"Ninny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now that I am old, I recognize without avail, but not without very sore and bitter remorse of mind, the time that I let slip, and albeit I lost it not altogether (for that I would not have thee deem me a ninny), still I did not what I might have done; whereof whenas I remember me, seeing myself fashioned as thou seest me at this present, so that thou wouldst find none to give me fire to my tinder,[286] ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the candles had a chance to eat a penny-dip, without any person seeing him. The king rode in his chariot, drawn by two wasps. He was a very warm gentleman, and not only carried a parasol to keep off the sun, but the head ninny-hammer squirted water on the small of his ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... "Give her some ninny," Mrs. Lancaster suggested, eagerly, but Georgie, glancing at the street where Joe was holding the restless black horse in check, said nervously that Joe didn't like it until the right time. She presently went out to hand Myra ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... "Ninny! What did we know about Father, except when he was around the house? But where is the girl? She said something about having tea with us. I want to know more about her. I wonder if she has any idea how oddly beautiful ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... forehead; her blue cotton dress was crumpled and limp. How neat, how cool, was this Hobart! Could a man have a Gibson face like that, like a young man on the cover of an illustrated magazine, and not be a ninny? Did he take the Pinkerton press seriously, or did he laugh? Both, probably, like most journalists. He wouldn't laugh to Lord Pinkerton, or to Lady Pinkerton, or to Clare. But he might laugh to Jane, when she showed him he might. Jane, eating jam sandwiches, ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... this wholesale species of poetical massacre, this rifling of old Etruscan tombs of their honourable spoil, a very pleasant ninny would that poetaster stand forth, whose inanely conceited daring exhibited specimens from his own mint, as medals in fit contrast with those slandered "things of base alloy." No, as with politics, so with poetry; in public I abjure and do renounce the minx: and although privately my author's ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... must think I'm a ninny. And you have been sleeping sure! Got to keep this sort of thing up ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... his usual tokens of kindness consisted in a little rap on the head or a slight pinch of the ear. In his most friendly conversations with those whom he admitted into his intimacy he would say, "You are a fool"—"a simpleton"—"a ninny"—"a blockhead." These, and a few other words of like import, enabled him to vary his catalogue of compliments; but he never employed them angrily, and the tone in which they were uttered sufficiently indicated that they were meant ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... understand," she said when I had finished, "how a man who can read such great and beautiful thoughts with such expression, and interpret them so clearly, concisely, and intelligently, can at the same time be such a visionary and supersensual ninny as ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... you think ey'd put up wi' sich powsement os he! Neaw; when Bess Whitaker, the lonleydey o' Goldshey, weds, it shan be to a mon, and nah to a ninny-hommer." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Figaro, and so dashing and reckless as the unscrupulous Don Giovanni. That milksop, Germont Junior, known as Alfredo, was adequately played by Signor GIANNINI, whose name, were it spelt GIA-"NINNY," would partly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... entrance. The mother was dashed, stricken, a little humiliated. But as she arranged the folds of her beautiful dress in the hansom which was carrying her away from Lamb's Conduit Street towards South Kensington, she said to herself firmly, 'I am not a ninny, after all, and I know that Rose will be ill soon. And there are things in that hospital that I could ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... me? A maggot, a thing all body like a nasty bear. Oh, curse the day that I set out with such tyrants! A pretty figure of fun I should make before your beautiful German, covered with mud to the knees. No, you shall hang me first! Why couldn't O'Toole do his own work, the ninny, I hate him! He's tall enough, the great donkey; but no, I must do it, who am shorter, and even then not short enough for him and you, but you must drag me through the dirt ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... an Irish ninny. Do you think the captain would board a devil! The fellow's a Tuscarora, and is as well known here as the owner of the Hut himself. It's ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... First the dreadful news about Furbush and that thing in the paper, and then Tom's unexpected entrance. How wonderful he looked as he came into the room; he had been so self-possessed, and she should have been such a ninny in ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... ninny! Why the devil should you suppose that the powerful divinity of the waters has any fear of long-robed monks? It is they, more likely, who would have cause to tremble in her presence, and prostrate themselves ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... little fool to cry so; dost hear? What! at it again? Well, well, God patience me! What's a body to do with such a little ninny? There! dry your eyes. Ye shall have your Robin, never fear. God-a-mercy! at what art blubbering now?" But down slipped Ruth on her knees, and caught Keren about hers, ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... six months, his acquaintance began much to doubt him: For his skin, "like a lady's loose gown," hung about him. He sent for a Doctor; and cried, like a ninny, "I have lost many pounds—make me well—there's ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... she cried fiercely, and as though the words almost choked her. "You are the most heartless, selfish, senseless creature, that ever lived; I never will forgive you! You haven't got a thought above looking like a wax doll, and acting like a ninny, and ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... ninny!" burst out I. Tapp. "You've got about as much idea of women as you have of business. And where are you ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... moons to wait upon him!" It is true, he at first appreciated his snug quarters, for he cried, "Hereupon such gladness possessed me that I forgot the sorrows of the world one and all, and said, 'This is indeed life!'" Then the ninny must needs go and open that fatal fortieth door! The story of Nur al-Din Ali and his son Badr al-Din Hasan has the distinction of being the most rollicking and the most humorous in the Nights. What stupendous ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... (penknife) Chupaflores (humming-bird) Destripaterrones (navvy) Lavamanos (wash-hand stand) Limpiabotas (boot-black) Matamoros (boaster) Mondadientes (toothpick) Papahueros (ninny) Papamoscas (ninny) Papanatas (ninny) Paracaidas (parachute) Paraguas (umbrella) Pelagatos (ragamuffin) Pintamonas (slap-dasher or bad partner) Sacacorchos (corkscrew) Salvavidas (life-boats) ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... in, you ninny!" she cried. "You're going to sleep in the same bed you've been sleeping in for forty years. What are you talking about? Ain't you going to sleep with me if I appoint you ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... insulted and freeze him with an icy stare. Annixter winced at the very thought of it. Better let the whole business go, and get to work. He was wasting half the morning. Yet, if she DID want to give him the opportunity of kissing her, and he failed to take advantage of it, what a ninny she would think him; she would despise him for being afraid. He afraid! He, Annixter, afraid of a fool, feemale girl. Why, he owed it to himself as a man to go as far as he could. He told himself that that goat ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... at her glanced again—with sympathy and curiosity; and the second glance pricked Audrey's conscience, making her feel like a thief. But her moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief, a clumsy fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for the secret police; and at the next she was very clever, self-confident, equal to the situation, and enjoying the situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and determined to prolong the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... in a savage island; for you would see no savages in the streets. What is become of those who once lived in these parts? They are all dead, or gone to other parts of the island. The last black near Sydney, used to talk of the old times, and say, "When I was a pick-a-ninny, plenty of black fellow then. Only ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... indeed, and brisk as a buck, I thank you, but ere bed-time get under the weather, there is no telling how—so one may wake up wise, and slow of assent, very wise and very slow, I assure you, and for all that, before night, by like trick in the atmosphere, be left in the lurch a ninny. Health and wisdom equally precious, and equally little as unfluctuating ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Prescott. If you'd thought it over before you started—looked before you leaped—this would never have happened. Anybody but a chump could have seen that, on the face of it, the whole thing was a scheme to entice you away. Oh, you bonehead! You ninny!" ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... day her daughter chid; "You never do as you are bid, Have I not told you o'er and o'er, That awkward gait to use no more? Learn, ninny, once for all to know, Folks forward and not backward go." "Mamma," says Miss, "how strange you talk! Have I not learn'd from you to walk? Were I to move the other way, How could I follow ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... her, and life lying fair before her. She meets him by accident. Suffering gives him a certain sort of dignity: but how is one to retain patience with the blindness of this insufferable ass? Don't you see, man—don't you see that she is waiting to throw herself into your arms? and you, you poor ninny, are giving yourself airs, and doing the grand heroic! And then the shy coquetry comes in again. The pathetic eyes are full of a grave compassion, if he must really never see her more. The cat plays with the poor mouse, and pretends that really ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... this. Motor-men don't know much about the hunting field, as a rule, but I wasn't such a ninny that I supposed men hunted ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... out all my illumination, feeling dreadfully guilty, and then he helped me off my chair with such an air of politeness that I could have struck him with pleasure, but I soon gathered my wits again. And, vexed with myself for being a ninny, I just dropped him a little curtsey and said, 'I've been examining my mad cousin.' 'Well, and what do you think of him?' he asked me, smiling (his abominable smile!). But I can keep my thoughts to myself ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... myself, too!" laughed the other girl, "But did you notice what a ninny I had in that last waltz-quadrille? Don't you hate partners who stand away off, and barely touch your finger-tips as they dance with you? Upon my word, I'd rather have the straight-as-a-mackerel kind, who hold you so tight you can scarcely catch ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... daddy My bonny laddy, Dance to your ninny, My sweet lamb; You shall have a fishy In a little dishy, And a whirligiggy, And ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... situation at a glance. Half a dozen words of explanation set him right. 'Never mind.' he said. 'Tell him we didn't mean to have dinner so early, but we flew around and got them a bite—then let's do it.' 'But what will the bite be?' I asked, and I stood looking up at him like a ninny who had never gotten a meal in her life. 'Why, bread, and butter, and coffee, and a dish of sauce, and a pickle, or something of that sort;' and the things really sounded appetizing as he told them off. 'Come,' he said, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... he must, to tell her sister that they were to be married. She was spared from the first advance toward this by an accident or a misunderstanding. Irene came straight to her after Corey was gone, and demanded, "Penelope Lapham, have you been such a ninny as to send that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... me ninny enough to be satisfied with reading no more than what you consider proper for me ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... "The miserable ninny never even observed that the foils were buttoned, but, throwing down his, rushed out of the ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... Silver-Locks went strolling One day, in that pretty wood, With Ninny, the nurse, and all at once They came ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... a ninny!" she said to Grace; "and has eyes for no one but Kate. Oh, how I wish my darling Jules were here, or even your brother, Grace—he was better than ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... head waiter to get mine for me," said Jack, "and he acted as if he thought me a ninny. He gave it to me all the same, and asked what I was up to. ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... the man distinguishes himself from the beast, seeing that no animal ever yet lost his senses through blighted love, which proves abundantly that animals have no souls. The employment of a lover is that of a mountebank, of a soldier, of a quack, of a buffoon, of a prince, of a ninny, of a king, of an idler, of a monk, of a dupe, of a blackguard, of a liar, of a braggart, of a sycophant, of a numskull, of a frivolous fool, of a blockhead, of a know-nothing, of a knave. An employment from which Jesus abstained, in imitation of whom folks ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... Delilah was a very great lady, sufficiently high in station to allow herself such compromising caprices,—but even so, she would scarcely have cared to play the role of a coquette in a vaudeville where he himself played the part of ninny,—or she was some noted adventuress who was in the pay of this du Portail and the agent of his singular matrimonial designs. Evil life or evil heart, these were the only two verdicts to be pronounced on this dangerous siren, and in either case, it would seem, she ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... love-sick letters to —-, and I would not give sixpence for your suit." So much for Mr. Vincent. Now Miss —-'s turn comes to swallow the black bolus, called a friend's advice. Say to her: "Is the man a fool? is he a knave? a humbug, a hypocrite, a ninny, a noodle? If he is any or all of these, of course there is no sense in trifling with him. Cut him short at once—blast his hopes with lightning rapidity and keenness. Is he something better than this? has ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Even from Mrs. Dwight, who is different herself....I'd rather you'd stayed discontented. The whole scheme's all wrong and you know it. You've suffered from it. You should be the last to tolerate it. When they're jabbering away about their ninny affairs they pay as little attention to you as they do to me. They forget our existence. We don't belong, as they say. There isn't, one of them except Mrs. Dwight that I wouldn't give my eye teeth to see hanging out the wash or running ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... him, I warrant you. The man who beats me is a coward; for he knows I won't resist. Let the dastard strike me then, or leave me, as he likes; but, for a choice, I prefer abusing women, who have no brothers or guardians; for, regarding a thrashing with indifference, I am not such a ninny as to prefer it. And here you have an accurate account of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... forgive a rascal but I hate a fool. You thought to keep such a secret as this all to yourselves—you dunces—the very birds in the air would carry it; it never was kept secret in any land and never will. And you would spill blood sooner than your betters should know it—ye ninny-cumpoops! What the worse are you for our knowing it? If a thousand knew it to-day would that lower the price of gold a penny an ounce? No! All the harm they could do you would be this, that some of them would show you where it lies thickest, and then you'd profit by it. You had better tie ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... value upon an article so mean; but when I shall have made known to thee its properties and virtues, thou wilt most readily consent to take it at that valuation. Not thou alone but all men who have heard me cry my cry laugh and name me ninny." So saying, the broker showed the Spying Tube to Prince Ali and handing it to him said, "Examine well this ivory, the properties of which I will explain to thee. Thou seest that it is furnished with a piece of glass at either end;[FN327] and, shouldst ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... let the lad bide?" he said; "ye'll not rest till ye make him a greater ninny nor he is by natur. He might as well ha' bin a gell, an better, for all ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... Bononcini, Compared to Handel, is a ninny; While others vow that to him Handel Is hardly fit to hold a candle. Strange that such difference should be ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... being of the party there assembled. He saw in the count a manufacturer of the second-class, whom he took, for some unknown reason, to be a chandler; in the shabby young man accompanied by Mistigris, a fellow of no account; in Oscar a ninny, and in Pere Leger, the fat farmer, an excellent subject to hoax. Having thus looked over the ground, he resolved to amuse himself at the expense ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... Mrs. Mark Lyle. But there came upon her a fantasy that she was standing again in the garret with that book in her hands, and that Mr. Philip was leaning against the wall in that dark place beyond the window laughing at her, partly because she was such a wee ninny not to know, and partly because when she did know the truth there would be something about it which would humiliate her. She cast down her eyes and stared at the floor so that none might see how close she was to tears. She was a silly weak thing that would always feel like a bairn ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... "O thou ninny foe," quoth the fox, "how art thou reduced to humiliation and prostration and abjection and submission, after insolence and pride and tyranny and arrogance! Verily, I kept company with thee only for fear of thy fury and I cajoled thee without ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... side, I succeeded in making him angry; and he replied to my jokes by calling names—a phrase, by the way, which, forgetting his Watts' Hymns, and failing to consult his Johnson, he characterized as not English. I was, he said, a "shallow, pretending ninny;" an "impudent illiterate lad;" "a fanatic" and a "frantic person;" the "low underling of a faction," and "Peter the Hermit;" and, finally, as the sum-total of the whole he assured me that I stood in his ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... is necessary; then he is my Lord Dumoulin, as large as life. He rolls his eyes, walks with his head on one side, and his toes turned in; but, when the piece is played out, he slips away to the balls of which he is so fond. The girls christened him Ninny Moulin. Add, that he drinks like a fish, and you have the photo of the cove. All this doesn't prevent his writing for the religious newspapers; and the saints, whom he lets in even oftener than himself, are ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... conjurer, I know full well: but my assistant here, And counselor, and grand controller Chremes, Outgoes me far: dolt, blockhead, ninny, ass; Or these, or any other common terms By which men speak of fools, befit me well: But him they suit not: his stupidity Is so transcendent, it ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... from Calais straight to Dover, sir, That qualmish folks may cross by land from shore to shore, With sluices made to drown the French, if e'er they would come over, sir, Has long been talk'd of, till at length 'tis thought a monstrous bore. Amongst the many scheming folks, I take it he's no ninny, sir, Who bargains with the Ashantees to fish the coast of Guinea, sir; For, secretly, 'tis known, that another brilliant view he has, Of lighting up the famous town of Timbuctoo with oil gas. Run, neighbours, run, you're ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... "What a ninny I am!" she said aloud as she looked at herself, her tongue chiding her apprehensive eyes, her laugh contemptuously adding its comment on her tremulousness. "It was a real nightmare—a waking nightmare, that's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Vaudrey could not say, but from this moment the Prefect of Police was condemned. Guy's arrest, which was an act of brutal aggression, was tantamount to a dismissal signed by the Prefect himself. And Marianne! she then made a sport of Sulpice and took him for a child or a ninny! ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... figures should arise and walk across the chapel, changing places with the couple opposite them, as if in a sepulchral quadrille, would the allegory become more intelligible? Could not Day or Night move from Julian's monument, and take up the same position at Lorenzo's tomb, or "Ninny's tomb," or any other tomb? Was Lorenzo any more to Aurora than Julian, that she should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Jacques; I am your confessor, and have come to get you off. Do not be such a ninny as to know me; and speak as if you were making a confession." He spoke with the utmost rapidity. "This young fellow is very much depressed; he is afraid to die, he will confess everything," said Jacques ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... fool!" said the man; "he can do more than that—I tell you he's fly; he carries a sap about, which would sting a ninny like you to dead." ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... sit there like a ninny," she cried. "Get up and help us think what we can do to get ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... King Street, and arranged her face, and courageously met her mother. Her mother had not at first perceived the unusual; for mothers, despite their reputation to the contrary, really are the blindest creatures. Sophia, the naive ninny, had actually supposed that her walking along a hundred yards of pavement with a god by her side was not going to excite remark! What a delusion! It is true, certainly, that no one saw the god by direct vision. But Sophia's cheeks, Sophia's eyes, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Roland laughing, "you are not a gabbler, but I am a ninny." So saying, he entered ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... "Why, you stupid ninny! you forget you were dead; and he could not help loving her. How could he? Well, but you see she refused him. And why? because he came without a forged letter from YOU. Do you doubt ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... ninny of a frog-skinning Frenchman doesn't try to ram us with an airship!" growled Macaroni. He had ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... "Why, you ninny, there are no policemen here. Perhaps there is a sheriff. Hello, here comes the gentleman who gave me the advice that helped me to win those handsome spurs. He's introducing himself to the Professor and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... I arrived at Melanie's, I found the bird had flown. That great ninny of a Ferussac, whom I never had suspected, and had introduced to her myself, had turned her head by making capital out of her love for the stage. As he was about to leave for Belgium, he persuaded her ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... in the highest walks of science and literature. At the feet of no learned professor may she sit for wisdom. Every profession but the teacher's is barred against her, and in that her services are considered not half at par. She can not get more than half-pay for her labor. In law she is but a ninny; if she is married she is less still, an absolute nonentity; her legal existence is merged in that of her husband—the two become one, and he is that one. Then in the every-day customs of life she is ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... Sanders. Mrs. Cranceford had spoken to him, not directly, but with gentle allusion, and he had replied with an angry denunciation of such meddlesomeness. "I'm not going to marry a dying woman," he declared; "and I'm not going to take up any faded ninny that you and father may pick out. I'm going to please myself, and when you decide that I mustn't, just say the word and I'll hull out. And I don't want to hear anything about crackers or white ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... after them] The deed is, so far, safely accomplished. The slyboots, how she wheedled him! What a helpless ninny is a love-sick man! He is but as a lute in a woman's hands— she plays upon him whatever tune she will. But the Colonel comes. I' faith, he's just in time, for the Yeomen parade here for his execution ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... no part in her scheme for the decoration of the hall; her one poor solace had been that the relative proportions of the hall and of the ship and ocean were such that even a careful observer might have spent hours in the former without discovering the latter; on the other hand, some blundering ninny might have lighted instantly on the ship and ocean, and awkwardly inquired what it was doing there. So Helen was really enchanted by the ruin. She handled her men with notable finesse: Uncle James savage and ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... this melodramatic nonsense is so amusing that I cannot forbear quoting it. This time the despairing lover is Sir Abraham Ninny, who quotes Kyd to his companions, and they with the cry of "Ha God-a-mercy, old Hieromino!" begin the game of parody, which must have been keenly enjoyed by the audience. Field improves on the original by putting the alternate lines of despair into the mouths of Ninny's jesting ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... haggard as if he had seen a ghost, his face as white as paper, and his lips trembling like an aspen-leaf. 'Parson,' said the knight, 'what is the matter?—how dost find my son? I hope he won't turn out a ninny, and disgrace his family?' The doctor, wiping the sweat from his forehead, replied, with some hesitation, 'he could not tell—he hoped the best—the squire was to be sure a very extraordinary young gentleman.'—But the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... great ninny to be afraid of a toad not bigger than a button," he said scornfully. "I'll get you whipped some day to make up for it, see if ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... joy that would amaze you, telling his father what he had done and suffered for her. Then they sent to invite her parents, the King and Queen of Long Field; and they celebrated the wedding with wonderful festivity, making great sport of the great ninny of a fox, and concluding at the last of ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... you sweet ninny! If the boss grabber is on this ship, we should draw a new nibble from him." He appraised the green dress in the mirror again. His expression grew absent. It might be best, Trigger suspected, a trifle uneasily, to keep Major Quillan's thoughts turned away ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... system, nursery governess, private tutor, etc., who when he came of age just ran amok, drank, fought with the colliers on his own estate, and then enlisted in an irregular corps and went to fight the Spaniards in Cuba, just to prove to himself that he wasn't the ninny his father had tried to make him. He shocked his neighbours thoroughly, but he's a man today, listened to when he speaks and just adored by the miners on his estate.... I want to make good, and though ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... to Bononcini, That Mynheer Handel's but a ninny; Others aver,—that he to Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a candle: Strange all this difference should be, 'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee! On the Feuds between Handel and Bononcini. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... it won't be your dress-makin' that's the cause of it. You act as much like a ninny as if ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... was a wise man in his own generation, yet was he, notwithstanding, a great fool. He was one of that class who can sometimes overreach a neighbour, yet, in doing so, inevitably loses his own balance, and tumbles into the mire. A sagacious ninny, who had an "I told you so," for every possible ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... up," he persisted. "He looked like a ninny, that creature! It would be funny, so funny! Good old Souris! Come, come, dearie, you do not mind telling me, me, of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a ninny, but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He's gone out there again, Evie Wilcox ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... was of no use. Mrs. Willard was not fond of little girls, and Mrs. Gray would not take Flaxie; she must stay at home with her sister Ninny. ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... perhaps a little of both prevailed; at any rate I heard that my friend and all his family went to Portsmouth, to see the Royal sight, and get a squint at Blucher's whiskers and mustachios. My friend and his family swelled the number of those who suffered at Portsmouth—"ninny nanny, one fool makes many!" It was now all glory, all joy, and all seeming prosperity with John Gull, every thing was military! As a proof that it could not well be otherwise, let us look to a return, which was presented to the House of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... "You ninny, this isn't a circus performance. No; of course they don't climb up on a rope ladder as if they ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... you are right!" he would say. "Those books will make me live. Besides, blind Fortune is here, isn't she? Why shouldn't she protect a Balzac as well as a ninny? And there are always ways of wooing her. Suppose one of my millionaire friends (and I have some), or a banker, not knowing what to do with his money, should come to me and say, 'I know your immense talents, and your anxieties: ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... has one face outside; there it is for you, ninny, and judge it.... But the other, the real one, he hides. And I am the only one who knows that face, and for that I love him.... Because 't is a good face. Thou, for example, gazest and beholdest nothing ... ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... great ninny, Rebecca Thayer," Rose said, laughing, "but I'll go if you want me to. I know William won't like it. You run away from him the whole time. There isn't another girl in Pembroke treats him as ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the mug. The farmer took a long pull and handed it to his nephew who drank so well that he completely emptied it, and afterwards said: "We ought to lie in wait for their arrival and attack the ninny." ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... erected. It seems to me to have been the period in all history when society was the least natural, and perhaps the most dissolute; and I have always fancied that the bloated artificial forms of the architecture partake of the social disorganisation of the time. Who can respect a simpering ninny, grinning in a Roman dress and a full-bottomed wig, who is made to pass off for a hero? or a fat woman in a hoop, and of a most doubtful virtue, who leers at you as a goddess? In the palaces which ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the young one a rascal; the girl a ninny," was Miss Smith's succinct and acid classification of the county's first family; adding, as she rose, "but they own us body and soul." She hurried out of the dining-room without further remark. Miss Smith was more patient with black folk ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... story, for instance, of a boy who had been carried off by a Baba Yaga (a species of witch), we are told that when his sister came to his rescue she found him "sitting in an arm-chair, while the cat Jeremiah told him skazkas and sang him songs."[15] In another story, a Durak,—a "ninny" or "gowk"—is sent to take care of the children of a village during the absence of their parents. "Go and get all the children together in one of the cottages and tell them skazkas," are his instructions. He collects the children, but as they are "all ever so dirty" ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... your fling, bonny lass," this time evidently addressing herself. "For thirty years, wenches, I have thought of nothing but sins and been afraid, but now I see I have wasted my time, I've let it slip by like a ninny! Ah, I have been a fool, a fool!" She sighed. "A woman's time is short and every day is precious. You are handsome, Annushka, and very rich; but as soon as thirty-five or forty strikes for you your time is up. Don't listen to any one, my girl; live, ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Poor ninny, dead so long, And all your pride forgotten like your name. 'One April morn I heard a blackbird's song. And joy was in my heart ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... voice of thunder. "Do you wish to dishonour yourself? And it is that old Mag there that you want! Well, I must compliment you, my young fellow! If you grow up with such tastes as that, you will never have any pleasure in life; and your comrades will call you a precious ninny. If you asked me for a sword or a gun, my boy, I would buy them for you with the last silver crown of my pension. But to buy a doll for you—by all that's holy!—to disgrace you! Never in the world! Why, if I were ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... "Why, you ninny," retorted Dave scornfully, "the football 'soreheads' have been developing that classy feeling. They wear better clothes than we do, and have more pocket money. Many of their fathers don't work for a living. In other words, the fellows on Dick's list belong to what ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... They are dreadful creatures at home in the cities, but doubly dreadful at these resorts. You are young, simple, unsophisticated. I was at your age. But I soon got over such weaknesses. You must very soon, or be a ninny. "Simple," "artless," "unsophisticated," and such terms mean simply softness. Whatever else you are, or are not, don't be soft. The mistake of my fruitless life has been that I believed, in other years, all ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... helpless ninny, mum.' There was no trace of bitterness or passion in Amenda's tones. She spoke in the calm, even voice ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... Bosenna. "You ninny!" she went on with sovereign contempt. "Do you really suppose I'd marry a man that could handle my money, or was vain ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... But give me a young fool, rather than an old— A plucky plunger, than a canny crone Who's old enough to ken she doesn't ken. You're right: for doubting is a kind of dotage: Experience ages and decays; while folk Who never doubt themselves die young—at ninety. Age never yet brought gumption to a ninny: And you cannot reckon up a stranger's wits By counting his bare patches and grey hairs: It's seldom sense that makes a bald head shine: And I'm not partial to Methuselahs. Keep your cocksureness, while you can: too soon, Time plucks the feathers off you; and you lie, Naked and skewered, ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... your own cousin, and you oughtn't, you know. If it isn't wicked, it MUST be naughty to call her a ninny," said Rose. ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... altogether an insufferable thing. "O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, some boundless contiguity of shade, where the scowl of the purse-proud nabob, the sneer and strut of the coxcomb, the bray of the ninny and the clodpole might never reach ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... wife is called a lap-dog, acts like a lap-dog, and dies like a lap-dog; the lap-dog simile is so much overdone that we are glad to get rid of her, and instead of weeping with Copperfield, we feel disposed to call him a ninny. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... think 'cause my trousers are tarry, And because that I ties my long hair in a tail, While landsmen are figged out as fine as Lord Harry, With breast-pins and cravats as white as old sail; That I'm a strange creature, a know-nothing ninny, But fit for the planks for to walk in foul weather; That I ha'n't e'er a notion of the worth of a guinea, And that you, Poll, can twist me about as a feather,— ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... struggling since daybreak, a gleam now dawned upon him. The vague ideas suggested by Salvat's approaching arrest took shape, and expanded into an audacious scheme. Why should he prevent the fall of that big ninny Barroux? The only thing of importance was that he, Monferrand, should not fall with him, or at any rate that he should rise again. So he protested no further, but merely mumbled a few words, in which his rebellious feeling seemingly died out. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... "Harkee, ninny, if you'd have the town believe it false, you'll show yourself—show that ye have no cause for shame, no cause to hide you from the eyes of honest folk. Come, girl; bid your woman get your hood and tippet. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... "You great ninny!" snarled the dwarf, "you want to call more people; you are two too many for me now. Can't you think ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... waiting for the rebuttal of his answer from their venerable spokesman. Rafael felt that the swarthy heads above all those dirty blouses and shirt-fronts without collars or neckties were eyeing him with stony coldness. "Now we'll see what this ninny ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... kind of club we have at the Rose and Crown. Come now, Alice, it's no use looking like that; you can't expect me to be a ninny. Besides, Waterman's a swell, he is the son ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... "I'll just sprinkle him on my own account. My son used to be a clever lad; now he's turned so stupid that they call him Buzzard,138 and he has become such a ninny all because of the Judge. I said to him once, 'What do you run off to Soplicowo for? If I catch you there, God help you!' Immediately he slunk off to Zosia again, and stole through the hemp; I caught ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... is that you're a ninny," said the determined Agnetta; "an' I'm not agoin' to wait here while you shilly-shally. Is it to be off ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred cheese of life? It is preposterous. If this old ninny-woman, Fate, cannot do better than this, she should be deprived of the management of men's fortunes. She is an old hen who knows not her intention. If she has decided to drown me, why did she not do it in the beginning and save me all this trouble? The whole affair is absurd.... But ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... with thick black hair and a thin frame, about which the uniform of the ship hung loosely. "You are the man who boarded the steamer from a seaplane, aren't you, and pretended afterwards to be such a ninny?" ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Red Sea,' says Giglio, at which the Princess burst out laughing at him, and said, 'Oh, you ninny! You are so ignorant, you are really not fit for society! You know nothing but about horses and dogs, and are only fit to dine in a mess-room with my Royal father's heaviest dragoons. Don't look so surprised at me, sir: go and put your best clothes on ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... German as plain as sunshine, for that must correct itself. You know I am homo unius linguae: in English, illiterate, a dunce, a ninny. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas |
