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Frivolity   /frəvˈɑləti/   Listen
Frivolity

noun
(pl. frivolities)
1.
The trait of being frivolous; not serious or sensible.  Synonym: frivolousness.
2.
Something of little value or significance.  Synonyms: bagatelle, fluff, frippery.
3.
Acting like a clown or buffoon.  Synonyms: buffoonery, clowning, harlequinade, japery, prank.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Frivolity" Quotes from Famous Books



... 914 faults, far more in number than their virtues. These were classified as native and of external origin, acute and chronic, egoistic and altruistic, greed, perverted honor, self-will, falsity, laziness, frivolity, distraction, precocity, timidity, envy and malevolence, ingratitude, quarrelsomeness, cruelty, superstition; and the latter fifteen were settled on as resultant groups, and the authors who describe ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... in the language such as fascination, fidelity, also frivolity; and as for invocations there are plenty of them, too; for instance: alas, heaven ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... continually over the misfortune, and sank into a state of dejection from which no effort of mine could rouse her. I could not possibly bring her to regard the matter on its bright side as I did: and indeed I was so fearful of being charged with childish frivolity, or stupid insensibility, that I carefully kept most of my bright ideas and cheering notions to myself; well knowing ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... doubt, indeed, that she probed the Doctor's wound without knowing it. Meaning nothing but a certain matured frivolity and selfishness, not always inseparable from full-blown years, I think she confirmed him in his fear that he was a constraint upon his young wife, and that there was no congeniality of feeling between them, by ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... shock over, Mary showed not only more courage, but more sound sense than I could have believed. All the frivolity of her former character vanished at the first touch of adversity; just as of old, Harry, we left the tinsel of our gay jackets behind, when active service called upon us for something more sterling. She advised, counselled, and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... enduring beauty to that simple maid of Orleans, to whom the Roman Catholic Church has just now paid the merited yet tardy tribute of canonization. It is a sad commentary upon the popular attitude of frivolity towards the professional humorist that Mark Twain felt compelled to publish this book anonymously, in order that the truth and beauty of that magic story might receive its just meed of ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... as dazed, numb and silent as after the first news of a terrific disaster. Every kind of public amusement or diversion was postponed, merry-making ceased everywhere, the wildest and most reckless felt no inclination towards frivolity, even the games of children were checked and repressed, gravity and solemnity enveloped the entire city and its vast suburbs. The men talked soberly, as if at a funeral; while for women of every degree, but especially for the matrons of the upper classes, the three ensuing days ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... work appeared with her adopted name appended to it as the author, all the reading world "rushed" at it, and equally "rushed" at HER, lifting her, as it were, on their shoulders and bearing her aloft, against her own desire, above the seething tide of fashion and frivolity as though she were a queen of many kingdoms, crowned with victory. And again the old journalist, John Harrington, sought an audience of her, and this time was not refused. She received him in Miss Leigh's little drawing-room, holding ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... Preston's approaching marriage, where she was going, and what she was to wear. Lucy drew off from her companion as soon as Nancy Parker joined them, partly from a real desire of thinking quietly of her teacher's parting words, partly in proud disdain of Bessie's frivolity. "How can she go on so," she thought, "after what Miss Preston has been saying?" But she forgot that disdain is as far removed from the spirit of the loving and pitying Saviour as ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... as though he hadn't heard him. "That actress is a jolly little woman," said he. "I've seen her at the Frivolity—a ripping fine singer and dancer she is. But ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... mutual improvement society. Even his name suggested, to the serious mind, the compiler of an anthology of British war poets or the writer of a book of Nature studies, rather than the material wealth, female folly, late suppers, greenrooms, frivolity and immorality brought before a vivid imagination by the mere mention ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... Achmed III. was full of all manner of fantastic sentiments. Faith, hope, and love, which make others strong, had in him degenerated into superstition, frivolity, and voluptuousness—already he was but ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... a right guess their payment is safe. The statesman who called the turf "a vast instrument of national demoralization" was quite right, and if he could have lived to take a tour round the country in this year of grace he would have seen the flower of his nation given over to mean frivolity. ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... it has usurped. So long as no words are uttered but in faithfulness, so long the art of language goes on exalting itself; but the moment it is shaped and chiselled on external principles, it falls into frivolity, and perishes. And this truth would have been long ago manifest, had it not been that in periods of advanced academical science there is always a tendency to deny the sincerity of the first masters of language. ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... companies lined up in the village street in full marching order, awaiting the command to move, several half-hearted attempts at jocularity died cold. One irrepressible made a futile attempt at frivolity by announcing that he had Cherokee blood in his veins and was so tough he could "spit battleships." This attempted jocularity drew as much mirth as an undertaker's final invitation to the mourners to take the last, ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... In no mood for frivolity, Private Smith rose and followed the youth on deck. The air struck him as chill as he stood there; but, for all that, it was with a sense of relief that he saw Her Majesty's uniform go over the side and sink ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... prematurely in mourning," said Mrs. Hale, with a slight increase of animation. "I don't propose to leave them too much together. After dinner we'll adjourn to their room and lighten it up a little. You must come, Kate, to look at the patient, and counteract the baleful effects of my frivolity." ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... of dire disaster. She is called the weaker vessel; but all profane as well as sacred history attests that, when the crisis comes, she is better prepared than man to meet the emergency. How often you have seen a woman who seemed to be a disciple of frivolity and indolence, who, under one stroke of calamity, changed to a heroine. Oh, what a great mistake those business men make who never tell their business troubles to their wives! There comes some great loss to their store, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... professed—"the honor of God"—grave thoughts could not but be awakened. The sensation was somewhat the same as if, in our day, a hundred thousand of the most favorably known and highly endowed persons in the country were to remove to Chinese Tartary to escape from the corruption and frivolity of business and social life, and to create an ideal community in the desert. We could smile at such a hegira if Tom, Dick and Harry were concerned in it; but if the men and women of light and leading abandon us, the implied indictment is ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... none the less revolutionary of social life. The salon, that eminently French institution, soon felt their power. The charming irresponsible gaiety and frivolity of the old regime gave place to more serious preoccupation with political movements. The fusing power of Rousseau's genius had melted all hearts; the solvent wit of Voltaire and the precise science of the Encyclopedists ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... tiny dog, who, fulfilling all Jack's conceptions of costly frivolity, was wrapped in a well-cut coat, in spite of which he was shivering, from excitement as much as from cold, and her bright, soft gaze went from him to Imogen. She didn't acquiesce for long in the silence. Leaning forward to him presently she began to ask him questions about Boston, the ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Quixote, saddest of books, in spite of all its wit; the story of a pure and noble soul, who mistakes this actual life for that ideal one which he fancies (and not so wrongly either) eternal in the heavens: and finding instead of a battlefield for heroes in God's cause, nothing but frivolity, heartlessness, and godlessness, becomes a laughing-stock,—and dies. One of the saddest books, I say again, which ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... a very stately place, and enjoys a very high opinion of its own importance in the world. It is almost too respectable to admit of the least frivolity in any circumstances. You always seemed to be going to church at Hereford, or just coming out—the latter was nicest—so that there was, in my time, a sedateness only to be equalled by the hardness of a Brazil nut, which would ruin even my teeth to crack. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... of her very limited faith, that the serious concerns of life are of interest only to fools, and should, therefore (though the inference is not obvious), be entirely neglected by herself, and that frivolity and fashion are the twin deities before whom every self-respecting woman must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various

... and is it not their mission to do so? Do we not see many beautiful offices created and discharged by these affections—tender and far-reaching relationships into which they run? Do we not see how they win the heart from frivolity and selfishness, and make it aware of duties, and quick with sympathies? I shall not enter into detailed considerations of the results of this affection thus awakened in us by children. A little reflection will ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... realities. Everything else is mimetic, phantasmal, tinkling. Deeply do the masters of the drama move us; but the Gospel cleaves, inworks, regenerates. In the theatre, the leading characters go off in death and despair, or with empty conceits and a forced frivolity; in the Gospel, tranquilly, grandly, they are dismissed to a serener life and a nobler probation. Who has not pitied the ravings of Lear and the agonies of Othello? The Gospel pities, but, by a magnificence of plot altogether its own, by preserving, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... perpetual example of a right life. We bid them be the ornaments of our State. Too often they do not attain to our ideal. They give, it may be, a half-hearted devotion to soldiering, or pursue pleasure merely—tales of their frivolity raising now and again the anger of a public swift to envy them their temptations. But against this admirable Prince no such charges can be made. Never (as yet, at least) has he cared to 'play at soldiers.' By no means has he shocked the Puritans. ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm

... game, or even laughing heartily, she would interrupt them to say, "Children, are you sure you can ask God's blessing on all this? Do you think that beings with immortal souls to save should give rein to such frivolity! I fear you are sinning, and be sure your sin will find you out. Remember, that for every idle word and deed we must give an account to the Great ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... director-in-chief of the imperial pleasures; accused of treason, and dreading death at the hands of the emperor his master, he opened his veins, and by bandaging them bled slowly to death, showing the while the same frivolity as throughout his life; he left behind him a work, extant now only in fragments, but enough to expose the abyss of profligacy in which the Roman world was then sunk at that crisis of its ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... nineteen—and with a countenance which, though even then wanting in flesh and bloom, was not unpleasing: framed in natural curls, and showing (to sympathetic observers) a noble and pleasing dignity often, it must be avowed, contrasting strongly with the mingled frivolity and cynicism that marked his words. Being in mourning for the event of January he was clothed in purple velvet without lace or embroidery. Over his doublet hung a short cloak with a star on the left breast, under which ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... of ordinary and rather obvious maxims about the daily life of society, or quits it at his peril. His independence is not like Milton's, that of an ancient prophet, consoling himself by celestial visions for a world given over to baseness and frivolity; nor like Shelley's, that of a vehement revolutionist, who has declared open war against the existing order; it is the independence of a modern gentleman, with a competent fortune, enjoying a time of political and religious calm. And therefore his morality is in the main the expression of the conclusions ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... other in sliding down. It was folly, and yet we all laughed heartily. I myself joined in the sport with much satisfaction until it struck me that healthy and strong men could do something better—now, when humanity calls to them for protection and defence. May the devil take this frivolity! ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... warmest admiration to a master, who, when the schools of Rome and Florence were sinking into emptiness and bombast, preserved the fire of feeling for serious themes. What was deadly in the neo-paganism of the Renaissance—its frivolity and worldliness, corroding the very sources of belief in men who made of art a decoration for their sensuous existence—had not penetrated to those Lombard valleys where Ferrari and Luini worked. There ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... gallantry and deference which had arisen from chivalry, still remained on the surface, but its language was that of cold, unmeaning flattery; and, from being the arbiters of honour, they became the mere ministers of amusement. They were again consigned to that frivolity, into which they relapse as easily as men do into ferocity. The respect they inspired, was felt individually or occasionally, but not for their sex. Any thing serious addressed to them, was introduced with an apology, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... justify such absurd pretensions? Was it those wretched scribblings which had formerly caused so much merriment that now inspired him with such pride? Very well! he must simply get over it. His little absurdities were all very funny, when he was at the age of frivolity and nonsense, but now that he had come to years of discretion, it was time he learned that life was not play: "So, my boy, you will be a notary." "No," repeats Honore, "I shall not." His black eyes flash, his thick lips tremble, and he pleads his cause before the family tribunal, the cause of his ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... After a time, however, he began to find that fancies, almost ridiculously trivial, arrested and absorbed his attention; even as when our eyes have become accustomed to darkness, every light-coloured mote shows luminous against the void blackness of night. So we are tempted to unseemly frivolity in churches, and at funerals, and all most solemn moments; and so Lancelot found his imagination fluttering back, half amused, to every smallest circumstance of the last few weeks, as objects of mere curiosity, and found with astonishment that they had lost ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... after than any one else," Lois returned, unruffled. "Every one has to help in the work of frivolity." ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... of this tiny summer resort are of brick. It has an old, well-established look; a place of relaxation with restraint, not of ungirdled frivolity. The plain Dutch people love their holidays, but they take them serenely and by rule: long walks and bicycle-rides, placid and nourishing picnics in the woods or by the sea, afternoon tea-parties in sheltered arbors. One of ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... before breakfast. His office receives him at ten and keeps him till four, when he comes home and has tea, after which we ride or drive or play tennis somewhere. A look in at the Club for a game of billiards, more work, dinner, and, if we are not going to a dance or any frivolity, a quiet talk, a smoke, a few more papers gone through, bed, and the long Indian day is over. All day chuprassis, like attendant angels, flit in and out bearing piles of documents marked Urgent, which they heap on his writing-table. I begin greatly to dislike ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... the annual surcease of frivolity, Gregory St. Ledger called at the Manton home and, finding Ethel alone in the library, asked her ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... never countenance such a scene of frivolity, or permit one of his children to look upon it; through our eyes and ears the world takes possession ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... are as nothing; the strange garb and the stranger mental and spiritual dress fade, and we have here a mere woman, affected, as every true sister of hers to-day would be, by the helpless wailing. God has put that instinct there. Alas that it ever should be choked by frivolity or pride, and frozen by indifference and self-indulgence! Gentle souls spring up in unfavourable soil. Rameses was a strange father for such a daughter. How came this dove in the vulture's cage? Her sweet pity beside his cold craft and cruelty is like the lamb ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... a valuable Tip, so the crafty Maiden put it down in her little Note-Book that she who would make a Hit must convince the Men that her Tastes were simple and inexpensive. Another one gave her a learned Talk on the frivolity and Two-by-Fourness of the ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... suits a lazy man," said Sol, and he walked away jauntily. Under his apparent frivolity he concealed his joy at the find, which he knew to be of such vast importance. He approached the dusky group, and his really tender heart was stirred with pity for the rescued captives. Long Jim and Silent Tom held the smaller two on their shoulders, ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... without sadness shall be safe, And gay without frivolity." If we do, I think they are pretty sure, whether young or old, to tie bunches of wild flowers to their crooks. But, after all, for a war shepherdess, garments such as my Downland Amoret had on were more appropriate. Anyway, the brave old thing was doing ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... ugly; he had pale scanty hair and an earthy skin; his thin mouth and thin, long nose, and the great protuberance of his frontal bones, gave him an uncouth look. He was cold and precise in his manner, a bloodless man, without passion; but he had a curious vein of frivolity which disconcerted the serious-minded among whom his instincts naturally threw him. He was studying theology in Heidelberg, but the other theological students of his own nationality looked upon him with suspicion. He was very unorthodox, which frightened them; and his freakish humour excited ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... existence of elements of good in systems to which they are opposed, of distinguishing the personal character of an opponent from the opinions he maintains. Men lean most to justice, and women to mercy. Men are most addicted to intemperance and brutality, women to frivolity and jealousy. Men excel in energy, self-reliance, perseverance, and magnanimity, women in humility, gentleness, modesty, and endurance.... Their religious or devotional realisations are incontestably more vivid.... But though more intense, the sympathies of women are commonly less wide than ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... genius, are precious to the philosopher. They paint the character of an individual or the manners of the age more perfectly than any other species of composition: it is in novels we observe as it were passing under our eyes the refined frivolity of the French; the gloomy and disordered sensibility of the German; and the petty intrigues of the modern Italian in some Venetian Novels. We have shown the world that we possess writers of the first order in this ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... priests of Mexico, she saw nothing but ignorance, sensuality, bigotry, and indolence, nothing calculated to shake her faith as a Protestant, or cause her to forget her mother's first injunction; while the foppishness, frivolity, insolence, ignorance, and pride, of the men, by whom she was surrounded, most effectually protected her from the remotest thought of disobeying the second. The men, on the other hand, regarded her with the coolest indifference; accustomed to admire the black eyes, and ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... disfavour. He would himself have given more than the sum mentioned to have compassed the same end, but for different reasons, and his own reasons were so grave that the youth's frivolity ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... boot boy at the "Blue Boar", "did a bit" with the gloves, and was willing to spar with Sheen provided Mr Bevan made it all right with the guv'nor; saw, that is so say, that he did not get into trouble for passing in unprofessional frivolity moments which should have been sacred to knives and boots. These terms having been agreed to, he ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse

... frivolity and heedlessness of a man to whom the world attributed extreme depth and capacity, dared not question him any further. In the midst of his own haziness of mind produced by the champagne, he did, however, recollect a name spoken by du Tillet; and ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... from Angelot's friend, whose frivolity had given him his chance, and whose anxiety to put himself on the right side by catching him again, dead or alive, very nearly brought his young life to a speedy end. For foolish Francois was wise this time, so wise, had he ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... use being angry or even annoyed at that butterfly of a girl. She doesn't mean anything anyway. Some day, she'll wake up and be serious, but now she's only a little bundle of frivolity." ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells

... events attending a young lady's entrance into society. This might all be very pretty and pleasant, except for the deadly seriousness of the author. It is entirely frivolous and unimportant, but frivolity may be made charming and full of suggestion. Points of etiquette and behavior engage the minds, hearts, and passions of the personages of the story. It is a sort of animated illustration of the little book called "Don't." For example, "Don't leave your overcoat and rubbers in the hall ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... it is in other places, but every one who knows much of society girls in Boston must have been struck with a certain earnest note which sounds through all their frivolity. Few of them are satisfied to be simply society girls. They wish to identify themselves with some charity, or to make a thorough study of some art or science. It may be due to their Puritan ancestry, forbidding them to make pleasure the ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... was better than wisdom. And if Yathodaya had been other than she was—who can tell?—perhaps after all the king might have succeeded; but it was not to be so. For to Yathodaya, too, life was a very solemn thing, not to be thrown away in laughter and frivolity, but to be used as a great gift worthy of all care. To the prince in his trouble there came a kindred soul, and though from the palace all the teachers of religion, all who would influence the prince against the desires of his father, were banished, yet Yathodaya ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... lectures are more elegant, if not more scientific. There are usually three lectures daily; the first on sciences, and the other two on belles lettres. The lecture on science is considered as very able, but those on the belles lettres were merely suited, as I understood, to French frivolity. The rooms were so full as to render our stay unpleasant, and we thereby lost an anatomy lecture, which was about to commence. I should not forget to mention, that all the Parisian journals and magazines, and many of the German periodical works, were lying on the tables, and the ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... "laughter ages the face more than tears." Smile more often with the eyes. Let them light up and laugh for you. Trust me, in most cases a vast improvement will result, since scarcely any adult laughs well, and if there is some trait of affectation, frivolity, cruelty, or even coarseness in the character, uncontrolled laughter will be the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... pretence of learning the Italian polish, travelled to Italy. From the days of Gabriel Harvey and Lord Oxford, about the middle of Elizabeth's reign, this foul tide had begun to set toward England, gaining an additional coarseness and frivolity in passing through the French Court (then an utter Gehenna) in its course hitherward; till, to judge by Marston's 'Satires,' certain members of the higher classes had, by the beginning of James's reign, ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... of that time, being heartily tired of the frivolity and intrigues, and disgusted at the immorality of the court, he obtained leave from Mazarin to rejoin his regiment, as the campaign might be expected to open shortly again. The cardinal had warmly congratulated him upon the suppression of the insurrection in Poitou, of which he ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... eloquence, and versatility of Thiers. Mole belonged to an ancient and noble family, and his splendid chateau was filled with historical monuments. He had all the affability of manners which marked the man of high birth, without their frivolity. One of the first acts of his administration was the liberation of political prisoners, among whom was the famous Prince Polignac, the prime minister of Charles X. The old king himself died, about the same time, an exile in a foreign land. The year 1836 was also signalized by the foolish ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... at me—a wreck." After a moment he added: "You think Myra Nell is all frivolity and glitter, but she isn't; she's as deep as the sea, Norvin. I can't tell you how glad I am that you two— "Blake stirred uneasily. "I—I admire you tremendously, for you're just what I wanted to be and couldn't. I'm talking foolishly, I know, but this Carnival has made me see Myra Nell in a new ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... irony was unnoticed, and once more she laughed. To tell the truth, if anybody could associate such a frivolity with Miss Willis's ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... swarming, like bees, under the form of the Ver Sacrum. On the north, again, were the Etruscan hill towns, with their lords, pirates by sea, and probably marauders by land; for the period of a more degenerate luxury and frivolity may be regarded as subsequent to their subjugation by the Romans; at any rate, when they first appear upon the scene they are a conquering race. The wars with the AEqui and Volsci have been ludicrously multiplied and exaggerated by Livy; but even without the testimony of any historian, we might ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... streets and laughed loudly and talked with an audacious freedom that was often the cause of his expulsion from respectable company. A glass or two of wine seemed quite to turn his brain; he was alert then for any frivolity, and he was not always content with so restricted a libation, when the consequences were ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... cast this time at religion itself, and now he spoke aloud, pointing his finger at a fir: "I said at the mud house that I believed you because I knew you. To my shame be it said that I spoke falsely. How dared you bewitch me? In your presence I flung away the precious hours in frivolity; I even forgot the Sabbath. For this I have myself to blame. I am an unworthy preacher of the Word. I sinned far more than you who have been brought up godlessly from your cradle. Nevertheless, whoever you are, I call upon you, before we part ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... the War, without a moment's hesitation, is a signal proof of their character. No men were ever greater lovers of peace. Some philosophers have seen or tried to see in the War a judgment on the luxury and frivolity of pre-War England, on her neglect of defence, and her absorption in opulence. Were this the case, it would be ironical to reflect how the North Country homes, first and most cruelly scourged by the War, were homes to which the so-called "sins of society" ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst

... the steel. I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should pass across the garment—upon the peculiar thrilling sensation which the friction of cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon all this frivolity until my teeth were ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... think of Mary as having any part. They were the arrangements of the weddings of Christians, and the weddings took place in a Christian church; but neither is Mary there nor Jesus called. We are unable to think of Mary as present amid the tumult of worldiness and frivolity, the endless chatter over dress and decoration, which so commonly precedes the celebration of a sacrament which is the symbol of "the mystical union that there is betwixt Christ and His Church." That deep piety which puts God and God's will before all else would strike ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... impressiveness and stare gloomily out of the darkening window. The ladies Ebag had a remarkable example of the influence of music on character in the person of Edith Ebag. It appeared that Edith would never play anything but waltzes—Waldteufel's for choice—and that the foolish frivolity of her flyaway character was a direct consequence of this habit. Carl felt sadly glad, after hearing the description of Edith's carryings-on, that Edith had chosen ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... neighbors, that my predictions will come true. They're coming true already. The spirit of frivolity and sin is running riot in this town. Wickedness is rampant. Staid and respectable citizens are losing their dignity. Good church members are becoming afflicted with this worldly spirit. And who's to blame for it all—who's to blame? There's only one man. He's created ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... distinguish between the honest and the dishonest person who claims psychic gifts. From the legal point of view it is all pretence. It is imperatively necessary that genuine psychic gifts should be protected from the depredations of frivolity as well as from the interference of an obsolete law. We have some idea of protecting great and uncommon gifts in music, mathematics, and poetry, but we leave psychic gifts without help or training. An institute ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... chief requisites for success. It was not till Cesare Borgia displayed his magnificence at the French Court, till the Italian adventurer matched himself with royalty in its legitimate splendor, that the lowness of his origin and the frivolity of his pretensions appeared in any glaring light.[1] In Italy itself, where there existed no time-honored hierarchy of classes and no fountain of nobility in the person of a sovereign, one man was a match for another, provided ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... this time. I wasn't smartin' under anger an' unjust treatment; I was goin' out of my own accord an' because I had left behind me the carelessness of boyhood, hood, an' was ready to plow an' plant an' wait for a crop. No more gaiety, no more frivolity, no more heedlessness. I was to scheme an' plan for the future an' not be led astray by every enticin' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... marries her younger sister Marcia instead and it is only after a period of trials and heartaches that Marcia wins her husband's love when he comes to understand her worthiness and Kate's heartless frivolity and duplicity. The Chicago Tribune pronounces Marcia "One of the most lovable heroines that ever lived her life in the ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... solid elements of poise is, without doubt, a well-defined ambition, that is to say, one that is divested of the drawbacks of frivolity and directly winged toward the goal of ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... Grannoch gleaming through the trees, and the farm of Nether Crae set on the hillside high above it. He counted the sheep on the green field over the loch, numbering the lambs twice because they frisked irresponsibly about, being full of frivolity and having no opinions ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... cost at least a dollar and a half (fifteen cents of which she gladly contributed to the author), and she had a distaste for the gay society which was mainly a flutter of ribbons and talk and pretty faces; and when she meditated, as she did in her spare moments, her heart was sore over the frivolity of life and the emptiness of fashion. She longed to make the world better, and without any priggishness she set it an example of simplicity and sobriety, of cheerful ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... a very learned young woman, aren't you?" said Lady Manorwater, after a short silence. "I have heard wonderful stories about your learning. Then I hope you will talk to Mr. Stocks, for I am afraid he is shocked at Bertha's frivolity. He asked her if she was in favour of the Prisons Regulation Bill, and she was ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... delighting in his clothes, unhappy if he were deprived of his bottle and his game. Haggart, on the other hand, was before all things sealed to his profession. He would have deserted the gayest masquerade, had he ever strayed into so light a frivolity, for the chance of lightening a pocket. He tasted but few amusements without the limits of his craft, and he preserved unto the end a touch of that dour character which is the heritage of his race. But, withal, he was an amiable decent body, who would have recoiled in horror from ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... occasion, and known as a PUN. After breakfast, one of the boarders handed me a small roll of paper containing some of the questions and their answers. I subjoin two or three of them, to show what a tendency there is to frivolity and meaningless talk in young persons of a certain sort, when not restrained by the presence of more reflective natures.—It was asked, "Why tertian and quartan fevers were like certain short-lived insects." Some interesting physiological relation would ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... not concerned with foreign nations. It probably owes its place here to its peculiar superscription which conforms to the other superscription in xiii.-xxiii. In this chapter the prophet laments and very sternly rebukes the frivolity of the people of Jerusalem—whether shortly before the invasion of Sennacherib or after his retreat, it is hard to say. Trusting in their armour and fortifications they give the rein to their appetites, but he solemnly declares that their sin ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... frivolity to complain of. We finished our stage and came to the inn-door with decorum, to find the house still alight and in a bustle with many late arrivals; to give our orders with a prompt severity which ensured obedience, and to be served soon after ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in the spirit of the foreigner a kind of gross levity, an affectation of frivolity with respect to women, and a continual habit of vulgar vanity, which seems to run through all ranks and ages of the continental world. What can be more offensively trifling, than the conduct which Napoleon narrates of himself, when Emperor, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... of national peril quickened the dull and lethargic, steadied the weak drifters, furnished ballast to all the people, made the strong stronger, made the brave more heroic. The first sign of national decay is the note of frivolity. The sure sign of greatness in a generation is the note of seriousness. In the middle of 1863 James Russell Lowell wrote Bancroft that the war had been a great, a divine and a wholly unmixed blessing, and that all of the people were exalted to new levels. ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... giddiness and frivolity, the girl pronounced these last words so decisively, that Rudolph felt, to his great regret, that he would never obtain from her the desired information about Germain; and he felt a repugnance to employ artifice in surprising her confidence. He paused a moment, and then ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... are tempted to idleness and frivolity; whenever you are tempted to profligacy and low-mindedness; whenever you are tempted—as you will be too often in these mean days—to join the scorners and the fools whom Solomon denounced; tempted to sneering unbelief ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... Parisians in Paris, I cannot help feeling a good deal of sympathy for them, notwithstanding their childish vanity, their mendacity, and their frivolity. I sincerely trust, therefore, if they do seriously resist their besiegers, that the assurances of the Government that there are ample supplies of food and of ammunition, are not part of the system of official lying ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... dwarfs, love letters, billings and cooings, swashbuckler women, and, in a word, all that nonsense the books of chivalry contain? For myself, I can only say that when I read them, so long as I do not stop to think that they are all lies and frivolity, they give me a certain amount of pleasure; but when I come to consider what they are, I fling the very best of them at the wall, and would fling it into the fire if there were one at hand, as richly deserving such punishment ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... hours, during which he jealously guarded his solitude; but Josephine's behaviour served to damp his ardour. As, during the time of absence, she had slighted his urgent entreaties for a daily letter, so too, during the sojourn at Montebello, she revealed the shallowness and frivolity of her being. Fetes, balls, and receptions, provided they were enlivened by a light crackle of compliments from an admiring circle, pleased her more than the devotion of a genius. She had admitted, before marriage, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... England. I think we are justified in feeling a greater sympathy for Italy than for France, for I believe she truly reciprocates it; while the French show towards us a dislike almost verging on jealous antipathy, while in themselves they are entirely given to frivolity and caprice—a hopeless scepticism and impudent immorality: their naturally great powers seem exclusively devoted to selfish objects, and the worship of Fashion ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... there was little hope of sleeping in Market Town, and tomorrow was the hiring fair; it was deplorable to think how much time had been wasted by the frivolity of Alexander. ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter

... with a smile. "You little theologian," she exclaimed. Then to herself she said: This comes of shutting up a child with staid old people. The dear thing needs a whole lot of frivolity mixed up in her life; Christmas trees and things. She shall have them if I can do any of the mixing. "Well, dear," she said aloud, "I think we will hold on to all the faith we can muster, and see what will come of it, but you must realize that just sitting still and believing isn't ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard

... the versatile composer, we should hit upon the Danse Macabre as the most original, profound and essentially beautiful of all. It is free from certain lacks that one feels in other works, with all their charm,—a shallowness and almost frivolity; a facility of theme approaching ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... Spanish letters. The decline of literature followed close upon that of the political power of Spain. The splendid empire of Charles V had sunk, from causes inherent in the policies of that over-ambitious monarch, through the somber bigotry of Philip II, the ineptitude of Philip III, the frivolity of Philip IV, to the imbecility of Charles II; and the death of the last of the Hapsburg rulers in 1700 left Spain in a deplorably enfeebled condition physically and intellectually. The War of the Succession (1701-1714) exhausted her internal strength still more, and ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various

... and formerly much at court, has managed matters so as to have regained all her husband's confiscated property, and to have acquired much influence with some of the leading men of the day. In her manners and conversation there is an odd mixture of frivolity and address, of the airs of coquetry and the jargon of sentiment. She has the politeness of a French Countess, with exquisite knowledge of the world and of les convenances, joined to that freedom of opinion which marks the present times. In the midst of all ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... the Montgomerys, they seemed no less to smile with a peculiar indulgence upon the Kirkwoods. People who had said that Lois was a trifle strong-willed and given to frivolity were convinced that her marriage had done much to sober her. In the second year thereafter Phyllis was born, a further assurance that Lois was thoroughly established among the staid matrons of her native town. Then in the fifth year of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... enhance his personal attractions increased, Donald's ever-growing anxiety led him to become more than ever impatient of such things and eager to hasten forward. He became provoked at his companion's frivolity, and regretted ever having consented to travel with him. When he finally discovered the prints of Indian moccasins about one of Cuyler's fires, the ashes of which were still hot, he grew so apprehensive of evil, and so impatient to get on, that he refused to allow his crew even the scanty half-hour ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... troublesome a curiosity as to their lining and comparative merits, together with a determination to test them by trying on, as to make her post a very conspicuous one. The ladies who had commodities of their own to sell, and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the frivolity and bad taste of this masculine preference for goods which any tailor could furnish; and it is possible that the emphatic notice of various kinds which was drawn toward Miss Tulliver on this public occasion, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... needs very badly. Change! Oh, if everybody could have that when they need it! How it does make lives over! I know—how I do know! It's the deadly monotony that kills. Jean will bloom under the old farmhouse roof, away from all the fuss and frivolity she's so ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... beating against the dressing-room windows of their new house in one of the hilly suburbs of San Francisco, and threatening the unseasonable frivolity of the stucco ornamentation of cornice and balcony. Mrs. Tucker had been called from the contemplation of the dreary prospect without by the arrival of a visitor. On entering the drawing-room she found him engaged in a half admiring, half resentful examination of its new ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... duties of every Christian woman. For her own sake, for the sake of all she loves, for the sake of her country, for the service of Christ and His Church, she is bound to uphold this standard at a high point—a point entirely above suspicion. This task is of importance incalculable. But, owing to the frivolity of some women, and the very loose ideas of many men, it is no easy task. Undoubtedly, the very great majority of women are born modest at heart. Their nature is by many degrees less coarse than that ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... way your father got his start in life—frivolity! Stick to your work all the time—stick!" rejoined Mr. Leslie. He turned and met the monocled stare of the earl. "H'm. This, I suppose, is the ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... secretaries, who personified the best modern type of German woman. She was about 27, a dark-haired, slim, serious-looking person with delicate Jewish features and beautiful grey eyes; a girl belonging to the wealthy classes, and able if she had chosen to lead a life of frivolity and pleasure. But she had chosen instead to give herself to the sick, the afflicted, the needy, and even to the sinning; for she was a moving spirit of the organisation that dives down into the depths of the great city, and rescues those who have gone under. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... greatest city of the New World is a huge structure of plain gray-stone. Solid as a prison, towering as a steeple, its cold and forbidding facade seems to rebuke the heedless levity of the passing crowd, and frown on the frivolity of the stray sunbeams which in the late afternoon play around its impassive cornices. Men point to its stern portals, glance quickly up at the rows of unwinking windows, nudge each other, and hurry onward, as the Spaniards used to do when going by the offices of the Inquisition. The building ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... though quite avoidin' all foolish frivolity, Still at all saisons of innocent jollity, Where was the play-boy could claim an equality At comicality, Father, wid you? Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest, Till this remark set him off wid the rest: "Is it lave gaiety All to the laity? Cannot the clargy be Irishmen ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... capriciously, clandestinely, without giving notice, when she had left her to understand that she was simply spending three or four days in town. It was bad taste and bad form, it was cabotin and had the mark of Selina's complete, irremediable frivolity—the worst accusation (Laura tried to cling to that opinion) that she laid herself open to. Of course frivolity that was never ashamed of itself was like a neglected cold—you could die of it morally as well as of anything else. Laura knew this and it was why she was inexpressibly vexed ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... costumed ones trooped off to their own quarters with the half-ashamed smirk usually worn by the American male who has persuaded himself to frivolity. Delancy Grandcourt tramped away down the hall banging his big sword, jingling his spurs, and flapping his loose boots. The Pink 'un and Bunbury Gray slunk off into obscurity, and Scott wandered back through the long hall until a black-and-red ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... mean the fact that it consists necessarily of contrasts. It brings together types that stand out from their background, but are abruptly different from each other, like the clown among the fairies or the fool in the forest. And his audacious reconciliation is a mark not of frivolity but of extreme seriousness. A man who deals in harmonies, who only matches stars with angels or lambs with spring flowers, he indeed may be frivolous; for he is taking one mood at a time, and perhaps forgetting each mood as it passes. But a man who ventures to combine ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... beyond my power," she cried, "to do justice to her vanity and frivolity. No one ever before accused me of being ill-natured, or censorious; but that woman is the vainest person I ever saw. Did you notice, my dear Mrs. F., that she changed her dress three times yesterday, and twice to-day? She knelt a whole hour before the cheval-glass, arranging her hair, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... towns in England. They are fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good, and not because they embellish their persons; and are more gratified to inspire the women with jealousy of these exterior advantages, than the men with love. All the frivolity which often (excuse me, Madam) renders the society of modest women so stupid in England, here seemed to throw still more leaden fetters on their charms. Not being an adept in gallantry, I found that I could only keep myself awake in their company by ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... Stuart shouted, "Charge! and remember Jackson!" and this watchword seemed to drive the line forward. With Stuart leading them, and singing, in his joyous voice, "Old Joe Hooker, will you come out of the Wilderness!"—for courage, poetry, and seeming frivolity, were strangely mingled in this great soldier—the troops went headlong at the Federal works, and in a few moments the real struggle of the battle of Chancellorsville ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... influence to which you have been gradually and unconsciously yielding. Has the world been getting closer to you through the years? Has it more attraction for you than it had in the days gone by? Do its pride and vanity, its frivolity and ungodliness, seem less obnoxious to you than it has heretofore? Does sin seem a lighter thing to you than it used to? Does the Word of God take less hold upon your conscience now than formerly? Is the voice of duty speaking in your soul in the same clear terms as before? ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... reader of dramatic comment. The theater itself he regarded as an amusement designed for minds more tinctured with childish frivolity ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... Flossy, in spite of her frivolity, had somehow managed the children far better than Maud was now able to do. At the present time, so Mr. Tapster admitted to himself with something very like an inward groan, his two sons possessed every vice of which masculine infancy is capable. They had become, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... of this type were also to be seen among the spectators, or among the delegates who accompanied the banners inscribed "The Press," "Freethought," "Freedom for Labour," and so on. Involuntarily I thought, it is this element of frivolity among one half of the population that brings out a sterner element of resolution in the other half. The greater, the more general, this frivolity, the stronger and fiercer must be the passionate energy of those who would prevail against it. ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... Lincoln came home, disappointed, disillusioned. He had not succeeded in establishing the slightest claim, either upon the country or his party. Without such claim he had no ground for attempting reelection. The frivolity of the Whig machine in the Sangamon region was evinced by their rotation agreement. Out of such grossly personal politics Lincoln had gone to Washington; into this essentially corrupt system he relapsed. He faced, politically, a blank wall. And he had within him as yet, no consciousness ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... January is the first number of a strikingly meritorious and serious paper published by George S. Schilling. We here behold none of the frivolity which spoils the writings of those who view amateur journalism merely as a passing amusement. The Badger shows evidence of careful and tasteful editorship, combined with a commendable artistic sense in ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... employing frankly that shade of indication, a finer shade still than the dash.... But what on earth are we talking about?" And the Chairman of the Corps Committee pulled himself up in deprecation of our frivolity, which I recognized by acknowledging that we might indeed hear more about the work done and doing at the front by Richard Norton and his energetic and devoted co-workers. Then I plunged ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... amusements of the gay season of Edinburgh, Alicia expected to find all the vanity, emptiness, and frivolity of London dissipation, without its varied brilliancy and elegant luxury; yet, so much was it the habit of her mind to look to the fairest side of things, and to extract some advantage from every situation in which she was placed, that pensive and thoughtful as was her disposition, the discriminating ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... a misguided be-fooled clod I would not be; and the best way to avoid such a fate seemed to lie in showing myself as reckless a gallant and as fine a roisterer as any at Whitehall. So I dipped freely and deep into my purse, till Jonah groaned as woefully for my extravagance as for my frivolity. All day he was in great fear lest I should take him with me to Court to the extreme peril of his soul; but prudence at last stepped in and bade me spare myself the cost of a rich livery by ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... course, make her an evening dress or two, one especially to wear when the multitude calls her before the curtain to express their admiration of and enthusiasm over her play, but I shall trust Patricia not to let them lead her into any undue frivolity. The theatres ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... and he never knew, that she mortally disliked it, and that in a career in which she was constantly exposing herself to offence and laceration, her most poignant suffering came from the injury of her taste. She had tried to kill that nerve, to persuade herself that taste was only frivolity in the disguise of knowledge; but her susceptibility was constantly blooming afresh and making her wonder whether an absence of nice arrangements were a necessary part of the enthusiasm of humanity. Miss Birdseye was always trying to ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... power—some of them to a much larger extent than others—of changing their hues in order to match the gravel of the stream in which they swim or the leaves of the trees on which they feed. That is like what a great many of us do. Put us into a place where certain forms of frivolity or vice are common, and we go in for them. Take us away from these and we change our hue to something a little whiter. But all through we never know what it is to put forth a good solid force of resistance and to say, 'No! I will not!' or, what is sometimes quite as hard to say, 'Yes! though,' as ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... inspire, sentimental emotions; but he expanded in the warm atmosphere of personal interest which some of his new acquaintances contrived to create about him. It was delightful to talk of serious things in a setting of frivolity, and to be ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... sometimes. It is a reaction from frivolity. I suppose that I am over-enjoying life; that ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... all that its name implied. By good fortune, the weather was perfect,—ideally pleasant and sunshiny, yet not too warm. Wistaria Porch was transformed into a veritable Fairyland, and it was a bewildering vision of flowers, flags and frivolity by day, and a blaze ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... opportunity of usefulness to our neighbor. But loving our own selfish ease, we excuse ourselves, and so judge ourselves unworthy of the happiness we should enjoy in doing the kind action. He comes in some deep conviction, calling us to a new life. We feel that we ought to leave our frivolity, and live for God and eternity—live for what is real and permanent. But we stifle these convictions, and go back to our old lives, and so judge that we are not worthy to become the friends and fellow-workers ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... of frivolity, but she rose, looked at her wrist-watch and guessed she'd have a few minutes before dinner, to fool ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... this? The initial lines ran: "'Oh, damn everything!' exclaimed Percival Holcombe, as he dropped languidly into a deep-seated leather chair by the club window which commanded a view of the noisy street crowded with fashion and frivolity, wherein the afternoon's sun, freed from its enthralling mists, which all day long had jealously obscured his beams, was gloating o'er the panels of the carriages of noblemen who were returning from race-track and park, and the towhead of the little sweeper who plied his humble ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various



Words linked to "Frivolity" :   playfulness, silliness, levity, folly, fun, foolery, craziness, trivia, lunacy, shtick, schtik, seriousness, trait, tomfoolery, trifle, shtik, indulgence, frivolous, schtick, giddiness, small beer, triviality



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