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Prying   Listen
adjective
Prying  adj.  Inspecting closely or impertinently.
Synonyms: Inquisitive; curious. See Inquisitive.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prying" Quotes from Famous Books



... way to proceed. He could not but feel that there was something not exactly within the limits of propriety in being here, disguised—at least, not known in his true character—prying into the secrets of a proud and secluded Englishman. But then, as he said to himself on his own side of the question, the secret belonged to himself by exactly as ancient a tenure and by precisely as strong a claim, ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Well, well!" said Ezra. "It's been too sad an' mournful all along for me to go about to make a new quarrel on it. Let it pass. I make no doubt you acted for the best. Art too good a lad to tek pleasure in prying into the pain of an old man—as—loves thee. Leave it alone, lad. Let's think a while, and turn it over and ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... nearest bushes, on the borders of the zone which had been cleared, and it was evident that directly the scouts were withdrawn the Arabs had followed up to the English position, and were now prowling and prying around it. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... be prying—only I wish you big boys would hang some for the little girls—it would please them to death. If you don't mind my having a part in this. I'd like to put in a little money, too. Let me put in another quarter and I'll do the trimming and you boys can repay me by hanging a basket to each of the little ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... people of the neighborhood in which Aesop was a slave one day observed him attentively looking over some poultry in a pen that was near the roadside; and those idlers, who spent more time in prying into other people's affairs than in adjusting their own, asked why he bestowed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... any sort, and did not care for doing this kind of work. Then my curiosity got the better of my sense of honour. A man cannot, I think, be both an historian and a gentleman. It is an essential part of the character of a gentleman that he should dislike prying into other people's secrets. The business of the historian, on the other hand, is to rake about if necessary through dust-bins, until he finds out the reasons, generally disreputable, why things are done. A gentleman displays a dignified superiority to the vice of curiosity. ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... of one excursionist this morning, a good-faced workman, who was prying about everywhere with a curious air, and said he never'd been on an excursion before. He came up to me in the office, deferentially asked me if I would go into the parlor with him, and, pointing to something hanging on the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... across from Panama. He was all politeness, airs, and graces, while trying to ferret out the secret of their real strength. Drake, however, was not to be outdone either in diplomacy or war; and a delightful little comedy of prying and veiling courtesies was played out, to the great amusement of the English sea-dogs. Finally, when the time agreed upon was up, the Spanish officer departed, pouring forth a stream of high-flown compliments, which Drake, who was a Spanish scholar, answered with the like. Waving each other a ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... something desperate, in order to revenge himself upon the other? But if he could command himself he would probably get his money? If, on the other hand, they do not meet, then what is to be done? Forgive me, Miss Kitwater, for prying into your private affairs, but in my opinion it is manifestly unfair that you should have to support these two men for the rest of ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby

... the birken bower, on yon burn side, Sae sweetly wove wi' woodbine flower, on yon burn side; There the busy prying eye, Ne'er disturbs the lover's joy, While in ither's arms they lie, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... left flank of the infantry.' Such was the order; and is not offence the surest defence? Accordingly all the irregular cavalry moved in a considerable column westward across the front of the Boer position, endeavouring to find where its flank rested, and prying with inquisitive patrols at every object of interest. The order of march was as follows: First, the composite regiment (one squadron of Imperial Light Horse, the 60th Rifles, Mounted Infantry, and one squadron of Natal Carabineers), 350 of the very best; next, four squadrons of ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... muddy country were not as firm as those previously traversed, a contingency the boys had not taken into consideration. At times the mules were unable to move the wagon, even though all the minstrels were pushing or prying to the extent of their muscular power. Instead of dust, as on the first day out, the minstrels were covered with ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... around the wreck, looking for signs of its former structure while Scotty attacked the stern with a crowbar. Under Scotty's prying, a timber suddenly gave with an audible crack, and a huge grouper that must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds rushed past Rick, startling him half to death until he ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... hear that his uncle had taken a house, and he surmised whether he had not also been induced to take a wife. He felt an inclination to put the question to Mr Scratton, as he passed through the office; but checked the wish, lest it should appear like prying into his uncle's affairs. Being the month of February, it was dark long before six o'clock, and Newton was puzzled what to do with his father until that time. He returned to the Salopian Coffee-house, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... silence. Tommy was so near that he had no difficulty in recognising in this unfortunate the person of old Coleman, the member of the coast-guard who had been most successful in thwarting the plans of the smugglers for some years past. Rendered somewhat desperate by his prying disposition, they had seized him on this particular night, during a scuffle, and were now about to dispose of him in a ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... inmate as the guests, who felt their presence in his chambers a confirmation, or a creation, of their claims to the world's homage. The Alhambra was finished, and there the Duke of St. James entirely resided; but its regal splendour was concealed from the prying eye of public curiosity with a proud reserve, a studied secrecy, and stately haughtiness becoming a caliph. A small band of initiated friends alone had the occasional entree, and the mysterious air which they provokingly assumed whenever they were cross-examined on the internal arrangements of ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... Men took the place of horses. The whole Vermont brigade was detailed to drag the pontoons and guns to the river. All day long, working and tugging with the mud above their knees; here a hundred men pulling at a pontoon boat, there a party prying a cannon out of the mire with long levers, and still other parties laying strips of corduroy road. The Vermonters passed a ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... lady, stay; and be no more dismay'd; That cruel beast, most merciless and fell, Which hath bereaved thousands of their lives, Affrighted many with his hard pursues, Prying from place to place to find his prey, Prolonging thus his life by others' death, His carcase now lies ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... usually pay so much attention to the duties of transcribing. The Dominicans were fond of the physical sciences, and have been accused of too much partiality for occult philosophy. Leland tells us that Robert Perserutatur, a Dominican, was over solicitous in prying into the secrets of philosophy,[462] and lays the same ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... were in the big commissary prying around to get into the bean and potato barrels, when a wagon drove up and a Negro commanded us, saying, "Four you men go upstairs and bring down some cracker boxes and load dis wagon." I got in the push and, as soon as we reached the cracker boxes we give a box a fling from the top of the pack ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott

... that made up Cartier's expedition, only three or four remained in health. Eight were already dead, and their bodies, for want of burial, lay frozen stark beneath the snowdrifts of the river, hidden from the prying eyes of the savages. Fifty more lay at the point of death, and the others, crippled and staggering with the onslaught of disease, moved to and fro at their tasks, their fingers numbed with cold, their ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock

... in the yard. Sally's eyes came to a focus upon him, crouching by a hole in the fence which kindly old Mrs. Wallingford had erected as a protection against the prying inquisitiveness of an eight-year-old determined to make life ...
— The Calm Man • Frank Belknap Long

... which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the leaf falls. The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of man and all animals is a falling forward. All our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, splitting, digging, rowing and so forth, are done by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, moon, comet, sun, star, fall for ever ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... to have booted him out of the ranch on sight," he said. "What right had he to come here prying into a lady's affairs?—at least a lady as far as HE knows. Of course she's some old blowzy with frumpled hair trying to rope in a greenhorn with a string of words and phrases," concluded Jack, carelessly, who had an equally cynical distrust of the ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... as to what would happen to the prisoner, for she was well aware that most of them believed him to be guilty. She walked quite fast until the path across the field was reached. This led along the edge of a grove of young maples and birches, and here was a restful seclusion from all prying eyes. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... with, and so, Fitting to these their present speech and favour, Discern the thought within. From him I gleaned Nothing. At the least word, however guarded, That sought to try the fastenings of his life With prying hands, how mute and dark he grew, And like the cautious tortoise at a touch Drew in ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman

... fear nor awe. Being what nature and circumstance had made him, he was conscious, instead, of a deep sense of peace and comfort. He was at ease, in a nest for the night, and there was only the remotest possibility that the prying eye of an enemy would see him. The leaves directly over his head were so thick that they formed a canopy, and, as he heard the drops fall upon them, it was like the rain on a roof, that soothes the ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... his service-training had a rooted objection to anything approaching to familiarity from servants and other subordinates, besides which he particularly disliked the waiter's "vulgar curiosity" as he styled it, saying he was always prying and poking his nose into other people's affairs; although, I honestly believe my worthy old cock-eyed friend only took a laudable interest in my welfare, as indeed he did in the business of everybody who patronised the hotel. "You can leave the letter, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... me in the eye—so—and say that you never put this key in yonder lock? Edna! more hangs on your words than you dream of. Be truthful! as if you were indeed in the presence of the God you worship. I can forgive you for prying into my affairs, but I can not and will not pardon you for trifling with ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... house, lest, prying too closely, we may find crouching in some dark corner a Gorgon, who will freeze us ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... 'Tisn't my business prying into a girl's fancies. I'm simply telling you Phil Lambert is the man that ought to marry her, and if he doesn't get on to the job almighty quick that pop-eyed simpleton over there will be prancing down the aisle to Lohengrin with Carlotta before Christmas, and the jig will be up. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... and to leave him to get back as he could. I was not unwilling to play with a man, who asked me impertinent questions. I think I had in my mouth the words of the Wise man, "Answer a fool according to his folly," especially if he was prying or spiteful. I was reckless of the gossip which was circulated about me; and, when I might easily have set it right, did not deign to do so. Also I used irony in conversation, when matter-of-fact-men would not see what ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... expression, was one of extreme annoyance and of some slight alarm, as though he were muttering: "This is no place for me," and, without more ado, he began to roll toward the river. Without killing some one, I could not again use the rifle. The boys were close upon him, prying him back with the gangplank, beating him with sticks of firewood, trying to rope him with the steel hawser. On the bridge Captain Jensen and Anfossi were giving orders in Danish and Italian, and on ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... unknown beings, of an order infinitely higher, infinitely more beloved, than we. On me, perchance, the eternal obloquy of the execution of God's doom may rest, for being the first to lead the way, with prying eye and trespassing foot, into regions so fair and so remote; but being guiltless alike in act or intention to shed the blood of any human creature, I must accept it without ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... thought, gave one mighty dab at a delicate little fuchsia that is just "picking up" from the effects of transplanting and a long winter journey. Seeing he was bent on making himself disagreeable, I put him into his cage again, first having to chase him all about the room to catch him, and prying him up at last from between a picture and the wall, where he had flown and settled down in his struggle to get out. For my Cheri is not in the least tame. He is an entirely uneducated bird. I have seen canaries sit on people's fingers and eat from their tongues, but ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... woman was getting along, but, look as sharp as she might, she could see no trace of her, nor of her water-cresses. She seemed to have vanished clean out of sight. "It is very odd," thought Little Red Riding Hood to herself, "for surely I can walk faster than she." Then she kept looking about her, and prying into all the bushes, to see for the green huntsman, whom she had never heard of before, and wondered why the old woman had given her such a message. At last, just as she was passing by a pool of stagnant water, so green that you would have ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous

... upstairs again. In some subtle way the room seemed changed. He had a sudden inexplicable sensation of nervousness and depression. Shaking it off with an effort, he opened the envelope in his hand with an odd reluctance—the feeling that he was prying into something which was no concern of his. He drew out the single grey sheet and unfolded it. The letter was dated from Flint House on the previous day. There was but a few lines, but the lawyer was pulled ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... while the others prayed. Every pulse tightened—her whole nature leapt again in defiance. She seemed to be holding something at bay—a tyrannous power that threatened humiliation and hypocrisy, that seemed at the same time to be prying into secret things—things it should never, never know—and never rule! Yes, she did understand Cousin ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... hunters were threading their way through the outskirts of the wood at a rapid trot, in the opposite direction from the bluff, or wooded knoll, which they wished to reach. This they did lest prying eyes should have followed them. In quarter of an hour they turned at right angles to their track, and struck straight out into the prairie, and after a long run they edged round and came in upon the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... Griffith impatiently; "we are not robbers of hen-roosts, nor wine-gaugers, to be prying into the vaults of the English gentry, Captain Manual; but honorable men, employed in the sacred cause of liberty and our country. Lead your party into the ruin, and let them seek their rest; we may have work ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a hasty, an almost imperceptible glance around. Lady Rylton is often a little—just a little—prone to prying—especially of late; ever since the arrival of that small impossible heiress, for example; and then very softly she ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... "H. DYSON (says Hearne) a person of a very strange, prying, and inquisitive genius, in the matter of books, as may appear from many libraries; there being books, chiefly in old English, almost in every library, that have belonged to him, with his name upon them." Peter Langtoft's Chronicles, vol. i., p. xiii. This ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... morning he went out with the gang. While they chopped or heaved, he stood by serene. Little questions of expediency he solved. Dilemmas he discussed leisurely with Tim Shearer. Occasionally he lent a shoulder when the peaveys lacked of prying a stubborn log from its bed. Not once did he glance at the nooning sun. His patience was quiet and sure. When evening came he smoked placidly outside the office, listening to the conversation and laughter of the men, caressing one of the beagles, while the rest ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... their affairs than I had hoped; there was no need to be prying, for it evidently drew her out simply to feel that I listened, that I cared. She ceased wondering why I cared, and at last, as she spoke of the brilliant life they had led years before, she almost chattered. ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James

... its crude form," but descent with modification in 1809 meant, to all intents and purposes, and was understood to mean, what it means now, or ought to mean, to most people.) "The universal stir," says Mr. Allen on the following page, "and deep prying into evolutionary questions which everywhere existed among scientific men in his early days was naturally communicated to a lad born of a scientific family and inheriting directly in blood and bone the biological tastes and tendencies of ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... though Patty went to her with affectionate words, she stormed back, "Go away, Patty Fairfield! You have no right to interfere in my affairs! It was your prying that found this out. Go away; I won't speak ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... nature of my business, how long I intended to stay, did I have a place to stay arranged for, and if so, where and through whom. It looked for all the world as though they had something to conceal; Czarist Russia couldn't beat that for keeping track of people and prying into their business. Sign here, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... Wilcox accepted this gift of privacy. London belonged to her, there were no prying eyes. Slowly she walked along the pavement peering into shop windows. It was difficult to see anything. At last she distinguished a blur of gold and jewels. She walked on and then back again. She stood still. Her heart ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco

... the weapons of Oak beside him. He took from his belt his own knife, because it was better than that of Oak, and laid it close to the dead man's hand, and then, first covering the body with beech leaves, he worked frantically upon the overhanging soil, prying it down with a sharp-pointed fragment of limb, and tossing in upon all as heavy stones as he could lift, until a great cairn rose above the hunter who would hunt ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... eyes upon you, calling up the mantling blush to both your cheeks! He seems to chronicle the hours of your dalliance, making your secrets known unto each other. We have gone through our share of flirtation in this life: match-making mothers, prying aunts, choleric uncles, benevolent and open-hearted fathers, we understand to the life, and care no more for such man-traps than a Melton man, well mounted on his strong-boned thorough-bred, does for a four-barred ox-fence that ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... followers, and fellow believers: "Come let us reason together," marks the dividing line between knowledge and superstition. The daring of the mind of man proves him to be, in very truth, "a child of God." No arcana of knowledge are too deeply hid in mystery to escape the prying of his curiosity, his longing for enlightenment, his long-sustained and vigorous efforts to surprise the hidden things of God and Nature. Livingston and Stanley wrought in the jungles of Africa, Audubon ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... was rather heavy and as she went on it became heavier. She meant to carry it slung across her shoulder on a stick as soon as she was well away from the prying eyes of Echo's inhabitants. Later, if she felt tired, she could easily hide it behind a bush along the road and send one of her father's cowboys after it. The road was very dusty and carried the wind-blown traces of automobile tires. Some ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... round her, to which the woman responded by a look of true maternal tenderness and a kiss. These little creatures, in the absolute unconsciousness of innocence, with their beautiful faces, olive-tinted bodies,—all the darker, sad to say, from dirt,—their perfect docility, and absence of prying curiosity, are very bewitching. They all wear silver or pewter ornaments tied round their necks by a wisp of ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... for unfolding to you the mysteries of my conduct, the motives of which have baffled even your keen sight, your prying affection, and your subtlety. I am to be married in a country village near Paris. I love and am loved. I love as much as a woman can who knows love well. I am loved as much as a woman ought to be by the man ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... She knew too much of our affairs, and was always prying into things that did not concern her. So father took an antipathy to the poor creature, and because she has served our family for so long sent her to care for the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne

... Between his clinched teeth the naked one cursed fiercely, and then, as though to avoid further questions, burst into a fit of coughing. Trembling and shaking, he drew the canvas cloak closer to him. But at no time did his anxious, prying eyes ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... so long as I had done, I felt the absurdity of such conduct, and the folly of treating them so harshly. If ever individuals are so situated as to need either the esteem or the confidence of savages, they must bear with their prying and childish curiosity, and not be afraid of treating them too kindly; by this means they become the quietest and gentlest creatures in the world; but, if treated with contumely, and their wives and families ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... monster on the bridge of Seta; the sage Lao Tsze on his ox; Senno Kinko, a pious man, riding on his golden-eyed carp, absorbed in a book; the god Idaten, pursuing an oni, or devil, who had stolen Buddha's pearl; a bird prying open a Venus's shell with his bill; a golden-eyed octopus or cuttlefish; the sage Kiko leaning from the window of his house, reading a scroll ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... sill of an attic-window I found a Minie-ball. Prying it out with my knife, and holding it up to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... would be the safest stronghold for the Caesar until the arrival of the legions. It would be safer than the house of his servant, for prying eyes may have seen him enter it, and ears—sharpened by hate—may have heard ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... prodigious number of stragglers from the Federal lines, as these were the bane of the country people. They sauntered along by twos and threes, rambling into all the fields and green-apple orchards, intruding their noses into old cabins, prying into smoke-houses, and cellars, looking at the stock in the stables, and peeping on tiptoe into the windows of dwellings. These stragglers were true exponents of Yankee character,—always wanting to know,—averse to discipline, eccentric in their orbits, entertaining profound contempt ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... of the spinning-mule, born near Bolton; for five years he worked at his project, and after he got it into shape was tormented by people prying about him and trying to find out his secret; at last a sum was raised by subscription to buy it, and he got some L60 for it, by which others became wealthy, while he had to spend, and end, his days in comparative poverty, all he had to subsist on being a life annuity of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... this wall I bethought myself, to go again and again, still prying as I went, to see if I could find some way or passage, by which I might enter therein: but none could I find for some time: at the last, I saw, as it were, a narrow gap, like a little door-way in the wall, through which ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan

... is touch, this quivering, This flame, this ether, This glad rush of blood, This daylight in my heart, This glow of sympathy in my palms! Thou blind, loving, all-prying touch, Thou openest the ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... dancing," snapped Bud. As he and Sandy finished planning the program, Len Unger continued to drop remarks and questions about "The Great Tom Swift" and his inventions. All prying queries were side-stepped. ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... the other half lay compressed; there was a backdrive to discoverable stables; there was a bit of grass that would have appeared a meadow if magnified; and there was a wall round the kitchen-garden and a strip of wood round the flower-garden. The prying of the outside world was impossible. Comfort, fortification; and gentlemanliness made the place, as the General ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of history, antiquities and chronology, a story book, a code of laws and conduct, a manual of ethics, a treatise on astronomy, and a medical handbook; sometimes indelicate, sometimes irreverent, but always completely and persistently in earnest. Its trifling frivolity, its curious prying into topics which were better left alone, the occasional beauty of its spiritual and imaginative fancies, make it one of the most remarkable books that human wit and ...
— Hebrew Literature

... afternoons, the two would drink their black coffee, seated upon the stone-flagged portico whose canopy was the blue sky of Louisiana. They loved to sit there in the silence, with only each other and the sheeny, prying lizards for company, talking of the old times and planning for the new; while light breezes stirred the tattered vines high up among ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... few pleasures in the course of her uncared-for youth; but she hitherto had experienced no such anguish as that which she had now to endure in her daily intercourse with Valentine and Charlotte. She underwent her martyrdom bravely, and no prying eye discovered the sufferings which her proud nature supported in silence. "Who takes any heed of my feelings, or cares whether I am glad or sorry?" she thought; "he ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... I will answer when the lids of darkness come down over the prying eyes of day. In the meanwhile, know that I ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore

... saw besieged by D'Artagnan on the occasion of an emeute. The principal entrance of this house was in the Place Baudoyer: it was tolerably large, surrounded by gardens, inclosed in the street Saint-Jean by the shops of tool-makers, which protected it from prying looks, and was walled in by a triple rampart of stone, noise, and verdure, like an embalmed mummy in its triple coffin. The man we have just alluded to walked along with a firm step, although he was no longer in his early prime. His dark ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... secret ear 1320 I breathe the sorrows I bewail, And thank thee for the generous tear This glazing eye could never shed. Then lay me with the humblest dead,[ew] And, save the cross above my head, Be neither name nor emblem spread, By prying stranger to be read, Or ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... business of yours," reiterated Dutton. "If you say anything about it, you'll soon see you have made a fool of yourself, and the little you do know is by prying ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... wish people wouldn't always be prying after me," said Anna angrily, and this time it was ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... he "up" and rented a house, and to hear his glowing description of the house—such a cosy little three-storied brick house, on a street too broad for the neighbors opposite to see into his front parlors, and no houses in the rear from which the prying eye of the curious and idle could spy into back kitchen closets or dinner pots—in brief, Perriwinkle went on with that strain of domestic eloquence, peculiar to new beginners in the arts and mysteries of housekeeping, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... the dark its prying ghosts employ To peer on my retreat, And see the fragments of my broken toy Lie scattered at ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob

... tea in a secluded corner, well removed from all prying eyes. Gradually, as the minutes passed, the girl's ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... Pantiles Gazette, Mr. Spring, as gossiping a rag as ever was printed. I expect there will be a fine column in it if ever it gets its prying nose into this day's doings. However, we are mum and her ladyship is mum, and, my word! his lordship is mum, though he did, in his passion, raise the hue and cry on you. Here it is, Mr. Spring, and I'll read it to you ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... rather a spiteful look at Miss Warren, "I'm glad I've not got a prying disposition. I talked with you half the afternoon and did not find ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... against the side, waited, and kicked again. A slit opened and closed. He waited, then drew his knife and began prying at the worn cement around the airseal, looking for the lock that had ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey

... look through its contents my eyes resting on the finger of a glove, the end of a lace scarf, and the handle of an old fan, my mind goes back to the last time she wore them. Then I begin turning everything upside down, lifting the corner of this incident, prying under that no bit of talk, recalling what he said and who told of it (I shall have the whole drawer empty before I get through), and whose fault it was that the match was broken off, and why she, of all women in the ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Mr. Derwentwater, "if there is any mystery, all right; I don't want to be prying;" but, as was natural, this only increased his curiosity. After an interval, he broke forth again. "A little mystery," he said, "suits them; a woman ought to be mysterious, with her long robes falling round her, and her mystery of long hair, and all the natural ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... of notes, a few scattered jewels, the sly old dog has spirited away his vast stealings! My work was all in vain, save the vengeance!" And the oily Ram Lal, in the zenana, drew a willing beauty of Cashmere to his bosom, and hid his face from the chatterers of street and shop. He was safe from all prying eyes in the Harem. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... log pen floored with rough-hewn slabs and fitted with a ponderous movable lid made of other slabs pinned on stout cross pieces. But, satisfied with his handiwork, the captain now arose, and, prying up one end of the lid with a lever, set the trigger and baited it with a huge piece of bacon. He then piled a great quantity of rock upon the already heavy lid to further guard against the escape of any bear so unfortunate ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... most delightful grove—so darkened with weeping willows, that at noonday a susceptible fancy like yours would mistake it for a bewitching moonlight evening. These sympathizing willows, too, exclude even the prying eye of curiosity. Here no rude noise interrupts the softest whisper. Here no harsher sound is heard than the wild cooings of the gentle dove, the gay thresher's animated warbles, and the soft murmurs of the passing brook. Really, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... punching and prying with the iron bar to get the wheel itself free from where it was jammed by the cable against the side of the block. After that Jerry replaced the wheel, and by means of the rope, heaved up on the car till the trolley once more rested properly ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... revolver, the savage leaped forward. His heart sank. The opportunity was lost. He dove down into the pocket and brought forth a knife, and it was hardly out of his pocket until the prying native ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay

... will stroke my hair, That one will pat my cheek And praise my Lady's kindness, Expecting me to speak; I like the proud ones best Who sit as struck with blindness, As if I wasn't there. 340 But if any gentleman Is staying at the Hall (Though few come prying here), My Lady seems to fear Some downright dreadful evil, And makes me keep my room As closely as she can: So I hate when people come, It is so troublesome. In spite of all her care, 350 Sometimes to keep alive I sometimes do contrive To get out in the grounds For a ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... each other had been erected on the top of the fence at the back, and she caught the gleam of the moonlight on the sentries' bayonets as it was reflected back by the burnished steel. There was no curtain of any kind in the window. The dirt on the window-panes was her only protection against prying eyes. So Nancy pushed the stool over by the bed, piled her extra clothing on the foot of the bed, and carefully blew out the ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now startingly recalled from that tender exercise; happy family parties struck into silence round the table, the mother still with raised finger: every degree and age and humour, but all, by their own hearths, prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him. Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly; the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the clocks. And then, again, with a swift ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it's too awful!" burst out Billie suddenly. "Why, girls, it's apt to spoil our whole year! Just think of having that sneak around, prying into all our affairs and reporting every ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler

... room by the veranda door, because he bade me do so, to avoid what he termed 'the prying of servants.' I broke some clusters of chrysanthemums blooming in the rose garden, to carry to my mother, and then I hurried away. If the wages of disobedience be death, then fate reversed the mandate, and obedience exacts my life as a forfeit. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... were happy, peaceful days for California. The vagrant keels of prying Commerce had not as yet ruffled the lordly gravity of her bays. No torn and ragged gulch betrayed the suspicion of golden treasure. The wild oats drooped idly in the morning heat or wrestled with the afternoon breezes. Deer ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... A waking eye, a prying mind; A heart that stirs, is hard to bind; A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind; Ye could ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... as ever, while his sunken eyes held the soft light which always comes of extreme physical suffering. He was too weak to remain on his feet, but in the effort to do so he spied the cask and bag higher up on the beach and crawled to them. Prying a plug from the bunghole with his knife, he found water, sweet and delicious, which he drank by rolling the cask carefully and burying his lips in the overflow. Evidently some one in authority on the gunboat had decreed that he should not die of ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... breezes blowing Bend the canvass o'er the mast. From aloft the signal's streaming, Hark! the farewell gun is fired, Women screeching, tars blaspheming, Tell us that our time's expired. Here's a rascal Come to task all, Prying from the Custom-house; Trunks unpacking, Cases cracking, Not a corner for a mouse 'Scapes unsearch'd amid the racket, Ere we sail on board ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... or four days after Calhoun's return from the Oaks, the thought suggested itself to mischievous, prying Dick and his coadjutor Walter, that the key of some other lock in the house might fit that of the door they so ardently desired to open. They only waited for a favorable opportunity to test the question in the temporary absence of their ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... inveterate notion of a true human regality to begin with, he is naturally the more curious and prying in regard to the claims of the one which he finds in possession; and when by the mystery of his profession and art, he contrives to get the cloak of that factitious royalty about him, he asks questions under its cover which another man would not ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... purely personal matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would not submit. She thought she discovered a certain antagonism amongst those with whom she presently came into contact, and the opposition developed character. Pride came to her aid. No doubt some peeping Tom or prying woman had been witness to the theft of kisses. In that case the incident would now be a theme of conversation in the cabins. She could not trust Mrs. Macdougal to withhold from the gossips a single word of their conversation. Lucy's determination ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... shouldered his rifle, and alone, or followed by one attendant only, he disappeared into the forest, only to emerge therefrom at sunset. What he saw there he never spoke of. Sure it was that he must have seen strange things, for no prying white man had set foot in these wilds before him; no book has ever been written of that country that lies ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... each other's apartments, by way of the attic, would be a great convenience, so they eagerly searched the partition for a loose board. Finding one that was quite broad, they put forth every exertion, and after much shoving and prying, during which their fingers received many splinters and bruises, they succeeded in getting the board loose from the floor. By shoving it aside, they could squeeze through the opening into the opposite attic, then the board would swing back to its ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... profit. Such adventures may do for petty knaves, but they are not suited to me. The way to get wealthy is to strike at the rich. My idea is to establish some place in an out of the way quarter where there is no fear of prying neighbours, and to carry off and hide there the sons and daughters of wealthy men and put them to ransom. In the first instance I am going to undertake a private affair of my own; and as you will really run no risk in the matter, for I shall separate myself from you after making my capture, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... features when the footman in the anteroom assisted him in putting on his cloak, whereupon he rapidly descended the magnificent marble staircase which an hour ago had been desecrated by the broad and clumsy feet of the populace. But when the door of his carriage had closed behind him, and no prying eyes, no listening ears were watching him any longer, his smile disappeared as if by magic, and savage imprecations ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... prying around in one of the bunks while saying this, as though he had suspicions; which Lub, who was anxiously watching him, hoped in his heart might turn out ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone

... was on her mare, and the Tourainian at her side, galloping at full speed to her castle at Amboise, followed by the men-at-arms. To be brief and come to the facts without further commentary, the De Beaune was lodged not twenty yards from Madame, far from prying eyes. The courtiers and the household, much astonished, ran about inquiring from what quarter the danger might be expected; but our hero, taken at his word, knew well enough where to find it. The virtue of the Regent, well known in the kingdom, saved her from suspicion, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... seem," returned Eve, assuming a solemnity suited to a matter of interest, "that our secret is discovered. While we were indulging our curiosity about this unfortunate ship, Mr. Dodge was gratifying the laudable industry of the Active Inquirer, by prying into our state-rooms." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... names and doom of the Regicides being now all well known, as having suffered or fled from Justice, or being in hold, as Mr. Martyn was. So Colonel Glover, being well assured that what was done was for the King's honour, and for the well-being of his Estates, and that any other further searching or prying might cost him his place, if they did not draw him within the meshes of the law against Misprision of Treason, forbore to vex himself or Authority further on matters that concerned him not, and was so content to guard his Prisoner with greater care than ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... for me. I will have to leave Earth to complete the installation of my generator. The prying fools and mockers will not leave me alone, and nowhere on Earth can I have the needed solitude. I shall go to Venus—uninhabited, uninhabitable. Perhaps they will leave me alone for the month or two more I need to make my vessel suitable for interstellar drive. ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg

... horizon, and burst into bright wizard phantoms. Racing hurricanes unroll and whirl quivering fire-clouds. The white waves gallop. Shadowy worlds career around. The red and raging eye of Imagination is then forbidden to pry further. But further Mr. Robert Montgomery persists in prying. The stars bound through the airy roar. The unbosomed deep yawns on the ruin. The billows of Eternity then begin to advance. The world glares in fiery slumber. A car comes forward ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... anything about it?' screamed the Queen. 'What do you mean prying into my affairs? I'll pay you well for this, ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn

... they followed a well-worn road running due north from the village. This was to conceal their true line of march from the knowledge of the curious villagers. But when they were well away from the place, and safe from all prying eyes, they swung to the east and marched straight through open country for the foot-hills, plainly in view ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... thoroughly taken aback. This I rather enjoyed, for he is always prying into affairs and saying, "I rather suspect so and so," with his nose held out as if he got at his intuitions by the sense ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... friend started for the woods in such a direction as to bring him directly before the boy's insensible form. The monkey, on coming up to Toby, stopped, urged by the well known curiosity of its race, and began to examine the boy's person carefully, prying into pockets and trying to open the boy's half closed eyelids. Fortunately for Toby, he had fallen upon a mud bank and was only stunned for the moment, having received no serious bruises. The attentions bestowed upon him by the monkey served the purpose of bringing him to his ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis

... her bed. A mosquito-curtain protected it. She was glad of that, as if it kept out prying eyes. For sometimes she was ashamed of the vehemence ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... worldliness and folly; Coming sometimes like fearful claps of thunder, Or the low rumblings earth's regions under; And sometimes like a gentle whispering Of all the secrets of some wond'rous thing That breathes about us in the vacant air; So that we look around with prying stare, Perhaps to see shapes of light, aerial lymning, And catch soft floatings from a faint-heard hymning; To see the laurel wreath, on high suspended, That is to crown our name when life is ended. Sometimes it ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats

... chaise with all speed and to follow him forthwith in his flight. It appears, that the story of the captain's adventure was already pretty well known in the public places of the town, and as a visit of the marshal from Boston was a very extraordinary event in a place usually so quiet, a prying character who was upon the spot asked him if he was not looking for Captain E——. Upon receiving an affirmative reply,—"That's the man," said he, "you have just spoken to." The marshal started in pursuit and the captain had called out to such persons of his acquaintance as ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... beautiful bride on her wedding night so many years before. In the next scene two servants appeared with orders to clean out and remove the old chest from the landing. Hippy and Jessica, as the two mischievous prying servants, enacted their part to perfection. Hippy carrying a broom and dust pan, did one of the eccentric dances, for which he was famous, while Jessica, armed with a huge duster, tried ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... birds!—say where your hid retreat When the frost rages and the tempests beat; Whence your return, by such nice instinct led, When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head: Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride, The GOD of NATURE is your ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... and, next, the quiet houses standing in their separate grounds, their narrow ends to the street and their long, two-storied galleries open to the south, but their hushed windows closed as if against the prying, restless Present that must not look in and disturb the motionless memories which sit brooding behind these shutters; and between all these silent mansions lie the narrow streets, the quiet, empty streets, along which, as my memory watches them, pass ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... gentlemen would call to their men & cry, "Come, trusse me": now the word is "Come, hooke me"; for every body now lookes so narrowly to Taylors bills (some for very anger never paying them) that the needle lance knights, in revenge of those prying eyes, put so many hookes & eyes to ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... used the small prongs of the antlers. They used them as wedges in prying the bark loose from the sap-wood of young trees. All the women had learned to make hammers of antler by making two cuts near the base. And sometimes they used the broad end of the brow antler instead of a ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp

... thing to do was for Henry to work away at their dream of a home together—home together, however little, just four walls to love each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought about by the powerful enchantments of literature. Henry had ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... he came from his house towards me. He was a tall, stout, good-looking, jolly-faced farmer and miller. His manner of accosting me partook more of kindness than civility; and his inquiries were not free from the familiar, prying curiosity which prevails in every corner of our island, and, I must say, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... the Rue du Rocher. Halfway down this passage, recently opened through, where the shops let at a very low rent, the Baroness saw on a window, screened up to a height with a green, gauze curtain, which excluded the prying eyes ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... now—or I'm much mistaken—which it would be madness to miss. This Miss Moore—she's dropped from the skies, but she's charming, she's a lady, she's just the woman for you. What, Dick? Think so yourself, do you? No, it's all right, I'm not prying. But this is a chance you'll never get again. And you can't ask her, you can't have the face to ask her, as long as you keep that half-witted creature dangling after you. It wouldn't be right, man, even if ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... Pity? Am I prying into the old fellow's pockets? Am I forcing him to take off his stockings and turn his shoes inside out? I meant to start out with doing that—for I hate him like poison, ever since that time in the tavern when he—you know what I refer to, and you would feel insulted too, if you had ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... for?" said the postmaster, in a tone which Andy considered an aggression upon the sacredness of private life. So Andy, in his ignorance and pride, thought the coolest contempt he could throw upon the prying impertinence of the postmaster was ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... cleared of weeds, the walks and flower-beds laid out with care, and then the neighbors looked to see her cut away a few of the multitude of trees which had sprung up around her home. But this she had no intention of doing. "They shut me out," she said, "from the prying eyes of the vulgar, and I would rather it should be so." So the trees remained, throwing their long shadows upon the high, narrow windows, and into the large square rooms, where the morning light and the noonday heat seldom found entrance, and which seemed like so many cold, silent ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... affected the Wheelwright girls as forcibly as it had done the Brontes. Mme. Heger, again, for ever peeping from behind doors and through the plate-glass partitions which separate the passages from the school-rooms, was a constant source of irritation to all the English pupils. This prying and spying is, it is possible, more of a fine art with the school-mistresses of the Continent than with those of our own land. In any case, Mme. Heger was an accomplished spy, and in the midst of the most innocent work ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... participation had been removed, and had, whether intentionally or not, terrified little Anne in the chases of hide-and-seek. Finally, one of them had probably been unable to withstand the temptation of seeing her timid nervous way of peeping and prying about; and had, without waiting to be properly found, leapt out of his lair with a roar that scared the little girl nearly out of her wits, and sent her flying, she knew not whither. Martyn was a few steps behind, only not holding her hand, because the other children had derided her for clinging ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... might determine the happiness or the misery of his life. He tried to forget it and wrote diligently, putting down words whose meaning he did not stop to consider, so that he had something to show to prying eyes if such should ever glance through his papers. But the sound had got on his brain, and presently became so insistent that he rose again and flung his window up to see if he were deceived in thinking he heard a deep roar ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... lie abed till the last available moment; but that morning she was up with the sun. When dressed she drew a letter from a secret casket with manifold precautions as though she were surrounded with prying eyes, and, placing it in her reticule, hastened forth to seek the little lonely disused churchyard by the shore. She afterwards remarked that she could never forget in what agitation of spirits and with what strange presentiment of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle



Words linked to "Prying" :   nosey, snoopy, nosiness, nosy, curiousness, curious, snoopiness, inquisitiveness



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