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




Imp   /ɪmp/   Listen
Imp

noun
1.
(folklore) fairies that are somewhat mischievous.  Synonyms: brownie, elf, gremlin, hob, pixie, pixy.
2.
One who is playfully mischievous.  Synonyms: monkey, rapscallion, rascal, scalawag, scallywag, scamp.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Imp" Quotes from Famous Books



... Master Sleep, where do these doors open upon?" asked I. "Upon the land of Oblivion," was the answer, "an extensive domain {44a} under the sceptre of my brother Death, and this great rampart is the boundary of vast Eternity." By this I could see that there was a little death-imp at every door, each one bearing arms, and a name different from that of his fellows; though it was evident that they, one and all, were the ministers of the same king. Nevertheless they were continually quarrelling about the sick; ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... a rabble crowd, and were received on the bank by the left-handed chief, who conducted them into the village with grave courtesy; driving to the right and left the swarms of old squaws, imp-like boys, and vagabond dogs, with which the place abounded. They wound their way between the cabins, which looked like dirt-heaps huddled together without any plan, and surrounded by old palisades; all filthy in the extreme, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... was a sigh of content from across the table. "Now I have my bearings. My imp is Mac Holden and Mrs. Farrington is Aunt Teddy, of course. I met her in New York, last winter, at a dinner or two; but she evidently had ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... scenes, based on his jealousies of her, which some imp in her would lead her to provoke, notwithstanding that even as she spoke she regretted, and reached back for ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... old fellow whose face was redder than his half-bleached hair, and who having only two teeth like tusks left looked just like an oni (imp.) As for his wife, her teeth had long ago fallen out and the skin of her face seemed to have added a pucker for every year since a half century ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... "You outrageous imp! Not another word from you. I will not have you in this place another minute! Go to Mr. Gaston and draw your pay and leave, and never let me see your ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... visit to Damelioc to lay his demon of restlessness; had supposed this monthly account of his stewardship, punctually rendered, to be the business weighing on his mind. But no: as he passed out through the park gates, the imp perched itself again behind his crupper, urging him forward, tormenting him with the same vague sense of duty ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air,— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents,—(Drat the boy! There goes ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... and had seen both men hiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we should come upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it was I who had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving imp, and he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in treacherous ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... her, laid down their napkins and stood up. Yes, there was something to be said for war, she felt, as she looked at their boyish faces, transfigured. Not for them Business as usual, the Capture of German Trade. Other visions those young eyes were seeing. The little imp within her brain had seized his drum again. "Follow me"—so he seemed to beat—"I teach men courage, duty, the laying down of self. I open the gates of honour. I make heroes out of dust. Isn't ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... but plenty of people would have been so sorry for her that they would have taken sensible, conscientious, unattractive Jennie Perkins out of Pitt Packard's buggy and substituted the heedless little Huldah, just for the pleasure of seeing her smile and blush. There was, however, no guardian imp to look after her ruined fortunes, and she went downstairs as usual to help about the breakfast, wondering to herself if there were any tragedies in life too terrible to be coexistent with three meals a day and the dishes washed after ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... twang of the guitar, with its suggestion of a festa, the singing voices, the youthful laughter, and the final exclamation ringing out in the dawn, overcame the angry and suspicious spirit that had hitherto dominated him. The boy's imp of fun was up and dancing within him. He could not drive it out or lay it ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... now," continued the Imp; and thrusting a hand into the pocket of his knickerbockers he drew forth six inches or so of slimy worm and held it out to me upon his small, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... dismounting; "just see the little imp lying there asleep, so far from home, and in a ditch, where ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... another patrol meeting. Tim attended, but an imp of perverseness seemed to rule him. It was the first time he had seen the patrol as a group since Friday night. At first he looked hot and uncomfortable. After a while he began to scrape his feet and drum on the table. He seemed anxious to have it understood ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger

... them. I see that little imp of a Jane with Phylis Guile over in the corner. Let's go and thank them for the flowers?" ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... mother! My melons wont grow; there's somethin' the matter with them. Faith, I believe some imp has cast a spell over 'em. I do, mother," quoth he, thumping the table with his fist until ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various

... nature of a prize for a gutter imp of eleven does a pocketless young woman attired for the serious business of a school treat carry upon her person? She laughed in pretty embarrassment. "If I gave you something quite useless, what ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... observed Durtal, "the incubi and succubi are not precisely demons, but animal spirits, intermediate between the demon and the angel, a sort of satyr or faun, such as were revered in the time of paganism, a sort of imp, such as were exorcised in the Middle Ages. Sinistrari adds that they do not need to pollute a sleeping man, since they possess genitals and are ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... lively little imp returned the corpse to its original resting place. Some minutes of ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since. Instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother confessed him to be when Ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other. All the good women of the neighbourhood ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... is an imp would follow me even there! There is an imp hath followed me even there! There is—what voice ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... weight against the aft oar. "Do you love gin? A bottle of gin to the best man! Oh, pile it on, while you have breath! pile it on!" "On with the beef, chummies! Smash every oar! double 'em up or break 'em!" "Every devil's imp of you, pull! No talking; lay back ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... generally hanted with terrible spirits, and strange Ghosts, that walked there, coming in frightfull apparitions: but since they have been driven out of our Country and Houses; there's another sort of Imp come in, ten times wickeder then any of the other; which regards nor cares neither for Crosses, Holy-water, Exorcisms, or any sort of Divel-drivers; but dares boldly shew himself at noon-day, namely a Plague-Divel, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... even think of it. The offender is only a cub," urged Dick. "If you accept my advice, Mace, you won't even call the poor blubber out. We'll just summon him here, and make the little imp so ashamed of himself that the lesson ought to last him through the rest of his plebedom. I'm cooler than you are at this moment, Mace, but none the less disgusted. Will you let ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock

... came to the bronco. The animal, without turning its head, knew that someone was coming up behind. Many a time a cowboy had tried to fool the savage horse that way, and leap into the saddle without being seen. But Imp, as the bronco was named, ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis

... verbs by is concluded are, In second person singular; But in the plural itis make, The is is long, and no mistake— Provided always that the pe- Nultimate plural long shall be. Os, saving comp{o}s, imp{o}s, {o}s Is long— as honOs dominOs. The Greek omicron 's short, and that in All conscience must be so in Latin. Words should be short in us, unless Authority has laid a stress On the penultimate of any Word that increases in the geni- Tive case when us is long, the same Pronunciation ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh

... Poe wrote to a friend. The fact of his birth in Boston he regarded as merely an unfortunate accident, or perhaps the work of that malevolent "Imp of the Perverse" which apparently dominated his life. That it constituted any tie between him and the "Hub of the Universe," unless it might be the inverted tie of opposition, he never admitted. The love which his charming little actress mother cherished ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... eyes. Into this house many comely Abigails had come and gone; but Babet Blais remained in spite of him, having, as she deemed, acquired a wife's settlement and privileges, by virtue of the presence of a dwarfish, swarthy creature, half oaf, half imp, their mutual offspring. This strange being, as if in mockery, for he was ugly from the womb, was named Narcisse, and flitted about the house rather than made it his home; rarely entering it, except ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... answered Archer, with a laugh; "I will, too, if you go wish it, though you are not a spaniel, nor any thing else half so good. And why, pray, should I not scourge this wild little imp? he ran slap into the best pack of ruffed grouse I have seen this two years—fifteen or sixteen birds. I wonder they're not scattered—it's full late ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... Rivers were like angels gone astray in the strange country called earth; and then that imp of a boy, John, who says queer things, said that it was like a bit of verse Rivers had read to him. He knew it too. I liked it and got him to write it out. I have it in my pocket-book. Like to ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... scarcely believe their ears, so much was I, a four-year-old child, their superior in learning. Some of them were not certain that I was not an imp of Satan, so utterly did my performance exceed credibility. My beauty too at this age was uncommon; my limbs were straight and strong, my cheeks of the purest red and white, and my full flaxen hair hung in short ringlets down my neck. The mistress and bar-maid ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... was not a devil at all. It was a little volcano, or better, a little powder magazine hidden away somewhere in the heart. The imp Pride had its head out looking for a caress, when it received a rebuff instead. Hastily disappearing within, it spat fire right and left, and the explosion followed, proportionate in energy and destructive power to the quantity ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... the two-year-old,—show the gentleman how you hit from the shoulder. Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist straight into my eye, to his ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... were busied here and there, bulking grotesquely as they moved about the fire, seeming disheveled demons of the pit. Like some master imp torturing a pigmy over the flames, old Ben York was kneeling close beside the blaze, holding to the coals a hickory stick, which served as spit for the roasting of a squirrel. The brilliance shone full on the frowsy gray whiskers, and, above them, the blinking, rheumy eyes, so intent on the proper ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... favoured, though Guys did not waste the fruits of his observation. At sixty-five he began to go down-hill. His habits had never been those of a prudent citizen, and as his earning powers grew less some imp of the perverse entered his all too solitary life. With this change of habits came a change of theme. Henceforth he drew filles, the outcasts, the scamps and convicts and the poor wretches of the night. He is now a forerunner of Toulouse-Lautrec and an entire school. This side ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... mind was now clear, and that the incident of Paddy's lashings he regarded as closed. As for that flame-headed imp of crime, if I could have got my hands upon him he would have taken a short road to his fathers. Him and his lashings! As I stood there with a black glare at him, the impudent scoundrel repeatedly winked ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... time to digest this announcement a youthful imp descended from above with agility, and, making a profound reverence, presented himself before ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... Trade stocks the manger, and there is the pail Full set by the imp Illegality! That fierce fiery Pegasus thus to regale, When he's danger and death from hot head to flame-tail, Is cruelly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various

... just coming in from golf, with the smug smile of one who has played a good round, on his face. His buggy boy, Cornelius Twombly, a black imp of twelve, who carried a razor in his hip pocket, wore also the smug look of one who has caddied to victory, and won certain nickels and dimes from another caddie upon the main and minor issues of ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... The imp seemed much surprised, caught one of her tears on his finger, held it up to the light and then sucked it, making funny faces all the time. Kaethe could not help laughing, and then she dried her tears with a corner of her apron. She sat down on a tree-trunk ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt

... if Richard had not interposed, Henry would not have lived to depose his benefactor. "How true is the saying," cried poor Richard in his agony, "that we have no greater enemy than the man whom we save from the gallows!"—See Creton's MS. Bibl. Imp. ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt

... pretty book for children, written with no little feeling and fancy, and in a graceful style. The chimney-corner has been abolished by the economical furnace-register, and Santa Claus, if he come at all, must do it like an imp of the pit. The volumes for children to pore over, as they bake by the stove, or stew over the black hole in the floor, have also suffered an economic and practical change. No more fires, no more pretty fancies, seems to have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... you hear. You know Betty doesn't care what she says. Her reply to that was peculiarly Bettyish. She sighed and cast down her eyes,—the little imp! 'The course of true love never does run smooth,' she said; 'perhaps Ann has discovered the truth of that old saying in some new connection.' She didn't mean to be a cat, she was only trying to create a romantic interest in your affairs, doing as she ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... Dhu said, the Whistler was a born imp of Satan, and therefore he should never leave him. Accordingly, from his eleventh year forward, he was one of the band, and often engaged in acts of violence. The last of these was more immediately occasioned by the researches which the Whistler's real father made after him whom he had been ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... clinched her small fists and declared that, highwayman or not, she'd marry him! She would show him that he could not disdain her for any Sylvia. And then a tiny imp with immature horns and a budding tail whispered something in her ear, and she laughed again, and again there was ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... her child was born three months after she came here. Looks innocent as a wax doll doesn't she? Eve Werneth she calls herself; and she is well named after the original mother of all sin. She is Satan's own imp, and we chain her every night, for she boasts that when things grow tiresome to her she always burns her way out. I think she is the worst case we have, except the young mulatto—I don't see her here just now—who was sent up for life, for poisoning a baby she was hired to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... Loaf, the biker's boy, Below he chanced to meet: "Sweep!" sneered the baker: and the sweep Gave Puff a sooty flout; But Puff-crumb did not deal in soot, So turned his face about; Nor did he care to soundly drub The imp of dirty flues: "Go change your clothes!" said he, "and then "I'll thrash you when you choose! "It will not do for me to fight "With such a sooty elf; "My jacket's white, 'twould soon be black "By tussling ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... the way in which Snarleyyow first made his appearance in the vessel, added to the peculiarly diabolical temper of the animal, had often been the theme of midnight conversation, and many of them were convinced that it was an imp of Satan lent to Vanslyperken, and that, to injure or to attempt to destroy it would infallibly be followed up with terrible consequences to the party, if not to the vessel and all the crew. Even Short, Coble, and Jansen, who were the boldest and leading men, although when their sympathies ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Devil quoth, "For I like your description well, Yes, I'll take this place and I'll mould a race That will be a credit to hell." Then he whistled an imp from the uttermost part And they dropped as the comets whirled Past the white baked stars, past Venus and Mars To the unfinished part ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter

... The Brat did not laugh, but he grew rosy, like a girl. Even his little ears turned pink, under his absurd mop of chestnut curls. "You have no right to insist upon mine," retorted he, in the honey-sweet contralto which tried in vain to make of a pert imp, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... clapping his hand upon his pocket. 'Burn my body, if he isn't more trouble than a whole family of Dodgers. Drink it, you perwerse imp; drink it!' ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... stood waiting; a background no art could reproduce, no stage manager prodigal of expense. If on earth there ever was a hell, that tiny frontier room with the smoke-blackened ceiling and the single kerosene lamp sputtering on the wall, was the place. Not an imp thereof, but Satan himself, stood in the misshapen boots of Cowman Pete; doubly vicious in the aftermath of a debauch, Pete with the lust of blood in his veins. And against him, scant hope to those who watched, was a man; ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... says, 'I thought ye was goin' to brace up,' he says, 'an' here ye're burnin' up ye'er money,' he says. 'Didn't ye promise to invist two dollars ivry month?' he says. 'I'm doin' it,' says Dinnis. 'I've kept me wurrud.' 'An' what are ye invistin' it in?' says Hogan. 'In lotthry tickets,' says th' imp'dent kid." ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne

... imp!" exclaimed the widow in despair, unable to wreak her vengeance on one who kept in a secure position, and whose movements were as nimble ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... lustrous teeth glistened in his bronzed face. The young imp was pleased at this innocent duplicity, and he took advantage of it by speaking to the ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... reflection, "you two are so much alike, that any one, who was not in the habit of seeing you daily, might easily take one for the other. Well! if they did not know that you are, so to speak,'doubles,' they might think an imp was at work instead of such good little angels as ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... came a passionate burst of tender home-sick feeling, though he did it as well as he could, smothering it up in his coonskin cap. But soon again, bethinking him how he had been mocked and fooled by the imp in the moccasins, he summoned back the pride of his young heart and the strength of his young will, and checked his tears, lest his weakness of feeling, like his vanity, should be made the provocation of derision. In this condition he sat for many moments, quite motionless, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... with supernaturaldom, thrilled afresh; and all the calamities, real and imaginary, that had afflicted "Solitude" from a period so remote that "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," were laid upon the galled shoulders of some red-liveried, sulphur-scented Imp of Abaddon, whose peculiar mission was to haunt the "piratical nest;" and, in lieu of human victims, to addle the eggs, blast the grape crop, and make night hideous with spectral ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... innocent assignations; Some, that had sighed their last amen From the canting lips of saints that would be; And some once owned by "the best of men," Who had proved-no better than they should be. 'Mong others, a poet's fame I spied, Once shining fair, now soakt and black— "No wonder" (an imp at my elbow cried), "For I pickt it out of a ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... from Alexandria, were scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, having served as general against ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... claws at once betrayed the craft of the cloven foot. Old Nick had put a little cunning young devil under the balance, who, following the dictates of his senior, kept clinging to the scale, and swaying it down with all his might and main. The saint sent the imp to his proper place in a moment; and instantly the burthen of transgression was seen to kick the beam.—Painters and sculptors also often introduced this ancient allegory of the balance of good and evil, in their ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... the surname he assumed, the name of his half-brothers; and to detail his Asian wanderings would be tedious and unprofitable. But at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger from Glyndwyr, supposed by Richard to be the imp Orvendile, who notoriously ran every day around the world upon the Welshman's business. It was in the Isle of Taprobane, where the pismires are as great as hounds, and mine and store the gold of which the inhabitants afterward rob them through a very cunning device, that this emissary brought ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... said evil-eyed. Probably she was no more evil-eyed than any old woman who had such a hard struggle for existence as she had. An old widow with an only son who looked like a Spaniard and acted like an imp! Here was another sort of exotic in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... is vicious. Kit-Ki took a nap on a new dinner-gown of mine, and I slapped her. And the other day Drina hid in a clothes-press while Nina was discussing my private affairs, and when the little imp emerged I could have shaken her. Oh, I am certainly becoming infirm; so if you are, too, comfort yourself with the knowledge that I am keeping pace with you through ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... 'Hospes eras, civem feci. Advena fuisti ex transalpinis partibus, principem constitui. Quod meum jure fuit, tibi dedi.' See Ottonis Episcopi Frisingensis Chronicon, De Rebus Gestis Frid. i. Imp. Lib. ii. cap. 21. Basileae, 1569. The Legates appointed by the Senate met the Emperor at Sutri, and delivered the oration of which the sentence just quoted was part. It began: 'Urbis legati nos, rex optime, ad tuam a Senatu, populoque Romano destinati sumus excellentiam,' and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... no interval of repose between these terrible and repeated shocks, all beating upon his heart at the same time. One could have feared that the blow might prove mortal, and poor Fougas die in the first hour of his recovered life. But the imp of a fellow yielded and recovered himself in quick succession like a spring. He cried out with admiration on hearing of the five battles of the campaign in France; he reddened with grief at the farewells of Fontainebleau. The return ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... and shook his head. Tormenting whispers of "'Fraid cat! 'Fraid cat!" carried to where he stood, and some imp of ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... With deep and hollow voice, 'Twixt Hope and Dread, Seven Times I said Iohva Mitzoveh 5 Vohoeen![399:2] And up came an imp in the shape of a Pea-hen! I saw, I doubted, And seven times spouted 10 Johva Mitzoveh Yahevoh[a]en! When Anti-Christ starting up, butting and b[a]ing, In the shape of a mischievous curly 15 black Lamb— With a vast flock of Devils behind and beside, And before 'em their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... salutation. "Mademoiselle de Villefort, my daughter-in-law," said Madame de Villefort to Monte Cristo, leaning back on her sofa and motioning towards Valentine with her hand. "And M. de Monte Cristo, King of China, Emperor of Cochin-China," said the young imp, looking ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... sou by carrying a bit of a letter, and telling one or two little lies. As the steps came nearer, a kind of moaning and sobbing was heard, and the old woman, muttering to herself—"It is the voice of Marie. What has the devil's imp been doing to her?"—hobbled as fast as she could to the turning that led to the sea, and just as the flying figure appeared, put out her skinny hand to arrest it. There was a sudden scream, a fall, and Marie lay in the ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... away for Jacob's ladder, (Peter was still asleep), And placed it safely, where from Heaven to Imp-land The way ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... your Badgers' Feet, And Badger-like bite till your Teeth do meet; Help ye, Tart Satyrists, to imp my Rage, With all the Scorpions that should whip this Age. But that there's Charm in Verse, I would not quote The Name of Scot without an Antidote, Unless my Head were red, that I might brew Invention there that might be Poison too. Were I a drowzy Judge, whose ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid

... do it," she said, "it is black sorcery against one who is a god, and will bring my soul to hell. Find some other instrument, or place the waxen imp in the ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... so that it appears to be said with the fullest truth: "The state of the commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped, and between the one and the other there is a close relation and connection." (Sacr. Imp. ad Cyrillum Alexandr, et Episcopus metrop. ef Labbeum Collect Conc., T. iii.) Admirably, as he is accustomed, did Augustine in many places dilate on the power of those good things, but especially when he addresses the Catholic Church in these words: ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... seen the 'Touchwood' mascot?" he asked. She signified a negative, and then nervously fingered her gauze. "No? It's a well-known mascot. Sort of tiny imp sort of thing, with a huge head, glittering eyes, a khaki cap of oak, and crossed legs in gold and silver. I hear that tens of thousands of them are sold. But there is nothing ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... envy or with praise, And all her jealous monarchs with amaze, And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings, Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings Victory home, though new rebellions raise Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays Her broken League to imp their serpent wings: O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand, For what can War but endless war still breed, Till Truth and Right from Violence be freed, And public Faith cleared from the shameful brand Of public ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... shouted the small imp attached to the bookstall. 'Morning paper—Times, Standard, Telegraph, Daily ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... of "the big boy," the lout—the butt of every one, even of the masters, who, when any little imp did a thing well, always made the appropriate laudation tell to the detriment of the big boy, as if he were bound to be as superfluous in intellect as in flesh. He has sufficiently dinned into him to make him thoroughly modest, poor fellow, how all great men were little. Napoleon ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... returned Barbara, whose flushed face looked lovely childlike in its indignation beside the furious phiz of the tormenting imp. ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... lov'st to dart, (Thou skating imp! Thou rolling joker!) And hit in some projecting part The lawyer staid, or solemn broker. Does pity never mar thy glee, When upright men with torture double? Oh, let our one petition be That thou may'st ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various

... "My dear Imp," said I, "the older you grow, the more the depravity of the sex will become apparent ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... brown-haired, a very few black-haired, they passed two by two, with the little ones first, and bigger and bigger girls behind—an ascending scale of size, so that he had the illusion of seeing a girl grow up under his eyes, change in a minute instead of in years from the small sexless imp that is like an amusing toy, to the full-breasted creature that is so nearly a woman as to be dangerous to ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... Bill," gasped the other, "the 'orrors—they've got me and no mistake. As I'm a livin' man, as I was a shovin' of that there truck, I saw a imp—a gashly imp, Bill, stick its hugly 'ed over the side and say, 'Tommy,' it ses, jest like that—it ses, 'Tommy, I wants you!' I dursn't go near it, Bill. I'll get leave, and go 'ome and lay up—it glared at me so 'orrid, Bill, and grinned—ugh! I'll take the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... rocking. Horace says, that he had a soul of brass who first ventured to sea; I think a body of iron very necessary to the outfit. My cot is swinging and jerking up to the beams, as if the lively scoundrel was some metamorphosed imp mocking at me. "Sarve you right—what did you list for?"—Very true—Why did I?—Well, anxious as I am to close this chapter, and to close my eyes, I will tell you, reader, what it was that induced me to go to sea. It was not to escape the drudgery and confinement of a ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... manner of one whose kindly patience is beyond limit abused. "Kems in hyar, he do, a'totin' a fiddle. An' I says, 'Lee-yander Yerby, don't ye know that thar thing's the devil's snare?' 'N'aw, ma'am, cap'n,' he says, grinnin' like a imp; 'it's my snare, fur I hev bought it from Peter Teazely fur two rabbits what I cotch in my trap, an' my big red rooster, an' a bag o' seed pop-corn, an' the only hat I hev got in the worl'. An' with that the consarn gin sech a yawp, it plumb went ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... I dunno, you gomeral, not but what I'm nigh as big a one meself as can be, to go thrust her wid that little imp of mischief. Bad scran to it, I must give me stiff leg a rest, and she 'll be up here blatherin' after me before you can look round, you may bet your ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... twelve, and crack! off flew the lid of the snuff-box; but there was no snuff inside, only a little black imp—that was ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang

... that wither'd imp, With a' his noise an' cap'rin; An' take a share with those that bear The budget and the apron! And by that stowp! my faith an' houp, And by that dear Kilbaigie,^1 If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, May I ne'er weet my craigie. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... for disputes, for quarrels, for disagreeables, for scrapes. During these weeks poor Miss Nelson's hair became more gray, and her face more wrinkled and anxious; but she dreaded the holidays, not because Basil was at home, but on account of Eric, who was a perfect imp of mischief, and because all the home children were more or less demoralized by ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... accompaniment of oaths and maledictions little less emphatic and overwhelming. "You switches gentlemen, do you, you exflunctified, perditioned rascal? Ar'n't you got it, you niggur-in-law to old Satan? you 'tarnal half-imp, you? H'yar's for you, you dog, and thar's for you, you dog's dog! H'yar's the way I pay you in ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... quilt that you might begin the slippers, and the slippers that you might begin the chair-cushion, will soon tempt you to drop the handkerchief for something else. I wish I could catch the jolly little imp. I'd cane him smartly, and then I would lead him to Parson Resolution's church, and marry him to that sweet little fairy, Miss Perseverance, who is breaking her heart for the love of him. Were he once thus married, I think ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester

... I could hardly sit in my chair towards the last. And when the young imp came pawing me and climbing over me, I could hardly help tossing him off of my lap ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur

... child is born into the world half angel, half imp. The imp develops naturally, the angel has to be cultivated." The teacher is the great cultivator of souls. Whether we say the child is half angel and half imp, we know that he is capable of doing both good and evil and that he develops character as he practices virtue and avoids vice. We know, ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... still staring at me. Sitting on the edge of the bed I stared at her, filled with baudy curiosity and the appreciation of novelty. "Why won't you have the other gal?" said she. "I don't want her, nor want two,—and she is a dirty little imp." "No she ain't dirty, she washes herself like me,—let her come up." "No,—come you here." "She is quite clean,—I wash her myself sometimes." "No, come ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... imp of the devil!—I, who had an aunt who died in odour of sanctity, in the convent of Santa Clara—I, who am second cousin to Fray Domingo, one of the most religious as well as most ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... was a bastard, Whom the old man—the grandsire (as old age 400 Is ever doting) took to warm his bosom, As it went chilly downward to the grave: But the imp stands not in my path—he has fled, No one knows whither; and if he had not, His claims alone were too contemptible To ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... he were emerging from some enchanted spot in the "Arabian Nights," abounding with giants and men "getting dead." He had no more belief in what this imperious little imp had told him than he had in the predictions of Licorice Stick, or the homely ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... My head's easily turned. The teachin's of experience are hard—but I guess they're best in the end. Well, send the poor little imp of darkness round to me to-night, and I'll see that it has ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... that is good! So, so, my run-a-ways! I shall nab you, shall I?" exclaimed Purley in triumph, as he beckoned the negro imp to jump ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... out of the hills we found a water-hole, but the cattle had been there first, and the sheep wouldn't look at it. At the camp last night there was another hole, but some imp had deviled the herd an' they lay alongside the water, dyin' of thirst, but they wouldn't drink. We pushed 'em in an' they swam around; we half-drowned some of 'em, but still ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... alive and prevent their running away till sold at the coast. They generally looked sullen and full of despair; but occasionally, at night, they danced and became even riotous, till a word from the earless imp restored ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... "You would look like an imp if you had been made to hoe in the fields all day long with the sun right overhead for the best part of half-a-year. I am an officer like yourself, and will not stand an insult, that I can tell you!" This reply was received with a burst of laughter from the two midshipmen; ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... soul!" cried Bill, his voice inclining again to the falsetto. "Was there ever such an imp of ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of an imp are you anyway, that you can only come in through the window?" said Frau von Eschenhagen indignantly. "What are the ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... brother's characteristics; he had no gentle courtesies, no quiet ways. Except when asleep, he was never known to be still for a moment. One glance at his fiery head, at his comical face, would show plainly that he was a very imp of mischief. He was kind-hearted—he would not willingly injure the smallest living thing—but his wild, ungovernable spirit, his sense of the ludicrous in all and every circumstance, made him sometimes do unintentional harm, ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... the scourge of Europe, Mr. Gladstone was the most malevolent imp of mischief that ever ruined any one country, and I am heartily grieved that that country ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... Chevalier, nothing if not quick to take in a situation, began to yawn like a sleep-ridden mortal. Gracefully he made his excuses and went, with as little mind to sleep as to go and drown himself. The imp Curiosity kept the Chevalier wide awake, and with airy fingers plucked away the cotton wool ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... I was none other than poor Lappo Lappi, and I pinched a silver coin from my pocket and gave it to him, and he handed me the missive and grinned again, and whistled and slipped away from me along the street, a diminished imp of twinkling gilt. And I opened the letter then and there, and read in it that Monna Vittoria very gracefully gave me her duty, and in all humility thanked me for my verses—Lord, as if that ample baggage could ever be humble!—and would be flattered beyond praise if my dignity would honor her with ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy



Words linked to "Imp" :   sandman, kid, small fry, folklore, fairy, youngster, tyke, brat, little terror, shaver, holy terror, fay, child, terror, fry, tiddler, nestling, tike, faery, faerie, sprite, nipper, minor, leprechaun



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com