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Wry   Listen
verb
Wry  v. t.  (past & past part. wried; pres. part. wrying)  To twist; to distort; to writhe; to wrest; to vex. "Guests by hundreds, not one caring If the dear host's neck were wried."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wry" Quotes from Famous Books



... before he went abroad. He recommended me to a Dram of it at the same time, with so much Heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable; upon which the Knight observing that I [had] made several wry Faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the World against ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... Cosme, pointing to his thorax, and smiling at the wry faces the major was making. "Wash it down, Senor, with a glass of this claret—or here, Pepe! Is the Johannisberg cool yet? Bring it in, then. Perhaps ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... have to give up sailing next week," he said, as pleased as Punch but contriving to project a wry face. "I can't go away and leave my first bona-fide patient until she is entirely out of ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... your making wry faces!" shouted the Captain, for he had no great affection for him, thinking that a former soldier should rather have become a ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... never glanced towards their carriage as he passed, but mademoiselle, who was still a few steps behind, made a wry face at Kendricks. ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a thousand times to his bosom in convulsions of transport which shook his whole frame, sobbed hysterically, and at length, in the emphatic language of Scripture, lifted up his voice and wept aloud. Colonel Mannering had recourse to his handkerchief; Pleydell made wry faces, and wiped the glasses of his spectacles; and honest Dinmont, after two loud blubbering explosions, exclaimed, 'Deil's in the man! he's garr'd me do that I haena done since ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Aunt Charlotte appears to be in excellent voice and spirits to-day," he said with a wry smile. "I don't know that I ever heard her when her top notes carried farther ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... travel by steam conveyance, yet with such a baggage of old Asiatic thoughts and superstitions as might check the locomotive in its course. Whatever is thought within the circuit of the Great Wall; what the wry-eyed, spectacled schoolmaster teaches in the hamlets round Pekin; religions so old that our language looks a halfling boy alongside; philosophy so wise that our best philosophers find things therein to wonder at; all this travelled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... respectable little heap of gold and notes, and Raymond, reaching over, took half of the money and without a word, putting it in front of himself, went on with his wagers. The second man looked up in surprise, but seeing who had robbed him, merely made a wry face and continued his game. Several who ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... sixpence.[5] My Father could get one shilling for what he made, take them on his back, carry them four or five miles, sell them, bring home a little meal, or a little bread, sometimes a half bushel Potatoes. My mother would go two or three miles, and do a washing, bring home at night a loaf of wry bread, and a small peace was all we had for supper and a smaller Piece in the morning. Sometimes we was allowed one Potato roasted in the ashes—no Hearth in the old log-House. My mother has stirred butter in a tea-cup with the point of a knife, to keep her little children ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... sensations rendered negative By your elimination stands to-day, Certain, unmixed, the element of grief; I sorrow; and I shall not mock my truth With travesties of suffering, nor seek To effigy its incorporeal bulk In little wry-faced images of woe. ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... and always in corn-brandy. Oddo could not refrain from trying what these drugs were like; so he helped himself to some of each; and, as he could get no corn-brandy till dinner-time, he was eating the medicines without. Such was the cause of his wry faces. If he had been anything but a Norway boy, he would have been the invalid of the house to-day, from the quantity of rich cake he had eaten: but Oddo seemed to share the privilege, common to Norwegians, of being able to ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... big fellow, with a wry face and a catch in his gruff voice. "I can feel already the pine-needles beginning to stick out all ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory

... passed down the little narrow room, but when she came to the critical spot, the supposed meeting ground, her desire to laugh conflicting with the effort to pull a long face, caused such a wry contortion of her plump visage that seriousness deserted them once more, and they bubbled over in mirth that would have been boisterous had it not been prudently muffled in ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... that Garry found appalling. He planned endlessly to one purpose: Joan's happiness, Joan's pleasure, Joan's future with him. The memory of the ragged money laid aside for Don he dismissed with a wry smile, gritting his teeth. What mattered in the face of the splendid fact that he was so joyously, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... while sleepeth the warder, The soul's herdsman; that slumber too fast is forsooth, Fast bounden by troubles, the banesman all nigh, E'en he that from arrow-bow evilly shooteth. Then he in his heart under helm is besmitten With a bitter shaft; not a whit then may he ward him From the wry wonder-biddings of the ghost the all-wicked. Too little he deems that which long he hath hold. Wrath-greedy he covets; nor e'en for boast-sake gives The rings fair beplated; and the forth-coming doom 1750 Forgetteth, forheedeth, for that God gave him erewhile, ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous

... go ag'in," said Shif'less Sol, with a wry smile. "Seems to me this is about the longest footrace I ever run. Sometimes I like to run, but I like to run only when I like it, and when I don't like it I don't like for anybody to make me do it. But here goes, anyhow. I'll keep on ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... from Wilcox," Sira said, with a wry smile. "I would rather trade places with Mellie than ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... Albert made a wry face, but he knew that he must yield to necessity. Dick began the task the next morning, and it was long, tedious, and most wearing. More than once he felt like abandoning some of their goods, but he hardened his resolution with the reflection that all were precious, ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... and ore very dexterously; excepting one unlucky little chap, who, from the beginning, had his head, somehow or other, turned the wrong way upon his shoulders; and I could never manage, all the night, to set it right again: it was in vain I flattered myself that his wry neck would escape observation; for, as he was one of the wheelbarrow boys, he was a conspicuous figure in the piece; and, whenever he appeared, wheeling or emptying his barrow, I to my mortification ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... ploughman. "Yes," was the reply. "He knows the ford," was the enigmatic answer of the man as he turned to his work; but whether this reply was suggested by the general belief that Confucius was omniscient, or by wry of a parable to signify that Confucius possessed the knowledge by which the river of disorder, which was barring the progress of liberty and freedom, might be crossed, we are only left to conjecture. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... the stand, Astro lunged toward him, blind with anger and shouting his fury. It took six Space Marines to force him back to his chair. Roger merely sat, staring blankly into space, a wry smile curling his lips. He clearly saw the trap into which he and his unit mate had fallen, and ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell

... house, and Tammas stood at the tables in his blacks inviting every one to eat and drink. He was pressed to tell what it meant; but nothing could be got from him except that his wife was dead. At times he pressed his hands to his heart, and then he would make wry faces, trying hard to cry. Chirsty watched from a window across the street, until she perhaps began to fear that she really was dead. Unable to stand it any longer, she rushed out into her husband's arms, and shortly afterwards she could have ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... filled with women the King had them all drawn up in a line, and he walked up and down from top to bottom, and as he examined and measured each from head to foot one appeared to him wry-browed, another long-nosed, another broad-mouthed, another thick-lipped, another tall as a may-pole, another short and dumpy, another too stout, another too slender; the Spaniard did not please him on account of her dark colour, the Neopolitan ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... appearing to be so many unsuccessful attempts at overcoming her reluctance to drink it, she at length took courage, and bolting it down, immediately applied her apron to her mouth, making at the same time two or three wry faces, gasping, as if to recover the breath which it ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... worship : adori; Diservo; kulto. worth : ind'o, -eco, valoro. wound : vundi. wrap : faldi, envolvi. wreath : girlando. wreck, (ship-) : sxippereo; periigi. wren : regolo. wrestle : lukti. wretched : mizer(eg)a. wring : tordi. wrinkle : sulketo, sulkigi. wrist : manradiko. wry : torda. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... dropsical habit, and probably will soon have a confirmed ascites: if I should be present when you are tapped, I will give you a convincing proof of what I assert, by drinking without hesitation the water that comes out of your abdomen.' — The ladies made wry faces at this declaration, and my uncle, changing colour, told him he did not desire any such proof of his philosophy: 'But I should he glad to know (said he) what makes you think I am of a dropsical habit?' 'Sir, I beg pardon (replied ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... sat in the Corner, and often made wry Faces at the sudden Attack of Rheumatick Pains, with which he was often afflicted, objected strongly to Mr. Harlowe's arbitrary Usage of such a Wife, as being very unnatural. "Nay, Sir, (said Miss Gibson) I think Clarissa gives a very good Account of Mr. Harlowe's ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding

... is rather a fowling for the people's delight, or their fooling. For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves some part of a man's nature without a disease. As a wry face moves laughter, or a deformed vizard, or a rude clown dressed in a lady's habit and using her actions; we dislike and scorn such representations, which made the ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise man. So that what either in the words or sense of an author, ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... friendly. It could, with a little encouragement, have developed into something else. But it wouldn't now. She sighed again. His hardness had been a tower of strength. And his bitter gallows humor had furnished a wry relief to grim reality. It had been nice to work with him. She wondered if he would miss her. Her lips curled in a faint smile. He would, if only for the trouble he would have in making chaos out of the order she had created. Why ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone

... of a companion to have along on a gold-hunting expedition, isn't He?" asked Tom of Ned, making a wry face as Mr. Parker moved away. "But I haven't any time to think of that. Say, this is ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton

... sleeping dog lie. He had been drinking deeply, for your Biscayans are potent topers, and in the course of his cups he discovered that it irritated him to see that quiet, silent figure perched there in the window with its wry body as still as if it had been snipped out of cardboard, with its comical long nose poked over a book, with its colorless puckered lips moving, as if the reader muttered to himself the meaning of what he read, and tasted an unclean pleasure in so doing. ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... made of, Bruno?" said Sylvie, who had put a spoonful of it to her lips, and was making a wry face over it. ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... message, the Neponset indulged himself in a burst of self-glorification, boasting that he had in his day killed both French and Englishmen, and that he found the sport very amusing, for they died crying and making wry faces more like ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... her to hold. I had not intended to go as far as that. I confronted death with a smile; I meet life with the wriest of wry faces. She would have none ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... to hear you speak in London—Mrs. Lavender," he said, with rather a wry face as he pronounced her full ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... amazing that the French police were puzzled as to the cause of his death, but there was no reason for charging him with affectation in eating such a meal or insufficient culture, though it was hardly the banquet of a gourmet. One may pull a wry face at a costly Bouillabaisse chez Roubillon at Marseilles without doubting that poor old "G.A.S.," and Thackeray too, loved the dish. Some prefer homely beer to any of the white wines of the Rhine, yet many people honestly enjoy those high-priced varieties of weak-minded vinegar; ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... frettin'; but just sip this, and remember you're not to judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean it, not he. They all had a rough side to their tongue now and again; but no one minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard words break no bones; and I'll ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... my son?" cried the doctor, laughing uproariously at his wry face. "You Quakers drink too much water! Freezes inside of you and t-t-turns you into what you might call two-p-p-pronged icicles. Give me men with red blood in their veins! And there's nothing makes ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... we see some that will not in a speech let two vowels come together. If again some illustrious and distinguished person importune you to something bad, bid him come into the market-place dancing or making wry faces, and if he refuse you will have an opportunity to speak, and ask him which is more disgraceful, to utter a solecism and make wry faces, or to violate the law and one's oath, and contrary to justice to do more for ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... the boats being brought up close together, the awnings were spread, the mainbrace spliced, and other preparations made for passing the night. An extra allowance was served out to induce the men to swallow the quinine mixed with it; for though some made wry faces, their love of grog induced them to overcome their ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... arrived manned by eight Englishmen, who asked to be taken on board as passengers, and told such a very improbable story of having been deserted by their captain, that D'Urville suspected them of being escaped convicts; a suspicion which became a conviction, when he saw the wry faces they made at his proposal to send them back to Port Jackson. The next day, however, one took a berth as sailor, and two were received as passengers; whilst the other five decided to remain on land and drag out a ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... old, old, square-porticoed mansion, with the wry window-shutters and the paint peeling off in discoloured flakes, lived one of the last ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... to stay ahead of our ulcers," Alexander said with a wry smile. "Besides, I wanted to get away from the Albertsville ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... am turned out of this "blue room",' said Siegmund with a wry smile. The other looked ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... of ownership, setting up a vociferous protest against the cutting. As his voice was unheeded, he came scolding down the tree, jumped off one of the lower limbs, and took refuge in a young pine that stood near by. From time to time he came out on the top of the limb nearest to us, and, with a wry face, fierce whiskers, and violent gestures, directed a torrent of abuse at the axemen who were delivering death-blows to ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... eyes, and their faint glance fell on the top of Rosy-Lilly's head as she bent over his hand. With a wry smile he shut them again, but to his surprise, he felt rather gratified. Then Jimmy Brackett came in and whisked the child away. "'S if he thought I'd bite 'er!" mused McWha, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... all about this by experience long before they could explain the why and the wherefore. But now that you are so much better informed than even the most learned men were a century ago, pouting and wry faces at table are no longer excusable, and I should be sadly ashamed of you if I should hear ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... Seeing my wry faces, old Captain Carver expostulated, with a jolly twinkle of his eye, as he absorbed the contents of a sparkling crystal beaker. "Pooh! take another glass, sir: you'll like it better and better every ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... ye'll marry me, you'll never ha' cause to complain; I'll never let ye want for nout, nor gi'e ye a wry word.' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... eggs of pheasants wry-nosed Tooly sells, But ne'er so much as licks the speckled shells: Only, if one prove addled, that he eats With superstition, as the cream of meats. The cock and hen he feeds; but not a bone He ever picked, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... orderly and decently; and when dinner was over, they all went to play together; and, if they committed any faults, they were severely whipped; but they never minded it, and scorned to cry out, or make a wry face. ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... I know that a cook may as soon and properly be said to smell well, as you to be wise. I know these are most clear and clean strokes. But then, you have your passages and imbrocatas in courtship; as the bitter bob in wit; the reverse in face or wry-mouth; and these more subtile and secure offenders. I will example unto you: Your opponent makes entry as you are engaged with your mistress. You seeing him, close in her ear with this whisper, "Here comes your baboon, disgrace him"; and withal stepping off, fall on ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... Cupid, making a wry face. "That sort of thing goes on here from morning to night. We shan't be missed. Come ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... him and began to ask how he was feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... priest, in a short cassock of lasting, with a leathern cap, gave himself up to the shivering sensations engendered by the pains in his ribs. Migraine, whose stomach was always tormenting him, made wry faces close beside him. Mere Varin, to hide her tumour, wore a shawl with many folds. Pere Lemoine, his feet stockingless in his old shoes, had his crutches under his knees; and La Barbee, who wore her Sunday clothes, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... made a wry face. "Not long ago Edward would have me believe that the Dunlops, father and son, were endowed with uncommon mental power. Now it appears that the mother is similarly gifted. My poor child hasn't ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... advantage, if we are to fight it in the proposed shape, that we are at once rid of all the details of oaths, securities, &c., for I conclude the consciences of the Roman Catholic Peers will, if the declaration be omitted, be disposed to swallow the Oath of Supremacy without a single wry face, which will be a most useful example to the other Catholics, and will of itself go far to bring the priests into order. Plunket does not apprehend any jealousy of the limited measure from Ireland, as he thinks that they will consider it as a stepping-stone, and will be ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... clothing—a scarf, a spur, left by some fatal chance, and there comes a stroke of the dagger that severs the web so gallantly woven by their golden delights. But when one is full of days, he should not make a wry face at death, and the sword of a husband is a pleasant death for a gallant, if there be pleasant deaths. So may be will finish the merry amours of the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... Now, there's where it is. Make a wry path through your fields, and still you'll walk in it! I never ought to ha' got in the habit of lending you that key. What's the good of a key if a man can never keep it in his pocket? When I lived up at Mr. Daniel Mortimer's, the children ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... of Mahummud, Sultan of Cairo Story of the First Lunatic Story of the Second Lunatic Story of the Retired Sage and His Pupil, Related to the Sultan by the Second Lunatic Story of the Broken-backed Schoolmaster Story of the Wry-mouthed Schoolmaster Story of the Sisters and the Sultana Their Mother Story of the Bang-eater and the Cauzee Story of the Bang-eater and His Wife The Sultan and the Traveller Mhamood Al Hyjemmee The Koord Robber Story of the Husbandman Story of the Three ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... William), a tailor, who set up for oculist, and was knighted by Queen Anne. This quack was employed both by Queen Anne and George I. Sir William could not read. He professed to cure wens, wry-necks ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... stay with her all the winter. This, however, has been cruelly declined by my uncle who seems to be (I know not how) prejudiced against the good lady; for, whenever my aunt happens to speak in her commendation, I observe that he makes wry faces, though he says nothing — Perhaps, indeed, these grimaces may be the effect of pain arising from the gout and rheumatism, with which he is sadly distressed — To me, however, he is always good-natured and generous, even beyond my wish. Since we ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... the goblet, walked apart a few paces, and, making a wry face, heroically swallowed the bitter draught, after which Mrs. Savine, who beamed ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... on the vices of mankind. If you be not disposed to play, be either a sharper or a dupe, you cannot be admitted a second time to their assemblies. I was no sooner presented to the lady than she offered me cards; and on my excusing myself, because I really could not play, she made a very wry face, turned from me, and said to another lady in my hearing, that she wondered how any foreigner could have the impertinence to come to her house for no other purpose than to make an apology for not playing. My Spanish conductor, unfortunately ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... lighted lamp. "Come right in," he then said; "you won't cut our heads off." In the kitchen there were, besides the man, a middle-aged woman, an old mother, and five children. All crowded around the newcomer and scrutinized him with timid curiosity. A wretched figure! Wry-necked, with his back bent, his whole body broken and powerless; long hair, white as snow, fell about his face, which bore the distorted expression of long suffering. The woman went silently to the hearth and added some fresh fagots. "A bed we cannot give you," she said, "but I will ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... a picture of human nature it was when the banker and the vagabond sat together in that little drawing-room, facing each other,—one in the armchair, one on the sofa! Darvil was still employed on some cold meat, and was making wry faces at the very indifferent brandy which he had frightened the formal old servant into buying at the nearest public-house; and opposite sat the respectable—highly respectable man of forms and ceremonies, of decencies and quackeries, gazing gravely upon this low, daredevil ruffian:—the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a wry face at himself in the opposite mirror and shrugged his shoulders. Down the 'phone he said with excessive amiability, "Nothing. I'm ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... stomach or entrail, Think no longer mere prefaces For grins, groans, and wry faces; But off to the doctor, fast as ye can crawl! 5 Yet far better 'twould be not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... insulted with the Missouri Compromise,—we repealed it. Thus far the North had surely been faithful to the terms of the bond. We had paid our pound of flesh whenever it was asked for, and with fewer wry faces, inasmuch as Brother Ham underwent the incision. Not at all. We had only surrendered the principles of the Revolution; we must give up the theory also, if we would be ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... know of to an Americanism is that of Gill, in 1621,—"Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur, ut MAIZ et KANOA." Since then, English literature, not without many previous wry faces, has adopted or taken back many words from this side of the water. The more the matter is looked into, the more it appears that we have no peculiar dialect of our own, and that men here, as elsewhere, have modified language or invented phrases to suit their needs. When Dante wrote ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... and did. Colonel Brock and I watched her cross the room and disappear through a door. Then he turned to look at me, giving me a wry grin and shaking his head a little sadly. "So you got saddled with Jack the ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Roger, not so bad as that—elderly. This will stagger you; but I assure you that until the other day I jogged along thinking of myself as on the whole still one of the juveniles.' He makes a wry face. 'I crossed the bridge, Roger, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... an advanced price on his future volumes, which, I understand, alarms the subscribers. It was in a paper which I do not take, and therefore I have not yet seen it, nor can I say what it is. I hope that by this time you have ceased to make wry faces about your vinegar, and that you have received it safe and good. You say that I have been dished up to you as an anti-federalist, and ask me if it be just. My opinion was never worthy enough of notice, to merit citing; but since you ask it, I will tell it to you. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... knew enough English to answer for himself. He made a wry grimace and showed his hands. The finger-nails ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... Borneo wore his clothes wrong side out, as it is well known wild men from Borneo always do; and he ate grass with avidity. Wry-mouthed and squint-eyed, he was the incarnation of ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... work," said Joe, with a wry smile. "Besides, we don't even know that the girl's alive. It would be pretty heartless to ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... would signify nothing—and if I must take help from somebody I would rather take it from Celia Madden than anybody else I know—but this is the point, Mr. Thorpe. I do not eat the bread of dependence gracefully. I pull wry faces over it, and I don't try very much to disguise them. That is my fault. Yes—oh yes, I know it is a fault—but I am as I am. And if Miss Madden doesn't mind—why"—she concluded with a mirthless, uncertain ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... and industry, full of experience as well as of old-world notions sometimes a little "grumpy," a little caustic in his manner of talking, but on the whole quite kindly and tolerant in his disposition. You could often watch in his face the habitual practice of patience, as, with a wry smile and a contemptuous remark, he dismissed some disagreeable topic or other from his thoughts. He had come down in the world. His father's cottage, already mortgaged when he inherited it, had been sold over his head after the death of the mortgagee, so that thenceforth ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... us," Zack said. He stared at Jason a long moment. "One of these days," he said with a wry grin, "you're not going to ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia

... waited for his wife to bring on some cold barley-pudding, which, to my surprise, she was frying herself. I also saw a queer moonstruck-looking man inquiring the way to Norridge; and another man making wry faces over some plum-pudding, with which he had burnt his mouth, because his friend came ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... not those seen every week in the undergraduate journals. And yet this obscure group, which had drawn together in a spirit of satire, had in it two or three men of real gift. Forbes himself was a man of uncommon vivacity. Small, stocky, with an unruly thatch of yellow hair and a quaintly wry and homely face, he hid his shyness and his brilliancy behind a brusque manner. Ostensibly cynical and a witty satirist of his more sentimental fellows, his desk was full of charming ballades and pieces d'amour, scratched off at white heat in odd moments. His infinite ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley

... as to the signals he would give me by pinching my feet. When he was sure we both knew them he grinned a wry grin, and made a whimsical boyish gesture with his uplifted right hand, took a careful stand on the sill, balanced ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... uncle (the old man who had tried to dissuade him from his marriage) was now living; she told her that with their mistress's permission men and horses should be sent to help them in packing and moving. "And as for you, my love," added Kirillovna, twisting her cat-like lips into a wry smile, "there will always be a place for you with us and we shall be delighted if you stay with us till you are settled in a house of your own again. The great thing is not to lose heart. The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away and will give again. Lizaveta ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... that while they look on the Church and its formularies as something even more sacred than the Cross itself, I have believed in it as the most effective instrument for teaching the Cross." Mr Steele pulled a wry mouth. "At this moment I seem to be the bigger fool. They may be right: the Church may be worth a disinterested idolatry: but as a means to teach mankind the lesson of Christ it has rather patently failed to do its ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... cases; but he found the success of the remedy so increased the frequency of the complaint, that he was compelled to give up his medical treatment; for as long as he had the Specific, his men were constantly making wry ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various

... and who was now intent upon showing her supernal power. More than once, perplexed, dispirited, shattered by illness, he had thoughts of withdrawing altogether from the game. One thing alone, he told Lady Bradford, with a wry smile, prevented him. "If I could only," he wrote, "face the scene which would occur at headquarters if I resigned, I would do ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, "I see you still believe in such things as right ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... effort of violent criticism, [Hebrew: 'WRY] might be translated my awaking; but it will require an extraordinary critical mind to turn [Hebrew: NQPW Z'T] into though this body ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various

... the beef tea, Paul took the cup from her hand. Jack made a wry face at Laurel, indicating that they would have to watch Paul and the pretty new nurse. Then he took the chair nearest Mr. Starr. The can of "red paint" had been safely hidden in a ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose

... announcement I saw the four girls pulling a wry face. "Who asked them?" said one. "What do they want?" said another. "What troublesome people they are!" said a third. "They might have stayed at home," said the fourth. But the good, kindly father said, "My children, they are hungry, and they ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... cheerful mood Betty presently arrived at the door of "The Quiver" office. She made a wry face as she shook the snow out of her furs, straightened her hat and smoothed her hair. It was too bad to have to go in looking like a fright, after all the pains she had taken to wear her most becoming clothes, so as to look, and to feel, as impressive as possible. As a matter of fact, ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... it has been used for very many cases for which it is totally inapplicable, e.g. for the division of the muscles of the back in spinal curvature. Still there remain several deformities for the relief of which subcutaneous tenotomy is a most important remedy; chief among these are Wry Neck and Club-foot. ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... the toe-line, and puts himself into attitude, scientific like. First he throws his left leg out, and then braces back the right one well behind him, and then he shuts his left eye to, and makes an awful wry face, as if he was determined to keep every bit of light out of it, and then he brought his gun up to the shoulder with a duce of a flourish, and took a long, steady aim. All at once he ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... made a wry face as though she'd just discovered that the stuff she had in her mouth was a ball of wooly centipedes. "I'm a woman," she said simply. "I'm soft and gullible and easily talked into complacency. But I've just learned that their willingness ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... well have sent along a pair of spaniels to act as chaperons—it would have taken an army to guard Mary alone—and to tell you the truth our old chaperons needed watching more than any of us. It was scandalous. Each of them had a touch of gout, and when they made wry faces it was a standing inquiry among us whether they were leering at each other or felt a twinge—whether it was their feet or ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... Monty made a wry face. "Poker for love, my dear Trent," he said, "between you and me, would lack all the charm of excitement. It would be, in fact, monotonous! Let us exercise our ingenuity. There must be something still of ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the child was again struck by the altered behaviour of Mr Thomas Codlin, who instead of plodding on sulkily by himself as he had heretofore done, kept close to her, and when he had an opportunity of looking at her unseen by his companion, warned her by certain wry faces and jerks of the head not to put any trust in Short, but to reserve all confidences for Codlin. Neither did he confine himself to looks and gestures, for when she and her grandfather were walking on beside the aforesaid Short, and that little ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... poetic Virgins. The Church was poor because of the impiety of the times, it could not pay as generously as in other centuries, but commissions were numerous, and a Virgin in all her purity was a matter of only three days—but young Renovales made a troubled, wry face, as if a painful sacrifice were demanded ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... latter grounding every new face of things upon the demolition of that which went before. Smoothly and pleasantly Mr. Stackpole went on compounding this cup of entertainment for himself and his hearers, smacking his lips over it, and all the more, Fleda thought, when they made wry faces; throwing in a little truth, a good deal of fallacy, a great deal of perversion and misrepresentation; while Mrs. Evelyn listened and smiled, and half parried and half assented to his positions; and Fleda sat impatiently ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... when it storms; and sea-sickness is for many people hard to bear; and the rough life that must be led is little suitable for the nobility:" (1) which, of all babyish utterances that ever fell from any public man, may surely bear the bell. Scarcely disembarked, he followed his victor, with such wry face as we may fancy, through the streets of holiday London. And then the doors closed upon his last day of garish life for more than a quarter of a century. After a boyhood passed in the dissipations of a luxurious court or in the camp of war, his ears still stunned ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... possibility. Calhoun's expression turned wry. He'd have to do something about the grid. He must be able to take off on the ship's emergency rockets without the risk of being caught by the tremendously powerful force fields by which ships were ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... Massachusetts, was brought up before the magistrate, and it was charged that he "sported and played, and by Indecent gestures and wry faces caused laughter and misbehavior in the beholders." The girls were just as wicked; they slammed down the pew-seats. Tabatha Morgus of Norwich "prophaned the Lord's daye" by her "rude and indecent behavior in Laughing and playing in ye tyme of service." On Long Island godless boys "ran ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... locksmith (who was bold when Dolly was in question) would object, she had backed Miss Miggs up to this point, in order that she might have him at a disadvantage. The manoeuvre succeeded so well that Gabriel only made a wry face, and with the warning he had just had, fresh in his mind, did not dare to ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... the chiefs asked was, "Is this the man you have brought to stay and teach us?" "Ma" turned to the Principal with a wry face. "Well," she said in English, "I like that. They'll need to be content wi' something less than a B.D. for a wee while—till they get started at any rate." She informed them who Mr. Macgregor was, and the great work he was ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... are all traceable to the effects of injuries sustained in the course of a difficult labour. Examples of these are: wry-neck resulting from rupture of the sterno-mastoid; lesions of the shoulder-joint and brachial plexus due to hyper-extension of the arm; a spastic condition of the lower limbs—Little's disease—resulting from tearing of blood vessels on the surface ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... had omitted her collar dropped before Mrs. De Peyster a heavy saucer containing three shriveled black objects immured in a dark, forbidding liquor that suggested some wry tincture from a chemist's shop. In response to Mrs. De Peyster's glance of shrinking inquiry Matilda whispered that they were prunes. Next the casual-handed maid favored them with thin, underdone oatmeal, and with thin, bitter coffee; and ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... Carroll made a wry face. "Needn't rub it in. It's bad enough anyway. And"—growing serious—"I'm hoping to meet Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence. They ought ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... a wry grin. "You see, I knew right away Vidac was doing something funny way back—" He paused to sip his tea. "Way back before we landed on Roald." He grinned broadly at the people seated around the table in the dining room of the Logan house, Roger, ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain and blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered about, but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old man, taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or fourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs. 'They are rather ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... cut a wry face, but still, seeing the justice of his elder brother's remark, he went at the dinner-getting with a will. The yacht boasted a kerosene stove, and over this he set fish to frying and a pot of potatoes to boiling. As the river was calm and the yacht ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield

... men are imbeciles too," he said dryly. "We've been through a lot in the past two days. It's natural that we should like each other. We've worked together rather well. I—well"—his smile was distinctly a wry and uncomfortable one—"I've been the more anxious to get to some civilized place where The Master hasn't a deputy because—well—it wouldn't be fair to talk about loving you while—" he shrugged, and said curtly, "while you had ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... terror. For how was it possible to believe that those large brown protuberant eyes in Silas Marner's pale face really saw nothing very distinctly that was not close to them, and not rather that their dreadful stare could dart cramp, or rickets, or a wry mouth at any boy who happened to be in the rear? They had, perhaps, heard their fathers and mothers hint that Silas Marner could cure folks' rheumatism if he had a mind, and add, still more darkly, that if you ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... languishing, *a class of people Savage and wild of looking and of cheer, Their mantles and their clothes aye tearing; And oft they were of Nature complaining, For they their members lacked, foot and hand, With visage wry, and ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... a glass, but having only put it to his mouth, made a wry face, and returned it, saying "Bad! bad! poor punch indeed!—not a drop of rum ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... across the room, had tossed the screen aside and thrown open the door. Out he sprang into the yellow haze of the corridor, tripped, and, uttering a cry of pain, fell sprawling upon the marble floor. Hot with apprehension I joined him, but he looked up with a wry smile and began furiously rubbing ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... and that he meant to take Dolly abroad when she was sixteen. Lad that I was, I would mark with pain the blush on Mrs. Manners's cheek, and clinch my fists as she tried to pass this off as a joke of her husband's. But Dolly, who sat next me at a side table, would make a wry little face ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... made a wry face, because the lecture was to be delivered before a lot of good-for-nothing soldiers in some hall, when it had been her hope that it was to be delivered to the Daughters themselves, and in Mrs. Warring Sammye's home. However, to have attracted ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... the contrary, consists almost entirely of oils and fats; indeed, on this point Sir Anthony Carlisle relates the following anecdote:—"The most Northern races of mankind," says he, "were found to be unacquainted with the taste of sweets, and their infants made wry faces and sputtered out sugar with disgust, but the little urchins grinned with ecstasy at the sight of a bit of whale's blubber." In the same way the Arab is a date-eater and the Kaffir is a milk consumer. These ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... Clarendon, staggering up and down the deck from sea-sickness. He will not take enough of the sailor's fare to do him any good, and the wry faces which he makes over a few mouthfuls are pitiful. Before he could get the sails shifted, I am sure the wind would change, and though the crew try to be polite, they can't help laughing to see what an awkward hand he is at ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill

... he noted that it was tightly closed. And it ought to have pleased him to see how his enemy had taken his exclusion from the party to heart, and had shut himself away from any sign or sound of it. But, although he smiled cynically, he wasn't altogether pleased. And presently he made a wry mouth, as if he were taking something unpleasant; and he began to hustle Freddie and Euphemia so as to get away from that closed door as quickly ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... a wry twist, he lowered the bowl, and on impulse of pure defiance he offered it to the skull that had chattered. Immediately he realized that the move had had an electric effect upon the aliens. Slowly at first, and then faster, he began to swing the bowl from side to ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... with a wry grin. "Whew—that was a narrow squeak! I must say their ray is a gentlemenly sort of thing. It either kills you, or doesn't injure you at all. There ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... wry-faced, puny villain," gasped old Lobbs, paralysed by the atrocious confession; "what do you mean by that? Say this to my face! ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... twisted, and now it is fast in the hole!" answered Roger. "Gracious! how it hurts!" he went on, making a wry face. ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer

... Frobisher, with a wry smile, "I don't know that it was very much of a ray, after all; but I'll tell you what happened. I had been running up and down office stairs from before nine o'clock until about three in the afternoon, without result, and I became ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... remarked, with a wry face. "I was under the impression that I looked very ridiculous," and I turned a quick, mischievous glance toward Miss Warren, who seemed well content to ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... their compassion, never cease being jealous of me. However, I kept within due limits in my subject, when I did put pen to paper. I shall launch out more copiously if he shews that he is glad to receive it, and those make wry faces who are angry at my possessing the villa which once belonged to Catulus, without reflecting that I bought it from Vettius: who say that I ought not to have built a town house, and declare that I ought ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... moment as they glimmer in the sun. Then with sudden laugh seizes the Indian maiden nearest her, and by gesture summons the other Indian maidens. One of the very old squaws with a half-wry, half-kindly smile begins a swift tapping on the drum that has in it the rhythm of dance music. The Indian children withdraw to the doors of the teepees, and Pocahontas and the Indian maidens dance. The old medicine-man adds his flute-notes ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay

... their teeth a-gnashing, even before they saw their prison, when suddenly, hell again most marvellously resounded with the crash of terrible bolts, with loud-rolling thunder, and with every noise of war. Lucifer loured and grew pale; in a moment, there flew in a wry-footed imp, panting and trembling. "What is the matter?" cried Lucifer. "A matter fraught with the greatest peril for you since hell is hell," said the dwarf, "all the ends of the kingdom of darkness have risen up against you and against each other, especially ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... scared to death," Amy came back, with a wry smile. "Really, Betty," she turned to look at the Little Captain closely, "aren't you the least little bit nervous about what ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope

... vehicle jolts, jumping from log to log, with a shock that must be endured with as good a grace as possible. If you could bear these knocks, and pitiless thumpings and bumpings, without wry faces, your patience and philosophy would far exceed mine;— sometimes I laughed because ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... say, don't," cried Sydney, with a wry face and a shudder; "it's horrid. I declare, when I'm a doctor, I'll never give ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... my respects," said the skipper cold-bloodedly, "and say that he's worth one hundred pounds to me," he waved his hand and the trap moved away, but he looked back with a wry smile. "Say I'll square the matter for double the money and command of ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... decorum, and only waited long enough for her to finish her work before joyously undoing it. She caught the laughing, admiring eyes of a boy sitting across from her and sought to conceal her pleasure in her unmanageable wealth of hair by a wry little face, and then the eyes of both strayed out to the trees that had scented that breeze for them, looking with frank longing at the campus which stretched before them in all its May glory that sunny afternoon. He remembered ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... with a wry face, "and here's where I have to do some tall but truthful explaining to a man who isn't in the least likely to believe a word I say. I can guess what Mr. Mayhew is thinking, and is going to ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham

... brought out each of these victuals, together with a bottle of wine and a large bottle of milk, she first offered it to us, and when it was duly refused with thanks, she made the invalid eat and drink, especially the milk which she made a wry face at. When she had finished they all began to question whether her fever was rising for the day; the good sister felt the girl's pulse, and got out a thermometer, which together they arranged under ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... and men cried aloud for rain. The hedges were white, the fields scorched and brown; the leaves fell from the trees as at autumn's touch; the fruits scarce formed hung wry and twisted on the bough; the heavens burnt ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... to be accompanied by the wry-neck, hence its name, "Gwas-y-gog," the cuckoo's servant. The wryneck was thought to build the nest, and hatch and feed ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... being proudly mounted, Clad in cloak of Plymouth, Defied cart so base, For thief without grace, That goes to make a wry mouth. ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham



Words linked to "Wry" :   humorous, ironic, wry face, ironical



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