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Lilting   Listen
adjective
lilting  adj.  Having a light rhythmical cadence; as, an easy lilting stride; a lilting melody.
Synonyms: swinging, swingy, tripping.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lilting" Quotes from Famous Books



... so many dead before." The lilting words danced up and down his brain, While corpses jumped and capered in the rain. No, no; he wouldn't count them any more.... The dead have done with pain: They've choked; they can't ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon

... in glee Came a truant boy like me, Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting melody, Till the gurgle and refrain Of your music in his brain Wrought a happiness as keen ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... said; "far have I wandered, and many a town I've seen, and many a prospect that was fine, and I have made songs to maids and mountains, and foreign castles too, but never a verse to Dunchuach. I do not know the words, but at my heart is lilting the very tune, and the spirit of it ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... across the Piazza del Municipio; a good-bye to the public scriveners sitting at their little tables by the San Carlo; sharp round the corner, and along by the Porto Grande with its throng of vessels. All the time he sings a tune to himself, caught up in the streets of the tuneful city; an air lilting to ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... and gentlemen, pleased to see you,' said Mrs. MacAlister in her lilting Gaelic; 'eh, but it's been a weary business since you were here last! Poor Neil, ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae

... been drooping, but now she threw her head back: the shoulders straightened, and the lashes lifted over sparkling eyes; vivacity came to her whole body in a flash; and she tripped down the steps, with her pretty hands rising in time to the lilting little tune she had ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... the rude wintry win' Idly raves round our dwelling, And the roar of the linn On the night breeze is swelling; So merrily we 'll sing, As the storm rattles o'er us, Till the dear sheiling ring Wi' the light lilting chorus. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... dawning moonlight. The air was full of exquisite sounds—sleepy robin whistles, wonderful, mournful, soft murmurs of wind in the twilit trees, rustle of aspen poplars talking in silvery whispers and shaking their dainty, heart-shaped leaves, lilting young laughter from the windows of rooms where the girls were making ready for the dance. The world was steeped in maddening loveliness of sound and colour. He would think only of these things and ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... house that evening, and I went down another way; for the sound of their lilting and laughing was but din in my ears. I passed Mary Strathsay, as I left my room; she had escaped a moment from below, had set the casement wide in the upper hall, and was walking feverishly to and fro, her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... roundness where his honest cheeks Played to the rippling gladness of his mouth! In childhood rambles, it was mostly he She chose for partner, spite of blandishment; And to her winsome ways he would forego His pompous surveillance of wine and plate, To guard her, lilting, where the summer lay On honeyed murmuring limes, and under elms, August with knotted centuries of strength And rooks sonorous in their shadowy heights. By thymy slopes, foot-deep in sward they roved, Both lightly garrulous, and she, sweet child, ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner

... sweetmeats in a dim past). Aunt Vivie and Mummie used to get up the most amusing Suffrage meetings in the long, narrow garden behind the house; or they combined forces with Lady Maud Parry, and spoke in lilting contralto or mezzo-soprano (with the compliant tenor or baritone of here and there a captive man) across the two gardens. Or somehow they commandeered the Square Garden on the pretext of a vast Garden Party, at which every one talked and laughed at once ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... we have no bird-doctors. Yet often, too often, when the whole house rings, from garret to cellar, with the cries of children teething, or in the hooping-cough, the little linnet sits silent on his perch, a moping bunch of feathers, and then falls down dead, when his lilting life might have been saved by the simplest medicinal food skilfully administered. Surely if we have physicians to attend our treadmills, and regulate the diet and day's work of merciless ruffians, we should not suffer our innocent and useful prisoners thus to ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... idea of Mr. Aiken's thinking I had so little discrimination! I know that hereafter I shall be able to detect the lazuli's peculiar intonations every time." So I walked home in a very self-confident frame of mind. A few days later I heard another song lilting down from the upper branches of a small tree. "Surely that is the lazuli again," I muttered. "I know that voice." For a while I eyed the tree, and presently caught sight of the little triller, and behold, it was—a summer warbler! All my self-complacency vanished in a moment; I ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... thing, then, to repeat, that will strike the auditor on listening to this primitive music will be its lack of melody. The voice goes wavering and lilting along like a canoe on a ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... in the water, under the roots of a tree, close to a ford where Mr. Jackal always came to drink. By and by, sure enough, he came lilting along in a self-satisfied way, and went right into the water for a good long draught. Whereupon Miss Crocodile seized him by the right leg, and held on. He guessed at once what had happened, and called out, 'Oh! my heart's adored! I'm drowning! I'm ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... they were tired, Marie brought her mandolin,—for having remarked once idly that she could play it, Eveley that night had brought her one as a little gift of love. And she played soft Spanish love-songs, singing in her pretty lilting voice. Then altogether they prepared their supper and because the night was still young and lovely, and they were happy and free from pressing care, they decided suddenly for a drive. They crossed ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... Dr. Nadine Haer, daughter of the late Baron Haer of Vacuum Tube Transport, entered the swank Exclusive Room of the Greater Washington branch of the Ultra Hotels, the orchestra ceased the dreamy dance music it had been playing and struck up the lilting "The Girl ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... dance together on the velvet lawn in front of his castle. At six o'clock on a mild summer evening, what a spectacle, to see Fleurs gate thrown wide open, and troop after troop of labourers debouche!—not worn-out, fagged, and sullen, but marching with alacrity and cheerfulness—the younger lilting a merry song, the older and more careful carrying home fagots of wood, gathered at their resting hours, to supply the fire for their cheap evening meal. And all had some story to tell of the Duke!—some little trait of kindness, or some of those drolleries in which ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... meet a disembodied voice like that, a low laugh, a mystery! The lady might have a face like a dried prune! (Only he knew that she hadn't!) Voices were not to be relied upon. Take that "hello-girl," for instance; she had had the softest lilting voice over the wire, then when he got a look at her she hadn't been a day under forty-five and her face——! Certainly it hadn't been the fairest that e'er the sun shone on! (Only in this case he knew it must be different!) He was a hopeless fool if ever ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... away from London—driven of the spirit into the wilderness—that his other self might live and breathe. One feels the power of this second self especially in certain words that recur over and over again, until the reader is almost hypnotised by their lilting, and finds himself in a kind of sleep. That dreaming personality, with eyes half closed and poppy-decorated hair, could never live in the bondage of the city cage. The spirit must get free, and the longing for such freedom has been well ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... Piccolomini, or the first part of Wallenstein, and Wallenstein, are introduced in the original manuscript by a prelude in one act, entitled Wallenstein's camp. This is written in rhyme, and in nine syllable verse, in the same lilting metre (if that expression may be permitted) with the second eclogue of Spencer's Shepherd's Calendar. This prelude possesses a sort of broad humour, and is not deficient in character, but to have translated it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the original, would have ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... was the proper thing to do! Claude, however, found his little legs swinging in time, being careful not to let them touch the floor, and Nettie's bright head and busy hands kept up a sort of lilting movement, both children requiring some outlet for all that ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... with smiles, for, marching proudly in front, and carrying an enormous bunch of roses, was Tommy Watson, his head erect, his shoulders well back, his face aglow. To his signal the band aligned in front of the little group, and broke into a new tune, a lilting march, written around a then popular song, now almost forgotten, "Bill, our Bill." Perhaps there are some who ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks

... the rapid conversation. Now she smiled assent with stately compliance. Undulating across the studio, she returned with a mandolin—not the one I remembered, but a pretty bit of workmanship in inlaid wood. Bending above this, she relieved the wait by merry, lilting tunes like the music of a bobolink, while Kitty fidgetted in and out, the puckers in her forehead ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... she had ever seen. The words were arranged in charming little rows, and when you read them over and over they sang themselves into your very heart. They told you, lilting along, of a road that no one but you ever knew—a road that led in and out through wonders of beauty and faded at the day's end into your heart's ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... an avowed purpose of recapturing the color, the flavor, the movement of life in "the quarters," in the cotton field and in the canebrake. Even in this effort, white authors had led the way; Irvin Russell and Joel Chandler Harris had made the path straight for Paul Laurence Dunbar, with his lilting lyrics, often infused with the pathos ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson

... fingers in the placing of colors—the purple fruit, the gold-green vine or the scarlet pomegranate flower in her maze-like embroidery. "But how can you make pictures in the windows," she would say, with her lilting laughter, "if you ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... the merits of the candidates, predicting the result of the election, or giving an occasional cheer for their respective parties, with the twirl of a stick or the throwing up of a hat; while from the houses on both sides of the street the scraping of fiddles, and the lilting of pipes, increased the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... (1889), and "The Death of Oenone, Akbar's Dream, and Other Poems," in the year of the Poet's death (1892). In these various volumes there is much admirable work and many tuneful lyrics in the old charming, lilting strain, with not a few serious, thoughtful, stately pieces of verse, "the after-glow," as Stedman phrases it, "of a still radiant genius.... His after-song," continues this fine critic, "does not wreak itself ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... the rushes he is wont to play. His train in woven baskets bear ripe fruit And weave a dance with ropes of gray acorns, So light their touch the grasses scarcely sway As they the measure tread to the lilting flute. Alas! 't ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell

... of loves that are loose, (Those little perversionist scribes of the Deuce!) Laughter of lies lilting lewd at their lips, Their souls and brains both in a maudlin eclipse; Their bosoms as bare as their stories and songs; These coaxers of dogs with ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the 'Little' Russians, so called to distinguish them from the people of 'Great' Russia on the north. They live in the same neat, thatched and whitewashed cottages. They have the same gayly colored national costumes still in wear, and the same fairy tales, the same merry lilting songs, so different from the melancholy strains of northern folk music. Almost ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... silk and lace, With gems on her bosom and smiles on her face, And hot-house blossoms in her hair, While her fan kept time to the swaying rhyme Of the lilting opera air. ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... be another o' your freens," said he. "There's many a lilting laugh hidden in the ears o' this old tree, for here it was the cailleachs cam' tae spin in the long summer forenights, when everybody left their hames and took their beasts tae the hill for the summer. There were no dykes or hedges in those days, and the beasts had to be herded ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... this absolute essence of sheer sound distinctions of rhythm and pitch began to appear, and to assume definite musical form. The theme at first was pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling grasses and murmuring reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite lilting tune, the song of the souls as they sped down the river. But one by one other elements crept into the strain; it increased in volume and variety of tone, in complexity of rhythm and tune, till it grew at length into a symphony so august, so solemn, and ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... reels up the sky, the mists are gone, And overhead the lilting bird of dawn Has spread, adoring-wise, as for a prayer, Those wondrous wings of his, Which never yet were symbols of despair! It is the feathery foeman of the night Who shakes adown the air Song-scented trills and sunlit ecstasies. Aye! 'tis the lark, the chorister ...
— The Song of the Flag - A National Ode • Eric Mackay

... Again the trumpet pealed, lilting silvery. She tottered up, clinging to me. She stared. She released me, and to my gladly questing gaze her face was very white, her eyes struggling for comprehension, like those of one ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... I like very much. I have it here in this little book." She struck a few simple chords and began to sing: it was a lilting, haunting tune, and the words ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... girl softly, adding: "Eh, but it's a beautiful world! A wonderful world," and broke into the lilting refrain of "Wonderful world" and sang it through in a voice of singularly, haunting sweetness. But the words were not those of the popular song. They had been written and set to ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... down the page. "Why, I don't know," she said, "any more than you do—except that first one to the tune of 'St. Louis.'" She hummed a lilting measure or two. "That's our prize song all right, and who do you think ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... enough from the edge to keep my cork in view. If the jack was there, he made no sign, and at length my sportsman's eagerness began to flag, and my eye roamed across the meadows to the church spire, under the shadow of which life as I could never know it was lilting merrily northwards. Here I was and here I should remain, like a cabbage, till Death pulled ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... subject, but parts of his score have a fervour and a dignity which might scarcely have been expected from the composer of 'La Sonnambula.' We may smile now at the trio between Pollio and his two victims, in which the extremes of fury and indignation are expressed by a lilting tune in 9-8 time, but it is impossible to deny the truth and beauty of Norma's farewell to her children, and in several other scenes there are evidences of real dramatic feeling, if not of the power ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... Might not the old man after all be right? When he had seen other women and tasted other allurements would he, like Ulysses, still hold his barren Ithaca above the gilded invitation of Calypso? History has only one Ulysses. Sally's voice was lilting like a bird's as she walked happily. The song was one of those old ballads that have been held intact since the stock learned to sing them in the heather of the Scotch highlands ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... "Crack! Il tombe des obus," the big bass-drum boomed like the shell he sang of. His voice was as tense and metallic as a taut string, and he snapped out the lilting line in swift staccato as if he were flaying his audience with a whip. Man after man on the hillside took up the irresistible rhythm in an undertone, and "Cracked" with the singer. In front of me was being created a folk-song. The bitterness ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... man knows As his road he goes That the best of life's gifts is wine," came again the lilting chorus from the tower. It was the only sound that disturbed the silence—the ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... is the Summer time; It has lost its rhythm and lilting rhyme - For the grace goes out of the day so soon, And the tired head aches in the glare of noon, And the way seems long to the hills that lie Under the calm of ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... souls romantic Are out of date as an old wife's rune. Britain is doomed as Plato's Republic—" When in at the door came a lilting tune! ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... and I'm afraid my rendition of cockney dialect into print isn't quite up to Kipling's. But the song had a pretty little lilting melody, and it went big. They made me sing it about a dozen times and were all ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes



Words linked to "Lilting" :   swinging, swingy, rhythmical, rhythmic, tripping



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