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Wan   /wɑn/   Listen
Wan

verb
1.
Become pale and sickly.



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"Wan" Quotes from Famous Books



... found that I had wan two hundred and fifty sequins, besides a debt of fifty sequins due by an officer who played on trust which Captain O'Neilan took on his own account. I completed his share, and at day-break he allowed me ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... no rejoinder; she raised her cup to her lips, and the dark blood that had stained her face, in a manner distressing to see, slowly retreated. She continued to look down, and, the light of her big, dark eyes gone out, her face seemed wan and dead. Madeleine, studying her, asked herself, not for the first time, but, as always, with an unclear irritation, what the secret of the other's charm was. Beautiful she had never thought Louise; she was not even pretty, in an honest way—at best, a strange, foreign-looking creature, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... crowd had passed noisily along, leaving behind it a trail of torn finery, of glittering tinsel and of scarlet berries, when the boom of the big drum and the grating noise of the brass trumpets had somewhat died away, wan faces, pale with anxiety, would peer from out the darkness, and nervous hands would grasp with trembling fingers the small bundles of poor belongings tied up hastily in view ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... Lieutenant Hartley, glanced up at Major Webb as they passed him by, with such a world of mingled question and reproach in her soft blue eyes that his heart for the moment smote him. He had never seen Esther Dade looking so languid or so wan, yet more of her and for her had he been thinking during the week gone by than of any other girl in or out of the army. To-day, however, there was another he eagerly sought to see, and, with something akin to keen disappointment, noted ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... Italians know to carve; Perhaps his tiger's blood cooled then, perhaps Swift pity at his very heart-strings tugged, And he in that black moment of remorse, Seeing how there his nobler self lay slain, Had bartered all this jewel-studded earth To win life's color back to that wan cheek. Ah, let us hope it, and some mercy feel, Since each at compt shall need of mercy have. Now how it happened, whether 't was the wind, Or whether 't was some incorporeal hand That reached down through the dark and did the thing, ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... housekeepin' expinses on a rash successor wud find throuble ready f'r him whin he come back to Ar-rchey Road. No, sir, whin our people grab hands at th' altar, they're hooked up f'river. There's on'y wan decree iv divoorce that th' neighbors will recognize, an' that's th' wan that entitles ye to ride just behind th' pall bearers. That's why I'm a batch. 'Tis th' fine skylark iv a timprary husband I'd make, bringin' home a new wife ivry Foorth iv July an' dischargin' th' old wan ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne

... put your eyes out!" The phrase stung me. With a quick movement, I grasped the hand mirror that lay on the stand by my bed, and looked critically at the image reflected there. Wan, hollow-eyed, with one side of my face and neck still flaming from my burns, I had a quick perception of the way in which my husband, beauty-lover that he is, must have contrasted my appearance ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... vodka consumed at Shahrood, and smacking his lips at the retrospective bliss embodied in its consumption; while the Turk from Tabreez catches me aside and asks mysteriously if my packages contain any "raki" (arrack). Like the Ah wan caravansarai, the one at Gusheh seems to draw the chilly winds from every direction, and I arise from a rude couch, made wretchedly uncomfortable by draughts, the attacks of insects, and the persistent determination of a horse to use my prostrate form as a rest for his nose-bag, to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... painting for the nuns, which greatly pleased them, every part being excellent in their estimation, except the faces, which they thought too pale and wan. Buonamico, knowing that they kept the very best Vernaccia (a kind of delicious Tuscan wine, kept for the uses of the mass) to be found in Florence, told his fair patrons, that this defect could only be remedied by mixing ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... Mr. Jones sealed his communication, Caleb feebly stretched his wan hand, held the letter which had "come too late" over the flame of the candle. As the blazing paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr. Jones prudently set thereon the broad sole of his top-boot, and the maidservant brushed the tinder ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... "Wan was her cheek which hung on my shoulder; Chill was her hand, no marble was colder; I felt that again I should never behold ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... understand I've no right to let ye in—that's up to the station-master, but he's a grouchy divil." The speaker led Paul into a room piled high with trunks, then summoned two helpers. "We'll move every dam' wan of them till we fit your little key," he declared; then the ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... that he, at last, saw Poppy draw herself up, push the soft masses of her hair back from her forehead with a petulant gesture, and turn towards him. As she did so she let her hands drop at her sides, as though she had finished with and dismissed some unwelcome form of thought, while her face showed wan, and her eyes large and vague, as though they saw beyond and through all that which they ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... and lights a cigar from his box). Sure, it's a sad Christmas for me, so it is, whin Honoria lets an ould picture come bechune a man and his wife. (Smokes.) Begorry, I smell something. (Sniffs.) It's awful. (Rises.) Some wan is burning some rubber. Maybe I've got too much hate on in the radiators. (Sniffs.) My, my, what an awful smell. (Removes cigar and looks at it, smells it, makes horrible grimace.) Oh, ho, so it's you, is it? (Throws it in cuspidor.) No wonder they call it Santas Odoriferous. If that ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare

... Lee came in silently. A slight shudder went through him, as he came to the coffin and bent over it. What a change had three days made in the man! Ten years would not have taken so much youth and life from him and made him look so old and wan. He looked upon her as a man who looks his last upon what he loved best in the world;—his whole ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... you, dear, then," said Mrs. Whitney with a wan little smile. "Oh, Polly," when the kiss and two or three others had been dropped on the rosy cheek, "you are sure you can ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... in pallid mist To fold her close: she breathes its breath; She waxes wan, by Fever kissed, Who weds her for his master, Death, Aside are set her dimmed hopes all, She counts no more the uncurrent hoard; On gray Death's neck she fain would fall, To own him for ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone

... humbly to confess that without God's help I was helpless, I vowed a vow in the forest solitudes that I would confess his aid before men. Silence, as of death, was round about me; it was midnight; I was weakened by illness, prostrated by fatigue, and wan with anxiety for my white and black companions, whose fate was a mystery. In this physical and mental distress I besought God to give me back my people. Nine hours later we were exulting with a rapturous joy. In full view of all ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... that," she sighed, "thy dagger let it be, since true knight art thou and honourable, I pray you give me thine. It is thy reverend mother asks," and smiling pale and wan, she reached out a white, imperious hand. So Beltane drew his dagger and gave it to her keeping; then, having set the other in his girdle, he crossed to the door and stood awhile ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... far from clean; but it was the hand of a brave man, and I liked it all the better for being dirty. It seemed somehow to belong to a hero. I think that I would have been disappointed if he had had clean hands and well-trimmed finger-nails. On our taking leave of him he conjured up a wan smile and said, very pleasantly, giving us his ink- stained ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... with passionate earnestness. Life without my mother! The very thought was death! I looked in her pale, beautiful face. It was more than pale,—it was wan—it was sickly. There was a purplish shadow under her soft, dark eyes, which I had not observed before, and her figure looked thin and drooping. I gazed into the sad, loving depths of her eyes, till mine were blinded with tears, when throwing my arms ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... your hand to take the cup she extends to her deluded votaries, have you not found the long-expected draught strongly tinctured with the bitter dregs of disappointment? I know you have: I see it in the wan cheek, sunk eye, and air of chagrin, which ever mark the children of dissipation. Pleasure is a vain illusion; she draws you on to a thousand follies, errors, and I may say vices, and then leaves you to deplore ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... Chief, Gabriel, from the front thus called aloud. O friends! I hear the tread of nimble feet Hasting this way, and now by glimpse discern Ithuriel and Zephon through the shade; And with them comes a third of regal port, But faded splendour wan; who by his gait And fierce demeanour seems the Prince of Hell, Not likely to part hence without contest; Stand firm, for in his look defiance lours. He scarce had ended, when those two approached, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... youngest of the flock, she whose birth we have said was not heralded with loud joy; for when she came into the world, four others, with pale temples, wan, worn cheeks, and skeleton, white arms, were ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... must be very good and make no noise. There was little fear of that! I gazed in utter silence at the sweet face that was whiter than the sheet below it, the hair that shone brighter than ever in the candlelight. Only when I kissed her, and she had laid her wan hand on my head, I whispered to my father, "Why ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... if there were a hell, it certainly would be located in the moon. At any rate he thought that the entire sphere of the moon consists of burned out craters, water could not be found upon it, and hardly any plant life, and the wan, unwholesome reflection of a borrowed light would bring us sickness, madness, ruin of fruits and grains, and he who is already foolish will without doubt behave himself worst at the time of full moon.... What concern ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... man's wan look, for the walk had taxed his strength, reminded his father of the day he had brought the boy home wounded, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... have deserted him. At any rate, Paul saw but little of him at this time, and when he did see him, the boy only greeted him with a wan, frightened smile, as though ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... bright and black of yore Were now more black and bright, And beam'd strange lustre in her face So deadly wan and white. ...
— Poems • Robert Southey

... well of easy as difficult conception in women) the first consideration is to be had of their species; for little women are more apt to conceive than great, slender than gross, white and fair than ruddy and high coloured, black than wan, those that have their veins conspicuous, than others; but to be very fleshy is evil, and to have great swelled ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... roundness of a well-to-do middle-class gentleman, became furrowed with wrinkles. Lines appeared in his forehead, his jaws grew gaunt and sharp; and at the end of the fourth year he bore no longer the likeness of his former self. He was now a wan, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... the bundle at her back, and laying the two babes down on the road, showed that the elder of them was in truth in a fearful state. It was a child nearly two years of age, but its little legs seemed to have withered away; its cheeks were wan, and yellow and sunken, and the two teeth which it had already cut were seen with terrible plainness through its emaciated lips. Its head and forehead were covered with sores; and then the mother, moving aside the rags, showed ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... Virgins of Fra Angelico are forgotten. At first, contrasting them with those, you may have thought that there was something in them mean or abject even, for the abstract lines of the face have little nobleness, and the colour is wan. For with Botticelli she too, though she holds in her hands the "Desire of all nations", is one of those who are neither for Jehovah nor for His enemies; and her choice is on her face. The white light on it is cast up hard and cheerless from below, as when snow lies upon the ground, and the ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... th'oat gits choky, An' a lump keeps tryin' to rise Lak it wan'ed to ketch de water Dat was flowin' to my eyes; An' I feel dat I could sorter Knock de socks clean off o' sin Ez I hyeah my po' ol' granny Wif ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... room was seated a wan and sickly-looking priest, whom I took to be the master of the house; but I was mistaken—he was in his anderun, and I was told that he would ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... show that, in the reign of the Emperor Bidatsu (A.D. 572-585), a memorial sent by Korea to the Yamato Court was illegible to all the officials except one man, by name Wang-sin-i, who seems to have been a descendant of the Paikche emigrant, Wan-i. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... love on earth is but a poor, pale counterfeit of love—a wan Ophelia, wandering with a garland of sad perished ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley

... hurried and fearful glance on the still, wan, serene face beneath his eyes, and recognised in that glance the features of the neglected and ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... cultivating the garden, or our reading. Of the latter, I had many times endeavored to give her some idea, showing her the plates in the Family Bible, and doing my best to explain them to her, but of late I had quite lost sight of her. Now, how changed, how wan she looked! As I addressed her with my ordinary phrase, "Tshah-ko-zhah?" (What is it?) she gave a sigh that was almost a sob. She did not beg, but her countenance ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... a great cawing into the shining snow, which they filled curiously with patches of black, and in which they kept rummaging obstinately. A young fellow went to see what they were doing, and discovered the body of the blind man, already half devoured, mangled. His wan eyes had disappeared, pecked out ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... just rung and was waiting for an answer. The fanlight beat full upon the gleaming shoulders of his waterproof and upon his upturned features. It was a wan, sensitive, clear-cut face, with some subtle, nameless peculiarity in its expression, something of the startled horse in the white-rimmed eye, something too of the helpless child in the drawn cheek and the weakening of the lower lip. The man-servant knew the stranger as a patient at a bare ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and as the firelight glowed on the faces of both, they contrasted strangely. One was classical and full of youthful beauty, the other wan, haggard, and sorrow-stained. He looked about sixteen, and promised to become a strikingly handsome man, while the proportions of his polished brow indicated more than ordinary intellectual endowments. He watched his companion earnestly, sadly, and, leaning forward, took ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... ancestors were writing books when the Anglo-Saxon was living in caves."[3] She was astonished and somewhat dismayed, but was not cast down—the clever American woman never is. I told her of our classics, of our wonderful Book of Changes, written by my ancestor Wan Wang in 1150 B. C. I told her of his philosophy. I compared his idea of the creation to that in the Bible. I explained the loss of many rare Chinese books by the piratical order of destruction by Emperor Che Hwang-ti, calling ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous

... all the more at that, and flung herself upon me, and, of course, I began to cry, too—and you can't stay superb and haughty and disdainful when you're all the time trying to hunt up a handkerchief to wipe away the tears that are coursing down your wan cheeks. And of course I didn't. We had a real good cry together, and vowed we loved each other better than ever, and nobody could come between us, not even bringing a chocolate-fudge-marshmallow college ice—which we both adore. But I told her that she would be all right, ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter

... quarters and with numbers on their hoofs, With the trampling sound of twenty that re-echoes in the roofs, Low of crest and dull of coat, wan and wild of eye, Through our English village ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... there comes an end to summer. The flowers dropped from the frames and died in the garden; a pitiless winter set in; and day after day the mittened and mufflered schoolboy, dragging his sled through drifts of heavy snow to school, eyed curiously the wan, wistful face of Judge Hyde's wife pressed up to the pane of the south window, its great restless eyes and shadowy hair bringing to mind some captive bird that pines and beats against the cage. Her husband ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... fact with other humiliations had made it indistinct, whether or no directly from little Bilham's example, the example of his being contentedly just the obscure and acute little Bilham he was. It worked so for him, Strether seemed to see; and our friend had at private hours a wan smile over the fact that he himself, after so many more years, was still in search of something that would work. However, as we have said, it worked just now for them equally to have found a corner a little apart. What particularly kept it apart was the circumstance that ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... noon, Pauses above the death-still wood—the moon; The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs; The clouds descend in rain; Mourning, the wan stars wane, Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres! Haggard as spectres—vision-like and dumb, Dark with the pomp of Death, and moving slow, Towards that sad lair the pale Procession come Where the Grave closes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... I not be the same Molly then?" With a wan little smile. "Well, if you were rich I would marry you gladly, because I know your love for me is so great you would not feel my dear ones a burden. But as it is—yes—yes—we ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... her, wan-eyed, hunted-looking. It was the ghost of that exam that wouldn't be laid—the prophetic vision of the row that waited for him, ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... last quarter and was inclining all to one side, seemed fainting in the midst of space, so weak that she was unable to wane, forced to stay up yonder, seized and paralyzed by the severity of the weather. She shed a cold, mournful light over the world, that dying and wan light which she gives us every month, at the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... were dying and withering, this her sun having been removed from her, bloomed again and at once, its light being restored. You would scarcely have recognised the beaming little face upon Amelia's pillow that night as the one that was laid there the night before, so wan, so lifeless, so careless of all round about. The honest Irish maid-servant, delighted with the change, asked leave to kiss the face that had grown all of a sudden so rosy. Amelia put her arms round the girl's neck and kissed her with all her heart, like a ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Dean to listen to her touching the child of the old man who was slain on May Eve, he consented; and she was at once admitted to an inner chamber, where Colet, wrapped in a gown lined with lambskin, sat by the fire, looking so wan and feeble that it went to the good woman's heart and she began by an apology for ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... know. They wan't my friends in petic'lar. Victoria was a pretty girl, and some folks called her smart, but I never could see it. Poor thing, it was an awful end she came to at last," and the widow wiped away a ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton

... softly. A wan gleam of amusement flitted across her face. "But it's true, you know—Tony and I did stay at the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... issued an order for the creation of a city on the Bay of Talien-Wan; and in two years Dalny stood in massive completeness, with docks and wharves and defences which had cost millions of dollars. Millions more had been expended upon Port Arthur, and still more millions ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... hollowed, danced, sung, and capered, like so many Frenchmen. Others stood in amaze, with their hands in their pockets, as if doubtful of its truth. In by far the greater part, however, it gave a glow of health and animation to the wan cheek of the half sick, and, hitherto, cheerless prisoner. Some unforgiving spirits hail the joyful event as bringing them nearer the period of revenge, which they longed to exercise on some of their tyrannical keepers. Many who had meditated escape, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... masterly, inasmuch as the leaders, having their heads at liberty, poked them about in all directions, all a mode Francey, just as they do in Paris. At the Marsh gate we were stopped. A black job was going through on one side, and a haw-buck had drawn a great yellow one 'oss Gravesend cruelty wan into the other, and was fumbling for ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... gladly rendered him the service, and, as she gazed into his face, wan with anxiety and suffering, and thought of the beautiful surprise which she had in store, she waved back, unnoticed by her royal brother, the pages and courtiers who were following close behind. Then looking ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... You said this gentleman," indicating the nervous and apprehensive Captain Elisha, "was fightin' and murderin'. I ask your pardon, sir. 'Twas this bloke's foolishness. G'wan ashore! You make me sick. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenced in strands afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood; ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... to git right back in thar, an' keep still. It was just as that whole caboodle come tearin' up this las' time, sir. It wan't no safe place fer a girl whar you was. Ragan he promised to tell you, only he got hit 'fore the fracas was done. That's why Foster chirked up, ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... white against the pale green of the curtain before which she stood, and imperceptibly but surely the glowing attractions of the gay-hearted widow who had found a child to love, faded before the cold loveliness of this bereaved mother, wan with suffering and alive with terrors of whose depth I could judge from the clutch with which she still held ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... door was still bolted. He knocked gently at first, then louder and louder, adding to the uproar by calls and expostulations. A light appeared in the adjacent cottage, and Kern Watson, his son-in-law, came out. "Wat de matter now, Uncle Sheba?" he asked. "Does yer wan' ter bring de perlice? You'se been takin' a drap too much again, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... Is a wan and waefu' bride, Singing, O waly! waly! Through the whole country side; And a river to wade For a dying maid, And a weary ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang

... this way you will come and attain the reformation, giving good priests to Holy Church. Fill her heart with the ardent love that she has lost; for she has been so drained of blood by the iniquitous men who have devoured her that she is wholly wan. But comfort you, and come, father, and no longer make to wait the servants of God, who afflict themselves in desire. And I, poor, miserable woman, can wait no more; living, I seem to die in my pain, seeing God thus reviled. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... became one of incredible distress and suffering. Over the seemingly endless Russian steppes, from whose snow-clad level only rose here and there the ruins of a deserted village, the freezing and starving soldiers made their miserable way. Wan, hollow-eyed, gaunt, clad in garments through which the biting cold pierced their flesh, they dragged wearily onward, fighting with one another for the flesh of a dead horse, ready to commit murder for the shadow of food, and finally sinking in death ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... busied themselves knitting long hose for the poor strangers. The scurvy carried off a good many. In April, 1760, of 894 men in Fraser's Highlanders not fewer than 580 were on the sick list and it was a wan and woe-begone host that set itself grimly to the task of meeting the assault on Quebec for which the French under Levis had been preparing throughout ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... We've worruked togither guidin' more than wance, and nivver a bit av a quarrel did we have. Oi'd not tell ye a loie, an' Oi want ye to know thot Frank Merriwell will rake these mountains down an' lay them level av he don't foind thot girrul. It's a big oath he has taken to make anny wan shmart thot has caused her ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... generating trees is manifold; For some of their own force spontaneous spring, No hand of man compelling, and possess The plains and river-windings far and wide, As pliant osier and the bending broom, Poplar, and willows in wan companies With green leaf glimmering gray; and some there be From chance-dropped seed that rear them, as the tall Chestnuts, and, mightiest of the branching wood, Jove's Aesculus, and oaks, oracular Deemed by the Greeks of old. With ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... wait'st on yon keen cape-point wistfully, Like to some maiden spirit pausing pale, New-wing'd, yet fain to sail Above the serene Gulf to where a bridegroom soul Calls o'er the soft horizon — mine thy dole Of shut undaring wings and wan desire — Mine, too, thy later hope and heavenly fire Of kindling expectation; yea, all sights, All sounds, that make this morn — quick flights Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees, Like missives and sweet morning inquiries From green to green, in green — live oaks' round heads, Busy ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... papers in the big office tent, and only the sentries, the sick and the special duty men remained about the body of camp. There was no one, said Private Noonan to himself, as he paced the pathway in front of the colonel's tent, after having scrupulously saluted him on his appearance, "No wan fur the ould man to whack at, barrin' it's me," but even Canker could find nothing to "whack at" in this veteran soldier who had served in the ranks since the days of the great war and had borne the messages of such men as Sheridan, Thomas and McPherson when Canker himself was sweating under ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... trees? The place was almost as deserted as those still valleys she had passed by in the morning. Here, in the street, there was the roar of a passing crowd, but there was a long and almost deserted stretch of park, with winding roads and umbrageous trees, on which the wan sunlight fell from between loose masses ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... the door of a newspaper, magazine or book publisher's office, accompanied by the announcement of his name, brought him respect and a polite hearing—if that could afford any satisfaction to a man whose darling wife was growing wan ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... that," declared Andy Flinn, laughing. "Three nights did he play the same joke, and then they got on to him. Wan officer do be sneakin' up to the loft, while the rist pretended to be huntin' around downstairs. He discovered the sthring, cript downstairs again, wint out on the sly, and, be the powers, followed it to the fince. Then he wint around, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... of the red-headed woodpecker resound through its distempered boughs! See what a quantity of holes he has made in it, and how its bark is stained with the drops which trickle down from them. The lightning, too, has blasted one side of it. Nature looks pale and wan in its leaves, and her resources are nearly dried up in its extremities: its sap is tainted; a mortal sickness, slow as a consumption and as sure in its consequences, has long since entered its frame, vitiating and destroying the wholesome ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... midst is a little child, With ragged shoes and a brimless hat, Not bigger than Hop-O'-my-Thumb, at most, And wan and thin at that. ...
— The Nursery, March 1878, Vol. XXIII. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... had spurned. Luxury in contrast to Dalton Street, to the whirring factories near the church which discharged, at nightfall, their quotas of wan women and stunted children. And yet here he was catering to luxury, providing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... arm with a tragic forlornness that seemed to leave her very wan and helpless. And he had found it ineffably sweet to enfold that warm mass of wan helplessness ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... raising herself in her miserable bed. "I'll forgive yer everything if you'll do the right thing fur them. Do—do—everything!" said the woman, throwing up her arms and falling backward. Her husband's arm caught her; his lips brought to her wan face a smile, which the grim visitor, who an instant later stole her breath, pityingly left in full possession of the rightful inheritance from which it ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... strong to do evil and to forget. A brawler and a swashbuckler upon the hillsides was I.' Kim bit back a smile. 'Just and perfect is the Wheel, swerving not a hair. When I was a man—a long time ago—I did pilgrimage to Guru Ch'wan among the poplars' (he pointed Bhotanwards), 'where they keep the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... in the woods. The leaves were gone, and the tree-trunks were a pale wan colour in the low, sickly autumn sun. Not a thing moved, except the ice of little woodland pools shivering under our feet. Was ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... Don't you presume t'lecture me on state of my health. No reply, please. I don' wan' to be encumbered with your further acquaintance. I wish ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... up at him with a wan little smile. She was wondering whether he remembered as well as she did that half an ordinary lifetime lay between that moment and the occasion when ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... matter for him; but he races through those delicately penned lines with quite a new strength. The spinster sees the color come and go upon his wan cheek, and with what a trembling eagerness he folds the letter at the end, and, making a painful effort, tries to thrust it under his pillow. The good woman has to aid him in this. He thanks her, but says nothing more. His fingers are toying nervously at a bit of torn fringe upon the coverlet. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... whose legs and belly, belonging no doubt to the same model, fall far short of heroic form. He lies fast asleep with the corners of his mouth drawn down, as though he were about to snore. Opposite there sits a woman, weary and wan, draped from neck to foot in the thin raiment Botticelli loved. Four little goat-footed Cupids playing with the armour of the sleeping lad complete the composition. These wanton loves are admirably conceived and exquisitely drawn; nor indeed can any drawing exceed in beauty ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... are all past over Of our dreaming, dreams that hover In a mist of fair false things: Night's afloat on wide wan wings." ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... subject which was partly the occasion of my visit. He lay back on his couch, volumed in a Turkish beneesh, and listened to me, a little wearily perhaps at first, with woven fingers, and the pale inverted eyes of old anchorites and astrologers, the moony greenish light falling on his always wan features. ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... to meet her and drew her to the table. She smiled in her wan, rather abstracted way at Bernard whom she had ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... Electra, pressing her face against the frame, looking out into the moaning, struggling night, striving to read the mystic characters dimly traced on the ash-grey hurrying clouds as the reckless winds parted their wan folds. She shrank away from the window, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... seemed to me to be a kind of sitting-room, with a plain deal table and a couple of chairs, but there was no stove, and the place looked chill and comfortless. Beyond was another smaller room into which the old nun disappeared for a moment; then she came forth leading a strange wan little figure in a gray gown, a figure whose face was the most perfect and most lovely I had ever seen. Her wealth of chestnut hair fell disheveled about her shoulders, and as her hands were clasped before her she ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... that little room. Directly afterwards Huber, the manager, returned, followed by a sergeant of the police. We all waited for the doctor's examination. I fetched a chair for the child, and she thanked me with a wan little smile. Always she sat with her back to the sofa. There was something terribly suggestive in her utter lack of sympathy with the ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... how sad steps, O Moon thou climb'st the sky. How silently, and with how wan a face!" [2] Where art thou? Thou whom I have seen on high Running among the clouds a Wood-nymph's race? Unhappy Nuns, whose common breath's a sigh Which they would stifle, move at such a pace! The Northern Wind, to call ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth

... the doctor from foreign parts ask?" queried Bronson, and, being informed of some of the customary prices for major operations, fell back hopeless. Susie, her pretty, childish face drawn and blanched into a wan beauty, put her arms about her sick little son and looked at her stepfather. He had ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... the women of the after-palace, hearing the cries of the horses, birds, and beasts, their hair dishevelled, their faces wan and yellow, their forms sickly to look at, their mouths and lips parched, their garments torn and unwashed, the soil and heat not cleansed from their bodies, their ornaments all thrown aside, disconsolate and sad, cheerless in face, raised their bodies, without any grace, even as the feeble ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... maid my spirit seeks, Through cold reproof and slander's blight? Has she Love's roses on her cheeks? Is hers an eye of this world's light? No: wan and sunk with midnight prayer Are the pale looks of her I love; Or if, at times, a light be there, Its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... a-dealin' and Cazot didn't seem to grasp that fact, but kept bettin' heavy. You see, young feller, ye ain't over likely to win at cards when yer playin' agin the dealer. Cazot didn't know this and I wouldn't tell him, for he was rather fly with the cards himself when he wan't watched too close. Well, he struck me for a loan; said his little girl was hungry and he hadn't a cent to buy bread. Gad, but he looked wild though! I always thought he was more'n half loony. Well, as I had helped to fleece him I lent him a hundred and took this ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... gint who iver downed him was Frankie Merriwell. Instid av layin' it up against Frankie, and lookin' for revinge, the way people ginerally suppose Mexicans and Spaniards do, the don shook hands, and became wan av ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... transparent air of actuality, sound an echo from William Morris' prose romances, like "The House of the Wolfings" and "The Sundering Flood." As in the last named, and in Thomas Hardy's "Return of the Native," the reader's imagination is assisted by a map of the Morgraunt forest and the river Wan. Mr. Hewlett has evidently profited, too, by recent romances of various schools: by "Prince Otto," e.g., and "The Prisoner of Zenda," and possibly by others. His Middle Ages are not the Middle Ages of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... Guy, as well as I, that pretty and smart as she is, Maddy is really beneath you, and no kind of a match, even if you wan't as good as married, which you be;" and the good lady left the room in time to escape seeing the sparks fly up the chimney, as Guy now made a most vigorous use of the poker, and so did not finish the scorching process commenced on the ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... are very ignorant," said Lady Alice, smiling a wan smile, and touching the girl's cheek lightly with her hand. "How could he marry another woman when I was alive? Your father and I separated on account of what is called incompatibility of temper. The question of the person whom he apparently preferred ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... command of Sir James Hope, were attempting to remove obstructions in the Peiho River when the forts suddenly opened a destructive fire. A desperate conflict followed, in which several hundred of the English were killed. Captain Tatnall commanded the chartered steamer "Toey-Wan," which was in the harbor. He forgot his neutrality as he watched the scene. With the exclamation, "Blood is thicker than water!" he jumped into his launch and steamed for the British flagship. The boat was struck with a ball, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... two tones deeper. Then he laughed as if to himself. "Well, that's a go," said he. He took a pull at his beard as he contemplated this slayer of men seated on her blankets at his feet. She glanced up and saw that he was laughing and a wan smile came around her eyes, it seemed to him like a glimmer of sunshine from inside of her. Then bending down he pulled up the blanket that had slipped from her left shoulder and settled ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... earth. Great grey clouds with haloes of lurid pearl and pale-green were coming up from the plains or the sea and spreading over the towers of the city. In the middle of the moving mass of grey vapours was a splash of paler vapour; a wan white cloud whose white seemed somehow more ominous than gloom. It went over the high citadel like a white wild goose flying; and a ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... down her wet umbrella in the shabby little hall, and opened the door of a barely furnished room, the walls of which were, however, lined with books. Beside the fire was the one really comfortable piece of furniture in the room, an Ikeley couch, and upon it lay a very wan-looking invalid, who glanced up with a smile of welcome. "Why, Erica, you are home early today. How ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... who had but recently risen from a bed of pain, was wan and pale; his tall and stately form had shrunk, his massive head was bowed, his raven ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... be hurt some," murmured Dan; "a good deal in my back, and a durned sight more in my feelin's. As if I wan't sufferin' a'ready the pangs of death—wus'n death!—a thinkin' about the master, and what's been done to him, arter he'd been so kind to me—and thinkin' he'd think I'm the ongratefulest cuss out of the bad place!—and then to have it all laid on to me by Stackridge and the rest! ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... him to have wan vote, too," said Bonner. "I thought mesilf the only dang fool on the board—an' he made a spache that airned wan vote—but f'r the love of hivin, that dub f'r a teacher! What come over you, ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... the sothe to say, To Harflue town, with royal array; That toune he wan, and made a fray That Fraunce shall rywe tyl domes-day. Deo ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... waste and wan, Comes the encroaching race of man, A puny, feeble, little bubber, He has no fur, he has no blubber. The scornful bear sat down at ease To see the stranger starve and freeze; But, lo! the stranger slew the bear, And ate his fat and wore ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... you startled me," said the Author sitting up among the Rugs. "Just as you came in I was writing about the Fays and the Elfins. I was in the deep Greenwood, the velvet Sward kissing my wan Cheek and the ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... of {.} {.} in the text of this concluding sentence, and so frequently occurring throughout the narrative, has occasioned no little dispute among previous translators. In the imperial thesaurus of phraseology (P'ei-wan Yun-foo), under {.}, an example of it is given from Chwang-tsze, and a note subjoined that {.} {.} is equivalent to ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... and cold, Within a winding-sheet enfold; Count the mystic count of seven: Name the Governors of Heaven.[2] Then in earthen vessel place them, And with dragon-wort encase them, Bleach them in the noonday sun, Till the marrow melt and run, Till the flesh is pale and wan, As a moon-ensilvered cloud, As an unpolluted shroud. Next within their chill embrace The dead man's Awful Candle place; Of murderer's fat must that candle be —You may scoop it beneath the roadside tree—, Of wax, and of Lapland sisame. Its wick must be ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... night by torchlight. It was a warm and dull evening, and the wan moon threw a yellow light onto the torches which made the night misty with their resinous smoke. The hounds devoured the wild boar's stinking entrails, and snarled and fought for them, while the prickers ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... when her mother spoke. She had not been shedding tears. Perhaps she might have looked less terribly wan and woeful if she ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... happened to be a very short time, for not very long afterward, when Annie, her nurse, called, "Come, Fanny, bread and milk is all ready," she ran away off down by the brook and answered, "No, I don't wan' ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various

... grew up he invariably persisted in the truth of his statement, and at forty years of age could recall the scene so vividly as "to make him shudder, as if still he felt her cold lips press his cheeks and the death-like embrace of her wan arms." ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... moon. The frost was still on the ground in England, but the world was as brightly lit as if it were midsummer moonlight. One could see to read quite ordinary print by that cold clear light, and in the cities the lamps burnt yellow and wan. ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... William next waylaid his fair, He had his glittering "aiglets" on; Rope upon rope of gold was there, And now his rival's look was wan; He tried a bitter sneer, to greet This "peacock preening in the sun"; But Miss Belinda thought them "sweet".... And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various

... he got a new pony, and, as he mounted, said to his youngest wife: "Wan-ha-ya, give me my little boy: put him up behind me on my pony. I will show ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington

... His earthly life to shadow forth this great truth, and has bid us see a pledge and a symbol of it in that scene on the Lake of Galilee: the disciples toiling in the sudden storm, the poor little barque tossing on the waters tinged by the wan moon, the spray dashing over the wearied rowers. They seem alone, but up yonder, in some hidden cleft of the hills, their Master looks down on all the weltering storm, and lifts His voice in prayer. Then when the need is sorest, and the hope least, He ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... hungry," she mused over the charcoal fire in her little room, "I must have been hungry," and she smiled a wan smile, and busied herself getting her evening meal of coffee ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... wid wan eye instid," said he, putting on a brogue to match her own. She laughed and escaped, and, later, read the ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... soon. I shall only spare her some unnecessary pain; it is cruel to see her thus, and to keep her in suspense. Besides, her weakness might be her ruin, in his opinion, if it were to extinguish all her energy, and deprive her of the very power of pleasing. How wan she looks, and how heavy are those sleepless eyes! She is not, indeed, in a condition to meet him, when he comes to us to-morrow: if she had some hopes, she would revive and appear with her natural ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... a sweet, half-playful humility. Her face was very wan. And speech not coming immediately ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... no appeal, and no other dissent than what was expressed by a look or a low murmur. But I perceived the corpulent gentleman and the wan mathematician slily exchange their dishes, by which they both seemed to consider themselves gainers. The dish allotted to me, being of a middling character, I ate of it without repining; though, from the savoury fumes of my right-hand neighbour's ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... shop windows were works of art, but also by the public, who loved art. Even gouty subjects and folk with livers protested. As for the ladies, the war on sponge cakes almost broke their hearts. Pastry was to many of them a staple sustenance, and conducive—besides being nice—to a, wan complexion. Five o'clock teas lost prestige; the tarts were gone. It was a case of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. The propriety of a deputation to the Colonel, to test his gallantry, was mooted; but the proposal, strange to say, found no seconder. Meanwhile, he (the Colonel) was ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... maiden plucked the flower, and bore it away from the birds and the sunshine, away from the wind and the trees, to a squalid court in a great city, where a dying woman lay, haggard and wan, upon a bed. And as the flower looked into the soul of the dying woman, its fair leaves seemed to wither and wilt, as though some foul breath had come forth upon it, for therein it could see nothing because of the blackness and the sin. And at first the flower shrank into itself, and ...
— Tom, Dot and Talking Mouse and Other Bedtime Stories • J. G. Kernahan and C. Kernahan

... teeming brain at that moment of exaltation were by no means deficient in those energetic and highly vital globules on whose reparative worth he so eloquently descanted. "Sure, the Professor makes annywan see right inside wan's own vascular system," Callaghan whispered aside to me, in ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... Commonplace.] compositions, intermingle and wrest in whole sentences taken from ancient Authors, supposing by such filching-theft to purchase honour and reputation to themselves, doe cleane contrarie. For, this infinite varietie and dissemblance of lustres, makes a face so wan, so il-favored, and so uglie, in respect of theirs, that they lose much more than gaine thereby. These were two contrarie humours: The Philosopher Chrisippus was wont to foist-in amongst his bookes, not only whole sentences ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... worlds away and far away, Heard a voice but knew it not in the clear cold, Many a wide circle and many a wan star away, Dwelling in the chambers where the worlds ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... alighted. hire her] her hair. lossum] lovesome. loh] laughed. bote he] unless she. buen] be. make] mate. feye] like to die. nihtes] at night. wende] turn. for-thi] on that account. wonges waxeth won] cheeks grow wan. levedi] lady. y-lent me on] arrived to me. so wyter mon] so wise a man. swyre] neck. may] maid. for-wake] worn out with vigils. so water in wore] as water in a weir. reve] rob. y-yerned yore] long been distressed. tholien] ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... made up my mind ter go ter Louisburg to-morrer, stay ter dat funeral, an' come back nex' day. Seems ter me ole Mahs'r'd be kind o' glad ter see Nimbus at his funeral, fer all I wan't no gret fav'rite o' his'n. He wa'nt sich a bad marster, an' atter I bought Red Wing he use ter come ober ebbery now an' agin, an' gib me a heap ob advice 'bout fixin' on it up. I allus listened at ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... the stone splinter, however, which certainly argued that the wan, prematurely white-haired fellow was a little unbalanced, and hence not to be believed too implicitly. He'd handed it to Harley, and gravely declared it to be a bit of the ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst

... woman's indignation ran, Roused into conflict by the cruel wrong, Standing erect before that crouching man, Weak in his shame—she in her virtue strong; Whilst on her quivering lips and cheeks so wan, Reproach and scorn alternate coursed along— But to her heart the silence went, and then She swept past in ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... long time, which seemed hours to the waiting and watching settlers, not a sound could be heard, nor any sign of the enemy seen. Thin clouds had again drifted over the moon, allowing only a pale, wan light to shine down on the valley. Time dragged on and the clouds grew thicker and denser until the moon and the stars were totally obscured. Still no sign or sound of ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... his wife wuz name Julianne. Aunt Julianne used ter have spells and fight and kick all the time. They had doctor after doctor but none did her any good. Somebody told Uncle Martin to go ter a old conjurer and let the doctors go cause they wan't doing nothing for her anyway. Sho nuff he got one ter come see her and give her some medicine. This old man said she had bugs in her head, and after giving her the medicine he started rubbing her head. While he rubbed ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration



Words linked to "Wan" :   weak, colorless, come down, colourless, unanimated, computer network, sicken



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