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Thimbleful   Listen
noun
Thimbleful  n.  (pl. thimblefuls)  As much as a thimble will hold; a very small quantity. "For a thimbleful of golf, a thimbleful of love."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thimbleful" Quotes from Famous Books



... About a thimbleful of water, after fifty spillings, arrived safely in a tumbler; but as for air, no one in that court had breathed any thing ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... first-rate. I have made dozens of crackers, and feel sure that I could turn out a good lot of them now. The squibs will be easier; we should only have to paste one side of the strips and roll them up so as to form suitable cases. When these are dry we should put a thimbleful of powder into each, and then fill them up with powder and charcoal. In order to make sure of a loud bang we could undo a piece of rope and wind the strands round each case for an inch and a half from the bottom. ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... he said, disregarding his daughter's protest, "that I will have a drop, just the very smallest possible drop, of brandy. A mere thimbleful will do; but I rather think I have caught cold during the ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle

... insinuated the doorkeeper. "Just a bit of a snack, eh? Say a caviare sandwich and a thimbleful of the grape?" ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... happened that at a state dinner, upon a time, a mild punch in thimbleful instalments was served to the guests in lieu of more generous beverages. Raising the tiny vessel and bowing to the Austrian Ambassador at his side, Mr. Evarts in undertone ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... cups should always be provided for the gentlemen. And then with pleasant neighbours,—or more especially with a pleasant neighbour,—the affair is not, according to my taste, by any means the worst phase of society. But I do dislike that handing round, unless it be of a subsidiary thimbleful when the business of the social intercourse ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... of humility, when is it? who has a thimbleful thereof? Where is he that is 'clothed with humility,' and that does what he is commanded 'with all humility of mind'? (1 Peter 5:5, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... in the Rockies with Upgrove, six or eight years ago, I pulled out an old buckskin tobacco pouch, turned it hopefully inside out in the search for a stray thimbleful, and discovered in a corner of the lining a faded yellow silk butterfly, all unknown to me till then! She must have worked it surreptitiously, like a mischievous, affectionate child; and as I held it in my hands, and stared at the graceful absurd thing, the lonely camp faded before ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... seal-skin sack, to let us hear by the dashing that it contained liquid. One of the crew, whom I asked to ascertain what sort of spirit it was, made friends with the owner, and induced him at last to part with about a thimbleful of it, more could not be given. According to the sailor's statement it was without colour and flavour, clear as crystal, but weak. It was thus probably Russian corn ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... with these observations, heightened by occasional hits at her own misfortune in that she was a Rowe, and could not boast one thimbleful of Whyte blood in ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... while, as Bawly was marching along through the woods with his soldier cap on, Susie and Jennie were playing party at the old stump. They had just eaten the last of the sweet-sour cookies, and drank the last thimbleful of the orange-lemonade when, all at once, what should happen but that a great big alligator crawled out of the bushes and made a jump for them! Dear me! Would you ever ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... three, having seen herself to the accurate cooking of her roast fowl, or her bit of sweetbread, and always had her pint of Scotch ale. She turned over all her clothes almost every day. In the evening she read Reynolds's Miscellany, had her tea and buttered muffins, took a thimbleful of brandy and water at nine, and then went to bed. The work of her life consisted in sewing buttons on to Moulder's shirts, and seeing that his things were properly got up when he was at home. No doubt she ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... simplest. Let this demon once feel the contact of state ownership of the means of production and his baneful influence will vanish into thin air as his mediaeval predecessors did at the touch of a thimbleful of holy water. ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... in my eyes was in the optic nerve; there was no external inflammation. Under the [33] best surgical advice I tried different methods of cure,—cupping, leeches, a thimbleful of lunar caustic on the back of the neck, applied by Dr. Warren, of Boston; and I remember spending that very evening at a party, while the caustic was burning. So hopeful was I of a cure, that the very pain ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... one another. They had not had a quarrel for almost three months, and a large arrear of little pricks on either side was pending. Sooner or later it would have to be fought out (like a feud between two nations), with a houseful of loss and woe to either side, but a thimbleful of pride and glory. Yet so much wiser were these women than the most sagacious nations that they put off to a cheaper time ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... was charming, and had suffered little or nothing from the delay. Mrs. Kenton was in raptures with it, and after a thimbleful of the good Hungarian wine had attuned her tongue, she began to sing the praises of ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells

... trouble—along with a whole row of others, fine cords cemented to the side of the locker. The package I drew up weighed about ten pounds. Wilcox opened it and scooped out a thimbleful of greenish powder. He washed it ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey

... family, though chiefly composed of scraps, pot-liquor, rice, and vegetables, and both for its excellence and prudence it commanded Mr. Froggatt's unqualified approbation. All that distressed his kind heart was to see no liquor but water, except Cherry's thimbleful of port; he could not enjoy his glass of porter, and shook his head—perhaps not without reason—when he found that his young assistant's diet was on no more generous scale, and was not satisfied by Felix's laughing argument that it was impossible to be more than perfectly healthy and strong. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... misbehavior, and accused is convicted for a Vestal; well, you know it. I'd look fine being buried alive in a seven-by-five underground stone cell, with half a pint of milk and a gill of wine to keep me alive long enough to suffer before I starved to death and a thimbleful of oil in a lamp to make me more scared of the dark when the lamp burned out. No burial alive for me. I'm in love. I'm too much in love to balance arguments. I'm not sorry I missed my chance, as you call it. I'm glad I escaped; the chance isn't ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... their collars and watched the faintly diverting round of some lazy August cabaret. But it was cold outside, with wind around the edges of the tall buildings and December just up the street, so better far an evening together under the soft lamplight and a drink or two of Bushmill's, or a thimbleful of Maury's Grand Marnier, with the books gleaming like ornaments against the walls, and Maury radiating a divine inertia as he rested, large and catlike, in his ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... bottle of whiskey," he called out. He turned again to Philip. "I keep my own bottle of whiskey. I can't afford to pay fifty centimes for every thimbleful." ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... drank. It was easy to drink the second glass and the third, and so on. The men fell into reminiscence and song, and no one knew how many glasses were mixed; and even when they stood at the door they turned back for "a thimbleful o' raw speerit to keep out the cold," for it had begun to snow, and there was ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... mother noted the gesture, the tension of his attitude, his preoccupied expression, and had a quick inner vision of a dirty, ragged, ignorant, gloriously free little boy on a raft on the Mississippi river, for whom life was not measured out by the clock, in thimbleful doses, but who floated in a golden liberty on the very ocean of eternity. "Why can't we bring them up like Huckleberry Finns!" she thought, protestingly, pressing ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... Romans honoured as a virtue! Whenever an Englishman begins to prate of civilisation (as, indeed, it's a defect they are rather prone to), I hear the measured blows of a mallet, see the bystanders crowd with torches about the grave, smile a little to myself in conscious superiority—and take a thimbleful of ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... said the visitor. "And now, as you like the cigar, I should like you to try a thimbleful of what I call wine. I must warn you, though, that it is rather potent, and may produce effects you ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... Avoid the use of rich gravies, or pastry, or anything of the kind in excess. Take all the out-door exercise you can and never indulge in a late supper. Retire at a reasonable hour, and rise early in the morning. Sulphur to purify the blood may be taken three times a week—a thimbleful in a glass of milk before breakfast. It takes some time for the sulphur to do its work, therefore persevere in its use till the humors, or pimples, or blotches, disappear. Avoid getting wet ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... what it begun with, but it went further'n that; and so my mother told me, and predicked the whole, she did, the pious woman! But it were Providence that put me here. I've thought it all out in this here lonely island, and I'm back on piety. You don't catch me tasting rum so much; but just a thimbleful for luck, of course, the first chance I have. I'm bound I'll be good, and I see the way to. And, Jim"—looking all round him, and lowering his voice ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... disbelieved, and doubted, on that memorable night; and loud were the songs and long and strong the dancing that followed. But it was all achieved under the influence of pure animal spirits, for the rum supplied afforded but a thimbleful to each. The consequence was that there were no headaches the following morning, and the men were up by break of day as fresh and light as larks. A feeling of sadness, however, gradually crept over the band as the dawn advanced and the schooner ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... if he was for any considerable length of time without the stub of a marvelously black pipe in his mouth, filled with plug tobacco, shaved and rubbed in his hand into a proper condition for smoking. Mark, though by no means an intemperate man, is fond of a drop now and then, and when he has just a thimbleful too much, the way he will swear is emphatically a sin. And yet he is anything but quarrelsome or contrary, even when a shade over the line of strict sobriety. He is a great, strong, square-shouldered, big-breasted, good-natured specimen of the genus homo, a giant in ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... built. With the momentum secured by its leap from the drift, it skated over the ice for a mile or more, with scarcely a thimbleful of wind in its sail, yet traveling like a ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... Brown and the getting possession of his chart was the one stimulant that helped Ann to endure this long day of inactivity. It was like a small thimbleful of wine to one who longed for a generous draught; there was nothing else to do but to wait, alert for all chances that might help her. Evening closed in; the sisters were left alone. Christa returned indolently ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall

... Towards evening an enormous dish, containing rice enough to have satisfied the whole of the gallant rifle corps, was brought into our tent, closely followed by about 20 little cups formed of leaves, one inside the other, each containing about a thimbleful of some exquisite condiment; also three or four saucers containing some cold gravy, of unpleasant colour, in which floated about six ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... discretion the various forces which Spirit and Matter contain, we might change the whole occupation of man and make of him less a labourer than thinker, less mortal than angel! The wildest fairy-tales might come true, and earth be transformed into a paradise! And as for motive power, in a thimbleful of concentrated fuel we might take the largest ship across the widest ocean. I say if we could only find a way! Some think they ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... often with my brother and myself; stopping now and then in his firm, regal tread to look at what nature could do in far-stretching color and beckoning horizon line. Along the sand-hills, frolicking in the breeze or faithfully clinging in the strong wind to their native thimbleful of earth, hung the cerulean harebells, to which I ardently clambered, listening for their chimes. In the preface to "Monte Beni," the compliment paid to Redcar is well hidden. My father speaks of reproducing the book (sketched out among the dreamy ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... American was going to conquer like Cortez, but his name was Thomas Tilman Lacey, and he had a lot of gall. After years of earnest effort, he lost his hair and the millions of the Infatuated Conquistadores. And by-and-by he came to Cairo with a thimbleful of income, and began to live again. There was a civil war going on in his own country, but he thought that one out of forty millions would not be strictly missed. So he stayed in Egypt; and the tale of his days in Egypt, is it not written with a neboot of domwood ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... began no desire for a second. It made no impression. He was too profoundly strong to be affected by a thimbleful. As he had prophesied to Dede, Burning Daylight, the city financier, had died a quick death on the ranch, and his younger brother, the Daylight from Alaska, had taken his place. The threatened inundation ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... me, gentlemen, but the discussion of these topics has quite unnerved me. Allow me to share with you a thimbleful." Fitz drained his glass, cast his eyes upward, and said solemnly, "To the repose of ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... American-made thirty-eight calibre revolver. We have an amateur assassin to deal with, Mr. Narkom, not a hardened criminal; and the witlessness of the fellow is enough to bring the case to an end before this night is over. Why didn't he discharge that revolver to-day, and have enough sense to bring a thimbleful of powder to burn in this compartment after the work was done? One knows in an instant that the weapon used was an air-pistol, and that the fellow's only thought was how to do the thing without sound, not ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... and respectable man, "I could not swallow a thimbleful of anything paid for by your money; what is it? If I did I would dream for weeks of all that you have done, or if I didn't dream, the sorrows and the wrongs of my near relative, Widow O'Hagan and her family, would prevent me from sleeping; the Kellys that you've driven to beggary—The Gormleys that ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... than an actual thimbleful, though they need not hold a pint, and should bear some relation to the laws of gravitation in their poise upon the saucer. They should have a smooth rim. A fluted edge is a most uncomfortable finish for a drinking ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... may ye say it. I'm the dust iv the dirt under yer feet, an' ye may walk on me—anything save get mad. I cud die for ye, swing for ye, to make ye happy. I cud kill the man that gave ye sorrow, were it but a thimbleful, an' go plump into hell with a smile on me face ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... game this," he said. "Let's call it off, eh? You shall have—well, a thimbleful of the brandy and go to bed. I'll sit up, I'm ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... pedagogic basis. It seemed that they hoped, by constantly summoning the maid, to sharpen her memory. But Mrs. Shepherd was also implicated in the method; and this was the reason why Isabella—as she afterwards explained to Laura—never offered her a thimbleful of help. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... except the outer corner roof-supports, which are square and of bricks. In front is an artistic but most untidy conglomeration of awnings to protect from the sun pedlars, merchants and people enjoying their kalians, or a thimbleful ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... fortune which had befallen him. It was not a great while before he heard her coming along the passageway crying bitterly. This circumstance surprised him, because Marygold was one of the cheerfullest little people whom you would see in a summer's day, and hardly shed a thimbleful of tears in a twelvemonth. When Midas heard her sobs, he determined to put little Marygold into better spirits, by an agreeable surprise; so, leaning across the table, he touched his daughter's bowl (which was a china ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... I have had a wash in a thimbleful of water, and shaved, and feel another man. They gave us an hour of stables, but the horses certainly needed it, as they never get groomed now, and are a shaggy, scraggy-looking lot. I'm glad to say mine ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... only a thimbleful I take now and then," she said. "When I was the Charming Josephine I used to kiss the cups I presented to the young gallants, and I took no more than a fly! but they always drank bumpers from the cup I kissed!" The old dame looked grave as she shook her head ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... Tode had been associated with old Parrish in this work, which, carried to a successful issue, would revolutionize the social organization of the world. The energy locked up in the atom is so stupendous that, as Eddington indicated, a thimbleful of coal, disintegrated, would carry the Mauretania from England to America and back again. To unlock this energy would be to set man free from bondage, to restore the pristine leisure ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... to be early." So saying, the Quaker bowed formally to each person present, and took his daughter out with him under his arm. Mrs. Roden and her son escaped almost at the same moment, and Mrs. Demijohn, having waited to take what she called just a thimbleful of hot toddy, went also ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... and to walk about the same time. The family pipe is laid upon the couch, and papa, mamma, and the children take a solacing whiff as the spirit moves them. These pipes are identical with those used by the Chinese, and hold but half a thimbleful of tobacco, the smoke being inhaled and swallowed with ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... a haase, an a varry dangerous thing; but awl do mi best to catch it if yo'll give me a sup o' ale if yo have it, an if net, pooarter'll do. Aw want it to mix up summat to tice it aght." They seldom browt less nor a quairt, an after takkin abaat a thimbleful to mix up his breead crumbs, he swallow'd t'other for fear on it bein wasted. Then he'd tak a cannel an goa to whear th' rat had been last seen, an all th' lasses followin at a distance. After puttin his bait on th' floor an th' cannel ith far corner, he'd begin chirpin an huntin under th' ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... a very light description. A sister-in-law of the good Pauline was accustomed to send in our dinner, which consisted one day of a thimbleful of saffron-coloured pilau, while the next would perhaps bring half the shoulder of a small fish. Had I boarded with my hostess, I should have kept fast-day five days in the week, and have had nothing to eat on the remaining two. I therefore at once left off dining with ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... would deposit on a side-table a plate of chicken sandwiches and (in deference to Peter's vegetarian views) a smaller plate of cheese sandwiches. At the close of play Mrs. Rastall-Retford would take one sandwich from each plate, drink a thimbleful of weak whisky ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... ships; there was another fleet in the north to-ward the Gulf of Saros, and little black beetles of destroyers crawled here and there across the blue sea floor. The major took us into his tent for cigarettes and another thimbleful of the coffee. He, too, had been educated in Germany, spoke German and French, and with his quick, bright eyes and soft smile, would easily have passed ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... surf, or that the steering power is not sufficient to keep her head straight. Neither of these misfortunes befell us in entering the Macalister, for, from the hour we had selected, the sea was at its quietest, and we got over without shipping a thimbleful of water. We found a broad expanse studded with dense mangrove flats, and it was with difficulty we ascertained which was the main channel. We pulled on until about noon, by which time the mud swamps had disappeared, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... is, not for any of our fellers to be nervous; so before starting we'll one and all come to my house and have a rasher of bacon; then every man-jack het a pint of cider into his inside; then we'll warm up an extra drop wi' some mead and a bit of ginger; every one take a thimbleful—just a glimmer of a drop, mind ye, no more, to finish off his inner man—and march off to Pa'son Mayble. Why, sonnies, a man's not himself till he is fortified wi' a bit and a drop? We shall be able to look any gentleman in the face ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... from her journey above to see after the comfort of her lodgers. Her candle stood upon the bar. She was about to take a thimbleful of rum as a solace for having her rest disturbed. She looked up without surprise or alarm as her third ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... tricks or tales that were new to us. One man showed us that we could put our hand on the bottom of a boiling teakettle and find the bottom cool. Another told us about milking goats in the Old Country. We asked him how much milk a goat would give. He said, "About a thimbleful," and we thought him very witty. Another had shipped as an "able seaman" to get his passage to America. When out at sea it was discovered he didn't know one rope from another. During a storm he and the mate had a terrible fight. "The ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... be said that he ever allows an author to go to it. But the authors whom he has collected in his wonderful cellar unquestionably make him merry. In his books he always seems to be pressing on us "another glass of Jane Austen," or "just a thimbleful of Pope," or "a drop of '42 Tennyson." No other critic of literature writes with the garrulous gusto of a boon-companion as Mr. Saintsbury does. In our youth, when we demand style as well as gusto, we condemn him on account of his atrocious English. As we ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... decorum of the young men. He himself belonged to the age of "bumpers and no heel taps," and nobody at his board to-night seemed to care about drinking bumpers, even out of the poor, little, newfangled claret-glasses, that held only a thimbleful apiece. He had never known a lot of gentlemen, all by themselves, to be so discreet. Before the evening was over he became aware of the fact that he was the only man who was proposing toasts, and then he proposed ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner

... of the antique aroma (for wine only acquires its bouquet by age) which pervades its pages. Its sixteen volumes are so many tickets of admission to the vast and devious vaults of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, through which we wander, tasting a thimbleful of rich Canary, honeyed Cyprus, or subacidulous Hock, from what dusty butt or keg our fancy chooses. The years during which this Review was published were altogether the most fruitful in genuine appreciation of old English literature. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... safety. But I had to find out for myself that whosoever trusteth in Him—that is, whosoever loveth Him, for trust is only the avenue to love—hath everlasting life. The gospel offers a man life. Never offer men a thimbleful of gospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety; tell them how Christ came to give men a more abundant life than they have, a life abundant in love, and therefore abundant in salvation for ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... commenced an onslaught on the viands before him, every morsel he ate being followed by eighteen admiring eyes into his mouth. He made short work of the Abernethys and cake, tossed off the tea as if it were a thimbleful, jerked down the hunk of cocoa- nut, gulped the grapes, and generally gave the spectators an admirable ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... Machiavel continued, "or make the best of your time now. What says the bard? 'Nunc vino pellite curas, Cras ingens iterabimus aequor,'" and the Bacchanalian, quoting the above with a House of Commons air, tossed off nearly a thimbleful of wine with an immense flourish of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in the whole range of science which can be so easily and so positively proved as this. The famous diamond Koh-i-noor, or mountain of light, which now sparkles in the British crown, and which is worth more than half a million of dollars, could, in a few moments, be reduced to a thimbleful of worthless coal-dust. Yet, how great a difference, in appearance and value, between that precious gem and a thimbleful of coal-dust! Again, what are other gems, such as the ruby, the sapphire, the topaz, the emerald, and others? They are nothing more than crystallized clay ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux

... I do for you, Monsieur le Cure?' asked the landlady, as she reached down from the chimney one of the copper candlesticks placed with their candles in a row. 'Will you take something? A thimbleful of cassis? A ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various

... honest woman, "I loot the brandy burn as lang as I dought look at the gude creature wasting itsell that gate—and then, when I was fain to put it out for very thrift, I did take a thimbleful of it, (although it is not the thing I am used to, Dr. Quackleben,) and I winna say but that it ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... position of this little Catholic metropolis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary neighbourhood. On the one hand, the legion of Salomon overlooked it from Cassagnas; on the other, it was cut off from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet. The cure, Louvrelenil, although he took a panic at the arch-priest's funeral, and so hurriedly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... good-natured, lively guest. He always brought a keg of brandy with him; every one got a dram of it, or a coffee-cup full if glasses were scarce; even Joergen, though he was but a little fellow, was treated to a good thimbleful. That was to keep down the fat eels, said the eel-man; and then he never failed to tell a story he had often told before, and, when people laughed at it, he immediately told it over again to the same persons; but this is a habit with all talkative individuals; and as Joergen, during the whole ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... O'Dwyer, with a plaintive melancholy voice, "and the wather getting cowld and all! Faix then, Father Bernard, I'll mix it for ye, so I will." And so she did, and well she knew how. And then she made another for herself and her niece, urging that "a thimbleful would do Fanny all the good in life afther her ride acrass them cowld mountains," and the priest looked on assenting, blowing the comfortable streams of ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... his farm-house and gambled away all the money he got for it, and then he bethought him that a few hundred pounds might be raised on his mill. But when he went to look at it, he found "the dam broken, and scarcely a thimbleful of water in the mill-race, and the wheel rotten, and the thatch of the house all gone, and the upper millstone lying flat on the lower one, and a coat of dust and mould over everything." So he made up his mind to borrow a horse and take one more ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... tendency of our inclinations, or forget that if painful sensations are naturally fraught with danger, those which are pleasant have a healthy tendency. We have seen a drop of wine, a cup of coffee, or a thimbleful of liqueur, call up a smile to the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... daughter because she was so bonny. So they took all her fine clothes away from her, and gave her only a coat made of rushes. So they called her Rushen Coatie, and made her sit in the kitchen nook, amid the ashes. And when dinner-time came, the nasty stepmother sent her out a thimbleful of broth, a grain of barley, a thread of meat, and a crumb of bread. But when she had eaten all this, she was just as hungry as before, so she said to herself: "Oh! how I wish I had something to eat." Just then, who should come in but a little red ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various

... fortune. The way he got the gold was to take the sand and gravel from the banks of the river and wash it about in a pan till all the lighter particles passed off with the water, leaving the little spangles of gold at the bottom. Sometimes a week would pass without the miner getting more than a thimbleful, but occasionally he would find a few lumps as big as a pea. One day, however, just as Donald was getting discouraged, a piece of great good-luck befell him. He had been particularly depressed that day, for no gold at all had rewarded his search for ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond

... know'd which side his brad was buttered on. Dat Jake is a cuter. When he goes down ter git de letters he cuts up all kines ob shines and capers. An' to look at him skylarking dere while de folks is waitin' for dere letters, an' talkin' bout de war, yer wouldn't think dat boy had a thimbleful of sense. But Jake's listenin' all de time wid his eyes and his mouf wide open, an' ketchin' eberything he kin, an' a heap ob news he gits dat way. As to Jinny, she jis' capered and danced all ober de flore. An' I jis' had to put my han' ober her mouf to keep ole ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... young Mexican female, who's called the Princess of Casa Grande. Which the repoote of this yere Princess woman is bad, an' I strikes a story several times of how she's that incensed ag'in Americans she once saws off a thimbleful of loco on a captain in some whiskey he's allowin' to drink, an' he goes plumb crazy ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... worst of the two. I'm wretchedly ill this morning, which is just what I deserve; and heartily ashamed of myself, which is only what I ought to be. Look at my hand! It's all in a tremble like an old man's. Not a thimbleful of spirits shall ever pass my lips again: I'll stick to lemonade and tea for the rest of my life. No more Squaw's Mixture for me! Not, my dear sir," continued Valentine, addressing Mat, who had been quietly stealing a glance at the bureau, while the painter was speaking to young ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... thimbleful. "Help yourself, man!" He took another thimbleful. I seized the flask from his hand and poured him enough for a good tumbler. "Now, there's the water; ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... Shefter agreed. "Get on it, commodore, and I don't need to caution you to screen everybody you put onto it very carefully." He looked at his own glass; it had a bare thimbleful in the bottom. He replenished it slowly and carefully. "It's been a long time since the Navy's had anything like this to worry about." He turned to Trask. "I suppose I can get in touch with you at the ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper

... "Well, a thimbleful wasn't much, at all events," observed Ready. "And why didn't you tell your mamma where the ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and small pipes are extracted from the folds of the burnous and filled with half a thimbleful of the precious mixture. Two or three whiffs, deeply inhaled, stream out at mouth and nostrils; then the pipe is swiftly passed on to a friend, who drains the last drop of smoke and knocks out the ashes. Not a word ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... stood there a long time. It was several hundred feet long and could run on a thimbleful of earth or water. Complete in itself, the machine drew material from the surrounding landscape, transmuting matter to its special purposes. It needed sugar, salt, water and many other things but never failed ...
— Sweet Their Blood and Sticky • Albert Teichner

... he threw a bundle of newspapers on the table, and, pulling out a packet of letters from a breast pocket, pitched it toward his host. Then helping himself to a thimbleful of anisette, he took off his narrow-brimmed chip hat for the first time, polished up his eye a bit with the knuckle of his fore finger, and looked at his ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... witty fellow, a merry guest, and brought a measure of brandy with him. They all received a small glassful or a cupful if there were not enough glasses; even Jurgen had about a thimbleful, that he might digest the fat eel, as the eel-breeder said; he always told one story over and over again, and if his hearers laughed he would immediately repeat it to them. Jurgen while still a boy, and also when he was older, used phrases ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... kill the Frog, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy, as the old man paused to scoop up a thimbleful of ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... wager a thimbleful of grog, that such a tailor as you are in the water can't for the life of you swim ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... purty as red shoes," old Jason said. "And if she hain't had a load to bear, no female ever toted one. Talk about justice! Why, Alf, that gal hain't had a thimbleful sence she was a baby. She has set out to make a livin' fer a mammy that can't hardly see where she's walkin', and an aunt that is mighty nigh tied in a knot with rheumatism, and she is doin' it—bless yore life!—better'n many a man could in the same ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... with the liqueur glass she always drank her thimbleful of champagne in, and the throne chair from the drawing-room in which she presided over the feasts given in her honor, was almost too much for them. Margaret cried openly over her soup. Peter shaded his eyes with his hand, ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... Cleopatra's Needle in the distance. This would occupy the morning. In the afternoon I would finish my sketch of Suleiman. Should Joe have a fresh attack of ague he could join Yusuf at the cafe and forget it in the thimbleful that cheers but does ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... young man idiotically, and he told her the address; then cast about for a slip of paper to write it down on, racking his thimbleful of brains all the while to make out who she could be. She wasn't one of the principals in the company. They'd all reported and he hadn't heard that any of them was to ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... became an omelette au lard ("O La!") absolutely unsurpassable, and a poulet saute, which was about the best that ever we tasted. A good bottle of the ordinary generous, fruit, and then a cup of recently roasted and freshly ground coffee with a thimbleful of some special Normandy cognac,—in which our cheery host joined us, and we all drank one another's healths,—completed as good a dejeuner as any man or woman of simple tastes could ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various

... did not think when we lived at Little Staunton that two servants could fit into such a tiny closet, but these London girls seem quite to like it. Now, Mildred, come downstairs. You have looked over this thimbleful of a house, and I hope it has pleased you. Come downstairs and let us talk. I am ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... the march comfortably riding—for "the 'Orbn can't walk." And no wonder. At the halting-place they unbag a little barley and wheat-meal, make dough, thrust it into the fire, "break bread," and wash it down with a few drops of dirty water. This copious refection ends in a thimbleful of thick, black coffee and a pipe. At home they have milk and Gh (clarified butter) in plenty during the season, game at times, and, on extraordinary occasions, a goat or a sheep, which, however, are usually kept for buying corn ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... one in pre-war days), and as he measured his next with extreme care and a slightly jerky movement, would announce it as being his night-cap, though you would have thought he had plenty of night-caps on already. Puffin correspondingly took a thimbleful more (the thimble apparently belonging to some housewife of Anak), and after another half-hour of sudden single snores and startings awake again, of pipes frequently lit and immediately going out, the guest, still ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... little sleep and rest till the air is cooler. So sit thee here and lean thy shoulder up against the wall, and thus thou canst look through this broken place and watch both ways. Then, if thou see aught moving, wake me up.—I wish I had a thimbleful of powder to make this whistle sound'—and he took Maskew's silver-butted pistol again from his bosom, and handled it lovingly,—'tis like my evil luck to carry fire-arms thirty years, and leave them at home at a pinch like this.' With that he flung himself ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... NONSENSE! You must buy one. French or English are the best, they say. Then take a little powder, about a thimbleful, or perhaps two, and pour it into the barrel. Better put plenty. Then push in a bit of felt (it MUST be felt, for some reason or other); you can easily get a bit off some old mattress, or off a door; it's used ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... them into the fire. "I never heard of such doings in all my life before, Master Harry! but as sure as eggs are eggs you shall repent of this, for not one morsel of cake or anything else shall you have to give any of the party; no, not so much as a crust of bread, or a thimbleful of tea!" ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... concerning their personal habits and peculiarities. They love to hear what a celebrated man eats, drinks, and avoids, what time he rises and at what hour he usually goes to bed; and even a little thimbleful of scandal touching his shortcomings, delinquencies, and, possibly, his small vices, is as nectar to the gossip-loving taste. To tell some people what they have no right to know is often to ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... the other day, and I don't want to go to any more in England, thank you. They never introduced a soul to us, the band played out of tune, it was as dull as ditch-water,—just dreary, ill-dressed people wandering in and out, and trying to look as if five sour strawberries on a plate, and a thimbleful of ice cream were bliss and high life and all the rest of it. The only thing really nice was the roses; those were delicious. Lady Mary Ponsonby gave me three,—to make up for not presenting any one to me, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... cried Twing, coming up; "no bones broken? all right? Take a pull; do you good—don't drink it all, though—leave a thimbleful for Haller there. How do ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... I mean not to drink one drop of wine to-day, and I shall be mad with spirits. I always am when I drink no wine. It is curious the effect a thimbleful of wine has upon me; I feel as flat as——'s jokes; it destroys my understanding: I forget the number of the Muses, and think them xxxix, of course; and only get myself right again by repeating the lines, and finding 'Descend, ye Thirty-Nine!' two ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... utilized in a single direction will do infinitely more than ten talents scattered. A thimbleful of powder behind a ball in a rifle will do more execution than a carload of powder unconfined. The rifle-barrel is the purpose that gives direct aim to the powder, which otherwise, no matter how good it might be, would be powerless. The poorest scholar in school or college often, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... glittered at the shop windows, and leery-light-the-lamps was brushing about with his ladder in his oxter, and bleezing flamboy sparking out behind him. I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and down-sinking about my heart and stomach, to the dispelling of which I took a thimbleful of spirits, and, tying my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly to the session-house. A neighbour (Andrew Goldie, the pensioner) lent me his piece, and loaded it to me. He took tent that it was only half-cock, and I wrapped ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... Mrs. Cassidy, it's tay-time, isn't it? So just step back to your kitchen and put on your kittle, and bring up two of your best china cups and saucers, and a nice piece of buttered toast, not forgetting a thimbleful of something neat, and then it's the mighty proud woman ye'll be entoirely to be waiting for once on the first lady in the island. . . . Come in, my daughter, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... M'Guire was glad to beg for it. And even himself, when he is downhearted with all these cruel disappointments, though as temperate a man as any child, will be sometimes crying for a glass of it. And I'll thank you for a thimbleful to settle what I got.' Soon after, she began with tears to narrate the deathbed dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband. Then she declared she heard 'the master' calling her, rose to her feet, made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery, and with her head ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... replied Mr. Pickwick. 'A glass of brandy here!' The brandy was brought; and Mr. Weller, after pulling his hair to Mr. Pickwick, and nodding to Sam, jerked it down his capacious throat as if it had been a small thimbleful. 'Well done, father,' said Sam, 'take care, old fellow, or you'll have a touch of your old complaint, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Thimbleful" :   thimble



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