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pert
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  • And whereas the wife of the eldest son shrank away when he looked at her and hid her face behind her sleeve, this one laughed out, good humored and robust as she was, and she answered pertly, "Well, and some men like a taste of hot radish, or a bite of red meat."†   (source)
  • She nodded pertly with a smart wink.†   (source)
  • Her face was freckled lightly, over her nose and mouth: her features were eager, unconscious, turned upward in irregular pertness.†   (source)
  • John Dorsey turned his chalk-white face to the boy and whined with vacant appreciation, winking his head pertly.†   (source)
  • Ain't that right, lady?" he said pertly, turning to Miss Clark, of Valdosta, Georgia, for whom it had been uttered.†   (source)
  • And say—when you see your Uncle Emerson, you might just tell him not to be surprised to see me at any time now" (she nodded pertly at him)—"I reckon I can pick right up and light out the same as the next fellow when I get ready—I may just pack up and come—without saying a word to any one—I'm not going to spend all my days slaving away in the kitchen—it don't pay—if I can turn a couple of trades here this Fall, I may start out to see the world like I always intended to—I was talking to…†   (source)
  • Angered by her pregnancy, Gant went almost daily to Elizabeth's house in Eagle Crescent, whence he was delivered nightly by a band of exhausted and terrified prostitutes into the care of his son Steve, his oldest child, by now pertly free with nearly all the women in the district, who fondled him with good-natured vulgarity, laughed heartily at his glib innuendoes, and suffered him, even, to slap them smartly on their rumps, making for him roughly as he skipped nimbly away.†   (source)
  • "I did put it back," said Anne quickly—pertly, Marilla thought.†   (source)
  • "Tell us," said Mahony pertly to the man, "how many have you yourself?"†   (source)
  • I've got your letters, and if you give me any pertness I'll send them to your father.†   (source)
  • 'Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,' she answered pertly.†   (source)
  • She saw Martin come aboard at Blackwater, and pertly noted the friends who saw him off—two Englishmen, one puffy, one rangy, and a drylooking Scotsman.†   (source)
  • [Smiling at her pertness.†   (source)
  • LIZA [pertly] You'd better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the coffee; for she won't be told by me.†   (source)
  • I remembered her tripping briskly about the dining-room on her high heels, carrying a big trayful of dishes, glancing rather pertly at the spruce travelling men, and contemptuously at the scrubby ones--who were so afraid of her that they didn't dare to ask for two kinds of pie.†   (source)
  • She spoke pertly.†   (source)
  • All the same, after a long, looping flight, the fly came to rest again on Grandfather's fingers, sitting up pertly very close to the ivory cross.†   (source)
  • He many a time spoke sternly to me about my pertness; and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed.†   (source)
  • Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said with pleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, "Of course you must sit down here.†   (source)
  • ' "But I offered more than once, and asked," he said, kindling up at her pertness, "I asked Mr. Heathcliff to let me wake for you — " ' "Be silent!†   (source)
  • Catherine and Isabella were sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent: the latter alarmed at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of her secret feelings in a transient fit of passion; the former, on mature consideration, really offended with her companion; and, if she laughed again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter to her.†   (source)
  • — Now come, my Ariel! bring a corollary, Rather than want a spirit: appear, and pertly.†   (source)
  • One of them very pertly and readily answered, 'they would use them as both,' _Gentlemen_, said I _as you are your own masters, I am not going to restrain you from that; but methinks, for avoiding dissentions among you, I would only desire you to engage, that none of you will take more than one for a woman or wife, and that having taken this one, none else should presume to touch her; for though we have not yet a priestly authority to marry you, yet it is but reasonable, that whoever…†   (source)
  • Aristotle, in his Politics, doth them, I believe, more justice, when he says, "The modesty and fortitude of men differ from those virtues in women; for the fortitude which becomes a woman, would be cowardice in a man; and the modesty which becomes a man, would be pertness in a woman."†   (source)
  • I never heard anything of pertness, or what is called repartee, out of her mouth; no pretence to wit, much less to that kind of wisdom which is the result only of great learning and experience, the affectation of which, in a young woman, is as absurd as any of the affectations of an ape.†   (source)
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  • "Not bad," said a pert voice from the Potter's Field, behind him.†   (source)
  • Celaena rapped a finger on the queen's pert nose.†   (source)
  • So I said, quite pert, I'd trust my head to the Red Indians sooner than I'd trust it to you, and he laughed; but I was in earnest.†   (source)
  • I had to, with my married girlfriends, the ones who live in terror of the pert au pair or the pretty, funny girl in the office who can talk about football and spends half her life in the gym.†   (source)
  • —to turn into some pert-mouthed, strident angry-girl.†   (source)
  • She was a pert, attractive blonde with summer blue eyes and a stylish curly perm.†   (source)
  • A few days with Miss Greene and already it looked pert and alive.†   (source)
  • Smith's head-the stiff Indian hair, the Irish-Indian blending of dark skip and pert, impish features-reminded him of the suspect's pretty sister, the nice Mrs. Johnson.†   (source)
  • 25 for a bottle of Pert, or $16 for a box fan.†   (source)
  • Those goody-goody girls, flipping perfect cartwheels and pert little ponytails, most definitely accelerated their metabolisms.†   (source)
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  • Even in the dark, I can practically feel her pert little nose wrinkling in distaste.†   (source)
  • She was pert and perfect and had the tiniest little ears I'd ever seen on anyone.†   (source)
  • Father said I was being pert.†   (source)
  • Hers was a round face, too, the eyes widely spaced with a doll's pert nose.†   (source)
  • So you, a pert Puss, would look upon him face to face.†   (source)
  • When she did, he brought his hand down on her pert bottom in smart slaps that reddened the creamy flesh while she whimpered in programmed response.†   (source)
  • Our N[ew] England people are awkward and bashful; yet they are pert, ostentatious and vain, a mixture which excites ridicule and gives disgust.†   (source)
  • A pert servant, Master Samwise.†   (source)
  • You look pert this mornin', sir.†   (source)
  • With sunlight not on my helmet I could see stars, but inner pert of binox were hard to position—had to twist around and raise up on right elbow.†   (source)
  • Doris was on the slight side, thin and not very tall for her age, with dark brown hair and dark skin inherited from her father, a pert upturned nose and an ear-to-ear grin that gave her the expression of a contented cat.†   (source)
  • With a pert little glance toward the storeroom that said she was letting them out a minute early, she waved her magic ruler and released them.†   (source)
  • We been living in Knoxvul since pert near two years before Rufus was born.†   (source)
  • The office of Governor of Texas, Confederate States of America, was declared to be officially vacant; and Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark, "an insignificant creature, contemptible, spry and pert," stepped up to take the oath.†   (source)
  • Her pert face looked up at him, half serious, half amused.†   (source)
  • No, she didn't," said a Squirrel, very pert.†   (source)
  • She chose the least obsessively pert of the three receptionists.†   (source)
  • "I am still not talking to you," said Liza Hempstock's voice, proud as a peacock and pert as a sparrow.†   (source)
  • As she stepped into the hotel lobby she saw the pert blond clerk behind the desk—Mandy, Quinn thought after a quick scroll through her mental PDA—and a brunette in the curvy chair being checked in.†   (source)
  • She breathed in deeply-usually, she smelled nothing but weeds and soil, but every now and then when it had just rained, she got the barest scent of ice and Pert shampoo, as if Matt were still himself just under that surface.†   (source)
  • Carmencita showed up, looking incredibly pert in Navy dress whites and about the size of a paperweight, while my class was lined up for evening meal muster — walked down the line and you could hear eyeballs click as she passed — walked straight up to the duty officer and asked for me by name in a clear, penetrating voice.†   (source)
  • Coker, Helen, Bessie Gant who nursed you, Mrs. Pert?†   (source)
  • If it hadn't been for Mrs. Pert he'd have been dead by now.†   (source)
  • Finally he had gone to bed, and Mrs. Pert had nursed him for a day or two.†   (source)
  • Maybe we'd better go back, Mrs. Pert?" he said.†   (source)
  • When she got near, they saw she was Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Pert whispered a warning behind him, with a fuzzy laugh.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Pert was silent a moment, rocking vaguely upon her feet.†   (source)
  • At the corner, scowling, he waited for Mrs. Pert to cross from the Post Office.†   (source)
  • On the landing, he heard Mrs. Pert go softly up to bed, fumbling with blind care at the walls.†   (source)
  • I'm m-m-m-mighty sorry, Mrs. P-P-P-Pert …."†   (source)
  • "It is getting dark, Mrs. Pert," said Eugene hesitantly.†   (source)
  • Yes, that's it," said Mrs. Pert brightly, nodding her head in agreement.†   (source)
  • He went up the street to meet Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • But as he came up he saw that it was Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • He wore a derby hat jammed over his pert freckled face.†   (source)
  • She looked on them all with a pert impartial smile.†   (source)
  • Ben rose from the dark porch-swing where he had been sitting with Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Pert was saved in the house-cleaning.†   (source)
  • "He had pneumonia, Mrs. Pert," said Eugene.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Pert and Miss Newton hang on as usual.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Pert was there, sweet, gentle, a trifle more fuzzy than usual.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Pert chuckled softly when she spoke to him, and called him "Old Ben."†   (source)
  • Pert boys rushed from the crowded booths and tables to the fountain, coming up with a long slide.†   (source)
  • Let us go back together, over the bridge, under the elm trees, to my room, where, with walls round us and red serge curtains drawn, we can shut out these distracting voices, scents and savours of lime trees, and other lives; these pert shop-girls, disdainfully tripping, these shuffling, heavy-laden old women; these furtive glimpses of some vague and vanishing figure—it might be Jinny, it might be Susan, or was that Rhoda disappearing down the avenue?†   (source)
  • With old gentlemen, a girl was pert and saucy and almost, but not quite, flirtatious, so that the old fools' vanities would be tickled.†   (source)
  • Next to her, in the large airy room at the corner, Mrs. Marie Pert, forty-one, the wife of an itinerant and usually absent drug salesman, lay deep in the pit of alcoholic slumber.†   (source)
  • …so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between them: then, as a counterpoise to these attractive features, outcrops of selfishness indecently exposed—restlessness or inability to settle down and stop bothering the middle-aged—pert argument on abstract subjects like Beauty, as if they were of any interest to the middle-aged— lack of experience as to when truth should be suppressed in deference to the middle-aged—general effervescence and nuisance and unfittingness to…†   (source)
  • But who could complain of this pert, pretty Paris when it revolved like a merry-go-round--the gold bridge-horses, the Greek Tuileries heroes and stone beauties, the overloaded Opera, the racy show windows and dapper colors, the maypole obelisk, the all-colors ice-cream, the gaudy package of the world.†   (source)
  • This was one time when she knew she couldn't wiggle out of her punishment by sitting on his knee and being sweet and pert.†   (source)
  • Seeing Gerald's puzzled hurt face, she patted his knee again and managed an imitation of the pert smile he used to love.†   (source)
  • Presently, she would mount the stairs, peer carefully into Mrs. Pert's room, and descend, her lips thoughtfully kneaded.†   (source)
  • She lifted her lovely face to him, pert and ugly as a boy's; it was inhabited by a true and steadfast decency, and his eyes were wet.†   (source)
  • If it hadn't been for Mrs. P-P-P-Pert and you, Ben would be S. O. L. Nobody else around here gave a damn.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Pert laughed gently, comfortingly.†   (source)
  • "Good-evening, Mrs. Pert," said Eugene.†   (source)
  • Where's Mrs. Pert?" said Eugene.†   (source)
  • They call that death, Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Pert, from her refuge in the boarding-house across the street, called Helen on the phone each half-hour, and the girl talked to her while Eliza came from the kitchen into the hall, and stood, hands folded, lips pursed, with eyes that sparkled with her hate.†   (source)
  • A flashlight: Hugh Barton and his bride limply astare—frightened; Gant, Ben, Luke, and Eugene, widely, sheepishly agrin; Eliza, highsorrowful and sad; Mrs. Selborne and a smile of subtle mystery; the pert flower-girls; Pearl Hines' happy laughter.†   (source)
  • The sight of him drew Gant instantly from his lethargy: he remembered the dissolved partnership; the familiar attitude of Will Pentland, as he stood before the fire, evoked all the markings he so heartily loathed in the clan—its pert complacency, its incessant punning, its success.†   (source)
  • His mind gathered itself out of the wreckage of little things: out of all that the world had shown or taught him he could remember now only the great star above the town, and the light that had swung over the hill, and the fresh sod upon Ben's grave, and the wind, and far sounds and music, and Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • No, Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • Outside the corrugated walls of the warehouse, Gant paused for a moment to acknowledge the fervent congratulation of a group of ladies from the First Baptist Church: Mrs. Tarkinton, Mrs. Fagg Sluder, Mrs. C. M. McDonnel, and Mrs. W. H. (Pert) Pentland, who, heavily powdered, trailed her long skirt of gray silk with a musty rustle, and sneered elegantly down over her whaleboned collar.†   (source)
  • "Yes," said Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • "Yes," said Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • I know that, Mrs. Pert.†   (source)
  • The pert, meagre word fell to the ground.†   (source)
  • A pert little thing, that's what she was too often, with her tight-strained nerves.†   (source)
  • "Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.†   (source)
  • As he was carried past they made pert remarks to him.†   (source)
  • Of all I've seen, beyond compare; So sweetly virtuous and pure, And yet a little pert, be sure!†   (source)
  • An odious, little, pert, unnatural, impudent girl.†   (source)
  • Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting.†   (source)
  • It was that made me angry: and so pert: and so unkind: and so ungrateful.†   (source)
  • —Here cometh the worthy prelate, as pert as a pyet.†   (source)
  • "A terrible worker and driver," Mrs. Peter was said to be; and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper and stinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children.†   (source)
  • He was very pert and lively, and hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one side and looked at her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a question.†   (source)
  • When she protested to Vida, "The young do the work while these old ones sit around and interrupt us and gag with hate because they're too feeble to do anything but hate," then Vida turned on her: "If you can't be reverent, at least don't be so pert and opinionated, now when men and women are dying.†   (source)
  • Then, after this deliverance, which might have been that of a vulgarly pert little girl in the street, she hugged Mrs. Grose more closely and buried in her skirts the dreadful little face.†   (source)
  • Link Stevens appeared suddenly to grow lax, shriveled, to lose all his peculiar pert brightness, to weaken and age.†   (source)
  • She spoke it earnestly, eloquently, and for once she had no sly little intonation or pert allurement, such as was her wont to use on this infatuated young man.†   (source)
  • Sometimes Dick could hear Abe's voice, accompanied by scufflings, droppings of the receiver, far-away fragments such as, "No, I don't, Mr. North…… " Then a pert decided voice had said: "If you are a friend of Mr. North you will come down and take him away."†   (source)
  • With the pert heady wine he relaxed and pretended that the world was all put together again by the gray-haired men of the golden nineties who shouted old glees at the piano, by the young voices and the bright costumes toned into the room by the swirling smoke.†   (source)
  • I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were not to feel this disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any body else who would be at all desirable for her;—William Coxe—Oh! no, I could not endure William Coxe—a pert young lawyer.†   (source)
  • Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away!†   (source)
  • Mrs. Sparsit's tea was just set for her on a pert little table, with its tripod of legs in an attitude, which she insinuated after office-hours, into the company of the stern, leathern-topped, long board-table that bestrode the middle of the room.†   (source)
  • I found myself unpleasantly affected by pert little irreverencies which would have seemed but proper and airy graces of speech at an earlier period of my life.†   (source)
  • He has nothing in the world that I know of but a dozen or two of early masters and a more or less pert little daughter.†   (source)
  • Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation, as well as I, smiled when he saw him go; but immediately afterwards cast a look of singular aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering in the door-way: the boy finding animation enough while discussing Hareton's faults and deficiencies, and relating anecdotes of his goings on; and the girl relishing his pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the ill-nature they evinced.†   (source)
  • Passepartout was by no means one of those pert dunces depicted by Moliere with a bold gaze and a nose held high in the air; he was an honest fellow, with a pleasant face, lips a trifle protruding, soft-mannered and serviceable, with a good round head, such as one likes to see on the shoulders of a friend.†   (source)
  • The pert injunction was like those crystal substances which, colourless themselves, assume the tone of objects about them.†   (source)
  • Though full of spirit and quick of intellect, she was not naturally pert; but on the present occasion she thought circumstances called for more than usual decision.†   (source)
  • "And serves you right," said Jane, the pert chambermaid, "if you will take their money to get drunk on.†   (source)
  • When George was more than usually pert and conceited, the Major made jokes at him, which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel.†   (source)
  • A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her caro sposo, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery.†   (source)
  • "Is it not more seemly," said the Grand Master, "to see this Damian, clothed in the garments of Christian humility, thus appear with reverend silence before his Superior, than but two days since, when the fond fool was decked in a painted coat, and jangling as pert and as proud as any popinjay?†   (source)
  • The men appeared to her all coarse, the women all pert, everybody underbred; and she gave as little contentment as she received from introductions either to old or new acquaintance.†   (source)
  • Such works are held as antiquate and mossy; And as regards the younger folk, indeed, They never yet have been so pert and saucy.†   (source)
  • Why, he was ready to eat me for going with you to visit that foolish little wife of yours; as if I care a pin for either of you," Crawley's wife said, with a pert toss of her head.†   (source)
  • …composedly attend to her; and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people, and one style of living; that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good.†   (source)
  • Not exactly beautiful, but her blue eyes and pert snub nose gave her a catlike quality that contrasted with her robust, athletic movements.†   (source)
  • —Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of her nose.†   (source)
  • Pert little piece she was.†   (source)
  • 14 The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation, The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close, Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.†   (source)
  • The mockeries are not you, Underneath them and within them I see you lurk, I pursue you where none else has pursued you, Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me, The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others they do not balk me, The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.†   (source)
  • This pert Berowne was out of countenance quite.†   (source)
  • This project could not be of any great expense to the public; and might in my poor opinion, be of much use for the despatch of business, in those countries where senates have any share in the legislative power; beget unanimity, shorten debates, open a few mouths which are now closed, and close many more which are now open; curb the petulancy of the young, and correct the positiveness of the old; rouse the stupid, and damp the pert.†   (source)
  • THESEUS Go, Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; Turn melancholy forth to funerals— The pale companion is not for our pomp.†   (source)
  • She was y-foster'd in a nunnery: For Simkin woulde no wife, as he said, But she were well y-nourish'd, and a maid, To saven his estate and yeomanry: And she was proud, and pert as is a pie*.†   (source)
  • This, you will allow, was provoking; but I said nothing till the rest of the honest company were gone, and then gave the fellow a gentle rebuke, who, instead of expressing any concern, made me a pert answer, 'That servants must have their diversions as well as other people; that he was sorry for the accident which had happened to the book, but that several of his acquaintance had bought the same for a shilling, and that I might stop as much in his wages, if I pleased.'†   (source)
  • …Partridge; and she at length admitted her husband to make his excuses: to which she gave the readier belief, as he had, instead of desiring her to recall Jenny, professed a satisfaction in her being dismissed, saying, she was grown of little use as a servant, spending all her time in reading, and was become, moreover, very pert and obstinate; for, indeed, she and her master had lately had frequent disputes in literature; in which, as hath been said, she was become greatly his superior.†   (source)
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  • Pert near ever'body out here's a no-'count.   (source)
    pert = slang for pretty
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