dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

whet
in a sentence

show 158 more with this conextual meaning
  • He'd made the blade himself, mounted it and whetted it sharp.†   (source)
  • When their faces turned, Mr Cooger inside the nephew went silently blinkclick, blink-click, listening through the toy ears, watching through the toy-charm eyes, whetting the doll's mouth with a Pekingese tongue.†   (source)
  • She says every time I lose it in front of the press, I only whet their appetites for more.†   (source)
  • "It improved my English, got me into health, and whetted my appetite even more for health work," says Edna.†   (source)
  • The prospect of so idyllic an interim added to the inspired stealth with which he whetted his wire, filed it to a Umber stiletto fineness.†   (source)
  • Us old folks appreciate whetting just as much as the young, or maybe more.†   (source)
  • She had everyone piled in the kitchen, whetting appetites with marinated olives.†   (source)
  • Pigs grunted listlessly, unmindful of knives whetted for the coming fall.†   (source)
  • And the Rwandan example whetted the appetites of some of Burundi's Hutu elites.†   (source)
  • It had whetted his appetite, and when he was sixteen he had advanced to the extent that he could compete with the best in the world.†   (source)
  • But the half-hour went by in silence, and whet there were only three minutes left, the boy felt a terror he could not explain, except that he did not want to send that order, He turned to the trainmaster and the road foreman, asking hesitantly, "Mr. Mitchum gave me an order before he left, but I wonder whether I ought to send it, because I ....I don't think it's right.†   (source)
  • The elf was whetting his long knife.†   (source)
  • He paused, his gaze settling on Reilly, and added, 'Whether you intended it or not, my appetite is whetted.'†   (source)
  • I knew the leopard could smell my fear, and that it would whet his appetite to kill again.†   (source)
  • Many Germans who had served with the Austrian army had left informally when the end of the war whetted their appetites for home, but Alessandro had no wound on his throat to which he could point, no pink line or star-like scar to explain a lack of speech.†   (source)
  • And now you've discovered something that has their appetite even more whetted.†   (source)
  • It was good eating; but I'd had my appetite whetted for fried middling meat to go with it.†   (source)
  • Surely, thought Navot, the success of the attack had only whetted his lust for infidel blood.†   (source)
  • His exit whetted the questions.†   (source)
  • Possibly the rescue of Charles Nalle had whetted her appetite for adventure.†   (source)
  • Free choice of any of the pink and nubile female flesh I had ever dreamed of could not have so ravishingly whetted my appetite.†   (source)
  • The napkins folded into stiff pyramids and the baskets of mauve cineraria smelling of almonds seemed to whet the appetite.†   (source)
  • Then she began to whet her knife.†   (source)
  • His glimpse that he have had, whet his appetite only and enkeen his desire.   (source)
    whet = increased (a desire)
  • His hands are cold as ice, and an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka knife which he now always carries with him.   (source)
    whetting = sharpening
  • This stuff of yours whets my appetite.†   (source)
  • I know that sounds like a come-on to whet your appetite but it's not meant to be.†   (source)
  • Mr Halloway whetted his forefinger, tested the wind, and sent a cumulus her way.†   (source)
  • "If I have to listen to something, I'd rather listen to you whet your wife," he said.†   (source)
  • If he don't, he'll just have to go home and whet his wife more often than he cares to.†   (source)
  • Pea Eye was carefully whetting his bowie knife on the sole of one boot.†   (source)
  • Jaime doused his head and made Ser Cleos whet the blade before he let him scrape away the last inch of yellow stubble.†   (source)
  • "Nothing like a hearty breakfast to whet one's appetite for the seventy-seven-course feast to follow," Tyrion commented as their plates were filled.†   (source)
  • All of them will turn on you at one time and here they'll come, roaring and popping their teeth, cutting high and fast with gleaming white tushes that they keep whetted to the sharpness of knife points.†   (source)
  • Meanwhile he pulled off his boats, climbed up to his bunk, took the strip of hacksaw out of his mitten, and decided that tomorrow he'd look around for a good pebble and start whetting down the blade to make a cobbler's knife.†   (source)
  • He thought for a bit, while he took out his knife, cleaned and whetted it, and began to dress the rabbits.†   (source)
  • Squire Squishlips and his ilk and the various pimply young maidens who'd been paraded before me were the almonds before the feast, meant only to whet our appetites.†   (source)
  • Mr. Dark, the illustration-drenched, superinfested civilization of souls, leaned from the platform, gladly whetting his lips.†   (source)
  • He led her to a secret place far from the house, whetted his pocketknife on a stone, and cut the offending halter of speech.†   (source)
  • All this alone would have been enough to whet Sophie's appetite for the adventure, but in addition, except for the funeral and a single summer afternoon at Montauk with Nathan, she had never been outside the confines of New York City.†   (source)
  • But, as the State whets the appetite of the mob by needlessly parading witness after witness before this Court, as the State inflames the public mind further with the ghastly details of this boy's crimes, I shall listen for the State's Attorney to tell this Court why Bigger Thomas killed.†   (source)
  • I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.†   (source)
  • He whetted the shining blade a long time on a little carborundum stone.†   (source)
  • With sharp whetted hunger he thought of breakfast.†   (source)
  • Rieux replied that this opening phrase had whetted his curiosity; he'd like to hear what followed.†   (source)
  • The fine knife came out again and was whetted again just as carefully as it had been the first time.†   (source)
  • Or in a corner at a party, while the glasses clink and somebody beats on a piano, you talk with a stranger whose mind seems to whet and sharpen your own and with whom a wonderful new vista of ideas is spied.†   (source)
  • Noah, from a box in the kitchen, brought out the bow-bladed butchering knife and whetted it on a worn little carborundum stone.†   (source)
  • The razor is dull; he tries to whet it upon the side of one brogan, but the leather is ironhard and wet with dew.†   (source)
  • You think of your readers, those carrion feeders, and all your typesetters, those wretched abettors, and saber-whetters.†   (source)
  • The difficulty of obtaining an interesting and varied diet on a naked rock seemed only to whet his appetite and tempt his resourcefulness.†   (source)
  • And now, whetted intemperately by what he had felt, he began, at school, in that fecund romance, the geography, to breathe the mixed odors of the earth, sensing in every squat keg piled on a pier-head a treasure of golden rum, rich port, fat Burgundy; smelling the jungle growth of the tropics, the heavy odor of plantations, the salt-fish smell of harbors, voyaging in the vast, enchanting, but unperplexing world.†   (source)
  • These fragments of nourishment served only to whet my hunger.†   (source)
  • The wits that have just made a clever woman laugh must be whetted!†   (source)
  • Every odd moment he could find he had the knife and stone out and was whetting away.†   (source)
  • The poor morsel of food only whetted desire.†   (source)
  • All this, though it whetted my curiosity, told me little that was definite.†   (source)
  • —A thimbleful, John, he said, just to whet your appetite.†   (source)
  • Next morning, after breakfast, Thomas Mugridge began his whet, whet, whet.†   (source)
  • A soft sound, like someone whetting a stone, was heard.†   (source)
  • So I had to pick up whet 'd happened from different people.†   (source)
  • The needle made its whetting sound, the cover was lowered.†   (source)
  • He resolved to whet it in the galleys and to bear it away with him when he departed.†   (source)
  • Whet the bright steel, Sons of the White Dragon!†   (source)
  • —and now an elephant, as a preliminary whet before dinner.†   (source)
  • "'Tis Cain Ball," said Gabriel, pausing from whetting his reaphook.†   (source)
  • He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes.†   (source)
  • A glimpse of Mr. Gryce's crestfallen face even suggested that she had done wisely in absenting herself, since the disappointment he so candidly betrayed would surely whet his appetite for the afternoon walk.†   (source)
  • His appetite had been whetted by the thirty pounds he had made in the summer, and he wanted now to make a couple of hundred.†   (source)
  • The fact, as reported by Sim Shoop, the guide, as well as the innkeeper and the boat-house lessee, that the lost girl was both young and attractive and her companion seemingly a youth of some means, was sufficient to whet the interest of this lake group of woodsmen and inn employees to a point which verged on sorrow.†   (source)
  • As was his custom, James ate and drank heartily, his appetite having been whetted even more by the trip and the change of air.†   (source)
  • I've seen their women's strange love en' patience en' sacrifice an' silence en' whet I call madness for their idea of God.†   (source)
  • She herself had no fears of it, and the books scattered about her drawing-room (a part of the house in which books were usually supposed to be "out of place"), though chiefly works of fiction, had whetted Archer's interest with such new names as those of Paul Bourget, Huysmans, and the Goncourt brothers.†   (source)
  • The raw morning air whetted his resolute piety; and often as he knelt among the few worshippers at the side-altar, following with his interleaved prayer-book the murmur of the priest, he glanced up for an instant towards the vested figure standing in the gloom between the two candles, which were the old and the new testaments, and imagined that he was kneeling at mass in the catacombs.†   (source)
  • Whet, whet, whet,—Humphrey Van Weyden sharpening his knife in a ship's galley and trying its edge with his thumb!†   (source)
  • Still calmly, though my heart was going pitapat, I pulled out Louis's dirk and began to whet it on the stone.†   (source)
  • Otherwise, there was no other sound except the incessant whetting scrape of the record still rotating beneath the needle that no one had bothered to lift.†   (source)
  • Then he would put it on the stone again and whet, whet, whet, till I could have laughed aloud, it was so very ludicrous.†   (source)
  • Whet, whet, whet, it went all day long.†   (source)
  • So did I. And for two hours we sat there, face to face, whet, whet, whet, till the news of it spread abroad and half the ship's company was crowding the galley doors to see the sight.†   (source)
  • He whetted it up and down all day long.†   (source)
  • There was nothing pretty about it, nothing divine—only two cowardly moving things that sat whetting steel upon stone, and a group of other moving things, cowardly and otherwise, that looked on.†   (source)
  • He went on whetting his knife.†   (source)
  • It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today†   (source)
  • At length, it is said, when delay had whetted Tom's eagerness to the quick and prepared him to agree to anything rather than not gain the promised treasure, he met the black man one evening in his usual woodsman's dress, with his axe on his shoulder, sauntering along the swamp and humming a tune.†   (source)
  • But this anxiety whetted his pleasure, and, all alone in his tub, he congratulated himself on his luck and on his cuteness.†   (source)
  • Nothing daunted by this repulse, Nicholas returned to the charge next day, emboldened by the circumstance of Mr Linkinwater being in a very talkative and communicative mood; but, directly he resumed the theme, Tim relapsed into a state of most provoking taciturnity, and from answering in monosyllables, came to returning no answers at all, save such as were to be inferred from several grave nods and shrugs, which only served to whet that appetite for intelligence in Nicholas, which had already attained a most unreasonable height.†   (source)
  • Soft scene, daring demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a weapon of defence must be prepared — I whetted my tongue: as he reached me, I asked with asperity, "whom he was going to marry now?"†   (source)
  • It was that moment in summer when the sound of the scythe being whetted makes us cast more lingering looks at the flower-sprinkled tresses of the meadows.†   (source)
  • Of course, I whet up now and then and flirt out a minor prophecy, but not often—hardly ever, in fact.†   (source)
  • Forsooth of that faring the carles wiser-fashion'd
    Laid little blame on him, though lief to them was he;
    The heart-hardy whetted they, heeded the omen.†   (source)
  • Then he crept to his place by the fire, sat himself down, and began to whet the knife softly on the stone, still muttering, mumbling, ejaculating.†   (source)
  • All the surrounding cottages were more or less scenes of the same operation; the scurr of whetting spread into the sky from all parts of the village as from an armoury previous to a campaign.†   (source)
  • Yah knaw whet t' Scripture ses.'†   (source)
  • Behind him came a peasant, and he too was evidently tired, for he stopped at once without waiting to mow up to Levin, and began whetting his scythe.†   (source)
  • The speaker, a peat or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group, carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large dimensions used in that species of labour; and its well-whetted edge gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.†   (source)
  • He wished his daughters, even as children, to see as much of the world as possible; and it was for this purpose that, before Isabel was fourteen, he had transported them three times across the Atlantic, giving them on each occasion, however, but a few months' view of the subject proposed: a course which had whetted our heroine's curiosity without enabling her to satisfy it.†   (source)
  • There were strong signs of a general curiosity, and Buckstone said: "Well, you have whetted us up pretty sharp, Wilson, and I'm free to say that if you don't mind telling us in confidence—"†   (source)
  • When Amy had whetted her tongue and freed her mind she usually got the best of it, for she seldom failed to have common sense on her side, while Jo carried her love of liberty and hate of conventionalities to such an unlimited extent that she naturally found herself worsted in an argument.†   (source)
  • Much watching of Louisa, and much consequent observation of her impenetrable demeanour, which keenly whetted and sharpened Mrs. Sparsit's edge, must have given her as it were a lift, in the way of inspiration.†   (source)
  • At first nothing, beyond his own heart-throbs, was to be heard but the slow wind making its moan among the masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury Wood which clothed the heights on either hand; but presently there came the sound of light wheels whetting their felloes against the newly stoned patches of road, accompanied by the distant glimmer of lights.†   (source)
  • Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him in an impure mist and rain.†   (source)
  • I knew the steely ire I had whetted.†   (source)
  • The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed of him leggings, gloves, a whet-stone, and a hook, to use till he should be able to purchase some for himself.†   (source)
  • twas only to whet my appetite.†   (source)
  • Whet the steel, sons of the Dragon!†   (source)
  • Then he bade them bear in the boar-shape, the head-sign,
    The battle-steep war-helm, the byrny all hoary,
    The sword stately-good, and spell after he said:
    This raiment of war Hrothgar gave to my hand,
    The wise of the kings, and therewithal bade me,
    That I first of all of his favour should flit thee;
    He quoth that first had it King Heorogar of old,
    The king of the Scyldings, a long while of time;
    But no sooner would he give it unto his son, 2160
    Heoroward the well-whet, though kind to him were he,
    This weed of the breast.†   (source)
  • He seated himself upon it, half his body in the dim and flickering light, and the other half in shadow; and so, with his craving eyes bent upon the slumbering boy, he kept his patient vigil there, heedless of the drift of time, and softly whetted his knife, and mumbled and chuckled; and in aspect and attitude he resembled nothing so much as a grizzly, monstrous spider, gloating over some hapless insect that lay bound and helpless in his web.†   (source)
  • 'Whet, whoiver knew yah wur coming?†   (source)
  • Indoors nothing was to be heard save the droning of blue-bottle flies; out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss of tressy oat-ears rubbing together as their perpendicular stalks of amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath.†   (source)
  • —When a man has no longer anything but rags upon his body and vices in his heart, when he has arrived at that double moral and material degradation which the word blackguard characterizes in its two acceptations, he is ripe for crime; he is like a well-whetted knife; he has two cutting edges, his distress and his malice; so slang does not say a blackguard, it says un reguise.†   (source)
  • How can I tell whet ye say?'†   (source)
  • Then he struggled again to free himself—turning and twisting himself this way and that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately—but uselessly—to burst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him, and nodded his head, and placidly whetted his knife; mumbling, from time to time, "The moments are precious, they are few and precious—pray the prayer for the dying!"†   (source)
  • The old man had been awake a long while, and was sitting up whetting the scythes of the younger lads.†   (source)
  • He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron, and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a man who was cutting furze.†   (source)
  • So was the keen-whetted a-saying this while
    Spells of speech loathly; he lied not much
    Of weirds or of words.†   (source)
  • Whet the steel, the raven croaks!†   (source)
  • 2470
    Then sin was and striving of Swedes and of Geats,
    Over the wide water war-tide in common,
    The hard horde-hate to wit sithence Hrethel perish'd;
    And to them ever were the Ongentheow's sons
    Doughty and host-whetting, nowise then would friendship
    Hold over the waters; but round about Hreosnaburgh
    The fierce fray of foeman was oftentimes fram'd.†   (source)
  • Let every man be sure his point is whetted, his shield well slung.†   (source)
  • By heaven, arrows of mine are whetted differently.†   (source)
  • But hour by hour the rest fought for the body, gripping whetted spears, dealing out death.†   (source)
  • He picked a tough spear capped with whetted bronze and made his way along the Akhaian ships.†   (source)
  • Aye, this night we'll guard ourselves, toward morning arm' again and whet against the ships the edge of war!†   (source)
  • How can you say we'd let a fight go by, ever, at any time when we Akhaians against the Trojans whet the edge of war?†   (source)
  • He vaulted quickly from his chariot, waving his whetted spears high overhead, as up and down he went, arousing war.†   (source)
  • an ax-edge whetted sharp that goes through timber, when a good shipwright hews out a beam: the tool triples his power.†   (source)
  • There at once they pitched in, hewing hard with whetted axes at the towering oaks until they came down crashing.†   (source)
  • Sarpedon fell the way an oak or poplar or tall pine goes down, when shipwrights in the wooded hills with whetted axes chop it down for timber.†   (source)
  • Piercing the bright shield, the whetted spearhead cut its way into his figured cuirass, ripping his shirt along his flank; but he had twisted and escaped the night of death.†   (source)
  • Then Nestor chose a burly newly whetted spear, and stepping out he saw that grim day's work: Akhaians driven back, at bay; elated Trojans pressing on; the wall torn down.†   (source)
  • When she had said this, Iris veered away, and from his chariot Hektor vaulted down, shaking his whetted spears, making the rounds to put fight into Trojans everywhere and rouse a bloody combat.†   (source)
  • Everything done to a young man killed in war becomes his glory, once he is riven by the whetted bronze: dead though he be, it is all fair, whatever happens then.†   (source)
  • And here is what I say—Zeus be my witness— if with his whetted bronze he cuts me down, my armor he may take away and carry aboard the long decked ships; not so my body.†   (source)
  • Tall Asios fell the way an oak or poplar falls, or a towering pine, that shipbuilders in mountain places with fresh-whetted axes fell to make ship's timber.†   (source)
  • He drew the pitiless bronze knife-edge hard across the gullets of the sheep, and laid them quivering on the ground, their lives ebbing, lost to the whetted bronze.†   (source)
  • Last, two tough spears he took, with brazen spearheads whetted sharp, and that clear bronze reflected gleams of sunlight far into heaven, Athena thundered overhead, and Hera thundered honor in heaven to golden Myk&ne's lord.†   (source)
  • Harvest hands were swinging whetted scythes to mow the grain, and stalks were falling along the swath while binders girded others up in sheaves with bands of straw—three binders, and lbehind them children came as gleaners, proffering their eager armfuls.†   (source)
  • With this he drew the whetted blade that hung upon his left flank, ponderous and long, collecting all his might the way an eagle narrows himself to dive through shady cloud and strike a lamb or cowering hare: so Hektor lanced ahead and swung his whetted blade.†   (source)
  • As when around a wild boar lusty hunters and hounds deploy, until the beast trots out from heavy thicket, whetting his white tusks against his lower jaws; the hounds go circling in to attack, and under the hue and cry a gnashing sound of tusks and teeth is heard; even so now, around rugged Odysseus, the Trojans ran.†   (source)
  • Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar
    I have not slept.   (source)
    whet = stimulate or sharpen thoughts
  • Nor less the Trojan, in his Lemnian arms, To future fight his manly courage warms: He whets his fury, and with joy prepares To terminate at once the ling'ring wars; To cheer his chiefs and tender son, relates What Heav'n had promis'd, and expounds the fates.†   (source)
  • He whets his tusks, and turns, and dares the war; Th' invaders dart their jav'lins from afar: All keep aloof, and safely shout around; But none presumes to give a nearer wound: He frets and froths, erects his bristled hide, And shakes a grove of lances from his side: Not otherwise the troops, with hate inspir'd, And just revenge against the tyrant fir'd, Their darts with clamor at a distance drive, And only keep the languish'd war alive.†   (source)
  • Thrasymedes, staunch in combat, stood ready,
    whetted ax in his grasp to cut the heifer down,
    and Perseus held the basin for the blood.†   (source)
  • First, over his broad shoulders he slung a whetted sword,
    wrapped himself in a cloak stitched tight to block the wind,
    and adding a cape, the pelt of a shaggy well-fed goat,
    he took a good sharp lance to fight off men and dogs.†   (source)
  • And again the suitors hurled their whetted shafts
    but Athena sent the better part of the salvo wide—
    one of them hit the jamb of the great hall's doors,
    another the massive door itself, and the heavy bronze point
    of a third ashen javelin crashed against the wall.†   (source)
  • It merely whetted his appetite for more, andafter a few hours off the mattress he often slipped back for a restorative nap.†   (source)
  • Not come: whet appetite.†   (source)
  • May be, he hears the King Does whet his anger to him.†   (source)
  • Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts On his behalf:— OLIVIA.†   (source)
  • This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.†   (source)
  • Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?†   (source)
  • 7:12 If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.†   (source)
  • Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart, To stab at half an hour of my life.†   (source)
  • 10:10 If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct.†   (source)
  • Now they believe it; and withal whet me To be reveng'd on Rivers, Vaughn, Grey: But then I sigh; and, with a piece of Scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil: And thus I clothe my naked villany With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ; And seem a saint when most I play the devil.†   (source)
  • Tyrrheus, the foster father of the beast, Then clench'd a hatchet in his horny fist, But held his hand from the descending stroke, And left his wedge within the cloven oak, To whet their courage and their rage provoke.†   (source)
  • Whose hand soever lanc'd their tender hearts, Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction: No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart, To revel in the entrails of my lambs.†   (source)
  • 64:2 Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity: 64:3 Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words: 64:4 That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)