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Expressive   /ɪksprˈɛsɪv/   Listen
Expressive

adjective
1.
Characterized by expression.



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"Expressive" Quotes from Famous Books



... the future," says Mr. Edward Denison, "which is conferred on him by reason, has attached to it the duty of providing for that future; and our language bears witness to this truth by using, as expressive of active precaution against future want, a word which in its radical meaning implies only a passive foreknowledge of the same. Whenever we speak of the virtue of providence, we assume that forewarned is fore-armed, To know the future ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... mildly inquired the cause of the argument. He was a young man of twenty-three or four, with a countenance more ingenuous than handsome, expressive of that mobility which is inseparable from a ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... in a slight Polish accent by the count, a very handsome and fashionably dressed brunette, with expressive brown eyes, a thin little white nose, and delicate little moustaches over a tiny mouth. 'This gentleman has not been playing forfeits ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... soul will reach final beatification rather than permanent and irremediable degradation. And yet the ultimate absorption of all souls into the Divine is assumed as a matter of course by him. This process, and that of Christianity, are expressive of the characteristics of the two faiths and of the two peoples. The slow and patient East, and the faith which it has begotten, spins out its theory of time and of human existence almost ad infinitum. Multitudinous ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... child's sense of persons becomes, at one period of its development, quite the controlling element. His action in the presence of the persons of the household becomes hesitating and watchful. Especially does he watch the face, for any expressive indications of what treatment is to be expected; for facial expression is now the most regular as well as the most delicate indication. Special observations on H.'s responses to changes in facial expression up to the age of twenty ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... tells us that "the time shall come when a most valiant hero shall add his name to this flower." "He alludes," says Mr. Riley, "to Ajax, from whose blood when he slew himself, a similar flower[072] was said to have arisen with the letters Ai Ai on its leaves, expressive either of grief or denoting the first two letters of his ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... according to the Duke of York's order, make haste to St. James's, and about four o'clock got thither: and there the Duke of York was ready, to expect me, and did hear it all over with extraordinary content; and did give me many and hearty thanks, and in words the most expressive tell me his sense of my good endeavours, and that he would have a care of me on all occasions; and did, with much inwardness,—[i.e., intimacy.]—tell me what was doing, suitable almost to what Captain Cocke tells me, of designs ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... some small pieces of silver, and something at the bottom carefully wrapped in a piece of paper; he unfolded it, and was thunderstruck at beholding an elegant miniature of Melissa! Her sweetly pensive features, her expressive countenance, her soul-enlivening eye! The shock was almost too powerful for his senses. Wildered in a maze of wonders, he knew not what to conjecture. Melissa's miniature found in the streets of Paris, after she had ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... that which is extraordinary—to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief, that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country;" and added, in language which might have fallen from his intimate friend, Algernon Sidney, but was fully expressive of his own views, "It is the great end of government to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power; for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery."[116:1] With ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... Memories (PROMs) that preceded present-day Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memories (EPROMs) involved intentionally blowing tiny electrical fuses on the chip. The usage lives on (it's too vivid and expressive to discard) even though the write process ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... else was favorable—weather, ice, dogs, men, and equipment—should thus impede our way with open water. Bartlett and I did not talk much to each other during those days. It was a time when silence seemed more expressive than any words. We looked at each other occasionally, and I could see from the tightening of Bartlett's jaw all that I needed to know of what was going on in ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... particular purpose, ex post facto, ex parte, et pendente lite, the courts below." On the 1st of December, a conference of both houses took place, when both lords and commons agreed in a loyal address to the king, expressive of their detestation of the libels against him; and Wilkes was ordered to attend at the bar of the commons in a week, should ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... were performances in which expressive and elaborate gestures and movements were left to tell the whole tale. For this kind of piece the actors naturally required not only uncommon cleverness but also great suppleness of body. As usual, these qualities, together with the qualities ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... consisting of a hexagonal pedestal, having on each side a statue of one of the prophets, by Claux Sluter in the 14th cent., the sculptor of the ducal monuments in the Palais des Etats. The statue of Moses is the least successful, and that of Zachariah the most expressive. The house contains on an average 500 patients. Dijon is not a town for sightseers, but an admirable town for resting during a long journey. The Cloche and Jura are comfortable houses, and although La Galre is less so, its charges are more moderate, while its fare ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... both parties seemed inclined to pause and take breath, and in the interval we made an harangue to the sailors, expressive of our regret that they should act in so disgraceful ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... northern declivity, which resembles the interior of a ship. The summit of this mountain is almost bare of vegetation, and is flat like that of Mowna Roa, in the Sandwich Islands. It is a perpendicular wall, or, to use a more expressive term of the Spanish navigators, a table (mesa). This peculiar form, and the symmetrical arrangement of a few cones which surround the Brigantine, made me at first think that this group, which is wholly calcareous, contained rocks of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... figures of wolves which John Jones supposed to be those of foxes. The wolf of Chirk is not intended to be expressive of the northern name of its proprietor, but as the armorial bearing of his family by the maternal side, and originated in one Ryred, surnamed Blaidd or Wolf from his ferocity in war, from whom the family, which only assumed the name of Middleton in the beginning ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... would recommend to any one, who would fit himself to live happily as well as efficiently, the cultivation of that auxiliary virtue or grace which Horace Walpole called "Serendipity." Walpole defined it in a letter to Sir Horace Mann: "It is a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavor to explain to you; you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale called 'The Three Princes of Serendip.' As ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... no response from the Slimy Slacker, (to use McNab's expressive name for him), he gave utterance to ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... consumes the bodily powers, but exhausts and prevents other mental operations. The sudden collapse of all voluntary functions resembles the fainting produced by blood-letting. We may sum up this rapid expenditure of energy in one expressive word, EXHAUSTION, which results in Ecstasy, or trance, and which, if carried a degree further, terminates in death. Beginning with the natural exercise of the emotions, we may state ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... series of preachers. He was listened to and applauded, but he said nothing new. After him followed the preachers: Gogol, Tolstoi, Goncharov, Tchehov, Turgeniev, Dostojevsky, and many others, like a choir, in which three voices are still the strongest and most expressive: Gogol, Tolstoi, Dostojevsky. What did ...
— The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916) - Sermons On Subjects Suggested By The War, Third Series • Nikolaj Velimirovic

... handsome, muscular-looking man of about thirty, with a sun-tanned face, piercing gray eyes, and a reddish-brown beard cropped in the foreign fashion; the other, half hidden among the voluminous furs of the carriage, was a pale, humpbacked lad, with a fine, expressive, intellectual face, and large, animated, almost woman-like eyes. The former was George Brand, of Brand Beeches, Bucks, a bachelor unattached, and a person of no particular occupation, except that he had ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... received him with a cold and distant manner, that quite benumbed him. Grace Carden's face and manner were so much more expressive than other people's, that you would never mistake or doubt the mood she was in; and this ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... told him that their regular breathing was not feigned, but he leaned over and shook each in turn by the shoulder, pronouncing their names in louder tones than before. The slumber continued undisturbed. A muttered exclamation escaped the man again, one expressive of pleasure at ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... herbage of any kind grew on this abandoned plain, being a fine red sand, which almost blinded us with its dust. It was with some little hesitation that we affixed a name to this brush; but at length nothing occurred to us more expressive of its aspect than EURYALEAN. This was the first night which we had passed ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... beauty and a fitness in this longing. It is expressive of more than the weariness of a world-worn spirit, or the thinly disguised selfishness of one who fears to pay the ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... matronly wife. She read it out, pronouncing it thusly, "Return of Percy Fone." "What!" exclaimed the Clergyman. Then, taking the Catalogue into his own hands, he read "Return of Persephone." "It's pronounced," he informed his help-mate, "Per-s[)e]ph-[)o]-n[)e]." "Is it?" she returned, in a tone expressive of unmitigated incredulity. "Then," she asked suddenly, as a brilliant idea struck her, "why isn't 'telephone' pronounced 'tel-[)e]ph-[)o]-n[)e]'?" And turning her back on him, would not hear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various

... out for their morning intermission he beckoned the youth to him. Dan Murphy made a covert grimace expressive of his whole being's revolt against any such degrading task, and Scotty went forward reluctantly. He wanted to disobey, but the ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... expression, it is a singular fact that comparatively little attention is given to the use of the very first instrument which should be under command before any secondary instrument can be made perfectly expressive. ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... to have been in use among the Polish Unitarians shortly after the death of Faustus Socinus, as respectfully expressive of the exact effect which they conceived that he had produced in the religious world. Mr. Wallace, in his Antitrinitarian Biography, vol. iii. p. 323., states that it is "the epitaph said to have been inscribed on the tomb of Faustus Socinus." Mr. Wallace's authority ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various

... exceeded my Ideas, and which seemed to infuse a Panic thro' the whole of our Troops, &c." Silliman speaks of the "incessant fire on our lines" with grapeshot as being "so hot" that the militia were compelled to retreat. Douglas's description is as quaint as it is expressive: "They very suddenly began as heavy a cannonade perhaps as ever was from no more ships, as they had nothing to molest them." Martin thought his head would "go with the sound." Lieutenant John Heinrichs, of the Hessian yagers, writes: "Last Sunday we landed ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... it may sound more than strange; it may appear incredible, that on the theatre of Athens, the dance of the Eumenides, or Furies, had so expressive a character, as to strike the spectators with irresistible terror. The Areopagus itself shuddered with horror and affright; men grown old in the profession of arms, trembled; the multitude ran out; ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... with my repentance, she gave me a look so expressive of forgiveness that, without being afraid of augmenting my guilt, I took my lips off her hand and I raised them to her half-open, smiling mouth. Intoxicated with rapture, I passed so rapidly from a state of sadness to one of overwhelming ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... by him, that there had undoubtedly been a demonstration at the Sapienza, but that the truth was, the students were so indignant at the outrages committed against his Holiness, that they drew up an address of their own accord, expressive of their devotion to the Pope, and that upon the rector refusing his consent to the presentation of the address, on the ground that they were too young to take any part in political matters, they vented by tumultuous shouts their dissatisfation at this somewhat ill-timed interference. ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... published with unusual solemnity of title-page and frontispiece; the former declaring that the translation was made by his Majesty's command; the latter representing Charles on his throne, surrounded by emblems expressive of hereditary and indefeasible right.[39] The dedication to the king contains sentiments which savour strongly of party violence, and even ferocity. The forgiving disposition of the king is, according to the ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... Hawtrey made an expressive gesture. "Oh, yes," he admitted, "it's in you. All you want in order to beat the wilderness and turn it into a garden is an ax, a span of oxen, and a breaker plow. You ought to be proud of your energy. Still, you see, our folks back yonder aren't ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... to go that way, and yet Henry insisted upon it. Lucy listened to the dispute with a countenance expressive of distress and anxiety. First, she proposed to Rollo to yield to Henry, and then to Henry to yield to Rollo; but in vain. Henry said that Rollo ought to let him decide, because he was the oldest; and Rollo said that he himself ought to decide, because ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott

... altered mien, He died unheeded, as he lived unseen. The moral market had the usual chills Of Virtue suffering from protested bills; The White Cravats, to friendship's memory true, Sighed for the past, surveyed the future too; Their sorrow breathed in one expressive line,— "Gave pleasant dinners; ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the mark. The ancients understood the regulation of power better than the regulation of liberty. They concentrated so many prerogatives in the State as to leave no footing from which a man could deny its jurisdiction or assign bounds to its activity. If I may employ an expressive anachronism, the vice of the classic State was that it was both Church and State in one. Morality was undistinguished from religion and politics from morals; and in religion, morality, and politics ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... composition, whether it was made for him, in his minority, on his repairing to the temple when the mourning for his father was completed, or after the expiration of the regency of the duke of Ku. The words 'little child,' according to their usage, are expressive of humility and not of age. They do not enable us ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... says: "While in practice before the courts his presence ever commanded the utmost respect. Of good form, of handsome and expressive features, and of most gentlemanly and pleasing address, with his great learning and untiring industry, it is not strange that he should have succeeded at the bar and ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... coral under lip, and looked at him from under veiled eyelids. It was a cruel look, very expressive of scorn, abhorrence, and perhaps ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... from home, he said. At first he found that a wholly new place and new people took him out of himself ("surprised me," he said, "so that I could not live everything beforehand"). Thus he fled. The slang he used, "chased himself all over the country," seemed peculiarly expressive. He had been in foreign countries; he had herded sheep in Australia (so he said), and certainly from his knowledge of the country he had wandered with the gamboleros of South America; he had gone for gold to Alaska, and worked in the lumber camps of the Pacific Northwest. But ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... "mobilite." I am not sure that mobility is English; but it is expressive of a quality which rather belongs to other climates, though it is sometimes seen to a great extent in our own. It may be defined as an excessive susceptibility of immediate impressions—at the same time without losing the past: and is, though sometimes apparently useful to the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... those observations which they are in the habit of making. Indeed, this is not so much an extemporaneous indulgence of wit on their part, as a mere repetition of the set phrases and traditionary apothegms which have been long established among the peasantry, and as they are generally expressive of present satisfaction and good wishes for the future, so would it be looked upon as churlishness, and in some cases, on the part of the servants, a sign of ill-luck, to ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... colossal statue standing again between the huge, crouching beasts. Farther on a beautiful headless statue of a woman had been discovered in the cella of a sepulchre, and he beheld it, again whole, with features expressive of grace and strength smiling upon life. The inscriptions also became perfect; he could read and understand them at a glance, as if living among those dead ones of two thousand years ago. And the road, too, became peopled: ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... king, or, as he styles himself, the emperor of the Franks and Lombards." When both power and virtue were extinct, they despoiled Lewis the Second of his hereditary title, and with the barbarous appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin princes. His reply [124] is expressive of his weakness: he proves, with some learning, that, both in sacred and profane history, the name of king is synonymous with the Greek word basileus: if, at Constantinople, it were assumed in a more exclusive and imperial sense, he claims from his ancestors, and from ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... in all public places, people had the impudence to spread the report that M. le Duc d'Orleans had had him killed! M. le Duc d'Orleans and his enemies have been equally indefatigable; the latter in the blackest villainies, the Prince in the most unfruitful clemency, to call it by no more expressive name. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... an invitation of this public nature, under circumstances so insulting, was out of the question. I therefore joined Lady Cochrane at the island of Governador, and sent an excuse to the minister expressive of my regret at being prevented by unavoidable circumstances from sharing in the honour of the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... Bridge that evening, and by unspoken consent everyone sat in the hall. It was a cold night, and the roaring fire was pleasant to hear, and in the expressive slang ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... wonderfully expressive gray eyes I have never seen. And he has such a strong face. Of course, his clothes are a bit shabby. He'd be great if ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... declared: "If Merica men offer me as much gold as fill this cap full up, and give me houses, land, and every ting, so dat I stay in this country, I say: 'No! no! I want to see my father, my mother, my brother, my sister.'" Nothing could have been more tender and expressive. They were willing to endure any hardships short of life that they might once more see their own, their native land. The religious instruction they had enjoyed made a wonderful impression on their minds. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... uttered something very near an oath. And she spoke not a word more until I handed her out in Arlington Street. The rest of us were silent, too, Comyn now and again giving me eloquent glances expressive of what he would say if she were not present; the captain watching her with a furtive praise, and he vowed to me afterward she was never so beautiful as when angry, that he loved her as an avenging Diana. But I was uneasy, and when I stood ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... than he had ever before experienced; and as to the moving of him from the laboratory and again into his own room—his silence and the convulsive shudder which shook him from head to foot were far more expressive than words. His first act when he was sufficiently recovered to move about once more was to secure the phial containing the liquid which had done all the mischief, and—with Nicholls to manage the punt—go right out to sea, where, hastily uncorking the bottle, he flung it as far from ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... expose the tumour to his inspection. She submitted to a somewhat painful examination of it, and to a far more serious operation afterwards. Some years passed away, and whenever she saw the operator, she testified her joy and her gratitude in the most expressive and ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... young wife. Finally we called on Captain Carter, our 'oldest man,' a grave bachelor of forty-five, and to our surprise, who knew him harsh and sometimes profane, he sang, with a voice not faultless, but soft and expressive, that exquisite ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... sublimest Poetry, softened in the most moving Strains of Musick, can ever fail of humbling or exalting the Soul to any Pitch of Devotion. Who can hear the Terrors of the Lord of Hosts described in the most expressive Melody, without being awed into a Veneration? or who can hear the kind and endearing Attributes of a merciful Father, and not be ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... a deliberate manner, casting alert eyes about me, for, to use an expressive idiom, I was not doing this for my health. On the contrary I had two very definite purposes; the first, which I could probably compass, was to save Miss Falconer from further intercourse with Blenheim and to conceal the presence of the wounded, helpless Firefly from his enemies; the second, surprisingly ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... that rests upon their decaying race, and to move with melancholy languor, as if brooding over it in stifled rebellion or resigned apathy. Some would be called beautiful anywhere: they were graceful in form, had fine regular features and lovely, expressive eyes; others were attractive only on account of their animation; while one comical little negro girl, who had somehow got mixed with the Malay race, was as ugly as a Hottentot, and a veritable imp of darkness, as I afterward learned, so far as mischief was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... in the course of it bade farewell to more than one old friend. None of them were so expressive as Holt, but he could perceive that he was regarded by all of them as a person who, by his conduct, was bringing misfortune, not only on himself, but on the whole parishes ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... cursory remarks. It is often the custom of men-of-war's-men, when they deem anything to be going on wrong aboard ship to refer to last cruise when of course everything was done ship-shape and Bristol fashion. And by referring to the Audacious—an expressive name by the way—the fore-top Captain meant a ship in the English navy, in which he had had the honour of serving. So continual were his allusions to this craft with the amiable name, that at last, the Audacious ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... She was tall for her age, and apparently better educated than her seeming condition in life might warrant. But what was most peculiar about her, was an air of sadness, that seemed native to her expressive countenance, and which pervaded her smiles even, with a strange, subduing power, that nearly allied them to gentle tears. Her voice, too, was singularly sweet, low and melodious; while her whole demeanor was so tinged ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... that time, I knew more of Greek art than my antagonists, my broken reading has given me no conception of the range of its symbolic power, nor of the function of that more or less formal spiral line, as expressive, not only of the waves of the sea, but of the zones of the whirlpool, the return of the tempest, and the involution of the labyrinth. And although my readers say that I wrote then better than I write now, I cannot refer you to the passage without asking you to pardon in it what I now hold to be ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin

... fifty years of age was seated on a rustic bench. She was dressed in a white morning-dress, a light cap and a mantilla. Her face, full and florid, was expressive of calmness and seriousness. She was the first to speak: "You are evidently ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin

... still held in her hand the drawing her brother had given her. It was a bold, expressive sketch of a group of miserable people on the deck of a steamer, clinging together and clutching at each other, while the vessel lurched downward, at a terrific angle, into the hollow of a wave. It was extremely clever, and full of a sort of tragi-comical power. Eugenia dropped her eyes upon ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with content and good humour, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh and a pressing invitation to "fall to, and ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... for an artist comparatively a stranger to her. It was opposed to her reserved and somewhat haughty temperament that any eye should scan too freely and too curiously the lineaments of her beautiful face, with its singularly expressive individuality. But now that Phebe's skill had been so highly cultivated, and commanded an increasing reputation, she could no longer oppose ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... to be had, and every year they will be scarcer with the present demand for beef. A perfect breeding or feeding animal should have a fine expression of countenance—I could point it out, but it is difficult to describe upon paper. It should be mild, serene, and expressive. The animal should be fine in the bone, with clean muzzle, a tail like a rat's, and not ewe-necked; short on the legs. He should have a small well-put-on head, prominent eye, a skin not too thick nor too thin; ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... and talk, light or deep, play and eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager criticism and crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes are listening, a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives the answer. In short, and in a word, everything is ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... Conny, in spite of her ordinary sedateness of demeanour and constant asseveration that she would only marry a clergyman like her father, she is, to use Teddy's expressive diction, "spliced to a sodger," having become engaged some time since to a gallant captain in a marching regiment that was quartered for a while at Bigton, within easy access ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... women are, Lucy! He took her hand, expressed concern for her health, softened the tone of his voice, looked a few civil things with those expressive lying eyes of his, and without one word of explanation all was forgot in ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... gregarious ancestors, the festive girlhood which Cousin Pussy had so ardently described. She wanted passionately all the things that other girls had, and her only quarrel, indeed, with the sheltered life was that she couldn't afford it. In the expressive phrase of Cousin Jimmy, the sheltered life "cost money," and to cost money was to be beyond the eager ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... to matter fundamentally whether it was an experience of things without or of things within him that had happened to him. It was clear to him that much that he had seen was at most expressive, that some was altogether symbolical. For example, there was that sudden absurd realization of his sash and gaiters, and his perception of them as encumbrances in his pursuit of God. But the setting and essential of the whole thing remained in his mind neither expressive nor symbolical, but as real ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... the middle size, a brunette with expressive blue eyes; and her face, though without pretension to beauty, was uncommonly interesting. She had a fine figure, a majestic and dignified air, rather attractive than intimidating, and united with such numberless graces, even in ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... she did not refuse to encounter his look, and the smile with which she answered it was so peculiarly expressive of a self-confident disdain that he could scarcely take his eyes from her. Cyrus Redgrave knew as well as most men the signals of challenge on a woman's features; at a recent meeting he had detected something ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... embarrassed on my first being presented to her," Malmesbury enters in his diary—"pretty face, not expressive of softness—her figure not graceful, fine eyes, good hands, tolerable teeth, fair hair and light eyebrows, good bust, short, with what the French call 'des epaules impertinentes,' vastly happy with her ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... groaned at the conclusion of the narrative, and his face was so expressive of agony, that it formed a comical picture, exciting the laughter of Charles Stevens, and Bly supposing that he was skeptical of the ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... said Sir Terence, and from Colquhoun Grant there was a sharp and audible intake of breath, expressive either of understanding, or surprise, or both. The adjutant looked at Tremayne again. "As my questions seem only to entangle you further," he said, "I think you had better do as I suggest without more protests: report yourself under arrest to ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... case one gentle tap is all that is needed. The animal at once snatches away his foot, holds it high from the ground, and makes pawing movements in the air. At that moment, too, his countenance is highly expressive of the pain he is suffering. Again the foot is explored, the injury found, and the ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... grew fainter and fainter, the screams of the woman were stilled, the hoarse voice of the man was heard again for a moment, hailing the wreck in words made unintelligible by the distance, but in tones plainly expressive of rage and fear combined. Another moment, and the clang of the door-bolt was heard again, the red spark of light was quenched in darkness, and all the islet lay quiet in the shadows once more. The ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... friend as to a superior being, with a sort of enthusiastic admiration; and now, with 'charmed attention,' listened, by turns, to her, to Mr. Salisbury, and to Lord Colambre, whilst they conversed on literary subjects—listened, with a countenance so full of intelligence, of animation so expressive of every good and kind affection, that the gentlemen did not always know ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... all except Dan, who rudely declared that he "refused with pleasure," when Darsie bearded him in his den and proffered the invitation. He was seated at his desk, for the moment the only occupant of the workroom, and his manner was not expressive of welcome to the new-comer. He was a big, heavily built youth, with a face which was oddly attractive despite irregular features and a dull complexion. Dark eyes looked at you straight and square beneath bushy eyebrows; thin lips ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... precise amount of rheumatism from which Mrs. Flower suffered, Henry soon realised that there seemed to be an irreverent scepticism in the family, nothing short of heartless; for rheumatism so poignantly expressive, so movingly dramatised, he never remembered to have met. Mrs. Flower could not walk across the floor without grimaces of pain, or piteous indrawings of her breath; and yet demonstrations that you might have thought would have softened stones, left her unfeeling audience not only unmoved, but ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... Nights fantasies had conceived of a flying carpet, but neither he nor any one else had conceived of flying conversation. In all the literature of ancient days, there is not a line that will apply to the telephone, except possibly that expressive phrase in the Bible, "And there came a voice." In these more privileged days, the telephone has come to be regarded as a commonplace fact of everyday life; and we are apt to forget that the wonder of it has become ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... of American Republics is doing a broad and useful work for Pan American commerce and comity. Its duties were much enlarged by the International Conference of American States at Buenos Aires and its name was shortened to the more practical and expressive term of Pan American Union. Located now in its new building, which was specially dedicated April 26 of this year to the development of friendship, trade and peace among the American nations, it has improved instrumentalities to serve the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft

... and his wife we, alas! never knew. She turned her left shoulder pointedly toward the young woman, whom she had designated as a hussy, and talked steadily for about a minute and a half at Mr. Bundercombe. The history of what followed was reflected in that gentleman's expressive face. He appeared to listen, at first in amazement, afterward in annoyance, and finally in downright anger. When at last he spoke we heard ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... uninviting expression of this great man's countenance, that I first drew my conceptions as to how a proud and unsociable man looked. With very different emotions I was wont to survey the mild but expressive features of his great opponent, Fox: there was a placidity mixed up with the graver lines of thought and reflection, that would have invited a child to take him by the hand; indeed, the witchcraft of Mr. Fox's temper was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various

... accustomed in those days to use much more simple and expressive terms of language than are now thought polite; and it would be dangerous to give, in this present year 1840, the exact words of reproach which passed between Hayes and his wife in 1726. Mr. Wood sat near, laughing his sides out. Mr. Hayes swore that his ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to Congress a copy of a correspondence between the Secretary of State and G.V. Fox, esq., relative to the presentation by the latter to the Emperor of Russia of the resolution of Congress expressive of the feelings of the people of the United States in reference to the providential escape of that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... under the sway of the narrow and tyrannous notions of religion fostered in him as we have seen. Thus, while a national Establishment of religion favours totality, hole-and-corner forms of religion (to use an expressive popular word) ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... Joseph said nothing. Simon grinned as well as his stiff and aching head would let him, as he watched the little gentleman's expressive face. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... with them, but all the while it would be running back to the knock-out blow of seeing that girl in Dykeman's place. She was double-crossing Worth! I might have grinned at the idea that I'd let myself be fooled by a pair of big, expressive, wistful, merry black eyes; but I had seen the look in those same eyes when they were turned on my boy; to think she'd look at him like that, and sell him out, was against nature. It was hurting me beyond ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... His influence on contemporary and succeeding thought and literature has been profound and lasting. It should be added that W., like Milton, with whom he had many points in common, was the master of a noble and expressive prose style. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... and velvet coats, smoking long pipes around a punch bowl; beautiful ghosts in patches and powder," he made an expressive gesture; "they have mingled with the rest of you—shadow-shapes of ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... and there was something in the tone with which the word was uttered that thrilled and rather shook my spirits. It seemed to breathe from a bosom labouring under the deadliest terror; I have never heard another syllable so expressive; and I still hear it again when I am feverish at night, and my mind runs upon old times. The man turned towards the girl as he spoke; I had a glimpse of much red beard and a nose which seemed to have been broken in youth; and his light eyes seemed shining in his face with some strong ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... promoting and managing revivals—a plan which Synod declined as "inexpedient." At the same convention B. Kurtz, the advocate of the wildest revivalism, succeeded in having a committee appointed to draft a minute expressive of the views of Synod in regard to "new measures." The report was discussed for two days, when it was referred back to the committee, and at the next meeting of Synod the committee was excused from further consideration of the subject. (Spaeth 1, 111.) As late ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... pretty girl, tall and slender, with dark eyes and black hair. Her eyes were perhaps too round for regular beauty, and her hair was perhaps too crisp; her mouth was large and expressive; her nose was finely formed, though a critic in female form might have declared it to be somewhat broad. But her countenance altogether was very attractive—if only it might be seen without that resolution for dominion which occasionally marred it, though sometimes ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... went over in my mind all that had been said between us; all that had occurred in my cabin after dinner; every minute since we left Colombo was laid bare to its minutest detail. Lascars slipped by me in the half-darkness, the voices of two lovers near alternated with their expressive silences, and from the music saloon there came the pretty strains of a minuet, played very deftly. Under the influence of this music my thoughts became less exact; they drifted. My eyes shifted to the lights of the 'Porcupine' in the distance, and from them ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... travesty of language went on for what appeared to the transfixed and terrified listener quite a long time. At length the serious, almost tragic, babbler, meeting with no response save the staring horror of Tims's too expressive countenance, ended with a supplicating smile and a glance which contrived to be charged at once with pathos and coquetry. This smile, this look, were so totally unlike any expression which Tims ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... cannot in conversation communicate his knowledge, explain his reasons, enforce his arguments, or make his wit intelligible? In vain he has recourse to the language of action. The language of action, or, as Bacon calls it, of "transitory hieroglyphic," is expressive, but inadequate. As new ideas are collected in the mind, new signs are wanted, and the progress of the understanding would be early and fatally impeded by the want of language. M. de la Condamine tells us that there is a nation who have no sign to express the number three but this ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... is good Canadian," Barbara rejoined. "I'm studying the language and find it expressive and plain. When our new friends talk you know what they mean. Besides, I'd better learn their idioms, because I might stop in Canada ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... trembling lip that her woman's heart was off its guard, and he knew, by the infallible instinct of sex, that he should be forgiven, if he thanked her for her sisterly sympathies in the most natural way,—expressive, and at the same time economical of breath and utterance. He would not give a false look to their friendship by any such demonstration. Helen was a little older than himself, but the aureole of young womanhood had ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... are the parts of which any distinguished talent is made up that we have to feel our way as we enumerate them; and yet that very ambiguity is a challenge to analysis and to characterization. This "nobleness" on Mr. Parsons' part is the element of style—something large and manly, expressive of the total character of his facts. His landscape is the landscape of the male vision, and yet his touch is full of sentiment, of curiosity and endearment. These things, and others besides, make him the most interesting, the most ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... as before the institution of circumcision, faith in Christ to come justified both children and adults, so, too, after its institution. But before, there was no need of a sign expressive of this faith; because as yet believers had not begun to be united together apart from unbelievers for the worship of one God. It is probable, however, that parents who were believers offered up some prayers to God for their children, especially if these were in any danger. Or ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... man of medium stature and compact figure. His forehead was broad and full; his eyes clear and expressive. His features were of the strongly marked rugged Scotch type. He was a ready speaker, a popular lecturer on educational topics, and an able preacher. He was admirable in conversation. His observation of men was accurate, and ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail

... shapes, etc. In Heywood's Hierarchy of Angels there is a reference to travellers seeing strange shapes beckoning to them. Such words as 'shapes,' 'shadows,' 'airy tongues,' etc., illustrate Milton's power to create an indefinite, yet expressive picture. Comp. Aen. iv. 460. beckoning shadows dire. A characteristic arrangement of words in Milton: comp. lines ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... to have been short-lived convention that is now altogether disregarded. So it is time to look at the early music through our own, and not through the eighteenth-century doctors' eyes; and when we do that we find the early music to be as beautiful as any ever written, as expressive, and quite as well constructed. There are, as I have said, people who to-day prefer Mr. Jackson in F and his friends to Byrde. What, I wonder, would be said if a literary man preferred, say, some eighteenth-century poetaster to Chaucer because the poetaster in his verse observed rules which ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... cast of his features, partook not of that poverty of appearance. The proudest noble in Scotland might have been yet prouder could he have called that child his heir. While, with breathless anxiety, the Lady of Avenel gazed on his well-formed and expressive features, a slight shade of colour returned gradually to the cheek; suspended animation became restored by degrees, the child sighed deeply, opened his eyes, which to the human countenance produces the effect of light upon the natural landscape, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... was born at the same time and under the same conditions that he himself was. The only rule that can be given him is, to say what he has to say in the clearest and most direct way, using the most fitting and expressive words. But often, of course, this advice is like that of the doctor who counsels his patient to free his mind from all care and worry, to live luxuriously on the fat of the land, and to make a voyage round the world in a private ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... between a Prologue and an Epilogue both dramatic and fanciful, but scarcely less expressive of the author's mental personality than the body ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... weapon of one, free labor the weapon of the other. Though Lincoln was at that time forty-nine years old, his political experience, in contrast with that of Douglas, was negligible. He afterward aptly described his early life in that expressive line from Gray, "The short and simple annals of the poor." He lacked regular schooling, and it was altogether from the practice of law that he had gained such formal education as he had. In law, however, he had become a master, ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... "Abtar tailless. In the text we find for all termination, "After this he (Yusuf) invited Mohammed ibn Ibrahim to lie that night in the palace." Scott (vi. 364) ends after his own fashion:—"They (the ten girls) recited extempore verses before the caliph, but the subject of each was so expressive of their wish to return to their beloved sovereign, and delivered in so affecting a manner, that Mamoon, though delighted with their wit and beauty, sacrificed his own pleasure to their feelings, and sent them back to Eusuff by the officer who carried the edict, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... slightly pouted, not too narrow, of a wonderful, vividly healthy and vital red. She had beauty, she had intelligence. But it was impossible for a man to think of either, once his glance had been caught by those expressive, inviting lips of hers, so young, so fresh, with their ever-changing, ever-fascinating line expressing in a thousand ways the passion ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... regards, and a pleasant task it often turns out to be; for, as I have already said, and shall probably yet more strongly confirm hereafter, the average of female beauty in America is high, and but few women are without those always striking points, fine expressive brows and eyes, which, shaded by a tasteful bonnet, and accompanied by a certain coquettish air, leave little wanting to ensure the admiration of ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... be inappropriate to give two letters expressive of his good-will toward his fellow laborers. The one was written on the occasion of Rev. John Stronach's return ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... about to do?" interposed the rector, in a tone of authority, though his countenance was expressive of horror. "Are you going to commit murder on this sacred spot, close to the precincts of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... without arousing any one's jealousy; but if fortune will not get me out of my difficulty—well, I will teach fortune a lesson—and I know very well to whom I intend to offer the bracelets." These words were accompanied by so expressive a smile, that Madame could not resist paying her by ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... view of the lake and Mount Pilatus. Here a nurse met him and told him that he must not stay long; a quarter of an hour at the outside. He asked how Mademoiselle was, whereon she answered with an expressive shrug: ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... affection, and forbearance which have brightened and lightened my work. Of its worth I cannot judge; its imperfections I know better than the most unfavourable critic; but I can humbly take the words of this text as expressive, not, indeed, of my attainments, but of my aims. One of my texts, on my first Sunday in Manchester, was 'We preach Christ and Him crucified,' and I look back, and venture to say that the noble words of this text have been, however imperfectly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... said sententiously to one of his own supporters, 'There is a great future before this young man.' The rather rotten borough became suffused with the radiant atmosphere of Olympus. The ladies presented their hero with a banner of red silk, and an address expressive of their conviction that the good old Red cause was the salvation of their ancient borough. The young candidate in reply speedily put it in far more glowing colours. It was no trivial banner of a party club, it was the red flag ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... according to the rank they bore; For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, 35 Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place. Behold, four Kings in majesty rever'd, With hoary whiskers and a forky beard; And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flow'r, Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r; 40 Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band, Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand; And particolour'd troops, a shining train, Draw forth to combat on ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... chant under her breath, afraid lest she should extinguish the pale voices, and surprised how expressive the antique chant was when sung by these etiolated, sexless voices. She had never known how much of her life of passion and desire had entered into her voice, and she was shocked at its impurity. Her singing sounded ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... It was so expressive of surprise, of scorn, of contempt, although spoken in little more than a whisper, that every one in the room caught his or her breath in a sharp little gasp, as if cringing from the effect of an unexpected shock to ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... Hellenic lines and rules. They bear the same relation to Thucydides and Herodotus that a pillar of the Roman Ionic order, with its angularly turned volutes and arbitrary perpendicularity of outline, does to its graceful Greek mother, with her primitive and expressive scrolls, and the slightly convex profile of her shaft. In more modern times, a black-letter, quaint sentence of Froissart or Monstrelet is like a knight in full armor, bristling with quaint, beautiful devices, golden dragons inlaid on Milan cuirasses, golden vines on ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... following terms, expressive of different forms of divination, have been collected from various sources, and are here given as a curious illustration of bygone superstitions:- Divination by oracles, Theomancy[obs3]; by the Bible, Bibliomancy; by ghosts, Psychomancy[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... this story. At nineteen Miss Furnival was in all respects a young woman. She was forward in acquirements, in manner, in general intelligence, and in powers of conversation. She was a handsome, tall girl, with expressive gray eyes and dark-brown hair. Her mouth, and hair, and a certain motion of her neck and turn of her head, had come to her from her mother, but her eyes were those of her father: they were less sharp perhaps, ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... coquetry, mingled with a profound love of the soil where her martyred mother reposed, in the desire which Marsa Laszlo had to be called the Tzigana, instead of by her own name. The Tzigana! This name, as clear cut, resonant and expressive as the czimbaloms of the Hungarian musicians, lent her an additional, original charm. She was always spoken of thus, when she was perceived riding her pure-blooded black mare, or driving, attached to a victoria, a pair of bay horses of the Kisber breed. Before the horses ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... a recent address before the Harvard Divinity School, deprecated the use of the term "theology." "Theology," he said, "presupposes divine revelation, which we do not accept." He proposed the term "philosophy," as expressive of the aim of the Unitarian school. This is honest and plain. What shall we say of those who speak of the "new emphasis" needed in modern theology, when they really mean that the preaching of the old doctrines of sin and salvation must give place to "another gospel" of cooperative ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... his soup, and the eyes, the large expressive eyes of the young woman opposite, were on him, he could feel, with a growing look in them of inquiry. They were, he could see, very intelligent and attractive eyes, and full, apart from the inquiry of goodwill. Probably she thought he ought to talk—but if she knew everything she ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... door and turned to him. He laid his hand kindly upon his shoulder; his voice was expressive of the kindest sympathy. "So you have found your way here once more, Arthur! I thought you were never coming again. What can ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood



Words linked to "Expressive" :   expressive aphasia, expressive style, express, communicative, communicatory



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