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Varsity   Listen
noun
Varsity  n.  
1.
Colloquial contraction of University. (Brit.)
2.
The team with the best players of a school or club, being the main representative of the organization in competitive play between schools or organizations. In schools, contrasted with junior varsity. Also used attributively, as, the varsity football team.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Varsity" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Varsity Drag and repressed the thought. "A bunch of fumblebums," he said. "All fumbling alike. It does sound unlikely, but I guess it's possible. We'll get after them ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... college waiters was on hand. And they was as nice a lot of boys as ever handled plates and wiped dishes for their board and four dollars a week. They was poor, of course, and working their passage through what they called the "varsity," but they attended to business and wa'n't a mite set up ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... consolation to reflect that the chiefs of pretentious educational institutes elsewhere have proven by their parroting that they have as little conception of the social contract and true position of the pedagogue in "the scheme of things," as has our own 'varsity president. Texas' educational system is probably up to the average, and President Winston as wise as many other pompous "gerund-grinders" who look into leather spectacles and see nothing, yet imagine that, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... tremendously glad to see me; I was a sort of link, you know. When I started in to tell her how splendidly she'd sung and how every one was rejoicing she said, "Yes,—thanks—isn't every one sweet? But did Stepper write you that Jimsy was 'Varsity Captain this year, and that they beat Berkeley twelve to five? And that Jimsy made both touchdowns? Do you remember that game you saw with us—and how Jimsy ran down the field and shook hands with the boy who'd scored ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... him, as were also Bob, Ted, and Thad, who likewise had hopes. There was talk and laughter, and admiring and envying glances were cast at the big men—those who had played on the varsity team last year. They were like ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes

... by one of his assistants, who neglected his work, smoked in his class-room, and even absented himself on occasions without leave. It may be asked why the head-master did not dismiss his recalcitrant assistant. It was because he had secured a man who was a 'Varsity cricket-blue, and whose presence on the staff gave the parents confidence, and provided an excellent advertisement. The assistant, on the other hand, knew that he could get a similar post for the asking, ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... an athlete," Mr. Fentolin continued. "I played cricket for the Varsity and for my county. I hunted, too, and shot. I did all the things a man loves to do. I might still shoot, they tell me, but my strength has ebbed away. I am too weak to lift a gun, too weak even to handle a fishing-rod. I have ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Gordon! Goodness gracious! I'm going to ask them if they've ever met Ted Burns at 'Varsity. Ted's just crazy to get me to correspond ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... subsisted upon shellfish and an occasional bird that I succeeded in knocking over with a rock, for long practice as a pitcher on prep-school and varsity nines had made me an excellent shot with a ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... ambitious and loved the spotlight like an actor. The flamboyant oratory at which he excelled had won for him the interstate contest. He was editor-in-chief of the "Verdenian," manager of the varsity football team, and ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... no lover of Cambridge, is likely to forget the Grantchester poem. But knowing Brooke only by that, one may perhaps be excused for having merely ticketed him as one of the score of young varsity poets whom Oxford and Cambridge had graduated in the past decade and who are all doing fine and promising work. Even though he tarried here in the United States ("El Cuspidorado," as he wittily observed) and many hold precious the memory ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... the girls' basketball championship of the city, was scheduled for the 15th of February. Up until this year Washington High had never come within sight of the championship. Then this season something had happened to the Varsity team which had made it a power to be reckoned with among the schools of the city. That something was Sahwah. Thanks to her playing, Washington High had not lost a single game so far. Her being put on the team was purely due to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... purchase the tweed for me. I must be on the look-out for a friend who promised to meet me here this afternoon—a young man whom I contemplate engaging as my curate. I am most particular in the choice of a curate, and should, of course, prefer a public school and 'Varsity man. I need scarcely say that I refer only to Oxford and Cambridge as the Universities. As a rule, I do not care for Irishmen, but on the recommendation of my friend Dr. Henry, I am willing to consider this ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... heard vaguely that he was travelling over the world, and, when I met in town now and then some of the fellows who had known him at the 'Varsity, weird rumours reached me. One told me that he was tramping across America, earning his living as he went; another asserted that he had been seen in a monastry in India; a third assured me that ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... a gentlemanly chap," said Uncle Tom urbanely, leaning back in his chair. "Eton, the 'varsity, and all that sort of thing. Quite one of ourselves. Old family, and a warm man. And suitable in age. My age. Thirty-nine. (Uncle Tom was really forty-one.) You're no chicken yourself, you know, Emmy. Thirty-eight, ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... to Yale University. In his second year he becomes a varsity pitcher and pitches in ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... athlete. "Why, I was first reserve for England against Wales, and I've skippered the 'Varsity all this year. But that's nothing! I didn't think there was a soul in England who didn't know Godfrey Staunton, the crack three-quarter, Cambridge, Blackheath, and five Internationals. Good Lord! Mr. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... he had been baptized "Ice-Box" by his warmer- blooded fellows. As a member of the faculty he was known as "Cold- Storage." He had but one grief, and that was "Freddie." He had earned it when he played full-back in the 'Varsity eleven, and his formal soul had never succeeded in living it down. "Freddie" he would ever be, except officially, and through nightmare vistas he looked into a future when his world would speak of him ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... (though this, of course, may be an isolated experience) with sides unshaken. "Callisthenes at Cambridge," for example, is but little removed from the article that, to my certain knowledge, has padded school and 'Varsity magazines since such began to be. Still, I liked the plea for Protection against foreign imports in literature and art by way of helping the native producer, though even here some condensation would, I thought, have sharpened the point. But, after all, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various

... chemically inclined, they may discover something that will revolutionize dyeing, for example: but not one man in a thousand is a genius; and, as a rule, the man you are speaking of—the ordinary public school and 'varsity man—if he has no interest, and is not bent upon entering the army, even as a private, emigrates if he hasn't sufficient income ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... two Jewish organizations mentioned above, the Hasmonea is a branch of the inter-varsity K. Z. V. (Kartell Zionistischer Verbindungen), whereas the Sprevia belongs to the K.-C. (Kartell-Convent der Tendenzverbindungen deutscher Studenten juedischen Glaubens). The former, as the name implies, is Zionistic; the latter is opposed to Zionism. Their relation ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... just because he happened to be handy. She was a sweet young thing with cheek dimples and a trilly laugh, and—well, you can guess the rest. Only, when little sister has made a complete hash of things, she skips merrily off and marries a prominent 'varsity quarter-back who has water on the knee and the promise of a nine-dollar-a-week job in uncle's ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M. P., signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. (He guffaws again) Christ, wouldn't it ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... amigo mio! have seen many a race in our day. We have seen the 'Varsity crews flash neck and neck past Lillie Bridge: we have held our breath while Orme ran a dead heat with Eclipse for the Grand National: we have read how the victor of the pancratium panted to the meta amid the Io Triumphes of Attica's vine-clad Acropolis. But we did not see the ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... coach of Bliss University, affectionately known and revered by two thousand undergraduates as "Skipper Bill" sat in the locker room with his arm around Ted Robertson's shoulders, star halfback and punter of the varsity eleven. Around them moved the other varsity players, substitutes, second string ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... height was helped out by his long coat and his high silk hat, and there was plenty of jaw in the lower part of his face. Nor was his tailor altogether answerable for his shoulders. Three years before this time Ross Wilbur had pulled at No. 5 in his varsity boat in an Eastern college that was not accustomed ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... magnificent examples in the town, but nearly all the more important collegiate buildings are beautiful types of mediaeval work. The visitor should on no account omit to walk through the "Backs," which is the 'varsity term for the backs of the colleges, with the "Fellows' Gardens" reaching down to the quiet Cam. The Great Court, Trinity College, is one of the most imposing of the numerous quadrangles, and is the largest of any at either Oxford or Cambridge. The Master's ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... Sir Timothy continued. "My trainer, Roger Hagon, a Varsity blue, and the best heavyweight of his year, occupies the chambers above yours. He saw from the window the arrival of Reginald Wilmore—which was according to instructions, as they were to come down to Hatch End together—went down the stairs to meet him, and, to ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... they used to call me. It did n't hurt, for I smiled in rather a superior sort of way at the men I thought were wasting their energy on the gridiron. But, after all, you fellows got something out of it that the rest of us did n't get. A 'Varsity man remains a 'Varsity man all his life. To-day you stand before her as a 'Varsity man. I think she always thinks of you as in a red sweater with a black "H." Any time that you feel you're up against anything hard, that ought ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... personal paragraphs); writers like Fermin and Gresham, above me on the literary ladder, and consequently unapproachable in a matter of this kind; certain college friends, who had vanished into space, as men do on coming down from the 'Varsity, leaving no address; John Hatton, Sidney Price, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... tackle on the Berkeley Varsity last season?" he asked. An old Harvard oar, Goodyear kept up ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... you may think yourself very knowing 'cause you have been at the 'Varsity, and swept away a ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... called Dirty Dick. There's another story. They say that years ago he went to a Turkish bath, and after a rare good scraping the man who was scraping him—nasty job that!—found something which Dirty Dick recognized as a beastly flannel shirt he had lost when he was at the 'Varsity. But only the Fourth Form boys swallow that. Hullo! There's a pal of mine. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... in which men laboured at clearing away the underbrush. The vivid colours of the jerseys in which they were clad told the world that those on the one side were students from McGill, while those on the other clad in blue and white represented 'Varsity (Toronto). Further along the red, yellow, and blue of Queen's University showed where their University Field Company was at work. The same spirit of competition that existed on the football field now kept the three units working at ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... Nelly, that's a good boy!" put in Bill Ward, agreeably, winking his off eye at Tennelly. "It'll do you good. I'd go with you, only I've got to get that condition made up or they'll fire me off the 'varsity, and I only need this one more game to ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... up again, wondering what business could fetch Jack Bridges round at that time of the evening to see me. We had been the greatest of pals at school and at the 'Varsity, and had kept the friendship up ever since, despite my intermittent wanderings over the face of the globe. But during the last few days or so Jack had become engaged to Miss Glanville, the daughter of old Glanville, ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... shoe-leather on the crowded boardwalk; sometimes eating with the wealthy, more frequently dining frugally at the expense of an unsuspecting restaurateur. They had their photos taken, eight poses, in a quick-development store. Kerry insisted on grouping them as a "varsity" football team, and then as a tough gang from the East Side, with their coats inside out, and himself sitting in the middle on a cardboard moon. The photographer probably has them yet—at least, they never called for them. ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... The other people in the course were very interesting people, and an awfully nice lot. There was an Australian whom, of course, we all called Anzac—a small strongly-built man, with a military moustache, named Hart. He had a very amusing manner of taking off old Army Colonels and 'varsity men, from what he called Okker and Camer, and whom he described as always going about with a towel round their necks, a blazer and pumps. He would always talk to order. To set him off we had the man we saw on Amiens station, and whom we all call George, for no known reason, and ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack

... first name was Crawford and his home was somewhere in the Far West. He was big and good-looking, and the Boston papers mentioned him as one of the most promising backs on the Harvard Freshman eleven. Next year, so the sporting writers opined, he would almost certainly make the Varsity team. Most of Mary-'Gusta's feminine friends and acquaintances rated him "perfectly splendid" and regarded Edna ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... walk. Twice a week, then, the medical student would swing out there along the dark country roads, and spend a pleasant hour in Peterson's comfortable study, discussing, over a glass of old port, the gossip of the 'varsity or the latest developments of ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... necrosis of the jaw—Vavasour Williams is his name or a part of his name. His father was at Cambridge with my old man, and—isn't it rum?—he was a pupil of Praddy's!! He mucked his school and 'varsity career, thought next he'd like to be an architect or a scene painter. My dad recommended Praddy as a master. He worked in the Praed studio, but got the chuck over some foolery. Then as he couldn't face his poor old Governor, he enlisted in the Bechuanaland Border police, came out to South Africa ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... defeat, prompts the band to head the students' march back from the field to the stirring strains of this University march, whether its sentiment is justified or not. Hardly less popular is the football song, "Varsity," written by Professor Earl V. Moore, '12, for which the words were furnished by ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... life. Then, if you don't have too much money, you can work. It sounds strange to say there's any fun in that, but there is. I want to get you into the game, Frances. You're going to like it. Farnsworth is going to let me sell next month. It's like making the 'Varsity. I'm going to have a salary and commission, so you see it will be partly a personal fight. You can help me. Why, the very things we were planning to get done with before we married are the very things that are worth while. ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... the course of that drift. It seemed to me that there was hardly an incident in my life which didn't fly through my brain like a cinema being worked at lightning speed. Some of the most vivid incidents were the last three balls of the over in which I topped the century in the 'Varsity match, my interview with my poor dear uncle when I broke the news that I had to face the official receiver and chuck the diplomatic service, and the first night of "Bill's All Right" when I made my debut on the stage. A brilliant career! And very swiftly reviewed, ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... the British lairs strike are to you the blows of justice; and you are glad when they go home. They are your blows. You have a better reason for keeping an army's artillery secrets than for keeping secret the signals of your Varsity football team, which anyone instinctively keeps—the reason ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... friends who strolled about arm-in-arm, and appeared far more at home in Saint Dominic's even than the boys themselves. One of them was the big brother of the captain—a terrible fellow by all accounts. He rowed in the boat of his 'Varsity the last year he was at Cambridge, and since then he has been called to the bar, and no one knows what else! People say Oliver Greenfield is a rising man; if so, we may hear of him again. At any rate in the eyes of the ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... hear you are coming to 'Varsity this fall, Miss Woodburn. Don't you think it quite an undertaking? I'm sure I wish you joy of the ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt

... prospect of my first sight of a 'ball game,' and my mind vaguely reminiscent of the indolent, decorous, upper-class crowd, the sunlit spaces, the dignified ritual, and white-flannelled grace of Lord's at the 'Varsity cricket match. The crowd was gay, and not very large. We sat in wooden stands, which were placed in the shape of a large V. As all the hitting which counts in baseball takes place well in front of the wicket, so to speak, the spectators have the game ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... of our new war hats we had served out, and which I gave him, preferring to keep my old one; in his words, he looks as if he belonged to the "Yeomandry." It is wonderful how all our fellows get on with our professional brethren. Take for instance one of our men, a 'Varsity man, hight Pember, he is a dry, self-contained beggar, and lives his own life. Into this life has come a man of the Northumberland Fusiliers. They both hail from the same county. After the day's march, when the Infantry not on picket are in camp, a dark figure often slouches up our lines, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... study were at an end. Quincy was loaded with scholastic honours while Tom's prowess has been most effectually shown on the ball team and in the 'Varsity Eight, which came near winning ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... with coats or sticks or papers; every type of officer was engaged in bestowing himself and his goods; and the general atmosphere struck him as being precisely that which one experiences as a fresher when one first enters hall for dinner at the 'Varsity. The comparison was very close. First-year men—that is to say, junior officers returning from their first leave—were the most encumbered, self-possessed, and asserting; those of the second year, so to say, usually got ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... and I asked to see Sir Richard, and insisted until he came. Then I apologised and explained the situation. He looked only fifty, but a 'Varsity oar on the wall with the date of the early seventies, made him older than that; his face had something of the shy look of the hermit; he regretted that he had not room to put me up. I was sure that this was untrue, also I had to be put up there, there was nowhere else within miles, ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany

... in the Hill School he won the pole vault, but later, in his real collegiate days, he never could come within two inches of 'varsity form, and therefore ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... always his luck not quite to make anything. He couldn't bat up to 'varsity standard, he wasn't quite heavy enough for a Varsity back, and in the mile run he always came in fresh enough but could not seem to get his speed up so as to run himself out, and the result was that, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... be indeed a most gracious host. He had been educated in England, it appeared, and like Paul was an Oxford man. Indeed, the two found many things to talk about, for Peter well remembered the stories he had heard of Paul's record as an oarsman on the 'Varsity eight—traditions of the sort that are handed down from year to year unto ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... Wastdale, they had concluded he had given up the ascent, and returned to Dungeon Ghyl. But when early that morning a guide had come over from Dungeon Ghyl, and reported that the young gentleman had certainly not returned there, the two 'Varsity men became alarmed, and turned out to search. There was no sign of him on the Wastdale side of the mountain; and, getting more and more alarmed, they went on to the summit. There they discovered a crushed-up Daily News and two or three stained pages of a guide-book. ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... didn't) boast of a 'Varsity education, and he prided himself on his smartness, but he was far from being "gleg at the uptak'," as the Scots say, and his powers of observation and deduction assuredly would not have qualified him for a position as a Scotland Yard "sleuth." Seemingly he was quite unconscious of ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... had moved forward. Jimmy moved toward them. Jimmy was never quite good enough to make the varsity team in his four years at college. But he had tried for four years and he had always been on the squad. His coach had, what amounted to a phobia, in the matter of blocking. Thus Jimmy, if he learned nothing ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... then and, after the talks, took stock of the results. Many fell by the wayside, but a group of strong men formed themselves into a "University Federal Labour Union." Dick Morse, captain of the 'Varsity crew, became president of it. Representative union constitutions were studied. The following sentences from the declaration of principles will illustrate how thoroughly these young men got in line ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... was, sank still lower. What miserable luck he had! His one great ambition, next to getting his diploma, had been to make the varsity baseball team. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... his coat and bared the glorious right arm that had at once been the pride of his college and the envy of every other in the 'varsity. In breathless silence the little group of spectators watched his movements, and when, with sharply exhaled breath, he planted a crashing "facer" straight from the shoulder squarely upon the leathern disk ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... one day a letter forwarded from Marchdale which bore the signature of the captain of the Harwell Varsity Football Eleven. It asked him to keep in practice during the summer, and, if convenient, to report on the field two days before the commencement of the term. Remsen's name was mentioned and Joel knew that he had him to thank for ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... were instructed by the older brethren of their Order, whose duty it was to assist in the proper manoeuvring of their young careers, that, although support of the 'varsity teams was important, they must neglect neither the spiritual nor the intellectual by-products of undergraduate doings. Therefore they became members of the college Y.M.C.A. and of ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... been accepted before breaking the news to their school chums. Each felt confident of passing the necessary requirements. They had made the football team together in their freshman year. Jack had played, too, on the varsity basket-ball team for two seasons, while Ted excelled on the ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... doorway, his gaze wandered from the broad shoulders of Corporal Strangeways, late stroke of the 'Varsity Eight, to the treacherous eyes of the gaunt grey beast before him which, by reason of its unusual markings and untimely appearance, had once and forever thrown Spurling's game away. There was something Satanic and suggestive of evil about those green and jasper eyes, and the manner ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson



Words linked to "Varsity" :   junior varsity, varsity sock, varsity letter, squad, first team, university



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