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Drowsiness   /drˈaʊzinəs/   Listen
Drowsiness

noun
1.
A very sleepy state.  Synonyms: sleepiness, somnolence.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Drowsiness" Quotes from Famous Books



... and o'er the quaint lullaby song (That will never grow wearisome tho' life be long), And watch the sweet drowsiness creeping apace, Till sleep holds the wee one in ...
— Grandma's Memories • Mary D. Brine

... that yet supports a newspaper of its own, the Grangerville Courier. The Courier office, the barber's shop and the hotel are the chief places in Grangerville, and yellow dogs and black children seem the bulk of the population, at least of a warm afternoon, when drowsiness holds the place in her keeping, and the light lies broad and steadfast and golden upon the cotton fields, and the fields of Indian corn, and the foliage of the woods that spread to southward, enchanted woods, fading away ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... only conscious of a movement of dislike! But how foolish this is! If a man builds a house on a volcano, is it not kind to tell him that the lava is creeping over the side? Is it not kind to wake, even violently, a traveller who has fallen asleep on the snow, before drowsiness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... neither be able nor willing to slumber over it. Every one knows what an effect is produced on the physical faculties by a succession of the same sound; for instance, by the long continued chiming of a single bell; it induces a drowsiness which we find it impossible to resist, except by turning our attention to another thing; but let a number of bells strike out into a merry peal, how quickly we are aroused, how lively we become, whilst their various changes secure ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... undertaker. About nine o'clock a few people came out of chapel, and shortly afterwards the butchers' shops gave signs of life, one opening on each side of the main street, and blinking like a bloodshot eye upon the slumbering groceries and groggeries, drapery stores, and general drowsiness. Ennis was evidently sleeping off the previous day's whisky, and preparing to renew the battle with ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... have frequently been to see them, and observed their ways. I tell you frankly that there is not a set of people in this kingdom who have caused our church so much trouble and uneasiness. I should rather say that they alone cause us any; for as for the rest, what with their drowsiness, their plethora, their folly, and their vanity, they are doing us anything but mischief. These fellows are a pestilent set of heretics, whom we would gladly see burnt; they are, with the most untiring perseverance, and in spite of divers minatory declarations of the holy father, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... conscious of no sound that awakened him, yet he was aware of a presence that drew him from drowsiness to an alert attention. Instinctively, his hand ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... confused; he was no longer sensible of the passage of time. Only his will kept his legs at their work. Drowsiness crept over him; and with it a growing sense of the uselessness of struggling further. He fought it for a while, but with subsiding energy. His knees began to weaken under him; he sank down. With a desperate effort, he ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... It can be reached by paddling up the Thame, if you have a small boat; but the best way is to leave the river at Day's Lock, and take a walk across the fields. Dorchester is a delightfully peaceful old place, nestling in stillness and silence and drowsiness. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... where the fire has not yet ceased to glimmer, and curtains, and shutters, and feathers unite to preserve the desired temperature. Once, just as her eyes had opened, apparently in the last stage of drowsiness, the roaring winds brought with them a long and plaintive howl, that seemed too wild for a dog, and yet resembled the cries of that faithful animal, when night awakens his vigilance, and gives sweetness and solemnity to its charms. The form of Louis Grant instinctively pressed nearer to that ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... Light?—the glorious god of the golden hair and ruddy countenance?—the glittering warrior with the flaming shield and spear invincible? Where had he found his rest? By what strange enchantment had he fallen into so deep and long a drowsiness. The wind that had rioted across the mountains, rooting up great trees in its shrieking career northwards, grew hushed as it approached the Altenfjord—there a weird stillness reigned, broken only by the sullen and monotonous plash of the invisible waves upon the scarcely ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... will go with me I will show you a better one.' He conducted me to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. There I ordered something for dinner, and during my meal a number of curious questions were put to me, my youth and appearance exciting the suspicion of my being a young runaway. After dinner my drowsiness returned, and I threw myself upon a bed without taking off my clothes, and slept till six o'clock in the evening, when I was called to supper. I afterward went to bed at a very early hour, and did not awake till ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... lie for an instant upon her cheek, when immediately she would open her eyes very wide, and look furtively about to see if her drowsiness were detected. ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks

... moment, when the King's daughter was only just a little way off, no spectator could see the runner, and it seemed as if the wind had whistled past. In a short time he reached the stream, filled his pitcher with water, and turned round again. But, half way home, a great drowsiness came over him; he put down his pitcher, lay down, and fell asleep. He had, however, put a horse's skull which was lying on the ground, for his pillow, so that he should not be too comfortable ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... empty, and the fact banished all her drowsiness. With a bound she was on her feet and at the door, looking out, all up and down the Lane. Alas! He was nowhere in sight and, turning back into the tiny room, she saw his supper still untasted in the pan ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond

... up themselves, and shaking off that spirit of laziness and drowsiness, when it first seizeth upon them; but, with the sluggard, yet another slumber, and another sleep, and a folding ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... But this drowsiness of thought lasted but a while, the whirlwind blew once more, and the prayers which were wont to appease it refused to leave his lips, he tried religious music, the despairing sequences of the psalms, pictures of the Crucifixion by the Early Masters, to excite him, but his prayers ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... dripped the spouting pulses of a leak. Sometimes a cold air blew in, bearing with it the keen wet odor of the sage-brush. On hundreds of other nights this perfume had been my last waking remembrance; it had seemed to help drowsiness; and now I lay staring, thinking of this. Twice through the hours the thieves shifted their positions with clumsy sounds, exchanging muted words with their guard. So, often, had I heard other companions move ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... knew that this could only refer to him; so, when their host came and opened the sliding doors of the bed, he feigned himself to be very fast asleep at the back of the bed, and only groaned in drowsiness when ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... threatened rain, they would at times, notably about three o'clock, rise handsomely. But on all other occasions it was rarely that we could entice them up through the twelve or fifteen feet of water. Earlier in the season they are not so lazy and indifferent, but the August languor and drowsiness were now upon them. So we learned by a lucky accident to fish deep for them, even weighting our leaders with a shot, and allowing the flies to sink nearly to the bottom. After a moment's pause we would draw them slowly ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... distasteful and burdensome, it is sorrow, and in so far as he is inclined to undue repose, it is sloth: and of sorrow he says that it gives rise to "spite, faint-heartedness, bitterness, despair," whereas he states that from sloth seven things arise, viz. "idleness, drowsiness, uneasiness of the mind, restlessness of the body, instability, loquacity, curiosity." Therefore it seems that either Gregory or Isidore has wrongly assigned sloth as a capital sin ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... do I will, Julius," said Lefevre, suddenly roused out of the half-drowsiness which the soft night induced. He was held between alarm and fascination by the look which Julius ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... left wrist, then lay back and composed his mind to meditation. The blood oozed out, floating through the water in dissolving wreaths and spirals. In a little while the whole bath was tinged with pink. The colour deepened; Sir Hercules felt himself mastered by an invincible drowsiness; he was sinking from vague dream to dream. Soon he was sound asleep. There was not much blood ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... exceeding and the ceased not from pleasure and delight, whilst anon I sang and anon the damsel, till we came to one of the landing-places, where the vessel moored and all on board disembarked and I with them. Now I was drunken with wine and squatted on my hams to make water; but drowsiness overcame me and I slept, and the passengers returned to the ship which ran down stream without any missing me, for that they also were drunken, and continued their voyage until they reached Bassorah. As for me I awoke not till the heat of the sun aroused ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... until I came to a slope that fell away abruptly to the water's edge. A great chunk of the shore had been bitten out by some spring freshet, and the scar was masked by elder bushes, growing down to the water in flowery terraces. I did not touch them. I was overcome by content and drowsiness and by the warm silence about me. There was no sound but the high, singsong buzz of wild bees and the sunny gurgle of the water underneath. I peeped over the edge of the bank to see the little stream that made ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... freezing. No one who has not lived in tents or in bivouac in such a time can understand what real suffering from cold is. Exposure by day is easy to bear compared with the chill by night when camp-fires burn low and men lie shivering, their teeth chattering, while extreme drowsiness makes exertion painful and there is danger of going off into the sleep that knows no waking. On New Year's day morning the ground was frozen solid. All huddled about the fires, but the gale was so fierce that on the windward side there seemed to be no radiation of heat, so completely ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... personification of drowsiness, saluted, then let his right hand fall at his side and stood blinking, bracing for ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... the bower in the garden, he watched the boy among the roses. The day was hot and a drowsiness came over the king. He had not slept in that bower since the night of his fateful dream, and he was not happy about doing so now. But he did not lack courage, and he called the ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa

... old child, Agnes, had been soothed and reassured, over and over, till she had fallen asleep, and the house lay profoundly quiet, Marise felt not the slightest approach of drowsiness or even of fatigue. She lay down on her bed, but could not close her eyes. They remained wide open, looking not at a wild confusion of incoherent images as they had the night before, but straight into ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... of great lightness and freedom, too great lightness, in fact; he seemed, as it were, unconscious of his body, as though he were floating and at the same time shudders ran down him, a sort of agreeable weakness crept over his legs, and his lips and eyelids tingled with drowsiness. He had no desire now, no thought of anything ... only he was wonderfully at ease, as though someone were lulling him, "singing him to bye-bye," as Emilie had expressed it, and he whispered to himself, "little doll!" At times the face of the "little doll" ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... practical purposes," Mr Bunker continued, "begins in that sequestered retreat, Clankwood Asylum. How and with whom I came there I haven't the very faintest recollection. I simply woke up from an extraordinary drowsiness to find myself recovering from a sharp attack of what I may most euphoniously call mental excitement. The original cause of it is very dim in my mind, and has, so far as I remember, nothing to do with the rest of the ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... doubt, being dry and soft. The first sensation of one alighting from a train in the town is one of lightness and exhilaration. This sensation continues through the first hours of one's stay on the Hill.[6] After the first day of exhilaration come a day or more of drowsiness, with nights of profound sleep. In some persons a heightened nervousness is experienced, but in most cases the Hill has the effect upon those who reside there of a steady nervous arousal, a pleasure in activity, and a keen interest in ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... Uncle Teddy was secretly wishing that Katherine had overslept with the rest of them and did not have such a tremendous idea of good sportsmanship. But, being a thorough sport, he shook himself out of his drowsiness and shouted the ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... summer time to life. Lo! this is he, That same Adonis, safe in the privacy 480 Of this still region all his winter-sleep. Aye, sleep; for when our love-sick queen did weep Over his waned corse, the tremulous shower Heal'd up the wound, and, with a balmy power, Medicined death to a lengthened drowsiness: The which she fills with visions, and doth dress In all this quiet luxury; and hath set Us young immortals, without any let, To watch his slumber through. 'Tis well nigh pass'd, Even to a moment's filling up, and fast 490 She scuds with summer breezes, to pant through ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... "February 15th, 188-. The undersigned, in pursuance of an order, No. 638, of the Medical Department," began the secretary with resolution, raising the pitch of his voice, as if to dispel the drowsiness that seized upon every one present, "and in the presence of the assistant medical director, ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... was naturally given to Idleness: He loved to live high, but his hands refused to labour; and what else can the end of such an one be, but that which the wise man saith? The Drunkard and the Glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall cloath a ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... without attracting her husband's attention, and for two hours and a half, she listened with mingled feelings, to his argument. A good part of the time she was occupied in fighting off, fiercely, an almost overwhelming drowsiness. The court room was hot of course, the glare from the skylight pressed down her eyelids; she hadn't slept much the night before. And then, there was no use pretending that she could follow her husband's reasoning. Listening to ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... strange sound coming across that of the knell. It almost sounded like an acclamation of joy. Could people be so cruel, thought Stephen, as to mock poor Giles's agonies? There were the knells still sounding. How long he did not know, for a beneficent drowsiness stole over him as he knelt, and he was only awakened, at the same time as Jasper, by the opening of ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her drowsiness, a colloquy in the pidgin-German of the farmers who have forgotten the Old Country ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... sparkled mysteriously when poured into the tiny jasper cups. In taste it did not resemble European wines: it was very sweet and spicy; and, quaffed slowly, in small sips, it produced in all the limbs a sensation of agreeable drowsiness. Muzio made Fabio and Valeria drink a cup apiece, and drank one himself. Bending over her cup, he whispered something and shook his fingers. Valeria noticed this; but as there was something strange and unprecedented ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... it may, the boy had sat thus less than half an hour when a drowsiness began stealing over him. Once he raised his head and fancied he saw a large wolf glaring down upon him from the bank above, but the head was withdrawn so quickly that he was sure it was only a phantom of ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... and nights, I never once called for anything but that Bentinck was instantly at my side." Before the faithful servant had entirely performed his task, he had himself caught the contagion. Still, however, he bore up against drowsiness and fever till his master was pronounced convalescent. Then, at length, Bentinck asked leave to go home. It was time: for his limbs would no longer support him. He was in great danger, but recovered, and, as soon as he left his bed, hastened to the army, where, during many sharp campaigns, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... in a short time a pleasant drowsiness stole over me, and I fell asleep to awake with a start, as it seemed to me; but it must have been only a slight one, for I could not have moved more than my eyes, which were at once directed to the lamp on its stand, some ten or a dozen feet from me, and I wondered why my breath ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... here and there a spike of bloom, and a day later the whole field royal and ruffling lightly to the wind. Part of the charm of the lupine is the continual stir of its plumes to airs not suspected otherwhere. Go and stand by any crown of bloom and the tall stalks do but rock a little as for drowsiness, but look off across the field, and on the stillest days there is always a trepidation in ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... he awoke and looked around him lazily. A delightful drowsiness surrounded him; he was too comfortable even to ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope

... was burning hot behind a thin veil of unbroken whitish clouds. Everything was hushed; there was no sound but the cocks crowing irritably at one another in the village, producing in every one who heard them a strange sense of drowsiness and ennui; and somewhere, high up in a tree-top, the incessant plaintive cheep of a young hawk. Arkady and Bazarov lay in the shade of a small haystack, putting under themselves two armfuls of dry and rustling, but still greenish and ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... up with a start, rubbed his eyes and looked at the sun, then at the pile of fish beside him. The continued jerking of the line at his leg seemed to bring him out of his drowsiness. With a broad grin he began pulling in the line, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... so full were her words of mortal fear, I shook off my drowsiness and sat up in bed, wide awake now and staring at the strange apparition. My mother was white as death, and trembling so that the candle in her hand shook to and fro, casting wild dancing ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... insomnia, or habitual sleeplessness, on the other hand, is not, strictly speaking, caused by loss of sleep. Paradoxical as it may sound, the fatigue poisons, which in moderate amounts will produce drowsiness and promote sleep, in excessive amounts will cause wakefulness and inability to sleep. Insomnia and headache are usually symptoms of this overfatigued, or poisoned, condition, and should both be regarded and treated as symptoms ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... and the measure of content that he now felt was soothing. Hence, his drowsiness increased, and in ten minutes he went comfortably to sleep. Dick's eyes were yet open, and he felt within himself such new supplies of energy and strength that he resolved to explore a little. The task that ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... to distinguish the man's features. He could only perceive the outline of his black figure, and that for some time he rested on his elbow without moving, as if he were contemplating the stars. Despite his efforts to keep awake, Fred felt that drowsiness was again slowly, but surely, overcoming him. Maintaining the struggle, however, he kept his dreamy eyes riveted on their guest until he seemed to swell ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... glided drearily on, with the paces of the horses at a slow walk growing monotonous in the extreme; and for some time past the excitement of the flight had been giving place to the first approaches of a drowsiness that was rapidly becoming invincible, when with a faint cry of joy the lad noticed, as he looked off to his right, that the faint soft light was beginning to appear in the east, becoming soon a long, low pearly band which ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... enjoyment, he was never more wide-awake. The temptation was strong to sit down on the ground with his back against a tree, but he foresaw the consequences. The man who yields only for a few minutes to the creeping drowsiness is gone. ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... talking of his past ones. But the surest indicia of inebriety in Hudson are these two. First, his nose is red. Secondly, he discourses upon a seaman's duty to his employers. Ebrius rings the changes on his 'duty to his employers' till drowsiness attacks his hearers. Cicero de officiis was all very well at a certain period of one's life, but bibulus nauta de officiis ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... Hahlstroem was nowhere to be seen, and Frederick seated himself on a bench near the entrance to the main companionway. With his collar turned up and his hat drawn over his forehead, he succumbed to the state of drowsiness characteristic of sea trips, in which, despite the heaviness of one's eyelids, one feels and perceives with a restless lucidity of the inner vision. Images chase through one's mind, a kaleidoscopic stream, shifting incessantly, going and coming, and ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... inconveniences to the trouble of moving. Trouble of any kind was Robert's bugbear. His progress up the commercial ladder seemed due rather to the luck which favours amiable and good-looking young fellows than to any special ability or effort of his own. The very sound of his voice had a drowsiness which soothed—if ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... they were hiding, and in that silence they unconsciously drew nearer to each other. The delicious aroma of the hay overcame their spirits with a drowsiness. New sensations thronged on Bobby's spirit, made receptive by the narcotic influences of the tepid air, the mysterious dimness, the wands of gold, the floating brief dust-motes. He wanted to touch ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... of drowsiness that follows after waking from a sound sleep, John mentally reviewed the stirring adventure of the night before. The warm, bright sunshine streaming in through the open windows of his bedroom had wakened him slowly. He could hear his mother in ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... it seemed to me that if I could appear at one bound amongst them, they would scatter like chaff before my glance It seemed intolerable to wait; more than human strength could bear. Would the day never come? A drowsiness ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... result of the terrible fright through which I had passed I know not, but now I became stupified. A dull languor took fall possession of my frame. My strength departed from me. My limbs longer refused to support my body. Overcome, I now sank down a helpless mass. Drowsiness now took control of me. Half awake, half asleep, I seemed to dream. Far above me and in the distance I saw the beautiful city of which we read in the Bible. How wonderfully beautiful were its walls of jasper. Stretching out and away ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... very weak and faint, frightfully oppressed with drowsiness, and driving fast with the tide. Looking over the black water, I saw the lights racing past me on the two banks of the river, as if they were eager to be gone and leave me dying in the dark. The tide was running down, but I knew nothing of up or down then. When, guiding myself ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... Office, which was paternally interested in Reggie's career. This brought about his banishment to Japan. The Attente d'hiver, now famous, is his candid musical confession that the coma inflicted upon him by Veronique's unconcern was merely the drowsiness of the waiting earth before the New Year ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... he lay still a little while, wondering where in the world he was, but as the drowsiness left him, he arose and looked about, and saw that the sun was sinking low and gilding the oakboles red. He stood awhile and watched the gambols of three hares, who had drawn nigh him while he slept, and ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... part been banished from the kingdom, were glad to have returned, and therefore took their fill of ease and pleasure. If our quack had but humoured this universal indolence with soporifics, the general drowsiness might have continued much longer, but thinking it to be nothing but natural sleep, he applied no remedy at all. The disease gained strength, grew worse and worse, the patient awakened, Paris became sensible of her condition; she groaned, but nobody minded it, so that she fell into a frenzy, whereupon ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Hine from his drowsiness and insisted that his advice should be followed. It would be advisable that it should be known afterward in Courmayeur that he had taken every precaution to preserve his companion's life. He took off his own stockings and squeezed the water out, replaced them, ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... of turbid wakefulness, Jaime found Margalida's face bending over him, he experienced a joy which helped to dispel his drowsiness. The girl's eyes wore an adoring and timorous expression. She seemed to be imploring forgiveness with her tearful orbs outlined with blue against the nunlike delicacy of her skin. "For me! All on account of me!" she seemed to say tacitly, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... a merry reply, and putting the flask to his head, soon drained its contents. They had the effect Edwin desired. The soldier became flustered, and impatient of his duty. Edwin perceived it, and yawning, complained of drowsiness. "I would go to the top of that wall, and sleep sweetly in the moonbeams," said he, "if any goodnatured fellow would meanwhile wait for my ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... these stolen goods to him, at first declared they were the relics of St. Tiburtius, which Hildoin desired him to obtain; but afterwards invented a story of their being the product of a theft, which the providential drowsiness of his companions enabled him to perpetrate, from the relics which Hildoin well knew were the property of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... struggle—if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost, with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary—Scrooge was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bed-room. He had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... a garrison town on the south frontier of France, two sentinels walked lethargically, crossing and recrossing before the governor's house. Suddenly their official drowsiness burst into energy; for a pale, grisly man, in rusty, defaced, dirty, and torn regimentals, was walking into the courtyard as if it belonged to him. The sentinels lowered their muskets, and crossed them with a clash before ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... to say good-bye, but Spero had vanished. A deep drowsiness fell upon me, and just as I got off the parapet and found a safer ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... hushed in his desire to talk, soon dropped into quiet slumber, while Martine's thronging thoughts banished the sense of drowsiness. A shaded lamp burned near, making a circle of light and leaving the rest of the ward dim and shadowy. The scene was very familiar, and it was an easy effort for his imagination to place in the adjoining ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... drowsiness, to beguile the time, he looks back to his past experience, and the prison became his Patmos—the gate of heaven—a Bethel, in which his time was occupied in writing for the benefit of his fellow-Christians. He looks back upon all the wondrous way through which the Lord had led him from the City ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... prepared. And when it was ready, he placed a vessel of cold water by his side and he in his own proper person watched it. And as he abode thus clad with arms, about the third watch of the night, lo! he heard many surpassing fascinations and various songs. And drowsiness urged him to sleep. Upon this, lest he should be hindered from his purpose and be overcome by sleep, he went often into the water. And at last, behold! a man of vast size, clad in strong, heavy armour, came in, bearing a hamper. ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... Gunnar is at home in his house, and those namesakes ride into a wood hard by. There such a drowsiness came over them that they could do naught else but sleep. So they hung their shields up in the boughs, and tethered their horses, and laid their ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... with the harassing duties of the day, the chief portion of the troops had retired to rest, and a few groups of the guard alone were to be seen walking up and down in front of their post, apparently with a view to check the influence of midnight drowsiness, but, in reality, to witness the result of certain preparations going on by torchlight in the centre ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... Beaumont came in on tip-toe with some tempting morsel for her little invalid. This broke the strain of confidence, and as Hortense showed symptoms of exhaustion and drowsiness, after taking her nourishment, we lowered the blinds and stole from the room. In a few moments she was ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... history; and it is of no use that this man or that man yet pretends to believe in the somnambulist. But the church has also a civic significance as an integral part of the social order of humanity. If you abandon that to the spirit of laxity and drowsiness, I can see no reason why the clergy and the whole religious apparatus should not be, and ought not to be, abolished and their ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... and he said that such tales be but doltish dreams and old wives' fables. But the true mandrake is a clean and wholesome plant. The true ointment Populeon should have the juice of the leaves in it; and the root boiled and strained causes drowsiness. It hath a predominate cold faculty, Galen saith; but its true home is not in England at all. It comes ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... recitative, the room filled up with people, pipes circulated freely, poi was again produced, and calabashes of cocoa-nut milk. The meles were long, and I crept within my curtain and lay down, but the drowsiness which legitimately came over me after riding thirty miles and wading two, was broken in upon by two monstrous cockroaches really as large as mice, with fierce-looking antennae and prominent eyes, both ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... too much for those of us who have the very best intentions. Up to now the refrigerator and Mr. Trevor had kept the strictest and most jealous of vigils over Irene. But at length the senator succumbed to the drowsiness which never failed to attack him at this hour, and he forgot the disrepute of his surroundings in a respectable sleep. Whereupon his daughter ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the second he revoked; and in the third, having neglected to play, and being loudly called upon, and rated both by his partner and Mr. Beckendorff, he was found to be asleep. Beckendorff threw down his hand with a loud dash, which roused Vivian from his slumber. He apologised for his drowsiness; but said that he was so sleepy that he must retire. The Prince, who longed to be with Beckendorff alone, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... work; its tired wheels all seemed to be buzzing feebly in different directions, and my thoughts came like thistledown and seemed to elude all efforts of concentration. And so I capitulated utterly to my drowsiness, and fell asleep as I sat on ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... and to escape with all his troops except a depot of 600 men left at Altona. We afterwards heard that he experienced no interruption on his passage, and that he landed with his troops at Corunna. I now knew to what to attribute the drowsiness which always overcame the Marquis de la Romana when he sat down to take a hand at whist. The fact was, he sat up all night making preparations for the escape which he had long meditated, while to lull suspicion he showed himself everywhere during ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... shore Were setting up signals of warning, Where many had perished before. But now, as the sunlight came creeping Through the half-opened lids of the morn, Fast faded that wonderful pageant, Of shadows and drowsiness born. ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... just awaking from the sleep, or rather from the drowsiness, in which they had found him. The color was returning to his cheeks, which till now had been as pale as death. He raised himself a little, looked around him, and appeared to ask where ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... felt upon his forehead Blows of little airy war-clubs, Wielded by the slumbrous legions Of the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin, As of some one breathing on him. At the first blow of their war-clubs, Fell a drowsiness on Kwasind; At the second blow they smote him, Motionless his paddle rested; At the third, before his vision Reeled the landscape into darkness, Very sound asleep was Kwasind. So he floated down the river, Like a blind man seated upright, Floated down the Taquamenaw, Underneath the trembling birch-trees, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... them that they felt no surprise when a wolf-dog crawled over the lizard on the threshold, and stole along the wall with shining, bloody eyes to an inner room, and stayed there munching meat to surfeit and drowsiness, and at last crept out and lay beside the forge in a thick sleep. These two had lived so much with the untamed things of nature, the bellows and the fire had been so long there, and the clang of the anvil was so familiar, that there was a kinship among them, man and beast, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... it now with ourselves. We had been in the water some two or three hours, and the night had come upon us. We had said farewell for the hundredth time, and had resigned ourselves to meet the end; indeed I was myself battling with a drowsiness from which it was only too probable that I should never wake; when suddenly, Arowhena touched me on the shoulder, and pointed to a light and to a dark mass which was bearing right upon us. A cry for help—loud ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... As drowsiness my brain reliev'd, A shrill defiance of all to arms, Shriek'd by the stable-cock, receiv'd An angry answer from three farms. And, then, I dream'd that I, her knight, A clarion's haughty pathos heard, And rode securely to the fight, Cased in the scarf she had conferr'd; And there, the ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... refresh their wearied limbs, and actually reduces their sleep, as long as this season lasts, to about three hours and an half a night, upon a moderate computation[062]. Those who can keep their eyes open during their nightly labour, and are willing to resist the drowsiness that is continually coming upon them, are presently worn out; while some of those, who are overcome, and who feed the mill between asleep and awake, suffer, for thus obeying the calls of nature, by the loss of a limb[063]. ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson

... tent, whilst Stane, after a word or two with Anderton and Jean Benard, rolled himself in his sleeping furs, though with little hope of sleep. He lay awake some time and frequently opened his eyes to see Ainley still bent over his pocket-book, but presently drowsiness came over him. The last time his eyes alighted on Ainley the latter had ceased to write and was sitting staring into the fire with sombre eyes. Then sleep ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... bowls,—however much of it be eaten,—until the eater desires no more. And the people of Horai drink their wine out of very, very small cups; but no man can empty one of those cups,—however stoutly he may drink,—until there comes upon him the pleasant drowsiness of intoxication. ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn

... attempted to sleep. Then came a succession of delicious spells of drowsiness, and abrupt, harrowing awakenings. In his furious obstinacy, he still went to Therese, but only to always run against the body of Camille. He performed the same journey more than ten times over. He started all afire, followed the same itinerary, experienced the same sensations, ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... long way off through the forest deep, And toll on steadily; a drowsiness Came on me, so that I fell half asleep, As I sat there not ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris

... story is told that a Chancery counsel in a long and dry argument quoted the legal maxim—expressio unius est exclusio alterius—pronouncing the "i" in unius as short as possible. This roused his lordship from the drowsiness into which he had been lulled. "Unyus! Mr. ——? We always pronounced that unius at school."—"Oh yes, my lord," replied the counsel; "but some of the poets use it short for the sake of the metre."—"You ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... Increasing pleasures every hour they find, The warmth more precious, and the shelter kind; Warmth that long reigning bids the eyelids close, As through the blood its balmy influence goes, When the cheer'd heart forgets fatigues and cares, And drowsiness alone dominion bears. ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... lazy poets who have gorged themselves, And cannot keep awake, make the attempt To shift the burden of their drowsiness, And charge a girl with what ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland

... Drowsiness had indeed overtaken the camp. But now I must digress a moment to tell you something that the public—at least the public that has derived its knowledge of northern wilderness life from fiction—may find it hard to believe. And this is what I want to ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... and kindled every fresh one from the ashes of that which was nearly consumed, without requiring the assistance of a candle. Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... nodding, however, for a minute'or two, with her eyes half-closed, the unquiet and restless spirit of her malady again assailed Madge. She raised her head, and spoke, but with a lowered tone, which was again gradually overcome by drowsiness, to which the fatigue of a day's journey on horseback had probably given unwonted occasion,—"I dinna ken what makes me sae sleepy—I amaist never sleep till my bonny Lady Moon gangs till her bed—mair by token, when she's at the full, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... her face ghastly pale. Fat Pauline had let her head fall against Etienne's shoulder, and he himself was sleeping on the edge of the table. Nana was seated with Victor on the rug beside the bedstead, she had passed her arm round his neck and was drawing him towards her; and, succumbing to drowsiness and with her eyes shut, she kept repeating ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... formed on the right cornea, which healed without much trouble. In the course of a few days power began to return, first in the left leg and afterward, though to a much less extent, in the left arm. For two weeks there was drowsiness, and the man slept considerably. He was apathetic, and for many days passed urine in bed. He could not recognize his wife or old comrades, and had also difficulty in recognizing common objects and their uses. The most remarkable feature was the loss of all memory of his life for twenty ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... in a much more comfortable situation than when he was arrested and carried before the sultan; being now delivered from the immediate danger of losing his life. He amused himself for some time with these agreeable thoughts; but not having slept for two days, was not able to resist the drowsiness which came upon ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... of drowsiness—'twas like a fairy spell, That respite from the terrors we have known, alas, so well, The malevolent mosquito, with a limp and idle bill, Hung supinely from the ceiling, all exhausted by his chill. And the early morning sunbeam lost his customary leer And brought a gracious greeting and a ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... after the third hour, I was in the outlaws' camp. Bulla I found awake and with no signs of drowsiness or fatigue. In full sight of all of his men he spread a blanket, and, on it placed four coin-bags, two small and two full size. From the larger he spilt their contents on the blanket and, each of us taking a bag, we picked up the silver one piece at a time, both ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... books he had read and one or two scientific reports of such cases. He climbed into bed and blew out his candle. His drowsiness thickened. In his dulled mind one recollection remained—the picture of Howells coldly challenging him with his level smile to make a secret entrance of the old bedroom in a murderous effort to escape the penalty of the ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp

... her message, Iris hasted away, for she could not longer endure the stagnant air, and as she felt drowsiness creeping over her, she made her escape, and returned by her bow the way she came. Then Somnus called one of his numerous sons,— Morpheus,—the most expert in counterfeiting forms, and in imitating the walk, the countenance, and mode of speaking, even the clothes and attitudes ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... toward morning Henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep. Drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of spirits. Physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... night I suffered terribly. Every now and then sleep would cause me to nod, and objects grow dim before my eyes. Also, my head was turning dizzy, and I could have fainted for very weariness. Yet always my mother's feeble moans recalled me to myself as I started, momentarily awoke, and then again felt drowsiness overcoming me. What torture it was! I do not know, I cannot clearly remember, but I think that, during a moment when wakefulness was thus contending with slumber, a strange dream, a horrible vision, visited my overwrought brain, and ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... tavern keeper," and the newcomer advanced upon the unhappy Pedro as though about to slay him for his drowsiness. ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... and significant transactions taking place somewhere to some magnificent and illimitable purpose.... Life was no more than this summer afternoon; a faint wind stirring the lace collar of Gloria's dress; the slow baking drowsiness of the veranda.... Intolerably unmoved they all seemed, removed from any romantic imminency of action. Even Gloria's beauty needed wild emotions, needed poignancy, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... shapes thronged his mind again, wherein the Bible stories were mingled with tales of ghosts and strange nursery fables. They chased each other in and out, generating others as they went, and then came drowsiness, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... though exhausted by long fasting and severe labor, the despair of our hearts took away all desire for food. We were worn out with hard work, yet the cold was too great to allow us to take rest, and we were compelled to row so as to keep ourselves from perishing. But fatigue and drowsiness overcame us, and we often sank into sleep even while rowing; and then after a brief slumber we would awake with benumbed limbs to wrestle again with the oars. In this way ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... passed into drowsiness. I leant forward gradually, and at last my head sank down on the edge of his bed, and I drifted ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... where I had spent so many unpleasant hours, and glad to breathe the fresh air outside. I sat down on the cask, nibbling away at some of the contents of the basket, for my appetite had returned. At last a drowsiness stole over me, and slipping off the cask, against which I placed my back, I fell fast asleep. I was awakened by hearing some one shouting, and looking up I saw a person running towards me. I sprang to my feet, when what was my surprise to see my father, who rushed forward, and ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... then got up, and, shaking off his drowsiness, said: "I ate a number of hens and chicks last night; hence I must have slumbered longer ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... shore, a short distance north of Lincoln Park, Mr. Pfeifer had a charming little villa where he spent the summer months in idyllic drowsiness, exhibiting a spasmodic interest in the culture of European grapes. Here I found myself one Saturday evening in the middle of June, having accepted the owner's invitation to stay over Sunday with him. I rang the ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... I answered with the greatest circumspection—watching, the while, for any clue that might lead me to a discovery of myself. Thus, occasionally evading all pushing and home queries, and sometimes, when hard pressed, feigning drowsiness, I passed the long and anxious day—the fear of being overtaken ever mingling with the thoughts that some unlucky admission of mine might discover my real character to the courier, who, at any post station, might hand ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... circumstances of age and general health; unless when produced by so slight a cause as bloodletting, or a trifling blow upon the head. Whenever vertigo recurs frequently, and at an advanced period of life; and more particularly when it is accompanied with drowsiness; weakness of the voluntary muscles; impaired memory, or judgment; or, in short, any other disturbance or imperfection in the state of the sensorial functions; an unfavourable result is to be expected; because all these afford ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various

... perhaps he believed enough in the magnetic force of the superior physical as well as mental power of Prospero's nature over the nervous, sensitive, irritable female organization of his child to account for the "I know thou canst not choose" with which he concludes his observation on her drowsiness, and his desire that she will not resist it. The magic gown may, indeed, have been powerful,—but hardly more so, we think, than the nervous exhaustion which, combined with the authoritative will and eyes of her lord and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... gathered from this statement of the Principal Inhabitant that Gippsland had really been discovered and settled about thirty years before; but mountains and sea divided it from the outside world, and, on account of the intense drowsiness and inactivity which the delicious air and even temperature of the climate produced, the land and its inhabitants had been forgotten and unnoticed until it had been rediscovered, and its praises sung by the enterprising Minister of the ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... weeks" was Crabbe's answer, and the implied prediction was fulfilled almost to the day. After a fortnight at Pucklechurch, Crabbe returned to his own home at Trowbridge. Early in January he reported himself as more and more subject to drowsiness, which he accepted as sign of increasing weakness. Later in the month he was prostrated by a severe cold. Other complications supervened, and it soon became apparent that he could not rally. After a few days of much ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger

... shields himself from the sharp night air with the tawny mane. A cub, already hunting in dreams, comes whining and nestles down over his heart, while Love's brilliant star pours its splendors full upon his face. The long black lashes, burdened with unshed tears, drop low, a drowsiness falls upon him and Adam sleeps. The heavens are rolled together like a scroll and God descends in the midst of a legion of Angels, brightest of whom is Lucifer, Son of the Morning, not yet forever fallen. "It is not good that ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... us the truth, they have unintentionally done us a service. We were returning with folded arms from the fatigues of war, and thinking and sitting leisurely down to enjoy repose. The dependence that has been put upon Charleston threw a drowsiness over America. We looked on the business done—the conflict over—the matter settled—or that all which remained unfinished would follow of itself. In this state of dangerous relaxation, exposed to the poisonous infusions of the enemy, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... this bench. [Dimsdell sits, half reclining. Give way unto your drowsiness; it is Not sleep, but rest and relaxation. ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... hard saddle-work, it struck me just right to lie there in the shade with a cool breeze fanning my face, and before long I was headed smoothly for the Dreamland pastures. I hadn't dozed very long when somebody scattered my drowsiness with an angry yelp, and I raised up on one elbow to ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... aroused, and in the effort to shake off the weight of his drowsiness he made a backward movement of the head, which was perceived by the strangers. He was conscious that one of the men had risen, and was leaning over to the driver to ask who he himself might be, and where ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... rose, then sank back again. The glitter of the water hypnotized her. She closed her eyes again. She could hear Wally speaking, then his voice grew suddenly faint and far off, and she ceased to fight the delicious drowsiness. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... he drank a glass of vodka and ate a pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he walked away. It was a long while since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once, though he only drank a wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and instantly ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... on the log of a tree, that lay outside the hut, and leaned against its wall. For two hours he sat, and thought over the adventures and the prospects of the war, and then gradually a drowsiness crept over him, and he fell ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Drowsiness" :   temporary state, drowsy, oscitancy, oscitance, somnolence, sleepiness, wakefulness



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