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Quizzical   /kwˈɪzəkəl/   Listen
Quizzical

adjective
1.
Playfully vexing (especially by ridicule).  Synonyms: mocking, teasing.
2.
Perplexed (as if being expected to know something that you do not know).  Synonym: questioning.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Quizzical" Quotes from Famous Books



... Halloway said anything that might have been construed as a compliment to the girl and he disarmed it of too great significance with a quizzical smile. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... Virginia lifted quizzical eyebrows. "Ought to! That tastes of duty. Don't let it come to that. We'll take it off if you like." She touched the solitaire he ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... was not an escort to be despised, as Ruth soon discovered. She very quickly felt a sort of family pride in his cool, quizzical manner and caustic repartee, that was wholly distinct from the more girlish admiration of his distinguished person. He and Ruth were great friends in a ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... a quizzical glance upon the younger scientist, who blushed a fiery red, rapidly set up another integral, then also leaned back in his place, while his face burned deeper ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... met mine so completely as well-nigh to daze me with their glory. There was a quizzical uplift in ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... a moment Chloe Carstairs made no rejoinder, though her blue, almond-shaped eyes held a slightly quizzical expression. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... reasons for this: the quizzical temper of the community at large, the constant revelation of graft, the distorted school discipline which makes tardiness a more serious offense than lying or theft; the neglect to organize athletics and play for ethical ends; the criminal's code with regard to examinations—a ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... a few pennies into his hat. The noise of the coppers made the old man open his eyes and look up; and to his amazement the workman recognized in the object of his charity Nicholas Longworth, the millionaire. Mr. Longworth looked at him a moment in his dry, quizzical way, and then, thanking him politely, put the coins in his pocket, and, closing his eyes, once more ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... be, Francois, not to know what a dan is!" replied another, who was inclined to be quizzical. "Why, it's a sort of sea-carriage that the Esquimaux tie to the tail of a walrus or sea-horse when they feel inclined for a drive. When they can't get a sea-horse they catch a white whale asleep, and wake him up after fastening the dan to his tail. I suppose they have conjurers ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... gathered, with some distaste, the spices of Araby. Some had cravats that fluttered and fell and rose again like banners in a storm. There were men with severe, spade-shaped, most responsible-looking beards, and quizzical little eyes which gave the lie to their hairy sedateness—eyes which had spent long years in looking sidewards as a woman passed. There were men of every stage of foppishness—men who had spent so much time ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... they were mostly past cutting any ice with me. It was—well, it don't matter now." He paused, and his eyes settled again on the portrait. The Irishman waited, and presently Jim turned from the picture, and his quizzical smile encountered the hard blue eyes of ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... little old fellow with a round back, a quizzical eye, and the hair of a first violin. After I beat my way by main strength through three table-d'hote meals with him he let me know that he could talk English. Why hadn't he told me so before? Oh! Did I not wish to practise my French? ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly

... spoken of "suspicions." Bud wondered if they were along a line that might connect with the professor. But if Old Billee had anything to say he was keeping it to himself. Though there was a quizzical look on his face as he observed the approaching horseman, of whom Professor Wright appeared ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker

... me your copy yesterday," said Youghal. He threw back his handsome head and gave her a sidelong glance of quizzical amusement. He knew that she hated his intimacy with Comus, and he was secretly rather proud of his influence over the boy, shallow and negative though he knew it to be. It had been, on his part, an unsought intimacy, and it would probably fall to pieces the moment he tried seriously ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... in the crowd that blinked appreciation. Quizzical wrinkles deepened in his broad face. He plucked a cigar from his waistcoat-pocket and held it down ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... turn in the road his heart sank within him; for just around the curve they came upon Tim Mills sitting quietly on a stump. He looked at them with a quizzical eye, but said ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page

... forgetting his grievance of the supper table, straightened himself for the combat. He had suddenly conceived a plan whereby he could gain a friend to aid him in the coming squatter fight. Bill Hopkins still waited with a quizzical expression in ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... pointed out that I and the Alemanes had been at different ends of the gunbarrel. He laughed. What did that matter? Then he said several times, "Que burro la guerra, que burro la guerra." I remonstrated, pointing to the donkey that was following us with dainty steps, looking at us with a quizzical air from under his long eyelashes. Could anything be wiser than ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... off for me, seeing that it's a matter strictly in the family! This cutter is due to round to in Portland harbor to-morrow morning a little after nine o'clock. I'll send the two of you in my gig to Commercial Wharf, see that both are landed at the same time, and then—well"—the commander turned quizzical gaze from one to the other with full appreciation of the situation—"it then depends on what you do, each of you, and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... no sign that John Prather subscribed to the sentiment except in a certain quizzical turn of his ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... never have an entertaining Parliament till they admit ladies," observed Peterson, with a quizzical ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... which Casey had hurriedly couched the double event of his day of days. The terse—too terse—message passed from hand to hand till it reached Terry. He studied it, his head cocked to one side like a puppy's and with something of a puppy's quizzical expression. A moment and he slid slowly from the billiard table and crossed to the corner of the room where a typewriter had been placed for the convenience ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... heartily. Mr. Gordon was tall and muscular, with closely-cropped gray hair and quizzical gray eyes slightly puckered at the corners from much staring in the hot sun. His face and hands were very brown, and he looked like a man who lead an outdoor ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson

... in Hamilton's veins caught no warmth from these remarks; but he held his head high and passed stolidly on, as if he did not hear a word. Helm turned the tail of an eye upon Oncle Jazon and gave him a droll, quizzical wink of approval. In response the old man with grotesque solemnity drew his buckhorn handled knife, licked its blade and returned it to its sheath,—a bit of pantomime well understood and keenly enjoyed ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... youngster stood in the door and bent an approving gaze on the big pinto as he swung out across the pasture lot. The boy's face was small and quizzical, a shaggy mop of tawny hair hanging so low upon his forehead that his mild blue eyes peered forth from under the fringe of it and gave him the air of a surprised terrier, which effect had gained ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... he saw the smoke of a neighbor's chimney it was time for him to move on. So William James was led by instinct from the crowded highways to the dim border-lands of human experience. He preferred to dwell in the debatable lands. With a quizzical smile he listened to the dignitaries of philosophy. He found their completed systems too stuffy. He loved the wildernesses of thought where shy wild things hide—half hopes, half realities. They are not quite true now,—but they may be by ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... stockings?" asked Audrey, with a delicious quizzical smile that crept gradually through the wonder and admiration ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... R., glancing up at him, and beneath the quizzical look in those sleepy grey eyes, Mr. Brimberly's whiskers wilted slightly. "You're getting a trifle too—er—portly to hop round on your knees, aren't you, Brimberly? Pray sit ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... were his eyes large and magnetic. He was not something over six feet two; nor was he dressed in wonderful clothes into which he might have been poured in liquid form. He was a cheery, square-shouldered, good-natured looking fellow with laughter in his gray eyes and a little quizzical smile playing round a good firm mouth. He looked like a man who ought to have been in the navy and who, instead, gave the impression of having been born among horses. His small, dark head was bare; his skin had already caught the sun, and as he stood in his brown sweater ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... himself as in agreement. As the half-quizzical conversation progressed, he found their relations adjusting themselves with increasing rapidity. He had been successively the mystic devotee before his vision, the worshipper before his goddess; now he was unconsciously ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... eyes, unguarded and sincere for once, flashed quizzical admiration at Little Boy Blue, who, concurrently with the above speech, quavered forth his lurid personal opinions of the red pony. He was a lean, large-eyed person, apparently of some nine or ten years—which left his vocabulary unaccounted for; his face was smeared and ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... sarcasm. "By all means let us have that," and sat down before the piano while I spread out the music before him. I sang, and thought I sang very well; but he just looked up into my face with a very quizzical expression, and said, "How long have you been singing, Mademoiselle?" Mama answered for me before I could speak. "She has sung, Monsieur, since she was a ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... recollection within his eyes, only admiration—nothing clung about this Naiad to remind him of a neglected waif of the garrison. She read all this in his face, and the lines about her mouth changed quickly into a slightly quizzical ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... "how can I make him understand what I really am?" She turned to him with an expression that was both perplexed and quizzical, and said: ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... am," she panted, shooting a quizzical glance at his face, "are you ready for me? Come on, then, and I'll show you the very ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... to go back to her painting, she caught a glance of her reflection in the glass. After looking at it a moment with a quizzical expression, she suddenly burst into a merry laugh, saying: "I did not know you had turned Bible teacher. Well, well, it was funny, but I could not help it, that she went away with the wrong impression of me, for she would not listen ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... thing, and have got that side yourself,—even you, you dear objective one. The three things up to now that have got me most on that side, got me on the very raw of it—I'll tell you now, now that I can't see your amused eyes looking at me with that little quizzical questioning in them—the three things that have broken my heart each time I've come across them and made me only want to sob and sob, are when Kurwenal, mortally wounded, crawls blindly to Tristan's side and says, "Schilt mich nicht dass der Treue auch mitkommt" and Siegfried's dying ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley

... spoke, Jack pressed the button that actuated the Klaxon. When the raucous noise of the fog horn had died away he turned to the two disputants with a quizzical look and said: ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson

... have thought, judging by the colonel's quizzical smile, that he was pleased at Jennie's loss of ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... over the faces of the frequenters of the boulevard, who daily, from their chairs, watch the passers-by, and indulge in the agreeable pastime of analyzing them. That smile is peculiar to Parisians; it says so many things—ironical, quizzical, pitying; but nothing save the rarest of human curiosities can summon that look of interest to the faces of Parisians, sated as they are with every ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... Johnson, and pay our respects to him. We, of course, followed General Grant, and were introduced to Governor Johnson. I remember that our uniforms were greatly worn, one or two of us wearing blouses with Army overcoats, and he looked at us with a very quizzical eye, until General Grant said to excuse us that he had not given us time since we reached the city to change our suits; but Grant knew we had no others. Governor Johnson was then a very radical man, and was very emphatic in informing ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge

... himself slowly from the bench and looked at Courtenay, a quizzical smile dawning on his thin lips. "Why now, Loo-tenant," he said, "there's no need to get het up none. I know you Britishers hate to be thought inquisitive—'bad form,' ain't it!—but I didn't figure it thataway, not any. I'd forgot for a minute the difference 'tween—" He broke off and looked ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... only one person who can possibly wear it," said Hugh, under his breath. His uncle heard him, and shot a keen, quizzical glance at him, which caused the philosopher to retire suddenly behind the shadow of the curtain. Margaret glided to her uncle's side, and whispered in his ear. Mr. Montfort nodded, smiling. "Just what I was thinking, Margaret," he said. "You read my ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... a quizzical glance. "I shan't tell you about that. But I'm hoping to be able to run home for an occasional week-end without vexing Scotland Yard. Why not come with me ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... playing a manly part to permit the idle mewing of the Port Agnew tabbies to frighten me away. I didn't intend to fall in love with you—Oh, drat my reasons! I'm here because I'm here. And in the matter of that old hen—" He paused and favored her with a quizzical smile. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... stood beside me, and put his hand on my head once more. It was truly a miracle, how the whirling and roaring ceased, and peace came back to me; it must have shown in my face, for the moving picture critic of the Western City "Times" stood watching me with a quizzical smile playing over his face. I could read his thoughts, as well as if he had uttered them: "Regular Svengali stuff, ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... in review for you, Fritzie," one irrepressible from our ranks shouted, as the marching line passed within touching distance of the prisoner group. The Germans responded only with quizzical little smiles and silence. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... reader confronts a mask, as it were, with appalling and distorted lineaments; but behind it the poet smiles, perhaps sardonically, but smiles nevertheless. In the real countenance there are no tears or grievances, but a quizzical, humorous expression which shows, when one has torn the subterfuge away, that here is a spirit whom life may menace with its contradictions and fatalities, but never dupe with its circumstance ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman

... broadest grin I could summon. Nor could I withhold a laugh at seeing them laugh. 'Reckon how mas'r's on big business to Washington wid Mr. General Pierce,' says one, whose face was black, and bright, and full of the quizzical; while another, with a flat crooked nose gave a cunning wink out of his left eye. This being detected by a superior, in the brisk person of a son of the Emerald Isle, who stood well six feet in his boots, a 'soucer' with ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... eyes to her face only to meet a glance so quizzical that he hastened to avoid it by going to the hall to don his cloak; and a few moments later they were ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... that he had not heard her step. The light from the candelabra was full upon him, and she saw the half-tender, half-quizzical look in his face. For an instant he held the white rose beneath his eyes, then he carefully folded it in his handkerchief and hid it in the pocket of his coat. As he did so, he gave a queer little laugh and went quickly back into the panelled parlour, while Betty glowed like ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... Well, it surprises me, and it would surprise you a whole lot more if you knew me better. We won't try to analyze the feeling. I've given up trying to do it." He paused and his brown eyes surveyed the blinking iceman with a quizzical appeal in them. "That's a pretty long preface, Mr. Nowell. It ought to lead up to some very important request. But it doesn't. I simply want a job on your ice-cart. It will give me the best opportunity I know of to go into homes ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... the conceit and humour of the situation. With the utmost dignity, and with the quizzical, pinched brow of the labouring muse, halting at ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... began, with a quizzical twinkle in her eye, "told me once about hunting a woodchuck with a pack of dogs, and they chased it so hard that it finally escaped only by climbing a butternut-tree. 'But, my friend,' I said to him, 'woodchucks can't climb trees—butternut-trees ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... youth who confronted her. He was fair like his sister, but the resemblance ended there. His nose was long and sharp, his forehead slanting, his close-set eyes a greenish-gray. She wondered how anything human could look so like a fox, as she returned his quizzical stare with a direct, level one, ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... another man," said Easter's mother, who had been looking Clayton over with a quizzical smile. "Is that the way folks dress out in the settlemints? 'N' look at that gal. Ef she hev done anythin' sence ye hev been gone but" The rest of the sentence was smothered in the palm of Easter's hand, and she too began scrutinizing Clayton closely. The mountaineer said ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.

... crossed the living-room he pulled a chair to the veranda and placed a footstool before it. Then he stepped into the sunshine room. A quizzical expression crossed the face of Doctor Harmon as he closed the book he was reading aloud to the Girl and arose. Wholly ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... walked down the street in absolute silence, Kitty bearing herself with her usual grave politeness, though there was a quizzical laugh in her eyes. "Lover? My lover?" she thought. But she did not blush, as some other innocent girls would have done. She had never talked an hour in her life to a young man, or heard from other girls their incessant chirping of "he—he," like that of birds in spring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... the girl, a quizzical expression upon his face. Again had she placed him under obligations to her, and Tarzan of the Apes did not wish to be obligated to a German spy; yet in his honest heart he could not but admit a certain admiration for her courage, a trait which always greatly ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... through a hearty rustic sermon from the text, "Peace on earth, goodwill toward men." Abner, in exacerbated mood, watched her narrowly throughout, that he might tax her, if possible, with a humorous attitude toward the preacher or a quizzical treatment of his flock. He had not yet pardoned her "ways" along Main Street, on the occasion of one or two shopping excursions. She had not hesitated to banter the admiring young clerks that held their places behind those shop-fronts of galvanized iron in simulation of red brick and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... Marty's quizzical humor was not making J.W.'s enterprise any easier. He had always supposed that what the leaflets called "personal evangelism" had to be done in a spirit of solemnity. But how was he to acquire the proper frame of mind? And certainly there was nothing solemn about Marty ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... she took no delight in easy victories, for she laughed aloud at the quizzical expression on his face. He guessed that if she could have conquered him at the first attempt a day would have found her weary of him; there was deliberate wisdom in his plan for the present to seem to let her win by little inches at a time. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... of introduction to a few words respecting the close, quizzical, and always sincere friendship that existed between Field and Helena Modjeska, the following invention of March 29th, 1884, may serve to indicate the blithesome spirit with which he tortured facts when racketting around for something to add to the bewilderment ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... by the yellow lamp in the library. "Well, Tommy dear," she said, looking at him with a quizzical smile, "was ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis

... them were such merry, amusing young fellows, who would make one die of laughter with their jokes, and teased mamma by going into the kitchen and tasting the dishes, and pocketing the pancakes. Oh, they were such funny, quizzical young fellows! ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... of the Assurance Company, but she did not dare to encounter the quizzical looks of the gentlemen who might receive her, for she was very timid before people, and grew red at a mere nothing, and was embarrassed when she had ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... the colonel, but that veteran is not crushed by any means. He watches the capricious maiden with a quizzical light in his eye, which shows that he has not yet lost confidence in the kindness of fate, or his own charms ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... in silence, although the slightest quizzical lifting of his eyebrows appeared to imply that 'dangerous' was perhaps too strong a term by which to designate ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... to pay me an unexpected and unannounced visit, had he not arrived precisely at the time at which he came, had he not encountered just the persons he met just where he did meet them, had not his prankishness hatched in him the vagary which led him to give quizzical replies to their questions; had I not, carried away by my elation at my prosperity and fine prospects, been a trifle too indulgent ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... guest of the evening, as the hostess rose to meet him. He was a young man on the right side of thirty, with dark, closely brushed hair that thinned slightly at the temples. He was clean-shaven, and his light-brown eyes lay in a smiling setting of quizzical good-humour. He was of rather more than medium height, with well-poised shoulders; and though a firmness of lips and jaw gave a suggestion of hardness, the engaging youthfulness of his eyes and a hearty smile that crinkled the bridge of his nose left a pleasant impression of frankness, ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... he persisted, turning toward her on the pillow with his unshaven face in his hand, a gentle quizzical smile in his eyes. ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... tangled grasses to await the arrival of the mob bent on his destruction. Everest had lost his hat and his wet hair stuck to his forehead. His gun was now so hot he could hardly hold it and the last of his ammunition was in the magazine. Eye witnesses declare his face still wore a quizzical, half bantering smile when the mob overtook him. With the pistol held loosely in his rough hand Everest stood at bay, ready to make a last stand for his life. Seeing him thus, and no doubt thinking his last bullet had been expended, the mob made a ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin

... him over his big spectacles in perplexed, troubled silence for a moment. So gazing, he gave the old impatient toss of his tousled head, and the old quizzical look came under his ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... the wrong impression about everything, Danny boy," retorted Darrin, turning to his roommate with a quizzical smile. "The singing drill isn't given with a view to fitting ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... and bit off a piece of his doughnut before replying. Then he looked at his hostess in a quizzical manner. ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody

... Esther said quickly. "I went to tell her myself as soon as I got my letter.... It only came this morning." She coloured sensitively beneath June's quizzical eyes. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... by with a deafening roar. The Doctor was coming from the opposite direction; we stood a moment to comment upon the perilous position we were all in. She looked up into my face, and with that smile that nobody who ever knew her could forget, and such a quizzical expression in her blue eyes, said: 'Eve, we are having some experiences now, aren't we?' She and I had often compared notes, and said how we would like to be in the thick of everything—at last we were. I have never seen anyone ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren

... talking my man James came up to seek me, with a letter that he had found in my lodgings, waiting for me. I knew the hand well enough; and I suppose that I shewed it; for when I looked up from reading it, Mr. Chiffinch was looking at me with a quizzical face. ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... thin little man of forty to fifty stood there, a dry but good-humored man, with many wrinkles about his quizzical blue eyes, and sandy hair at the sides and back of an otherwise bald head. He was smartly dressed in a homespun Norfolk suit. He waved a cap of homespun ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... slightest struggle, and Sally was free. Gaga's face was quite red. She stood looking down at him, on her lips that same quizzical smile. Gaga could not bear it. He rose quickly, and at her flight followed breathlessly. She was again lightly imprisoned, her head to his breast, and his arms giving small convulsive pressures as he sought to retain her. She could tell his physical ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... you, Jo Burnside?" demanded Max, while Jarvis, looking quizzical, still held the door. "Don't you know Sally well enough to know she's not afraid of her shadow? She's playing the game through. She'll come back in her own good time, when she's thoroughly explored whatever's behind that door. ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... mistaken, senor,' said he in English, and looking quizzical; 'those images in the niches are said to represent saints and not angels, though I must own they are admirably calculated to deceive strangers. As you said you wished to know their names, I will tell them to you—that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... many nights dining and supping in similar places to Marnio's. All the waiters knew him. He wondered if they were surprised to see him without Cynthia Farrow. For weeks past he and she had been everywhere together. He met Sangster's quizzical eyes; he roused himself with an effort; he turned to Christine ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres

... Orgreave, she admired him perhaps as much as she admired even Janet, and once when he and she had taken a walk together up to Toft End, she had thought him quite exquisite in his attitude to her, quizzical, worldly, and yet sensitively understanding and humane. And withal they never worried her by interferences and criticisms; they never presumed on their hospitality, but left her as free as though her age had been twice what it was. Undoubtedly, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... Hatton either. Enviable fellows, both of them, to have two such pretty girls in mourning for their mishaps. But all the same, don't you lose your hearts to those boys; neither of 'em is worth it." And the major chuckled at the idea of being quizzical and arch. ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... believe me, but there's little the 'European capitals' could add to your native bearing—you must have learned that simple dignity from these mountains of yours. Of course, if you wanted to go for pleasure—" His head a little on one side, he regarded her with a tender, half-quizzical smile, hoping he had sounded the note that would bring ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... came home to dinner they heard with astonishment that Nono was off on his wonderful errand. "The little boys" were at once detailed to wait upon Decima, when she condescended to receive their attentions—an office on which they entered with quizzical shrugs and wry faces ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker

... hour later I met Gedge, who asked me with a quizzical eye how I had enjoyed my first night among the Kanakas. I replied that I had seldom passed such a night, spoke glowingly of the forest and the stream, and said that I was still determined to remain behind when ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... society—especially the lower and more interesting ones—has always been to Frank Reynolds a matter of reflective amusement. The comedy of life affords him never-failing entertainment, for the world can never be dull to the man with the saving grace of humour and a quizzical interest in his fellow men. All is fish that comes to his net, for whether he touches off the foibles of Belgravia or records the broader humours of Bethnal Green he is equally happy. In the well-remembered series of "Dinners with Shakespeare," for instance, he illustrated ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson

... and was caught up here and there. It was the undying minstrel jest, the comedy of a black face. Dawson Bobbs leaned against the wide brick entrance of the livery-stable, his red face balled into shining convexities by a quizzical smile. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... midst of one of these droll movements, Tom suddenly hopped like a kangaroo (which feat he performed by raising himself upon tip-toes, then flinging himself forward with a stooping jerk), towards the hearth, and squinting down into the coffee-pot in the most quizzical manner, exclaimed, "Miserable chaff! If that does not make you ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... tell you if I knew," remarked Lieutenant Danvers, with a quizzical look, then turned and ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... to withstand the whirlwind little lady. Miss Craven's personality took a strong hold on her; she loved the woman, she admired the artist, and she was quick to recognise the real feeling and deep kindness that lay under brusque manner and quizzical speeches. She had good reason. She glanced now round the big room. Everywhere were evidences of lavish generosity, showered on her regardless of protest. Gillian's eyes filled slowly with tears. It was all a fairy story, too wonderful almost to be true. Why were they ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... to know what the garage men had found the trouble with a car that ran perfectly on Friday night and broke down in half a dozen different places on Saturday morning. Finally Donald looked at her, laughingly quizzical. ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... receive the dead warrior's chattels I had noticed that Tars Tarkas and several others had pushed forward toward us, and the eyes of the former rested upon me in a most quizzical ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... have been deceived by that grave and interested air of his—a slight frown of concentrated attention between his well-marked eyebrows—into thinking him deeply impressed by the lady's dicta and by her somewhat dashing manner as she delivered them. But, familiar of old with the quizzical expression which at times could be discovered to underlie the exterior of charmed absorption, I understood that the Philosopher was quietly and skilfully classifying a new, if ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... to keep Gaston from making love to me, and when he would go on, I said it bored me to death, and if he wanted to remain friends with me he must simply amuse me; and then to tease him I got up and went and talked to the Western senator. He had such a quizzical entertaining look in his keen eye—he was being stiffly deferential to one of the ladies, a Mrs. Welsh, who was talking to him so brightly. It looked like a huge mastiff allowing a teeny griffon to play ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn

... he went on in his sharp, dogmatic way, "either breaks or makes. You go into the crucible a mere ore, a possibility. You come out slag or steel." He was standing now, looking down at her with quizzical eyes. "You're about due to leave the pot," ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... An indication of confusion, usually spoken with a quizzical tone: "Wall??" 2. A request for further explication. Compare {octal forty}. 3. [Unix, from 'write all'] /v./ To send a message to everyone currently logged in, esp. with ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... laughter. They then saw between the foremost branches of the tree a big eye. The white of it was thick and pasty, the iris spongy in texture, and the pupil bulging with a lurid light. It stared at them with a steady stare—insolent and quizzical. Hamar and his friends stared back at it in fascinated horror, and would have continued staring at it indefinitely, had not Hamar's mercenary instincts come to their rescue. He recollected that time was pressing, and that unless he got into communication with the strange ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... manadas. You might hit him for work. He'll be riding in to meet the wagons. Carmencita, did you bring all that was left of the supplies?" Topham's quizzical eyebrows lifted in greeting to the waitress's loaded tray. "I'd say, young man, that you are facing a full-time job now, getting all that inside ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... perhaps a bit heavy from weariness, the same dark eyes with their strange fires, the same slight droop of the shoulders. There was certainly nothing to fear in him as he stood before her with a tender, quizzical smile about his large mouth. He looked to her now more like a big boy than the cold, stern ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett



Words linked to "Quizzical" :   perplexed, playful, mocking



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