"Winnow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... idlers, the butterflies, Broke, to-day, from their winter shroud; These light airs, that winnow the skies, Blow, just born, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... Whatever sweets salute the northern sky With vernal lives that blossom but to die; These here disporting own the kindred soil, Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil; 120 While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand To winnow fragrance round ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... meeting. See with suasion firmly sweet That brisk trio, gaily greeting To that portal guide his feet. Neptune's hoarse hails his friend's approach declare, Probate, the winged sprite, about must play; With wanton wings that winnow the soft air In gliding state Lord Cupid leads the way To where grave Law must mark, assay, reprove Wanderings of young Desire, and lures of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... python, &c., are found; it is chiefly inhabited by nomadic and often warlike Moors, Arabs, Berbers, and various negro races. The greater part is within the sphere of French influence. "When the winds waken, and lift and winnow the immensity of sand, the air itself is a dim sand-air, and dim looming through it, the wonderfullest uncertain colonnades of sand-pillars whirl from this side and from that, like so many spinning dervishes, of a hundred feet of stature, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... feathers great and small. He fastened these together with thread, moulded them in with wax, and so fashioned two great wings like those of a bird. When they were done, Daedalus fitted them to his own shoulders, and after one or two efforts, he found that by waving his arms he could winnow the air and cleave it, as a swimmer does the sea. He held himself aloft, wavered this way and that with the wind, and at last, like a great fledgling, he ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... a great deal of credit for having pulled through so far on your limited capital," said she. "Some of the business-men I meet, think this will prove the hardest year in our history. It will winnow the chaff from the ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Simpleness. — N. simpleness &c. adj.; purity, homogeneity. elimination; sifting &c. v.; purification &c. (cleanness) 652. V. render simple &c. adj.; simplify. sift, winnow, bolt, eliminate; exclude, get rid of; clear; purify &c. (clean) 652; disentangle &c. (disjoin) 44. Adj. simple, uniform, of a piece[Fr], homogeneous, single, pure, sheer, neat. unmixed, unmingled[obs3], unblended, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... sin the deadly sin." The Devil he grinned behind the bars, and banked the fires high: "Did ye read of that sin in a book?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran, And he said: "Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man: Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth: There's sore decline in Adam's line if this ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... wisdom from the East and from the West, That's subject to no academic rule: You may find it in the jeering of a jest, Or distil it from the folly of a fool. I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind! I can trick you into learning with a laugh; Oh, winnow all my folly, and you'll find A grain or two of ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... the elf-child displays a superhuman power of work. The mother left it on one occasion in the charge of a servant-girl, who sat bemoaning herself. "Wer't nae for thy girning face I would knock the big, winnow the corn, and grun the meal!" "Lowse the cradle band," cried the child, "and tent the neighbours, an' I'll work yere wark." With that he started up, the wind arose, the corn was winnowed, the outlyers were foddered, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... his ear to the ground may hear at a distance coming onwards upon every road,—if too surely thou wilt work for me and others irreparable wrong and suffering, work also for us a little good; this way turn the great hurricanes and levanters of thy wrath; winnow me this chaff; and let us enter at last the garners of pure wheat laid up in elder days for our benefit, and which for two centuries have ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... attitude, one of these queer birds will suddenly turn a somersault, and, returning to his previous posture, continue his cogitations as though nothing had interrupted his reflections. With wings spread, they slowly winnow the air, rising or hopping from the ground a few feet at a time, then whirling in circles upon their toes, as though going through the mazes of a dance. Their most popular diversion seems to be the game of leap-frog, and their long legs ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop |
