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Muff   /məf/   Listen
Muff

verb
(past & past part. muffed; pres. part. muffing)
1.
Fail to catch, as of a ball.
2.
Make a mess of, destroy or ruin.  Synonyms: ball up, blow, bobble, bodge, bollix, bollix up, bollocks, bollocks up, botch, botch up, bumble, bungle, flub, fluff, foul up, fuck up, fumble, louse up, mess up, mishandle, muck up, screw up, spoil.  "The pianist screwed up the difficult passage in the second movement"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Muff" Quotes from Famous Books



... began, most unseasonably, to snow, and the wind blew from the north, exactly as if winter had begun again. When I got home from work I found Maria Victorovna in my room. She was in her furs with her hands in her muff. ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... in prayer; The sunlight slants across her hair; A pallid child in rusty black Stands in the doorway, looking back.... A poilu gropes (his eyes are wide) Along the altar rail. The tide Of war has cast him brokenly Upon the shore of life. I see A girl in costly furs, who cries Against her muff; I see her rise And hurry out. Two tourists pause Beside the grated chancel doors, To wonder and to speculate; To stoop and read a ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster

... PATTLE. Mr. PATTLE let me have the honour of introducing you to our popular young undertaker, Mr. JOBSON." Gave me rather a shock, but JOBSON seemed quite a pleasant man. His wife was there too, gorgeously dressed in red plush with an Indian shawl on her shoulders, and a sealskin muff. She must have felt the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various

... down at him. She was not a beautiful lady, nor very young. Indeed, she was a few years older than the Queen, and the Queen was a widowed grandmother. But she had a sweet dignity and warm serenity—an unhurried look, as if she had all the time in the world for a wee dog; and Bobby was an age-whitened muff of a plaintive terrier that captured her heart at once. Very certain that this stranger knew and cared about how he felt, Bobby turned and led her down to Auld Jock's grave. And when she was seated on the table-tomb ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... till he knows if he can carry them out. But I'm glad to see you. I didn't want to do anything sort of underhand with you, you know. Say, Judge, does your invitation to go camping still hold good? After my looking such a muff ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... take the packet Vagualame was holding out to her. She remained seated, her gaze fixed on the tips of her shoes, her hands buried in her muff. ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... does. Why, she can swim, row, paddle, climb trees, and goes in for almost any sport that's on. Last week she swam so far in the sun she couldn't touch an oar or paddle for days, her arms were so blistered. But she didn't go around with her hands in a muff at that. Dorothy's all right," ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... to live on, you would agree with me that this shilling, which was not her only charity, was a good deal. The morning I am writing of was the first Sunday of the month, and as she set off for church she held in her thin old fingers inside her well-worn muff two coins—a shilling and a halfpenny, the halfpenny being intended for the first crossing-sweeper she met on her way. This was another of her little customs. She had some way to go to church, and she did not always choose the same streets, so she had no special pet crossing-sweeper, and ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth

... his health, not go out too early, nor fret, [Footnote: The Father was strongly disposed to hypochondria.] but laugh and be merry and in good spirits. We think the Mufti H. C. [the Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo] a MUFF, but we know God to be compassionate, merciful, and loving. I kiss papa's hands a thousand times, and embrace my SISTER MADCAP as often as I have to-day taken snuff. I think I have left my diplomas at home? [his appointment at court.] I beg you will ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... after the incarnate brown hare or the ferocious wood pigeon unless he had on a green hat with a feather in it; and a green suit to match the hat; and swung about his neck with a cord a natty fur muff to keep his hands in between shots; and a swivel chair to sit in while waiting for the wild boar to come along and ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... travelled in the interieur, and from Lyon had no one for companion but a fussy little lady, of a certain age, who had a large basket, a parrot in a cage, a little lapdog, a bandbox, a huge blue umbrella, which she could never succeed in stowing any where, and a moth-eaten muff. In my valetudinarian state I was not pleased with this inroad—especially as the little lady had a thin, pinched-up face, and obstinately looked out of the window, while she popped about the interieur ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... had reached the ballground, one of those curious moods that attacks a team as it attacks a single person seized them and took away the whole knack that had won them so many games. The Brownsvillers, on the other hand, seemed to have been inspired by something in the air. They simply could not muff the ball or strike out. They found and pounded the curves of the Kingston pitcher so badly that the substitute battery would have been put in had they not been left behind because it was not thought worth while to pay their ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... disorder which we got from Alice picking up five deeply infected shillings that a bemeasled family had wrapped in a bit of paper to pay the doctor with and then carelessly dropped in the street. Alice held the packet hotly in her muff all through a charity concert. Hence these tears, as it says in Virgil. And if you have ever had measles you will know that this is not what is called figuring speech, because your eyes do run like ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... somewhat difficult proceeding on an expenditure of fifty cents, hoarded by incredible exertion. Success had been achieved, however, and the precious packet had been sent by post two days previous. Miss Sawyer had bought her niece a nice gray squirrel muff and tippet, which was even more unbecoming if possible, than Rebecca's other articles of wearing apparel; but aunt Jane had made her the loveliest dress of green cashmere, a soft, soft green like that of a young leaf. It was very simply made, but the color delighted the ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of tragic disappointment that crossed the third girl's face, Billy's heart ached. Her first impulse, of course, was to pull her own symphony ticket from her muff and hurry forward with a "Here, take mine!" But that would hardly do, she knew—though she would like to see Aunt Hannah's aghast face if this girl in the red sweater and white tam-o'-shanter ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... from Europe at last," he thought. "I hope he is as fine a fellow as he was ten years ago. I hope marriage has not made him a muff, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... unable to conceal the fact that he had to spend the morning in London. He had gone up in the big car and his wife was alone, and so, with Susan upstairs still deftly measuring for totally unnecessary hangings, Lady Harman was able to add a fur stole and a muff and some gloves to her tweed gardening costume, walk unchallenged into the garden and from the garden into the wood and up the hillside and over the crest and down to the high-road and past that great advertisement of Staminal Bread and so for ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... Preveraud. He was little and slim: they dressed him as a woman. He was not sufficiently pretty for them not to cover his face with a thick veil. They put the brave and sturdy hands of the combatant in a muff. Thus veiled and a little filled out with padding, Preveraud made a charming woman. He became Madame Terrier, and his brother-in-law took him away. They crossed Paris peaceably, and without any other adventure than an imprudence ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... for that. See how the darlings smile at you. I mean to ask mamma to buy them all. See, I can get one in my muff: ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... must surely exist in individual dogs; otherwise it would puzzle me to account for the singular practical jokes played off by a water-spaniel once possessed by me. This individual, whose name was Muff, was a rather small-sized one, of the pure Kentish blood; liver-colored, with a white ring on his neck, and white paws; close-curled, wicked-eyed, deep-chested, and remarkably powerful for his size. Professionally a retriever,—and one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... old man, more shrunk than ever, enveloped in furs like a Laplander, had touched his son with his elbow, that he might not be obliged to take his hands out of the muff that hung from ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... was wrong, for at that moment a very small and particularly fat little boy in a fox-skin dress appeared at the mouth of one of the low tunnels that formed the entrance to the nearest hut. This boy looked exactly like a lady's muff with a hairy head above it and a pair of feet below. The instant he observed the strangers he threw up his arms, uttered a shrill cry of amazement, and disappeared in the tunnel. Next instant a legion of dogs rushed out of the huts barking furiously, and on their heels ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... he was real mean if he brought her all those, and didn't bring her a muff and some gloves and a' ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... and which is kep' in good style. I don't know whether I quite approve of your throwing over Mr. P. for Mr. F., and don't think Foker's such a pretty name, and from your account of him he seems a muff, and not a beauty. But he has got the rowdy, which is the thing. So no more, my dear little Betsy, till we meet, from your affectionate father, J. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... more and more an invalid; the little Alvina was a pretty, growing child. Woodhouse was really impressed by the sight of Mrs. Houghton, small, pale and withheld, taking a walk with her dainty little girl, so fresh in an ermine tippet and a muff. Mrs. Houghton in shiny black bear's-fur, the child in the white and spotted ermine, passing silent and shadowy down the street, made an impression which the ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... anonymous poetical pamphlet (Thoughts in Verse concerning Feasting and Dancing, 12mo. London, 1800), is a little poem, entitled "The Muff," in the course of which the ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various

... away two months of my allowance. Sadie Burton, he is the cleverest man I ever met. He has travelled everywhere and knows everything, and I love him, I love him, I love him!" In proof of which the charming young woman burst into tears and took refuge in her vast muff. ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... dear little child called Muff (because she ought to be called Huff if the name had not been already appropriated), who has been solemnly munching a watch, decides it is time to demand more individual attention. She objects to the presence of another ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... the rooms, leaning over and staking a gold plaque here and there. She was dressed as usual in white, with an ermine turban hat and stole and an enormous muff. Her hair seemed more golden than ever beneath its snow-white setting, and her complexion more dazzling. She seemed utterly unconscious of the admiration which her appearance evoked, and she passed Lane without apparently observing him. A moment afterwards, however, he moved to her ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sleeping rolled up into a ball, with the black muzzle buried in the long hairs of the tail, there is not a portion of the body but what is protected from the cold, the shaggy hairs of the brush acting as a respirator or boa for the mouth and a muff for the paws. Our Arctic travellers have remarked, that it is a peculiarly cleanly animal, and its vigilance is extreme. It is almost impossible to come on it unawares, for even when appearing to be soundly asleep, it opens its eyes on the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... the eighth on the right in the third passage; next to the one with the kicks on it. What a young muff you are to get this kind of raisin! I say, you'd have plenty ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... ladyship, after sitting there over two hours, nodding asleep a good part of the time, began to feel internal sinkings and flutterings which presaged what she called a "swound," and necessitated recourse to a crystal flask of strong waters which she had prudently brought in her muff. Other of Lady Fareham's particular friends were expected—Sir Ralph Masaroon, Lady Lucretia Topham, and more of the same kidney; and even the volatile Rochester had deigned to express an interest ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... or s, preceded by a single vowel, double the final consonant; as staff, mill, pass—muff, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... dear me, no," replied she. "I realize that you're laughing in your sleeve as I say so, because you think I'll never get anywhere. But you—and Mr. Keith—may be mistaken." She drew from her muff a piece of music—the "Batti Batti," from "Don Giovanni." "If you please," said she, "we'll spend the rest of my time in going over this. I want to be able to sing it as well ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... which several Sir Foplins drew their faces into as many peevish wrinkles as the beaux at the Bow Street Coffee-house, near Covent Garden, did when the gentleman in masquerade came in amongst them, with his oyster-barrel muff and turnip-buttons, to ridicule ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... ineffectual search for it, during which Figgis, with a visible effort, held up the sable coat, so that it was displayed to the utmost advantage. And then, only fancy, Susan discovered that it was in her sable muff all the time! ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... and was gone. He heard her light footsteps ascending; he waited, wondering, hoping; and then she came down again, showing her head at the door. She had on the little rounded felt hat, and she carried her muff. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... cried: "If that is the second bell, the children will never be ready in time! Where are the overshoes? Where are the mittens? Hurry, Jack! Hurry, Jennie!" Ding-dong! Ding-dong! "Where's Sally's muff? Where's father's fur cap? Is the sleigh at the door? Are the hot soapstones in? Have all of you your money for the contribution box?" Ding-dong! Ding-dong! It was a blithe bell, a sweet, true bell, a holy bell, and to Justin pacing his tavern room, as to Nancy ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... beautiful, Mary seemed to see through it, far ahead, vistas of lovely places to which it opened. She sat calmly, as the moving carriage rescued her from Aunt Sara and Elinor on the platform, but her hands were locked tightly inside the five-year-old squirrel muff, which would have been given away, with everything of hers, if Sister Rose had not changed a certain decision at the eleventh hour. She was quivering with excitement and the wild sense of freedom which she ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Plaza when her progress suffered a check. There was a drop in her swift faring, a poised moment of indecision. During the halt her face lost its blithe serenity, showed a faltering uncertainty, then stiffened into resolution. Inside her muff her hands gripped, inside her bodice her heart jumped. Both these evidences of agitation were hidden and that gave her confidence. Assuming an air of nonchalance she moved forward, her gait slackened, her eyes abstractedly shifting from the sky to ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... wardrobe, and calling her sister, they both with great caution crept in and found just what they wanted. One of them took possession of the old lady's bonnet, one of the old-fashioned big ones, all quilted with satin inside; and the other the muff to match the bonnet. There could not have been more comfortable nests for their babies, when the linings were removed and had all been properly cut up into shreds, than the old lady's muff and bonnet made; so the two ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... silly mother's darling," I said to myself. "Little milksop, travelling with a muff of a tutor, I suppose. Why doesn't the ass ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... covered with a fine white lawn handkerchief; her dress was mercifully long enough to conceal her boots; her bonnet was perfectly straight, and the strings tied by some one who understood that bows should be pulled out and otherwise fancifully manipulated. As she carried a muff as large as a big drum, she had conceived the happy idea of dispensing altogether with gloves, and I saw that one of the fingers she gave me to shake was adorned with ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... the liners, and he no more resembled them than did he resemble the bluff-faced, gruff-voiced skippers I had read about in books. By his side stood a woman, of whom little was to be seen and who made a warm and gorgeous blob of colour in the huge muff and boa of red fox in which she was ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... society would be shoplifters and pickpockets. When they are restrained by obligation or environment they become a little overkeen at bridge, or take the wrong sables, or stuff a gold-backed brush into a muff at a reception. You remember the ivory dressing set that Theodora Bucknell had, fastened with fine gold chains? And the sensation it caused at the Bucknell cotillion when Mrs. Van Zire went sweeping to her carriage with two feet of gold chain hanging ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... said his friend gaily, as with one bound he is at Vaura's side, not missing his opportunity which he had sworn to take, should it offer, of an introduction; he now stood bareheaded as he tendered the muff she had dropped; his handsome face aglow with satisfaction, as he took Vaura's offered hand as she thanked him, on her uncle presenting him. There was rather more loitering by Vaura's side than the Forester liked, so she, by a sly manoeuvre, caused her horse to rear violently; it ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... a sealskin sacque, cloth cloak, fur circular, or other garment, according to the means of the wearer. In summer she wears a light shawl, which completely hides the slit in the dress from view. She now takes her muff, which, to the uninitiated eye, has nothing to distinguish it, outwardly, from thousands of other muffs, but which is a master-piece of ingenious contrivance. It is covered with any kind of fur, just as honest muffs are, with the significant exception that, instead of being padded ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... to Mrs. Hamilton was a quiet-looking man, clad in a brown suit. Except that his eyes were keen and searching, his appearance was disappointing. Conrad met him as he was going out of the house, and said to himself contemptuously: "He looks like a muff." ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the stoutest heart quailed, and the girls broke down altogether, and sobbed in each other's arms, while the boys each looked out of one of the long gloomy windows of the parlour, and tried to pretend that no boy would be such a muff as to cry. ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit

... with Peter toward the tan-yard and turned the corner of the furnace chimney. As she did so, she almost stumbled against a man, who drew back suddenly; on the other side stood Kitty, and Betty distinctly saw a piece of white paper pass from Kitty's muff into the hand of the stranger, whom she instantly recognized as the greasy fisherman who had crossed the bridge ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... Think of all we have to get into the carriage. Leon's rocking-horse, Louise's muff, your father's slippers, Ernestine's quilt, the bonbons, the work-box. I declare, aunt's cushion must go ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... fumble and a muff, after all! That's too bad, after such a great gallop. Now Clack's got the ball, and a clear field ahead for a run! Go it, you wild broncho! Say, look there, will you, Tony; Ralph West thinks he can ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... in such an awful way,' said Lance, disconsolately. 'Fee, you don't know how hard it is, you always were such a muff.' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... there, seated at the table between the Cavaliere Davila and Don Filippo del Monte. Before her on the table lay her gloves and her muff, to which a little bunch of violets was fastened. She held in her hand a little bas-relief in silver, attributed to Caradosso Foppa, which she was examining with great attention. Each article passed from hand to hand along the table while the auctioneer proclaimed ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... Janet's costume," she ordered, "and any one who has a spare minute can be fitting it over. We shall have to have an extra rehearsal to-morrow of the parts where Ermengarde comes in. Go on now, Sara. Use Lucile's muff for the monkey." ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... in space that I hate more, or think less of, than Space Cadets. You get special privileges you don't deserve because you wear that uniform. You get a chance to learn to be a spaceman and most of you muff it. I've got E.M.'s in my outfit that could blast circles around either of you—guys that deserve the chance you've got, and fouled out because they can't spell or don't know how to hold a cup of tea with their fingers the right way. When you come to me, it means you've done something bad. You're ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell

... dressed herself to kill, and was looking, Estelle told her, perfectly stunning. She had on velvets and furs, pearls and plumes. She had wished at one and the same time to make Gerald Fane proud of her and do honor to Antonia's party. Concealed in her muff was a white parchment volume—muffs were small in those days. A similar volume had been stuffed into ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... was down at the old place, like her shadow (her shadow, indeed!). I had elected her my confidante and adviser, and poured all my precious opinions and plans—my very scrapes—into her curious, patient ears. Mad, have you forgotten how once, like an old-fashioned, grandiloquent muff, I showed you the picture of a perfect woman in a book of poetry—'Paradise Lost' it might have been, and 'Eve' for any special appropriateness in the picture—and broadly hinted my private idea that the perfect woman was fulfilled ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... after set out on my journey with unworn heart and untried feet. My way lay through Worcester and Gloucester, and by Upton, where I thought of Tom Jones and the adventure of the muff. I remember getting completely wet through one day, and stopping at an inn (I think it was at Tewkesbury) where I sat up all night to read Paul and Virginia. Sweet were the showers in early youth that drenched my body, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... was new in the family, no one was much surprised when Fleeming said grace over that meal. Thenceforward he continued to observe the form, so that there was kept alive in his house a grateful memory of peril and deliverance. But there was nothing of the muff in Fleeming; he thought it a good thing to escape death, but a becoming and a healthful thing to run the risk of it; and what is rarer, that which he thought for himself, he thought for his family also. In spite of the terrors of Rhu Reay, the cruise was persevered in and ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and ready almost to weep tears of vexation, would shrink into himself and retreat into another room at the earliest opportunity, followed not unfrequently by an outspoken reproach from his brother, that "he must be a regular muff if he couldn't bear a joke." Sometimes Walter's unfeeling sallies would receive a feeble rebuke from his father; but more often Mr Huntingdon would join in the laugh, and remark to his friends that Amos had no spirit in him, and that all the wit of the family was ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... is this: his master and mistress are leaving him. They are going to a part of the world where a fool of a dog with no manners is a nuisance. If Chum could see all the good little London dogs, who at home sit languidly on their mistress's lap, and abroad take their view of life through a muff much bigger than themselves; if he could see the big obedient dogs who walk solemnly through the Park carrying their master's stick, never pausing in their impressive march unless it be to plunge into the Serpentine and rescue a drowning child, he ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... her. 'I will give up my place to her,' says he, 'rather than she should travel in the cold air with that horrid cough.' On which the vulgar traveller said, 'YOU'D keep her warm, I am sure, if it's a MUFF she wants.' On which Giglio pulled his nose, boxed his ears, hit him in the eye, and gave this vulgar person a warning never to call ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her hearing were wrong and most of them absurd, and a manner calm, assured, restrained. She may have been born with it; it is on record that at the age of ten she was pronounced a singularly trying child. She may have been born with the air of thinking the doctor a muff and knowing how to manage all this business better. Mr. Britling had known her only in her ripeness. As a boy, he had enjoyed her confidences—about other people and the general neglect of her advice. He grew up rather to like her—most people rather liked her—and to ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... that they came till, He bought her muff and gloves; But aye he bade her turn again, And ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards

... faltered. The cylinder cocks were drumming wildly. "Which ever way we turn there's danger," he admitted, reluctantly, "a steam pipe might burst. You must cover your face." She drew the high collar of her coat around her neck and buried her face in her muff, but he caught up a blanket and dropped it completely over her head; then locking her arm in his own he put one heavy boot against the furnace door, and, braced between the woman he loved and the fire-box, nodded ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... said he, "may get their living handsomely enough by joining their stocks together; but, for my part, when I have eaten up my cat, and made me a muff of his skin, I must die ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault

... card, which she tucked into her muff. They left the restaurant together, talking again of the people whom they passed, of the play at the theatre, of which they were reminded by the sight of a popular actress, and other indifferent matters. He offered his automobile, which ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... had been blushing uncomfortably, but now she paled. "He dared to say that?" she stormed. "He dared!" And she had picked up her muff and gone out in a ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the violet-blotted abyss from out those shining Alpine citadels. While to strengthen herself in allegiance to Mrs. Frayling and to, what may be called, the lighter side, she pushed one hand into that lady's muff and coaxed the slender pointed-fingers hiding ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... They had the dead cat and they saw old Injun Joe come with the lantern and kill the man that was with Muff Potter." ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... boxes, if it were only to convince my master that I had done my best. The principal animal of the group was a lady doggess, beautifully dressed, with sufficient stuff in her gown to cover a dozen ordinary dogs, a large muff to keep her paws from the cold, and a very open bonnet with a garden-full of flowers round her face, which, in spite of her rich clothes, I did not think a very pretty one. A little behind her was another doggess, not quite so superbly dressed, holding a puppy by the ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes

... Muffs.—In cold dry weather a pair of old soft kid gloves, with large woollen gloves drawn over them, is the warmest combination. Mits and muffetees merely require mention. To keep the hands warm in very severe weather, a small fur muff may be slung from the neck, in which the hands ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... by arts known to herself. This little society was rather suburban and miscellaneous; it was prolific in ladies who trotted about, early and late, with books from the Athenaeum nursed behind their muff, or little nosegays of exquisite flowers that they were carrying as presents to each other. Verena, who, when Olive was not with her, indulged in a good deal of desultory contemplation at the window, saw them pass the house in Charles Street, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... keen glances were cast in her own direction. She had a feeling that no detail of her attire escaped scrutiny, that the black eyes noted one and all, wondered, and speculated, and appraised. She saw them dwell on the handsome fur stole and muff which Mrs Judge bequeathed to her daughter on sailing for India, on the old diamond ring and brooch which had been handed over to her on her twenty-first birthday; she had an instinctive feeling that she rose in the man's estimation because of her ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... joy, half suffocate it with her kisses and caresses. Not so here. I could see no glad tear in the lady's eye, no smile of welcome on her face. Her hands were snugly stowed away in a costly little muff, and she did not think it necessary to extend them to her child. She breathed a cold, lifeless kiss upon the boy's pale forehead, and the tiny hand of the child caressed the fur trimming on her jacket, just as he had done with the astrachan lapel of my coat. What a strange behaviour in ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... of rum in the air) one aged and greasy man, with a pair of pumps under his arm. He said he thought if he could get down to somewhere (I think it was Newcastle), he would get "taken on" as Pantaloon, the existing Pantaloon being "a stick, sir—a mere muff." I observed that I was sorry times were so bad with him. "Mr. Dickens, you know our profession, sir—no one knows it better, sir—there is no right feeling in it. I was Harlequin on your own circuit, sir, for five-and-thirty years, and was displaced ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... a young lady walking briskly came along a narrow path which led past the temple. She was of slight, graceful figure, wore a dark, fur-trimmed mantle with cap and muff to match, and was glancing over a roll of manuscript as she stepped ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... worn in the street), or cloth of gold and silver tissue, her hair eccentrically dressed, and perhaps dyed, a great hat with waving feathers, sometimes a painted face, maybe a mask or a muffler hiding all the features except the eyes, with a muff, silk stockings, high-heeled shoes, imitated from the "chopine" of Venice, perfumed bracelets, necklaces, and gloves—"gloves sweet as damask roses"—a pocket-handkerchief wrought in gold and silver, a small looking-glass pendant at the girdle, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... and a pair of mits He dragged through all the muddy street; Besides a muff that lies in bits— Except the ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... the story herself. She should not see him again till dinner. He was gone into the country: the day was gloomy and cold, and Hester was not disposed to leave the fireside: so Margaret issued forth, with thick shoes, umbrella, and muff—guarded against everything that might occur overhead and under foot. She had generally found hope, or at least comfort, abroad; to-day, when she ought to have been much happier, she found anxiety and fear. The thought, the very words, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... the steamah lettahs that we got," she suggested, "and the little Japanese stove Allison Walton sent me for my muff, and the books Rob sent. Oh, yes! And the captain's name and how long the ship is, and how many tons of things to eat they have on board. Mom Beck won't believe me when I tell her, unless I can show it to her in ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Imagination's power) See yon demi-mondaine there, Idly toying with a flower, Smiling with a pensive air . . . Well, her smile is but a mask, For I saw within her muff Such a wicked little flask: ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... "How pretty she was—that Guimard-Guimardini-Guimardinette, the last time I saw her at Longchamps, her hair curled in sustained sentiments, with her come-and-see of turquoises, her gown of the color of persons newly arrived, and her little agitation muff!" He had worn in his young manhood a waistcoat of Nain-Londrin, which he was fond of talking about effusively. "I was dressed like a Turk of the Levant Levantin," said he. Madame de Boufflers, having seen him by chance when he was twenty, had described ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... book aside and, without ringing for a maid, dressed in an unobtrusive walking costume of deep black. She selected a heavy fur muff and transferred the pistol to its interior. Her fingers closed tightly over the butt. On her way to the door she was stopped ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... the month, however, I saw a cut-worm come out from behind a cabbage stump and take off his ear muff. He was a little stiff in the joints, but he had not lost hope. I saw at once now was the time to assist him if I had a spark of humanity left. I searched every work I could find on agriculture to find out what it was that farmers fed their blamed cut-worms, but all scientists seemed to be silent. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... thick walking-boots. She certainly knew how to dress—and adapt herself to the customs of a country. Her short, serge frock and astrakhan coat and cap were just the things for the occasion; and she looked so attractive and chic, with her hands in her monster muff, he began to have that pain again of longing for ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... coal-skittle; Mary, run down to the public-house for the beer; Mary, I intend to wear your clean stockens out walking, or your new bonnet to church. Only her poor father was kind to her; and he, poor old muff! his kindness was of no use. Mary bore all the scolding like a hangel, as she was: no, not if she had a pair of wings and a goold trumpet, could she have been a ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her blazer we'll get into an all-fired snarl," says one, endeavouring to extricate himself and regain his upright. After sundry ineffectual attempts, surging round the room in search of his hat, which is being very unceremoniously transformed into a muff beneath their entangled extremes, he turns over quietly, saying, "There's something very strange about the floor of this establishment,—it don't seem solid; 'pears how there's ups and downs in it." They wriggle ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... tells you—I see." Our young lady got up; recovering her muff and her gloves she smiled. "Well, I haven't unfortunately any Mr. Drake. I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without your sort of assistance, however, there's a trifle here and there that I do pick up. I gather that if she's to marry ...
— In the Cage • Henry James

... had colds in their heads, so Jane and George were allowed to go out into the garden alone to let off their firework. Jane had put on her fur cape and her thick gloves, and her hood with the silver fox fur on it that was made out of Mother's old muff; and George had his overcoat with the three capes, and his comforter, and Father's sealskin traveling cap with the pieces that come down over ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit

... was over, Mrs. Waugh, in her voluminous cloth cloak, fur tippet, muff, and wadded hood; Jacquelina, enveloped in several fine, soft shawls, and wearing a warm, chinchilla bonnet; and Dr. Grimshaw, in his dreadnaught overcoat and cloak, and long-eared fur cap, all entered the large family carriage, where, with the additional provision ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... have six or seven hundred dollars by me. There's a diamond muff-chain, too, and a tiara that Roger himself thinks too old looking for me. He proposed to have the stones reset—but that's months ago. He has forgotten, I'm sure, for he's given me so many other things since. I could bargain ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... than that young muff, your stepbrother. I hope you won't be offended at my plain speaking," ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... with a wind blowing which went through her coat and skirt as though they were light-weight summer clothing. She held her muff against her cheek and she peered up the street and the dark background accentuated the drawn whiteness of her face with the pinched, blue look about her mouth and nostrils. The girl was really suffering terribly. She had passed ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... sale. And then the West End public were especially requested to inspect the furs which were being collected for the anticipated sale of the next winter. It was as he wrote these words that he heard that demand for the African monkey muff, and heard also Mr. Jones's discreet answer. "Yes," said he to himself; "before we have done, ships shall come to us from all coasts; real ships. From Tyre and Sidon, they shall come; from Ophir and Tarshish, from the East ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... Parisian demi-monde, that exaggerated elegance of a fashion plate which only the most exquisite of women could redeem from vulgarity. Plush, brocade, peacock's feathers, golden bangles, mousquetaire gloves, a bonnet of purple plumage set off by ornaments of filagree gold, an infantine little muff of lace and wild flowers, buttercups and daisies; and hair, eyebrows and complexion as artificial as the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... on the face of Miss Dora, and a flash in her blue eyes, and she reached out her hand toward her muff which lay on the table beside her, but she changed her purpose and drew back her hand. The doctor looked ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... understand how the idea of pageant and procession came naturally to my mind. The imagination easily supplied a gold coach, eight cream-colored horses of your true Pegasus breed, huzzaing multitudes, running footmen, and clanking knights in armor, a chaplain and a sword-bearer with a muff on his head, scowling out of the coach-window, and a Lord Mayor all crimson, fur, gold chain, and white ribbons, solemnly occupying the place of state. A playful fancy could have carried the matter farther, could have ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... did, and talk'd as much nonsense as either of them. During this scene of mock-gallantry, one of my love-sick swains elevated his eyes in a most languishing manner; and, clasping his sweet, unlucky hands together rather eagerly, my little dog Muff happen'd to be in the way, by which means my pet was squeez'd rather more than it lik'd, and my Adonis's finger bit by it so feelingly, that it would have delighted you to see how he twisted his soft features about, with the excruciating ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low

... to the wound in his temple he was at times mentally deranged and incapable of contracting a valid marriage. An inspiration! I might have got a certificate too. An uncle of mine drank himself to death, another uncle was extremely absent-minded (on one occasion he put a lady's muff on his head in mistake for his hat), an aunt of mine played a great deal on the piano, and used to put out her tongue at gentlemen she did not like. And my ungovernable temper is a very ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... room and went as usual to look at the chrysalis, the shell was empty! The butterfly had escaped. He uttered an exclamation of mingled surprise and disappointment. As he turned his head, he saw, on the little cotton muff of Mary's doll, the butterfly for which he had so ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... woman, emboldened by the good-nature which Godefroid intentionally assumed, "tell me seriously, you are not going to be such a muff as to pay Monsieur Bernard's debts? It would really trouble me if you did; for just reflect, my kind monsieur Godefroid, he's nearly seventy, and after him, what then? not a penny of pension! How'll you get paid? Young men are so imprudent! ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... moment, hesitating, and then thrust her hands into her muff. "That means nothing. Forgiveness is between equals, and you don't regard me ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... Nevill Tyson had started from her seat and was waving her muff wildly in the air. "Look—there he goes! Oh, did you see him take that fence? What an insane thing to do with the ground ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... hands and exulted: "They've fired it, they've fired it! and now the captain will blow the whistle in answer." But the captain did nothing of the kind, and the lady, after some more girlish effervescence, upbraided him for an old owl and an old muff, and so sank into such a flat and spiritless calm that ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... you yet," he said, pointing a finger at the embattled Stover. "You're a muff, a low-down muff, in every ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... him, smoothing her muff with her hand a moment, and then she dropped a fond kiss on his cheek and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Dolly sighed deeply, but a wicked smile lay ambushed in her bright eyes and upon her rosy lips. "The sad truth is that my heart has been quite sore since I heard the shocking tidings about poor old Daddy Stokes. He went to bed the other night with his best hat on, both his arms in an old muff he found in the ditch, and his leathern ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... talk, Meg! You stole an old gentleman's silk top-hat. Yes, she did, Aunt Juley. It is a positive fact. She thought it was a muff. Oh, heavens! I've knocked the In and Out card down. Where's Frieda? Tibby, why don't you ever—No, I can't remember what I was going to say. That wasn't it, but do tell the maids to hurry tea up. What about this umbrella?" She ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... short dressing-gown, "of red-brown (MORDORE) velvet; black breeches, and boots which came quite up over the knee. His hair was not dressed. Three little benchlets or stools, covered with green cloth, stood before him, on which he had his feet lying [terribly ill of gout]. In his lap he had a sort of muff, with one of his hands in it, which seemed to be giving him great pain. In the other hand he held our Sentence on the Arnold Case. He lay reclining (LAG) in an easy-chair; at his left stood a table, with various papers on it,—and two gold snuffboxes, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... under her chin with silk ribbons completed the costume, and before the youthful bride and groom had left the ancestral door Mrs. Wilson had hung her own ermine victorine (the envy of all Edgewood) around Patty's neck and put her ermine willow muff into her new daughter's hands; thus she was as dazzling a personage, and as improperly dressed for the journey, as she ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... got me the requisite clothing, which she brought me in her muff. I immediately tried them on, and they suited me exactly. Some of the prisoners who saw me thus attired assured me that it was impossible to detect me. I was the same height as the officer whose character I was about to assume, and I made myself ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... one time my little girl was teasing her mother to get her a muff, and so one day her mother brought a muff home, and, although it was storming, she very naturally wanted to go out in order to try her new muff. So she tried to get me to go out with her. I went out with her, and I said, "Emma, better let me take your hand." ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody

... and began to help off her enveloping furs. When these—coat, stole, and a muff of gigantic proportions—were at last shed, Mrs. Barry Seymour revealed herself as a small, plump, fashionable little person with auburn hair—the very newest shade—brown eyes that owed their shadowed lids to kohl, ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... St. Nicholas | |Avenue, charged with shoplifting. When arrested by | |Detective Taczhowski, who had trailed them all the | |way from a downtown department store, seven eggs and| |a box of figs were found in Mrs. Ewart's handsome | |blue fox muff.... | ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... the door which displayed the chaplain's card. She was breathing rather fast, which was but natural perhaps, as she had ascended three flights of stairs, was wearing an immensely long and wide ermine stole, and carrying a huge muff to match. Before she touched the electric bell she pulled her large hat forward a little over her face, and adjusted the thick veil, which had a pattern like a spider's web. Then she opened a gold vanity ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Hec, and he stretched up his rosy mouth to Miss Mouse, and then, like Ger, he stroked her chinchilla muff softly. ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth



Words linked to "Muff" :   blooper, louse up, fail, American football game, bollocks, boo-boo, hand wear, miscarry, boner, go wrong, foul-up, fuckup, fuck up, blunder, neglect, handwear, bodge, American football, baseball, baseball game, bloomer, pratfall



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