Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Homely   /hˈoʊmli/   Listen
Homely

adjective
(compar. homelier; superl. homeliest)
1.
Lacking in physical beauty or proportion.  Synonym: plain.  "Several of the buildings were downright homely" , "A plain girl with a freckled face"
2.
Having a feeling of home; cozy and comfortable.  Synonyms: homelike, homey, homy.  "A homey little inn"
3.
Plain and unpretentious.  "Letters to his son full of homely advice" , "Homely fare"
4.
Without artificial refinement or elegance.  "Homely manners"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Homely" Quotes from Famous Books



... pressing a button. In a moment a maid brought in a tray shining with silver and porcelain, set it down on the table in front of Mrs. Draper, and then wheeled in a little circular table with shelves, a glorified edition in gleaming mahogany of the homely, white-painted wheeled-tray of Sylvia's home. On the shelves was a large assortment of delicate, small cakes and paper-thin sandwiches. While she poured out the amber-colored tea into the translucent cups, Mrs. Draper kept up with the new-comer a lively ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... hint as the play of "Othello" performed in the Russian language in a railroad station by Dockstader's minstrels. A royal and generous lady this Pittsburg, though—homely, hearty, with flushed face, washing the dishes in a silk dress and white kid slippers, and bidding Raggles sit before the roaring fireplace and drink champagne with his pigs' ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... strong rush of water, its steep banks forming a plateau on either hand. The narrow gorge was spanned by a rough bridge of boats lashed firmly together; and on the farther side Honor found a lone dak bungalow, its homely dovecot and wheeling pigeons striking a friendly note amid the callousness of the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... noblest faculty of man, would be of no service to the common people: but to tell them that they may die in a fit of drunkenness, and shew them how dreadful that would be, cannot fail to make a deep impression. Sir, when your Scotch clergy give up their homely manner, religion will soon decay in that country.' Let this observation, as Johnson meant it, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... meant. And Miss Button, his stenographer, needed a little trip. Ten days at Atlantic City with her mother would pull her up. She had been looking badly lately—worried about her mother, Weeks had told him. Pity she was so homely. It was pretty unfair the way women had to work at both ends of the line. Weeks, too, could get his wife that fur coat he'd been wanting her to have for three years. What an honest old duck Weeks was!—and who would ever believe him as full of sentiment as a boy of twenty? ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher

... the Greek coins which shocked him in Caesarea. His memory of Mathias was as partial; but he knew the president's full face, and while pondering on it he remembered that he had never seen him in profile. Nor was this all that set the two men apart in Joseph's consciousness. The prior's simple and homely language came from the heart, entered the heart and was remembered, whereas Mathias spoke from his brain. The heart is simple and always the same, but the brain is complex and various; and therefore it was natural that Mathias should hold, as if in fee, a great store of verbal ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... begged that it mightn't be touched. Father let me have it for my very own. It was so different from all other rooms. I liked the pictures pasted on the walls, and the bits of poker-work nailed up. I knew some other girls must have been here, and it gave me a homely feeling, as if you had only gone away for a few minutes, and might come back any time and talk to me. Then there was your portrait. I wondered who 'Ingred' was! The name struck my fancy immensely, and so did ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... very sweet face of a woman, and as the boys looked at this they were conscious of having seen that face somewhere before. Two others showed country scenes, including a house. They were the kind of scenes that amateur photographers love to take; scenes with a homely familiarity about them—a woman sitting in a rocking chair on a porch, a dog skilfully caught by the camera in the moment of his resting his paws upon a fence, a back door with a churn standing near. Commonplace things, the last subjects that an artist would ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... my bonny chield; thou hast sharp ears and eyes, and good will—but take heed—I would not lose thee for two and a plack [an homely Scottish ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... enjoy, in removing or lessening prejudices; in conciliating good-will, and thereby making way for the less obstructed progress of truth; and in providing for its being entertained with candour, or even with favour, by those who would bar all access against it in any rougher or more homely form. He will make it his business to set on foot and forward benevolent and useful schemes; and where they require united efforts, to obtain and preserve for them this co-operation. He will endeavour ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... places, had not been in its best day becoming. But this was not all. Her hair looked stringy and dishevelled. She was delighted with herself. Except during an illness two years before never had she come so near to being downright homely. "Martha will die of shame," said she to herself. "And Mrs. Bertram will spend the evening explaining me to everybody." She did not definitely formulate the thought, "And I shall be the most talked about person of the evening"; but it was in her ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... state of my soul in its intercourse with Jesus! But since my Beloved wishes to sleep I shall not prevent Him. I am only too happy that He does not treat me as a stranger, but rather in a homely way. He riddles his "little ball" with pin-pricks that hurt indeed, though when they come from the Hand of this loving Friend, the pain is all sweetness, so gentle in His touch. How different the hand ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... the pavement—and I heard the car being driven back. Having slowly counted thirty I opened my eyes, and looked about me. This, and not the fevered moment when first I had looked upon the room with the golden door, seemed to be my true awakening, for about me was comprehensible world, the homely streets of London, with deserted Portland Place stretching away on the one hand and a glimpse of midnight Regent Street obtainable on the other! The clock of the neighboring church ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... infirmity of the natural feelings. They do not ask your sympathy, and you offer it quite at your own risk, with a chance of having it thrown back upon your hands. The contributor assumed the risk so far as to say, "Pretty rough!" when the stranger caused; and perhaps these homely words were best suited to reach the homely heart. The man's quavering lips closed hard again, a kind of spasm passed over his dark face, and then two very small drops of brine shone upon his weather-worn cheeks. This demonstration, into which he had been ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... drink a cup of coffee with "the boys," but he disposed of it in great haste, hot as it was, as if he hoped by his example to induce them to do likewise. But Bob and his companions were in no hurry. They lingered a long time over their homely meal, and then the smokers were allowed to empty a pipe apiece before the order was given to "catch up." The squatter began to breathe easier after that, and when he saw the troopers in their saddles and ready to start, his delight was so apparent ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... flippant assurance, 'Are these words your own?' BOSWELL. Sir Walter Scott shows where the humour of this motto chiefly lay. 'The counsel opposite,' he writes, 'was the celebrated Wight, an excellent lawyer, but of very homely appearance, with heavy features, a blind eye which projected from its socket, a swag belly, and a limp. To him Maclaurin applied the lines ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... reported to have said afterwards, of his table, "Treason lurks not under such a dinner," so Lycurgus perceived before him, that such a house admits of no luxury and needless splendour. Indeed, no man could be so absurd as to bring into a dwelling so homely and simple, bedsteads with silver feet, purple coverlets, golden cups, and a train of expense that follows these: but all would necessarily have the bed suitable to the room, the coverlet of the bed and the rest of their utensils and furniture ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... The homely mongrel whined a welcome to the little lad's appearance, and with his tail beat a friendly tattoo upon the kennel floor; but the woman spoke no word. With impassive face she watched the shivering little figure as it hurried into ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... brilliance, as if quite new-born From out the centre, not from off the face— Dazzled at first, I say, he soon began To see how little thought could sparkle well, And turn him, even in the midst of talk, Back to the silence of his homely toils. Around him still and ever hung an air Born of the fields, and plough, and cart, and scythe; A kind of clumsy grace, in which gay girls Saw but the clumsiness; while those with light, Instead of glitter, in their quiet eyes, Saw the grace too; yea, sometimes, when he talked, Saw the ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... mingle in the work, Half alters, half disowns. The tribes of men Thus from their different functions and the shapes Familiar to their eye, with art obtain, Unconscious of their purpose, yet with art Obtain the Beauty fitting man to love; Whose proud desires from Nature's homely toil Oft turn away, fastidious, asking still 640 His mind's high aid, to purify the form From matter's gross communion; to secure For ever, from the meddling hand of Change Or rude Decay, her features; and to add Whatever ornaments may suit her mien, Where'er he finds them scatter'd ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... as a citizen of Baltimore, who had been on a trip to England and elsewhere, and, being detained longer than he expected, and having had an attack of rheumatism, was now short of funds to pay his passage home, and hoped that I would supply the deficiency. He had quite a plain, homely, though respectable manner, and, for aught I know, was the very honestest man alive; but as he could produce no kind of proof of his character and responsibility, I very quietly explained the impossibility of my helping him. I advised him to try ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to you because I wish you to remember that, when religion is represented as hard and austere, it is the fault of those who administer religion, and not of religion itself. Religion in Ireland in the seventh and eighth centuries was clearly a homely thing, full of tender joy and hope, and the inspiration not only of poems, but of many churches and much ornament of all kinds, illuminated missals, carven porches. If Ireland had been left to herselfif it had not been for the invasion of the Danes, and ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... I are both laid up here, and Miss Logan nurses us devotedly. Our joy is having a sitting-room with a fire in it. Was there ever anything half so good as that fire, or half so homely, half so warm or so much one's own? I lie on three chairs in front of it, and headache and cold and throat are almost forgotten. The wind howls, the sea roars, and aeroplanes fly overhead, but at least we have our fire and ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... granite buttress of England has stood there, defying the fury of the Atlantic, the geologist alone, who is not awed by ages, would dare to tell us. But the historian is satisfied with antiquities of a more humble and homely character; and in bespeaking the interest, and, it may be, the active support of our readers, in favor of the few relics of the most ancient civilization of Britain, we promise to keep within strictly historical limits, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... occasion to confine myself mainly to a frank and homely discussion of the money question, as the most pressing, not that the tariff question is not equally important, but for the reason that I can only do one thing at a time, and the money question is a newer one, is now before us, upon which ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... as ample provision should be devised; Toleration of Dissent and of free expression of religious belief, but still on this side of Quakerism and other anomalies, heresies, and extravagancies: such, after all, was the homely outcome. If Vane and the theorists of the Harringtonian Club were disappointed, Ludlow was even in worse despair; and at the last moment he proposed an extraordinary addition. If the late Rump was not to be restored, and if they were to adopt a Constitution which threatened, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... consolatory poems on deaths would have had a more condensed effect than many. Scriptural— devotional topics—admit of infinite variety. So far from poetry tiring me because religious, I can read, and I say it seriously, the homely old version of the Psalms in our Prayer-books for an hour or two together sometimes ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... had spoken on the night when Trotty found him in the street. His voice was deeper and more husky, and had a trembling in it now and then; but he never raised it passionately, and seldom lifted it above the firm stern level of the homely ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... heap good to look at." Molly spoke wistfully. "Molly heap homely. You think that makes any difference ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... made its appearance in Lowell, and probably in other places. It is a coarse-looking little plant, delighting to grow in pure gravel; but its blossoms are pretty, and now, with not another flower of any sort near it, it looked, as the homely phrase is, "as handsome as a picture." Its more generally distributed congener, Senecio vulgaris,—also a foreigner—is, next to the common chickweed, I should say, our very hardiest bloomer. At the beginning of the month ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... be made of the liquor that meat has been boiled in. This soup has the advantage of being very soon made, with no more fuel than is necessary to warm a room. Those who have not tasted it, cannot imagine what a savoury and satisfying meal is produced by the combination of these cheap and homely ingredients. ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... to her husband's parishioners was sufficiently homely and simple. The Madeley kitchen was full of those who had come from a distance, and who were accustomed to take refreshments there between the two services. He led her forward into their midst, adding to his introduction the words, "I have not married this wife ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen

... common sense of the soul instead of the common sense of the understanding. This is the highest quality of the book, and indicates not only that the author has religion, but religious genius; but there is also much homely sagacity evinced in viewing what may be called the practical aspects of the subject, and answering from experience the objections which experience may raise. The writer is so deeply in earnest, has meditated so intensely on the subject, and is so free from the repellent qualities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... encouraged by his friends to continue his preparation for the ministry, and he persisted in reading hard, and going out between whiles to meditate in the depths of the glorious woods. It is curious that while his homely and rigid system precluded any conscious admiration of the beauties of nature, it is always evident from his journal that the lightenings of hope and joy which relieved his too frequent depression and melancholy, were connected with the scenery and the glories of day and night. Sunrise ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... that he was on the verge of prostration, although, making an effort, Blakely had appeared at breakfast after an early morning walk, had been most courteous, gentle, and attentive to her and to her wholesome, if not actually homely, Kate. How the mother's heart yearned over that sweet-natured, sallow-faced child! But after breakfast Blakely had wandered off again and was out on the mesa, peering through a pair of borrowed glasses over the dreary ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... would be out of place. It was not my dogged, inexplicable "hand" who was sitting before me in the bright moonlight on the baby's grave; it was a man with a hidden history of some tragic sorrow long kept secret in his homely breast,—perhaps a history very few of us could read aright. I would not question him, though I fancied he meant to explain himself. I knew that if he was willing to tell me the truth it was best that he should choose his own time for it, and so ...
— "Surly Tim" - A Lancashire Story • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... droll twist of her rather homely features. "I'll wager they've laid off one of the hands of the town clock. Business is dreadfully dull. I heard ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... age, which preceded it? or the prejudices, against which, He, who revealed it, had to contend? We find varying opinions among those who wrote it—the stamp of diverse authorship; here Judaistic narrowness, there freer elevation, homely simplicity, and again deep glow and feeling. We even find contradictions, historical and chronological, and yet, what unity in all that is essential—what agreement in all that contributes to peace in life and comfort in the hour ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... lodgment and spray of mid-Atlantic roller, and dust of that 1100 miles of railroad since New York was left behind, but still with many traces, under dust and seediness, of Scandinavian rustic fashion; altogether a homely people, but destined ere long to lose every vestige of their old Norse habits under the grindstone of the great mill they are now entering. That vast human machine Which grinds Celt and Saxon, Teuton and Dane, Fin and Goth into the same image and likeness ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... cousin Wally and his new baby sister?" As you know, if you've read A New Sugar Creek Mystery, I had a homely, red-haired cousin, named Walford, who lived in the city, who had a new baby sister. Mom had been to see the baby, and also Pop, but I hadn't, and didn't want to, and certainly didn't exactly want to see my red-haired cousin, Wally, but would like to see his crazy Airedale dog, ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens

... far inferior to his own; but with the loving and faithful study of nature which they showed, perhaps, too, with the fact that they were chiefly gathered from homely and homelike scenes, from level horizons and gray skies, Jan felt a sympathy which stirred him to the heart. His delight in them touched Lady Adelaide even more than it moved his father. But then no personal inconvenience ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... luxurious apartment; and for an instant I could hardly realize the fact that it was to be my home for an indefinite period. Some efforts had evidently been made to give it a look of welcome, homely as it was. A pretty china tea cup and saucer, with a plate or two to match, were set out on the deal table, and the cushioned arm-chair had been drawn forward to the hearth. I sat down in it, and buried my face in my hands, thinking, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... the familiar and homely, which Nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while Echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... think," mused she, rubbing a cloudy piece of jet with a bit of soft cloth, "that they'd welcome a homely one with relief. These goddesses ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... English deeds, had gone out of date with long locks and bearded chins. Nor there were the bishops and abbots and the lords of the Church,—for dear to them already the fame of the Norman piety, and they shared the distaste of their holy King to the strong sense and homely religion of Godwin, who founded no convents, and rode to war with no relics round his neck. But they with Godwin were the stout and the frank and the free, in whom rested the pith and marrow of English manhood; and they who ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of the Lord, from the myriad field-flowers that gem the earth with beauty! And then in sickness! What, what is so refreshing as the perfume of sweet plants? We speak not of the glazed and costly things that come from foreign lands, but of the English nosegay—(how we love the homely word!)—the sweet briar, lavender, cowslip, violet, lily of the valley, or a sprig of meadow sweet, a branch of myrtle, a tuft of primroses, or handful of wild thyme! Such near the couch of sickness are worth a host of powdered doctors! Again we say, a blessing on sweet flowers! And now for ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... great, homely front door she saw a man break suddenly away from a group and, pulling up the skirts of his gown, run toward her. He was smiling, she noticed, and he looked very big and—and reliable. She stopped and waited, knew that her heart was beating ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... than enough to board and clothe me. But I felt proud of being able to accomplish even what I did. When any little sum for recreation was wanted, it was cheerfully handed out to me, but our recreations were rare and cheap, for we selected those which were moderate and homely. My father taught me to work in the garden; and there I spent many odd hours in hoeing among the vegetables and flowers, clearing the beds of weeds, and raking the ground smooth and even. This employment was beneficial to health and appetite, and afforded an excellent opportunity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... from the time we got out of the carriage until the moment we re-entered it—all too soon, but it is a long drive back in the short cold twilight—I felt as though I had stepped through a magic portal into the scene of one of Washington Irving's stories. It was all so simple and homely, so quaint and so inexpressibly picturesque. The house had stood there for a couple of hundred years, and looks as though it might last for ever, with its air of cool, leisurely repose and comfort ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... there was a man in Hatton to carry it on." As she was talking Mrs. Hatton had put her basket of herbs on a little table, and with glowing cheeks she now bent her head and inhaled their refreshing odors. John was silent for a few moments, and profoundly touched by the old homely story; ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... and see the fire Dance on the hearth, as he would never tire; The home-baked loaf, the Indian bean's perfume, Fill with their homely cheer the panelled room. Come, crazy storm! And thou, wild glittering hail, Rave o'er the roof and wave your icy veil; Shout in our ears and take your madcap way! I laugh at storms! for ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... morning he had left it, smiling in the autumn sunshine, a peaceful, prosperous-looking place, homely, quaint, and bright. Now his eyes rested upon a heap of smoking ruins, trampled crops, empty sheds; and upon a still more horrible sight—the remains of mangled corpses tied to the group of trees which sheltered the porch. It was enough ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... with this homely repast and the kindness of the ploughman and his wife; but he could not help seeing that though everything was neat and comfortable in the cottage, they seemed both be sad and much cast down. He therefore questioned them on the cause of their sadness, and learned they were miserable because ...
— The History of Tom Thumb, and Others • Anonymous

... and the millstones ground their monotonous music above his head, these sounds were only as a lullaby to his slumbers, and disturbed him no more than they troubled his foster-mother, to whom the revolving stones ground out a homely and welcome measure: "Dai-ly bread, dai- ly bread, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... one of the greatest of ethical philosophers, and a man without a parallel, in his peculiar field, in all the history of mankind. Greece produced none like him, and this homely and humble personage, who wrote not a line, has been unsurpassed in fame and influence upon mankind by any of the host of illustrious writers who have made ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... learning, can explain that which has puzzled Parson Grigg, who was in the parish before Mr. Inch came—aye, even puzzled the Bishop himself who came to visit the rectory some years since. All I undertake to do is to put down in plain, homely words the story of my life, in so far as it affects my good name and the good name of those who are associated with me. It may be that I shall have to touch upon matters peculiar to the part of the country in which I was born and reared, and ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... thus began) Then scorn a homely dinner, if you can. Your wine lock'd up, your butler stroll'd abroad, Or fish denied (the river yet unthaw'd), If then plain bread and milk will do the feat, The pleasure lies in you, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... no splendid dower, no spoil Of sway or fame or rank or even wealth; 15 But homely love with common food and health, And nightly sleep to balance ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson

... was tall, round-shouldered, and homely, except when he smiled, which he did very seldom because he was generally too busy making every one within hearing of his low voice hysterical with laughter over his funny stories. He took an instant ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... often now. It is the instinct of a natural fineness in him, to escape when he can from that blank stone house, with so little to interest, and that homely old man and woman. The rudeness of his home has turned his feeling for even the simpler graces of life into a physical want, like hunger or thirst, which might come to greed; and methinks he perhaps overvalues these things. Still, made as he is, his hard fate in that rude place must needs ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... No "taint of bookishness" disturbed the local fellowships which gave him opportunity to express in "familiar and dramatic form" of story and illustration his more substantial philosophy and so find for it the perfect speech. His neighbors called him by homely, affectionate names, thinking he was entirely one of them—a little more clever, a little less ambitious in the usual channels of business and enterprise. He had no "moral strenuousness of the reformer" and no "exclusiveness" of learning. ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... banjo aside, its strings still quivering, she was standing up, and the look of interest had given place to the old gravity. She had not a pretty feature, not even the usual pretty teeth. She was a homely ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... You look at it carefully, but there is nothing attractive about it. How rough and unsightly it appears! You close your eyes upon it for a brief space. You open them again. But what a change has taken place! That plain-homely looking bulb has disappeared, and in its place there stands before you the lily plant. It has reached its mature growth. Its flower is fully developed and blooming in all its matchless beauty! What a marvellous ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... show himself to the ladies; and reconnoitring the company through a glass (for no other reason but because it was fashionable to be purblind), perceived his mistress very plainly dressed, in one of the seats above the stage, talking to another young woman of a very homely appearance. Though his heart beat the alarm with the utmost impatience at sight of his Emilia, he was for some minutes deterred from obeying the impulse of his love, by the presence of some ladies of fashion, who, he feared, would think the worse of him, should they see him make ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... yes, and you have plates to match decorated with pinkish, lavender peacock feathers, and those dear little cups and saucers, decorated inside with pink and outside with green flowers, are certainly odd; and this queerly-shaped cream jug, sugar bowl and teapot, with pale green figures, and those homely plates, with dabs of bright red and green, they surely ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... This one-eyed, homely woman who cleaned up her room for three dollars a month, and Jane Anderson, were the only friends she had among the six million people whose lives centered ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... homely looking person with henna-assisted hair and the true British haughty manner," they put! They were not so disagreeable about me, but not flattering. Then they snap-shotted us, and Octavia really does look rather odd, as her nose got out of focus, I suppose, and appears like Mr. Punch's; ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn

... This is assuredly so of the "Christmas Carol," "The Chimes" and "The Cricket on the Hearth." This last is on a par with the other two in view of its double life in a book and on the boards of the theater. The fragrance of Home, of the homely kindness and tenderness of the human heart, is in them, especially in the Carol, which is the best tale of its kind in the tongue and likely to remain so. It permanently altered the feeling of the race for Christmas. Irving preceded him in the use ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... his mind with Scripture, and certainly always deemed that the first and most important of all his studies, which was perhaps not the case with the monk to whom he writes. In some of his letters we have pleasing pictures of the old times presented to us, and it is astonishing how homely and natural they read, after the elapse of 700 years. In more than one he launches out in strong invectives against the lawyers, who in all ages seems to have borne the indignation of mankind; Peter ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... singer that was ever winged, like the high angels of God's love. It is the living ecstacy of joy when it mounts up into its "glorious privacy of light." On the earth it is timid, silent, and bashful, as if not at home, and not sure of its right to be there at all. It is rather homely withal, having nothing in feather, feature, or form, to attract notice. It is seemingly made to be heard, not seen, reversing the old axiom addressed to children when getting voicy. Its mission is music, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... the most scientific test of the uniformity of these fibers, I shall next refer to one more homely. It is simply this: The common garden spider, except when very young, cannot climb up one of the same size as the web on which she displays such activity. She is perfectly helpless, and slips down with a run. After vainly trying to make any headway, she finally puts her hands (or feet) ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... of very homely grievances to present; but such as they are, many a heart will feel them to be heavy—the ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... blunt-bowed affair, awakening the ideas of primitive solidity, like the wooden plough of our forefathers. And there were, about her, other suggestions of a rustic and homely nature. The extraordinary timber projections which I have seen in no other vessel made her square stern resemble the tail end of a miller's waggon. But the four stern ports of her cabin, glazed with six ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... Van Dorn, nor ask what had become of him, and his friend Sorden removed his body, unseen, to a spot in the pine woods, where his unmarked grave was dug, and standing round it were three mourners only, and Sorden said the final words with homely tears: ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... as usual," said Caleb. "Homely, but very snug. The gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the building,—make ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... worship of beauty can be of so purely artistic a nature as to be practically free from the physical element, certainly independent of it. I am taking you out of your depth, I know, but it is hard to make myself clear to an untrained mind. I might try a homely simile and suggest to you that you go a-fishing, not for love of the fish, but because it is your profession; but that does not wholly illustrate my meaning, for I love everything in the way of beauty that ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received as your person, though ever so well proportioned, would, if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters. It is not every understanding ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... cannot keep away And when they come spight of themselves they stay. And to our sorrow we have others known, That for their wit have Wit it self out-done, And yet you wits, that praise 'em seldom come. So the Goodman, oft-times for cause unknown, Leaves well-drest Beauteous Wife for Homely Joan. And you that Misses keep too, I'm afraid Do sometimes make e'm Jealous of the Maid; So if this Play not drest by rules of Art Should with some Trick of Nature catch the heart; We'd give you leave to rail, and never fear, Because we're sure you'd come to do it here. Gallants you ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne

... in passing; the white clover in the field behind the garden, got at easily through a hole in the privet hedge. The play of light and shadow over the hills of home, the dusk at nightfall, and the homely cawing of rooks. All the delicious things that went with the smell of ripe strawberries under nets, where thieving birds fluttered until the gardener let them free again; and the mystery of sparks flying up the chimney when the winter logs blazed. Every simple joy is ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... abundant and rich brown hair he wears in long curls falling over his shoulders, as did the cavaliers, and he is dressed with great care in the height of military fashion, evidently a gallant and debonair gentleman. He has just ceased from badinage with Rooke, in which that honest soldier's somewhat homely army jokes have been worsted by the graceful play of Graham's wit, who was ever gay, but never coarse, who was no ascetic, and was ever willing to drink the king's health, but, as his worst enemies used grudgingly to admit, cared neither for wine nor women. Silence falls ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... the lark. Surely the peacock, with its incomparable parade of glorious colour and the scannel voice of it issuing forth, as in mockery, from its painted throat, must, like my landlady's butterflies at Great Missenden, have been invented by some skilful fabulist for the consolation and support of homely virtue: or rather, perhaps, by a fabulist not quite so skilful, who made points for the moment without having a studious enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought these melting greens and blues so beautiful that afternoon, that ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... standards, and of coarse images and similes. To reduce the metrical irregularities, by such arbitrary methods as Duhm's, may occasionally enhance the music and sharpen the edge of an Oracle yet oftener dulls the melody and weakens the emphasis.(54) The figures again are always simple and homely, but sometimes even ugly, as is not infrequent in the rural poetries of all peoples. Even the dung on the pastures and the tempers of breeding animals are as readily used as are the cleaner details of domestic life and of farming—the house-candle, the house-mill, ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... spent at the university, he came to London. "At first I struggled with a great deal of persecution, took up with a lodging which had a window no bigger than a pocket looking-glass, dined at a three-penny ordinary enough to starve a vacation tailor, kept little company, went clad in homely drugget, and drunk wine as seldom as a rechabite, or the grand seignior's confessor." The old gentleman, who corresponded with the "Gentleman's Magazine," and remembered Dryden before the rise of his fortunes, mentions his suit of plain drugget, being, by the ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... of their more foolish past, and when the roll of calico came from the cross roads, it contained also a quantity of fine linen, laces, small caps, and other trifles, somewhat in contrast to the more homely materials ordered. ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... looking out for acquaintances, and once, with a cry of joy, a stout, homely-looking young woman started up, exclaiming, "Sister Jane!" and flew into her arms. Upon which Miss Woodford was introduced to 'My sister Coles' and her husband, and had to sit down under a tree and share the festivities, while ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... say about Corra Harris's The Eyes of Love except that it offers such a study of marriage as only Mrs. Harris puts on paper? Shrewd and homely wisdom, sympathetic and ironical humour, the insight and the fundamental experience,—above all, imagination in experience—which made their first deep and wide impression with the publication of A Circuit Rider's Wife. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... been taught to do the simplest household task. Amy returned the loving kindness full measure, and, determined to be a help to those who so much helped her, advanced rapidly in the knowledge of her homely duties. Dressed in the plain working garb of a farm girl, with arms bare and face flushed by the heat of the kitchen, one would scarcely have recognized in her the beautiful young woman who moved with Boyd City's society leaders, or the brilliant novice who stood hesitating at the entrance ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... quite certainly. Yet I know not what there is of a pity which strikes deep, at the thought of a man, a while since so strong, turning his face to the wall from the things which most occupy men's lives. 'Tis that homely, but honest cure of Nogent he has caricatured so often, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... has the elements of good drama in it. St. John G. Ervine has written a very human drama in Mixed Marriage. He hails from the north of Ireland; but Rutherford Mayne is the best of the Northern playwrights, and his plays, The Drone and The Turn of the Road, are splendid homely ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... could have done something like them.' It first appeared in Hone's Year Book for April 30, 1831, with the title 'The Meadows in Spring,' and the following letter to the Editor. 'These verses are in the old style; rather homely in expression; but I honestly profess to stick more to the simplicity of the old poets than the moderns, and to love the philosophical good humor of our old writers more than the sickly melancholy of the Byronian wits. If my verses be not good, they are good humored, and that is something.' ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... rapidity in his homely task. A shining needle darted in and out of the gray cloth, and the rent that had seemed hopeless was being closed up with neatness and precision. No one derided him because he was engaged upon a task that was usually performed ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... water." When "thus made, it is wash rather, which one will have little heart to eat, and yet as little heart by eating." But the better gruel concocted elsewhere was "a wholesome Spoon meat, though homely; physic for the sick, and food for persons in health; grits the form thereof: and giving the being thereunto." In the border forays of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries all the provision carried by the Scotch was simply a bag of Oatmeal. But as a food it is ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... loving Proteus. I will not, like a sluggard, wear out my youth in idleness at home. Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits. If your affection were not chained to the sweet glances of your honored Julia, I would entreat you to accompany me, to see the wonders of the world abroad; but since you are a lover, love on still, and may your love ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... religious experience which the thin, cracked voice relates: how in visions of the night the Comforter has come to them, and henceforth the way of duty is clear, and the burden of life is lightened. Will you go with me, dear, into those homely houses, sit with me by the firesides, and hear the simple story of New England's farmers and farmers' wives? We cannot call those poor who are so rich in all the manly virtues, and in the deep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... sez I, puttin on my most sweetest look and speakin in a winnin voice, "that so fair a made as thow never got hitched to some likely feller." [N.B.—She was upards of 40 and homely as a stump fence, but I thawt ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... has passed. A man is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains an object, and a real evidence; but at sea, the man is near you,— at your side,— you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea— to use a homely but expressive phrase— you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own, and one is taken suddenly from ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... continued to make the homely dog work to good purpose, but the interview with the released Reformers was, it is believed, the first occasion upon which he made use of it. Certainly on no other occasion did the President do such ample justice to his reputation as ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... extravagant of space, though it may be made very effective in appearance and very pleasing and comfortable; (c) is suitable for ladies' baths; (d) is very practicable, and gives the apartment a pleasant, homely look; and (e) is best for cheap baths, being the simplest arrangement possible, wholly unsuited, however, to ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

... loud and clear; and occasionally, when uttering them, he suddenly takes wing and flies directly away from the female to a distance of fifty yards, and performs a wide circuit about her in the air, singing all the time. The homely object of his passion always appears utterly indifferent to this curious and pretty performance; yet she must be even more impressionable than most female birds, since she continues scattering about her parasitical and often wasted eggs during four ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his nature; who was a cautious conservative by temperament and mental habit, and led the most sudden and sweeping social revolution of our time; who, preserving his homely speech and rustic manner even in the most conspicuous position of that period, drew upon himself the scoffs of polite society, and then thrilled the soul of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur; who, in his heart the best friend of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... spent during the present week, the torments and sufferings which I endure on your account; if you could but realize that I regard the world as less than nothing without you, I am certain you would pity me. A homely cot and a crust of bread with my adorable Lucretia would be a paradise, where a palace without you would be a hades. ["What in thunder is hades?" inquired Jack. We explained. He considered the figure rather bold, and requested us to close as soon as possible.] Now, dearest, in bidding you adieu, ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... the throne? Where the imperial canopy of state? Must she not set her tender foot, still used To softest treading, on the rugged ground? With common pewter, which the lowliest dame Would scorn, they furnish forth her homely table. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... into the world for the offspring of their creative fancies. Ours being a tale of truth,—yes, of bare, unvarnished truth, yet of truth more interesting, if not "stranger, than fiction,"—it is not to be wondered that, when we acknowledge the homely dame, and her alone, as our guide, inspirer, and preceptor, we lack the advantage of romancers, and cannot command "a special sunset," or a storm made to order, or other enchanting scenery, to introduce us ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... rapidly as though to give his lungs more air. The atmosphere seemed to have grown rarer and colder. Indeed, it was a different world, and the blanket-washing itself was transferred to some deliciously homely ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... Betty—the idea of liking a boy just because he was handsome, was too foolish to even consider. The fact that Dick Saxon—supposedly her arch enemy, but really her best friend—had flaming red hair and was undeniably homely—may, of course, had something to do with her disgust for good looks. Like lots of other girls, The Three judged boys by their ability to do; while the road to Fanny's heart was by way of graceful ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... life, though rude and slow-moving, was hearty and cheerful. As I went about the streets with my uncle William—gray-haired old pioneers whose names were startlingly familiar, called out, "Hello, Bill"—adding some homely jest precisely as they had been doing for forty years. As young men they had threshed or cradled or husked corn with my father, whom they still called by his first name. "So you are Dick's boy? How ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... clanging and jangling through endless rows of houses great and small, along main thoroughfares on either side of which crowded side-streets extended like fish-bones, over less crowded districts where the cottages were generally detached or semi-detached and where pleasant homely houses were thickly sprinkled, oven here he wondered how near those who lived in happier state were to the life of the slum, wondered what struggling and pinching and scraping was going on behind the half-drawn blinds that made homes ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... from point to point, admired them all, and thought several of them exceedingly quaint and venerable. The rectangular structures of old red brick especially gratified his eye; the afternoon sun was yellow on their homely faces; their windows showed a peep of flower-pots and bright-coloured curtains; they wore an expression of scholastic quietude, and exhaled for the young Mississippian a tradition, an antiquity. "This is the place where I ought to have been," he said to his charming guide. "I should have had ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... make him into a hearty lad of fifteen, it began to be high time for him to choose himself a final profession in life, such as he was able. And here already the born tastes of the boy began to show themselves: for he had no liking for the homely shepherd's trade; he felt a natural desire for a chisel and a hammer—the engineer was there already in the grain—and he was accordingly apprenticed to a stonemason in the little town of Lochmaben, beyond the purple hills to eastward. But his ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen

... girlhood, who had got her off to Chicago to study piano, and who had finally persuaded her to marry Olaf Ericson as the best match she would be likely to make in that part of the country. Johanna Vavrika had been deeply scarred by smallpox in the old country. She was short and fat, homely and jolly and sentimental. She was so broad, and took such short steps when she walked, that her brother, Joe Vavrika, always called her his duck. She adored her niece because of her talent, because of her good looks and masterful ways, but ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... of a peculiar vivid tint, verging on orange or red; in Magarornis the bosom is black, and beautifully ornamented with small leaf-shaped spots of a delicate straw-colour. There are several other very pretty birds in this homely family; but the finest of all is Thripodectes flammulatus, the whole body being tortoise-shell colour, the wings and tail bright chesnut. The powerful tanager-like beak of this species seems also to show that it has ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... west; it permeates the business world and stiffens the economic backbone of the nation. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole German people, barring the inevitable though small percentage of weaklings, is trying with terrific earnestness to live up to the homely Hindenburgian motto, "Durchhalten!" ("Hold out,") or, in more idiomatic American, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... close yet magical observation, used not so much in the Tennysonian way (for Tennyson was a close observer, make no mistake about that) as in what we now think of as the modern way, that is, as a part of the realistic record of homely events, with beauty only as a by-product, is well illustrated in the opening lines of a narrative poem called The School Girl, a New England Idyll. Here again a kinship with Frost is seen, rather than ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... flower-crowns drooping above her, her blue cotton dress rolled up to the elbows, her hands plunged in a small wash-tub in which she is washing some small linen, habit-shirts, pocket-handkerchiefs, collars, expresses the joy of homely life in the French suburb. Her home is one of good wine, excellent omelettes, soft beds; and the sheets, if they are a little coarse, are spotless, and retain an odour of lavender-sweetened cupboards. Her little child, about four years old, is with his mother ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... molds or cases, and so continue until you have the kettle filled. Put the lid on the kettle and cover with salt and ice. Make sure that you have a hole half-way up in the packing bucket or tub, so that there is no danger of salt water overflowing the kettle. This is a homely but very ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer

... one day walking in one of those beautiful avenues that lead out of the village of Saratoga Springs, my attention was arrested by two of those insects, which children call by the homely name of "grand-father-long-legs." They were laboriously occupied in rolling a round ball, of the size of a walnut, covered with a glutinous substance, dried hard in the sun. I could not be so cruel as to ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb

... surprised me, to find Robert Southey express himself so coldly respecting the style and diction of the Pilgrim's Progress. I can find nothing homely in it but a few phrases and single words. The conversation between Faithful and Talkative [1] is a model of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... leaving, or shifting berths; and from the moment the collision was seen to be unavoidable till the actual contact a whole minute elapsed. A minute,—an age under the circumstances. And no one thought of the homely expedient of dropping a simple, unpretending rope-fender between the destructive ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... bloody way The sea-dog trackt?—no—strange and new Is all that meets her wondering view. Upon a galliot's deck she lies, Beneath no rich pavilion's shade,— No plumes to fan her sleeping eyes, Nor jasmine on her pillow laid. But the rude litter roughly spread With war-cloaks is her homely bed, And shawl and sash on javelins hung For awning o'er her head are flung. Shuddering she lookt around—there lay A group of warriors in the sun, Resting their limbs, as for that day Their ministry of death were done. Some gazing on the drowsy sea ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... of battle and to final victory; and then again in Henry V and Henry VI, the unhappy position into which a prince not formed by nature to be a ruler falls between violent contending parties, until he envies the homely swain who tends his flocks and lets the years run by in peace: lastly the path of horrible crime which a king's son not destined for the throne has to tread in order to ascend it: all these are ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... Campbell had set the hour for four, and several conveyances would be down from the emigrant camp. The wagon arriving shortly afterward, we had barely time to lay the corpse in the coffin before the emigrants drove up. The minister was a tall, homely man, with a flowing beard, which the frosts of many a winter had whitened, and as he mingled amongst us in the final preparations, he had a kind word for every one. There were ten in his party; and when the coffin had been carried out to the grave, the two granddaughters of the ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... brown hair, staring blue eyes, fat, pink cheeks, and flinty shoulders. The gift, aided by the confidences of the Swede boy, had almost shaken her belief in Santa Claus, whom she had asked in a letter to give her a bought riding-whip and a book that told more about Robinson Crusoe. Instead, the homely head had been left, and she felt sure (and the Swede boy assured her) that it could only have been picked out for her by the eldest brother. And when, after gazing down upon her stupidly for two or three months from the clock-shelf, it was finally fastened, by thread ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... fearful sign Of human frailty, folly, also crime, That love and marriage rarely can combine, Although they both are born in the same clime; Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine— A sad, sour, sober beverage—by time Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour Down to a very homely household savour. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... infuse poetical feeling into the common people, and to sweeten and soften the rudeness of rustic manners without destroying their simplicity. Indeed, it is to the decline of this happy simplicity that the decline of this custom may be traced, and the rural dance on the green, and the homely May-day pageant, have gradually disappeared in proportion as the peasantry have become expensive and artificial in their pleasures, and too knowing for simple enjoyment. Some attempts, indeed, have been made by men of both taste and ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... songs and psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the Psalms of David, and the diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely odds and ends and scraps ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... in fee simple for the race. My grain shall pass out into the world's mart, sent forth with love and prayer. Such a farmer is the incarnation of moral grandeur. Let men laugh, if they will, at his overalls and plough, his wide-brimmed hat, his simple manners, and his homely, racy speech. His feet are by the furrow, but his heart is in heaven, and his treasure is there also. Says the author of Nine Acres on the Hillside, "The agriculturist walks side by side ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... give special merit to these letters. They were not written for publication, but for an intimate circle of relatives and friends. And because of this they are not artificial, but are free and graceful, with homely touches here and there which add so much to their value. Amidst the incessant roar of mighty guns; surrounded by the wounded and the dying; shivering at times with cold, and wearied almost to the point of exhaustion, these letters were hurriedly penned. No time ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous

... the moss-covered trunk of a large fallen tree, on the broadest part of which she had spread a snow-white cloth and arranged what were left of the bright pewter vessels that had been her pride in the settlements. It had a strange aspect that one little spot of homely comfort in the desolate heart of Nature. The sunshine yet lingered upon the higher branches of the trees that grew on rising ground; but the shadows of evening had deepened into the hollow where the encampment was made, and the firelight began to redden as it ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Pill and hurried along the cliff towards the harbour. Deep-chested, full-throated, weather-stained, compacted of brawn and sinew, he looked the ruddy-faced, daring sailor-man, every inch of him. From crown to toe he was clad in homely gray; but if, on the one hand, the ass peeps out from the borrowed lion's skin, so will royalty shine through fustian; and the newcomer had the air of a king among men. He hallooed to the ships, and then hastily ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... same time insisting on the repast being any thing but extravagant. "I shall give your royal highness a leg of mutton, and nothing more, by G——," warmly replied the gratified colonel, in his plain and homely phrase. The day was nominated, and the colonel had sufficient time to recur to his budget and bring his ways and means into action. Where is the sanguineless being whose hopes have never led him wrong? if such there be, the colonel was not one of those. Long destitute of credit and ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... homely and rude, the fare was choice and abundant; and an odour that might have gladdened the heart of an epicure greeted the nostrils of the captain and his two mates when they entered the hall, dressed in blue surtouts with bright brass buttons, white duck trousers, and richly flowered vests ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... But the homely back gate swings over the charred stump of the boorish tree burnt flush with the ground. Twelve months and a fortnight after the firing of the shot which did not echo round the world, but was merely a local defiant and emphatic promulgation of authority, a fire was set to the base of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... till she could see no more at all. Unbidden and unconscious there came upon her lips a faint smile, and then a door in front of her was opened, and she was inside another room—not a bedroom as she had expected, but a room where the Dutch simplicity and homely sincerity had been invaded by something English and military. This she felt before her eyes fell on a man standing beside a table, fully dressed. Though shaken and worn, it was a figure which had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... never have been heard of. As it is, he has some difficulty to contend with the hebetude of his intellect, and the meanness of his subject. With him "lowliness is young ambition's ladder;" but he finds it a toil to climb in this way the steep of Fame. His homely Muse can hardly raise her wing from the ground, nor spread her hidden glories to the sun. He has "no figures nor no fantasies, which busy passion draws in the brains of men:" neither the gorgeous machinery of mythologic lore, nor the splendid colours of poetic diction. His style is vernacular: ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... connection with Prof. Billroth's case of cancer of the breast, which was so excessively foul smelling that all his deodorizers failed, but which, on applying a poultice made of dried figs cooked in milk, the previously unbearable odor was entirely done away with, gives an importance to this homely remedy not to be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various

... This homely origin the race of men does not deny; they are a hardy people, accustomed to work. Every moment of the day they remember from what sturdy stock ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... dimples. Might as well have all the ear-marks of a beauty to begin with, anyhow," giggled Louise. "She'll probably develop into a homely little freckle-faced imp by the time she's ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston



Words linked to "Homely" :   unattractive, homelike, inelegant, comfy, homey, plain, comfortable, homy, home, homeliness



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com