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frivolous
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  • [ROS marches up behind her, puts his hands over her eyes and says with a desperate frivolity.]
    ROS: Guess who?!   (source)
    frivolity = lightheartedness (lack of seriousness)
  • so I pondered until all such frivolous thoughts were ended by an avalanche of books sliding down on to the desk in front of me.   (source)
    frivolous = not serious
  • I've never met such frivolous people as you before, or anybody so unbusinesslike   (source)
    frivolous = lacking in appropriate seriousness
  • --I come to crave your pardon.  (Ay, 'tis time
    To sue for pardon, now that death may come!)
    For the insult done to you when, frivolous,
    At first I loved you only for your face!   (source)
    frivolous = not serious
  • I pondered upon all this frivolity until my teeth were on edge.   (source)
    frivolity = lack of seriousness
  • Frivolous, I told myself.†   (source)
  • She's attempting to be casual, frivolous even.†   (source)
  • But when it sounded for the frivolous man—the man who had squandered his morning in bed, or on breakfast with three papers, or on idle chatter in the sitting room—he had no choice but to ask for his Lord's forgiveness.†   (source)
  • "I would think," she said, in a mystical whisper that did not conceal her obvious annoyance, "that some of us" — she stared very meaningfully at Harry— "might be a little less frivolous had they seen what I have seen during my crystal gazing last night.†   (source)
  • Emma twits the members of the Washington press corps who were present at the meeting for being interested only in 'frivolous speculation about Prince Charles,' rather than in the issue of housing.†   (source)
  • Cook that there is merit in the argument of Mr. Cartier that this may have constituted a frivolous misuse of this court, and Mr. Rasmussen and Ms.†   (source)
  • Hate me and my court for our frivolity and mindlessness when so many horrible things are going on outside of this city.†   (source)
  • They disapproved of him ending up as a mere prep-school teacher, and of his indulging his hobby of amateur theatrical performances—they believed these frivolities were unworthy of a grown-up's interest!†   (source)
  • It would have been frivolous to go on.†   (source)
  • He doesn't tell his parents about the drawing class, something they would consider frivolous at this stage of his life, in spite of the fact that his own grandfather was an artist.†   (source)
  • And trust you not to spend it all on your frivolous toys?†   (source)
  • In fact, Cofield had served years in various prisons for fraud, much of it involving bad checks, and he'd spent his jail time taking law courses and launching what one judge called "frivolous" lawsuits.†   (source)
  • Selfish and grandiose though Beck's obsession may have been, it F i wasn't frivolous.†   (source)
  • This was no time for frivolity.†   (source)
  • But if Josh Richter stands me up, I can assure you, I will not have a frivolous reaction.†   (source)
  • I knew she was agonizing over the consequences of my frivolity.†   (source)
  • He didn't care for my 'frivolous' attitude toward magic.†   (source)
  • Each one of us arrived with some extra responsibility biting into us under our garments: a claw hammer, a Baptist hymnal, each object of value replacing the weight freed up by some frivolous thing we'd found the strength to leave behind.†   (source)
  • Television, music, sports, and cinema were banned, judged by the Taliban leaders to be frivolities.†   (source)
  • That the committee would view the expense of this ball and other Millet events as frivolous seemed certain.†   (source)
  • And as frivolous as it was when I considered everything else going on, I couldn't stop thinking about this French girl.†   (source)
  • She wanted a vacation—idleness, frivolity even.†   (source)
  • Bernstein's answer had struck him as frivolous and cruel and incomprehensible: Most of them had pianos.†   (source)
  • "I have no interest in anything so frivolous as the Holy Grail or mankind's pathetic debate over whose version of history is correct.†   (source)
  • She was not usually frivolous, and didn't think it right to have shared such uncontrolled laughter with a complete stranger.†   (source)
  • My employer's godson looked an earnest, scholarly young man, and one could see many fine qualities in his features; yet given the topic one wished to raise, one would have certainly preferred a lighterhearted, even a more frivolous sort of young gentleman.†   (source)
  • The arts that were viewed so highly in Imre were seen as frivolous by those at the University.†   (source)
  • Sometimes I look at myself and I think: No wonder Nick finds me ridiculous, frivolous, spoiled, compared to his mom.†   (source)
  • The dominant sign in that paradise of provincial frivolity was fear of the unknown.†   (source)
  • Frivolous, irrational, erratic, untrustworthy, interested primarily in pleasure-seeking.†   (source)
  • He was a reader and recognized his habit of reading as obsessive and neurotic, and told himself that if he read something less frivolous than newspapers and magazines he might indeed be better off.†   (source)
  • Thus he chose to remember Hamlet's abuse of Ophelia, but not Christ's love of Mary Magdalene; Hamlet's frivolous politics, but not Christ's serious anarchy.†   (source)
  • What she was doing, what she had just done, was for her not about frivolity, it was about the essential, about being human, living as a human being, reminding oneself of what one was, and so it mattered, and if necessary was worth a fight.†   (source)
  • Suddenly, Dede feels foolish, caught in her frivolity as if she were a kitten knotted in yam.†   (source)
  • On the other hand, just as the politics of the film were made helplessly frivolous by the French passion for argument and distrust of community, so was the male star's overwhelming performance rendered suspect by the question of just why so much energy and talent had been expended on so little.†   (source)
  • "I was a frivolous girl," she continued.†   (source)
  • It was the first time I had ever seen kids use their abilities so …. frivolously.†   (source)
  • These frivolous remarks, suited well enough to the ordinary ballroom, did not please Miss Lydia for an Uplift dance.†   (source)
  • We will ask a lot of questions, some frivolous and some about life-and-death issues.†   (source)
  • He knew that if he did utter it a terrible amount of ribbing would ensue, and while he didn't mind being ribbed about most things, his feeling for Lorena was too serious to admit frivolity.†   (source)
  • But the moral issue of the subjugation of women isn't frivolous today any more than slavery was in the 1790s.†   (source)
  • "I shall not be repeating today's lesson, so I sincerely hope that you are not taking frivolously the matter of writing it all down."†   (source)
  • All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower.†   (source)
  • Despite his more frivolous side, Rostipov had caused an uproar in scientific circles because he spent his free time curing hysteria with magic wands and hypnotic trances.†   (source)
  • It was an act of impulsive frivolity and rebellion for which he knew afterward he would be punished severely.†   (source)
  • From my age of eighty, I can look back now and say with certainty that I was a frivolous and stupid young woman to think of vanity when the lack of food and the unrelenting cold were our true villains.†   (source)
  • He's discovering his talents, like she was at his age, but using them in ways she thinks are narrow and, sometimes, frivolous.†   (source)
  • The editor was delicate enough to fear that a Czech who photographed tanks would find pictures of naked people on a beach frivolous.†   (source)
  • With an FT under your arm, you can talk about the most frivolous things in the world, and instead of thinking you're an airhead, people think you're a heavyweight intellectual who has broader interests, too.†   (source)
  • It was big enough to hold us, as long as we didn't want to do anything frivolous, like stand up or move around.†   (source)
  • A completely frivolous objection, Your Honor, as you can plainly see.†   (source)
  • My interest in the Books of Histories isn't as frivolous as you think.†   (source)
  • Sometimes applications were turned down, when the distance was great and the cause was judged hopeless or frivolous—and the petitioner was unable to pay her own way.†   (source)
  • Even on an image, Eve could see this was a man who hunted down what or who he wanted, bagged it, used it, and didn't bother with frivolities such as trophies.†   (source)
  • The editors hurt my feelings sometimes, by sending me to do stories that I thought were frivolous, but it was hard to be miserable living by the beach.†   (source)
  • It's as though the Founders had read Nostradamus but didn't care to admit their frivolity, or perhaps studied the drawings of Da Vinci, who foresaw aircraft.†   (source)
  • The whole French way of life seemed devoted to little else but appearances and frivolity, everybody bent on a good time, going to the theater, to concerts, public shows and spectacles.†   (source)
  • Felicia has no patience for such frivolous girls.†   (source)
  • Find someone else to endure your frivolous poppycock and threadbare 'epiphanies.'†   (source)
  • Being second-born in a family where great things are expected from the oldest son, Kennedy has had the luxury of a frivolous life.†   (source)
  • She felt the light-headed, the easy, the almost frivolous sensation of triumph in the knowledge that she was holding him as surely as by a physical touch; for the length of a moment, brief and dangerous to endure, it was a more satisfying form of contact.†   (source)
  • There'd be plenty of opportunities after this little adventure for something frivolous as a reward for success.†   (source)
  • It's a frivolity we tolerate probably because there's nothing we could do to stop them anyhow" "The Ten is no fraternity, sir.†   (source)
  • Frivolous.†   (source)
  • Me, I was too frivolous.†   (source)
  • Frivolous differences become excuses to kindle unfriendly passions and excite violent conflicts.†   (source)
  • Whenever we did frivolous things, we used up energy; we flew high kites.†   (source)
  • To have one's life's work dismissed in such a frivolous manner by people who have never yet studied it was a severe insult.†   (source)
  • I was still also so maddeningly and helplessly priapic—my first such fit since the doomed night with Leslie Lapidus—that the image I entertained of self-castration was, for a fleeting moment, not absolutely frivolous.†   (source)
  • I did not bring you all the way out here to the garden house to be frivolous.†   (source)
  • Those little things you always toy with and dismiss as frivolous whims, I did them then.†   (source)
  • Living entirely for his work, he avoided all frivolity which could jeopardize his dream of becoming an engineer.†   (source)
  • If he is, there will be no droit du seigneur; we haven't time for frivolities.†   (source)
  • This too reminded the doctor of Piotr Verkhovensky1-not so much the leftism as the frivolity and the shallowness.†   (source)
  • At the time of the Cuban missile crisis last year, we discussed the possibility of war, a nuclear exchange, and talked about being killed—the latter at that time seemed so unimportant, almost frivolous.†   (source)
  • At the end of the street, where he turned into the Inn, he always bent his head and walked faster, as if all frivolity were done, for he was boot-boy there.†   (source)
  • CROMWELL (Breathing hard; straight at MORE) And so provide a noble motive for his frivolous self-conceit!†   (source)
  • she asked with the same frivolous irony.   (source)
  • Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumbbells? To dig a vineyard is worthier exercise for men.   (source)
  • A life of pleasure makes even the strongest mind frivolous at last.   (source)
  • a frivolous novel
  • a frivolous young man
  • They think you're too frivolous.   (source)
    frivolous = lacking in appropriate seriousness
  • the elaborate frivolity of chess   (source)
    frivolity = unimportance (lack of seriousness)
  • Perhaps there is too much frivolity in it, or too many things that might be taken for frivolity.†   (source)
  • It seemed so sad, so frivolous, that mere mortality, not judgment, kept him from it.†   (source)
  • It was as if the house were barely inhabited; certainly there was no sign of frivolity.†   (source)
  • Litigants pursuing frivolous claims were finding themselves bounced out of court.†   (source)
  • Stoddard," broke in Lydia tragically, "that is frivolous!†   (source)
  • It's soft and beautiful and frivolous, with lots of tiny spotlights and dark velvet.†   (source)
  • When I look back at the frivolous way I used to think—well, it makes me want to laugh, really.†   (source)
  • As I said before, I was a frivolous girl—perhaps even a little stupid!†   (source)
  • So he was capable of a frivolous move from time to time.†   (source)
  • But she not only rejected the idea, she reproached herself for the frivolity of her thought.†   (source)
  • So Beethoven turned a frivolous inspiration into a serious quartet, a joke into metaphysical truth.†   (source)
  • "Your Honor, Mr. Brigance's objection is so frivolous it deserves to be sanctioned.†   (source)
  • She lay there, smiling, because he'd made a rare frivolous gesture and she intended to enjoy it.†   (source)
  • In some ways, I am still the frivolous girl I used to be.†   (source)
  • With them I was frivolous and violent, orphaned.†   (source)
  • Arousal and orgasm are no longer thought necessary; they would be a symptom of frivolity merely, like jazz garters or beauty spots: superfluous distractions for the light-minded.†   (source)
  • But she has beauty without frivolity, domesticity without dullness, and simplicity of manner, and prudence, and circumspection.†   (source)
  • After nine hours of listening to the vagaries of Old Sarum's inhabitants, Judge Taylor threw the case out of court on grounds of frivolous pleading and declared he hoped to God the litigants were satisfied by each having had his public say.†   (source)
  • Given all that had happened, and all its terrible consequences, it was frivolous, she knew, but Briony took calm pleasure in delivering her clinching news.†   (source)
  • Yet she became infatuated with the magic Dan wrought upon the amateurs at The Gravesend Players, so much so that she accepted a part in Maugham's The Constant Wife; she was the regal mother of the deceived wife, and she proved to have the perfect, frivolous touch for drawing-room comedy—she was a model of the kind of sophistication we could all do well without.†   (source)
  • University students complained about frivolous musicians and fluffhead actors, then lined up to pay for performances.†   (source)
  • She could unsheathe from her arsenal a mockingly grave way of talking about things she found either portentous or frivolous.†   (source)
  • The unusualness of having someone sleep in my bed (I'd never slept with anyone except my grandmothers) and the frivolous laughter in the middle of the night made me forget simple courtesies.†   (source)
  • She didn't seem frivolous, didn't seem like the type who'd waste an entire day fretting over her white carpet.†   (source)
  • And …. no matter how frivolous and twisted that competition was, I'm grateful it brought you into my life.†   (source)
  • She became aware of her frivolous public image long before she began to grow old, and in the house she was often heard to say: "We have to get rid of all these trinkets; there's no room to turn around.†   (source)
  • And while the Count was known in all the salons of the capital as one who could be counted on for his wit, intelligence, and charm, Mikhail was known hardly anywhere as one who preferred to read in his room rather than fritter away the evening on frivolous conversations.†   (source)
  • He prefers me frivolous.†   (source)
  • I doubt my dad would approve such an exorbitant expenditure of government funds"especially for what he'd be bound to consider a frivolous reason.†   (source)
  • She would chuckle, and Pari would humor her, but she sensed an edge to these jokes, an oblique sort of chiding, a suggestion that her knowledge had been judged esoteric and her pursuit of it frivolous.†   (source)
  • Florentino Ariza could not bear his natural distinction, the fluidity and precision of his words, his faint scent of camphor, his personal charm, the easy and elegant manner in which he made his most frivolous sentences seem essential only because he had said them.†   (source)
  • Not only was music viewed as frivolous on this side of the river, but I would only make more enemies by playing while my bunkmates tried to sleep or study.†   (source)
  • When all was said and done, the endeavors that most modern men saw as urgent (such as appointments with bankers and the catching of trains), probably could have waited, while those they deemed frivolous (such as cups of tea and friendly chats) had deserved their immediate attention.†   (source)
  • Him and his big house and fancy daughters — those frivolous parasites who lived off the sweat of the masses.†   (source)
  • These were awesome occasions worthy of the ancient silver service; the venerable great-uncles and —aunts and grandparents were Victorians, from their mother's side of the family, a baffled and severe folk, a lost tribe who arrived at the house in black cloaks having wandered peevishly for two decades in an alien, frivolous century.†   (source)
  • I was losing myself, becoming like other girls, frivolous, manipulative, using how I looked to get things.†   (source)
  • The impermanence of a collapsible church added to the frivolity, and their eyes flashed and winked and the girls giggled little silver drops in the dusk while the boys postured and swaggered and pretended not to notice.†   (source)
  • Anyway she'd be let off, her involvement viewed as frivolous dabbling or else a rebellious prank, and whatever turmoil might result would be covered up.†   (source)
  • She was frivolous.†   (source)
  • Frivolous.†   (source)
  • I was wearing an eggshell linen suit — frivolous to mention it, no doubt, but it was from Paris and I was very keen on it — and I knew it would be wrinkled at the back once we arrived.†   (source)
  • When the young commander of the guard declared his love for her, she rejected him simply because his frivolity startled her.†   (source)
  • It seems to me you display a frivolous attitude toward your larger responsibilities, and that is a serious matter.†   (source)
  • Crafting an Erothknurl is a form of worship, and the gods do not look kindly on those who perform the rites in a frivolous manner…… From stone, flesh; from flesh, earth; and from earth, stone again.†   (source)
  • It was a street where solidity and money, security and arrogance, determination and a touch of frivolity all coexisted; and Dr. Washburn's patient had walked along its pavements before.†   (source)
  • Nor did she continue with her music, because her cello seemed frivolous to her under the circumstances.†   (source)
  • I told myself it didn't matter, that it was the equivalent of those couch cushions and cul-de-sac bike rides all those years ago, frivolous and unnecessary.†   (source)
  • The pimp spun the turban high on his finger like a trophy and kept himself skipping inches ahead of her finger tips as he led her in a tantalizing circle around the square congested with people who were howling with laughter and pointing to Yossarian with derision when Milo strode up with a grim look of haste and puckered his lips reprovingly at the unseemly spectacle of so much vice and frivolity.†   (source)
  • He was happy that even after the many years that had passed since he had first quit civilian life he could still be frivolous enough to harbor an affectation-a cane that rounded out the suit and tapped like a horse against the cobbles.†   (source)
  • It is applied to any number of frivolous things and pursuits; but the love I am talking about in the gift of love is the goodness that comes only from God.†   (source)
  • Zayd looks at him uneasily, toying with a suspicion that his winding tale seems frivolous to Cedric, who struggles with diamond-hard dilemmas.†   (source)
  • They were a frivolous couple, with no other worries except going to bed every night, even on forbidden days, and frolicking there until dawn.†   (source)
  • First (as an unfinished sketch) would have come the great metaphysical truth and last (as a finished masterpiece)the most frivolous of jokes!†   (source)
  • He believed that her destiny was marriage and a brilliant life in society, where the ability to converse with the dead, if kept on a frivolous level, could be an asset.†   (source)
  • Her frivolous and even slightly infantile character did not seem up to any serious activity, but when she sat down at the clavichord she became a different girl, one whose unforeseen maturity gave her the air of an adult.†   (source)
  • From the factory the ladies would move on to the tearoom on the Plaza de Armas, where they would stop for tea and pastry and discuss the progress of their campaign, not for a moment letting this frivolous distraction divert them from their flaming ideals.†   (source)
  • He had no idea his frivolous, obnoxious, even sophomoric objection to Buckley's entry would prove to be so useful.†   (source)
  • He still took his brother's frivolous activities as a personal affront, for he could not accept the fact that Nicolas could waste his time and energy on balloon rides and the slaughter of chickens when there was so much work to be done in the Misericordia District.†   (source)
  • The only frivolous attention they lavished on her was to comb her hair with bay rum to mitigate the dark-green hue it had when she was born; this despite the fact that Senator Trueba thought it should be left that way, since she was the only one who had inherited something from Rosa the Beautiful, even if, unfortunately, it was only the maritime color of her hair.†   (source)
  • She did not flinch? even in his despair and anger he recognized how far she was from being the frivolous child she had always seemed to him.†   (source)
  • Too frivolous, never sober.†   (source)
  • It was the portrait in the house, the one picture on the walls of Mingo, where pictures ordinarily would be considered frivolous.†   (source)
  • It was more than frivolous, it was conspicuous, with some sort of glitter or flitter tied in a band around the straw and hanging down.†   (source)
  • Well, she probably doesn't have time for frivolities like manicures, being a busy social worker.†   (source)
  • Instead, I was having all the fun and frivolousness I was due in one summer, night by night.†   (source)
  • We kept asking him to leave a big supply with us, but he'd shake his head gloomily, like we were bound to use them up frivolously or else cause an explosion.†   (source)
  • You create many of them in a very short time, you never learn anything about them, yet you expect them to do your bidding, because you made them and you therefore think you own them; you forget that they are alive, they have an intelligence of their own, and they may not do your bidding, and you forget how little you know about them, how incompetent you are to do the things that you so frivolously call simple….†   (source)
  • This, you understand, in a country where kings had legions of concubines and never set eyes on most of the children they'd so frivolously fathered.†   (source)
  • If someone did have to become indispensable to him, Colonel Cathcart lamented, it could just as easily have been someone wealthy and well groomed, someone from a better family who was more mature than Colonel Korn and who did not treat Colonel Cathcart's desire to become a general as frivolously as Colonel Cathcart secretly suspected Colonel Korn secretly did.†   (source)
  • He did not notice it because at that moment he was discovering the first indications of his own being in a lascivious grandfather who let himself be frivolously dragged along across a hallucinated plateau in search of a beautiful woman who would not make him happy.†   (source)
  • She sang one of his songs: They called her frivolous Sal.†   (source)
  • Then I understood, next, how to think idly of money is terribly frivolous.†   (source)
  • (a dozen frivolous, new books on the table) "or those?"†   (source)
  • "I assure you I don't think your answer is frivolous," he said.†   (source)
  • It was too superficial and frivolous for you.†   (source)
  • Money dignifies what is frivolous if unpaid for.†   (source)
  • From the moment when he was inside the Ministry of Love — and yes, even during those minutes when he and Julia had stood helpless while the iron voice from the telescreen told them what to do — he had grasped the frivolity, the shallowness of his attempt to set himself up against the power of the Party.†   (source)
  • No, one had to bring certain qualities to dancing that I was entirely without, gaiety, innocence, frivolity, elasticity.†   (source)
  • Even in the most comical and apparently frivolous of its moments, mythology is directing the mind to this unmanifest which is just beyond the eye.†   (source)
  • Did he remember days in the seminary, the kindly rebukes of his elders, the moulding discipline, days, too, of frivolity when he acted Nero before the old bishop?†   (source)
  • If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.†   (source)
  • It was an apt convention, enabling the verbal flow to acquire a touch of that almost frivolous fragrance, and Conway was responsive.†   (source)
  • The rest of us were constantly being beaten in the most savage way, on the most frivolous pretexts, but never Sebastian.†   (source)
  • Some of these books were, on the face of it, frivolous and facetious; but many, on the other hand, were serious and prophetic, moral and hortatory.†   (source)
  • "Milt Dale, I lose the bet," declared Bo, with earnestness behind her frivolity.†   (source)
  • "Might drop on his head from the sky," said the frivolous Herbert.†   (source)
  • If Mr. Emerson thinks us frivolous, he can go.†   (source)
  • Always making one feel, too, frivolous; empty-minded; a mere silly chatterbox, as he used.†   (source)
  • If she had been shallow and frivolous it might have done otherwise.†   (source)
  • The only frivolity was in his purple knitted scarf.†   (source)
  • Scepticism as to the devil is a French idea, and it is also a frivolous idea.†   (source)
  • So many women are capricious, breaking into odd flaws of passion or frivolity.†   (source)
  • The frivolity of the laughter-loving Latins is no part of him.†   (source)
  • Forgive my writing of these monstrous things in this frivolous manner.†   (source)
  • She sat modestly in a stiff chair, feeling frivolous and out of place.†   (source)
  • She laughed and was frivolous and rather brittle.†   (source)
  • She was nearing a frivolous grove of birch and poplar and wild plum trees.†   (source)
  • Just as its cynicism was beginning to rouse her village-dulled frivolity, it was over.†   (source)
  • The banker, spoilt and frivolous, with millions beyond his reckoning, was delighted at the bet.†   (source)
  • Love-songs are scarce and fall into two categories—the frivolous and light, and the sad.†   (source)
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