been "most favorably noticed" by the "conductors ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... only enough to whet his interest. "There's a clue, as I half expected, from New York, too. But we are so far away that we'll have to stick to my original plan. You can ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... on, a seedy-looking old gentleman came in, and I noticed that some younger officers rose and offered him a place, which he rejected, till a vacancy occurred, and then he quietly sat down, swallowed his two dozen of green oysters as a whet, and proceeded to dine with an appetite. By this time, my vis-a-vis had resumed his seat, and, after what had passed, I felt myself at liberty to ask him the favour of informing me who he himself was! I was soon answered. He was a Mr Parish, of Hamburg, whose prodigious commissariat engagements ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various

... sound abate? Lo, the next Hour of Fate Whetting her vengeance due On new whet-stones, for new ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus

... work should be well correlated with one another and with the systematic work on the text that guides the study, so that each shall whet the edge of the other and all together accomplish ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... the most earnest interest in the mind of every one who has ever been attracted to the subject of the archaeology of the New World. This race, moreover, possessed an abundant literature, preserved in written books, in characters which were in some degree phonetic. Enough of these remain to whet, though not to satisfy, ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various

... Cup had become a mania with him. He had won it once, and would again despite all the Moores, all the Gray Dogs, all the undutiful sons in existence; on that point he was resolved. The fact of his having tasted the joys of victory served to whet his desire. And now he felt he could never be happy till the Cup was ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... was turned, I found myself speculating whether his words contained any hidden meaning; trying to recall something in his voice or manner which might guide me in discovering the real sense he attached to what he said. It seemed as if the most powerful whet to my curiosity, were supplied by my own experience of the impossibility of penetrating beneath the unassailable surface which this ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in the monastery garden. This is no more than the main court, laid out in sandy paths and beds of parti-coloured dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue of the Virgin in the centre. The buildings ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the age of thirty-five. He was here when George I. died, and George II. became king. He published here his Henriade. He wrote here his "History of Charles XII." He read "Gulliver's Travels" as a new book, and might have been present at the first night of The Beggar's Opera. He was here whet Sir ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... the story as he had heard it from a bibulous member of the Barred Horseshoe, and then added a little of torture as a sauce to whet ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... sell any unlicensed matter whatsoever would be liable to fine or imprisonment, and to whet the zeal of discovery one-half of the fine was to go to the informer. Every publication, from a book to a broadsheet, must bear the name of author, printer, and licenser. Neither of Neville's pamphlets of 1647 conformed ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... taken advantage of this privilege, and elected to pay tuition and place their children under his instruction, thus bringing together forty-nine energetic boys and girls to whet each other's ambition and incite class rivalry. Among the number were the five clever children of the Hon. Tod Robinson; three sons of Judge Robert Robinson; Colonel Zabriskie's pretty daughter Annie; Banker Swift's stately Margaret; General Redding's two sons; Dr. ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: whet appetite. I couldn't do. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... do the deeds that set Old fighters' hearts afire; The edge of every spirit whet, And every arm inspire. Yet I have seen upon his face The tears that, as they roll, Show what a light of saintly grace May clothe a ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... and shortly after he had been put ashore, the sick mariner requested an interview with the deacon himself. The request had been reluctantly granted; but, during the visit, Daggett had managed so well to whet his visiter's appetite for gain, that henceforth there was no trouble in procuring the deacon's company. Little by little had Daggett let out his facts, always keeping enough in reserve to render ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... Kaiser, and the Fatherland!'" Even Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, who is, according to Bettina, merely a supine hero, fails to elude her electric grasp: "Come, flee with me across the Alps to the Tyrolese. There will we whet our swords and forget thy rabble of comedians; and as for all thy darling mistresses, they ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... and the stakes are set,— Ever sing merrily, merrily; The bows they bend, and the knives they whet, Hunters ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... reaper, Death his name; His might from God the highest came. Today his knife he'll whet, 'Twill cut far better yet; Soon he will come and mow, And we must bear the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... independence, if they were not immediately shown that a power of at least equal strength had taken her place, and was prepared to claim her inheritance. War begets war; and the successes of Cyaxares up to the present point in his career did but whet his appetite for power, and stimulate him to attempt further conquests. In brief but pregnant words Herodotus informs us that Cyaxares "subdued to himself all Asia above the Halys." How much he may include in this expression, it ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... Ville d'Orient,' taken by the 'Druid.' The hussars taken on board that vessel were those who guarded the scaffold at the execution of the unfortunate Lewis—they are clothed in scarlet jackets trimmed with gold and fur, and wear each the butcher's steel, on which they whet their knives, to whet their swords with. It is reported that Hoche and Reilly (one of the admirals) are gone off to America with seven hundred thousand pounds in specie that was on board their vessel to pay the troops. Others think the vessel has sunk, for neither of these ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... forenoon Sam managed to earn ten cents, and was forced to content himself with a very economical dinner. There was a place on Ann street, where, for this small sum, a plate of meat and a potato were furnished, but enough only to whet the appetite of a hearty boy like Sam. A suspicion did enter his mind as he rose from the table penniless once more, and his appetite still unsatisfied, that he had bought his liberty dearly, if his affairs did not improve. In the country he had enough to eat, a good bed to sleep ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger

... first point, it may be conceded, without deducting much from his sincere zeal in the cause, that the gratification of his thirst of fame, and, above all, perhaps, that supply of excitement so necessary to him, to whet, as it were, the edge of his self-wearing spirit, were not the least of the attractions and incitements which a struggle under the banners of Freedom presented to him. It is also but too certain that, destined as he was to endless disenchantment, from that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... meal with an ogre-like appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum! Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have you trussed him, and did you stuff him nicely, and have you taken care to baste him and do him, not too brown, as I told you? Quick! I am hungry! I begin to whet my knife, to roll my eyes about, and roar and clap my huge chest like a gorilla; and then my poor Ogrina has to tell me that the little princes have all run away, whilst she was in the kitchen, making the paste to bake them in! I pause in the description. I won't ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... pedestrians jostling each other as they pass and repass; but soon as the hour of six arrives, all is still again, for youths and maidens are alike engaged in discussing that meal for which their long walk has served as a whet. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... me! It is ARTHUR's pet. Light ladder this; would capsize in a jiffy. His bristles he'd scrape and his tusks he would whet Against it, I wish he were drowned in the Liffey! Whisht! Get away! He's so heavy and big. There! round the ladder he's playing the fooler. Ah! there's the rub. PATRICK scumfish that Pig! If he doesn't mean deviltry ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various

... Soon he stood by Vidrik knight: "Whet your spears, and sharp your swords, For the King is bent ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise

... preach it to touch every feeling with refinement, to soften rudeness and enrich affections; we build the family with it; we sanctify love, and purge out lust; we polish every relation of life; we inspire a cheerful industry and whet the edge of enterprise, and then limit them by the bonds of justice and by the moderation of a faith which looks into the future and the eternal. We teach each man that he is a child of God; that he is personally ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher

... Byron, and to turn him away from worldly associations and topics into more abstract and untrodden ways of thought. As far as contrast, indeed, is an enlivening ingredient of such intercourse, it would be difficult to find two persons more formed to whet each other's faculties by discussion, as on few points of common interest between them did their opinions agree; and that this difference had its root deep in the conformation of their respective minds needs but a glance through the rich, glittering labyrinth ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... can compare with the jolly Town-Rake's, When in Youth his full Swing of all Pleasure he takes? At Noon, he gets up, for a Whet, and to dine, And wings the dull Hours with Mirth, Musick and Wine; Then jogs to the Play-house, and chats with the Masks, And thence to the Rose, where he takes his three Flasks. There, great as a Caesar, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... but moved excitedly on her seat, and then settled herself for an unwonted good time. For the new minister was undiscovered ground; an unexamined possession; unexplored treasure. One Sunday and two sermons had done no more than whet the appetite of the curious. Nobody had made up his mind, or her mind, on the subject, in regard to any of its points. So there were eyes enough that from Mrs. Starling's windows watched the minister as he dismounted and tied his ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... these tests, which were attended with some success. We occasionally received press news from land stations or from ships passing across the Tasman Sea, but it was only a brief summary of the cable news: enough to whet one's ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... spilt milk—it's no use to move when there is no idea existing of bettering one's self, so here I'll roost until daylight, unless Doctor comes back to hunt me up!" I judged it was not far from 2 o'clock, A. M., and believed it possible that our venison might only whet a grizzly bear's appetite to follow up the pursuit and gormandize me!—A proper site for a roost was the next matter of importance, and a scrubby oak with a thick top, close by, offered ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... put upon his voice rippled it, "John, don't tamper with the affections of an old and infirm man. Drive me off the bayou plantation, compel me to acknowledge and to feel that I am a hypercrite and a liar, but don't whet a sentiment and then cut my throat with it. Be merciful unto a ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... myself to the banquet with this torch in my hand according to custom. But why do you tarry, Blepyrus? Take these young girls with you and, while you are away a while, I will whet my appetite with some dining-song. I have but a few words to say: let the wise judge me because of whatever is wise in this piece, and those who like a laugh by whatever has made them laugh. In this way I address pretty well ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... and powerful work. Meantime, with every secondary merit which such a work could possess this is replete; while its faults are only such as were inseparable from the conjunction of such ambitions with such powers. He may whet and wield his blade; but he puts no poison on its edge. He may disparage reverence; but he is not himself irreverent. He may impugn the convictions that most men love; but, while withholding no syllable of dissent and reprehension, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... pity on them, had already devoured them with his eyes; he told his wife they would be delicate eating, when tossed up with good savoury sauce. He then took a great knife, and coming up to these poor children, whetted it upon a great whet-stone which he held in his left hand. He had already taken hold of one of them, when his wife ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault

... that is the night note of a little mouse-catching owl," said Addison. "Some term it the saw-whet owl, I believe. There are numbers of these little fellows about at night, in these woods. They catch lots of woods mice and such small birds ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... that much-wished-for event, I have not had news of thee, except in a way so vague, as to whet the desire to know more rather than to ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... mails, with almost absolute impunity. Letters addressed to bogus firms were indeed forwarded from the offices of delivery to the department as "fictitious" and "undeliverable," and many colluding postmasters were decapitated. Such petty measures of warfare served merely to annoy the vampires and to whet their diabolical ingenuity for the contrivance of new devices. Since the law of 1872 went into effect, however, the scoundrels have been compelled to travel a thorny road. Scores of arrests have been made, and in many cases the criminals have ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... if not always, the spokesmen of the State in national affairs. This position and these advantages were legacies of the constitution of 1776. The fact that they were in the minority in point of population served only to whet their appetites for more power. On the other hand, the leaders of the western section of the State had fought for twenty-five years to reform the constitution and the laws, to create new counties in order to secure proportionate representation, and to expand the suffrage in order that ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... them magic words, "Refreshments" and "Souvenirs," would hit 'em hard. In order to whet the public interest, I asked the papers where I advertised to give the thing some editorial or other reference. But they was very cold and said the best they could do was to send their dramatic critics to criticise the show afterward. A lot of good that would ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes

... conjoined with one of the bitter things which Ecclesiastes is fond of saying about those whom he calls 'fools.' It seems to repeat, under another metaphor, the same idea which has been presented in a previous verse, where we read: 'If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength; but wisdom is profitable to direct.' That is to say, skill is better than strength; brain saves muscle; better sharpen your axe than put yourself into a perspiration, hitting fierce blows with a blunt one. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... valuable situation, in the best Government office in London, had been placed over the heads of a dozen others, who had been there before him, &c., &c., &c. And then Mr. Nogo ended with so vehement an attack on Sir Gregory, and the Government as connected with him, that the dogs began to whet their teeth and prepare for a tug ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... nothing," Iglesias repeated, "whether vital as of those far-away southern battle-fields, or fictitious and close at hand as of the stage. Not even the sting of poverty to whet appetite and give an edge to bodily hunger. Nothing, either of fear or of hope. The measure of my obscurity is the measure of my immunity from change of fortune, bad or good. I am worthless even as food for powder. Danger herself will have none of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... all these are obvious, but what I would infer is this— that in such an age it is possible some great genius may arise to equal any of the ancients, abating only for the language; for great contemporaries whet and cultivate each other, and mutual borrowing and commerce makes the common riches of learning, as it does of ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... will find the water," rejoined Nancy; "but, however, singing is dry work, and I am provided. Pass my basket aft, old gentleman, and we will find Mr Salisbury something with which to whet his whistle." The boatman handed the basket to Nancy, who pulled out a bottle and glass, which she ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... light, we took out our gentleman, dragged by an immense string of oxen, to introduce him to his future victims and whet his appetite by a taste. The Boer position lies some six miles to the north of the river. The most conspicuous feature of it is a hill projecting towards us like a ship's ram and dipping sharply to the plain. Magersfontein, they call it. The railway going ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... as for thee, thou false woman! My sister and my fae, Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword That thro' thy soul shall gae! The weeping blood in woman's breast Was never known to thee; Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... as to an "austere regimen in scenery"; and such a discipline was then recommended as "healthful and strengthening to the taste." That is the test, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, it must be understood, is something more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood, and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the ardour and patience of a botanist after a rare plant. Day by day we perfect ourselves ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... under my charge, with many injunctions as to their safe-keeping, he went off to forage for the coffee, and presently returned, having been moderately successful. One egg apiece was hardly enough, however, to appease the craving of two strong men ravenous from long fasting. Indeed, it seemed only to whet the appetite, and we both set out on an eager expedition for more food. Before going far I had the good luck to meet a sutler's wagon, and though its stock was about all sold, there were still left four ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... old men had much better food than now, for many hogs were killed in the celebration of war expeditions — and the old men got the greater part of the meat. The Igorot is a natural head-hunter, and his training for the last sixty years seems to have done little more for him than whet this appetite. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... clover fields in the pastures? A tithe of the merry gambols they now so safely indulge in, would speedily bring about them a swarm of these infuriated insects. In all our rambles among the green fields, we should constantly be in peril; and no jocund mower would ever whet his glittering scythe, or swing his peaceful weapon, unless first clad in a dress impervious to their stings. In short, the bee, instead of being the friend of man, would be one of his most vexatious enemies, and as has been the case with the wolves and the bears, ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... once be bundled back to Tokyo under police surveillance. But he could not go himself, he had no one to send, and furthermore the delinquent seemed only too willing to escort himself there, free of government expense, as speedily as possible. All I had to do was to whet his perception that the sooner boatmen were got the sooner I should be on the right side of the law again. After some conflict with himself he went in search of ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... causes which will hereafter be explained, they exhibited less than the usual plethoric satisfaction after the hospitality of the country, and were the first to welcome the appearance of a square black bottle, which went the rounds, with the observation: "Whet up ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... merriment and madness. Give your fancies free range in choosing your characters: the wilder and uglier the better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye, and mouth like a gaping volcano; build mountains upon your shoulders, or fatten yourselves into Falstaffs; and as a whet to your inventions, I hereby promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that would be the likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such a strange event in one's life; the bride and bridegroom are so suddenly plunged, as ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... muster-roll of this great army be called, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endure the reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure the groan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar's key? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it not sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister with his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... and simply expressed, was to Ralph Allen. As before, the "artful aid" of advertisement was invoked to whet the public appetite. ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... frowned upon him, would not vouchsafe him her company, but kissed Lamprius his co-rival, at the same time [5130]before his face: but why was it? To make him (as she telleth her mother that chid her for it) more jealous; to whet his love, to come with a greater appetite, and to know that her favour was not so easy to be had. Many other tricks she used besides this (as she there confesseth), for she would fall out with, and anger him of set purpose, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... literary sense,—even in the Boston Public Library, which is admitted to be a model of good sense and wide liberality,—all books are not bought or issued indiscriminately to all readers, irrespective of age and so forth. The necessity for making special application may, in some cases, whet curiosity, but it also, undoubtedly, acts as a check upon unhealthy tastes, even when the book may be publicly purchased. I have heard Russians who did not wholly agree with their own censorship assert, nevertheless, that a strict censure was better than the total absence ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... is sometimes very like amber, there is much sophistication indulged in, which none but an expert can guard against. In fashioning the nodules of amber, whether genuine or fictitious, into pipe mouth-pieces, they are split on a leaden plate in a turning lathe, smoothed into shape by whet-stones, rubbed with chalk and water, and polished with a piece of flannel. It is an especially difficult kind of work; for unless the amber is allowed frequent intervals for cooling, it becomes electrically excited by the friction and shivers into fragments; the men, too, are ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... that was all that could be ascertained—just enough to whet curiosity to burning-point. Then in the solitude and seclusion of the ladies' cabin the maid servant became confidential with one of the stewardesses, and narrated, after the manner of maids, her mistress's history as far as she knew it. The stewardess retailed it to the lady passengers, and the ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... to narrative, criticism, and prediction. The strategy and tactics of the rival armies were everywhere discussed, and the fact that almost every single item of intelligence came from a Northern source served only as a whet to curiosity. The vast territory controlled by the Confederacy was so completely cut off from the outer world that an atmosphere of mystery enveloped the efforts of the defence. "The Southern States," ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed of him leggings, gloves, a whet-stone, and a hook, to use till he should be able to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his new fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the furze grew thickest he struck the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... smile of approval it was plain the captain agreed with every interruption, and they seemed to whet his interest in the story he had ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... those most deeply interested in Scotland's greatest bards, hail from the New World. The conclusion of the war will probably be the signal for an unusual hegira from America to Europe; and these notes of the actual condition, in A.D. 1863, of Scotland's famed shrines, may serve to whet the increasing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... invasion. George desired to master gunnery instantly, and Resmith soothed him with the assurance that he would soon be sent away on a gunnery course, which would give him beans. And in the meantime George might whet his teeth on the detailed arrangements for feeding and camping the Battery on Epsom Downs. This organization gave George pause, especially when he remembered that the Battery was a very trifling item in the Division, and when Resmith casually informed him that a Division ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... complications of this meeting. She knew the dull, mean nature of her aunt, and the utter hopelessness of all appeal to anything but her selfish cupidity, and saw in this fatuous essay of Corbin only an aggravation of her worst instincts. Even the dead body of her son would not only whet her appetite for pecuniary vengeance, but give it plausibility in the eyes of their emotional but ignorant neighbors. She had still less to hope from Julia Jeffcourt's more honest and human indignation but equally bigoted and prejudiced intelligence. It is ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... answered, with a laugh that had more of harshness in it than was usual with him. Then he glanced at me. "Mr. Middlebrook, there, from what he told me this afternoon, knows a bit about me and my affairs," he said. "But not much. Sufficient to whet your ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... gasthaus, after our arrival, resembles a popular meeting; for, although a few of the villagers have been to Belgrade and seen a bicycle, it is only within the last six months that Belgrade itself has boasted one, and the great majority of the Batainitz people have simply heard enough about them to whet their curiosity for a closer acquaintance. More-over, from the interest taken in my tour at Belgrade on account of the bicycle's recent introduction in that capital, these villagers, but a dozen kilometres away, have heard more of my journey than people in villages farther ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... He says that Mr. Crocker is one of the rare men of the time, and that only inexperience among the people here prevents him from being appreciated. That's what he goes to see him for. It isn't father that worries me, it's mother. I know just whet she'll say. She's got her heart set on my studying law, and she won't listen to anything else. I wouldn't object to the law if I cared for it, but I don't. That's what makes it ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... been staid—"indeed, Mr Lawson, we are friends and not foes; and, whilst our cattle, which are a little blawn, with the haste into which they were hurried by old Walter here—until the beasts bite, I say, and eat their corn, we will e'en thank God, and take a little whet of the creature. You know, such comforts are not forbidden in the laws of Moses, or, indeed, in any laws but those of this ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... a fellur as I met oncest at Bent's Fort on the Arkinsaw— a odd sort o' a critter he wur, an no mistake; he us't to go pokin about, gatherin' weeds an' all sorts o' green garbitch, an' spreadin' 'em out atween sheets o' paper—whet he called button-eyesin—jest like thet ur Dutch doctur as wur rubbed out when we went into the Navagh country, t'other side ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... Johannes, pausing to whet his curious knife; "but that's how things are. One lives upon another. Birds, beasts, and fishes, they're all alike. But this will make a noble head when the skin's dressed, and a pair of glass eyes put in, and the whole stuffed out a little. ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... pre-eminent, knowing how to oppose arguments by precedents, proofs by assertions, and thus they very often obtain victory in minor matters of detail. They see and know with admirable penetration, when one of them presents to another a weapon which she herself is forbidden to whet. It is thus that they sometimes lose a husband without intending it. They apply the match and long afterwards are terror-stricken at ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the public—at all events, our public—demands. We wish his biography,—the history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite. We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored, and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their publications ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Metellus had made him throw himself on the support of the people from whom he sprang; and they, idolising him for his dazzling exploits as a soldier, looked to him as their natural leader, and the creator of a new era. Indeed it needed no stimulus from without to whet his ambitious cravings. That seventh consulship which superstition whispered would be surely his he had yet to win; and in all his after conduct he seems to have been guided by the most vulgar selfishness, which in the end became murderous insanity. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... enough to make your prospect want to order, you must make it easy for him to order by enclosing order blanks, return envelopes, instructions and other "literature" that will strengthen your arguments and whet his desire; and more than that, you must reach a real climax in your letters—tell the prospect what to do and how ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... echoing back emptily. I knocked again. A door, creaking on rusty hinges, swung slowly inward, but no one peered out, inviting me to enter. I backed away from the yawning cavern, blacker than the starless night, into the open road. A little saw-whet owl, seeking, as I was, supper, swooped by on muffled wings, and sawed wood, saying nothing. I jeered back at him, and felt my courage rising. I stepped up resolutely to the next house and beat upon its door. There ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... occur incidentally in a record intended not for the public, but for the writer's own family, whose interest in her personal history needed no stimulant and called for no extraneous details. Here and there we find a passage calculated to whet if not to satisfy a more general curiosity, such as the account of a conversation with Wordsworth after his return from Italy in 1837, and some letters from Mazzini written soon after his first arrival in England, But even these belong not to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... for which he is to blame is that he spoilt his wife. To be sure he married for love; and from such love-matches no good ever comes," added the old lady, casting a side glance at Maria Dmitrievna. Then, standing up, she added: "But now you can whet your teeth on whom you will; on me, if you like. I'm off. I won't hinder you any longer." And ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... stewards attend only to the saloon and the eating department. At six A.M. a cup of tea or coffee is provided for those who like it. At seven to eight there is a light breakfast of tea, eggs, sardines, etc. At ten, Madeira, Gin and bitters are brought on deck as a whet for the substantial eleven o'clock breakfast, which differs from a dinner only in the absence of soup. Cups of tea and coffee are brought around at three P.M.; bitters, etc. again at five, a good dinner with beer and ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... sir," said Jim, "but they didn't seem so lively. I don't give them any more than just enough to whet their appetites. At first they sat round the door begging for more, half the morning, and I had to stone them away; now they understand it. In a few minutes, they'll all be off; and you won't see much of any of them till to-morrow morning. ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson

... really been enraged for any strenuous cause, this incident would have operated merely as a preliminary whet to stimulate them to further bloodshed. But, as they were mostly actuated only by a natural desire for mischief, they were about as well satisfied with what had been done as if the Doctor himself were the victim. And besides, the fathers and respectabilities of the town, who ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Science," an "Essay on Early Man," "Great Artists," "Secrets of Success," etc. Each little book contained the evening's programme, the words and music of at least two national hymns, and "Owl Talks," a single page of crisp thoughts, to whet one's wits. At the close of each season the twenty pamphlets, continuously paged, were bound for fifty cents in two volumes with covers of red cloth. Thus the people got much for little, and they were benefited and pleased with their bargain. Encores and the discourtesy of stamping the feet ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... three menials, now entered with wine and refreshments, which it was the fashion to offer as a whet before dinner; and when they were placed before the guests, Lady Ashton made an apology for withdrawing her husband from them for some minutes upon business of special import. The Marquis, of course, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... practice—such as stoning disobedient dogs, and the like—and, when Pink rushed at him furiously, the herder caught him very neatly alongside the head with his stick. These little amenities serving merely to whet Pink's appetite for battle, he stopped long enough to thrash that particular herder very thoroughly and to his ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... vice; hence they interpret guidance of the people by oppression, polygamy by licentiousness, and maintenance of the faith by bloodshed. Relays of Arabs come, from time to time, under the guise of Koran expounders, to feed on the people and whet their ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... whet you say, your Highness," cried the prisoner, hastily. "I must refuse to accept a pardon at the cost of your honor. It is because I love you better than my life that I stand here. I cannot allow you and your people to suffer when it is in my power to prevent it. All that I can ask ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... not propose to enter into details, but so it was that Roger Coverly died. Following a brief sojourn abroad, we presently returned again to the Bell House. This gratification of her bloodthirsty desires had done no more than to whet the feline appetite of Nahemah, and she forced me to impose new and almost insupportable conditions upon Sir Burnham, with the result, as is known, that from being a very wealthy man he ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... other once or twice a week without any word of love between them; and for all that time I believe Will was nearly as happy as a man can be. He rather stinted himself the pleasure of seeing her; and he would often walk half-way over to the parsonage, and then back again, as if to whet his appetite. Indeed, there was one corner of the road, whence he could see the church-spire wedged into a crevice of the valley between sloping fir-woods, with a triangular snatch of plain by way of background, which he greatly affected as a place to sit and moralise in before returning homewards; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to suppose that boys who are bred where they have no companions are prone to make the most of companionship when once attained to. And then, in regard to books, as of these I rarely got more than what might serve as a whet to the appetite, I might have the desire of those whose longings after what they would obtain are increased by the difficulties which interpose between them and the possession. One book which in school I sometimes got a glance of, I would have given anything to possess: ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... with horrible zest. "And there'll be delicate necks to prick to-night! Lord, I think I hear them squeal! You don't need it, sir?" he continued, again proffering the whetstone. "No? Then I'll give my blade another whet, in the name of our Lady, the Saints, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... place in utter innocence and ignorance, and yields to temptations to do things which he vaguely, if at all, realizes are wrong, and that only because a puzzling sort of instinct tells him so; or else he is given just enough information to whet his curiosity, usually in the shape of warnings against certain apparently harmless bodily acts, which he not unnaturally tries out of curiosity, and finds them very pleasant. It may be undesirable that a boy should have full ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... thee from sudden death, Giving thee leave to live, that thou might'st love? And dost thou whet me on to cruelty? Come, kiss me (sweet) ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... There were four of us in the second cabin; {128} we dined alone, and had a mulatto servant to attend upon us. Unfortunately, he was afflicted with elephantiasis, and his appearance did not at all tend to whet ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... For drying, Albans are your safer fruit. 'Twas I who first, authorities declare, Served grapes with apples, lees with caviare, White pepper with black salt, and had them set Before each diner as his private whet. ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... be with us; and he sometimes expressed much regret at being unable to join us. I used to do my best to gratify him, poor fellow, by relating all the wonders that we saw; but this, instead of satisfying, seemed only to whet his curiosity the more, so one day we prevailed on him to try to go down with us. But although a brave boy in every other way, Peterkin was very nervous in the water, and it was with difficulty we got him to consent ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... three gentlemen would be received in the unpartitioned parlour, and there treated to such lemon cakes as had been the ruin of La Sablerie; but in general the castle and the convent had little intercourse, or only just enough to whet the appetite of the prisoners for ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... collected round him, "is really a most insipid meal. If I did not make a rule of rising early and taking regular exercise, I doubt very much if I should be able to swallow a mouthful-there's nothing to whet the appetite here; and it's the same everywhere; as Yellowchops says, our breakfasts are a disgrace to England. One would think the whole nation was upon a regimen of tea and toast—from the Land's ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... Betty. The odor is delectable enough to whet the appetite to as keen an edge as the wind hath. Robert, 'tis some time ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... that all the people should hear: "Sun's Road has come in. On the other side of the pile of bones he saw thirty bulls and a calf, and just below this he saw many buffalo. Gather in your horses. Get them up. Women, sharpen your knives. Men, whet your arrow points. Tie up your horses, and early in the morning we will go after buffalo. The camp will stay here. All will ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell

... might miscarry, so on the other hand enough of them escaped to inform the rest, as well of what they had done, as of what happened to them; and to whet them on to another enterprise of the same nature, which they, it seems, resolved to attempt, with sufficient force to carry all before them; for except what the first man told them of inhabitants, they could say little to it of their own knowledge; for they never saw one ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... whom, with his awful sense of the divine majesty, and his humble prostration in presence of it, such claims and such a demeanour must have appeared an impious and blasphemous usurpation of prerogatives that belong to God alone. And sometimes, we may suspect, lower motives concurred to whet the edge of the priest's hostility. He professed to be the proper medium, the true intercessor between God and man, and no doubt his interests as well as his feelings were often injured by a rival practitioner, who preached a surer and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... fickle fiddle-sticks!" he interrupted. "That's only a tag. The people whose business it is to decide these things—DIE HERREN DICHTER—are not agreed to this day whet it's man who's fickle or woman. In this mood it's one, in that, the other; and the silly world bleats it ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... "Nevertheless, we'll not be apprehensive. Master McLean iss coming back for supper, and we're going to make it a great affair, a real reunion for all of us. Caterina, helped by two stout colored women, has been cooking all the afternoon, and I hope that you two boys have had enough exercise and excitement to whet your appetites. How ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... effective to whet hunger as this gentleman's expedient. When the spicy breezes began to blow soft as those of Ceylon's isle over the river and every whiff talked Turkey, the population of Dunderbunk listened to the wooing and began to follow its several noses—snubs, beaks, blunts, sharps, piquants, dominants, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... very sports? Does not life without difficulty become insipid and joyless? Cannot a strong interest turn difficulty into pleasure? Let the love of truth, of which I have spoken, be awakened, and obstacles in the way to it will whet, not discourage, the mind, and inspire a new delight into ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... conscious of a hunter's camp in an adjacent county. To these last, of course, Fontainebleau will seem but an extended tea-garden: a Rosherville on a by-day. But to the plain man it offers solitude: an excellent thing in itself, and a good whet for company. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... me more eggs, or I'll scratch your eyes out,' shrieked the owl, and began to whet its beak on a beam in such a savage manner that the three cocks fled in terror to the top of ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... I live! The sight! A burning world! And to be dead and miss it! There's an end Of all satiety: such fire imagine! Born in some obscure alley of the poor, Then leaping to embrace a splendid street, Palaces, temples, morsels that but whet Her appetite: the eating of huge forests: Then with redoubled fury rushing high, Smacking her lips over a continent, And licking old civilisations up! Then in tremendous battle fire and sea Joined: and the ending ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips

... is, gin he should slip awa. An' ax him tae, whit ma rights 'll be. Ah've got a buggie, ye ken, an' a coo o' ma ain', foreby a settin' o' Plymouths, an' ah'm to have a horse, he says, to drive to Cheemaun—ah got that oot o' him in writin' an' he didna ken whet ah wes up to. But ah'd like to ken jist hoo much ah'm to expact. Ah'm no goin' to ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... part of various exalted personages, things were straightened out, pickets detailed and posted, and the men, too tired even to swear, dropped where they were, and rapidly cooled down in the chilly dew. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and a half bottle of water was issued, enough merely to whet the consuming thirst which gripped everybody. Tunics were disentangled from the damp congeries on our backs and we had a ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... O, A whet of ale and brandy O, With a rumbelow and a Westward-ho! And heave, my mariners ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... which they now fall; or, filling some extensive concavity, have contributed, by successive depositions, to the formation of those marshes of which so much has been said. I regret extremely, that my defective vision prevents me giving a slight sketch to elucidate whet I fear I have, in words, perhaps, failed in ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... Fathom-wide his eyes were parted, Fathom-wide his trousers measured; Round his knee the girth was greater, And around his hip 'twas doubled. 160 Then he sharpened keen the axe-blade, Brought the polished blade to sharpness; Six the stones on which he ground it, Seven the stones on which he whet it. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... traine ten thousand English to their side; Or, as a little snow, tumbled about, Anon becomes a Mountaine. O noble Dolphine, Go with me to the King, 'tis wonderfull, What may be wrought out of their discontent, Now that their soules are topfull of offence, For England go; I will whet on ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare



Words linked to "Whet" :   excite, stir, stimulate



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