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Antic   Listen
verb
Antic  v. i.  (past & past part. anticked; pres. part. anticking)  To perform antics.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Antic" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the Lion, the beasts of the forest assembled to choose another king. The Ape played so many grimaces, gambols, and antic tricks, that he was elected by a large majority; and the crown was placed upon his head. The Fox, envious of this distinction, seeing, soon after, a trap baited with a piece of meat, approached the new king, and said with mock humility: "May it please your majesty, ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... answered his look with a winking and blinking of its great bright eye, that seemed to say, "Well, Uncle Juvinell, what shall we do for the entertainment or instruction of these little people to-night? Shall we tell them of that crew of antic goblins we wot of, who are wont to meet by moonlight, to play at football with the hanged man's head, among the tombstones of an old graveyard? Or may be that dreadful ogre, with the one fiery eye in the middle ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... to the oldest traditions of poetry in his successful attempts to make his verses ring and sing. He is both antique and antic. But he is absolutely contemporary, "modern," "new," in his fearlessness. He has this in common with the practicers of free verse, with the imagists, with the futurists; he is not in the least afraid of seeming ridiculous. There can be ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... with that?" I says: "I'm going to learn to play it." Then he asked me where I had bought it, and I told him like a dutiful son—"Tom Carrodus's in Church Green." He summoned my mother and asked: "Mally, what dos'ta think o' this lot?" She—good woman—said it was only another antic of her boy's, and "let him have his own way." But my father, on the contrary, got rather nasty about the matter, remarking that if I didn't take the thing away he would put it into the fire. He said he was ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... whose hearts are made dark with infidelity, care not what antic distortions they make in interpreting Scripture, so they bring it to any show of compliance with ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... town, and into the great church, but saw nothing very remarkable there; but going across a broad street near the great church, we saw a crowd of people gazing at a mountebank doctor, who made a long harangue to them with a thousand antic postures, and gave out bills this way, and boxes of physic that way, and had a great trade, when on a sudden the people raised a cry, "Larron, Larron!" (in English, "Thief, thief"), on the other side the street, and all the auditors ran away, from Mr Doctor to see what the matter was. Among the ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... here when he brought us a snack to eat. The pig snooted around and found the place where we had dumped the leavin's of the mash after we had took off the brine. Well, sir, that pig just nat'erly gorged itself and directly it was tipsy as fiddlesticks. I never saw such antic was out of a critter in my life. It reeled to and fro and squealed and grunted and went round and round tryin' to ketch its own tail. Finally it rolled down the hill. Ben packed it back up again and it reeled around, its feet tangled and it rolled down again. Kept that up ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... declared. "A second-hand store is got old furniture from two years old oder ten years old, understand me; aber an antic store carries old furniture from a ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass

... intimate with him as if he had been her brother. One night he came home just a trifle tipsy. She noted at last what was wrong with him, and her heart yearned over the sinner. There were five or six glasses inside of him, and each was the father of an antic. He was an opera company, a gymnasium, and a menagerie at once, all tinged with a certain hilarious unsteadiness which was fascinating. But at last he got to his bed, which ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... the eldest, watched during the first two hours of the night, and was considerably alarmed by observing, upon the opposite bank of the glen, or valley, a huge fire surrounded by some figures that appeared to wheel around it with antic gestures. Max at first bethought him of calling up his brothers; but recollecting the daring character of the youngest, and finding it impossible to wake the elder without also disturbing Martinconceiving ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why Jane, he'll set his pinafore on fire) Thou imp of mirth and joy, In Love's dear chain ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... doing, the boys had remained quiet spectators at a distance, but by accident the monkey, who used to be perched upon the head of the bear, and was shaken off when the beast broke loose, came running that way, playing a thousand antic grimaces as he passed. Tommy, who was determined not to be outdone by Mr Barlow, ran very resolutely up, and seized a string which was tied round the loins of the animal; but he, not choosing to be taken prisoner, instantly snapped ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... Merry Men. I have heard it said that they run fifty feet high; but that must be the green water only, for the spray runs twice as high as that. Whether they got the name from their movements, which are swift and antic, or from the shouting they make about the turn of the tide, so that all Aros shakes with it, is ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... at the injustice which places so high in the general scale of values accomplishments which he cannot practise, shrinking from the suave devices of gesture and expression which in his own case might quickly pass into antic or grimace, he withdraws more and more from the places where such arts win esteem to live in a private world of inner sentiment. As he leaves this sure retreat but rarely himself, so he forbids ingress to others; and becoming yearly a greater recluse, he confines ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... factory in great state, and made us great promises of kind entertainment in his country. The 1st of August, the queen sent for us to court, to be present at a great feast given in honour of the king of Pahan; after which a comedy was acted by women, after the Javan manner, being in very antic dresses, which was very pleasant to behold. On the 9th the king of Pahan departed on his return to his own country, having been made a laughing-stock by the Pataneers: But his wife, the sister of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather, Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together. Science announced nonentity and art admired decay; The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay; Round us in antic order their crippled vices came— Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame. Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom, Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume. Life was a fly that ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... and a showman to talk for all the characters. Still better puppets are doll heads and arms of various sorts, dressed in flowing robes and provided with holes for two fingers and a thumb of the operator, who moves them from below. They can be made to dance and antic as you like on a stage above the showman's head, as Punch and Judy have always done. The more elaborate marionettes are worked with strings from above, so that they can open and close their mouths and otherwise act most realistically; ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... a mile of the shore, ten natives were counted, half of whom were probably women, from their keeping behind the others. The men made many antic gestures to our people. One had a green branch in his hand, which he waved to and fro at the extent of his arm, from the ground on one side of him to that on the other; and some of them would run into the water occasionally, and beat the surf with sticks. They appeared to be friendly, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... poetry is his delight; Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night, Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows; And in the day, when he shall walk abroad, Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad; My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay; Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape, With hair that gilds the water as it glides Crownets of pearl about his naked arms, And in his sportful hands an olive-tree, To hide those parts which men delight to see, Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by, One like Actaeon, peeping ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come; Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, How strange or odd so'er I bear myself,— As I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on,— That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake, Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, As "Well, well, we know," or "We could, an if we would," Or "If we list to speak," or "There be, an if there might," Or such ambiguous giving-out, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... leopards, by those who from long management of them possessed the same power over them as the groom over his horse, or else drawn along upon low platforms, upon which they were made to perform a thousand antic tricks for the amusement of the gaping and wondering crowds. Then came not many fewer than two thousand gladiators in pairs, all arranged in such a manner as to display to the greatest advantage their well-knit joints, and projecting and swollen muscles. Of these a great number have already perished ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... things of late, written of an old and popular writer, ten times more virulent than anything Mr. Ruskin wrote of Mr. Whistler: yet neither he, nor any other man of letters, thinks of flying to his mother's apron-string, or of setting in motion old Father Antic, the Law. Perhaps it is that we have no money, or perhaps, like the judicious author of whom I have spoken, we abstain from reading unpleasant things. I wish to goodness we could abstain from hearing of them; but the 'd——d good-natured friend' is an eternal ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... him, but met much the same reception as before. Those faces, alien alike to sympathy or surprise, seemed patiently to say, "We are travelers; and, as such, must expect to meet, and quietly put up with, many antic ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... I'm asthounded at yer ignorance of gogerfy! Thim little fish grow in the Atla-antic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Injun Ocean, the Airctic Ocean, an'—oh, in all them oceans. An' the big fish, such as the whale, the halleybut, the shairk, an' all o' thim, they live off'n eatin' ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... their clubs together, keeping exact time to the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept capering round the skirts of the dance, and rattling a Christmas-box with many antic gesticulations. ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... separated. The right leg is straight. The left, whence flowed the hemorrhage that made him die, has been broken by a shell; it is twisted into a circle, dislocated, slack, invertebrate. A mournful irony has invested the last writhe of his agony with the appearance of a clown's antic. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... policy in these days to prefix a fantastical title to a book which is to be sold; for as larks come down to a day-net, many vain readers will tarry and stand gazing, like silly passengers, at an antic picture in a painter's shop that will not ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston

... life's late day, With tottering step, and locks of gray, Essay'st each trick of antic glee, Oh! my heart bleeds ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... are subjected to the heat and the human smells from so many crowding, perspiring people, and if they are not made to recite the rosary they must remain quiet, bored, or asleep. At each movement or antic that may soil their clothing they are pinched and scolded, so the fact is that they do not laugh or feel happy, while in their round eyes can be read a protest against so much embroidery and a longing for the old ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... unfolds its richest vesture, Sparkling stars—etherial blue; Fairies dance with antic gesture; Or sip, delighted, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... only, moves. For example, 'divers' implies difference only, but 'diverse' difference with opposition; thus the several Evangelists narrate the same event in 'divers' manner, but not in 'diverse'. 'Antique' is ancient, but 'antic', is now the ancient regarded as overlived, out of date, and so in our days grotesque, ridiculous; and then, with a dropping of the reference to age, the grotesque, the ridiculous alone. 'Human' is what every man is, 'humane' is what every man ought to be; for Johnson's suggestion ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... Judas! whom nor friend nor foe may trust, Think'st thou with tears and plaints to answer this? Do I not know thy heart? do I not know That bribes have purchas'd Ely this escape? Never make antic faces, never bend With feigned humblesse thy still crouching knee, But with fix'd eyes unto thy doom attend. Villain! I'll plague thee for abusing me. Go hence; and henceforth never set thy foot In house or ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... complotter in the horrid deed. Here I renounce all tie of blood and nature, For thee, O Thebes, dear Thebes, poor bleeding Thebes!— And there I wept, and then the rabble howled. And roared, and with a thousand antic mouths Gabbled revenge! ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... gift, an arresting personality. His elocution has distinction. He conveys the beauty of the words and the richness of the packed thought thoughtfully. The complex play of action and motive—the purpose blunted by overmuch thinking, the spurs to dull revenge, the self-contempt, the assumed antic disposition, at times the real mental disturbance—all this was set before us with a fine skill and resource. The "To be or not to be" soliloquy was masterly in its sincerity and restraint; the two broken love passages with Ophelia showed a fine tenderness through the distraught, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various

... not help it, wench," said the Queen, laughing. "But we will have this same Sir Nicholas sent to Ireland or Scotland, or somewhere, to rid our court of so antic a chevalier; he may be a good soldier in the field, though a preposterous ass in ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... England, but to which the idea of low is now currently annexed. It was originally adapted from the Moors, and is still known by the name of Morris-dancing, or Moresc-dance. It is danced with swords, by persons odly disguised, with a great deal of antic rural merriment: it is true that this diversion is now almost exploded, being entirely confined to the lower classes of life, and only kept up in some counties. What the reason may be of its going out of use, I cannot say; but am very sure, there was not ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... dart Availeth not without a timely start. The hare and tortoise are my witnesses. Said tortoise to the swiftest thing that is, 'I'll bet that you'll not reach, so soon as I The tree on yonder hill we spy.' 'So soon! Why, madam, are you frantic?' Replied the creature, with an antic; 'Pray take, your senses to restore, A grain or two of hellebore.'[13] 'Say,' said the tortoise, 'what you will; I dare you to the wager still.' 'Twas done; the stakes were paid, And near the goal tree laid— Of what, is not a question for this ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... on the hearth, refuting her, He sits, the antic-pawed, the proven friend, The whimsical, the grave and reverend— Wilhelm the Dachs from out ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various

... and antic, Of dimensions not gigantic, Though the moonshine mostly keep us, Oft in ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... turned her back. They were all in varying stages of liquor—from two or three who had to be hauled over the float and up to the bunkhouse like sacks of bran, to others who were so happily under the influence of John Barleycorn that every move was some silly antic. She retreated in disgust. When Charlie reached the cabin, he himself proved to be fairly mellow, in the best of spirits—speaking ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... speaking these words each of them said to himself, "Indeed I am a dead man and 'tis the intention of this woman to peach upon me." Presently her husband asked her, "What be these four histories?" and answered she, "I saw four men each and every of whom was an antic fellow, a droll, a buffoon; furthermore, O my lord, one and all of them were garbed in gaberdine and bonnet."—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, "How sweet and tasteful ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... hills, Dashing them back against the hills, kept on With their reverberations. And these spots The neighbouring country-side doth feign to be Haunts of the goat-foot satyrs and the nymphs; And tells ye there be fauns, by whose night noise And antic revels yonder they declare The voiceless silences are broken oft, And tones of strings are made and wailings sweet Which the pipe, beat by players' finger-tips, Pours out; and far and wide the farmer-race Begins to hear, when, shaking the garmentings ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... the deepest feeling in the agitated suspense was not so much that the prisoner should go free, as that the prisoner's counsel should win his case. It was as if Charley Steele were on trial instead of the prisoner. He was the imminent figure; it was his fate that was in the balance—such was the antic irony of suggestion. And the truth was, that the fates of both prisoner and counsel had been weighed in the balance that sweltering ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... and before noon come to the open meadows on the side toward Millsdorf. Conrad then showed Sanna the pastures that belonged to grandfather, then they walked through his fields in which he explained to her the various kinds of grain, then they saw the long cloths wave in the wind and blow into antic shapes as they hung to dry on poles under the eaves; then they heard the noises of the fullery and of the tannery which the dyer had built by the brook, then they rounded a corner of the fields, and very soon ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... stories of the death of Kings: How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess'd; Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kili'd; All murder'd:—for within the hollow crown, That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp! Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit— As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable; and, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... seems, of mirth and recreation in the case: "The poor abuses of the times," he wantonly and humourously tells the Prince, "want countenance; and he hates to see resolution fobbed off, as it is, by the rusty curb of old father antic, the law."—When he quits the scene, we are acquainted that he is only passing to the Tavern: "Farewell," says he, with an air of careless jollity and gay content, "You will find me in East-Cheap." ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... curious epithets and descriptions were applied to the parsons; they were called "holy-heavenly," "sweet-affecting," "soul-ravishing," "heaven-piercing," "angel-rivalling," "subtil," "irrefragable," "angelical," "septemfluous," "holy-savoured," "princely," "soul-appetizing," "full of antic tastes" (meaning having the tastes of an antiquary), "God-bearing." Of two of the New England saints it ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... woman who could manage him without letting him know he was being managed. There was a widow in the East, acknowledged his niece, who had been angling for poor Peter for years. And Peter was still free, Susie suspected, because in the presence of that widow he emulated Hamlet and always put an antic disposition on. Did the most absurd things, and appeared to be little more than half-witted. The widow in question had even spoken to Susie about her uncle's eccentricities and intimated that his segregative manner of life might in ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... this is it,—an expression by which they assert the verity of the Christian religion. After they had by these religious circulations and clamours turned their heads and inflamed their madness, they began to act the moat antic tricks and postures in a thousand shapes of distraction. Sometimes they dragged one another along the floor all round the Sepulchre; sometimes they set one man upright upon another's shoulders, and in this posture marched round; sometimes they tumbled round the Sepulchre after the manner of ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... I was the darling of my aunt, the tenderly-beloved of my father, the pet and plaything of the old domestics, the "young master" of the farm-labourers, before whom I played many a lordly antic, assuming a sort of authority which sat oddly enough, I doubt not, on such ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell

... lies knee-high through a dust of story— A dust of terror and torture, grief and crime; Ghosts that are ENGLAND'S wonder, and shame, and glory Throng where he walks, an antic of old time; A sense of long immedicable tears Were ever with him, could his ears but heed; The stern Hic Jacets of our bloodiest years Are for his reading, had he eyes to read, But here, where CROOKBACK ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley

... even with a certain wonder. The newspapers occasionally mentioned him as a dandy, a fop, a whimsical, irresponsible creature, yet one whose vagaries were not entirely without interest. He had performed some extravagant antic in a cotillon, or worn some extraordinary coat. He had invented a new way of walking one season, and during another season, although in perfect health, he had never left the house, declaring that movement of any kind was ungentlemanly and ridiculous, ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... in his swollen belly Distent with honeysuckle jelly. Rose liquor and the sweet-pea wine Had fill' d his soul with song divine; Deep had he drunk the warm night through, His hairy thighs were wet with dew. Full many an antic he had play'd While the world went round through sleep and shade. Oft had he lit with thirsty lip Some flower-cup's nectar'd sweets to sip, When on smooth petals he would slip, Or over tangled stamens trip, And headlong in the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... and inquiring mind—ah, no!—but of a desperately sustained struggle in which, with every faculty on the alert to discover the truest expedients, with every nerve strained to the utmost, I strove for the mastery over this antic, untamed animal, until I could throw the reins loose at night, and drop my head down on my desk in the deserted school-room, tired, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... study of these antic spirits (approaching them always from the naturalistic side), Maxwell deduces certain helpful rules: 'Use a small room,' he says, 'and have it warm. Medium and sitters must not have cold hands ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... dancing step! He hung back a little at the start, but the impulse of the tune, the night, and my example, were not to be resisted. A man made of putty must have danced, and even Dudgeon showed himself to be a human being. Higher and higher were the capers that we cut; the moon repeated in shadow our antic footsteps and gestures; and it came over my mind of a sudden—really like balm—what appearance of man I was dancing with, what a long bilious countenance he had shown under his shaven pate, and what a world of trouble the rascal had given me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... shadows, little shadows, Dancing on the chamber wall, While I sit beside the hearthstone Where the red flames rise and fall. Caps and nightgowns, caps and nightgowns, My three antic shadows wear; And no sound they make in playing, For the six small feet ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn, Anon, from thy insulting tyranny, Coupled in bonds of perpetuity, Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky, In thy despite shall 'scape mortality. O thou, whose wounds ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, But she would spell him backward: if fair-fac'd, She would swear the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antic, Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed; If low, an agate very vilely cut; If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out; And never gives to truth and virtue that ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... design to cast no slur on the moral character of masculine dancers. It is unquestionably above reproach; but let an angel put on the black coat and trousers which constitute the "full-dress" of a modern gentleman, and therein antic through the "Lancers," and he would simply be ridiculous,—which is all I allege against Thomas, Richard, and Henry, Esq. A woman's dancing is gliding, swaying, serpentine. A man's is jerks, hops, convulsions, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... leather-breeches, green-shirt or blanket-coat, land-trotter or river-roller,—I'm the man for a massacree!" Then giving himself a twirl upon his foot that would have done credit to a dancing-master, he proceeded to other antic demonstrations of hostility, which when performed in after years on the banks of the Lower Mississippi, by himself and his worthy imitators, were, we suspect, the cause of their receiving the name of the mighty alligator. It is said, by naturalists, of this monstrous reptile, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... teaching them in his own tongue from apparently vague recollections of the manual of arms. I do not insist that we profited by the occasion; I only say that life likes a motley wear, and that he who rejects the antic aspects it so often inappropriately puts ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... each was by a square gatehouse highly ornamented, embattled, and having turrets at the four corners. These gatehouses were of stone, as was the lower story of the palace itself; but the upper one was of wood, "richly adorned and set forth and garnished with variety of statues, pictures, and other antic forms of excellent art and workmanship, and of no small cost:" all which ornaments, it seems, were made of rye dough. In modern language the "pictures" would probably be called basso-relievos. From the eastern and western angles of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... brought out for my lady's amusement!" said the stranger, smiling; "you make rare sport with your antic tricks, at the fort ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... the antic whirl I have a special exhibit to show you outside the ballroom. Spare me ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... CIP: antic'ipate; eman'cipate (Lat. n. ma'nus, hand), literally, to take away from the hand of an owner, to free; incip'ient; munic'ipal (Lat. n. municip'ium, a free town; mu'nia, official duties, and cap'ere, to take); partic'ipate (Lat. n. ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... this airy, fantastic idea of irregular grace and bewildered melancholy any one can play Hamlet, as we have seen it played, with strut, and stare, and antic right-angled sharp-pointed gestures, it is difficult to say, unless it be that Hamlet is not bound, by the prompter's cue, to study the part of Ophelia. The account of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... why, the spirit of their wildness or frenzy appears even in the mode and way in which they do it. Either the things themselves which they make use of for that purpose are very toys and trifles; or if they seem to be better, they are put on after an antic manner, rather to the rendering of them ridiculous, than to bespeak them sober, judicious, or wise; and so do natural men array themselves with what they would be accepted in with God. Would one in his wits think to make himself ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... horse laugh, , belly laugh, hearty laugh; guffaw; burst of laughter, fit of laughter, shout of laughter, roar of laughter, peal of laughter; cachinnation[obs3]; Kentish fire; tiger. play; game, game at romps; gambol, romp, prank, antic, rig, lark, spree, skylarking, vagary, monkey trick, gambade, fredaine[obs3], escapade, echappee[Fr], bout, espieglerie[Fr]; practical joke &c. (ridicule) 856. dance; hop, reel, rigadoon[obs3], saraband[obs3], hornpipe, bolero, ballroom dance; minuet[ballroom ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... network of gnarled and knotted roots. The black limbs grapple with each other; here one has dragged his neighbour over, and he lies with arms outstretched, writhen into antic twists and curves, as if he had died in torment; there, in singular contrast, are two friends,—oaks, were they once?—who have fallen into one another's arms, and, dead, seem still to embrace and uphold each ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... in the wind, Which I returning cannot find. Out of these scattered Sibyl's leaves, Strange prophecies my fancy weaves: What Rome, Greece, Palestine, e'er said, I in this light Mosaic read. Under this antic cope I move, Like some great prelate of the grove; Then, languishing at ease, I toss On pallets thick with velvet moss; While the wind, cooling through the boughs, Flatters with air my panting brows. Thanks for my rest, ye mossy banks! And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... have mentioned, in different persons only; but all the variety would appear, in a short succession of moments, in one and the same person. A man that we saw this minute dumb, and, as it were, stupid and confounded, would the next minute be dancing and hallooing like an antic; and the next moment be tearing his hair, or pulling his clothes to pieces, and stamping them under his feet like a madman; in a few moments after that we would have him all in tears, then sick, swooning, and, had not immediate ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... had been pitched, the Indians came forward with their formal salutations. In front advanced, with antic dancings, the "medicine man," bearing in each hand a spread fan of white feathers fastened to a rod hung from top to bottom with little bells; marching behind this jingling symbol of peace and friendship, came the King and Queen, followed by about ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... the mind of men, and wailing went the weather, Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul, when we were boys together. Science announced nonentity, and art admired decay; The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay. Round us in antic order their crippled vices came— Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame. Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom, Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume. Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung; ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... as the three paused in the middle of the room. "Hurrah for the old guard! Like Macbeth's immortal witches, I'll perform my antic round, just to show how jubilant I feel." She executed a few fantastic steps about Patience, then paused beside her, one hand on her shoulder. "Where ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower

... the gall of bitterness, With rage which words can ill express, With unforgiving rage, which springs From a false zeal for holy things, 1710 Wearing such robes as prophets wear, False prophets placed in Peter's chair, On which, in characters of fire, Shapes antic, horrible, and dire Inwoven flamed, where, to the view, In groups appear'd a rabble crew Of sainted devils; where, all round, Vile relics of vile men were found, Who, worse than devils, from the birth Perform'd the work of hell on earth, 1720 Jugglers, Inquisitors, and Popes, Pointing at ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... deluded myself into a belief of this kind, I should have been far more satisfied. But my brain, tenacious of its reason, refused to lend itself to such imaginations—and though I endeavoured to play the antic to myself, I knew that I, the offspring of man, during long years one among many—now remained sole survivor ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... I saw were not worth forty pounds, so I stretched a little when I said a thousand. The Grub Street account of that tumult is published. The Devil is not like Lord Treasurer: they were all in your odd antic masks, bought in common shops.(29) I fear Prior will not be ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... children's toys, for what they contain, but not the less do they buzz at our understandings and insist that they break or we, and, in either case, to show a mere foolish idle rattle in hollowness. Nor have the antic bobbings— ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various

... Heavy with gold, and Time itself doth drowse; The little stream, too indolent to pass, Loiters below the cloudy willow boughs, That build amid the glare a shadowy house, And with a Paradisal freshness brims Amid cool-rooted reeds with glossy blade; The antic water-fly above it skims, And cows stand shadow-like in the green shade, Or knee-deep ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne

... grand array, when Aurora Borealis plays her antic freaks, fights her mimic battles, waves her flaming banner along the northern skies. We look out upon the blue expanse above, when the bright and beautiful stars, with their sparkling eyes, are looking from their distant homes ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower

... the boy at eighteen packed off to Heidelberg to study law, with no special preparation in knowledge of the world, of men or books. But old father antic, the law, was not to his taste. Robert liked music and poetry better. His fine, sensitive, emotional spirit found its best exercise in music; and at the house of Professor Carus he used to sing with the professor's wife. This Professor Carus, by the way, is, I believe, directly ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... des Exiles was erupting antic shapes, waiters, customers, Dupont, Therese. The quiet hour was made hideous by ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... and quaint Puck the Antic, Brought Robin Goodfellow, that merry swain; And stealthy Mab, queen of old realms romantic, Came too, from distance, in her tiny wain, Fresh dripping from a cloud—some bloomy rain, Then circling the bright Moon, had wash'd her car, And still ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... group of Preludes. What is there to say about him? Nothing. Surely never, since Chopin went from us, has Chopin been so played. The memory of my Fleet Street dinner vanished. The hall vanished. All surroundings vanished. Vladimir, the antic, took us by the hand and led us forth into a new country: a country like nothing that we have seen or dreamed of, and therefore a country of which not the vaguest image can be created. It was a country, or, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... took the halfpence; but several fresh spectators were yet to see the sight; and though the exhausted animals were but little inclined to perform their antic feats, their master twitched the rope, that was fastened round their necks, so violently, that they were compelled to renew their ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... and uncomfortable, but most of the company made the best of it. Mlle. Frahender grew pale and ill, and her hair flew about in the most comic disarray. Cosily ensconced in a corner, Maurice sketched the various attitudes his companions assumed with every antic of the lightly-laden, wave-tossed Soulacroup. Hunched up on the seat, Esperance clung to the rigging. Genevieve clutched at her when a wave pitched the boat too far over. The others, well muffled up, waited in silence. Jean Perliez sighted the shore continually with his ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... task, as the packages were so awkward and heavy, the object being to make them secure against any antic on the part of the mules if they became restive, and also to guard against the corners of the plates rubbing the ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... is resolved to decide the issue by single combat, in the course of which explanations ensue which lead to a general recognition and reconciliation. The pastoral element is represented by old Antimon an antic shepherd, a clown his son, his daughter a careless shepherdess and her despised lover, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... be the end of those that are proud in the decking of themselves after their antic manner? Why are they for going with their bull's foretops,[63] with their naked shoulders, and paps hanging out like a cow's bag? Why are they for painting their faces, for stretching out their neck, and for putting of themselves unto all the formalities which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... at this point that another notion came into my mind, so antic, so impish, so fiendish, that if there were still any Evil One, in a world which gets on so poorly without him, I should attribute it to his suggestion; and this was that the procession which Jan saw issuing from the tenement-house ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... opossum), making signs for us to take it up: in a short time another native came towards us, when the other descended from the tree. They trembled excessively, and, if the expression may be used, were absolutely INTOXICATED with fear, displayed in a thousand antic motions, convulsive laughing, and singular motions of the head. They were both youths not exceeding twenty years of age, of good countenance and figure, but most horribly marked by the skin and flesh being raised in long stripes all over the ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... I rose and followed, kicking off my slippers that I might go quietly. He was running, running fast, across the lawns in the direction of the Grove—an odd shapeless antic in the moonlight. I stopped, for there was no cover, and I feared for his reason if he saw me. When I looked again he ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... greenwood eaves, Like mirthful eyes that laugh upon the leaves; Where every bush and tree in all the scene, In wind-kiss'd wavings shake their wings of green, And all the objects round about dispense Reviving freshness to the awakened sense; The golden corslet of the humble bee, The antic kid that frolics round the lea; Or purple lance-flies circling round the place, On their light shards of green, an airy race; Or squirrel glancing from the nut-wood shade An arch black eye, half pleas'd and half afraid; Or bird quick darting through the foliage dim, Or perched and twittering on ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... vain joys in which their wills consume Such powers of wit and soul as are of force To raise their beings to eternity, May be converted on works fitting men; And for the practice of a forced look, An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of a true heart, An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge, And spirit that may conform them actually To God's high figures, which they ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... to act, and he therefore sent General Whitesides to demand from the "Journal" the name of its contributor. Mr. Francis, the editor, was in a quandary. Lincoln had written the first letter, and the antic fury of Shields had induced two young ladies who took a lively interest in Illinois politics—and with good reason, for one was to be the wife of a Senator and the other of a President—to follow up the game with attacks in prose and verse which, however deficient ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... oft in this primitive Eden When I study some antic that hints At the physical fitness of Sweden, The speed of American sprints, I dream of the wreaths and the ribbons Their prowess would certainly win, If there weren't any war, and my gibbons ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various

... laughed, her arms about her sisters, the three of them smilingly expectant of an inevitable antic. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... the drinking of too much swipes at a funeral the night before, nothing of which contributed to make me less irritable. My head ached. The sun- glare on the water made my eyes ache, while I was suffering more than half a touch of mal de mer from the antic conduct of the outrigger on the blobby sea. The air was stagnant. In the lee of Waihee, between the white beach and the roof, no whisper of breeze eased the still sultriness. I really think I was too ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... than let our love-birds pine For post-impressionistic dwellings, With all the windows out of line And curious humps and antic swellings, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various

... hours of this trying day Clark had kept up the spirits of his men in every way he could. In telling about it later, he said: "I received much help from a little antic drummer, a boy with such a fun-loving spirit that he made the men laugh, in spite of their weariness, at his ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... to laugh in the fool's face for his antic assumption of the regal carriage, but her mind seemed instantly illuminated with knowledge. Now she understood the presence of the fool in her palace. This was Robert's ugliest revenge. He had sent this hideous thing to prey upon ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... occasionally happened—she became more quiet, placed herself beside him, stroked his face with caressing fondness, whispered something smilingly in his ear, and in this manner smoothed the wrinkles that were gathering on his brow. But the moment after, some wild whim would make her resume her antic movements; and all ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... see some crooked mimic jeer, And tax my Muse with this fantastic grace; Turning my papers asks, "What have we here?" Making withal some filthy antic face. I fear no censure nor what thou canst say, Nor shall my spirit one jot of vigour lose. Think'st thou, my wit shall keep the packhorse way, That every dudgeon low invention goes? Since sonnets thus in bundles are imprest, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... energy, good will, and admirable effect did he lace Mr. Hourigan, that the latter worthy, after cutting some very antic capers, and exhibiting in a good many other respects several proofs of his agility that could scarcely be expected from his heavy and ungainly figure, was at last fairly obliged to sing out,—"Oh, Misther John, Misther John! ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... my old Spad through every antic we two had ever done together. The observers in the balloons must have thought me crazy, a pilot running amuck from aerial shell shock. I had discovered a new meaning for that "grand and glorious feeling" which is so often the ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... Whitehead, taught to creep Silent and soft, lay Fontenelle asleep;[214] Let them with Browne contrive, to vulgar trick, To cure the dead, and make the living sick;[215] Let them in charity to Murphy give Some old French piece, that he may steal and live; Let them with antic Foote subscriptions get, And advertise a Summer-house of Wit. Thus, or in any better way they please, With these great men, or with great men like these, Let them their appetite for laughter feed; I on my Journey ...
— English Satires • Various

... must have observed that the moment he was left out of the conversation, whether from his deafness or from whatever cause, but a few minutes without speaking or listening, his mind appeared to be preparing itself. He fell into a reverie accompanied with strange antic gestures; but this he never did when his mind was engaged by the conversation. These were therefore improperly called convulsions, which imply involuntary contortions; whereas, a word addressed to him, his attention was recovered. Sometimes, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... to Algernon, or to one of the gentlemen, or one of the crowd, was indefinite. None responding, he shook with ox-like wrath, pushed among shoulders, and plunged back to his seat, making the cabman above bound and sway, and the cab-horse to start and antic. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... their mind in a state of decorous dulness. They maintain their dignity; they get obeyed; they are good and charitable to their dependants. But they have no notion of PLAY of mind: no conception that the charm of society depends upon it. They think cleverness an antic, and have a constant though needless horror of being thought to have any of it. So much does this stiff dignity give the tone, that the few Englishmen capable of social brilliancy mostly secrete it. They reserve it for persons whom they can ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... did not appear as if the huge walrus realised the danger approaching so steadily, for every now and then, while performing some antic, the bear continued to lessen the distance between it and its prey, while simulating the greatest innocence and assuming to be thinking of anything but making an attack. So playful a creature, enjoying itself thoroughly in the sunshine, could never have approached a walrus herd before. ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... was offended, why did it not mark its sense of Josiah's failure to read the future by electing another Mayor? The answer is, that while all were agreed that his antic was inexcusable, all were equally agreed to pretend that it was a mere trifle of no importance; you cannot deprive a man of his prescriptive right for a mere trifle of no importance. Besides, nobody could be so foolish as to imagine that goosedriving, though ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... had called "Ben Butler" was not so easily subdued. It was "Ben Butler's" special antic to fall over backward. He was a sullen, evil-eyed brute, with a curve in his nose and a droop in his nostrils, which gave him a ridiculous resemblance to the presidential candidate of the Anti-Monopoly Party. He was a great man-killing ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... she by the pavement linger Under the rooms where once she played, Who from the feast would rise to fling her One poor sou for her serenade? One short laugh for the antic finger ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q

... circle and squat, and forthwith they trim their lanterns, confident of the ludicrous to come. So confident that their grip of an English gentleman, in whom they have spied their game, never relaxes until he begins insensibly to frolic and antic, unknown to himself, and comes out in the native steam which is their scent of the chase. Instantly off they scour, Egoist and imps. They will, it is known of them, dog a great House for centuries, and be at the birth of all the new heirs in succession, diligently taking confirmatory notes, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... that has an antic in it, He's wondering what's to pay on his insides. [Footnote: Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford. See also Poe's letter, April 1, 1841, to Snodgrass, on the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... passion, and called to him with curses to come down. The figure drew back at the first cry, with an agitated movement so abrupt as almost to be called an antic. The next moment the man seemed to reconsider and collect himself, and began to come down the zigzag garden path, but with obvious reluctance, his feet falling in slower and slower rhythm. Through March's mind were throbbing the phrases that ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... late or last chapters that one would gladly cut away: that of Mercy Pecksniff's pathos, for example; that of Mr. Dombey's installation in his daughter's home; that which undeceives us as to Mr. Boffin's antic disposition. But how true and how whole a heart it was that urged these unlucky conclusions! How shall we venture to complain? The hand that made its Pecksniff in pure wit, has it not the right to belabour him in earnest—albeit ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... whose sake I plod through miry ways Of antic wit, and quibbling mazes drear, Let not thy shade malignant censure fear, If aught of inward mirth my search betrays. Long slept that mirth in dust of ancient days, Erewhile to Guise or ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... courts, and passages, in the Butcher Row in Whitechapel,—I say, what could be more affecting than to see this poor man come out into the open street, run, dancing and singing, and making a thousand antic gestures, with five or six women and children running after him, crying and calling upon him for the Lord's sake to come back, and entreating the help of others to bring him back, but all in vain, nobody daring to lay a hand upon him, ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe

... the cup, 'tis time of roses now; Midst roses let us break each penitential vow; With shout and antic bound we'll in the garden stray; When nightingales are heard, we'll rove where roses blow; Here in this open spot fill, fill, and quaff away; Midst roses here we stand a troop with hearts that glow; The rose our long-miss'd friend retains in full array; No fairer pearls than friends and ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... ale, and antic ring Well tiptoed to the tabor string, And many a buss below the holly, And flout at sable melancholy— So, with ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... queen was to be conducted, but the uproar and confusion was indescribable; strange and antic figures hurrying to and fro, seeking their companions, and crying lustily for their places. Sir John Finett and Sir George Goring fulfilled the office of whippers-in, attempting to establish order out of these undisciplined elements. Grace drew back; but suddenly there came forth an armed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... running over names at random, and then stumbled, with ludicrous misspelling, on Kornelius, and had nearly laughed aloud. I have never been more childish; I suppose (although the deeper voices of my nature seemed all dumb) because I have never been more moved. And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves I was seized with a panic of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... naked except one young fellow who had a bunch of grass fastened round his waist which came up behind like the tail of a kangaroo. He was very merry, and from his gestures, possessed a keen sense of humour. "He would throw himself into a thousand antic shapes, ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... Liz! Dreaming again! You lodge yourself of your own accord in a house with a drunken—tailor, I suppose—or something of the sort, and a little crooked antic of a child, or old person, or whatever it is, and then you talk as if you were drawn or driven there. Now, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... breathless, flushed, and over-heated Babette, who was so ill the next day, as to be unable to quit her bed; nor can we detail the jokes, the merriment, and the songs which went round, the peals of laughter, the loud choruses, the antic feats performed by the company; still more impossible would it be to give an idea of the three tremendous cheers, which shook the Lust Haus to its foundations, when Corporal and Mistress Van Spitter, upon their retiring, bade farewell to the ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... smiling, and so well imitated the mummers in playing on the mundal, dancing, and mimicry, that the roy's son was charmed with their performances. At length they each drew a dagger, and, like the dancers of Dekkan, continued to flourish them for some time, making a thousand antic postures in advancing, retreating, and turning round. At last, suddenly rushing upon the roy's son, they plunged both the daggers into his breast, afterwards attacking his companions. Their remaining friends, who were watching without the tent, on hearing an alarm, ripped up the curtain, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... came out of the cave to me; for I had been milking my goats, which I had in the inclosure just by: when he espied me, he came running to me, laying himself down again upon the ground, with all the possible signs of an humble, thankful disposition, making a great many antic gestures to show it; at last he laid his head flat upon the ground, close to my foot, and set my other foot upon his head, as he had done before; and after this, made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude, and submission imaginable, to let me know how he would serve me so long ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... holes of the South Pacific to try and drink me under the table. I remember one, a calcined Scotchman from the New Hebrides. It was a great drinking. He died of it, and we laded him aboard ship, pickled in a cask of trade rum, and sent him back to his own place. A sample, a fair sample, of the antic tricks we cut up on ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... downy Diminutive browny Alone, near his "diggings;" Ever free to pursue, Rush round, and renew His loved vaulting Unhalting, His whirling, And curling, And twirling, And swirling, And his ways, on the whole So unsteady! 'Pon my soul, Having gazed Quite amazed, On each wonderful antic And summersault frantic, For just a bare minute, My head, it feels whizzy; My eyesight's grown dizzy; And both legs, unstable As a ghost's tipping table, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... Antic the Law as lavish a letter of recommendation as the Legal Profession ever received, and he gave it for the very natural reason that he had no use for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... smoke-grimed, cobwebbed, and having the look of a cold-storage plant or a car barn fallen into disuse; dusty, neglected, almost eerie. Yet within it lurks Romance, and her sombre sister Tragedy, and their antic ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... tied down before they could be shod. Half the horses of the regiment bucked, or possessed some other of the amiable weaknesses incident to horse life on the great ranches; but we had abundance of men who were utterly unmoved by any antic a horse might commit. Every animal was speedily mastered, though a large number remained to the end mounts upon which an ordinary rider ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... by presumption," is the third propulsion; after which we lose reckoning of the number of the kicks, they come sometimes so ingeniously fast. "Basest and hungriest inditer," "groom," "rank pettifogger," "mere and arrant pettifogger," "no antic hobnail at a morris but is more handsomely facetious;" "a boar in a vineyard," "a snout in this pickle," "the serving-man at Addlegate" (suggested by 'the maids at Aldgate'), "this odious fool," "the noisome ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... to count the stitches on her needles, the big shadow of her cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and chinked log walls in antic mimicry, while down Ethelinda's pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... Capital Meerschaum Extravagant Travel Alley Concur Travail Fee Attention Apprehend Superb Magnanimity Lewd Adroit Altruism Instigation Quite Benevolence Complexion Urchin Charity Bishop Thoroughfare Unction Starve Naughty Speed Cunning Moral Success Decent Antic Crafty Handsome Savage Usury Solemn Uncouth Costume Parlor Window Presumption Bombastic Colleague Petty ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... song is clear, if his crest and gorgeous splashes of tints and shades are fresh and shining with the gloss of health, then the feathered lover may hope, indeed, that the little brown mate may look with favour upon dance, song, or antic—and the home is become a reality. In some instances this home is for only one short season, when the two part, probably forever; but in other cases the ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... Love makes thee cunning; thou art current now, 250 By being counterfeit: thy broken vow Deceit with her pied garters must rejoin, And with her stamp thou countenances must coin; Coyness, and pure[88] deceits, for purities, And still a maid wilt seem in cozen'd eyes, And have an antic face to laugh within, While thy smooth looks make men digest thy sin. But since thy lips (least thought forsworn) forswore, Be never virgin's vow worth trusting more!" When Beauty's dearest did her goddess hear 260 Breathe such rebukes 'gainst that she could not clear, Dumb sorrow ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... crowd about me who might have been the speaker, but whom I could in nowise identify. It was so much the mode with many of us that were young in Florence to come—and sometimes to come unbidden—to such galas as this of Messer Folco's in antic habits and to hide our features with vizards, that there was nothing in this costume to single out the youth whom I believed to be the utterer of that call for Dante. There were many other masked and muffled figures within the walls of Messer ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... becoming a fair field, in which arts, sciences, and all the amiable virtues flourished, instead of being a pestilent marsh where swine-like ignorance wallowed, and artful hypocrites, like so many wills-o'-the-wisp, played antic gambols about, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... it's so funny he has to laugh when he thinks of it. They go up an alley where they won't be overheard, and Herman at last manages to keep his laughter down long enough to tell it. It's a comical antic he wants ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... were he once again to dream The Dream, His faith new-stablished would stand, and be No longer vext of this infirmity. And so that night, ere lying down to sleep, There came on him, half making him to weep And half to laugh that such a thing should be, A mad conceit and antic fantasy (And yet more sad than merry was the whim) To crave this boon of Sleep, beseeching him To send the dream of dreams most coveted. And ere he lay him down upon his bed, A soft sweet song was born within his thought; But if he sang the song, or ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... again. I have wondered that some of my comrades did not recognize in me the stray sheep that was cried; but they were all, no doubt, occupied by their own concerns. They were all laboring seriously in their antic vocations, for folly was a mere trade with the most of them, and they often grinned and capered with heavy hearts. With me, on the contrary, it was all real. I acted con amore, and rattled and laughed from the irrepressible ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... small value; after which came the three times nine horses and mules, the latter being very handsome, but the horses had lost their beauty and condition, as, except one or two, they were very unfit for being sent or accepted between princes. This done, the Persian returned, with many antic tricks, to his place, which was far inferior to mine, as I stood alone, and above all the subjects, though Asaph Khan at first wanted to put me from it, but I maintained it as my right, having been appointed me by the king. This was only the first act of the play presented ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... . . And lo! A flickering snatch of memory that floats Upon the face of a pool of darkness five And thirty dead years deep, Antic in girlish broideries And skirts and silly shoes with straps And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks Plain in the shadow of a church (St. Michael's: in whose brazen call To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed), Sedate for all his haste To be at home; and, nestled in his arm, Inciting ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... pageant called The Fool Plough, which consists of a number of sword-dancers dragging a plough with music, was anciently observed in the North of England, not only at Christmas time, but also in the beginning of Lent. Wallis thinks that the Sword Dance is the antic dance, or chorus armatus of the Romans. Brand supposes that it is a composition made up of the gleaning of several obsolete customs anciently followed in England and other countries. The Germans still practise the Sword Dance ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... a nilla-nilla which would make him an over-match for a dozen Folkestones in rotation. My hand was on Cleopatra's mane, and my off-foot clear of the stirrup; it would be a Christian act to save Foikestone from the father of a batin', and Priestley from that sterner father, namely, old father antic, the law. But imminent as the collision seemed, it ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... judging by my own average experience,—that besides these gloomy associations, the name of Venice will conjure up scenes of brilliant and wanton gayety, and that in the foreground of the brightest picture will be the Carnival of Venice, full of antic delight, romantic adventure, and lawless prank. But the carnival, with all the old merry- making life of the city, is now utterly obsolete, and, in this way, the conventional, masquerading, pleasure-loving Venice is become as gross ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... as a sheltered place when winds blow loud! At leisure, thence, through tracts of thin resort, And sights and sounds that come at intervals, We take our way. A raree-show is here, With children gathered round; another street 175 Presents a company of dancing dogs, Or dromedary, with an antic pair Of monkeys on his back; a minstrel band Of Savoyards; or, single and alone, An English ballad-singer. Private courts, 180 Gloomy as coffins, and unsightly lanes Thrilled by some female vendor's scream, belike The very shrillest of all London cries, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... TALBOT. Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn, Anon, from thy insulting tyranny, Coupled in bonds of perpetuity, Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky, In thy despite shall 'scape mortality. O thou, whose wounds become hard-favor'd ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]



Words linked to "Antic" :   fantastical, clown around, dirty trick, practical joke, caper, grotesque, fantastic, put-on, jest, strange, recreation, joke, diversion, unusual, trick, prank, clown



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