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Winsome   /wˈɪnsəm/   Listen
Winsome

adjective
(compar. winsomer; superl. winsomest)
1.
Charming in a childlike or naive way.



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"Winsome" Quotes from Famous Books



... does to this day in Mexico, and parents liked to have a hand in marriages. But Reyes Feliz was away from home a great deal with his train of mules, the landholder was busy at his own affairs; the girl was a beauty and the landholder's son had a winsome way with him. So one night Rosita took the horse which he brought for her and rode off with him ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... the tools of her trade lay at hand. A momentous problem confronted her. The child must be won back. He must be convinced of her worth. Therefore she must be beautiful. He thought her pretty. She would be pretty. But how impress him? By what appeal? The pathetic? the tenderly winsome? the gay? She would be gay. Marvellous lies occurred to her—a multitude of them: there was no end to her fertility in deception. And she would excite his jealousy. Upon that feeling she would play. She would blow hot; she would blow cold. She would reduce ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan

... before a judge. She turned quickly, with a sudden, winsome vivacity, the glow of a great satisfaction in her eyes and smiling a comradeship which made her old attitude over the wall a thing of dross and yet far more intimate. Her hand went out to ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... 'Fresh, beautiful, and winsome.'—Among the living poets of England there may be many who are popularly regarded as 'greater,' but certainly there is none more unaffectedly natural or simply delightful than WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. We are pleased at his probably unconscious Irish-isms in his humbler lyrics, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... for American girls, by one of the most popular writers of fiction for girls' reading. The books are full of interest, winsome and thoroughly wholesome. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... whose fundamental postulate is that the necessary life of God is one constant process of radiation and resorption, "letting out and drawing in," to that modern English poetry which apostrophizes the glad and winsome child as ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... gazed up to the old beams overhead, and around the dingy walls, and to the old black stove, with the fire nearly out, and then over everything the kitchen contained, trying to think how it would seem. To have it bright and winsome and warm! to suit Polly—"oh!" ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney

... Coming forward, she led Betty to a chair in the centre of the circle, and asked her to begin. It was with hands that trembled visibly that Betty opened her note-book and began to read "The Rescue of the Princess Winsome." ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Harfield, within easy distance, and a splendid looking fellow like Regie was invaluable to Victoria, whenever she wanted anything to go off well. Well, in those days I had a ward, my mother's great niece, Maude Conway. A pretty winsome creature it was, and an heiress in a moderate sort of way, and poor old Redge, after all his little affairs, and he had had his share of them, was evidently in for it at last. Victoria thought, as well as myself, it was the best thing for them both. He was the sound-hearted, ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to shadow his whole life. The Rutledges from whom Anne was descended were an eminent family of the Carolinas. She was about nineteen years old when Lincoln knew her first. It was shortly after the Black Hawk War. She was a winsome girl, with fair hair and blue eyes, and Lincoln's heart was captivated by her sweet face and gentle manners. So attractive a girl was not, of course, without suitors, and Anne had been wooed by one James ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... meanings; but there were some who recalled it a few months later when they were bidden to a wedding at the house of John McDonald,—a wedding at which Sandy Bruce was groom, and Little Bel the brightest, most winsome ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... the most winsome and versatile German poet of the 16th century. He lived at Nrnberg, practising the trade of the shoemaker and the art of the mastersinger, and writing an immense number of poetic productions. His total of verses has been estimated at half a million. ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas

... have hoped "I should do it justice," thereby meaning that I should eulogise it as a masterpiece. It is a gigantic effort, of a kind; so is the sustained throe of a wrestling Titan. That the poem contains much which is beautiful is undeniable, also that it is surcharged with winsome and profound thoughts and a multitude of will-o'-the-wisp-like fancies which all shape ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... leaf-strewn ground, O Daphnis, resting thy weary limbs, and the stakes of thy nets are newly fastened on the hills. But Pan is on thy track, and Priapus, with the golden ivy wreath twined round his winsome head,—both are leaping at one bound into thy cavern. Nay, flee them, flee, shake off thy slumber, shake off the heavy sleep that is falling ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... summers had our Linda seen, And grown to be a fair-haired, winsome maid, In shape and aspect promising to be A softened repetition of her mother; And yet some traits from the paternal side Gave to the head an intellectual grace And to the liquid eyes a power reserved, ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... age of unconsciousness, this physical freedom is maintained even where the mental attitude is not free. Baby wrath is as free and economical of physical force as are the winsome moods, and this until the personality has developed to some extent,—that is, until the child reflects the contractions of those around him. It expends itself in well-balanced muscular exercise, one set of muscles resting fully in their moment of non-use, while another set takes up the battle. ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... leave you to the undisturbed enjoyment of your feast," she said, in her most winsome manner. "But—won't it taste the sweeter if your antepast is the delight of forgiveness? Say you are not angry ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... was his own! Even in his most despairing moments he never ceased to tell himself that she had never encouraged him—never held out her woman's sceptre for him to touch; and even when she had been most sweet and winsome, she had not abridged the distance between them, nor, in her noble sincerity and friendship, attempted to draw ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... mouse-like eyes, Peeps from the mortise in surprise At such strange quiet after day's hard din; Then boldly ventures out, And looks around, And with his hollow feet Treads his small evening beat, Darting upon his prey In such a tricksy, winsome sort of way, His delicate marauding seems no sin. And still the curtains swing, But noiselessly; The bells a melancholy murmur ring, As tears were in the sky: More heavily the shadows fall, Like the black foldings of a pall, Where juts the rough beam from the wall; The candles flare With fresher ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... of old earthmen's beginnings, That Father Almighty earth had created, 40 The winsome wold that the water encircleth, Set exultingly the sun's and the moon's beams To lavish their lustre on land-folk and races, And earth He embellished in all her regions With limbs and leaves; life He bestowed too 45 On all the kindreds that ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... her on land, he could not speak for many seconds. He noticed that she had sandals on her feet, and the one on the right foot was tied in a way rather unusual. Under her winsome smile, at last, he regained the use of his ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... Heidi is a book that in its field can hardly be overpraised. The winsome, kind-hearted little heroine in her mountain background is a figure to be remembered from childhood to old age. Nevertheless, Madame Spyri has shown here but one side of her ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri

... had not to pledge her jewels; yet her gold was freely spent, lavished on the expedition; and she stood by Columbus, in storm and sunshine, as long as she lived. Isabella stood by Columbus, in his success, with winsome gentleness, keeping up his daring spirit of enterprise; and, in his reverses, with the balm of unwavering devotion healing his bruised, bleeding heart. Isabella stood by Columbus, as a mother by her son, ever, ever ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... highland wight, "I'll go, my chief, I'm ready: It is not for your silver bright, But for your winsome lady:— ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... a bit all about the Sleeping Beauty, and hear about a noble Prince who was born many years later in a kingdom not far from this one. Not only was this Prince handsome and brave, but he was so kind and good that people called him "Prince Winsome." ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... way, forming a floral display as pleasing to the eye as it was grateful by its perfume. Flowers, "the air-woven children of light," are always beautiful, but especially so at sea,—no greater contrast being possible than that between these winsome blossoms and the cold, fretful element ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... and | |raindrops, watched the fight and stayed until the | |final wild whoop from the last departing cadet had | |sounded through the semi-darkness that fell upon the| |Polo Grounds along toward 4:30 p.m. | | | |Mrs. Edith Bolling Galt, who soon is to be Mrs. | |Wilson, was present with her winsome smile and her | |white furs and her lavender orchids—fortunately, | |you could see her even through the haze—by the | |President's side. | | | |And then there were some forty thousand others, | |whose ranks in life ranged down from cabinet | |officers and generals and admirals to ordinary | |civilians, ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... better advantage at the beginning of the Gospel history than at its close. As we follow our Lord through the events of the last week, we meet no winsome faces within its precincts. Annas is there, and Caiaphas; Pharisees too, blinded with envy; but there is no Zacharias seen there, no Simeon, no doctors of the law even, such as gathered around the Boy of twelve. If any successors of these still ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking of late had ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... folds of crape Are crimped and twisted into shape With graceful heads of yellow, That give a winsome toning down To sombre hat and sable gown— In autumn ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... sometime marry; but she put the time far off as an evil day, and kept the subject under ban. None of her neighbors who had pretty daughters were encouraged to visit her on intimate terms. She almost frowned upon every winsome face that crossed her threshold when Walter was at home. So absorbing was this feeling, that she was not aware of its existence, but watched her son by a sort of instinct. Her conduct was not the result ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... awaited her entrance with anxious curiosity. She speedily came in obedience to the summons, bowed with an air of grave abstraction to Anthrops, and, seating herself, composedly awaited the commands of her master. Her former captive asked himself, wondering, if this could be the airy, laughing, winsome maiden with whom in days past he had ridden into the green forest. The billows of hair had ebbed away; the short, ungraceful, and somewhat thin remnant was meant for use in covering the head, not for luxurious beauty. All falling laces, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... the captain would solemnly intone the rimed prayers that he himself had composed for a private ritual. 'It was a touching sight', she says in her recollections[3] of this period, 'to see the reverent expression on the child's winsome face. The pious blue eyes lifted to heaven, the light yellow hair falling about his forehead, and the little hands folded in worship, suggested an angel's head in a picture.' From the same source we learn that Fritz was very fond of playing church, with himself in the role of preacher. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... attractiveness, and attractiveness of the best kind, sufficed to make a great artist, then Filippo would be one of the greatest, greater perhaps than any other Florentine before Leonardo. Where shall we find faces more winsome, more appealing, than in certain of his Madonnas—the one in the Uffizi, for instance—more momentarily evocative of noble feeling than in his Louvre altar-piece? Where in Florentine painting is there anything more fascinating than the playfulness of his children, ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... show that she was exceedingly beautiful. She was perhaps twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age, not too tall, rounded into full maturity, with a most strong but winsome face. Her eyes were blue, her hair a golden brown and glossy, and when she spoke, her teeth were ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... begun to awaken? He could not tell, it had been so slow. His second daughter, Deborah, who had stayed at home with her father when Laura had gone away to school, had done little things continually to rouse his interest in life. Edith's winsome babies had attracted him when they came to the house. Laura had returned from school, a joyous creature, tall and slender, with snapping black eyes, and had soon made her presence felt. One day in the early afternoon, as he entered the house there had burst on his ears a perfect gale of laughter; ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole

... others can see God. Goodness creates an atmosphere for other souls to be good. It is a priestly garment that has virtue even for the finger that touches it. The earth has its salt, and the world has its light, in the sweet souls, and winsome lives, and Christ-like characters to be found in it. The choice of friends is therefore one of the most serious affairs in life, just because a man becomes moulden into the likeness of what he loves ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... heart grief which had made him the strange, eccentric being he was. Thoughts of the dead were with him, too, to-night, and with his face buried in his broad, rough hands, he thought of, her, whose winsome smile and gentle ways had woven around his heart a mighty and undying love, such as few men ever felt. Of Dora, too, he thought—Dora, whom he had never seen—and his heart yearned towards her with a deep tenderness, because his Fannie had ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... Winter Time. She was tall and pale. She dressed chiefly in white wool trimmed with wonderful lacework. She was much admired by some, but others considered her very cold and distant. And most agreed that she was the least winsome of the sisters. ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... early history of the country, to the pioneer times, to the South and the West, and was, on the whole, one of the most winsome, interesting, and picturesque characters that have ever appeared in ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs

... "the foolishness of preaching," the preacher has an infinitely important work, and he must be fitted for it. But what can fit a man for such sacred work? Not education alone, not knowledge of books, not gifts of speech, not winsome manners, nor a magnetic voice, nor a commanding presence, but only God. The preacher must be more than a man—he must be a man plus the ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... to move apace, bustling along, cross-bearer and acolyte, in their odd little copes, out of the bitter air, which made the jolly life Gaston now entered on, around the great fire of their hall in the episcopal palace, seem all the more winsome. ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... I have bought a plantation not very far from there, and am trying to make it equal in beauty to Viamede. It will, of course, take some time to accomplish that; but, to me, Torriswood seems even now a very winsome place. And if I had my cousin Maud installed there, as mistress, I should be one of ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley

... got, as Wetzel said, a long, hard trail, which may be our last. More'n that, there'll be trouble about this chain-lightnin' girl, as Wetzel predicted. Women make trouble anyways; an' when they're winsome an' pretty they cause more; but if they're beautiful an' fiery, bent on havin' their way, as this new lass is, all hell couldn't hold a candle to them. We don't need the Shawnees an' Girtys, an' hoss thieves round this here settlement ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... Brown, Uprose the doctor's "winsome marrow;" The lady laid her knitting down, Her husband clasp'd his pond'rous Barrow: What'er the stranger's cast or creed, Pundit or Papist, saint or sinner, He found a stable for his steed, And welcome for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various

... the Duck Baby's good cheer far and wide ever since the Exposition opened. In the presence of so much that is weighty and powerful, this popularity of the "Duck Baby" is significant and touching indication of the world's hunger for what is cheerful and mirth provoking. Another well-liked and winsome work with a chubby baby figure at its center is "The Bird Bath" by Caroline Risque, in which a lovable baby, with an expression of the tenderest sympathy, holds a little bird to ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry

... have looked upon me, as I lay there in that innocent slumber, with the winsome mouth slightly ajar and the playful limbs cast wildly about, while a merry smile now and then flitted across the regular features, would have said that no heart could be so hard as to harbor ill for one so guileless ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... pretty young Bessy Wardour, who fell in love with the fine, strong, still handsome Quaker, whose attire was immaculate, and whose manners were courtly. And he surprised himself by a tenderness for the winsome, kittenish thing, who, for his sake, laid aside her fripperies and, to the amazement of her relatives, joined the Society of Friends. But if she had been tempting in her worldly gear, she was a hundred ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... woman, sufficiently plump, and if she was somewhat sunburned, her natural complexion must have been very fair. There were a few lines still left on her forehead, traced there by the troubles of past days, but she had a bright and winsome face. She spoke in a persuasive voice, as she saw that the doctor came no further, "Will you not do me the honor of coming inside and resting for ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... maiden, the joy of her father's heart. She was not the youngest of the family, for there were twin-brothers born two years after her, but it was said that Grace was the favourite always, and that her winsome ways, and tractable and affectionate spirit, endeared her ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... land in ease and joyance and delight. I—their only child—had nor care nor trouble about any matter until one day of the days, when in the prime of manhood, I was a minded to take unto me a wife, a woman winsome and comely to look upon, that we might live together in mutual love and double blessedness. But Allah Almighty willed not that a model helpmate become mine; nay, Destiny wedded me to grief and the direst misery. I married ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... was a very learned Bishop, who was very fond of bird's-nesting. One day he saw a fine large nest up in an elm-tree, and when he had climbed up he saw that it was full of young Crow-chicks. One of these chicks had such a winsome appearance, that the Bishop put him inside his hat, and took him home to ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke

... of circumstance Admiralty is represented in both Houses. With WINSOME WINSTON in the Commons and JACK FISHER in the Lords, the Navy will have a good show. Only doubt is whether FIRST SEA LORD will think it worth while to devote to Parliamentary duties the measure of time exacted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various

... thy father's loved hand gaily clinging, To ask for the kiss he stoops fondly to gi'e; To his care-laden spirit once more thou art bringing The freshness of thine, bonny winsome ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... on the hermit hoary, And combs her long hair, tress by tress; The Monk he quakes, but on the glory Looks wistful of her loveliness; Now becks with hand that winsome creature, And now she noddeth with her head, Then sudden, like a fallen meteor, She plunges in her ...
— The Talisman • George Borrow

... as her eyes, and winsome as her wistful little smile. She had those four smiling with her in sheer sympathy before she had spoken three sentences; and the two who did not understand her words smiled just as sympathetically as the two who knew what she ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... upon stuff that was but one remove from offal—how horrible! And he could not forget that about a year before he had stood in the court of his sovereign, proud, happy, praised; great men shook him familiarly by the hand, and a winsome maiden smiled upon him. Now he was a chained slave, doomed to work, eat, and sleep on a narrow plank for ten long years. Ten years! could he survive ten days of the ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... spare thee!) warmest love; * Say, hast thou seen him-my beloved fere? I love a lovely youth whose face excels * Sunlight, and passes moon when clearest clear: The fawn, that sees his glance, is fain to cry * 'I am his thrall' and own himself no peer: Beauty hath written, on his winsome cheek, * Rare lines of pregnant sense for every seer; Who sights the light of love his soul is saved; * Who strays is Infidel to Hell anear: An thou in mercy show his sight, O rare![FN69] * Thou shalt have every wish, the dearest dear, Of rubies and what likest are to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... pleasure, my sister," he answered. A smile, winsome in its radiance, parted his lips, and he gazed across the valley at the distant hills. At the hills? Or did he see instead a pair of blue eyes swimming in tears through which divinest pity shone? Did ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... surprising, therefore, that this young son of the sword should have been received with open arms at Coila, nor that, dashing, handsome, and brave himself, he should have fallen in love with the winsome daughter of the then chief of the M'Crimmans. When he sought to make her his bride explanations were necessary. It was no uncommon thing in those days for good Scotch families to permit themselves to be allied with France; but there must be rank ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... queen of noble Nature's crowning, A smile of hers was like an act of grace; She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning, Like daily beauties of the vulgar race: But if she smiled, a light was on her face, A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam Of peaceful radiance, silvering o'er the stream Of human thought with unabiding glory; ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... these marvels and to display his new found talents to the monks of Whitby, by whom he was joyfully received, and as they unfolded the divine mysteries, "The good man," says Bede, "listened like a clean animal ruminating; and his song and his verse were so winsome to hear, that his teachers wrote them down, and learned from ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... 'friendsome', 'longsome' (Bacon), 'quietsome', 'mirksome' (both in Spenser), 'toothsome' (Beaumont and Fletcher), 'gleesome', 'joysome' (both in Browne's Pastorals), 'gaysome' (Mirror for Magistrates), 'roomsome', 'bigsome', 'awesome', 'timersome', 'winsome', 'viewsome', 'dosome' (prosperous), 'flaysome' (fearful), 'auntersome' (adventurous), 'clamorsome' (all these still surviving in the North), 'playsome' (employed by the historian Hume), 'lissome'{158}, have nearly ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... reference to his past history, there was a dignity in his manner which repelled all intrusion into the secrecy over which he choose to cast a veil. Annette was not beautiful, but her face was full of expression and her manner winsome at times. Lacking social influence and social adaptation, she had been ignored in society, her faults of temper made prominent her most promising traits of character left unnoticed, but this treatment was not without some benefit ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... a tender, silvery day, fair, mild, pensive, with light shadows and a capricious sun. There had been a storm of rain the night before, and it was as if Nature had repented of her wildness, and sought forgiveness by all sorts of winsome arts, insinuating invitations, soft caresses, and melting ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... given of the pioneer settlement and its people; while the heroine, Daffodil, is a winsome lass who develops ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... despair. There is nothing turbulent and nothing truculent; he has made no contribution to the literature of revolt. Yet many of his poems make an irresistible appeal to our more reflective moods; and once or twice, his fancy, always winsome and wistful, rises to a height of pure imagination, as in The Listeners—which I find myself returning to muse over ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... in love with our handsome, amiable Boston governess, Miss Davidson, and married her when I was ten years of age. She comforted my mother for her loss by sending for her younger sister, who was even prettier than herself, and had such winsome ways that Mr. John Morton, Cousin Frank's bachelor brother, married her at the end of her ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... I think there was substantial happiness there too. Trunion himself was a wholesome man, a man full of honest affection, hearty laughter, and hard work—a breezy, companionable, energetic man. There was something boyish, unaffected, and winsome in his manners; and I can easily understand why Judge Addison Tomlinson, in his old age, insisted on astonishing his family and his guests by exclaiming: "Where's Trunion?" Certainly he was a man to think about ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... hence! Leave all thy winsome ways And the faint fragrance of thy scattered flowers: In holy silence wait the appointed days, And weep ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll

... mairvelous to see hoo a man's ain gude deeds find him oot in this lower warld o' ours. If ever I heard the voice o' naitural affection speaking in my ain breast," pursued Mr. Bishopriggs, with his eye fixed in uneasy expectation on Blanche, "it joost spak' trumpet-tongued when that winsome creature first lookit at me. Will it be she now that told ye of the wee bit sairvice I rendered to her in the time when I was ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... louder—I say you can take such a little one back to its crib, place it in the bed and smilingly walk out of the room. After a transient outburst of crying, within a very few minutes you can return to find a perfect little angel, winsome and smiling, happy and satisfied, presenting an entirely different picture from the little culprit so recently incarcerated as a punishment for his ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... grey eyes, And shone the roundness where his honest cheeks Played to the rippling gladness of his mouth! In childhood rambles, it was mostly he She chose for partner, spite of blandishment; And to her winsome ways he would forego His pompous surveillance of wine and plate, To guard her, lilting, where the summer lay On honeyed murmuring limes, and under elms, August with knotted centuries of strength And rooks sonorous in their shadowy heights. By thymy slopes, foot-deep in sward they ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner

... because it belongs to all ages, has expressed it in its most exquisite form, in a design of Ceres and her children, of whom their mother is no longer afraid, as in the Homeric hymn to Pan. The puck- noses have grown delicate, so that, with Plato's infatuated lover, you may call them winsome, if you please; and no one would wish those hairy little shanks away, with which one of the small Pans walks at her side, grasping her skirt stoutly; while the other, the sick or weary one, rides in the arms of Ceres herself, who in ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... winsome," was the answer, and the half-blind eyes looked proudly at the beautiful girl ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... clearly here as at the centre of the continent. To me the monotonous variety of this interminable scrub has a charm of its own; so grave, subdued, self-centred; so alien to the genial appeal of more winsome landscape, or the assertive grandeur of mountain and gorge. To me this wayward diversity of spontaneous plant life bespeaks an unconfined, ungauged potentiality of resource; it unveils an ideographic prophecy, painted by Nature in her Impressionist ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... Kyle Dallas Love's Calendar William Bell Scott Home Dora Greenwell Two Lovers George Eliot The Land of Heart's Desire Emily Huntington Miller My Ain Wife Alexander Laing The Irish Wife Thomas D'Arcy McGee My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing Robert Burns Lettice Dinah Maria Mulock Craik "If Thou Wert by My Side, My Love" Reginald Heber The Shepherd's Wife's Song Robert Greene "Truth doth Truth Deserve" Philip Sidney The Married ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... minister's wife looked pleased to see her spark kindle a flame in the young heart. "You can sew so much of yourself into your star," she went on in the glad voice that made her so winsome, "that when you are an old lady you can put on your specs and find it among all the others. Good-by! Come up to the parsonage Saturday afternoon; Mr. Baxter wants ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... not as dead worthies but as companionable men and women, and to present their living subject as a living thing, winsome as a smile on a human face,—such was the author's purpose in writing ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... wonder at this? Surely a more winsome lad had never been seen. He was even then tall, and in his riding coat and breeches looked strangely slender, in contrast to the broad-shouldered physique which she had lately known so well. But the eyes were just the same—direct, frank, ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... favorite seat for her, even Helen looked without pain at mother's beloved chair when Flower's lissome figure filled it. The younger children were forever offering flowers and fruit at her shrine. Nurse declared her a bonny, winsome thing, and greatest honor of all, allowed her to play with little Pearl, the baby, for a few minutes, when the inclination seized her. Before she was a week in the house, not a servant in the place but would have done anything for her, and even the Doctor so far succumbed ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... starts from way down South to bring joy and gladness to the Green Meadows and the Green Forest, the Laughing Brook and the Smiling Pool, a great many travelers start with her or follow her. Winsome Bluebird goes just a little way ahead of her, for Winsome is the herald of Mistress Spring. Then comes Honker the Goose, and all the world hearing his voice from way, way, up in the blue, blue sky knows that truly Mistress Spring is on her ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess

... returned Sir Gideon, "and the winsome laird o' Harden shall boast less vauntingly, and rue that he had broke his jeers upon an auld man. Touch me, sir, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... was sair for young Miss Gabriel—for she was a bonnie and winsome lassie—but for a' that, I felt that my duty was tae mysel' and that I should gang forth, even as Lot ganged oot o' the wicked cities o' ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the ground! There was the Duke of Something in Rome, for example, a melancholy young man, with whom she had coquetted, as she did, in her merry fashion, with every man she met. Being married, she had taken it for granted that she might be as winsome as she chose; but the young Italian had misunderstood the game, and had whispered words of serious import, which had so horrified Sylvia that she flew to her husband and told him the story—begging him incidentally not to horse-whip the fellow. In reply it had to be explained ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... join in with the rest; but as a matter of fact no sound came from his moving lips. His mind was in such a state that he derived no pleasure even from Anne Garland's presence, though he held a corner of the same book with her, and was treated in a winsome way which it was not her usual practice to indulge in. She saw that his mind was clouded, and, far from guessing the reason why, was doing her ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... all, and even the wisest heart Straight to folly will fall, at a touch of thy poisoned dart. Thou didst kindle the strife, this feud of kinsman with kin, By the eyes of a winsome wife, and the yearning her heart to win. For as her consort still, enthroned with Justice above, Thou bendest man to thy will, O all ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... of beauty in her own sex, and she could scarcely take her eyes from the winsome fair face of Julia. It was a very fair face, very lovely. After luncheon, at Mr. Cecil Burleigh's request, she sang a new song that was lying on the piano; and they talked of old songs which he professed to like better, which she ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... of so many buried joys, had been painted expressly for Olympia Mancini. It represented his first declaration of love to her, and had been sent as a souvenir of "the brightest hour of his life." He had barely reached his thirty-seventh year, and yet this winsome youth had been transformed into a demure devotee, who, despising the vanities of the world, had turned his heart toward heaven, and spent his life doing penance for the sins of his ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... 'Angel,'" jested Mary, thrilling at the echo of a certain low, fluttered voice, that had sounded in her own ears and would wilfully repeat, "Winsome ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... the girl's little head could not gather up and comprehend all that such a condition of things meant. She supposed that a sort of disgrace would attach to defeat, and she clasped her hands and poised her winsome body melodramatically when she asked herself which she would rather the defeat would fall upon, her father or Tom. She leaned out of the window and saw Colonel Sommerton walking down the road towards town, ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... as a dame of good family and descent, though a stranger in these parts. Then she was passing fair, so that both squire and gentleman, as they looked on her, were nigh devoured with love. They say, too, her conditions were gentle and winsome ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... grave and stubborn. Everything was in a state of confusion which Sanchia was quick to mark, while Howard saw nothing of it. He saw only Helen looking a far-off princess, cold and unapproachable. And only a few minutes ago she had been just a winsome girl who leaned toward him, whom he dared to hope he could gather ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... so despise herself and her neighbors that she too would walk Main Street an old skinny eccentric woman in a mangy cat's-fur? As she crept home she felt that the trap had finally closed. She went into the house, a frail small woman, still winsome but hopeless of eye as she staggered with the weight of the drowsy ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... looked so winsome. Her garb made her seem a grown woman, and yet the situation alarmed her, and her perplexed face was that of ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... the sleeping street gamin, this other boy still had something winsome, something elusively handsome, about him, a certain refinement of features. However, a black patch over one eye showed that this gamin was manly enough, evidently, when it came to fighting. He stirred the sleeping boy with his foot, and the boy, cursing volubly ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... his sister were lingering over their tea-table. He was a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, with an open kindly face, and grave thoughtful eyes, which yet at times could sparkle with merriment as bright as that which so often shone in his sister's blue orbs. A bright, winsome, lovable maiden was Carrie Goldthwaite, the very joy of her brother's heart, and the apple of every eye in the township. The brother and sister were deeply attached to each other, the fact that they were ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... not even his quick, whimsical smile could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many valuable qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose were not likely to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of his cheerful, modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney, after eyeing him for a moment with ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... always a purpose in his writings, and this time he has undertaken to show how very near an innocent boy can come to the guilty edge and yet be able by fortunate circumstances to rid himself of all suspicion of evil. There is something winsome about the hero; but he has a singular way of falling into bad luck, although the careful reader will never feel the least disposed to doubt ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... bloom, and mist of green, Now here, now there, upon the wing, Flame of oriole faintly seen— Vision fair of the winsome spring. ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... tender lessons from Nature; sometimes noble words from his own earnest soul; sometimes sympathy in sorrow; sometimes strength in weakness; sometimes only the indirect, but real help that comes from the mere distraction wrought by his sportiveness, and wild, winsome mirth; but all kindly, hearty, honest, sympathetic,—indignation softening, even while it surges, into pity and love, and itself finding or framing excuses for the very outrage which it lashes: thinking of this, we do not marvel that he has furrowed for himself so deep a groove ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... know," says Mr. Kelly, in a low tone, to the others, "the ugly girl's awfully nice! She is a pleasant deceit. 'She has no winsome looks, no pretty frowning,' I grant you; but she can hold her own, ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... the queen turned with horror to ask her lady what it meant, the change in her was hardly less wondrous, for, though the old countess was ignorant of it, fifty years had been swept from her, and she was straight and winsome as ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... haste, my bonny leddy," continued the old man"mak haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o' my arman auld and frail arm it's now, but it's been in as sair stress as this is yet. Take haud o' my arm, my winsome leddy! D'ye see yon wee black speck amang the wallowing waves yonder? This morning it was as high as the mast o' a brigit's sma' eneugh nowbut, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown o' my hat, I winna believe but we'll get ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... town. Pretty girls they are, too, many of them, with large, lustrous eyes, long, well-oiled hair, nice shoes upon their feet, short dresses, disclosing evidences of graceful forms, ruddy complexions, and armed with many winsome little actions calculated to conciliate patronage. They are to be seen on Park Row, the Bowery, Chatham street, around the post-office, hotels, elevated railroad stations, the ferries leading to Brooklyn, Jersey City and Staten Island—everywhere, in fact, ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... frightened eyes, and not a Martian moved a finger to her rescue; the red shine gleamed on empty faces, tier above tier, and flung its broad flush over the endless rank of open-mouthed spectators, then back I looked to Heru—that winsome little lady for whom, you will remember, I had already more than a passing fancy—and saw with a thrill of emotion that while she still kept her eyes on the flaming globe like one in a horrible dream her hands were ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... filled with anxious wishfulness. And he had, not gone very far into the woods before he opened the bag. And there flew out by hundreds, like white doves, swarming all about him, beautiful girls, with black burning eyes and flowing hair. And wild with passion the winsome witches threw their arms about him, and kissed him as he responded to their embraces; but they came ever more and more, wilder and more passionate. And he bade them give way, but they would not, and he sought to escape, but he could not; and so panting, crying for breath, smothered, he ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... her young body, a shorter skirt than grown girls wear now, and a scarlet ribbon twisted among the long, dark braids that hung down her shoulders. She had travelled much in older countries than her own and to her eyes this girl had the air of a winsome little peasant that knew her simple station and was happy ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... in the shades. And all things fair and graceful in the woods I loved with liberal heart; the violets Were dear for her dear eyes, the quiring birds That caught the musical tremble of her voice. O happy twilights in the leafy glooms! When in the glowing dusk the winsome arts And maiden graces that all day had kept Us twain and separate melted away In blushing silence, and my love was mine Utterly, utterly, with clinging arms And quick, caressing fingers, warm red lips, Where vows, half uttered, drowned in kisses, died; Mine, with the starlight ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... skin. His mother, dressed in the tunic and long white stola, or outer robe, is of matronly presence and pleasant face. And, as they talk together in low and earnest tones, they watch with loving eyes, from the cool shadows of the high area walls, the motions of the dark-eyed little Annia, a winsome Roman maiden of thirteen, as, perched upon a cage of pet pigeons, she gleefully teases with a swaying peacock plume now the fluttering pigeons and now the wary-eyed ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... spring wanes, then fades the bloom of peach as well as plum! Who ever can like a pot of the olea be winsome! With ice thy purity will vie, vain their envy will be! In vain a laughing-stock people will try to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... creditable to the National Assembly, and the people whom it represented, yet we cannot but remember the troublous times that followed,—times in which no public service, no private goodness, neither the veneration due to age, the delicacy of womanhood, nor the winsome helplessness of infancy, was any protection against the insensate vengeance of a maddened people; and remembering this, we cannot regret that he whose life had been so peaceful was laid in a quiet grave ere the coming of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... and the winsome pair fell to, making a hearty meal from home-made bread, cold quail, and butter with the very perfume of the prairie flowers. A little way beyond a jet of cold, clear water came gurgling out of the rocks; and tripping away Julie fetched a cup. Then they fastened ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins

... together and looked at her—at her sparkling eyes and rosy, dimpling cheeks, so winsome and lovely ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... of a winsome maid That yester eve across my pathway strayed. That I was shy I can't deny; But if it will not weary you to hear, I'll try and tell you what I found so dear, When o'er a stream As in a dream I helped Virginia to the further shore, And lost my heart ...
— The Last West and Paolo's Virginia • G. B. Warren

... sorts," replied Nora. "A little music—oh, I love music, I do love music!—and a little French; and I can speak Irish," she added, raising her beautiful, dark-blue eyes, and fixing them on the face of the head-mistress. That winsome face ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... A winsome pair they were, these two "sweet girl graduates" of the June gone by, while the regiment was stirring up the Sioux on the way to the Big Horn and Yellowstone. Everybody had lavish welcome for them, and to Miriam Arnold the month at Fort Cushing had been quite a dream of delight, ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... only say she'd love me, Winsome, tinsome Caroline, Unto such excess 'twould move me, Teazing, pleasing, cousin mine! That she might the live-long day Undermine the snuffer-tray, Tickle still my hooked nose, Startle me from calm repose With her pretty persecution; Throw the tongs against ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... stepson, the evil lover of ill-fated Deirdre. Cuculain, too, the war-loving son of Sualtam, shall rise again,—in whom one part of our national genius finds its perfect flower. We shall hear the thunder of his chariot, at the Battle of the Headland of the Kings, when Meave the winsome and crafty queen of Connacht comes against him, holding in silken chains of her tresses the valiant spirit of Fergus. The whole life of that heroic epoch, still writ large upon the face of the land, shall come forth clear and definite; we shall stand by the threshold of Cuculain's dwelling, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... a beautiful face, A winsome bride and a woman's grace, So fair and sweet it were heaven indeed For man to follow where she ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

... before her a bowl of flowers of all fair hues and shapes. She herself was like a bright, strong, winsome flower. "To make your room look bonny!" she said, and placed the bowl upon the table. To do so she pushed aside the books. "What a withered, snuff-brown lot! Won't you be glad when you are back in the keep with all ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... stanzas to the Milkmaid who stood in her wagon near the lawn, rattling out milk-punches to the boys. A winsome lass she was, fresh in her sororiation, with fair blue eyes, a celestial flow of auburn hair, and cheeks that suggested the milk and cherry in the glass she rattled out to me. I was reading aloud the stanzas which she inspired, when Khalid, who was not listening, pointed out to ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... sorrow. She, at least, was not entirely unprepared. Poor motherless Dora had no lack of friendly counsel and fond, womanly sympathy when once she could be brought to lay her burden there. If only she had earlier sought that wise and winsome monitor! But Mrs. Stannard had not been at Frayne in the early summer, not until the major was assigned to station at Cushing had the good wife joined him, and meanwhile there had been no hand to ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... tale, that could never be repeated too often: she must bring his slippers, and place his seat near the fire in winter. And she must "help mamma" in all her concerns; and although such help was only a delicious kind of hindrance, her bright face and winsome ways made all tasks light and pleasant. Never had she looked so lovely in her mother's eyes as she did on the evening of her birthday, when in her little white night-slip, with bare feet and folded hands, she knelt down to recite the simple prayer she had been taught that day, as a reward ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... winsome and fair as she, but to Burke's keen eyes she was a weaker girl. There was a suggestion of too much attention to dress, ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... if he were the dirt beneath her feet, and still he smiled his winsome smile, carrying on the mock pretense that she ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... at the noble time Under the hill-slope the bones of Joseph, So, Ruler of hosts, if it be thy will, Through that bright form I'll pray to thee 790 That to me the gold-hoard, Maker of spirits, Thou wilt reveal, that has been from men [So] long concealed. Let, Author of life, Now from this plain a winsome smoke 'Neath heaven's expanse mount up on high 795 Playing in the air. I'll the better believe, And I'll the more firmly stablish my mind, Undoubting trust, upon the hanged Christ, That he be in truth the Saviour of souls, Eternal, Almighty, Israel's King, 800 Forever may have ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous

... suspect our poets see largely through the medium of English literature and invest with borrowed charms, is the violet. The violet is a much more winsome and poetic flower in England than it is in this country, for the reason that it comes very early and is sweet-scented; our common violet is not among the earliest flowers, and it is odorless. It affects sunny slopes, like the English flower; yet Shakespeare never could ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... unafraid.] Marry, a fair shape for a woman's eye, Sir stranger! And thou seek'st no more, I ween! Long curls, withal! That shows thou ne'er hast been A wrestler!—down both cheeks so softly tossed And winsome! And a white skin! It hath cost Thee pains, to please thy damsels with this white And red of cheeks that never face the light! [DIONYSUS is silent.] Speak, sirrah; tell me first ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... kenn'd what was what fu' brawlie, There was a winsome wench and walie, That night enlisted in the core, (Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore! For monie a beast to dead she shot, And perish'd monie a bonnie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bear, And kept the country side in fear). Her cutty sark ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... Her winsome smile! It beams on me From where the choir makes melody, Behind the parson; maid demure, Her witching eyes my thoughts allure, Although, in church, this should not be. Pale Luna's light, the dimpling ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... pretty sight they saw, For every sound they heard, The boy had noisy laugh or shout, The girl had winsome word— He questioned, never satisfied, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... that young tough, isn't he? Why, as to that young tough, he is a winsome, sporty ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... had a sister, pretty and winsome. She had been visiting for a year in New Haven, and decided to return to her brother's home at the very time he was on ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... compass of that hatred? I had inferred that her pursuers were of the House of Borgia, and in a flash it came to me that were I so inclined I might prove, by virtue of the ring I carried, the one man in Italy to serve her in this extremity. And to be of service to her, her winsome beauty had already inflamed me. For there was I know not what about this child that seemed to take me in its toils, and so wrought upon me that there and then I would have risked my life in her good service. Oh, you may laugh who read. Indeed, deep ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... which I never had much, and nowadays have rarely indeed any relish! But my wife and children bind me to the bit, and I am well pleased with the fetters. Walter is now a tall and very handsome {p.xxv} boy of nearly eleven years; Charlotte a very winsome gypsy of nine,—both intelligent in the extreme, and both, notwithstanding all possible spoiling, as simple, natural and unselfish as if they had been bred on a hillside and in a family of twelve. Sophia is your ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... and come to me! Not as a visitor either, nor a sweet And winsome child of innocence; nor As an insolent mistress ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence



Words linked to "Winsome" :   attractive



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