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timorous
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show 124 more with this conextual meaning
  • "I don't want Brandon to die," Tommen said timorously.†   (source)
  • T S. Eliot, in "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917), has his neurotic, timorous main character say he was never cut out to be Prince Hamlet, that the most he could be is an extra, someone who could come on to fill out the numbers onstage or possibly be sacrificed to plot exigency.†   (source)
  • Timorous answered, that they …. had got up that difficult place: but, said he, the further we go, the more danger we meet with; wherefore we turned, and are going back again.†   (source)
  • "Do you have to go to the mill right now?" inquired the older man, timorously.†   (source)
  • 'Please excuse me,' the chaplain persisted timorously.†   (source)
  • For it was Tomas's voice that had once coaxed forth her timorous soul from its hiding place in her bowels.†   (source)
  • He is, frail and timorous and angry.†   (source)
  • And seemingly near yet unseen until then, Its light more timorous than that of a tallow-dip Set in the window of some watchman's hut, A star glimmered over the road to Bethlehem.†   (source)
  • He told her that for some time he had assisted at the meetings of an Irish Socialist Party where.... The workmen's discussions, he said, were too timorous;   (source)
  • He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his disengaged fingers, and his fingers went timorously up the arm, patted a muscular chest, and explored a bearded face.   (source)
    timorously = timidly
  • ...the group, peeping timorously over each other's shoulders, beheld no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist,   (source)
  • She walks tentatively, as if blind, but her eyes are wide open, fixed upon DuPont with the timorousness, the tremulousness, the pale and silent appeal, which Simon — he now realizes — has been hoping for in vain.†   (source)
  • Gradually, timorously, their vocabularies would have come together, like bashful lovers, and the music of one would have begun to intersect with the music of the other.†   (source)
  • I had begun the day all feisty, unconquerable, and eager for the fracas; I had ended it timorously, defeated by a superior strategy.†   (source)
  • According to the stone tablet of administrative procedure, I should first have presented a complaint to Mrs. Brown, who would refer it to Mr. Sedgwick, who would mull over it for several weeks, then submit it for perusal by the antique Bennington, who would eventually and very timorously lay it on the tabernacle of Piedmont's desk.†   (source)
  • He had a luckless, timorous face like a hamster's.†   (source)
  • Tradd and I were naturally timorous good citizens.†   (source)
  • The cornered woman; the penitential dress falling straight down, concealing feet that were surely bare; the straw mattress on the floor; the timorous hunch of the shoulders; the arms hugged close to the thin body, the long wisps of auburn hair escaping from what appeared at first glance to be a chaplet of white flowers — and especially the eyes, enormous in the pale face and dilated with fear, or with mute pleading — all was as it should be.†   (source)
  • I think that Sabina, too, felt the strange enchantment of the situation: her lover's wife standing oddly compliant and timorous before her.†   (source)
  • They all looked the same to me, a race of bald, timorous zombies chanting a debased, newly minted language in a country alive with cruelty.†   (source)
  • I nursed the course through mild disapproval, coddled it through every pitfall encountered on the way up proper channels, argued with timorous authorities, wrote out a magnificent course outline, then realized I did not know a single thing about the history of black people in.†   (source)
  • Kubarikha half sang and half recited: "As a hare was running about the wide world, About the wide world, over the white snow, He ran, the lop-eared hare, past a rowan tree, Past a rowan tree, and complained to it: Have I not, he said, a timorous heart, A timorous heart, so faint and weak?†   (source)
  • "Good morning" came the still timorous reply "Now, babies, I know your voices didn't dry up like ole fruit over the summertime.†   (source)
  • No matter how timorously her hand went up, Miss Briggs happened to see it.†   (source)
  • There was silence again, while Eugene sought timorously for words.†   (source)
  • His pale-grey eyes flitted timorously from face to face and turned quickly away again when he caught anyone's eye.†   (source)
  • Prissy climbed reluctantly from the wagon with many groans and timorously followed Scarlett up the avenue.†   (source)
  • Uncle Peter feared him only a little less than the devil or the Ku Klux and even Mammy walked silently and timorously around him.†   (source)
  • Once he had timorously tried to make love to her.†   (source)
  • And the ladies,' observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, 'are great observers, sir.'†   (source)
  • Anna Sergyevna gave him some drink, not taking off her glove, and drawing her breath timorously.†   (source)
  • Darya Alexandrovna whispered timorously.†   (source)
  • "You are not a Weatherbury man?" she said, timorously.†   (source)
  • When he arrived at the Armory, with Leora timorously brave in a blue crepe de chine made in no recognized style, he did not care whether he had a single two-step, though he did achingly desire to have the men crowd in and ask Leora, admire her and make her welcome.†   (source)
  • They worked perhaps two hours a day, and the rest of the time they ate chocolates, went to the motion-pictures, went window-shopping, went in gossiping twos and threes to card-parties, read magazines, thought timorously of the lovers who never appeared, and accumulated a splendid restlessness which they got rid of by nagging their husbands.†   (source)
  • A virginal sweetness and timorousness—no flare of gaiety, no suggestion of cities, music, quick laughter.†   (source)
  • CHAPTER XIII MR. MARVEL DISCUSSES HIS RESIGNATION When the dusk was gathering and Iping was just beginning to peep timorously forth again upon the shattered wreckage of its Bank Holiday, a short, thick-set man in a shabby silk hat was marching painfully through the twilight behind the beechwoods on the road to Bramblehurst.†   (source)
  • He beheld it so clearly that he had to spring from bed and look timorously out, and when in the street below he did actually see a man standing still, he was cold with panic.†   (source)
  • He moved timorously in response to the guard's commands; he meekly pushed Babbitt's gifts of tobacco and magazines across the table to the guard for examination.†   (source)
  • They did take his working hours, they did scratch his belief that he was hard-hearted, but they implored him with such wretched timorousness that he could not get rid of them without making promises, and admitting afterward that to have been more cruel would have been less cruel.†   (source)
  • Babbitt tried to be jovial; he worked at it; but he could find nothing to interest him in Overbrook's timorousness, the blankness of the other guests, or the drained stupidity of Mrs. Overbrook, with her spectacles, drab skin, and tight-drawn hair.†   (source)
  • "Will you do us the honor to SEAT?" said M. Nioche, timorously, and with a double foreignness of accent.†   (source)
  • But we must betray Hepzibah's secret, and confess that the native timorousness of her character even now developed itself in a quick tremor, which, to her own perception, set each of her joints at variance with its fellows.†   (source)
  • "I'll try to think," she observed, rather more timorously; "if I can think out of doors; my mind spreads away so."†   (source)
  • The woman crept near and looked on, eagerly, lovingly, but timorously,—like one who fears a repulse; indeed, she tried furtively to touch the man's forehead, and jumped back, the picture of fright, when I turned unconsciously toward her.†   (source)
  • Her mother had been used to wear a Roman scarf thrown over a pair of shoulders timorously bared of their tight black velvet (oh the old clothes!†   (source)
  • Wee sleekit, cow'ring, timorous Beastie," said the drawbridge man.†   (source)
  • Among men, they were fierce, bold, and combative; with her, awkward and timorous.†   (source)
  • Melanie, however, did not seem to mind the smells, the wounds or the nakedness, which Scarlett thought strange in one who was the most timorous and modest of women.†   (source)
  • One is bound in by the walls of childhood; the father and mother stand as threshold guardians, and the timorous soul, fearful of some punishment,* fails to make the passage through the door and come to birth in the world without.†   (source)
  • He was a beer saufer; droopy, small, a humorist, wry, drawn, weak, his tone nosy and quinchy, his pants in creases under his paunch; his nose curved up and presented offended and timorous nostrils, and he had round, disingenuous eyes in which he showed he was strongly defended.†   (source)
  • He studied desperately, but the bitter dyspeptic gaze of the elegant little man frightened him into halting, timorous, clumsy performances.†   (source)
  • He waited in timorous silence to hear what Heron might say next.†   (source)
  • She crept back to her room, a small timorous figure in white.†   (source)
  • About their arrival there was something timorous and illicit.†   (source)
  • He was spoiled, and Joyce was not timorous about telling him so.†   (source)
  • "Doesn't it interest you?" asked Mrs. Penniman, with a certain timorous archness.†   (source)
  • The question was a terrible one, and Isabel took refuge in timorous vagueness.†   (source)
  • The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers.†   (source)
  • He is a man of weak and timorous character; he has suffered so much and is very good-natured.†   (source)
  • 'Timorous?' said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went before with the candle.†   (source)
  • I know few things more affecting than that timorous debasement and self-humiliation of a woman.†   (source)
  • I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin.†   (source)
  • —went with the timorous patronage of these creatures towards him and held out a grey ear to be whispered into.†   (source)
  • …these words Cottard exhibited an intense astonishment blended with entire submission, as though in the face of a scientific truth which contradicted everything that he had previously believed, but was supported by an irresistible weight of evidence; with timorous emotion he bowed his head over his plate, and merely replied: "Oh—oh—oh—oh—oh!" traversing, in an orderly retirement of his forces, into the depths of his being, along a descending scale, the whole compass of his voice.†   (source)
  • Polly was timorous.†   (source)
  • But in another moment she seemed to have descended from her womanly eminence to helpless and timorous girlhood; and he understood that her courage and initiative were all for others, and that she had none for herself.†   (source)
  • Once through it, be beheld a lobby, the like of which, for all his years but because of the timorous poverty that had restrained him from exploring such a world, was more arresting, quite, than anything he had seen before.†   (source)
  • On reaching the place and going upstairs she found that all was quiet in the children's room, and called to the landlady in timorous tones to please bring up the tea-kettle and something for their breakfast.†   (source)
  • When the sheep had been penned up, in the darkness the timorous wolves crept into the living-room, squealing, halting, thrown out of their habit of stolidity by the strangeness of advancing through nothingness toward a waiting foe, a mysterious foe which expanded and grew more menacing.†   (source)
  • The curate, who was still timorous and restless, was now, oddly enough, for pushing on, and I was urging him to keep up his strength by eating when the thing happened that was to imprison us.†   (source)
  • …all that she had to do, and of her dread of what people would think, she did actually manage to see Swann, the predominant quality in her attitude, now, was self-assurance; a striking contrast, perhaps an unconscious revenge for, perhaps a natural reaction from the timorous emotion which, in the early days of their friendship, she had felt in his presence, and even in his absence, when she began a letter to him with the words: "My dear, my hand trembles so that I can scarcely write."†   (source)
  • He was now daily in contact with a type of youth who, because of his larger experience with the world and with the luxuries and vices of such a life as this, had already been inducted into certain forms of libertinism and vice even which up to this time were entirely foreign to Clyde's knowledge and set him agape with wonder and at first with even a timorous distaste.†   (source)
  • Carol had hidden in none of these refuges from reality, but she, who was tender and merry, had been made timorous by Gopher Prairie.†   (source)
  • She was not timorous now.†   (source)
  • He looked timorous as Babbitt, a moist and ecstatic almoner, held out a glass, but as he tasted it he piped, "Oh, man, let me dream on!†   (source)
  • She so warmly and modestly assured Ross McGurk of the merits of Gottlieb and of her timorous devotion to him, she so purred to the flattery of Rippleton Holabird, she so blandly answered the hoarse hostility of Terry Wickett by keeping him from getting materials for his work, that the Institute reeled with intrigue.†   (source)
  • But though Avdotya Romanovna shared her anxiety, and was not of timorous disposition, she could not see the glowing light in his eyes without wonder and almost alarm.†   (source)
  • But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper.†   (source)
  • Except that I remember them both to have been—like myself— timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous air.†   (source)
  • Despotism, which is of a very timorous nature, is never more secure of continuance than when it can keep men asunder; and all is influence is commonly exerted for that purpose.†   (source)
  • Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control.†   (source)
  • He was sitting, with a melancholy air, at his poor supper, when Smike's timorous and uncertain knock reached his ears.†   (source)
  • Several witnesses were called who had known her for many years, and they spoke well of her; but fear and hatred of the crime of which they supposed her guilty rendered them timorous and unwilling to come forward.†   (source)
  • When, however, the closing cadence had fallen on the ears of his auditors, the secret, timorous glances of the eyes, and the general and yet subdued movement of the assemblage, betrayed that something was expected from the father of the deceased.†   (source)
  • She went and knelt down by the bedside; and there this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul, sought for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned, our little girl had but seldom looked for it.†   (source)
  • "Alas, excellency," returned Bertuccio, joining his hands, and shaking his head in a manner that would have excited the count's laughter, had not thoughts of a superior interest occupied him, and rendered him attentive to the least revelation of this timorous conscience.†   (source)
  • Alarmed at the sight of this man, whose licentious passion she considered as the root of her misfortunes, Rebecca drew backward with a cautious and alarmed, yet not a timorous demeanour, into the farthest corner of the apartment, as if determined to retreat as far as she could, but to stand her ground when retreat became no longer possible.†   (source)
  • 'Timorous,' remarked the stranger.†   (source)
  • I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:" in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry — that parent of crime — an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth.†   (source)
  • The old man had sent for this giant, not because he was afraid of the "captain" (he was by no means of a timorous temper), but in order to have a witness in case of any emergency.†   (source)
  • 'She had been summat timorous and down,' said Mr. Peggotty, and had sat, at first, a little way off, at her spinning, or such work as it was, when Em'ly talked to the children.†   (source)
  • Father Zossima had a great affection for this timorous man, and always treated him with marked respect, though perhaps there was no one he had known to whom he had said less, in spite of the fact that he had spent years wandering about holy Russia with him.†   (source)
  • Her first thought was that something had happened to Georgy, but the sight of the messenger's eager and happy face dissipated that fear in the timorous mother's bosom.†   (source)
  • All the reports which Jos brought from the streets fell very vaguely on her ears; though they were sufficient to give that timorous gentleman, and many other people then in Brussels, every disquiet.†   (source)
  • Poor Polly sighed: she thought what she should do if young Mr. Tomkins, at the surgery, who always looked at her so at church, and who, by those mere aggressive glances had put her timorous little heart into such a flutter that she was ready to surrender at once,—what she should do if he were to die?†   (source)
  • Oppression is often the CONSEQUENCE, but seldom or never the MEANS of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.†   (source)
  • And knowing your Mother's delicate health and that timorousness which such delicately nurtured Southern ladies would naturally feel regarding matters of business...   (source)
    timorousness = timidity
  • Gregor went and waited immediately by the door, resolved either to bring the timorous visitor into the room in some way or at least to find out who it was;   (source)
    timorous = timid
  • The traitor speak, and timorously confess
    The manner and the purpose of his treasons;   (source)
    timorously = timidly
  • Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell,
    As when, by night and negligence, the fire Is spied in populous cities.   (source)
    timorous = fearful
  • like a timorous thief   (source)
    timorous = timid (fearful)
  • ...we fired our pistols in their faces, and drew out our swords; but there was no occasion; for they flew like timorous sheep, & only three of them remained, beckoning to the rest to come back.   (source)
    timorous = timid
  • I know only that my entire being seemed to run at blind full tilt into something monstrous and immobile, with a shocking impact too soon and too quick to be mere amazement and outrage at that black arresting and untimorous hand on my white woman's flesh.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in untimorous means not and reverses the meaning of timorous. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • It is not yet wholly true; a cultural timorousness yet shows itself; there is still a class which looks to England as the Romans long looked to Greece.†   (source)
  • Below the surface there is also a curious conservatism, even a sort of timorousness; in a land of manumitted peasants the primary trait of the peasant is bound to show itself now and then; as Wendell Phillips once said, "more than any other people, we Americans are afraid of one another"—that is, afraid of opposition, of derision, of all the consequences of singularity.†   (source)
  • Knapp, in his preface, thought it necessary to prove, first of all, that an American literature actually existed, and Webster, in his introduction, was properly apologetic, but there was no real need for timorousness in either case, for the American attitude toward the attack of the English was now definitely changing from uneasiness to defiance.†   (source)
  • My first two blows were too weak and timorous.†   (source)
  • Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you!†   (source)
  • He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly.†   (source)
  • The later national experts upon the national language, with a few somewhat timorous exceptions, pass over its peculiarities without noticing them.†   (source)
  • An external influence of great potency helped to keep the national literature scant and timorous during those early and perilous days.†   (source)
  • Their state of mind, vacillating, uncertain, alternately timorous and [Pg064] pugnacious, has been well described by Henry Cabot Lodge in his essay on "Colonialism in America.†   (source)
  • But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low— To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Timorous and slothful.†   (source)
  • Timorous thieves, by extreme caution, often subject themselves to discoveries, which those of a bolder kind escape.†   (source)
  • Turn, O miserable, hard-hearted animal, turn, I say, those timorous owl's eyes upon these of mine that are compared to radiant stars, and thou wilt see them weeping trickling streams and rills, and tracing furrows, tracks, and paths over the fair fields of my cheeks.†   (source)
  • But he that inrowleth himselfe a Souldier, or taketh imprest mony, taketh away the excuse of a timorous nature; and is obliged, not onely to go to the battell, but also not to run from it, without his Captaines leave.†   (source)
  • And generally all vain-glorious men, (unlesse they be withall timorous,) are subject to Anger; as being more prone than others to interpret for contempt, the ordinary liberty of conversation: And there are few Crimes that may not be produced by Anger.†   (source)
  • Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again, Within so small a time, my woman's heart Grossly grew captive to his honey words, And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse,— Which hitherto hath held my eyes from rest; For never yet one hour in his bed Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep, But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd.†   (source)
  • …as you must own was your case in your bounty to that worthless fellow Partridge: for two or three such examples must greatly lessen the inward satisfaction which a good man would otherwise find in generosity; nay, may even make him timorous in bestowing, lest he should be guilty of supporting vice, and encouraging the wicked; a crime of a very black dye, and for which it will by no means be a sufficient excuse, that we have not actually intended such an encouragement; unless…†   (source)
  • Yet half his strength he put not forth, but checked His thunder in mid volley; for he meant Not to destroy, but root them out of Heaven: The overthrown he raised, and as a herd Of goats or timorous flock together thronged Drove them before him thunder-struck, pursued With terrours, and with furies, to the bounds And crystal wall of Heaven; which, opening wide, Rolled inward, and a spacious gap disclosed Into the wasteful deep: The monstrous sight Struck them with horrour backward, but…†   (source)
  • The disposition of Mrs Fitzpatrick was more timorous; for, though the greater terrors had conquered the less, and the presence of her husband had driven her away at so unseasonable an hour from Upton, yet, being now arrived at a place where she thought herself safe from his pursuit, these lesser terrors of I know not what operated so strongly, that she earnestly entreated her cousin to stay till the next morning, and not expose herself to the dangers of travelling by night.†   (source)
  • But the timorous, incredulous, and abominable, and Murderers, and Whoremongers, and Sorcerers, and Idolators, and all Lyars, shall have their part in the Lake that burneth with Fire, and Brimstone; which is the second Death.†   (source)
  • And this is no very rare Accident: for even they that be perfectly awake, if they be timorous, and supperstitious, possessed with fearfull tales, and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe they see spirits and dead mens Ghosts walking in Churchyards; whereas it is either their Fancy onely, or els the knavery of such persons, as make use of such superstitious feare, to pass disguised in the night, to places they would not be known to haunt.†   (source)
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