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Trifler   Listen
noun
Trifler  n.  One who trifles.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Trifler" Quotes from Famous Books



... Come, come, you paraquito, answer me Directly unto this question that I ask. In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, An if thou wilt not tell me true. Hot. Away, Away, you trifler!—Love?—I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate; this is no world To play with mammets ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... not painfully conscientious, nor was she an intentional trifler; therefore she was good at that social game of lead on ...
— A Few Short Sketches • Douglass Sherley

... carry a point with a great man, or to borrow money from a rich one, may pass off an evening very well, with those who happen to be interested in such speculations; but, these things apart, the arrantest trifler in the circle must get weary at last, and be heartily rejoiced when the conclusion of the season spares him all further reiteration of the mill-horse operation. It is this insipidity of society that forces so many of its members upon desperate ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... a man, so incapable of all the posts he had occupied, who displayed chimeras and audacity in the place of prudence and sagacity, who everywhere appeared a trifler and a comedian, and whose universal and profound ignorance (except of the meanest arts of the courtier) made plainly visible the thin covering of probity and of virtue with which he tried to hide his ingratitude, his mad ambition, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... your work in them, and by them, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant, prosperous or adverse. Ask Him; and He will give you true knowledge to know what a serious position you are in, what a serious thing life is, death is, judgment is, eternity is; that you may be no trifler nor idler, nor mere scraper together of gain which you must leave behind you when you die: but a truly serious man, seriously intent on your duty; seriously intent on working God's work in the place and station to which He has called you, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... understanding is dissipated by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked; and when the occasion forces out his latent qualities, he is great without effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is roused into a hero, and the hero again reposes in the trifler. This character is great, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... be confin'd to the State, Manners, Apprehension and even common phrases of Sheapards: for nothing can {23} be said to be Pastoral, which is not accommodated to their condition; and for this Reason Nannius Alcmaritanus in my opinion is a trifler, who, in his comments on Virgils Eclogues, thinks that those sorts of Composures may now and then be lofty, and treat of great subjects: where he likewise divides the matter of Bucolicks, into Low, Middle, and High: and makes Virgil ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin

... they see the sun, if they cannot lift their eyes to face a lamp?" And what will you do in important matters, if the king desires anything, or the people importune you, if you cannot decline to drink when your friend asks you, or evade the onset of some prating fellow, but allow the trifler to waste all your time, from not having nerve to say, "I will see you some other time, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... Where now's the trifler? where the child of pride? These are the moments when the heart is try'd! Nor lives the man with conscience e'er so clear, But feels a solemn, reverential fear; Feels too a joy relieve his aching breast, When the spent ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... were too brother-like to be denied. They sang the same song which fills the breast, and our love for them was pure. The men and women we sought, were they not worthy of honor? The artist comes to bid us trust the Ideal Tendency, and not dishonor him who moves therein. He is no trifler, then, to be thrust aside by the doctors with their sciences, or the economists with production and use. He offers manhood to man and womanhood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... simple, to be unassuming and kindly. Ive lived a blameless life. Ive supported the Censorship in the face of ridicule and insult. And now I'm told that I'm a centre of Immoralism! of Modern Minxism! a trifler with the most sacred subjects! ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw

... my youthful strength to want, Than, young, that of a bull, or elephant; Then with that force content, which Nature gave, Nor am I now displeased with what I have. When the young wrestlers at their sport grew warm, Old Milo wept, to see his naked arm; And cried, 'twas dead. Trifler! thine heart and head, And all that's in them (not thy arm) are dead; This folly every looker on derides, To glory only in thy arms and sides. Our gallant ancestors let fall no tears, Their strength decreasing by increasing years; 290 But they ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... that separates the genius and the hard-working man of talent. Nevertheless Meissonier's statue is in the garden of the Louvre, Meissonier is extolled as a master, while Fortuny is usually described in patronising terms as a facile trifler. The reverse is the truth. No one has painted sunlight with more intensity; he was an impressionist before the word was coined. He is a colourist almost as sumptuous as Monticelli, with a precision of vision never attained by the Marseilles rhapsodist. His figures are ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... paralyses it and drags it indoors, gathers the pollen-dust, prepares the honey in her crop, stores and mixes the paste. This severe labour, so imperious and so active, in which the insect's whole life is spent, manifestly demands a bodily strength which would be quite useless to the male, the amorous trifler. Thus, as a general rule, in the insects which carry on an industry the ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... am! to fix all my happiness on such a trifler! 'Sdeath! to make herself the pipe and ballad-monger of a circle! to soothe her light heart with catches and glees!—What can you say to ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... Narbonne has been made War Minister! At this crisis, when the allied armies are gathering on the frontier, when war is imminent against two hundred and fifty thousand of the finest soldiers in Europe, a trifler like Narbonne is placed in power! But if others were no worse than he! 'Tis incredible the villains who have pushed themselves into the high places. Can you believe it, boy?—your servant, that scoundrel ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... father and daughter who had not met for six years. Mr. Lovel went back to his books as calmly as if there had been no ardent impetuous girl of eighteen under his roof, leaving Clarissa to find occupation and amusement as best she might. He was not a profound student; a literary trifler rather, caring for only a limited number of books, and reading those again and again. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Southey's Doctor. Montaigne, and Swift, he read continually. He was a collector of rare editions of the Classics, and would dawdle over ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... to him and find out what he means, what influences have been at work, what is underneath it all. Warn him of the danger of even appearing doubtful, or for a moment lukewarm. The one person whom the public will not have in politics is the trifler. Think how many there have been, brilliant men, too, who have lost their places through a single false step, a single year, a month of dilettantism. Remind him of them. The man who moves in a great cause may move slowly, if you will, but he must move all the time. Remind him, too, that he is ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the individual.—In society each individual raises or lowers the level of democracy according to what he is and does. The idler fails to make any contributions to the well-being of society and thus lowers the average of citizenship. The trifler and dawdler lower the level of democracy by reason of their inefficiency. They may exercise their right to vote but fail to exercise their right to act the part of efficient citizens. If all citizens ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... this with such unctuous satisfaction that even the callous lawyer experienced a slight ripple of repulsion. He now saw clearly in his fatuous visitor the conceit of the lady-killer, the egoistic complacency of the successful trifler. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... fashion is a trifler unworthy of his race; the mere gentleman is a character which may in time become somewhat tiresome; there is a just mean between the two, where a better conduct than either is to be found. It is that of a man who, yielding ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman

... synagogue with the Jews and those that were pious, and in the market every day with those he met. [17:18]And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers disputed with him, and some said, What does this trifler mean to say? And others, He seems to be a preacher of strange demons; because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. [17:19]And laying hold of him they brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new teaching is which is taught by you? [17:20]for ...
— The New Testament • Various

... influence of woman is paramount. She is the stronghold of Hinduism at the beginning of this twentieth century. Man, under the growing influence of western thought, civilization, and faith, has largely lost his moorings and is growing increasingly insincere and a trifler with religious beliefs and institutions. The woman, on the other hand, is a conservative of the conservatives. In her superstition she is deeply sincere; her faith has no questionings, and her piety shapes her every activity. Were it not for the women of India, Hinduism, with all ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... Cambridge has, within the last few years, unsettled and even revolutionized our estimates of Swedenborg as a philosopher. That man, indeed, whom Emerson ranks as one amongst his inner consistory of intellectual potentates cannot be the absolute trifler that Kant, (who knew him only by the most trivial of his pretensions,) eighty years ago, supposed him. Assuredly, Mr. Clowes was no trifler, but lived habitually a life of power, though in a world of religious mysticism and of apocalyptic visions. To ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... smart gallop. The harvest-carts were wide, railed and framed on both sides, with one or two cross bearers. In a "leading" day Mr Innes was a sure hand at the fork in the stackyard, and the man on the stack and the man on the cart had to look out. Mr Innes was no trifler, and would not be trifled with; but if an accident happened he made no remarks. He did not transact business by commission, but purchased both the cattle and sheep himself. The aged West Highlanders ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... was grieved and indignant. With all my fair promises and pretended loyalty I seemed to be an idle trifler. How could my relation to Lettie Conlow be explained away in the light of this visit from a handsome cultured young lady, who had had an assurance of welcome or she would not have come. He loved Marjie as the daughter of his dearest friend. He ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... threatened. "I think I have, already. I don't believe I could stand up to Dryfoos, now, as I did for poor old Lindau, when I risked your bread and butter for his. I look back in wonder and admiration at myself. I've steadily lost touch with life since then. I'm a trifler, a dilettante, and an amateur of the right and the good as I used to be when I was young. Oh, I have the grace to be troubled at times, now, and once I never was. It never occurred to me then that the world wasn't made to interest me, or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... threshold of Eld" (as were Judge Webb and Lord Penzance when they took up Shakespearean criticism). His knowledge of Elizabethan literature is vastly superior to mine, for I speak merely, in Matthew Arnold's words, as "a belletristic trifler." ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... schools, ever ready with compendious label, he is the revolutionary destructive. To each alike of the countless orthodox sects his name is the symbol for the prevailing of the gates of hell. Erudition figures him as shallow and a trifler; culture condemns him for pushing his hatred of spiritual falsehood much too seriously; Christian charity feels constrained to unmask a demon from the depths of the pit. The plain men of the earth, who are apt to measure the merits ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... talking well is to adapt your conversation as skillfully as may be to your company. Some men make a point of talking commonplace to all ladies alike, as if a woman could only be a trifler. Others, on the contrary, seem to forget in what respects the education of a lady differs from that of a gentleman, and commit the opposite error of conversing on topics with which ladies are seldom acquainted. A woman of ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... human progress. If they express moral and political greatness, and serve to enhance it, they acquire a certain dignity; but so soon as this expressive function is abandoned they grow meretricious. The artist becomes an abstracted trifler, and the public is divided into two camps: the dilettanti, who dote on the artist's affectations, and the rabble, who pay him to grow coarse. Both influences degrade him and he helps to foster both. An atmosphere ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... nonchalance &c (insensibility) 823; imprudence, recklessness &c 863; slovenliness &c (disorder) 59, (dirt) 653; improvidence &c 674; noncompletion &c 730; inexactness &c (error) 495. paralipsis, paralepsis, paraleipsis (in rhetoric). trifler, waiter on Providence; Micawber. V. be negligent &c adj.; take no care of &c (take care of) &c 459; neglect; let slip, let go; lay aside, set aside, cst aside, put aside; keep out of sight, put out of sight; lose sight of. overlook, disregard; pass ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... strong physical health, and that vigor of heart Which physical health gives, and partly, perchance, From a generous vanity native to France, With the heart of a hunter, whatever the quarry, Pursued it, too hotly impatient to tarry Or turn, till he took it. His trophies were trifles: But trifler he was not. When rose-leaves it rifles, No less than when oak-trees it ruins, the wind Its pleasure pursues with impetuous mind. Both Eugene de Luvois and Lord Alfred had been Men of pleasure: but men's pleasant vices, which, seen Floating faint in the sunshine of Alfred's soft mood, Seem'd amiable ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... hedge. I got spies out and they say he's been in every cafe in town looking for me. Wants to make up. Watch little birdie here. If he comes monkeying around me again I'll pick up one of these and knock him clean out from under his hat. Trifler. How I ever fell for him certainly gets me. How anybody could love a press agent or an actor gets me for that matter. I have been crossed in love and ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... to arrest the dark apprehensions that tramped harshly through Dan's mind. As for Bassett, Dan recalled his quondam chief's occasional flings at Allen, whom the senator from Fraser had regarded as a spoiled and erratic but innocuous trifler. Mrs. Bassett, Dan was aware, valued her social position highly. As the daughter of Blackford Singleton she considered herself unassailably a member of the upper crust of the Hoosier aristocracy. And Dan suspected that Bassett also harbored ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... known that Holmes was the author. The companion writers in the Collegian were Simmons, who wrote over the signature of "Lockfast"; John O. Sargent, poet and essayist, whose nom de plume was "Charles Sherry"; Robert Habersham, the "Mr. Airy" of the group; and that clever young trifler, Theodore Snow, who delighted the readers of the periodical with the works of "Geoffrey La Touche." Of these, of course, Holmes was the life and soul, and though sixty years have passed away since he enriched the columns of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... reserv'd no future paradise, But bids you rove the paths of bliss, secure Of total death, and careless of hereafter; While heaven's high minister, whose awful volume Records each act, each thought of sov'reign man, Surveys your plays with inattentive glance, And leaves the lovely trifler unregarded. ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... But I hope my wine is better than my scholarship. This is our man of learning," he slapped Harry on the shoulder. "And Harry counts me a mere trifler, a literary exquisite, an amateur ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... to the younger ones. She has not been spending her time in fooling around idly and dancing and being out on the river, like so many girls. Rose is not worth half of Marie, and I do not see how I shall ever get the trifler trained to take Marie's place. But there ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... trifler. Love! I know thee not, I care not for thee, Kate: this is no world To play with mammets, and to tilt with lips; We must have bloody noses and ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... for their own sake is a trifler, but one who values them, rather, for the deductions that may be drawn from them—he is ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... is why no man of lofty genius or character has ever condescended to remain an actor. His lot pressed heavily even on so mercurial a trifler as David Garrick, who has given utterance to the feeling in lines as good perhaps as any ever written by ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... to the lively question of the Lady Frances in her usual straightforward and unpresuming manner: a manner that afforded considerable amusement to the merry trifler, by whom the little Puritan was commonly spoken of, while absent, as ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... lost in the hands of such boobies! You are as great a fool as Antoine de Navarre! Out of my sight! Leave me; I want a better negotiator than you! You are an ass, a popinjay, a poet! Go and make your elegies and your acrostics, you trifler! Hence!" ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... marriage—I thought it among the list of possible things, no more—to see if that crystal pool, called Violetta d'Isorella, could be discoloured by stirring. Did you watch her face? I don't know what she wanted with Carlo, for she's cold as poison—a female trifler; one of those women whom I, and I have a chaste body, despise as worse than wantons; but she certainly did not want him to be married. It seems like a victory—though we're beaten. You have beaten us, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... philosopher frequently doggishly nicknamed Owd Bob, went to Washington lately to see President Harding. His eye fell upon the White House Airedale. Now Owd Bob is himself something of an Airedale trifler, and cherishes the memory of a certain Tristram Shandy, an animal that frequently appeared in the lighter editorials of the Bookman when Mr. Holliday (then the editor) could think of nothing else to write about. And of Mr. Harding's dog Mr. Holliday reports, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... Conversation with the utmost Impatience. One of these Promisers sometimes shall make his Excuses for not coming at all, so late that half the Company have only to lament, that they have neglected Matters of Moment to meet him whom they find a Trifler. They immediately repent of the Value they had for him; and such Treatment repeated, makes Company never depend upon his Promise any more; so that he often comes at the Middle of a Meal, where he ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... for the peace of Utrecht. We are indeed no admirers of the statesmen who concluded that peace. Harley, we believe, was a solemn trifler, St. John a brilliant knave. The great body of their followers consisted of the country clergy and the country gentry; two classes of men who were then inferior in intelligence to decent shopkeepers or farmers of our time. Parson Barnabas, Parson Trulliber, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... fists, and so overawed them by this display of resolution that they forthwith swallowed their complaints and joined his ranks with as good a grace as they might. I myself, in these first days, saw a little incident which impressed me that the man was no trifler. I was in his quarters one day, when an officer came in and made a report to him about some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... were married; and these four years, Seraphina, have not perhaps been happy either for you or for me. I am well aware I was unsuitable to be your husband. I was not young, I had no ambition, I was a trifler; and you despised me, I dare not say unjustly. But to do justice on both sides, you must bear in mind how I have acted. When I found it amused you to play the part of Princess on this little stage, did I not immediately resign to you my box of toys, this Gruenewald? And when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... has been already said to disabuse the reader's mind of the common misconception of Buffon, namely, that he was more or less of an elegant trifler with science, who cared rather about the language in which his ideas were clothed than about the ideas themselves, and that he did not hold the same opinions for long together; but the accusation of instability has been made in such ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... of hypocrisy! Into how many ears have I poured tender words, until fair hands were as good as offered to me, and I turned their love to mockery! I hated and despised all womanhood; and even in Paris I became notorious as a heartless trifler with the affections I won and trampled under my feet. Whenever a brilliant and beautiful woman crossed my path, I attached myself to her train of admirers, until I made her acknowledge my power and give public and unmistakable manifestation ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... senses in their fullness. Think of her patient, unremitting delving, of the digging up, up, up to get to the light which most human beings are privileged to enjoy with no effort at all! The mind that accepts this wealth with no thought, no sense of responsibility, is a trifler with riches that are about us for God-given purposes. Think of the way in which Stevenson and John Richard Green and George Eliot rose above their ill-health and did their work in despite of it! Perhaps some of us have superb health and have never made any conscious effort to use that gift for ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks

... retreat, smiled beautifully to himself. He had watched the old gentleman's progress through the garden, and had guessed that he was tremendously proud of his flowers, his trees, his lawn; and an inspiration had come to this light-hearted trifler with another man's ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... silent grave!— The world, which for an idle day Grace to your mood of sadness gave, Long since hath flung her weeds away. The eternal trifler breaks your spell; But we—we ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... with an unmistakably well-bred air he asked a waiter for the wine-list, and then, like a man with an excellent appetite, fell to upon the various hors d'oeuvres, the entire collection of which, in fact, he consumed in a wonderfully short space of time. The Baron, being himself no trifler with his victuals, regarded this feat with sympathetic approval, and began to feel a little less alone in the world. His naturally open disposition was warmed besides, owing to a slight misconception he had fallen into, perfectly excusable however in a foreigner. He thought ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... more and more confirmed as a trifler and an idler, and he suffered that terrible ennui, which dogs the shadow of wasted time. Associating habitually with men who were his inferiors in ability, and whose tastes were lower than his own, the vacuity of mind and lassitude ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... been slain for him. We shall see. My own impression is that Mackenzie is a humorous writer, and that the wiseacres who want the novel to be 'serious' are barking up the wrong tree. At any rate, there the book is, and it is admitted to be a good book by all who have been condemning Mackenzie as a trifler; and Mackenzie is going on with his sequel to it in the pleasant land of Italy. I did not see him in Italy, but in Herm, one of the minor Channel Islands. It took me a night to reach the place—a night of fog and fog-signals—a night of mystery, with the moon full ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... dictionary might be compiled, recording where each word was first heard or seen, where and how it was first used. The references are utterly beyond recovery; but such a register would throw a strange light on individual styles. The eloquent trifler, whose stock of words has been accumulated by a pair of light fingers, would stand denuded of his plausible pretences as soon as it were seen how roguishly he came by his eloquence. There may be literary quality, ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... It's good for one's bed-room, Queen Anne—for one's washing-room; but it isn't proper for a salon. Do I spend my life at the auctioneer's?" Mr. Rosier pursued in answer to another question of Isabel's. "Oh no; I haven't the means. I wish I had. You think I'm a mere trifler; I can tell by the expression of your face—you've got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don't mind my saying that; I mean it as a kind of warning. You think I ought to do something, and so do I, so long as you leave it vague. But when you come to the point you see you have to ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... your agitation in order to work upon your sensibility. My desire is not to surprize, but to reconcile you to my plan. What is it I seek in Miss Beverley? An Heiress? No, as such she has seen I could resist her; nor yet the light trifler of a spring or two, neglected when no longer a novelty; no, no!—it is a companion for ever, it is a solace for every care, it is a bosom friend through every period of life that I seek in Miss Beverley! Her esteem, therefore, to me is as precious as her affection, for how can I hope her friendship ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... yesterday, while passing through your bookstore, to find a number of immoral books there for sale. I copied down the names of a few of them—'An Earnest Trifler' and 'A Desperate Chance.'" ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... life. Antonia the Aristocrat and Nostromo the Man of the People are the artisans of the New Era, the true creators of the New State; he by his legendary and daring feat, she, like a woman, simply by the force of what she is: the only being capable of inspiring a sincere passion in the heart of a trifler. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... in loops of flight I watch you wayward go; Dance down a shaft of glancing light, Review my books a-row; Before the bust you flaunt and flit Of "blind Maeonides"— Ah, trifler, on his lips there lit Not ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... me sound thy name, Lest this old rust of war, this knotty trifler, Should raise me ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... extended their influence over every other. The second generation of the statesmen of this reign were worthy pupils of the schools in which they had been trained, of the gaming-table of Grammont, and the tiring-room of Nell. In no other age could such a trifler as Buckingham have exercised any political influence. In no other age could the path to power and glory have been thrown open to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... by a prince of great firmness and ability. On the other hand England, which, since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea with ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... guest chose to convey. He felt bewildered, and at the same time happy. He who was so alone of a sudden found that he possessed this relative, and it seemed to him almost too good to be true. That the relative had never before noticed his existence, that he was supposed to be a trifler and a ne'er-do-weel, didn't cloud ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... not entirely revolting to Helen, though she had a small opinion of the elegant young trifler who pursued her so persistently, for she, too, had social aspirations, though being more clear-sighted than her mother, she dreamed of wider circles than those of Chicago. Her husband, whoever he was to be, should take her to Paris, or at least ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... would wish the days were weeks, and the weeks months. And why? Simply because I have discovered the philosopher's stone. I have grasped the secret of my era. The comedy of rank is played out; the life of the trifler is at an end; all that went out with the Bourbons. Individualism is the new order. To-day a man exists simply by virtue of his own effort—he stands on his own feet. It is the era of the republican, of the individual—science is the true republic. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... sitter 'a cheerful slap on the back, before he says, like a shampooer in a Turkish bath, "Next man!" Mr. Herkomer's art is, 'if not a catch-penny art, at all events a catch-many-pounds art,' and Mr. W. B. Richmond is a 'clever trifler,' who 'might do really good work' 'if he would employ his time in learning to paint.' It is obviously unnecessary for us to point out how luminous these criticisms are, how delicate in expression. The remarks on Sir Joshua Reynolds alone exemplify ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... many, he thought worse of Tom Helmer than he yet deserved. He was a characterless fool, a trifler, a poetic babbler, a good-for-nothing good sort of fellow; that was the worst that as yet was true of him; and better things might with equal truth have been said of him, had there been any one that loved him ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... experienced a warm suffusion in the vicinity of his throat. In the next breath he felt genuinely guilty. As he looked deep into the anxious, appealing gray eyes of Miss Vost, he cursed himself for being, or having the tendencies to be, a trifler; and in his estimation a trifler was not far removed from the reptile class. Yet somehow, damn it, that trip to Ching-Fu on the Hankow appealed to him now as a most profitable excursion, for Ching-Fu was only a few ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... suppose her guilt, and that what we see before us is a great spirit carried away by passion—that something beyond reason, beyond all human power to restrain, which sometimes binds an angelic woman to a villain, and sometimes a man of the highest power and wisdom to a lovely trifler or a fool. It seems to me as at once more consistent with the facts and with human nature to realise the position of the unhappy Queen as transported by that overwhelming sentiment, and wrought on the other side to an impatience almost ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... 'Volatile trifler!' said Mr Pecksniff, fondly musing. 'She is well, she is well. Roving from parlour to bedroom, Mr Jonas, like a bee, skimming from post to pillar, like the butterfly; dipping her young beak into our currant wine, like the humming-bird! ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... take offense he slid the lines on Indian Summer into his breast pocket, to keep company with the lucky-stone. The situation had become riskily sentimental and intensely stimulating to Burr's disposition as a social trifler. He was reckless of consequences, vain of conquest over any woman, and scrupulous only to avoid failure in his amours. The more innocent and virtuous the victim, the keener and more careful was he in pursuit. To entrap unsuspecting game without exciting alarm he considered the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... careerist is rather obvious, easily recognizable, with diaphanous motives and conduct. But there is another and rarer bird, the careerist of talent, even the careerist of genius, whom it is not so easy to see through. Clever and brainy, he may be a good all around trifler, or his specific gift for some line of achievement may make him more effective. There is nothing he may not call himself: conservative, liberal, progressive, or radical. Often he is an agnostic about social and political affairs and problems, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... I have found her. You may think me a trifler, Easelmann; but every nerve I have is quivering with agony at the thought of the pain I have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... The invention of pendulum clocks took place about the middle of the seventeenth century; and the honour of the discovery is disputed between Galileo and Huygens. Becher contends for Galileo, and states that one Trifler made the first pendulum clock at Florence, under the direction of Galileo Galilei, and that a model of it was sent to Holland. The Accademia del Cimento also expressly declared, that the application of the pendulum to the movement of a clock, was first proposed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various

... betrayed, after implying such esteem in the earlier phase of their intercourse, made Olive's cheeks occasionally flush. She prayed heaven that she might never become so personal, so narrow. She was frivolous, worldly, an amateur, a trifler, a frequenter of Beacon Street; her taking up Verena Tarrant was only a kind of elderly, ridiculous doll-dressing: this was the light in which Miss Chancellor had reason to believe that it now suited Mrs. Farrinder to regard her! ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... sense which I have met with among the poor women who have had few advantages of education, and yet have acted heroically, strongly confirmed me in the opinion, that trifling employments have rendered women a trifler. Men, taking her ('I take her body,' says Ranger.) body, the mind is left to rust; so that while physical love enervates man, as being his favourite recreation, he will endeavour to enslave woman: and who ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... prettiness—while about, I say, to deny Herrick the spirit of love or wine, and in the same breath with the dismissal of Crashaw as a "hectic enthusiast," informs us that Carew was "an elegant Court trifler," and describes his style as a "frequent mixture of the superficial and commonplace, with ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... know this water-fly] A water-fly, skips up and down upon the surface of the water, without any apparent purpose or reason, and is thence the proper emblem of a busy trifler. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... down on him, frowning and pulling at his moustache. Then, more quickly than one would have expected from so careless a trifler, his mind was ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson

... well, regarded the person of the king. There was somewhat of gloomy and ferocious dignity about Philip II. which might easily bring a courtier to his knees; but how can we account for the equal reverence that was paid to the ninny Philip III., the debauched trifler Philip IV., and the drivelling ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... are full of wit and wisdom and sound advice is certain. Mr. Strachey, in his preface, seems to be under the impression that in the popular estimate Chesterfield is reckoned an elegant trifler, a man of no serious account. What the popular or vulgar estimate of Chesterfield may be it would be hard to determine, nor is it of the least importance, for no one who knows about Lord Chesterfield can possibly entertain any such opinion. ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... compared with similar things in Scott. The book was not an historical romance, and the manners, sentiments, language, all were modern. Walpole knew little about the Middle Ages and was not in touch with their spirit. At bottom he was a trifler, a fribble; and his incurable superficiality, dilettantism, and want of seriousness, made all his real cleverness of no avail when applied to such a subject as "The ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... For against all the world is my sermon; every one contradicts it. If I go about with lies, then I have Christ against me; therefore I have heaven and earth against me, and how then could I stand? As such a trifler with holy things how should I dare rise up? Believe me, I speak the truth, I have seen it with my eyes, and touched it with my hands. Believe it! If I speak not the truth, I consign myself body and soul to destruction; ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... and night. The result was, the word of God dwelt in her richly, in all wisdom, so that she was able to teach and admonish others with singular propriety and power. Her accurate and extensive acquaintance with the scriptures gave a richness and impressiveness to her conversation, which awed the trifler, edified the thoughtful, and shed light and comfort upon the minds of anxious inquirers. Many of her own sex resorted to her for counsel as to an oracle; and as she generally joined in prayer with her inquiring friends, her advices and cautions became in numerous instances, as a "nail fastened ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... the present: they devoured the small forgery of the great Horace Walpole, "The Castle of Otranto," and rejected the magnificence of a nameless composition. This man's neglect drove the young poet to the "Autocrat of Strawberry Hill." In reply he at first received a polished letter. The literary trifler was not aware of the poverty and low station of his correspondent, and so was courteous; he is "grateful" and "singularly obliged;" bowing, and perfumed, and polite. Other communications followed. Walpole ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... straw, but you shall both know the truth. I shan't go away a coward. I can at least be honest, and then you may think what you please of my weakness and vacillation. You cannot think worse things than I think myself, but you must not imagine that I am a cold-blooded, deliberate trifler, for that has never been true. I know you don't care for ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... the Asiatics, who are such slaves to number, as to insert words which have no use nor meaning to fill up the vacuities in a sentence. There are likewise some who, in imitation of Hegesias (a notorious trifler as well in this as in every other respect) curtail and mince their numbers, and are thus betrayed into the low and paltry style of the Sicilians. Another fault in composition is that which occurs in the speeches of Hierocles and Menecles, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... as if he found a serious flaw in it; after which he began again: "I never supposed you a trifler." ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... these thoughts, I saw that I must avoid what is called bad company, that I must give up my old habits and pretensions, which would be sure to make me enemies, who would have no scruple in representing me as a trifler, and not fit to be trusted with affairs ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... was then only a courtier in Versailles, came to Madame Geoffrin's parties. He was a man who combined in a most surprising manner true philosophy and a deep knowledge of political economy, with the outward appearance of a fop and a trifler. Among the other distinguished men who lived in Paris, Marmontel names with high praise the Abbe Galliani, Caraccioli, who was afterward Neapolitan ambassador, and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various

... trifler had exhausted his store of grain, and satisfied the cravings of his voracious favourites, he was relieved of his silver vase by two attendants. The flock of poultry was then ushered out at one door, while the flock of geniuses was ushered in at ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... trifler, after all," she would say to Madam Wetherill. "Shall I ever be like my dear mother or have any of the sober Henry blood ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... down in the porch and, maybe inspired by secret antagonism to the Fynes, I said to myself deliberately that Captain Anthony must be a fine fellow. Yet on the facts as I knew them he might have been a dangerous trifler or a downright scoundrel. He had made a miserable, hopeless girl follow him clandestinely to London. It is true that the girl had written since, only Mrs Fyne had been remarkably vague as to the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... thinking," she cried impulsively "You are wrong—very wrong, Mr. Chase. Lady Deppingham is a born coquette—a born trifler. It is ridiculous to think that she can ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... was much the servant of whim in his literary tastes. That he was no sceptic but a disciple as regards Shakespeare and Milton and Pope and Gray suggests, on the other hand, how foolish it is to regard him as being critically a fashionable trifler. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... he was as little wretched as a man can be who is a living monument of the too common folly of being captivated by a sudden glare of person and parts; and of the fatal error of those men who seek in marriage for an amusing trifler rather than a rational and amiable companion, and too late find that the vivacity which pleases in the mistress is often a fatal vice in a wife. He lives chiefly in the country, has generally a few friends in the house with him, and takes a great deal of pains in the education ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... be glad if this tall, comely trifler, with a voice as musical as some grave-toned viol, were to be seen from time to time to relieve the tedium of life with the offensive Philadelphus. This admission instantly brought a shock to her. She had learned to study ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... Caroline's father in the Colony was a circumstance ominous of trouble. The Baron was no trifler, and would as soon choke a prince as a beggar, to revenge an insult to his personal honor or ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... with a brave pretense at lightness, "if only you weren't such a trifler! The dangerous thing about you is that you mean this now—almost; enough, anyway, to give it a ring of sincerity. Were I less sophisticated, I might go home believing it, and thinking what a wonderful man you are starting out to be; but in ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... him straight in the eyes. "I have seen her. A fair toy vessel to amuse an idle young man's leisure! You are he that in that fool's hole of a Bosekop, is known as the 'rich Englishman,'—an idle trifler with time,—an aimless wanderer from those dull shores where they eat gold till they die of surfeit! I have heard of you,—a mushroom knight, a fungus of nobility,—an ephemeral growth on a grand decaying old tree, whose roots ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... loved me, otherwise I could not obey your Commands in letting you know my Thoughts so sincerely as I do at present. I know the Creature for whom I resign so much of my Character is all that you said of her; but then the Trifler has something in her so undesigning and harmless, that her Guilt in one kind disappears by the Comparison of her Innocence in another. Will you, Virtuous Men, allow no alteration of Offences? Must Dear [Chloe ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... implies, in the fourth place, a willingness to be saved. "What must I do to be saved?" This man is not asking this question to gather material for a future argument. He is no speculator. He is no trifler. He is not even asking it because he is intellectually curious. He is not simply asking that he may know the conditions of salvation. He is asking with the earnest purpose in his heart ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell

... fashions of life in harmony therewith; and totally averse to the purer, manlier and nobler duties and pleasures of a better state of society. To dress and exhibit themselves; to crowd the saloon of every foreign trifler, who, under the abused name of art, and for the sake of gold, seeks to minister to us those meretricious excitements which associate themselves with declining states and artificial forms of life; to waste the most precious hours of night, set apart by the God ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... deceitful PLEASURE'S Shade; A Butterfly with Joy surveyed By every inexperienced Child, Till he, like you, has been beguiled. Learn, therefore, that this Insect bright, The Worm alluring to the Sight; This airy Trifler, ever smiling, Still promising, and still beguiling; All glorious, when at Distance view'd, And always pleasing while pursued, Will never yield what you desire; And, grasp'd with Ardour, ...
— The Sugar-Plumb - or, Golden Fairing • Margery Two-Shoes

... flora and fauna of Patagonia or New Zealand. But while the Patagonian naturalist secures recognition and is decorated, every jaunty man of letters feels at liberty to scoff at the liturgiologist as a laborious trifler. ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... the hearer, but enthralls him. Such is the effect of those words of Demosthenes:[16] "Supposing, now, at this moment a cry of alarm were heard outside the assize courts, and the news came that the prison was broken open and the prisoners escaped, is there any man here who is such a trifler that he would not run to the rescue at the top of his speed? But suppose some one came forward with the information that they had been set at liberty by the defendant, what then? Why, he would be lynched on ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... of you than I thought, my boy. In May I knew you had a heart; but one who heard you in the woods would have set you down just for a kindly, practical man of the world. Last night, and most of the time to-day, you were the trifler, the incorrigible jester. Why do you belie yourself so and hide your inmost ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... superannuated court-dangler, a credulous trifler, but an earnest Papist as his brother Antony had been, sixty-six years old, and feeble beyond his years, who, his life long, had never achieved one manly action, and had now one foot in the grave; this was the puppet placed in the saddle to run a tilt against the Bearnese, the man with foot ever ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... not endure that which beset him; it was unbearable, because her eyes had maddeningly seemed to ask him some wistful question. Why did she let her loveliness so call to him. She was not a trifler who could play with meanings. Perhaps she did not know what her power was. Sometimes he could believe that beautiful ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... to hear it, Miss Oswald, I assure you. But I'm only a beginner and a trifler yet. Some day I mean to produce something that will be worth listening to. Only, do you remember what some French novelist once said?—"A poet's sweetest poem is always the one he has never been able to compose." I often think that's ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... deep respect. But for your ambidextrous apologist or theologian, the fellow who can make words bear double meanings, and even infallible oracles tell contradictory stories, we have nothing but contempt, because he is a trifler ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... prophet to feed the stranger, whether friend or enemy," he reproved. "We are also commanded by the Lord to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. As long as you are no trifler you will be welcome at ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... Winter-street, swinging the kettle about in the most reckless manner, and setting it down on the pavement to play leap-frog over the fire-plugs, her wrath reached a point that boded no good to the young trifler. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... should have given my mind to logic, employed me incessantly. This I call my FUROR MATHEMATICUS." Following in succession come his FUROR LOGICUS, FUROR HISTORICUS, and FUROR PEOTICUS, each of which absorbed him for the time being. It would be wrong, however, to think of Burke as a trifler even in his youth. He read in the library three hours every day and we may be sure he read as intelligently as eagerly. It is more than probable that like a few other great minds he did not need a rigid system to guide him. If he chose his subjects ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... that Condorcet showed himself no pedantic nor fastidious trifler with the tremendous movement which he had contributed to set afoot. The same practical spirit which drove him into the strife, guided him in the midst of it. He never wrung his hands, nor wept, nor bewailed the unreason of the multitudes to whom in vain he preached reason. Unlike the typical ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley

... herself that it was solely for the sake of her conscience that she wanted to see Senor Don't Care survive; solely for the sake of her conscience that she wanted to see him go aboard the train safe. After that, she could forget ever having owed this trifler the feeling of gratitude for a favor done. Literally, he must live in order to be a dead and unremembered ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... gaze of the desert, he found himself turning his thoughts inward. He had been driven out of his father's house. He had been called a dawdler and a trifler and a do-nothing. He had been told by a stern old man who was a man that he was a disgrace to his name. He had never done anything but dance and smoke and drink and make pretty speeches which were polite lies and which were accepted as such. And now a minor note, as thin as a low-toned human ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... chord that changed the whole manner of the other. His air, which had borne the character of a genteel trifler, became more grave and dignified; and notwithstanding there was the evidence of a reckless disposition in his features, dress and carriage, his tall and not ungraceful form, as he walked slowly onward, by the side of the compact ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... was unique, or peculiarly his own; always brief; never loud, vehement, or impassioned, but conciliating, persuasive, and impressive; and when his subject called for gravity or seriousness, his manner was stern and peremptory. He was too dignified ever to be a trifler; and his sarcasm, sometimes indulged in, rarely created a laugh, but powerfully told upon those who had provoked it. His enunciation was slow, distinct, and emphatic; perhaps too emphatic; and this was pronounced, by his early and devoted friend, Judge Paterson, [3] a fault in his ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... instance, how could I have been so prescient to have coupled Emerson and Schopenhauer together so persistently? Here, smudged and corrected to distraction, is a passionate defence of the former, occasioned by some academical trifler dubbing him a mere echo of Carlyle and Coleridge. I almost lived on Emerson in those days, to such good purpose, indeed, that I know him by heart. And, if I mistake not, he will come to his own again in the near future, when there will be no talk ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... drifted into the land where were warmth and light and lawlessness. He had his duty there, such as it might be, for he was both a gambler and a protector, and, young as he was, callow as he was, within a year he had become one in demand, no trifler at the table, and an object of rivalry among those whose regard means fee of body and of soul. He, himself, at that time, did not appreciate the remarkable nature of his changing. So rapidly he aged in knowledge of all undercurrents ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... friends at first laughed heartily; but then Froda advanced gravely towards the secretary, and said, "Thou trifler, doubtless the old duke would drive thee from his service did he know of thy folly, and teach thee to talk of the Emperor. Good-night, worthy sir, and trust me that when Edwald and I meet each other, it will be with all our heart ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... then, the incense they tender; Go, the one that adored thee forget! Go, thy charms to the feigner surrender, In my scorn is my comforter yet! Go, for thee with what trust and belief There beat not ignobly a heart That has strength yet to strive with the grief To have worshipped the trifler thou art! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... his, as a specimen of the ignorance in which Americans usually remain during their flighty visits to these scenes, where they associate only with one another. And I do it the rather as this seemed a really thoughtful, intelligent man; no vain, vulgar trifler. He said, "The people seem only to be looking ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... years of life; few, indeed, for the attainment of anything like general perfection! With the brevity of that sum of years his mind is exceptionally impressed; and this purpose makes him no frivolous dilettante, but graver than other men: his scheme is not that of a trifler, but rather of one who gives a meaning of his own, yet a very real one, to those old words—Let us work while it is day! He has a strong apprehension, also, of the beauty of the visible things around him; their fading, momentary, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... answered the soldier: "I have had an interview with the man called Agelastes, and he seems something so different from what he appeared when we last spoke of him, that I cannot forbear mentioning to you what I have seen. He is not an insignificant trifler, whose object it is to raise a laugh at his own expense, or that of any other. He is a deep-thinking and far-reaching man, who, for some reason or other, is desirous of forming friends, and drawing a party to himself. Your own wisdom will teach ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... thing! An admirer, forsooth! Of what?—Your ideas are too mean and frothy to let you admire anything but my dress, or some other trifle as empty and superficial as the trifler I am speaking to. My demeanour towards you was nothing but the effect of cheerfulness and politeness; qualities which, I believe, are inherent in me, and of which, therefore, all with whom I am acquainted are the objects; but ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low

... smiles and frowns of royalty. He afterwards saw her the idol of the party which opposed government, sung by Waller, flattered by Holland, presiding with all the frivolity and pride of a pretty trifler at the dark divan, while Pym and St. John disclosed their hopes of extending their aggressions to seizing the remaining prerogatives of the alarmed and conceding King. Weak, vain, passionate, and unprincipled, with no determined object but her own aggrandizement—no claim ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... barrister withdrew to his room, where he read hard until very late. Eustace was no trifler; he had brains, and saw his way to make use of them to the one end which addressed his imagination, that of social self-advancement. His studies to-night were troubled with a resentful fear lest Irene's "unwomanly" behaviour (a generation ago it would have been "unladylike") should bring the family ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... while passing through your bookstore, to find a number of immoral books there for sale. I copied down the names of a few of them—'An Earnest Trifler' and ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... I swear!" broke in the old surgeon, who looked upon the cause of his patient with as much interest as if it were his own. "Our lucky star has sent us a lawyer who is no trifler, and who, if I am not very much mistaken, would like very much to leave Saigon with a loud blast ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... judgment," {and so saying}, he took himself off on light wing through the air, and duped the multitude, and eluded the threats of the Bull. {Now} if the Bull had kept in mind his strength of neck, and had contemned an ignoble foe, the vapouring of the trifler would have been ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... was not easy to suspect him of acting, as it was next to impossible to mistake him for a trifler. His tall figure, his carriage, the fine pose of his head, his resonant manly voice, all forbade it, no less than did the wild scenery to which he drew our attention with an easy proprietary wave of the hand. I observed that Captain Branscome listened ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... this day the same tendency obtains; the direction of the motive power has no such consideration as the military functions in the navies of the Latin nations. The studious and systematic side of the French character also inclined the French officer, when not a trifler, to consider and develop tactical questions in a logical manner; to prepare himself to handle fleets, not merely as a seaman but as a military man. The result showed, in the American Revolutionary War, that despite a mournful history of governmental ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... memorandum of his apparent success in interesting Cub Perry with an account of his predicament, in spite of the efforts of his radio nemesis to prove him a trifler with the truth. Tuesday's entry closed with a notation of the announcement from Cub that the Catwhisker was about to start on a rescue trip from Oswego to the Lake of the Thousand Islands and would endeavor to find him ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield



Words linked to "Trifler" :   trifle, layabout, do-nothing, idler



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